The traveller can obtain very good lodging at Vladikavkaz, and French and German is spoken at the hotels. I stayed some days in a hotel which I found most comfortable. The nights as yet were probably cold for sleeping out, and I doubted the possibility of getting safely housed in mountain villages. For some time I made daily expeditions over the Steppes, tasting the new air and bringing back bouquets of spring flowers.
Yet at length one morning at the end of April I slung my travelling-bed across my back and set out to explore.
There are only two regular roads over the Caucasus, and although both start near Vladikavkaz I took neither of them. One goes to Tiflis and the other to Kutais. The former is the well-known Georgian Military Road, the other is a very ill-made, broken track, ascending to an elevation of 9000 feet, and impassable many months of the year.
A brawling river flows past the town from the mountains, the Terek. It is an impetuous, shallow stream that one could almost jump across at some seasons of the year, but having a bed a hundred yards wide. Looking into the valley from the mountains one sees a vast field of grey stones and boulders; and the river, meandering along it, gleams like a silver chain. Sometimes, however, after a few very hot days in July, it rises in flood and covers the whole bed, and washes away bridges and cottages and cattle. The hotter the weather the deeper the water; in June or July it is impossible to ford it, even on a strong horse. It follows that in midwinter it is shallowest and clearest. The Georgian road has been constructed on one side, and there have been several occasions when it has been flooded. There is a number of villages in the valley; it is convenient to be near water. They are inhabited by mountain people, Georgians, Ossetines, Ingooshi. It is strange that villages on opposite banks are near neighbours in the winter, but are cut off from mutual intercourse in the summer. Fortoug, for instance, is half a mile distant from Maximkina in January, but is thirty miles away in June, and both villages are inhabited by the same tribe—Ingooshi. I took the cart track that leads to Fortoug, and thought to be able to cross over to the opposite village. I found out my mistake later on. Mistakes, however, were not going to disturb me. I had no destination. It didn’t matter what happened or how far I strayed. The Caucasus was my host; I left him the arrangements. The mountains provided the entertainment, and I would not doubt their hospitality and generosity.