During our stay at Alexandropol it had required no small effort to detach our minds from the paramount object with which they were filled. Every day, every hour, which separated us from Ararat diminished the prospects of a successful ascent. We were impatient, and anxious to leap the intervening stages, like pilgrims almost in sight of their long-sought shrine.

It was, therefore, with a sense of relief that, at one o’clock, on the 12th of September, we set out from the city in the direction of AlagÖz. We were to make for the passage between the volcano and the border mountains, and to rest in that valley for the night. The road is a mere track, yet we were able to engage a private carriage to take us to Erivan. One is astounded in the East at the performances of a victoria, should the necessities of a European or the ostentation of an Oriental have summoned such an object of luxury to their wilds. Our luggage accompanied us in a springless waggon, which, like the carriage, was privately horsed. The post road to Erivan makes the long deviation down the valleys of the border ranges to the junction with the road from Tiflis at the station of Delijan.

The great plain lay around us, level and devoid of objects, like the bosom of a sea. Before us stretched the mountain, the unwieldy bulk of a colossus, a formidable barrier to the country on the south. In such an expanse the human note is overwhelmed by Nature; one hardly notices the signs of the presence of ubiquitous man. There are villages which you scarcely see until you have passed within their precincts; such were Tapa Dolak, through which we drove at a quarter before one, and Golgat, which we reached at four o’clock. Both are inhabited by Armenians; neither possesses a school or school-house, but the second owns and the first was building a church. After obtaining a view, on our right hand, of two considerable Armenian villages, we arrived at Norashen, where we were to rest the horses, at half-past four o’clock. It is an Armenian settlement with ninety-five tenements and a population of 900 souls, and it was in process of erecting a school. Let the reader picture to himself rude structures of stone and wood and earth, which, at one end, issue upon irregular little lanes, and, at the other, are buried into a slope of the ground. Through such entrances you pass to subterraneous chambers which serve as stables and as living rooms. In the midst of these sordid surroundings four stone walls are a prominent object; they belong to a little chapel, which has a roof of sods and a bare interior; the bells are hung in a wooden structure at the side. Men with tanned complexions, deep wrinkles, and bent knees issue from the tenements and slouch along the lanes. Children crowd about you, their little stomachs unduly swollen and barely covered by a single cotton shirt. Nobody can read or write; we questioned several. Such is the description which, with variations, applies to most of these villages, and is true of Norashen.

With what emotion one turned to the contemplation of the magnificent landscape which was outspread at our feet! The squalor of man, the grandeur of his natural environment—the reflection recurs and recurs in the East. We were standing on the lower slopes of the mountain, some 1500 feet above the floor of the plain. A gentle incline, of which the surface was checkered with alternate patches of fallow and stubble, stretched away from a foreground of loose stones and garnered corn-land to the dim lights and opaline mists of a vast amphitheatre, where the expanse of level land was confined and choked by a wide girdle of mountains—long volcanic outlines and fantastic shapes of cone and peak mingling with the gloom of the distance and the gloom of the sky. But the zenith was intensely blue, and we breathed a strong, yet sunlit air. Behind us, in the opposite segment of the heaven, white, luminous clouds touched and concealed the snowy region where AlagÖz sits enthroned; yet we were able to observe that the snow lies in drifts within that region, for many of the flatter places were free of snow. A prominent feature, to which I have already alluded, is the manner in which the heart, or central rock mass of the volcano, is seen to rise beyond the edge of a rounded bank of softer texture, which follows the inner ridge at a respectful interval, and appears to be separated from it by a deep ravine. One cannot fail to observe the contrast between the roundness and softness of the outwork and the steep sides and black rocks of the inner ridge.

In fact, as you skirt the slopes of the volcano, you never touch the sides which mount immediately to the snows. You follow along the direction of gently vaulted banks of soil, parallel to the upstanding core of the mass. Their surface is patched with cultivation to a height which has been estimated at 8300 feet.1 The herbage is sweet and produces excellent crops of hay; the earth is black and rich. Soon after leaving Norashen—we started at about six—you turn the flank of the range which meets the volcano at right angles, and then recedes in a hollow, concave to the shield-shaped pile. You enter the passage between AlagÖz and the border mountains, and you arrive at the head waters of the southward-flowing streams. In this region are situated GÜzeldere and Kerwanserai, the first an Armenian village, the second a Kurdish settlement. In the latter we found a station-house maintained by Armenians, who provided us with a guide and a Chinese lantern to take us to the guest-house, distant about two versts, which stands above the village of Haji Khalil. It occupied us some little time, groping our way through the thick darkness, and we did not arrive until eight o’clock.

The little guest-house proved a dreary and comfortless shelter; we sighed for the comparative luxury of a Persian chapar-khaneh or the cleanliness of a Swiss hut. A fetid odour exuded from the peeling walls and cracked flooring, and legions of active fleas rose from beneath the boards. We slept, as we might, on the wooden takht or daÏs, until, at half-past one, the door thundered with heavy knocks. After some parley the intruders were admitted to our chamber—was it a dream, or whence issued these strange shapes? One awaited the wild staccato, followed by the flowing iambic:—

Yet the floor, the walls, the companions were all real—everything, except those figures at the door. The flicker of a lamp was reflected upon their bearded faces and bare necks, upon the heavy folds of the brown draperies hanging about their shoulders, upon the blunt ends of their wooden staves. Did they proclaim the line of bonfires?—Watchmen, stationed by an unseen hand to guard us, and come to announce the break of day. The break of day? It cost us a pang to convince them of their error; we were loth to commence fresh contests with the fleas. Poor watchmen, who had forestalled the stars with longing for the morning! How many times was Troy taken in watchmen’s dreams?

September 13.—At a quarter to six we were on the road. A chill was in the air, and heavy, sleepy clouds lay on the ground. But the zenith was softly blue, and a pleasant light fell on the valley with its spacious floor and ample expanse of sky. Our station was situated at a slightly higher altitude than the threshold of the pass; I should estimate our elevation, from the readings of my barometers, at about 7000 feet. After an hour’s drive, our track joined a newly-made road, metalled and ditched on either side; progress was fairly rapid down the incline of the valley, parallel with the current of the Abaran. This road was intended to serve as the postal avenue to Erivan from Alexandropol, and it bifurcates from the existing post road; but a series of misfortunes appear to have attended its construction, and it had not yet been used by the post. Verst after verst we drove along it, through a landscape which changes little from the features at the entrance of the pass. On our right hand rose the huge volcano, no longer an extended horizontal outline, but a shield-shaped mass, bellying upwards to the rim of a crater, which circled from us with a wide sweep (Fig. 28). The slopes of the mountain were inclined at an angle of scarcely more than eleven degrees—soft convexities, broken into gullies and little hummocks, and, here and there, strewn with a shingle of greenish hue. The peaks had gradually disappeared as we rounded the base of the pile—a transition of which the phases were frequently withdrawn from observation through the incidence of clouds. On our left, at varying but always ample interval, the outer spurs of the border mountains described a parallel half-circle with the contour of AlagÖz—one might almost mistake them for some outer shell of the volcano, so closely did they appear to follow the curve of its base. But, unlike their big neighbour, the slopes of these outworks were covered with brushwood, which developed into dwarf trees as we advanced. The floor of the valley revealed in most parts the hand of the reclaimer, by the side of a stretch of turf, by the margin of a rotting marsh. Yet mile after mile we could see no settlement; we seldom met a wayfarer, except for some drivers with a string of donkeys, laden with grapes from the valley of the Araxes, and a group of supple Kurdish girls. At a quarter to eight we drew rein for a few minutes in the large Armenian village of Bash Abaran. The inhabitants were busy getting in their corn from the open; here and there it had not yet been cut. In another hour we opened out a vista of Ararat, and, at a quarter to ten, we feasted our eyes upon the whole majestic fabric, before descending into the village of Ali Kuchak.

One may safely say of the scene which expanded before us that it is unsurpassed upon the surface of our globe. Nor is it difficult to account for the strength and permanence of the impression which it produces upon the mind. Nowhere has Nature worked on a scale more stupendous; yet on none of her works has she bestowed greater unity of conception, a design more harmonious, surroundings more august. Whatever mysteries compose the spell of the wide ocean and the open firmament, all the exquisite shades of light which temper the gloom of a northern climate, all the many-coloured radiance of the south, have been lavished upon the panorama which centres in Ararat and is spread like a kingdom at his feet.

Seen at this distance—measured on the map it is a space of fifty-six miles to the summit—the mountain is little more than an outline upon the horizon; yet what an outline! what a soul in those soaring shapes! Side by side stand two of the most beauteous forms in Nature, the pyramid and the dome. Both are developed on lines of almost ideal perfection, with proportions which startle the eye in spite of all their symmetry; and both are supported by a common base. The pyramid is one, and the dome is one; yet the structure is single which they combine to raise. From the dim east into the dim west you follow that long-drawn profile, rising from a distant promontory, declining to a distant promontory, centring in the roof of the dome, in the peak of the cone. The dome has an elevation of 17,000 feet, the cone of nearly 13,000 feet; and the base reclines on a plain which forms the greatest depression in the relief of Armenia, and which has an altitude of scarcely more than 3000 feet above the sea.

The standpoint from which we looked upon the wonders of this landscape were the basal slopes of the opposite colossus of AlagÖz, where they descend to that same spacious plain. It is the plain which the Araxes waters; yet we could not see the river, hidden in the unseen hollow of the expanse. Between us and our horizon flat tracts of naked earth stretched away from the stony ground about us to a distant region of half lights and soft mist; above those shadows rose the mountain, bathed in light and luminous vapour, to wreaths of white cloud, hanging to the snows of the dome. On our left hand, a wooded hill—the only spot of verdure in the scene—jutted out into the levels from the border ranges, which here recede from the plain. Its summit outline is broken by a fantastic peak, like the comb of a cock, and it may perhaps be identified with the volcanic elevation of Karniarch. Below us lay the village, a cluster of stacks of tezek fuel, and driving smoke, proceeding from scarcely visible huts of mud and stone. Ledges or tongues of rock and cliff projected on our right from the base of AlagÖz; they represent the extreme outrunners of the northern mountain and sink into the landscape, like the capes of a rock-bound coast. We were about to leave that coast behind us and to cross the floor of this sea-like plain; hues of ochre were lightly laid upon its gently undulating surface and mingled with the nearer tints of yellow and umber in the stubble and fallow of the cultivated land.

All our thoughts, our whole ambition, were centred on that distant mountain; our emotions satisfied, we reflected that the spot where we were standing was the nearest point which we should reach to the summer resort of Darachichak. It might be possible to hire horses and ride the distance of some twenty miles; all the official world of Erivan would be assembled in that pleasant valley, and we had need of their assistance for our ascent. So, once arrived within the village, we sent for the elder; and we were glad to hear that the place was the seat of a Pristav, or head of an administrative group of villages. A lean and lank Armenian responded to our summons; he came with a slouching gait and with sleep in his eyes, and he was engaged in buttoning his long grey coat. The official dress of Russia and the peaked cap of white canvas on such a truly Oriental figure as this! However, he promised to procure us horses, and, putting faith in his official dignity, I decided to split our party into two. My cousin and myself would adventure upon the journey into the mountains; Wesson, Rudolph and the Armenian would proceed in the victoria and with the waggon to the town of Erivan.

Our companions started on their journey, while we with our saddles made our way to a neighbouring village in which the horses were to be found. We were accompanied by the Pristav’s man, a sinister-looking villain; the saddles followed on a bullock cart. But at a winding of the path, just after leaving the settlement, the wheels sank into an abysmal depth of mud. I have no doubt that this incident is of daily occurrence, and that neither village would entertain the notion of making a road. The horses were on the meadows; their owners refused to catch them, and we were obliged to essay the task ourselves. But in this open country they eluded all our efforts; we were obliged to return without attaining our end. The Pristav received our maledictions with equanimity, and we were reduced to the tame expedient of two sorry ponies, which were only equal to carrying us to the nearest considerable station on the road to Erivan.

How poor in resources is this magnificent country! what a curse appears to lie on these fertile lands! Our Pristav had the charge of thirty-six villages, of which six were inhabited by Persian Tartars and the remainder by a population of his own race. His district extended from Bash Abaran to Ashtarak; yet he told us that in the whole of this considerable region there did not exist a single school.

Baffled of our purpose, we mounted our ponies and took to the road to Erivan, two solitary figures in the lonely waste. The provincial capital was over thirty-five miles distant, and it was already half-past four o’clock. The prospect over the plain, which I have just described, is so far deceptive that you under-rate the extension of these stony basal slopes. This mistaken estimate is due in part to the position of the hill of Karniarch, which blocks the view towards the south-east. To gain Erivan, you are obliged to round the base of that elevation; nor, in that direction, do the rocky inclines die away in the level campagna before you have reached the gardens of the town. The base of AlagÖz appears to mingle with the base of the volcanic masses which line the inner edges of the border range; mile after mile you cross a bleak and boulder-strewn country which sweeps into the plain. To add to our impression of the complete forlornness of this region, a violent storm arose. The immense expanse of heaven was filled with driving clouds, riven by lightning; the torrents roared, and the blast bent the stunted bushes which rise along their margin among the rocks. We were reminded of the famous night upon the Brocken, as our tired ponies tottered forward into the blinding rain. Shelter there was none; it was a case of struggling onwards and taking pleasure in the elemental war. And the road! was there ever outside of Persia such a strange caricature of a road? It wound like a snake, avoiding every hillock; the traffic made short cuts from bend to bend. There were bridges broken in the back with a ford alongside them; there were yawning culverts and parallel tracks avoiding the horrors of the metalled way. Not a soul did we meet, until, as the evening advanced, we passed through some considerable Armenian villages which presented the strange spectacle of a lamp-lit street. But where was Ashtarak, the goal of our journey? should we ever accomplish our self-imposed stage? When our mounts could go no further, my cousin points out a long building by the side of a large church. No door could we see or opening on to the ground, only a lofty verandah with a ladder, a feature which recalled the old lawless times. We clamoured, and were admitted after sundry explanations, and a stable was found for our weary hacks.

We were received by a young Armenian who spoke a little French, and who ushered us into the presence of a vardapet or monastic priest. I regret my inability to place on the page the handsome features of our host, Monseigneur Achote—so he transcribed his rank and name. He told us that we were welcome to the monastery of Mugni, and that he himself happened to be the only priest in residence. Assisted by his clerk, he busied himself about our comforts; clothed us afresh, gave us to eat and drink. Monseigneur belongs to the new school of Armenian ecclesiastics; he has received an excellent education, and possesses wide sympathies and broad views. His room was littered with books and papers; his talk was animated, and one could not doubt that his ardent patriotism was sincere. Next morning—September 14—we visited the church of Mugni, a plain but solid stone structure, quite in the grand style. An open portal, resting on four solid piers, gives access to the doorway with its richly carved mouldings, and is surmounted by a little tower in which the bells are hung. The exterior is of grey stone, varied by blocks of red volcanic rock; here and there carved slabs of such rock have been inserted, a familiar feature in Armenian architecture. The interior is quite plain and the masonry uncovered; so thick are the walls that in the apse you are shown two secret chambers built into the frame of the church. Access to these chambers is obtained by removing a block of stone in the ceilings of two recesses in the apse. In the old lawless times these rooms served as a refuge; they are capacious and receive the light of day. The head of St. George is preserved in a little side chapel, a treasure of considerable value to the monastery. It seemed so strange that our enlightened host should be profiting by the possession of this relic, and I thought that he answered my smile. An inscription informs us that the church was built—or may it not be restored or embellished?—by Mgr. Peter of Argulis in the year of the Armenian era 1118 or A.D. 1668, with his people’s money and his own.

Monseigneur’s windows looked out upon a wretched village, which appeared doubly miserable in the cold light. At half-past nine we mounted our ponies, and set out for Ashtarak. Mugni lies to the south of the hill of Karniarch—a name which our native guide pronounced Garnara. The surrounding country maintains the stony and inhospitable character of the waste through which we had lately passed. A short ride brought us to the descent into the little township—an oasis of verdure, a pretty church, with a cluster of roofs and gables, tall poplars, terraces of flat house-tops. But when we had passed within the precincts, this pleasant impression faded; were the crumbling walls of the houses in course of demolition, or was this rude masonry of mud and stone succumbing to the storm of yesterday? We proceeded down a narrow street which is lined with lofty trees and channelled by a swirling stream. Here the owners of the ponies were lying in wait for us; a sure instinct had placed them upon our way. According to the published statistics Ashtarak possesses some 3000 inhabitants, all of Armenian race.

By eleven o’clock we had procured horses and were again on the road to Erivan. The entire region is strewn with rocks and presents the same bleak appearance, except where, here and there, a stream descends the barren slopes and sustains a slender line of green. In such places you may discern the rare site of a village, a few poplars, the grouped architecture of a church. At length, after long winding between the stony eminences, we opened out a view over the great plain. The sky had not yet cleared, and mists obscured the forms of the mountains; but the whole lap of the plain was revealed. Patches of soft blue relieved the surface of the dim country—the vegetation of the rich campagna about the banks of the Araxes. We rode on, always descending, over these stony uplands, until they dipped to the floor of the level ground. Luxuriant gardens filled the gently-pursing hollow, intensely green after the heavy rain of the preceding day. Pools of water lay on the road; the water-courses were brimming over. The orchards were clothed with fruit of ideal perfection in form and colour; we admired the size and brilliant hues of the clustering peaches, side by side with the bending branches of the apple and the pear trees, with the deep shade of the walnut and the mulberry trees. Ripe grapes hung in abundance from the low vine-stocks.... Such are the outskirts of Erivan, a town embowered in foliage. We reached the central park at half-past one o’clock.