"We mounted our horses," says the enthusiastic traveller, "soon after sunrise, and had proceeded for about four hours over numerous acclivities, and through a territory of undulations resembling the waves of the sea deprived of motion, when the southern peak of Ararat (for there are two), snow-clad and 'cloud-clapt' suddenly burst upon my view! At first I scarcely dared venture to believe we were so near this celebrated mount, though its situation and the distance we had journeyed from Tabreez left no doubt of the fact. I even questioned the guide, and on his answering that it was the summit of Agri-Dagh (the name by which Ararat is called by the Turks), I involuntarily clasped my hands in ecstacy! Who can contemplate this superb elevation without a mixture of awe and admiration, or fail to recur to the page of sacred writ illustrative of Almighty wrath and the just man's recompense? Who can gaze upon the majesty of this mount, towering above the 'high places' and the hills, and turn without repining to the plains beneath, where puny man has pitched his tent and wars upon his fellow, mocking the sublimity of Nature with his paltry tyranny? I felt as if I lived in other times, and my eye eagerly but vainly sought for some traces of that 'ark' which furnished a refuge and a shelter to the creatures of God's mercy when the 'waters prevailed, and were increased greatly on the earth,' till 'all in whose nostrils was the breath of life, and all that was in the dry land, died!'
"Though distant forty miles at least from the base of Ararat, the magnitude of the mountain, of about the centre of which our elevated position now placed us abreast, caused it to appear contiguous to our route, and produced that indefinable thrill and sense of humility which the immediate presence of any vast and overpowering object is so eminently calculated to generate. I continued to gaze until the decline of day warned us to seek a shelter, and Phoebus, casting a parting glance at the crystal summit of the noble glacier, for a moment diffused over all a soft rosy tint,[20] then sunk into the west and left the world in darkness."
NUTRIA FUR.
(To the Editor.)
I read with much pleasure the article in your Number, 574, on Nutria Fur: it was, to me, particularly acceptable, as I have been connected for the last ten years with an establishment where, on an average, 150,000 Nutria Skins are annually manufactured, and the wool cut for the use of hatters. I have searched every book of travels in Brazil, &c., that I could procure, and the chief English works on zoology, without being able to gather any description of the scientific name or habits of the animal. All the information I could collect was from the captains of various vessels that had visited Buenos Ayres, and brought cargoes of skins; but their accounts were extremely vague and unsatisfactory.
I perceive, however, that you have overlooked a peculiarity generally attributed to the animal, which, if true, is, in my opinion, deserving notice: viz.—the position of the female's teats, which are not placed on the belly, as with most animals, but on the side, approaching to the back, by which means it is enabled to suckle its young on both sides at once, whilst swimming on the surface of the water; and it presents, I have understood, a singular group to the observant traveller.
I have sent the skin of a female Nutria herewith, for your inspection, as regards the teats, &c. (from which the fur has been cut by machinery,) with a small sample of the belly fur, prepared for the covering of a hat; the wholesale price of the latter is now three guineas per lb.: it is used as a substitute for beaver-wool on second-rate hats. Our French correspondents term the skins "Ratgondin."
BENJAMIN NORRIS, JUN.
Windsor Place, Southwark Bridge Road.