The legend of the monk is usually given in a form which confirms still more the sacredness of the mountain. St. Jacob, as the monk was named, tried three successive times to climb the mountain. Each time he fell asleep intending to resume his journey the next morning, only to wake up finding himself at the same point he had started from the preceding day. An angel came to him after the third time, and told him that God had forbidden mortal foot ever to tread on the sacred summit, but that he should be given a fragment of the ark in which mankind had been preserved as a reward for his devout perseverance. [100] This treasure is still preserved at Etchmiadzin and the saint is commemorated by the little monastery of St. Jacob, which till 1840, when a tremendous shaking of the mountain showered the little monastery with rocks of destruction, stood above the valley of Arghuri on the slopes of Ararat. The little village of Arghuri, the single village on the mountainside, was the city of Noah's vineyard, and contained a little church which is said to hallow the spot where Noah first set up an altar. [101] But this village, too, was completely destroyed by the avalanche of 1840. Not the slightest trace of it remains, though only three years before its destruction, Dubois de Montpèreux visited the little city and described it together with the church of Noah, Noah's vineyard, and the monastery of St. Jacob. [102] In the garden of the city were planted pear trees, apple, plum, cherry, apricot, peach, and nut trees. This very garden was the site of the first vine on which the old patriarch became drunk, and the inhabitants showed Dubois some bits of creepers to prove it. "Dieu," they said, "pour punir les ceps qui avaient ainsi entrainé le pauvre patriarche dans le péché, les condamna a ne plus porter de raisins." Naïve, yes, but very sweetly so. And the church, the people said, marked the place where Noah offered his first sacrifice after the deluge. Except for the garden of Arghuri, wrote Dubois, this great mountain was absolutely destitute of verdure; an old stunted willow, wound about with snow and ice was the only other exception to this. According to the legend, it marked the spot where a board of Noah's ark had taken root and sprung up into a living tree which the people venerated. One was not permitted to take away even the smallest of its feeble branches. All of this was blotted out so completely by the shower of falling rocks and boulders that it is hard to imagine the places as ever having existed. The primeval willow, the vineyard, the sacred church, and the little monastery of St. Jacob have left not the slightest trace. The bell of the old church is no more heard; the Christian service is not chanted any longer on the sacred mountain of the Ark.