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86
it where He did so that we should see it as we were passing on the road to Ararat? The Good Lord, that's who. It's the land of 
miracles,' he repeated, nodding contentedly. 
Jimmy had always found Spike an optimistic kind of guy; 
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here in Turkey he became frankly ebullient. Neither mosquitoes nor misfortune troubled him; his tipping showed a true 
Christian generosity; and he had the habit, whenever they passed a cow on the road, of winding down the window and shouting 
to its owner, or even just to the countryside in general, `Drive it or milk it, fella!' At times this could get to bug you, but Jimmy 
was one hundred ten per cent funded by Project Ararat, so he endured such high spirits as he would have suffered bad temper. 
They drove until the road ran out and the two shapes of Great and Little Ararat rose ahead of them. 
`Kinda like man and wife, ain't it?' Spike remarked.
`How d'ya mean?' 
`Brother and sister, Adam and Eve. The big one there and that little neat pretty one by his side. See? Male and female 
created He them.' 
`Do you think the Lord had that in mind at the time?' 
`The Lord has everything in mind,' said Spike Tiggler. `All the time.' Jimmy Fulgood looked at the twin shapes ahead of 
them and kept to himself the reflection that Betty Tiggler was an inch or two taller than Spike. 
They sorted their equipment before entrusting themselves to the two feet the Lord had provided them with. They left the 
bourbon in the trunk, sensing that it was wrong to consume alcoholic liquor on the Lord's mountain; neither had they any more 
need for the Carter buttons. They took their travellers' checks, lucky horseshoe and Bible. During the transfer of supplies, 
Jimmy caught Spike sneaking the deflated football into his backpack. Then they set off up the southern approaches to the 
mountain, the lanky ex-basketball star a few yards behind the exuberant astronaut, like a junior officer trailing a general. From 
time to time Jimmy's geological interests made him want to stop and examine the rock; but Spike always insisted that they 
push on. 
They were alone on the mountain and found their solitude exalting. They saw lizards on the lower slopes, ibex and wild 
goats higher up. They climbed above the operational altitude of 
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hawks and buzzards, up toward the snowline where the only movement was the occasional dart of a small fox. In the cold 
nights Jimmy wrote up the expedition journal and Spike read his Bible by the stark and hissing glare of their gas-lamp. 
They began on the south-eastern slope, that area of lukewarm agreement between church and science. They probed rocky 
gulches and looked in barren caves. Jimmy was uncertain whether they were due to find the whole Ark, preserved intact - in 
which case they probably couldn't miss it - or just some significant remnant: the rudder, perhaps, or some planks still caulked 
with bitumen. 
Their first rough survey revealed nothing, which neither surprised nor disappointed them. They crossed the snowline and 
headed for the summit. Towards the end of their climb the sky slowly began to change color, until by the time they reached the 
top it appeared bright green. This place was full of miracles. Spike knelt in prayer, and Jimmy briefly joined him. Immediately 
below them was a gently sloping valley of snow, which ran down to a secondary peak. This could have made a natural resting-
place for the Ark. But they searched it without success. 
The northern side of the mountain was split by an enormous fissure. Spike pointed to where this chasm ran out, some 
thousands of feet below them, and said there'd once been a monastery down there. Real monks and all. Then in 1840, he said, a 
terrible earthquake had gotten hold of the mountain and shaken it like a dog with a rat, and the little church had fallen down, 
and so had the village below it, some name beginning with an A. Everyone had been killed, apparently, and even if they hadn't 
they would have been a bit later. See this fissure, well, four or five days after the quake a build-up of snow and water started to 
move down it. Nothing could stand in its way. Like the vengeance of the Lord. Wiped the monastery and the little village off 
the face of the earth. 
Jimmy Fulgood nodded seriously to himself as he listened to the story. All this had happened, he told himself, at a time 
when the Soviets had owned this slice of the mountain. Of 
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course they were Russians then, and Christians, but it proved the Lord sure did have it in for the Soviets, even before they were 
Soviets. 
They searched for three weeks. Jimmy wondered if the Ark might be buried deep in the cornice of ice which encircled the 
mountain; and Spike agreed this might be possible but if so the Lord would surely indicate it in some way. The Lord would not 
send them upon the mountain and then conceal from them the very reason for sending them there: such was not the nature of 
the Lord. Jimmy bowed to Spike on this. They searched by eye, binocular and infra-red night-sight. Spike waited for a sign. 
Was he sure he would recognize the sign when it came? Perhaps they should search in whichever direction the wind blew 
them. They searched in the direction the wind blew them. They found nothing. 
Each day, as the sun heated up the plain below them and the warm air rose, a halo of cloud formed itself around the 
mountain-top, shutting off their view of the lower slopes; and each night, as the air cooled, the cloud dispersed. At the end of 
three weeks they came down to collect more supplies from the trunk of the Mercedes. They drove to the nearest village, from 
where Spike sent Betty a card saying No News Is Good News, which struck Betty as less clear than it could have been. Then 
they returned to the mountain and searched for another three weeks. During this period there was a full moon, and Spike would 
gaze up at it every night, remembering how the present mission had begun up there in the shifting dust. One night Jimmy stood 

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