Although the summit of Great Ararat, which has an elevation of seventeen thousand nine hundred and sixteen feet, yields in height to the peaks of the Caucasus in the north and to Demavend (nineteen thousand four hundred feet) in the east, nearly five hundred miles away, yet, as Bryce in his admirable book has observed, there can be but few other places in the world where a mountain so lofty rises from a plain so low. The summit of Great Ararat has the form of a dome and is covered with perpetual snow; this dome crowns an oval figure, the length of which is from northwest to southeast, and it is therefore the long side of this dome which we see from the valley of the Araxes. On the southeast, as we follow the outline farther, the slope falls at a more rapid gradient of from thirty to thirty-five degrees and ends in the saddle between the two mountains at a height of nearly nine thousand feet. From that point it is the shape of the Little Ararat which continues the outline towards the east; it rises in the shape of a graceful pyramid to the height of twelve thousand eight hundred and forty feet, and its summit is distant from that of Great Ararat a space of nearly seven miles. The southeastern slope of the lesser Ararat corresponds to the northwestern slope of the greater mountain and descends to the floor of the river valley in a long and regular train. This mountain forms the boundary stone of three great Empires, the northern slopes of Great Ararat belong to Russia, the southern slopes to Turkey, while a portion of Little Ararat belongs to Persia. From Ararat it is a six days' journey to Erzeroum along what may be called the roof of Western Asia--these elevated plains being about six thousand feet high, and forming the watershed between the Persian Gulf and the Caspian Sea. While its own barrenness is as wearisome to the eye as the plains of Wyoming from Laramie to the Wasatch Mountains, it is constantly sending forth its streams to fertilize the far off plains to the east and the south. From the western slope of Ararat the Euphrates takes its rise--rapidly cuts for itself a deep bed through steep walls of rock. Half a day's journey down the river brings us in sight of the Monastery of Utch Keliseh or "Three Churches." Only one, however, can be discovered--but that is the finest Ecclesiastical building in all Ancient Armenia, though in a sad state of disrepair, having been sacked by the Kurds a few years ago.