Retracing our steps down the side of the cone, we soon regained the streaming sunlight. I called a halt, and we rested on some rocks, embedded in snow. Our next task was to search for Wesson; but he had left his sheltered cranny, and, as the day was warm, we concluded that he had returned to camp. The Swiss and myself determined to try a glissade down the snow slope; my cousin preferred to adhere to the rocks. I was aware of the danger of the glissade down Ararat, and we therefore planned our course with care. We broke the descent at several points, made errors on the side of caution, and glided safely into one of the inlets about the base of the cone. It was still some distance to the encampment; we proceeded with the utmost leisure across the boulder-strewn waste. At last we beheld the lake of snow, and our tiny tent beside it, and the gaunt figures of the Kurds. These also perceived us, and sent us a cry of greeting, which vibrated in the still air. Wesson and the dragoman were there to meet us; my cousin arrived almost at the same time. Our climb had been accomplished without a single mishap, and all except the dragoman, who pleaded that he had been half frozen in camp, were pleased with the day’s work. It was twenty minutes past six o’clock; yet I thought it best to strike our tent and seek a less exposed and less elevated spot. After a toilsome walk of about half an hour we found some grass in a little valley, and there composed ourselves for the night.

I had sent two Kurds to collect firewood while we were sleeping; it was morning before they returned. We breakfasted beside a pleasant fire, and decided to devote the earlier hours to rest. I was able to avail myself of a convenient physical habit of being refreshed by violent exercise. The summit was clear of cloud, and I sallied forth with the camera to seek a standpoint in full view of the cone. At some little distance from our camp I found such an eminence, whence all the characteristics of the summit region were exposed (Fig. 36). The peak of Great Ararat bore almost due north-west of this point, that of Little Ararat a little south of east.1 On the left of the picture you see the hollow in the face of the cone and the rocks struggling upwards to its top; on the right is the shoulder, or head of the causeway, bordering the snow slope on the opposite side. In the afternoon we regained our standing encampment in the valley of Sardar Bulakh.

Relieved of the tension of a fixed purpose, we were able to turn with real enjoyment to the contemplation of the surroundings in which we were placed. There can scarcely exist in the world another such standpoint as the platform of the sirdar’s well. You never tire of the contrasting shapes of the massive dome and the graceful pyramid; below you in the plains the silent operations of Nature proceed on their daily course. Morning breaks, and the floor of the plain is shrouded in white mist; the sun rises, and the opposite peaks of the Sevan ranges are crowned with banks of billowing cloud. Stray films wander out into the blue vault of heaven, and graze the sides of the dome. As the day grows, the warm air mounts these sides and melts the snows, which distil into a white vaporous mass. The ground of the landscape increases in definition of feature—the rich campagna, the looping river, the sites of the towns. It is the subtle quality no less than the scale of the composition which distinguishes this prospect from other views, similar in character, which are unfolded from the summit of a pass. And if you turn from the immense expanse and rest the eye on the forms about you, those forms respond to your emotions and invest them with a deeply religious cast. This vast fabric, so harmonious in design, in position so self-sufficient, touches chords in the nature of man which sound through all the religions, and die away only when they die. Yet how vulgar appear their dogmas in this pure atmosphere of religion, in the courts of this great cathedral of the natural world! You feel that this mountain has been the parent of religions, whence they strayed into devious paths. To this parent you would again collect the distracted; in this atmosphere you long to bathe the populations of our great towns. Our morbid dramatists, our nervous novelists need the inspiration of these surroundings—the promptings of Nature in her loftiest manifestations, from which the life of man can never with impunity be divorced.

In a lighter sense, to the traveller who seeks rest and enjoyment, I can confidently recommend a pilgrimage to this beautiful upland valley, and a sojourn among the marvels of this site. For the sportsman there are partridges in abundance; the botanist and the man of taste will admire the brilliancy of the flowers which nestle in the crannies of the rocks. Junipers clothe the ground, and a plant with spiked foliage like the juniper, and with a lovely little flower like a star. I have taken a specimen to Kew, and they call it Acantholimon echinus—a peculiarly appropriate name. Tiny bushes of wild rose flutter in the breezes; and, a little lower down, the earth is yellow with immortelles (Helichrysum), which, as I write, recall the southern sun. The journey to Erivan, by way of Tiflis, can be performed in luxury; from Erivan you can drive in a victoria to the foot of Ararat; on the mountain you have need of nothing but a tent and a cook. The Kurds are well-behaved, and will provide you with milk and mutton, of which it is a treat to taste. The old lawless times are passing into legend, thanks to the vigorous rule of the Tsars. The Russian officials abound in real kindness of disposition; and, if you can only succeed in patching a peace with the system, you feel that they really wish you well. We returned to Aralykh on the 22nd of September after an absence of nearly six days.

The cantonment of Aralykh faces the jaws of the great chasm which extends from the snowy roof to the base of Ararat, and lays the heart of the mountain bare (Fig. 37). We were anxious to penetrate within these dark recesses, and, after a day’s rest, carried our project into effect.

It is a melancholy reflection that nothing is lasting—that the strength of the earth withers and the strength of the human body, that faith dies and the closest friendships dissolve. In the world of sense Time is all-powerful, and nothing escapes destruction at his hands.2 This painful lesson is written with terrible emphasis on the fabric of Ararat, where it fronts the historic river and the historic plains. Another earthquake, and the massive roof may tumble headlong into the abyss which now yawns beneath its cornice of snow. I have already observed that Herrmann Abich was able to remark a lateral fissure between the two highest elevations in the surface of the crown of the dome. He suggests that this fissure may have been caused by the convulsion of 1840, to which the present configuration of the chasm is due.3 It would therefore appear that Time has already taken a decisive step towards the overthrow of the uppermost portion of the cone. The chasm itself and the subsidence of the flank of the mountain date from an epoch beyond the range of history. Tournefort, who visited Ararat in 1701, presents us with such a vivid picture of the rent side of the giant, that one cannot doubt that the essential features of the chasm existed in his day.4 The little monastery of St. Jacob, which, prior to the catastrophe of 1840, stood within the recesses of the gulf, probably occupied the same site when it was first erected in the early Christian times. The reader may not be acquainted with the story of the catastrophe, and may like to learn or to recall it in this place.

Several travellers have presented us with a description of the locality as it existed before those events.5 Some 10 miles from the banks of the Kara Su, on the base or pedestal of Ararat, at a height of some 5600 feet above the sea, or 2900 feet above the plain,6 was situated the Armenian village of Akhury or Arguri—the only village, we are informed by Dubois, which had hazarded a position on the side of the mountain,7 and a place which boasted a remote antiquity. According to Armenian tradition, it was there that Noah built the altar, and offered up the burnt sacrifice, after his departure from the Ark and safe descent of the mountain, with his family and the living creatures of every kind. It was at Akhury or Arguri—a name which is said to signify in the Armenian language he has planted the vine8—that, according to the same tradition, the patriarch planted his vineyard and drank to excess of its wine. The inhabitants would point to an ancient willow of stunted growth, bent by the action of snow and ice; it stood in an isolated spot above the village, a rare object on a mountain which is almost devoid of trees. They believed that it drew its origin from a plank of the Ark which had taken root; and they would not suffer any damage to be done to the sacred object, or the least of its branches to be taken away. The population amounted to about 1000 souls;9 the houses numbered some two hundred, and were built of stone with the usual flat roofs. The settlement owed its prosperity, and even its existence, to a stream which then, as now, issued from the jaws of the chasm, fed by the melting ice and snow. It was placed at the open exit from the gorge, where the trough flattens out into the base. The church and the larger portion of the village were on the right bank of the stream; on the left, opposite the church, stood a square-shaped fortress, built of clay after the fashion of the country. A near eminence was crowned by the walls of a spacious palace, which served as a summer residence for the Persian sirdars of Erivan. It was indeed a delightful resort during the heats of summer. A cool draught descended from the snows of the summit region; and the little stream supported considerable vineyards and orchards, so that the traveller, on approaching Akhury, could take refuge from the glare of the plain in quite a little wood of apricot trees. The church—said to have been called Araxilvank (Arakelotz Vank?)—was reputed to have been built on the site of Noah’s altar. It dated from the eighth or ninth century; and to such a height had the ground about it risen since its foundation, that the two side doors had become embedded in soil up to the crossbeams. Just beyond this pleasant oasis you entered the chasm, and, after proceeding for nearly two miles up its boulder-strewn hollow, you reached the little monastery of St. Jacob, which stood on the edge of a natural terrace a few hundred feet above the bottom of the gulf, immediately overlooking the right bank of the stream. The chasm had at this spot a depth of some 600 to 800 feet,10 and the elevation of the site of the monastery above sea-level was 6394 feet.11 Parrot, who established his headquarters in this lonely cloister, has handed down to us a charming illustration of the place, and a pleasant description of the chapel, with its walled enclosure and garden and orchard, the residence, at the time of his visit, of a single monk. Like the church of Akhury, it commemorated a religious event in the story of Ararat. A monk of the name of Jacob, afterwards bishop of Nisibis, reputed to have been a contemporary and relative of St. Gregory, was seized with the desire to convince the sceptics of the truth of the Biblical narrative, and to assure himself of the presence of the Ark on the summit of Ararat by the evidence of his own eyes. In the pursuit of this purpose he made several attempts to scale the mountain from the north-east side. On each occasion he fell asleep, exhausted by the effort; as often as he awoke, he would find that he had been miraculously transported to the point from which he had set out. At length God looked with compassion upon his fruitless labours, and sent an angel who appeared to him in his sleep. The Divine message was to the effect that the summit was unattainable by mortal man; but the angel deposited on his breast a fragment of the holy Ark, as a reward for his faith and pains.12 Beyond St. Jacob’s, on the same or eastern side of the chasm and on the edge of the precipice, was situated a tiny shrine, built of hewn stone, at an altitude of about 1000 feet above the monastery.13 It stood by the side of one of the rare springs which are found on Ararat—a well of which the waters are still deemed to possess miraculous powers, and which still attracts numerous pilgrims from the plains. As you followed the gulf still further, the sides increased in steepness and the abyss in depth, until, at a distance of about two and a half miles from the cloister,14 it ended in an almost perpendicular wall of rock which towered up to the snowy cornice of the dome. Tournefort, whose description is in other respects fantastic, has used language to portray the aspect of the upper end of the chasm which would be true at the present day. He speaks of the terrible appearance of the ravine, one of those natural wonders which testify to the greatness of the Saviour, as his Armenian companion observed. He could not help trembling as he overlooked the precipices, and he asks his readers, if they would form some conception of the character of the phenomenon, to imagine one of the loftiest mountains in the world opening its bosom to a vertical cleft. From the heights above, masses of rock were continually falling into the abyss with a noise that inspired fear.15

On the evening of the 20th of June 1840 a terrific earthquake shook the mountain, and not only the shrine and cloister, but the entire village of Akhury with the sirdar’s palace were destroyed and swept away. An eye-witness, who was pasturing cattle on the grassy slopes above the chasm on the side opposite to the shrine and the well, tells us that he was thrown on to his knees by a sudden reeling of the ground, and that, even in this position, he was unable to maintain himself, but was overturned by the continuing shocks. Close by his side the earth cracked; a terrific rolling sound filled his ears; when he dared look up, he could see nothing but a mighty cloud of dust, which glimmered with a reddish hue above the ravine. But the quaking and cracking were renewed; he lay outstretched upon the ground, and thus awaited death. At length the sounds became fainter, and he was able to look towards the ravine. Through the dust he perceived a dark mass in the hollow, but of what it was composed he could not see. The sun went down; the great cloud passed away from the valley; as he descended with his cattle in the failing light, he could see nothing within the abyss except the dark mass. Another spectator has left us an account of the various phases of the phenomenon, as they were experienced from a standpoint below the village. He happened to be working in a garden a few versts from Akhury, on the side of the plain. His wife and daughter were with him; two of his sons appeared towards evening and brought him a report about his cattle. Two riders, returning to the village, exchanged a few words with the party, and rode on. The sun was beginning to sink behind the mountains, and he and his people were preparing to go home. In an instant the ground beneath their feet oscillated violently, and all were thrown down. At the same time loud reports and a rolling sound, as if of thunder, increased the panic into which they fell. A hurricane of wind swept towards them from the chasm and overturned every object that was not firm. In the same direction there arose an immense cloud of dust, overtopped, towards the upper portion of the ravine, by a darker cloud, as of black smoke. After a momentary pause the same phenomena were repeated; only this time a dark mass swept towards them from the direction of the village with a rolling and a rushing sound. It reached the two riders; they were engulfed and disappeared. Immediately afterwards the two sons were overtaken by the same fate. The mass rolled onwards to the gardens, and broke down the walled enclosures. Large stones came tumbling about the unfortunate peasants; and a great crag swept down upon the prostrate witness, and settling by his side, caught his mantle fast. Extricating himself with difficulty, he succeeded in lifting his unconscious wife and daughter from the earth, and in flying with them over the quaking ground. After each shock they could hear the sound of cracking in the chasm, accompanied by sharp reports. They were joined by fugitives, escaping from the neighbouring gardens, and they endeavoured to make their way to Aralykh. It was morning before they reached their goal; during the night the sounds and shocks continued, always fainter but at periodical intervals. This catastrophe was followed on the 24th of June by a second and scarcely less momentous collapse. On this occasion a mass of mud and water burst from the chasm, as though some colossal dam had given way. Blocks of rock and huge pieces of ice were precipitated over the base, and the flood extended for a space of about thirteen miles. Not a trace was left of the gardens and fields which it devastated, and the Kara Su was temporarily dammed by the viscous stream.16

It is to the credit of the times in which we live that no such event could now occur in Russian territory without exhaustive and local scientific investigation, while the results of the catastrophe were still fresh. The task of reporting to the Government was entrusted to a Major of Engineers, who was ordered to open an enquiry on the spot. His account was to the effect that masses of rock were precipitated into the chasm from the overhanging heights; that they were accompanied in their descent by vast quantities of snow, unloosed by the sinking foundations of the uppermost seams. A river of boulders and snow and ice streamed with lightning rapidity down the gulf, buried the cloister and the village with all its inhabitants, and choked up the trough of the abyss. The earthquake was attended by the opening of fissures in the ground, from which there issued water and sand, and even flames.17 The mention of this last phenomenon appears to have aroused the curiosity of men of learning, and to have excited in them a strong desire for further light. The site was visited in 1843 by a German man of science, Dr. Wagner, and in 1844 by the great geologist Herrmann Abich, whose researches are always careful and complete.18 These two authorities unfortunately arrived at opposite conclusions as to the character of the convulsion. Wagner begins by discrediting the account of the Russian Major, and suggests that he had never left the walls of Erivan, having lost his travelling money at play. He considers it absurd to suppose that the mass which destroyed Akhury and the fragments of rocks which were projected far and wide can be attributed to the operation of purely seismic forces, dislocating the crown and sides of the abyss. They must have been due to eruptive volcanic action, of which he thought he could see the traces at the upper end of the chasm, the site, according to his view, of one of the old craters of Ararat. They were impelled through the air by steam and escaping gases from a fissure in the bottom of the ravine. We must therefore form the conception of an eruption accompanied by an earthquake, not of a landslip effected by seismic shocks.19

That this theory is open to objection on the simple ground of probability, it does not require scientific knowledge to perceive. In the first place an eruption of Ararat is unknown within the historical period; in the second, the destruction of Akhury was only one of many catastrophes which were occasioned by earth movements on the same day. On that same evening the valley of the Araxes was visited by a violent earthquake, and thousands of houses were overthrown.20 It is true that Wagner supposes an eruption of steam rather than of fire, and favours the hypothesis of vast reservoirs of water beneath the mountain having burst in upon the molten mass below. But this ingenious supposition is rendered unnecessary and improbable by the minute researches of the next trained worker in the same field. Abich asks how it would be possible for eruptive action to have broken forth in a narrow valley—on such a scale that huge crags of 100 to 150 feet in circumference were propelled for a distance of over three miles21—without leaving any trace of volcanic ejectamenta on the adjoining heights and on the slopes beyond. A careful examination of the disposition and character of the dÉbris, as they were disclosed within the trough of the chasm, as well as on the surface of the base of the mountain, established in his mind the veracity in all essentials of the official version of the Russian Major of Engineers. He observed that the fragments of rock which are strewn over the basal slopes before the entrance to the chasm is reached, become concentrated as you proceed, and are collected into long ridges of boulders, which issue from the mouth of the gulf. Yet not a single one among these fragments was found to be identical in nature with the fragments on the adjacent valley sides. How account for this striking circumstance on the hypothesis of an eruption from fissures along the base of the valley? When he came to investigate the origin of these piled-up boulders, he discovered that they exactly corresponded with the rock of the seams which are found along the upper end of the chasm, overhanging the abyss. He was even able to ascribe approximately the former position of the largest of the crags which recline upon the base to a site on the left wall of the chasm, immediately beneath and supporting the snows. From his writings we may extract the following explanation of the phenomena to which the destruction of Akhury was due. The upper structure of Ararat had been seriously weakened on the north-eastern side by the slow but persistent action of snow and ice, and by the corrosive tendencies of veins of sulphurate of iron. The earthquake precipitated portions of the higher seams into the chasm, together with masses of snow. A dense cloud of dust was induced by the falling rocks, and the setting sun lent to this cloud a lurid hue. Immense quantities of boulders were hurried down the trough of the chasm, accompanied by a stream of mud and melting ice. The course of this composite current was directed upon the village by the configuration of the left wall of the chasm. As the sides of the valley fell in, its upper portion became obstructed at the neck or narrow which still exists about at the point where the little shrine used to overlook the abyss. A mighty dam was formed by the fallen masses, and the head of the valley became a huge morass. Further lapses of rock and snow took place from the summit region, and the heats of June dissolved the frozen elements in the morass. On the 24th the dam yielded to the overpowering pressure, and the second act of the catastrophe was fulfilled.

As a result of this earthquake, the ridge enclosing the uppermost end of the chasm was found to have acquired about double its former extent. The height of the precipice had also increased considerably, especially on the eastern side. The summit remained intact, but the fabric of Ararat lay henceforth exposed to its innermost core.22

We set out at a quarter-past eight in the morning, mounted on little hacks. The Armenian Makar, who had accompanied us on the previous expedition, was deputed to be our guide. It took us some twenty minutes to cross the belt of sand and camelthorn at a pace of about six miles an hour. Then the ground commenced to rise with more perceptible acclivity, and we made our way across the massive base. The still air, and the restfulness of the stately fabric before us exercised upon us their now familiar spell. Grey clouds enveloped the snows of the summit region, collected above a veil of tender mist.

We were pointing towards the entrance to the chasm, and we noticed that, in that direction, there exists a considerable concavity in the surface of the base. One might almost form the conception of a flaw in the mountain, extending to the pedestal upon which it is reared. On either side of us, but more especially on our left hand, the rounded contours of the basal slopes were curving inwards to a wide depression, up the trough of which we rode. Is this feature the result of landslip and of floods issuing from the chasm, or was the pedestal always weaker upon this side? I am inclined to ascribe it in part to an inherent defect in the structure, which has been enlarged and accentuated in the process of centuries. It would appear that the streams of lava which fed the base on the north-west and south-east were not directed in equal volume to these north-eastern slopes. Such a distribution of the molten matter which contributed to build up the fabric would account, at least in some measure, for the subsequent subsidence of Ararat on this its north-eastern flank.

As we proceeded, this hollow formation became more pronounced; we were approaching the mouth of the chasm. We observed how much more copious was the flora which covers this portion of the base. In place of the burnt herbage over which we had ridden on our journey to Sardar Bulakh, we here admired an abundant growth of low and thorny bushes of which the tiny and delicate pink and white flowers were showered upon a ground of grey and green (Atraphaxis spinosa). Long streamers of sansola (Kochia prostrata, Schrad.) bent towards us, and gigantic yellow grasses rose like spears (Calamagrostis epigejos, Roth.). The stream which issues from the chasm—exhausted at this season—feeds and fertilises the sandy soil, and, perhaps, the layers of mud which were left by the flood of 1840 have not been without effect on the nature of the land. We were reminded of that catastrophe by the huge fragments of conglomerate rock which are strewn over the hollow throughout a considerable area. On our return I took a photograph of the largest of these crags, where it lay, among bouquets of spangled atraphaxis, outlined against the sky (Fig. 38). Abich informs us that the fragment which lies immediately in front of it was incorporated with it at the time of his first visit in 1844; the mass then measured at the base 285 feet in circumference, with a height of 45 feet.23 I have already said that this careful investigator was able to trace its origin to a site at the upper end of the chasm, overhanging the abyss. According to his theory, it must have fallen in after the first act of the catastrophe, and been transported in the course of the second act to its present place. It was pushed down the trough of the ravine and over the gentle incline of these basal slopes by the action of the viscous stream, until that action lost its force when the stream was freed from the compression of the gorge and radiated outwards over the pedestal.24 To us plain people the position of these crags was a source of amazement, and the Greeks would have made the chasm the residence of a Cyclops who hurled such missiles at adventuresome men.

At half-past ten we halted at a small Kurdish village, situated at the mouth of the chasm. These Kurds have erected hovels of loose stones with roofs of mud, and they can boast or deplore, in the person of a starshina, a direct official connection with the Russian Government. It was amusing to see a Kurd in the dress of a Russian dignitary stepping out to meet his European visitors. He wore a dark blue coat; a large brass badge of office hung upon his breast. Ever since the great convulsion the Kurds have haunted the site of Akhury, rummaging for anything valuable in the buried ruins. Makar explained to us that we were now standing where once stood the prosperous township, with its ancient church and pleasant gardens. The woods of apricot, the rich vineyards have disappeared entirely; it would be difficult to discover a single tree. Just west of the miserable hamlet you still remark the deep watercourse which is the principal vent for the drainage of the ravine. The channel is dry at this season, and is overhung by steep banks some 100 to 150 feet high. We observed that these banks are composed of a sandy soil, inlaid with rocks. Yet the valley, even in autumn, is not entirely devoid of water; here and there we were refreshed by the sight of growing grass, and by the sound of little runnels. The trough of the ravine has at this point an elevation above sea-level of about 5570 feet, while its sides, which are formed by the cleft in the base of outer sheath of the mountain, are as yet scarcely more than 200 feet high. It extends almost in a straight line, and in a south-westerly direction, to the very heart of Ararat. The flanking cliffs rise and the valley narrows, until the formation assumes the proportions of a gulf many thousands of feet in depth, overhung by the snows of the summit region. Imagine a gigantic cutting, with a length of several miles, at the uppermost end of which an almost perpendicular precipice supports the snowy roof of Ararat! Even from this standpoint we could perceive the vertical seams at the head of the chasm, shadowed walls of grey rock with veins of orange hue, the higher ledges sprinkled with the first snows of autumn and half concealed by light, dissolving mist.

We mounted to the top of the cliff on the right or eastern side of the ravine, in order to obtain a view on either hand. Towards the east stretched the contours of the upper portion of the base, clothed with withered grass and strewn with stones. Abich tells us that these fragments are different in origin and character from the boulders and stones in the trough of the ravine; and, as we have seen, he uses the fact as a powerful weapon against the eruptive theory which Wagner propounds. Looking across the valley, our eyes rested on a little settlement on its opposite or western flank. It occupies a higher site than that of the Kurdish village, and may have been about a mile distant from where we stood. It interested us as well by its lonely and dangerous position as by an adjacent and isolated group of trees. It is called New Akhury, and, according to the official statistics, contains a population of some 400 Tartar inhabitants. It is the seat of a Cossack station, and bids fair to increase in size before the next earthquake shall sweep it away.

Makar directed our attention to some fallen gravestones, not many yards distant from where we stood. They are the remains of the cemetery of the old Akhury, and among them we admired several crosses with rich chasing in the old Armenian style. We found them overgrown with a thick, orange-hued lichen, resembling the appearance of rust. He told us that many of his relations had been buried in this graveyard, and he pointed out in particular a group of seven stones. He said that they marked the graves of seven brothers who had been killed in the gardens of the vanished township by the attacks of a single snake.

After regaling ourselves with delicious milk and eating an egg or two, we started at noon on our excursion up the ravine. We made our way along the eastern side of the chasm, sometimes picking our course as we might among the boulders, at others following a beaten path on higher ground. Not far beyond the hamlet we noticed a little spring, of which the water was trickling over. The next object to excite our interest was the peculiar formation of the floor of a side valley, in which we found ourselves at half-past twelve. Throughout an area of some 350 by 200 yards the ground was perfectly level, like a billiard table, with a smooth surface of sand and little pebbles. The length of this round ellipse followed the direction of the main ravine, which lay at some considerable depth beneath it, and from which the basin of this valley was separated by a low bulwark of rock and soil. We were impressed by the sharp distinction between the bottom of this flat area and the banks which, on the one side, were formed by this bulwark and, on the other, by towering cliffs, overgrown with grass. The basin has an entrance and an exit gully, through which the waters collect and escape. Not a single pool lingered within it at this season, and it was difficult to realise that this warm and sunny recess probably owes its most distinctive features to the erosive action of ice.

We mounted ever higher up the slopes which flank the ravine. In the trough of the gulf we noticed another flat space, similar in character but less pronounced than that which I have described. Bushes of wild rose luxuriate on these cliff-sides, and from this foreground of rich tints and red berries we looked across to the dark and perpendicular precipices which encircle the head of the chasm. At every lift in the restless vapours we feasted our eyes on the snows of the summit, and we remarked the great length and horizontal profile of the summit-outline, seen between the opening arms of the abyss. Muffled women’s figures, astride of their horses, came winding down the path. They were Armenian ladies, returning from a pilgrimage to St. Jacob’s Well; foot-attendants held their bridles and picked their way.

At two o’clock we arrived at the famous rose bush and the holy well. The path has been worn by the feet of pilgrims, who journey hither from the plains. The water issues from a recess in the side of the mountain which has been levelled with a masonry of hewn stone. The overflow nourishes the rose-tree, on the twigs of which are attached countless little ribbons of rag, shreds from the garments of the devout. Just beyond these sacred objects you are shown a level site, overhanging the ravine. Rows of stones are interlaced upon its surface, a sign for pious wayfarers. Here was placed the little shrine which during the great earthquake must have tumbled headlong into the chasm. The pilgrims insert tiny sticks into the ground with the same little ribbons of rag. The holy water is a talisman against all kinds of calamities, and it is supposed to attract the birds which destroy the locusts when they desolate the country-side.

It is a fine standpoint from which to command the upper end of the chasm, which has here a width of some 500 yards. My illustration (Fig. 39) was taken from a spot close to the well and the site of the shrine, but perhaps a little lower down. The site itself has an elevation above sea-level of about 7500 feet.25 The camera has belittled the natural features, and I must ask my reader to interpret my picture with the help of the reflection that the snows which overhang these perpendicular precipices are nearly 17,000 feet high. We penetrated further up the romantic valley, along the bed of a dry watercourse. Skirting the buttresses of the eastern wall, we observed that they were composed of a compact grey andesite with something of the appearance of slate. Seams of a rock similar in character, but which have turned red in weathering, lend variety to the surface of these bold bastions; while the dark face of the wall which mounts to the summit region is scored by extensive veins of that decomposed and orange-hued lava which spells destruction wherever it appears. The bottom of the ravine is covered by a deep beach of boulders, worn by the action of ice and water. Animal life is represented by a flock of crows or jackdaws, which croak and circle round you as you advance.

Behind the lofty wall of rock which is seen on the left of my illustration, in jagged outline against the snows, a glacier descends from the summit region which is probably the only true glacier on Ararat, and which I should judge to be gradually decreasing in extent. According to Abich, the long ridges which have the appearance of piles of boulders, and which are seen in his illustration descending the trough of the chasm to a point some distance below St. Jacob’s Well, were composed in 1874 of compact and dirty glacier ice, covered over with stones and dÉbris. He informs us that in 1844 there was a direct but deeply buried connection between this ice and the ice in the circus at the lower end of the glacier; and that in 1874 this connection had been severed, and the ice-hills themselves had decreased about one-third in height.26 On the top of these ridges he discovered a series of marshes and little lakes, of which the largest was several hundred paces in circumference. I cannot testify myself to the present condition of these ice-hills; I cannot even say that they exist. I did not see any ice in the trough of the chasm, although it was evident that its present condition was largely due to ice action, and although we admired a little lake of glacier water, set like a turquoise in the waste of mud and stones. It is computed that the actual glacier descends as low as a level of about 8000 feet—a notable fact when we consider that the line of perpetual snow on this side of Ararat is as high as 14,000 feet.

We lingered for some little space in the ravine beyond St. Jacob’s Well, waiting for the clouds to lift. But they hung jealously about the upper slopes of the precipices, whence a mist descended upon us like rain. The mountain thundered; from time to time the mist was gently parted, and gave passage to the sun. If we were disappointed of a clear view of the higher regions, we were at least able to appreciate to the full the vista down the weird chasm to the fair landscape of the plain. The comparative straightness of the gulf renders such a prospect possible, even from its uppermost end. No projecting spur or interposed eminence obstructs the continuous stretch of the hollow outlines to the distant campagna of the river-side. On the horizon were the crinkled mountains in the direction of Lake Sevan, flushed with tints of delicate yellow and amethyst, lightly shaded with opal hues. Deep gloom lay upon the floor of the abyss, and only the pools of blue glacier water caught the brilliance of day. On the open base beyond these shadows the sinuous lines of dry watercourses led the eye into the expanse of the plain; and we could still see the recumbent blocks which once hung in pinnacles above the spot upon which we stood.

Evening was drawing in when we again reached the entrance to the chasm. We skirt the Kurdish village, we pass a pool of water and a group of barefooted Kurdish girls. Away on our left are the mud houses of the Tartar settlement, and the green clump of trees. To these succeed the bouquets of pink and white atraphaxis, and the scattered crags of conglomerate rock. A flora of great variety starts from the sand and among the stone. While we are crossing this upper region of the base, the sun disappears behind the still, grey clouds; the blue zenith pales and fades. A full moon rises from the grey clouds, wreathing the landscape with soft lights. Heavy quiet reigns over the vast and lonely scene, and the only sound is the cicada’s hum. The low, dark outline of the trees of Aralykh is a mere shadow on the plain. Nature touches the chords of that stately and solemn movement which issues in and faintly accompanies the life of man.

SUPPLEMENTARY NOTE

The identification of Mount Ararat with the mountain upon which the Ark rested is at least as early as the adoption of Christianity by the Armenians, and may have been originally made by Jewish prisoners of war. But there does not appear to have existed in the neighbourhood of Ararat an independent local tradition of the Flood; and the mountain is still locally known not as Ararat, but as Masis to the Armenians, and as Aghri Dagh to the Tartars. It is, however, called Ararat in Armenian literature as early as Faustus of Byzantium, who uses the name in relating the story of St. Jacob of Nisibis (Faustus, iii. 10. The name appears to have been wrongly spelt Sararat by the copyists). The Ararat of Scripture is the Assyrian Urardhu; and the “mountains of Ararat” of Genesis viii. 4 must be sought within the country of Urardhu. Dr. Belck has quite recently examined, in the light of his remarkable researches into the lore of the Vannic texts, the question of the original geographical application of the term Urardhu (Zeitschrift fÜr Ethnologie, Berlin, 1899, pp. 113 seq.); it appears to have spread from a district in Kurdistan, south-west of Lake Urmi, to the country about Lake Van. It would, therefore, seem that the tendency of the term has been to travel north; for the Urardhu or Ararat of the historical period is the province about Mount Ararat, one of the great divisions in the kingdom of the Arsakid monarchs of Armenia, and well known under the name of Ararat to Agathangelus and the earliest Armenian writers. Mount Ararat could scarcely have been known to the peoples of the lowlands, among whom the Biblical legend of the Flood originated. Various aspects of the subject are well discussed by Suess (Das Antlitz der Erde, Leipzic, 1885, vol. i. pp. 25–92; Die Sintfluth), Bryce (Transcaucasia and Ararat, edition of 1896, pp. 211 seq.), and Sayce (Dictionary of the Bible, London, 1898, sub voce Ararat).

The fabric of Ararat composes an elliptical figure with an axis from north-west to south-east. The base plan measures about 28 miles in length, and about 23 miles in width. The fabric is built up by two mountains: Great Ararat (16,916 feet above the sea) and Little Ararat (12,840 feet). Their bases are contiguous at a level of 8800 feet, and their summits are 7 miles apart. Both are due to eruptive volcanic action; but no eruption of Ararat is known to have occurred during the historical period, and the summit of the greater mountain presents all the appearance of a very ancient and much worn-down volcano with a central chimney or vent, long since filled in. I have already described the summit region of Great Ararat. The estimates or measurements of my predecessors are at variance with one another in detail; but one may assert that it consists of two separate elevations, divided one from the other by a depression some 100 to 150 feet in depth. The more easterly is much the larger, having the character of a spacious platform of saucer-like form. The more westerly presents the shape of a symmetrical cone, when seen from the platform; and is in connection with the snow-laden and almost horizontal bastions at the head of the north-western slope. Both elevations have about the same height; but, if anything, the more westerly is the higher.27 The reader will be able to distinguish them in my photograph (Fig. 37), as well as to observe how they mingle together as mere crinkles in the crown of the dome. Parrot was inclined to think that the Ark came to rest in the depression between these two elevations.

Yielding in height to the most lofty peaks of the Caucasus in the north (Elburz, 18,525 feet), which are visible from the summit, and to Demavend (over 18,000 feet) in the belt of mountains which rise along the southern shore of the Caspian Sea, Ararat is by far the loftiest of the mountains of Armenia, and is over 1000 feet more elevated than the highest peak in Europe, Mont Blanc (15,780 feet). Moreover, Elburz and Kazbek, Mont Blanc, and even Demavend, all rise among a sea of mountains, of which they are little more than the highest crests. The isolation of Ararat is not its least interesting feature—a feature which I would fain hope is already imprinted upon my reader’s mind. The plains which it overlooks belong to three empires; the frontiers of Persia, Turkey, and Russia meet upon its slopes.

It has been estimated that as late as the month of May the colossal mountain is covered with snow to a level of 9000 feet below the summit; and the appearance of this immense white sheet from the blooming campagna of the valley of the Araxes is one of the fine sights in the world. But by the month of September the snowy canopy will be confined to the dome of Great Ararat; and the limit of perpetual snow on the side facing the plain on the north is not less elevated than from 13,500 to 14,000 feet above the sea. The extensive depression through which the Araxes flows collects the heats of summer; and the warm air from this reservoir ascends the northern slopes of the mountain, melting the snow to a height which is greater than might be expected in this latitude.28

The best season for an ascent is the latter half of September. During October there is more chance of obtaining a view from the summit, which is usually most free from clouds in that month. But the days are, of course, shorter, and the fresh snow commences to lie. I should recommend the traveller with time upon his hands who may be anxious to extend our knowledge of the mountain to adopt the following programme:—(1) Ascend Little Ararat from Sardar Bulakh. (Good accounts are furnished by Parrot, op. cit. pp. 219 seq.; Stuart, Proceedings R.G.S. 1877, vol. xxi. pp. 77–92; Kovaleffsky, Voyage au Mont Ararat, Moscow, 1899 [in Russian]; Artsruni, Verhand. Gesell. Erdkunde Berlin, vol. xxii. 1895, pp. 606 seq.; Ebeling, Verhand. Gesell. Erdkunde Berlin, vol. xxv. 1898, pp. 130–132.) (2) Extend the journey to the southern slopes of Great Ararat, and thoroughly explore that side of the mountain. (3) Ascend Great Ararat, perhaps from a point a little further south than that indicated in my account; and (4) investigate the condition of the glacier in the chasm of Akhury. An interesting excursion may also be made to the little crater lake known as Kip GÖl on the north-western slopes (see the accounts of Monsieur and of Madame Chantre in their writings already cited).

I append a list of the successful ascents of Great Ararat up to and including our own, so far as I have been able to ascertain them29:—

• 1. F. Parrot, 1829. Started from the monastery of St. Jacob (chasm of Akhury) and made the ascent by the north-western slope.
• 2. K. Spasky-Avtonomoff, 1834. From Akhury.
• 3. Herrmann Abich, 1845. From Sardar Bulakh.
• 4. H. D. Seymour, 1845. (From New Akhury?).
• 5. J. Khodzko, N. V. Khanikoff, and others, 1850. From Sardar Bulakh.
• 6. R. Stuart and others, 1856. From Bayazid.
• 7. J. Bryce, 1876. From Sardar Bulakh.
• 8. G. P. Baker, 1878. From Sardar Bulakh.
• 9. Sivoloboff, 1882.
• 10. E. Markoff, 1888. From Sardar Bulakh.
• 11. Semenoff, 1888 (?).
• 12. Raphalovich and others, 1889. From Sardar Bulakh.
• 13. T. G. Allen and W. L. Sachtleben (1892?). From Bayazid.
• 14. Postukhoff, 1893. From Sardar Bulakh.
• 15. H. B. Lynch, H. F. B. Lynch, and Rudolph Taugwalder, 1893. From Sardar Bulakh.