Note 4 — Chapter VIII · FROM MUSH TO ERZERUM

After a stay in this settlement of an hour and three-quarters, we continued our journey at a quarter before four. Our course was about the same, and we reached the foot of the northern barrier at half-past four o’clock. Although the level of the ground had risen, the ascent to the monastery occupied over an hour. It is situated among the uppermost recesses of the wall of mountain, at an elevation of about 6400 feet, or of 2200 feet above the trough of the plain.4 We wound our way up a cleft in the face of the rock, through a bush of low oak. The temperature fell, and we became enveloped in banks of cloud. A drizzling rain turned to snow before we reached the cloister, and next morning the adjacent slopes were cloaked in white. The monks informed us that it was the first fall of snow which they had experienced during the course of this brilliant autumn.