tucker's story. 161 



general effect was exceedingly grand and impressive ; but 

 when the details were examined in search of some beau- 

 tiful peak, the search was in vain. The slopes were cha- 

 racterised by dreary monotony, and the summits were 

 without form or beauty. One distant mass (Bingol Dagh?) 

 alone deserved to escape the general condemnation. 



Time wore on, and at length, about 1.30 p.m., a shout 

 above me announced Tucker's return. I augured ill from 

 it, for it was not a cheerful ' jodel,' but I retained a hope 

 that he might, for my sake, be subduing his feelings. To 

 my surprise, the next shout came from below, and I knew 

 that my companion must have descended by another route. 

 Through the light cloud that was hanging on the moun- 

 tain, I soon saw the two figures, and before long had joined 

 them and heard their story. 



The rocks above my halting-place turned into an arete, 

 cut into towers, separated by deep gaps. The climbing 

 here was exceedingly difficult, and the passage of some of 

 the gaps required both care and steadiness. Fortunately, 

 the ridge was not very long, and in an hour and a half 

 from the place where I had stopped, a snowy saddle con- 

 necting the rocks with the upper mass of the cone was 

 gained. Here they rested for half an hour, at a height 

 probably of 13,800 feet. Above them stretched inter- 

 minable snow-slopes, seamed here and there by rocks, but, 

 unluckily, rocks of an utterly useless description to the 

 climber. They were not ridges, but disconnected crags 

 of lava, suggesting by their fantastic shapes the idea that 

 half the animals, after leaving the Ark, had been petrified 

 as they came down the mountain. Here was an elephant, 

 glissading elegantly, using his trunk for an alpenstock ; 

 there a tapir, or some antediluvian-looking beast, by whose 

 untimely fate, now for the first time discovered, natm'ahsts 

 have lost a species. 



M 



