Their future route was now a matter of serious perplexity. On their left lay the Tigris, so deep that they could not fathom it with their spears; while in their front rose the steep and lofty mountains of the Carduchi, which came so near the river as hardly to leave a passage for its waters. As all other roads seemed barred, they formed the resolution of striking into these mountains, on the farther side of which lay Armenia, where both the Tigris and the Euphrates might be forded near their sources. After a difficult and dangerous march of seven days, during which their sufferings were far greater than any they had experienced from the Persians the army at length emerged into Armenia. It was now the month of December, and Armenia was cold and exposed, being a table-land raised high above the level of the sea. Whilst halting near some well-supplied villages, the Greeks were overtaken by two deep falls of snow, which almost buried them in their open bivouacs. Hence a five days' march brought them to the eastern branch of the Euphrates. Crossing the river, they proceeded on the other side of it over plains covered with a deep snow, and in the face of a biting north wind. Here many of the slaves and beasts of burthen, and even a few of the soldiers, fell victims to the cold. Some had their feet frost-bitten; some were blinded by the snow; whilst others, exhausted with cold and hunger, sunk down and died. On the eighth day they proceeded on their way, ascending the banks of the Phasis, not the celebrated river of that name, but probably the one usually called Araxes. From thence they fought their way through the country of the Taochi and Chalybes. They next reached the country of the Scythini, in whose territory they found abundance in a large and populous city called Gymnias. The chief of this place having engaged to conduct them within sight of the Euxine, they proceeded for five days under his guidance; when, after ascending a mountain, the sea suddenly burst on the view of the vanguard. The men proclaimed their joy by loud shouts of "The sea! the sea!" The rest of the army hurried to the summit, and gave vent to their joy and exultation in tears and mutual embraces. A few days' march through the country of the Macrones and Colchians at length brought them to the objects for which they had so often pined, and which many at one time had never hoped to see again--a Grecian city and the sea. By the inhabitants of Trapezus or Trebizond, on the Euxine, where they had now arrived, they were hospitably received, and, being cantoned in some Colchian villages near the town, refreshed themselves after the hardships they had undergone by a repose of thirty days.