[28] In estimating the level of the zone of perpetual snow on Ararat I am leaving out of account those smaller or greater collections of snow which owe their subsistence all through the summer to special circumstances, such as shelter from the sun.
Mr. D. W. Freshfield (Exploration of the Caucasus, London, 1896, vol. i. p. 55) gives 10,000 feet as a fair figure for the snow-level in the central chain of Caucasus. [↑]
[29] The account of an ascent in 1897 has quite recently come into my hands. It is written by Herr A. Oswald, whose attempt was crowned with complete success (Eine Besteigung des Ararat in Jahrb. schweiz. Alpenclub, Berne, 1899–1900, vol. xxxv. pp. 157–183). [↑]
CHAPTER XIV
RETURN TO ERIVAN
September 25.—We passed the morning upon the mound, in the little open summer-house, face to face with the airy snowfields which we had scaled to their topmost vaulting, with the cavernous recesses which we had penetrated to their inmost core. Such is the silence of Nature at the foot of this solemn mountain that the faintest sound reaches the ear. I was therefore startled by a clamour of voices in the direction of the cantonment, and I hurried down towards the noise. A booted figure in drab uniform, covered with dust from head to foot, was gesticulating under the influence of extreme excitement to a little group of Russian military in their white tunics, accompanied by some languid Orientals at a respectful interval. It was the officer of Cossacks who had joined our party near Takjaltu, and who had left us at Sardar Bulakh. Suiting his gestures to his words, he was narrating a thrilling story of a night encounter with the Kurds. His little eyes were bloodshot and distended with emotion; his legs were parted and his feet planted firm. His detachment had fallen in with a band of marauders, who had carried off some cattle from over beyond Akhury, and made away towards the Turkish frontier. They had fired on the Kurds, who had returned their fire; they had recovered the cattle and chased the Kurds away. I enquired what bag he had made of these human vultures, and he replied, with a sigh, that they had carried off their dead.
On the further side of the Araxes, opposite Aralykh, is situated the celebrated monastery of Khor Virap, which marks the spot where, according to Armenian tradition, Saint Gregory, the founder of Christianity in Armenia, was imprisoned for thirteen years in a deep pit. The country about and behind the cloister is extremely rich in historical and archæological interest, and I would recommend the traveller to prolong his excursion up the romantic valley of the Garni, whence he can return across the mountains to Erivan. He will examine the sites of Artaxata and Dvin, and, proceeding up the river, will reach the gorge with the basaltic columns, and the platform where once stood the temple of King Tiridates—a beautiful Greek shrine given to these solitudes, like the temple of Segesta to the lonely Sicilian hills. Hard by this platform above the river are found the relics of the city of Garni; and, near the sources of the stream, at a distance of some five miles from Garni, the caves and monastery of Surb Geghard, reputed to have been founded by St. Gregory, respond to the spirit of a landscape which for grandeur and severity is unsurpassed among these wilds. I was anxious to make the acquaintance of some at least among these antiquities; we therefore despatched our luggage with the Swiss and the cook to Erivan, and, availing ourselves of the offer of a victoria as far as Khor Virap, resolved to trust to fortune for the remainder of the way.[1]
Had we been able to procure riding-horses, we might probably have ridden from the ferry over the Araxes direct to the cloister across the plain. In a carriage we were obliged to retrace our steps as far as Kamarlu, where the road which runs parallel to the course of the river crosses the road to Erivan. The stage which we had made after nightfall between that village and Aralykh was now performed in the light of day. The alluvial flats between the Araxes and the base of Ararat are channelled by a network of irrigation runnels, which diffuse the stream of the Kara Su. From the fields and marshes rise luxuriant cotton and castor oil plants, the one with yellow single blossoms, like a wild rose, and drooping fruit, resembling flakes of snow; the other, higher than these, raising a tender, juicy stem to shining, palm-shaped leaves. Here and there, where the water fails, bushes of hardy camelthorn spring up, like weeds, upon the fallow land. The oppressive climate of Aralykh, no less than the plague of insects which infest it, are due to the sand upon the pedestal of the mountain, and to these swamps with their effluvia and mosquito swarms. Even at this season the sun beats fiercely upon the plain; and, when we reached the ferry, a herd of buffaloes and bullocks, awaiting transport, were rolling parched tongues and casting longing eyes at the river from the bank of crumbling mud.
A double pontoon, staged across with planks, received our carriage, and was swiftly impelled along the hawser by the force of the stream. From the opposite margin a dreary tract of baked alluvial soil extends to the zone of gardens and orchards which commences at Kamarlu. I have already alluded to the excellence of the road within that zone; but by day you will be loth to hasten along it, such is the charm and so great the interest of the scene. The traffic from the lower Araxes, from Persia and distant Mesopotamia, finds its way along this chaussée to Erivan. The district is inhabited by well-to-do people, who can afford the richness of their national dress. Beneath the foliage of the needle poplars, between the well-maintained mud walls—over which you look to the vineyards and to the vegetable gardens, where the tomato and the chili abound—a stream of wayfarers, some on horseback, fill the pleasant avenue, chatting and smiling under the expansive influence of ease and shade. At intervals you pass a house or cluster of houses, where groups of Armenian women in their holiday attire are gathered before the open doors. They are clad in their gayest cottons, and wear their picturesque head-dress and veils of white gauze. Some among them nurse their babes at the open bosom, the little infant cleaving to the full breasts. Tartars, with their black lambskin hats and dark blue or black garments, compose an element which a cynic would be loth to dispense with in such a scene of piping peace; yet it would be difficult to detect a trace on their clean-shaven faces of passions which have, perhaps, been blunted by time. Laden waggons pass, and numerous bullock-carts, with their heavy, creaking wheels. We were amused by the appearance of a curious pair of riders who, to judge from the deference which was bestowed upon them, were evidently of exalted rank. The man wore a flowing beard and was dressed in Oriental apparel; but he held in his hand a parasol of European pattern, and his locks were surmounted by an English billycock hat. His wife was by his side, astride of her Arab; but the graceful animal was almost invisible beneath her, his withers overtowered by the huge bulk of her stomach, and his back enveloped in the folds of her robes. It was an Assyrian bishop, journeying from Mosul.