Barnes. Pdf

 
Chapters 
50
Her employer corrected her. `It is a holy mountain.' She gave an impatient sigh. `There always appear to be two 
explanations of everything. That is why we have been given free will, in order that we may choose the correct one. My father 
failed to comprehend that his explanations were based as much upon faith as mine. Faith in nothing. It would be all vapour and 
clouds and rising air to him. But who created the vapour, who created the clouds? Who ensured that Noah's mountain of all 
mountains would be blessed each day with a halo of cloud?' 
`Exactly,' said Miss Logan, not entirely in agreement. 
That day they encountered an Armenian priest who informed them that the mountain towards which they were heading had 
never been ascended and, moreover, never would be. When Miss Fergusson politely suggested the name of Dr Parrot, the 
priest assured her that she was mistaken. Perhaps she was confusing Massis - as he referred to Great Ararat - with the volcano 
far to the south which the Turks called Sippan Dagh. The Ark of Noah, before it found its final resting-place, had struck the 
summit of Sippan Dagh and removed its cap, thereby exposing the inner fires of the earth. That mountain, he understood, was 
accessible to man, but not Massis. On this 
[p. 155] 
subject, if on nothing else, Christian and Mussulman agreed. And furthermore, went on the priest, was it not so proven by Holy 
Scripture? The mountain before them was the birthplace of mankind; and he referred the ladies, while excusing himself with an 
ingratiating laugh for mentioning an indelicate subject, to the authority of Our Saviour's words to Nicodemus, where it is stated 
that a man cannot enter a second time into his mother's womb and be born once more. 
As they were parting, the priest drew from his pocket a small black amulet, worn smooth over many centuries. It was, he 
claimed, a piece of bitumen which assuredly had once formed part of the hull of Noah's Ark, and had great value in the 
averting of mischief. Since the ladies had expressed such interest in the mountain of Massis, then perhaps ... 
Miss Fergusson courteously responded to the suggested transaction by pointing out that if indeed it was impossible to 
ascend the mountain, then the likelihood of their believing that the amulet could be a piece of bitumen from the Patriarch's 
vessel was not very great. The Armenian, however, saw no incompatibility between his two propositions. Perhaps a bird had 
carried it down, as the dove had borne the olive branch. Or it might have been brought by an angel. Did not tradition relate how 
Saint James had three times attempted to ascend Massis, and on the third occasion been told by an angel that it was forbidden, 
but that the angel had given him a plank of wood from the Ark, and there where he had received it was founded the monastery 
of Saint James? 
They parted without a bargain being struck. Miss Logan, embarrassed by Our Lord's words to Nicodemus, was instead 
thinking about bitumen: was that not the material used by artists to blacken the shadows in their paintings? Miss Fergusson, on 
the other hand, had merely been put into a temper: first by the attempt to thrust some foolish meaning on to the scriptural 
verse; and secondly by the priest's brazen commercial behaviour. She had yet to be impressed by the Eastern clergy, who not 
only countenanced belief in the miraculous powers of human teeth, but actually traded in bogus religious relics. It 
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was monstrous. They should be punished for it. No doubt they would be. Miss Logan examined her employer apprehensively. 
The next day they crossed a relentless plain of reeds and coarse grass, relieved only by colonies of bustard and the black 
tents of Kurdish tribesmen. They stopped for the night in a small village a day's ride from the foot of the mountain. After a 
meal of cream cheese and salted salmon trout from the Gokchai, the two women stood in the dark air scented with apricot and 
looked towards the mountain of Noah. The range before them contained two separate crescendi: Great Ararat, a bulky, broad-
shouldered mass like a buttressed dome, and Little Ararat, some four thousand feet lower, an elegant cone with smooth and 
regular sides. Miss Fergusson did not think it fanciful to perceive in the comparative design and height of the two Ararats a 
bodying-forth of that primal divide in the human race between the two sexes. She did not communicate this reflection to Miss 
Logan, who had so far proved dismally unreceptive to the transcendental. 
As if to confirm her pedestrian turn of mind, Miss Logan at this point revealed that it had been a matter of curiosity to her 
since childhood how the Ark had succeeded in resting upon the top of a mountain. Had the peak risen up from the waters and 
punctured the keel, thereby skewering the vessel in place? For if not, how otherwise had the Ark avoided a precipitous descent 
as the waters had retreated? 
'Others before you have had similar reflections,' replied Miss Fergusson with distinct lack of indulgence. `Marco Polo 
insisted that the mountain was made in the shape of a cube, which would certainly have explained the matter. My father would 
probably have agreed with him, had he given the subject his attention. But we can see that this is not the case. Those who have 
ascended to the peak of Great Ararat inform us that close below the summit there is a gently sloping valley. It is', she specified, 
as if Miss Logan could not otherwise understand the matter, 'approximately half the size of Green Park in London. As a place 
of disembarkation it would be both natural and safe,' 
`So the Ark did not land on the very summit?' 
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`Scripture makes no such claim,' 
As they approached Arghuri, which lay at a height of more than six thousand feet above sea level, the temperature of the air 
became more genial. Three miles below the village they came upon the first of the hallowed plantations of Father Noah. The 
vines had just finished flowering, and tiny dark green grapes hung intermittently among the foliage. A peasant put down his 
rough hoe and conducted the unexpected party to the village elder, who received their offering of gunpowder with formal 
thanks yet little surprise. Miss Logan was sometimes irked by such civility. The elder was behaving as if parties of white 
women were constantly presenting him with gunpowder. 

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