1876 British Viscount & Ambassador James Bryce - Noah's Ark Search

166 THE EXPLORERS OF ARARAT
that with which Swiss guides start. However, we were soon cruelly undeceived. In twenty-five minutes there came a
steep bit, and at the top of it they flung themselves down on the grass to rest. So did we all. Less than half a mile
farther, down they dropped again, and this time we were obliged to give the signal for resuming the march. In another
quarter of an hour they were down once more, and so it continued for the rest of the way. Every ten minutes’ walking—
it was seldom steep enough to be called actual climbing—was followed by seven or eight minutes of sitting still,
smoking and chattering. How they did chatter! It was to no purpose that we continued to move on when they sat down,
or that we rose to go before they had sufficiently rested. They looked at one another, so far as I could make out by the
faint light, and occasionally they laughed; but they would not and did not stir till such time as pleased themselves. We
were helpless. Impossible to go on alone; impossible also to explain to them why every moment was precious, for the
acquaintance who had acted as interpreter had been obliged to stay behind at Sardarbulakh, and we were absolutely
without means of communication with our companions. One could not even be angry, had there been any use in that,
for they were perfectly good-humored. It was all very well to beckon them, or pull them by the elbow, or clap them on
the back; they thought this was only our fun, and sat still and chattered all the same. When it grew light enough to see
the hands of a watch, and mark how the hours advanced while the party did not, we began for a second time to
despair of success.
I fancy we passed, in a grassy hollow at about 9000 feet above the sea, the spot, which they call the Hermitage,
which seems to be the site of General Chodzko’s meteorological camp of July and August 1850. He told me there was
a spring there, but either it is dry at this season or else we missed it. There was pasture in many places, but we saw no
cattle. What we were able to remark and enjoy was the changing aspect of the sky. About 3 AM, there suddenly
sprang up, from behind the Median mountains, the morning star, shedding a light such as no star ever gave in these
northern climates of ours, a light that almost outshone the moon.
As we scrambled along a ridge above a long narrow winding glen filled with loose blocks, one of the Kurds
suddenly swooped down, like a vulture, from the height on a spot at the bottom, and began peering and grubbing
among the stones. In a minute or two he cried out, and the rest followed: he had found a spring, and by scraping in the
gravel had made a tiny basin out of which we could manage to drink a little. Here was a fresh cause of delay;
everybody was thirsty, and everybody must drink. When at last we got them up and away again, they began to dawdle
and straggle; after a while two or three sat down, and plainly gave us to see they would go no farther. By the time we
had reached a little snow-bed whence the now strong sun was drawing a stream of water, and halted on the rocks
beside it for breakfast, there were only two Cossacks and the four Kurds left with us, the rest having scattered
themselves about somewhere lower down.
Accordingly I resolved to take what I wanted in the way of food, and start at my own pace. We were now at a
height of about 12,000 feet. Everything lay below us, except Little Ararat opposite. The Kurds never come higher on
the mountain than their flocks can find pasture, and on this side at least the pasture does not reach so high as where
we were. Moreover, they have a superstitious reverence for he mountain, scarcely less than that of the Armenians:
only, while the Armenian faithful believe it to be guarded by angels, the Kurds hold it to be the favorite haunt of devils
and Jinn, who are ready to take vengeance on the disturber of their revels. The shepherds, therefore, avoid the heights
as much as possible. It was an odd position to be in: guides of two different races, unable to communicate either with
us or with one another, guides who could not lead and would not follow, guides one-half of whom were supposed to be
there to save us from being robbed and murdered by the other half, but all of whom, I am bound to say, looked for the
moment equally simple and friendly, the swarthy Iranian as well as the blue-eyed Slav.
At eight o-clock I buckled on my canvas gaiters, thrust some crusts of bread, a lemon, a small flask of cold tea,
four hard-boiled eggs, and a few meat lozenges into my pocket, bade good-bye to my friend, and set off. Rather to our
surprise, the two Cossacks and one of the Kurds came with me, whether persuaded by a pantomime of encouraging
signs, or simply curious to see what would happen. The ice-axe had hugely amused the Cossacks all through. This
slope, a sort of talus or “screes,” as they say in the Lake country, was excessively fatiguing from the want of firm
foothold, and when I reached the other side, I was already so tired and breathless, having been on foot since midnight,
that it seemed almost useless to persevere farther. However, on the other side, I got upon solid rock, where the
walking was better, and was soon environed by a multitude of rills bubbling down over the stones from the snowslopes
above. The summit of Little Ararat, which had for the last two hours provokingly kept at the same apparent
height above me, began to sink, and before ten o’clock I could look down upon its small flat top, studded with lumps of
rock, but bearing no trace of a crater. Mounting steadily along the same ridge, I saw at a height of over 13,000 feet,
lying on the loose blocks, a piece of wood about four feet long and five inches thick, evidently cut by some tool, and so
far above the limit of trees that it could by no possibility be a natural fragment of one. Darting on it with a glee that
astonished the Cossack and the Kurd, I held it up to them, made them look at it, and repeated several times the word
“Noah.” The Cossack grinned, but he was such a cheery, genial fellow that I think he would have grinned whatever I
had said, and I cannot be sure that he took my meaning, and recognized the wood as a fragment of the true Ark.
Whether it was really gopher wood, of which material the Ark was built, I will not undertake to say, but am willing to
submit to the inspection of the curious the bit which I cut off with my ice-axe and brought away. Anyhow, it will be hard
to prove that it is not gopher wood. And if there be any remains of the Ark on Ararat at all—a point as to which the
natives are perfectly clear—here rather than the top is the place where one might expect to find them, since in the
course of ages they would get carried down by the onward movement of the snow-beds along the declivities. This