Across Asia on a Bicycle Part 10

FOOTNOTE

1 Eight years before the first recorded ascent of Ararat by Dr. Parrot (1829), there appeared the following from "Travels in Georgia, Persia, Armenia, and Ancient Babylonia," by Sir Robert Ker Porter, who, in his time, was an authority on southwestern Asia: "These inaccessible heights [of Mount Ararat] have never been trod by the foot of man since the days of Noah, if even then; for my idea is that the Ark rested in the s.p.a.ce between the two heads (Great and Little Ararat), and not on the top of either. Various attempts have been made in different ages to ascend these tremendous mountain pyramids, but in vain. Their forms, snows, and glaciers are insurmountable obstacles: the distance being so great from the commencement of the icy region to the highest points, cold alone would be the destruction of any one who had the hardihood to persevere."