At Arax she crossed the frontier of Asiatic Russia,
the dominions of the "White Tsar," who, in Asia as in Europe, is ever
pressing more and more closely on the "unspeakable Turk." At Natschivan
she joined a caravan which was bound for Tiflis, and the drivers of which
were Tartars. She says of the latter, that they do not live so frugally
as the Arabs. Every evening a savoury pillau was made with good-tasting
fat, frequently with dried grapes or plums. They also partook largely of
fruits.
The caravan wound through the fair and fertile valleys which lie at the
base of Ararat. Of that famous and majestic mountain, which lifts its
white glittering crest of snow some sixteen thousand feet above the sea-
level, our traveller obtained a fine view. Its summit is cloven into two
peaks, and in the space between an old tradition affirms that Noah's ark
landed at the subsidence of the Great Flood.
[Mount Ararat: page123.jpg]
In the neighbourhood of a town called Sidin, Madame Pfeiffer met with a
singular adventure. She was returning from a short walk, when, hearing
the sound of approaching post-horses, she paused for a minute to see the
travellers, and noticed a Russian, seated in an open car, with a Cossack
holding a musket by his side. As soon as the vehicle had passed, she
resumed her course; when, to her astonishment, it suddenly stopped, and
almost at the same moment she felt a fierce grasp on her arms.
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