H. F. B. Lynch

“ The air was heavy with perfume; yellow mullein, ablaze with flower, rose in profusion from the even sheet of lava. Far and wide it spread before us, sometimes rising to a barren knoll, as often sinking to a grassy hollow. In such a faint depression, by the side of a tiny runnel, we fixed our encampment for the night. The shadows hung about us; but the western sky was shot with fire above a sea of ridges, billowing towards us, and buried in the depths of the landscape before ever they could attain our airy platform. ”

“ 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. ”

“ But, while the one dazzles the eye with its splendour of outline and brilliance of colouring, the other is always dim, grey, vague, and unseizable. Neither view is ever lost for very long. Even while you are in possession of the long perspective of the plain of Mush, stretching to the horizon with a wealth of subdued detail, like the nave of some great cathedral in the West, between the crags in the opposite quarter, through some fork in the outline, the blue lake, the point of a promontory, a glimpse of Sipan may still be seen. ”

“ We remain forty minutes upon the summit; but the dense veil never lifts from the platform, nor does the blast cease to pierce us through. No sooner does an opening in the driving vapours reveal a vista of the world below than fresh levies fly to the unguarded interval, and the wild onset resumes. Yet what if the spell had lost its power, and the mountain and the world lain bare? had the tissue of the air beamed clear as crystal, and the forms of earth and sea, embroidered beneath us, shone like the tracery of a shield?
We should have gained a balloon view over Nature. ”

“ July 6.—What a landscape to wake up to! The side of our tent towards the plain had been left open during the night. We overlooked such an immense expanse of earth—nude, or veiled in transparent mists, and quite unconscious of the presence of man! Even we, who were already accustomed to such visions, had never yet seen the like. Reach upon reach, in large surroundings, we traced the course of the Murad, flowing towards us from Tutakh; loop upon loop, we followed its waters into the dimness of the west, flowing away through the plain. ”

“ On the north the slopes of Great Ararat hide the presence of Alagöz, while behind the needle form of Little Ararat all the barren chains and lonely valleys of Persia are outspread.... The evening grows, and the sun’s returning arc bends behind the dome of snow. The light falls between the two mountains, and connects the Little Ararat in a common harmony with the richening tints of the plain. There it stands on the further margin of the platform, the clean, sharp outline of a pyramid, clothed in hues of a tender yellow, seamed with violet veins. ”

“ The clouds no longer float in tranquil, feathery beds, but sail across the sky, grazing the peaks. The rivers hiss in the gorges and are white with foam instead of winding with sluggish current over the flats. The glare of the open and treeless landscape is succeeded by the gloom of overhanging parapets; and, while the margin of the streams will be overgrown by willows and poplars, the forest trees, among which the walnut and the elm are conspicuous, flourish upon each oasis of deeper soil. Even the Kurdish shepherds have failed to destroy a vegetation favoured by moisture and shade. ”

“ The wild borderland of Persia and Turkey here for the first time expands to view. The scene, however much it may belie the conception at a first and hasty glance, bears the familiar imprint of the characteristics peculiar to the great tableland. The mountains reveal their essential nature and disclose the familiar forms—the surface of the tableland broken into long furrows, of which the ridges tend to hummock shapes. So lofty is the stage, so aloof this mighty fabric from all surrounding forms, the world lies dim and featureless about it like the setting of a dream. ”

“ It is from here that you commence the first portion of the climb to the Zigana Dagh, through forest glades in which the spruce firs alternate with the beech woods, and which are carpeted with an undergrowth of rhododendron and azalea and tall palm-leaved bracken. As we rose on the following morning above our surroundings we [242] looked in vain for the vista of sea, the horizon being veiled in mist. Our ears were greeted by the song of nightingales, and by the clear call-notes of the cuckoo; while the plashing of innumerable streamlets and waterfalls mingled to a background of tremulous sound. ”

“ As the ship speeds eastwards along the mountains of Bithynia, a thin veil of haze will blend the land outlines together; while, as the range grows in height with every mile of progress, the vapour will collect about its upper slopes in long, horizontal, black banks. Even when the sun of this southern climate has swept the sky of every lingering film, when the zenith and the water recall the hues of the Mediterranean—the whole scale of brilliant blues—somewhere upon the wide circle of the horizon will be lurking the scattered forces of the mist. ”

“ Abundance of delicious water flows down from the heights on the north; and under happier circumstances the slopes and the plain outside the city would be dotted with dwellings embowered in trees. At the present day, when once you have passed outside the enceinte, you feel like a ship which has taken to the open sea. Not a hedgerow, no oasis of foliage diversifies and softens the naked and vast expanse. You steer your course whither you will. For at least five months in the year the ground is covered with snow—an unbroken sheet spread over mountain and plain. ”

“ A few minutes later, at half-past one, the slope at last eases, the ground flattens, the struggling rocks sink beneath the surface of a continuous field of snow. At last we stand upon the summit of Ararat—but the sun no longer pierces the white vapour; a fierce gale drives across the forbidden region, and whips the eye straining to distinguish the limits of snow and cloud. Vague forms hurry past on the wings of the whirlwind; in place of the landscape of the land of promise we search dense banks of fog. ”

“ We are above and among large patches of snow. But the going is very easy, the ground being covered with turf and flowers. It is quite a little garden of forget-me-nots and pink daisies and buttercups and campanulas. These raise their heads above an undergrowth of pearl-wort. There is no juniper or yellow immortelle to be seen. Soon after four o’clock this flowery slope gives way, and we enter the summit region, with the westerly eminence on our left hand. Before us lies a deep and irregular basin filled up with masses of snow. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Ararat soars into space, a magnificent object, both peaks of the greater mountain, although almost merged by the perspective, being distinguishable by the naked eye. The bold snow bastion on the west is seen to the fullest advantage. But the Little Ararat is almost hidden by nearer outlines; and only the summit of that graceful cone is exposed. If the mountain of the Ark be without equal, or even rival, in a landscape which in all directions is sublime, it possesses at least a neighbour with many attributes in common—the Kuseh Dagh, beyond the plain of Alashkert. ”

“ A spell seems to rest upon the landscape of the mountain, sealing all the springs of life. Only, among the evergreen shrubs about us, a scattered group of camels cropped the spinous foliage, little lizards darted, a flock of sand-grouse took wing. Our course lay slantwise across the base of Ararat, towards the hill of Takjaltu, a table-topped mass, overgrown with yellow herbage, which rises in advance of the saddle between the mountains, and lies just below you as you overlook the landscape from the valley of Sardar Bulakh. ”

“ Here at Van they grow much as they please. Melons and cucumbers find just the conditions under which they thrive. All this pulsing and exuberance extends unchecked through the long summer; and when the autumn is at length at hand, towards the end of October, the change is only marked by the gradual passing over of shades of green into shades of gold. The leaves remain on their branches until the withered stalks can hold no longer; but of violence there is rarely a trace. The sky becomes black and rumbles; some showers fall, and Sipan is clothed in white to his lower slopes. ”

“ 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 [197] 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. ”

“ At our feet lies Kutais, with head upon the hillside and foot upon the margin of the plain; the eye follows the winding river which has just escaped from Caucasus and is flowing outwards towards the opposite range; the horizon is closed by that wall of mountain, emerging solid from a tender veil of mist. The plain itself is flat as water; it is coloured with the golden hues of the ripening maize-fields and featured by a labyrinth of vague detail. ”

“ Not a patch of verdure, not a streak of brighter colour breaks the long monotony of ochre in the burnt grass and the bleached stones. All the subtle sensations with which the living earth surrounds us—wide as are the tracts of barren desert within the limits of the plain itself—seem to cease, arrested at the fringe of this plantation, as on a magician’s line. ”

“ The railway will before long arrive at Erivan, and then the pilgrimage will be still easier to undertake. Not all the tourists in the world will disturb the harmony of this landscape; the screeching trains, the loud hotels, the Babel of tongues will be lost, like a flight of starlings, in this expanse. It is here that the spirit of Asia is most intensely present—an inner sanctuary to those outer courts through which the traveller may have wandered and never crossed the threshold of this plain. ”

“ Not a village could we see, nor any human habitation; distant prospects were obscured by a veil of mist. Yet the day was fairly fine, and, if the clouds were deeply banked on the horizon, the zenith often burst to pure blue. As we proceeded, the forest increased both in grandeur and in luxuriance; clusters of magnificent trees rose from the bush and above the brushwood, until the features of hill and spur became lost beneath the lofty overgrowth and transformed to masses or ledges of tall stems and spreading branches outlined against the sky. ”

“ 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. ”