The essential majesty of the Armenian landscapes derives enhanced value from the presence at all seasons of clouds. In this respect Armenia is more favoured than Persia, where month after month you long for a cloud to temper the glare. To the radiance of her pellucid atmosphere is added the charm of effects of vapour; but the vapour has already been tamed in the passage of the border ranges, and floats in quiet masses over the central regions of the tableland. We awoke on the following morning to a scene which is characteristic of the season and of this plain. The whole valley of the Araxes was covered by a sheet of white mist, and had the appearance of a vast sea. From invisible limits in the west to the foot of the Ararat fabric the deceptive substance followed the base of the mountains, as though we had suddenly been introduced to that geological period when the waters washed these rocky shores. In the east several islands rose above the shining surface, eminences of the plain. The high ground upon which we stood was bathed in pure sunlight, and all Nature was intensely still. As the morning advanced the vapours lifted or were dissolved; films of white cloud were wafted across the blue. We continued our march over highlands of the same stony character as those which we had traversed during the preceding day. But beyond the village the land had been cleared in places, and wheat planted, which was showing green above the ground. It is protected by the snows which cover these slopes during winter, and it is reaped in spring or early summer. The rocky heart of Alagöz was still concealed behind the declivities which swept towards us, on our right hand. In the great plain, which still lay beneath us, we missed the stretches of pleasant verdure which in that direction had become familiar to our eyes; desert tracts, seared by gullies, had taken the place of the gardens; while further west the valley was broken into hummock waves. A ground of ochre, washed in places with rose madder--such were the colours which clothed this naked expanse; the delicate tints were continued up the sides of the mountains which border the plain upon the south. These lower slopes of the Ararat system receive the light at sunrise; and, being composed of a marly substance, which is modelled into soft convexities, display a variety of tender hues. Bold peaks, of which the summits had been strewn with snow during the night, rise along the spine of the range; but they are dwarfed, even at this distance, by the fabric of Ararat. We could discern on the west of the mountain the pass which leads to Bayazid, and we had not yet lost sight of the mound of Armavir. But it was evident that the even ground in the valley of the Araxes was coming to an end. The western limits of the level plain may be placed in the neighbourhood of Karakala; and, according to Dubois, the last canal which derives from the Araxes waters the fields on the west of the village of Shagriar. [262]