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Chapters 
85
Christian pilgrimage, and didn't the ancient pilgrims always rough it? While he wasn't suggesting they took anything short of 
the best when it came to tents and ropes and boots and wrist-
[p. 269]
watches, he did feel they should hope to feel guided by something other than modern technology once they got up there. 
The Reverend Gibson's pastoral activities precluded him from making the trip to Turkey, but he would furnish spiritual 
back-up and constantly remind the Almighty by means of prayer that his two fellow committee-members were going about the 
Lord's business in a far country. Betty would stay at home and field media inquiries which were sure to be running hot. The 
expeditionary party - Spike and Jimmy - were to depart in July of that year, 1977. They declined to make predictions about 
how long they would be away. You did not seek to outdraw the Lord, said the Reverend Gibson, unless you wanted a slug in 
the gut. 
Various supplies had been gifted by well-wishers, church congregations and survivalist stores; and as Betty opened the 
parcels which continued to arrive right up to the eve of departure, she wondered at how the Project was being perceived in 
some quarters. A few of the offerings sure seemed less than Christian. You might have deduced from a glimpse of the Tigglers' 
Expedition Room that Spike and Jimmy were a couple of naked refugees being sent as hired killers to exterminate most of 
Eastern Turkey. 
They left behind a lot of old clothes, some automatic weapons, four stun grenades, a garrotte and a couple of suicide pills 
donated by some zealot. Their payload included light-weight camping equipment, vitamin pills, a Japanese camera with one of 
the new zoom lenses, credit cards, American Express travellers' checks, running shoes, a pint of bourbon, thermal socks and 
underwear, a large plastic bag of branflakes to keep them regular, anti-diarrhea tablets, an infra-red night-sight, water-purifying 
pills, freeze-dried vacuum-packed food, a lucky horseshoe, flashlights, dental tape, reserve batteries for their electric razors, a 
pair of scabbard knives sharp enough to cut gopher-wood or disembowel an assailant, mosquito repellent, sunburn cream and 
the Bible. When Jimmy secretly checked their baggage he found the folded husk of a football and a small compressed-air 
device for inflating it; he repacked them
[p. 270]
carefully, with an indulgent grin. When Spike secretly checked the baggage he came across a box of rubbers, which he threw 
away and never raised with Jimmy. The committee discussed what the expedition should take as tokens of goodwill to 
distribute to the peasants of Eastern Turkey. Betty thought some color postcards of Spike on the moon's surface, but Spike felt 
this would be hitting the wrong note, seeing as they weren't on a personal ego trip but going about the Lord's business. After 
further reflection they took two hundred buttons commemorating the inauguration of President Jimmy Carter and his First 
Lady the lovely Rosalynn, which a friend of the Reverend Gibson's had been able to let them have at way below cost, and 
happy to be rid of them he was. 
They flew to Ankara where they had to rent tuxedos for the fine dinner offered them by the Ambassador. Spike disguised 
his disappointment that most of the guests wanted to talk astronautics and seemed positively reluctant to question him about 
Project Ararat. Later they proved unimpressed, not to say downright miserly, when Spike in his after-dinner speech made a 
patriotic appeal for extra funds. 
The message Betty had sent to Erzerum via Interchurch Travel about hiring a jeep or Land Rover couldn't have got through, 
and the expedition therefore proceeded in a large Mercedes. East to Horasan, then east-south-east for Dogubayazit. The 
countryside was neat, kind of pale green and pale brown at the same time. They ate fresh apricots and distributed images of the 
smiling Carters to small children, some of whom seemed pleased, though others continued to press for dollars or, failing that, 
ball-points. The military were everywhere, which caused Spike to reflect on the strategic significance of the area. It came as 
news to Jimmy that only a hundred or so years earlier Mount Ararat, or Agri Dagi as the locals insisted on calling it, had been 
the meeting-point of three great empires - Russia, Persia and Turkey - with the mountain divided between the three of them. 
'Doesn't seem right, the Soviets having a piece of it,' commented Jimmy. 
[p. 271] 
`Guess they weren't Soviets at the time,' said Spike. `They were Christians like us when they were just Russians.' 
`Mebbe the Lord took their slice of the mountain away from them when they became Soviets.' 
`Mebbe,' replied Spike, not wholly certain of when the boundaries had shifted. 
`Like, not letting his holy mountain fall into the hands of infidels.' 
`I read you,' said Spike, a little irritated. `But I guess the Turks aren't exactly Christians.' 
`They're not as infidel as the Soviets.' Jimmy appeared reluctant to give up his theory at the first objection. 
`Check.'
On the road north from Dogubayazit Spike shouted for Jimmy to stop the car. They got out and Spike pointed to a small 
stream. Gently, but unarguably, the water in it was flowing uphill. 
`Praise the Lord,' said Spike Tiggler, and knelt to pray. Jimmy bent his head a few degrees, but remained on his feet. After 
a couple of minutes Spike went back to the Merc and filled two plastic water-bottles from the stream. 
'It's the land of miracles,' he announced as they set off once more. 
Jimmy Fulgood, geologist and scuba-diver, let a few miles go by, then tried to explain how it was not scientifically 
impossible for a stream to flow uphill. It depended on a certain weight and pressure of water higher up the mountain, and on 
the apparently uphill stretch being a comparatively small section of an overall descent. The phenomenon had, as far as he 
knew, been reported on previous occasions. Spike, who was driving, kept nodding away as cheerful as they come. 'Dare say 
you can explain it like that,' he commented at the end. `Point is, who made the water to flow uphill in the first place? Who put 

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J
ULIAN 
B
ARNES
: A History of the World in 10 ½