We should have gained a balloon view over Nature. Should we catch her voice so well?--the ancient voice heard at cool of day in the garden, or the voice that spoke in accents of thunder to a world condemned to die. "It repented the Lord that he had made man, and it grieved him at his heart. The earth was filled with violence: God looked upon the earth and behold it was corrupt. In the second month, the seventeenth day of the month, the same day were all the fountains of the great deep broken up and the windows of heaven were opened. And the rain was upon the earth forty days and forty nights." We are standing on the spot where the ark of gopher rested, where first the patriarch alighted on the face of an earth renewed. Before him lie the valleys of six hundred years of sorrow; the airiest pinnacle supports him, a boundless hope fills his eyes. The pulse of life beats strong and fresh around him; the busy swarms thrill with sweet freedom, elect of all living things. In the settling exhalations stands the bow of many colours, eternal token of God's covenant with man. The peaks which rise on the distant borderland where silence has first faltered into speech are wrapped about with the wreaths of fancy, a palpable world of cloud. Do we fix our foot upon these solid landmarks to wish the vague away, to see the hard summits stark and naked, and all the floating realm of mystery flown? The truth is firm, and it is well to touch and feel it and know where the legend begins; but the legend itself is truth transfigured, as the snow distils into cloud. The reality of life speaks in every syllable of that solemn, stately tale--divine hope bursting the bounds of matter to compromise with despair. And the ancient mountain summons the spirits about him, and veils a futile frown, as the rising sun illumines the valleys of Asia and the life of man lies bare. The spectres walk in naked daylight--Violence and Corruption and Decay. The traveller finds in majestic Nature consolation for these sordid scenes; while a spirit seems to whisper in his ears, "Turn from him!--turn from him, that he may rest till he shall accomplish, as an hireling, his day." CHAPTER XIII THE HEART OF ARARAT