As is well known, Mkhinvari is generally identified with the story of Prometheus, although the mountain does not correspond with the description given by Æschylus. Early travellers even went so far as to assert that they had seen the very chains with which the hero was bound, and there is a local legend to the effect that a giant still lies there in fetters. When I approached the mountain from Kobi I could not help being reminded of Prometheus. I saw a gigantic black space of irregular form with snow all round it; an imaginative mind found in this irregular tract a considerable resemblance to the human shape. No traveller should leave Kazbek without making a pilgrimage to the monastery of St. Stephen, which stands on the top of an isolated hill about 2000 feet above the station. At sunset the view is wonderfully beautiful. Tradition says that the monastery was built by three kings, but does not give their names; in any case the building is of considerable antiquity. Service is held in the church three times a year. The interior has been spoiled by that fiend the "restorer." From the church you look over a wide, uninhabited valley to the giant mountain, and on turning round you see the river Terek, on the banks of which are the station and village; on either hand stretch dark cavernous-looking valleys. Beyond the Terek is the home of the Ingushes, a people who frequently carry off the cattle of their more settled neighbours, and give the small garrison of Kazbek some amusement in hunting them down. After leaving Kazbek, we see on our right the manor-house of the princely family from which the place takes its name, a family which has produced, and doubtless will yet produce, sons which will be an honour to Georgia; the house is a fine two-storey edifice, and there is a pretty chapel attached to it. In a few minutes we reach the Mad Ravine, so called from a torrent of terrible impetuosity, which has formed one of the most serious obstacles to the construction of the road. We now enter Dariel, the pass from which the road takes its name, one of the grandest spots on earth. According to philologists, Dariel is derived from an old Persian word meaning gate (cf. Der-bend, Thuer, door, Slav Dver, &c.), and in fact it was here that the ancient geographers placed the site of the famous Caucasian Gates; but surely there is something to be said in favour of the local tradition which connects the place with Darius I. of Persia. As for the gates, it is, of course, impossible to say definitely whether they ever existed or not, at all events there are several points where it would not have been very difficult to construct them.