Note 2 — Chapter II · ASCENT TO ARMENIA

We reach our point, and there before us expands the open landscape of which the second photograph embraces a considerable part (Fig. 7). We are standing on the southern slopes of Caucasus, with a wide belt of hill and ridge behind us, and, beyond and far above such familiar natural features, the white serrations and air-borne snowfields of the inmost chain. The atmosphere is fresh and crisp even at this season and with this temperature;2 and banks of white cloud float in the sky. At our feet lies Kutais, with head upon the hillside and foot upon the margin of the plain; the eye follows the winding river which has just escaped from Caucasus and is flowing outwards towards the opposite range; the horizon is closed by that wall of mountain, emerging solid from a tender veil of mist. The plain itself is flat as water; it is coloured with the golden hues of the ripening maize-fields and featured by a labyrinth of vague detail. On the left hand, outside the photograph, a little north of east, you just discern high on the slopes beyond the left bank of the Rion the site of the monastery of Gelat; and the other day we thought we could descry from its lofty terrace, at the base of a distant promontory of Caucasus the shimmer of the sea in the west.