I was now going lower and I noticed that it was milder—the snow was not so dry, and the roadway was wet and muddy. I witnessed an extraordinary phenomenon, the road steaming from the heat of the sun shining through the clouds, and yet the snow falling heavily all the time.
AKHTSAURI GLACIER, KAZBEK
The descending road has a sheer precipice on one side, and the abyss might tempt the will of some people if they ventured near the edge. It was a strange sight to see the snow-flakes being blown upward out of the valley of the River Aragva. I looked down three thousand feet and saw the pleasant green of the south country. I looked up to the north and saw the mountains cloaked and grim, like sentinels sitting at their posts.
Gudaour looked like the outskirts of Moscow in midwinter. The snow was piled up on each side of the road and on the cottage roofs. One would have said it was the month of January for certain.
I had two glasses of milk at one of the inns, and still felt in very good form for continuing on the road. It was an immediate descent, at first through slush of snow, and then over mud, and finally along a dry, hard highway. A thousand feet below the village it was raining; the weather was decidedly mild. At one spot it seemed to me I had located a type of English weather. But for the mountains it might have been a wet February day in Essex.
Then I found again wild snowdrops and violets, and the blackthorn was in bud. Two thousand feet below there were cowslips and lilies, and there, to my joy, the hot sun came out and clothed the spring in sparkles. I slipped down to Mleti and found the summer there.
CHAPTER XX
LAVRENTI CHAM KHOTADZE
“Thy form was plump, and a light did shine