On either side of the extensive plain which borders the course of the Middle Araxes rise mountains of astounding proportions and of large variety of form. Let us dwell for a moment on the character of the northern barrier, which closes the prospect from the slopes of Ararat at a distance of from 30 to 50 miles. The immense bulk of Alagöz extends across the horizon from the longitude of Ararat to the districts adjoining the left bank of the Arpa Chai. In that direction the mass occupies a space of about 40 miles, rising from the level tracts through which the Araxes flows to a height of over 13,000 feet and inclined from north of east to south of west. The snowy fangs of the shattered crater are situated a little west of the longitude of the dome of Ararat; from those peaks the outline of the mountain is shadowed on either side in an almost horizontal bar. On the west the streams of molten matter have met with little resistance to their onward flow; the eastern slopes have been confined by the bulwark of the border ranges, and are of comparatively insignificant extent. 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. Such is the character, to a point about north of Ararat, of the northern wall of this valley of the Araxes--the length of a single mountain, an unbroken barrier from west to east. At that point the mass of Alagöz meets the spurs of the border ranges, and its base mingles with the base of the volcanic elevations which rise along their inner edge. These elevations continue the wall of mountain eastwards, but incline it towards the south; they come forward in front of the giant volcano and narrow the plain. Yet so gradual is the transition that it is scarcely perceptible; until the eye is awakened by the change in the sky-line, so even before, so restless now, fretted by the shapes of cones and little craters which, behind the soft convexities of flanking outworks, feature the chain which separates the basin of Lake Sevan from the waters which wash the base of Ararat.