istophe [15]) is
worthy of your curiosity.

Well, then, we descended Mount Gut into the Chertov Valley... There's
a romantic designation for you! Already you have a vision of the evil
spirit's nest amid the inaccessible cliffs--but you are out of your
reckoning there. The name "Chertov" is derived from the word cherta
(boundary-line) and not from chort (devil), because, at one time,
the valley marked the boundary of Georgia. We found it choked with
snow-drifts, which reminded us rather vividly of Saratov, Tambov, and
other charming localities of our fatherland.

"Look, there is Krestov!" said the staffcaptain, when we had descended
into the Chertov Valley, as he pointed out a hill covered with a shroud
of snow. Upon the summit stood out the black outline of a stone cross,
and past it led an all but imperceptible road which travellers use only
when the side-road is obstructed with snow. Our drivers, declaring that
no avalanches had yet fallen, spared the horses by conducting us round
the mountain. At a turning we met four or five Ossetes, who offered
us their services; and, catching hold of the wheels, proceeded, with
a shout, to drag and hold up our cart. And, indeed, it is a dangerous
road; on the right were masses of snow hanging above us, and ready,
it seemed, at the first squall of wind to break off and drop into the
ravine; the narrow road was partly covered with snow, which, in many
places, gave way under our feet and, in others, was converted into ice
by the action of the sun by day and the frosts by night, so that the
horses kept falling, and it was with difficulty that we ourselves
made our way. On the left yawned a deep chasm, through which rolled a
torrent, now hiding beneath a crust of ice, now leaping and foaming
over the black rocks. In two hours we were barely able to double Mount
Krestov--two versts in two hours! Meanwhile the clouds had descended,
hail and snow fell; the wind, bursting into the ravines, howled and
whistled like Nightingale the Robber. [16] Soon the stone cross was
hidden in the mist, the billows of which, in ever denser and more
compact masses, rushed in from the east...

Concerning that stone cross, by the way, there exists the strange, but
widespread, tradition that it had been set up by the Emperor Peter the
First when travelling through the Caucasus. In the first place, however,
the Emperor went no farther than Daghestan; and, in the second place,
there is an inscription in large