Risaldar

“ All this time we saw no land and no streak of foam upon the sea, that was the colour of wood-ashes; only brown [137] seaweed drifting northwards. My lord had become very brown, and had a way of always turning toward the light, looking east when the sun rose and west when it set.
Now, for some days we went northward; then for more days we went east, till one morning, just after sunrise, we saw land, black hills which we had come near to during the night. And for two days we coasted along the great cliffs where the water beat white at their black bases. ”

“ One day, when the noon held all the fields in stillness and the little singing things were silent in the grass, I walked—for the day was too warm to work in the mid-day—slowly, along one of the forest paths, just shut off from the glare of the sun in the open by a screen of trees whose leaves hung still in the silence. Then, far before me, I saw at the end of the path two figures, and stopped, I do not know why. I saw who the figures were—my own lord and Hilda, the betrothed of his friend. ”

“ From the crest of a lofty ridge beyond this plain, we looked back over the wild solitudes wherein we had been travelling for two days--long ranges of dark hills, fading away behind each other, with a perspective that hinted of the hidden gulfs between. From the western slope, a still more extensive prospect opened before us. Over ridges covered with forests of oak and pine, we saw the valley of the Pursek, the ancient Thymbrius, stretching far away to the misty line of Keshish Dagh, The mountains behind Kintahya loomed up high and grand, making a fine feature in the middle distance. ”

“ Summit of Ararat from the South-East, taken at a height of about 13,000 feet.
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. [181] Morning breaks, and the floor of the plain is shrouded in white mist ”

“ Alone the slopes about you wear the solid colours, and hold you to the real world—the massive slopes of Great Ararat, raised high above the world. The wreath of cloud which veils the summit till the last breath of warm air dies has floated away in the calm heaven before the western lights have paled. Behind the lofty piles of rocky causeways, concealing the higher seams, rises the immediate roof of Ararat foreshortened in the sky—the short side or gable of the dome, a faultless cone of snow. ”

“ As they entered the grim portal the sun was just touching the horizon, but it occurred to neither of them that it might be pitch dark before they emerged. At first the slant of the rock walls caused one of these to overhang, shutting out the sky, but the rift gradually widening, they could see the brow of these stupendous cliffs, far above against the sky at a dizzy height. ”

“ Hour after hour, we toiled along the slippery paths, scaling the high ridges by rocky ladders, up which our horses climbed with the greatest difficulty. The scenery, whenever I could obtain a misty glimpse of it, was sublime. Lofty mountain ridges rose on either hand; bleak, jagged summits of naked rock pierced the clouds, and the deep chasms which separated them sank far below us, dark and indistinct through the rain. Sometimes I caught sight of a little hamlet, hanging on some almost inaccessible ledge, the home of the lawless, semi-Moorish mountaineers who inhabit this wild region. ”

“ The Laerdal is at first a wide valley, well cultivated and sprinkled with farm houses; it is enclosed by mountains with snow-capped peaks, and many fine waterfalls gleam on their dark sides. It gradually contracts, and the road ascends until we enter a wild rocky ravine, with hardly space for the roadway at the base of steep cliffs, on the edge of a tumultuous river. In many places the road is blasted into the precipitous cliff, passing beneath overhanging rock, while far below among great boulders dashes the rushing river in foaming rapids ”

“ Next morning we crossed the low ridge under Jebel el Urf, and passing down a sandy valley at noon we came to a flat of mud which formed the end of the valley, a barrier of sand having been thrown up and thus stopping up the valley completely. Crossing this ridge an immense extent of sandhills appeared as far as the eye could reach. I do not think I have ever seen so desolate and dreary a country: nothing but ridge after ridge of sand dunes for an immense distance. ”

“ Here we turned aside from the main valley. The contours of the mountains now become more rounded, the relative heights diminish, and the valleys are not so deeply excavated as on yesterday’s ride. The rivulet, which we follow up to its source in the main ridge, is the last connected with the system of the Indus, but still it is a child of the Indus, and carries to the sea news of this elevated region. Winter will soon chain up its waters, soon it will fall asleep in the cold and frost, until the sun calls it to life again in spring (Illustration 55) . ”

“ I fear so, Caspar. I observed no outlet—neither has Ossaroo; and although not specially looking for such a thing, I had my eyes open for it; I had not forgotten our perilous situation of yesterday, and I wished to assure myself. I looked up several gorges that ran out of the valley, but the sides of all seemed to be precipitous. The chase, it is true, kept me from examining them very closely; but it is now time to do so. If there be no pass out of this valley, then are we indeed in trouble. These cliffs are five hundred feet in height—they are perfectly impassable by human foot. Come on! ”

“ The road over the pass leads through a soft limestone formation, and here, as in similar places in Asia Minor, are found those narrow, trench-like trails, worn by the feet of pilgrims and the pack-animal traffic of centuries, several feet deep in the solid rock. On a broad cultivated plain beyond the pass is sighted the village of Lasgird, its huge mud fortress, the most conspicuous object in view, rising a hundred feet above the plain. ”

“ Everywhere in the valley was the sound of life. Birds flashed back and forth among the foliage; goats leaped among the rocks; small ponies grazed in the meadows; men tilled the fields. From the distance up the valley came the hum and splashing of a small waterfall. A couple of miles away, at the right of the river, was a large square of buildings that gleamed white in the sunlight, where many people were moving about.
"Behold, Sardanes!" said Kard the Smith, advancing to the edge of the rock.
Rose Emer caught the word Sardanes and echoed it. ”

“ Sometimes we were floundering with our heavy loads in the deep snow-beds, or scrambling on hands and knees over the huge boulders of the rocky seams. Two hours and a half of climbing brought us to the crest of the main southeast ridge, about one thousand feet below the base of the precipitous dome. At this point our course changed from northeast to northwest, and continued so during the rest of the ascent, Little Ararat was now in full view. ”

“ At last we gained the top of the largest rock, the outermost black fragment on which the great waves rent themselves. I knew we must not linger, and sliding down the side with my other companion, I turned for the wounded man, but he sat upon the rock his face drawn all sideways with pain, for he had raised his helmet for breath, and there was a cross-bow bolt sticking firmly out from one of his eyes. One glance was all; then the world was a green fairyland with rushing music and the noise of mighty crowds ”

“ The sides of the mountain were rugged and grim, with here and there a stunted cedar hanging from the rocks. The small patches of grass and willows that lined the banks of the little rills—although cheering to the eye, when compared with the brown barrenness of the Desert—offered but little prospect that we should get any thing to eat there. If the Desert stretched away to the south of the mountain, as we saw that it did to the north, east, and west, then we had only reached a temporary resting-place, and we might still perish, if not from thirst, from what was equally bad—hunger. ”

“ He suspected that the slide had taken place in that portion of the glacier below the crevasse they had just crossed. If so, the lye would be widened, the huge gneiss rock that bridged it gone, and their retreat down the glacier cut off!
Upward they beheld nothing but the beetling cliffs meeting together. No human foot could scale them. If no outlet offered in that direction, then, indeed, might the jesting allusion of Caspar be realised. They might be imprisoned between those walls of black granite, with nought but ice for their bed, and the sky for their ceiling. ”

“ It was in the Grishna season, and behind the western mountains the sun was setting, shrouded with layers of gloomy clouds tinged with red like fresh-spilt blood. One last look I took at mountain and plain, and never had the mountains seemed so high, never the plains so broad. ”

“ Where the base gathers beyond the river is a distance from the slopes of Ararat of about 35 miles; the two summits are nearly 60 miles apart. Yet so large is the scale of this colossal mountain, and so even the surface of the intervening plain, that, seen through the clear atmosphere of an Eastern climate, it fills the eye with its huge presence, sweeping the valley with massive foundations, and drawn across the sky in a long and rounded bank, broken only by the trident of shining peaks. ”

“ Their appearance is strikingly different, being wooded and bristling on the sides, shooting up in craggy heights, hoary and white on the uppermost peaks and ridges, as if bitten by the cold and frost, and bared by the bleak winds of the sea. The Great Desert ranges, on the contrary, are naked as nakedness can be, dull, dreary, and dead, smoothed over as velvet, of black and purple hues, and look more like mountains which children might paint than the sterile realities of Old Sahara. ”

“ Said walks with the servants, slaves, and camel-drivers. Two-thirds of the people are on foot. Started in tolerably good health and spirits, and increase my appetite every mile I ride. Feel no fatigue, of course, to-day, and trust I shall soon forget I'm travelling in The Sahara. There are many routes from Ghadames to Ghat, no less than four or five well-travelled desert tracts. Our present one is the more easterly, being skirted by the oasisian districts of Fezzan. None of these routes have been travelled before by an European. Our course to-day is directly east. ”

“ We were accompanied by a few soldiers, who it turned out did not know the way, and having ridden for an hour and a half up a narrow gorge with wild figs, wild date, and fan palms growing around us, and really magnificent cliffs 700 to 800 feet high on either side of us, reddish in colour and with fossils in the limestone strata, a truly fearful and awe-inspiring place, we suddenly came to an abrupt termination of our valley, having wormed ourselves along, chiefly on foot, and found that unless Sindbad's roc came to our assistance we could not possibly get out of it. ”

“ Afternoon late, I went to the range of Wareerat mountains, to collect a few geological specimens, accompanied by a slave. All our senses deceive us. The world is a world of delusions and deceptions, and we are dupers and dupes, as it happens. After continuing a couple of hours, the base of the range, which seemed always close upon us, still receded and was receding. On the plains of Africa bounded by mountain ranges, one is as much at a loss to measure distances as the landsman at sea, when measuring the distance from his ship to the rocks bounding the shore. ”

“ To our left rises Mount Ararat; to our snow. This tiny plateau is all surrounded right, Iron Mountain, Crystal Mountain, by bold, rugged peaks that seemed to have Pyramid Peak-well named-and reign- opened to let us through. The trees rise ing over the whole region, Mount Rainier dark green around us, but scattered singly towers in his mantle of white that has now turned to soft shades of pink and ame- peaks cut off the sun and send twilight. thyst and violet. Before us stretches our Štretched out before us is a beautiful and Mecca, the Hunting Ground. ”

“ Cliffs and precipices there are, of course; witness the terrible fall from the Matterhorn to the glacier below—thousands of feet with one tremendous leap from the rock to the ice underneath; but mountain slopes are not precipices. As a rule, we find that one side of a mountain chain is steeper than the opposite one. It is harder to climb up from Italy to Switzerland than to ascend in the opposite direction. The Pyrenees are also steeper on the south side. The Scandinavian mountains likewise are steeper in the west. The Himalaya are steepest towards the sea, so are the Ghauts. ”

“ As Woolley and I saw several more summits on our ridge (the Langstrandtinder) towards the north-east, we started off for them after we had fully exhausted the view, and smoked as many pipes as were necessary to produce a sensation of rest. In fact, to me one of the chief reasons for moving on to the next peak was that again I might [Pg 196] have the excuse for being lazy, again look at the sky, the far-off mountains, and the endless expanse of the sea beyond. The climbing along the ridge was easy, and two more summits were ascended; a small cairn was left on each of their tops. ”