Note 7 — Chapter XII · ASCENT OF ARARAT

It was seven o’clock, and we had no sooner halted than the biting frost numbed our limbs.7 The ground about us was not uneven, but an endless crop of pebbles filled the plainer spaces between little capes of embedded rock. At length upon the margin of the snow-lake we found a tiny tongue of turf-grown soil—just sufficient emplacement to hold the flying tent which we had brought for the purpose of this lofty bivouac near the line of continuous snow. We were five to share the modest area which the sloping canvas enclosed; yet the temperature in the tent sank below freezing before the night was done. Down the slope beside us the snow water trickled beneath a thin covering of ice. The sheep-skin coats which we had brought from Aralykh protected us from chill, but the hardy Kurds slept in their seamy tatters upon the naked rocks around. One among them sought protection as the cold became intenser, and we wrapped him in a warm cape. It was the first time I had passed the night at so great an elevation—12,194 feet above the sea—and it is possible that the unwonted rarity of the atmosphere contributed to keep us awake. But, whether it may have arisen from the conditions which surrounded us, or from a nervous state of physical excitement inspired by our enterprise, not one among us, excepting the dragoman, succeeded in courting sleep. That plump little person had struggled on bravely to this his furthest goal, and his heavy breathing fell upon the silence of the calm, transparent night.