had risen above the highest peak of Caucasus, he had departed from
the Lars Monastery, leaving a handsome donation in the poor-box
toward the various charitable works in which the brethren were
engaged, such as the rescue of travellers lost in the snow, or the
burial of the many victims murdered on or near the Pass of Dariel
by the bands of fierce mountain robbers and assassins, that at
certain seasons infest that solitary region. Making the best of
his way to the fortress of Passanaur, he there joined a party of
adventurous Russian climbers who had just successfully
accomplished the assent of Mount Kazbek, and in their company
proceeded through the rugged Aragua valley to Tiflis, which he
reached that same evening. From this dark and dismal-looking town,
shadowed on all sides by barren and cavernous hills, he dispatched
the manuscript of his mysteriously composed poem, together with
the letter concerning it, to his friend Villiers in England,--and
then, yielding to a burning sense of impatience within himself,--
impatience that would brook no delay,--he set out resolutely, and
at once, on his long pilgrimage to the "land of sand and ruin and
gold"--the land of terrific prophecy and stern fulfilment,--the
land of mighty and mournful memories, where the slow river
Euphrates clasps in its dusky yellow ring the ashes of great
kingdoms fallen to rise no more.




CHAPTER VIII.

BY THE WATERS OF BABYLON.