little upwards while being pressed, it remains hanging; if it is
only pressed horizontally, it falls off again.

Not far from Noah's tomb stands another very handsome monument;
unfortunately I could not learn to whose memory it was erected, or
to what age it belonged. It consists of a high building, resembling
a tower with twelve angles; the walls between the angles are
covered, from top to bottom, with the most artistic mathematical
figures in triangles and sexagons, and some places are inlaid with
glazed tiles. The monument is surrounded by a wall, forming a small
court-yard; at the entrance-gates stand half-ruined towers, like
minarets.

17th August. I felt very unwell today, which was the more
unpleasant, as the caravan started in the evening. For several days
I had been unable to take any food, and suffered from excessive
lassitude. Nevertheless I left my rest, and mounted my caravan nag;
I thought that change of air would be the best restorative.

Fortunately we went only a short distance beyond the city gate, and
remained there during the night and the following day. We did not
proceed any further until the evening of the 18th of August. The
caravan only conveyed goods, and the drivers were Tartars. The
journey from Natschivan to Tiflis is generally made in from twelve
to fourteen days; but with my caravan, to judge from the progress we
made at the commencement, it would have occupied six weeks, for on
the first day we went scarcely any distance, and on the second, very
little more than the first; I should have travelled quicker on foot.

19th August. It is really unbearable. During the whole day we lay
in waste stubble-fields, exposed to the most scorching heat, and did
not mount our horses until 9 o'clock in the evening; about an hour
afterwards we halted, and encamped. The only thing good about this
caravan was the food. The Tartars do not live so frugally as the
Arabs. Every evening an excellent pillau was made with good-tasting
fat, frequently with dried grapes or plums. Almost every day
beautiful water and sugar-melons were brought to us to buy. The
sellers, mostly Tartars, always selected a small lot and offered it
to me as a present.

The road led continually through large, fertile valleys round the
foot of Ararat. Today I saw the majestic mountain very clearly, and
in tolerable proximity. I should think we were not more than two or
three miles from it. It seemed, from its magnitud