IX ROUND KAZBEK (continued) The Kori pa5s - Ounal - Nouzal - Rehom, its legend- The Kasdra defle - The - - miracle af the wood Fratricide and parricide When rrengeancefails - Nar - Churchesat Zroug - The Nart's tauldron - The Zakla Pass- Resi-'Blooding' in ,uener!- SLulls cl?per-patched- Klaproth - The appemlst TereL - Kazbek - Many customs- Death by lightning - The Dariel gorge - ttn angry Goddess- Tamira - The horse+hief- Fate of Tchmee- t! boy'sreaenge. E took leave of Mourzagdnoff overnight as \ /e meant to make an early start, and in fact we were up at dawn V V (S.:o a.m.,Sept. 2znd) and by 8 o'clock had reached the top of the passby a very steeptrack pastTam{ra's tower, and along the upper Kord river, not enteringeither aoulof that name. The height of the passwas just over 8,ooo feet. In the limestones above,lookingnorth, there was a cavewith a springin it whenceclear water flowed in winter lvhereasin summerit '*'asfrozen hard, or so the nativessaid.r From the passone got a very good idea of the formationof this district and of the famous'line'Ourousbi was alwaystalking about,of which we had now completedmore than onesection, between the BlackMountains and the White. Looking back eastwardthe spurs of Djimarai-khokh and other giants of the Sideand Central Ranges,including Kazbek,were seento sink in successivecurved lines to the saddlesor colsforming the various passeswe had ridden over, to rise again to the lirnestonern'all on the north. At 9.35 a.m.we reachedDjimee after a long andsteep trarnp don'n the gully, fatiguingto me asI wasfeeling far from well. Luckily the ground was dry, otherwisethe descentwould have been trying indeed.Tsirfrlt,I learnedhere, were stone pillars set up on the moun- tains,as a calendaror seasonaldial for the year. Naturalfeatures were usedfor the samepurpose, as also in Daghestan,where, according to Abdoulla Ornaroff,'on the heightssurrounding the aoul,above and belowwhich the sunrises and sets,stone columns have been erected ' So one of the four fountains delved by Hephaestusin the palace-gardenof King Aeetesgrew warm at the setting of the Pleiads,icy-cold at their rising. Apollonius Rhodius, The 'lrgonauticarbk. iiir l. zr9 sqq. (trs. by R. C. Seaton,M.A.). r68 TRAVELS IIV THE CAUCASUS to show the seasonsof the year. This simple calendar is almost universalin the mountains.'I On the opposite side of the ravine, sorne 3 verstsdown and very picturesquelysituated,u'as the aoulof Kholust or Kholst; near it were tu'o of the old high-peakedtombs. We walked down to Ounal through a \/ery fine defile or gorge, rn'ith bright autumn tints on shrubs and ferns,the u.aterrunning swiftly betweennearly perpendicular banks. A small trial-sinking for a silver-lead mine wasvisible, half-way down, opposite to us. Nearing Ounal we came upon fir-trees for the first time since leaving the Georgian road. We stopped to rest 2 versts beyond Ounal bridge on the Mamisson (Ossetinemilitary) road at a doukltan, and thanked Klttsauz that we could eat our own food at once and buy a bottle of u,ine, sharing everything with a merry fellow who had walked ail the \^'ay from Dallag-kau that day, and was going on to Digoria to buy cows which, according to him, were cheaperthere. \\ie had overtakenhim near Djimee.r At 5.45 p.m. rve rode into Nouzal and u'ere lodged near the church by the star- shinri, rvho shou'ed me a book published in Tiflis in 1897, called S/a't,al{uzala A/guzian, of g'hich only z5 copies r,r'ereprinted. It wasalready unobtainable. In it u'asthe inscription on the Rekom bell of r674,seenby Pfaff in r 869, but sincelost. In the Dzivghiz church wasa similarbell dated r673. Both u,eregifts from GeorgeXI, King of Georgia. A Berdanrifle hanging on the wall, withstock cut away to suit native requirements,n'as pointed out to us asthe one usedby an Ossetinern'ho had robbed a ghenera/slta (general's wife) not long before but had been pursued and overtaken by a whole sotniaof mounted police. He fought despcrately,killing three and wounding more, and, finally, charged the rest ftinjol in hand and u'askilled. He became,of course,a popular hero. There was a big bearskinon one wall, some large tourhorns anciother trophieson another. Our host'sname was Znaouroff Zokoff. I measuredthe church roughly and found it to be zoby 8 feetoutside,r 6 by 5 feetinside; accordingto Vs. Miller mortar had been used but, externally, at least,it was not much in evidence; the stoneswere of all shapesand sizes,of graniterlime stone,clay-slates, and what not, all the variousformations of the surrounding rnountains having contributed, seemingly, to the building of this minute but 1 SeeGor., vol. iii, p. rz, andpresently, vol. i, p. rB7,vol. ii, pp.63, 186. r The Deity. 3 For Ounalstories, see vol. ii, pp. tz3-3.1. ( ltttt'r-lt,rt - \ r\,t,1al ROUI$D KAZBEK ,69 famousstructure. Insidethe building were the remainsof frescoes, which,unfortunately, had beendefaced by a Georgianpriest, Nicolai Samurganoff,because in his opinion they flatteredthe Ossetinesat the expenseof his own countrymen. It wasone of the queerestlittle churchesin the world,in positionas well asin structure,ensconced as it wasin the deepdefile of theAr-don,looking north to the greatlime- stonesand south to thegiants of the CentralRange. There were ancient wallstoo, as at Dzivghiz, and a heapof tour hornsscattered on the right bank of the river, abovethe aoul,marking the usualpagan shrine. Septemberz3rd. We rode on to St. Nicholasthrough a gorge of which my bestphotograph (see Plate XI) wastaken from almostthe samespot asvon Ddchy'ssmall one of which he writes: 'Beyond Nutzal the Ar-don oncemore comesclashing through a narrowdefile. The schistoseformation ends here and is succeededby noblecliffs of gneissand gneiss-granite,between which the foaming water forcesits way. The snow-fieldsand sharppeaks of the Kaltber ridge (r4,462 ft.) areseen in the foregroundabove the steepwalls of the valley, which, in places,are clothed with bushesand coniferous trees.I The gorge-the most beautiful and the wildest we had yet seen-is short and opensout to someextent at St. Nicolas,where a double-terracedbasin is shut in all round by mountainwalls, the elevationbeing r,r+z ^. (3,+76ft.) abovesea-level.'z We now turnedup the Tseyariver througha defilewider and more open than usual.This was said to have been formerly a way to Imerdti by which camethe treesof which Rekom wasbuiit, the wood owing to the sanctity of the place never rotting. We made a brief halt at Tsei aoul and then rode on to the famousshrine, rn'hich we found to be a tumble-downR'ooden building, all lop-sided,an aisle, the only one, split away from the centralstructure, and cracksand creviceseverywhere, so that I couldsee inside without difficulty; but, apparently,there was nothing left but the usualcollection of rubbish -votive mugs,rags, beer-vats, &c. It wasnot so formerly.: I 'For somedistance east of the Mamisson Passthis ridge [the Kaltber] is exceedingiy formidableon the north side', Freshfield,Explor., vol. ii, p. 268. 2.von -_ D6chp op. cit., vol. i, p. 25. St. Nicholas' Day was a notable festival of the Tsei-valley dwellers,every four familiescombining to sacrificean ox or bull in honour of the saint (Vs. Miller, Oss.Etyudi, Part II, p. 2i6). z Bulletin Kaak. Ist.-/rLh. InstitutarNo. 4, tgzSrp.24, tells of money assignedfor the repair of Rekom. r7c TRAVELS III THE CAUCASUS 'on Vs. Miller in I B8o noted a wide stoneslab, fixed into the wall by way of altar,clay cupsof differentsizes once filled with beer,clay figurinesof sheep-ex aotoofferings from womendesirous of bearing children-beads,bits of wadding,silver wire, metalbraid, fragmenti of woven material,2 or 3 icons, an ancienthelmet attributed to Osibagatar,and, in an annex to the shrine,a huge heapof arrow- heads,with andwithout shafts,reaching to the roof of the building'.' Entrance,we weretold, wasnot allowedr,vithout speciai permission from the Churchauthorities, which we had not thoughtofbbtaining. Ourousbiwas probably right in thinking that this was a mere pre- tence,the real fact being that the local peoplewere, as usual, ar,lerse to letting strangers-inspect their sanctuary. I took photographsof the building and of the hugeheaps of stag andtour hornsootrid. it,t alsoof a curiousiron gatewith a bell overit, and a yard enclosedby a rough storlelvall overu'hich f clambered,though'Ourousbi wouli not,_the villagers rn'ho had accompaniedus from Tsei declaringthat rveshould be struck blind-as Kine Aepvtuswas at Ntlantinea.sHe was not in the least impressed a titite tater by a similarrn arning at Akhieli, but the god or saint there \l,asnot his own ! He wal an Ossetine,and Rekom had a hold even upon him, or, perhaps,he merely preferredto let his countrymenthink so. How Rertonoriginated. Thereis a notableNart legendto accountfor the origin of Rekom. Th..Al,r:ghty fgd -avery soft spotin his heart for Batrazin spiteof that hero'smanifold iniquities, but at lasthis patiencewas exhausted a.nd !e gaveorders to certainattendant angels for his executionby the Balsag-wheel,of fire and thunder-in other storiesthe wheelof st. John-which they proceededforthwith to bowl'down the hill of lleaven' with fatal effect. Now the angelswere told to bestowthe body in a cavernon the mountainside, but the deadman loosened his spirit againstthem and slewsixty. Thosewho wereleft returned 'His to God and complained life was bad enoughfor us, but his I Mat. po ttrhh.rvol.irp.47. z 'Martial describedhow in his time the Roman shrineswere coveredwith horns . tlre local sirrinesin the HimAlayaare decoratedvrith horns of the wild sheep,-p.ibex, and goarl.