In the most gloomy part of the defile the road crosses by a bridge to the left bank of the Terek, and a few versts farther on we emerge into comparatively open ground at Lars. I had, as usual, given my podorozhnaia (road-pass) to a stable-boy, with a request to get the horses ready without delay, and was sitting drinking tea, when I was astonished to hear behind me the long unfamiliar tones of my native language; I was still more surprised when I saw that the speaker was the starosta, or superintendent of the station (the Government inspector, or smatritel, is the real chief). He told me that he had seen from my pass that I was English, and had taken the liberty to come and have a chat with me. He spoke English fluently, and has spent five years in London, has travelled in the United States, and is altogether a very pleasant fellow; he had only been at Lars a year and a half, and during all that time had not seen an Englishman. We parted very good friends, expecting to meet again when I returned from Vladikavkaz. The village of Lars, north of the post-house, is inhabited, among others, by some of the Tagaur Ossets, descended from Tagaur, an individual who at a remote period was heir to the Armenian throne, and fled to the mountains for fear of his younger brothers. Their royal descent leads them to think themselves superior to the poor folk among whom they dwell, and they are cordially disliked by the latter. Just outside the village is one of the towers which are so common all along the road; it doubtless yielded a handsome revenue to its owner in the good old days when every traveller had to pay a heavy toll for the privilege of passing one of these fortresses. We still keep close to the Terek, which comes rushing down from Dariel with a fall of one foot in every thirty. Pushkin, comparing the Terek with Imatra, in Finland, unhesitatingly declares the superiority of the former in grandeur. Of course the surrounding scenery in the two cases is quite different, but as far as the rivers themselves are concerned, I must dissent from the poet, for I know no part of the Terek worthy of comparison with the fall of the Wuokses at Imatra, which is the very materialization of the idea of irresistible, pitiless power. Although the valley is now a little wider than it was a few miles to the south, the scenery still has the same grandeur and sternness until we pass between the rocks that come down close to either bank of the river, and come out into the plain in which stands Fort Djerakhovsk, a rectangular edifice, about 120 feet long, which is fully garrisoned. We are not quite clear of the mountains, however, until we have passed Balta, and have got within five versts of Vladikavkaz. Before us stretches a smooth, green plain as far as the eye can reach; the contrast is most striking; it is as if we had been suddenly transported from Switzerland to Holland.