At the entrance of the ravine, on the left bank of the Terek, stands a high rock, on which may be seen the ruins of a castle, said to have been founded in 150 B.C., but doubtless having a still longer history. This castle is always associated with the name of a certain wicked Queen Tamara, a mythical creation of the popular fancy, and Lermontov has written a very pretty poem based on the legend. It is said that this Tamara (not to be confounded with the good Tamara), was very beautiful, and that she used to invite all the handsome young men who passed that way to come up and live with her, promising them all the delights that heart could wish for; after one night of bliss the unfortunate gentleman was deprived of his head, and was then thrown down into the Terek, which bore away his body. If the legend is not wrong in saying that the river carried away the corpses, the frolicsome monarch must have been comparatively constant during the summer months, or else the pile of wantons would soon have become large enough to frighten all the passion out of intending visitors, for in the month of June, Terek would not float a respectably-sized cat. By the road-side is Dariel Fort, a romantic-looking place with old-fashioned battlemented towers; a few Kazaks are quartered here, and must find the time hang very heavily on their hands. When you reach this fort it looks as if it were impossible to go beyond it, a mighty wall stretches right across the path; but the road follows the course of the river, indeed it is built in the river-bed, and winds along between awful cliffs whose summits are lost in the clouds, and whose flanks are seldom or never touched by a ray of sunlight. We sometimes hear of places where a handful of men could keep back an army, this is one of them; a touch would send down upon the road some of the heavy, overhanging masses of rock, and effectually close the pass. About fifty years ago an avalanche fell here, from the glacier of Devdorak, and it was two years before the rubbish was all cleared away. When the new road is blocked by snow or carried away by floods, the old road, high up near the snow-line, has to be used. The scenery of this pass has been described by Pushkin, Lermontov, and many others, but it is one of the few places that do not disappoint the traveller, however much he may have expected. It must not be forgotten that the road through this narrow gorge is the only passable one that crosses the Caucasian range; there are, it is true, one or two other tracks, but they are not practicable for wheeled carriages.