gigantic blocks of lava towards the margin of the shining slope. In the choice of the most direct path, where many offered, the Swiss was never at fault; he made up the cone without a moment's hesitation, like a hound threading a close covert, and seldom if ever foiled. At twenty minutes to seven, when the summit of Little Ararat was about on a level with the eye, we paused for awhile and turned towards the prospect, now opening to a wider range. The day was clear, and promised warmth; above us the snowy dome of Ararat shone in a cloudless sky. The landscape on either side of the beautiful pyramid lay outspread at our feet; from north-east, the hidden shores of Lake Sevan, to where the invisible seas of Van and Urmi diffused a soft veil of opaline vapour over the long succession of lonely ranges in the south-east and south. The wild borderland of Persia and Turkey here for the first time expands to view. The scene, however much it may belie the conception at a first and hasty glance, bears the familiar imprint of the characteristics peculiar to the great tableland. The mountains reveal their essential nature and disclose the familiar forms--the surface of the tableland broken into long furrows, of which the ridges tend to hummock shapes. So lofty is the stage, so aloof this mighty fabric from all surrounding forms, the world lies dim and featureless about it like the setting of a dream. In the foreground are the valleys on the south of Little Ararat, circling round to the Araxes floor; and, on the north-east, beside the thread of the looping river, is a little lake, dropped like a turquoise on the sand where the mountain sweeps the plain. In the space of another hour we had reached an elevation about equal to that of the head of the causeway on the opposite side of the snow, a point which I think we should be justified in fixing at over 14,000 feet. [80] We were now no longer threading along the shore of an inlet; alone the vague horizon of the summit circle was the limit of the broad, white sea. But on our left hand the snowless region of rock and rubble still accompanied our course, and a group of red crags stood up above our heads, just where the upward slope appeared to end. Yet another two hours of continuous climbing, and, at about half-past nine, the loose boulders about us open, and we are approaching the foot of these crags. The end seems near; but the slope is deceitful, and when once we have reached the head of the formation the long white way resumes. But the blue vault about us streams with sunlight; the snow is melting in the crannies; a genial spirit lightens our toil. And now, without any sign or warning, the mysterious spell which holds the mountain begins to throw a web about us, craftily, from below. The spirits of the air come sailing through the azure with shining gossamer wings, while the heavier vapours gather around us from dense banks serried upon the slope beneath us, a thousand feet lower down.