''ffEW services across Europe are arranged
every summer. At present, the shortest
way to the Caucasus is by Vienna. A
direct steamer, saihng from Odessa
once a week, lands the ti-aveUer at
Batum in five days from London. The
voyage past the historical shores of the
Crimea, the once familiar creeks of
Sevastopol and Balaclava and the villas
of Yalta, across the Straits of Kertch,
and on under the forested hills and
bays of the Western Caucasus, is varied,
and generally agreeable. When rain
has recently fallen, and the air is clear, it culminates, as the steamer
traverses the last bay of the Euxine, in a superb ]3anorama of 'the
Abkhasian and Suanetian ranges. Below the white snows on the
horizon the blue crests of the loftier spurs stand out pencilled
firmly in the clear upper air, while the nearer foot-hills fade softly
into the vaporous haze of the lowlands.' The view is similar in



1 This contrast, often visible on the Pisan coast or the Lombard plain, was noted bj- Leonardo
da Vinci in his Th eory of the Art of Painting. See the very interesting notes, vol. i. pp. 299-300 in
Dr. Kichter's edition, in which the great artist describes his excursion to Monboso, now identified
with the southern spur of IMonte Eosa, which divides Val Sesia from Vnl de Lys and the Biellese.
so



KASBEK AND THE OSSETE DISTRICT 81

character to that of the Dolomites gained from the sea approach
to Venice, but far grander in its proportions.
