. All the Russias: travels and studies in contemporary European Russia, Finland, Siberia, the Caucasus, and Central Asia. ad upon the mind as thislonely, silent, gloomy, cold abysm of Dariel. You do not won-der that any people holding it could bar the way to the rest o£the world—the only cause for surprise is that before the presentroad was constructed anybody ever got through it at all. Iteven said, Thus far and no farther, to Rome herself, andmarked the limit of her dominion. The gorge ends suddenly, as we dash at a right angle overa narrow bridge, and find a most picturesque sight before us
. All the Russias: travels and studies in contemporary European Russia, Finland, Siberia, the Caucasus, and Central Asia. ad upon the mind as thislonely, silent, gloomy, cold abysm of Dariel. You do not won-der that any people holding it could bar the way to the rest o£the world—the only cause for surprise is that before the presentroad was constructed anybody ever got through it at all. Iteven said, Thus far and no farther, to Rome herself, andmarked the limit of her dominion. The gorge ends suddenly, as we dash at a right angle overa narrow bridge, and find a most picturesque sight before valley has now a flat floor between its two rugged walls of THE GEORGIAN ROAD 189 Tock, and man has turned such a narrow mountain-gap to hisown uses, as was inevitable when Europe is at one end and Asiaat the other, for suddenly, where the road widens to a few tlatacres, a Russian fortress springs into view—a square building,with corner towers, battlements and loopholes, precisely thefortress of the fairy-tale and the box of bricks. The guide-book, even the trusty Murray, points out that the fort of Dariel. The Georgian Road—Russian Fort in the Pass. is commanded by the surrounding mountains, but adds that anenemy could not draw any cannon up their sides. This is quitetrue—unless they took their cannon up in balloons. A Cossacksentry lounges before the gate and scrutinises me suspiciouslyas I stop the carriage and get out my camera, but there is noother sign of life. The choice of such a spot, however, to dis-pute the passage of the Pass was anticipated long, long ago, for I90 ALL THE RUSSIAS on the summit of a peak high above the modern fortress standthe ruins of a greater ancient castle, the rocky and impregnablehome of the Princess Tamara—not her of history, but her ofimmortal legend, in which truth and fancy can never again beplucked apart. It is said that hither came all her lovers, an ever-flowing stream, since she was of resistless beauty, and that whenhe
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1900, booksubjecttolstoy, bookyear1902
