that the degree of inclination of either slope is in exactly inverse proportion to their size. This pleasing interplay between constancy in essential principles and diversity of form invests the long outline of the dual structure with a peculiar charm. The differing shapes repeat one another, and one base supports the whole. The plain itself, on the confines of which, and opposite to one another, these several ranges and mountain masses rise, is not unworthy of the works around it, and spreads at their feet a long perspective of open and even ground. Where the valley attains its greatest extension, just west of Erivan, the width of its floor, or level surface, is over twenty miles; and even when the spurs of the Lake Sevan system have inclined the northern boundary to the south, the space between these spurs and the extreme base of Ararat is scarcely less than ten miles. But these are divisions which the mind appreciates and the eye is unable to perceive, so gradual is the transition from one level to another, from plain to mountain-side. On the north the dappled landscape of the campagna mingles with the patches of field and garden which, fed by a number of slender rivulets, clothe the first slopes of Alagöz; on the south the gathering foundations of Ararat are accompanied by an almost insensible inclination in the surface of the dry and sandy soil. From either side the prospect extends unbroken to the long summit lines which confront one another at an interval of nearly sixty miles. From invisible limits in the western distance issues the looping thread of the Araxes, and, skirting the base of the Ararat fabric, bends slowly south-eastwards and disappears. The shady walks of the little park were beginning to fill with groups of loungers when, at five o'clock in the afternoon of the 16th of September, we started from the central square of Erivan. A single horseman accompanied us, a chapar or courier belonging to the country police. This was the first occasion, since we had entered Russian territory, upon which an escort had been considered necessary by those responsible for our safety. We were approaching the Turkish border, and along that extended mountain frontier acts of brigandage are still not unknown. Yet the prince of brigands, the redoubted Kerim, no longer flouts the nachalniks; and a stream of laden carts and leisurely wayfarers attests the public confidence. Slowly we threaded the clay-built walls of successive orchards, the trees within them bending with fruit, until beyond this oasis of foliage and freshness opened, like an ocean at the mouth of a harbour, the free expanse of plain.