parrot's ascent of ARARAT. 187 



though they send oft' hills to the south-west, where the Euphrates has 

 its head, and to the west whence the Araxes flows, and where it appears 

 to unite with the Saganlug, a branch of Mount Taurus. Though this 

 mountain has been known by this name for more than three thousand 

 years, yet it is not so now called by tlie surrounding nations. The Ar- 

 menians call it Massis (the ancient Macis), and the Turks and Persians 

 Agridagh. But the Armenian Chronicles inform us that one of their 

 kings, who bore the name of Arai, fell in a bloody battle with the Baby- 

 lonians upon a plain which was afterwards called from him Arai-Arat, 

 or the fall of Arai, whence the province and the mountain, in all proba- 

 bility, derived their name. 



Great Ararat rises to an elevation of 17,210 feet perpendicular, or 

 more than three miles and a quarter above the plain of the Araxes. 

 Little Ararat is not so high by three quarters of a mile, being only 13, 

 000 feet above the level of the sea. "From the summit downwards," 

 says Parrot, (p. 144 et seq.) the Great Ararat "-for nearly two-thirds of 

 a mile perpendicular, or nearly three miles in an oblique direction, it is 

 covered with a crown of eternal snow and ice, the lower border of 

 which is irregularly indented, according to the elevations or depressions 

 of the ground, but upon the entire northern half of the mountain, from 

 14,000 feet above the sea, it shoots up in one rigid crest to the summit, 

 interrupted here and there by a few pointed rocks, and then stretches 

 downward, on the southern half, to a level somewhat less low. This is 

 the silver head of Ararat! Notwithstanding its great height Little Ara- 

 rat is not always buried in snow, but is quite free from it in September 

 and October, and sometimes also in August, or even earlier. Its decliv- 

 ities are considerably sleeper than those of the Great Ararat ; its form is 

 almost perfectly conical, marked with several delicate furrows, which 

 radiate downward from the summit, and give the picture presented by 

 this mountain a very peculiar and interesting character." 



The difficulty of reaching the summit of either of these mountains, 

 especially that covered by perpetual snow, must, of course, be great. 

 Foiled in a first and second attempt, nothing but very favorable circum- 

 stances, a careful preparation for the undertaking, and his indomitable 

 perseverance enabled our traveller to gain the point at which he aimed, 

 by a third eflbrt, and after he had spent about two weeks upon the 

 mountain. We give his narrative of his final success in his own words. 

 After giving the details of his previous failures and the narrative of liis 

 first days' labors in the third attempt to ascend the mountain upon which 

 he spent the night at an elevation of 13,800 feet above the level of the 

 sea, he proceeds : 



