letters on the cross itself, to the
effect that it had been erected by order of General Ermolov, and that
too in the year 1824. Nevertheless, the tradition has taken such firm
root, in spite of the inscription, that really you do not know what to
believe; the more so, as it is not the custom to believe inscriptions.

To reach the station Kobi, we still had to descend about five versts,
across ice-covered rocks and plashy snow. The horses were exhausted;
we were freezing; the snowstorm droned with ever-increasing violence,
exactly like the storms of our own northern land, only its wild melodies
were sadder and more melancholy.

"O Exile," I thought, "thou art weeping for thy wide, free steppes!
There mayest thou unfold thy cold wings, but here thou art stifled and
confined, like an eagle beating his wings, with a shriek, against the
grating of his iron cage!"

"A bad look out," said the staff-captain. "Look! There's nothing to be
seen all round but mist and snow. At any moment we may tumble into an
abyss or stick fast in a cleft; and a little lower down, I dare say, the
Baidara has risen so high that there is no getting across it. Oh, this
Asia, I know it! Like people, like rivers! There's no trusting them at
all!"

The drivers, shouting and cursing, belaboured the horses, which
snorted, resisted obstinately, and refused to budge on any account,
notwithstanding the eloquence of the whips.

"Your honour," one of the drivers said to me at length, "you see, we
will never reach Kobi to-day. Won't you give orders to turn to the left
while we can? There is something black yonder on the slope--probably
huts. Travellers always stop there in bad weather, sir. They say," he
added, pointing to the Ossetes, "that they will lead us there if you
will give them a tip."

"I know that, my friend, I know that without your telling me," said
the staff-captain. "Oh, these beasts! They are delighted to seize any
pretext for extorting a tip!"

"You must confess, however," I said, "that we should be worse off
without them."

"Just so, just so," he growled to himself. "I know them well--these
guides! They scent out by instinct a chance of taking advantage of
people. As if it was impossible to find the way without them!"

Accordingly we turned aside to the left, and, somehow or other, after
a good deal of trouble, made our way to the wretched shelter, which
consisted of two huts built of stone slabs and rubble, surrounded by a
wall o