H. F. B. Lynch

“ 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. ”

“ 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 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 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The tufts of sappy grass sparsely studded on the margin of the water-course gave place, as we advanced, to a continuous carpet of soft and verdant turf; here and there the eye rested on the deep green of the juniper, or the graceful fretwork of a wild rose tree quivered in the draught. The warm rays flashed in the thin atmosphere, and tempered the searching breeze. The spurs on our right descend from the shoulder of Great Ararat, from the causeway of which it forms the head, and are seen to diverge into two systems as they enter the narrow pass. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ We were crossing the uppermost portion of the plain of the Rion, where it rises to the belt of hill and mountain which links the northern with the southern range; long stretches of woodland with an undergrowth of wild rhododendron had taken the place of the expanse of golden maize-fields, broken by little trees and intervals of bush. To emerge from the shady avenue upon a tract of open country was to feast our eyes upon a landscape of no ordinary character. On the one hand the airy pinnacles and gleaming snowfields of Caucasus, on the other the forest-clad walls of the Armenian border chain ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ From the Olympian eminence of the Grand Duke’s circle at Abastuman and from the steps of the Imperial throne, we came near to being hurled forth at Akhaltsykh into the abyss of a Russian prison. The gods must surely weep at the sorry manner in which their human ministers interpret their laws. Day broke without any shadow of presentiment—a fresh and breezy morning, the river rippling before us, and on the opposite bank the ancient fortress edging the steep crags and outlined on the luminous sky. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ To-night we are to sleep on the banks of the Arpa, by the waters which swell the flood of the Araxes and sweep the base of Ararat! This was the reflection which lightened the mood of sorrowful meditation that our visit to Gorelovka had inspired. Our grave hosts, for whom one felt a vivid sympathy, a warm affection, conducted us in their spacious waggons to the posting station of Efremovka, a few versts’ distance along our road. It is a Russian settlement with some ninety houses and a population of 860 souls, besides a collection of huge and formidable dogs. ”

“ At Batum, at Kutais, at Alexandropol, at Erivan—wherever we have been in the society of Armenians, talk has centred upon the triumphal journey and the approaching consecration of His Holiness Mekertich Khrimean. It is not only the ancient ceremony, and it is not merely the assembling of delegates from all parts of the Armenian world that appeals to the heart of the nation. It is the personality and reputation of the man. The people forgets, but it does not change. ”

“ Throughout the length and breadth of the Armenian highlands, themselves the loftiest section of the bridge of Asia between India and the Mediterranean Sea, there is perhaps no summit, with the possible exception of that of Ararat, which possesses a prospect at once so distant, so extensive and so full of interest as that which expands on every side from the triple peak of Abul.1 You stand on a stage which commands the fabric of the nearer Asia, without dwarfing the proportions of the majestic structure, without confusing the varied members of the vast design. ”

“ 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. ”