Mount Elburz, 18,493 feet higH, the highest peak in Europe, is on the northern side of the grand divide, but cannot be seen from either Tiflis or Vladicaucasus. Kazbek, 16,523 feet, the second peak in height, 112 miles almost directly north of Tiflis, can often be seen from that city, and at one point of the military road, for a few rods, a splendid vista can be had of the monster when its snow-clad summit is not hidden in the clouds.
The pass is crossed daily by an automobile omnibus similar to those which run between hotels and railway stations in our cities. The passengers occupy slippery longitudinal seats inside, and their luggage is carried on top. It is a most inappropriate vehicle for pleasure riding and those who are unfortunate enough to cross that way see a little of the scenery on one side of the road. It is much better to take an open carriage, a "tsetvioria," as they call it, a sort of landeau drawn by four horses hitched abreast. That is open to all that may be seen above or below, and has a cover that can be drawn over it in case of rain. The journey across the pass by carriage requires two days, being 135 miles, but you have to start at daylight both mornings. There are rest houses on the way where one can eat and sleep if he can put up with a good deal of dirt and discomfort, but the best way is to make an excursion down from Vladicaucasus to the village of Kazbek at the foot of that mountain, which will permit one to see the finest part of the scenery and return the same night.
A railway has been planned and surveyed, and will doubtless be built, through the pass. Indeed, we understand that construction has already been begun by the Russian war department. It will not be a difficult or very expensive task, because the canon is wide, except in a few places, and the engineering problem is nowhere nearly as difficult as many that have been encountered in other parts of Russia.
The scenery will attract many tourists, although the Russian government cares little about that. There is nothing in Europe grander or more savage than the canons and gorges and mountain peaks of the Dariel; they equal, if they do not surpass, the boldest forms of nature in the Alps. One canon is 4,000 feet deep, with almost perpendicular walls, and for seventy -five miles or more the cliffs and crags on both sides rise to a height of 1,500 and 1,800 feet. From the time the canon is entered at the north until the traveller emerges from it at the south the distance is about seventy-five miles, and there is not one mile without peculiar interest and attraction. The Terek River, which finds its source among the everlasting snows of Kazbek, dashes northward in a tawny torrent and the carriage road follows its bed. On the southern slope the river Kur, born in the glaciers of Kazbek, is followed to the city of Tiflis. For three fourths of the distance the canon is wide enough to admit half a dozen railway tracks without trenching upon the river or having to blast a roadway out of the rocky mountain side, but in two or three of the narrower places some heavy stonework will be necessary. The scenery will remind you of the fiords of Norway more than anything you have ever seen in Switzerland or the United States, and its greatest attraction is due to the forests and underbrush, with which every mountain side is clothed up to the snow Hne.
Twenty-seven miles from Vladicaucasus, going south, the road suddenly turns a sharp corner around a point of rocks and the traveller finds himself face to face with Kazbek, a steep, glittering dome of snow rising 16,523 feet above the sea. There is a little village of the same name at the snow line, which is about 9,000 feet, in the most savage part of the range, and the Russian government keeps a rest house there for the shelter of those who wish to make the ascent.
According to local tradition, Prometheus, was chained to a certain precipice on the slopes of Kazbek. The guides will show you the exact spot, just as visitors to the Chateau d'lf in the harbour of Marseilles are shown the exact dungeon in which the hero of Alexander Dumas's famous novel, ** Monte Cristo, " was imprisoned. They forget that both were heroes of fiction, and -^schylus, in writing his tragedy, evidently did not know the geography of the Caucasus, for he describes the rock as overhanging the sea, which is more than three hundred miles distant. There are several magnificent glaciers in sight of the roadway, those of Dievdorak being among the largest in the world and altogether the most extensive in Europe. There are none in Switzerland that will compare with them.