waves of the sea deprived of motion, when the southern peak of Ararat
(for there are two), snow-clad and 'cloud-clapt' suddenly burst upon
my view! At first I scarcely dared venture to believe we were so near
this celebrated mount, though its situation and the distance we had
journeyed from Tabreez left no doubt of the fact. I even questioned
the guide, and on his answering that it was the summit of Agri-Dagh
(the name by which Ararat is called by the Turks), I involuntarily
clasped my hands in ecstacy! Who can contemplate this superb elevation
without a mixture of awe and admiration, or fail to recur to the page
of sacred writ illustrative of Almighty wrath and the just man's
recompense? Who can gaze upon the majesty of this mount, towering
above the 'high places' and the hills, and turn without repining to
the plains beneath, where puny man has pitched his tent and wars upon
his fellow, mocking the sublimity of Nature with his paltry tyranny? I
felt as if I lived in other times, and my eye eagerly but vainly
sought for some traces of that 'ark' which furnished a refuge and a
shelter to the creatures of God's mercy when the 'waters prevailed,
and were increased greatly on the earth,' till 'all in whose nostrils
was the breath of life, and all that was in the dry land, died!'

"Though distant forty miles at least from the base of Ararat, the
magnitude of the mountain, of about the centre of which our elevated
position now placed us abreast, caused it to appear contiguous to our
route, and produced that indefinable thrill and sense of humility
which the immediate presence of any vast and overpowering object is so
eminently calculated to generate. I continued to gaze until the
decline of day warned us to seek a shelter, and Phoebus, casting a
parting glance at the crystal summit of the noble glacier, for a
moment diffused over all a soft rosy tint,[20] then sunk into the west
and left the world in darkness."