PEAK OF THE DAROO. 
473 
course it gives rise to two of the most celebrated rivers in the 
world, besides other fine streams of less note, and is also marked 
by some of the most famous mountains towards the south of 
Irak-Ajem. 
As soon as our troop left the rocky street of Baytoush, we 
commenced our ascent. The road was a mere foot-path, and, 
from its extreme abruptness, one of the most perilous that 
could have been called a road. Indeed, as we slowly gained 
upon the highest region of the mountain, its dangers so aug¬ 
mented from fearful to terrific, that I doubt the possibility of 
any person, unaccustomed to such stupendously dizzy heights, 
being able to look down the endless depth these presented, with¬ 
out falling headlong. In winding up the almost perpendicular 
summit, I sometimes could not help glancing my eye below, 
and the scene it unfolded was indeed tremendous. Had I been 
aloft in a balloon, I could hardly have felt more abandoned to 
the great gulf of air above the clouds ; all around was so steep, 
/ 
and fathomless. But it would not have been enough for these 
bold mountaineers to have clambered their precipitous pile, by 
any tolerably sure footing ; the narrow path, like that in our ap¬ 
proach to Baytoush, was interrupted by huge projecting masses of 
white marble, whose beauty indeed mocked our terrors, and en¬ 
hanced them too, by their dazzling surfaces affecting our sight; 
consequently, we cautiously followed each other over these points 
of particular danger ; but most of the Gourds undauntedly kept 
their saddles, passing over our fearful impediments with a firm¬ 
ness and lightness that could not fail re-assuring our resolution. 
The peak before us glittered with snow, and our feelings at every 
step sufficiently graduated our advance to that extreme point of 
elevation : for some time we had observed quantities of the 
3 p 
VOL. II. 
