Note 3 — Chapter II · TO LAKE VAN

The rawness of the climate in the plain of Alashkert had disappeared when we reached Köshk.3 The weather became mild, and the sun shone freely from a sky almost devoid of cloud. When next morning we were again in the saddle at twenty minutes after seven, the mown pastures looked green and fresh after the rain of the preceding evening, and it was a delight to breathe the crisp air. We could still see the distant dome of the Kuseh Dagh; the ridge on our left hid the lower slopes of Sipan. We rode towards the still remote promontory of that grassy ridge, and the gap between the outlines in the hills. At a little after eight we had reached the passage; it appeared to have a width of about a mile. It leads from the undulating plains about Köshk to the level plain of Patnotz. The ground falls away by a succession of inequalities to a spacious area of flat alluvial land. Beyond that lake-like surface rises the fabric of a single mountain, the broad base, the vaulted slopes, the massive crown. Sipan was at last exposed from foot to summit, recalling by many a characteristic the majestic Ararat.4 There was the same length of sweep, the same symmetry of structure, the same rounded central form. And if we missed the gardens and the immense expanse of the campagna of Erivan, this open plain seemed to repeat the surroundings of Ararat on a scale exactly suited to Sipan.