Page:My Climbs in the Alps and Caucasus (1908).djvu/311

Rh but the delights of the kosh did not rouse my enthusiasm, and I refused to move. Indeed, it is one of the great pleasures of Caucasian travelling that the weary tramp over screes, uneven glacier, the horrors of the moraine, and, too frequently, the reascent to the hotel, are unknown. A camp at one spot is practically as comfortable as at any other, and in consequence, so soon as one feels inclined to sit down and laze, the day's work is over and one postpones the screes and moraines to the sweet distance of to-morrow. It is, indeed, a rare delight to sit at one's ease in the early afternoon and gaze at the huge cliffs amongst which one has been wandering, free from all the thought of hurry, of moraines, or of darkness.

Towards evening the gathering clouds burst in thunder, and the screes below us, right down to the glacier, were powdered with hail and snow. As the moon rose, however, the curtain was rent apart, and the great ridges, shining in the brilliant whiteness of fresh-fallen snow, gazed at us across the dark gulf of the Bezingi glacier. The evening, being windless, was comparatively warm, and it was nearly midnight before Zurfluh's peaceful slumbers were disturbed by the struggles of a shivering Herr with his sleeping bag.

The next morning we went down the glacier to the Misses kosh, packed up our belongings, and tramped to Tubeneli. Fresh stores had arrived