that with which Swiss guides start.  However, we were soon cruelly undeceived.  In twenty-five minutes there came a steep bit, and at the top of it they flung themselves down on the grass to rest.  So did we all.  Less than half a mile farther, down they dropped again, and this time we were obliged to give the signal for resuming the march.  In another quarter of an hour they were down once more, and so it continued for the rest of the way.  Every ten minutes’ walking—­it was seldom steep enough to be called actual climbing—­was followed by seven or eight minutes of sitting still, smoking and chattering.  How they did chatter!  It was to no purpose that we continued to move on when they sat down, or that we rose to go before they had sufficiently rested.  They looked at one another, so far as I could make out by the faint light, and occasionally they laughed; but they would not and did not stir till such time as pleased themselves.  We were helpless.  Impossible to go on alone; impossible also to explain to them why every moment was precious, for the acquaintance who had acted as interpreter had been obliged to stay behind at Sardarbulakh, and we were absolutely without means of communication with our companions.  One could not even be angry, had there been any use in that, for they were perfectly good-humored.  It was all very well to beckon them, or pull them by the elbow, or clap them on the back; they thought this was only our fun, and sat still and chattered all the same.  When it grew light enough to see the hands of a watch, and mark how the hours advanced while the party did not, we began for a second time to despair of success.

About 3 A.M. there suddenly sprang up from behind the Median mountains the morning star, shedding a light such as no star ever gave in these northern climes of ours,—­a light that almost outshone the moon.  An hour later it began to pale in the first faint flush of yellowish light that spread over the eastern heaven; and first the rocky masses above us, then Little Ararat, throwing behind him a gigantic shadow, then the long lines of mountains beyond the Araxes, became revealed, while the wide Araxes plain still lay dim and shadowy below.  One by one the stars died out as the yellow turned to a deeper glow that shot forth in long streamers, the rosy fingers of the dawn, from the horizon to the zenith.  Cold and ghostly lay the snows on the mighty cone; till at last there came upon their topmost slope, six thousand feet above us, a sudden blush of pink.  Swiftly it floated down the eastern face, and touched and kindled the rocks just above us.  Then the sun flamed out, and in a moment the Araxes valley and all the hollows of the savage ridges we were crossing were flooded with overpowering light.