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+in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES.
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+Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for
+eBook #51492 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/51492)
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-The Project Gutenberg EBook of Armenia, Travels and Studies (Volume 1 of 2), by 
-H. F. B. Lynch
-
-This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most
-other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
-whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of
-the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at
-www.gutenberg.org.  If you are not located in the United States, you'll have
-to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook.
-
-Title: Armenia, Travels and Studies (Volume 1 of 2)
-       The Russian Provinces
-
-Author: H. F. B. Lynch
-
-Release Date: March 18, 2016 [EBook #51492]
-
-Language: English
-
-Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
-
-*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ARMENIA, TRAVELS AND STUDIES ***
-
-
-
-
-Produced by Jeroen Hellingman and the Online Distributed
-Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net/ for Project
-Gutenberg in commemoration of the 100th anniversary of the
-Armenian Genocide.
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-                                ARMENIA
-
-                          TRAVELS AND STUDIES
-
-
-                                   BY
-                             H. F. B. LYNCH
-
-
-
-                    Nature's vast frame, the web of human things.
-
-                                                       Shelley, Alastor.
-
-                    Who can foretell our future? Spare me the attempt.
-                    We are like a harvest reaped by bad husbandmen
-                    amidst encircling gloom and cloud.
-
-                                                         John Katholikos
-                     Armenian historian of the Xth century Ch. CLXXXVII.
-
-
-
-                             IN TWO VOLUMES
-
-          WITH 197 ILLUSTRATIONS, REPRODUCED FROM PHOTOGRAPHS
-                      AND SKETCHES BY THE AUTHOR,
-                NUMEROUS MAPS AND PLANS, A BIBLIOGRAPHY
-
-              And a Map of Armenia and Adjacent Countries
-
-                                 VOL. I
-
-                         THE RUSSIAN PROVINCES
-
-
-
-                        LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO.
-                       LONDON: 39 PATERNOSTER ROW
-                          NEW YORK AND BOMBAY
-
-                                  1901
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-PREFACE
-
-
-This book contains the account of two separate journeys in Armenia,
-the first extending from August 1893 to March 1894, and the second
-from May to September 1898. Before embarking upon them, I was already
-familiar with the contiguous countries, having spent a considerable
-portion of the years 1889 and 1890 in Mesopotamia and Persia. The
-routes shown in my map from Aleppo to Diarbekr and down the Tigris,
-and from Batum across Georgia and the Caspian to Resht, were taken
-during the course of these earlier wanderings, and they contribute
-no part of the ensuing narrative.
-
-What attracted me to Armenia? I had no interests public or private in
-a country which has long been regarded even by Asiatic travellers as a
-land of passage along prescribed routes. One inducement was curiosity:
-what lay beyond those mountains, drawn in a wide half-circle along
-the margin of the Mesopotamian plains? The sources of the great rivers
-which carried me southwards, a lake with the dimensions of an inland
-sea, the mountain of the Ark, the fabled seat of Paradise.
-
-With each step forward in my knowledge of the countries west of India
-came a corresponding increase of my original emotion. Sentimental
-were reinforced by purely practical considerations; and I seemed to
-see that the knot of politics tightening year by year around these
-countries was likely to be resolved in Armenia. I became impatient
-to set foot upon Armenian soil.
-
-When my wish was realised, my first experiences of the country
-and of the Armenians in the Russian provinces exceeded my
-expectations--fringed with doubt as these were by disappointment with
-much I had seen in the East. So I passed over the Russian frontier,
-struck across to the lake of Van, and spent the winter in Erzerum.
-
-When I came to setting down on the map my routes in Turkish Armenia,
-the scantiness of existing knowledge was painfully plain. I soon
-realised that it would be necessary to undertake a second journey
-for the purpose of acquiring the necessary framework upon which to
-hang the routes. Meanwhile the events occurred with which we are
-all familiar--the Armenian massacres, and the comedy of the concert
-of Europe.
-
-It was with difficulty that I was at length enabled to return to the
-country. These later travels were almost exclusively occupied with
-the natural features, our tents spread upon the great mountain masses,
-whence plain and lake and winding river were unfolded before us like
-a map.
-
-Primitive methods were rendered necessary for transferring these
-features to paper. One is not allowed in Turkey the use of elaborate
-or obvious instruments, and miles of ground had to be crossed in full
-view of Turkish officials before reaching the field of our work. But
-I was able to transport to Erzerum a standard mercurial barometer,
-which was duly set up in that centre and read several times a day
-during our absence. We carried two aneroids, a boiling-point apparatus,
-a four-inch prismatic compass, used upon a tripod and carefully tested
-at Kew; lastly, a rather troublesome but very satisfactory little
-instrument called a telemeter, and made by Steward. The measurements
-were checked by cross-readings with the compass, and we found that they
-could be relied upon. Once we were upon the mountains our operations
-were not impeded, and, indeed, were assisted by the authorities.
-
-I was accompanied on this second journey by my friend, Mr. F. Oswald,
-who had been helping me disentangle the voluminous works of the great
-Abich upon the geology of the Caucasus and Russian Armenia. The varied
-talents of Oswald were of the greatest service to the work in hand,
-while his society was a constant source of pleasure and repose. He
-is now engaged with the geological results of this journey, and with
-a well-considered study of the geology of Armenia as a whole. These
-he hopes to publish before very long.
-
-The illustrations are for the most part reproductions of my
-photographs, being a selection from a collection which fills several
-cases. On my first Armenian journey I was accompanied as far as
-Erzerum by Mr. E. Wesson of the Polytechnic in London, who not only
-developed the films and plates upon the spot, but rendered the most
-valuable assistance in the photographic work. He also displayed the
-qualities of a veteran campaigner before the journey was done. And
-I was always missing him after his return home and during the second
-journey, when the work devolved entirely upon myself.
-
-My cousin, Major H. B. Lynch, now serving in South Africa, travelled
-with us as far as Ararat and took charge of the camp. It is, I think,
-a legitimate cause for satisfaction that, except for momentary lapses
-on the part of the cook, not one of the party during either of the
-two long journeys fell ill or became incapable of hard work. And on
-both occasions the horses were sold at a small profit when the coast
-was at length reached.
-
-Why does one write a book? I find it difficult to answer the question,
-which, indeed, demands a knowledge of human nature greater than any I
-possess. There are societies and individuals who, I feel sure, would
-offer a price if the potential author would agree to keep his material
-to himself. The sum might probably be augmented by the contributions
-of weary students; and a revenue could be collected from these various
-sources far exceeding any royalties received from publishers. Moreover
-the author would escape the foreboding of condign punishment, which
-he is made to feel suspended over his head. On the other hand, there
-is the fascination of feeling possessed by a subject, stronger than
-yourself and elemental. And there is the joy and the impersonality
-of the work reacting upon the personality of the writer.
-
-The country and the people which form the theme of the ensuing pages
-are deserving, the one of enthusiasm and the other of the highest
-interest. It is very strange that such a fine country should have lain
-in shadow for so many centuries, and that even the standard works of
-Greek and Roman writers should display so little knowledge of its
-features and character. Much has been done to dispel the darkness
-during the progress of the expired century; and I have been at some
-pains to collect and co-ordinate the work of my predecessors. In this
-task I have been assisted by my friend, the Hon. Mrs. Arthur Pelham,
-to whom the credit of the bibliography accompanying my second volume
-is due.
-
-In taking leave of the book--and it has been a long connection--the
-mind rests with pleasure and gratitude upon the help given without
-stint by fellow-workers in the same or in different fields. To my
-friend, Mr. R. W. Graves, now Consul-General in Crete, I am indebted
-for a lengthy spell of hospitality and delightful companionship in
-distant Erzerum. I have borrowed freely from his intimate knowledge of
-extensive regions in Turkish Armenia, as well as from that acquired
-by my friend, Major Maunsell, now our Consul at Van, the principal
-contemporary authority on Kurdistan. Geheimrath Dr. G. Radde of
-Tiflis has rendered me valuable assistance on more than one occasion;
-and it is also a pleasure to feel conscious in many ways of my
-obligations to my friend, Mr. L. de Klupffell, formerly of Batum. At
-home I have received much kindness from Mr. Fortescue of the British
-Museum library, and from Dr. Mill, who has so long presided over the
-library of the Royal Geographical Society, and whose recent retirement
-from that office in order to devote himself to his scientific work
-is keenly regretted by those whom he encouraged by his assistance
-and advice. The book has brought me several new friends, among
-them Mr. F. C. Conybeare of Oxford, the extent of my debt to whom,
-in various directions, it would be difficult to estimate. Professor
-Sayce has kindly looked over the sheets dealing with the Vannic empire,
-and contributed several valuable suggestions. Prof. E. Denison Ross
-has helped me with the Mussulman inscriptions, besides informing me
-upon a number of obscure points.
-
-A portion of the narrative of the ascent of Ararat has already appeared
-in Messrs. Scribner's Magazine, reprinted in Mountain Climbing,
-a book published by this firm. Parts of the concluding chapters of
-each volume, entitled "Statistical and Political," have seen the
-light in the shape of a series of articles in the Contemporary Review.
-
-
-H. F. B. LYNCH.
-
-
-The map which accompanies my first volume will be on sale separately
-at Messrs. Stanford's in Longacre.
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-CONTENTS
-
-                                                                PAGE
-    CHAPTER I
-    The Coast and the Port                                         1
-
-    CHAPTER II
-    Ascent to Armenia                                             37
-
-    CHAPTER III
-    To Akhaltsykh                                                 53
-
-    CHAPTER IV
-    To Akhalkalaki                                                72
-
-    CHAPTER V
-    At Akhalkalaki                                                86
-
-    CHAPTER VI
-    Prospect from Abul                                            92
-
-    CHAPTER VII
-    Gorelovka and Queen Lukeria                                   96
-
-    CHAPTER VIII
-    To Alexandropol                                              118
-
-    CHAPTER IX
-    At Alexandropol                                              124
-
-    CHAPTER X
-    To Erivan                                                    133
-
-    CHAPTER XI
-    To Ararat                                                    143
-
-    CHAPTER XII
-    Ascent of Ararat                                             156
-
-    CHAPTER XIII
-    The Heart of Ararat                                          179
-
-    CHAPTER XIV
-    Return to Erivan                                             200
-
-    CHAPTER XV
-    At Erivan                                                    206
-
-    CHAPTER XVI
-    Edgmiatsin and the Armenian Church                           228
-
-    CHAPTER XVII
-    To Ani and to Kars                                           316
-
-    CHAPTER XVIII
-    Ani, and the Armenian Kingdom of the Middle Ages             334
-
-    CHAPTER XIX
-    Kars                                                         393
-
-    CHAPTER XX
-    Across the Spine of Armenia                                  409
-
-    CHAPTER XXI
-    Geographical                                                 421
-
-    CHAPTER XXII
-    Statistical and Political                                    446
-
-
-
-
-
-LIST OF PLATES
-
-    Ararat from Aralykh                                 Frontispiece
-    Trebizond from above the Head of the Western Ravine
-                                                     To face page 12
-    Trebizond: Hagia Sophia                                       24
-    Trebizond: Façade of Hagia Sophia on the South                25
-    Plain of the Rion from the Southern Slopes of Caucasus:
-    Kutais in the Foreground                                      46
-    View North from the Zikar Pass                   Back to page 52
-    View South from the Zikar Pass                                53
-    Safar: St. Saba from the West                                 62
-    Safar: Porch of St. Saba                                      63
-    Akhaltsykh from the Road to Akhalkalaki          To face page 65
-    Castle of Khertvis                                            76
-    Vardzia, the Troglodyte City                                  80
-    Mount Abul from Akhalkalaki                                   92
-    Summer Pavilion at Gorelovka                                 109
-    Alagöz from the Plain of Alexandropol                        122
-    Alexandropol from the Armenian Cemetery                      125
-    Ararat from near Aramzalu                                    153
-    Great Ararat from above Sardar Bulakh                        165
-    Our Kurd Porters on Ararat                                   167
-    Akhury: The Great Chasm from Aralykh                         179
-    Akhury: Inside the Great Chasm                               194
-    Erivan and Ararat from the North                             208
-    Erivan: Interior of the Kiosque of the Sirdars               216
-    Edgmiatsin: The Great Court and the Cathedral                243
-    Edgmiatsin: Ceremony of the Consecration of the
-    Katholikos--Anointing with Oil from the Beak of a
-        Golden Dove                                              254
-    Edgmiatsin: Interior of the Cathedral                        267
-    Edgmiatsin: Exterior of St. Ripsime                          269
-    Edgmiatsin: Exterior of St. Gaiane                           270
-    Edgmiatsin: Exterior of Shoghakath                           271
-    Talin: Mouldings on South Side of Ruinous Church             322
-    Walls and Gateway of the City of Ani from Outside,
-        looking East                                             369
-    Ani: The Cathedral from South-East                           370
-    Ani: Niche in Eastern Wall of Cathedral                      371
-    Ani: Apse of the Cathedral                                   372
-    Ani: Church of St. Gregory from the West                     373
-    Ani: North Wall of the Church of St. Gregory                 374
-    Ani: Detail of the Porch of St. Gregory                      375
-    Ani: Mosque and Minaret                                      376
-    Ani: Detail of Doorway of Chapel near Citadel                379
-    Ani: Chapel of St. Gregory, East Side                        380
-    Ani: Chapel of St. Gregory, Entrance                         381
-    Ani: Interior of the Chapel of St. Gregory                   382
-    Ani: Chapel of the Redeemer                                  383
-    Ani: Doorway of the Castle                                   384
-    Ani: Portal of the Church of the Apostles from the West      385
-    Ani: East Front of the Church of the Apostles                386
-    Khosha Vank: Pronaos                                         387
-    Khosha Vank: Exterior of Pronaos and Church from South-West  388
-    Khosha Vank: Hall of the Synod                               389
-    Looking down the Valley of Kagyzman                          417
-    A Rib or Buttress of Aghri Dagh                              419
-    Pass over Aghri Dagh                                         420
-
-
-
-ILLUSTRATIONS IN THE TEXT
-
-    Entrance to the Black Sea from the Bosphorus                   3
-    Interior of Hagia Sophia                                      27
-    Banks of the Rion above Kutais                                46
-    Road in the Forest                                            50
-    Georgians                                                     51
-    Portrait of Ivan                                              59
-    Group of Villagers at Khertvis                                77
-    Archimandrite and Deacon at Vardzia                           82
-    Head Waters of the Arpa Chai                                 121
-    Byzantine Picture in Greek Church                            128
-    Wedding Party at Alexandropol                                130
-    Church of Marmashen from S.W.                                131
-    Alagöz from the Head Waters of the Abaran                    136
-    Ararat: Aralykh in the foreground                            155
-    Our Cavalcade on Ararat                                      159
-    Our Encampment at Sardar Bulakh                              163
-    Little Ararat from near Sardar Bulakh                        164
-    Summit of Ararat from the South-East, taken at a height
-        of about 13,000 feet                                     180
-    Boulders near Akhury                                         191
-    Ararat from a house-top in Erivan                            207
-    Alagöz from a house-top in Erivan                            208
-    Entrance to Gök Jami, Erivan                                 213
-    Court with basin of Gök Jami, Erivan                         214
-    The Temple, Gök Jami                                         215
-    Pilgrims' Court, Edgmiatsin                                  230
-    The Katholikos Mekertich Khrimean                            237
-    The Lake at Edgmiatsin                                       246
-    Ararat from the Lake at Edgmiatsin                           247
-    Armenian Nun                                                 252
-    Interior of the Portal of the Cathedral                      266
-    Episcopal Staves                                             268
-    Sculptured Stone                                             271
-    Village of Talin, with Mount Bugutu                          322
-    Mouldings on North Side of Ruinous Church at Talin           323
-    Tartar Khan at Talin     }                                   324
-    Pristav of Talin         }
-    Priest of Talin                                              325
-    Tartar of Akhja Kala                                         326
-    Alagöz from the Plains on the West                           327
-    Greek Girl of Subotan                                        331
-    Ani: Bas-relief on the Inner Wall of the Gateway             369
-    Ani: Sculptured Stone Moulding                               373
-    Ani: Walled Enclosure and Chapel                             376
-    Ani: Building on the Citadel                                 378
-    Ani: Pilaster in the Building on the Citadel                 379
-    Ani: Landscape from the southern extremities of the site     380
-    Ani: The Castle                                              383
-    The Monastery of Khosha Vank: east side                      386
-    Khosha Vank: Chapels in the Ravine of the Arpa Chai          387
-    The Citadel of Kars                                          406
-    Molokan Elder at Vladikars                                   411
-    House at Novo-Michaelovka                                    412
-    Aghri Dagh from the Araxes Cañon                             414
-    Cliffs composing Northern Wall of Araxes Cañon               415
-    The Araxes near Kagyzman                                     416
-    Kara Vank on Aghri Dagh                                      419
-    Map of the Armenian Plateau                                  452
-
-
-
-LIST OF MAPS AND PLANS
-
-    Plan of the Ancient Fortifications of Trebizond  To face page 13
-    Trebizond and Surroundings                                    30
-    Plan of the Monastery and Churches of Edgmiatsin
-                                           Between pages 244 and 245
-    Plan of the Deserted City of Ani                To face page 390
-    Kars and Surroundings                                        395
-    The Structural Features of Asia        Between pages 422 and 423
-    Map of Armenia and Adjacent Countries                      Cover
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER I
-
-THE COAST AND THE PORT
-
-
-On four different occasions, both in summer and in winter, I have
-sailed along the southern shore of the Black Sea almost from one
-extremity to the other; yet I do not remember having seen the sky free
-from heavy clouds during two consecutive days. As the ship speeds
-eastwards along the mountains of Bithynia, a thin veil of haze will
-blend the land outlines together; while, as the range grows in height
-with every mile of progress, the vapour will collect about its upper
-slopes in long, horizontal, black banks. Even when the sun of this
-southern climate has swept the sky of every lingering film, when
-the zenith and the water recall the hues of the Mediterranean--the
-whole scale of brilliant blues--somewhere upon the wide circle of
-the horizon will be lurking the scattered forces of the mist. But
-the stronghold of the cloud is in the mountains of Akhaltsykh, at
-the foot of Caucasus, in the extreme eastern angle of the sea. Can
-there exist a more gloomy coast? There the sky is always lowering
-above the inky water, and the forests of fir which clothe the range
-from foot to summit wave darkly, like feathers over a pall. Such,
-I think, are the impressions which the mind most closely associates
-with the aspect of this sea and shore. What a contrast to the smiling
-landscape of the Bosphorus, the strait through which we enter this
-sad sea or leave it on our return home! The cold draught follows the
-home-coming ship up the narrow channel between the wooded cliffs,
-and frets the running tide into crisp little waves which sparkle in
-the brilliant light. The dolphins leap from the blue water and dart
-shining through the air. To the traveller who is returning from a long
-journey in Asia and a tedious tossing on this grey sea, the Bosphorus,
-always bright and gay and beautiful, may appear as the promised gate
-of paradise beyond the world of shades.
-
-The character of the coast cannot fail to be affected by this climate,
-by this atmosphere. Just as the vapours gather thickest where the
-mountains are most lofty, at the south-eastern angle of the sea,
-so the vegetation increases in luxuriance and variety the further
-eastwards we proceed on our course. The cliffs or rolling hills about
-the entrance of the Bosphorus--the closing cliffs of the Greek legend,
-which caught the tail-feathers of the dove--soon give place to the
-belt of wooded mountains which rise from the immediate margin of the
-water, and stretch from west to east along the entire seaboard to the
-Phasis and Batum. Tier upon tier they rise from the narrow strip of
-sand and pebbles, and grow both in height and in boldness of outline
-as they stretch towards the east. The winds of the open sea, the cold
-winds of Scythia, fly over the barrier of the range; and the ship
-may often anchor in smooth water at a point where least protection
-would appear to be offered by the configuration of the shore. But the
-moisture of the air is arrested at the coast-line, and hangs about the
-upper tiers of the mountains or clings to the fir-clad slopes. These
-natural conditions are extremely favourable to vegetation, and the
-larger grows the scale upon which they are operating, the more abundant
-becomes the growth of trees and shrubs. When at last we have reached
-the neighbourhood of the Phasis, where the wall of this range towers
-highest above us on the one side, and the line of Caucasus closes the
-horizon on the other, the shore becomes clothed with dense forests,
-plants and creepers flourish with tropical exuberance; the traveller,
-threading the maze of evergreen woodland, might be walking along the
-banks of the Amazon or through the glades of Mazanderan.
-
-August 13, 14.--Our ship is outward bound for the banks of the Phasis,
-"the furthest point to which vessels sail." It was evening when we
-hove anchor from Constantinople, and night had already closed as we
-passed the cliffs of Buyukdere and opened the mouth of the strait
-(Fig. 1). This morning we are skirting the Bithynian mountains,
-our head well up towards Amasra, behind us the bluff of Cape Baba,
-a promontory of twin hills. That cape hides the site of Heraklea,
-one of the most important of the old Greek cities, now patched with
-the relics of its former splendour, and shorn of the glory of its
-statue of Herakles, with lion-skin, club, quiver, bow and arrows
-all wrought of solid gold. The same lofty coast and bold headlands
-accompany our course; in a few hours we double Cape Karembe, and
-the sun has not yet set as we cast anchor off Ineboli, the outlet of
-the rich districts about Kastamuni, and perhaps at present the most
-prosperous of these western Pontic ports.
-
-Herakli, Ineboli, Sinope, Samsun--the ships often stop at one or
-two of these places; yet how little now remains of the old Greek
-cities of the Argonautic shore! Step on land, and there are the
-high-prowed galleys drawn up, quite in the ancient fashion, upon the
-narrow strip of sand. But the hill to which we look for the ancient
-akropolis appears bare of any building now, and it is only by careful
-searching and diligent enquiry that you will find some faced stone with
-a Greek inscription of the Roman period built into the buttress of a
-modern bridge, or mocking the ruder masonry of a Turkish wall. Here at
-Ineboli, indeed, half-bedded in the soil a few paces from the shore,
-lies a shining fragment of white marble with sculptures in relief. A
-line of white-faced houses with roofs of red tiles nestles beneath the
-mountain wall. The Greeks live on one side, the Turks on the other;
-and the intelligent man to whom you naturally address yourself is
-an Armenian in European dress. Our ship does not call at Sinope
-this voyage--Sinope of the open site and spacious roadstead, whose
-walls seem to have resisted the general crumbling, and rise from the
-water a still perfect model of a fortified mediĉval town. During the
-night we round the hump of Anatolia, and before mid-day we are lying
-in the bay of Samsun, towards the centre of the long curve lined
-with white-faced, red-tiled houses, beyond which the ruined walls
-of ancient Amisus still emerge from the briars on the summit of the
-hillside which closes the landscape on the north-west. But at Samsun
-also destruction has been busy; I look in vain for the massive tower
-of old acquaintance at the south-eastern extremity of the shore. I
-recognise the spot where it stood at the end of the long sea-wall,
-some parts of which still remain; but the foundations alone have
-escaped demolition, and the few large blocks of stone which still
-lie scattered on the ground testify rather to the carelessness of
-the Turkish building-contractor than to any respect on the part of
-his employers for the beauty and interest of their town.
-
-The sites of these coast towns have been determined by the
-characteristics of the range of wooded limestone ridges which rise
-along the shore. Sometimes it will be a cleft in this latitudinal belt
-of mountains, a transverse fissure in the grain of the range, which,
-with its rustling river giving access to the interior, has attracted
-a settlement. The eye rests with pleasure on the deep green of these
-narrow valleys; the limestone towers high above them and protects the
-rich growth of trees and shrubs. Or the range recedes from the margin
-of the water, sweeping inland in the shape of a vast amphitheatre,
-and curving outwards again to form a distant promontory of the bold
-and sinuous coast. The first description will apply to the position
-of Ineboli; the second may be illustrated in a typical manner by the
-site of Samsun. There the open stage of the wide hemicycle is filled
-with rolling hills and level expanses which yield abundant crops of
-cereals. It is true that the estuaries of the two larger rivers,
-Halys and Iris, present exceptions to the normal configuration
-of the seaboard. These considerable streams form extensive deltas
-which project far out into the sea. For awhile, as you pass them,
-you almost lose sight of the mountains, and the view ranges across
-low, marshy tracts, studded with trees. As we skirted the delta of
-the Halys, we looked down upon such a wooded plain across a narrow
-bank of sandy shore. It appeared as if inside that slender barrier
-the solid land had sunk beneath the level of the waters upon which
-we sailed. The delta of the Halys is as celebrated for its tobacco
-as that of the Iris for its Indian corn, and Bafra and Charshembeh
-are becoming serious rivals to the old Greek cities of the coast.
-
-Indeed, even along this remote seaboard the flowing tide of Western
-civilisation is surely setting eastwards again. How the conditions
-of human life around these lonely waters have altered within the
-last sixty years! Sixty years ago the first steamer drew her train
-of smoke and foam past these forelands and bays of still uncertain
-fame. The slave ships infested the harbours of the coast, and if a
-sail rose upon the horizon it was likely to be a slaver's sail. Armed
-bands still forayed into the recesses of Georgia for their loot of
-beautiful boys and girls, and parents who wished to preserve their
-daughters from the market would place them, when quite children,
-in one of the numerous fortified convents which crowned the summits
-of their native hills. Slowly the grip of law has fastened upon the
-peoples of Caucasia, a stern force moving with the insistence of a
-vice from distant Russia, from the north; while from the west, with,
-perhaps, less system, less coherence of methods, European commerce
-creeps along this Turkish shore of the sea, and extends ever further
-into the inland country the solvent influences of her sway. Already
-towards the middle of the century the Russians swept these waters
-with their steam cruisers, while their police boats blockaded all
-the coast of Circassia to guard against the import of arms. Only
-when the season was most tempestuous, when the cruisers had retired
-within their harbours and the Cossacks no longer dared to face the
-open sea, the captain of the slave ship would venture out upon his
-perilous voyage from some wooded inlet of the eastern shore. At the
-present time this traffic has either ceased entirely or is conducted
-through obscure and secret channels, where it would be difficult to
-trace. To Russia belongs the credit of this achievement, which has
-accompanied the extension of her empire down the eastern coast of the
-Black Sea. To Europe and to the increasing intercourse with European
-markets is due the growing prosperity of these towns of the Turkish
-seaboard, and indeed the very appearance which they present. New
-houses, in construction far more solid than their predecessors, are
-transforming the aspect of the shore; burnt bricks or stone masonry
-take the place of wood, and these materials are faced with a coat of
-concrete, painted a pure white. The window apertures are large, and at
-evening or morning a row of wide glass panes reflects the glow. Even
-the Government can show some signs of progress; carriageable roads
-have been constructed to the towns of the interior, from Ineboli to
-the inland centre of Kastamuni, from Samsun to Amasia and Sivas.
-
-August 15.--Weighing from Samsun at night, it is early morning as we
-cast anchor off Kerasun--Kerasun with its castled rock thrown seawards
-from the range, the lofty headland of the bay, from which the town
-curves westwards and sinks to the waterside under the shadow of the
-mountain wall. Were it not for the needle forms of minaret and cypress,
-rising against the terraces of white walls and red roofs which mount
-from the water's edge, we might be sailing on the Rhine, past some
-grim old burgh, dominating the cluster of peaceful habitations which
-cower at its skirts. In less than three hours the barges are emptied,
-and we are proceeding on our course. Almost immediately we pass close
-to a little island, a rare object along this shore. It is a mere fleck
-of rock, picturesquely encircled by feudal walls and towers. The range
-on our right hand is always rising in elevation; hard porphyritic
-rocks are beginning to take the place of the crumbling limestone;
-the ridges, clad with firs to the very summits, stand up one behind
-another ever loftier and more abrupt. At the same time the lower
-slopes increase in verdure; orchards and plantations clothe each
-respite of open ground. Small settlements succeed one another more
-closely, the houses peeping out with their white faces from the soft,
-leafy background of green.
-
-Such is the appearance of the shore we are skirting this morning--the
-range growing in height, the vegetation increasing, the characteristic
-beauties of the coast now, perhaps, for the first time imprinting
-a lasting image upon the mind. Like the Mediterranean, this sea
-is almost tideless--the narrow strip of sand, upon which the waves
-plash, is unencumbered with those oozy beds of giant seaweed which,
-scattered in fragrant streamers upon our English seaboards, whet the
-freshness of our sea-breeze. Beyond this margin rise the first spurs
-of the mountains, or immediately descend into the deep, clear waters
-in the form of bold capes. If this coast yields to some in variety
-of outline, and is wanting in those combinations of sinuous bays and
-sea-thrown islands which lend such beauty to the landscapes of western
-Asia Minor and to the European shore of the Mediterranean Sea, it
-is surpassed by none in distinctness of character, in singleness of
-effect. Day after day it is the same long belt of mountains always
-following the shore, the same long series of parallel ridges rising
-roughly parallel to the shore. The persistence of the range, the
-regularity of the system, the many signs along the seaboard of an
-ever-increasing development in the scale of the mountain walls which
-lie behind--all contribute to the growing consciousness that this
-foot of the barrier, the pleasing inlets of this shore, are but the
-threshold of some commanding piece of natural architecture of which
-we long to realise the plan. While the imagination is stimulated by
-this largeness of feature, the eye also is pleased. Groves of lofty
-fir trees clothe the slopes and climb the summits, standing out on the
-undulating backs of the ridges against the light of the sky. Wherever
-the soil favours, there are pretty orchards, and an abundant growth of
-plants and trees. Nature strikes the first note of that "evergreenness"
-for which the coast of Kolchis has been famed.
-
-Towards mid-day we are holding up for a well-defined headland,
-projecting towards the north. It is distinguished by bold bluffs,
-breaking off in the form of cliffs before they reach the water's
-edge, and by a succession of deep valleys which descend on either
-side to the margin of the shore. It is the promontory of the "sacred
-mountain"--Hieron Oros, now called Yoros, Ieros, or simply Oros--and it
-forms the western border of that series of smaller indentations which
-make up the beautiful bay of Trebizond. Platana, most picturesque
-of little settlements, nestles well under the shelter of this cape
-upon the west, when once you have doubled the points; while on the
-eastern side of the bay, exposed to the strong north-westerly winds of
-the seaboard, lies the site of the old city of Trebizond. From this
-port starts the principal avenue of communication between Turkish
-Armenia and the sea; and beyond the mountains, on the south of this
-wild coast range, now traversed by a metalled road, lie the plains
-of the Armenian tableland. The width of this mountain belt which
-borders Armenia--this continuous chain of latitudinal ridges which,
-rising one behind and higher than the other, lead up like a ladder
-to the edge of the Armenian plateau--is on this section of the range
-a direct distance of nearly fifty miles. When the roses are blowing
-in the gardens of the seaboard, the Armenian rivers may be bound with
-ice; an unbroken sheet of snow may dazzle the eyes of the traveller,
-as he penetrates from this border country of parallel crests and
-depressions to the open landscapes of the tableland.
-
-Fifty miles of intricate mountain country, inhabited at all periods
-by a sparse and little civilised population of doubtful or mixed
-race! The fact goes far towards explaining the isolation of Armenia,
-the remoteness throughout history of the great grain-growing plains of
-the interior from the coast towns of the Black Sea. While the Greek
-cities of the seaboard, sheltered behind the barrier of the range,
-found a natural and almost uninterrupted connection with the main
-currents of Western history and Western life, the Armenian country and
-people, full exposed to the revolutions of Asia, belonged essentially
-to the East.
-
-Yet these crumbling walls and towers, emerging at intervals from a
-leafy overgrowth of creepers and trees, claim a larger share of our
-attention than a merely passing notice of the port of Trebizond. For,
-in the first place, no traveller, about to enter the interior by
-this well-known and well-beaten route, can fail to undergo the spell
-which belongs to these ruins, or to feel his interest aroused by
-the monuments which still remain here of an empire long forgotten in
-the West. Nor will a mind which has been fed upon Western literature
-ignore the importance of realising the events of Western history as
-they touch this remote shore. The annals of Trebizond, while they
-illustrate and in themselves to a great extent resume the fortunes of
-these coast towns, were joined by a thread which was seldom severed
-to the web of Western things.
-
-August 16.--The morning is the time to arrive at Trebizond, perhaps
-to wake when the ship lies secure at anchor, while a fresh land-wind
-blows. The vessel coming from the west crosses the bay from Cape Ieros
-to an answering headland in the east, and does not bring up till she
-has doubled this lesser promontory and closed or almost closed the
-wide bay from sight. The anchorage lies at the foot of the eastern
-suburb of the city, now the most flourishing portion of the town, and
-the suburb mounts the back of the little promontory, and descends to
-the water on the opposite or western side. The inlet which recedes
-from the cape is not deep or extensive, and the shelter which it
-offers is so partial that in stormy weather a ship may be obliged to
-run for Platana, and seek shelter under the lee of Cape Ieros, now
-some fifteen miles away. This configuration of the shore may be said
-to give two faces to the site of Trebizond. While the ancient city
-with the ruins looks seawards and westwards, commanding the softer
-landscape of the bay, to the anchorage belongs an easterly aspect,
-and a view past the estuary of the famous river Pyxitis along the
-wildest portion of the coast range.
-
-Facing the anchorage, on the east of the white houses which climb
-the western skirts of the rising land, a bold cliff towers up above
-the water with abrupt walls of dark rock. The face of this cliff
-is almost bare of vegetation; but the summit, which is flat, is
-completely covered with a soft carpet of old turf. The elevation of
-this lofty platform above the sea-level is 850 feet. East and west the
-hill descends with gentler gradients, on the one side to the estuary
-of the Pyxitis, and on the other to the little cape and to the town;
-but whether you approach it from the city or from the river valley,
-the slopes are no light matter to climb. On the south it joins on to
-the half-circle of the coast range, which recedes from beyond the
-river in a wide amphitheatre, embracing both the bays and all the
-town. Thus the town itself is shut off from the level ground about
-the river by this peninsula of table-topped rock; and while one road
-climbs these slopes to unite the two valleys, the other winds outwards
-along the foot of the cliff, following the curve of the shore.
-
-I remember that, when for the first time I looked out upon the city,
-I was at once impressed with the manner in which this bold natural
-feature corresponded to the name of the town (Trapezous). Could
-the shape which is denoted by the figure of a table be presented by
-Nature in a more convincing manner than by this mass of rock, towering
-up above the sea and from the valleys to a summit which is almost
-perfectly flat? Yet the name does not appear to take its origin in a
-justification at once so striking and so clear, but rather to derive
-from the configuration of the ground in the western bay upon which
-the ancient fortress was built. Still this platform is surely the most
-impressive characteristic of the site of Trebizond. The Turks, who have
-no antiquarian sympathies, apply to it the bald and undiscriminating
-appellation of Boz Tepe, the grey hill, basing the name upon the colour
-of the trachytic rock of which the hill is composed. The Greeks of
-old knew it as the Mount of Mithros--Mithrios--from a statue of the
-god Mithras which used to stand upon this elevated spot. It is not
-easy to imagine a more delightful ground of vantage from which to
-overlook the town and command the coast. You may step a distance of
-some 500 paces by 200 on a level surface of springy turf, with no
-object between you and the wide expanse about you, in air which is
-at once full of sun and vigorous; and, if the day be clear, you may
-descry beyond the endless stretch of water the faint blue line of
-distant Caucasus closing the horizon in the east.
-
-The anchorage of Trebizond receives the first flush of morning;
-a mellow light is thrown upon the terraces of the eastern suburb,
-circling seawards down the lower slopes of Mount Mithros to the point
-of the little cape. Here and there among the buildings rows of tall
-cypresses still hold the shadows of night; but the white faces of
-the houses soon dispel the darkness, and their glass windows reflect
-in a glow of dazzling splendour the lurid brilliance of the rising
-sun. Nowhere else than in these landscapes of the Black Sea and the
-Caspian is the dawn more essentially the "rosy-fingered," or the
-sea at sunrise "the glass-green." As the rays commence to break, the
-wind freshens and the black cypresses wave and sway. Down the coast,
-beyond the dark cliff of Mithros, the mountains of the seaboard
-are massed in savage parapets beneath the rising sun; the faithful
-clouds cling to their slopes or float above them, a sky of cold,
-silvery greys. Westwards, above the point of the little promontory,
-under the immediate lee of which we lie, you just discern the softer
-setting of the greater bay itself, as the outline of the range sweeps
-in long undulations far out into the western sea. The day wakes; the
-colours start; the world of pinks and opals disappears. The aspect of
-the town is warm and genial, even in winter, when the background of
-broken ridges look their wildest and the sparse fir trees stand out
-darkly from the snow. Sunny meadows and flashes of green turf caress
-the traveller, who may have journeyed through the long Eastern summer
-and autumn in countries where scarcely a blade of grass grows. The
-shore is soon astir, and the cries of the boatmen are carried down
-the wind. Large, high-prowed galleys bear down upon us, the crews
-racing for the first berth. We are surrounded by a swarm of ragged
-human beings, shouting, scrambling, gesticulating, as their boats
-and heavily laden barges drive against our tall iron sides.
-
-The steamers anchor at some little distance from the shore, and
-it takes a long pull, at a time when the wind is setting off the
-land, to reach the little mole. The shore-boats are manned with
-ill-miened youngsters, whose clamour never ceases from ship-side to
-landing-stage. On the quay are arrayed the customs officers and their
-assistants, motley groups in which the cast-off wardrobes of Europe
-mingle with the coloured cottons of the East. What a relief to escape
-from all this turmoil, to repose for a few minutes in a spacious
-coffee-house, rising high above the harbour and the noise! A youth
-is just completing his lustral service of the morning; the floor has
-been swept and watered, the nargilehs are coiled--the peaceful figure
-of Ion rises in the mind.
-
-Our road leads up the hillside, at first by the town garden and wide
-streets, lined with houses and shops built in European style, and then
-through the narrow alleys which intersect the Christian quarters, a
-labyrinth of winding ways. These streets of Trebizond have a width not
-exceeding six or eight feet, and sometimes less, and are lined by the
-dull walls of garden enclosures which shut out all prospect over the
-town. A raised pavement runs along them, sometimes on both sides of
-the way, and always on one. Here and there the fresh green leaves of
-a fig tree overhang the walls, or the cherry-laurel with its clusters
-of claret-coloured fruit, or the pink flowers of the oleander. The
-houses are, for a great part, quite Eastern in character--blank,
-featureless wall, broken only at mid-height by little windows with
-gratings made of laced strips or mortised cubes of wood. But the
-modern villa is rapidly taking their place.
-
-What waifs of all the ages may be met within these alleys! Yet I
-think, and our Consul, Mr. Longworth, seems inclined to agree with
-me, that the Greek type prevails. Our conversation turns upon these
-race questions; one can indeed never cease learning what fallacious
-guides in such questions religion and nationality are. There are whole
-villages on this seaboard whose inhabitants are Mussulmans, and would
-resent being called by any other name than Osmanli; yet their Greek
-origin is established both by history and by the traditions which
-they themselves still in part retain. Thus take Surmeneh and Of,
-two considerable villages on the east of Trebizond. These versatile
-Greeks are as famous now for their theological eminence as they
-were formerly under the Eastern Empire, with this difference, that
-whereas in those days they supplied the Church with bishops, it is
-now mollahs that they furnish to Islam. Yet, fanatical as they are,
-they still hold to certain customs which connect them with the old
-faith they once served with such distinction, and have, no doubt,
-since persecuted with equal zeal. Under the stress of illness the
-Madonna again makes her appearance, her image is again suspended above
-the sick-bed; the sufferer sips the forbidden wine from the old cup of
-the Communion, which still remains a treasured object with the whole
-community, much as they might be puzzled to tell you why. As we are
-talking, a little girl happens to pass down the lane, a child of some
-ten years. Her limbs are scarcely covered by a loose cotton skirt,
-although her complexion has not suffered from the sun. The waxen
-texture of the flesh, the transparent colouring, and the rich setting
-of auburn hair remind one of the favourites of Venetian painters and
-of faces seen in North Italian towns. It is besides only natural that
-the people of this city should possess a strain of Italian blood;
-not so many centuries ago the Genoese controlled the commerce and
-menaced the independence of Trebizond.
-
-It is a long climb from the anchorage to the British Consulate, which,
-although within the limits of this suburb of gardens, has an elevation
-of at least 150 feet. Still, the site has the advantages of a middle
-position between the old fortified city in the western bay below us
-and the open walks around Boz Tepe. And if the mornings be devoted
-to the town and the ruins, the evenings may be spent on that airy
-platform or upon the lonely slopes of the adjacent hills.
-
-There are many pleasant spots which, in the course of these rambles,
-invite a view over the town. The landscape which you overlook is
-that of the west--the vague succession of endless little capes and
-inlets, disappearing and combining to form the single feature of a
-wide and open bay. Below you lies the old city, mediĉval walls and
-towers, overgrown by a canopy of leaves, gently sloping to the sea
-(Fig. 2). Yet, however beautiful in itself may be the scene that
-expands before you, it is rather upon the thoughts and the memories
-which it raises that the mind is inclined to dwell. The sea is not so
-much the blue floor without limits to which the sinuous outline of
-the coast descends, as the open thoroughfare which leads across to
-Europe, joining Asia to the West. The fir-clad ridges, which close
-the prospect towards the interior, are rather the first outrunners
-of that wide belt of troughs and ridges in which so many armies
-have become entrapped, than the background of sterner features which
-supports the peaceful landscape in which the ruined burgh lies. The
-scene itself is the same that brought tears to the eyes of Xenophon,
-and which was associated in the mind of the Emperor Hadrian with his
-first view of this shore and sea.
-
-But the morning is not the time, nor is this the occasion for such
-retrospective thoughts. Fresh from sleep, our first interest is the
-ivy-grown ruins of Trapezus, which lie far below us in the western
-bay. We descend from the slopes about Boz Tepe, by the neat villas
-and garden enclosures of the eastern suburb, to the ravine which
-separates this suburb, with the anchorage and commercial quarter,
-from the site of the old fortified town. It is indeed a position not
-readily forgotten and not easy to mistake. If the descriptions of
-Trapezus which have come down to us portray in a defective manner the
-many remarkable features which are characteristic of the place, they,
-at least, leave no doubt as to the identity of the historical city with
-the position of these ruins. At the foot of the precipitous slopes of
-Boz Tepe, on the western side of that table-topped hill, the surface of
-the ground is broken by two deep ravines, which, at a narrow interval,
-descend from the interior to the seaboard about at right angles to the
-margin of the shore. They represent the lower course of two of those
-wooded valleys of which the landscape towards Cape Ieros contains a
-succession, various in feature, but in character the same. Peculiar to
-these two ravines is their close proximity to one another; the streams
-which flow along them are only about 400 yards apart as they approach
-the sea. Indeed, at one point, over 1000 yards from the coast, the
-mass of rock by which they are separated forms a neck or isthmus of
-which the top is less than 60 yards across. In this manner a site is
-constituted which is bounded on three sides by natural defences--on
-the west and east by the ravines, and on the north by the sea. Draw
-a wall across the neck or narrowest portion of the rock, and you
-at once enclose the figure of an irregular parallelogram, of which
-the fourth side is the short cross-wall. These natural features,
-so favourable for defence, have not escaped the ingenuity of man;
-the cross-wall has been built in the shape of a massive tower and
-citadel, while the inner sides of the ravines have been lined with
-walls and castellations, which still frown above the leafy abysses
-and the streams rustling through the shade.
-
-In appearance the protected enclosure, with its flanking ravines,
-has been described by some writers as a peninsular plateau, while to
-others it has suggested the shape of a table and seemed to justify
-the name of Trebizond (Trapezous). Neither likeness appears to me to
-be quite happily chosen. Both contain in themselves the conception
-of a disparity of levels, the plateau of a stage raised above the
-surrounding country, the table above the surface of the floor. Such are
-not the characteristics of the site. The metaphor of a table seems the
-more inappropriate, inasmuch as the least one might expect of such an
-object is that it should have a flat and horizontal top. This site
-possesses neither of these qualities. On the one hand, the upper
-portion, which supports the citadel, rises above the lower like
-a dais or step; while, on the other, the plane of the ground is an
-inclined plane, and follows the general configuration of the country,
-shelving from the hills towards the sea.
-
-Yet these images and the impressions from which they derive are no
-doubt founded upon real conditions. The isolation of the figure,
-together with its elevation--not indeed above the levels which
-adjoin it on either side, but above the level of the sea--these
-are the two factors which have supplied the real substance of such
-impressions. The first of these features would appeal to the eye
-with more distinctness, were it not for the thick growth of trees
-and underwood which rises from the floors and up the slopes of the
-ravines, and almost conceals the escarpment of their sides. The depth
-of the gulfs may be gauged by the following measurement made at the
-head of the western ravine. Standing at the bottom of the abyss, the
-rock which supports the citadel and palace overtops you by about 150
-feet at the highest point. The width across them, from cliff to cliff,
-varies considerably, according as each gulf opens or closes in; the
-length of each of the two bridges which span the ravines is about 100
-paces. Both ravines tend to flatten as they descend towards the shore,
-or in other words, to increase in width and diminish in depth. As for
-the elevation of the enclosure, it is of course most considerable at
-the narrow isthmus and the citadel. This highest portion, containing
-the keep and palace, is about 200 feet above the sea.
-
-It is plain from the description which has just been given that the
-characteristic features of the site attain their greatest development
-in that part of the enclosure which is most remote from the shore;
-that it is there the protecting gulfs are deepest, and the rock
-loftiest which they flank. Indeed, during the Byzantine and earlier
-Comnenian periods the fortress was confined to this upper portion,
-and the outer wall on the side of the sea was drawn from gulf to
-gulf at a distance of about 460 yards from the present margin of
-the shore. A few sentences may suffice to present the plan of the
-fortifications, as it may be traced among the ruins that remain. At
-the very head of the formation came the keep and citadel, the outer
-wall being drawn across the narrow isthmus between the two ravines;
-this was the weakest point in the whole circumference of the fortress,
-and the works were strongest upon this side. Built into this outer
-wall stands a massive square tower, which rises boldly above the
-battlements and faces the approaches from the south. The ground
-shelves upwards almost from the immediate foot of the tower to the
-amphitheatre of hills which surround the bay. Thus the fortress
-is commanded by the slopes upon the south, where already it is by
-nature most vulnerable. It was from the south that its assailants
-delivered their principal attacks: the Goths, the Georgians, the
-Seljuks, the Turkomans, the Ottoman Turks. All the space inside the
-wall and between the two ravines was filled up at this uppermost part
-of the fortress, first by the keep, and then by the palace itself;
-the citadel served as the kingly residence, and the wall with the
-bold windows which rises along the edge of the western ravine was
-alike fortress and palace wall. This uppermost fortress or citadel,
-with the palace of the king, was separated from the lower but more
-extensive portion of the site by a cross-wall, equal in height to the
-walls along the ravines, and supported at either end by towers. So much
-loftier is this upper stage than the stage which lies below it that,
-whereas the palace, which occupies the most elevated point, towers
-high above the battlements of the cross-wall, the base of this wall
-itself overtops the highest buildings of the second and lower stage.
-
-Below the cross-wall, with its massive double gate, lay that part
-of the fortress which contained the cathedral and public buildings,
-and formed the inhabited portion of the original fortified town. Like
-the citadel, it was protected on two sides by the ravines, lined on
-their inner edge by a lofty wall seven feet in thickness, with towers
-at intervals. A second cross-wall, extending from ravine to ravine,
-was its bulwark on the side of the sea, and constituted the outer
-rampart of the enclosure as it existed in the ancient form. This outer
-rampart followed the edge of a natural declivity in the surface of
-the shelving ground, and presented a bold front to the lower levels
-lying between it and the shore.
-
-The third and lowest stage of the fortified enclosure filled the
-space that yet remained between this outer wall of the city and the
-immediate margin of the sea. The ravines open outwards as they approach
-the seaboard, and the figure widens which they bound; but on the other
-hand, the sides of these natural barriers flatten and take the surface
-of the adjoining ground. Thus the plan of the lower fortress did not
-display the same subservience to the natural features of the site,
-and was protracted on the west beyond the outer margin of the western
-ravine. Indeed, the area enclosed by this later work of the fourteenth
-century was considerably greater than that of the ancient burgh;
-and in proportion as it was deficient in natural defences, so it was
-stronger in those of art. A wall six feet and a half in thickness,
-with towers at irregular intervals, surrounded the new work; and,
-except on the side of the sea, this rampart was flanked by a second
-and lower wall with a moat on its outer side. But, although the lower
-fortress formed a third and separate unity, overstepping the natural
-limits of the site, it was connected in the closest manner with the
-upper enclosure, and with the walls flanking the ravines. On the east
-the new ramparts joined the old wall, and continued its direction
-in a straight line to the shore, at which point they turned at right
-angles, along the shore. Thus the old cross-wall was completely covered
-by the new fortifications, and the principal gate of the old city,
-leading through that wall and facing the sea, instead of standing at
-the outer extremity of the fortress, now became situated in about the
-middle of the fortified plan. The new wall along the sea was protracted
-further westwards than the western extremity of the old cross-wall; it
-was drawn across the mouth of the western ravine, and far overlapped
-the parallel line of the old wall. Some little distance west of the
-depression it again changed direction, and stretched up towards the
-south, until it reached a point opposite to the bridge which leads
-out from the middle fortress, and over 100 paces from the edge of the
-ravine. From this point, which was emphasised by a rectangular tower
-of extraordinary size, the line of wall was taken at right angles,
-and met the margin of the ravine.
-
-This threefold disposition of the walls and fortifications is
-characteristic of the plan of the fortified city, and forms a
-feature well noted in the descriptions of the topographers and still
-distinguished in popular speech. Indeed, even at the present day,
-when most of the great gates have disappeared, and houses with several
-storeys obscure the plan, the hillside is lined by three complete
-fortresses, each separated from the other and one higher than another,
-yet all three welded closely into one. The appearance of the city
-in the days of her splendour must have justified her reputation as
-"Queen of the Euxine," and lent colour to her claim to be the capital
-of a restored Roman Empire of the East. Between extensive suburbs,
-filled with busy streets and markets, rising from the shore on either
-hand, through a labyrinth of gardens and garden-houses, clustered
-on the higher slopes, the two converging lines of massive parapets
-and towers mounted slowly up the shelving ground. The further they
-receded from the margin of the seaboard, the clearer grew the essential
-features of the site--the ravines opening darkly at the immediate foot
-of either wall, the walls closely following the irregular course of
-the chasms, and now rising, now declining, along the uneven surface
-of the cliffs. Near the head of the figure stood the royal palace,
-raised high above the massive works of the citadel, deeply moated by
-the sister gulfs on either side. Broad windows opened from the royal
-reception hall of white marble to the varied prospects on every side,
-while within, the vast apartment was adorned with rich paintings, the
-portraits of successive holders of the imperial office, their insignia
-and arms. On the east, beyond the abyss, the slope gathered gradually
-to the side of Mithros, the table-topped hill, in which direction,
-just opposite the palace, the church and fortified enclosure of
-St. Eugenius crowned an almost isolated site which was flanked on
-the further side by a third and lesser ravine. Towards the interior,
-on the side of the narrow isthmus, the view ranged wide, above the
-battlements, over the hills encircling the broad bay; while the
-rising ground, opening upwards from the tongue of the isthmus, was
-occupied by the theatre and by the extensive walled enclosure of the
-polo-ground or hippodrome. A royal gate gave access from the palace
-to these pleasure-places, the distance of a short walk from the wall;
-and through this gate the imperial party and their brilliant court
-would pass to their marble seats above the race-course, whence the
-whole landscape of city and field and ocean lay outspread at their
-feet. If the several divisions of the fortified enclosure may be
-described as so many steps, or shelving terraces, rising one behind
-another from the shore, then the race-course outside the walls will be
-the fourth stage of the platform, the last and highest, and the fairest
-of all. Indeed the prospect over the walls and towers of the city to
-the distant sea beyond must at all times have been one of surpassing
-beauty, whether seen from the windows of the Imperial residence, or
-from these airy heights above the town. To the palace was displayed
-the long perspective of the city architecture outlined against the
-blue bay--the massive cross-walls cleaving the crowded quarters,
-the domes of the churches glancing in the brilliant sunlight, and,
-interspersed, quiet respites of shade and leafiness, where some portico
-with frescoed walls and row of marble pillars recalled the habits of
-the classical age. From the higher standpoint of the race-course all
-the rich detail of this scene was blended and subdued; the eye would
-follow the long line of parapets and towers descending by the side of
-the sinuous streak of verdure which marked the course of the western
-ravine. The palace windows, which still rise above the head of that
-ravine, commanded the landscape of the west, the wide bay with its
-peaceful setting of cultivated hillsides stretching seawards to the
-distant cape.
-
-Among the most pleasing and, perhaps, not the least striking feature
-in the composition of these scenes must at all times have been the
-luxuriance and variety of the vegetation which is natural to this
-soil. The necessary moisture is provided, not by stagnant pools and
-marshes, as in the country watered by the Kolchian rivers further
-east, but by salubrious springs, bubbling from the surface of the rock
-and collecting in rustling streams. The sun is indeed the fiery orb
-of Eastern landscapes; but the climate is tempered by the chilling
-winds from across the sea, bringing rain and mist in their train. The
-outcome of these conditions is the simultaneous exuberance of the
-trees and plants which flourish upon the coasts of the Mediterranean
-and of the leafy giants of our Northern woods; side by side with shady
-thickets of chestnut, elm, oak and hazel, groves of cypress, laurel
-and olive grace the shore. The wild vine hangs in festoons from the
-branches, and in sheltered places the orange tree, the lemon, and the
-pomegranate thrive and yield their fruit. All our fruits are found
-in the well-stocked gardens, while the fig of Trebizond is of old as
-famous as the grapes of Tripoli and the cherry of Kerasun. Cucumbers
-are cultivated, and heavy pumpkins, and tobacco, and Indian corn, with
-its reed-like stalks and luscious leaves. The beautiful pink flowers
-of the oleander may be seen rising above some orchard wall. In the
-middle of the seventeenth century we are told of upwards of thirty
-thousand gardens and vineyards inscribed in the city registers, and
-at that time the slopes about Boz Tepe were completely covered with
-vines. But it is on the western rather than on the eastern side of
-the fortress that Nature has most freely lavished her gifts; and on no
-spot with more abundance or greater effectiveness than on the western
-ravine. The beauties of that valley, almost as we see them to-day,
-have been described in glowing language by Cardinal Bessarion in the
-fifteenth century, himself a son of Trebizond, and by the historian of
-the Comnenian empire whose warm imagination was kindled by scenes which
-recalled and intensified the graces of his native Tyrol. [1] A path
-leads down from the suburb on the west into the shade and freshness
-of the gorge, through thickets of lofty forest-trees, their leafy
-branches laced together by wild vines. Even at mid-day, when the sun
-hangs cloudless over the narrow vista, the rays scarcely penetrate to
-the deep shadows of the evergreens--a luxuriant undergrowth of myrtle,
-laurel and ivy, rising from the floor and up the cliffs. From the
-highest point of the castle rock some 150 feet above you, amongst a
-wild confusion of creepers and trees, the bold wall of the palace,
-now reduced to an empty skeleton, still stands up against the sky;
-and the broad windows which once opened from the emperor's apartments
-still overlook the verdant scene below. Past mossy banks, upon which
-the iris and primrose flourish, through leafy brakes, where trees of
-laurel hide the ground, the little stream cascades into the laps of
-the hollows or plashes over ledges of hard rock.
-
-
-    But we are anticipating on our walk, which has not yet brought us
-    further than the edge of the eastern ravine. We cross the bridge,
-    and at once find ourselves within the fortified enclosure,
-    which is traversed by a broad road. Following that road,
-    we are passing through the middle fortress--that part of the
-    site which constituted the inhabited quarter of the walled city
-    in its original form. Now as in ancient times it is crowded by
-    buildings, while a considerable portion is taken up by the Serai,
-    or Government House (No. 17 on plan of Trebizond and surroundings),
-    which is situated about in the middle of the space between the
-    ravines, on the south side of our road. Here the pasha will be
-    sitting within an inner room, a bundle of papers by his side on
-    the divan. Entering the court, you have on one side this palace,
-    thronged with applicants, and, on the other, the iron gratings of
-    a prison, banding the faces of the captives as they stare on the
-    scene below. Past the gateway of the Serai, a narrow way leads
-    up the enclosure, diverging at right angles from the road which
-    joins the ravines. It conducts us to the upper fortress through
-    a quarter filled by private houses, and inhabited exclusively by
-    Mohammedans. A walk of some two or three hundred yards brings us
-    to the foot of the lofty cross-wall, which is almost as fresh
-    to-day as when it was reared. By a steep incline we enter a
-    gateway into a hollow tower adjoining the outer wall on the east,
-    which constitutes the only passage into the citadel.
-
-    The massive ancient gate still rests upon its hinges,
-    its rusty iron plates riddled with bullets. A second gate,
-    placed at right angles to the first in the further wall, gives
-    issue from the tower. The citadel, like the middle fortress,
-    is occupied by modern houses; but they are less frequent, and
-    are almost confined to the spaces immediately neighbouring the
-    cross-wall. There is some difficulty in examining the extensive
-    ancient works which still in part remain upon the site. One of
-    the principal buildings is occupied by military stores, and is
-    forbidden ground. I contrive to effect an entrance, and find it
-    quite empty--a palpable reason for such exclusive measures. Then
-    the walls which enclose the gardens of the private dwellings are
-    no less the discreet protectors of the life of the harem than
-    the veil to hide the squalor of faded opulence. While one of us
-    is taking readings with the prismatic compass, the whole quarter
-    is raised by the protestations of a young minx, who will insist
-    that she is the object of his unmannerly stares. I have said that
-    the palace is now a mere skeleton; a rambling old house, with
-    a picturesque overhanging roof, fills a portion of the ground
-    plan of the royal apartments, where they overlooked the western
-    ravine. We are tardily given admission by a female voice. From
-    an embrasure in the massive wall of the fortress, just below the
-    row of eight arched windows, which stand up blank against the sky,
-    we feast our eyes upon the charming view over the western ravine,
-    following its sinuous outline into the background of leafy hills,
-    or resting upon the cypresses and minaret of the Khatunieh mosque
-    among the villas on the opposite margin of the abyss.
-
-    Within this outer wall, a little south of our standpoint, a square
-    tower rises above the outline of the battlements, displaying in
-    its upper storey the interior of a spacious apartment with windows
-    opening upon the landscape. The fragment of a wall juts out towards
-    us from beside the tower; and three large windows, of which two
-    are double, with slim dividing pillars, have been spared to it by
-    the ravages of time. Just north of us, three more windows rise from
-    the outer wall, on a higher plane than those above our heads. Both
-    rows are but the remains of much longer series, once the life and
-    pride of these grim parapets. They enable us to reconstruct the
-    ancient splendour of the imperial residence, which, day by day,
-    is slowly passing towards the world of unsubstantial memories,
-    to share the fate of sacred Troy and of King Priam, rich in flocks.
-
-    Above the palace, within the narrowing tongue of the
-    circumvallation, the space is occupied by the substructures
-    of the keep, over which we clamber to the parapets of the
-    outer wall. Beside us, the square tower at the extreme end
-    of the fortress frowns out upon the knife-like ridge between
-    the ravines. It is probable that this tower is composed of a
-    solid mass, for one cannot trace any sign of a passage in. The
-    battlements of the wall rise to a height of nearly 200 feet
-    above the western ravine. Just on the east of the tower is placed
-    the only entrance to the citadel from the side of the ridge. It
-    consists of a long passage, flanked by a parallel outer wall,
-    and abutting on a huge angular tower. But the inner doorway is
-    now walled up, and one is obliged to retrace one's steps to the
-    middle fortress, in order to pass without the walls.
-
-    The gate is situated just below the entrance to the citadel, in
-    the wall on the east. It too is furnished with double doors, which,
-    like their neighbours, have been riddled by musket fire. South of
-    this gateway there is just enough room between the wall and the
-    edge of the eastern ravine to permit of a narrow road. Leaving
-    the interior of the fortress, one is taken along this road,
-    with the wooded precipice on one hand and on the other the
-    ivy-grown battlements. Peasants, carrying baskets, pass by on
-    their way to market; and beneath a fig tree, teeming with fruit,
-    some Mussulman women, resting from their wayfaring, cower within
-    their veils as we approach. The colossal angular tower projects
-    from the head of the irregular wall towards the leafy abyss,
-    a large inscription gleaming white upon the wall which faces us,
-    the record of the conquest of Mohammed II.
-
-    But the point at which you pause is at the head of the
-    fortification, beneath the soaring escarpment of the square
-    tower. It is the same site upon which the peoples from the remote
-    recesses of Asia have stood with the lust of conquest in their
-    eyes. On the opposite bank of the eastern ravine the drum-shaped
-    dome of St. Eugenius rises from among a cluster of red-roofed
-    villas. It was there that the Seljuk sultan issued his threats and
-    insults, while the Greek emperor fasted and prayed. From within
-    the limits of that same sanctuary were heard the shouts of the
-    revellers, mingling with the voices of their concubines. And
-    a white minaret proclaims the event of the long and unequal
-    struggle between the full-blooded followers of the Prophet and
-    the emaciated children of the Cross.
-
-    The tower itself has evidently been built at a later period than
-    the wall from which it rises in a continuous face. The colour of
-    the stone is slightly paler, and an inscription, now much decayed,
-    attests it to be the work of the Emperor John the Fourth, the
-    last but one of the Comnenian dynasty. The ground widens like
-    a fan from the foot of this tower, and the ravines, which have
-    almost met, diverge and become great valleys, stretching into the
-    bosom of the hills. Within that ampler space, a few hundred yards
-    south of the fortress, one may still recognise the enclosure of
-    the hippodrome and the great gateway on its northern side. The
-    wall still rises in places to a height of from six to ten feet,
-    but all the interior structures have disappeared. A field of
-    tobacco grows upon the site. Adjoining the gateway, and facing
-    the palace, one is impressed by the shape and appearance of a
-    projecting tongue of land with a flat top. The theatre may once
-    have stood upon this spot.
-
-    The ancient churches of Trebizond, some converted into mosques
-    and others into public baths, are among the most interesting
-    relics which the town contains. Retracing our steps to the
-    middle fortress and to the road which joins the two ravines,
-    we have almost reached the bridge over the westerly depression
-    before attaining the old cathedral, sacred to the golden-headed
-    Virgin, of which the southern wall borders our road on the north
-    (No. 18). How bare and bleak it looks, shorn of its southern and
-    western porches, and covered with a thick coating of whitewash! A
-    little court, paved with flagstones, adjoins it on the east,
-    over which you pass to an entrance at the north-east corner which
-    has destroyed the side apse on that side. If you scrutinise the
-    outer wall of the principal apse, you may still distinguish
-    beneath the whitewash a design of figures in mosaic, one of
-    which perhaps represents the seated Virgin. Time has worn down
-    the few sculptured mouldings of which any trace remains. There
-    is little to attract the eye in this mangled group of gables,
-    surmounted by the drum of a duodecagonal dome. On the northern
-    side rises the minaret, adjoining the principal entrance which
-    has made use of the old porch on the north. Four marble pillars
-    with Ionic capitals, probably the spoil of some pagan temple,
-    support the roof of this spacious porch. We are about to enter,
-    when we are called aside to observe an old fountain in the court
-    on the east. It contains a marble slab with a Greek inscription,
-    which is illegible; and the water issues from a much-worn bronze
-    spout, representing the head of a serpent or dragon, which is
-    said to have belonged to a bronze model of such a monster, killed
-    by the spear of Alexius the First. Near the fountain is a tomb,
-    still maintained in good order, in which repose the remains of a
-    shepherd youth to whom the townspeople attribute the capture of
-    the fortress by the Ottoman Turks. The story runs that Mohammed
-    the Second, foiled by the strength of the citadel, had recourse
-    to a final expedient of which the result should determine the
-    alternatives of further effort or abandonment of the siege. A
-    number of shots were to be fired from a cannon at the chain
-    which supported the drawbridge. Should it be severed, it would
-    be a signal for a renewal of operations; in the contrary case
-    the siege was to be raised. The experiment failed; the sultan
-    broke up his camp and removed the bulk of his army, leaving,
-    however, the loaded cannon still in site. A young shepherd,
-    happening to pass by, was prompted by the hardihood of his years
-    to try his skill at the difficult mark. He discharged the gun,
-    and the drawbridge fell. This child of a short-lived future sped
-    to the camp of Mohammed, who was making his way up the valley of
-    the Pyxitis towards Baiburt. But his story was derided, and the
-    sultan, in a fit of anger, caused him to be killed. The rage of
-    the despot was turned to grief when the confirmation reached him of
-    this miraculous exploit. His return was followed by the fall of the
-    city; and he endeavoured to atone for his rash action by loading
-    his victim with posthumous rewards. Over the coffin one may still
-    see the ball suspended which decided the fate of Trebizond. And
-    the martyr is known by a name which repeats the sultan's sorrowful
-    exclamation: "Khosh Oghlan," or "Well done! Oghlan."
-
-    The interior of the mosque produces an effect of extraordinary
-    massiveness, with its bulky piers supporting the dome, with the
-    walls which join these piers to the walls of the church and screen
-    off the aisles from the open space beneath the dome. Except for
-    the two inner columns of the porch, not a single pillar is to
-    be seen. The aisles are narrow, and their ceilings low; they are
-    surmounted by a gallery, from which you look through low, arched
-    apertures into the nave. The Turks have placed a wooden stage in
-    the northern arm of the church, between the two walls which screen
-    off the aisle. This erection faces their altar, and is reserved
-    for their women; you reach it by a staircase placed inside the
-    building, in front of the north-east entrance. A doorway leads
-    from this wooden structure into the old gallery over the aisle,
-    through which you pass to the women's gallery in the original
-    design, which fills the space above the ceilings of the narthex
-    and exo-narthex on the western side of the mosque. Two lofty
-    vaulted openings display the interior to this gallery; while the
-    wall between narthex and exo-narthex is pierced by three arches in
-    a similar style. The door on the west in the storey below, which
-    in Christian times gave access through these outer spaces into the
-    body of the church, is no longer used, now that the religious focus
-    of the building has been changed from the apse to the southern
-    arm between the aisles. The exo-narthex has a width of 18 feet,
-    and the narthex of 9 feet 7 inches. The piers upon which repose
-    the vaulted ceilings of these courts are of such thickness that
-    the entire space, measured from the inner side of the outer wall
-    to the outer side of the wall of the nave, amounts to 37 feet
-    5 inches. The interior measurements of the church proper are a
-    length of 93 feet 6 inches from the commencement of the nave to
-    the head of the apse, and a breadth of only 50 feet 5 inches. It
-    is well lit from windows in the apse and along the walls; but the
-    twelve windows in the dome are small. Beautiful marble plaques of
-    various colours, and designs in mosaic, may still be admired in the
-    apse; but there is an almost total lack of ornament elsewhere. As
-    to the date of the building, it is ascribed by Texier to the
-    Grand-Comneni; with much less knowledge I hesitate to offer the
-    opinion that the design belongs to an earlier period.
-
-    From this mosque of the middle fortress, Orta Hisar Jamisi, the
-    ancient cathedral, it is but a few steps to the bridge over the
-    western ravine. Like its fellow on the east of the enclosure,
-    it consists of a lofty stone embankment, with a single narrow
-    arch through which the stream flows. The prospect on either side
-    is of great beauty, while the deep shadows of the vegetation,
-    rising from the floor of the ravine, rest the eye and refresh the
-    sense. Towards the south, beyond an irregular line of ivy-grown
-    parapets, and towers of varying features and size, the stately
-    works of palace and citadel rise against the sky; while in the
-    direction of the sea, where the depression flattens and is lost
-    in a maze of houses, the tiers of red-tiled roofs are pierced by
-    a double series of battlements and embowered forts. The wall of
-    the middle fortress is seen extending for some distance along
-    the uneven edge of its rocky support; but it is overpowered in
-    the landscape by the outer line of walls, which, starting from
-    the opposite side of the ravine, are drawn in a long perspective
-    to the shore.
-
-    Our goal is now the famous church of Hagia Sophia; it is
-    situated upon the coast on the west of the city, at a distance
-    of over a mile from the walls (No. 25). The bridge leads over
-    into the western suburb, and for a short space you follow the
-    outer wall of the lower fortress, stretching westwards at right
-    angles to the ravine. On the right hand this solid masonry and
-    a massive rectangular tower; on the left, a little further on,
-    the cypresses of the Turkish burying-field, the leaning white
-    headstones with their gilt Arabic inscriptions better disposed
-    and tended than is usually the case. We have passed the street
-    which turns upwards to the mosque Khatunieh (No. 20), the spacious
-    and still well-ordered mosque and medresseh which keeps alive the
-    memory of the mother of Selim the First. Like the middle and lower
-    fortress, this western suburb is inhabited for the most part by
-    Mohammedans--what a contrast to the bustling town on the east of
-    the city where the Christian quarters lie! There, busy streets,
-    lined with the broad-paned windows of offices and shops; here,
-    the silent graveyard and widely scattered dwellings which seem
-    to shrink from contact with life. A brighter aspect belongs to
-    the meidan or open place, to which we pass and which we cross
-    (Kavak Meidan, or plane tree square)--an extensive stretch of
-    green turf, resembling an English common, where in old times the
-    jerid or spear exercise was performed. Several tombs (kumbets)
-    are to be seen on this grassy lawn, but I do not know to whom they
-    have been raised. A little later we have left the last settlements
-    behind us, and are winding outwards towards the sea-shore.
-
-    The church of Hagia Sophia, or the Divine Wisdom, now converted
-    into a mosque, has been described as one of the most interesting
-    monuments of Byzantine architecture, sculpture, and painting
-    that time has spared. [2] This appreciation can only be partially
-    tested by the traveller of the present day, because the frescos
-    which once covered the interior of the building have been daubed
-    over with successive coats of whitewash. It is possible that
-    when the time comes for restoring the building to Christian
-    worship, or at least, as we may hope, for preserving it as a
-    relic to instruct an enlightened age, the scales may fall away
-    and disclose in some of their ancient brightness the solemn faces
-    and gorgeous robes of the Grand-Comneni as they looked down upon
-    the congregation of monks and pilgrims six centuries ago. In
-    the meanwhile we may consult those descriptions of the paintings
-    which have come down to us in the accounts of modern travellers
-    more fortunate than ourselves, for at some periods a portion of
-    the plaster has fallen and revealed the rich work below. Of the
-    sculpture and architectural merits we are able to judge on the
-    spot, for, although the Turks have introduced some alterations
-    in the structure, they are too clumsy to mislead.
-
-    The first view of the building, high-seated on the left hand
-    where the road debouches upon the sands, at once exhibits the
-    beauties which are peculiar to it: the choice of site and the
-    skilful grouping of the component parts (Fig. 3). A broad terrace
-    or esplanade, which is partly natural and in part supported by
-    an embankment and a wall, forms the summit of a gentle slope
-    which rises from the water beyond a fringe of cactus and leafy
-    shrubs. The surface of the platform is flat and even, and is
-    covered by a green carpet of turf. The prospect ranges wide
-    across the bay to Cape Ieros, and seawards without limit over
-    the waves. On the east, rising ground shuts out the city and the
-    suburb, while on the south, the open landscape of hill and valley
-    is felt rather than observed.
-
-    From the peaceful elevation of this pleasant terrace the
-    well-preserved remains of an ancient monastery look down upon the
-    shore. On the west, at the further extremity of the platform,
-    a lofty square bell-tower or campanile stands out alone, like
-    a sentinel, fronting the sea; just below it lies the church,
-    a cluster of roofs and gables centring in a drum-shaped dome. Of
-    the monastic buildings only one has been spared, a massive square
-    edifice at the south-western corner of the platform, which is
-    almost concealed by trees.
-
-    We mount the slope and reach the platform on the southern side,
-    with the church between us and the blue waters of the bay. A
-    custodian has been found in some hovel among the orchards, but
-    no meaner object breaks the grassy surface of the terrace from
-    which the building rises, the even masonry exposed from base to
-    dome. Against the plain grey spaces of the walls which lie behind
-    it, the rich façade of the southern entrance at once attracts the
-    eye (Fig. 4). It consists of a porch or lateral structure, which
-    once gave access to a door in the main wall of the church. Two
-    graceful marble pillars with Corinthian capitals supported the
-    façade; but the Turks have closed this entrance and walled up the
-    columns, which are only visible from the inside. The new work
-    does not rise much higher than the tops of the capitals, and
-    the openings of the three arches which spring from the pillars
-    have been filled with window glass. Of these, the central arch
-    is slightly pointed, and those on either side are round. A
-    pleasing feature of the design is the bold rounded arch which
-    spans the porch from one wall to the other, and envelops the three
-    lesser vaultings and their marble columns within a broad band of
-    unsculptured stone. On the outer side, a narrow beading of grapes
-    and vine-leaves accentuates the studied absence of all ornament
-    upon the masonry of the span; and the keystone is enriched by
-    the figure of the single-headed eagle of the Comneni, with open
-    talons and wings outspread. The space of wall which is framed in
-    this stately manner, and which is supported by the pillars of the
-    façade, forms a panel or panels which are admirably adapted to
-    receive that style of decorative treatment in which Byzantine
-    art excelled. About in the centre, the space is broken by a
-    quatrefoil window, above which, and on either side, plaques of
-    varied mosaic have been inserted into the wall. Below the window,
-    and from end to end, runs a frieze in low relief, surmounted
-    by an inscription in Greek, "Have mercy upon me, save me from
-    my sins, O succour me, Lord, God, Holy! Holy!" In the frieze
-    may be discerned among the shapes of plants and trees, rendered
-    with the highest skill and with much grace, human figures which
-    indeed have suffered mutilation, but which, like corresponding
-    works of the Romanesque style, appear deformed in size. Adam lies
-    asleep among the foliage of the garden; a serpent, coiled round
-    a leafless trunk, confronts the standing figure of Eve. Of the
-    mosaics two at least of the plaques have been removed or have
-    perished; you see the vacant oblong spaces on either side of the
-    quatrefoil. The largest panels contain geometrical patterns; but
-    the most beautiful and best preserved, if perhaps the smallest,
-    is composed of two doves and two sprays of pomegranate in white
-    on a black ground. This plaque has been placed just above the
-    window and below the talons of the royal bird.
-
-    The reader will have divined that the great charm of this façade
-    lies as much in the skill of the design--the wide span of the
-    arch above the lesser arches, and the pleasing combination of
-    these forms with the vertical lines of walls and columns, and
-    with the sharp angle of the roof--as in the decorative effect
-    of delicate mouldings and elaborate sculptures, and of rich
-    mosaics thrown on the grey stone. Porches of similar plan give
-    access to the interior, both on the western and northern sides;
-    but their tympana or panels are without ornament. The western
-    porch has an Arab niche with a deep honeycomb moulding from
-    which the outer arch springs, and this moulding is continued
-    in the form of imposts above the capitals of the columns. That
-    on the north is without any remarkable feature, except that the
-    capitals, which are of fresh white marble, appear to be of much
-    later date. They are without carving, but in each is cut a panel,
-    bearing the figure of a Latin cross.
-
-    A walk round the building confirms the impression which a first
-    view produced. It is the number of roofs at various levels, the
-    different grouping of the gables at every turn, that arrests and
-    pleases the eye. The walls themselves are of hewn stone, with
-    plain mouldings, of which the most delicate runs round the apse
-    and side chapels, above the windows, in a continuous band. On the
-    face of the apse itself you see the eagle of the Grand-Comneni,
-    set in panel in the wall.
-
-    The entrance to the mosque is through the porch on the west. It
-    is much shorter or less deep than its two counterparts, but,
-    unlike them, gives access through a marble doorway to a second
-    vestibule or outer court. This court or narthex extends the whole
-    width of the building, and is both lofty and well lit. A door
-    opens from it into the church proper, an airy interior of pleasing
-    proportions, into which the light streams from the twelve windows
-    in the circumference of the dome (Fig. 5). Four massive marble
-    pillars with carved Byzantine capitals support the pendentives
-    from which the dome springs; but the sharpness of the sculpture
-    has been obliterated by thick coats of buff and green paint. The
-    Turks have also introduced some structural changes. The southern
-    porch has been thrown into the body of the building, and an altar
-    (mihrab) placed between the two columns which properly belong
-    to the façade. In this manner the porch, with its orientation
-    towards Mecca, has become the religious focus of the mosque;
-    a wooden gallery, from which my illustration was taken, has been
-    erected against the opposite wall. The apse, which is lit by three
-    windows, is supplemented by two smaller apses or side chapels at
-    the extremities of the aisles.
-
-    Like most of the ancient churches we are about to visit during
-    the course of our journey south, Hagia Sophia is a building of
-    small dimensions according to modern ideas. The interior has a
-    length of not more than 69 feet from the inner door to the head
-    of the apse, with a breadth, excluding the side porches, of 36
-    feet. A building of this size is admirably adapted to the art of
-    the painter in fresco, while his work derives the greatest possible
-    advantage from the features of the design. The lofty vaulted spaces
-    of the dome and apse were once resplendent with bright effects;
-    and on the walls were depicted the richly-apparelled figures of
-    the princes of the Comnenian line. From the partial glimpses of
-    the paintings obtained by various travellers, it is possible
-    to realise, at least in some measure, the former splendour of
-    the scene. At the entrance above the door was seen the image
-    of Alexius, first emperor of Trebizond, surrounded by his court,
-    like Justinian at Ravenna; in his hands the golden globe of empire,
-    and on his forehead a white diadem. On the right of the same door
-    stood the first Manuel (r. A.D. 1238-63), the prince who was known
-    as "the great captain," and who, according to the description at
-    the side of the figure, was the founder of this monastery. The
-    emperor was without crown, but his forehead was encircled by a
-    cinglet with a double row of pearls. The front of the royal robe
-    was adorned on either side by a band of large circular medallions,
-    bearing the device of the single-headed eagle; a similar ornament,
-    engraved with the equestrian figure of St. Eugenius, hung upon the
-    royal breast. Many of the successors of these two princes were
-    without doubt represented on the remaining spaces of the walls;
-    while the portraits included those of saints and evangelists,
-    all attired in costliest style. The apse displayed a group of
-    three figures, of whom the central one appears to have designated
-    St. Paul; on his right hand St. James and on his left St. John
-    were identified by written scrolls. From the inner sides of the
-    arches, as from the vault of heaven, the faces of angels looked
-    down. The floor was paved by a rich marqueterie of marbles; you
-    admired in particular a design of geometrical character in which
-    the tracing was done in black marble on a ground of vivid reds
-    and pinks and greens.
-
-    But the impression which we should take away from this elaborate
-    interior would be one of sadness, perhaps of pain. The art, the
-    life, here represented, was an art in shackles, an expiring phase
-    of life. The peculiar wooden quality of these expressionless
-    faces may be gauged by the examples which have been preserved
-    for us by the care of Texier. Strict conventions had taken the
-    place of realities alike in life and in art; and how sad after
-    the unsurpassed beauty of Hellenic vigour are the gaudy get-up
-    and childish love of baubles which mark the declining years
-    of the Greek world! Vanished, or hidden from sight behind the
-    inexorable whitewash, lies the vivid evidence of that departed age;
-    repugnant alike to the spirit and to the mission of Mohammedanism,
-    this rich collection of Christian images must, from the first,
-    have courted effacement. At the time of our visit the walls had
-    been recently limed over to purify the edifice after the service
-    of State prison to which, during the prevalence of cholera in
-    the town, it had been temporarily assigned. In the upper storey
-    of the campanile, a later work of the fifteenth century, the
-    frescos are still exposed; but it is evident that they can never
-    have possessed much importance. The baptistery, which is said
-    to have been covered with such paintings, has been removed many
-    years ago. It stood near the edge of the terrace, on the north.
-
-    Before retracing our steps towards the city, it is worth while
-    to extend the excursion to the neighbouring ruin of Mevla Khaneh
-    (House of gods, No. 23), if only for the sake of a ramble through
-    the pleasant country lanes and a view over the peaceful landscape
-    of the bay. Against the background of the line of heights, at
-    a distance from Hagia Sophia of about three-quarters of a mile,
-    the scanty remains of a heathen temple emerge from a leafy brake
-    which fills a recess of the hillside. Portions of a tower and
-    doorway, the lower parts of two walls have escaped the ravages of
-    time. Small square niches are seen in the walls at close intervals,
-    said to have contained the statues of the gods. From the floor
-    of the temple rise tall elm trees, festooned with wild vine; and
-    an ancient laurel tree bends over the ivy-grown masonry. Rarely
-    do people pass this way; and, on the occasion of our visit, we
-    were the unwilling authors of a rather serious offence. Among the
-    lanes below the ruin we surprised a young woman, combing her long
-    hair on the margin of a stream from which she had just stepped out.
-
-    One may return to Trebizond by the old road towards Platana, which
-    has been replaced by a new chaussée nearer the shore. From the
-    Kavak Meidan, with its one fine plane tree, we proceed through
-    the quarter of Sotke towards the gate of the same name in the
-    wall of the lower fortress. The riparian quarters on the east of
-    the city are well worthy of a visit; they may be reached either
-    by crossing the crowded spaces of the fortified enclosure, or by
-    making the more pleasant circuit by the side of the sea. Choosing
-    the second alternative, we soon arrive at the angle of the wall,
-    and are treading the broad strip of sand. All the elements of the
-    picturesque are present in the varied scene--the line of walls,
-    the massive tower just on the east of the gate of Molos, the
-    broad-prowed ships drawn up on the shore, the groups of people in
-    motley attire. In the autumn large quantities of nuts are spread
-    out on the sand, awaiting shipment to France. The tower is flanked
-    on the west by the parapet of a modern battery, while on the east
-    it is adjoined by the vault through which the stream issues which
-    comes from the western ravine. In front of the vault there is a
-    little bridge. The submerged remains of a semicircular mole--a
-    work of the old Greek times--are indicated by a line of surf in
-    the sea. It is evident that the entrance to this harbour was on the
-    east. On that side too there is a tower, projecting into the waves
-    with the form of a wedge, and still joined to the north-eastern
-    angle of the fortress by the substructures of a massive wall.
-
-    It is through an opening in that wall that we pass from the
-    life of the sea-shore into the more intense and throbbing life
-    of the bazar. In old times one of the great gates gave issue
-    from the lower fortress to the important riparian quarters on
-    the east. This gate, the bazar gate or gate of Mumkhaneh (candle
-    factories), has been removed to give space to a broad street. The
-    stream from the eastern ravine, which passes outside the walls,
-    is taken by a tunnel through this crowded quarter. The bazars
-    adjoin the fortress; they are well stocked and extensive. The
-    more one walks in Trebizond, the more one is impressed by the
-    shyness of the women; nowhere in the East have I seen them more
-    ashamed to show the face. Nowhere does one realise more keenly
-    the loss of colour and gaiety which this muffling and veiling of
-    women entails. A fine example of an old Italian magazine may be
-    seen in this neighbourhood; it is called the Bezestan (repository
-    of stuffs, No. 16). Where the bazar is at its busiest, a massive
-    square building of stone and brick rises above the lines of booths
-    with their shadowed recesses. It is entered by four doors, of wood
-    plated with iron, one on each side. In the centre is a well; the
-    roof rested on four piers and sprang from vaultings at each angle
-    of the square. The piers and vaultings still remain, but the roof
-    is gone. The place is occupied by sellers of quilts, or coverlets
-    stuffed with cotton, which take the place of blankets in the East.
-
-    South of this building, beyond the large mosque of the quarter,
-    which is without architectural interest, are situated the two Greek
-    churches of Aivasil and Aiana, the first almost on the fringe of
-    the bazars. Aivasil (No. 14) has been rebuilt, or rather the site
-    of the old church has been covered by a modern and tasteless
-    erection. But a long stone, part of a frieze, containing an
-    inscription of Justinian, which belonged to the earlier edifice,
-    is still preserved as an historical relic in the body of the
-    church. Aiana (No. 13), its close neighbour, is, on the other
-    hand, quite intact, and remains a most interesting example of the
-    beginnings of Christian architecture. A small and unpretentious
-    building of stone, not too evenly put together, with the arches
-    over the little windows constructed of brick, it would almost
-    escape notice were it not for a large bas-relief in marble which
-    is inserted into the wall over the door on the south. Although
-    the stone is cracked and the sculpture has suffered mutilation,
-    one can recognise that there is represented a colossal seated
-    figure, with a smaller figure, holding a shield, at her feet. The
-    interior is built of brick, and consists of a nave and two aisles,
-    the principal apse being flanked by two side apses. [3] But there
-    is no dome; and the scanty light which falls on the withered
-    frescos comes from nine little windows in the walls. Each aisle
-    has two arches, the more easterly pair resting on piers, and the
-    more westerly on marble pillars with Ionic capitals. One remarks
-    the narrowness of the apse, in which is placed a primitive altar,
-    resembling those in the oldest Armenian churches. It consists
-    of a horizontal slab resting on a circular stone, and on the
-    side of the slab is a Greek inscription. Several of the frescos
-    remain with which the walls were once covered, the building being
-    still used as a church. Besides Biblical subjects, one observes
-    several portraits upon the wall on the west. The greater portion
-    of the space is filled with the pictures of saints and monks;
-    but on the north side there is represented a colossal figure,
-    of which the head has unfortunately been effaced. The figure is
-    attired in a purple robe, with bands of gold embroidered in black,
-    the same costume as that in which the Emperor Alexius III. is
-    depicted in the Bull at Sumelas. He holds a circular ornament
-    or emblem in his left hand. An inscription, partially effaced,
-    is seen on the wall below the figure. [4] Such is this relic
-    of the early city, with its spoils of still earlier temples,
-    bridging the periods of the old worship and the new.
-
-    Returning to the commercial quarter from the narrow alleys which
-    surround this building, we pass an old house which is an example
-    of a style of architecture now rapidly being replaced by the
-    modern villa. The exterior, with its projecting upper storey
-    and semicircular, roofed balcony, where the inmates would enjoy
-    the freshness of the afternoon, produces an impression at once
-    of somewhat costly solidity and of picturesque charm. The rooms
-    are panelled in wood, both walls and ceilings; and screens of
-    open woodwork, placed before the windows, preserve the privacy
-    of the life within. In the little niches and in the details of
-    the ornamentation the spirit is that of Persian art.
-
-    The magazines of the merchants are situated along the shore between
-    the fortified city and the point of Güzel Serai. Proceeding
-    eastwards, we need scarcely stop to visit the Greek cathedral
-    (No. 12), a large modern building of extraordinary ugliness on the
-    margin of the sea. On the south side of this pretentious church we
-    are shown the tomb of the last of the Georgian kings. A road leads
-    upwards through the crowded Christian quarter, Frank Mahalla, past
-    the wall and tower of Güzel Serai (No. 10). These buildings date,
-    I believe, from a comparatively recent period; but they occupy
-    the site of the famous fortress of Leontocastron, long in dispute
-    between the Comnenian emperor and the Genoese. The companion
-    fort of Daphnus, another Genoese possession, probably stood in
-    the bay on the west, where the quarter of Dia Funda, an Italian
-    corruption of the Greek name, faces the modern anchorage. The
-    walls of Güzel Serai overlook a park of artillery, drawn up on
-    a grassy platform at the point.
-
-    Our walk through the eastern suburb may be protracted to the slope
-    of Boz Tepe, where an ancient nunnery, famous for its frescos,
-    commands the landscape of the city from a well-chosen site just
-    outside its extreme fringe (No. 6). Adjacent to the building,
-    which presents the appearance of a fortress, was placed the
-    summer residence or pleasure-house whence the Grand-Comneni used
-    to survey their beauteous capital. I can well remember the ruin
-    of this palace, with its blank windows, such a pleasant frame
-    to the charming view which they overlooked. Alas! this fragment
-    has disappeared, to make room for an ugly guest-house which the
-    avaricious nuns have built in its place. The chapel of the nunnery,
-    dedicated to the Virgin, Panagia Theoskepastos, is built into the
-    side of the cliff, its inner end being, in fact, a cave. Damp
-    has blurred the frescos; but one may still recognise the royal
-    portraits upon the north wall. The upper portions of two kingly
-    figures, attired in purple robes, and on their right hand, side
-    by side, two queens with jewelled crowns, still colour the mouldy
-    side of the cave, and are almost hidden by a row of stalls. They
-    have been identified by inscriptions which, I presume, have become
-    effaced, as Alexius III. and his queen Theodora; as Andronicus
-    and Eirene, mother respectively and son of the first-named prince.
-
-    Nor should the traveller omit a visit to the church of St. Eugenius
-    (No. 19), although he may not have time to visit the grottoes in
-    the face of Boz Tepe, and to protract the excursion beyond the
-    embouchure of the Pyxitis to the site of Xenophon's camp. That
-    famous church is situated in the opposite direction, and has been
-    already mentioned in the description of the upper fortress. It
-    stands on the margin of the eastern ravine, almost opposite to
-    the great polygonal tower. The site is separated from the slopes
-    of Boz Tepe by a second and smaller ravine, which shows remains,
-    on the western bank, of walls and towers. Houses cluster round
-    the building, their horizontal outlines topped by its gables and
-    crowned by its polygonal, drum-shaped dome. St. Eugenius dates from
-    the period of the Grand-Comneni; but the frescos on the western
-    wall, which some travellers have noticed, are now nothing more
-    than patches of colour. It is a somewhat larger edifice than
-    Hagia Sophia, which, although less graceful, it resembles in
-    some respects. The dome rests upon two fluted columns on the
-    west side, while, on the east, it is supported by piers. A
-    flood of light fills the interior, which is plain and bare,
-    the church having been converted to the service of Islam by the
-    Ottoman conqueror. It was here that Mohammed II. is said to have
-    worshipped on the first Friday after the capture of the city by
-    his troops. The event is commemorated by the name of New Friday
-    (Yeni Juma) under which the mosque is known.
-
-
-One is fortunate if it be possible to spend the later afternoons of
-days devoted to the study of the town among the restful surroundings of
-the pleasant country-side, upon the slopes of the adjacent hills. Such
-was my privilege in 1898. Our tents were pitched on the lofty plateau
-north-west of the city, the view ranging on the one side to the rocky
-cliffs of Boz Tepe, and, on the other, to the distant promontory
-of the sacred mountain. The crowded impressions of the day would
-take proportion and perspective. One saw a city which, in spite
-of the modern aspect of certain quarters, has lost little of the
-romance of the Middle Age. The earlier imprint upon its buildings
-is that of the era of Justinian; [5] their actual appearance is
-due to the Grand-Comneni; a great sleep has bridged the interval
-to the present time. Yet the life of the place, such as it is,
-pursues the old channels, and the throng in the streets is to-day
-not less heterogeneous than it was four centuries ago. The French,
-the Austrians, and the Russians conduct the carrying trade with
-Europe, reviving the function of the Genoese. The wares they bring
-are largely of British origin, and are largely imported by British
-merchants trading in Persia. Strings of Bactrian camels may be seen
-in the streets, about to start on the long stages which separate the
-seaport from Erzerum and Tabriz. The various peoples of Asia and of
-Europe still meet in the bazars. [6] But the romance of the city can
-never have equalled the romance of her surroundings, Nature being
-the subtlest weaver of mysteries, the mother with unending fables in
-whom the romantic spirit finds the only wholesome refuge from the dull
-realities of daily life. The most permanent memory which the traveller
-may take away from his visit may be the fruit of those half-hours
-between daylight and night which he spends in his encampment above
-the town. When once the sun has set there ensues a period of twilight,
-in which the glow of the south appears to be blended with the gorgeous
-effects of northern latitudes. Indeed, the view over the sea by day
-recalls the colouring on our English coasts; and the little silken
-Union Jack which fluttered over the tent of my companion, who was
-acting as consul, would often seem to wave on a field of its native
-blue. But in the evening there is produced a combination of elements,
-at once much softer and much sterner than the setting of our English
-scenes. The spirit of Scythia, of the frozen North, meets the languid
-Mediterranean spirit, and spreads a robe of fire and paleness over
-the sea. Only the cypresses and the luxuriant foliage preserve the
-identity of the sinuous bays; and the succession of meridional ridges
-which feature the coast towards Cape Ieros are clothed with a forest
-of trees, fretting the splendour of the western sky.
-
-
-
-SUPPLEMENTARY NOTE
-
-For the topography and antiquities of Trebizond I would refer the
-student who may be desirous of going more closely into the subject to
-the following works:--Ritter, Erdkunde von Asien, vol. xviii. pp. 852
-seq.; and in particular to the following authorities, cited by Ritter,
-viz. Travels of Evliya, translated by von Hammer, London 1850,
-vol. ii. pp. 41 seq.; Tournefort, Voyage du Levant, Paris 1717,
-vol. ii. pp. 233 seq.; Hamilton, Researches in Asia Minor, etc.,
-London 1842, vol. ii. appendix v. p. 409 (inscription No. 49, over the
-gateway); Fallmerayer, J. P., Fragmente aus dem Orient, 2nd edition,
-Stuttgart 1877, with which should be read the Original-Fragmente of
-the same author, published in the Abhandlungen of the Academy of Munich
-(Hist. Classe), vols. iii. and iv., 1843-44. Fallmerayer was the first
-to investigate the subject in an adequate manner; his descriptions
-are charmingly written; and, while I have availed myself freely in
-composing a part of this chapter of the results of his researches,
-I must also acknowledge having come under the spell of his personality
-(for a slight biography of the historian see Mitterrutzner, Fragmente
-aus dem Leben des Fragmentisten, Brixen 1887).
-
-Among those who have advanced our knowledge of the place since Ritter
-wrote I would cite the following:--Texier, 1839, Description de
-l'Arménie, etc., Paris 1842, two vols. folio, with plates (see also
-the magnificent work by Texier and Pullan, L'Architecture Byzantine,
-London 1864); Pfaffenhoffen, Essai sur les aspres Comnénats ou blancs
-d'argent de Trébizonde, Paris 1847; Finlay, Mediĉval Greece and the
-Empire of Trebizond (vol. iv. of History of Greece, revised edition,
-Oxford 1877); Tozer, Turkish Armenia, London 1881, pp. 450 seq. I
-have also had access to a book in Armenian which was shown to me at
-Trebizond, and which is entitled: History of Pontus, by the Rev. Father
-Minas Bejeshkean (Mekhitarist), a native of Trebizond, Venice 1819. [7]
-
-The plans which accompany this chapter were made at the close of my
-second journey by kind permission of the Turkish Government, and after
-I had already perused the accounts of my predecessors. There is one
-point in connection with the topography which one would like to feel
-sure about, namely, upon what eminence in the neighbourhood the statue
-of Hadrian was set up. I fancy it must have been erected on the Karlik
-Tepe, a bold peak about four miles south of the town, commanding a
-magnificent view. A small chapel now stands upon the summit.
-
-The history of the empire of the Grand-Comneni of Trebizond forms
-a most instructive episode in the immemorial struggle between the
-East and the West. It was Fallmerayer who may be said to have given
-this history as a new possession to knowledge in his admirable
-Geschichte des Kaiserthums von Trapezunt, Munich 1827, followed by
-the Original-Fragmente, cited above. These sources have been utilised
-by Finlay in his History of Greece and Trebizond; but it is to be
-regretted that Fallmerayer himself did not rewrite his Geschichte after
-his later discoveries of new and important material. The outline of
-the subject may, perhaps, be presented in the following brief notice.
-
-The further one pursues one's studies of the countries west of India,
-whether in the camp or in the library, the larger looms the stately
-fabric of the Roman Empire of the East, and the more is felt the
-need of a work dealing comprehensively with this great subject. Our
-historians have allowed their interest to be absorbed by Europe; upon
-Asia and the rule of the Cĉsars over some of the fairest portions
-of her vast territories for a period, which, commencing with the
-Roman Republic, may be said to extend down to the suppression of the
-despots of Trebizond by the Ottoman Turks in the latter half of the
-fifteenth century, they have scarcely bestowed more than an impatient
-glance. The period covers the bloom and fall of at least six great
-Asiatic dynasties--the Arsakids, Sasanians, Arab caliphs, Seljuk Turks,
-shahs of Kharizme, Tartar khans. It comes to an end among the ruins
-of Asiatic prosperity, when the Turkomans are pasturing their flocks
-among the débris of civilisation, and the Ottoman sultans, deriving
-their origin from a nomad Turkish tribe, are being carried to their
-zenith by the former subjects of the Cĉsars, severed in the corps of
-Janissaries from their Western culture and Christian religion, and
-living only with the breath of their Mohammedan and Oriental king. This
-startling revolution in the political and economical condition of Asia,
-the effects of which are operative at the present day, may be traced
-back to the decisive blow which was struck at the Roman Empire of
-the East by the victory of the Seljuk sultan, Alp Arslan, over the
-Cĉsar Romanus near Melazkert in Armenia in the year 1071. The three
-centuries of imperial rule in Asia which succeeded this event reveal
-few and spasmodic interruptions to the inclined plane of Western
-relapse. Then the darkness finally closes in; Constantinople falls
-(1453), and Western commerce is expelled from the Black Sea.
-
-The empire of Trebizond takes its place in this great tragedy of
-history when the end is already in view. In the same year and the
-same month in which the Latins took Constantinople and the nobility
-of the imperial capital fled to the cities of Asia (April 1204),
-two youthful scions of the illustrious House of Comnenus appeared
-at the head of a body of Georgian mercenaries before the gates
-of Trebizond. The Comneni, whose name perhaps reveals an Italian
-origin, emerge into the light of history in the latter part of the
-tenth century, from a private station among the Greek nobility of
-Asia, where their hereditary estate was situated near Kastamuni,
-a town in the interior, which one may reach at the present day by a
-carriageable road from the port of Ineboli on the Black Sea. Manuel
-Comnenus, the first to bring fame to the family, was prefect of all
-the East under the Cĉsar, Basil the Second (in 976); and his son, the
-scholarly Isaac Comnenus, was chosen by his contemporaries to occupy
-the imperial throne. The nephew of Isaac, the Emperor Alexius Comnenus
-(r. 1081-1118), is well known for the part which he played during
-the crusading era; and he was followed on the Byzantine throne by
-two of the most martial figures of that age of heroes, Kalo-Joannes
-(r. 1118-43) and Manuel (r. 1143-80). Manuel was succeeded by his
-cousin Andronicus Comnenus (r. 1182-85), an emperor who did much to
-purify the corrupt provincial administration of the Byzantine monarchy,
-and who perished in a domestic revolution, due to his severe measures
-against the high nobility. The murder of this prince was followed at
-no long interval by the Latin conquest of the capital; and the two
-Comneni who came to Trebizond in 1204 were sons of Manuel, son and
-heir to Andronicus, who had also perished in the aforesaid revolution.
-
-Their names were Alexius and David; and they were assisted in their
-enterprise by their paternal aunt, Thamar, the offspring of their
-grandfather and a Georgian lady. The political condition of Trebizond
-during the interval between the murder of Andronicus and the Latin
-conquest of the capital is not definitely known; but the Greek city was
-probably feeling the pressure of the neighbouring kingdom of Georgia
-at the time of the advent of the two Greek princes. The prospects
-of relief, on the one hand, from this pressure, and, on the other,
-from dependence upon the rotten court of Constantinople under the
-hopeful rule of an illustrious family, must have operated as powerful
-inducements to the townspeople to welcome the new régime. Alexius
-Comnenus is accepted as master of the city, and his rising fortunes
-attract to his victorious standard some of the noblest of the refugees
-from the capital, flying into Asia before the Latins. Others range
-themselves round the person of Theodore Laskaris in Bithynia; and two
-rival Greek or Roman empires are established upon Asiatic soil, that of
-Nicĉa, or Nice, the capital of Bithynia, and the empire of Trebizond.
-
-The successors of Laskaris fought their way back to Constantinople,
-which was recovered from the Latin barons in 1261. A much less splendid
-fate was reserved for the family of Alexius Comnenus; yet the little
-empire on the Black Sea survived the restored Byzantine Empire; and
-a space of nearly a hundred years separates the fall of the last of
-the Greek cities of the interior (conquest of Philadelphia by the
-Sultan Bayazid in 1390) from the overthrow of the rule of the Comneni
-at Trebizond (1461). During a period of over 250 years these petty
-Greek princes contrived to elude the storms of Mussulman conquest
-behind the wall of mountains interposed between the interior and
-the coast. Sometimes as vassals of the Oriental dynasties, at other
-times in a state of independence, they ruled over the beautiful city
-and a narrow strip of seaboard of varying extent. Their possessions
-even included a part of the Crimea, of which the tribute was conveyed
-across the expanse of waters in the imperial galleys. Proud of their
-pompous titles of Grand-Comneni and Emperors of the Romans, or lords
-of all Anatolia, Georgia, and the Transmarine, they supplied their
-deficiencies in real power by elaborate ceremonials, and substituted
-the gorgeous cult of their patron saint, Eugenius, for the devotional
-exercises of the Christian religion. They might be consigned without
-regret to the limbo of history, were it not for the cause of which they
-were the late and debased representatives, but which, nevertheless,
-they contributed to sustain. Their territory afforded a home and
-holding ground to commerce; and, when the land routes through Asia
-Minor fell into disuse owing to the increase of anarchy, Trebizond
-became an emporium of the trade with the further Asia, diverted to the
-more secure avenue of the Armenian plains. This trade was conducted
-with great spirit by the Genoese from their factories at Trebizond,
-until Grand-Comneni, Italian merchants, and all the apparatus of
-civilisation were swept away by the Ottoman sultan, Mohammed the
-Second (1451-81). This type of Oriental exclusiveness came marching
-across the mountains some years after his conquest of Constantinople
-(1453). The citadel of Trebizond was given over to the Janissaries,
-the palace to a pasha; the last of the Comneni was transported to an
-exile in Europe, whence, not long afterwards, he was summoned to the
-capital and commanded to abjure the Christian faith. The firmness of
-his refusal and the dignity of his martyrdom cast a parting ray of
-glory through the shadows which had already closed upon his House. His
-body and those of the princes who died with him were thrown to the dogs
-beyond the walls of Constantinople. Only one-third of the inhabitants
-of Trebizond, and these the dregs of the populace, were suffered to
-remain in their native city. The remainder were compelled to emigrate,
-and their estates were confiscated. In 1475 the policy of expulsion
-of all Western influences was crowned by the Ottoman occupation of
-Caffa and Tana, the more northerly depôts of the Genoese in the Black
-Sea. European ships were expelled from these waters; where trade was
-banished ensued barbarism; and for three centuries these shores were
-forgotten by the West. A new era found expression in the Treaty of
-Adrianople (1829), which secured the free navigation of this sea. The
-first steamer made her appearance in 1836, and since then commerce
-has steadily increased. It flows along the shore, to be distributed
-throughout the interior, until it reaches the solid barrier of the
-Russian frontier. It is carried across Asia just outside that barrier
-on the backs of camels and mules. On the far side of the wall is heard
-the whistle of the locomotive, and the rumble of a train which not a
-bale of the hated products of European industry is permitted to invade.
-
-Let the progressive states of modern Europe take heed lest their
-domestic rivalries result in the conversion of the Black Sea into a
-Russian lake, and the re-establishment of the old and melancholy order.
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER II
-
-ASCENT TO ARMENIA
-
-
-It had never been our intention to enter Armenia by the well-beaten
-avenue of Trebizond and Erzerum. The season was advanced; our first
-objective was Ararat; and it appeared doubtful whether, even with
-the utmost possible expedition, we should be able to accomplish
-the ascent of the mountain before the commencement of the winter
-snows. The attack is no doubt feasible from the side of Turkey; at
-least on two occasions it has been successful; but the journey is long
-from Erzerum to Bayazid, and the stages must be covered by your own
-horses; there is no posting system to furnish you with relays. Nor
-is it likely that you will find the same facilities at Bayazid that
-are offered in Russian territory, through the courtesy of the Russian
-Government, by the detachment of Cossacks which is stationed on the
-northern slopes. These considerations were decisive in determining
-us upon the approach from Georgia; but I was also anxious on other
-grounds to become acquainted with the Russian provinces of Armenia
-before investigating the condition of those under Turkish rule. With
-these purposes we rejoined our steamer on the night of the 16th of
-August and continued the voyage to Batum.
-
-August 17.--From Trebizond to the Russian port is a run of a hundred
-miles; the early morning saw us skirting the redoubts that line
-the shore and doubling the little promontory on which the lighthouse
-stands. In the bight or tiny inlet that recedes from that low headland
-a depth of water of some thirty fathoms may be found; yet the bay as
-a whole is shallow and full of silt, and it is only on this western
-side, close in upon the land, that such soundings are obtained. The
-largest vessels may be seen brought up so near to the beach that their
-lofty sterns almost overhang its shelving slopes. But the space is not
-extensive in this favoured quarter, and if this natural harbour is
-protected on the east by the wall of the coast range, it is exposed
-towards the north. The Russians have endeavoured to overcome these
-disadvantages by constructing a long breakwater of solid masonry,
-which projects from the side of the mountains into the bay; for years
-they have been engaged in dredging operations, but they have been
-hampered by the continual tendency of the anchorage to fill with
-sandy deposit along the eastern shore.
-
-I should not trouble or divert my reader with a humble incident
-of travel, were it not that I am anxious to dispel the prevailing
-prejudices which attribute an unusual degree of severity to the service
-of the customs at this port. Some years ago, when returning from Persia
-to Europe, I had been summoned to the fearful presence of the presiding
-officers and had been amiably dismissed; but on that occasion I was
-invested with the more innocent character of an export, whereas now
-it was with the savoury attributes of imports from Great Britain that
-we were walking into the lion's mouth. Stories were abroad of ladies
-who had arrived in silken dresses and who had been seen to issue from
-the portals of this redoubtable Custom-House in whatever garments may
-have escaped the confiscation from their persons of the more valuable
-products of European looms. It was therefore with some apprehension
-and not without anxiety that we awaited the arrival of the inspector
-and his men. Their white caps and white tunics are soon in evidence on
-the ship's ladder; they step on deck, appear uncertain and desirous of
-information; then, after a cast or two, we see them settling to the
-line. In a remote corner of the deck, almost covered by the gigantic
-frame of Rudolph, lies a pile of miscellaneous but extremely creditable
-luggage, of which the hapless owners are ourselves. When the Swiss
-is interrogated he smiles blandly; the salute on their side is not
-less gracious and more effusive; then they leave the steamer and we
-are free. What is the incident? If you measure it by the paradoxical
-nature of the occurrence, it was more than an incident, it was an
-event. For the rest we were not slow to discover the explanation;
-there is not in Russia a more courteous official or kinder personality
-than the Director of Customs at Batum. M. de Klupffell is a veteran
-sportsman, and, as such, a friend of Englishmen; in my cousin he found
-an ardent votary of his own science and a companion in its pursuit;
-and we were linked together by a number of pleasant memories before
-the day of departure hurried us apart.
-
-Five valuable days, of which not a minute was vacant, were consumed
-in completing the preparations for our journey and in procuring a
-supplementary supply of letters of introduction to those in authority
-at the centres through which we should pass. We were about to enter a
-country which, both for strategical and political reasons, is hedged
-in with scarcely visible but extremely palpable restrictions, and for
-the unprepared and ill-recommended traveller is almost of the nature
-of forbidden ground. There are wide districts in which our consul at
-Batum is not permitted to travel; I am sure he would not venture to
-cross the threshold of Kars. To make certain of being allowed to move
-about without hindrance and to enjoy the luxury of the confidence
-that your presence will be tolerated and that you will not suddenly
-be summarily expelled, it is necessary to supply yourself with a
-special authorisation from the proper Minister at St. Petersburg. But
-our ambassador at the Russian capital refuses to put forward the
-application; he has made a rule which nothing will induce him to
-break through. At Constantinople our embassy is of course completely
-helpless; there remains the doubtful method of private approach. The
-days were swelling into weeks while we lingered on the Bosphorus;
-it was useless to proceed without some form of pass in our pockets,
-but the precious months of summer were gliding away. At length we
-were sufficiently provided with recommendations to be warranted in
-trusting fortune to do the rest; we owed much to the kindness of our
-Russian acquaintances at Constantinople, and we were able to realise
-a fact of which we subsequently received such abundant evidence,
-that the highest Russian officials are as a rule enlightened men of
-the world as well as the kindest and most hospitable of hosts.
-
-On the side of Georgia there are two principal approaches to Armenia,
-and the traveller who desires to consult his comfort may be advised to
-restrict his choice to these two roads. The more westerly ascends the
-valley of the Kur river and reaches the highlands about Akhaltsykh by
-the romantic gorge and passage of Borjom; the other, further east,
-leaves the railway between the Black Sea and the Caspian at the
-station of Akstafa, some fifty miles below Tiflis, and, mounting from
-the trough of the Kur along the course of the Akstafa, issues upon
-the open country on the west of Lake Sevan, near the posting-stage
-of Delijan. [8] A bifurcation at that point leads by one branch to
-Alexandropol and by the other to Erivan. You may ride in a victoria
-and with relays of post-horses on either of these roads. Both conduct
-you from the steppes at the southern foot of Caucasus and from levels
-that are comparatively low across or aslant the grain of the peripheral
-ranges to the edge of the Armenian tableland. Those ranges are the
-continuation upon the east of the mountains which we have followed
-from the Bosphorus to Batum; they stand up like a wall from the
-flats of the Rion and from the plains which border the lower course
-of the Kur, with much the same appearance as we saw them rise with
-ever-increasing proportions along the floor of the Black Sea. Beyond
-those lowlands a mighty neighbour, the parallel chain of Caucasus,
-faces them on the north. Only at one point do these two great systems
-join hands together, in the belt of mountainous country which separates
-the watershed of the Kur from that of the Rion and which the railway
-crosses by the pass of Suram (about 3000 feet). This linking chain
-is known to geographers under the name of the Meschic or Moschic;
-geologists are inclined to connect it with the structure of Caucasus;
-our senses might invest it with a separate existence, a transverse
-barrier as it were, thrown from range to range across the hollow
-which extends from sea to sea.
-
-I was disinclined for several reasons to traverse this barrier, so
-that we might avail ourselves of either of the main roads. Erivan
-was our destination, the railway and the valley of the Akstafa our
-readiest means of access; but I was already familiar with the trough
-of the Kur between Tiflis and the Caspian, and I had read so many
-accounts of this approach to Armenia that the natural features of
-the several stages between the Georgian river and Lake Sevan seemed
-imprinted upon my mind. I was also anxious to gain some knowledge of
-the western portion of the tableland, of which I had only succeeded in
-obtaining from the literature of travel a wholly insufficient idea. To
-these districts the route by Borjom is at once the best-known avenue
-and that which combines with a lavish display of magnificent scenery
-the comforts of a beaten track. But to worm myself up the valley of
-the Kur to the Armenian highlands was, I thought, to miss an occasion
-which might not subsequently be offered of realising at the outset of
-our long journey the essential features and characteristics of the
-country we had come to see. In Asia so vast is the scale upon which
-Nature has operated, so much system has she bestowed upon her works,
-you may follow for hundreds of miles the same manifestations, till
-from some favourable point of vantage you may discover unfolded before
-you the clue and the abiding principles of her extensive and majestic
-plan. What approach was better calculated to offer large views over
-Nature and to instruct us in her designs than one which scaled the
-walls of the girdle ranges where they tower highest above land and
-sea? From Batum it might be possible to penetrate the mountains of
-Ajara, and debouch upon some of the most elevated regions of the
-plateau from which the upper waters and earliest affluents of the
-Kur decline; but the lower reaches of the Chorokh and its alpine
-tributaries intersect a most intricate and savage country, where the
-process of elevation has resulted in dislocation of the range, and
-has produced convulsions which, while they afford a most interesting
-field to the geologist and to the student of mountain-structure,
-have placed obstacles in the way of human communications which the
-traveller is not required to overcome. By following the bend of
-the chain up the coast and along the Rion until it again assumes a
-normal course, he may avoid this knot of ridges and maze of valleys
-and at the same time obtain a clearer and more definite conception of
-the geography of these lands. We learnt that there was a road from
-the plain of the Rion up the side and to the summit of the range;
-we soon decided upon the superior attractions which it promised,
-and took our tickets for the capital of the country on the west of
-the Meschic barrier, the ancient city of Kutais.
-
-August 22.--Rain was falling as we slowly steamed away from the
-station; it is almost always raining at Batum. The clouds cannot leap
-the gigantic bulwark of the mountains at this south-eastern angle of
-the sea; they cling to the fir-clad slopes or put out hands and scale
-the escarpments until they become exhausted and dissolve. The town was
-soon behind us as we wound along the foot of the range on the narrow
-respite of the shore--Batum, with her grim defiance of the written law
-of Europe, with her peaceful situation at the gate of the oil industry,
-of which she receives the products by the railway from the Caspian
-to distribute them over all the world; a creation of modern Russia
-on the familiar official pattern of spreading boulevards with fine
-shops and large hotels. Here is the starting-point of the first train
-which skirts the coast of the Euxine--and even this remote example
-of the species turns aside from the mysterious seaboard to the cities
-of the interior after a brief space of some twenty miles. Yet within
-such limits we are carried through the wildest piece of country that
-may be found between the mouth of the river Rion and the entrance to
-the Black Sea, a district endowed with extraordinary fertility, which
-still remains unexploited and unreclaimed. It is inhabited here and
-there by a few straggling settlements, which contrast to the splendour
-of his natural surroundings the squalor of uncivilised man. We have
-outreached the furthest extension of the fringe of Greek elements;
-Georgian peoples live in the valleys of the interior and are thinly
-scattered upon the malarious coast; while further east, where the
-chain has left the sea and is aligned upon the plains, lowlands as
-well as mountains, the skirts of the range and its innermost recesses
-are the home of a population of Georgian race. Between Trebizond and
-the Russian fortress first the Lazis and then the Ajars may perhaps
-be regarded as transitional factors to the new order which commences
-after you have left Batum. I should not venture to pronounce upon the
-racial connections of the Lazis; they may represent the aboriginal
-occupants of their country, the wild tribes who harassed the army of
-Xenophon and were the settled plague of the Byzantine governors and
-of the emperors of the Comnenian line. The Ajars would appear to be of
-mixed parentage; like the Lazis they profess the Mohammedan faith. The
-Georgian districts which we are now entering still retain the names of
-the several independent principalities to which they formerly belonged,
-and except in the case of Abkhasia, up in the north at the foot of
-Caucasus, the Christian religion almost exclusively prevails. First
-comes Guria along the shore and the bend of the mountains; Imeritia
-extends on either bank of the Rion and as far as the pass of Suram;
-Mingrelia is the name of the country on the north of the Kolchian
-river, and it is bounded by Imeritia in the east.
-
-For a distance of some fifteen miles the landscape was monotonous;
-on the one hand the almost vertical bulwark of the mountains, on the
-other the little grey waves breaking on the stony shore. But just
-before we arrived at the station of Kobulety the oppressive proximity
-of the range was relaxed, the country opened, and between low forest
-and maize-grown clearings the soil-charged waters of a river wound
-their way down towards the sea. It was the commencement of the
-scenery which is characteristic of Guria, a tract of virgin woodland
-which clothes the spurs of the receding chain and the alluvial flats
-and marshes of the coast. Rolling hills take the place of the abrupt
-wall of rock; they are covered with a jungle of bush and little trees,
-which is broken here and there by irregular patches planted with Indian
-corn. Dark streams heavy with loam descend between high banks. Not
-a village could we see, nor any human habitation; distant prospects
-were obscured by a veil of mist. Yet the day was fairly fine, and, if
-the clouds were deeply banked on the horizon, the zenith often burst
-to pure blue. As we proceeded, the forest increased both in grandeur
-and in luxuriance; clusters of magnificent trees rose from the bush
-and above the brushwood, until the features of hill and spur became
-lost beneath the lofty overgrowth and transformed to masses or ledges
-of tall stems and spreading branches outlined against the sky. The
-withered forks of lifeless trunks stood out in grim relief from this
-ground of shadow, or were projected in weird tracery upon the field
-of light--an eloquent proof that no human hand had yet disturbed the
-natural order of these primeval woods. The sea was lost behind leafy
-brakes festooned with luscious creepers, which flourish with almost
-tropical development in this warm climate and upon this soaking
-soil. Not a single road did we see; the stations are mere stages,
-and the only sign of the presence of man was one of the long-legged
-dappled pigs so common in Imeritia, which was trespassing on the line.
-
-Such are the characteristics which broadly prevail between Kobulety
-and Lanchkhuty, a space of some twenty-four miles. But we had not yet
-reached the latter station, which is situated due north of the capital
-of Guria, Ozurgeti, when new features were discovered in the scene. On
-the left hand the view opened across an even country where the sappy
-stems and reed-like forms and flowers of the maize-plants alternated
-with stretches of unreclaimed bush; and in the distance a bold hill,
-only partially wooded, projected into the plain from a long, vague
-line of mountains which closed the horizon on the north. We felt that
-these must surely be the spurs of Caucasus, and that the Phasis would
-shortly be disclosed.
-
-You cross that fabled river--the modern Rion--by the commonplace
-method of a railway bridge; it flows between high banks through
-the wide expanse of these surroundings on the southern margin of the
-plain. Some distance east of these lower reaches the impetuous current
-that has pierced the Caucasus, from which it issues at Kutais, has
-been deflected by the mountains of the southern border, which turn
-it towards the west. You do not follow its tortuous course, which
-skirts the outworks of these mountains as they stretch inwards from
-the coast; the ground is flat, the railroad points more directly for
-the capital at the foot of the great chain on the north.
-
-Mile upon mile the plain of the Rion was unfolded about us, a fertile
-province which might be made the granary of Georgia, but which would
-now appear to produce little else but the lowest of the cereals,
-an endless succession of plantations of Indian corn. The land is
-ill-reclaimed; little labour has been expended, and the bush starts
-up among the canes. At the stations we remarked groups of women and
-young girls clad in loose cotton dresses with cotton kerchiefs on
-their heads. Geese strutted along the line or paddled in the shallow
-streams, and we became familiar with the strange appearance of the
-Imeritian pigs. But still no village! At rare intervals a wooden hut
-with a large verandah, and here and there among the maize one of the
-rude wooden stages erected to command a prospect over the fields.
-
-As we advanced, the dim and misty boundary of the Caucasus took shape
-and colour about the lower slopes. The soft hues of vegetation,
-the brighter flashes of naked strata were distinguished from the
-uncertain background of rock and cloud; bold ridges with fantastic
-outlines stood up on the horizon; but here and there the white
-vapour was still clinging to their highest parapets and spreading
-fanwise to the brief circle of clear sky. Above them lay a world
-of half-lights and banked cloud-masses, the veiled presence of the
-main chain. Behind us rose the wooded ridges of the southern range,
-till they vanished in the folds of the murky canopy which they hold
-so firmly and love so well; but the marshes had disappeared and the
-lowest spurs which met the plain were almost devoid of trees. On our
-point of course the two great ranges appeared to mingle together and
-arrest our even progress towards the east.
-
-For a second time we were overlooking the stream of the Rion to regain
-the left bank. It was flowing with a rapid current in a direct line
-from the Caucasus, channelling the beached-up shingle of an extensive
-bed. In places the waters spread in shallow lakes and deposit a thick
-sediment of soil. This upper portion of the plain is barren and stony;
-it is partially covered with a low jungle of bush. It is confined on
-either side by the meeting flanks of the mountains; and as we made
-our way due north with the river serpenting beneath us, all prospect
-on our right hand was shut out by rising ground clothed with a forest
-of low oak trees.
-
-On the opposite slopes, among the deepening tints of wood and
-clearing, beneath the growing distinction of light and shade, we
-could discern the white faces of a few scattered houses and then the
-gardens among which they stood. Two larger buildings were apparent,
-crowned with conical cupolas, of which the roofing was coloured a
-soft green. Such are the outskirts of Kutais; the town is hidden
-from the plain. Towering above the scene and almost infinitely high,
-we might feel vaguely but could scarcely see the gigantic framework
-of Caucasus, except where here and there a dazzling light among the
-clouds revealed the presence of a snowfield in the sky.
-
-We were tempted to linger in the capital of Imeritia, and I can
-confidently recommend to the more leisurely traveller a protracted
-stay in this fascinating place. You will never tire of the beauty
-of site and grandeur of surroundings, while few street scenes are
-more picturesque than those which are disclosed during an afternoon
-ramble in the Jewish quarter of Kutais. It is a convenient centre
-for excursions into the recesses of Caucasus, and you have only
-to follow the windings of the valley of the Rion to be introduced
-to the inmost sanctuaries of the chain. In the ruins of the noble
-cathedral beyond the outskirts of the town, in the neighbouring and
-well-preserved monastery of Gelat, with its enchanting prospect from
-the slopes of Caucasus over the open landscape of the south, both the
-archĉologist and the student of architecture will discover an abundant
-source of interest; while, if the study of Nature herself be among
-the objects of your journey, what richer field could be offered to
-the geologist or the naturalist than these mountains and untouched
-forests and flowery hills? But we ourselves were hurried away by the
-exigencies of travel after a short sojourn of two and a half days,
-and my present purpose must be confined to the elucidation of those
-natural features which accompanied the early stages of our ascent to
-Armenia, and which were unfolded to our view in an extensive panorama
-from the declivities about Kutais.
-
-I shall therefore take my reader to some convenient standpoint in
-the environs, let us say to the cliffs on the right bank of the Rion
-and the hill upon which the massive ruins of the cathedral rise on
-the sky-line above the leafy brakes (Fig. 6, a). I can show you the
-position from the opposite bank of the river in a picture which was
-taken over a mile above the town from the road which ascends the
-valley and which we followed on our way to Gelat (Fig. 6). The Rion
-is flowing from you into the middle distance coming from the north;
-Kutais itself is hidden by a wooded promontory (Fig. 6, d); but you
-see the group of buildings which compose the Armenian and the Catholic
-churches, and which crown the extreme northerly projection of the site
-(Fig. 6, b). Three bridges span the Rion where it sweeps past the town
-confined between lofty banks, and lead from the busy streets to the
-peaceful heights which overlook them and command all the landscape
-of the plain. I cannot imagine a more charming walk than by the hill
-church of St. George (Fig. 6, c) to the pleasant eminence which I
-have already described.
-
-We reach our point, and there before us expands the open landscape of
-which the second photograph embraces a considerable part (Fig. 7). We
-are standing on the southern slopes of Caucasus, with a wide belt of
-hill and ridge behind us, and, beyond and far above such familiar
-natural features, the white serrations and air-borne snowfields of
-the inmost chain. The atmosphere is fresh and crisp even at this
-season and with this temperature; [9] and banks of white cloud float
-in the sky. At our feet lies Kutais, with head upon the hillside and
-foot upon the margin of the plain; the eye follows the winding river
-which has just escaped from Caucasus and is flowing outwards towards
-the opposite range; the horizon is closed by that wall of mountain,
-emerging solid from a tender veil of mist. The plain itself is flat as
-water; it is coloured with the golden hues of the ripening maize-fields
-and featured by a labyrinth of vague detail. On the left hand, outside
-the photograph, a little north of east, you just discern high on the
-slopes beyond the left bank of the Rion the site of the monastery of
-Gelat; and the other day we thought we could descry from its lofty
-terrace, at the base of a distant promontory of Caucasus the shimmer
-of the sea in the west.
-
-Let us realise for a moment the meaning of the landscape, and allow the
-mind to assist the eye. The opposite mountains belong to the girdle of
-ranges which buttress the Armenian tableland, the same which we have
-followed along the coast of the Black Sea, and which we left at our
-entrance upon the plain of the Rion stretching eastwards away from the
-shore. Here they constitute the barrier which separates the lowlands
-of Imeritia from the highlands about Akhaltsykh in the south; and,
-if you wish to examine the structure of this barrier more closely,
-you will find that the back or spine of the system consists of a
-ridge which extends in an easterly direction to about the longitude
-of Tiflis. The Caucasus, with an axis inclining south-eastwards, steps
-up to this latitudinal chain, and just east of Kutais the two systems
-join hands in the belt of picturesque hill scenery which divides
-the watershed of the Kur from that of the Rion, and which we already
-know under the name of the Meschic linking range. East of Tiflis the
-axis of the Armenian border ranges is turned towards south-east, and
-follows a direction parallel with that of Caucasus along the trough of
-the Kur towards the Caspian Sea. Like the Caucasus here in the north,
-its opposite neighbour, that southern bulwark extends from sea to sea;
-and some geographers have applied to it the name of Little Caucasus,
-a misleading and, if we attach importance to the phenomena of Nature, a
-most inappropriate name. For while the northern range may be described
-as an isolated and independent structure--independent in appearance
-at least--which rises on the one side from about the same levels as
-those to which on the other side it declines, that on the south is in
-reality nothing more than a succession of steps or buttresses which
-lead up to and flank the Armenian highlands. The first stages of our
-journey will conduct us up the slopes of those mountains, from a plain
-which does not much exceed the sea-level, across a ridge of which
-the pass has an altitude of about 7000 feet, to plains which range
-between a height of 7000 and not less than 3000 feet above the sea.
-
-August 25.--From Kutais to where the southern range perceptibly
-commences to gather, about the village of Bagdad, is a direct distance
-of close on fifteen miles. So even is the plain that the road makes
-little deviation and covers the space in seventeen miles. At half-past
-eight on the morning of the 25th of August our victoria, drawn by
-four horses abreast, made its start from the little hotel in which we
-had lodged; it was followed by the cart which we had engaged for the
-luggage and to which was harnessed a similar team. We had hired both
-conveyances for the whole of the journey to Abastuman on the further
-slopes of the southern range; the regular avenue of communication with
-that summer watering-place is by the valley of the Kur and Borjom,
-and it is necessary to make your own arrangements if you desire to
-take the Imeritian road. We spent five hours upon the first stage of
-only seventeen miles; our coachman was obliged to harbour the strength
-of his horses for the long ascent to the summit of the chain, and we
-were always halting to take photographs and to realise the interest
-of the magnificent scenery which forms the distant setting of these
-lowlands. We were crossing the uppermost portion of the plain of the
-Rion, where it rises to the belt of hill and mountain which links
-the northern with the southern range; long stretches of woodland
-with an undergrowth of wild rhododendron had taken the place of the
-expanse of golden maize-fields, broken by little trees and intervals
-of bush. To emerge from the shady avenue upon a tract of open country
-was to feast our eyes upon a landscape of no ordinary character. On
-the one hand the airy pinnacles and gleaming snowfields of Caucasus,
-on the other the forest-clad walls of the Armenian border chain;
-in the west the varied detail that covers the floor of the plain as
-with a carpet, and behind us the spurs meeting in the east.
-
-We were impressed by the hush of life over the plain and in the
-woodlands, by the sparseness of human habitations, and by the absence
-of traffic along the road. Such are the certain signs in the East of
-economical stagnation, when man is idle and the earth sleeps. It was
-therefore with pleasure that about one o'clock we came upon a tiny
-village and lingered beneath a spreading tree. Not very far from this
-little settlement we crossed a stream at the base of the mountains,
-and at half-past one we came to a halt in the street of the village of
-Bagdad, after a short but perceptible rise. We noticed some vineyards
-during the course of our upward progress; the elevation of Bagdad,
-according to the single reading of my barometer, is 922 feet. [10]
-
-It is at Bagdad that you begin the ascent of the mountains of the
-southern border. So broad is the range, the pass so lofty and the
-road so tortuous, that it would be no easy matter to cross them in
-a single day. The direct distance measured on a map from the village
-to the pass is no less than seventeen miles, and along the road you
-cover some thirty-one miles. There is a hut at about half-way which
-is a convenient night's quarter, and we resolved to make it the goal
-of our second stage.
-
-We left Bagdad at three o'clock, with the valleys still open about us,
-with the wooded slopes rising on every side. After we had passed to the
-right branch of the stream which we had crossed below the village, the
-gradients commenced to make themselves felt, and here and there among
-the foliage the first fir trees started, the delicate blue firs. We
-followed the course of the running water up the spacious valley,
-through the forest which clothes the range from foot to summit and
-stands up along the ridges against the sky.
-
-The saturated atmosphere and warm climate of the seaboard were
-still with us; the one feeds, the other stimulates this luxuriant
-growth. Even on this fine day the clouds still lingered in the
-uppermost hollows, and when at four o'clock we opened up a beautiful
-side valley, all the landscape of wooded fork and winding torrent
-reflected the silvery hues of a crown of captive vapour clinging to
-the recesses at the head of the glen.
-
-Verst after verst we might count our progress on the white milestones,
-but we rarely observed a sign of the presence of man. A Georgian
-wayfarer, staff in hand, a peasant's cottage with its wide verandah,
-were the infrequent incidents in a scene which still belonged to
-Nature, and with which such figures and such objects harmonised. At
-last at the side of the road where the forest was thickest we came
-upon a solitary little cabin, a neat wooden structure, which we at
-once recognised as our shelter for the night. It was a quarter-past
-seven o'clock and we had reached an altitude of 1900 feet. [11]
-During the space of some fourteen miles from our mid-day station,
-the valley to which we had throughout been faithful had narrowed to a
-deep trough; and an hour before our arrival at the hut of Zikari the
-read was taken for a short space along the left bank of the stream,
-in order to avoid a projecting buttress of its eastern wall.
-
-August 26.--Some distance below the hut the stream which we had
-followed is joined by a tributary coming from the east; the two
-branches of the fork collect a number of smaller affluents which have
-their sources near the summit of the chain. In continuing our course
-next morning up the more westerly of these branches, we were rapidly
-transported to the more open landscapes of the higher slopes, and made
-our way almost in a direct line for the pass, circling the outworks
-of the principal ridge. Filmy white clouds were suspended from the
-pine woods above us, when at a quarter-past seven we again took to
-the road; but for five hours the forest trees remained with us and
-increased rather than diminished in size. In one place it was a lime
-of unusual proportions rearing a maze of branches from a quadruple
-trunk; at another we stood in wonder before a gigantic beech which
-measured 17 feet 6 inches round the base. The undergrowth was supplied
-by laurel and holly, and cascades leapt from the rocks. The reader
-may see our road as it wound through this sylvan scenery (Fig. 8),
-but he must allow his imagination to supply the inherent deficiencies
-of photographic methods. The rare inhabitants of these solitudes are
-of Georgian race and wear the dress of Georgia (Fig. 9), but their
-straggling tenements are few and far between.
-
-Above the forest the groves of fir, higher still the grassy slopes
-and naked crags--such is the familiar order of mountain scenery as
-you slowly rise to the spine of a range. The two last features became
-apparent at the sixty-sixth verst-stone, or some twelve and a half
-miles from the hut. A profusion of wild raspberries were growing on
-the mossy banks and provided us with a delicious meal. We remarked the
-sharpness of the summits of the ridge above us and read the number of
-the seventy-second verst. The pass is just above this lofty standpoint,
-and we left the carriage to reach it by a short cut. We arrived there
-after a brief climb to find a fresh breeze blowing and all the wide
-belt of mountain at our feet.
-
-I doubt whether there exists in the nearer Asia a standpoint which
-commands a prospect at once so grand and so instructive as that which
-is unfolded from the summit of the Zikar Pass (Zikarski Perival;
-altitude by my Hicks mountain aneroid, 7164 feet; Russian survey,
-7104 feet). With its double front towards north and south and the
-contrasting features of the dual landscape, it may be said to overlook
-two worlds. On the north the view ranges across the broad belt of
-wooded mountains, which culminate in this ridge, to the gigantic
-barrier of the Caucasus of which the peaks are distant some ninety to
-a hundred miles (Fig. 10). Invisible in the hollow lies the plain of
-the Rion; the crests before you, boldly vaulted and clad with forest
-to the very summits, sweep away to a dim horizon of grey mist; above
-that uncertain background the snows and glaciers of Caucasus appear
-suspended in the air among the clouds. Dense vapour shrouds the scene,
-and above the flashes of the snow a long bank of white cloud spreads
-fanwise up the sky.
-
-But turn to the south--the forms and texture of the earth's surface,
-the lights and shadows falling through a rarer atmosphere from lightly
-floating filaments of cloud, are those of a new world (Fig. 11). The
-pine wood still struggles down the hillside, and gathers from the
-blighted trunks around you to clothe the first valleys of the southern
-watershed. But the view will no longer close with successive walls of
-mountain; the road ceases winding up the slopes of successive outworks;
-every vertical line, each deep vaulting relaxes and disappears. The
-highest plains of the tableland attain about the same elevation as
-the pass upon which you stand; all the outlines in the distance are
-horizontal, all the shapes shallow-vaulted and convex. If you follow
-the long-drawn profiles of the loftier masses, it is the form of a cone
-that breaks the sky-line, and never that of a peak. The colours are
-lightly washed ochres and madders; the surface of the volcanic soil
-is bare of all vegetation; the shadows lie transparent and thin. Such
-was our first view of Armenia and such the impression which our later
-travel confirmed.
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER III
-
-TO AKHALTSYKH
-
-
-Where else except in London will you see clever driving? Is not England
-the only country where you can trust your coachman to shave his corners
-and keep his team in hand? With four horses abreast the process is
-perhaps not easy, especially down a fairly steep incline. We were
-pursued by a landau which contained some Russian officers who had
-been spectators of our photographic and hypsometrical operations on
-the summit of the pass; our driver became inspired with the spirit
-of rivalry, and within a few minutes the trot had developed into a
-canter, the canter into a headlong career. On the left hand a deep
-abyss, on the right a mossy bank, and the post of danger occupied
-by our plump little dragoman who sat on the left-hand box seat! The
-carriage grazed the bank and, before we had time to pull the Armenian
-to us, struck and overturned. No damage to the horses or to the rest
-of the company, but the unfortunate dragoman, moaning and sobbing on
-the road! Happily his contusions were not serious, and a draught of
-brandy almost restored him to the possession of himself. Assisted by
-our kind acquaintances, who were the unwitting cause of the disaster
-and who had hurried to the scene, we conveyed him down the slope to
-where a gay picnic party were regaling themselves with cakes and tea
-and a variety of strong liqueurs. At once the ladies busied themselves
-with the bruised and dust-covered youth, whose numbed senses quickly
-revived under their care. But the incident delayed us, and it was
-night before we arrived at the outskirts of Abastuman, situated in
-the pine woods some ten miles south of the pass, at an elevation
-of 4278 feet. We were tempted to pitch our tents above the village,
-on the banks of a pleasant stream; but the darkness as well as the
-lateness of the hour decided us to have recourse to a crowded hotel.
-
-We were again in the midst of wealth and luxury--an oasis strangely
-incongruous with the solemn character with which these vast and lonely
-landscapes are impressed. The strains of music floated on the air;
-a dance was proceeding, to which after a hurried meal my cousin and
-myself repaired. All that was most brilliant in the official world
-of the Caucasus was gathered in the bright ball-room; and as we made
-our way there through the garden we met a group of returning guests
-gathered about a slender and youthful figure, to whom all appeared
-to defer. It was the Grand Duke George of Russia, since Tsarevich,
-who was residing in this lofty station alike in winter as in summer
-for the benefit of his health. In the afternoon of the following day,
-which was devoted to work and to preparations, came a message from
-His Imperial Highness inviting us to mid-day dinner; so we deferred
-our start from early morning to a later hour. His villa was situated
-just above the street of pleasure-houses among the fir trees which
-clothe the valley from trough to ridge; and on the opposite side of
-the road the slope had been converted into a park, which contained
-living specimens of the big game of the Caucasian wilds. The dinner
-was al fresco in the garden of the villa; the Grand Duke welcomed
-us in perfect English and placed my cousin on his right and myself
-on his left hand. Opposite me and on my cousin's right sat the Duke
-of Oldenburg, a practised sportsman and a charming personality,
-whose lively humour made the talk flow. On my left I had a graver
-but extremely well-informed gentleman whose conversation impressed
-me, but whose name I forgot to record. M. Asbeleff of the suite of
-His Highness was also of the party, and most kindly provided us with
-introductions which were of great service to us at a later stage of
-our journey. Quite a respectable number of guests were gathered round
-the circular table, the majority clad in the white cotton tunics
-which are the summer uniform of the official class.
-
-A purée or thick soup was served, which I thought delicious, but
-which brought a twinkle from the playful eye of the Duke. As each
-successive dish of this dinner à la Russe made its appearance a smile
-came from across the table, or "Isn't it nasty?" or some even less
-mildly deprecating words. I ventured to demur to his good-humoured
-criticism and to submit that, if the French alone possessed the art of
-cooking, the Russians succeeded, where the English failed signally,
-in making things taste nice. The champagne came in for a particular
-share of attention, having been produced by the Duke from his vineyards
-at Kutais. My cousin let out the secret that we had already made its
-acquaintance: that we had visited his cellars and had been greatly
-interested in his enterprise, especially on the evening at the
-hut of Zikari, when we had regaled ourselves with a bottle of his
-sparkling wine. He now insisted on our taking a little case with us,
-and promised it should be dry to suit what he said he knew to be our
-taste. My companion on the left discussed the objects of our journey,
-and was of opinion that we might succeed in reaching the slopes of
-Ararat before the first snows commenced. I told him that we were also
-anxious to study the condition of the country, and the conversation
-turned upon the limitations which he said were imposed in India upon
-foreigners travelling with similar aims. Can there be anything more
-fatuous than such restrictions? We both agreed that it was perfectly
-possible to guard against political intriguers and at the same time to
-leave bona-fide travellers free. The Grand Duke spoke English like an
-Englishman, and you could not have a more amiable host. We remarked
-that his features resembled those of his cousin, the Duke of York,
-of whom a portrait was placed on his writing-table together with the
-photographs of other members of our Royal House.
-
-Two four-horsed posting carriages had been prepared for the drive to
-Akhaltsykh, distant 16 1/2 miles. By four o'clock we had rejoined the
-rest of our party and were leaving behind us the pleasant station of
-Abastuman. We followed the tripping stream down the narrow valley,
-the rocky and beetling sides studded with firs from foot to summit;
-and from among them a ruined castle, ascribed as usual to Queen Thamar,
-frowned out upon the passage which it controls. But we had not gone far
-before a complete change came over the landscape; the valley opened,
-distant prospects were disclosed. Before us lay the scenery which
-is typical of Armenia and upon which our eyes had rested from the
-summit of the Zikar Pass. Nature is seldom abrupt in her processes;
-a transitional character invests the first slopes of the southern
-watershed; the narrow belt of pine-clad ridges interrupts the contrast
-between the luscious forests which cover the range on the side of
-the Black Sea littoral and the barren highlands through which the
-upper waters of the Kur descend. We had issued from those recesses,
-and around us in a wide circle were unfolded the Armenian plains. The
-view ranged over an open country, for the most part bare of vegetation,
-and featured by a succession of convexities in the friable surface,
-from the foreground of hummock and hill to the sweeping outlines of
-the higher masses, changing colour and complexion with every change
-in the sky.
-
-The ground was crumbling with excessive dryness; the soil is rich,
-and would no doubt yield crops of great value were it cultivated on a
-liberal scale. Yet all the cultivation we could see was of the nature
-of little patches of yellow stubble or lightly ploughed land. It was
-evident that the primitive methods of the East had not been superseded,
-and that agriculture still partook of the precarious character which
-is the outcome of centuries of political disturbance--the peasant
-uncertain of reaping what he has sown. Stony tracts interrupted these
-plots of reclamation, but in general the surface was apt for the
-plough. The springs of life had been exhausted by the drought of an
-Eastern summer; the fertile earth was bare as water, and transparent
-tints of pink and ochre invested the landscape far and wide. A spirit
-of vastness and loneliness breathed over the scene; the air was clear
-and crisp and recalled the bracing climate of the Persian tablelands.
-
-Such characteristics were strange to some among our party, for only
-my cousin and myself knew the interior of Asia and recognised in the
-note which was now for the first time sounded the commencement of a
-familiar theme. We pursued our way in silence, each absorbed by his
-own reflections and all responsive to the same spell. Through the
-bleak landscape wound the little river and stretched the white line
-of the road. Here and there on the margin of the water or beyond the
-irregular border of the pebble-strewn bed a little orchard or a patch
-of garden planted with potatoes, formed a spot of verdure contrasting
-with the hues around. [12]
-
-Where were the villages? For it seemed that there must be inhabitants
-who had gathered this scanty harvest and ploughed the surface of
-the darker soil. They select the slope of a hill or the rise of an
-undulation; the door and front of their dwellings are alone visible,
-the back is caverned into the shelving ground; you must pass close
-to such a settlement and by daylight to notice the incidence of a
-human element in the scene. We came upon four villages of this pattern
-before the mid-way station was reached. They were peopled by Tartars,
-who were occupied in threshing and winnowing the season's corn. The
-husks were flying in the air and the bright cottons of men and women
-fluttered in the breeze.
-
-Benara, the posting-house which supplied us with fresh horses, is
-situated close to the bank of the stream, at no great distance above
-the point where it joins the Koblian Chai, a river which collects the
-drainage of the extreme north-western angle of the tableland. A little
-below this junction the united waters receive a further affluent,
-known as the Poskhov Chai, which gathers the streams from south-west
-and south-east. Even at this season the three combined form a river
-of fair size, flowing through the plain on an easterly course in a
-bed of many channels, and joining the Kur after passing through the
-town of Akhaltsykh. This river is usually called the Akhaltsykh Chai.
-
-Our road followed its course, taking an abrupt bend eastwards and
-still faithful to the left bank. Some hillocks closed the view on the
-north for a short space; then they flattened, and in that direction
-the great plain rolled around us, bounded in the distance by hummock
-hills. At intervals we caught a glimpse of the pine-clad ridges of the
-border range, standing up on the horizon in the east. Behind us the
-long-drawn outlines and bare slopes of the mountains of the tableland,
-and towards the south the ground rising from the right bank of the
-river to the summit-line of a mountain mass of this character which
-has the hummock formation throughout.
-
-Massed battalions of Russian soldiers, it seemed a whole army corps,
-were drawn up on the plain. We were passing a permanent camp with
-pavilions and stationary cannon, and for some distance the ground
-was dotted with white tents. A review was proceeding, and the dark
-uniforms of the troops gave their columns the appearance of a series
-of black blocks. A hymn was being sung; the stately music swelled
-over the hushed scene.
-
-What a contrast between the landscape and such accidental incidents,
-the Russian road, the Russian camp! On the road little piles of
-stones heaped at regular intervals; but the country without a fence,
-without boundaries or divisions, a mere expanse of rolling soil.
-
-The first town or larger village that we saw was Suflis, rising among
-orchards from the right bank. It is backed by the bleak mountain
-mass which the river skirts; the flat roofs, ranged in tiers, were
-scarcely distinguishable from the shelving ground, but the vertical
-lines of several minarets were seen from afar. Could you be shown a
-more typical example of a tumble-down Eastern township? Yet you are
-on the threshold of an important fortress and provincial centre where
-modern appliances are in vogue.... Suflis passed, we approached more
-closely to the river; the mass on our right broke off in cliffs to
-the margin of the water, while on our left hand a low ridge, which
-had the appearance of an outcrop of volcanic rock, stepped up to the
-border of the stream. The road followed down the defile, skirting
-huge boulders and overtowered by bold crags; until the heights on
-our left were crowned with masonry, partly ruinous; and before us,
-across the river, where the gorge opened, the cherry-coloured roofing
-of the modern town of Akhaltsykh was outspread among gardens on the
-level ground. A little further down we crossed a substantial bridge,
-and, without entering the town, pitched our tents on the sand of the
-river-bed. It was nearly seven o'clock, and night had fallen before
-our camping operations were complete.
-
-From the Olympian eminence of the Grand Duke's circle at Abastuman and
-from the steps of the Imperial throne, we came near to being hurled
-forth at Akhaltsykh into the abyss of a Russian prison. The gods
-must surely weep at the sorry manner in which their human ministers
-interpret their laws. Day broke without any shadow of presentiment--a
-fresh and breezy morning, the river rippling before us, and on
-the opposite bank the ancient fortress edging the steep crags and
-outlined on the luminous sky. The delicious sleep beneath a tent was
-followed by an early bathe; the town was silent, but, as we made our
-way up the margin of the current, a little village was discovered,
-of which the feminine occupants were already descending the slope
-with their many-shaped water-jars and divesting themselves of their
-loose cottons to splash on the brink of the stream. A little later we
-passed their hovels and recognised them as Armenians, and admired the
-beauty of one among them, now busy with the routine of her household,
-who with her arched eyebrows, aquiline nose, massive forehead, and
-coal-black tresses reminded us of Biblical heroines. The fascination
-of travel consists in its many-coloured contrasts; nothing ruffled the
-composure of our mood of detachment as we left this peaceful scene
-to explore a fresh hive of human beings with the easy confidence of
-men to whom the land belongs. Our first visit was as usual to the
-civil governor; he was to conduct us to the hive, remark upon the
-peculiar qualities of the honey, and deferentially withdraw while we
-pursued our own investigations into the mysteries of insect life. If
-our attitude could be convicted of any element of such fatuous vanity,
-the illusion was quickly and rudely dispelled. We were taken to a mean
-structure on the southern outskirts of the town, which resembled wooden
-boxes placed one above another, with broad wooden verandahs running
-round. These balconies were indeed the distinguishing feature; and,
-when we observed the groups of ill-miened loafers who loitered within
-them, it was hard to believe that we were anywhere else but in Turkey
-visiting a pasha at the Serai. After some palaver with the menials,
-who were not disposed to excessive courtesy, it transpired that the
-governor had left that very morning on a visit to Abastuman. We
-asked to see his deputy, and were ushered into the presence of a
-broad-shouldered official whose little eyes and cast of face were
-essentially Russian, and who did not receive us with any excessive show
-of warmth. Such is the manner of deputies all the world over--but our
-disappointment turned to surprise when who should enter the apartment
-but Wesson, closely escorted by a formidable individual whom we at
-once recognised as a commissary of police!
-
-May I introduce the reader to Ivan Kuyumjibashoff, a personality
-no less alarming than his name (Fig. 12), and may I take this early
-opportunity to place him on his guard against the fallacy that the
-Armenians are not a martial race? For this man was a pure Armenian,
-in spite of the Russian termination of -off instead of -ean. Erzerum
-was his native city; his family had emigrated to Russia, and during
-the last war against the Turks Ivan had gained the cross of honour
-for personal bravery in the field. At his side hung a sword of which
-the scabbard and hilt were adorned with chased silver; the blade was
-his special pride, being of ancient Khorasan workmanship, a trophy
-from the Kurds. His features inspired fear; his skin of leather was
-the result of exposure; but we had not yet learnt that, like all true
-warriors who are not barbarians, the lion's fierceness was tempered
-by the meekness of the lamb. A cloud settled over the face of the
-deputy as the massive fist turned the handle of the door and the heavy
-tread fell on the bare boards. Arrived at his side, Ivan whispered
-something in his ear, and I ventured to ask what might be the business
-of this man. The official replied that he was the emissary of Captain
-Taranoffsky, the chief of the so-called gendarmerie, and that he had
-been sent to conduct us to the presence of his superior, who would
-personally explain the purport of his summons. I enquired whether
-Colonel Alander was not the governor of Akhaltsykh, and his office
-the seat of supreme power; I was answered that there was another and
-separate jurisdiction which the governor did not control. The deputy
-added with an agreeable humour that, should we be thrown into prison,
-he would be powerless to take us out. Nothing therefore to be done
-but to follow Ivan; and would that his master had been as capable
-as himself!
-
-In these Armenian provinces of Russia the machinery of administration
-is conducted by a handful of Russian officials through Armenians,
-who are employed even in the higher grades. The Armenian is a man of
-ancient culture and high natural capacity; neither the instinct nor the
-quality would be claimed by his Russian superior, who is the instrument
-of a system of government rather than a born ruler, and who in general
-is lacking in those attributes of pliancy and individual initiative
-which it is the tendency of rigid bureaucracies to destroy. Moreover
-the Russian official gives the impression of being overwhelmed by his
-system, like a child to whom his lessons are new; and, when you see him
-at work among such a people as the Armenians, you ask yourself how it
-has happened that a race with all the aptitudes are governed by such
-wooden figures as these. There are of course notable exceptions to this
-general statement, which resumes one's experience of the subordinate
-officers rather than of those who are highest placed. Taranoffsky was
-about as bad a specimen of his class as it has been my misfortune to
-meet. A short man of portly figure, fat red face, and little eyes, he
-had all the self-assertion which so often accompanies small stature,
-all the unfriendliness which seems the almost necessary outcome of
-a lack of physical grace. I at once perceived all the elements of
-an unpleasant situation; nor were my apprehensions disproved by the
-result. We were taken to a hotel, deprived of our papers and letters,
-and placed under close police surveillance pending a decision as to
-our future fate. The warmest pass of arms was that which took place
-over our photographic negatives, which our persecutor peremptorily
-required. I represented that many of the films were as yet undeveloped,
-and was absolute in my refusal to give them up. On the other hand
-I expressed myself anxious that he should see them developed in his
-presence, for which purpose I begged him to prepare a dark room. I
-forget whether he accepted this tempting proposal; the negatives
-remained intact. Permission was given us to drive under escort to
-the monastery of Safar, and the arrival that night or the following
-morning of Colonel Alander appeared to alleviate the disfavour with
-which we were viewed. Not that these two imperia work harmoniously
-together! How can it be expected that they should? The political police
-are particularly active in fortress towns such as Kars or Akhaltsykh;
-but I understood from Ivan that they are pretty widely distributed
-over the country, and that their functions extend to tracking down
-Socialists and Nihilists, and in general to the diffusion of alarm
-and annoyance far and wide. "How ugly is man!" has exclaimed a French
-novelist; indeed how ugly at such moments he appears.
-
-If the morning was consumed by these unforeseen complications, the
-afternoon held in store for the harried travellers a further contrast
-and a rich reward. The monastery of Safar is situated a few miles
-[13] south-east of Akhaltsykh on the lofty slopes of a volcanic ridge;
-the drive thither displays the landscape of the town and surrounding
-country, and the goal is a group of buildings, of which the principal
-church is a gem of architecture, instinct with the graces that
-adorn and elevate life. For awhile we followed down the right bank
-of the river along the road toward Akhalkalaki and the east; then,
-almost reversing direction, turned up a side track on the right hand,
-which conducted us, always rising, across the bleak undulations at
-the back of the modern town. Here and there the soil had been sown
-and was yellow with stubble, or lay exposed in patches of plough;
-but cultivation was only partial, and for many a mile not a village
-could be discerned. Far and near, the surface of the earth was of a
-hummocky nature, like sands modelled by children's spades.
-
-After jolting along this track for some distance, we again struck
-a metalled road. It winds along the side of the ridge upon which
-Safar is situated, and overlooks a deep ravine. The slope of the
-ridge is clothed in places by a scanty growth of bush and dotted by
-low trees; but the ravine and opposite hillside are bare and stony,
-and the landscape is bleak and wild in the extreme. The only signs
-of life and movement proceeded from a village of which the tenements
-were built into that opposite slope. The peasants in their gay cottons
-were threshing the season's harvest, and, as we returned, we saw them
-transporting it in little carts, drawn by eight oxen apiece, from the
-fields, where it had been left since the end of June in convenient
-places, up to the village threshing-floors. We were surprised at the
-evident prosperity of the occupants of this Georgian settlement; what
-could be more quaint than women with white gloves and parasols who
-dwelt in such hovels as those? We met several such groups on the road
-and about the monastery, which was the goal of their afternoon's walk;
-several families also, who had come from afar, were encamped at Safar,
-at once a pilgrimage and a pleasant residence during the summer months.
-
-A similar practice no doubt prevailed with the powerful governors of
-Upper Georgia, of that remote and extensive province of Semo-Karthli
-which comprised the uppermost valleys of the Kur and Chorokh and
-the mountains of Ajara to the Kolchian coast. Known under the
-title of atabegs, they flourished in the fourteenth, fifteenth,
-and sixteenth centuries, became independent of the kings of Georgia,
-and were only suppressed at a late date by the Ottoman Turks. [14]
-Here was their seat of predilection during the heats of summer, and,
-except for the arid soil and crops of stones that cover the valleys,
-one cannot but approve their choice. You are at a height of some
-1000 feet above the town of Akhaltsykh; deep below you flows the
-Kur, the river of Ardahan as they call it, on its way to pierce the
-barrier of the border ranges by the passage of Borjom. On the side
-of the ridge a narrow site, whence the ground declines abruptly to
-the abyss below, is filled by a cluster of little chapels, backed,
-at the extreme end, by an imposing church. I wish I could offer my
-reader an ampler description; but just at this point I am trusting
-entirely to my memory and bewailing the loss of a portion of the day's
-notes. Counting the chapels, they would tell you that the monastery
-contained twelve churches, while according to our notions it possesses
-only one. That one is St. Saba, of which I offer two illustrations,
-one to present the ensemble of the building with the adjacent belfry
-(Fig. 13), the other to exhibit the charming detail of the porch on
-the west (Fig. 14).
-
-In a treeless country, devoid of the rich bewilderment of a luxuriant
-Nature, and moulded on a scale which would mock the more ambitious
-creations of human effort and is everywhere present to the eye,
-such a jewel in stone as St. Saba and many another Armenian temple
-are seen at an advantage which they would scarcely possess in Western
-landscapes. Planted on the rough hillsides, overlooking vast expanses
-of plain and mountain, winding river and lonely lake, they offer
-at once a contrast to the bleakness of Nature and a quiet epitome
-of her startling forms. Take this church as an example of the most
-finished workmanship; what a pleasure to turn from the endless crop of
-chaotic boulders to the even surface of these walls of faced masonry
-which the dry climate preserves ever fresh, to the sharply chiselled
-stone-work of the elaborate mouldings and bands of arabesques! Or,
-if you extend the vision to comprise the distant scene about you, it
-will often happen that the mountain masses tower one above another
-like the roofs and gables by your side, and culminate in the shape
-of a dome with a conical summit which repeats these outlines, like
-a reflection, against the sky.
-
-St. Saba, although created through the munificence of a Georgian
-atabeg, is probably the work of an Armenian architect, and may
-certainly be counted as an example of the Armenian style. If we may
-trust a mutilated inscription in the interior, which has been in part
-deciphered by Brosset, the present church was built by the Atabeg
-Sargis, the son of Beka, who flourished between 1306 and 1334; and,
-if we could only be certain of the signification of the four numeral
-letters which are plainly seen on the face of the wall at one side
-of the window of the western porch, we should perhaps be able to fix
-the exact date. Dubois, indeed, supposes that it was constructed
-by Manuchar, brother of the last of the atabegs, Kuarkuareh, who
-fought with such valour against the Turks. But Dubois is relying
-upon what he terms "constant tradition," and Brosset cautions us
-against accepting anything that he has written about Safar. One would
-certainly not have thought that such a well-instructed traveller, as
-was Dubois, could have mistaken a monument of the fourteenth century
-for a production of the later years of the sixteenth; and personally
-I should be inclined to attribute the edifice to a period at least
-as early as the fourteenth century. [15]
-
-August 30.--The Tartar who had accompanied us on the excursion to
-Safar had fired my cousin with an account of some stag and big game
-shooting which was to be found some four hours' journey from the
-town. According to arrangement he made his appearance in the early
-morning, and found my cousin already prepared. I had resolved to devote
-the day to the town and outskirts, should our persecutors leave me
-free. But I had no sooner reached the bridge from our encampment on
-the bed of the river, in order to see my cousin on his way, than the
-plans of both of us were arrested by the advent of Ivan the Terrible,
-who rose from the cushions of a landau and summoned us to be seated at
-his side. I need not devote space to a repetition of fresh annoyances,
-since they had already almost reached their term. Was the departure of
-Colonel Alander connected with our arrival, and had he gone to satisfy
-himself about us at Abastuman? When at length we were able to see him
-he greeted us kindly, and furnished me with all the information of
-which I was in want. Let me therefore at once introduce the reader
-to the town of Akhaltsykh and to the people who dwell therein.
-
-The view of the place which I offer (Fig. 15) was taken on the road
-to Akhalkalaki from the right bank of the river, some distance below
-the bridge. Within the precincts of the town the camera was strictly
-interdicted, although, since our tents were pitched just opposite the
-fortress, we might well have sketched that old-fashioned stronghold
-from memory when the canvas was closed for the night. The river is
-flowing towards you through grassy meadows, which are verdant even
-at this season, and which are being browsed by flocks of sheep and
-goats. On the right bank, on the left of the picture, and stretching
-across the middle distance to a promontory which is washed by the
-stream, lies the modern town with its gardens and substantial houses
-(Fig. 15, a); on the opposite shore, following the cliff from the
-extreme right of the illustration, you have first the old town (b),
-then the fortress (c), and last the gorge (d).
-
-The inhabitants of Akhaltsykh are censused at 15,000--at the time
-of our visit the registered figure was 15,120, although the latest
-tabulated statistics which Colonel Alander was able to show me gave
-a total of 15,914 for 1891. This total was divided in the following
-manner, according to religion and race: Gregorian Armenians, 9620;
-Catholic Armenians, 2875; Georgians and Russians, excluding the
-garrison, 782; Roman Catholics, 97; and 2540 Jews. I cannot help
-thinking that the proportion of Armenians is excessive, and that
-the governor has included among those of the Catholic persuasion a
-considerable number of Armenian Catholics who are of Georgian race. At
-Kutais I had been informed by a Roman Catholic priest that I should
-find among the communion of the Armenian Catholics at Akhaltsykh many
-Georgians whose ancestors had been devout Catholics and had become
-united to the Armenian Catholics, as the nearest Catholic Church,
-when the Georgian Church followed the Greek in cutting off relations
-with Rome. The Georgian kings forbade them to hold their services in
-Georgian, which had been their practice previously. These men were no
-doubt the converts of the old Roman Catholic missions; it is known that
-at the commencement of the thirteenth century the kings of Georgia were
-in correspondence with the popes, and that these communications and the
-despatch of missionaries to Georgia were continued in the following
-century. [16] The published statistics of 1886 give the number of
-Georgians as 2730 souls, and evidently include the large majority of
-them among the Roman Catholics. It is therefore probable that both
-lists fall into error, and that of the two the published table is the
-more reliable in all that concerns distinction of race. I append it in
-a footnote, [17] and have only to add in this connection that in both
-lists the number of males exceeds that of females, and that for this
-reason the totals are in general too small. In Colonel Alander's list
-the male population amounts to 8335, in the published list to 8480
-souls. The women must be at least as numerous as the men, although,
-owing to Eastern prejudices, they are much more difficult to count.
-
-In several senses the town of Akhaltsykh has undergone a revolution
-during the course of the present century. At the commencement of
-this period we are introduced to a flourishing city of the Ottoman
-Empire, the capital of a pashalik, which was composed of six
-sanjaks or administrative divisions, [18] in close communication
-with the neighbouring cities of Kars and Erzerum and the emporium
-of an extensive traffic in Georgian slaves. [19] At this time it is
-said to have contained some 40,000 inhabitants, of whom the greater
-portion were Mussulmans. [20] The site of the city was the same as
-that of the old town of the present day, but the houses extended to
-the immediate confines of the citadel. The whole was defended by moats
-and a double row of walls with battlements and flanking towers. The
-right bank of the river was embellished by numerous gardens, but there
-does not appear to have been anything like a town upon this side. The
-citadel was remarkable for its beautiful mosque, with an imposing
-minaret more than 130 feet high. This minaret, like the mosque,
-was built of blocks of hewn stone; and, so solid was its structure,
-that it suffered little damage during the Russian bombardment,
-although hit by no less than seven cannon balls. Such was Akhaltsykh
-prior to its conquest by the Russians under Paskevich in 1828. [21]
-The conquerors introduced far-reaching changes, of which the evidence
-remains to the present time. They razed a portion of the town in the
-vicinity of the fortress, which had furnished cover to the Turks in
-the desperate attempt which they subsequently made to recapture their
-old stronghold. The outer walls of the city were either demolished
-or fell into ruin and disappeared. The mosque of the citadel was
-converted into a Russian church and shorn of its minaret. [22] A
-new town was founded on the right bank of the river and assigned to
-Armenian colonists. The Mussulman population emigrated into Turkey;
-and Akhaltsykh, which received a large body of Armenian immigrants
-from Kars and Erzerum, became practically a Christian town. The native
-inhabitants who were Christians erected belfries near their churches
-and heard with joy the sound of Christian bells. But it would seem that
-no great measure of prosperity attended this new birth. The immigrants
-were bent on doing business and opening shops; only those among them
-who were agriculturists did well. Commerce declined owing to the
-inclusion of the town within the frontier line of the Russian customs
-and the consequent interruption of relations with the neighbouring
-cities in the south. The traffic in slaves was, of course, abolished,
-and no considerable industry took its place. Akhaltsykh was shut up
-in her corner of Asia; for the impracticable barrier of the border
-ranges walls her off from the sea. Still the fact that the place was
-a frontier fortress of the Russian Empire must have been productive of
-at least a local trade. In 1833 the population appears to have numbered
-only 11,000 souls; [23] but it probably increased from that date, year
-by year. When Kars came into the permanent possession of the Russians,
-the newly-acquired fortress in part supplanted Akhaltsykh; and the
-progressive decline of the Turkish Empire has further contributed to
-relieve the Government of the necessity of providing the last-named
-stronghold with modern fortifications. At the time of my visit it
-was evident that the town was declining and losing importance year by
-year. I questioned several of the better-informed among the inhabitants
-as to the cause of this unhappy state of things. "You have long enjoyed
-the blessings of security," I observed, "both for property and life;
-yet in place of a steadily increasing prosperity I see nothing but
-signs of impoverishment and falling-off." As usual in the East, I
-received several answers; but all were unanimous in declaring that
-the principal reason was the depopulation of the surrounding country,
-owing to the persistent emigration of the Mussulmans and the want
-of colonists to take their place. Another cause, they said, was the
-decline in military importance to which I have already referred.
-
-The modern town on the right bank was nearest to our encampment;
-may I therefore commence the account of what we saw at Akhaltsykh
-with a stroll through its garden-lined streets? The houses are nice
-little one-storeyed dwellings, some built of brick, others of stone. A
-feature were the quaint little spouts to carry off the rain-water,
-shaped at the ends to resemble dragons' heads. I have already spoken
-of the "cherry-coloured roofing"--an effect which we discovered
-was due to no more interesting process than a coat of paint applied
-to corrugated iron. In a similar manner the roof of a church would
-be tinted a cool green, and the combination of these hues with the
-rich foliage was extremely pleasing to the eye. Where the scattered
-tenements collect together and you reach the business quarter, here
-and there a modern shop may be seen; but the handicrafts for which
-Akhaltsykh is in some degree famous are still carried on in those
-brick-built booths with their shadowed recesses which constitute
-the little world of the Eastern artificer, at once his workshop and
-the mart for his wares. We examined some of the productions of the
-workers in silver without being tempted to buy. We were made aware
-of the existence of a silk industry for which the raw material is
-brought from Georgia. We visited the schools and conversed with the
-masters; but the scholars were making holiday. Akhaltsykh possesses
-two important schools, the one belonging to the Armenian community,
-the other a Russian State school. That of the Armenians provides
-education to some 300 boys and youths, and to a still larger number
-of girls. Both the Gregorian Armenians and the Catholics attend
-this establishment; religious instruction is imparted to the members
-of either communion by teachers of their own persuasion in separate
-classes. We were told that the yearly income amounted to 14,000 roubles
-(£1400), exclusive of what was received from the girls; and that this
-sum included the receipts of the theatre which is attached to this
-enterprising school. The Russian institution boasts of 300 scholars,
-of whom 75 per cent are Armenians; it does not possess a branch
-for girls. On the other hand, it indulges in the modern fashion of
-technical instruction, a side which does not appear to be cultivated
-in the Armenian school. Its staff consists of fifteen teachers; a fee
-of twelve roubles (£1:4s.) a year is levied, but many poor pupils are
-admitted free. A few boarders are received, whose parents live at a
-distance; and I may here remark that, except in cases which I shall
-endeavour to specify, all the schools of which I shall make mention
-in the following pages are practically day-schools. We were taken to
-see the churches--commonplace edifices--of which the Armenians, with
-so many examples of noble architecture about them, ought really to be
-ashamed. The largest of them is called the cathedral, and belongs to
-the Gregorians; there is also, not far from it, an Armenian Catholic
-church. West of the cathedral on the hillside--it appears in my
-illustration--we were shown a second church belonging to the Gregorian
-community; but I do not remember its name. It was at Akhaltsykh that
-we were first impressed by the custom of the Armenians to kiss the
-ground when they face the altar in prayer. Such abject prostration in
-the dust we had never before witnessed in any Christian church. It was
-Oriental; it was pathetic--the gesture of a poor raya at the feet of
-his savage lord.... Last of all we were shown the Court of Justice,
-where a resident magistrate and visiting judges from Tiflis dispense
-the law behind a barrier of baize-covered tables beneath a life-size
-portrait of the Tsar. And that is what we saw of the modern town of
-Akhaltsykh; I doubt whether there is much more to be seen.
-
-The old town on the left bank presents a striking contrast to its
-young rival across the water. You gain the bridge and pause for a
-moment to follow the many-channelled river threading the banks of
-yellow pebbles in its bed; flowing through a landscape of wild and
-bare hills, which streams with the garish daylight of the East. The
-road mounts the slope of the opposite cliff or convexity, which, a
-little further west, joins the more abrupt ridge of crag and precipice
-crowned by the battlements of the fortress. In this cliff, with its
-swelling shapes, soft soil and irregular hummocks, the Armenians have
-discovered a burrowing-ground exactly suited to their requirements;
-the gaping apertures of chimneys and windows threaten to engulf
-the guileless traveller who walks, unwitting, between the houses up
-the hillside. No vegetation relieves the monotony of the constant
-hues of ochre, and the tiers of clay and stone which represent the
-larger tenements mingle naturally with the stone-strewn surface of
-the friable earth. We saw two churches; one is administered by the
-Armenian Catholics, the other, which is situated a little above the
-first, is a Russian Orthodox church. Besides these larger buildings
-there are two chapels or prayer-houses, which scarcely attain the
-dignity of a church. These belong to the Gregorians, and we were told
-that the Roman Catholics have a small chapel within the precincts
-of the old town. But what interested us most was the Jewish quarter
-with its two spacious synagogues. We admired the simplicity of these
-airy chambers--in the middle the pulpit, the benches disposed around;
-and we pictured to ourselves the eager faces of the congregation,
-upturned from those benches to the grave preacher and mobile to
-every turn of his discourse. The Jew is a rare creature upon the
-tableland of Armenia; he finds it difficult to exist by the side
-of the Armenian, who is his rival in his own peculiar sphere. [24]
-There is a saying that in cleverness a Jew is equal to two Greeks,
-a single Armenian to two Jews.
-
-The community gathered round us and almost filled the synagogue, in
-which we sat and rested for a considerable space. Two distinct types of
-physiognomy were represented; on the one hand the fat, florid cheeks
-and thick lips which are so characteristic of the coarser strain of
-Jew, on the other the cavernous features, wrinkled skin, aquiline nose
-and penetrating eyes which are the monument of the ancient refinement
-of the Jewish race. When we contrasted the destitution and even the
-misery of this quarter with the air of prosperity which the synagogue
-displayed, it was evident that the community were undergoing a period
-of adversity, and we enquired the reasons of this decline. They
-attributed their fallen state to the competition of the Armenians;
-the Armenians, they said, were good workers and a great people,
-the Jews few in numbers and isolated. There was nothing left for the
-poor Jew but to tramp round the villages, carrying his goods upon his
-back. They must emigrate, they were emigrating.... Alas! we thought, to
-what distant land across the mountains, across the sea, shall the poor
-Jew wander out? How shall he escape the dangers of the way, with the
-hand of the Government against him, with hatred and contempt dogging
-his weary steps? And the Christianity by our side appeared detestable
-to us, doubly odious by its want of every Christian virtue and by the
-mummery of its gaudy symbols and vulgar shows. The Jew carries with
-him the vastness of Asia, the sublimity of the worship of a single
-God; may the nations be fertilised by the powerful intellect and
-their religions elevated by the high conceptions of the Hebrew race!
-
-The fortress, with which the old town naturally communicates, was to
-us strictly forbidden ground. Although I urged its worthlessness as
-a reason why we should be permitted to visit it, Captain Taranoffsky
-would on no account give way. The mosque, the present church, to which
-I have already alluded, was of course all that we wanted to see. It
-stands on the northern side of the fortress enclosure; the base of
-the minaret still remains and is crowned by a little cupola to which
-is affixed a cross. An inscription on the gate by which the court
-is entered gives as the date of construction the year of the Hegira
-1166 (A.D. 1752-53). [25] Dubois informs us that the architect was
-an Italian; [26] but Brosset, who says that it was built upon the
-model of St. Sophia, is silent upon this point. For the character
-of the interior as it existed before the Russian occupation I may
-refer the reader to Dubois. The fountain in the centre of the court
-is supplied by an underground aqueduct which conveys the waters of
-a limpid spring, some seven miles off. [27]
-
-From the old town we slowly made our way back to the encampment,
-enjoying the scene, observing the passers-by. Here and there we would
-meet a group of Russian soldiers in their white tunics, taking their
-evening stroll. Their large frames, fair hair, shaven faces and coarse
-features contrasted with the neatness of the Oriental type. Their
-little eyes, deeply set behind the flat nose, were answered on every
-side by the glances that proceeded from the large and lustrous eyes
-of the Armenian race. The sheep and cattle were winding into the town
-from the meadows, each animal finding its stable for itself.
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER IV
-
-TO AKHALKALAKI
-
-
-The distance by road between Akhaltsykh and Akhalkalaki is 66 versts,
-or nearly 44 miles. The post divides the journey into four stages,
-of which the shortest is 9, the longest 12 miles. The charges, which,
-I think, were uniform, whenever we were able to avail ourselves of
-posting facilities, were three kopeks or farthings per verst for each
-horse supplied, and twelve kopeks for the carriage between each two
-stations, said to be a charge for greasing the wheels. In addition,
-a tax of ten kopeks for the whole journey is levied upon each horse,
-the proceeds of which are due to Government by the contractors who
-supply the teams. A victoria may be procured in the larger centres,
-and for this luxury there is, I believe, no extra charge. Four horses
-will usually be harnessed to it abreast, and an equal number to the
-luggage cart.
-
-August 31.--At ten o'clock we left Akhaltsykh on our journey southwards
-and followed the tripping river on the right bank. It was the same
-road we had taken for a short distance on our way to Safar, the same
-aspect of the picturesque site of the town (Fig. 15). Between us and
-the stream lay the stretch of meadow where the sheep and cattle of
-the townspeople browse--a grassy plain set in the barren landscape,
-a rare incident in an Eastern scene. Beyond the water the ground rose
-in gentle undulations of bank and hummock and hill, the parched and
-friable surface yellow with stubble or with the exhausted growth of
-weeds. In the background, some five miles distant, stretched the
-spurs of the border ranges, scantily wooded along the summits and
-upon the slopes. On our other hand, towards the south, all prospect
-was excluded by barren hummocks of crumbling soil.
-
-We had covered about 2 1/2 miles, when before us lay the junction of
-the rivers, of the river of Akhaltsykh with the Kur or Ardahan river,
-for it is known under both names. From their nearer margins to our
-road extended a stretch of alluvial ground, filling the angle between
-the two streams. Their further banks are high, and are bordered by
-hummock hills, a feature most pronounced on the bank of the Kur. The
-united waters break through the soft hummocks and become engulfed
-in the rocky barrier of the border ranges--a bold and lofty wall of
-mountain, partially covered with wood. In the hollow is situated a
-village with trees and pleasant verdure, an oasis in the sterile
-landscape around. We were told that its name was Tsinis and that
-it was inhabited by Mussulmans; beyond it, through the glasses,
-we discerned the road to Tiflis entering the jaws of the gorge.
-
-Skirting the barren convexities which closed the view on our right
-hand, and upon slightly higher ground, we gained the left bank of the
-Kur and proceeded along it for a short space up stream. Leaving on our
-right a small Armenian village, we then descended to the river-bed;
-strips of vegetables had been planted along the water, which is here
-crossed by a strong wooden bridge. The stream was flowing towards us,
-newly escaped from the narrows, where it is confined by rocky cliffs
-of forbidding aspect, harbouring a scanty growth of stunted bush. A
-few poplars lined its immediate margin, and a slender fringe of
-green. It had a width of some 30 yards at the mouth of the passage,
-a rapid current, charged with soil and tawny, which divides into
-several channels and forms a broad and pebbly bed as it issues upon
-the open plain. After crossing the bridge to the right bank, we passed
-a Mussulman village where the women were sifting the season's grain.
-
-Our course for the rest of the day lay on this bank of the river;
-the road leaves the plain and dives into the narrows, where walls of
-rock enclose the swirling stream. The Kur is following the base of
-the border ranges, piercing the spurs where they meet the outskirts
-of the Dochus Punar. In places it has a width of some 50 yards or
-more, and the eye cannot penetrate the dull depths; but more often
-it is a narrow and shallow torrent, wreathing and foaming over the
-rocks. On the left bank, as we passed a break in the mountains, it
-is joined by the clearer waters of a little tributary, the Uravel,
-which wound below us at Safar.
-
-The weather was delightful; a cool air, a brilliant sun, a few
-white clouds floating in the blue. Eagles, a small species, circled
-against the heaven or alighted on grisly crags. The sides of these
-low mountains are composed of a lava, dry and barren, which in
-places is disposed in layers of conglomerate, like the masonry of a
-Cyclopean wall. We passed the seventh verst-stone from Akhaltsykh,
-having covered over 4 1/2 miles. A short space further and we were
-opposite a Georgian village, placed on the hillside of the left bank.
-
-Between the thirteenth and sixteenth verst-stones (8 1/2 and 10 1/2
-miles) the range opens, and is seen, beyond a plain of about half a
-mile in width, pursuing a direction from south-east towards north-west
-on the right bank. On our left hand we passed a few miserable houses
-which, we ascertained, were inhabited by Kurds. We entered a country of
-bleak hummocks, where barren and yellow hills closed the view. Among
-such surroundings lies the posting station of Rustav, 18 versts or
-12 miles along our road. By half-past twelve o'clock we had changed
-horses, having arrived a quarter of an hour before.
-
-The characteristics of the landscape between Rustav and Khertvis
-may be summarised in a few words. For awhile the bare, low mountains
-again border the river on either side, at no great distance from the
-shore. But they tend to circle in amphitheatres and to leave a respite
-of even ground. Little rills descend from the heights above the valleys
-and give birth to verdure and shade. The further we proceed, these
-oases increase in extent, enhancing the contrast between sterile,
-lonely walls of rock, and luscious gardens where bright birds flit
-through the scene.
-
-Thus on the left bank, shortly after leaving Rustav, the eye was
-greeted by such welcome relief. A high ridge of grey rock descended
-to the river, but rich verdure clothed its base. The lower slopes
-were terraced with plantations of Indian corn, and among the stubble
-herds of heifers grazed the sweet herbs. Rivulets started from the
-very summit, where a grove of trees was outlined on the sky. The
-falling water was diffused into a network of tiny channels, which fed
-the fertile earth. Such were the outskirts of a Mussulman village,
-of which the name is Gobet. The foreground, on our side of the river,
-was strewn with boulders of volcanic rock. Large lizards darted from
-cranny to cranny, and brilliant birds with blue breasts and yellow
-collars took wing at our approach.
-
-The note, thus early sounded, attained increasing volume in the
-valleys of Akhashen, of Aspinja and of Khertvis. The first is situated
-some five miles from Rustav, and takes its name from a Mussulman
-village on the left bank. [28] Akhashen is a characteristic Eastern
-village; the tenements are built in terraces up the slope, scarcely
-distinguished from the soil. We admired the bold site and pleasant
-setting of garden; at our feet, in the fuller light of this open
-circus, the Kur sent flashes of blue, reflecting the bright zenith,
-from the transparent surface of its yellow stream. On our left hand
-we recognised the familiar outline of the border ranges stretching
-away from south to north.
-
-Next, Aspinja lay before us, an open valley, a bower of trees, water
-trickling from the hillside and collected in little channels which
-seamed the floor of fertile earth. [29] We were skirting the gardens
-of two Mussulman villages, and some of the inhabitants happened to
-pass by. They looked unhappy; we spoke to one of their number and
-elicited the usual quantity of doubtful truths. It is certain that
-all the Mussulmans of the Kur valley are discontented; and these two
-communities were preparing to emigrate. Mention was made to us of a
-recent ordinance of the Russian Government under which they would be
-required to serve in the Russian army, and perhaps to fight against
-the forces of Islam. [30] Aspinja, which we soon reached, is also
-inhabited by Mussulmans. The slopes above the village are planted with
-orchards, and every corner of the little plain is cultivated. Indian
-corn, tobacco and the stubble of cereals were on all sides present to
-the eye. It is some distance beyond the oasis to the posting station,
-a stage of 16 versts (10 1/2 miles) from Rustav.
-
-It was nearly three o'clock when we arrived at this station; luscious
-water-melons grew in the little garden and relieved the dulness
-of our mid-day meal. But the smiling landscape lay behind us, long
-out-distanced; and we were again in the fork of a barren gorge. Low
-ridges break off to the river in rocky cliffs, which descend to
-a narrow margin of level ground. From the valley of Aspinja these
-uninteresting walls are continued to the outskirts of Khertvis.
-
-Such was the monotonous scene through which the Russian road wound
-during the course of our afternoon's drive. Beside us raced the river;
-we faced the current; at short intervals large, loose stones were
-disposed in the shape of circles in the shallows at no great distance
-from the shore. We were told that in winter fish are caught within
-these circles by means of traps placed at opposite sides. In summer the
-Georgian fisherman trusts to his casting-net, a laborious process which
-was being pursued by one of the fraternity for the reward of a few
-small fish. On the opposite bank we were impressed by the proportions
-of a cliff of lava, of which the face was disposed throughout in
-spheroidal blocks rising immediately from the water's edge.
-
-At last the landscape opened, the most extensive of these oases,
-the fertile valley of Khertvis. It is heralded from afar by a line
-of orchards and by gardens terraced up the slope. A well-planned and
-elaborate system of aqueducts and channels dispense water on every
-side. Then the road rises up a hillside and commands a startling
-scene. Below you, crowning a crag at the confluence of two rivers,
-a well-preserved example of a mediĉval castle on a large scale lifts
-its towers against a background of lofty cliffs (Fig. 16). A village
-cowers at the foot of the fortress, almost hidden by dense trees. Such
-is the castle and township of Khertvis, situated at the junction of
-the river of Akhalkalaki with the Kur. The road follows the right
-bank of the first of these streams, and the station is some distance
-from the town. We were obliged to leave the carriage and entrust our
-effects to the villagers, who carried them down the steep sides of the
-high cliff. It was six o'clock; we crossed the river of Akhalkalaki
-by a little footbridge, and pitched our tents on the floor of a shady
-garden, not far from the margin of the Kur.
-
-A motley group of people collected about us; of what race, of what
-faith? Mussulmans! We expected and received the answer, although there
-was little except our knowledge of the checkered history of these
-valleys to indicate their adhesion to Islam. The owner of the garden
-bore the name of Bin Ali Bey Vishnadzi, and was of mixed Georgian and
-Turkish blood; he stands in the centre of my illustration, in Cossack
-dress, with his cap on one side (Fig. 17). His cast of countenance is
-Georgian, and the hair is somewhat fair; yet his uncle, Hasan Bey,
-has the Turkish type. His mixed ancestry is no exception among the
-villagers, and they all call themselves Turks. Their number was given
-to me as 1500, with 200 houses; the Russian census, which classes them
-as Georgians, bears out these figures as approximately correct. [31]
-Among them are a handful of Armenian Christians; the old man with a
-staff, seated in the foreground of my picture, was our guide from the
-road to our pleasant camping-ground, and belonged to the Armenian race.
-
-If reliance can be placed on the figure given by Dubois, the population
-of Khertvis has almost doubled since 1833. [32] However this may be,
-the township is now in full decline; misery was written in the faces
-of a great part of the inhabitants, of whom many were preparing
-to leave Russian soil. As we passed through the streets, between
-the tumble-down houses, we observed that some of the shops had been
-permanently closed. Is it their unfitness to flourish under systematic
-government? Or the policy of the Russian Government to discourage
-Mussulmans, with their Turkish sympathies, or some special causes
-which we were unable to ascertain? Our stay was too short to sift fact
-from fable; and a rigid reticence was observed by the leading people,
-who were evidently under the influence of fear. [33]
-
-The river of Akhalkalaki, or the Toporovan river, as it is sometimes
-called, enters the valley from a little north of east. It appeared to
-us to contain as much water as the Kur, into which it swirled. [34]
-The united streams for a short space pursue a westerly direction until
-they settle to a normal course towards the north. The affluent washes
-the northern side of the castled rock, which protects a tongue of
-alluvial ground at its southern base. On this land is situated the
-little township, embowered in leafy groves. The castle dates from a
-remote period; and even the present structure is ancient, although
-it belongs to different epochs. The citadel with the little chapel,
-occupying the summit of the perpendicular rock, is a work of the
-middle of the fourteenth century, when the Georgian atabegs were the
-lords of the land; the remaining portion, with its several towers,
-is more modern. [35] We ourselves were unable to visit the edifice,
-which we were never tired of admiring from the river-bed. Behind
-it soar the walls of volcanic material, where the younger have been
-forced through the older lavas and have produced fantastic contortions
-of the rocks. [36]
-
-September 1.--From Khertvis we made an excursion up the valley of
-the Kur to the crypts of Vardzia, situated on the left bank, some
-nine miles above the confluence with the Toporovan. For the greater
-part of the journey, which is performed on ponies, you follow the
-right bank of the river, along a path which in many places becomes a
-mere track. We had soon left the shady groves behind us, our clever
-little ponies often obliged to pick their footsteps, where an outcrop
-of rock or blocks of fallen stone obstructed the margin of level
-ground. On either bank, beyond this margin, high hills enclose the
-narrow valley; here and there with naked crags, more generally with
-stone-strewn slopes, harbouring a scanty growth of parched grass. No
-oasis, not a sign of a human being, no visible animal life. The
-landscape streaming with light, and the brawling Kur breaking over
-the boulders which encumber its bed. But the climate was delicious,
-and the blue zenith was flaked with luminous cloud.
-
-After over an hour's ride in this confined valley, we reached the
-ruins of a fort, or small castle, and issued upon more open ground. The
-valley expands on the right bank of the river in an irregular series of
-hill and dale. We passed the rush-grown banks of a little lake, so blue
-and clear that it lay like a jewel on the waste. It is called Sülük,
-or lake of leeches; and Hasan Bey, our guide, told us that leeches
-abound. In a hollow on the further side of this lake we came upon the
-gardens of the Mussulman village of Margistan. Beyond this oasis, and
-beyond the open ground about us, we could see the valley contracting,
-the river flowing through a gorge, overhung by perpendicular cliffs;
-and we were shown our path climbing the side of the cliff and entering
-the jaws of the gorge.
-
-We had crossed or skirted the volcanic circus, with the lake in
-the extinct crater, of which Dubois has furnished us with a learned
-account. [37] Before us lay the defile through the gigantic dam of
-volcanic mountain which has opened, as if by miracle, to the puny
-stream.
-
-Soon we are winding along that path, about at mid-height of the cliffs,
-the river brawling far beneath us, a tortuous thread of foam. It is a
-remarkable scene, a freak of Nature on a large scale, of which none of
-us, at least, has seen the like. The volcanic layers have been split
-by vertical fissures, and huge masses of conglomerate rock tower high
-above us, almost separated from the mountain side. Their masonry
-of cemented blocks gives them the appearance of castles, the work
-of a more than human hand; they threaten to tumble headlong into the
-valley, a fate to which some have already succumbed. They remind me of
-the Devil's city of Montpellier-le-Vieux, in the Cevennes country--a
-mere sprite's village by their side. The dark colour of the rocks,
-the gloom of the passage, the height of the cliffs, soaring from the
-twilight in the hollow to jagged summits some 500 to 600 feet above
-the gulf, all contribute to enhance the impression of mystery and to
-suggest the presence of a prince of fiends.
-
-Opposite us, on the left bank, the bold outline of the fish-backed
-ridge is crowned with the ruinous remains of masonry, barely
-distinguished from the rock. A long line of crumbling edifices
-marks the site of a considerable fortress; in the depths beneath,
-at the foot of the perpendicular mountain, a wall descends the last
-slope to the margin of the water and cuts off access to the valley
-from the river-bed. A few miserable huts are seen in the hollow:
-who could inhabit such a weird and lonely spot? Kurds, they say,
-as though they were no human beings--a lingering remnant of Turkish
-times. The ruins are the relics of Zeda Tmogvi, a stronghold famous
-in the history of these lands. [38]
-
-Beyond this gorge the valley opens and resumes the more normal
-character of a torrent bordered by lofty hillsides. The further you
-proceed, the floor of the hollow is covered by richer verdure, while
-a grove of fruit trees spreads shade. Are they wild or were they
-planted? The extreme loneliness of the scene was scarcely broken by
-a sign of human life. We forded the Kur, and, after winding through
-these orchards of the river margin, doubled a projecting spur of
-the valley wall. We were at the foot of a perpendicular cliff which
-displayed irregular rows of gaping caves at a considerable height above
-the river-bed. These grottoes have been cut in the face of a layer
-of volcanic rock of extraordinary smoothness and of flesh-coloured
-hue. The layer does not extend to the summit of the cliff, which is
-composed of a conglomerate with greyish tints (Fig. 18).
-
-It was Vardzia, a troglodyte city of a remote antiquity, which the
-Georgians and Armenians believe to have been founded in the twelfth
-century by the father of Queen Thamar, and to have been completed by
-that princess. They say it was a favourite residence of Thamar; you
-are shown the cave in which she resided during winter, the terrace
-where she spent the summer days, the chapel where her brilliant
-court assembled, even, it is affirmed, the tomb where her remains
-were placed. This last object had evidently escaped the knowledge
-of the resident priest, although Dubois has sought to establish
-its identity with a curious structure which he found in the little
-sacristy on the inner side of the church. [39] Vardzia is, in fact,
-the city of Thamar, just as every castle in Georgia is the castle of
-Thamar and every antiquity a relic of the great queen.
-
-We picked our way among the boulders up the steep side of the cliff
-until it became a perpendicular wall. There commence the irregular
-horizontal rows of caves, stretching eastwards, where the escarpments
-are most abrupt. A narrow path ends at a polygonal structure of
-which the roof has fallen off. This edifice is either modern or has
-been extensively restored; it forms a gateway and seals the approach
-to the caves. The gate passed, you stand on a level footway, partly
-hollowed in the rock and partly supported by rude masonry, which takes
-advantage of the inequalities of the cliff-side. In the steepest places
-this footway is tunnelled through the rock, and it can, of course,
-be barricaded at any point. Thus it would appear that Vardzia is
-inaccessible to siege, at least by any of the usual means. But one
-remembers that Timur employed an ingenious contrivance to reduce the
-Georgians, when they fled to their caves. From the heights above
-he suspended wooden stages, from which his warriors leapt into
-the crowded grottoes or scattered fire among the panic-stricken
-foe. Vardzia itself is said to have been taken by this conqueror,
-by what methods I do not know.
-
-We were met by an old archimandrite and his deacon, the only
-inhabitants of this long-deserted place (Fig. 19). They are supported
-by the occasional contributions of pilgrims, who visit the church in
-great numbers at certain times. Both were sunk to an equal degree in
-abysmal ignorance, and the deacon was so shy in manner and movement,
-he seemed a half-tamed creature of the rocks. I asked them the meaning
-of the name Vardzia, which, according to Dubois, signifies, both in
-Georgian and Armenian, the fortress of the roses. They derived it from
-zia, which means uncle, and vard, I am here. They stoutly maintained
-this extraordinary derivation, in face of the doubt which we displayed.
-
-We passed along the footway for some distance, with grottoes above us
-and beneath. Then we came to an imposing vaulted balcony, of which the
-inner side and roof are hollowed in the rock, and the other parts are
-built up with masonry. The footway forms the floor of this balcony,
-which looks important when seen from below. The vaulted ceiling is
-adorned with old frescos, which are in a state of advanced decay. A
-doorway opens from the inner wall to a spacious cave--an oblong area
-with an arched roof, disposed in the familiar shape of a simple nave
-and apse. This church has a length of 46 feet 3 inches and a breadth
-of 27 feet. For decoration it depends upon richly-coloured frescos,
-some of which may still be seen. In the apse are depicted Mary and
-the infant Christ; on the Virgin's right is placed a female aureoled
-figure, clad in white and with embroidered bands. On a pilaster, left
-of the apse, you discern the features of a woman whose dark complexion
-impresses the eye. It seems an Egyptian type; she has been honoured
-with an aureole; the old priest declared the portrait to be Queen
-Thamar's, but he was almost certainly in error. In the panel of the
-arch, which lies beyond, a king and queen are represented, aureoled,
-their hands extended towards a stage upon which are seated the Virgin
-and Child. An angel is flying towards the Virgin, bearing an object
-the nature of which we were unable to ascertain. A passage leads from
-the church to an adjoining chamber, in which the articles of value
-are preserved. Dubois informs us that above this church, and as it
-were a second storey, a second temple has been hewn of equal size. A
-subterranean passage connects it with the sacristy; and this same
-passage tunnels the cliff and debouches at the caves where the wine of
-the city was made and stored, and which are situated in an adjoining
-gorge. Dubois, who discovered this passage, found it blocked with
-débris and in disuse; its existence was not mentioned to ourselves.
-
-Beyond the church we were taken to the apartments of Queen Thamar,
-which are situated further to the east. On our way we were shown a
-cave which must have served as a bath-chamber; an oblong well has been
-sunk into the floor. In the recess behind, a broad drain is visible,
-said to be the receptacle of the water-vessels. We also noticed a
-grotto which displayed a number of hewn pigeon-holes, and which had
-probably served the requirements of a chemist's shop.
-
-The queen's grotto is a spacious vaulted chamber, 32 feet 4 inches
-in length, 20 feet 1 inch in breadth, and some 14 feet in height. A
-doorway gives access to this interior, and there is a small aperture
-or window on either side. On the opposite wall, and towards its right
-corner, you see a communicating apartment of much smaller dimensions;
-and to the left of this recess has been hewn an arched niche with
-a depth of over 4 feet. Several smaller niches adorn the chamber,
-of which a feature is a low divan, cut at the foot of each wall, a
-continuous ledge only 13 inches broad. On the right of the entrance,
-in the wall which runs at right angles, is situated another small
-apartment, lit by an aperture on its outer side. It may be that these
-smaller chambers served as sleeping-places; the ingenious Dubois
-boldly assumes that the first was a wardrobe and the second a kind
-of boudoir. In the floor are several hollow spaces, as usual in these
-caves. Above the grotto is situated the so-called summer apartment--an
-open cave issuing upon a terrace from which a fine view is obtained.
-
-But what impressed us more than the caves and their associations
-was the solitude of the place, the sense of extreme remoteness--some
-pulseless corner, as it seemed, of the living world. A torrent winding
-between grave cliffs, covered with a scanty growth of parched herbage;
-no runnel diffusing life, and by our side the precious water collected
-in a cistern with a floor of cement. Where are the vineyards which
-must once have clothed the lower slopes, protected by the walls of
-the volcanic valley against the rigorous climate of a region over
-4000 feet above the sea? Nature had blighted the scene with layers
-of lava and cinders; man reclaimed the spot with laborious patience,
-until the work perished under the curse of his fellow-man. But what
-enemy would penetrate to this hidden valley, concealed behind the most
-inaccessible zone of the border mountains, defended by the Devil's
-gorge? Perhaps the appearance of the opposite cliff affords a clue to
-this mystery. It is higher than the summit which towers immediately
-above you; the outline is horizontal and the edge flat. It is in fact
-an exposed rim of the great tableland, broken here by the cañon of
-the Kur. A series of plains extend hence to the furthest skirts of
-Persia, vague divisions of a single elevated stage. [40]
-
-The afternoon was far advanced as we retraced our steps to our
-encampment, and night already rested in the gorge. We were disappointed
-of a photograph of its solemn horrors, and made our way in silence
-beneath the twilight, following the murmuring stream. On the following
-day we proceeded to Akhalkalaki up the valley of the Toporovan. The
-posting station of Abazbek, 14 versts from Aspinja, is situated some
-distance up the valley, and the stage between it and Akhalkalaki is one
-of 18 versts or 12 miles. It was between these points that we travelled
-for the first time in a brichka, or springless posting cart. The drive
-occupied about three hours, and the road, which was well constructed,
-mounted continuously, following and fronting the swirling current of
-the Toporovan. The gardens of Khertvis extend for some distance beyond
-the castle, and a portion of the township lies upon this side. Then
-the margin of the river contracts to the verge of disappearance,
-and stony cliffs, with an elevation of about 200 feet, border the
-water on either bank. It is in fact a deep crack in the surface of
-the plateau, upon which the town of Akhalkalaki stands. Not a village
-did we pass, or any oasis among the rocks; it was indeed a bleak
-scene. But the sky, flaked in places with wandering white clouds,
-was intensely clear and blue, and the foaming river refreshed the
-scene. After passing the low edifice of the castle of Akhalkalaki,
-which lines the edge of the cliff on the left bank, we crossed to
-that bank by a wooden bridge and wound slowly up the hillside. It was
-evident that we had arrived almost at the head of the formation, the
-point where the watercourse descends from the surface of the plateau
-and eats deeply into the volcanic soil. It was almost night when we
-reached the level summit of the cliff and breathed the crisper air. A
-place was found for our tents in an open space of the little town,
-which is situated at an elevation of 5545 feet above the sea.
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER V
-
-AT AKHALKALAKI
-
-
-At Akhalkalaki we had reached a country which is peopled in
-large preponderance by the Armenian race. The town is the centre
-of an administrative division (ouezde), which is dependent upon
-the Government of Tiflis. This division is partitioned into two
-administrative districts, of which the most northerly takes its
-name from the village of Baralet, on the way to Lake Tabizkhuro;
-while the more southerly is called the district of Bogdanovka, a
-Russian settlement on the road to Alexandropol. The population of the
-division amounts to a total, according to the published statistics,
-of 59,500 souls; or, according to the figures which were kindly
-communicated to me by the Governor, of 66,000 souls. The numbers of
-the Armenians are given in the first of these lists as over 42,000, a
-proportion of seven-tenths of the whole; while in the Governor's list,
-which, I presume, is the most recent, they are censused at 58,000,
-a proportion of seven-eighths. I am inclined to place more reliance
-on the total furnished by the Governor than upon his subdivision
-according to race; and I shall conclude that the Georgians contribute
-a sixth of the inhabitants and the Russian settlers something less
-than a tenth. These figures do not comprise the town of Akhalkalaki,
-which, out of a total population of something over 4000, contains
-4000 Armenian inhabitants. [41]
-
-Be they immigrants or aboriginal, the character of their surroundings
-is in harmony with the instincts of their race. A vast and elevated
-plain upon which the snow lies in winter and a southern sun shines. A
-fertile volcanic soil, abounding in springs and favourable to cereals
-of every kind. Measured from north-east to south-west, the plain of
-Akhalkalaki has a length of nearly forty miles; [42] its latitudinal
-extension may be gauged by the course of the Kur on the west, and,
-on the east, by that of the stream which issues from Lake Madatapa
-and skirts the outworks of the eastern meridional range. The plain is
-situated at an altitude which ranges between 5500 and 7000 feet. The
-soil, when exposed by the plough, is black in colour, or, perhaps, dark
-chocolate, and reveals the influence of the lavas below. The extreme
-evenness of the surface is due to the fluid nature of these lavas,
-which streamed, at a comparatively recent period, from fissures at the
-southern base of the Trialethian Mountains and from vents at other
-points of the mountain girdle which encircles the flat expanse. On
-the floor of the plain itself the effects of volcanic action are
-visible in the forms of hummock and rounded hill. Volcanic emissions
-have produced the lap-like enclosures which are the reservoirs of the
-lonely lakes. Their waters are fed by springs from beneath the surface,
-and by copious rains from the clouds of the Pontic region, which
-fly the topmost bulwarks of the tableland and distil on the western
-slopes of the meridional volcanic barrier, the limit on the east
-of the even ground. From Agrikar to Karakach is the section of this
-barrier along which this process of condensation is most pronounced;
-the mountains are known by the natives under the collective name of
-Mokri Gori, the wet mountains. The principal stream, besides the Kur,
-is that which issues from Lake Toporovan, and, descending south, flows
-through Lake Tuman. After emerging on the southern shore, it receives
-an affluent from Lake Madatapa, and pursues a northerly course. Where
-we arrived upon its margin, half an hour south of Akhalkalaki, it
-was a nice flash of water, flowing slowly over the surface of the
-plateau. Below the town it is joined on the left bank by a stream
-which has descended from the northern slopes of the Chaldir Hills;
-and further west, on the right bank, by the river of Samsar, which
-brings the drainage of the north-easterly arm of the plain and flows
-in a deeply eroded bed. [43]
-
-At Akhalkalaki the Toporovan is bordered by lofty cliffs, a cañon or
-trough which has the appearance of a sinuous crack in the surface of
-the plain. Gaining the summit of either cliff, you stand on level
-ground, with a flat or undulating country sweeping around you to
-the distant limits of the mountain chains. You breathe a keener
-air when you emerge from the narrow valley; the town is placed at a
-little distance from the edge of the cliff which rises along the left
-bank. But how present my reader with a picture of a settlement which is
-nothing more than an agglomeration of one-storeyed, flat-roofed houses,
-placed, as it were at random, on the floor of the plain? It seemed
-ridiculous to focus the camera at such an insignificant object--the
-flat roofs, with their covering of withered turf, repeating and
-lifting the texture and colour of the ground. Moreover Akhalkalaki is a
-fortress; the camera is interdicted--a happy thought in this particular
-case. Fortress-spying would be a poor amusement in this country; like
-the fleet of Spain, they are so extremely difficult to detect. The old
-castle above the river has been restored and converted into a barrack;
-a similar purpose is served by some stone buildings in the environs of
-the town. I do not know that the god of war is otherwise represented;
-but greater honour has been paid to the demigods of justice, and the
-Governor remarked to me--what was indeed sufficiently evident--that
-the prison on the outskirts was the only two-storeyed edifice in the
-place. Just a house or two, including that of the Governor, had been
-provided with a roofing of metal sheets, painted a pleasant red. But
-all the tenements appeared well built, of solid stone masonry; and
-the street or two which the place contains were certainly spacious,
-although ill-maintained and deep in dust. When we arrived, we were
-greeted by a chorus of the pariah dogs, as though we were entering
-a purely Eastern town. Still there are a few modern shops, notably a
-large drapery establishment, where the necessaries of civilised life
-may be procured. A feature were the wooden hoods on the tops of the
-houses, a feature not uncommon in the towns of Armenia; they serve
-as screens to the apertures of the chimneys, and appear a dangerous
-contrivance to European eyes. Such was our impression of the aspect
-and character of Akhalkalaki, the new fortress. Vague tracks lead
-away into the surrounding country, which is bare and bleak in the
-immediate neighbourhood of the settlement.
-
-In addition to the principal avenue of outside communication by
-way of Akhaltsykh and the passage of Borjom, the town is connected
-with Georgia by a road which crosses the Trialethian Mountains and
-debouches by a short cut at the last-named place. We were shown this
-road, where it mounts the cliff on the right bank of the river,
-as we crossed to the left bank. Leaving Lake Tabizkhuro on the
-right, it mounts to the spine of the system, which it crosses by
-a pass of about 8000 feet. [44] Tiflis may no doubt be reached by
-the valley of the Khram, but I have no information upon the nature
-of the route. Metalled roads are scarce in these distant provinces;
-it may surprise the reader to learn that the road we travelled over
-from Akhaltsykh was only completed in 1892. During all those previous
-years of Russian occupation the post was carried from the important
-centre of Alexandropol to foreign countries along a stony track in
-the valley of the Toporovan.
-
-Akhalkalaki has belonged to Russia since the campaign of 1828, when
-it was taken under Marshal Paskevich by assault. It was not the first
-time that Russian troops had entered the fortress; it had fallen in
-1812 to the arms of General Kutlerusky, who marched from Gori and took
-the garrison by surprise. In the time of Paskevich the defenders were
-a determined body of men, recruited from among the most warlike of the
-inhabitants of these countries, and serving in their own land and under
-their own chiefs. Flushed by the fall of Kars, the general appeared
-before the place and summoned the Turkish commander to submit. His
-emissaries received the reply that the women and children had been
-removed, and that the men were determined to die at their posts. They
-numbered 1000, with fourteen cannon; and they reminded the Russians of
-the proverb that one soldier of the province of Akhaltsykh was equal
-to two of Kars and three from Erivan. Red standards were displayed
-on the walls, and, during the progress of the siege, the garrison was
-heard making the responses to the mollah, who led their prayers from
-the gallery of the minaret and who had himself sworn to share their
-fate. A Cossack officer stepped forth and endeavoured to parley with
-them; he fell, pierced by a number of bullets. No opposition was
-offered to the establishment of the batteries; no attempt appears
-to have been made to outwit the foe. The Russian cannon beat down
-the walls, their rifle fire decimated the defenders, following them
-from wall to wall. Paskevich then gave the order to cease firing,
-and called upon them afresh to submit. The old answer was returned;
-the assault was sounded; nor were the Cossacks appeased and the honour
-of the defenders satisfied until six hundred of the men of Akhaltsykh
-had eaten the dust. [45]
-
-At the time of our visit Colonel Tarasoff was civil governor of the
-town and administrative division; he received us with the utmost
-courtesy. We would leave our tent to join his hospitable family
-circle, to discuss the many interesting features of the country and
-to drink endless glasses of delicious tea. We learnt that the road to
-Akhaltsykh had been made under his directions; Greek workmen performed
-the blasting and stone-cutting, while for the levelling forced labour
-was employed. The road is the property of the Russian Government,
-and horses are provided by contractors to carry the post. The
-administration is conducted on a primitive but common-sense principle:
-a head man in every village, responsible to a head of a group of
-villages, who is again answerable to the Governor himself. Besides
-police--among whom the Armenians are prominent, their fierce faces
-belying the reputed meekness of the race--Colonel Tarasoff has a
-force of Cossacks at his disposal; and it is of course open to him
-to send for the troops of the district, should any special emergency
-arise. In addition to the Governor, there is in each larger town a
-resident judicial officer, who dispenses justice ex contractu as well
-as ex delicto, and whose judgments are subject to revision at assize.
-
-As usual in the Armenian provinces, the need of elementary education
-is supplied from a double source. Foremost in the field are the
-Armenians, with a separate organisation; the Russian State school
-is not so well attended, and, in this province, is probably not so
-well served. Yet the Russian principal impressed me as a capable and,
-certainly, as a most amiable individual; he was a Georgian, speaking
-Georgian as his native language; his wife and family affected the
-Georgian dress. His pupils consisted of 150 boys and youths, all,
-or almost all, Armenians. The school supplies a kind of secondary
-education as well as the elementary course. Of this privilege to its
-rival, the Armenian school was justly jealous; it is only allowed the
-two primary classes, which the scholars complete in their twelfth
-year. The roll consisted of 250 boys and no less than 300 girls. A
-reading-room and library were attached to the institution, and it
-was evident that the teachers were men of greater attainments than
-are required by the kind of instruction they are supposed to dispense.
-
-I sat with Colonel Tarasoff in his Court, a well-ordered building,
-in which he is wont to reverse the procedure of his classical
-prototypes. Enter to us an old turbaned Mohammedan; status, mollah of
-doubtful fame. He has come to Akhalkalaki with the object of collecting
-money wherewith to purchase sacred books. But only the chief mollah
-has the right to take subscriptions for this purpose; and where is
-the written authorisation in favour of this mendicant, bearing the
-seal of the most holy man? Enough, that he cannot produce it; he must
-desist from his collection. He must be silent: the next case is called.
-
-Enter a roughly-clad Georgian peasant, a lean figure, a dejected
-mien. He has been staying overnight at a village in the district, and
-has been robbed of three cows. The Governor has given orders that they
-must immediately be restored to him; two have been returned, he cannot
-recover the third. Decided that the village itself must pay the full
-equivalent; a look of delighted surprise lights the poor man's eyes.
-
-Enter a Georgian of the middle class who impresses us as a stupid
-fellow; but he brings a highly original plaint. It appears that
-he has fallen out with his brother, and that they both occupy the
-same house. They have separated their goods and do not speak to one
-another. Complainant applies to the Governor to order his brother to
-open a separate door. I can scarcely refrain from betraying my host
-by a peal of laughter; he knits his brows and dismisses the case with
-a volley of hard words.
-
-Enter a young man, one of two brothers who live together and share a
-common employ. It so happens that both have been summoned to perform
-military service; may one of them be exempt? Supporters of families
-are excused, and the conscription in Transcaucasia is as yet conducted
-on a very small scale. Still the Colonel upholds the summons; the
-service covers a short period, and will do both brothers good.
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER VI
-
-PROSPECT FROM ABUL
-
-
-East of the town of Akhalkalaki, which almost touches the long train
-of the western slope, a bold mass of mountain features the landscape,
-square-seated on the floor of the plateau (Fig. 20). It rises to a
-height of nearly 11,000 feet; but this imposing altitude is shorn of
-half its grandeur by the lofty levels of the adjacent plain (5500-6000
-feet). Still the mountain overpowers all the surrounding outlines;
-the summit overlooks the neighbouring heights. When we had issued
-from the chasm of the Toporovan river and gained the surface of the
-plateau, our first thought was to ascend this elevated viewing-stage,
-and command the flat expanse, bordered by dim and distant ranges,
-which was now unfolded before us on every side.
-
-Horses were impressed on the morning after our arrival to take us to
-the foot of the higher slopes. We were informed that it was necessary
-to make the half-circuit of the mountain and to start climbing on
-the eastern side. But why reject the tempting gradients of the nearer
-western slope, sweeping towards you with a succession of harmonious
-curves? Yet where obtain a satisfactory answer to this question? The
-actual experiment might involve the loss of a day. So we bowed to
-the decision of our native conductor, and became reconciled to the
-long ride. Mile after mile the great plain stretched to the westward,
-a solid sea, patched in places with fallow and stubble, but treeless,
-without a hedge, without a boundary of any kind. We were approaching
-the stony confines of the mountainous zone which borders the plateau
-on the east. The wretched village of Abul rears its stacks of cow-dung
-fuel among a waste of stones.
-
-Seen from the side of Akhalkalaki, the mountain presents the
-appearance of a composite mass. A long trough mounts to the summit
-region, dividing the fabric into two halves. Each half is crowned
-by a well-defined summit; that on the south is single of form and
-considerably lower, its loftier neighbour on the north appears to
-possess two peaks. In reality this double peak conceals a third fang,
-which is prominent on the eastern side. The three-fanged summit
-communicates with its less elevated neighbour by a lofty col, the
-uppermost edge of the trough. The slopes of Abul display the volcanic
-origin of the mountain, and descend in long-drawn outlines to the
-plain. The lengthiest declines westwards from the more northerly
-summit, and has the shape of a long back or ridge. The steepest is
-the slope just beneath this summit, facing north; it is inclined at
-an angle of 30 degrees. The village of Abul is situated to the south
-of the western slope, and would present a convenient starting-point
-from which its easy gradients might be scaled. Our guide, however,
-assured us, I cannot conceive upon what foundation, that the ascent
-would occupy two days. So we left the village to skirt the base of
-the southern half of the mountain, of which the sides have a gradient
-of 18 degrees. Rounding the mass, we were able to reach on horseback
-some grassy uplands of the further slopes. This favourable nature of
-the ground extends to a considerable elevation, and had probably been
-the inducement which had influenced our leader to bring us such a long
-way. From these pastures it was a climb of one and a half hours over
-the rocks to the pinnacles of the loftiest and most northerly mass. We
-sent the horses back, with directions to meet us on the further side,
-since we had decided to descend by the western ridge.
-
-Throughout the length and breadth of the Armenian highlands, themselves
-the loftiest section of the bridge of Asia between India and the
-Mediterranean Sea, there is perhaps no summit, with the possible
-exception of that of Ararat, which possesses a prospect at once so
-distant, so extensive and so full of interest as that which expands
-on every side from the triple peak of Abul. [46] You stand on a stage
-which commands the fabric of the nearer Asia, without dwarfing the
-proportions of the majestic structure, without confusing the varied
-members of the vast design. The tableland with its open landscapes
-is unfolded before you, swelling and falling from plain to hummock,
-from hummock to rounded ridge, from vaulted ridge to the soaring arcs
-of an Alagöz and an Ararat, crowned with perpetual snow. The troubled
-outlines of the border ranges encircle the mysterious scene; and,
-far away, from a gloomy background to this full sunlight and radiant
-atmosphere, lurid flashes are reflected through layers of murky vapour
-by the snows of Caucasus, infinitely high.
-
-The detail of the landscape engages the mind with the same engrossing
-fascination as the panorama impresses the sense. From west right
-round to south, vast tracts of level ground are outspread at your
-feet. Here and there the plain is broken by barren convexities,
-of which the outlines mingle with the outlines of the surrounding
-chains. No wood or leafy hedgerows dull the mobile surface, which is
-responsive to every mood of the sky. But a large area is checkered
-with black and yellow patches--alternate fallow and stubble-field and
-standing corn. The reclamation extends to the slopes and recesses
-of the neighbouring mountains, struggling upwards to the verge of
-the rock. Yet this human note is lost in the immensity of the scene,
-which displays no other sign of the presence of man. Lonely lakes lie
-lapped in the hollows of these mountains and upon the floor of the
-plain. A deep crack in the solid earth features the distance from west
-to south, and is drawn towards you almost at right angles through the
-plain. It is formed by the sinuous clefts of the Kur and the Toporovan,
-and it is almost the limit of the level ground upon the west and north.
-
-Beyond this cañon of the Kur, which is distant some twenty miles,
-ridge upon ridge of lofty and barren mountains are massed upon the
-horizon from south-west. They belong to the Dochus-Punar volcanic
-system, and they overpower all the ranges about us, with the exception
-of the dim Caucasian chain. From those slopes, as from these slopes
-upon which we are standing, lavas have streamed over the surface of the
-intermediate country and levelled the inequalities of the ground. That
-eruptive action is long extinct; the fires are dormant; no wreath
-of smoke crowns the familiar volcanic forms. The system is seen to
-sink to the cañon upon the north, where a gap in the outlines gives a
-passage to the Kur. On the northern side the heights are resumed by a
-long, serrated ridge, which belongs to the northern border mountains,
-and which extends from west by south to east by north. A little west
-of north lies Lake Tabizkhuro, with the dome of Samsar rising from
-its shores. The foreground towards the north is filled with mountain
-masses, with vaulted summits and rounded slopes. Our guide was unable
-to name them to us, and I therefore busied myself with an outline
-sketch. A long ridge sweeps away from Abul on the north-eastern
-side in a hemicycle concave to the west. It mingles with the forms
-of the nearer masses, of which the most prominent may, I suppose,
-be identified with Kör Ogly and Godorebi, members of the Abul-Samsar
-eruptive group. The long bulwark of the Trialethian chain is either
-hidden by these nearer mountains, or only disclosed through brief
-vistas to a sea of outlines beyond. The northern horizon is closed
-by the snowy peaks of Caucasus, over a hundred miles away.
-
-Towards the east we were not impressed by any commanding features in
-the mountain landscape, although we were overlooking the eastern wing
-of the meridional eruptive system, flanked by the Somkethian ridges
-on the further side. Between us and those vague shapes was lapped an
-extensive lake, Lake Toporovan, broken by the outline of the eastern
-fang of Abul. But what are those gleaming snows, just protruding above
-the horizon from a snowless vaulted ridge in the south-east? The flat
-horizontal outline is broken towards the centre by a low serration of
-snow-clad peaks. It is Alagöz, seventy miles distant in a straight
-line; it is even said that from here the dome of Ararat is visible,
-when it is not concealed by its faithful wreath of cloud. Compared to
-these, the nearer heights in the south are thrown into insignificance;
-the eye completes the circle to the point from which it started,
-the lofty ridges in the south-west.
-
-Slowly we made our way over the piled-up boulders, down the back of
-the long ridge which descends to the westward, along the northern
-side of the deep trough. Before us, on the plain, we followed the
-fissure in the even surface which marks the course of the hidden river
-of Akhalkalaki, until it was lost in the radiance of the setting
-sun. Regaining our horses, we paused for awhile on the margin of a
-little marsh which is situated about at the foot of the mountain,
-some 4000 feet below the topmost peak. The mournful chorus of frogs
-broke the intense silence, and contributed to the impression of the
-loneliness of Nature which inspired the mood of our homeward ride.
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER VII
-
-GORELOVKA AND QUEEN LUKERIA
-
-
-Discussing the projects of our future travel, I was reminded by
-Colonel Tarasoff that we must not fail to make a stay in one of the
-villages of Russian peasants which were situated upon the route of our
-journey south. The Governor had so often sung the praises of these
-villagers that we were all anxious to comply with his advice. If
-only this fertile country could be inhabited by such a peasantry;
-what crops it would bear, what riches it would produce! He added:
-"Be sure to visit Gorelovka; there you will see what Russian colonists
-can bring to pass."
-
-Russian colonists! But, of course, Russia is not yet in a position
-to colonise, however much these distant provinces of her Asiatic
-empire may be in need of new methods, of new blood. Indeed, the
-rulers of Russia early recognised the expediency of introducing
-into their lawless possessions beyond Caucasus a leaven of orderly
-and strenuous elements from the West; and in the dearth at home
-of such material, which might be available for the purpose, they
-invited or encouraged settlements from abroad. It is possible that
-they were shown the way by the finger of Providence; it is at least
-certain that, when once the favourable opportunity arose, they did
-not suffer it to pass them by. In the earlier years of the present
-century the kingdom of Würtemberg was the scene of a struggle among
-the Protestant community, of which the origin was no less curious
-than the results were strange. It had been solemnly announced by
-several popular pastors that the second coming of Christ was near
-at hand. Such was the confidence of the reverend teachers in their
-prophetical powers, that they had already fixed the date when the
-sun and moon should be darkened, the celestial bodies should reel,
-the ocean roar, and men expire from fright before the crowning event
-had been accomplished--the Son of Man appearing with glory in the
-clouds. These signs and stupendous portents should be revealed to a
-distracted world in 1836.
-
-Greater credence was attached by the people to these terrible
-predictions by reason of what was passing in their little world. Their
-clergy were divided on a religious question well calculated to touch
-to the quick the popular mind. The predominant party succeeded in
-effecting an alteration in the prayers and hymns of their beloved
-Church. Passions became inflamed which appeared to herald persecution,
-which rallied the faithful in defence of the old forms. Were not the
-days of tribulation already upon them; and in what asylum among the
-mountains should these Christians of a larger Judĉa find the refuge
-which had been promised by the word of Christ? The same teachers
-assured them that such an asylum would not be wanting, and might be
-found in the neighbourhood of the Caspian Sea. The fearful nature of
-the Divine warning, the conviction that it would be early realised,
-the aversion which the new-fangled forms of worship inspired in many
-earnest souls--all contributed to steel the old Protestant courage;
-to induce a large body of human beings to leave home and native
-land behind them, and, without superfluous forethought, to embark on
-the perilous journey to that distant land where they might await in
-peace and spiritual contentment the glorious coming of the Redeemer
-of the human race. Their ranks were swelled--such is the irony of our
-complex society--by many who were in search of change and adventure;
-they left Würtemberg 1500 families strong. Two-thirds of these are
-said to have perished before reaching Odessa, where the remnant was
-reinforced by a further body of their countrymen, to the number of
-100 families. In the Emperor Alexander I. they found a friend who
-extended to them extensive privileges upon their arrival in Georgia
-in 1817. They were settled in several colonies in the Governments of
-Tiflis and Elizabetpol, which have endured to the present day. They
-have been tried by afflictions and internal dissensions; some have
-perished by wild beasts, some were carried into captivity during the
-course of the Persian war. Still their numbers have increased, their
-standards of life have been maintained, and the traveller rests with
-pleasure within their villages. But neither the paramount object of
-their migration nor the wider purpose of Alexander has been fulfilled
-up to the present time. The jealousy of the Russian Church-State has
-deprived them of much of their potential usefulness; and mankind are
-still groping beneath dark clouds of error, faintly silvered with
-the precious promise of perfect light. [47]
-
-The fate or fortune of these German settlements was recalled to me
-at Akhalkalaki not only by the mention of the Russian colonial
-experiment, but also through our intercourse with a forlorn
-individual, whose history linked him with the early history of that
-courageous company. What use to conceal his name, since I cannot
-hide his identity, since I am only dealing with the current facts of
-provincial life? It was the mission of Sembat Baghdasareantz to sow
-abroad the seeds of the Gospel, carrying his liberty and even his
-life in his hand. An Armenian by birth, he had pursued his studies
-in Europe, where he had resided among the Methodists of Frankfurt,
-although not a member of that persuasion himself. A Protestant, he
-disclaimed allegiance to any particular denomination; he belonged
-to the society of Evangelical preachers which had been founded some
-seventy years ago in Shusha, the capital of the province of Karabagh,
-by missionaries from Basle. Zaremba is the name of the teacher whom
-his successors most closely associate with the origin and early
-struggles of their brotherhood; his memory is joined with that of
-his colleague Dittrich, who shared his labours from the first. These
-missionaries represented a Society whose devout zeal had been directed
-to the Mohammedans of distant Persia; prudence dictated the choice of
-a base within the territory of Russia; yet the Russian Church was a
-formidable enemy on Russian soil. She claimed the right of baptizing
-and holding within her own communion all converts to the Christian
-faith. But an exception had been made in favour of those communities of
-heterodox Christians which were tolerated by the Russian State; it was
-permissible for a Mohammedan to become converted to their tenets and
-to be enrolled as a member of their sect. The Society of Basle were
-therefore encouraged to attempt the expedient of a protected colony,
-which should receive a special charter from the Russian Government
-and be invested with the character of a tolerated sect. An example
-of such a colony was already before them; their Scotch brethren were
-engaged in preaching to the mountaineers of Caucasus from an adopted
-home at Karass. In the pursuit of this purpose, Zaremba and Dittrich
-were sent to St. Petersburg in 1821. They were received by the same
-Alexander who had favoured the Germans, and in a spirit which partook
-of their own zeal. Liberal provisions were attached to the charter of
-their prospective colony, among which the right of baptizing converts
-was included. They were further authorised to establish a printing
-press, to found elementary schools, and to organise a seminary in
-which the higher learning should be dispensed. In the meanwhile they
-were invited to travel in Transcaucasia with the view of selecting
-a locality for their future home.
-
-When the missionaries arrived in Georgia in the spring of 1823, their
-interest was aroused by the condition of the German colonists--their
-co-religionists, almost their countrymen, settled in this remote
-country without spiritual direction, without the elements of
-ecclesiastical order. Could there exist a prior claim upon their
-own activities than was furnished by the spectacle of this flock
-without shepherds, severed from the homestead and wandering where it
-might? Their first summer was devoted to the charge of these brethren,
-among whom the slow blight of purely worldly preoccupations had already
-sapped the vigour of early zeal. The success of their efforts appears
-to have awakened the Lutheran Consistory of St. Petersburg, to whom the
-spiritual interests of their co-religionists in Russia are entrusted
-by Russian law. The Consistory sent a pastor, duly commissioned; and
-the colonists were resigned into his hands. But the hardy Germans had
-not quarrelled with ecclesiastical authority in their native country
-in order to subject themselves to similar tyranny in their new seats;
-they disclaimed any connection with the Consistory, and refused to
-accept its nominee. The dispute was referred to Alexander, and was by
-him decided with his usual good sense. He consented that the Society
-of Basle should supply them with pastors, and he went so far as to
-endow their churches himself.
-
-When the missionaries next turned their attention to the pursuit
-of their original purpose, they were confronted by difficulties
-of a different kind. To their surprise they were informed by the
-Governor-General of Transcaucasia that the Government possessed no
-land on the Persian frontier which could be spared for the settlement
-they had in view. The Mission itself would be allotted a building
-in any town which they might select; and, although the privilege of
-receiving converts would not be legally attachable, the Governor
-himself would exert his influence to protect them in its exercise
-should their efforts be blessed with fruit. Shusha was their choice for
-the establishment of their Mission; schools were opened and a printing
-press set up. But in the countries west of India the conversion of
-Mohammedans has at all times been an arduous and ungrateful task. Our
-own missionaries, established in Persia, are roused to extreme
-enthusiasm should a stray Moslem embrace their faith. I remember
-travelling across Persia with one of these pampered individuals, who
-appeared to me to be admirably equipped for early perdition among
-the surroundings in which his walk in life lay. The experiment was
-boldly made by the missionaries of Shusha, although the conquests
-of Russia, a few years after their installation, provided them with
-an ample field for conducting their operations without crossing into
-Persian soil. Zaremba followed in the track of the armies of Paskevich,
-distributing the Scriptures, duly translated into Turkish, and arguing
-the eternal truth of Christianity and the errors of Islam. But his
-books were torn in pieces by a population among whom contempt for
-Christians is engendered through their mother's milk; and I do not
-know that the bread which he cast upon the waters has been found up to
-the present day. Better results might be expected from their labours
-among the Armenians, whose clergy they discovered sunk in the depths
-of ignorance, where the beginning of the twentieth century finds them
-still. But they had not anticipated the existence of this sphere for
-their activities; and in the absence of special powers it was not
-permissible to them to receive converts from a Christian Church. It
-was open to the proselyte to enter the Orthodox Church of Russia;
-but, if he desired to be baptized by a minister of the tolerated
-sects, his own clergy could claim him back. It was inevitable that,
-with the progress of their schools and religious teaching, such a
-case should soon arise. It is, no doubt, the lofty virtue and the
-traditional practice of the Armenian Church to respect the religious
-tenets of other Christian Churches, and to inculcate a large tolerance
-among their congregation of the doctrines held by their brothers of a
-varying creed. In this respect the reverend traveller, to whose work
-I am indebted for this little history, might have learnt but failed
-to learn a valuable lesson from a clergy whose general standards he
-justly condemns. [48] But the attitude of these militant missionaries,
-no less than the success of their efforts, touched the vanity of the
-Armenian hierarchy to the quick. Two deacons of their persuasion had
-become allied to the Swiss teachers, without formally renouncing their
-own Church. They were accused of influencing the people against their
-old religious practices, and, according to a time-honoured usage,
-it was ordered by the katholikos that they should be bound and sent
-to Edgmiatsin. The missionaries appealed to the Governor-General,
-who, in the spirit of a Roman proconsul, inquired for what reason
-they were interfering in the concerns of the Armenian Church. Let the
-Germans remain Germans and the Armenians remain Armenians--a ruling
-which was modified by the Imperial Government, to whom this high
-functionary referred the case. It was decided, much to the dismay
-of the religious communities, that if a man were determined to leave
-the bosom of the Armenian Church, it was not permitted to the clergy
-to retain him by force. But this favourable disposition on the part
-of the central Government was in advance of Russian methods. The
-victory of the missionaries was not of long duration; the multitude
-of their enemies overbore the power of their few friends. Their
-printing press is long since silent; they have no successors,
-except a few Armenian preachers, faithful to the old traditions,
-of whom our friend at Akhalkalaki was one. He himself was confined
-by Government within the limits of this remote fortress; two years
-he had already passed in this manner of imprisonment; for three more
-years he was sentenced to remain. He earned his own subsistence as
-clerk and assistant in the large draper's shop. In Shusha itself,
-if I may trust the official statistics, the members of the Armenian
-Protestant community did not exceed twenty-six souls in 1886. [49]
-Russian policy of the present day abhors missionary effort; it has
-been justly remarked by a recent clerical traveller that if a priest
-wishes to travel in the Russian provinces he must divest himself of
-his clerical character and clerical garb. [50] I myself can testify
-to the extreme difficulty with which the Protestant missionaries in
-Turkey obtain permission to cross Russian soil. Such is the jealousy of
-that Orthodox Church, the object of British episcopal blandishments,
-to whose mercies it is announced that the Archbishop of Canterbury is
-about to transfer his long-cherished pupils, the Chaldĉan or Assyrian
-Christians of Kurdistan. [51]
-
-To Sembat the Russian colonists were an object of peculiar interest,
-not indeed in the same capacity in which they appealed to the Governor,
-but by reason of the kind of religion which they professed. Here was
-a people who, like himself, were exiles for the sake of religion,
-who resembled, in their aversion to the trammels of ecclesiasticism,
-the congregations in whose bosom he had himself been reared. The
-history of the Dukhobortsy or Dukhoborians--I became familiar with
-the latter termination, and such is the name of the sect to which
-these settlers belong--composes a chapter which is neither the least
-remarkable nor the most creditable in the history of the Russian
-Church-State. Their origin would appear to be wrapt in some mystery;
-according to one account a discharged soldier first disseminated the
-teaching in the Government of Kharkov and in the year 1740. [52] Count
-Tolstoy adopts the view, which would appear the more probable, that it
-was a foreigner, a Quaker, immigrant to Russia, who spread the seeds
-of their belief. [53] Neither their opinions, nor the temper which
-was the outcome of their convictions, were calculated to promote
-the smoothness of their early course. In a country where Church
-interests permeate every act of policy, they denied the necessity,
-even the expediency of a Church. Among a people attached with devotion
-to their temples, images and eikons, they professed the uselessness of
-all such external aids to religious life. The crusty formulas cracked
-under their merciless logic; and the grim earnestness with which
-these spiritual combatants grappled with themselves and with society
-wore out the patience or aroused the apathy of the State. Already in
-the eighteenth century they suffered persecution; and so bitter grew
-the feeling against them, that in the early years of the nineteenth
-century the Emperor Alexander I. settled them in the Tauric province,
-in the neighbourhood of the Sea of Azov. But Alexander was not the man
-to become the instrument of their enemies, whose hostile instances
-provoked an Imperial rebuke. It had been proposed that a further
-migration of the sect should be required; the ukase of 1816 enacted
-that no such migration should take place. The same edict recited the
-favourable testimony to their character which had been received from
-the official in whose district they lived, dwelt on the proved futility
-of the measures previously taken against them, and proclaimed that,
-far from meditating the repetition of any such measures, it was the
-Imperial will that every unnecessary restriction should be removed
-and that all annoyance of the sectaries should cease. The humane,
-the wise policy of this enlightened ruler has not been followed by
-his successors on the throne. Nicholas the First expelled them to the
-Transcaucasian provinces, and they are being persecuted at the present
-day. The principal emigrations took place between 1841 and 1845. They
-were allotted seats in the bleak country on the south of Akhalkalaki,
-whence they have spread into the Government of Elizabetpol and into
-the more recently acquired province of Kars. According to the census
-of 1886 their numbers in their adopted country amounted to 12,500
-souls at that date. [54]
-
-In the eyes of a philosopher the Dukhobortsy may appear to practise
-pure religion, and to observe the spirit of the teaching of Christ. Yet
-in the view of the majority of Christians their doctrines would be
-deemed heretical and their religious usages would be condemned. Such
-an attitude is the fruitful parent of misrepresentation and calumny;
-and the account of them which we received from our itinerant
-preacher was not untinctured by these defects. In justice to him
-one must remember that his own services would be repudiated by these
-fellow-offenders with him against the majesty of the Orthodox Church;
-that neither a Zaremba nor an Eli Smith would be welcomed by these
-simple peasants and solicited to direct and elevate their spiritual
-life. The imagination of the Oriental may have been coloured by the
-prejudice of the Christian teacher; yet I cannot doubt that the tales
-which he told us about them were widely current in the gossip of the
-countryside. According to Sembat, considerable mystery surrounded
-the religion of these peasants, which he himself had not sufficient
-knowledge to dispel. Pagan practices were freely imputed to them; and
-they were said to worship images of birds and beasts. Whether they
-worshipped them, or only regarded them as symbols, it was at least
-certain that they were in the habit of making such images, and we could
-judge for ourselves what purpose they served. And then he related to
-us a portion of the story of Lukeria--half-goddess and half-queen.
-
-September 5.--In the East mankind is usually a monotonous animal,
-which you would scarcely notice, such is the majesty of his natural
-surroundings, were it not for the needs which you share in common
-with him, and which he most indifferently supplies. It was therefore
-with expectations of no ordinary character that we set out from
-Akhalkalaki to visit the Russian colonies on the southern margin of
-the great plain. The direct distance between the town and Gorelovka,
-the principal settlement, is seventeen miles. The road, although it
-constitutes the avenue of communication with Alexandropol, is little
-better than a track. In places the carriage is jolted in a merciless
-manner by protruding boulders, embedded in the soil. We started at
-half-past two, on a course a little east of south; the vastness of
-the expanse and the billowing surface of the naked soil suggested the
-appearance of the sea. But the horizon was outlined by the forms of
-lofty ranges, encircling the floor of the plain. Banks of white and
-grey cloud were suspended about their summits, while the zenith was
-blue and the air crisp, yet full of sun.
-
-At three o'clock we gained the margin of the Toporovan river, a
-flash of water slowly flowing over the surface of the plain. On the
-further bank a small Armenian village; a little Tartar settlement on
-this shore. We paused awhile, that we might realise the features of
-the landscape, the same we had commanded from the summit of Abul. On
-our left hand we were skirting some stony hummocks, which flank the
-mass of Abul. That broad-based mountain rose beyond them, closing
-the landscape in the east. On our point of course, some eight miles
-distant, a range of gentle vaulting stretched from east by south to
-west by north. It may be identified with the outer framework of the
-mountains which encircle Lake Chaldir. In the south-west we discerned
-a break in the ranges, the distant passage of the Kur. On our right
-the level plain; and beyond it, at a long interval, the lofty ridges
-which border the Kur on the left bank. Behind us, from a second cleft
-or opening in the mountains, a long serrated ridge, which belongs to
-the northern border ranges, and which formed a striking feature in
-the prospect from Abul. This chain and that in the west appeared to
-be the highest, except for the nearer outline of Abul.
-
-In another half-hour we had passed the track which leads to Manzara,
-and were crossing the richest portion of the plain. The deepness
-of the furrows in the black earth argued careful cultivation; the
-crops had already been gathered in. We were now pursuing a rather
-more easterly direction, and could see a gap in the outlines on our
-point of course. The hummocks still followed us, at an interval of
-a couple of miles, and, beyond them, the meridional range to which
-Abul belongs. But, on our right hand, we now lost the open prospects;
-low, rocky hills advanced from the region of Lake Chaldir. It seemed a
-neck of the plain; for, further south, the view again opens, and the
-plain expands anew, in the form of a gulf-like extension, towards the
-water-parting between the Araxes and the Kur. It was evident that we
-were reaching considerably higher levels, for the crops were still
-standing, although ripe. The reapers were busy, gaily clad Armenians,
-the women helping in the work. In the distance, at the base of the
-eastern mountains, we saw a village, which was inhabited by Armenian
-Catholics. The cereals consisted of oats, from which they make bread,
-and a species of bearded wheat. At half-past four we arrived at the
-first considerable village, which, indeed, proved to consist of two
-villages, both of which adjoin the road. The first is called Khojabek,
-and is inhabited by Armenians; it contains fifty houses, and possesses
-a church but no school. The second, Bogdanovka, is a Russian settlement
-with eighty houses, the first of those settlements which we were so
-anxious to see. [55] At this double village we crossed a stream which
-was said to issue from Lake Chonchal, and which bears the same name
-as the lake.
-
-Bogdanovka is not a favourable specimen of its species. I did not
-notice any appreciable contrast between the Russian and the Armenian
-village; it is indeed possible that they may have mutually affected
-one another, not to the advantage of the Russian settlement--in
-both cases rambling, stone-built tenements, and flat roofs, topped
-with turf. Dirty little lanes, of uneven surface, debouch upon the
-principal street. But the gait, the physiognomy of the two races--what
-a remarkable contrast in this respect! Large, lustrous, coal-black
-eyes: little, colourless pupils; shapely features, animate with
-expression: formless protuberances from a massive, heavy skull. The
-ugliness of the women especially appalled us, and we were impressed
-with the deliberate slouch of the men's walk.
-
-We had come a distance of 18 versts (12 miles). After changing horses,
-we gained some rising ground on the further side. From here we could
-see Lake Chonchal, with a village at the foot of the rising ground
-on its opposite shore. In half an hour we were at the tiny lake and
-village of Orlovka--a ragged-looking place, of which a striking feature
-was the stacks of tezek or dried manure. This was the second Russian
-village; we were disappointed. Gorelovka, the goal of our journey,
-was to come next.
-
-The range on our left still continued; but on our right the hills had
-receded, and were replaced by gently rising ground. Patches of arable
-land mounted the slopes about us, suggesting that the rising tide
-of reclamation was flowing into these remote solitudes. We noticed
-that the soil had become more turf-like and fibrous in character;
-we thought it well adapted to potato culture, but not a field of
-potatoes could we see. These uplands provide good pasture during
-summer and sweet hay for the long winter months. It was a landscape
-of open downs at a great elevation; we had reached a height of some
-7000 feet. Such are the bleak surroundings of Gorelovka. We were
-chilled to the bones when we arrived at half-past six.
-
-
-
-The impression which we had received at the two smaller villages was
-quickly dispelled by our new surroundings. Great was our pleasure
-when we recognised that the high opinion of Colonel Tarasoff was amply
-justified by those to whom it applied. It is true that these sectaries
-are the flower of the peasantry in Russia; but that peasantry is none
-the less honoured by what they have achieved.
-
-Gorelovka is the largest village in the district; it contains 150
-houses and a population of some 1500 souls. The inhabitants said
-it was fifty-two years since they came hither from Russia, and
-were allotted lands. Each house pays fifteen roubles (about thirty
-shillings) annually to the State for the rent of their lands. Snow
-lies on the ground for about eight months in the year, and, like the
-Armenians, they heat their houses with tezek fuel, or cakes of dried
-manure. I admired their ploughs and spacious waggons; they are their
-own handiwork. You do not see such ploughs and waggons among their
-neighbours--Armenians, Tartars and Turks. On the other hand, they
-have not improved upon the usual threshing implements--the flat beams
-encrusted with sharp stones. They said they had found this method in
-use in the country, and that it satisfied their needs. Their markets
-are Alexandropol and Akhalkalaki. Cereals struggle for existence at
-this altitude; yet the patches of plough and stubble, spread upon the
-hillsides, climb higher every year. [56] It is pleasant to watch the
-waggons, loaded with hay, winding homewards over the springy turf.
-
-A Dukhobortsy village is not built into the earth, like the burrows
-of the Armenians and the Kurds. The Russians cheat the climate
-by the additional thickness which they put into their solid stone
-walls. Their dwellings are low, one-storeyed houses; the masonry is
-covered over with plaster, which receives several coats of whitewash. A
-long street traverses the village--straight, broad and well maintained;
-the houses are aligned upon it at intervals. The roofs are almost flat,
-and consist of stout beams, supporting a superstructure of earth and
-sods of turf. The chimneys are mere apertures in the roof, protected
-by little wooden hoods. We found the interiors clean and comfortable;
-the wooden ceilings are neatly mitred, and the walls are distempered
-white. The deep embrasures of the windows testify to the thickness
-of the walls. In some of the Russian settlements, through which we
-passed later, the people had adorned their homes with gay shutters
-and combings of fretwork design; in Gorelovka no work of fancy adorns
-the dwellings of the peasants, and they have lavished all their skill
-in wood-carving upon the residence of their queen.
-
-The inhabitants are tall and powerfully built, and, although they are
-bronzed in complexion almost beyond recognition, the fair hair bears
-witness to their northern origin. Their limbs are loosely put together,
-so that, apart from the difference of their dress and demeanour,
-they present a strong contrast to the neatly-made natives of the
-country, by reason of their lofty stature and the unbuckled slouch
-of their walk. The features are irregular, the eyes small, and the
-countenance is wanting in animation, in the case of both women and
-men. The dress of the men consists of dark blue trousers and jacket
-and a peaked military cap; this costume gives them the appearance of
-old soldiers, and all seem to shave the beard. The women wear very
-clean cotton dresses of showy patterns and bright hues.
-
-Next morning, according to arrangement, we were to visit, in company
-with our host, Alexei Zupkoff, the venerable starshina, or head of
-the village, the residence and garden of the queen. The brother of
-the queen joined our party--Michael Vasilievich Ghubanoff, the same of
-whom Count Tolstoy speaks. We passed down the long, straight street of
-the village, the spacious intervals between the white houses opening
-to the breezy downs. Entering an enclosure, we found ourselves in a
-delightful flower-garden, among trees and thick rose-bushes, allowed
-to spread in freedom, and only saved from rankness and riot by the
-loving hand of man. How strange, after our wanderings among peoples
-whose material standards hover on the extreme margin where life is
-just possible and no more, appeared to us the sight of these garden
-flowers and the scent of the double rose. A low one-storeyed building
-faces the garden on two sides; the one wing contains the chapel and
-reception room, the other the private apartments in which the queen
-used to live. Passing within the doorway, we stood in a little hall
-from which rooms opened, one on either side. Both apartments are
-spacious, and their size was enhanced by the complete absence of
-furniture. Large stone stoves are built into the rooms, and form
-the most prominent feature in them; these stoves are usual in all
-the houses, but in this house they are decorated with a scroll of
-stone carving, which is not the case elsewhere. The ceilings are low,
-and the walls are so thick that the windows have the appearance of
-fortress embrasures, with their deep cavernous sills. The two large
-rooms on either side of the hall were formerly devoted, the one
-to prayer meetings and the other to social gatherings; but it was
-evident that they were not in use at the time of my visit, and I was
-told that assemblies in this house had been interdicted by Government,
-on account of the fresh outbreak of fanaticism which was apprehended
-should the people come together beneath the roof of their former queen.
-
-The general arrangement and appearance of the chapel or apartment
-in which they used to meet for prayer is this--the low ceiling is
-composed of narrow pine planks, the surface being relieved by delicate
-wood beadings along the seams where plank meets plank. The large pier
-of the stove projects boldly into it from the side of the door. The
-walls of such rooms are in general covered with a neat paper of common
-Russian pattern, and the floors are either painted a reddish colour,
-or the boards are left natural, and stopped, and scrubbed daily, like
-the deck of a yacht. Round this particular apartment there runs a low
-bench; this is the only sitting-place. Large pots of flowers, carefully
-pruned and tended, bloomed in the deep embrasures of the windows,
-and broke the light, diffused about the sober apartment in a warm and
-regular glow. In that part of the building where the queen used to
-live, the rooms, although smaller, presented a similar appearance;
-they were maintained in the same state of scrupulous cleanliness as
-though she inhabited them still. The furniture had all been removed
-from them; but, in addition to the pots of beautiful flowers, there
-was in each a dish of Easter eggs.
-
-In the centre of the garden among the rose-bushes stands the summer
-pavilion of the queen (Fig. 21). The kernel of the structure may
-be described as consisting of two square boxes, placed one above
-the other, and serving as living rooms. Each side of the upper room
-is broken by a large window; so that the view from within embraces
-the whole settlement and all the landscape around. The lower room
-contains a bed and a row of pegs, on which, behind a light covering,
-hang the dresses of the queen; that above is bare of all furniture,
-and was always used as a sitting-room. A broad wooden balcony with
-staircase runs round this inner kernel, supported on pillars of
-wood. They have lavished all their skill upon the decoration of
-this balcony, enriching it with delicate fretwork traceries and with
-figures placed at the angles of the roof. At each corner sits a dove
-with wings outspread, while on the summit of the roof a dove is just
-alighting, the wings just closing, the legs outstretched. In front
-of the pavilion, on the side of the house, there is a large standard
-lantern, a work of curious design and fancy, surmounted by an image
-of St. George and the dragon, carved with much life and vigour in wood.
-
-By my side stood the man who had made these images, and I asked him
-whether they had any religious meaning, peculiar to their creed. I was
-loath to put the question, so obvious was their purpose, so universal
-the symbolism they implied. He answered good-humouredly that they
-were pure ornaments, and that he was flattered by my appreciation of
-his skill.
-
-In a room, removed from the part of the village in which the queen
-lived, they showed us her furniture and effects, her personal
-ornaments, and every detail of her attire. Everything that belonged
-to her had been carefully kept and cherished, like the relics of
-a saint. Her possessions had been those of a simple peasant woman,
-verging on the middle class--a velvet chair or two, some statuettes in
-plaster, a few chromo-lithographs. Many trays of coloured Easter eggs
-were here collected--the offerings, I suppose, of many happy Easters,
-when she had led their congregations of prayer.
-
-Seven years had elapsed, at the time of our visit, since they had lost
-their beloved Lukeria Vasilievna, their leader both in spiritual and
-in temporal matters; they honoured and obeyed her like a queen. [57]
-Her influence was supreme among the settlers on these highlands; and it
-appears to have extended to all the colonists in Transcaucasia of the
-Dukhobortsy sect. The traveller Radde, who visited Gorelovka in 1875,
-was privileged to meet her in her home. He describes her as a widow
-in the thirties, strong, tall, of full but still shapely forms. Her
-features wore the imprint of beauty. He testifies to the veneration
-in which she was held. That Lukeria was nothing more to them than the
-contemporary holder of an office which had been the outcome of their
-religious and social needs, would, I think, be no less fallacious
-to suppose than to credit the rumours current in the country that
-it had been in the character of a divine personage that her people
-had submitted themselves to her will. A childlike nature, at once
-the product of the religious temperament and its peculiar pride, may
-find it difficult to discriminate between the emotions of worship and
-of love. When I questioned them, they strongly disclaimed for Lukeria
-any pretension to supernatural gifts, and they rejected as a fable the
-imputation that they had paid her divine honours. They had loved and
-revered in her a good and noble woman, who raised their lives, relieved
-their sorrows, and led their aspirations towards the higher life. The
-evidence of her work and example is written in the appearance of this
-model village, and in the demeanour of its inhabitants. All were well
-clothed and clean and well nourished; it was a pleasure to see them go
-about their business in their quiet, earnest way. I saw no poor people
-in Gorelovka, not a sign of the habitual squalor of the East. Provision
-had been made for the orphans and the destitute, and I understood that
-all the colonists of the neighbourhood contribute to the funds. But
-what impressed me most, beside the evidence of their affection in
-these dwellings and this enclosure maintained in neatest order, as
-though in spirit she inhabited them still, was the love of flowers
-which the queen appears to have developed in her people and brought
-them to share with her. In the decline of wealth and of the arts,
-the sight of garden flowers becomes more and more rare in the East;
-and, at best, they are there little more than the ornament of luxury
-and the setting of sensual delights. At Gorelovka one cannot doubt
-that these geraniums and roses are cultivated for their own sake alone.
-
-The religion of the Dukhobortsy resembles that of our own extreme
-Protestants; it is the Government fans their zeal into destroying
-flames. That they are Christians there can, I think, be scarcely any
-doubt; they told me positively that they acknowledged and worshipped
-Christ as God. [58] But God is a spirit, and they that worship God
-must worship Him in spirit and in truth. The spirit of God dwells
-in the souls of His servants, who themselves are sons of God. How
-therefore can a church, an image or an eikon claim reverence as a
-holy thing? In these there dwells no spirit, no effluence of Godhood;
-the Church of God is the human soul. Reasoning thus, the Dukhobortsy
-bow to one another after prayer, saluting the divinity that resides
-in man. Scripture they accept; but the book of God must be a living
-book, a book to which there is never any end. Hence their religious
-conceptions float about in the mouths of the people, in the form of
-psalms. New psalms may be sung; but the old psalms never perish--the
-Word of God, old yet ever new. They reject priests and all the
-apparatus of official religion, and themselves conduct whatever simple
-ceremonies may be necessary upon birth, at marriage and after death.
-
-The moral ideas of the Dukhobortsy are such as might be expected
-from a people who hold this lofty view of the nature of man. Man,
-being the receptacle of the divinity, must not injure, must not
-kill his fellow-man. Hence they do not see the necessity of judicial
-tribunals; for they do not wish to wrong any man. Nor do they consider
-that one man should exercise authority over another; each one must do
-his duty, because it is his duty, and no compulsion can be necessary
-from outside.
-
-That from such peaceful surroundings there should issue fierce
-dissensions, that a people trained to mutual love and forbearance
-should be inflamed by the worst passions of an opposite nature, and
-turn the hand which they had been unwilling to lift against their
-fellow-men upon the brothers of their own creed, is a melancholy
-example of the failure of purely emotional methods to elevate
-permanently the nature of man. It seems there are no short cuts
-to virtue; the standards attained under the impulse of religious
-enthusiasm have but an ephemeral life. With the death of Lukeria
-was removed the personality and visible example for which simple
-natures crave; and the exaggeration of sentiment, of which she
-had been the object, brought with it its own revenge. Although cut
-off at the early age of forty-three years, the queen was already a
-widow when she died. Her marriage had been childless, and, even had
-she possessed a natural successor, the place which she occupied in
-the imagination of her people would perhaps have been impossible to
-fill. Yet scarcely a year had elapsed from the time of her death when a
-pretended successor arose--a boy, who, I believe, claimed relationship
-with her, and who presumed to be worthy to wear the mantle which
-had hitherto descended on none. The inhabitants of Gorelovka, whose
-version of the story I am giving, were emphatic in their statement
-that this youth was an impostor. "He told lies," was the expression
-which they used. His authority had never been acknowledged by them,
-and he had stirred up their own brethren against them. I gathered
-that they had not stopped short of actual violence in the ardour of
-religious and partisan zeal. Gorelovka, it appears, had been solid
-against the usurper; but opinions had been divided in the neighbouring
-villages and throughout the community settled in Transcaucasia of the
-Dukhobortsy sect. The Russian Government, as was natural, surveyed
-the situation from the standpoint of hard-headed prudence; they were
-not anxious to see installed a successor to Lukeria and a revival of
-the old religious flame. The weight of their authority was thrown in
-the scale against the pretender; he was suppressed without delay and
-banished from the country to a remote exile in the north.
-
-At the time of our visit the feud was slumbering; Count Tolstoy informs
-us how it broke out anew. It would appear that the pretender--his
-name was Peter Veriguin--was supported by the large majority of the
-Dukhobortsy, who were incensed at the action of the authorities in
-making over to the brother of Lukeria, our friend Ghubanoff, the
-succession to the communal funds. From his place of exile Veriguin
-corresponded with his disaffected brethren; Government, apprised of
-the fact, removed him to Siberia during the winter of 1894-5. While
-he was in Moscow on his way to the land of forgetfulness, he was
-visited by his relations and by some of his spiritual allies. Them he
-charged to convey a proposal to the brethren: that they should abstain
-from participation in the violent acts of Government, should refuse
-to serve in the capacity of soldiers, and should destroy all their
-arms. This proposal was accepted by the whole of the larger party;
-and they prepared to translate it into action without delay.
-
-In the Government of Elizabetpol, on the first day of the festival of
-Easter, eleven Dukhobortsy, who were performing military service with
-a reserve battalion, refused to parade, and formally signified that
-they intended to serve no more. At their head was an individual who,
-in spite of his legal disability as a sectarian, had been promoted
-to the rank of a non-commissioned officer for his high qualities and
-the exceptional nature of his deserts. Their example was followed
-in other provinces, in Akhalkalaki, in Kars. No pains were spared
-by the authorities to save them from their rashness; when persuasion
-failed, fear was tried. Five recalcitrants in Akhalkalaki were taken
-into the prison yard and placed in line. A firing party of Cossacks
-was called in and ordered to load with ball; the prisoners asked and
-received permission to pray. The command "make ready" was next issued,
-and a few minutes passed. The former soldiers quietly awaited the
-word to fire. It was not given; the muzzles were lowered, and they
-were conducted to their cells. In other places Cossacks charged the
-prisoners and made pretence to cut them down. When the sectarians still
-persisted in their decision, they were beaten with the lash. Asked how
-they justified their action, they answered that they were Christians,
-endeavouring to observe the precepts of Christ. Nor was their refusal
-to serve in the army the only issue with Government into which they
-were carried by their aversion to violence in human affairs. It so
-happened that a certain prisoner, in course of transportation, was
-brought to one of their villages. It was the duty of the elder of the
-village to provide for his further escort and to hand him over to
-a sure man. This charge had fallen by turn upon the brother of the
-sergeant who had renounced service on the first day of Easter. The
-man informed the elder that he could not escort the prisoner because
-he would be unable to use force. He asked him to report his refusal
-to the authorities; but the elder answered that he was not prepared
-to turn traitor; he should bring the prisoner to the house of his
-temporary warder, who would act as he thought best. The man returned to
-his house; the elder brought the prisoner, and went away. The warder
-treated his charge as though he were a pilgrim, warmed him, gave him
-to eat and drink, gave him a bed. Next morning, observing that the
-prisoner was a poor man, he supplied him with money and offered to
-direct him on his way. When they had arrived outside the village,
-he showed him two roads, of which he gave him the choice. He told
-him that the one led to his destination as prisoner and the other
-to liberty. The prisoner preferred the first road, and came to the
-place of his destination. In this case no evil consequences ensued.
-
-In 1895 the prison of Elizabetpol contained no less than 120 members
-of the Dukhobortsy sect. All had been sentenced for offences of the
-nature already described; but the crown of the people's offence was
-not yet come. In a country where the holding of arms is regarded in
-the light of a civil duty, they determined to burn every weapon in
-their possession of which the purpose was to kill men. The night
-of the 28th of June, the eve of the feast of Peter and Paul, was
-chosen for the simultaneous execution of this resolve. In Kars and
-in Elizabetpol the event passed off without serious trouble; but
-the case was different in the province of Akhalkalaki. About three
-versts from the village of Orlovka there is an excavation in the rock,
-which the people call "The Cave." In this spot it was their habit to
-hold their large prayer meetings; it was now chosen as the tryst for
-the burning of arms. On the appointed night about 2000 people were
-there collected; a pile was made, fuel and petroleum added, and the
-whole ignited in due course. In the morning, when the flames were
-exhausted, the assembly offered up prayer, and each man returned to
-his home. The day passed quietly; they returned in the evening, and
-collected together the metal parts which had escaped the fire. These
-they melted into a mass, in the presence of a still larger concourse,
-among whom were many women and young children.
-
-In Gorelovka, which was on the side of Government, the restless
-symptoms among the opposite party, and the fact that they were
-collecting arms, had not passed unobserved. Anticipating attack,
-the villagers had denounced their co-religionists and had received a
-garrison of Cossacks and regular troops. On the 30th of June an order
-came to all the settlements that the Governor was about to arrive
-in Bogdanovka from Gorelovka and that he required all the settlers
-to repair to that place. Those who were at home obeyed the summons;
-their absent kinsmen, although apprised of the order, remained where
-they were and engaged in prayer. A messenger arrived and repeated the
-injunction. The old men answered that they were praying, that their
-prayers would continue, and that, if the Governor wished to see them,
-it was his part to come to them, they being many and he one. A second
-messenger was sent with no better fortune. Then the watchers ran in
-with the news that the Cossacks were close at hand. No sooner had
-the assemblage closed together than the horsemen were upon them. An
-officer rode at their head and cried "Oura!" The crowd was ridden down
-and mercilessly beaten with the sharp lashes which the Cossacks use. A
-man was seen to brandish his whip in the air for shame of striking. The
-officer approached him, shouted to him that he was deceiving the Tsar,
-and struck him in the face with his lash. Bruised and covered with
-blood, the people were taken to the Governor; the women followed,
-although the Cossacks tried to whip them away. Approaching Bogdanovka,
-they met the carriage of the high official, and the officer shouted
-"Hats off!" The old men answered him that they would know how to do
-their duty when the Governor passed and saluted them. Again "Whips,
-Oura!" and a second pitiless beating, until the grass was red with
-blood. The Governor stopped the whipping and proceeded to Bogdanovka,
-where he collected the brethren who had remained behind. When he began
-to upbraid them, a man stepped forward with a military certificate
-in his hand. This document he handed in to the Governor, announcing
-that in future he refused to serve. The Governor lost command of his
-temper and beat him with a stick. Then the people declared that they
-would no longer obey Government or comply with any of its demands. The
-Governor retaliated by ordering them to be whipped, and even threatened
-to shoot them down. The next measure was to quarter Cossacks in their
-villages, who lived at free quarters and violated the women. Four
-hundred and sixty-four families were expelled from the district and
-sent to starve in Georgian villages. These became labourers to the
-Georgians and continued to maintain their high character. [59]
-
-Reflecting upon this story after reading these accounts, the mind
-travels back to the dawn of Christianity and to the annals of the early
-Church. The famous letter of Pliny appears fresh and modern, while
-the grave language of the London Times in the leading article which
-it publishes mingles naturally with the spirit of a pre-Christian age:
-"The first principles of their creed lead straight to social anarchy,
-tempered only by the whims of the 'sons of God.' They are doubtless
-sincere fanatics, and as such must be looked upon with a measure of
-pity and respect." It is interesting to place by the side of this
-paragraph in a modern newspaper the words of the great historian of
-the Roman world: "The Christians were not less averse to the business
-than to the pleasures of this world. The defence of our persons and
-property they knew not how to reconcile with the patient doctrine
-which enjoined an unlimited forgiveness of past injuries and commanded
-them to invite the repetition of fresh insults. Their simplicity was
-offended by the use of oaths, by the pomp of magistracy, and by the
-active contention of public life; nor could their humane ignorance be
-convinced that it was lawful on any occasion to shed the blood of our
-fellow-creatures, either by the sword of justice or by that of war,
-even though their criminal or hostile attempts should threaten the
-peace and safety of the whole community;... while they inculcated
-the maxims of passive obedience, they refused to take any active
-part in the civil administration or the military defence of the
-empire.... This indolent, or even criminal disregard to the public
-welfare exposed them to the contempt and reproaches of the pagans,
-who very frequently asked, What must be the fate of the empire,
-attacked on every side by the barbarians, if all mankind should adopt
-the pusillanimous sentiments of the new sect?"
-
-Have the Christians of the present day become pagans, or did the
-pagans only change their name?
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER VIII
-
-TO ALEXANDROPOL
-
-
-To-night we are to sleep on the banks of the Arpa, by the waters
-which swell the flood of the Araxes and sweep the base of Ararat! This
-was the reflection which lightened the mood of sorrowful meditation
-that our visit to Gorelovka had inspired. Our grave hosts, for whom
-one felt a vivid sympathy, a warm affection, conducted us in their
-spacious waggons to the posting station of Efremovka, a few versts'
-distance along our road. It is a Russian settlement with some ninety
-houses and a population of 860 souls, besides a collection of huge and
-formidable dogs. The station is a stage of 16 versts (10 1/2 miles)
-from Bogdanovka, and of 21 versts (14 miles) from the succeeding post
-house of Shishtapa, which was our destination for the afternoon. At
-Efremovka we took leave of our companions, and, at the same time,
-of the solid villages of this Russian zone.
-
-A country of elevated uplands, a natural carpet of springy turf,
-broken here and there by patches of cultivation which struggle upwards
-from the plainer levels to the hillsides. Grey lights descending from
-a grey heaven upon a surface swelling and falling like the sea. In
-the east the near reliefs of the mountains of the meridional border,
-their base checkered with plots of fallow and stubble, their summits
-veiled with cloud. At their foot the lake and marsh of Madatapa,
-with the Russian village of Troitskoy upon its shore. In the west
-the vague downs, rising to a distant horizon of loftier shapes,
-similar to themselves. Such were the opening phases of the scene
-through which we passed to the scarcely perceptible water-parting
-between the Araxes and the Kur. After less than an hour's drive from
-Efremovka we could see the village of Korakhbur (Armenian Catholic)
-on the hillside, about a mile away on our left hand; on our right was
-an Armenian hamlet, which was named to us Jaila; both are situated in
-the southern watershed. The height of the parting between the basins,
-at the point where we crossed it, is placed by the Russian map at
-6777 feet, a figure which, if it errs, is below the truth. And now
-for the first time were disclosed the gleaming peaks which we had
-seen from Abul--beyond a line of hummock hills the group of snowy
-teeth which break the horizontal outline of Alagöz.
-
-Tazaken, a Turkish settlement; Khancharli, a large village of Armenian
-Catholics, were rapidly left behind. The landscape opened to a lofty
-range of swelling shapes and rounded outlines on the western margin of
-the plain. They were the mountains about Lake Chaldir; the declining
-sun was about to touch them from behind a shroud of mist. Sheets of
-light were thrown upon those distant opaline masses as upon the coast
-of a hazy sea.
-
-At a quarter to six--we had left Efremovka at 4.20--we were winding
-between the two Shishtapas, on our right the Turkish Shishtapa, washed
-by the young stream of the Arpa; the Armenian Shishtapa further away on
-our left. At six o'clock we crossed a bridge which spans a tributary
-of the Arpa, coming from the east. The confluence takes place some
-hundred yards below the bridge, and the name of the tributary was
-given to us as Kizil-Goch (the red lamb). It is a solid stone bridge
-with a curious stone ornament; on the further side you rise to an
-eminence which overlooks the Arpa, and upon which the lonely post
-station of Shishtapa is built.
-
-The doors were heavily barred; when at length they yielded, after many
-grumblings, a wizened figure in official uniform stepped forth. It
-was the postmaster--it seemed the embodiment of some immense
-and ideal sorrow of which all human griefs are but the mirrored
-images. How cross the threshold upon which he stood, how enlist
-his sympathy with our puny wants, who himself was the incarnation
-of Want? But the keenness of the air overcame our hesitation; a
-night in tents and without blankets was the alternative course. So
-with a greeting, which was coldly returned, we led the way to the
-interior, followed by our dismal host. It appeared to consist of a
-single room, a spacious apartment with bare floor and white-washed
-walls. A few chairs and a large table were the only furniture; the
-only ornaments the usual coloured oleograph of the reigning emperor,
-and, perhaps, the almanac and the posting map, which were suspended
-on the walls. Yet the postmaster was not the only occupant of the
-building; children appeared, and with them a young and beautiful
-girl. A Polish maiden? one could not doubt of the answer, as one
-admired the slender form, the swelling bust, the full lips and the
-pale face with its animated eyes. Ah! the pitiful story eloquently
-told by this unambiguous presence--the mother already a victim to
-the prolonged atrophy of these cheerless surroundings, the father a
-sapless tree in an alien soil. Who sent them to such cold solitudes,
-these warm natures and passionate temperaments? Find a wilderness and
-it will be tenanted by a Pole.... The practical question arose: how
-accommodate ourselves and the family within the four white walls? The
-father protested that it was completely impossible; the girl came to
-our assistance, and revealed the existence of an adjoining closet,
-which she offered to share with the children for the night. After
-partaking of a frugal meal, after several futile attempts at sustained
-conversation, our strange party disposed itself for the night.
-
-For myself, I could not sleep, for all the comfort of my camp bed,
-and memories of sound slumbers which it evoked. Was it the grave
-faces of the Russian peasants and the strange irony of their history
-and circumstances that haunted and kept the mind strung? Or were the
-senses fluttering under the presence of the fair woman whose soft
-breathing one could almost hear? God residing in those frames of
-steel, God incarnate in her voluptuousness!--Yet their God was not
-the God of the pantheist, but a stern, a militant God.... And thought
-wandered out into the stony by-paths, the home of the sprites that
-mock thought. The ingenious wickedness of man with his Churches and
-his heretics, and all the cowering crowd of Jews, Armenians, Poles!
-
-A faint light was already diffused over the cheerless apartment as
-I passed down the row of heavy sleepers and gained the door and the
-open air. Day had broken--a morning of perfect stillness, the vapours
-lingering on the saturated grass. A cold, grey world of bleak uplands
-and mist-veiled mountains, a chill atmosphere which sent one pacing
-to and fro. But when the sun rose above the haze into the clear vault
-of heaven, the colours started, the chill softened into delicious
-freshness, and the peculiar beauty of the scene was revealed. One
-looked in vain for the snowy fangs of Alagöz; they had been lost to
-view behind the amphitheatre of nearer outlines which composed the
-closing phases of our stage of yesterday. But within the limits of
-those gentler shapes was outspread an ideal landscape, typical of the
-most elevated areas of the tableland (Fig. 22). The plainer levels
-were invested with the character of swelling downs, and down and
-hillside were carpeted with turf. Over the green and fibrous surface
-flowed the Arpa and its tributary, flashes of white and luminous
-blue. Here and there brief patches of cultivation checkered the soil,
-especially towards north-west and west. In the middle distance one
-could discern two villages of moderate size--the two Shishtapas,
-barely distinguished from the waste. Beyond the Turkish Shishtapa,
-obscuring all but the first line of the settlement, lay a captive
-cloud, an opaque opaline mass. The illustration shows the rivers
-descending towards you and uniting at your feet. The hills which line
-the distance circle round and mass behind you, closing the prospect
-towards the south. In that direction the united waters bid farewell
-to the grassy uplands, and enter the stony tracts which slope to the
-plain of Alexandropol between the outworks of the Chaldir system and
-those of the meridional border range.
-
-September 7.--By half-past eight we were following the course of the
-Arpa and taking leave of the green meadows and blue streams. We were
-soon involved among the hummock ridges which confine the amphitheatre
-of the Shishtapas, and through which the river winds in a stony
-valley, at some little distance to the west of the track. Progress
-was retarded by the steepness of the inclines as we crossed this
-elevated ground. Once again in possession of a prospect, we were
-skirting the bases of successive promontories, which projected,
-on our left hand, from the mountains of the meridional border into
-the broken surface of a volcanic plateau. This plateau extends for
-many miles to the westward, and is bounded by lofty mountains on
-that side. The Arpa was running off into the easier levels in the
-west, while the road hugged the rocky eastern shore. The waters of
-the river were not visible after leaving Shishtapa; they are buried
-in a cañon, of which you trace the sinuous edges through the bleak
-and boulder-strewn waste. Ala-Kilisa, a village of Armenian-speaking
-Greeks; Amasia, a Turkish settlement; Karachanta and Kara Mehemet, the
-first inhabited by Turks, the second by Armenians, were successively
-left behind. At half-past ten we arrived at the station of Jellap,
-a stage of twenty versts (thirteen miles).
-
-The post house is situated at some little distance from the village--an
-Armenian settlement which is exposed to view after you have left the
-station, high-seated among the rocks above the road. It is a gloomy
-habitation, standing in a stony valley by the banks of a stream which
-descends to the trough of the Arpa from the rocky hummocks to which
-the road adheres. Starting at a few minutes after eleven, we commenced
-by crossing a projecting promontory, mounting the slopes of the puny
-ridges by steep gradients, and never regaining the prospect which had
-been lost before reaching Jellap. At length, at half-past eleven,
-the valleys opened; and we overlooked the landscape of the plain
-of Alexandropol.
-
-A vast plain lay before us, level as water, to the floor of which
-the ground declines on every side. A single mountain, which has the
-appearance of a gigantic bank of soil, is drawn in a long horizontal
-outline along its southern verge. This outline is the dominant
-feature in the scene, extending from north of east to south of west
-(Fig. 23). The heart and highest points of the volcanic elevation are
-situated in the easterly portion of the mass; they are represented
-by the jagged profile of the broken outer side of a crater, and
-they gleam with perpetual snow. Some conception of the stupendous
-proportions of the mountain may be derived from a rough measurement
-of its protraction in a latitudinal sense. On the east the volcanic
-emissions have been arrested by the barrier of the border ranges; on
-the west they have descended from the central or subordinate points
-of eruption to the valley of the Arpa Chai. From that valley, in the
-neighbourhood of Ani, to the road which passes between the volcano
-and the meeting slopes of the border chain is a distance of over 40
-miles. Throughout this space the bulk of the giant is thrown across
-the landscape, his head and body resting against the framework of the
-border ranges, his feet extended to the margin of the historic stream.
-
-Such a prospect is the rich reward of the traveller; we paused to
-admire and to realise the scene. It was difficult to believe that
-those snowy peaks were over 30 miles distant; yet a glance at the map
-brought home to us this fact. The floor of the plain has an elevation
-of some 5000 feet, while those peaks are 13,000 feet high. Between
-us and the base of the mountain no meaner object disturbed the view,
-which ranged uninterrupted across dim tracts of earth and stone,
-tinted with shades of ochre in the burnt grass and scanty stubble,
-but treeless, without verdure of any kind. In the east the limit
-of the plain is the outline of the border ranges, of which we were
-touching the skirts; they describe a wide curve, concave towards the
-expanse, and appear to pass over into a meridional direction before
-the point of intersection with the volcanic mass. Their sides are bare
-of vegetation, as are those of the volcano, and they are much broken
-into hummock forms. From north-west descend the slopes of the Chaldir
-system, of which the base is inclined towards the plain. In the west
-the eye is unable to discern a boundary to the misty distance of flat
-or undulating ground. A little to the right of the white summits in
-the south your attention is directed to a slender line of grey--a
-low relief upon the surface of the plain. It is Alexandropol; such
-is the first view of the site of the city, backed by Alagöz. We made
-rapid progress across the level interval and arrived in the town at
-a quarter before one.
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER IX
-
-AT ALEXANDROPOL
-
-
-The city and district of Alexandropol are included in the
-administrative division of the Government of Erivan. Yet they are
-separated from the capital and territory of that name by a natural
-barrier of vast extent. The mass of Alagöz, which one may compare
-to a gigantic shield with a central boss, interrupts communication
-with the valley of the Araxes. It must be turned and cannot be
-crossed. In a geographical sense the province of Alexandropol unites
-more naturally with that of Kars; while, if we measure its importance
-by the populousness of its principal town, it deserves to enjoy a
-position of primacy in the Government of which it may form part. The
-city has double the number of inhabitants as compared to Erivan,
-if I can trust the figure given me by the governor and corroborated
-by the leading notables--a round total of 30,000 souls. [60]
-
-Its extreme youth and the fact that it is almost exclusively peopled
-by Armenians are the most remarkable features about Alexandropol. At
-the commencement of the nineteenth century the site was partly vacant
-and partly tenanted by an insignificant village called Gümri. The
-district formed part of the outlying province of Shuragel, [61] which
-belonged to the Georgian kingdom at the time of the annexation of
-Georgia by Russia in 1801. The Cossacks who came to take over this
-important piece of territory appear to have established a camp in
-the vicinity of Gümri; the place was early developed into a frontier
-station on the side of Turkey, and in 1817, when it was visited by
-an English traveller, was already occupied by a considerable Russian
-garrison. [62] In the war between Russia and Turkey, which broke
-out in the spring of 1828, this partially fortified position served
-the Russians as an advanced base. It was on the line of advance or
-defence on the side of Gümri that the Russian military authorities
-placed the greatest store. There the Russian possessions were most
-open to attack; but, on the other hand, it was through Gümri that
-they could take the offensive with the greatest advantage, since it
-enabled them to cut off Akhaltsykh and the northern provinces from
-Erzerum and those upon the west. How Turkey could have permitted her
-powerful neighbour to acquire this strip without an appeal to arms can
-probably best be explained on the ground of Oriental fatalism. When
-Marshal Paskevich had taken Erivan and concluded the war with Persia
-by the Peace of Turkomanchai (February 1828), his hands were free
-to cut large slices from the Ottoman empire; and it was at Gümri,
-overlooking the Arpa Chai, the boundary against Turkey, that he
-effected the concentration of his troops. From Gümri he set out in
-person at the head of his army on the 26th of June 1828. The outcome
-of this war was the capture of Kars and Erzerum, and the permanent
-acquisition by Russia of Akhaltsykh and the northern districts under
-the Treaty of Adrianople (1829). The restoration to the Sultan of the
-two first-named strongholds increased the strategical value of the
-station on the Arpa Chai. Gümri was slowly but persistently converted
-into a first-rate fortress, the necessary timber for the constructions
-being supplied to his hereditary enemies by the Pasha of Kars from
-the forests of the Soghanlu Dagh. In 1836 the place was visited by
-the Emperor Nicholas I. in person, who inspected the works, which,
-however, were only in an inchoate state. [63] The inhabitants date
-the prosperity of their town from the Imperial visit, which at once
-inaugurated an era of rapid expansion and transformed the village of
-Gümri into the city of Alexandropol. Since Russia has become possessed
-of Kars, the fortress on the Arpa has somewhat declined in importance;
-but it is still occupied by a considerable garrison, and the strength
-of its defences should enable it to give a good account of itself in
-time of war.
-
-Our experiences at Akhaltsykh had warned me to proceed with caution in
-endeavouring to realise the topography of the site. It was not often
-or in public that I could have recourse to my compass; yet I contrived
-to collect sufficient particulars of an innocent nature to supply my
-own wants and those of my lay readers. Conceive in the first place a
-fordable river flowing on a southerly course through a plain of vast
-extent and slightly basin-like surface. On the left or eastern bank
-beyond a strip of quite level ground rises a ridge of insignificant
-elevation, roughly parallel to the stream. Of no great breadth upon
-the summit, it tends to circle inwards on the north of the town, which
-it screens from the river. South of the site it dies away into the
-plain. The north-west angle of this ridge is occupied by the citadel,
-and consists of a spacious table surface, with plenty of room for
-barracks and magazines. The entire formation is strongly fortified
-with earthworks and with massive structures in brick or stone. Such
-is the principal or, at least, the most conspicuous feature in the
-defences of Alexandropol. But it is by no means the only advantage
-which they derive from Nature.
-
-Just inside and, therefore, east of this longitudinal ridge a second
-back of nearly equal height and of similar direction rises beyond a
-ravine which is threaded by a brook, and which widens as it extends
-from the citadel towards the south. It forms the standpoint from which
-I took my photograph of the town (Fig. 24), extending eastwards at
-its skirts. The tombs seen in the foreground belong to a straggling
-Armenian cemetery. From this position on the inner ridge I estimated
-the distance across the ravine at about five hundred yards, and our
-distance from the river at about three-quarters of a mile. As the
-valley narrows towards the citadel, it is filled with the trees of
-a little park, whither the citizens repair to escape the dazzling
-light of summer and to enjoy the contrast of deep shade and murmuring
-waters. It forms a welcome patch of verdure in the treeless expanse. On
-this same ridge, but further south, are seen the graves of officers
-and men who fell in the last Russo-Turkish war. They are grouped
-about a monument to Loris Melikoff; but I believe that great general
-of Armenian origin is buried at Tiflis.
-
-In the manner I have tried to describe, Alexandropol is screened on
-the west at first by the river, and then by two long ridges, with a
-valley between which may be compared to a gigantic moat. I am not
-aware that the inner crest is strengthened by fortifications; but
-it offers an admirable second line of defence. The curious feature
-about the site is that the ridging formation is not yet exhausted;
-three minor and roughly parallel elevations are covered with the
-houses of the town. They cause the streets to go up and down, and make
-them none too pleasant walking. As a fortress, I should be inclined
-to conclude that the place is weak upon the east and south; while
-the nature of the ground beyond the river, rising as it does from
-the right bank to a height almost equal to that of the outer ridge,
-exposes it to a bombardment from that side.
-
-It must not be supposed that these characteristics of the topography
-are prominent in the landscape. They are lost in the folds of
-the plain and overpowered by the scale of their surroundings. Look
-where you will, you have around you the floor of a sea-like expanse,
-bounded at immense intervals by mountainous coasts. In the east it
-is the indented outline of the range on the side of Georgia, curving
-round from a south-easterly into a due meridional direction as it
-approaches the point of intersection with Alagöz. From that point
-the great volcano composes a side of the frame, inclining a little
-south of an east-west line. It forms a magnificent object as seen from
-Alexandropol, high in the sky, yet with scarcely perceptible gradient
-in the profile on either side of the core of precipitous peaks. You
-follow its train declining into the vague spaces of the west, where
-the bulging convexities become broken into hummock forms. The greatest
-breadth of the plain, as it appears to the eye, would be measured from
-the wall of the range which intersects with Alagöz to a distant mass
-of mountain in the south-west. That vague boundary probably belongs
-to one of the elevations on the plateau which extends between Kars
-and the Araxes. Between it and the skirts of the volcano there is a
-broad depression in the outlines, giving passage to the Arpa Chai. The
-misty prospects on the west and north-west did not reveal during the
-course of our stay the limits of the level surface in those directions.
-
-Let us see now what these latter-day Armenians have made of their
-city; for the public and private edifices are creations of their
-own. It is evident that they have inherited the love of building
-which distinguished their forefathers, and that the craft of that
-excellent masonry which we admire in their ancient monuments has not
-become extinct. On the other hand, they share to the full in the
-tastelessness of the modern peoples in the decorative arts. Their
-churches are at once pretentious and commonplace both in design and
-in ornamentation. Of those exquisite mouldings with their lace-work
-chisellings which adorn the exteriors of their mediĉval counterparts
-there is, indeed, scarcely a trace on these ambitious structures. But
-even the standard of the seventeenth century, of which many a specimen
-has been preserved elsewhere, notably in the porches of much older
-churches, has not been maintained into our times. Size and a certain
-effect, rather than elegance of proportion and a loving care for
-detail, are the characteristics of the new style. The cathedral,
-dedicated to the Trinity, is a spacious building, which is held up
-to your admiration, as blending the features of the old models. It is
-difficult to understand how such an assertion and such a comparison can
-be forthcoming from people who have at their doors in the neighbouring
-cloister of Marmashen an example of the art of their ancestors. I need
-only say of the cathedral that it is built of black volcanic stone,
-relieved by courses of the same material but with a ruddy hue. I was
-informed that it was commenced in 1859 and completed in 1874.
-
-Besides this temple the Gregorian Armenians have three churches,
-of which the most considerable is a large structure in grey stone,
-named after the Virgin Mary. The Armenian Catholics are possessed of
-a single but roomy church. The Greek chapel of St. George is of some
-interest because of its connection with the Greek colony of Erzerum,
-who, like so many of the ancestors of the Armenian inhabitants of
-Alexandropol, followed the armies of Marshal Paskevich upon his
-evacuation of Turkish territory. It contains a picture of St. George
-and the dragon (Fig. 25) which is of considerable merit, and is said
-to contain the date of 1327. But those figures, as they now appear,
-are due to a recent restoration. The father of a M. Mergoroff, whom I
-met during my stay, was principally concerned in its transportation
-at the time of the exodus. I understand that it was brought to
-Gümri, whence it migrated to a village called Zalga, only returning
-after the lapse of seven years. M. Mergoroff writes a curious hand,
-partly composed of Greek letters and partly based upon the Russian
-alphabet. This characteristic may correspond to the present culture
-of his countrymen at Alexandropol, numbering some four hundred souls.
-
-This flourishing town is badly supplied in respect of education, the
-Armenian schools being restricted by Government to a purely elementary
-course, and having the rank only of schools of two classes. [64]
-They are three in number and are attended by 700 boys, besides two
-institutions which dispense instruction to 500 girls. The Russian State
-school is said to be limited in accommodation, and is attended by no
-more than 140 youths, principally Armenians. The inhabitants have
-been agitating for a Russian gymnasium or High School, such as has
-been vouchsafed to their less numerous compatriots at Erivan. They
-attribute their ill-success and the greater advantages enjoyed by
-Akhaltsykh to the fact that the latter town belongs to the Government
-of Tiflis while they are dependent upon Erivan. At Alexandropol I heard
-little of the much-vexed school question, which I shall treat in a
-subsequent chapter. But the inhabitants were loud in their complaints
-that, while forbidden to raise the standard of their own schools,
-they were not provided with adequate education by Government. Such
-a situation is typical of the application of Russian methods, and
-would be humorous if its results were less grave.
-
-I must have spent much of my time in attending the various ceremonies
-attendant upon the wedding of a M. Ter Mikelean. I think I may have
-come near to getting married myself, the lady being none other
-than his intended bride. For on one occasion, when we were all
-assembled in a lower apartment, and, the bride's father being dead,
-her nearest male relation was conducting her sale by formal auction,
-my own bid seemed for some time to hold its own against all rivals,
-amounting, so far as I remember, to twenty pounds. I was relieved at
-discovering that there was a want of reality about the proceedings,
-and that it had been arranged beforehand that the damsel should be
-knocked down to the chosen bridegroom. When we were taken upstairs,
-and, among a throng of women, were permitted to gaze upon the girl's
-features, my apprehensions were almost converted into regret. Such
-a sweetly pretty face, recalling the favourites of Andrea del Sarto,
-with their fresh simplicity and candid eyes! I was in part rewarded
-by her consenting to form the centre of a wedding group, and thus
-to enable me to perpetuate her youthful beauty (Fig. 26). The lady
-with the head-dress, standing behind her, is her amiable mother, a
-type of Giovanni Bellini; while the gentleman with his back to the
-wall is M. Vahan Barsamiantz, engaged in an export business of the
-fruits of the castor-oil plant, which is cultivated in the valley of
-the Araxes. The musicians in the foreground were the most lively and
-strenuous performers I have ever met, being rarely silent and never
-tired. Every member of the group was an Armenian. When night came there
-were dances in the open air to the light of streaming torches. The
-strains were not yet hushed as we regained our encampment, which we
-had placed in a shabby garden of the suburbs.
-
-I must not omit a notice of an excursion which we made to the
-neighbouring cloister of Marmashen. It is a monument of the period of
-the mediĉval kings of Armenia, and is of the same order of architecture
-as those at Ani. It is situated about five miles north of Alexandropol,
-on the rocky banks of the Arpa Chai. As we drove over the plain, we
-remarked that ploughing had not yet commenced, and that the stubble
-still stood in the somewhat stony soil. Not a fence or other boundary,
-and not a single tree diversified the expanse of ground. Sowing takes
-place in April, rains fall in May and June, and the harvest is gathered
-during July and August. The surroundings of the monastery are bleak
-and unrelieved by vegetation; the church and chapels are falling into
-ruin, and rise from among piles of débris. My illustration (Fig. 27)
-displays the principal edifice from the south-west and the chapel
-which adjoins it on the south. A companion but larger chapel on the
-north is hidden from view, [65] and a third structure of the same
-order, but more distant on that further side, is beyond the range of
-the picture. The visitor cannot fail to admire the simplicity of the
-design of the church and the absence of any excrescences. The device
-of the niche has been used to lighten the wall on the east, where the
-plan of the interior requires an apse and two side chapels. Each of
-the two recesses upon that side has a depth of 3 feet 8 inches; while
-the similar features on the north and south sides have probably been
-added for the sake of uniformity. The wall spaces have been diversified
-with elegant false arcades, and the window on the west is framed in a
-band of exquisite chiselling. All these features will be familiar to my
-reader when he has read my account of Ani, and I need not, therefore,
-dwell upon them in this place. He will also become acquainted with
-the personages who erected these edifices, and whose names figure
-in the long inscriptions on the walls of the church. From these we
-learn that it was built by none other than the great prince Vahram,
-the hero of the resistance offered by the inhabitants of Ani to the
-occupation of their city by the Byzantine Cĉsar. It was commenced in
-the year A.D. 988, and does not appear to have been completed until
-1029. [66] On the other hand, a memorial tablet, inserted into the wall
-on the west, contains a well-preserved inscription which we copied,
-giving the date of 470 of the Armenian era, or A.D. 1021. Presumably
-the building would have been in use at that time. According to an
-inscription on the north wall it was extensively restored in A.D. 1225
-by descendants of Vahram. [67] The wife of that prince and perhaps,
-too, his own remains were buried at Marmashen.
-
-The interior, a nave and two narrow aisles, has a length of 61 feet,
-measured to the head of the apse, and a breadth of 34 feet. The daïs
-of the apse is not less than 4 feet in height, the face of the daïs
-being decorated with a sculptured frieze of intricate design. In
-other respects the masonry is free of ornament, and the walls have
-been left bare. The name of the cloister is said to be a corruption of
-Marmarashen, which would signify the marble edifice. Yet the material
-used is a pink volcanic stone, and I did not observe any marble about
-the church. A porch extended at one time the whole breadth of the
-façade, and must have had a length of nearly 37 feet. A prominent
-feature of this approach were four octagonal pillars, of which the
-remains still exist. They have a circumference of 7 feet 10 inches in
-the shaft. I cannot say that I admire the dome, and it is, perhaps,
-due in its present form to the restoration of the thirteenth century.
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER X
-
-TO ERIVAN
-
-
-During our stay at Alexandropol it had required no small effort
-to detach our minds from the paramount object with which they
-were filled. Every day, every hour, which separated us from Ararat
-diminished the prospects of a successful ascent. We were impatient,
-and anxious to leap the intervening stages, like pilgrims almost in
-sight of their long-sought shrine.
-
-It was, therefore, with a sense of relief that, at one o'clock, on
-the 12th of September, we set out from the city in the direction of
-Alagöz. We were to make for the passage between the volcano and the
-border mountains, and to rest in that valley for the night. The road
-is a mere track, yet we were able to engage a private carriage to take
-us to Erivan. One is astounded in the East at the performances of a
-victoria, should the necessities of a European or the ostentation
-of an Oriental have summoned such an object of luxury to their
-wilds. Our luggage accompanied us in a springless waggon, which,
-like the carriage, was privately horsed. The post road to Erivan
-makes the long deviation down the valleys of the border ranges to
-the junction with the road from Tiflis at the station of Delijan.
-
-The great plain lay around us, level and devoid of objects, like the
-bosom of a sea. Before us stretched the mountain, the unwieldy bulk
-of a colossus, a formidable barrier to the country on the south. In
-such an expanse the human note is overwhelmed by Nature; one hardly
-notices the signs of the presence of ubiquitous man. There are villages
-which you scarcely see until you have passed within their precincts;
-such were Tapa Dolak, through which we drove at a quarter before one,
-and Golgat, which we reached at four o'clock. Both are inhabited
-by Armenians; neither possesses a school or school-house, but the
-second owns and the first was building a church. After obtaining a
-view, on our right hand, of two considerable Armenian villages, we
-arrived at Norashen, where we were to rest the horses, at half-past
-four o'clock. It is an Armenian settlement with ninety-five tenements
-and a population of 900 souls, and it was in process of erecting a
-school. Let the reader picture to himself rude structures of stone and
-wood and earth, which, at one end, issue upon irregular little lanes,
-and, at the other, are buried into a slope of the ground. Through such
-entrances you pass to subterraneous chambers which serve as stables
-and as living rooms. In the midst of these sordid surroundings four
-stone walls are a prominent object; they belong to a little chapel,
-which has a roof of sods and a bare interior; the bells are hung in
-a wooden structure at the side. Men with tanned complexions, deep
-wrinkles, and bent knees issue from the tenements and slouch along the
-lanes. Children crowd about you, their little stomachs unduly swollen
-and barely covered by a single cotton shirt. Nobody can read or write;
-we questioned several. Such is the description which, with variations,
-applies to most of these villages, and is true of Norashen.
-
-With what emotion one turned to the contemplation of the magnificent
-landscape which was outspread at our feet! The squalor of man, the
-grandeur of his natural environment--the reflection recurs and recurs
-in the East. We were standing on the lower slopes of the mountain,
-some 1500 feet above the floor of the plain. A gentle incline, of
-which the surface was checkered with alternate patches of fallow and
-stubble, stretched away from a foreground of loose stones and garnered
-corn-land to the dim lights and opaline mists of a vast amphitheatre,
-where the expanse of level land was confined and choked by a wide
-girdle of mountains--long volcanic outlines and fantastic shapes of
-cone and peak mingling with the gloom of the distance and the gloom of
-the sky. But the zenith was intensely blue, and we breathed a strong,
-yet sunlit air. Behind us, in the opposite segment of the heaven,
-white, luminous clouds touched and concealed the snowy region where
-Alagöz sits enthroned; yet we were able to observe that the snow lies
-in drifts within that region, for many of the flatter places were
-free of snow. A prominent feature, to which I have already alluded,
-is the manner in which the heart, or central rock mass of the volcano,
-is seen to rise beyond the edge of a rounded bank of softer texture,
-which follows the inner ridge at a respectful interval, and appears
-to be separated from it by a deep ravine. One cannot fail to observe
-the contrast between the roundness and softness of the outwork and
-the steep sides and black rocks of the inner ridge.
-
-In fact, as you skirt the slopes of the volcano, you never touch
-the sides which mount immediately to the snows. You follow along the
-direction of gently vaulted banks of soil, parallel to the upstanding
-core of the mass. Their surface is patched with cultivation to a height
-which has been estimated at 8300 feet. [68] The herbage is sweet and
-produces excellent crops of hay; the earth is black and rich. Soon
-after leaving Norashen--we started at about six--you turn the flank
-of the range which meets the volcano at right angles, and then recedes
-in a hollow, concave to the shield-shaped pile. You enter the passage
-between Alagöz and the border mountains, and you arrive at the head
-waters of the southward-flowing streams. In this region are situated
-Güzeldere and Kerwanserai, the first an Armenian village, the second a
-Kurdish settlement. In the latter we found a station-house maintained
-by Armenians, who provided us with a guide and a Chinese lantern to
-take us to the guest-house, distant about two versts, which stands
-above the village of Haji Khalil. It occupied us some little time,
-groping our way through the thick darkness, and we did not arrive
-until eight o'clock.
-
-The little guest-house proved a dreary and comfortless shelter; we
-sighed for the comparative luxury of a Persian chapar-khaneh or the
-cleanliness of a Swiss hut. A fetid odour exuded from the peeling walls
-and cracked flooring, and legions of active fleas rose from beneath
-the boards. We slept, as we might, on the wooden takht or daïs, until,
-at half-past one, the door thundered with heavy knocks. After some
-parley the intruders were admitted to our chamber--was it a dream,
-or whence issued these strange shapes? One awaited the wild staccato,
-followed by the flowing iambic:--
-
-
-        astrôn katoida nykterôn homêgyrin
-        kai tous pherontas cheima kai theros brotois
-        lamprous dynastas emprepontas aitheri [69]
-
-
-Yet the floor, the walls, the companions were all real--everything,
-except those figures at the door. The flicker of a lamp was reflected
-upon their bearded faces and bare necks, upon the heavy folds of the
-brown draperies hanging about their shoulders, upon the blunt ends of
-their wooden staves. Did they proclaim the line of bonfires?--Watchmen,
-stationed by an unseen hand to guard us, and come to announce the
-break of day. The break of day? It cost us a pang to convince them
-of their error; we were loth to commence fresh contests with the
-fleas. Poor watchmen, who had forestalled the stars with longing for
-the morning! How many times was Troy taken in watchmen's dreams?
-
-September 13.--At a quarter to six we were on the road. A chill was in
-the air, and heavy, sleepy clouds lay on the ground. But the zenith
-was softly blue, and a pleasant light fell on the valley with its
-spacious floor and ample expanse of sky. Our station was situated at
-a slightly higher altitude than the threshold of the pass; I should
-estimate our elevation, from the readings of my barometers, at about
-7000 feet. After an hour's drive, our track joined a newly-made
-road, metalled and ditched on either side; progress was fairly rapid
-down the incline of the valley, parallel with the current of the
-Abaran. This road was intended to serve as the postal avenue to Erivan
-from Alexandropol, and it bifurcates from the existing post road;
-but a series of misfortunes appear to have attended its construction,
-and it had not yet been used by the post. Verst after verst we drove
-along it, through a landscape which changes little from the features
-at the entrance of the pass. On our right hand rose the huge volcano,
-no longer an extended horizontal outline, but a shield-shaped mass,
-bellying upwards to the rim of a crater, which circled from us with
-a wide sweep (Fig. 28). The slopes of the mountain were inclined
-at an angle of scarcely more than eleven degrees--soft convexities,
-broken into gullies and little hummocks, and, here and there, strewn
-with a shingle of greenish hue. The peaks had gradually disappeared
-as we rounded the base of the pile--a transition of which the phases
-were frequently withdrawn from observation through the incidence of
-clouds. On our left, at varying but always ample interval, the outer
-spurs of the border mountains described a parallel half-circle with the
-contour of Alagöz--one might almost mistake them for some outer shell
-of the volcano, so closely did they appear to follow the curve of its
-base. But, unlike their big neighbour, the slopes of these outworks
-were covered with brushwood, which developed into dwarf trees as we
-advanced. The floor of the valley revealed in most parts the hand
-of the reclaimer, by the side of a stretch of turf, by the margin
-of a rotting marsh. Yet mile after mile we could see no settlement;
-we seldom met a wayfarer, except for some drivers with a string of
-donkeys, laden with grapes from the valley of the Araxes, and a group
-of supple Kurdish girls. At a quarter to eight we drew rein for a few
-minutes in the large Armenian village of Bash Abaran. The inhabitants
-were busy getting in their corn from the open; here and there it had
-not yet been cut. In another hour we opened out a vista of Ararat,
-and, at a quarter to ten, we feasted our eyes upon the whole majestic
-fabric, before descending into the village of Ali Kuchak.
-
-One may safely say of the scene which expanded before us that it
-is unsurpassed upon the surface of our globe. Nor is it difficult
-to account for the strength and permanence of the impression which
-it produces upon the mind. Nowhere has Nature worked on a scale
-more stupendous; yet on none of her works has she bestowed greater
-unity of conception, a design more harmonious, surroundings more
-august. Whatever mysteries compose the spell of the wide ocean and
-the open firmament, all the exquisite shades of light which temper
-the gloom of a northern climate, all the many-coloured radiance of
-the south, have been lavished upon the panorama which centres in
-Ararat and is spread like a kingdom at his feet.
-
-Seen at this distance--measured on the map it is a space of fifty-six
-miles to the summit--the mountain is little more than an outline
-upon the horizon; yet what an outline! what a soul in those soaring
-shapes! Side by side stand two of the most beauteous forms in Nature,
-the pyramid and the dome. Both are developed on lines of almost
-ideal perfection, with proportions which startle the eye in spite
-of all their symmetry; and both are supported by a common base. The
-pyramid is one, and the dome is one; yet the structure is single
-which they combine to raise. From the dim east into the dim west you
-follow that long-drawn profile, rising from a distant promontory,
-declining to a distant promontory, centring in the roof of the dome,
-in the peak of the cone. The dome has an elevation of 17,000 feet,
-the cone of nearly 13,000 feet; and the base reclines on a plain
-which forms the greatest depression in the relief of Armenia, and
-which has an altitude of scarcely more than 3000 feet above the sea.
-
-The standpoint from which we looked upon the wonders of this landscape
-were the basal slopes of the opposite colossus of Alagöz, where they
-descend to that same spacious plain. It is the plain which the Araxes
-waters; yet we could not see the river, hidden in the unseen hollow
-of the expanse. Between us and our horizon flat tracts of naked earth
-stretched away from the stony ground about us to a distant region
-of half lights and soft mist; above those shadows rose the mountain,
-bathed in light and luminous vapour, to wreaths of white cloud, hanging
-to the snows of the dome. On our left hand, a wooded hill--the only
-spot of verdure in the scene--jutted out into the levels from the
-border ranges, which here recede from the plain. Its summit outline
-is broken by a fantastic peak, like the comb of a cock, and it may
-perhaps be identified with the volcanic elevation of Karniarch. Below
-us lay the village, a cluster of stacks of tezek fuel, and driving
-smoke, proceeding from scarcely visible huts of mud and stone. Ledges
-or tongues of rock and cliff projected on our right from the base
-of Alagöz; they represent the extreme outrunners of the northern
-mountain and sink into the landscape, like the capes of a rock-bound
-coast. We were about to leave that coast behind us and to cross the
-floor of this sea-like plain; hues of ochre were lightly laid upon
-its gently undulating surface and mingled with the nearer tints of
-yellow and umber in the stubble and fallow of the cultivated land.
-
-All our thoughts, our whole ambition, were centred on that distant
-mountain; our emotions satisfied, we reflected that the spot where
-we were standing was the nearest point which we should reach to the
-summer resort of Darachichak. It might be possible to hire horses
-and ride the distance of some twenty miles; all the official world
-of Erivan would be assembled in that pleasant valley, and we had
-need of their assistance for our ascent. So, once arrived within
-the village, we sent for the elder; and we were glad to hear that
-the place was the seat of a Pristav, or head of an administrative
-group of villages. A lean and lank Armenian responded to our summons;
-he came with a slouching gait and with sleep in his eyes, and he was
-engaged in buttoning his long grey coat. The official dress of Russia
-and the peaked cap of white canvas on such a truly Oriental figure as
-this! However, he promised to procure us horses, and, putting faith
-in his official dignity, I decided to split our party into two. My
-cousin and myself would adventure upon the journey into the mountains;
-Wesson, Rudolph and the Armenian would proceed in the victoria and
-with the waggon to the town of Erivan.
-
-Our companions started on their journey, while we with our saddles
-made our way to a neighbouring village in which the horses were to be
-found. We were accompanied by the Pristav's man, a sinister-looking
-villain; the saddles followed on a bullock cart. But at a winding of
-the path, just after leaving the settlement, the wheels sank into an
-abysmal depth of mud. I have no doubt that this incident is of daily
-occurrence, and that neither village would entertain the notion of
-making a road. The horses were on the meadows; their owners refused
-to catch them, and we were obliged to essay the task ourselves. But
-in this open country they eluded all our efforts; we were obliged to
-return without attaining our end. The Pristav received our maledictions
-with equanimity, and we were reduced to the tame expedient of two
-sorry ponies, which were only equal to carrying us to the nearest
-considerable station on the road to Erivan.
-
-How poor in resources is this magnificent country! what a curse
-appears to lie on these fertile lands! Our Pristav had the charge of
-thirty-six villages, of which six were inhabited by Persian Tartars
-and the remainder by a population of his own race. His district
-extended from Bash Abaran to Ashtarak; yet he told us that in the
-whole of this considerable region there did not exist a single school.
-
-Baffled of our purpose, we mounted our ponies and took to the road
-to Erivan, two solitary figures in the lonely waste. The provincial
-capital was over thirty-five miles distant, and it was already
-half-past four o'clock. The prospect over the plain, which I have just
-described, is so far deceptive that you under-rate the extension of
-these stony basal slopes. This mistaken estimate is due in part to
-the position of the hill of Karniarch, which blocks the view towards
-the south-east. To gain Erivan, you are obliged to round the base of
-that elevation; nor, in that direction, do the rocky inclines die
-away in the level campagna before you have reached the gardens of
-the town. The base of Alagöz appears to mingle with the base of the
-volcanic masses which line the inner edges of the border range; mile
-after mile you cross a bleak and boulder-strewn country which sweeps
-into the plain. To add to our impression of the complete forlornness of
-this region, a violent storm arose. The immense expanse of heaven was
-filled with driving clouds, riven by lightning; the torrents roared,
-and the blast bent the stunted bushes which rise along their margin
-among the rocks. We were reminded of the famous night upon the Brocken,
-as our tired ponies tottered forward into the blinding rain. Shelter
-there was none; it was a case of struggling onwards and taking pleasure
-in the elemental war. And the road! was there ever outside of Persia
-such a strange caricature of a road? It wound like a snake, avoiding
-every hillock; the traffic made short cuts from bend to bend. There
-were bridges broken in the back with a ford alongside them; there
-were yawning culverts and parallel tracks avoiding the horrors of the
-metalled way. Not a soul did we meet, until, as the evening advanced,
-we passed through some considerable Armenian villages which presented
-the strange spectacle of a lamp-lit street. But where was Ashtarak,
-the goal of our journey? should we ever accomplish our self-imposed
-stage? When our mounts could go no further, my cousin points out a long
-building by the side of a large church. No door could we see or opening
-on to the ground, only a lofty verandah with a ladder, a feature which
-recalled the old lawless times. We clamoured, and were admitted after
-sundry explanations, and a stable was found for our weary hacks.
-
-We were received by a young Armenian who spoke a little French, and
-who ushered us into the presence of a vardapet or monastic priest. I
-regret my inability to place on the page the handsome features of our
-host, Monseigneur Achote--so he transcribed his rank and name. He
-told us that we were welcome to the monastery of Mugni, and that
-he himself happened to be the only priest in residence. Assisted by
-his clerk, he busied himself about our comforts; clothed us afresh,
-gave us to eat and drink. Monseigneur belongs to the new school of
-Armenian ecclesiastics; he has received an excellent education, and
-possesses wide sympathies and broad views. His room was littered with
-books and papers; his talk was animated, and one could not doubt that
-his ardent patriotism was sincere. Next morning--September 14--we
-visited the church of Mugni, a plain but solid stone structure,
-quite in the grand style. An open portal, resting on four solid
-piers, gives access to the doorway with its richly carved mouldings,
-and is surmounted by a little tower in which the bells are hung. The
-exterior is of grey stone, varied by blocks of red volcanic rock; here
-and there carved slabs of such rock have been inserted, a familiar
-feature in Armenian architecture. The interior is quite plain and the
-masonry uncovered; so thick are the walls that in the apse you are
-shown two secret chambers built into the frame of the church. Access
-to these chambers is obtained by removing a block of stone in the
-ceilings of two recesses in the apse. In the old lawless times these
-rooms served as a refuge; they are capacious and receive the light of
-day. The head of St. George is preserved in a little side chapel, a
-treasure of considerable value to the monastery. It seemed so strange
-that our enlightened host should be profiting by the possession of
-this relic, and I thought that he answered my smile. An inscription
-informs us that the church was built--or may it not be restored or
-embellished?--by Mgr. Peter of Argulis in the year of the Armenian
-era 1118 or A.D. 1668, with his people's money and his own.
-
-Monseigneur's windows looked out upon a wretched village, which
-appeared doubly miserable in the cold light. At half-past nine we
-mounted our ponies, and set out for Ashtarak. Mugni lies to the south
-of the hill of Karniarch--a name which our native guide pronounced
-Garnara. The surrounding country maintains the stony and inhospitable
-character of the waste through which we had lately passed. A short
-ride brought us to the descent into the little township--an oasis of
-verdure, a pretty church, with a cluster of roofs and gables, tall
-poplars, terraces of flat house-tops. But when we had passed within
-the precincts, this pleasant impression faded; were the crumbling
-walls of the houses in course of demolition, or was this rude masonry
-of mud and stone succumbing to the storm of yesterday? We proceeded
-down a narrow street which is lined with lofty trees and channelled
-by a swirling stream. Here the owners of the ponies were lying in
-wait for us; a sure instinct had placed them upon our way. According
-to the published statistics Ashtarak possesses some 3000 inhabitants,
-all of Armenian race.
-
-By eleven o'clock we had procured horses and were again on the road to
-Erivan. The entire region is strewn with rocks and presents the same
-bleak appearance, except where, here and there, a stream descends the
-barren slopes and sustains a slender line of green. In such places you
-may discern the rare site of a village, a few poplars, the grouped
-architecture of a church. At length, after long winding between the
-stony eminences, we opened out a view over the great plain. The sky
-had not yet cleared, and mists obscured the forms of the mountains;
-but the whole lap of the plain was revealed. Patches of soft blue
-relieved the surface of the dim country--the vegetation of the rich
-campagna about the banks of the Araxes. We rode on, always descending,
-over these stony uplands, until they dipped to the floor of the level
-ground. Luxuriant gardens filled the gently-pursing hollow, intensely
-green after the heavy rain of the preceding day. Pools of water lay
-on the road; the water-courses were brimming over. The orchards were
-clothed with fruit of ideal perfection in form and colour; we admired
-the size and brilliant hues of the clustering peaches, side by side
-with the bending branches of the apple and the pear trees, with the
-deep shade of the walnut and the mulberry trees. Ripe grapes hung
-in abundance from the low vine-stocks.... Such are the outskirts of
-Erivan, a town embowered in foliage. We reached the central park at
-half-past one o'clock.
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XI
-
-TO ARARAT
-
-
-Erivan is a town of gardens in which a network of irrigation channels
-preserves from early spring into late autumn the perfection of the
-foliage. In the heart of the business quarter is situated a little
-park, disposed into shady alleys and promenades for the citizens,
-but presenting also pathless spaces of forest land. We were tempted
-to pitch our tents in the secluded portion. But the storm had soaked
-the soil; solid walls were a preferable shelter. We encamped in
-the naked rooms of a building which faced the park and bore the
-pretentious inscription, Hôtel de Londres. Our first care was to
-dispatch a mounted messenger to General Frese, Governor of Erivan,
-who was residing at the summer resort of Darachichak. I begged His
-Excellency to instruct his people to assist us in our preparations,
-and to furnish us with a letter to the commandant of the Cossacks,
-stationed on the slopes of Ararat.
-
-On the morning of the 16th of September our courier returned and
-informed us that the Governor had sent the necessary instructions
-to the Nachalnik, or chief of the district police. I had already
-made the acquaintance of that important official, chief of police
-for the district of Erivan, and acting chief of police for the
-town of Erivan. A brief experience had taught me that without his
-active co-operation all private efforts were made in vain; the
-forces one set in motion returned in useless circles to the point
-from which they had started. But it so happened that the Nachalnik
-was an extremely amiable person; he had helped us, he would help us
-again. Without delay he provided us with a letter to the Cossacks;
-nothing remained but to make a start. But in the East one can never
-count upon being able to proceed on one's journey before the cavalcade
-is already on the outward road. I had read of the difficulties which
-had been experienced by previous travellers in finding horses in the
-district neighbouring Ararat to convey them to the higher slopes. I
-had therefore made contracts with owners in Erivan to provide us
-with the necessary animals. When I summoned these individuals, they
-were no longer forthcoming, they were nowhere to be found. I then
-endeavoured to hire a carriage, to take us as far as Aralykh, with
-the resolve to trust to fortune later on. I offered handsome prices
-to several drivers; they pleaded the badness of the road and refused
-to go. Finally I had recourse to the posting authorities; they swore
-that in all their stables not a single horse remained. Convinced of
-the futility of further steps on my own initiative, I sought out the
-private abode of the chief of police. The hour of the mid-day meal
-was already over; a fierce sun was beating upon the silent streets.
-
-I crossed the shady alleys of the little park, in which not another
-person moved. A few steps through the blinding glare of an adjacent
-side-road, deep in white dust, brought me to the enclosure which
-surrounds the residence of the Nachalnik. I knocked at the little
-postern door. A drowsy servant opened to me, and, in answer to my
-enquiries, informed me that his master was asleep. Compromising for
-once with the valuable principle of always addressing oneself to the
-supreme authority, I turned away and walked to the station of the town
-police. But not a single officer was in attendance at headquarters;
-a couple of men were dozing in the guard room, outstretched upon the
-wooden seats. No other course was open but to arouse the Nachalnik;
-I returned and again knocked at the little door. It was pleasant to be
-offered a seat in a spacious verandah, overlooking a garden; nor was
-it long before the master of the house appeared. There are individuals
-in whom a tendency to corpulence, while it appears to dispose them
-favourably towards their fellow-men, has induced a provoking habit
-of restful satisfaction, and has built up a wall of self-possession
-against which nervous temperaments beat in vain. The Nachalnik was
-not wanting in these passive qualities; and I could not doubt that
-they would be exercised on the present occasion as I observed the
-approach of his burly form. The white tunic was partially buttoned,
-the hair was matted on the brow, the eyes were still heavy with
-sleep. I quickly apprised him of the nature and extent of our troubles;
-how the owners of our hired horses had broken their contracts, how
-the various forms of transport had been successively requisitioned,
-with equal failure in every case. Tartar pony men, Molokan droshky
-drivers, Armenian posting contractors--not a man among them could
-be induced to stir. Our luggage, accompanied by Wesson and Rudolph,
-had left that morning in a waggon of the post; we ourselves were
-determined to follow them, if necessary on foot. To this petulance
-he replied with the utmost composure, to the effect that the people
-were free to make their own bargains, and that he could not compel
-them to go. It was the familiar story, the honourable attempt to rule
-the East upon Western principles, the patient endeavour, rich both
-in humour and in pathos, to infuse the drowsy mass with the elements
-of vitality and make it respond to those inducements of enlightened
-self-interest which move the peoples of the West. In the mouth of the
-Nachalnik the enunciation of this principle was not without a certain
-vein of almost tragic irony. Himself the child of a race which has
-scarcely yet assimilated the motives and the restraints of civilised
-life, he had been transplanted from the frozen North to this burning
-valley; and the hot sun was already drying up those scanty springs
-of action which had so recently been set free. It was plain that the
-position could not be carried directly; but it occurred to me at that
-moment that there was a weak place on another side. This heavy man,
-whose languid negatives and long-drawn affirmatives were capable of
-almost infinite resistance, could be stirred to a fury of words and
-gestures by the suggestion that his authority had been slighted,
-or his orders left unfulfilled. He had been endowed with a talent,
-rare in one of his temperament, for grandiose histrionic expression;
-and it was not so much, I think, the matter at issue which moved him,
-as the favourable opportunity which was offered in such circumstances
-for a luxurious display of his talent to himself. I had observed in the
-garden the graceful figure of the young sergeant whom he had lent to
-me the day before. He had changed his travelling dress for the elegant
-skirted coat of Georgia; a row of silvered cartridge-heads glittered
-upon his breast, and the dark moustache was carefully pencilled
-upon the clean-shaven cheeks. I beckoned him to me and begged him
-to confirm what I said. The sergeant had been obliged to use the
-name of the Nachalnik, and in that name to threaten horse-owners
-and posting contractors in turn. Yet not a man among them could be
-made to move. I added that it would seem as if, in the absence of
-the Governor, there was an end to all authority in the town. At this
-speech the Nachalnik rose from his chair and summoned his servants
-about him. He cursed the mongrel race of horse-keepers, Persians or
-Tartars, the blood of brigands all. Who could tell in what holes these
-thieves were hiding? We should go by the post, and post horses must
-be found. Arrived at Aralykh, the Cossacks would mount us on their
-own horses; and we should no doubt be able to impress some animals
-in the neighbourhood for the transport of our tents. His emissaries
-flew in all directions, with the result that, within the respectable
-space of three hours, a post cart, drawn by a pair of horses, was
-standing at our door.
-
-
-
-Erivan is situated on the northern skirts of the valley of the Middle
-Araxes--a valley distinguished by its important geographical situation,
-by the great works of natural architecture which are aligned upon it,
-and by the high place which it holds both in legend and in history
-as the scene of momentous catastrophes in the fortunes of the human
-race. The natural avenue from east to west across the tableland of
-Armenia, it gives easy access to the heart of Asia Minor from the
-shores of the Caspian Sea. The nations about and beyond the Caspian
-have found their way along this avenue to the coasts of the Black Sea
-and the Mediterranean; and, while tradition connects these scenes with
-the site of Paradise, the bloody wars which they have witnessed have
-suggested to a graceful writer the appropriate recollection of the
-curse of the flaming sword. [70] Along the line of the 40th degree of
-latitude a succession of plains extend across the tableland, varying
-in their depression below the higher levels, watered by the Araxes
-and by the upper course of the Western Euphrates, and each giving
-access to the other by natural passages. The first is this valley of
-the Araxes, with its more narrow continuation westwards through the
-district between Kagyzman and Khorasan; the second is the plain of
-Pasin; the third the plain of Erzerum. Yet while the plains of Pasin
-and of Erzerum are situated respectively at an altitude of 5500 and
-5750 feet, the valley of the Araxes in the neighbourhood of Erivan
-is only 2800 feet above the sea. Both on the north and south of this
-considerable depression, even the plainer levels of the tableland
-attain the imposing altitude of 7000 feet, while its surface has been
-uplifted by volcanic action into long and irregular convexities of
-mountain and hill and hummock.
-
-On either side of the extensive plain which borders the course of
-the Middle Araxes rise mountains of astounding proportions and of
-large variety of form. Let us dwell for a moment on the character
-of the northern barrier, which closes the prospect from the slopes
-of Ararat at a distance of from 30 to 50 miles. The immense bulk
-of Alagöz extends across the horizon from the longitude of Ararat
-to the districts adjoining the left bank of the Arpa Chai. In that
-direction the mass occupies a space of about 40 miles, rising from
-the level tracts through which the Araxes flows to a height of over
-13,000 feet and inclined from north of east to south of west. The
-snowy fangs of the shattered crater are situated a little west of the
-longitude of the dome of Ararat; from those peaks the outline of the
-mountain is shadowed on either side in an almost horizontal bar. On
-the west the streams of molten matter have met with little resistance
-to their onward flow; the eastern slopes have been confined by the
-bulwark of the border ranges, and are of comparatively insignificant
-extent. Where the base gathers beyond the river is a distance from
-the slopes of Ararat of about 35 miles; the two summits are nearly
-60 miles apart. Yet so large is the scale of this colossal mountain,
-and so even the surface of the intervening plain, that, seen through
-the clear atmosphere of an Eastern climate, it fills the eye with
-its huge presence, sweeping the valley with massive foundations,
-and drawn across the sky in a long and rounded bank, broken only by
-the trident of shining peaks.
-
-Such is the character, to a point about north of Ararat, of the
-northern wall of this valley of the Araxes--the length of a single
-mountain, an unbroken barrier from west to east. At that point the mass
-of Alagöz meets the spurs of the border ranges, and its base mingles
-with the base of the volcanic elevations which rise along their inner
-edge. These elevations continue the wall of mountain eastwards, but
-incline it towards the south; they come forward in front of the giant
-volcano and narrow the plain. Yet so gradual is the transition that it
-is scarcely perceptible; until the eye is awakened by the change in
-the sky-line, so even before, so restless now, fretted by the shapes
-of cones and little craters which, behind the soft convexities of
-flanking outworks, feature the chain which separates the basin of
-Lake Sevan from the waters which wash the base of Ararat.
-
-On the southern side of the great plain there is a remarkable
-correspondence with the northern border in the constitution of the
-mountain masses, and an interesting difference in the manner in which
-they are disposed. On the north you have first a single mountain,
-and then a mountain system; on the south the line commences with a
-mountain system and ends with a single mass. On the north the mountain
-system steps out in advance of the mountain; on the south, by a happy
-reversal of the order, the mountain stands forward alone. Alagöz and
-the belt south of Lake Sevan are answered by the Ararat system and
-by the fabric of Ararat.
-
-The range which I have termed the Ararat system is known in the country
-under the name of Aghri Dagh, a name which is equally applied to
-Ararat, but of which the roughness on the palate appears to express
-with greater felicity the rugged character of the system to which
-Ararat belongs. From the wild and mountainous country which, about the
-42nd degree of longitude, borders the right bank of the Upper Araxes
-before it enters the plain of Pasin, there extends across the plateau
-in an easterly direction a long and comparatively narrow range, which,
-skirted on the one side by the course of the Araxes, and on the other
-by the plain of Alashkert, composes the spine of this central region
-of the tableland, and is interposed as a barrier between north and
-south. The appearance of the chain presents a striking contrast to
-the convex shapes which feature the adjacent landscapes; the sides
-are abrupt, the summits sharp, and the peaks rise from deep valleys
-to a height which reaches over 11,000 feet. Where the Araxes leaves
-the narrows near the town of Kagyzman, this range is seen massed upon
-the right bank of the river; and after following the stream along
-the 40th degree of latitude, it inclines to the south-east. Aided by
-this slight inclination in the direction of its southern barrier,
-the valley rapidly expands, and attains its greatest dimensions at
-a point just south of Alagöz. It is at that point that the western
-slope of Ararat, which has risen in advance of this satellite system
-from a low cape in the west, begins to gather in height and volume,
-concealing the rough features of these obsequious mountains behind
-the royal sweep of a long train.
-
-At the back of this even western slope a pass of about 7000 feet
-connects the fabric of Ararat with the spinal system which it succeeds
-and resumes. Ararat takes up the line of the southern border,
-and draws his entire length along the valley in a direction from
-north-west to south-east (Frontispiece). There he stands, like some
-vast cathedral, on the floor of the open plain. The human quality of
-this natural structure cannot fail to impress the eye; and, although
-its proportions are not less gigantic than those of the opposite mass
-of Alagöz, it contrasts with the Cyclopean forms of that neighbouring
-mountain a subtle grace of feature and a harmonious symmetry of
-design. Slowly the long slope rises from the western distance, a
-gently undulating line; and, as it rises, the base gradually widens,
-advancing with almost imperceptible acclivity into the expanse of
-plain. So it continues, always rising against the sky-ground, always
-gathering at the base, until at a height of 13,500 feet it reaches
-the zone of perpetual snow. The summit region of Ararat presents
-the appearance of a vast dome of snow, crowning a long oval figure
-of which the axis is from north-west to south-east. The whole length
-of this roof, on its north-eastern side, is exposed to the valley of
-the Araxes. The vaulting is less pronounced upon the west than on the
-east, and ascends through a succession of snowfields to the highest
-point of the dome. The average inclination of this north-western
-slope, where it rises more immediately towards the summit from the
-almost horizontal train, is only 18°, while its whole length has been
-computed by Parrot at no less than 20 miles. From the massive roof,
-which attains a maximum elevation of nearly 17,000 feet above the sea,
-or 14,000 feet above the plain, the outline sinks by a steeper but
-still easy gradient towards the south-east; the snow-covered slope
-dips at an angle of about 30°, and the side of the dome, when seen
-from that point of the compass, presents the appearance of an almost
-perfect cone. The south-eastern side of Ararat is encumbered below the
-snow-line by banks or causeways of piled-up rocks, which branch off
-from wedge-shaped ridges descending fanwise from the summit region,
-and fall into the plain. On the south-east these causeways narrow
-the fork of an upland valley, of which the saddle is placed at a
-height of 8800 feet. This valley separates the greater from the lesser
-Ararat, and determines the extension of the south-eastern slope. The
-horizontal distance of the valley from the summit of the greater Ararat
-is about 5 miles. From this saddle the outline of the fabric rises,
-and now more rapidly than before. The shape of a beautiful pyramid
-is presented; the pointed summit reaches an altitude of about 13,000
-feet, and is placed at a distance from the valley of only 2 miles. The
-south-eastern slope of this lesser mountain at first declines with
-rapid gradients, which give sharpness to the graceful cone, and then
-is drawn through the eastern distance, a gently undulating outline,
-sinking to a dim promontory in the east.
-
-Such is the profile and such the appearance of the majestic structure
-upon which eye and mind dwell. When we come to investigate the
-underlying principle, we find that, along a line of upheaval which
-has been uniform in a direction from north-west to south-east, two
-mountains have been reared by volcanic action, their axes following the
-line of upheaval and their summits 7 miles apart. The south-eastern
-slope of the greater mountain and the north-western side of the
-smaller are contiguous at an altitude of about 8000 feet; they meet,
-as we have seen, in a fork or valley at an elevation which ranges
-between 7500 and 8800 feet. In other words, this valley is the point of
-intersection between the bases of either mountain; and that part of the
-fabric which lies below it may be regarded as the common foundation
-of both. But the base of the smaller and more pointed mountain is
-merged into the base of the larger and less steep; and the forms of
-the lower portion of the structure continue the contours of Great
-Ararat as they sweep away to the south-east. The pyramid of Little
-Ararat rises directly from the upland valley; Great Ararat rises from
-the floor of the plain. These features lend unity to the whole fabric,
-and preserve an exactly proportionate relation between the shape and
-size of the two mountains and the protraction of their basal slopes.
-
-The base or foundation of the Ararat fabric gathers immediately from
-the surface of the plain, advancing ever further into the even country
-as the weight of the upper structure grows. If the ground plan of the
-entire fabric may be described as a long elliptical figure of which
-the axis is from north-west to south-east, then the point at which the
-base is most developed lies north-east of the summit of Great Ararat,
-in the latitude of Erivan. When already, along the axis of this figure,
-we have followed the long-drawn outline from the cape in the distant
-west to where, beyond the Little Ararat, it slowly falls away into the
-east, the eye turns naturally to the face of the mountain, and dwells
-with ever-increasing admiration upon the subtle structural qualities
-there displayed--the combination of grace with extraordinary solidity,
-the easy transition from the lower to the middle slopes, and of these
-to the uppermost seams. From the margin of the marshes which border
-the right bank of the Araxes the ground commences to incline; yet so
-gradual is at first the rise that, if we measure on our base plan,
-we find that it is not more than about 3000 feet within a space of 10
-miles. If it be permissible, in the gradual process from one gradient
-to another, to fix a division between the upper structure and the base,
-the dividing line may be drawn at an elevation of about 5800 feet,
-at a distance from the summit of 6 1/2 miles, and of 10 miles from
-the floor of the plain. Beyond that line, the seams which mount to
-the dome of snow appear to commence their long climb; the eye follows
-them on their upward course until they attain the summit region and
-end in a long cornice of snow. The extraordinary elevation of Ararat
-above the plain of the Araxes--it may be doubted whether there exists
-in the world another mountain which rises immediately from a level
-surface to such a height--is balanced and controlled by this broad
-and massive base, and by the exquisite proportions of the upper
-structure which rises to the snowy roof. Yet neither the strength
-nor the symmetry of this admirable fabric has been proof against
-decay. Momentous convulsions from within have completed the work of
-gradual corrosion, and have opened a wide breach in the very heart
-of the mountain, where it faces the river and the plain. From the
-snow-beds of the lofty cornice to the base at the gathering of the
-seams the whole side of Ararat has been fractured and rent asunder;
-the standing portion overhangs the recess with steep walls, which
-spread within it perpetual gloom. Further east, just in advance of
-the saddle which divides the Ararats, a grassy hill of unwieldy shape
-and flat summit interrupts the basal slopes, and offers an isolated
-contrast to the symmetry of the neighbouring forms. The chasm of
-Akhury and the hill of Takjaltu are minor features in the structure
-of Ararat which are seen and recognised from afar.
-
-But most of all, as we realise the vision, which in the noblest shapes
-of natural architecture, the dome and the pyramid, fills the immense
-length of the southern horizon and soars above the landscape of the
-plain, the essential unity of the vast edifice and the correspondence
-of the parts between themselves are imprinted upon the mind. If
-Little Ararat, rising on the flank of the giant mountain, may recall,
-both in form and in position, the minaret which, beside the vault
-of a Byzantine temple, bears witness to a conflicting creed, this
-contrast is softened in the natural structure by the similarity of the
-processes which have produced the two neighbours, and by their intimate
-connection with one another as constituents in a single plan. In this
-respect they suggest a comparison to a stately ship at sea, with all
-the close weaving and interdependence of hull and masts and sails. In
-the harmony of a common system each supplements and continues the
-other, and what Great Ararat is to the western portion of the fabric
-Little Ararat is to that on the east. The long north-western slope of
-the larger mountain is answered on the south-east by the train which
-sweeps from the side of the smaller towards the mists of the Caspian
-Sea; and there is the same correspondence between the slopes which are
-contiguous as between those which are most remote. The steeper side
-of the greater Ararat is turned towards the needle form of the lesser;
-and, standing in the valley which divides the two mountains, it appears
-that the degree of inclination of either slope is in exactly inverse
-proportion to their size. This pleasing interplay between constancy in
-essential principles and diversity of form invests the long outline
-of the dual structure with a peculiar charm. The differing shapes
-repeat one another, and one base supports the whole.
-
-The plain itself, on the confines of which, and opposite to one
-another, these several ranges and mountain masses rise, is not unworthy
-of the works around it, and spreads at their feet a long perspective of
-open and even ground. Where the valley attains its greatest extension,
-just west of Erivan, the width of its floor, or level surface, is
-over twenty miles; and even when the spurs of the Lake Sevan system
-have inclined the northern boundary to the south, the space between
-these spurs and the extreme base of Ararat is scarcely less than ten
-miles. But these are divisions which the mind appreciates and the eye
-is unable to perceive, so gradual is the transition from one level
-to another, from plain to mountain-side. On the north the dappled
-landscape of the campagna mingles with the patches of field and
-garden which, fed by a number of slender rivulets, clothe the first
-slopes of Alagöz; on the south the gathering foundations of Ararat
-are accompanied by an almost insensible inclination in the surface
-of the dry and sandy soil. From either side the prospect extends
-unbroken to the long summit lines which confront one another at an
-interval of nearly sixty miles. From invisible limits in the western
-distance issues the looping thread of the Araxes, and, skirting the
-base of the Ararat fabric, bends slowly south-eastwards and disappears.
-
-
-
-The shady walks of the little park were beginning to fill with groups
-of loungers when, at five o'clock in the afternoon of the 16th of
-September, we started from the central square of Erivan. A single
-horseman accompanied us, a chapar or courier belonging to the country
-police. This was the first occasion, since we had entered Russian
-territory, upon which an escort had been considered necessary by those
-responsible for our safety. We were approaching the Turkish border, and
-along that extended mountain frontier acts of brigandage are still not
-unknown. Yet the prince of brigands, the redoubted Kerim, no longer
-flouts the nachalniks; and a stream of laden carts and leisurely
-wayfarers attests the public confidence. Slowly we threaded the
-clay-built walls of successive orchards, the trees within them bending
-with fruit, until beyond this oasis of foliage and freshness opened,
-like an ocean at the mouth of a harbour, the free expanse of plain.
-
-The springless troika bumped heavily on the projecting slabs of massive
-boulders, embedded in the fairway. The road which leads through this
-stony region is little better than a natural track. The rocky slopes
-of the northern mountain border extend to the south of Erivan, until
-they die away into the level surface of the valley a few versts from
-the town. The evening was advancing and we had no time to linger;
-we were obliged to put up with the jolting and push on. At the
-promise of a rouble to the driver the pace quickened; we clutched
-the bare sides of the little post cart, and tightened our seat on
-the narrow belt of chains, cushioned with a bundle of hay. At the
-half stage our courier took his leave and was succeeded by a fresh
-horseman; and so throughout the journey one horseman gave place to
-another with only a few minutes' delay. These chapars are young men,
-native to the country, who find their own mounts; they wear the drab
-skirted coat of Georgia and the usual lambskin cap. Their stations
-are often isolated, and are distinguished by the curious structures
-which adjoin them--lofty platforms, built upon piles, which serve the
-purpose of watch towers, and from which they command the inequalities
-of the ground (Fig. 29). Away on our right the distant chain of the
-Ararat system was shadowed in tints of opal and indigo upon a rich
-ground of orange and amber hues; the sun sets behind those mountains,
-and it was touching with globe of red fire the fantastic peaks of
-the range. About us the plain lay grey and dim, and all the light
-and glory was in the western sky. In the south the misty fabric
-of Ararat loomed more gigantic as night approached; ever higher,
-before us, in the paling vault of heaven the dome and the pyramid
-rose. As we neared the first station on the road to Aralykh, the
-village of Aramzalu, it seemed as if the snowy roof of the mountain
-were suspended in the sky above our heads, a cold and ghostly island,
-holding the last glimmer of day.
-
-Of the forty versts (26 1/2 miles), which separate Erivan from Aralykh,
-we had covered thirteen versts (8 1/2 miles) within the space of an
-hour and a half. The next stage is the village of Kamarlu, a distance
-of fifteen versts. Between these two stations the road follows the
-course of the Araxes, at an interval of two or three miles, and is
-lined on either side by the walls of extensive gardens, watered by a
-network of little channels which carry the river into the plain. The
-character of the soil favours the well-metalled avenue which leads
-within the fringe of poplars and fruit trees and forms the principal
-artery of this fertile and populous zone. Night had fallen; the road
-was clear; the fresh pair of horses were less than an hour in covering
-the ten miles.
-
-In the post house of Kamarlu, where we again changed horses, we
-were surprised to find our cook. He had been retained as a hostage
-for the way-money of the fourgon, which our people had been unable
-to pay. We released him, and stowed him away with difficulty in
-a corner of the cart. At Kamarlu you leave the region of gardens,
-and make direct for the margin of the river, which flows between
-high banks through a melancholy district of waste land and cracking
-soil. In this yellow stream, of which the width at this point can
-scarcely exceed eighty yards, it is difficult to recognise with
-becoming emotion the haughty flood of the Araxes; yet the river is
-still crossed by fords or ferries, and still retains, I believe,
-the ancient distinction that it does not brook a bridge. A standing
-hawser of woven wire is laid from bank to bank, and the force of the
-stream propels along it a wide and solid pontoon. Transported without
-delay to the opposite bank, we made rapid progress along the roadway
-across low and marshy ground, and arrived just after nine at the row
-of trim cantonments which compose the military station of Aralykh,
-eleven versts from Kamarlu (Fig. 30).
-
-We made halt before the entrance to a single-storeyed dwelling built
-of clay and painted white. A young Russian officer in white linen
-tunic received us at the door. As we passed within the house, the
-burly figure of Rudolph was seen emerging from the shades. Our host
-had lodged the whole party in his quarters, and would not hear of
-our living in our tents. At Aralykh there are stationed a squadron
-of Cossacks and a detachment of regular cavalry. The regulars are
-employed in protecting the customs, and the Cossacks in hunting the
-Kurds. It was interesting to notice the contrast--in demeanour as
-well as in habits--between the polished young lieutenant of regulars
-and the kind but boisterous colonel of Cossacks. How small are the
-differences between opposite nationalities when compared with such
-essential divisions as these! In this hospitable house the manners of
-Europe prevailed over those of the East. As we sat in the comfortable
-room of the Russian officer it was strange to reflect that we were
-at the foot of Ararat, face to face with the memories of primeval
-simplicity among the thousand pretty nicknacks of a leisurely writing
-table and the various implements of a modern toilette. Perhaps the
-link, which connects all human development, was in this case supplied
-by a primitive reckoning table with rows of skewered beads.
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XII
-
-ASCENT OF ARARAT
-
-
-Next morning the sun had already risen as I let myself down through
-the open casement of the window and dropped into the garden among the
-dry brushwood encumbering its sandy floor. Not a soul was stirring,
-and not a sound disturbed the composure of an Eastern morning, the
-great world fulfilling its task in silence and all nature sedate and
-serene. A narrow strip of plantation runs at the back of Aralykh,
-on the south, sustained by ducts from the Kara Su or Blackwater,
-a stream which leads a portion of the waters of the Araxes into the
-cotton fields and marshes which border the right bank. Within this
-fringe of slim poplars, and just on its southern verge, there is
-a little mound and an open summer-house--as pleasant a place as it
-is possible to imagine, but which, perhaps, only differs from other
-summer-houses in the remarkable situation which it occupies and in
-the wonderful view which it commands. It is placed on the extreme
-foot of Ararat, exactly on the line where all inclination ceases and
-the floor of the plain begins. It immediately faces the summit of
-the larger mountain, bearing about south-west (Frontispiece).
-
-Before you the long outline of the Ararat fabric fills the southern
-horizon--the gentle undulations of the north-western slope, as it
-gathers from its lengthy train; the bold bastions of the snowfields,
-rising to the rounded dome; and, further east, beyond the saddle where
-the two mountains commingle, the needle form of the lesser Ararat,
-free at this season from snow. Yet, although Aralykh lies at the flank
-of Ararat, confronting the side which mounts most directly from the
-plain to the roof of snow, the distance from a perpendicular drawn
-through the summit is over 16 miles. Throughout that space the fabric
-is always rising towards the snow-bank 14,000 feet above our heads,
-with a symmetry and, so to speak, with a rhythm of structure which
-holds the eye in spell. First, there is a belt of loose sand, about
-2 miles in depth, beginning on the margin of marsh and irrigation,
-and seen from this garden, which directly adjoins it, like the sea-bed
-from a grove on the shore. On the ground of yellow, thus presented,
-rests a light tissue of green, consisting of the sparse bushes of
-the ever-fresh camelthorn, a plant which strikes down into beds of
-moisture, deep-seated beneath the surface of the soil. Although it
-is possible, crossing this sand-zone, to detect the growing slope,
-yet this feature is scarcely perceptible from Aralykh, whence
-its smooth, unbroken surface and cool relief of green suggest the
-appearance of an embroidered carpet, spread at the threshold of an
-Eastern temple for the services of prayer. Beyond this band or belt
-of sandy ground, composed no doubt of a pulverised detritus, which
-the piety of Parrot was quick to recognise as a leaving of the flood,
-the broad and massive base of Ararat sensibly gathers and inclines,
-seared by the sinuous furrows of dry watercourses, and stretching,
-uninterrupted by any step or obstacle, hill or terrace or bank, to the
-veil of thin mist which hangs at this hour along the higher seams. Not
-a patch of verdure, not a streak of brighter colour breaks the long
-monotony of ochre in the burnt grass and the bleached stones. All
-the subtle sensations with which the living earth surrounds us--wide
-as are the tracts of barren desert within the limits of the plain
-itself--seem to cease, arrested at the fringe of this plantation,
-as on a magician's line. When the vapours obscuring the middle slopes
-of the mountain dissolve and disappear, you see the shadowed jaws of
-the great chasm--the whole side of the mountain burst asunder from
-the cornice of the snow-roof to the base, the base itself depressed
-and hollow throughout its width of about 10 miles. No cloud has yet
-climbed to the snows of the summit, shining in the brilliant blue.
-
-It was the morning of the 17th of September, a period of the year
-when the heats have moderated; when the early air, even in the plain
-of the Araxes, has acquired a suggestion of crispness, and the sun
-still overpowers the first symptoms of winter chills. [71] The tedious
-arrangements of Eastern travel occupied the forenoon; and it had been
-arranged that we should dine with our host, the Lieutenant, before
-making the final start. Six little hacks, impressed in the district
-and sadly wanting in flesh, were loaded with our effects; our party
-was mounted on Cossack horses, which, by the extreme courtesy of the
-Russian authorities, had been placed at our disposal for a week. We
-took leave of our new friend under a strong sentiment of gratitude
-and esteem; but a new and pleasurable surprise was awaiting us, as we
-passed down the neat square. All the Cossacks at that time quartered
-in Aralykh--the greater number were absent on the slopes of the
-mountain, serving the usual patrols--had been drawn up in marching
-order, awaiting the arrival of their Colonel, who had contrived to
-keep the secret by expressing his willingness to accompany us a few
-versts of the way. My cousin and I were riding with the Colonel,
-and the purpose of these elaborate arrangements was explained to us
-with a sly smile; the troop with their Colonel were to escort us on
-our first day's journey, and to bivouac at Sardar Bulakh. The order
-was given to march in half column. It was perhaps the first time that
-an English officer had ridden at the head of these famous troops. We
-crossed the last runnel on the southern edge of the plantation and
-entered the silent waste.
-
-For awhile we slowly rode through the camelthorn, the deep sand
-sinking beneath our horses' feet. It was nearly one o'clock, and the
-expanse around us streamed in the full glare of noon. A spell seems
-to rest upon the landscape of the mountain, sealing all the springs
-of life. Only, among the evergreen shrubs about us, a scattered group
-of camels cropped the spinous foliage, little lizards darted, a flock
-of sand-grouse took wing. Our course lay slantwise across the base of
-Ararat, towards the hill of Takjaltu, a table-topped mass, overgrown
-with yellow herbage, which rises in advance of the saddle between the
-mountains, and lies just below you as you overlook the landscape from
-the valley of Sardar Bulakh. Gullies of chalk and ground strewn with
-stones succeed the even surface of the belt of sand, and in turn give
-way to the covering of burnt grass which clothes the deep slope of
-the great sweeping base, and encircles the fabric with a continuous
-stretch of ochre, extending up the higher seams. Mile after mile we
-rode at easy paces over the parched turf and the cracking soil. When
-we had accomplished a space of about 10 miles, and attained a height
-of nearly 6000 feet, the land broke about us into miniature ravines,
-deep gullies, strewn with stones and boulders, searing the slope about
-the line of the limit where the base may be said to determine and the
-higher seams begin. Winding down the sides of these rocky hollows,
-one might turn in the saddle at a bend of the track, and observe the
-long line of horsemen defiling into the ravine (Fig. 31). I noticed
-that by far the greater number among them--if, indeed, one might not
-say all--were men in the opening years of manhood--lithe, well-knit
-figures, and fair complexions, set round with fair hair. At a nearer
-view the feature which most impressed me was the smallness of their
-eyes. They wear the long, skirted coat of Circassia, a thin and worn
-khaki; the faded pink on the cloth of their shoulder-straps relieves
-the dull drab. Their little caps of Circassian pattern fit closely
-round their heads. Their horses are clumsy, long-backed creatures,
-wanting in all the characteristics of quality; and, as each man
-maintains his own animal, few among them are shod. Yet I am assured
-that the breed is workmanlike and enduring, and I have known it to
-yield most satisfactory progeny when crossed with English racing
-blood. As we rounded the heap of grass-grown soil which is known as
-Takjaltu, we were joined by a second detachment of Cossacks, coming
-from Akhury. Together we climbed up the troughs of the ridges which
-sweep fanwise down the mountain side, and emerged on the floor of
-the upland valley which leads between the greater and the lesser
-Ararat, and crosses the back of the Ararat fabric in a direction
-from south-west to north-east. We were here at an elevation of 7500
-feet above the sea, or nearly 5000 feet above the plain. Both the
-stony troughs and ridges, up which we had just marched, as well
-as the comparatively level ground upon which we now stood, were
-covered with a scorched but abundant vegetation, which had served the
-Kurds during earlier summer as pasture for their flocks, and still
-sheltered numerous coveys of plump partridges, in which this part of
-the mountain abounds.
-
-At the mouth of this valley, on the gently sloping platform which its
-even surface presents, we marked out the spaces of our bivouac, the
-pickets for the horses, and the fires. Our men were acquainted with
-every cranny; we had halted near the site of their summer encampment,
-from which they had only recently descended to their winter quarters
-in the plain. As we dismounted we were met by a graceful figure,
-clad in a Circassian coat of brown material let in across the breast
-with pink silk--a young man of most engaging appearance and manners,
-presented to us as the chief of the Kurds on Ararat who own allegiance
-to the Tsar. In the high refinement of his features, in the bronzed
-complexion and soft brown eyes, the Kurd made a striking contrast
-to the Cossacks--a contrast by no means to the advantage of the
-Cis-Caucasian race. The young chief is also worthy to be remembered
-in respect of the remarkable name which he bears. His Kurdish title
-of Shamden Agha has been developed and embroidered into the sonorous
-appellation of Hasan Bey Shamshadinoff, under which he is officially
-known.
-
-From the edge of the platform upon which we were standing the ground
-falls away with some abruptness down to the base below, and lends
-to the valley its characteristic appearance of an elevated stage and
-natural viewing-place, overtowered by the summit regions of the dome
-and the pyramid, and commanding all the landscape of the plain. On the
-south-west, as it rises towards the pass between the two mountains--a
-pass of 8800 feet, leading into Turkish and into Persian territory,
-to Bayazid or Maku--the extent of even ground which composes this
-platform cannot much exceed a quarter of a mile. It is choked by the
-rocky causeways which, sweeping down the side of Great Ararat, tumble
-headlong to the bottom of the fork, and, taking the inclination of
-the ever-widening valley, descend on the north-western skirt of the
-platform in long, oblique curves of branching troughs and ridges,
-falling fanwise over the base. The width of the platform, at the mouth
-of the valley, may be about three-quarters of a mile. It is here that
-the Kurds of the surrounding region gather, as the shades of night
-approach, to water their flocks at the lonely pool which is known as
-the sirdar's well. On the summit of the lesser Ararat there is a little
-lake, formed of melted snows; the water permeates the mountain, and
-feeds the sirdar's pool. Close by, at the foot of the lesser mountain,
-is the famous covert of birch--low bushes, the only stretch of wood
-upon the fabric, which is entirely devoid of trees. The wood was
-soon crackling upon our fires, and the water hissing in the pots;
-but the wretched pack-horses, upon which our tents had been loaded,
-were lagging several hours behind. We ourselves had reached camp at six
-o'clock; it was after nine before our baggage arrived. As we stretched
-upon the slope, the keen air of the summit region swept the valley
-and chilled us to the skin; the temperature sank to below freezing,
-and we had nothing but the things in which we stood. [72] Our friends,
-the Cossack officers, were lavish of assistance; they wrapped us in the
-hairy coats of the Caucasus, placed vodki and partridges before us, and
-ranged us around their hospitable circle, beside the leaping flames.
-
-But the mind was absent from the picturesque bivouac, and the eye
-which ranged the deepening shadows was still dazzled by the evening
-lights. Mind and sense alike were saturated with the beauty and
-the brilliance of the landscape, which, as you rise towards the
-edge of the platform after rounding the mass of Takjaltu, opens
-to an ever-increasing perspective, with ever-growing clearness of
-essential features and mystery gathering upon all lesser forms. The
-sun, revolving south of the zenith, lights the mountains on the north
-of the plain, and fills all the valley from the slopes of Ararat
-with the full flood of his rays--tier after tier of crinkled hummock
-ranges, aligned upon the opposite margin of the valley at a distance of
-over twenty miles, their summit outline fretted with shapes of cones
-and craters, their faces buttressed in sand, bare and devoid of all
-vegetation, yet richly clothed in lights and hues of fairyland--ochres
-flushed with delicate madder, amethyst, shaded opaline, while the
-sparse plantations about the river and the labyrinth of the plain
-insensibly transfigure, as you rise above them, into an impalpable
-web of grey. In the lap of the landscape lies the river, a thin,
-looping thread--flashes of white among the shadows, in the lights a
-bright mineral green. Here and there on its banks you descry a naked
-mound--conjuring a vision of forgotten civilisations and the buried
-hives of man. It is a vast prospect over the world.... Yet vaster far
-is the expanse you feel about you beyond the limits of sight. It is
-nothing but a segment of that expanse, a brief vista from north to
-east between two mountain sides. On the north the slopes of Great
-Ararat hide the presence of Alagöz, while behind the needle form of
-Little Ararat all the barren chains and lonely valleys of Persia are
-outspread.... The evening grows, and the sun's returning arc bends
-behind the dome of snow. The light falls between the two mountains, and
-connects the Little Ararat in a common harmony with the richening tints
-of the plain. There it stands on the further margin of the platform,
-the clean, sharp outline of a pyramid, clothed in hues of a tender
-yellow, seamed with violet veins. At its feet, where its train sweeps
-the floor of the river valley in long and regular folds--far away in
-the east, towards the mists of the Caspian--the sandy ground breaks
-into a troubled surface, like angry waves set solid under a spell,
-and from range to range stretch a chain of low white hummocks, like
-islands across a sea. Just there, in the distance, beneath the Little
-Ararat, you see a patch of shining white, so vivid that it presents
-the appearance of a glacier, set in the burnt waste. It is probably
-caused by some chemical efflorescence, resting on the dry bed of a
-lake. All the landscape reveals the frenzy of volcanic forces, fixed
-for ever in an imperishable mould; the imagination plays with the forms
-of distant castles and fortresses of sand. Alone the slopes about you
-wear the solid colours, and hold you to the real world--the massive
-slopes of Great Ararat, raised high above the world. The wreath of
-cloud which veils the summit till the last breath of warm air dies
-has floated away in the calm heaven before the western lights have
-paled. Behind the lofty piles of rocky causeways, concealing the
-higher seams, rises the immediate roof of Ararat foreshortened in
-the sky--the short side or gable of the dome, a faultless cone of snow.
-
-When we drew aside the curtain of our tent next morning, full daylight
-was streaming over the open upland valley, and the vigorous air had
-already lost its edge. [73] The sun had risen high above the Sevan
-ranges, and swept the plain below us of the lingering vapours which
-at morning cling like shining wool to the floor of the river valley,
-or float in rosy feathers against the dawn. The long-backed Cossack
-horses had been groomed and watered and picketed in line; the men
-were sitting smoking in little groups or were strolling about the
-camp in pairs (Fig. 32). A few Kurds, who had come down with milk
-and provisions, stood listlessly looking on, the beak nose projecting
-from the bony cheeks, the brown chest opening from the many-coloured
-tatters draped about the shoulders and waist.
-
-The space of level ground between the two mountains cannot much exceed
-three-quarters of a mile. On the east the graceful seams of Little
-Ararat rise immediately from the slope upon our right, gathering just
-beyond the covert of low birchwood, and converging in the form of a
-pyramid towards a summit which has been broken across the point. The
-platform of this valley is a base for Little Ararat--the rib on the
-flank of the greater mountain from which the smaller proceeds. So
-sharp are the lines of the Little Ararat, so clean the upward
-slope, that the summit, when seen from this pass or saddle, seems
-to rise as high in the heaven above us as the dome of Great Ararat
-itself. The burnt grass struggles towards the little birch covert,
-but scarcely touches the higher seams. The mountain side is broken
-into a loose rubble; deep gullies sear it in perpendicular furrows,
-which contribute to the impression of height. The prevailing colour
-of the stones is a bleached yellow verging upon a delicate pink; but
-these paler strata are divided by veins of bluish andesite pointing
-upwards, like spear-heads, from the base (Fig. 33).
-
-Very different, on the side of Great Ararat, are the shapes which
-meet the eye. We are facing the south-eastern slope of the mountain,
-the slope which follows the direction of its axis, the short side or
-gable of the dome. In the descending train of the giant volcano this
-valley is but an incidental or lesser feature; yet it marks, and in
-a sense determines, an important alteration in the disposition of the
-surface forms. It is here that the streams of molten matter descending
-the mountain side have been arrested and deflected from their original
-direction, to fall over the massive base. The dam or obstacle which
-has produced this deviation is the sharp, harmonious figure of the
-lesser Ararat, emerging from the sea of piled-up boulders, and cleaving
-the chaos of troughs and ridges like the lofty prow of a ship. The
-course of these streams of lava is signalised by these causeways of
-agglomerate rocks; you may follow from a point of vantage upon the
-mountain the numerous branches into which they have divided to several
-parent or larger streams. On this side of Ararat they have been turned
-in an oblique direction, from south-east towards north-east; they skirt
-the western margin of the little valley, curving outwards to the river
-and the plain. It is just beneath the first of these walls of loose
-boulders that our two little tents are pitched; beyond it you see
-another, and yet another still higher, and above them the dome of snow.
-
-The distance from this valley of the summit of Great Ararat, if we
-measure upon the survey of the Russian Government along a horizontal
-line, is rather over 5 miles. The confused sea of boulders, of which
-I have just described the nature, extends, according to my own
-measurements, to a height of about 12,000 feet. Above that zone,
-so arduous to traverse, lies the summit region of the mountain,
-robed in perpetual snow. From whatever point you regard that summit
-on this south-eastern side, the appearance of its height falls short
-of reality in a most substantial degree. Not only does the curve of
-the upward slope lend itself to a most deceitful foreshortening when
-you follow it from below, but, indeed, the highest point or crown of
-the dome is invisible from this the gable side.
-
-If you strike a direct course from the encampment towards the roof
-of snow, and, crossing the grain of successive walls and depressions,
-emerge upon some higher ridge, the numerous ramifications of the lava
-system may be followed to their source, and are seen to issue from
-larger causeways which rise in bold relief from the snows of the summit
-region, and open fanwise down the higher slopes (Fig. 34). In shape
-these causeways may be said to resemble the sharp side of a wedge; the
-massive base from which the bank rises narrows to a pointed spine. As
-the eye pursues the circle of the summit where it vanishes towards the
-north, these ribs of rock which radiate down the mountain diminish in
-volume and relief. Their sharp edges commence to cut the snowy canopy
-about 3000 feet below the dome. It is rather on this south-eastern
-side of Ararat, the side which follows the direction of the axis of
-the fabric--the line upon which the forces have acted by which the
-whole fabric has been reared--that a formation so characteristic of the
-surface of the summit region at once attains its greatest development,
-and is productive of a phenomenon which cannot fail to arrest the
-eye. At a height of about 14,000 feet, a causeway of truly gigantic
-proportions breaks abruptly from the snow. The head of the ridge is
-bold and lofty, and towers high above the snow-slope with steep and
-rocky sides. The ridge itself is in form a wedge or triangle, cut
-deep down into the side of the mountain, and marked along the spine
-by a canal-shaped depression which accentuates the descending curve
-(see Fig. 34). The troughs and ridges, which you will now be crossing,
-have their origin in this parent ridge; you see it bending outwards,
-away from Little Ararat, and dividing into branches and systems
-of branches as it reaches the lower slopes. Whether its want of
-connection with the roof of Ararat, or the inherent characteristics of
-its uppermost end, be sufficient evidence to justify the supposition of
-Abich that this ridge at its head marks a separate eruptive centre on
-the flank of Ararat, I am not competent adequately to discuss. I can
-only observe that it is not difficult to find another explanation. It
-is possible that the ridge where it narrows to the summit has been
-fractured and swept away. This peak, or sharp end of the causeway,
-to whatever causes its origin may be ascribed, is a distinguishing
-feature on the slope of Ararat, seen far and wide like a tooth or
-hump or shoulder on this the south-eastern side. [74]
-
-Although the most direct way to the summit region leads immediately
-across the zone of boulders from the camp by the sirdar's pool,
-yet it is not that which most travellers have followed, or which
-the natives of the district recommend. This line of approach, which
-I followed for some distance a few days after our ascent, is open
-to the objection that it is no doubt more difficult to scale the
-slope of snow upon this side. The tract of uncovered rocks which
-breaks the snow-fields, offering ladders to the roof of the dome,
-is situated further to the south-east of the mountain, above the
-neck of the valley of the pool. Whether it would not be more easy to
-reach these ladders by skirting slantwise from the higher slopes,
-is a question which is not in itself unreasonable, and which only
-actual experience will decide. It was in this manner, I believe,
-that the English traveller, my friend the Rt. Hon. James Bryce, made
-an ascent which, as a feat, is, I think, the most remarkable of any
-of the recorded climbs. Starting from the pool at one o'clock in the
-morning, he reached the summit, alone, at about two in the afternoon,
-accomplishing within a space of about six hours the last 5000 feet,
-and returning to the point from which he started before sunrise on
-the following day. We ourselves were advised to follow up the valley,
-keeping the causeways upon our right, and only then, when we should
-have reached a point about south-east of the summit, to strike across
-the belt of rock.
-
-At twenty minutes before two on the 18th of September our little party
-left camp in marching order, all in the pride of health and spirits,
-and eager for the attack. Thin wreaths of cloud wrapped the snows of
-the summit--the jealous spell which baffles the bold lover even when he
-already grasps his prize. We had taken leave of the Cossack officers
-and their band of light-hearted men. Our friends were returning to
-Akhury and Aralykh, the one body to hunt the Kurds of the frontier,
-the other to languish in dull inactivity until their turn should
-come round again. Four Cossacks were deputed to remain and guard
-our camp; we ourselves had decided to dispense with any escort
-and to trust to our Kurdish allies. Of these, ten sturdy fellows
-accompanied us as porters to carry our effects, their rifles slung
-over their many-coloured tatters beside the burden allotted to each
-(Fig. 35). With my cousin and myself were the young Swiss, Rudolph
-Taugwalder, a worthy example of his race and profession--the large
-limbs, the rosy cheeks, the open mien without guile--and young Ernest
-Wesson, fresh from the Polytechnic in London, burning to distinguish
-himself. My Armenian dragoman followed as best he was able until
-the camp at the snow was reached; his plump little figure was not
-well adapted to toil over the giant rocks. Of our number was also
-an Armenian from Akhury, who had tendered his services as guide;
-he was able to indicate a place for our night's encampment, but he
-did not venture upon the slope of snow.
-
-A little stream trickles down the valley, but sinks exhausted at this
-season before reaching the sirdar's well. In the early summer it is
-of the volume of a torrent, which winds past the encampment, like a
-serpent of silver, uttering a dull, rumbling sound. [75] It is fed
-by the water from the snow-fields, and there is said to be a spring
-which contributes to support it at a height of nearly 11,000 feet. [76]
-After half an hour's walk over the stony surface of the platform--the
-ragged herbage burnt yellow by the sun--we entered the narrows of
-the mountain saddle, and followed the dry bed of this rivulet at the
-foot of rocky spurs. The tufts of sappy grass sparsely studded on the
-margin of the water-course gave place, as we advanced, to a continuous
-carpet of soft and verdant turf; here and there the eye rested on the
-deep green of the juniper, or the graceful fretwork of a wild rose tree
-quivered in the draught. The warm rays flashed in the thin atmosphere,
-and tempered the searching breeze. The spurs on our right descend
-from the shoulder of Great Ararat, from the causeway of which it forms
-the head, and are seen to diverge into two systems as they enter the
-narrow pass. The one group pushes forward to the Little Ararat and
-is lost in confused detail; the other and, perhaps, the larger system
-bends boldly along the side of the valley, sweeping outwards towards
-the base. At three o'clock we reached a large pool of clouded water,
-collected on a table surface of burnt grass; close by is an extensive
-bed of nettles, and a circle of loose stones. This spot is, no doubt,
-the site of a Kurdish encampment, and appeared to have been only
-recently abandoned by the shepherds and their flocks. The further we
-progressed, the more the prospect opened over the slopes of Ararat;
-we were approaching the level of the tops of the ridges which skirt
-the valley side. Passing, as we now were, between the two Ararats,
-we again remarked that the greater seemed no higher than the lesser,
-so completely is the eye deceived. In the hollows of the gully there
-were small pools of water, but the stream itself was dry.
-
-By half-past three we had left the gentle water-course, and were
-winding inwards, up the slope of Great Ararat, to cross the black and
-barren region, the girdle of sharp crags and slippery boulders which
-is drawn round the upper seams of the mountain, like a succession of
-chevaux de frise. We thought it must have been on some other side
-of Ararat that the animals descended from the Ark. For a space of
-more than three hours we laboured on over a chaos of rocks, through a
-labyrinth of troughs and ridges, picking a path and as often retracing
-it, or scrambling up the polished sides of the larger blocks which
-arrest the most crafty approach. The Kurds, although sorely taxed
-by their burdens, were at an advantage compared to ourselves; they
-could slip, like cats, from ledge to ledge in their laced slippers of
-hide. In one place we passed a gigantic heap of boulders, towering
-several hundred feet above our heads. The rock is throughout of the
-same character and colour--an andesitic lava of a dark slaty hue. A
-little later we threaded up a ravine or gully, and, after keeping for
-awhile to the bottom of the depression, climbed slowly along the back
-of the ridge. I noticed that the grain or direction of the formation
-lay towards east-south-east. From the head of this ravine we turned
-into a second, by a natural gap or pass; loose rocks were piled along
-the sides of the hollow, which bristled with fantastic, but unreal,
-shapes. Here a seated group of camels seemed to munch in silence
-on the line of fading sky, or the knotty forms of lifeless willows
-stretched a menace of uplifted arms. In the sheltered laps of this
-higher region, as we approached our journey's end, the snow still
-lay in ragged patches, which increased in volume and depth.... The
-surface cleared, the view opened; we emerged from the troubled sea of
-stone. Beyond a lake of snow and a stretch of rubble rose the ghostly
-sheet of the summit region, holding the last glimmer of day.
-
-It was seven o'clock, and we had no sooner halted than the biting
-frost numbed our limbs. [77] The ground about us was not uneven, but
-an endless crop of pebbles filled the plainer spaces between little
-capes of embedded rock. At length upon the margin of the snow-lake we
-found a tiny tongue of turf-grown soil--just sufficient emplacement
-to hold the flying tent which we had brought for the purpose of this
-lofty bivouac near the line of continuous snow. We were five to share
-the modest area which the sloping canvas enclosed; yet the temperature
-in the tent sank below freezing before the night was done. Down the
-slope beside us the snow water trickled beneath a thin covering of
-ice. The sheep-skin coats which we had brought from Aralykh protected
-us from chill, but the hardy Kurds slept in their seamy tatters upon
-the naked rocks around. One among them sought protection as the cold
-became intenser, and we wrapped him in a warm cape. It was the first
-time I had passed the night at so great an elevation--12,194 feet above
-the sea--and it is possible that the unwonted rarity of the atmosphere
-contributed to keep us awake. But, whether it may have arisen from the
-conditions which surrounded us, or from a nervous state of physical
-excitement inspired by our enterprise, not one among us, excepting
-the dragoman, succeeded in courting sleep. That plump little person
-had struggled on bravely to this his furthest goal, and his heavy
-breathing fell upon the silence of the calm, transparent night.
-
-The site of our camp below the snow-line marks a new stage, or
-structural division, in the fabric of Ararat. Of these divisions,
-which differ from one another not only in the characteristics presented
-by each among them, but also in the gradient of slope, it is natural
-to distinguish three. We are dealing in particular with that section
-of the mountain which lies between Aralykh and the summit, and with
-the features of the south-eastern side. First, there is the massive
-base of the mountain, about 10 miles in depth, extending from the
-floor of the river valley to a height of about 6000 feet. At that
-point the higher seams commence to gather, and the belt of rock
-begins. The arduous tracts which we had just traversed, where large,
-loose blocks of hard, black lava are piled up like a beach, compose
-the upper portion of this middle region, and may be said to touch the
-lower margin of the continuous fields of snow. The line of contact
-between the extremities of the one and the other stage partakes of the
-nature of a transitional system, a neutral zone on the mountain side,
-where the rocky layers of the middle slopes have not yet shelved away,
-nor the immediate seams of the summit region settled to their long
-climb. In this sense the fields of stone about our encampment, with
-their patches of last year's snow, are invested with the attributes
-of a natural threshold at the foot of the great dome. The stage which
-is highest in the structure of Ararat, the stage which holds the dome,
-has its origin in this threshold, or neutral district, at an altitude
-which varies between 12,000 and 13,000 feet.
-
-Very different in character and in appearance from the region we were
-leaving behind was the slope which faced our encampment, robed in
-perpetual snow. You have pursued the ramifications of the lava system
-to the side of their parent stems; and in place of blind troughs and
-prospectless ledges a noble singleness of feature breaks upon the
-extricated view. You command the whole summit structure of Ararat
-on the short, or gable side; and the shape which rises from the open
-ground about you is that of a massive cone. The regular seams which
-mount to the summit stretch continuous to the crown of snow, and are
-inclined at an angle which diverges very little from an average of
-30°. The gradients from which these higher seams gather--the slopes
-about our camp--cannot exceed half that inclination, or an angle of
-15°. Such is the outline, so harmonious and simple, which a first
-glance reveals.... A more intimate study of the summit region, as it
-expands to a closer view, disclosed characteristics which were not
-exactly similar to those with which we had already become familiar in
-the neighbourhood of Sardar Bulakh. It was there the north-eastern
-hemisphere of the mountain--if the term may be applied to the oval
-figure which the summit region presents--displayed to the prospect upon
-the segment between east and south-east. Our present position lay more
-to the southward, between the two hemispheres; we were placed near the
-axis of the figure, and the roof, as viewed from our encampment, bore
-nearly due north-west. The gigantic causeway which at Sardar Bulakh
-was seen descending on our left hand from the distant snows, now rose
-on our right, like a rocky headland, confronting a gleaming sea of
-ice. But, when the eye pursues the summit circle vanishing towards
-the west, you miss the sister forms of lesser causeways, radiating
-down the mountain side. It is true that the greater proximity of our
-standpoint to the foot of these highest slopes curtailed the segment
-of the circle which we are able to command. This circumstance is not
-in itself sufficient to explain the change in the physiognomy of the
-summit region, as we see it on this side. In place of those bold,
-black ribs or ridges, spread fanwise down the incline, furrowing the
-snows with their sharp edges, and lined along the troughs of their
-contiguous bases with broad streaks of sheltered nevé, it seems as
-if the fabric had fallen asunder, the surface slipped away--all the
-flank of the mountain depressed and hollow, from our camp to the
-roof of the dome. The canopy of snow which encircles the summit--a
-broad, inviolate bank, unbroken by any rift or rock projection for
-a depth of some 2000 feet--breaks sharply off on the verge of this
-depression, and leaves the shallow cavity bare. From the base of the
-giant causeway just above us to the gently-pursing outline of the
-roof you follow the edge of the great snow-field, bordering a rough
-and crumbling region which offers scanty foothold to the snow, where
-the hollow slope bristles with pointed boulders, and the bold crags
-pierce the ruin around them in upstanding combs or saw-shaped ridges,
-holding slantwise to the mountain side. On the west side of this broad
-and uncovered depression, near the western extremity of the cone,
-a long strip of snow descends from the summit, caught by some trough,
-or sheltering fissure, in the rough face of the cliff. Beyond it, just
-upon the sky-line, the bare rocks reappear, and climb the slope, like
-a natural ladder, to a point where the roof of the dome is lowest and
-appears to offer the readiest access to the still invisible crown. [78]
-
-In the attenuated atmosphere surrounding the summit every foot that is
-gained tells. An approach which promises to ease the gradient at the
-time when it presses most seems to offer advantages which some future
-traveller may be encouraged to essay. We ourselves were influenced
-in the choice of a principle upon which to base our attack by the
-confident counsels of the Armenian, which the local knowledge of
-the Kurds confirmed. We were advised to keep to the eastern margin
-of the depression, by the edge of the great snow-field. You see the
-brown rocks still baffling the snow-drifts near the point where the
-deceitful slope appears to end, where on the verge of the roof it
-just dips a little, then stands up, like a low white wall, on the
-luminous ground of blue.
-
-The troubled sea of boulders flowing towards the Little Ararat, from
-which we had just emerged, still hemmed us in from any prospect over
-the tracts which lay below. The flush of dawn broke between the two
-mountains from a narrow vista of sky. The even surface of the snow
-slope loomed white and cold above our heads, while the night still
-lingered on the dark stone about us, shadowing the little laps of
-ice. Before six o'clock we were afoot and ready; it wanted a few
-minutes to the hour as we set out from our camp. To the Swiss was
-entrusted the post of leader; behind him followed in varying order
-my cousin and Wesson and myself. Slowly we passed from the shore of
-the snow-lake to the gathering of the higher seams, harbouring our
-strength for the steeper gradients as we made across the beach of
-boulders, stepping firmly from block to block.
-
-The broad, white sheet of the summit circle descends to the snow-lakes
-of the lower region in a tongue, or gulf of deep nevé; you may
-follow on the margin of the great depression the western edge of this
-gleaming surface unbroken down the side of the cone. On the east the
-black wall of the giant causeway borders the shining slope, invading
-the field of perpetual winter to a height of over 14,000 feet. The
-width of the snow-field between these limits varies as it descends;
-on a level with the shoulder, or head of the causeway, it appeared to
-span an interval of nearly 200 yards. [79] The depth of the bed must
-be considerable, and, while the surface holds the tread in places,
-it as often gives and lets you through. No rock-projection, or gap,
-or fissure breaks the slope of the white fairway; but the winds have
-raised the crust about the centre into a ribbon of tiny waves. Our
-plan was to cross the stony region about us, slanting a little east,
-and to mount by the rocks on the western margin of the snow-field,
-adhering as closely as might be possible to the side of the snow. It
-was in the execution of this plan--so simple in its conception--that
-the trained instinct of the Swiss availed. Of those who have attempted
-the ascent of Ararat--and their number is not large--so many have
-failed to reach the summit that, upon a mountain which makes few,
-if any, demands upon the resources of the climber's craft, their
-discomfiture must be attributed to other reasons: to the peculiar
-nature of the ground traversed, no less than to the inordinate
-duration of the effort; to the wearisome recurrence of the same kind
-of obstacles, and to the rarity of the air. Now the disposition of
-the rocks upon the surface of the depression is by no means the same
-as that which we have studied in connection with the seams which lie
-below. The path no longer struggles across a troubled sea of ridges,
-or strays within the blind recesses of a succession of gigantic waves
-of stone. On the other hand, the gradients are as a rule steeper;
-and the clearings are covered with a loose rubble, which slips from
-under the feet. The boulders are piled one upon another in heaps
-as they happened to fall, and the sequence of forms is throughout
-arbitrary and subject to no fixed law. In one place it is a tower of
-this loose masonry which blocks all further approach; in another a
-solid barrier of sharp crags, laced together, which it is necessary
-to circumvent. When the limbs have been stiffened and the patience
-exhausted by the long and devious escalade, the tax upon the lungs
-is at its highest, and the strain upon the heart most severe. Many of
-the difficulties which travellers have encountered upon this stage of
-the climb may be avoided, or met at a greater advantage, by adhering
-to the edge of the snow. But the fulfilment of this purpose is by no
-means so easy as might at first sight appear. You are always winding
-inwards to avoid the heaps of boulders, or emerging on the backs of
-gigantic blocks of lava towards the margin of the shining slope. In
-the choice of the most direct path, where many offered, the Swiss was
-never at fault; he made up the cone without a moment's hesitation,
-like a hound threading a close covert, and seldom if ever foiled.
-
-At twenty minutes to seven, when the summit of Little Ararat was
-about on a level with the eye, we paused for awhile and turned
-towards the prospect, now opening to a wider range. The day was
-clear, and promised warmth; above us the snowy dome of Ararat shone
-in a cloudless sky. The landscape on either side of the beautiful
-pyramid lay outspread at our feet; from north-east, the hidden
-shores of Lake Sevan, to where the invisible seas of Van and Urmi
-diffused a soft veil of opaline vapour over the long succession of
-lonely ranges in the south-east and south. The wild borderland of
-Persia and Turkey here for the first time expands to view. The scene,
-however much it may belie the conception at a first and hasty glance,
-bears the familiar imprint of the characteristics peculiar to the
-great tableland. The mountains reveal their essential nature and
-disclose the familiar forms--the surface of the tableland broken
-into long furrows, of which the ridges tend to hummock shapes. So
-lofty is the stage, so aloof this mighty fabric from all surrounding
-forms, the world lies dim and featureless about it like the setting
-of a dream. In the foreground are the valleys on the south of Little
-Ararat, circling round to the Araxes floor; and, on the north-east,
-beside the thread of the looping river, is a little lake, dropped
-like a turquoise on the sand where the mountain sweeps the plain.
-
-In the space of another hour we had reached an elevation about equal
-to that of the head of the causeway on the opposite side of the snow,
-a point which I think we should be justified in fixing at over 14,000
-feet. [80] We were now no longer threading along the shore of an inlet;
-alone the vague horizon of the summit circle was the limit of the
-broad, white sea. But on our left hand the snowless region of rock
-and rubble still accompanied our course, and a group of red crags
-stood up above our heads, just where the upward slope appeared to end.
-
-Yet another two hours of continuous climbing, and, at about half-past
-nine, the loose boulders about us open, and we are approaching the
-foot of these crags. The end seems near; but the slope is deceitful,
-and when once we have reached the head of the formation the long
-white way resumes. But the blue vault about us streams with sunlight;
-the snow is melting in the crannies; a genial spirit lightens our toil.
-
-And now, without any sign or warning, the mysterious spell which holds
-the mountain begins to throw a web about us, craftily, from below. The
-spirits of the air come sailing through the azure with shining gossamer
-wings, while the heavier vapours gather around us from dense banks
-serried upon the slope beneath us, a thousand feet lower down.
-
-The rocks still climb the increasing gradient, but the snow is
-closing in. At eleven we halt to copy an inscription, which has
-been neatly written in Russian characters on the face of a boulder
-stone. It records that on the third day of the eighth month of 1893
-the expedition led by the Russian traveller Postukhoff passed the
-night in this place. At the foot of the stone lie several objects:
-a bottle filled with fluid, an empty tin of biscuits, a tin containing
-specimens of rock.
-
-At half-past eleven I take the angle of the snow slope, at this
-point 35°. About this time the Swiss thinks it prudent to link us all
-together with his rope. The surface of the rocks is still uncovered,
-but their bases are embedded in deep snow.
-
-It is now, after six hours' arduous climbing, that the strain of the
-effort tells. The lungs are working at the extreme of their capacity,
-and the pressure upon the heart is severe. At noon I call a halt, and
-release young Wesson from his place in the file of four. His pluck is
-still strong, but his look and gait alarm me, and I persuade him to
-desist. We leave him to rest in a sheltered place, and there await
-our return. From this time on we all three suffer, even the Swiss
-himself. My cousin is affected with mountain sickness; as for me, I
-find it almost impossible to breathe and climb at the same time. We
-make a few steps upwards and then pause breathless, and gasp again
-and again. The white slope vanishing above us must end in the crown
-of the dome; and the boulders strewn more sparsely before us promise
-a fairer way. But the further we go, the goal seems little closer;
-and the shallow snow, resting on a crumbling rubble, makes us lose
-one step in every three. A strong smell of sulphur permeates the
-atmosphere; it proceeds from the sliding surface upon which we are
-treading, a detritus of pale sulphurous stones.
-
-At 1.25 we see a plate of white metal, affixed to a cranny in the
-rocks. It bears an inscription in Russian character which dates from
-1888. I neglect to copy out the unfamiliar letters; but there can be
-little doubt that they record the successful ascent of Dr. Markoff,
-an ascent which cost him dear.
-
-A few minutes later, at half-past one, the slope at last eases,
-the ground flattens, the struggling rocks sink beneath the surface
-of a continuous field of snow. At last we stand upon the summit of
-Ararat--but the sun no longer pierces the white vapour; a fierce gale
-drives across the forbidden region, and whips the eye straining to
-distinguish the limits of snow and cloud. Vague forms hurry past on
-the wings of the whirlwind; in place of the landscape of the land of
-promise we search dense banks of fog.
-
-Disappointed perhaps, but relieved of the gradient, and elated with
-the success of our climb, we run in the teeth of the wind across the
-platform, our feet scarcely sinking in the storm-swept crust of the
-surface, the gently undulating roof of the dome.... Along the edge of
-a spacious snow-field which dips towards the centre, and is longest
-from north-west to south-east, on the vaulted rim of the saucer which
-the surface resembles, four separate elevations may conveniently be
-distinguished as the highest points in the irregular oval figure which
-the whole platform appears to present. The highest among these rounded
-elevations bears north-west from the spot where we first touch the
-summit or emerge upon the roof. That spot itself marks another of
-these inequalities; the remaining two are situated respectively in
-this manner--the one about midway between the two already mentioned,
-but nearer to the first and on the north side; the other about south
-of the north-western elevation, and this seems the lowest of all. The
-difference in height between the north-western elevation and that upon
-the south-east is about 200 feet; and the length of the figure between
-these points--we paced only a certain portion of the distance--is
-about 500 yards. The width of the platform, so far as we could gauge
-it, may be some 300 yards. A single object testifies to the efforts
-of our fore-runners and to the insatiable enterprise of man--a stout
-stake embedded upon the north-western elevation in a little pyramid
-of stones. It is here that we take our observations, and make our
-longest halt. [81] Before us lies a valley or deep depression, and on
-the further side rises the north-western summit, a symmetrical cone of
-snow. This summit connects with the bold snow buttresses beyond it,
-terraced upon the north-western slope. The distance down and up from
-where we stand to that summit may be about 400 yards; but neither
-the Swiss nor ourselves consider it higher, and we are prevented
-from still further exploring the summit region by the increasing
-violence of the gale and by the gathering gloom of cloud. The sides
-and floor of the saddle between the two summits are completely covered
-with snow, and we see no trace of the lateral fissure which Abich,
-no doubt under different circumstances, was able to observe.
-
-We remain forty minutes upon the summit; but the dense veil never lifts
-from the platform, nor does the blast cease to pierce us through. No
-sooner does an opening in the driving vapours reveal a vista of the
-world below than fresh levies fly to the unguarded interval, and
-the wild onset resumes. Yet what if the spell had lost its power,
-and the mountain and the world lain bare? had the tissue of the air
-beamed clear as crystal, and the forms of earth and sea, embroidered
-beneath us, shone like the tracery of a shield?
-
-We should have gained a balloon view over Nature. Should we catch her
-voice so well?--the ancient voice heard at cool of day in the garden,
-or the voice that spoke in accents of thunder to a world condemned
-to die. "It repented the Lord that he had made man, and it grieved
-him at his heart. The earth was filled with violence: God looked
-upon the earth and behold it was corrupt. In the second month, the
-seventeenth day of the month, the same day were all the fountains of
-the great deep broken up and the windows of heaven were opened. And
-the rain was upon the earth forty days and forty nights."
-
-We are standing on the spot where the ark of gopher rested, where first
-the patriarch alighted on the face of an earth renewed. Before him
-lie the valleys of six hundred years of sorrow; the airiest pinnacle
-supports him, a boundless hope fills his eyes. The pulse of life beats
-strong and fresh around him; the busy swarms thrill with sweet freedom,
-elect of all living things. In the settling exhalations stands the
-bow of many colours, eternal token of God's covenant with man.
-
-The peaks which rise on the distant borderland where silence has
-first faltered into speech are wrapped about with the wreaths of
-fancy, a palpable world of cloud. Do we fix our foot upon these solid
-landmarks to wish the vague away, to see the hard summits stark and
-naked, and all the floating realm of mystery flown? The truth is firm,
-and it is well to touch and feel it and know where the legend begins;
-but the legend itself is truth transfigured, as the snow distils into
-cloud. The reality of life speaks in every syllable of that solemn,
-stately tale--divine hope bursting the bounds of matter to compromise
-with despair. And the ancient mountain summons the spirits about him,
-and veils a futile frown, as the rising sun illumines the valleys
-of Asia and the life of man lies bare. The spectres walk in naked
-daylight--Violence and Corruption and Decay. The traveller finds in
-majestic Nature consolation for these sordid scenes; while a spirit
-seems to whisper in his ears, "Turn from him!--turn from him, that
-he may rest till he shall accomplish, as an hireling, his day."
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XIII
-
-THE HEART OF ARARAT
-
-
-Retracing our steps down the side of the cone, we soon regained the
-streaming sunlight. I called a halt, and we rested on some rocks,
-embedded in snow. Our next task was to search for Wesson; but he had
-left his sheltered cranny, and, as the day was warm, we concluded
-that he had returned to camp. The Swiss and myself determined to
-try a glissade down the snow slope; my cousin preferred to adhere
-to the rocks. I was aware of the danger of the glissade down Ararat,
-and we therefore planned our course with care. We broke the descent
-at several points, made errors on the side of caution, and glided
-safely into one of the inlets about the base of the cone. It was
-still some distance to the encampment; we proceeded with the utmost
-leisure across the boulder-strewn waste. At last we beheld the lake
-of snow, and our tiny tent beside it, and the gaunt figures of the
-Kurds. These also perceived us, and sent us a cry of greeting, which
-vibrated in the still air. Wesson and the dragoman were there to meet
-us; my cousin arrived almost at the same time. Our climb had been
-accomplished without a single mishap, and all except the dragoman,
-who pleaded that he had been half frozen in camp, were pleased with
-the day's work. It was twenty minutes past six o'clock; yet I thought
-it best to strike our tent and seek a less exposed and less elevated
-spot. After a toilsome walk of about half an hour we found some grass
-in a little valley, and there composed ourselves for the night.
-
-I had sent two Kurds to collect firewood while we were sleeping; it was
-morning before they returned. We breakfasted beside a pleasant fire,
-and decided to devote the earlier hours to rest. I was able to avail
-myself of a convenient physical habit of being refreshed by violent
-exercise. The summit was clear of cloud, and I sallied forth with
-the camera to seek a standpoint in full view of the cone. At some
-little distance from our camp I found such an eminence, whence all
-the characteristics of the summit region were exposed (Fig. 36). The
-peak of Great Ararat bore almost due north-west of this point,
-that of Little Ararat a little south of east. [82] On the left of
-the picture you see the hollow in the face of the cone and the rocks
-struggling upwards to its top; on the right is the shoulder, or head
-of the causeway, bordering the snow slope on the opposite side. In
-the afternoon we regained our standing encampment in the valley of
-Sardar Bulakh.
-
-Relieved of the tension of a fixed purpose, we were able to turn with
-real enjoyment to the contemplation of the surroundings in which
-we were placed. There can scarcely exist in the world another such
-standpoint as the platform of the sirdar's well. You never tire of
-the contrasting shapes of the massive dome and the graceful pyramid;
-below you in the plains the silent operations of Nature proceed on
-their daily course. Morning breaks, and the floor of the plain is
-shrouded in white mist; the sun rises, and the opposite peaks of the
-Sevan ranges are crowned with banks of billowing cloud. Stray films
-wander out into the blue vault of heaven, and graze the sides of the
-dome. As the day grows, the warm air mounts these sides and melts
-the snows, which distil into a white vaporous mass. The ground of the
-landscape increases in definition of feature--the rich campagna, the
-looping river, the sites of the towns. It is the subtle quality no less
-than the scale of the composition which distinguishes this prospect
-from other views, similar in character, which are unfolded from the
-summit of a pass. And if you turn from the immense expanse and rest
-the eye on the forms about you, those forms respond to your emotions
-and invest them with a deeply religious cast. This vast fabric, so
-harmonious in design, in position so self-sufficient, touches chords
-in the nature of man which sound through all the religions, and die
-away only when they die. Yet how vulgar appear their dogmas in this
-pure atmosphere of religion, in the courts of this great cathedral
-of the natural world! You feel that this mountain has been the parent
-of religions, whence they strayed into devious paths. To this parent
-you would again collect the distracted; in this atmosphere you long
-to bathe the populations of our great towns. Our morbid dramatists,
-our nervous novelists need the inspiration of these surroundings--the
-promptings of Nature in her loftiest manifestations, from which the
-life of man can never with impunity be divorced.
-
-In a lighter sense, to the traveller who seeks rest and enjoyment,
-I can confidently recommend a pilgrimage to this beautiful upland
-valley, and a sojourn among the marvels of this site. For the
-sportsman there are partridges in abundance; the botanist and the
-man of taste will admire the brilliancy of the flowers which nestle
-in the crannies of the rocks. Junipers clothe the ground, and a
-plant with spiked foliage like the juniper, and with a lovely little
-flower like a star. I have taken a specimen to Kew, and they call
-it Acantholimon echinus--a peculiarly appropriate name. Tiny bushes
-of wild rose flutter in the breezes; and, a little lower down, the
-earth is yellow with immortelles (Helichrysum), which, as I write,
-recall the southern sun. The journey to Erivan, by way of Tiflis,
-can be performed in luxury; from Erivan you can drive in a victoria
-to the foot of Ararat; on the mountain you have need of nothing but
-a tent and a cook. The Kurds are well-behaved, and will provide you
-with milk and mutton, of which it is a treat to taste. The old lawless
-times are passing into legend, thanks to the vigorous rule of the
-Tsars. The Russian officials abound in real kindness of disposition;
-and, if you can only succeed in patching a peace with the system,
-you feel that they really wish you well. We returned to Aralykh on
-the 22nd of September after an absence of nearly six days.
-
-
-
-The cantonment of Aralykh faces the jaws of the great chasm which
-extends from the snowy roof to the base of Ararat, and lays the heart
-of the mountain bare (Fig. 37). We were anxious to penetrate within
-these dark recesses, and, after a day's rest, carried our project
-into effect.
-
-It is a melancholy reflection that nothing is lasting--that the
-strength of the earth withers and the strength of the human body,
-that faith dies and the closest friendships dissolve. In the world of
-sense Time is all-powerful, and nothing escapes destruction at his
-hands. [83] This painful lesson is written with terrible emphasis
-on the fabric of Ararat, where it fronts the historic river and the
-historic plains. Another earthquake, and the massive roof may tumble
-headlong into the abyss which now yawns beneath its cornice of snow. I
-have already observed that Herrmann Abich was able to remark a lateral
-fissure between the two highest elevations in the surface of the crown
-of the dome. He suggests that this fissure may have been caused by
-the convulsion of 1840, to which the present configuration of the
-chasm is due. [84] It would therefore appear that Time has already
-taken a decisive step towards the overthrow of the uppermost portion
-of the cone. The chasm itself and the subsidence of the flank of the
-mountain date from an epoch beyond the range of history. Tournefort,
-who visited Ararat in 1701, presents us with such a vivid picture of
-the rent side of the giant, that one cannot doubt that the essential
-features of the chasm existed in his day. [85] The little monastery
-of St. Jacob, which, prior to the catastrophe of 1840, stood within
-the recesses of the gulf, probably occupied the same site when it
-was first erected in the early Christian times. The reader may not be
-acquainted with the story of the catastrophe, and may like to learn
-or to recall it in this place.
-
-Several travellers have presented us with a description of the
-locality as it existed before those events. [86] Some 10 miles from
-the banks of the Kara Su, on the base or pedestal of Ararat, at a
-height of some 5600 feet above the sea, or 2900 feet above the plain,
-[87] was situated the Armenian village of Akhury or Arguri--the only
-village, we are informed by Dubois, which had hazarded a position on
-the side of the mountain, [88] and a place which boasted a remote
-antiquity. According to Armenian tradition, it was there that Noah
-built the altar, and offered up the burnt sacrifice, after his
-departure from the Ark and safe descent of the mountain, with his
-family and the living creatures of every kind. It was at Akhury or
-Arguri--a name which is said to signify in the Armenian language he
-has planted the vine [89]--that, according to the same tradition, the
-patriarch planted his vineyard and drank to excess of its wine. The
-inhabitants would point to an ancient willow of stunted growth,
-bent by the action of snow and ice; it stood in an isolated spot
-above the village, a rare object on a mountain which is almost devoid
-of trees. They believed that it drew its origin from a plank of the
-Ark which had taken root; and they would not suffer any damage to be
-done to the sacred object, or the least of its branches to be taken
-away. The population amounted to about 1000 souls; [90] the houses
-numbered some two hundred, and were built of stone with the usual flat
-roofs. The settlement owed its prosperity, and even its existence,
-to a stream which then, as now, issued from the jaws of the chasm,
-fed by the melting ice and snow. It was placed at the open exit from
-the gorge, where the trough flattens out into the base. The church and
-the larger portion of the village were on the right bank of the stream;
-on the left, opposite the church, stood a square-shaped fortress, built
-of clay after the fashion of the country. A near eminence was crowned
-by the walls of a spacious palace, which served as a summer residence
-for the Persian sirdars of Erivan. It was indeed a delightful resort
-during the heats of summer. A cool draught descended from the snows
-of the summit region; and the little stream supported considerable
-vineyards and orchards, so that the traveller, on approaching Akhury,
-could take refuge from the glare of the plain in quite a little wood
-of apricot trees. The church--said to have been called Araxilvank
-(Arakelotz Vank?)--was reputed to have been built on the site of Noah's
-altar. It dated from the eighth or ninth century; and to such a height
-had the ground about it risen since its foundation, that the two side
-doors had become embedded in soil up to the crossbeams. Just beyond
-this pleasant oasis you entered the chasm, and, after proceeding
-for nearly two miles up its boulder-strewn hollow, you reached the
-little monastery of St. Jacob, which stood on the edge of a natural
-terrace a few hundred feet above the bottom of the gulf, immediately
-overlooking the right bank of the stream. The chasm had at this spot
-a depth of some 600 to 800 feet, [91] and the elevation of the site
-of the monastery above sea-level was 6394 feet. [92] Parrot, who
-established his headquarters in this lonely cloister, has handed down
-to us a charming illustration of the place, and a pleasant description
-of the chapel, with its walled enclosure and garden and orchard,
-the residence, at the time of his visit, of a single monk. Like the
-church of Akhury, it commemorated a religious event in the story of
-Ararat. A monk of the name of Jacob, afterwards bishop of Nisibis,
-reputed to have been a contemporary and relative of St. Gregory,
-was seized with the desire to convince the sceptics of the truth
-of the Biblical narrative, and to assure himself of the presence of
-the Ark on the summit of Ararat by the evidence of his own eyes. In
-the pursuit of this purpose he made several attempts to scale the
-mountain from the north-east side. On each occasion he fell asleep,
-exhausted by the effort; as often as he awoke, he would find that he
-had been miraculously transported to the point from which he had set
-out. At length God looked with compassion upon his fruitless labours,
-and sent an angel who appeared to him in his sleep. The Divine message
-was to the effect that the summit was unattainable by mortal man;
-but the angel deposited on his breast a fragment of the holy Ark,
-as a reward for his faith and pains. [93] Beyond St. Jacob's, on the
-same or eastern side of the chasm and on the edge of the precipice,
-was situated a tiny shrine, built of hewn stone, at an altitude of
-about 1000 feet above the monastery. [94] It stood by the side of
-one of the rare springs which are found on Ararat--a well of which
-the waters are still deemed to possess miraculous powers, and which
-still attracts numerous pilgrims from the plains. As you followed
-the gulf still further, the sides increased in steepness and the
-abyss in depth, until, at a distance of about two and a half miles
-from the cloister, [95] it ended in an almost perpendicular wall of
-rock which towered up to the snowy cornice of the dome. Tournefort,
-whose description is in other respects fantastic, has used language
-to portray the aspect of the upper end of the chasm which would be
-true at the present day. He speaks of the terrible appearance of the
-ravine, one of those natural wonders which testify to the greatness
-of the Saviour, as his Armenian companion observed. He could not help
-trembling as he overlooked the precipices, and he asks his readers,
-if they would form some conception of the character of the phenomenon,
-to imagine one of the loftiest mountains in the world opening its
-bosom to a vertical cleft. From the heights above, masses of rock
-were continually falling into the abyss with a noise that inspired
-fear. [96]
-
-On the evening of the 20th of June 1840 a terrific earthquake shook the
-mountain, and not only the shrine and cloister, but the entire village
-of Akhury with the sirdar's palace were destroyed and swept away. An
-eye-witness, who was pasturing cattle on the grassy slopes above the
-chasm on the side opposite to the shrine and the well, tells us that
-he was thrown on to his knees by a sudden reeling of the ground, and
-that, even in this position, he was unable to maintain himself, but
-was overturned by the continuing shocks. Close by his side the earth
-cracked; a terrific rolling sound filled his ears; when he dared look
-up, he could see nothing but a mighty cloud of dust, which glimmered
-with a reddish hue above the ravine. But the quaking and cracking
-were renewed; he lay outstretched upon the ground, and thus awaited
-death. At length the sounds became fainter, and he was able to look
-towards the ravine. Through the dust he perceived a dark mass in the
-hollow, but of what it was composed he could not see. The sun went
-down; the great cloud passed away from the valley; as he descended
-with his cattle in the failing light, he could see nothing within the
-abyss except the dark mass. Another spectator has left us an account
-of the various phases of the phenomenon, as they were experienced
-from a standpoint below the village. He happened to be working in a
-garden a few versts from Akhury, on the side of the plain. His wife
-and daughter were with him; two of his sons appeared towards evening
-and brought him a report about his cattle. Two riders, returning to
-the village, exchanged a few words with the party, and rode on. The
-sun was beginning to sink behind the mountains, and he and his people
-were preparing to go home. In an instant the ground beneath their feet
-oscillated violently, and all were thrown down. At the same time loud
-reports and a rolling sound, as if of thunder, increased the panic into
-which they fell. A hurricane of wind swept towards them from the chasm
-and overturned every object that was not firm. In the same direction
-there arose an immense cloud of dust, overtopped, towards the upper
-portion of the ravine, by a darker cloud, as of black smoke. After
-a momentary pause the same phenomena were repeated; only this time a
-dark mass swept towards them from the direction of the village with
-a rolling and a rushing sound. It reached the two riders; they were
-engulfed and disappeared. Immediately afterwards the two sons were
-overtaken by the same fate. The mass rolled onwards to the gardens,
-and broke down the walled enclosures. Large stones came tumbling
-about the unfortunate peasants; and a great crag swept down upon
-the prostrate witness, and settling by his side, caught his mantle
-fast. Extricating himself with difficulty, he succeeded in lifting
-his unconscious wife and daughter from the earth, and in flying with
-them over the quaking ground. After each shock they could hear the
-sound of cracking in the chasm, accompanied by sharp reports. They
-were joined by fugitives, escaping from the neighbouring gardens,
-and they endeavoured to make their way to Aralykh. It was morning
-before they reached their goal; during the night the sounds and
-shocks continued, always fainter but at periodical intervals. This
-catastrophe was followed on the 24th of June by a second and scarcely
-less momentous collapse. On this occasion a mass of mud and water burst
-from the chasm, as though some colossal dam had given way. Blocks of
-rock and huge pieces of ice were precipitated over the base, and the
-flood extended for a space of about thirteen miles. Not a trace was
-left of the gardens and fields which it devastated, and the Kara Su
-was temporarily dammed by the viscous stream. [97]
-
-It is to the credit of the times in which we live that no such event
-could now occur in Russian territory without exhaustive and local
-scientific investigation, while the results of the catastrophe were
-still fresh. The task of reporting to the Government was entrusted to a
-Major of Engineers, who was ordered to open an enquiry on the spot. His
-account was to the effect that masses of rock were precipitated into
-the chasm from the overhanging heights; that they were accompanied
-in their descent by vast quantities of snow, unloosed by the sinking
-foundations of the uppermost seams. A river of boulders and snow
-and ice streamed with lightning rapidity down the gulf, buried the
-cloister and the village with all its inhabitants, and choked up the
-trough of the abyss. The earthquake was attended by the opening of
-fissures in the ground, from which there issued water and sand, and
-even flames. [98] The mention of this last phenomenon appears to have
-aroused the curiosity of men of learning, and to have excited in them
-a strong desire for further light. The site was visited in 1843 by a
-German man of science, Dr. Wagner, and in 1844 by the great geologist
-Herrmann Abich, whose researches are always careful and complete. [99]
-These two authorities unfortunately arrived at opposite conclusions
-as to the character of the convulsion. Wagner begins by discrediting
-the account of the Russian Major, and suggests that he had never left
-the walls of Erivan, having lost his travelling money at play. He
-considers it absurd to suppose that the mass which destroyed Akhury
-and the fragments of rocks which were projected far and wide can be
-attributed to the operation of purely seismic forces, dislocating
-the crown and sides of the abyss. They must have been due to eruptive
-volcanic action, of which he thought he could see the traces at the
-upper end of the chasm, the site, according to his view, of one of the
-old craters of Ararat. They were impelled through the air by steam
-and escaping gases from a fissure in the bottom of the ravine. We
-must therefore form the conception of an eruption accompanied by an
-earthquake, not of a landslip effected by seismic shocks. [100]
-
-That this theory is open to objection on the simple ground of
-probability, it does not require scientific knowledge to perceive. In
-the first place an eruption of Ararat is unknown within the historical
-period; in the second, the destruction of Akhury was only one of many
-catastrophes which were occasioned by earth movements on the same
-day. On that same evening the valley of the Araxes was visited by a
-violent earthquake, and thousands of houses were overthrown. [101]
-It is true that Wagner supposes an eruption of steam rather than of
-fire, and favours the hypothesis of vast reservoirs of water beneath
-the mountain having burst in upon the molten mass below. But this
-ingenious supposition is rendered unnecessary and improbable by the
-minute researches of the next trained worker in the same field. Abich
-asks how it would be possible for eruptive action to have broken
-forth in a narrow valley--on such a scale that huge crags of 100 to
-150 feet in circumference were propelled for a distance of over three
-miles [102]--without leaving any trace of volcanic ejectamenta on the
-adjoining heights and on the slopes beyond. A careful examination of
-the disposition and character of the débris, as they were disclosed
-within the trough of the chasm, as well as on the surface of the base
-of the mountain, established in his mind the veracity in all essentials
-of the official version of the Russian Major of Engineers. He observed
-that the fragments of rock which are strewn over the basal slopes
-before the entrance to the chasm is reached, become concentrated as
-you proceed, and are collected into long ridges of boulders, which
-issue from the mouth of the gulf. Yet not a single one among these
-fragments was found to be identical in nature with the fragments on
-the adjacent valley sides. How account for this striking circumstance
-on the hypothesis of an eruption from fissures along the base of the
-valley? When he came to investigate the origin of these piled-up
-boulders, he discovered that they exactly corresponded with the
-rock of the seams which are found along the upper end of the chasm,
-overhanging the abyss. He was even able to ascribe approximately the
-former position of the largest of the crags which recline upon the
-base to a site on the left wall of the chasm, immediately beneath and
-supporting the snows. From his writings we may extract the following
-explanation of the phenomena to which the destruction of Akhury was
-due. The upper structure of Ararat had been seriously weakened on the
-north-eastern side by the slow but persistent action of snow and ice,
-and by the corrosive tendencies of veins of sulphurate of iron. The
-earthquake precipitated portions of the higher seams into the chasm,
-together with masses of snow. A dense cloud of dust was induced by
-the falling rocks, and the setting sun lent to this cloud a lurid
-hue. Immense quantities of boulders were hurried down the trough
-of the chasm, accompanied by a stream of mud and melting ice. The
-course of this composite current was directed upon the village by the
-configuration of the left wall of the chasm. As the sides of the valley
-fell in, its upper portion became obstructed at the neck or narrow
-which still exists about at the point where the little shrine used
-to overlook the abyss. A mighty dam was formed by the fallen masses,
-and the head of the valley became a huge morass. Further lapses of
-rock and snow took place from the summit region, and the heats of
-June dissolved the frozen elements in the morass. On the 24th the
-dam yielded to the overpowering pressure, and the second act of the
-catastrophe was fulfilled.
-
-As a result of this earthquake, the ridge enclosing the uppermost
-end of the chasm was found to have acquired about double its former
-extent. The height of the precipice had also increased considerably,
-especially on the eastern side. The summit remained intact, but the
-fabric of Ararat lay henceforth exposed to its innermost core. [103]
-
-
-
-We set out at a quarter-past eight in the morning, mounted on
-little hacks. The Armenian Makar, who had accompanied us on the
-previous expedition, was deputed to be our guide. It took us some
-twenty minutes to cross the belt of sand and camelthorn at a pace
-of about six miles an hour. Then the ground commenced to rise with
-more perceptible acclivity, and we made our way across the massive
-base. The still air, and the restfulness of the stately fabric before
-us exercised upon us their now familiar spell. Grey clouds enveloped
-the snows of the summit region, collected above a veil of tender mist.
-
-We were pointing towards the entrance to the chasm, and we noticed
-that, in that direction, there exists a considerable concavity in
-the surface of the base. One might almost form the conception of
-a flaw in the mountain, extending to the pedestal upon which it is
-reared. On either side of us, but more especially on our left hand,
-the rounded contours of the basal slopes were curving inwards to a
-wide depression, up the trough of which we rode. Is this feature the
-result of landslip and of floods issuing from the chasm, or was the
-pedestal always weaker upon this side? I am inclined to ascribe it in
-part to an inherent defect in the structure, which has been enlarged
-and accentuated in the process of centuries. It would appear that the
-streams of lava which fed the base on the north-west and south-east
-were not directed in equal volume to these north-eastern slopes. Such
-a distribution of the molten matter which contributed to build up the
-fabric would account, at least in some measure, for the subsequent
-subsidence of Ararat on this its north-eastern flank.
-
-As we proceeded, this hollow formation became more pronounced; we
-were approaching the mouth of the chasm. We observed how much more
-copious was the flora which covers this portion of the base. In place
-of the burnt herbage over which we had ridden on our journey to Sardar
-Bulakh, we here admired an abundant growth of low and thorny bushes
-of which the tiny and delicate pink and white flowers were showered
-upon a ground of grey and green (Atraphaxis spinosa). Long streamers
-of sansola (Kochia prostrata, Schrad.) bent towards us, and gigantic
-yellow grasses rose like spears (Calamagrostis epigejos, Roth.). The
-stream which issues from the chasm--exhausted at this season--feeds and
-fertilises the sandy soil, and, perhaps, the layers of mud which were
-left by the flood of 1840 have not been without effect on the nature of
-the land. We were reminded of that catastrophe by the huge fragments
-of conglomerate rock which are strewn over the hollow throughout a
-considerable area. On our return I took a photograph of the largest
-of these crags, where it lay, among bouquets of spangled atraphaxis,
-outlined against the sky (Fig. 38). Abich informs us that the fragment
-which lies immediately in front of it was incorporated with it at the
-time of his first visit in 1844; the mass then measured at the base 285
-feet in circumference, with a height of 45 feet. [104] I have already
-said that this careful investigator was able to trace its origin to a
-site at the upper end of the chasm, overhanging the abyss. According
-to his theory, it must have fallen in after the first act of the
-catastrophe, and been transported in the course of the second act to
-its present place. It was pushed down the trough of the ravine and
-over the gentle incline of these basal slopes by the action of the
-viscous stream, until that action lost its force when the stream was
-freed from the compression of the gorge and radiated outwards over the
-pedestal. [105] To us plain people the position of these crags was
-a source of amazement, and the Greeks would have made the chasm the
-residence of a Cyclops who hurled such missiles at adventuresome men.
-
-At half-past ten we halted at a small Kurdish village, situated at
-the mouth of the chasm. These Kurds have erected hovels of loose
-stones with roofs of mud, and they can boast or deplore, in the
-person of a starshina, a direct official connection with the Russian
-Government. It was amusing to see a Kurd in the dress of a Russian
-dignitary stepping out to meet his European visitors. He wore a dark
-blue coat; a large brass badge of office hung upon his breast. Ever
-since the great convulsion the Kurds have haunted the site of Akhury,
-rummaging for anything valuable in the buried ruins. Makar explained to
-us that we were now standing where once stood the prosperous township,
-with its ancient church and pleasant gardens. The woods of apricot,
-the rich vineyards have disappeared entirely; it would be difficult
-to discover a single tree. Just west of the miserable hamlet you
-still remark the deep watercourse which is the principal vent for
-the drainage of the ravine. The channel is dry at this season, and is
-overhung by steep banks some 100 to 150 feet high. We observed that
-these banks are composed of a sandy soil, inlaid with rocks. Yet
-the valley, even in autumn, is not entirely devoid of water; here
-and there we were refreshed by the sight of growing grass, and by the
-sound of little runnels. The trough of the ravine has at this point an
-elevation above sea-level of about 5570 feet, while its sides, which
-are formed by the cleft in the base of outer sheath of the mountain,
-are as yet scarcely more than 200 feet high. It extends almost in a
-straight line, and in a south-westerly direction, to the very heart
-of Ararat. The flanking cliffs rise and the valley narrows, until
-the formation assumes the proportions of a gulf many thousands of
-feet in depth, overhung by the snows of the summit region. Imagine
-a gigantic cutting, with a length of several miles, at the uppermost
-end of which an almost perpendicular precipice supports the snowy roof
-of Ararat! Even from this standpoint we could perceive the vertical
-seams at the head of the chasm, shadowed walls of grey rock with veins
-of orange hue, the higher ledges sprinkled with the first snows of
-autumn and half concealed by light, dissolving mist.
-
-We mounted to the top of the cliff on the right or eastern side
-of the ravine, in order to obtain a view on either hand. Towards
-the east stretched the contours of the upper portion of the base,
-clothed with withered grass and strewn with stones. Abich tells us
-that these fragments are different in origin and character from the
-boulders and stones in the trough of the ravine; and, as we have seen,
-he uses the fact as a powerful weapon against the eruptive theory
-which Wagner propounds. Looking across the valley, our eyes rested on
-a little settlement on its opposite or western flank. It occupies a
-higher site than that of the Kurdish village, and may have been about
-a mile distant from where we stood. It interested us as well by its
-lonely and dangerous position as by an adjacent and isolated group
-of trees. It is called New Akhury, and, according to the official
-statistics, contains a population of some 400 Tartar inhabitants. It
-is the seat of a Cossack station, and bids fair to increase in size
-before the next earthquake shall sweep it away.
-
-Makar directed our attention to some fallen gravestones, not many yards
-distant from where we stood. They are the remains of the cemetery
-of the old Akhury, and among them we admired several crosses with
-rich chasing in the old Armenian style. We found them overgrown with
-a thick, orange-hued lichen, resembling the appearance of rust. He
-told us that many of his relations had been buried in this graveyard,
-and he pointed out in particular a group of seven stones. He said
-that they marked the graves of seven brothers who had been killed in
-the gardens of the vanished township by the attacks of a single snake.
-
-After regaling ourselves with delicious milk and eating an egg or two,
-we started at noon on our excursion up the ravine. We made our way
-along the eastern side of the chasm, sometimes picking our course
-as we might among the boulders, at others following a beaten path on
-higher ground. Not far beyond the hamlet we noticed a little spring,
-of which the water was trickling over. The next object to excite our
-interest was the peculiar formation of the floor of a side valley,
-in which we found ourselves at half-past twelve. Throughout an area of
-some 350 by 200 yards the ground was perfectly level, like a billiard
-table, with a smooth surface of sand and little pebbles. The length
-of this round ellipse followed the direction of the main ravine, which
-lay at some considerable depth beneath it, and from which the basin of
-this valley was separated by a low bulwark of rock and soil. We were
-impressed by the sharp distinction between the bottom of this flat area
-and the banks which, on the one side, were formed by this bulwark and,
-on the other, by towering cliffs, overgrown with grass. The basin
-has an entrance and an exit gully, through which the waters collect
-and escape. Not a single pool lingered within it at this season, and
-it was difficult to realise that this warm and sunny recess probably
-owes its most distinctive features to the erosive action of ice.
-
-We mounted ever higher up the slopes which flank the ravine. In the
-trough of the gulf we noticed another flat space, similar in character
-but less pronounced than that which I have described. Bushes of wild
-rose luxuriate on these cliff-sides, and from this foreground of rich
-tints and red berries we looked across to the dark and perpendicular
-precipices which encircle the head of the chasm. At every lift in the
-restless vapours we feasted our eyes on the snows of the summit, and we
-remarked the great length and horizontal profile of the summit-outline,
-seen between the opening arms of the abyss. Muffled women's figures,
-astride of their horses, came winding down the path. They were
-Armenian ladies, returning from a pilgrimage to St. Jacob's Well;
-foot-attendants held their bridles and picked their way.
-
-At two o'clock we arrived at the famous rose bush and the holy
-well. The path has been worn by the feet of pilgrims, who journey
-hither from the plains. The water issues from a recess in the side of
-the mountain which has been levelled with a masonry of hewn stone. The
-overflow nourishes the rose-tree, on the twigs of which are attached
-countless little ribbons of rag, shreds from the garments of the
-devout. Just beyond these sacred objects you are shown a level site,
-overhanging the ravine. Rows of stones are interlaced upon its surface,
-a sign for pious wayfarers. Here was placed the little shrine which
-during the great earthquake must have tumbled headlong into the
-chasm. The pilgrims insert tiny sticks into the ground with the same
-little ribbons of rag. The holy water is a talisman against all kinds
-of calamities, and it is supposed to attract the birds which destroy
-the locusts when they desolate the country-side.
-
-It is a fine standpoint from which to command the upper end of the
-chasm, which has here a width of some 500 yards. My illustration
-(Fig. 39) was taken from a spot close to the well and the site of
-the shrine, but perhaps a little lower down. The site itself has
-an elevation above sea-level of about 7500 feet. [106] The camera
-has belittled the natural features, and I must ask my reader to
-interpret my picture with the help of the reflection that the snows
-which overhang these perpendicular precipices are nearly 17,000 feet
-high. We penetrated further up the romantic valley, along the bed
-of a dry watercourse. Skirting the buttresses of the eastern wall,
-we observed that they were composed of a compact grey andesite with
-something of the appearance of slate. Seams of a rock similar in
-character, but which have turned red in weathering, lend variety
-to the surface of these bold bastions; while the dark face of the
-wall which mounts to the summit region is scored by extensive veins
-of that decomposed and orange-hued lava which spells destruction
-wherever it appears. The bottom of the ravine is covered by a deep
-beach of boulders, worn by the action of ice and water. Animal life
-is represented by a flock of crows or jackdaws, which croak and circle
-round you as you advance.
-
-Behind the lofty wall of rock which is seen on the left of my
-illustration, in jagged outline against the snows, a glacier
-descends from the summit region which is probably the only true
-glacier on Ararat, and which I should judge to be gradually
-decreasing in extent. According to Abich, the long ridges which
-have the appearance of piles of boulders, and which are seen in
-his illustration descending the trough of the chasm to a point some
-distance below St. Jacob's Well, were composed in 1874 of compact and
-dirty glacier ice, covered over with stones and débris. He informs us
-that in 1844 there was a direct but deeply buried connection between
-this ice and the ice in the circus at the lower end of the glacier;
-and that in 1874 this connection had been severed, and the ice-hills
-themselves had decreased about one-third in height. [107] On the top
-of these ridges he discovered a series of marshes and little lakes,
-of which the largest was several hundred paces in circumference. I
-cannot testify myself to the present condition of these ice-hills; I
-cannot even say that they exist. I did not see any ice in the trough
-of the chasm, although it was evident that its present condition was
-largely due to ice action, and although we admired a little lake of
-glacier water, set like a turquoise in the waste of mud and stones. It
-is computed that the actual glacier descends as low as a level of
-about 8000 feet--a notable fact when we consider that the line of
-perpetual snow on this side of Ararat is as high as 14,000 feet.
-
-We lingered for some little space in the ravine beyond St. Jacob's
-Well, waiting for the clouds to lift. But they hung jealously about the
-upper slopes of the precipices, whence a mist descended upon us like
-rain. The mountain thundered; from time to time the mist was gently
-parted, and gave passage to the sun. If we were disappointed of a
-clear view of the higher regions, we were at least able to appreciate
-to the full the vista down the weird chasm to the fair landscape of
-the plain. The comparative straightness of the gulf renders such a
-prospect possible, even from its uppermost end. No projecting spur or
-interposed eminence obstructs the continuous stretch of the hollow
-outlines to the distant campagna of the river-side. On the horizon
-were the crinkled mountains in the direction of Lake Sevan, flushed
-with tints of delicate yellow and amethyst, lightly shaded with opal
-hues. Deep gloom lay upon the floor of the abyss, and only the pools
-of blue glacier water caught the brilliance of day. On the open base
-beyond these shadows the sinuous lines of dry watercourses led the eye
-into the expanse of the plain; and we could still see the recumbent
-blocks which once hung in pinnacles above the spot upon which we stood.
-
-Evening was drawing in when we again reached the entrance to the
-chasm. We skirt the Kurdish village, we pass a pool of water and
-a group of barefooted Kurdish girls. Away on our left are the mud
-houses of the Tartar settlement, and the green clump of trees. To these
-succeed the bouquets of pink and white atraphaxis, and the scattered
-crags of conglomerate rock. A flora of great variety starts from the
-sand and among the stone. While we are crossing this upper region
-of the base, the sun disappears behind the still, grey clouds; the
-blue zenith pales and fades. A full moon rises from the grey clouds,
-wreathing the landscape with soft lights. Heavy quiet reigns over the
-vast and lonely scene, and the only sound is the cicada's hum. The
-low, dark outline of the trees of Aralykh is a mere shadow on the
-plain. Nature touches the chords of that stately and solemn movement
-which issues in and faintly accompanies the life of man.
-
-
-SUPPLEMENTARY NOTE
-
-The identification of Mount Ararat with the mountain upon which the
-Ark rested is at least as early as the adoption of Christianity by the
-Armenians, and may have been originally made by Jewish prisoners of
-war. But there does not appear to have existed in the neighbourhood of
-Ararat an independent local tradition of the Flood; and the mountain
-is still locally known not as Ararat, but as Masis to the Armenians,
-and as Aghri Dagh to the Tartars. It is, however, called Ararat
-in Armenian literature as early as Faustus of Byzantium, who uses
-the name in relating the story of St. Jacob of Nisibis (Faustus,
-iii. 10. The name appears to have been wrongly spelt Sararat by the
-copyists). The Ararat of Scripture is the Assyrian Urardhu; and the
-"mountains of Ararat" of Genesis viii. 4 must be sought within the
-country of Urardhu. Dr. Belck has quite recently examined, in the light
-of his remarkable researches into the lore of the Vannic texts, the
-question of the original geographical application of the term Urardhu
-(Zeitschrift für Ethnologie, Berlin, 1899, pp. 113 seq.); it appears
-to have spread from a district in Kurdistan, south-west of Lake Urmi,
-to the country about Lake Van. It would, therefore, seem that the
-tendency of the term has been to travel north; for the Urardhu or
-Ararat of the historical period is the province about Mount Ararat,
-one of the great divisions in the kingdom of the Arsakid monarchs
-of Armenia, and well known under the name of Ararat to Agathangelus
-and the earliest Armenian writers. Mount Ararat could scarcely have
-been known to the peoples of the lowlands, among whom the Biblical
-legend of the Flood originated. Various aspects of the subject
-are well discussed by Suess (Das Antlitz der Erde, Leipzic, 1885,
-vol. i. pp. 25-92; Die Sintfluth), Bryce (Transcaucasia and Ararat,
-edition of 1896, pp. 211 seq.), and Sayce (Dictionary of the Bible,
-London, 1898, sub voce Ararat).
-
-The fabric of Ararat composes an elliptical figure with an axis from
-north-west to south-east. The base plan measures about 28 miles in
-length, and about 23 miles in width. The fabric is built up by two
-mountains: Great Ararat (16,916 feet above the sea) and Little Ararat
-(12,840 feet). Their bases are contiguous at a level of 8800 feet,
-and their summits are 7 miles apart. Both are due to eruptive volcanic
-action; but no eruption of Ararat is known to have occurred during
-the historical period, and the summit of the greater mountain presents
-all the appearance of a very ancient and much worn-down volcano with a
-central chimney or vent, long since filled in. I have already described
-the summit region of Great Ararat. The estimates or measurements of
-my predecessors are at variance with one another in detail; but one
-may assert that it consists of two separate elevations, divided one
-from the other by a depression some 100 to 150 feet in depth. The
-more easterly is much the larger, having the character of a spacious
-platform of saucer-like form. The more westerly presents the shape of
-a symmetrical cone, when seen from the platform; and is in connection
-with the snow-laden and almost horizontal bastions at the head of
-the north-western slope. Both elevations have about the same height;
-but, if anything, the more westerly is the higher. [108] The reader
-will be able to distinguish them in my photograph (Fig. 37), as well
-as to observe how they mingle together as mere crinkles in the crown
-of the dome. Parrot was inclined to think that the Ark came to rest
-in the depression between these two elevations.
-
-Yielding in height to the most lofty peaks of the Caucasus in the
-north (Elburz, 18,525 feet), which are visible from the summit,
-and to Demavend (over 18,000 feet) in the belt of mountains which
-rise along the southern shore of the Caspian Sea, Ararat is by far
-the loftiest of the mountains of Armenia, and is over 1000 feet
-more elevated than the highest peak in Europe, Mont Blanc (15,780
-feet). Moreover, Elburz and Kazbek, Mont Blanc, and even Demavend, all
-rise among a sea of mountains, of which they are little more than the
-highest crests. The isolation of Ararat is not its least interesting
-feature--a feature which I would fain hope is already imprinted upon my
-reader's mind. The plains which it overlooks belong to three empires;
-the frontiers of Persia, Turkey, and Russia meet upon its slopes.
-
-It has been estimated that as late as the month of May the colossal
-mountain is covered with snow to a level of 9000 feet below the summit;
-and the appearance of this immense white sheet from the blooming
-campagna of the valley of the Araxes is one of the fine sights in the
-world. But by the month of September the snowy canopy will be confined
-to the dome of Great Ararat; and the limit of perpetual snow on the
-side facing the plain on the north is not less elevated than from
-13,500 to 14,000 feet above the sea. The extensive depression through
-which the Araxes flows collects the heats of summer; and the warm
-air from this reservoir ascends the northern slopes of the mountain,
-melting the snow to a height which is greater than might be expected
-in this latitude. [109]
-
-The best season for an ascent is the latter half of September. During
-October there is more chance of obtaining a view from the summit,
-which is usually most free from clouds in that month. But the days
-are, of course, shorter, and the fresh snow commences to lie. I
-should recommend the traveller with time upon his hands who may be
-anxious to extend our knowledge of the mountain to adopt the following
-programme:--(1) Ascend Little Ararat from Sardar Bulakh. (Good accounts
-are furnished by Parrot, op. cit. pp. 219 seq.; Stuart, Proceedings
-R.G.S. 1877, vol. xxi. pp. 77-92; Kovaleffsky, Voyage au Mont Ararat,
-Moscow, 1899 [in Russian]; Artsruni, Verhand. Gesell. Erdkunde Berlin,
-vol. xxii. 1895, pp. 606 seq.; Ebeling, Verhand. Gesell. Erdkunde
-Berlin, vol. xxv. 1898, pp. 130-132.) (2) Extend the journey to the
-southern slopes of Great Ararat, and thoroughly explore that side of
-the mountain. (3) Ascend Great Ararat, perhaps from a point a little
-further south than that indicated in my account; and (4) investigate
-the condition of the glacier in the chasm of Akhury. An interesting
-excursion may also be made to the little crater lake known as Kip
-Göl on the north-western slopes (see the accounts of Monsieur and of
-Madame Chantre in their writings already cited).
-
-I append a list of the successful ascents of Great Ararat up to
-and including our own, so far as I have been able to ascertain them
-[110]:--
-
-
-     1. F. Parrot, 1829. Started from the monastery of St. Jacob
-        (chasm of Akhury) and made the ascent by the north-western
-        slope.
-     2. K. Spasky-Avtonomoff, 1834. From Akhury.
-     3. Herrmann Abich, 1845. From Sardar Bulakh.
-     4. H. D. Seymour, 1845. (From New Akhury?).
-     5. J. Khodzko, N. V. Khanikoff, and others, 1850. From Sardar
-        Bulakh.
-     6. R. Stuart and others, 1856. From Bayazid.
-     7. J. Bryce, 1876. From Sardar Bulakh.
-     8. G. P. Baker, 1878. From Sardar Bulakh.
-     9. Sivoloboff, 1882.
-    10. E. Markoff, 1888. From Sardar Bulakh.
-    11. Semenoff, 1888 (?).
-    12. Raphalovich and others, 1889. From Sardar Bulakh.
-    13. T. G. Allen and W. L. Sachtleben (1892?). From Bayazid.
-    14. Postukhoff, 1893. From Sardar Bulakh.
-    15. H. B. Lynch, H. F. B. Lynch, and Rudolph Taugwalder, 1893.
-        From Sardar Bulakh.
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XIV
-
-RETURN TO ERIVAN
-
-
-September 25.--We passed the morning upon the mound, in the little open
-summer-house, face to face with the airy snowfields which we had scaled
-to their topmost vaulting, with the cavernous recesses which we had
-penetrated to their inmost core. Such is the silence of Nature at the
-foot of this solemn mountain that the faintest sound reaches the ear. I
-was therefore startled by a clamour of voices in the direction of the
-cantonment, and I hurried down towards the noise. A booted figure in
-drab uniform, covered with dust from head to foot, was gesticulating
-under the influence of extreme excitement to a little group of Russian
-military in their white tunics, accompanied by some languid Orientals
-at a respectful interval. It was the officer of Cossacks who had joined
-our party near Takjaltu, and who had left us at Sardar Bulakh. Suiting
-his gestures to his words, he was narrating a thrilling story of a
-night encounter with the Kurds. His little eyes were bloodshot and
-distended with emotion; his legs were parted and his feet planted
-firm. His detachment had fallen in with a band of marauders, who
-had carried off some cattle from over beyond Akhury, and made away
-towards the Turkish frontier. They had fired on the Kurds, who had
-returned their fire; they had recovered the cattle and chased the
-Kurds away. I enquired what bag he had made of these human vultures,
-and he replied, with a sigh, that they had carried off their dead.
-
-On the further side of the Araxes, opposite Aralykh, is situated
-the celebrated monastery of Khor Virap, which marks the spot where,
-according to Armenian tradition, Saint Gregory, the founder of
-Christianity in Armenia, was imprisoned for thirteen years in a deep
-pit. The country about and behind the cloister is extremely rich
-in historical and archĉological interest, and I would recommend the
-traveller to prolong his excursion up the romantic valley of the Garni,
-whence he can return across the mountains to Erivan. He will examine
-the sites of Artaxata and Dvin, and, proceeding up the river, will
-reach the gorge with the basaltic columns, and the platform where
-once stood the temple of King Tiridates--a beautiful Greek shrine
-given to these solitudes, like the temple of Segesta to the lonely
-Sicilian hills. Hard by this platform above the river are found the
-relics of the city of Garni; and, near the sources of the stream, at a
-distance of some five miles from Garni, the caves and monastery of Surb
-Geghard, reputed to have been founded by St. Gregory, respond to the
-spirit of a landscape which for grandeur and severity is unsurpassed
-among these wilds. I was anxious to make the acquaintance of some at
-least among these antiquities; we therefore despatched our luggage
-with the Swiss and the cook to Erivan, and, availing ourselves of
-the offer of a victoria as far as Khor Virap, resolved to trust to
-fortune for the remainder of the way. [111]
-
-Had we been able to procure riding-horses, we might probably have
-ridden from the ferry over the Araxes direct to the cloister across
-the plain. In a carriage we were obliged to retrace our steps as far
-as Kamarlu, where the road which runs parallel to the course of the
-river crosses the road to Erivan. The stage which we had made after
-nightfall between that village and Aralykh was now performed in the
-light of day. The alluvial flats between the Araxes and the base
-of Ararat are channelled by a network of irrigation runnels, which
-diffuse the stream of the Kara Su. From the fields and marshes rise
-luxuriant cotton and castor oil plants, the one with yellow single
-blossoms, like a wild rose, and drooping fruit, resembling flakes of
-snow; the other, higher than these, raising a tender, juicy stem to
-shining, palm-shaped leaves. Here and there, where the water fails,
-bushes of hardy camelthorn spring up, like weeds, upon the fallow
-land. The oppressive climate of Aralykh, no less than the plague of
-insects which infest it, are due to the sand upon the pedestal of
-the mountain, and to these swamps with their effluvia and mosquito
-swarms. Even at this season the sun beats fiercely upon the plain;
-and, when we reached the ferry, a herd of buffaloes and bullocks,
-awaiting transport, were rolling parched tongues and casting longing
-eyes at the river from the bank of crumbling mud.
-
-A double pontoon, staged across with planks, received our carriage,
-and was swiftly impelled along the hawser by the force of the
-stream. From the opposite margin a dreary tract of baked alluvial
-soil extends to the zone of gardens and orchards which commences at
-Kamarlu. I have already alluded to the excellence of the road within
-that zone; but by day you will be loth to hasten along it, such is
-the charm and so great the interest of the scene. The traffic from
-the lower Araxes, from Persia and distant Mesopotamia, finds its way
-along this chaussée to Erivan. The district is inhabited by well-to-do
-people, who can afford the richness of their national dress. Beneath
-the foliage of the needle poplars, between the well-maintained mud
-walls--over which you look to the vineyards and to the vegetable
-gardens, where the tomato and the chili abound--a stream of wayfarers,
-some on horseback, fill the pleasant avenue, chatting and smiling
-under the expansive influence of ease and shade. At intervals you
-pass a house or cluster of houses, where groups of Armenian women
-in their holiday attire are gathered before the open doors. They are
-clad in their gayest cottons, and wear their picturesque head-dress
-and veils of white gauze. Some among them nurse their babes at the
-open bosom, the little infant cleaving to the full breasts. Tartars,
-with their black lambskin hats and dark blue or black garments,
-compose an element which a cynic would be loth to dispense with in
-such a scene of piping peace; yet it would be difficult to detect a
-trace on their clean-shaven faces of passions which have, perhaps,
-been blunted by time. Laden waggons pass, and numerous bullock-carts,
-with their heavy, creaking wheels. We were amused by the appearance
-of a curious pair of riders who, to judge from the deference which
-was bestowed upon them, were evidently of exalted rank. The man wore
-a flowing beard and was dressed in Oriental apparel; but he held in
-his hand a parasol of European pattern, and his locks were surmounted
-by an English billycock hat. His wife was by his side, astride of
-her Arab; but the graceful animal was almost invisible beneath her,
-his withers overtowered by the huge bulk of her stomach, and his
-back enveloped in the folds of her robes. It was an Assyrian bishop,
-journeying from Mosul.
-
-Kamarlu is perhaps a type of these villages of the campagna, in
-which the population is composed of Armenians and Tartars, of lambs
-and lions living side by side. It can boast a Russian schoolhouse,
-a necessary institution in the case of the Tartars, to judge by
-the barbarous and hideous frescos which enliven the façade of their
-little mosque. The Armenians have their school, and there are two
-Gregorian churches in which they satisfy their spiritual needs. The
-houses are built of sun-baked bricks and mud; wooden stages rise to
-some height above the flat roofs, and provide airy sleeping-places for
-the inhabitants during the summer heats. After regaling ourselves with
-the delicious white grapes of the district, we turned aside from the
-road to Erivan. Crossing the outskirts of the village, we remarked the
-huge clay wine jars which were strewn about in the courtyards. Beyond
-a few fields, planted with cotton, we again entered the open desert,
-and pursued our way over the crumbling mud. A rude and winding track
-leads towards the river through patches of dusty desert shrubs. Ararat
-fills the landscape, and is rarely seen to greater advantage than
-from such tracts of naked land. On our left hand rose a buttress of
-the Sevan mountains which had been a landmark from the slopes of
-Ararat. It is composed of a sandy rock of various hues, which has
-weathered into fanciful shapes. In the delicate evening lights it is
-invested with the appearance of some castle in fairyland.
-
-From time to time we passed strings of three or four large waggons,
-drawn by teams of oxen. Whole families of Armenians were gathered
-within them, well dressed and well-to-do. They were returning to
-their dwellings within the zone of gardens from a pilgrimage to Khor
-Virap. The men were emptying their little glasses, which they would
-replenish from wine-skins, and feasting on water melons.
-
-We arrived at the mound which rises from the flats about the
-river and can be clearly seen from Ararat. According to Dubois,
-[112] it consists of a mass of dolomite, isolated on the surface of
-the plain. The church and cloister have been built on the side of
-the eminence; the monastic dwellings screened the church from our
-view. St. Gregory's dungeon is situated within the precincts; and it
-would appear that the place was famous in the saint's lifetime for
-a much-frequented temple of the fire-worshippers.
-
-We were scarcely beneath the walls when the figure of a horseman
-springs forward from some recess into the road. Throwing his white Arab
-on to his haunches at a few yards before our carriage, he challenges
-and constrains us to pull up dead. This proceeding on his part, no
-less than his forbidding countenance, throws me completely off my
-guard. On Russian soil one is obliged to smother the irritation which
-is always threatening to burst forth from a British breast. I shout to
-him to move aside, or we will whip the horses and drive through him;
-to this he answers by drawing his revolver and threatening to shoot. I
-ask him by what right he dared to obstruct the roadway; he replies by
-enquiring by what credentials we presume to pass. It flashes through
-me that the game is in the hands of this ruffian--we had been spoilt by
-the attentions of the high officials, and to such an extent that we had
-forgotten to bring even our passports, which had gone in our despatch
-box to Erivan. It was useless to urge that one could not be obliged
-to show a passport in order to be allowed to visit a church. He paid
-no heed to any of our arguments, and compelled us to return with him
-to Kamarlu. He even added the insult of requiring us to suit our pace
-to his, and to follow at a walk or amble by his side. This we flatly
-refused to do, and, taking the reins from the trembling coachman,
-proceeded at a brisk trot. Simon Ter-Harutiunoff--such was the name
-of this ferocious person--is linked in our memory with the companion
-picture of Ivan the Terrible, our stern custodian during the Akhaltsykh
-days. Both are Armenians, and either might be taken as a model for the
-embodiment of the fighting instincts in man. Tartars and Cossacks are
-amenable creatures besides them; and of the two, we were inclined
-to bestow the palm upon Simon. His face was black with exposure
-to the sun; the eyes were yellow round the dark iris and shot with
-red veins. His features were large and pronounced, but of singular
-deformity; the massive head was placed upon broad shoulders above a
-frame of great bulk and iron strength. He wore two medals, won during
-the war with Turkey through personal bravery. His function in time of
-peace was to police the Persian frontier in the district of Khor Virap.
-
-These particulars we learnt in the office of the Pristav, upon our
-return under such escort to Kamarlu. We claimed and were permitted
-to proceed to Erivan; but the chapars were instructed to prevent us
-from diverging, and to hand us over to the Nachalnik at the provincial
-capital. In this manner we were foiled in our antiquarian researches
-among these ancient sites. At Khor Virap we saw nothing but some
-slight convexities in the surface of the ground, which may be caused
-by buried remains. Beyond the mound we observed a natural wall of rock,
-rising like a gigantic ruin above the plain.
-
-Evening had approached as we left the village, and proceeded through
-the gardens, and crossed to the barren zone beyond. From the rising
-ground we looked back over the forest of poplars to the sun setting
-behind the peaks of the Ararat chain. The satellite range wore the
-same tints of deep, opaque opaline which fretted the horizon during
-our outward journey. It was shadowed upon the same ground of orange
-and amber; and the opal hues of the land forms extended round the
-circle and included the huge, horizontal outline of Alagöz. But the
-Sevan mountains, in the opposite segment, were touched with pink and
-luminous yellows; the higher summits were white with fresh snow. In
-the south-east the landscape was dim and vaporous; nor could the
-eye distinguish among the gathering shadows the basal slopes of
-Ararat. The snow-fields of the dome shone with a cold light in the
-sky, above vague banks of cloud. It was after eight o'clock when we
-reached the pleasant town garden, and discussed our adventures with
-the Nachalnik over a cigar.
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XV
-
-AT ERIVAN
-
-
-Oriental cities--and Erivan is still essentially Oriental--may
-perhaps be said to be built upon two planes. There is the plane of
-the street, and there is the plane of the flat roofs, all at about the
-same level. Where the climate during summer renders the rooms of the
-house untenantable after the walls have been heated through by the sun,
-the daily life of the inhabitants undergoes a corresponding division
-into the life of the street and the life of the roof. About an hour
-before sunset the entire population mounts from the lower apartments,
-or even from the cellars, to the open platforms, floored with mud and
-sometimes protected by a low balustrade, which receive the freshness
-of the evening breeze. It is there that the last and first meals of
-the day are served, and the quilts spread upon which sleep is enjoyed
-beneath the stars. A strange scene it is when the faint light of
-morning has broken, and when the recumbent forms commence to stir. The
-divisions made by the narrow streets are scarcely perceptible; your
-own roof appears to join the roofs of your neighbours, and these to
-compose a single and elevated stage above the landscape of dim earth
-and flashing stream. Figures, erect from the waist, are revealed
-in every posture; and it may happen that the cotton drapery has
-dropped from a woman's shoulders as she stretches her arms in the
-fancied seclusion of some partial screen. Such scenes are the daily
-accompaniment of a summer sojourn in the towns upon the lowlands
-through which the Euphrates and the Tigris flow. In Armenia, with
-a mean level of several thousand feet above the sea, the practice of
-sleeping in the open is confined to the depression of this plain of the
-Araxes; and even here it is only partially indulged. The better-to-do
-among the inhabitants take refuge in the adjacent mountains when their
-dwellings have become little better than furnaces. The traveller is
-advised to swelter within four walls rather than tempt fever from
-the expanse of irrigated land by exposing himself to the night air.
-
-Yet the twofold division of the city into an upper and a lower region
-is nowhere more productive of startling contrast than in this town of
-gardens which is Erivan. In the streets, lined as they are with the
-rude stone walls of the enclosures, surmounted by a crumbling ridge
-of clay, the vistas are confined by inexorable foliage to the space
-of a stone's throw. The central park, with its wide spaces, enjoys
-no further landscape than that which is limited by the zones of the
-adjacent buildings or by its own lofty forest trees. Where you are not
-threading the narrow alleys of the more thickly inhabited quarters,
-you will be winding by irregular ways, deep in white dust, by the side
-of swirling water or within hearing of its murmur beyond the bulwark
-which screens the orchard from the lane. But from the standpoint of
-the roof the horizon expands to boundaries which are so remote that
-they are scarcely conceivable by a European mind. The foliage or the
-hollow of the site eliminates the middle distance; and the opposite
-piles of Great Ararat in the south (Fig. 40) and of Alagöz in the
-north (Fig. 41) rise immediately from the soft foreground of the
-embowered houses. The landscape from the high ground on the north,
-as you approach Erivan by the road from Tiflis, is difficult to forget
-(Fig. 42). The whole fabric of Ararat is exposed from base to summits;
-but so tall are the poplars and luxuriant the countless varieties of
-fruit trees, that they almost conceal the domes of the mosques and
-the cupolas of the churches, spread over the straggling township at
-your feet.
-
-All this verdure is mainly due to the river Zanga, the Hrazdan of the
-Armenians, which collects the drainage of a section of the southern
-slopes of the border range, and which is fed by the waters of Lake
-Sevan, called also Gökcheh, from its sky-blue colour, and by Armenian
-writers the Lake of Gegham. This beautiful alpine sea is surrounded
-by lofty mountains and has an area 2 1/2 times as large as that
-of Geneva. It produces salmon trout of delicious flavour which are
-seldom absent from the bill of fare in the provincial capital. It
-finds an outlet through the Zanga into the Araxes at a difference in
-the level of 3600 feet. The brawling Zanga, already weakened by the
-canals which diffuse its waters, pursues a devious course at the foot
-of high and rocky banks on the western outskirts of the town. Further
-eastwards the irrigation is supplied by the Kirk Bulakh, a stream of
-which the name signifies forty springs, and which has its sources
-at no great distance from Erivan. Such abundance of running water
-should secure to this growing city a large measure of prosperity
-under settled government. As the centre of the most populous of the
-Armenian provinces of the Russian Empire, to which it gives its name,
-it is already a place of some pretensions. But the inhabitants do
-not at present number more than 15,000, of whom half are Tartars and
-half Armenians. This total also comprises about 300 Russians, whose
-most conspicuous units are the drivers of the carriages on hire,
-belonging, I believe, exclusively to the Molokan sect. [113]
-
-Erivan does not possess any monuments of first-rate merit or of great
-antiquity. Her origin is obscure. Noah may quite well have lived here
-before the Deluge, as one of the earliest of modern European visitors
-was informed by his Armenian friends. [114] The popular derivation of
-the name is from the Armenian verb erevel, and it is said to signify
-appearing. The place would, indeed, be about the first locality in
-the plain region to appear to the eyes of the patriarch of old. [115]
-Hither may have been directed his steps and those of his family when
-the waters had receded from a world renewed. This may be the site of
-the original city of Noah, perhaps preserved beneath the soil upon
-which is built the present town. The more learned are inclined to
-a much later foundation, but do not yield in point of philological
-plausibility to the champions of the identification with Noah's
-city. They say that the name has been shortened from Erovantavan, which
-they render the place where Erovant was defeated. Erovant or Ervand was
-an Armenian monarch of the first century who was vanquished in this
-region by the lawful heir to the throne of the Arsakids at the head
-of a Persian army. The event and the survival of the name Erovantavan
-are attested by Moses of Khorene. [116] The Mohammedan derivation
-from Revan Kul, a prince of the reign of Shah Ismail (1502-1524),
-[117] who is said to have fortified the place by his master's order,
-cannot be reconciled with the fact that Erivan was already in existence
-certainly in the eleventh and probably in the seventh century. [118]
-But it played no prominent part whether in ancient or mediĉval history
-until the advent of the Ottoman Empire. From the sixteenth century into
-modern times it was continually disputed between the Sultans and their
-powerful neighbours on the east, the Persian Shahs. The enumeration
-of the sieges it sustained at the hands of Turks and Persians would be
-a tax upon my reader's patience which I am not disposed to levy. When
-the Russians appeared on the scene it was in Persian possession; and
-an unsuccessful attempt on their part to capture the fortress in 1804
-supplied the ground for the firm belief in its impregnability which
-was cherished by its Persian governors. This confidence was rudely
-shattered by Paskevich in October 1827. His shells wrought fearful
-havoc in the unsubstantial town, and one is said to have pierced the
-dome of the mosque in the citadel, whither thousands of the wretched
-inhabitants had fled for protection against the hail of the cannon. The
-Russian army entered the place without encountering any serious
-obstacle, and the Russian flag has waved there ever since. [119]
-
-One might expect to find some mosques of considerable age in a city
-which flourished under its Mohammedan masters. One must, however,
-recollect that the Ottoman Turks are Sunnis and the Persians Shiahs;
-what the one may erect the other loves to destroy. We are expressly
-told that when Shah Safi took the place in A.D. 1635 all the mosques
-built by the Turks were razed to the ground. [120] About the same time
-the position of the town, or perhaps only of the fortress, underwent
-a change, being removed some eight hundred paces to its present site
-on the rocky cliffs at the foot of which the Zanga flows. [121] The
-Persians do not appear to have enriched it at that period with any
-remarkable buildings; and it was recovered by the Turks in 1724. [122]
-Some ten years later it again fell into the hands of the Persians as
-one of the conquests of Nadir Shah. The principal mosque is said to
-date from the reign of this monarch. The curious old tower which was
-seen by Chardin as well as by Tournefort, and of which the lineaments
-have been handed down to us by the former of these travellers, has
-long since disappeared.
-
-Still the buildings which at present exist are well worth a visit;
-and I propose to invite my reader to accompany me in a leisurely
-ramble through the alleys of Erivan. The more populous quarters are
-divided into a western and an eastern half, at first by the broad,
-metalled road which comes from Tiflis, and, further south, by the
-central park. Speaking generally, the eastern half is inhabited by
-the Tartars and the western by the Armenians. In the one you will
-discover the mosques, in the other the churches. But the churches
-are either small and quite insignificant stone structures, or have
-been restored beyond recognition in comparatively recent and tasteless
-times. I counted no less than six, including the Russian church at the
-southern extremity of the town. Of these the oldest foundation would
-appear to be that of Surb Katholike, which stands in a pleasant walled
-garden, adjoining the great road, in the upper or northern quarter.
-An ancient elm dwarfs the humble oblong edifice, which is entered from
-a portal on the south side, added in 1861. The interior, which is very
-low, is disposed in a nave and aisles, an apse and two side apses or
-chapels. Chardin attributes a church of this name to the latest kings
-of Armenia, and the priests assured me that it was indeed the earliest
-in date at Erivan. It was here that in Persian times the katholikos
-would officiate, while residing in the provincial capital.
-
-A little lower down the road we pass Paulos Petros (Paul and Peter),
-the largest and the least pleasing of the town churches. But once we
-have left the wide avenue to become involved in the network of gardens
-on the north and north-west, any mediocrity in the buildings we visit
-is amply compensated by the charm of the enclosures in which they
-stand. Such verdure of every shade and constant hum of flowing water!
-To Surb Joannes we come first--four walls and a metal roof, to which
-is attached a wooden belfry, painted green. You see the Zanga issuing
-from a cleft in the barren hills, of which the hardness contrasts with
-the foliage at their base. The little portal of Joannes is quite a
-pretty feature, and I was informed that the church dates from the
-latter part of the seventeenth century. A more ambitious structure
-is Surb Zoravar, situated some little distance in an easterly
-direction, but still within the zone of these high slopes on the
-north. It is surrounded by old gardens and overshadowed by walnut
-trees. The body of the church is quite plain, four walls and a roof
-of low pitch; but an elaborate portal, surmounted by a belfry and
-supported by four massive piers, extends the whole length of the west
-front. Two piers in the centre are panelled and richly carved by the
-most delicate of chisels. There is a very old doorway on the south
-side with spiral mouldings, and the frescos over the principal
-entrance--a rare feature--are well drawn and show good feeling for
-colour. I understand that the present church has supplanted an older
-building; but I will not vouch for the statement that the portal is
-due to Moses Katholikos (A.D. 1629-1632), as I was informed by the
-aged and ignorant priest. He came at last, after many peals from the
-belfry, his tottering frame supported by a lay companion. The clergy
-of Erivan are not more enlightened than the most backward of their
-profession in remote districts of the Turkish provinces.
-
-On the other hand the greater material well-being of the laity is
-made manifest by the air of comparative comfort presented by the
-interiors of their places of worship. Of course one misses the pews
-of our English churches, or the serried lines of chairs which furnish
-the temples of the Continent. But the floors are well carpeted and the
-bare walls kept in repair. From Surb Zoravar one may readily regain
-the Tiflis road and pass in a southerly direction along the central
-park. Thence it is no great distance to the principal mosque of the
-city, the Gök Jami or mosque of heaven. This edifice is situated in
-the western half of Erivan, and is surrounded by dwellings of Tartars
-in considerable number, overlapping into the Armenian quarters. It is
-approached from the narrow streets of a bazar consisting of booths,
-and is entered by a handsome doorway at the side of an imposing
-minaret, of which the surface is diversified by designs in polychrome
-tiles (Fig. 43). You pass through a vaulted passage into the great
-court (Fig. 44). It is a vast place, shady and serene. Lofty elms of
-great age shadow the basin of overflowing water which bubbles in the
-centre of the paved spaces. Upon its margin are gathered figures in
-long robes and turbans, or attired in the Persian fashion and wearing
-the Persian lambskin hat. These are busy with their ablutions; while
-elsewhere, beneath the shade, mollahs are instructing groups of their
-younger pupils, seated on mats spread upon the flags. Beds of single
-dahlias refresh and please the eye. Of life and movement there is no
-lack; people are coming and going; there in the distance a train of
-shapeless forms in deep blue draperies makes its way to the women's
-mosque. But the absence of the least suspicion of haste spreads an
-atmosphere of delightful repose. It requires no small fortitude--they
-would call it diseased curiosity--to pace from side to side and
-ascertain that this quadrangle measures 87 paces by 58. The latter
-is the dimension of the side on the south, upon which is built the
-temple itself (Fig. 45). Beneath the spacious dome men and women are
-gathered indiscriminately, the women veiled in Persian fashion. There
-is nothing very remarkable in the architecture of the mosque; but the
-floral paintings which adorn the ceiling of a companion and smaller
-edifice on the north side of the court are of very high merit. The
-remainder of the quadrangle is taken up by rows of low buildings,
-containing chambers in which the older scholars pursue their studies.
-One wonders what they may be learning. A mollah of importance informs
-us that the Gök Jami was built in the time of Nadir Shah (A.D. 1736-
-1747) by the sirdar, Hoseyn Ali Khan.
-
-With the exception of the mosque in the fortress, the religious
-edifices of the Mohammedans are extremely well maintained. I counted
-three mosques in the Tartar quarters. That of Haji Nusrallah Bey and
-the Shehr Jami (town mosque) are almost exactly similar in design.
-The former is evidently a replica of the latter, which displays a
-Turkish inscription on the outer door with a date which we read as
-1098 (A.D. 1687). But it must have been restored since that time.
-Although much smaller than Gök Jami, it bears some resemblance to
-that building; and the walled court with its fountain and beds of
-long-stalked dahlias is as pleasant a refuge from dusty alleys as
-man could desire.
-
-But perhaps the most interesting monument is the kiosque of the
-sirdars, in the extreme southern angle of the town. We may approach
-it from the west, and take Surb Sargis on the way. That church and
-pleasant terrace on the high land above the Zanga commands an
-extensive view over the southern quarters and across the plain to
-Ararat. The deeply-bedded river is flowing on an easterly course
-towards the fortress and the gardens of the sirdars outside its walls.
-After skirting those parapets it will turn abruptly in the reverse
-direction, and pursue a more tranquil career to the Araxes. The
-fortress to which we proceed is still some distance off, and the
-walls of mud and rubble which line the cliffs on the left bank of
-the Zanga are rapidly falling into total ruin. While they are flanked
-by the swirling stream they may once have possessed some power of
-resistance; but after the river has deserted the site beyond the
-abrupt bend, the town is exposed immediately to the plain. The
-sirdar's palace composes the kernel of the fortified area, and its
-windows overlook the river. But the extensive buildings of his well-
-stocked harem, the magazines of his garrison and the abodes of his
-courtiers have either disappeared altogether or are rapidly crumbling
-away. From among a heap of ruins rises intact a single edifice, which
-is kept in repair by the Russians. It is the pavilion in which the
-sirdar was wont to beguile his leisure. From the window in the alcove
-of this elaborate interior (Fig. 46) he would feast his eyes on the
-landscape--the river at his feet, his own shady garden in the plain,
-the dim spaces backed by the fabric of Ararat. Here he exercised his
-skill as a marksman upon the donkeys of the unfortunate peasants,
-sending a ball through them as they wound along the road on the right
-bank of the Zanga towards the bridge with its two pointed arches. [123]
-This bridge is placed just below the pavilion, and is still the only
-avenue of communication between Erivan and the country beyond the
-river. What consummation of Oriental felicity to sit on cushions in
-this glittering apartment and watch the caravans which fill your
-coffers defiling below! From time to time there may come an embassy
-to your overlord of Persia, and there will be a report to dictate upon
-the size and splendour of the cavalcade. The beauties of Georgia and
-Circassia luxuriate in the adjoining halls, and water flows in
-abundance everywhere. The governor of Erivan was quite a little king
-in the country, and, when he travelled, the inhabitants of the
-villages along his route would immolate an ox in his honour. [124]
-
-The incrustation which my reader may admire upon the vaulting of the
-alcove is composed of pieces of mirror which shine like the facets
-of a jewel. An encrusted cornice of the same material surmounts the
-walls of the pavilion below a ceiling profusely adorned with floral
-designs, conspicuous being the iris and the rose. Eight paintings
-on canvas, applied to shallow recesses, are distributed around the
-room. I believe they are copies, made since the Russian occupation,
-of originals which had fallen into decay. The two which are comprised
-by my illustration, one on either side of the alcove, represent on
-the left hand the figure of Hoseyn Khan Sirdar, and, on the right,
-the Persian hero Feramez. Of the remainder, three are portraits--Fath
-Ali, Shah of Persia (1797-1834), his son Abbas Mirza and Hasan Khan,
-brother to the Sirdar Hoseyn; while an equal number are indifferent
-renderings of heroic personages--the warriors Sherab and Rustem,
-and a Persian Amazon. One of my predecessors has recorded that at
-the time of his visit in 1834 the panels in the alcove were adorned
-with four pictures setting forth subjects which were well conceived
-to amuse the fancy of an old debauchee. A Mussulman was receiving
-wine from a fair Georgian in the presence of the monks of Edgmiatsin,
-whose arguments had been less potent to effect his conversion than
-the fleshly charms of the Christian girl. A Persian beauty in loose
-trousers and diaphanous upper garment was making her obeisance to the
-Shah. Here a prince of the blood royal in costume of the chase dallied
-with a maiden while her aged father lay asleep; there the beautiful
-features of Joseph spread havoc among the assembled ladies at the house
-of the wife of Potiphar. [125] These various incitements to delight
-no longer grace the forlorn kiosque, and perhaps their disappearance
-is no great loss to the world of art. The original decoration, which
-is quite intact, upon the walls and ceiling enables us to judge how
-great had been the artistic decadence of Persia since her painters
-displayed their skill upon the walls of the Chehel Situn, the noble
-pavilion on the banks of the Zenda Rud.
-
-From this kiosque we may make our way to the adjoining mosque of
-the fortress, which is now no longer frequented by the faithful. It
-stands a little east of the old palace; the interior beneath the
-spacious dome is decorated with much skill by means of little bricks
-of many colours. The great court is already ruinous. An old henna-
-stained attendant informed us that it was erected in the reign of
-Fath Ali Shah and that it was known as the Abbas Mirza Jami. Walls
-and palace and mosque are, I conclude, already doomed. Hard by their
-crumbling remains are seen the barracks of the Russian garrison and
-the metal roof of a Russian church. The last of the sirdars is
-already long since dead, he whose portrait hangs on the wall of the
-pavilion. He died in a miserable stable, bereft of everything but the
-squalid garment which clothed his aged body. Yet his memory is
-pleasantly associated with one of the favourite episodes of Persian
-romance. It is related that a young Georgian travelled to this
-fortress above the Zanga to catch a glimpse of his betrothed in the
-sirdar's harem. The girl, espying her lover, precipitated herself
-towards him from the window, and was saved from certain death by a
-willow which broke her fall. The pair were captured; but the incident
-touched the heart of her jealous owner, who pardoned them both and
-let them go. His generous speech has been preserved: "Hearts so
-closely united let no man endeavour to part." [126]
-
-Perhaps the best introduction to the population of a city consists in
-a visit to the schools. Erivan is better supplied in respect both of
-elementary and secondary education than any other town in the Armenian
-provinces of the Russian Empire. But, before recording my personal
-impressions of what I saw during a brief inspection, I should like to
-review the conditions which govern the schools. When Russia became
-mistress of a large portion of Armenia, her rulers found that their
-Armenian subjects were already in possession of a school system of
-which, with their customary tenacity, they were extremely jealous,
-and which probably dated from the invention of the Armenian alphabet
-as early as the fifth century. The Church has been for long ages the
-pillar of Armenian nationality; and the schools were affiliated to
-the Church. There were not therefore wanting all the elements of a
-bitter quarrel; and if any question more than another has envenomed
-the relations between the Armenians and their Russian rulers it is
-this question of the schools.
-
-When the constitution of the Armenian Church and its relations to the
-Government were embodied in a State document, a chapter was inserted
-by virtue of which the Tsar of Russia formally recognised the Church
-schools. [127] They were stated to have as their object the religious
-and moral education of the children, and to be under the guidance
-and supervision of the bishops. It was provided that their rules and
-curricula should be submitted to the synod at Edgmiatsin, and that
-this body should in turn transmit them for acceptance to the Minister
-of the Interior. A rider was added to the effect that it was a matter
-of importance that the clergy should become acquainted with the Russian
-language, and with the history and geography of the Russian Empire.
-
-It is only fair to the Government to remark, by way of parenthesis,
-that although a period of over half a century has elapsed since the
-promulgation of this document, few teachers and still fewer pupils
-have yet displayed even moderate proficiency in the speaking and
-writing of Russian. With the growth of material prosperity, which
-was the outcome of the Russian occupation, the Armenian schools
-prospered and their standards rose. The teachers, who were laymen,
-were taken from good families; and one may safely assert that
-at the present day the Armenian youth are instructed by the best
-educated and best informed among their countrymen. Many of them have
-studied in Europe, principally in Germany, and are men of far higher
-attainments in the field of knowledge than such as might be required
-by the teaching which they are permitted to dispense. The first step
-taken by Government to cut the wings of the national schools was the
-limitation of the standard of instruction. The class is in Russia the
-measure of this standard, the first class standing at the bottom of
-the scale. Schools of five classes were frequently attached to the
-churches; and the scholars who desired to pursue their studies still
-further passed to the so-called seminary of the diocese in which they
-lived. In this manner it was possible for a youth to receive all but
-the highest university education in his native language and through
-his native institutions. It is true that the Minister of the Interior
-had a right of censorship; but in view of the gravity of the fancied
-danger this safeguard was only partial. So the Government drew the pen
-through the third, fourth, and fifth classes and left the Armenians
-nothing more than the elementary course. Such action was thought to
-be arbitrary in view of the fact that these schools are supported by
-purely voluntary contributions.
-
-Empire! what insidious wickedness, surpassing the horrors of war, is
-committed in the name of empire! Surely it is a right as elementary
-as that of security for life and property to supervise the education
-of your children. One might sympathise with the Russian Government had
-they merely required that the standard of instruction should not fall
-below the standard of schools in Russia. Nor should we be inclined to
-withhold our sympathy if they had only renewed their insistence upon
-the necessity of a knowledge of Russian. That was the wise as well as
-the humane policy. The ukase of 1884 was conceived in a very different
-spirit, and may be branded as an infamous document. It provided that
-Church schools with more than two classes should be placed upon the
-same basis as private schools in Russia, that is to say that the whole
-of the instruction should be conducted in the Russian language. This
-was tantamount to closing such schools. The supreme control of the
-elementary schools was transferred from the Ministry of the Interior
-to the Department of Education. The seminaries were suffered to exist
-upon the basis of the decree of 1836, but their object was defined
-to be the preparation of clergymen to meet the requirements of the
-Armenian Church.
-
-The synod at Edgmiatsin, although already placed in leading strings
-by Government, did not see their way to accept this decree. They
-urged that, since it had been issued during a vacancy of the Chair,
-its consideration should be postponed until the election of a new
-katholikos. Government retaliated by closing the schools. Nor were they
-again opened until in 1886 the pontiff Makar signified his consent
-to the provisions of the ukase, subject to some small concession as
-to the scope of the curricula in schools of two classes. The higher
-classes remained closed. Such was the situation at the time of my
-visit. It had, however, been further enacted that after the lapse
-of a prescribed period every teacher in an Armenian school should
-be required to possess a certificate from the Russian Department of
-Education. In order to obtain this certificate the candidate must
-pass an examination conducted in the Russian language. The term of
-grace was coming to an end in a few months, and I gathered that few
-teachers had acquired the necessary linguistic proficiency. [128]
-
-Education is not a department of human activity which can be properly
-conducted upon military principles. The only discipline healthy for
-the mind is that which is derived from the unfettered exercise of the
-faculties with which it has been endowed. In Erivan I had occasion to
-remark the contrast in intellectual atmosphere between the Russian
-and the Armenian school. Here were offered two typical examples of
-these diverse species, still existing side by side. As the capital of
-a diocese, the Church has still the right to possess a seminary in the
-town of Erivan. The seminary embraces the standards which we may call
-secondary education, and has no less than six classes. It has contrived
-to evade the restrictions which are in the spirit of the ukase of 1884
-in respect of the character of its pupils. It was quite obvious that
-very few were destined to take orders, although perhaps the majority
-of the 360 scholars were included in the elementary classes. There
-was no trace of any clerical bias in the choice of treatises; and
-the teachers in secular subjects were, I believe, all laymen. One
-at least was a young man of exceptional ability, trained in Europe
-at his own expense. It would be difficult to find among the staff
-of our secondary schools a master better equipped for his task. The
-pupils, whose age extended from ten to twenty years, did not appear
-to acquire knowledge by rote. The Principal spoke the German language
-fluently and was in touch with the thought of the West. Yet even this
-privileged institution has been clipped of much of its usefulness
-by being placed at an unfair advantage as compared to the Russian
-school. It is interdicted the seventh and eighth classes, although
-there can be no doubt in respect of the competency of its staff. It
-is perhaps for this reason that it is not as a rule attended by sons
-of the richest citizens. Its income of £1800 a year is principally
-subscribed by Armenians of means. Only about a sixth of the sum comes
-from the pupils. The majority receive their education free of charge.
-
-The subjects taught in the highest class are theology and psychology,
-mathematics, physics, logic, modern history and modern languages. In
-the latter category they are restricted by order to Russian and
-French. The instruction is conducted in Armenian except in the case of
-Russian language and literature, when the Russian tongue is used. Their
-text-book in psychology was a Russian translation of Alexander Bain and
-in logic of W. S. Jevons. Besides this seminary, which is attached to
-the church of Surb Sargis, there is a school for girls with 200 pupils.
-
-The Russian school is mainly supported by the State out of revenues
-derived from taxation. It has the rank and is known by the name of
-a gymnasium in the German acceptation of that term. Its subvention
-produces a yearly income of £4500, which is supplemented by the
-fees paid by nine-tenths of the scholars, amounting to about £4 a
-head. Out of 260 boys and youths some 26 were boarders and the rest day
-pupils. The boarders sleep in a long dormitory, kept scrupulously clean
-and neat. The majority pay for their maintenance £25 a year; the poorer
-can only afford £15. The school is housed in a commodious building
-in the centre of the town and exhibits every sign of prosperity. It
-has large and well-furnished reception rooms for days of fête. The
-class rooms, with their rows of forms and large black-boards, inspire a
-salutary awe. The library is well stocked and does the Russian Director
-great credit, as does the general organisation of the institution.
-
-But the spirit of the place is that of the camp; the methods are
-purely military, and one almost expects the sound of a bugle to
-announce which lesson shall be rehearsed. Since human memory is of
-brief span and the recollection of facts is of no great value, it is
-not so much this faculty that requires cultivation as the habit of
-study and the power to collate facts. The education dispensed by this
-school will not produce scholars or thinkers; indeed the pen is here
-the servant of the sword. But at least it serves to sharpen the wits,
-and to induce a nimbleness of mind which can scarcely fail to be of
-use to its Mohammedan members.
-
-All who can afford to buy a uniform appear in trousers and tunic of
-blue cloth, enlivened with brass buttons. A dress of similar material
-is worn by the ushers. The pupils are drilled and put through simple
-military exercises; they may be seen marching with music at their
-head. Yet this is a civil institution. It is the only gymnasium or High
-School in the Russian provinces of the Armenian plateau. At the time
-of my visit the school list contained the names of 159 Armenians, 67
-Russians, 9 Georgians, 7 Poles and 18 Tartars. Only the last belonged
-to the Mohammedan religion.
-
-When it is remembered that the Tartars compose one-half of the
-inhabitants and are numerous in the districts about Erivan, the poor
-show which they make among the inmates of this important school is
-a very significant fact. As a body, they shut themselves off from
-Western education; and for this reason they appear destined to be
-edged out by the Armenians, as a species unable to adapt itself to
-the new environment. They are still in possession of some of the
-richest land in the province, and many among them are wealthy men of
-leisure. These khans occasionally send a son to the school. But the
-Director informed me that youths of this class were rarely successful;
-they were indolent and left at an early age. Those who belonged to
-the middle class stayed longer and were much more hopeful. Although
-I passed through every room while the students were pursuing their
-tasks, I only counted six Tartars, all told. The method of procedure
-was extremely entertaining. Accompanied by the amiable Director,
-I was introduced to the presiding usher, who would descend from his
-daïs and extend his hand. Some fifty to a hundred bright black eyes
-were focussed upon us; all were standing, not a muscle moved and
-not a sound was heard. Then some such little comedy as this would be
-gone through:--
-
-The Director (addressing myself in German). "This is the Latin
-class. Permit me to present you to M. ----off". (In Russian) Pupils,
-you may sit down (a single clap and shuffle--perfect silence). You,
-Sir, will please address the Professor in the Latin tongue."
-
-Myself (after a long and embarrassed pause). "Gratias ago;
-clementiam, benigne rector, reposco. Consuetudinem linguĉ Latinĉ
-parum conservo. Verum versus video in nigra ista tabula inscriptos,
-mihi valde familiares: 'O utinam tunc quum Lacedĉmona classe petebat,
-obrutus insanis esset adulter aquis.' Vellem interrogare discipulos
-quisnam ille fuerit adulter."
-
-The Usher (a forlorn and crushed individual. At first listless; but he
-encounters the flashing eyes of the little Director, and stammers). "Sv
-... svit ... niet, niet ..." (and he proceeds in Russian).
-
-The Director. "My colleague desires me to state that he quite
-understands what you said. You wished to express admiration of our
-new blackboards. I thank you in his and my name. Is there any question
-you would like to put?"
-
-Myself. "There appear to be about thirty boys in this class. I wonder
-what proportion Tartars bear to Armenians among them."
-
-The Director. "Russians, stand up!" (some four or five fair-haired
-and closely-cropped youths rise in their places. Their faces show
-intelligence, and one likes them)--"Armenians, stand up!" (the
-first batch sit down; practically the whole class springs to its
-feet)--"Tartars, stand up!" (one little boy at the extreme end of
-the class confronts his seated schoolmates).
-
-One feature of this institution seemed specially well conceived;
-it was the manner in which the religious difficulty was solved. Two
-different religions--the Mohammedan and the Christian--and three
-distinct professions of the latter--the Gregorian Armenian, Roman
-Catholic (Poles), and so-called Russian Orthodox--were represented
-among the pupils and were expounded to their several votaries by
-as many diverse types of the holders of sacerdotal office. Separate
-rooms were set aside in which the mollah taught Islam, and the papa
-or padre or vardapet explained the New Testament. In this manner
-each youth received instruction in the faith of his fathers at the
-hands of one of its official exponents; while the rub and wear of
-continual intercourse in the secular classes accustomed Mohammedan
-and Christian, Russian Orthodox and Gregorian Armenian to respect
-their classmates and to tolerate each other's faith. The extension
-of such a system over the whole of these provinces would be likely
-to work incalculable good; and, side by side with glaring defects in
-the methods of secular instruction, it is a real pleasure to be able
-to congratulate the State schools upon such a salutary feature and
-cordially to wish them success.
-
-The Tartars of Erivan are for the most part of Turkish descent, and
-of kindred race to the bulk of the inhabitants of the neighbouring
-Persian province of Azerbaijan. But some of the number included
-under this name in the statistics may more properly be designated as
-Persians. All profess the Shiah tenets. I had expected to find them
-extremely fanatical, judging by my experience of their co-religionists
-in Persia, and by an account given of them by a French traveller. [129]
-But not only are Christians permitted to enter their mosques; they are
-even received with cordiality by the groups assembled in the outer
-courts. I do not know whether this altered demeanour may be due to
-a policy of no nonsense pursued by the Russian Government. If such
-be the case it is a significant fact. How often have I stood before
-the door of a mosque in Persia, casting eager glances at the vista of
-priceless treasures within! On each occasion I have in vain appealed
-to the Governor, who would urge that he could not be responsible for
-my safety, and beg me not to attempt to enter. At Erivan I was invited
-to penetrate into every part, and to stand by the side of the faithful
-while they prayed. I have already stated that the Tartar inhabitants
-include many men of means, who live on the proceeds of their extensive
-gardens. But a good proportion of the large shop-keepers belong to
-this race, and are well-mannered and fairly well-educated men. I
-fancy, however, that they would scarcely be able to compete with
-the Armenians, were it not for the support of patrons of their own
-blood. For the rest, the small hucksters and the sellers of fruit
-are in a very large proportion Tartar. So, almost exclusively, are
-the workers in mud after their various kinds: plasterers, embankers,
-makers of ducts to water the gardens. The gardeners and drivers of
-carts largely belong to this nation; but there is scarcely a carpenter
-or a skilled mason who is not an Armenian.
-
-While the Tartars are reputed to hoard, the Armenians are excessively
-lavish, and spend large sums in building themselves fine houses. Many
-an ornate villa in Italian style may be seen emerging from the
-foliage of the gardens. Here and there quite a little palace faces
-the street. Yet, with all their comparative wealth, they have not
-yet emerged from the material stage, and I searched in vain for a
-bookseller. Indeed, in spite of many signs of progress and of her
-favourable geographical position, Erivan can scarcely yet be said
-to be connected with the pulse of the great world. Here is a city
-not so far from Europe, and needing capital for her development;
-yet scarcely any capital has found its way in. Teheran, although
-much more distant, has a numerous European colony; and there is not
-an enterprise, from banks to electric lighting and tramways, which a
-number of candidates are not contending with each other to supply. You
-will not meet a single foreign industrialist in Erivan, nor be able
-to purchase any but Russian newspapers. Even the Armenians are not
-encouraged to develop the resources of the country. The following
-question which I addressed to a prominent Armenian capitalist may
-exhibit, together with the answer, the magnitude of those resources
-and the reasons assigned for the fact that they are not exploited.
-
-Q. "Can you explain to me why so little use is made of your natural
-advantages--the immense extent of idle soil and the abundance of
-water? In the north you have the vast reservoir of Lake Sevan;
-in the south the Araxes, running in full stream to the Caspian
-Sea. Cultivation might surely be increased to many times its present
-area without any great expense."
-
-A. "The waste lands are for the most part in the hands of the
-Russian Government, and they are not inclined to sell or lease them
-to Armenians. They are believed to be keeping them for Russians,
-but the Russians do not come. A successful piece of reclamation has
-been made by General Cheremetieff in the neighbourhood of Ararat. We
-have made repeated proposals to take lands and irrigate them, but we
-have never been able to obtain permission."
-
-Perhaps, if these lines come to the eyes of M. Witte, he will give
-the matter the attention which it deserves.
-
-The same exclusive economical policy, as manifested in protective
-duties, has deflected commerce from the natural avenue of the valley
-of the Araxes, and caused it to pursue more lengthy and less convenient
-routes. There is scarcely any transit trade with Persia. The prosperity
-of the place is therefore dependent on native industries, which
-comprise the cultivation and export of cotton, wine and rice. Cotton
-to the value of about £400,000 is annually despatched by waggon or
-camel to the station of Akstafa on the Tiflis railway, and thence, viâ
-Batum and the Black Sea or Baku and the Caspian, to the manufacturing
-centres of Russia. Three large Russian firms are locally represented
-by offices and factories, where the cotton is purchased and cleaned
-and pressed. The presses, which are of English make, are driven by
-horse power. While this industry is in the hands of Russians the trade
-in wine is conducted by Armenians; and very excellent wine have they
-succeeded in producing. The value of the yearly export, which goes
-exclusively to Russia, is as yet only £20,000. But the enterprise of
-M. Karapet Afrikean, who has closely studied his subject in Germany,
-has already effected a marked improvement in the quality of the wine,
-and is likely to lead to a great increase in the demand. Rice is also
-exported and in considerable quantities to Erzerum and the Turkish
-provinces. The fruits of Erivan are almost unrivalled in the world;
-but I do not know that they are preserved and sent away.
-
-Such is the city which, with its vast and populous province,
-absorbs all the time and all the energies of its Russian governor,
-sitting at his green baize table overlooking the park. General Frese
-has a real affection for that table, which he has shaped to fit his
-figure. From early morning to late night his erect and military form
-is condemned to that inactive but rigid posture. He never indulges in
-the relaxation of an arm-chair. While you puff your cigarette among
-his hospitable cushions, he will discourse upon the mighty rivers
-and forests of Siberia from across the field of green baize. Dinner
-is served in a room displaying all the skill of Persian artists,
-and overlooking, through a window composed of tiny panes of glass,
-a miniature garden disposed as for the stage of a theatre. I need
-hardly say that this work of fancy was not created by the order
-of the present occupant of Government House. Still the fare at his
-table is worthy of the most refined palate; such excellent trout and
-tender chickens and the pick of the native wine! Immediately after
-the meal he resumes his seat in the adjoining room behind the green
-baize. He attributes the backwardness of the country to excessive
-centralisation at St. Petersburg, a process which has been tending
-to assume increasing proportions now that the Caucasus is no longer
-administered by a Grand Duke.
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XVI
-
-EDGMIATSIN AND THE ARMENIAN CHURCH
-
-
-At five o'clock in the afternoon of the 4th of October we set out for
-Edgmiatsin. It is a drive of about thirteen miles across the plain. Our
-luggage was consigned to a waggon of the post, and we ourselves enjoyed
-the luxury of a light victoria, drawn by four horses abreast. They
-covered the distance in an hour and forty minutes, although the road
-is in many places a mere track.
-
-What a drive! It is so well within reach of Europe that it ought to
-be included, like the journey to Italy, in the programme of a liberal
-education. The railway will before long arrive at Erivan, and then the
-pilgrimage will be still easier to undertake. Not all the tourists in
-the world will disturb the harmony of this landscape; the screeching
-trains, the loud hotels, the Babel of tongues will be lost, like
-a flight of starlings, in this expanse. It is here that the spirit
-of Asia is most intensely present--an inner sanctuary to those outer
-courts through which the traveller may have wandered and never crossed
-the threshold of this plain. And it is a spirit and an influence which
-arouse deep chords within us and send them sounding through our lives.
-
-The landscape at once combines and accentuates the salient features of
-the Asiatic highlands. There is the plain which was once the bed of an
-inland sea. It stretches west and east without visible limits; and this
-evening it has all the appearance of water. In the west it is mirage
-which produces this effect. The long north-western slope of the Ararat
-fabric assumes the character of a dark and narrow promontory rising
-on an opposite shore. From the east, beyond the train of the Little
-Ararat, a cold mist--may it be from the Caspian?--is slowly wafted over
-the steppe, and the illusion is complete. Into those liquid spaces
-sweep the basal vaultings of Alagöz--the boulder-strewn declivities
-which we keep on our right hand, and which seem to embody on a typical
-scale that quality of hopeless sterility which is characteristic of
-vast portions of the continent. But the same vague distance receives
-the Zanga, diffused into many channels, and lost beneath luxuriant
-foliage. For over a quarter of an hour after leaving Erivan we pass
-at a rapid trot between the walls of orchards; and in places the water
-gushes from the conduits across the road. Once outside this intricate
-zone the track wanders over the idle soil, skirting the stony slopes
-in the north. In the opposite direction the plain blooms with fields
-of cotton and rice, sustained by a small canal which pursues a westerly
-course before it falls into the Araxes, if indeed it flow so far.
-
-And there are the mountains of Asia--the volcanoes with their vaulted
-summits, as well as those long ridges with their serrated outline
-which represent the operation of less impetuous forces through longer
-spaces of time. To this second category belongs the fine chain on the
-west of Ararat which gains in definition as we proceed. It stands
-a little back and behind the fabric of Ararat, and volcanoes too
-have built themselves up upon this wall. But its rugged and tumbled
-appearance is the feature which predominates, in striking contrast
-to the symmetry of the mountain of the Ark. That giant overpowers the
-lesser Ararat and appropriates their common base. One stands in wonder
-at the force which could have rent that massive pedestal and opened
-the yawning chasm which fronts the plain. Night creeps into those
-recesses, where the blaze of a Kurdish camp-fire calls attention to
-the extraordinary transparence of the air. The snow-fields, bare and
-cold above the amber of the sunset, are already free of their coronal
-of cloud. One full-puffed vapour still floats behind the uppermost
-pinnacle; another clings to the bastion on the north-west. While we
-admire this stately scene, made more impressive by the heavy silence,
-a grove of trees rises from the steppe on our point of course. Two
-little conical shapes just emerge above their outline, and are
-recognised as the domes of Edgmiatsin.
-
-We pass through the thin plantation, sustained by runnels derived from
-Alagöz, and come to a halt before the doorway of a lofty mud wall with
-round towers at intervals. It might belong to a Persian fortress; but
-it is the outer wall which surrounds the cloister with the cathedral
-of St. Gregory. The massive gate is closed, and we thump and thump for
-some time in vain. The parapet with its crumbling surface betrays no
-sign of the life within. But there is just sufficient light to reveal
-the surroundings of the fortified enclosure--a straggling village of
-above-ground houses, outlying churches, poplars, dust. [130]
-
-At last the hinges creak and the porter appears. We are ushered
-into a court, like that of a college at Cambridge, adjoining the
-great gate which is in the south wall. It is known as the pilgrims'
-court (Fig. 47). Low buildings, rudely built, with a continuous
-wooden verandah, compose the quadrangle. The windows are all lit up
-behind a line of young trees of which the foliage rustles in the night
-air. Several figures may be discerned on the steps of a basin of water
-in the centre of the court. The place is all bustle and stir. Every
-room, so we are told, in the whole monastery is occupied by as many
-people as it will hold. Quarters have been reserved for us in the
-principal court; but we are not expected until to-morrow. Sooner than
-disturb the peace of evening we retire to a room in the village where
-we erect our camp beds. It is quite a dormitory. My immediate neighbour
-speaks English and is a correspondent of the Daily News. He is an
-Armenian gentleman who has come all the way from Tabriz, partly in the
-capacity of delegate of his countrymen in the Persian city, and partly
-as the representative of the London newspaper. He talks incessantly;
-his companions do the same. The great event of the coming days will
-form an epoch in their lives, and every incident will be indelibly
-imprinted upon their memories. A thrilling and detailed narrative
-will be despatched to London, where it will filter through the brain
-of the sub-editor and issue in the form of a paragraph in small type.
-
-But the newspaper will be to blame; for it is an event, this
-consecration of the latest pontiff of the Armenian Church. It is
-an event both by reason of the personality of the new katholikos and
-because within recent years the fact has slowly dawned upon Europe that
-the politics of Western Asia must react upon the Western peoples,
-and that in those politics the Armenians are destined to play a
-part. The Church is at the present day the only native institution
-which has been preserved to that people. All their aspirations as
-human beings desirous to live as human beings are focussed by that
-single organisation. The broad democratic basis upon which reposes
-the election of the patriarch invests him with a representative
-character. Moreover he is not chosen by a section of his countrymen but
-by the nation as a whole. The Armenians of Turkey and of Persia as well
-as those within Russian territory contribute their suffrages. It is
-therefore only natural that, in the absence of secular institutions,
-the head of the Church should be much more than a merely spiritual
-ruler, and should reflect and in no small measure be expected to
-instruct the temporal hopes and fears of his flock.
-
-The Russian Government have not been slow in recognising this fact;
-nor does the anxiety with which it is regarded in official circles
-date from the contemporary prominence of the Armenian Question. In
-the heyday of their relations with this Christian nation which hailed
-them as liberators, and which was placed in the very centre of the
-Mussulman peoples over which they were slowly establishing their sway,
-the Russians lavished favours upon Edgmiatsin; [131] and rightly or
-wrongly they are now accused by their Armenian allies, become their
-subjects, of having excited hopes which, when they had served the ends
-of Russian policy, were rudely and almost brutally suppressed. It
-is certain that the Armenian inhabitants of the provinces which now
-belong to Russia favoured the Russians in their campaigns against
-Persia and Turkey at the risk of reprisals on the part of their
-Mussulman masters. They smoothed the way for the extension of the
-Russian Empire from the valley of the Kur to that of the Araxes. The
-first great step in this direction was effected at the commencement of
-the present century, when the kingdom of Georgia was organised into
-a Russian province. The acquisition of Georgia afforded the Russians
-a foothold upon the tableland, and brought them into direct contact
-with the Persians and with the Turks. Their first battle against the
-Persians was fought on the 20th of June 1804, and resulted in the
-repulse of the Shah's forces, which were led by his son, the famous
-Abbas Mirza. This action took place in the immediate neighbourhood of
-Edgmiatsin, and on the same day upon which was celebrated the annual
-festival of St. Ripsime, one of the saints who are the special glory
-of the cloister. The Armenians did not disguise the direction of their
-sympathies, and attributed, the Russian victory to the intervention
-of their Saint. [132] Ten years later, when the monastery was visited
-by Morier, the patriarch was wearing a high Russian order, of which
-the star glittered on his purple robe. [133]
-
-In 1828 Edgmiatsin was annexed to Russia after the capture
-of Erivan from the Persians and as a result of the Treaty of
-Turkomanchai. Throughout the wars which ensued with Turkey the
-Armenians espoused the Russian cause; and one cannot doubt that
-their assistance was of considerable benefit both to Paskevich
-during the campaigns of 1828-29, and to Loris Melikoff, himself of
-Armenian origin, in that of 1877. [134] Little by little a certain
-bitterness becomes appreciable in these honeymoon relations. The
-origin or perhaps the reflection of this new feeling may be found
-in the provisions of the important statute which defines the status
-of the Armenian Church in Russia and regulates the constitution of
-Edgmiatsin. This statute, which is generally known as the Polojenye,
-is headed by the signature of the Tsar Nicholas and bears the date
-of March 1836. It was translated for me by one of the monks. In
-some respects it deals most liberally with the national Church. Her
-congregations are accorded full liberty of worship, and her clergy
-are relieved from all civil burdens. The principle of the election of
-the katholikos by the whole Armenian people professing the national
-religion is expressly recognised. The method of his election is
-minutely prescribed. The national delegates assemble in the church
-of St. Gregory, and submit two names to the Emperor, who makes the
-appointment. [135] On the other hand, in true Russian fashion, what
-is given with one hand is taken away with the other. The synod of
-Edgmiatsin is an ancient institution which, according to Armenian
-traditions, advises the katholikos, and may even resist him should he
-desire to effect changes in matters intimately affecting the national
-faith. [136] The Polojenye emphasises and develops the constitutional
-importance of this body, and places it under the titular presidency
-of the Emperor. The decrees of the synod are headed "By order of the
-Emperor of Russia"; and they are submitted to a Russian procurator,
-resident at Edgmiatsin, who examines into their validity. In matters
-of a purely spiritual nature the katholikos takes counsel with the
-synod, but need not necessarily accept its recommendations. But in
-all the general business of the Church, as well as of the cloister,
-it is the synod which has jurisdiction subject to the approval of
-the Minister of the Interior. In the synod, which consists of eight
-priests resident at Edgmiatsin, the katholikos has no more than a
-casting vote. It is true that he might act by Bull. But such action,
-were it contrary to the resolutions of the synod, would, as matters
-now stand, be revolutionary. In this manner the katholikos is put
-into leading strings, of which the ends are held by the officials on
-the banks of the Neva, duly instructed by a professed and resident spy.
-
-Nor are the remaining provisions of this double-faced instrument
-calculated to shed balm over the wounded dignity of the head of the
-Church. It is the Emperor who appoints the members of the synod,
-although the katholikos is entrusted with the important function of
-submitting two names for the Imperial choice. It is not legal for
-the pontiff to punish a member of the synod without the Imperial
-consent. The same authority is necessary should he desire to suspend
-a bishop. He may not leave the cloister for more than four months
-except with the sanction of the Tsar. When a bishopric falls vacant he
-submits names to the Emperor, with whom the appointment rests. Should
-the bishop desire to go abroad for more than four months, application
-must be made to the same high quarter. But perhaps the most serious
-because the most insidious weapon against the independence of the
-national Church is the provision which enacts that a year shall
-elapse between the death of a katholikos and the election of his
-successor. This clause was accepted with singular want of foresight
-at a time when travelling was even slower than it is at the present
-day, and when it was difficult to collect the delegates from Turkey
-and Persia within a lesser period. In practice it is not easy for
-the new katholikos to take up his duties until some time subsequent
-to his election; and, should further delay be of advantage to the
-Government, the Tsar can always defer confirming the choice of the
-representatives. Thus a vacancy in the Chair is always accompanied by
-a long interregnum, during which the Government plays off one party
-against the other, and succeeds in obtaining whatever concessions
-may have been resisted during the preceding pontificate.
-
-An English traveller who visited Edgmiatsin the year after the
-conclusion of this enactment found the synod with its Russian
-procurator in full swing. The katholikos was at once reduced to
-a position of president of the synod, and the synod to one of
-subservience to Russian policy. [137] Von Haxthausen speaks of the
-procurator as a Russian and quite an autocrat; this was in 1843. [138]
-At that time the pontiff Nerses was in occupation of the Chair, and
-his conspicuous abilities were regarded with suspicion by the Russian
-authorities. His schemes for the higher education of the Armenians had
-come to nothing owing to Russian opposition. But the hardest blow was
-reserved for the year 1885, when the Katholikos Makar was appointed by
-the Emperor in defiance of the expressed sentiments of the delegates of
-the nation. It was then realised that the independence of the Church
-was at an end. The ukase of investiture confirmed this pessimist
-view. Instead of the usual wording "upon the recommendation of the
-Armenian people," the appointment was based "upon the recommendation
-of the clergy." Instead of the pictures from Armenian history which
-adorned the ukase of the pontiff George, Russian insignia and coats
-of arms enlivened the scroll. The constitutional phrase has been
-restored to the ukase confirming the present pontiff, but not the
-patriotic pictures! [139]
-
-Still, in spite of the fetters which have been imposed upon the actions
-of the katholikos, as much by the manner in which the Polojenye is
-worked by the Russian bureaucracy as by the provisions which that
-statute contains, the average Armenian and especially the lower
-classes are immensely interested in the event of the coming days. At
-Batum, at Kutais, at Alexandropol, at Erivan--wherever we have been
-in the society of Armenians, talk has centred upon the triumphal
-journey and the approaching consecration of His Holiness Mekertich
-Khrimean. It is not only the ancient ceremony, and it is not merely
-the assembling of delegates from all parts of the Armenian world
-that appeals to the heart of the nation. It is the personality and
-reputation of the man. The people forgets, but it does not change. The
-imagination of the race still sees in the holder of the pontifical
-office not alone or so much an archbishop or katholikos--the keystone
-of the edifice of the Church--as a high priest in the old Biblical
-sense. Khrimean is the ideal of a high priest. He is a figure which
-steps straight out from the Old Testament with all the fire and all
-the poetry. At the ceremony of his consecration it seemed as if at
-the foot of Ararat the ancient spirit were still alive, and that
-the holy oil which descended upon that venerable head from the beak
-of the golden dove anointed a law-giver to the people who announced
-the Divine Word. This impression was in part derived from the Semitic
-cast of his features. The large brown eyes and aquiline nose above a
-long and full beard, are characteristics which we associate with the
-Jewish nation, but which are not uncommon among the Armenians. What
-is more rare among this people is the spirituality and refinement
-which is written in every line of this handsome face (Fig. 48). But
-the whole character of the man would seem to have been moulded upon a
-Biblical model rather than upon that of the Christian hierarchy. He
-is the tried statesman to whom the people look for guidance in the
-abeyance of the kingly office. With him religion and patriotism
-are almost interchangeable terms; and the strong reality which he
-has given to the old Armenian history may be illustrated by an act
-which those who lack sympathy with such a character might almost
-regard as childish. In the cloister of Varag near Van, over which
-he has presided for many years, are buried the remains of Senekerim,
-king of the Van country, who abdicated his kingdom in favour of the
-Byzantine emperor, Basil II., and retired to the town of Sivas in Asia
-Minor, which he received in exchange. Over his tomb a wooden canopy
-had been erected and decorated in a manner befitting royal rank. But
-such honours, paid to so unworthy a monarch, shocked the keen sense
-of the patriot in Khrimean; he stripped the frame of its trappings
-and ornaments, and the structure stands bare to this day. The simple
-surroundings among which his life has been passed recall the setting
-of a Bible story. At a later stage of our journey, when we arrived
-in the town of Van, I was shown the house where he had resided and
-which he has now devoted to a school for girls. As I alighted to visit
-the school a man with the appearance and dress of a peasant stepped
-forward to hold the reins of my horse. Yet this individual was none
-other than the nephew of the Katholikos, and the brother of Khoren
-Khrimean, who has accompanied his uncle to Edgmiatsin, and who does
-the honours of the patriarchal household with so much dignity and
-natural grace. During our stay in Van, his native province, we were
-afforded an instance of the magnetic influence which through a long
-life Mekertich Khrimean has exercised upon his countrymen, and which
-takes the form of superstitious veneration among the humble and the
-poor. As we were winding up the slopes of Mount Varag on our way to
-the ancient monastery where he lived so long, teaching in the school
-which he had founded within its walls, and often taking this very path
-from the cloister to preach in the little church of Hankusner, on the
-outskirts of the gardens of Van, our attention was called to a spot
-where an assassin had lain in wait for him, deputed by his enemies to
-kill him as he rode unaccompanied towards the town. The story is told
-that when the man perceived him and raised his rifle to his shoulder,
-a sudden fear seized his limbs, his arm shook like a wand; and he
-fell upon his knees before his victim, whose look he had been unable
-to bear. As a writer Khrimean has expressed through the vehicle of a
-prose which is full of poetry and emotion conceptions of Scripture
-and thoughts upon the troubles of his time which might have sprung
-from the warm imagination of the early Christians in the East. He has
-often suffered for the fire of his sermons, and he possesses both the
-style of the consummate orator and the personal charm which keeps an
-audience under a spell. He has for many years been in the forefront
-of the Armenian movement; and it was he who pleaded the Armenian cause
-at the Congress of Berlin. A people whose spirit has been crushed and
-whose manhood has been degraded gather new life from such a teacher
-and learn to become men. But perhaps the most striking quality in
-a character which is at once complex and clear as the light of day
-is the ever-welling kindness and open-armed sympathy with which he
-shares the troubles of his fellow-men. As the throng press round him,
-the holder of their highest office, and endeavour to kiss his hand or
-gain a glimpse of his face, the mind travels back to that solemn scene
-in which the Greek king receives his stricken and distracted people:
-"O my poor children, known to me, not unknown is the subject of your
-prayer; well am I aware that you are sore afflicted all; yet, though
-you suffer, there is not one among you who suffers even as I. For
-the grief you bear comes to each one alone--himself for himself he
-suffers--and to none other else; but my soul mourns for the State
-and for myself and you." [140]
-
-Side by side with personal relations of greater freedom than I had
-anticipated towards this remarkable man, there grew up at Edgmiatsin
-and during the course of subsequent travel a fairly intimate
-acquaintance with the events of his life. He was born on the 5th of
-April 1820; and it is therefore in his seventy-fourth year that he
-ascends the throne of St. Thaddeus and of St. Gregory. His father and
-uncle were well-to-do citizens of Van, who had come to be known under
-the name of Khrimean because of a trade which they had conducted with
-the Crimea. The young Mekertich had a single brother and no sisters;
-and he appears to have been educated with some care by his uncle. His
-youth and early manhood were devoted to secular pursuits. For five
-or six years he acted in the capacity of an overseer in a weaving
-business. But already in 1841 he had become a traveller and a
-thinker; in that year he made a journey in the province of Ararat
-and visited Edgmiatsin. At the age of twenty-five he married and in
-due course became a father; but his wife died after giving birth to a
-daughter who only lived to be six or seven years old. To a layman of
-intellectual tastes among the Armenians of Turkey there is scarcely
-any other profession open than the honourable but ill-paid calling
-of a teacher. Shortly after his marriage Khrimean proceeded to the
-capital and earned his living by private tuition. His first book
-appeared in 1850, and consisted of a description in poetry of his
-travels in Ararat. The period of his residence in Constantinople was
-diversified by further journeys; to Jerusalem and the Holy Land,
-of which he published an account; and to Cilicia, the seat of the
-latest Armenian dynasty, where he remained some time as a teacher
-in the convent of Sis. In 1854 he returned to his native city, and
-in the following year took orders and became a vardapet or monastic
-priest. It is at this date that the more conspicuous portion of his
-life may be said to have commenced. The pulpit gave full scope to
-his natural eloquence; while the qualities of the student and writer,
-which he had carefully cultivated, were displayed in the columns of a
-journal which he founded about 1856 and named the Eagle of Vaspurakan,
-or of the province of Van. The proceeds of the sale of this periodical,
-which was at first printed at Constantinople, whither he had returned
-in 1855, enabled him to purchase an instrument of great rareness in
-Turkey, which the Armenians prize with the same childish affection
-and reverence as the Persian highlanders value a rifle or sporting
-gun. Khrimean re-entered Van with the title of abbot of the famous
-monastery which overlooks the landscape of the city and the rock
-and the waters from the slopes of Mount Varag. He came the proud
-possessor of a printing press, with which to conquer the sloth of
-the faint-hearted among the laymen and edify the crass ignorance of
-the priests.
-
-In the good old times in Turkey one might read or write what books one
-liked, and the freedom which was enjoyed by the average individual
-might have excited the envy of the citizens of some of the European
-states. When the abbot of Varag cast his stone into the stagnant
-waters, the report woke little echo beyond the borders of his native
-province and the ranks of his countrymen. But the waves which he set
-in motion have never yet subsided; and who can tell upon what shore of
-promise or disappointment they are destined to break and disappear? If
-ever there was a good cause, such was the cause which he championed,
-and no advocate could be more pure-minded than himself. His avowed
-object and real aim was the elevation of the Armenians and their
-preparation for the new era which he foresaw. That era he conceived
-as one of national activity in the rapid decline of the Mussulman
-peoples and the approach of new influences from the West. If we tax
-him with having resuscitated a realised and played-out ideal--that
-national ideal which is still the bane of our modern Europe, but which,
-except perhaps in the case of some paradoxical German Professors,
-has lost its hold upon educated minds, he might reply that it is the
-only talisman with which to touch the Armenians, the most obstinate
-nationalists which the world has ever seen. He might further point
-to the almost hopeless condition of the Ottoman Empire, and under
-his breath he might suggest that the methods of Russian despotism
-were not such as to excite the enthusiasm of a strongly individual
-people capable of assimilating Western culture at first hand. Lastly,
-he might dwell upon the fact that the Armenians have a long history,
-and that their progress, to be solid and permanent, must be based on
-a revival of consciousness in the dignity of their past.
-
-But the inculcation of such doctrines in the minds of his countrymen
-was sure to produce a ferment among a people who have been regarded as
-the inferiors and almost as the slaves of the Mussulmans for upwards
-of eight hundred years. It was imputed to him that he was working to
-revive the old Armenian kingdom--a consummation which a sensible Turk
-should regard with equanimity, since the time necessary to attain
-this end would far exceed all possible limits which he might assign
-to his solicitude for posterity. But sensible people are a minority
-of the inhabitants of this globe, and they are not numerous in the
-governing circles of the Ottoman Empire. The great activity of the
-Abbot of Varag, who trained his youths in the school of the cloister to
-conduct unaided the redoubtable magazine, slowly aroused the suspicion
-of the authorities. His own party in the Church supported him with much
-zeal, and another monastery, still more famous, that of Surb Karapet
-above Mush plain, was added to his spiritual administration. No
-sooner was he installed than a second printing press was set up
-and another school founded. The Armenians of the plain of Mush were
-edified by a new local journal, the Little Eagle of Taron. In 1869
-he was elected Patriarch of Constantinople, a dignity which he only
-held for four years. The Turkish Government had become alive to his
-great and growing popularity, and it was found expedient that he
-should resign. Then came the tribulations of the Russo-Turkish war,
-during which the new movement among the Armenians cost them several
-little massacres and untoward events. When the Congress met at Berlin
-the ex-patriarch, who had been busy with literature, undertook, in
-concert with an archiepiscopal colleague, a mission on behalf of his
-nation to the German capital. This was his first visit to the West,
-and he extended his journey to Italy, France and England. The result
-of his efforts and of those of Nerses, Patriarch of Constantinople,
-was the insertion of the well-known clause in the Treaty of Berlin
-pledging Europe to supervise the execution of reforms in the Asiatic
-provinces of Turkey inhabited by Armenians. Khrimean returned to his
-native country the object of the resentment of the Ottoman authorities;
-much of this portion of his life was spent in Van. But Armenian
-discontent was spreading; the alarm of Government was increasing;
-and in 1889 the eloquent preacher was sent to Jerusalem in honorary
-exile. In the month of May 1892 he was elected to the primacy of the
-Armenian Church. The Russian bureaucracy perhaps reflected that their
-safeguards at Edgmiatsin were quite sufficient to bridle the vigour
-of a septuagenarian. These shrewd diplomats therefore humoured the
-Armenians in the matter, and the election was allowed to stand. The
-Sultan raised difficulties about releasing the exiled prelate from
-his Ottoman nationality and oath of allegiance. When this objection
-had been overcome his consent was qualified by the condition that
-the katholikos-elect should not pass through Constantinople. A year
-elapsed in these parleyings. For two years the Armenian Church had been
-without a head. During that period it had been ruled by the Russian
-procurator. Now in the autumn the elect of the nation is at length
-presented to the delegates who have assembled from all parts of the
-Armenian world. And he comes from Russia, from the north, released
-from exile in Turkey at the pressing instance of the Tsar. One must
-admire the extraordinary cleverness of these Russian bureaucrats!
-
-The sun was already high when we sallied forth from our lodging,
-having with great difficulty prepared our breakfast in the crowded
-room. We passed down the long and dusty street of the village, which
-is dignified by the historical name of Vagharshapat. Nothing remains
-of the capital of King Tiridates, which was built upon this site or
-in the immediate neighbourhood. You are shown the remains of an old
-bridge which spanned the Kasagh, or river of Vagharshapat, some little
-distance north-west of the present settlement. The river has changed
-its course since it was erected. But the character of the masonry
-is rather that which was prevalent in the Middle Ages--conglomerate
-piles, faced with carefully hewn and jointed blocks of stone. Several
-shops bestow a modern appearance upon the street, having windows and
-being disposed as in Europe. A commonplace edifice with many windows
-and standing in private grounds recalls an Institute in one of our
-provincial towns. It is the Academy or Seminary. We entered the
-cloister from a door on the north, through which we issued into an
-open space on the west of the great court. A covered way conducted
-us to the quadrangle, in the centre of which rises the cathedral
-(Fig. 49, taken from south-west).
-
-Imagine the Old Court of Trinity College at Cambridge without the
-gateway, the hall and chapel, and with a church of some size placed in
-the centre where the fountain stands. All four sides of the figure are
-defined by low buildings, resembling the dwellings which constitute
-two sides of the Cambridge court. I had always understood that our
-quadrangle at Trinity was the largest in the world; although I believe
-some American university was building one a few inches bigger not
-so very long ago. But the great court of Edgmiatsin perhaps already
-makes the record; it has a length, from west to east, of 349 feet
-6 inches, and a breadth of 335 feet 2 inches. These measurements I
-took myself, much to the astonishment of the crowd which assembled;
-they were at a loss to find a theory which might explain so strange
-an act. The length will be very much increased in a short while,
-when the condemned east side has disappeared. A fine row of stone
-buildings is in course of erection, which will enlarge that dimension
-by many yards. Our cousins across the Atlantic must bestir themselves.
-
-The western side of the court on the south of the covered way is
-devoted to the residence of the Katholikos, while the block on the
-north of the same passage is occupied by the bishops. There is no
-style or pomp about the pontifical dwelling; and it would bear the
-same relation to the Master's Lodge at Trinity as a four-roomed
-cottage to a mansion. At the back is a little garden. The north
-side consists of the rooms inhabited by the monks, and a terrace,
-raised on pointed arches, extends from end to end. The building on
-the east is in process of demolition, and, like its fellows on the two
-sides which have already been described, is composed of comparatively
-fragile material. I was given to understand that it had once housed
-the seminary and printing press; a little bakery still occupies
-the junction with the buildings on the south. These are constructed
-of stone, and, although very plain, lend an air of solidity to the
-entire quadrangle. Beginning on the west of this block we have first
-a long refectory on the ground floor. Its dimensions are a length of
-155 feet, and a breadth of 16 feet 6 inches. But it is a very humble
-place when compared to the magnificent dining halls at Cambridge,
-and it is not more than 14 feet in height. The ceiling is vaulted,
-and like the walls is whitewashed over; the apartment is well lit
-and is cool in summer. Two rows of narrow tables extend down it,
-and on the west side is the throne and the canopy of the Katholikos,
-both in carved wood. Should he join the monks at dinner, his table is
-spread beneath the canopy. Parallel with this refectory and facing the
-outhouses on the south is placed a similar chamber for the servants,
-a part of the space upon the east being occupied by the kitchen. The
-storey above the refectories is tenanted by the library, while the
-eastern portion of the buildings is taken up by granaries and store
-rooms both on the ground and upper floors.
-
-Except for the pilgrims' court, with adjacent structures, and
-the garden of the Katholikos--the one on the southern, the other
-on the south-western side--the space between the outer wall and
-the great court is for the most part vacant ground. What edifices
-there have been raised within it are of an unsubstantial character,
-and may have been allowed to fall into ruin. The fine sites which
-are thus forthcoming are being rapidly utilised, and I have already
-referred to the row of buildings which will extend the great court
-upon the east and which at the time of our visit were approaching
-completion. In a line with this new block, in which red and grey
-stones diversify the masonry, is situated further south the house
-which lodges the printing press, a solid stone structure. The
-transformation of Edgmiatsin from a residence of ignorant monks
-into a seat of education, the home of cultured men, is proceeding
-year by year; and it is even possible that the bricks and mortar,
-or, to speak more correctly, the excellent masonry is in advance
-of the needs which it is intended to supply. Wealthy Armenians are
-fond of endowing the famous cloister, for which they do not need the
-incitement of meetings at some Devonshire House. But the form of gift
-dearest to them is the erection of a building, which stands there
-so that all may see. This preference for the concrete and visible
-is deeply ingrained in them, and they are able to gratify it owing
-to the great skill of the Armenian masons. Plans were shown me which
-provided a palace for the Katholikos and the rebuilding of the north
-side of the quadrangle. These, I believe, have already been decided
-upon, one of our party at the private table of the Katholikos having
-provided the greater part of the funds. I was also invited to look at
-some very elaborate drawings for the enlargement and adornment of the
-church. No sooner had they been handed round than one of the guests
-of His Holiness expressed his readiness to defray the cost. Speaking
-as one who came fresh to Edgmiatsin, I did my best to dissuade the
-acceptance of this last project. To enlarge the church would be to
-dwarf the fine proportions of the court; indeed the contrary course
-would be well-advised. One would not very much regret the abolition
-of the portal, while the excrescence on the east, containing the
-treasury and room of relics, should certainly be pulled down. His
-Holiness favoured the idea of erecting a new church outside the walls,
-to supplement the space available in the present building.
-
-We were assigned a room in the condemned block on the east of the
-quadrangle, wherein we spread our rugs and erected our camp beds. It
-was 26 feet square, with a lofty wooden ceiling, supported by two
-pillars of the same material. The adjoining apartment was in process
-of demolition, but, although without a roof, it served admirably as a
-kitchen, while the flooring provided fuel for our fire. When all was
-in order we should not have exchanged the results of our improvisation
-even for the creations of the Cambridge upholsterer, mellowed in the
-hands of the Cambridge bedmaker; while, as for living, was it not
-preferable to possess the whole of our scapegrace cook than to share
-the services of the most virtuous of gyps? Each day as we mounted our
-staircase, which exactly recalled its sad Cambridge counterparts, I
-was struck by the resemblance of my new surroundings to those among
-which I had grown up in the Old Court of Trinity, with the sky and
-the fountain and the adjacent cloister, where the glory of the foliage
-and lawn and river is spread in mystery beyond the trellis screens.
-
-Even beneath this tropical sun the mind of man has surpassed his
-difficulties; and just as the Cam has been converted from a melancholy
-ditch into a brimming waterway, threading a landscape of lawn and
-forest, so the Kasagh has been impressed into the service of an
-artificial lake, bordered by shady avenues. Extremely pleasant is the
-stroll round this spacious basin, which is due to the refinement of
-Nerses V. (1761-1857). It is situated just outside and south of the
-cloister; and while from one side the view discloses the dome and a
-cupola of the cathedral (Fig. 50), on the other it is the vault of
-Ararat and the pyramid of the Lesser Ararat that are outlined above
-the soft foreground of water and trees (Fig. 51). It was a pleasure
-to instance this work to General Frese and my Russian acquaintances
-as bearing testimony to the sense of security inspired by Russian
-rule. The cloister and even the bazar are surrounded by walls worthy
-of a fortress, a relic from the old Persian times. The Russians
-appear on the scene, and the imprisoned monks disport in the open,
-which they make to bloom with luscious groves.
-
-On the morning following a restful day which introduced us to our
-new environment I was invited to visit His Holiness. He had arrived
-within the walls of the cloister during our sojourn on Ararat, and it
-appeared that he had scarcely been able to leave his apartments owing
-to the enthusiasm of the humbler among his admirers, who could not be
-restrained from pressing round him whenever he walked abroad. This
-enforced seclusion had developed a tendency to asthma; but with
-this exception I found him in excellent health. Even the garden
-had been invaded by the peasants, who would wait hour after hour to
-catch a glimpse of their Hayrik--a term of endearment, signifying
-little father, under which Khrimean is very generally known. Two
-footmen in scarlet robes with blue sashes stood upon the flight of
-steps or busied themselves with errands. I was ushered into a long
-apartment, modestly furnished in European style, where I was received
-by an Armenian gentleman, of the handsome aquiline type of face,
-who addressed me in fluent English. He had been interpreter to the
-delegates to the Berlin Congress, and more recently had been much in
-the society of the Katholikos, residing at Jaffa (Jerusalem). Baron
-Serapion Murad--the first name is the equivalent of Mr.--holds a
-position of the first importance in the counsels of His Holiness
-at this juncture in his career. He is the shrewd man of the world,
-who weighs you in the balance with a single glance of his intelligent
-eyes. I appear to have emerged on the right side of the scale; for his
-formidable scrutiny rapidly relaxed into an amiable smile. We passed
-from this outer room into a chamber with a daïs at the further side;
-and presently the Katholikos entered and mounted the daïs, begging
-us be seated on two chairs which were placed on the floor below,
-but quite close to his own arm-chair.
-
-I do not remember having ever seen a more handsome and engaging face;
-and I experienced a thrill of pleasure at the mere fact of sitting
-beside him and seeing the smile, which was evidently habitual to
-those features, play around the limpid brown eyes. The voice too is
-one of great sweetness, and the manner a quiet dignity with strength
-behind. The footmen and the daïs and the antechamber were soon
-forgotten in this presence--forms necessary to little men and perhaps
-useful to their superiors, though they are always kicking them off
-when they are not stumbling among their folds. Happily the temperament
-of His Holiness is averse to all baubles; the cross of diamonds was
-absent from his conical cowl, and his black silk robe, upon which fell
-a beard which was not yet white, was unrelieved by the star of his
-Russian order. These ornaments are strangely out of place on such a
-figure, and their formulas out of keeping with this character. I was
-closely questioned upon all the incidents of our climb on Ararat;
-nor was it doubted that we had reached the summit. In the old days
-such a pretension would have been met with a smile. Then we passed
-to his sojourn in England, and I asked his opinion of Mr. Gladstone,
-with whom he had enjoyed some intercourse. He had been impressed, like
-so many others, with the theological cast of that supple mind. The face
-contracted when we came to speak of his life in the Turkish provinces;
-and he laid stress upon the terrible reality of the sufferings of the
-Armenian inhabitants. All the struggles and hopes and anguish of his
-strenuous days and sleepless nights seemed to rise in the mind and
-choke the voice. Then he sank back, with a sigh which seemed to regret
-them. "I have come," he said, "to the land of Forgetfulness."--And
-from the quadrangle came the sound of a slowly-moving Russian anthem,
-and the measured step of a detachment of Russian soldiers.
-
-His Holiness invited me to take my meals in his private dining-room,
-and expressed his regret that he would not be present himself. It
-happened to be a fast day, and nothing was offered but lentils and
-peas. But on the day following quite a banquet was spread before
-us--salmon trout from Lake Sevan, delicious dolmas of minced meat
-and rice bound together by tender cabbage leaves, and the usual
-not very tasty chickens. At the head of the table sat the vicar or
-substitute of the Katholikos, with M. Pribil on a special mission
-representing the Emperor on his right hand, and General Frese on his
-left. One or two Armenian notables were of the party, which, however,
-consisted for the most part of bishops resident at Edgmiatsin. All
-wore their black silk cowls during the meal. As one looked down the
-line of clerics the aquiline type of face predominated--fine human
-animals they seemed, with their pronounced features and limpid eyes
-and the long beards which keep their colour and speak of a mind at
-ease. One of the monks present spoke French fluently; but he had been
-imported from the Crimea by the present Katholikos. His name was Khoren
-Stephaneh. Many a pleasant talk I had with him, but not during dinner;
-they have too much respect in the East for their food and cook to
-divert the tongue at such a time from its proper function. What little
-ripples of conversation diversified the natural sounds of the meal
-were due to that restless spirit of the West, which is always asking
-questions and living several hours in advance of the actually present
-time. I do not know that either of the high Russian functionaries
-were much troubled by this particular product of Western culture;
-but, if they were, they must have suffered from the inability of
-their hosts to comprehend their language. The wine of the cloister
-flowed freely, and was supplemented by European liqueurs. Then the
-restless spirit broke bounds, attacking first the taciturnity of the
-Governor of Erivan. The formula I had heard so often was the first to
-take wing; and "How long are you staying here?" came across the table
-in a somewhat loud voice. It was not the least unkindly meant. Next
-the same little sprite perched upon M. Pribil, and extracted several
-questions, which it let fly. When we rose from table he engaged me
-in a discursive conversation which ranged freely over the Armenian
-Question. He affirmed that the Armenians did not compose more than
-one-fifth of the population of the Russian provinces south of Caucasus.
-
-The apartment was soon empty, every one retiring to their siesta; but
-I strolled out and made my way to the humble monastic buildings which
-adjoin the lonely church of Saint Gaiane. There I found a new friend
-whom I had learnt to value, a young monk recently ordained. Mesrop
-Ter-Mosesean belongs to the new school of clerics who will before
-long remove that stigma of crass ignorance which still attaches to
-the bulk of the Armenian priesthood. Men like Khrimean have long
-perceived that in matters of education Germany occupies the first
-position among the nations of the world. With greater insight than
-the Turks, who send their young men to Paris--the very worst school
-for the full-blooded Oriental--they encourage their promising scholars
-to study in Germany, and find the necessary funds. The monk of Gaiane
-had just returned from the German University, and he does credit to the
-solid attainments which it supplies. He is a splendid physical example
-of his race. Tall, with the bold features of the handsome type which
-I have described, with a massive forehead and teeth white as snow,
-he combines with these outward advantages a manner which is most
-winning and a simple, straightforward character. Hours I spent in his
-little sitting-room during my sojourn, and I was always sorry to come
-away. He occupies the post of librarian at Edgmiatsin, and he is now
-busy with the compilation of a new and comprehensive catalogue. [141]
-On this occasion we walked across to the library, and found it full of
-people. It is entered from the side of the Katholikos' garden. I was
-shocked by the spectacle of valuable manuscripts lying open on a long
-table, and being fingered by a promiscuous crowd. Such was the license
-of this national festival. I noticed among them a New Testament of
-the tenth century, bound in richly carved ivory sides. The type and
-pose of the Christ in the centre of the one panel recalled that of a
-Roman emperor. [142] Beautiful manuscripts of the thirteenth century
-and a minutely illuminated missal of the seventeenth figured among
-the treasures which any hand was allowed to soil.
-
-Evensong was at hand, and my companion and myself entered the
-dimly-lit church. The Katholikos was already seated in the throne
-with the canopy, attired in a rich white satin robe. The cross of
-diamonds flashed from his cowl. Bishops and monks composed two rows,
-extending to the daïs of the apse; they wore robes of yellow silk,
-embroidered with coloured garlands of flowers. The congregation was
-very numerous, but clustered in groups about the Katholikos; there
-was no order or assignment of places, as with us. They sat or knelt
-upon the floor. On either side of the lines of clerics were gathered
-the choir, in gorgeous dresses, holding large and cumbrous books
-of Armenian music. The priests conducting the service stood upon
-the pavement of the church with their backs to the daïs. Above them
-rose the shapes of crosses and gorgeous eikons, held aloft by their
-attendants. Incense was scattered at intervals. I noticed that His
-Holiness twice changed raiment, although I was at a loss to discover
-when and where the transformation had taken place. The strongly nasal
-chants hurt my unaccustomed ear, and I found it impossible to educate
-my sympathy into communion with this show.
-
-An hour or two later symbols and eikons and tight little formulas
-were all blissfully asleep; and the great court flooded over with
-good, healthy human spirits, released from the restraints of the
-day. Bonfires were lit within it, from which the leaping flames shot
-into the shadows of the church of the Illuminator and revealed the
-circles of the dancers. From many a brightly-lit room, given over
-to the pilgrims, came the shrill sounds of the flute and the beats
-of the small drum. Hai-this and Hai-that--the refrain and burden
-of every song celebrated the glories of the sons of Hayk. In the
-street of Vagharshapat our friends the musicians from Alexandropol
-were reaping a golden harvest. Was there ever collected together a
-more motley crowd? They must have come great distances. There were
-ladies from Akhaltsykh, with the pretty fillets across the brow;
-there were frock-coats and uniforms. The bright calicoes of peasant
-women enlivened the scene; some of the men, the poorest class, wore
-their rough sheepskin hats, while the better-to-do had donned low
-caps with a peak, like that of a naval officer. Long before midnight
-quiet had settled upon the great quadrangle, and nothing was heard
-but the plash of the fountain. But sombre patches marked the spots
-where whole families were encamped; while the steps all around the
-church and every niche and doorway were black with the forms of
-serried human beings in every attitude of slumber.
-
-Next morning, the 8th of October, popular excitement was at its
-highest, the central event which they had come to celebrate being
-imminent. From the earliest dawn throngs of sheepskins and peak hats
-and coloured calicoes had been busy reconnoitring the most suitable
-positions; and, when the hour approached, all the roofs which commanded
-a view of the portal, and a good part of the quadrangle enjoying the
-same advantage, were densely packed with spectators. Rows of Russian
-soldiers kept clear the approaches to the western or principal entrance
-of the church. They wore dark green uniforms with shoulder-straps
-of a faded pink, and peaked caps of white canvas. Wesson and I
-made our way with difficulty to the residence of the Katholikos,
-where, in the private room of Baron Murad, we set up the camera
-right in face of the scene of the approaching ceremony. It had been
-decided to perform the rite of consecration upon a daïs in front
-of the portal. This improvised wooden structure was covered with
-carpets and costly embroideries. Over the doorway of the portal
-were emblazoned large Armenian letters upon a ground of cloth or
-canvas. The inscription reminded us that we were assembled upon the
-actual site where Jesus Christ is believed to have descended from
-heaven. The name of the cloister and cathedral is said to signify
-"The Only-Begotten has descended"; and the text over the doorway
-may be translated "The Only-Begotten has descended from the Father,
-and the light of glorification with Him." Upon a higher plane, from
-the tower of the belfry, was suspended a banner, embroidered with the
-device of the Katholikos and with the eagle of Vaspurakan (Van). The
-device consisted of a mitre, surmounting the figures of two angels,
-one carrying a cross and the other a pastoral staff. These emblems
-crossed one another, and at the intersection was placed an ornament
-of diamond shape peculiar to the Katholikos. The eagle with the wings
-outspread was purely personal to Khrimean, recalling the many links
-which attach him to Van. The scroll was to the following effect:--"O
-God, the knower of hearts, protect for long years our chief of
-shepherds (Hovapet) Mekertich Hayrik." Left and right of the daïs,
-in niches of the façade of the portal, were exhibited two eikons,
-or religious pictures, richly framed, of which that on the left--a
-Virgin and Child--was a painting of very high merit, said to be of
-Byzantine origin.
-
-At a quarter to nine the procession is formed, and proceeds from
-the pontifical residence down the avenue of soldiers to the church
-door. The service which is held within the cathedral of the Illuminator
-lasts for over an hour. The party assembled in our upper chamber spend
-the time with conversation and in gazing down upon the multitude. It
-consists of a nun from Tiflis, a frock-coated teacher in a school
-of that city, and a pretty woman of the rich Armenian bourgeoisie of
-Tiflis, attired in a dress of Parisian model. The nun is a charming
-woman, and we make great friends. She informs me that she is almost
-an unique specimen of her order; the convent at Tiflis is perhaps
-a solecism. Nunneries are not popular with the Armenians. I think
-my reader may appreciate the magnificent robes which belong to
-her office, and of which, by her kindness, I am able to supply an
-illustration (Fig. 52). I notice that among the women assembled in the
-quadrangle the Armenian national dress is not often seen. The Georgian
-head-dress--a band of black velvet, embroidered with beads or jewels,
-across the temples, and a white silk kerchief over the head--appears
-to predominate. This fact would show that the greater number of those
-present have come from Tiflis and the northern districts.
-
-Just as we are getting a little bored with the finicking architecture
-of the portal there is a movement and a rustle, and the procession
-issues from the church. First to appear are the high Russian officials
-in Court dress--M. Pribil, General Frese and the rest. They take
-up position on the floor of the quadrangle in front of the crowd,
-and face the still vacant daïs. Between them and this central
-object room is left for the choir and deacons, who are presently
-introduced. Hats are doffed in spite of the fierce sun. A brief,
-intense pause, and the twelve bishops [143] in gorgeous attire mount
-the daïs from behind. They escort the venerable form of the Katholikos,
-over whose head two attendants support a canopy of crimson material,
-embroidered with gold lace. For a short space the aged patriarch fronts
-the multitude in a standing posture; then sinks on the carpet with his
-feet beneath his body in Eastern fashion. Erect beside him, a bishop
-reads from a heavy volume. From time to time you detect a movement of
-the deeply-bowed head of the seated figure, as a particular passage
-is recited. Next a bishop advances, bearing in his hands the image
-of a dove, wrought in gold. It is the receptacle of the holy oil. In
-the southern apse of the cathedral stands a chest containing a vase,
-in which is preserved oil blessed by St. Gregory. It is nothing, they
-say, but a mass of dry material. Of this substance they take a pinch
-and mix it with consecrated oil, specially prepared and scented with
-essence of flowers. Such is the liquid which is allowed to flow from
-the beak of the dove upon the head of the father of the nation. The
-bishops gather round, and each with his thumb spreads the oil over the
-scalp, making the figure of a cross at the same time (Fig. 53). Then
-a mass of wool is applied to the crown of the head, in the folds of a
-muslin veil which is adjusted to fall over the face. The Katholikos
-rises after a brief interval, places his feet in his embroidered
-slippers and with the bishops re-enters the church. The ceremony has
-occupied a quarter of an hour.
-
-Some little time elapses, and the same procession leaves the building,
-accompanying the anointed pontiff to his residence. The choir sing
-from their great books the old Armenian chants [144] with their loud
-lamentations and long shakes. The band of the Russian regiment play a
-slow and solemn music, of which the sweetness puts to shame the nasal
-choristers. They are mostly Armenians in this band. These strains
-bring the rite to a conclusion, and we all disperse to our various
-amusements or occupations.
-
-The dinner "in hall" upon this festival of the consecration was a very
-interesting incident. We were all to dine in the refectory. When
-I entered, the long apartment was crammed. The scholars of the
-Academy partook of the meal in the parallel chamber. The bishops,
-the monks, the delegates composed a sombre assembly, stretching
-in rows of long perspective down the tables. A single exception to
-this dark apparel was furnished by a delegate from Karabagh, who was
-seated next myself. He wore his national dress--a spare black tunic,
-fastened at the neck, displaying the front and sleeves of a light blue
-silken vest. His face was large and expressive of great resolution,
-especially the chin, which, like the cheeks, was shaved. The bronze
-complexion heightened the whiteness of the bold moustache. One was
-reminded of the best type of peasant proprietors in Europe; and,
-indeed, a view of the faces round one confirmed that favourable
-impression which one receives from the society of Armenians in
-their native country. There is depicted a striking union of force of
-character with intelligence. In the midst of these reflections the
-Katholikos enters the building, and we all rise from our seats. He
-sits on his throne beneath the canopy, and a monk ministers to his
-needs. On either side stands a scarlet footman with a blue sash;
-the choir are drawn up behind. After the first course His Holiness
-rises, wearing his cowl and the glittering cross, and proposes the
-toast of the Emperor. It is a delight to hear him speak. He has all
-the personal fascination of Mr. Gladstone. Dinner proceeds as the
-catalogue of toasts is gone through, and between each toast European
-melodies are sung by the choir, and songs by an Armenian tenor of
-repute. The health of the Emperor is received with cries of Oura;
-but the remaining toasts without exception with the Armenian cheer of
-Ketsze! the equivalent of the French Vive! In proposing the health of
-M. Pribil His Holiness recites the various occasions upon which that
-functionary has come to Edgmiatsin to attend the consecration or the
-funeral of a Katholikos. Turning to his guest with a winning smile,
-he begs him to defer his next ceremonial visit until after the lapse
-of a moderate interval.
-
-In the evening the whole quadrangle was illuminated with strings of
-coloured glasses containing candles. They made a very pretty show. At
-intervals huge firebrands threw a lurid light upon the buildings. The
-numerous choir of the Academy was marshalled in the court, including
-many ladies. The programme comprised several cantatas and some
-concerted music, and the standard was fairly high. But it appears
-difficult to eliminate the nasal pronunciation. The music-master
-was a great swell with his inspired look and flowing hair. The
-band discoursed the waltzes of the immortal Strauss. Before eleven
-all sound was hushed save the plash of the fountain, and darkness
-unrelieved had settled upon the scene. I made my way to the rooms
-of His Holiness and ascertained that he would receive me in spite of
-the lateness of the hour.
-
-I found him reclining on a wooden couch in a bare white-washed
-apartment; a single rug was suspended upon the wall beside the
-couch. Such is the bed and such the furniture natural to the object
-of all this pomp, which I do not doubt is profoundly distasteful to
-such a character. He took my hand in his, and we sat together for
-some time, the office of interpreter being, I think, performed by
-Dr. Arshak Ter Mikelean. Our talk ranged over many subjects; but
-I should have preferred to sit still, look in those eyes and hear
-that voice. I think we both felt that we were very near each other;
-and religion is a subtler thing than can be defined in creeds and
-dogmas or embodied in what the world calls "views."
-
-On the following days the state of tension was gradually relaxed;
-the cloister settled down to ordinary life, and it was possible to
-examine the churches at one's ease. These are actually four in number,
-although in Mohammedan times the district was known under the name
-of Uch Kilisa, or Three Churches. [145] Their origin is bound up
-with a legend which plays such a considerable part in the history of
-the Armenian Church that, before passing to a description of them,
-it may not be inappropriate to instruct or amuse my readers with this
-curious story. [146]
-
-Towards the close of the third century, while Tiridates was on
-the throne of Armenia, the Emperor Diocletian (284-305), [147]
-in search of a beauteous spouse, sent artists into all parts of
-his empire to depict the charms of suitable candidates for the
-imperial embrace. Now there happened to be in Rome a convent of
-nuns of austere life, of which the superior was called Gaiane. Under
-her charge was a virgin of surpassing beauty and of royal lineage,
-whose name was Ripsime. The artists entered her retreat by force,
-committed her lineaments to their tablets, and sent the portrait with
-several others to their master. The emperor had no sooner gazed upon
-the image of the high-born virgin than he fell violently in love. No
-pains were spared to hurry forward the preparations for the marriage,
-and the wretched bride was in despair. Her vow of chastity and the
-hatred she felt for the persecutor of her sect encouraged her to
-adopt the counsels of despair. She took to flight, attended by Gaiane
-and a numerous company of the nuns; and after many wanderings the
-band arrived upon the banks of the distant Araxes, in the outskirts
-of the Armenian capital of Vagharshapat. There they discovered a
-secluded retreat in a place which served as a store for vats, the
-city possessing extensive vineyards. One of their number was versed
-in the art of the manufacture of glass objects; she made glass pearls,
-and their price defrayed the cost of their daily sustenance.
-
-Meanwhile the emperor had despatched messengers in every direction,
-and a Roman ambassador arrived at the court of the Armenian king. He
-was the bearer of a letter to that monarch from his master, who related
-how the Empire was suffering from the misdeeds of the Christians, and
-in particular how a beautiful virgin whom he himself had desired to
-marry had been abstracted by her infatuated co-sectaries and taken into
-the territory of his Armenian ally. The emperor begged his beloved
-colleague to track the party out, and, with the exception of the
-wondrous virgin, to put them all to death. As for the lovely fugitive,
-it would only be necessary to send her back; but the missive added,
-with an amiability truly worthy of an emperor, that the king might
-keep her if overcome by her charms.
-
-As might be expected, no time was lost on the part of Tiridates to
-institute and elaborate the search. The band was found; the beauty
-of Ripsime needed no identification; and the fame of it attracted a
-multitude of all ranks--princes and nobles, shoulder to shoulder with
-the common people, closing round her under the sting of licentious
-desire. The nuns raised their hands to heaven and drew their veils
-about their faces; and perhaps this display of modesty averted their
-ruin. Early on the following morning there arrived from the palace
-magnificent litters and costly robes, the design of the king being
-to take to wife the Christian maiden and make her queen of the
-Armenians. But at this juncture a peal of thunder carried terror
-into all hearts, and a voice was heard descending from the sky. It
-was the voice of the Saviour, adjuring the nuns to take courage and
-remain firm for the glorification of His name among the peoples
-of the north. "Thou Ripsime," it proceeded, "hast been cast out
-(exerriphthês) with Gaiane and thy companions from the realm of death
-into that of eternal life." Meanwhile the thunder had caused a panic
-among the assembled people, and the king's officers hastened to the
-royal presence, bringing a written report of all they had heard. But
-the monarch hardened his heart, and, since she refused the pomp he
-offered, gave orders that the maiden should be taken by force and
-brought to the royal apartments.
-
-These directions were executed, but not without difficulty; the pious
-virgin was of stalwart frame, and the soldiers were obliged to drag
-her along the ground, or carry her struggling in their arms. When they
-had placed her in the king's chamber, and it was announced that the
-king had entered, the people outside the palace feasted and danced
-and sang. But their rejoicings were premature; for the intrepid Roman
-maiden was more than a match even for the powers of so redoubtable
-an antagonist. Tiridates was widely famed for physical strength and
-deeds of prowess; yet, although he persisted in his suit for not less
-than seven hours, he was at last compelled through sheer exhaustion to
-give in. The offices of Gaiane were invoked; she consented to speak,
-but her counsels were addressed to confirming the courage of her
-companion. Her Latin speech was understood by some among those present;
-they took stones and tore her face and broke her teeth. After a brief
-repose the king returned, and again endeavoured to overcome the girl's
-obstinacy; but after a long struggle the inspired amazon was a second
-time victorious; she threw the king (erripsen), destroyed his diadem,
-and dismissed him from the chamber, fainting and gathering around
-him his tattered robes.
-
-A tender respect for the honour of women is a virtue of Christian
-origin, which the romance of Western chivalry converted into a cult of
-the fair sex. But the king of Armenia was an Oriental, a heathen and
-a barbarian; nor had he been instructed in the code which precludes
-the sentiment of humiliation in the vanquished where the victor is
-possessed of a female form. His passion as a lover was overcome by
-his fury as a thwarted despot; the virgin had fled from the palace,
-but his savage emissaries were soon on her track. The unfortunate
-maiden directed her steps to the retreat where the vats were stored,
-and gave the alarm to her companions. All those present, excepting one
-who was stricken with illness, accompanied her flight. But when they
-had reached some rising ground near the road which led to Artaxata,
-they were overtaken, bound with cords and put to death with great
-cruelty. With Ripsime there perished thirty-two of her attendants,
-while the poor nun who had been left behind presently met the same
-fate. The martyrdom of Gaiane and of two companions took place on the
-following day and was attended with tortures which I should shudder
-to commit to paper.
-
-Not many days after this tragedy its author was visited by the
-vengeance of heaven; a demon entered his body, and, like his
-prototype of Babylon, the king of Armenia was turned into an animal
-eating grass. In the form of a wild boar he resisted all attempts to
-confine him; and similar punishments overtook the royal family and
-attendants. At length the sister of the king, by name Khosrovidukht,
-beheld in the watches of night a vision. A man with a radiant face
-appeared and addressed her, to the effect that the only remedy was
-to send to the town of Artaxata and summon thence a prisoner named
-Gregory. When she related the vision people shook their heads,
-and attributed it to the incipient madness of the princess. For
-Gregory, who was once an honoured servant of King Tiridates, had been
-cast by the tyrant into a deep pit, on account of his profession
-of Christianity, not less than fifteen years ago. Would even his
-bones be forthcoming from such a place? But when several times the
-vision had been repeated, and the princess renewed her insistence,
-a great noble was despatched to the place where the pit was situated,
-near the town of Artaxata. A rope was let down into the cavern; and,
-to the astonishment of all, there emerged a human form, blackened to
-the colour of coal. It was none other than St. Gregory.
-
-The saint was met by the king and nobles, foaming and devouring their
-flesh, as he approached the city along the road from Artaxata. Sinking
-on his knees, he obtained from heaven the restoration of their reason,
-although not of their human forms. His next care was the burial of
-the martyrs; he found their bodies, lying where they fell, and still
-untouched by corruption after the lapse of nine days. No dog or beast
-or bird had approached the remains. St. Gregory took them with him
-to the place where the vats were stored; and for sixty-six days he
-sojourned in that place, instructing the king and nobles. After the
-lapse of that period he related to them a vision which he had beheld
-during the middle watches of the night. The royal party had come at
-sunrise to prostrate themselves before the holy man.
-
-During his vigil, while his mind was revolving the recent acts of
-Divine grace, a violent peal of thunder, followed by a terrible
-rumbling sound, had fallen upon his startled sense. The firmament
-opened as a tent opens, and from the heaven descended the form of a
-man, radiant with celestial light. The name of Gregory was pronounced;
-the saint looked upon the face of the man, and fell trembling to the
-ground. Enjoined to raise his eyes, he beheld the waters above the
-firmament cloven and parcelled apart like hills and valleys, extending
-beyond the range of sight. Streams of light poured down from on high
-upon the earth, and, with the light, innumerable cohorts of shining
-human figures with wings of living flame. At their head was One of
-terrible face whom all followed as the supreme ruler of the host;
-He bore in his hand a golden mallet, and, alighting on the ground in
-the centre of the city, struck with His mallet the crust of the broad
-earth. The report of the blow penetrated into the abysses below the
-earth; far and near all inequalities of the surface were smoothed out,
-and the land became a uniform plain.
-
-And the saint perceived in the middle of the city, near the palace
-of the king, a circular pedestal made of gold and of the size of a
-large plateau, upon which was reared an immensely lofty column of
-fire with a cloud for capital, surmounted by a flaming cross. As he
-gazed he became aware of three other pedestals. One rose from the spot
-where the holy Gaiane suffered martyrdom; a second from the site of the
-massacre of Ripsime and her companions; and the third from the position
-occupied by the magazine of vats. These pedestals were of the colour
-of blood; the columns were of cloud, and the capitals of fire. The
-crosses resembled the cross of the Saviour, and might be likened to
-pure light. The three columns were equal in height one with another,
-but a little lower than that which rose near the royal palace. Upon
-the summits of all four were suspended arcs of wondrous appearance;
-and above the intersection of the arcs was displayed an edifice with
-a dome, the substance being cloud. On the arcs stood the thirty-seven
-martyrs, figures of ineffable beauty attired in white robes; while the
-crown of the figure above the edifice was a throne of Divine fashioning
-surmounted by the cross of Christ. The light of the throne mingled
-with the light of the cross and descended to the bases of the columns.
-
-When Gregory had related this vision he bade all present gird up
-their loins and lose no time in erecting chapels to the martyred
-virgins, where their remains might be deposited. Thus the saints
-might intercede for the afflicted king and people and assist them to
-become healed. Forthwith the multitude set to work, collected stones
-and bricks and cedar-wood; and, under the guidance of the saint,
-constructed three chapels after a prescribed design. One was placed
-towards the north and on the east of the city, on the spot where
-Ripsime and her companions met their death. The site of the second
-was further south, where the Superior Gaiane was massacred; while
-that of the third was close to the magazine of vats. These they built
-and adorned with lamps of gold and silver, with candelabra of which
-the flames were never quenched. Coffins were made for the remains
-of the martyrs; but no man was suffered to touch these relics, for
-none had been baptized. The saint himself and in solitude consigned
-the bodies to their receptacles. And when this was done he fell on
-his knees and prayed for the healing of the king, that haply the
-king might share in the work. The prayer was granted, and the horn
-fell from the royal hands and feet. To the monarch was assigned the
-task of digging tombs in the chapels to receive the coffins of the
-martyrs; and his consort, the queen Ashkhen, together with his sister
-Khosrovidukht, were associated with him in the work. The return of his
-vigour was signalised on the part of the king by a labour worthy of
-the patriarch Hayk. He made a journey to the summit of Ararat, which
-the compiler rightly observes would occupy seven days. [148] When he
-had completed this feat, he was seen bearing upon his shoulders eight
-blocks of stone of gigantic size which he had taken from the crest
-of the mountain. These he placed before the threshold of the chapel
-of the martyred Ripsime in expiation of the unholy battle which he
-had waged. [149] In this manner all was accomplished according to the
-vision of St. Gregory; while, as for the locality where had stood the
-column of fire on the golden pedestal, it was surrounded by the saint
-with a high wall and heavy gates; the sign of the cross was erected
-within it, that the pilgrims might there worship the all-powerful
-God. Upon his return from Cĉsarea, and after the baptism of king and
-people, St. Gregory completed his task by building the cathedral upon
-this site.
-
-Such is the legend which, with variations, has supplied the patent
-of the famous monastery, and invested the pilgrimage to the church of
-Christ descended and to the chapels of the martyrs with the character
-at once of a religious and of a patriotic act. The first of these
-edifices stands in the centre of the great quadrangle of the cloister,
-and, as we have seen, is believed to have been originally raised by
-St. Gregory the Illuminator, to whom the Armenians attribute their
-conversion to Christianity. The spot where the Saviour alighted and
-struck the broad earth with the mallet is situated about the middle
-of the building; and in the old days was indicated by a slab of hewn
-stone, 3 feet square and 5 feet in thickness. [150] This stone was
-said to have been substituted for the original marble slab which
-was reputed to have been due to St. Gregory himself and to have been
-carried off by Shah Abbas. [151] In the first quarter of the eighteenth
-century, during the pontificate of Astvatsadur, an elaborate altar
-was placed upon this hallowed site, and still stands there beneath
-the dome. It is surmounted by a canopy supported by four pillars of
-Tabriz marble, and is well seen in my illustration of the interior
-(Fig. 55). It appears to have replaced one of simpler design erected
-by the Katholikos Eleazar.
-
-
-    I cannot invite my reader to admire the architecture of this
-    cathedral, although the interior, with its spacious body,
-    central dome and four apses, one at each point of the compass,
-    is sufficiently remarkable. Much the same design is seen in
-    the church of St. Ripsime; but in that building it underlies
-    important developments which probably argue a later date. The
-    original form of the exterior is rather difficult to unravel
-    owing to the excrescences, of which I may safely say that none
-    are improvements, that have been added at various times. But let
-    me briefly undertake the work of demolition, addressing myself
-    to the illustration, which was taken from the south-west (Fig. 49).
-
-    The portal on the left of the picture is a work of the seventeenth
-    century; it was commenced by the Katholikos Philip and completed
-    by his successor Jacob in 1658. It is probably due to the mania
-    for portals prevalent in Armenia at that period and not to a
-    feature of the earlier plan. Just east of and adjoining the
-    balcony of this structure is seen a window with a richly carved
-    column in the centre, surmounted by a cross and supporting two
-    ornamental arches. This window and the upper portion of the
-    building to which it belongs are in subservience to the portal,
-    with which they are in architectural harmony, and which they link
-    with the main edifice. The lower part, including the frieze or
-    quasi-classical moulding, which runs right round the church,
-    is in a different style and of a different form of masonry,
-    being indeed an integral member of the body of the church. You
-    have only to remove the window and pointed roof, build up the
-    wall above the cornice and cover it with a flat roof, and you
-    obtain precisely the same projection which the picture shows on
-    the south side and which is necessitated by the south apse.
-
-    We have now obtained the figure of a body with four projecting
-    members, each of which represents an apse. The roof would appear
-    to have been always built at a very low angle; it is, as usual,
-    of stone. But we have yet to disencumber the apse on the east,
-    which is completely hidden by the stupid building which contains
-    the treasury and room of relics--an annexe which from outside
-    lengthens and perverts the original edifice. We owe this feature
-    to the Katholikos George IV., who died in 1882. This apse had a
-    lesser projection than its fellows from the wall of the church,
-    owing to the incidence of the two indispensable side chapels,
-    which were small and merely entailed a slight advance of the
-    rectangular walls. Over each apse it has been customary to have
-    a belfry; when the portal was added this feature of the apse on
-    the west was transferred to that structure. The open cupolas
-    with belfries which are at present seen over the three apses
-    were built in the year 1682 by the Katholikos Eleazar. They are
-    of bright red stone, of which the hue contrasts in a displeasing
-    manner with the dull grey of the body of the church.
-
-    The central dome, which is supported on piers in the interior,
-    consists of a polygonal drum with a window in each face surmounted
-    by a conical roof. A false arcade with slender columns and pointed
-    arches enriches, together with a carved cornice, the simplicity
-    of the design. This dome is believed to date from the seventh
-    century, and to be the work which the Katholikos Komitas (617-625)
-    erected in place of an earlier structure in wood. If this be the
-    case we have an example of this form of dome in Armenia a hundred
-    years before the time when it is supposed by Fergusson to have
-    been developed. [152] It is a pity that some vandal has daubed
-    it over with plaster and paint, which invests it with a grotesque
-    appearance. Above each window is a medallion containing the head
-    of a saint, and I saw traces of spiral carving on the columns. An
-    almost flat-roofed building with this dome in the centre, with
-    four projecting apses, one at each point of the compass and each
-    surmounted by a little belfry--such would appear to have been the
-    original exterior of the edifice which we see at the present day.
-
-    An ingenious traveller, whose judgment was influenced by the
-    cornice of the building, and perhaps too by certain stone slabs
-    with Greek inscriptions which are inserted in the walls, has
-    conjectured that this exterior, with the exception of the dome and
-    belfries, dates at least in part from the reign of King Tiridates
-    (end of the third and commencement of the fourth century). [153]
-    He has gone so far as to present us with an illustration,
-    showing what he conceives to have been the original form. [154]
-    We know from Moses of Khorene that this monarch erected at Garni
-    in the district of Erivan a building of surpassing beauty to his
-    sister Khosrovidukht; and it is almost certain that the remains
-    of a purely classical building which have been seen by modern
-    travellers upon that site belong to this monument or to one of
-    the same period. [155] The presumption of Dubois is therefore
-    justified that a building of the reign of Tiridates would be likely
-    to display classical features and ornaments. But his conjecture
-    as regards this particular church must at present be considered
-    to belong to the realm of hypothesis. The presence of the slabs
-    with the Greek inscriptions would prove nothing; they may have
-    been taken from an earlier building, or they may quite well be
-    later in date than the invention and use of the Armenian alphabet
-    in the fifth century. Dubois indeed is inclined to ascribe them
-    to a period earlier than the conversion of Tiridates, and to see
-    in them memorials of a Christianity practised in Armenia prior to
-    the preaching of St. Gregory. This conjecture, which is adopted
-    with complacency by Ritter, is probably quite baseless. The
-    inscriptions have quite recently been subjected to the critical
-    scrutiny of a scholar in Byzantine lore. I may refer my reader to
-    his work. They are incised upon two slabs inserted in the wall,
-    rather high up and a little east of the northern apse. The slabs
-    are close together. I was unable to decipher the writing with the
-    aid of my glasses, as the stone has been much worn. The slab with
-    the figures of Paulos and Thekla is attributed by this scholar
-    to the fifth or the sixth century, and its companion to about
-    the same date. His opinion is based upon internal evidence. [156]
-
-    It would take too long to pursue a study relying on this kind of
-    testimony into the approximate date of the cathedral. It must
-    suffice to have placed my reader in possession of the leading
-    facts. As regards the evidence of literature as to restorations
-    and additions it is summarised in the accompanying note. [157]
-    If the essential features of the present building be due to
-    the restoration of Vahan Mamikonean (A.D. 483), it will be a
-    work anterior to Justinian. At that time the Armenian architect
-    would not have enjoyed the advantage of studying the designs of
-    the several churches which, according to Procopius, that emperor
-    erected in Western Armenia. [158] It would appear preferable to
-    ascribe these features to the restoration under Komitas (618), if
-    we were obliged to choose between the two. But this and kindred
-    questions respecting the origin of the church and monastery are
-    wrapped in obscurity. At what date did Edgmiatsin become the
-    residence of the katholikos? This cardinal question still remains
-    without a certain answer. We know that he transferred his seat from
-    Vagharshapat to Dvin in the year 452, and that he did not return
-    until 1441. We also know that the seventh century was a period of
-    building activity; after Komitas we have the Katholikos Nerses
-    III. (640-661), surnamed the builder, who erected a magnificent
-    church in close vicinity to the churches of Edgmiatsin and buried
-    the relics of St. Gregory beneath its four colossal pillars. [159]
-    There is no reason to doubt that the four Byzantine capitals which
-    are preserved in the Academy belonged to this edifice. [160]
-    The independence of the national church, so jealously guarded
-    by the Armenians, was intimately bound up with the Edgmiatsin
-    legend; and the pontiffs appear to have spared no pains during
-    the earlier centuries to maintain the holy places and prevent
-    them sharing the fate of the temporal capital, Vagharshapat.
-
-    The entrance from the portal to the church is through a rather
-    low doorway, conducting you into the apse-formed projection
-    on the west. The stone panels about and above this doorway are
-    richly carved and show traces of gilding (Fig. 54). In the south
-    wall of the building you are shown an old door, long walled up,
-    which is supposed to date from a hoar antiquity and is called
-    the door of Tiridates. Lastly you will probably be taken to the
-    belfry above the portal and be shown the famous Tibetan bell. It
-    bears the thrice repeated legend Ôm a hum, the mystic formula of
-    the Buddhists. [161] Before the portal are several tombstones,
-    commemorating deceased pontiffs, and among them that of the
-    enlightened Nerses V. One in marble is raised over the remains
-    of Sir John Macdonald, British envoy to the court of Persia. The
-    bald inscription contrasts with the eloquence of the situation
-    under the shadow of this St. Peter's of distant Armenia and among
-    the graves of the highest dignitaries of her national church. [162]
-
-    Passing now to the interior (Fig. 55 and plan), it is the form
-    which is impressive--the quadruple apse with a canopy altar in
-    each of these recesses, except that on the west. In the centre,
-    beneath the dome, stands the altar which I have already described;
-    there are therefore four altars in this church. In front of the
-    apse on the east rises the parapet of the daïs, as usual; but
-    the higher level of the floor in those on the north and south is
-    approached by steps which extend from wall to wall. The lateral
-    chapels on the east, which are so constant a feature in Armenian
-    churches, are scarcely noticeable in this building, being, I think,
-    incorporated in the additions which were made by George IV. at
-    the back of the church. The space on the floor of the edifice
-    is railed off in two places from north to south. There is of
-    course no pulpit, and there are no pews. The light falls from
-    twelve little windows in the spacious dome upon a scene which is
-    rendered dim by the darkness of the mural paintings, and which
-    serves to enhance the flashing ornaments on the central altar. I
-    am told that there are in all no less than thirty-five windows;
-    but they are small and insignificant. Their distribution is not
-    subordinate to any plan. The paintings on the walls are of no
-    merit; they represent Biblical subjects, and while some are in
-    fresco, others are on canvas applied to the stone. They must have
-    been added at a comparatively recent date; for we are expressly
-    told by Chardin that in his time the interior was quite bare. The
-    dome has been pleasantly decorated in the Persian style with
-    coloured arabesques. These and the various frescos are attributed
-    to an Armenian artist who lived during the reign of Nadir Shah
-    (1736-47). [163]
-
-    The church is large if compared to other ancient Armenian temples,
-    but small if judged by a Western standard. The area enclosed must
-    be rather less than in the case of the cathedral at Ani, although
-    the dimensions are about the same when the four projections are
-    included. The measurements of the interior, which I took myself,
-    give an extreme length of 108 feet 4 inches, and an extreme breadth
-    of just over 98 feet. Each apse has a depth of about 15 feet 3
-    inches--a dimension which I have included in my totals. [164]
-    In the south apse stands the chest containing the vessel with
-    the holy oil, and beside it a little lamp which flickers night
-    and day. The recess of its opposite counterpart is adorned with
-    mural paintings representing eight full-length portraits of the
-    pillars of the Armenian Church. They are identified as St. Gregory,
-    with his sons Aristakes and Verthanes, and his grandson Grigor;
-    as Yusik, Nerses the First, Sahak and Mesrop. The ceremony of
-    ordination of bishops takes place in this northern apse. A cistern
-    has been sunk below the floor in front of the recess to serve in
-    time of siege. Two thrones are conspicuous in the body of the
-    church, both of which may be discerned in my illustration. The
-    first, which adjoins the central altar, is inscribed with the
-    name of Petros Katholikos (Peter II. 1748) and is said to have
-    been a present from the Pope. [165] The second, situated further
-    east, is that which was occupied by the Katholikos during the
-    service which I attended. It is the gift of Armenians during the
-    pontificate of Astvatsadur (1715-25).
-
-    The treasury and room of relics contain many interesting
-    objects. To these chambers is allotted the building on the east of
-    the church. Both are entered from the interior and through doors
-    in the east wall, that on the north of the apse communicating
-    with the treasury, and that on the south with the apartment
-    containing the relics. Among the treasures are several objects
-    which deserve the attention of the student of art, examples of
-    mediĉval Armenian craft being, I imagine, none too frequent. I
-    observed a crystal cross, said to belong to the Bagratid period,
-    and some other crosses reputed to have come from Ani. A gold
-    crown, inlaid with jewels, is ascribed to King Tiridates, and,
-    whatever its origin, is a very interesting object. The same may
-    be said of a silver saucer with repoussé figures dating from
-    the pontificate of Nerses IV. (1166-73). There are a quantity
-    of jewelled mitres and embroidered stoles and ornaments for the
-    church. There are seals of the pontiffs and coins of the Rupenian
-    (Cilician) dynasty. Some store is set upon a head of Dionysus which
-    is believed to be of Egyptian origin. The monastery has become
-    possessed of a most curious object in the shape of a huge caldron,
-    standing on three legs, and having as handles four tigers in the
-    act of climbing. It was found not many years ago in a cloister
-    near Tiflis; buried within it was a bell. An inscription round the
-    rim gives the date of the Armenian era 781 or A.D. 1331. In the
-    chamber of relics are preserved a fine collection of episcopal
-    staves surmounted by a cross above a knot of hissing serpents'
-    heads (Fig. 56, Nos. 1 and 2). Many are of exquisite workmanship.
-
-    The principal relics are the hand and arm of St. Gregory, preserved
-    in a silver gilt case; the head of the holy spear, reputed to
-    possess the power of staying epidemics; [166] a fragment of the
-    Ark, to which is attached a jewelled cross; the head and arm
-    of St. Thaddeus, the apostle; the hand and arm of St. Jacob of
-    Nisibis; a panel carved with a crucified Christ, said to be the
-    work of St. John the Apostle and to have been procured by Ashot
-    Patricius; finally a box containing relics of St. Ripsime.
-
-    The chapels of the martyrs, which are churches rather than chapels,
-    are situated within short walks from the monastery. Thus St. Gaiane
-    is not more than about a quarter of a mile distant in a southerly
-    direction. St. Ripsime is a little further, say three-quarters
-    of a mile; it is placed to the east of Edgmiatsin and is the
-    first building which you see as you drive from Erivan, on the
-    very outskirts of the trees and greenery. Shoghakath is a near
-    neighbour of Ripsime on the side of the great cloister.
-
-    Of these the largest and certainly the most interesting is that
-    which commemorates the brave deeds of the beautiful virgin from
-    Rome. In designing the church of the Holy Ripsime the architect has
-    been faithful to the essential features of that of Edgmiatsin--the
-    quadruple apse and the central dome. But the problem before him
-    was how to eliminate the unsightly projections of the apsidal arms,
-    and how to rear the whole fabric by successive stages to the crown
-    of the dome. His solution of the problem, if somewhat rudimentary
-    and fantastic, is certainly successful from the point of view of
-    looks (Fig. 57 and plan). My reader will of course eliminate the
-    portal and belfry in appreciating this piece of architecture. They
-    were added, the portal in 1653 by the Katholikos Philippos, and
-    the belfry in 1790. He will observe that the outer walls compose a
-    rectangular figure; and a moment's reflection will show him that
-    such a figure could only be presented by a stupendous thickening
-    of the wall on either side of each apse. This difficulty has
-    been in part surmounted by the introduction of niches, two for
-    each apsidal recess. These external niches are nearly six feet
-    deep on the north and south sides, a little shallower on the
-    west and east. The treatment of this feature is quite inchoate;
-    but we shall see it in perfection at Ani. At the same time it
-    is evident that provision had to be made for a side chapel on
-    either side of the apse on the east. These have been supplied
-    according to a design which I have not seen elsewhere, although
-    it appears to be repeated in the church of Sion in the valley of
-    the Tana, a tributary of the Kur, erected at the end of the tenth
-    century. [167] Between the four apsidal recesses of the interior
-    are inserted the narrow openings of four circular and much smaller
-    cavities, communicating by doors which are almost imperceptible
-    with rectangular chambers or chapels. Of these chambers the two
-    on the east provide the requirements of the church, while those
-    on the west were probably added for uniformity. [168] The effect
-    of the eight recesses, crowned by a dome of unusual diameter
-    for the size of the structure, [169] is extremely pleasing to
-    the eye; and St. Ripsime is the most impressive ecclesiastical
-    edifice which I have yet presented to my reader. The drum of the
-    dome has sixteen sides; besides the windows which it contains,
-    light is admitted through bold apertures in each of the apsidal
-    recesses. Standing beneath the dome, one admires the great height
-    of the building. The interior measurements are a length of 74
-    feet 1 inch and a breadth of 58 feet 4 inches.
-
-    The question of the date of Ripsime is again not free from
-    difficulty. We know that the Katholikos Komitas rebuilt the
-    church in A.D. 618; [170] nor, so far as I have been able to
-    ascertain, do we possess records of any subsequent change in the
-    plan. Students of architecture may be inclined to assign it to a
-    later period. The tomb of the martyr is placed in a grotto beneath
-    the apse on the east. [171] Just west of the portal there is a low
-    building, serving as a residence for monks, and, adjoining it,
-    an enclosure for cows. Church and cloister are surrounded by a
-    high mud wall, with round towers at the angles.
-
-    St. Gaiane is an edifice of much humbler architectural pretensions,
-    which is said to date from the pontificate of Ezra (A.D. 628-640)
-    (Fig. 58 and plan). [172] The porch was added, as we learn from
-    an inscription, in the year 1687 by the Katholikos Eleazar. It
-    serves as a place of burial for the pontiffs and contains many
-    alabaster slabs. On the north side have been inserted in the
-    archway of a wide aperture two old Armenian crosses, framed within
-    an ornamental trophy. Entering the building from this portal we
-    are impressed with its simplicity; and this feeling is enhanced
-    by the absence of all decoration, the beautiful masonry being
-    left without any covering of lime. The architect has wisely
-    dispensed with the quadruple apse, and has contented himself
-    with one. But he has retained the rectangular form of the side
-    chapels, and he has separated them by a wall from the body of
-    the building. Four detached piers support a dome which is much
-    smaller than that of Ripsime, but resembles it in the sense of
-    great height which it lends to the interior. The length of the
-    building is 70 feet 2 inches, and the breadth 47 feet. The vault,
-    containing the grave of Gaiane, is approached from one of the side
-    chapels, and is covered by a simple stone with a little carpet,
-    upon which devotees offer coins. The adjacent cloister consists
-    of a humble building on the south-west. The church is surrounded
-    by tombs. Lying against the north wall are some interesting old
-    stones, one of which is exquisitely sculptured (Fig. 59). It
-    probably constituted a boundary-stone, and may have been brought
-    hither as an offering to the saint. The two figures which are seen
-    in my illustration of the building represent opposite types among
-    the inhabitants of Edgmiatsin. The white-headed abbot on the left
-    belongs to the old school, with habits and standards which are not
-    agreeable or exalted. That on the right is the figure of Dr. Arshak
-    Ter-Mikelean, fresh from the atmosphere of a German university.
-
-    The third and smallest of the churches marks the site of the
-    wine-press, where the holy martyrs sojourned and where St. Gregory
-    resided after his release from the pit at Artaxata. It is situated
-    to the north-east of Edgmiatsin and to the west of St. Ripsime. It
-    bears the name of Shoghakath, or Effusion of Light. I was informed
-    that the attendants of Saints Ripsime and Gaiane were buried in
-    a vault on the south side of the apse. [173] In disposition the
-    building resembles St. Gaiane; but it is much longer (58 feet 2
-    inches) in comparison with its breadth (24 feet 8 inches). We learn
-    from an inscription over the door of the church that the portal was
-    added by the Katholikos Nahapet in A.D. 1693. The belfry is due to
-    the same pontiff; [174] his grave is conspicuous within the portal
-    (Fig. 60 and plan). The dome rests on four massive piers attached
-    to the wall. The joints of the pink and grey stone are visible in
-    the interior, as in the case of the two buildings described; and so
-    admirably are they fitted that one would regret the introduction
-    of any internal decoration. A scrutiny of the exterior reveals
-    the fact that the church has been most carefully restored, stones
-    having been removed here and there and replaced. Brosset informs
-    us that mention is made in certain records of Armenian Councils
-    of the construction by Nerses III. (A.D. 640-649) in the town of
-    Vagharshapat of a church of Shoghakath; but he supposes--it would
-    appear upon inconclusive evidence--that this name is intended to
-    designate the cathedral, Edgmiatsin. [175] If it be taken to refer
-    to the wine-press chapel, then all three edifices will have been
-    rebuilt in the seventh century by the testimony of records. I
-    may add that according to an inscription in the monastery of
-    Uch Kilisa, near Diadin, that cloister was also restored in the
-    seventh century. [176] If the buildings as we now see them were
-    erected in that century, the framework at least of Edgmiatsin
-    must be attributed to an earlier date.
-
-
-I return from this detailed description of the cathedral and the
-chapels of the martyrs to the more general tenour of the contents of
-this chapter. Edgmiatsin is rapidly developing into a home of the
-higher education, and it enjoys the proud privilege of possessing
-an institution which is unique in all Armenia for the comparatively
-exalted standard of the course of study which it provides. The Academy
-at once dispenses the usual curriculum of a seminary and supplies
-a higher course, extending over three years. Such an excessive
-disporting in the realms of dangerous knowledge was only sanctioned
-by the Russian Government on the understanding that the privilege
-should be confined to candidates for the priesthood. The nature of
-their profession may have appeared a sufficient guarantee that the
-learning imparted would be strictly subordinated to "views." Besides,
-there was always the safeguard that the curriculum must be submitted
-to the Russian bureaucracy, and approved in due course by these
-aureoled arbiters, enthroned above the shifting mists and slippery
-quagmires among which poor Knowledge often faints and sometimes
-sinks. Her youngest and hardiest offspring, pertinacious Natural
-Science, has been excluded from these intellectual preserves; and I
-was assured that the mere mention of the name of this arch-enemy in a
-prospectus would produce the same effect among the august censors as
-a challenge from the prince of devils among the blessed. The course
-is confined to theology, history and literature, foreign as well
-as Armenian. To these subjects is added a study which the Germans
-have developed under the name of Pädagogik. Within this formula,
-I was given to understand, are included at Edgmiatsin, besides the
-art of the teacher, a certain general knowledge of philosophy and
-psychology. The students are obliged to pass a certain standard by
-examination at the end of each year.
-
-The idea of founding such an institution was conceived by Nerses
-V. (d. 1857), whose liberal mind sought to satisfy by this
-project the needs of his countrymen both in secular and religious
-education. [177] His proposal was rejected by the Russian Government,
-and he was himself sent into honorary exile. Better fortune attended
-the instances of George IV.; and the Academy was actually founded
-during his pontificate in 1873 or 1874. An inscription over the door
-records that the principal aim of the founder was the encouragement of
-the study of Armenian theology and literature. It is interesting to
-note that the bulk of the scholars do not in fact become enrolled in
-the priesthood. As a rule there are about 150 to 200 students in the
-various grades of the seminary and the academy; but I was informed that
-during the last ten years only about 15 had taken orders. The rest have
-become teachers in the Armenian schools, or migrated to universities
-in Russia, or adopted professional or commercial pursuits. I enquired
-as to the nature of the instruction in theology, and learnt that until
-the year 1892 that pompous term had been applied to a simple course of
-religious instruction. In that year a promising scholar who had been
-sent to Germany for education appeared upon the scene. I have already
-mentioned the name of Dr. Arshak Ter-Mikelean; he took his degree
-in the University of Jena, and now presides over the theological
-course. At the time of my visit two young Armenians were studying
-theology at Leipzic at the expense of the Armenian Church. At the
-same date the students in the academical course numbered about forty.
-
-My reader is aware that in Russian Armenia the word seminarist does
-not necessarily apply exclusively to candidates for the priesthood. The
-seminary is nothing more than the highest grade in the Armenian school
-system, with the single exception of the more exalted course provided
-by this Academy. The great majority of the pupils are maintained
-out of the revenues of the cloister; but those who are able pay
-what they can. A youth enters the seminary when about thirteen or
-fourteen years old, and the academy at about nineteen or twenty. Both
-institutions are housed in the same building. Each diocese is invited
-to make a certain number of presentations; and boys and young men are
-encouraged to come from the Turkish provinces. As a matter of fact
-few are able to avail themselves of the offer. The scholars reside
-within the building, one dormitory being allotted to the academy and
-another to the seminary. These dormitories are kept scrupulously neat
-and clean. There is a fine music room with a grand piano, and there
-is also a nice library with casts of the immortal works of Greek
-sculpture illuminating the shadows above the shelves. How strange
-they seem in this distant land, where the study of the classics is
-not included even in the higher education!
-
-The effect which is being produced upon the character of the monastic
-priests by the wise solicitude for education which has characterised
-the Armenian movement is almost incalculable. In old days the monks
-were chosen by the bishops from among their attendants; and this custom
-obtained even after the development of seminarial instruction within
-the cloister. But in 1892 the synod issued a decree enjoining that,
-except in very special circumstances, no person should be ordained monk
-who had not passed through a seminary. He is nominated by the bishop,
-but must be approved by the synod. It is a pity that hitherto no steps
-have been taken to raise the standard of the ordinary clergy. But we
-must admit that it would not be easy to effect such a reform from
-above. For all practical purposes we may count three grades in the
-hierarchy of the Armenian Church. In the first figure the bishops, the
-second comprises the monks and parish priests, and the third includes
-the deacons. Over all three is exalted the authority of the katholikos,
-the keystone of the dome of the edifice. Celibacy is imposed upon
-the bishops and monks, while marriage is rendered obligatory upon the
-parish priests. Thus a sharp division exists between the two orders of
-clergy, arising out of a complete difference in mode of life. Moreover
-the ordinary clergy are elected by the laity--a custom to which the
-people jealously cling. The inhabitants of a town or village select
-their future pastor from among their own number. Of course the bishop
-might refuse to ordain. But such a course would only be warranted in
-very special circumstances; the same being predicated of the right
-of the bishop to depose a priest. Thus the parish clergy occupy a
-special and somewhat independent position. In the rural districts
-the spread of education has not yet commenced to touch them; nor will
-they emerge from their present deplorable debasement until a general
-quickening of public opinion shall take place.
-
-The monks or celibate priests are, I believe, always connected with
-convents; they are known under the style of vardapet, or doctor, which
-is attached to their individual names. They are governed according
-to the rule of St. Basil of Cĉsarea, the contemporary and monitor of
-the Armenian pontiff, Nerses the Great (A.D. 340-374). They do not
-practise the tonsure, and they wear their beards. They are attired
-in long black robes with conical cowls. Their numbers must have
-considerably diminished since 1700, at which date we are informed this
-convent alone contained over a hundred monks. [178] At present there
-are in all not more than some fifty vardapets within the wide limits
-of the Russian provinces. Of these about half reside at Edgmiatsin. As
-members of the synod or as bursars, as overseers of the printing press
-or as editors of the official journal, Ararat, their profession is no
-sinecure. All monks in Russian territory are ordained at Edgmiatsin,
-and it is the custom for all bishops, whether in Russian Armenia or
-abroad, to be consecrated in the church of the Illuminator.
-
-The revenues dispensed by the katholikos are derived from several
-sources. There is the property of the monastery, consisting of lands
-and villages in the valley of the Araxes and elsewhere, to which,
-in the absence of statutes of mortmain, additions are constantly
-being made. The income from this source and from offerings and
-contributions of various kinds amounts, I believe, to about £8000 a
-year. The general property of the Church is also administered from
-Edgmiatsin, the synod being specially invested with this important
-function. Donations in lands or money are frequently forthcoming, and
-are devoted to the support of the various institutions. The accounts
-of the monasteries and bishoprics in Russia are audited and passed
-by the synod. But the clergy are supported by their own flocks; and,
-beyond submitting their accounts to the proper authority, the parishes
-are practically autonomous.
-
-There can be little doubt that the overseeing by the katholikos and
-synod of the administration of the funds of the Church in Russia has
-already effected a salutary change. Should Russia become possessed of
-the Turkish provinces, and should her counsels incline to the sounder
-policy of encouraging the Armenians to work out their salvation in
-their own way, this concentration is likely to promote a general reform
-of the Armenian clergy. The authority of the katholikos at the present
-day extends to practically all Armenians professing the national
-religion. That authority suffered division during the troubled period
-of long duration which followed the overthrow of the Bagratid dynasty
-(A.D. 1045) and the gradual dispersal of the Armenian people. But the
-Katholikos of Sis has quite recently professed his spiritual allegiance
-to Edgmiatsin; [179] and the recluse of Akhtamar, that beauteous island
-in the lake of Van, alone continues pretence to the title and station
-of a supreme pontiff. His jurisdiction is confined to his rock and a
-few villages on the mainland. The patriarchate of Constantinople is
-an institution which is the result of political exigencies, and which
-in no way derogates from the spiritual supremacy of the successor of
-St. Gregory, enthroned in the cloister near the banks of the Araxes.
-
-My reader has perhaps divined from a perusal of the foregoing
-paragraphs that an interesting feature of the Armenian Church is
-the power enjoyed by the laity, which indeed may be described as
-predominant. With them rests the choice of the ordinary clergy, and in
-practice their voice prevails in the selection of a katholikos. That
-Church is indeed a compromise, so far as her ministers are concerned,
-between opposite principles in the organisation of Christianity. The
-monastic priests represent the principle of elevating a hierarchy into
-a position of lofty independence. From among their ranks are taken the
-bishops. But the great body of the clergy are strictly the ministers
-of the people, supported by their voluntary contributions. From these
-conclusions, derived from a study of contemporary conditions, I pass
-to a brief examination of the Edgmiatsin legend, and of the history
-and character of that interesting ecclesiastical edifice which rises
-in the background of all that I have written in the present chapter.
-
-
-
-The Armenians boast that the Gospel was preached to their ancestors
-by the first apostles, and that they were the first people to adopt
-Christianity as the religion of the State. They separate these two
-events by a respectable interval, for they attribute the conversion
-of king and people to a miracle performed by St. Gregory towards the
-close of the third century. We have seen that the current version
-of that miracle comprises a vision by which Jesus Christ becomes in
-effect the Founder of their cathedral church. The inference is perhaps
-legitimate that they hold their own Church, as an organisation, to
-have been established by Christ Himself; and its independence of all
-hierarchies, whether of the East or of the West, to be based upon the
-same supreme sanction. [180] We are carried back by a discussion of
-these claims to the very dawn of the Christian religion; and it will
-be wise to keep them before us as prominent landmarks to control the
-discursiveness of an enquiry which must also be brief.
-
-I. The apostles mentioned by Armenian writers as having carried the
-Gospel into Armenia are St. Bartholomew, St. Thaddeus--the son or
-brother of St. James--St. Simon and St. Jude. [181] Of these the two
-first named are alone in general repute. But the fame of St. Thaddeus
-reposes upon no less a title than that of having executed a commission
-from Jesus Christ Himself to the court of an Arsakid king of Lower
-Armenia or Mesopotamia, whom the Armenians claim as one of their own
-royal line. King Abgar of Edessa is said to have corresponded with
-the Saviour and to have begged Him to come to his capital and heal
-him of a malady. The letter is preserved which purports to contain
-the reply of Jesus, to the effect that after His ascension He would
-despatch one of the disciples. With this epistle came a portrait
-of the features of the Redeemer, which in subsequent times was the
-peculiar pride of Edessa. In due course the disciple arrived in the
-person of St. Thaddeus, and the king was restored to health. Monarch
-and people embraced the Christian faith. After the death of Abgar,
-which appears to have taken place at no long interval, his dominions
-were divided between his son and nephew. The former returned at once
-to the religion of his ancestors and reopened the temples of the
-gods. The latter, who seems to have reigned over a portion of Armenia
-proper, and who bore the name of Sanatruk, was visited by the apostle
-and embraced the faith. But fear of the Armenian nobles compelled the
-ruler to apostatise; the disciple was overwhelmed by the storm which he
-had himself aroused, and perished in the border province of Armenia
-on the side of Persia, in the country which receives the eastern
-slopes of Ararat. [182] The legend of Abgar and his correspondence
-has provoked the attack of modern criticism and has perished in the
-unequal affray. [183] But the preaching and martyrdom of St. Thaddeus
-at the hands of King Sanatruk are well known to one of the earliest
-and most reliable of Armenian historians; and the same authority of
-the fourth century speaks of the throne of the Armenian pontiffs
-as the chair of St. Thaddeus. [184] In the absence of conclusive
-evidence that this saint did not preach in Armenia I shall prefer to
-suppose that he did. The name of St. Bartholomew is often mentioned in
-connection with that of St. Thaddeus; he is said to have been active
-in the mountainous region to the south of Lake Van, and to have been
-flayed alive by the same monarch who put his colleague to death. [185]
-
-These stories were perhaps invented at a comparatively late period. We
-are on surer ground when we surmise that Christianity was professed
-in Armenia long anterior to the miraculous cure of King Tiridates and
-his conversion by St. Gregory. Indeed it would be strange if such had
-failed to be the case. The interposition of one vast desert between
-the Holy Land and Armenia is a comparatively modern geographical
-fact. It is due entirely to bad government. In the first century the
-two countries were united by a long string of cities, the populous
-capitals of the low-lying districts. From such centres as Edessa and
-Nisibis the religion was carried into the border ranges, and over
-the passes to the plains of the tableland. There the first regions
-designated by Nature to receive the new culture were situated in the
-fertile country about the shores of Lake Van, and further east around
-the margin of Lake Urmi. As early as the middle of the third century
-we hear of an Armenian bishop, whose name, that of Merujan, would
-naturally connect him with the great Artsruni family, which possessed
-extensive territories in the neighbourhood of Van and subsequently
-furnished to that country a line of mediĉval kings. [186] It is also
-probable that the Archelaus, in whose mouth is placed a disputation
-with Mani towards the close of the same century (c. A.D. 275-277),
-was bishop of a see not far removed from Van. [187] These early
-ecclesiastics would almost certainly have made use of the Syriac
-character, and it is more than likely that many among them were
-Syrians. Their activity and the circle of their disciples may not have
-extended to Northern Armenia; although there is presumptive evidence to
-show that the Christianity of Albania (Eastern Caucasus or Daghestan)
-and Siunik (country around Lake Gökcheh and part of Karabagh) dated
-back to pre-Gregorian times. [188] It seems at first sight strange that
-the earliest historians, such as Agathangelus and Faustus, maintain
-silence upon this older Christianity of their native land; but the
-edict of Tiridates against the enemies of paganism, preserved in the
-earliest source of the first of these works, implies the existence of
-Christians within the limits of his dominions whom the king persecutes
-after the example of his colleagues at Rome; and the luminous argument
-of one of the latest scholars in this field carries conviction that
-the priestly compiler Agathangelus and the monk Faustus had good
-reasons to ignore this pre-Gregorian Christianity, as being opposed
-to the character of the later orthodoxy. [189] The big gap left by
-Armenian writers between the preaching of the apostles and the advent
-of St. Gregory in narrating the religious history of their country
-is in itself a suspicious fact; Armenian vanity was satisfied by the
-connection of their ancestors with the first disciples, and would not
-be wounded by a temporary relapse; but the laborious methods of modern
-research are year by year illuminating the interval, and removing
-the shroud which is perhaps due to ecclesiastical prejudice or fraud.
-
-What was the nature of this early Christianity which made its way
-in despite of persecution among a barbarous people, professing a
-crude and perhaps unamiable form of paganism? It is difficult to
-believe that the religion of the first Christians resembled even
-remotely the later State religion of the Roman Empire, which under
-the name of Christianity was spread over the world by the imperial
-armies and has been bequeathed as a troublesome legacy to the modern
-world. The origins of this great spiritual movement are veiled in
-twilight; but from the shadows and uncertain glimmer shines forth a
-Personality which no doubts and no disappointments can assail. Round
-this Personality centred many and diverse spiritual conceptions,
-old as time itself and young as time. They were quickened into new
-life by the emotional quality of a great example; and they were kept
-alive and made to focus upon the domain of morality by the daily and
-intimate intercourse of the members of a brotherhood which should
-embrace all the creatures of God. It is essential to the fruitfulness
-of such a community that they should maintain, not internal discipline
-nor even the agreement of the members upon matters of doctrine among
-themselves, but the enthusiasm which prompted their first efforts,
-a high sense of individual responsibility among the members, and the
-habit of mutual tolerance, mutual help, mutual consolation, and, above
-all, of mutual love. The simple ceremonies of the early Church were
-calculated to promote this spirit. The candidate was admonished by
-the rite of baptism of the serious nature of the resolve which he had
-taken to break with the world of sense and appearance, and to become
-initiated into the higher meaning and purpose by which it is supported
-and inspired. The fast redressed the balance between the soul and the
-unruly flesh; and the agapes or love-feasts induced a close communion
-among the brothers, the necessary corollary to communion with God.
-
-It is scarcely open to doubt that the theoretical side of the religion
-was not defined by any rigid formula. "Tell me," says Archelaus,
-"over whom it was that the Holy Spirit descended like a dove. Who
-is this one whom John baptizes? If He was already perfect, if He was
-already the Son, if He was already Virtue, the Holy Spirit could not
-have entered into Him; a kingdom cannot enter into a kingdom. Whose
-was the voice which came from heaven and bore testimony to Him: 'This
-is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased'?" It is clear that the
-theory of Archelaus was of an adoptionist nature, or, in other words,
-that he believed Jesus to have been adopted as the Son of God by the
-descent of the Holy Spirit at the baptism. It is also plain that he
-was not arguing as an irresponsible disputant, but as giving voice
-to a strong current of orthodox opinion in his Church, as opposed
-to the docetic teaching of Mani, representing Jesus as a heavenly
-spirit assuming the mask of man. Other currents there certainly were
-in other dioceses than that of Archelaus, and perhaps even among
-his own flock. But there seems strong reason for believing that the
-adoptionist Christology was firmly established towards the close of
-the third century in outlying portions of the Roman Empire and among
-the Christian communities outside its pale. [190] In Antioch it had
-been suppressed in the person of Bishop Paul of Samosata after the
-overthrow of his patron, Zenobia, queen of Palmyra, by the Emperor
-Aurelian in the year 272. The weight of the Empire was placed in the
-scale of those tendencies which were to crystallise in the celebrated
-formula of Nice (A.D. 325): Christ a very God, begotten of God, but
-not a creature of God; Son of God, of one nature with the Father; Who
-came down from heaven, and took flesh, and became man, and suffered
-and ascended into heaven; Who was before He was begotten and Who has
-always been. The same Council of Nice enjoined that the followers of
-Bishop Paul, or Pauliani, should be re-baptized before admission to the
-Church. The recalcitrant were driven out into the mountain fastnesses,
-where after the lapse of several centuries and under the Armenian
-terminology of Paulicians (Paulikean), the inheritors of their spirit
-again emerge as a sharp thorn in the side of the orthodox Churches
-both of Constantinople and of Armenia. The history of the wholesale
-persecutions of this hardy people by the successors of the Cĉsars
-during the ninth century, and of the successful reprisals which they
-made, is outside the scope of these remarks; they were driven into the
-arms of the Mohammedan Power, and their decimation by the imperial
-armies drove another nail into the coffin which was being prepared
-for the cancerous body of the Roman Empire.
-
-The connection of the assailants of Armenian orthodoxy, who were known
-as Paulicians, with their namesakes in the more westerly provinces of
-the Empire, and of these with Paul of Samosata, has not yet, perhaps,
-in spite of the luminous researches of the scholar I have quoted, been
-sufficiently worked out. But we rise from a perusal of his work with
-the conviction that this connection was at least of the nature of a
-strong family resemblance dating back to apostolic times. The important
-document which he has disinterred from the library at Edgmiatsin,
-and of which the title suggests the hopes that were excited in the
-breast of Socrates by the pretensions of a certain work of Anaxagoras,
-affords us a full and detailed, if partially mutilated account of the
-religious profession of the descendants of these Armenian heretics,
-as copied from previous copies by a member of the sect in 1782. The
-same voice which found expression in the disputation of Archelaus
-rings out from the pages of the Key of Truth not less clearly than
-of old. Jesus is human, though free from sin, until He is baptized
-by John in the Jordan when He has reached His thirtieth year. Then
-the Spirit of the Father, descending upon Him, fills Him with the
-Godhead. After adoption the elect Christ is forthwith led up to the
-mountain, where He enjoys the mystery of intercourse with the Father
-for forty days. Baptism must therefore constitute a central event
-in the life of the Christian, or imitator of Christ. He must come
-to baptism after the full awakening of his individual conscience to
-a knowledge of sin and to the nature of repentance. He must come
-at mature age, when the heats of youth are passed and his natural
-instincts have been brought under control. No remission of sins can
-be effective until he shall have reached this age; nor is baptism
-under other circumstances more than an empty form. Through baptism he
-becomes a Christian; and the meal which follows baptism is the symbol
-of that feast of divine converse with God of which the Son of God,
-after His adoption, partook. The Holy Ghost enters the catechumen
-immediately after baptism, and he in effect becomes filled with the
-spirit of God. The note of aversion to hierarchical grades which is
-struck in this treatise was no doubt accentuated by the opposition
-of the sect to the methods of their natural enemies, the Orthodox
-Church. But their polity--if the word may stand--could in this respect
-be based on Scripture; and it encouraged that sense of individual
-responsibility and that habit of self-reliance which are not less
-effective qualities in the domain of evangelical enterprise than the
-opposite methods of the Jesuits. The elect of God composed a body of
-which each member was sublimely conscious of his resolve to pursue
-a life of ideal justice by communion with the spirit which resided
-in himself. The example which they set was not that of a selected
-and exotic hierarchy, but was the example of simple peasants and
-artisans. When we meet such people, whatever the proximate origin
-of their particular tenets, we take farewell with a tear and perhaps
-with a sigh. The Dukhobortsy, of whom I have spoken, would find much
-in the manual of these Armenian adoptionists with which those resolute
-children of the Reformation in Europe would cordially agree.
-
-Traces of adoptionism are to be found in the teaching of St. Gregory
-himself and in the early institutions of the Armenian State
-Church. We must regret that what is probably the earliest source for
-our knowledge of that teaching has not yet been translated into one
-of our Western tongues. [191] In one passage the saint instructs us
-that the Spirit, coming down at the Baptism, gave to Jesus the glory
-which became His. John the Baptist is represented as the depositary
-of the Divine favours conferred of old upon Israel; and it was he
-who conferred these favours--priesthood, prophecy and kingship--upon
-our Lord Jesus Christ. [192] It is, I think, scarcely fair to argue
-from such passages that the Christianity of Gregory was, as a whole,
-of an adoptionist type. But it is interesting to remember in this
-connection that the Armenians celebrate the birth and the baptism
-of Christ upon one and the same day, the 6th of January. And we may
-perhaps be surprised to read that in the canons of St. Sahak, one of
-the pillars of the early State Church (390-439), the feast of the
-birth of Christ is not included in the list of festivals which are
-formulated in some detail. [193] We know that St. Gregory himself
-brought to Armenia with great pomp certain relics of St. John the
-Baptist; and the number of monasteries in Armenia which are dedicated
-to the hermit on the Jordan testify to the peculiar veneration in which
-he has been held. But the influence of orthodoxy in the West must early
-have restrained these adoptionist tendencies; and it is not improbable
-that they became identified with that stubborn heresy of their native
-land which is often mentioned and deplored by Armenian writers. [194]
-There are reasons for supposing that the Messalianism (meteslenuthium)
-against which is directed a cruel canon of the Armenian Council of
-Shahapivan, convened in about the middle of the fifth century, was in
-effect a manifestation of this native heresy, and was identical with
-the Paulicianism which was specifically stigmatised by a canon of the
-Council held in Dvin (valley of the Araxes) in the year 719. The first
-of these synods enacted that priests convicted of Messalianism should
-be branded on the forehead with the figure of a fox. This particular
-punishment was the same which was meted out to the Paulicians of
-Armenia during the persecutions of the eleventh century. The Council
-of Dvin forbade all intercourse with members of this sect under pain
-of heavy punishments. The pontiff of the day, John the Philosopher,
-composed a tract against them, in which he speaks of them as dregs of
-the incestuous flock of the Paulicians, and informs us that they had
-been placed under a ban by Nerses Katholikos, under which name he is
-probably alluding to Nerses III. (640-661). [195] He represents them as
-joining hands with certain refugees from the Albanian Church (Eastern
-Caucasus) who were opposed to the use of images. There is at least
-a family resemblance between these sectaries of the eighth century
-and those who, under the name of Thonraki (Thonraketzi), suffered
-persecution in the tenth and eleventh centuries at the hands of the
-Armenian State Church. Their fiercest adversary, Gregory Magistros,
-who in the middle of the eleventh century carried fire and sword
-into their mountain retreats, alludes to them as having imbibed the
-poison of Paul of Samosata, and adds the important statement that their
-proximate founder was one Sembat, and that for 170 years they had been
-continuously admonished and anathematised by successive patriarchs and
-bishops of Armenia as well as of Albania. [196] Their seats in Armenia
-were in the radial mountain mass of the Ala Dagh (Thonrak), in Sasun,
-south of Mush, and in the neighbourhood of Khinis, whence were derived
-the band who were the object of perhaps the latest persecution, that of
-1837-45. It was on this occasion that the documentary proof of their
-professions was wrested from them and taken to Edgmiatsin. It is the
-book entitled the Key of Truth. The plain of Khinis contained members
-of this sect into quite recent times; but they suffered severely
-owing to the customary powers possessed by the heads of the Gregorian
-community in Turkey to inflict corporal punishment upon members of
-their own flock. The sectaries were not recognised by the Government
-as an independent religion. Not many years ago the remnant came over
-to the American missionaries and embraced the Protestant faith.
-
-II. What does my reader know about the ancient history of Armenia? At
-least he remembers the wonderful march of Xenophon (401-400 B.C.),
-who crossed the entire block of the Armenian tableland from the
-plains of Mesopotamia to the Black Sea. At that time the country
-was under the overlordship of the Achĉmenian king of Persia--that
-splendid dynasty which was at length destroyed by a great wave from
-Europe, and of which the latest champion was murdered by a satrap of
-Bactria after his decisive defeat in the belt of mountains south of
-Lake Van by Alexander the Great (331 B.C.). The name of the Greek
-hero is still alive in Southern Armenia, sharing the honours in
-this respect with Solomon. Perhaps our next familiar memory will be
-the visit of Hannibal to the court of Artaxias, one of the numerous
-governors in the empire of the successors of Alexander, and a ruler
-whose territory embraced the scene of these travels. [197] Nor are
-we likely to have forgotten the recoil of the East upon the West
-which took place under the leadership of the picturesque Mithradates,
-that strangely composite embodiment of two diverse cultures. Behind
-Mithradates looms the power of a great king of Armenia, whom, again,
-we know as a scion of a new dynasty which had arisen in Asia--the
-Arsakid or Parthian dynasty. With these Arsakid kings of Armenia we
-are fairly familiar; the Parthian archers ride unrevenged through the
-polished verse of Horace, and the Arsakids of Persia and Armenia supply
-the pages of Tacitus with several lively interludes to his throbbing
-narrative. Some acquaintance with these various events is part of the
-equipment of most among us--a little less or a little more. We may
-learn a great deal more of the subsequent history of Armenia; but
-from what sources shall we collect material for a fuller knowledge
-of the older period? The Armenian historians are all but worthless;
-the West was little inquisitive; and even now we can scarcely answer
-the leading questions: whence the Armenians came to the seats which
-they have occupied throughout the historical period, and how they
-fared in culture, in art, or in arms. Upon these subjects the Fool
-is almost as well instructed as the Wise Man; we search the mists in
-vain for any definite image; till from among them emerge the thrones
-of these Arsakids--a Northern or Scythian dynasty, holding Persia as
-well as Armenia, and crowning a polity which was of a strongly feudal
-type. [198]
-
-The last of the kings of this dynasty who ruled over Persia was the
-ally and kinsman of the father of King Tiridates, who was destined,
-after much vicissitude of fortune, to embrace Christianity and to
-adopt it as the religion of the State. Ardavan and Chosroes were
-seated on the thrones of Persia and Armenia, when a prince of the
-Persian province which is now known under the name of Fars (Shiraz,
-Persepolis) overthrew the former of these monarchs by a decisive
-battle, in which Ardavan himself was slain (A.D. 227). The victor,
-Ardashir, became master of the great Persian monarchy in which the
-king of Armenia held the second place. His dynasty, the Sasanian,
-supplanted the Arsakids in Persia, and continued to rule until the
-middle of the seventh century, when it succumbed to the Arabs and to
-Islam. The Sasanians are familiar to all of us as the permanent enemies
-of the Roman Empire; and the traveller may be said to be on terms
-of intimacy with them, for they have left him several monuments of
-great solidity and architectural merit which mock the squalor of their
-surroundings at the present day. These, it is true, they erected with
-the aid of architects and artisans taken captive in their wars with
-the Empire. [199] Fars was in those days a centre of Zoroastrianism
-or Mazdaism; and Ardashir was the champion of the fire-worshippers,
-leaned on their support and closely identified them with his dynasty.
-
-When the news of the death of his kinsman and ally was brought
-to the Arsakid king of Armenia, profound grief filled the soul of
-Chosroes. For the moment he was powerless to arrest the triumph of
-the usurper; but in the following year (A.D. 228) he had matured
-extensive preparations, and, at the head of an army which comprised
-Huns from beyond Caucasus as well as other nomads, marched to the
-frontiers of Persia and laid waste her provinces to the gates of
-Ctesiphon. Thirsting to avenge his race, he endeavoured to enlist the
-Parthian satraps in the empire of Ardashir; but these temporising or
-jealous princelets had thrown in their lot with the Sasanian monarch
-and could not be induced to stir. He was, however, assisted by a
-portion of the Medes and by the sons of Ardavan. [200]
-
-For a period of ten years the war was continued by the Armenian
-potentate; his capital, Vagharshapat, [201] was filled with the booty
-of successful raids; and, while the temples of the gods throughout
-Armenia were adorned with costly offerings, their priests received
-munificent largesses. His fortunes were assisted by an alliance with
-the Empire; the reigning Cĉsar, Alexander Severus, was alarmed by
-the rise of the new dynasty, and may have been stung by impertinent
-messages on the part of Ardashir. A Roman army attacked Persia
-from the side of Armenia, while two more divisions, one under the
-leadership of the emperor, assailed other portions of the dominions
-of the king of kings. [202] If the result of the various engagements
-may appear ambiguous (231-233), it at least ensured the quiescence of
-the Persian during several years. Ardashir continued to be harassed
-by the Armenian ally of the Romans, and resolved to rid himself by any
-means of his inveterate foe. A Parthian of the blood royal volunteered
-to execute his desire; he went over with his family as a refugee to
-the court of Chosroes, who received him with the greatest warmth as
-a valuable ally. After much pleasant intercourse, when spring came
-on and the king was preparing to take the field, Anak--for such was
-his name--bethought himself of the pledge which he had given and of
-the reward promised by Ardashir. In company with his own brother he
-succeeded in drawing the king aside, when the two villains despatched
-him with their swords. The crime was committed at Vagharshapat; the
-guilty pair fled down the valley, hoping to cross the Araxes at the
-bridge of Artaxata. But they were cut off by the Armenian horsemen
-and precipitated into the river. The king, before he expired, gave
-orders that the family of Anak should forthwith be massacred. Only
-two little children were rescued from the carnage; one was brought
-up in Persia, and the other, Gregory, in Greece (A.D. 238). [203]
-
-This unnatural treachery on the part of a Parthian towards the Parthian
-King of Armenia in the interests of a dynasty which had supplanted the
-Parthians on the throne of Persia came near to costing the Armenians
-the permanent loss of their independence. But Ardashir appears to have
-contented himself with the enjoyment of his personal revenge and of
-a few raids into Armenian territory. His death occurred a few years
-after the date of the tragedy (in 241 or 242); and the government
-of Armenia appears to have been conducted by the nobles, under the
-nominal sovereignty of the son of Chosroes, by name Tiridates, a
-child of tender years. It was not until the year 252 or 253 that the
-successor of Ardashir was enabled to establish his sway over Armenia
-with the assistance of the uncles of Tiridates, whose cruel treatment
-compelled the youthful king to take refuge in the Empire. [204]
-But the triumph of Shapur was not destined to be of long duration;
-the young Tiridates grew up and prospered in the territory and under
-the protection of the Romans; and, after distinguishing himself by
-personal bravery in a campaign of the emperor against the Goths, was
-restored to his native dominions with the support of a Roman army
-and perhaps in consequence of the victory of Odaenathus, prince of
-Palmyra, over the armies of the Persian king (264 or 265). [205] It
-was in the first year of his restoration that occurred an event which
-no Armenian can hear related without experiencing a thrill of emotion.
-
-When the son of Anak, the murderer, who was being educated in Roman
-territory, at Cĉsarea, the capital of Cappadocia, had come to years
-of discretion, he was informed--perhaps after his marriage and
-the birth of two children--by the faithful guardian or governess
-under whose care he had grown up, of the crime committed by his
-father. Forthwith the pious youth--for he had been brought up in the
-Christian faith--sallied forth in search of the son of the murdered
-monarch, and attached himself to the person of the exiled Tiridates,
-whom he commenced to serve with the utmost zeal. Upon the subject of
-his origin and parentage Gregory maintained a wise silence; but he
-was unable or unwilling to conceal his religion, which at that time
-happened to be not only unpopular, but subject to persecution. [206]
-Tiridates in vain endeavoured to wean his servant from the Christian
-faith; time after time he assailed his constancy with reproach and
-even with imprisonment; but the decisive moment arrived when he
-had recovered his long-lost dominions, and stood within the famous
-temple of Anahid, hard by the present town of Erzinjan. At the feast
-which followed the sacrifice he gave vent to his emotion in words
-characteristic of a king. Addressing his trusty counsellor among the
-assembled guests, he commanded him to make an offering of garlands
-and leafy branches to the shrine of the great goddess; and, upon his
-refusal, "How dare you," exclaimed the king, "adore a God whom I do not
-adore?" The resources of persuasion and torture were without effect
-upon the will of the Christian; and the monarch was meditating some
-fresh inducement when one of the nobles approached and said: "Sire,
-this Gregory is not deserving of life, and hence his unwillingness to
-live and see the light. We knew not who he was, this long while that
-he has sojourned among us--but now we know: he is son of that Anak
-who killed thy royal father, and to whom Armenia owed her exhaustion
-and captivity." When Tiridates heard these words, he gave orders to
-bind the martyr and to conduct him to the castle of Artaxata. There
-he was cast into a pit of great depth, where he was left to perish.
-
-For thirteen years Gregory languished in this noisome dungeon,
-forgotten by the world but saved from death by the ministrations of a
-widow who resided in the castle. The hatred or fear of the Christians,
-so early manifest in the new reign, was emphasised by Tiridates
-in a pompous edict, which admonished his subjects to beware of the
-resentment of the gods--of Aramazd, who gave fertility; of Anahid,
-the goddess defender; of Vahagn, the courageous god. The king had been
-a witness--so it proceeded--during his sojourn in the Empire, of the
-great solicitude of the Cĉsars for the cult of the national divinities,
-to the prosperity and glory of their people. Following the example
-of his august instructors, he bade his subjects, nobles and peasants,
-to lay hands on any offender against the gods. They should bind him,
-hand and foot, and bring him to the gate of the palace. His lands
-and possessions would be bestowed upon the denouncer. The religious
-policy of a Decius and a Valerian was at least extended by Tiridates
-to the holier sphere of legitimate homicide. At the head of the Roman
-cavalry he rode down the Persian cohorts, and among his levies were
-reckoned a contingent of Huns. Of lofty stature and broad shoulders,
-his appearance was the signal of victory; and it became a proverb
-that Tiridates would destroy the dams in his impatience, and in his
-courage arrest the rivers in their course towards the sea.
-
-At the point where the historian I have been following was perhaps
-about to change his theme, and to present the opposite picture
-of a king and people overtaken by calamities which could only be
-attributed to the wrath of heaven, the priestly compiler of the
-Agathangelus treatise has gone to work with his scissors, and has
-substituted for the more straightforward account of the authority he
-was using one of those prolix and portentous legends, familiar to the
-student of hagiographical literature, which were at once the outcome
-of the diseased fancy of the cloister and the food with which it was
-sustained. The tale of the advent of the Roman virgins, of the assault
-upon the modesty of the fairest among them, of their martyrdom and of
-the transformation of the royal violator into a wild boar, wallowing in
-mud and eating grass, bears the imprint at every phase of a monkish
-invention, which was probably stolen in its essential features
-from the literature of Greek monasteries and adapted to the local
-conditions at Vagharshapat. [207] But carelessness or want of skill
-on the part of the compiler has happily preserved for us a fragment
-of the original story, from which we learn that the Armenians were
-afflicted by an extraordinary outbreak of diverse diseases: leprosy,
-palsy, dropsy, madness. [208] We are given to infer that the king
-himself was visited by some grave malady, and that he was cured in
-a miraculous manner upon the appearance and at the hands of Gregory,
-who had long been numbered among the dead. [209] We are told how, from
-all parts of Armenia, the people flocked to the province of Ararat, to
-Vagharshapat, the royal residence; how they were cured of their various
-disorders; and how king and people embraced the faith in the service
-of which the saintly doctor had effected their cure. The testimony
-of the historian is supported by a Greek writer of the fifth century,
-who attributes the conversion of King Tiridates to a miracle. [210]
-
-It is not unlikely that the mind of the monarch was influenced by some
-occurrence of the nature deducible from the mangled narrative of the
-original biographer. Tiridates was a full-blooded heathen, prone to
-all forms of superstition, and free from any taint of rationalising
-tendencies. Yet we may suspect that the number and power of the
-Armenian Christians prior to his conversion loomed much larger in
-the consciousness of himself and of his contemporaries than we are
-led to suppose by Armenian histories. Was he desirous of finding a
-counterpoise to the Mazdaism of his Persian enemy, which had been
-elevated by the Sasanians into a strongly organised State religion
-and identified with the throne? Was he impressed with the cohesion
-of the Christians among themselves, and by the contrast thus offered
-to the fissiparous tendencies of his feudal polity? Was the widow in
-the castle of Artaxata a Christian, and was the old authority of the
-prisoner in the king's counsels exploited by her co-religionists at
-an opportune moment, when his wisdom should appear restored, as by a
-miracle, to a necessitous land? If such questions be mere matters of
-surmise, we at least know that at the date of the conversion the Roman
-Empire was hesitating in a policy towards the Christians, and that the
-repressive measures of a Valerian were no longer in repute. [211] The
-Armenian king became a convert before their revival under Diocletian
-(284-305); and Christianity was adopted as the religion of the State
-in Armenia some thirty years prior to its triumph in the West by
-the decisive action of the Milvian Bridge (312), and over a hundred
-years before the edicts of Theodosius the First against the practice
-of paganism. [212]
-
-The measures taken by Tiridates and his statesman and mentor,
-Gregory, to supplant polytheism by Christianity were such as might
-have excited the envy of a Cĉsar, and which only an Eastern despot
-could hope to enforce. From Vagharshapat the king proceeded down
-the valley to Artaxata at the head of the troops which garrisoned
-the capital. On the way he set fire to the temple of the god Dir,
-from whom he is said to have derived his name (Dirtad or gift of
-Dir). [213] In a graphic figure our historian likens the priests and
-their followers to demons; and he relates how, some on horseback,
-others on foot, and all fully armed, they hurried hither and thither,
-gesticulating and screaming, until they were put to flight. But the
-swarm took refuge in the temple of Anahid at Artaxata, where from the
-roof they discharged arrows and precipitated a hail of stones upon
-the advancing host. Gregory, making the sign of the Cross, ran to the
-gate of the edifice, which dissolved into its foundations, wreathed
-in flames. The dusky troop vanished like a puff of smoke from the
-face of the land, to Caucasus and Chaldia [214] in the north. The
-treasures of the temple were distributed among the needy; some of
-the priests were selected or accepted for the service of the Church,
-to which body was also allotted the confiscated land.
-
-King and minister travelled the country in all directions, preaching,
-[215] overthrowing temples and endowing the Church with their rich
-possessions. One after another the most famous sanctuaries succumbed
-to the royal zeal: the fane of Aramazd, father of the gods, at Ani,
-the modern Kemakh, the burial-place of the kings; that of Nanea,
-daughter of Aramazd, at Til, beyond the Western Euphrates; the temple
-of Mithra, son of Aramazd, at Pakharij in Terjan, and the temple
-of Barshamin at Tortan. A more personal delight may have thrilled
-the saint--if saints be capable of such emotions--as he shattered
-the golden statue of the goddess Anahid at Erzinjan, and watched
-the lofty walls of her numerous shrines sinking to the level of the
-ground. They were the most magnificent of all the sacred edifices in
-Armenia, and they were defended to the last by quite an army of dusky
-foes. Within the vacant enclosures was erected the sign of the Cross.
-
-Months and perhaps years were occupied in the overthrow of these
-strongholds of paganism; [216] but it was not until after the return
-of Gregory from ordination at Cĉsarea of Cappadocia, whither he was
-escorted by sixteen of the great nobles and conducted in a car drawn by
-white mules, [217] that king and people received at the hands of the
-minister, no longer a layman, the crowning benefit of baptism. The
-first act of Gregory upon his return to his native country was to
-destroy the temples of Astishat in the province of Taron (Mush),
-which lay upon his road and which were still frequented. These were
-three in number and dedicated to three gods. The first was the shrine
-of Vahagn, destroyer of serpents; the second belonged to Anahid,
-the golden mother; while the third preserved the cult of the goddess
-Astghik, the Aphrodite of the fair mythology of Greece. They were
-situated on the summit of Mount Karke, close to the Euphrates, and in
-full view of the chain of the Taurus mountains. The place was called
-Astishat because of the frequent sacrifices which were offered up;
-and it was there that the kings of Armenia had been wont to appease
-the gods. The saint was carrying with him certain relics obtained in
-Roman territory, namely a parcel of the bones of St. John the Baptist
-and of those of the holy martyr Athenogenes. [218] When his numerous
-party had arrived in front of the temples, and were not further from
-the Euphrates than a space which a horseman would cover in two careers
-of his steed, the white mules of the car with the relics came to a
-standstill in the hollow of a valley, where there was a little water
-and which still remained to be crossed. Efforts were being made in
-vain to induce them to proceed, when an angel appeared to Gregory and
-signified the Divine Will. The relics should be deposited upon the
-spot where they were stationed. Forthwith the entire company busied
-themselves with the erection of a chapel, where in due course the
-bones of the saints were laid to rest. The next care of pontiff and
-princes was to demolish the temples of the idols which stood above
-the valley. In their place Gregory laid the foundations of a church,
-and erected an altar to the glory of God. [219] It was here that he
-first commenced to build churches, and to erect altars in the name
-of Christ. For twenty days he sojourned on the spot; and having
-prepared fonts for baptism, baptized first the great princes who
-had journeyed with him, and next the people to the number of over a
-hundred and ninety thousand. In the chapel of St. John and Athenogenes
-he dispensed the holy sacrament; and it was ordained that an annual
-festival should be celebrated in that place in honour of the saints
-and in commemoration of the first foundation of Christian churches
-and ordination of Christian priests. From Astishat the Illuminator
-journeyed to Bagaran in the province of Ararat; but it was at the
-foot of Mount Nepat and on the banks of the river Euphrates that the
-son of Anak administered to king and assembled army the regenerating
-rite. A church was erected upon the site and endowed with a remnant
-of the relics; and a festival was appointed in honour of the saints
-in place of that of Amanor, at the season of first fruits. [220]
-
-It would not be easy to find an account equally graphic and
-circumstantial of the methods employed to substitute Christianity for
-polytheism, which, although, no doubt, they were less violent and more
-gradually operative in more civilised countries, were yet essentially
-similar. We learn from the Armenian writer how the churches rose on
-the sites of the temples, how the ancient festival in honour of the
-god was converted into the festival of a martyr, and how, in fact,
-while the myth was new and unfamiliar, much of the ritual and all the
-surroundings remained the same. The sacred groves were taken by storm
-amid scenes of carnage which our historian skilfully veils by the use
-of metaphor. The lands and slaves of the heathen fanes were made over
-to the Church; the number of the chapels exceeded that of the shrines
-which had been demolished, and separate endowments were made to all by
-royal decree. The children of the priests were distributed among the
-newly founded seminaries, where they were instructed in the Greek and
-Syriac languages and introduced to the literature of the Church. Their
-loyalty to the new religion was stimulated by an annual salary; and the
-most deserving among them were consecrated bishops. Such was the nature
-of the revolution accomplished by St. Gregory with a thoroughness and
-decision which we cannot but admire. The old cult was not extinguished,
-but irremediably disabled; it lurked even in the highest places,
-and we hear of a queen of Armenia who encouraged the polytheists to
-assassinate Verthanes, the son and successor of St. Gregory. [221] Many
-Armenians practised Christianity as a mere matter of form, regarding
-it as an aberration of the human intelligence to which they had been
-compelled to subscribe. [222] Those who had embraced the faith with
-conviction were limited to the circles which spoke Greek or Syriac,
-or were at least fairly familiar with those idioms. [223] Yet Gregory
-preached to the Armenians in the Armenian language. [224] Under the
-shadow of night the devotees of the old religion would adore their
-divinities and chant the tempestuous epics of their native land. [225]
-Years elapsed before they would abandon their lamentations for the
-dead, a practice specially repugnant to the Christian spirit. [226]
-Still, in spite of the constant undercurrent and frequent ebullitions
-of paganism, the institutions of the Illuminator were never
-jeopardised by a decisive relapse. The religion which he invested
-with all the authority of the State became inextricably interwoven
-with the self-consciousness of the Armenian nation, and derived from
-their inveterate obstinacy or admirable heroism a stability which
-hardened the more it was threatened from without.
-
-Then, as now, the keystone of the ecclesiastical edifice was the person
-of the katholikos. I do not know that we can instance among Christian
-organisations any counterpart of this high office. Beside it that of
-the king seems mere fable and tinsel. The title itself was unimportant
-and unpretentious, designating as it did among the Christians of the
-East an archbishop with plenary powers (ad universalitatem causarum),
-such as were necessary in countries removed by distance from the
-hierarchical centres. It is applied by our earliest extant authority
-to St. Gregory; [227] and, so moderate are the claims or pronounced
-the hierarchical spirit of his successor, Faustus, that he coins
-the cumbrous superlative, katholikos of katholikoi, to express the
-superior dignity of the metropolitan of Cĉsarea. [228] But, whatever
-grade in the army of the Church may have been assigned to him by his
-clerical colleagues, the position occupied in his native country by
-the katholikos of Armenia was one of extraordinary glamour. The office
-was hereditary in the family of the Illuminator; and that family had
-been endowed with territories extending over fifteen provinces and
-comprising several princely residences. [229] The pontifical palace was
-at Astishat, in the neighbourhood of the mother-church of Armenia and
-the chapels of St. John the Baptist and of St. Athenogenes. From the
-spacious terrace expanded a landscape which aroused the envy of the
-richest laymen and which was only commensurate with a fraction of the
-pontifical possessions. When the scions of the family were unwilling
-to sustain the burden of the office it was entrusted to prominent
-clerics of the church at Astishat, while the unworthy heirs pursued
-the vocation of arms or the attractions of pleasure, surrounded by a
-court which polluted the sanctity of the pontifical residence. [230]
-It was customary for the descendants of Gregory to marry into the
-king's family, and they were accorded many of the honours due to
-royalty alone. As often as the king aroused and probably deserved the
-censure of the katholikos, that spiritual castigation was unflinchingly
-enforced. In a vacancy of the Chair, owing to failure in the line
-or renunciation on the part of the heirs, it was not the priesthood
-who chose the successor but the king, the nobles and the army. [231]
-In these several respects the office was identified with the existing
-institutions of the country, and it was perhaps indeed modelled upon
-that of the high priest among the polytheists and the Jews. [232]
-But, however great was the prestige derived from such a splendid
-establishment and from the fame of the first occupant of the Chair, the
-hold of the pontificate upon the imagination of later generations was
-derived from a less antique and more constantly operative source. Two
-descendants of the Illuminator, one in the fourth, the other in the
-fifth century, added new and peculiar lustre to the institution. Nerses
-the First introduced the refinements of hierarchical government; Sahak
-the Great gave to the people an alphabet of their own. The throne
-of the successors of Tiridates crumbled away in the course of about
-a century from the death of the first Christian monarch; that of the
-successors of St. Gregory has weathered the storms of sixteen centuries
-and remains a solid and impressive monument at the present day.
-
-Two events of high importance remain to be mentioned in this brief
-survey of the momentous revolution carried through by the great
-king and his great minister. The first is the journey to Europe. The
-reciprocal advantage of the ancient alliance between Tiridates and
-the Empire had been experienced in the campaigns which were waged by
-the Cĉsar Galerius against the Persians (A.D. 296 and 297); and the
-memory of comradeship in arms may have preserved the first Christian
-State from incurring the active displeasure of the colleague of
-Diocletian during the subsequent onslaughts upon the Christian religion
-(303-311). But the Cĉsar Maximin was less patient or more oblivious,
-and their new faith cost the Armenians a war (312). [233] The advent
-of Constantine averted their ruin and set the seal of political wisdom
-upon the spiritual policy of their monarch; and it was only natural
-that the two exalted instruments of the Christian profession should
-desire to profit in every sense by the Christian sympathies of so
-great a prince. The journey of Gregory and Tiridates to the court of
-Constantine has been regarded as unauthentic by a competent authority;
-yet it probably took place. The meeting perhaps occurred in Serdica, a
-residence of the emperor in Illyria, and it was attended by the friend
-and relation of Constantine, Bishop Eusebius of Nicomedia. The highest
-honours were paid to the aged visitors, and the emperor prostrated
-himself at the feet of the saint. The pair were escorted with much
-pomp to their native country, having still further strengthened the
-link which attached them to their powerful neighbours, and perhaps
-concluded a formal treaty. [234]
-
-The second event reposes upon less questionable evidence; it is the
-participation of the Armenian Church in the deliberations of the
-Council of Nice (325), and her formal subscription of its acts. The
-great age of Gregory may well have deterred him from personal
-attendance; his younger son Aristakes represented the Armenians in
-the famous assembly. Upon his return he communicated the canons to
-his father, who accepted them and contributed a few additions. The
-formula of Nice with its uncompromising identification of Christ with
-God was adopted as the dogmatic base of the State religion. [235]
-
-III. A general impression which one receives from the perusal of the
-early histories is that the Armenians of the fourth century were not
-far removed from barbarism. The king might here and there set up a copy
-of a classical building; but I should doubt whether he could have left
-us any monument which might approach the originality of the creations
-of the Bagratid sovereigns in the Middle Ages. Very few among his
-subjects had a knowledge of Greek and Syriac, still less of Latin,
-the languages of the literature of their day. The Scriptures--that
-mine of knowledge--were read in the Syriac or Greek versions to
-congregations of which not even the most intelligent members could
-profit by the service. [236] Identity of interests with the Empire on
-the score of culture was a bond which, I suppose, scarcely existed
-in that age; and, alas, when at length it became a reality, how
-fragile it proved--how fragile such bonds have always proved! Still,
-although we must be careful in thinking of the Armenians of the
-fourth century as we might think of their descendants in the tenth,
-the ties which should have united them to their powerful neighbours
-on the west were of a nature which could appeal to all. There was
-the tie of a common religion, which either nation had recently
-adopted and subscribed at a joint conference. Both were threatened
-by a common enemy--the fire-worshippers of Persia, enlisting all the
-resources of the further East. From that Persian dynasty the Armenian
-monarchs were separated by difference of origin and by a blood feud,
-unmitigated by the lapse of time. They had been restored to their
-possessions by the Roman power. A great king and a great statesman,
-in whom they recognised a saint, had crowned their life work by the
-conclusion of an alliance with Rome which in no previous age could
-have reposed upon so stable a base. Shall we therefore be edified
-by the spectacle of their successors following in their footsteps,
-patiently waiving differences, insisting upon elements of union,
-ranging themselves upon the side of Christianity and civilisation
-and fighting their battles in such sacred causes as these?
-
-King Tiridates was followed on the throne by his son Chosroes the
-Little, to whom is ascribed a reign of nine years. [237] If perhaps
-his stature was small and his body feeble, he at least possessed the
-merit of keeping well with the successor of Gregory, whom his queen
-in vain endeavoured to remove from the world. His name is therefore
-in favour with the priestly historian, who indeed narrates the events
-of this period in a somewhat fabulous manner, but presents us with
-a picture of contemporary society which is lifelike and full of
-movement and colour. [238] That the early years of the reign were
-not disturbed by a war with Persia was perhaps due to the youth of
-the Persian monarch; but the storm burst before its close. After
-sustaining with success the brunt of a Hunnish invasion--in which,
-however, the capital, Vagharshapat, was temporarily lost--Chosroes
-was called to the defence of his eastern frontiers by the approach
-of a Persian army. The first encounter took place near the shores of
-Lake Van, and resulted in a victory for the Armenians. The assistance
-of imperial troops [239] may have nerved the king's resistance, which
-continued until the close of his life. With Chosroes is contemporary
-the pontificate of Verthanes, the eldest son of the Illuminator. That
-saintly personage did not long survive the successor of Tiridates;
-but he may have lived to confirm the reign of his son Tiran, and he
-was perhaps instrumental in placing him upon the throne. [240]
-
-It is during the rule of Tiran that we observe for the first time
-manifestations of that bitter rivalry between the head of the Church
-and the head of the State which was destined, as much, perhaps, as
-any other cause, to bring about the downfall of the dynasty. Such
-an outcome of the ecclesiastical institutions of the first Christian
-monarch might indeed have been foreseen. Had Armenia not been exposed
-to a struggle for life and death with enemies from without, her
-statesmen might well have solved the problem of this dangerous dualism
-without endangering the safety of the nation. Enveloped as they were
-in such a struggle, the only policy was to postpone the issue; King
-Tiran chose the opposite course. He had given his daughter in marriage
-to the son of Verthanes, Yusik; but after the experience of a single
-night the youth deserted his bride, in apprehension, it is said, of
-the terrible progeny which she was destined to give to the world. Such
-conduct and such explanations could scarcely have satisfied her royal
-parents; but the princess died after giving birth to twin sons. Upon
-the death of Verthanes, Yusik was placed in the pontifical chair,
-the ceremony of his installation being performed at Artaxata. The
-king was a lukewarm Christian and, perhaps, an inveterate sinner;
-the katholikos was at once pious and severe. A long feud and partial
-estrangements resulted in an open rupture; and, when the sovereign
-on a certain feast day was about to attend divine service, he was
-publicly denounced by the enraged prelate and forbidden to enter the
-church. Yusik was beaten to death under royal orders; and a similar
-fate befell the saintly bishop of Astishat, who, although a Syrian
-and not a member of the family of St. Gregory, was summoned by king
-and nobles to fill the vacancy in the Chair. We are told that King
-Tiran lived on friendly terms with Persia; however this may be,
-he contrived to fall into the hands of these powerful neighbours,
-who put out his eyes and led him to the feet of their master.
-
-A deputation of the great barons was forthwith despatched to
-Constantinople in order to obtain succour from the emperor. Before
-their return a Persian army was let loose upon Armenia, and those of
-the inhabitants of every rank who were able to make good their escape
-took refuge upon Greek territory. The arrival of imperial troops--it
-is said with the emperor at their head--was shortly followed by a
-decisive victory and the capture of the harem of the Persian king. That
-potentate was summoned to restore Tiran to his native country; but,
-upon the refusal of his blind prisoner to undertake the office, the
-son of Tiran, Arshak, was placed upon the throne. Two occurrences
-in the reign of this prince, as it is described by Faustus, may
-be identified with known events. The one is his connection with
-the great massacre of Christians in Persia which took place during
-the reign of Shapur. [241] Our historian attributes the wrath of the
-Persian monarch to the monstrous perfidy of the Christian sovereign of
-Armenia. The other is the conclusion of a treaty between the Roman and
-Persian empires, of which a provision was the engagement on the part
-of the former power not to offer any assistance to Arshak. These terms
-are familiar to us from other sources as having been wrung from the
-commander of the luckless Roman army after the death of Julian. [242]
-
-The reign of Arshak is, indeed, contemporary with the great wars
-which were waged by Shapur with the power which disputed his supremacy
-over the East. However little credit we may attach to the narrative
-of the Armenian historian, it is at least plain that a king who owed
-his throne to the Cĉsars was often their enemy and never their loyal
-ally. We are told, indeed, that on one occasion his armies violated
-the Roman territory and advanced as far as Angora; on another that
-the king himself led his troops against those of the Empire, and fell
-upon them as they were preparing to receive a Persian attack. When
-the duel was being waged most fiercely he maintained an attitude of
-expectant neutrality, waiting to see which of the antagonists would
-offer him the best terms. The only palliation which we may discover
-for such a course of outrageous conduct is derived from the obscure
-notice of a religious persecution, directed against the Armenian
-pontiff, Nerses, by one of the successors of Constantine. Yet that
-prelate with true wisdom enjoined resistance to the Persians at a
-moment when it might well have seemed a desperate course. The king,
-left to his fate by the provision in the Roman treaty, maintained
-for awhile a courageous front to the Persian onslaught. But he was
-at length compelled to sue for peace and to place his person in the
-power of his enemy under a guarantee of security. His former treachery
-was requited, as it deserved, by the same treatment; and, while he
-himself was taken to Persia and consigned to the castle of oblivion,
-his queen, after a brief resistance, was brought to the presence of
-Shapur and outraged before the eyes of his army until she expired.
-
-A series of massacres on a large scale and organised by Shapur in
-person was the sequel of these events. The unfortunate Armenians
-were collected into large bodies and trampled down under the feet
-of elephants. The number of the victims is said to have amounted
-to thousands and tens of thousands of either sex and every age. The
-great cities, including Artaxata and Vagharshapat, were ruthlessly
-destroyed. Whole populations, among which were conspicuous the numerous
-Jewish colonies, were driven off into captivity. From this calamity,
-which must have occurred after the year 363 and before 379, the
-Arsakid dynasty does not appear to have recovered. The son of Arshak,
-by name Pap, was indeed placed upon the throne by the emperor, and
-reigned for several years. But, like his father, he turned his arms
-against his protectors the moment they had cleared his frontiers of
-the inveterate foe. Like his father he coquetted with the Persian
-power, forgetting the unspeakable insults to which his family had
-been subjected. He even possessed the effrontery to despatch to the
-emperor an insulting message, summoning him to restore Edessa and
-Cĉsarea and ten other cities which he averred had belonged to his
-ancestors. Pap was put to death by imperial order, and another member
-of the Arsakid family sent to reign in his place. But that prince was
-expelled by the most valiant of the Armenian chieftains, who proceeded
-to administer the country in the interests of the sons of Pap. When
-these had come of age the royal authority was divided between them,
-while the numerous Persian party among the Armenians selected a rival
-Arsakid and enlisted in his favour Persian support. Armenian politics
-were becoming a farce when the rulers of the two great powers arrived
-at a solution to which both had been provoked. The buffer state was
-divided between them, the Persians taking the greater portion, and
-the smaller, including the valley of the Western Euphrates, falling
-to the Roman Empire (A.D. 387). Phantom kings of Arsakid descent were
-set up by either power, until in the course of time Persian governors
-and Greek prefects administered the government in either sphere.
-
-I have anticipated in this brief summary upon the sequel of the
-ecclesiastical policy pursued by King Tiran. After the murder of
-the bishop of Taron, whose diocese included Astishat, a priest of
-the church in this religious centre was elevated to the pontifical
-dignity and duly consecrated at Cĉsarea. He was succeeded by a
-scion of the House of Albianus--a House of which the founder is
-mentioned first in the list of bishops chosen by St. Gregory from
-the ranks of the children of the heathen priests. [243] Meanwhile
-the sons of Yusik--the terrible progeny given to the world by his
-bride of a single night--had reached an age which permitted the full
-indulgence of their wicked appetites in every kind of vice. They are
-said to have met their death in the pontifical palace, where their
-wassail was cut short by the angel of God. One of the twins, by name
-Athenogenes, had already produced an heir; and it was this child who,
-when he had reached the estate of manhood, was acclaimed katholikos
-by army and nation during the reign of King Arshak. Nerses--such
-was his name--had been brought up at Cĉsarea, the native city of his
-contemporary, St. Basil the Great. After an early marriage he adopted
-the military profession and became chamberlain and counsellor to his
-king. He is delineated as the ideal of a perfect cavalier--tall and
-supple of figure, with a face of great beauty, which enlisted the
-sympathy of both sexes and all classes. Yet the youth wore the flower
-of a blameless private life; and his high capacities were from the
-first bestowed upon the intimate care of the poor or afflicted, and
-the protection of the oppressed. His function at court was to stand
-behind the person of the king, attired in a rich and elegant robe,
-and bearing in his hand the royal sword of tried steel with its golden
-scabbard and belt inlaid with precious stones. Such was the station
-which he was fulfilling when the nobles and assembled troops approached
-the steps of the throne. They had come to demand his acceptance of the
-high office, hereditary in his family; but the embarrassed chamberlain
-waved them aside. His profession of personal unworthiness was received
-with laughter; his indignant protests by the clash of shields. Upon
-his persistence King Arshak gave orders that he should be bound
-in his presence, and shorn of his long and abundant hair. Many of
-the bystanders shed tears when the ruthless scissors severed those
-silky and floating locks. Stripped of his gay apparel, he was made
-to assume the garb of a priest; and it was difficult to recognise in
-the face of the deacon, who was being ordained by a venerable bishop,
-the brave soldier and princely courtier of a few minutes ago. [244]
-
-The national character of the Armenian Church is mainly derived from
-the institutions of St. Gregory; but it was this Nerses, his direct
-descendant, who brought it into line with the Church of the Empire in
-the important sphere of internal development and discipline. The family
-likeness which it still presents to the neighbouring Greek Church is
-largely due to this prelate. The monastery is still the pivot of the
-ecclesiastical organisation; and it was this contemporary, perhaps this
-disciple of St. Basil of Cĉsarea, who spread broadcast cloisters and
-convents over the land. A single rule was established for the several
-orders of monks; and the laity were bidden to observe certain wholesome
-regulations, among which was included abstention from animal food. The
-poor and the sick were lodged in hospices, and were not allowed to beg;
-a humane enactment provided that their neighbours should bring them
-food to their public or private dwellings. In each district was founded
-a school for the instruction of the people in the Greek and Syriac
-languages. Every action of the great katholikos bears the imprint
-of a high purpose, and overwelling zeal. That purpose was to conquer
-the lusts of a full-blooded and intemperate people by subduing their
-unruly bodies and fanning into life the spark of the soul. But just
-in the execution of this lofty project he was brought into conflict
-with the king, and the fate of his grandfather stared him in the
-face. The son of Tiran was indeed the son of that obstinate sinner,
-nor was Nerses less inflexible than Yusik. Perhaps the monarch acted
-with design, and wished to divide his people into separate communities
-of the black and the white sheep. The saints might be handed over to
-the sway of their prince-prelate; over the sinners his own prerogative
-would remain supreme. He proclaimed an edict which enacted that every
-debtor or accused person, those who had shed the blood or taken the
-property of their neighbours, should assemble in an appointed place,
-where no law would be allowed to touch them and each man might lead
-his life after his own guise. [245] To that haven beyond their dreams
-flocked the company of the unrighteous--women with the husbands
-of other women, and men with the wives of other men. The brigands
-and the assassins and the unjust judges and the perjured witnesses,
-all collected at the given tryst. The place was at first a village;
-but it soon prospered, and became a town, which again extended until
-it filled an entire valley. Then the king built a palace in the
-midst of his congenial subjects and called the city by his own name
-(Arshakavan). Upon the return of the katholikos--he is said to have
-been exiled by a Roman emperor; but his vicar during his absence had
-not betrayed his trust--this truly original and royal solution of the
-problem of joint government was vigorously arraigned. The pontiff taxed
-the monarch with having founded a second Sodom; but, relenting to a
-mood of greater amiability, he suggested that the sovereign might
-continue to reside in his city if he would entrust its management
-into the hands of the katholikos. The rejection of this kind proposal
-was shortly followed by the outbreak of a malady, which decimated
-the inhabitants. The king was constrained to sue for pardon from the
-saint and to disband his colony. The quarrel broke out anew when the
-inveterate profligate shed the blood of a subject and espoused his
-beautiful wife. Nerses left the court and did not return. Arshak, in
-open defiance, appointed a katholikos in his stead--a certain Chunak,
-who was nothing better than one of his minions. He could not hope
-that his action might be endorsed at Cĉsarea; so he summoned all
-the bishops of his own country and bade them consecrate the object
-of his choice. Only two could be persuaded to perform the ceremony;
-and these were perhaps pensioners of the king. [246]
-
-The full activity of the lawful pontiff was not resumed until after
-the calamity which resulted in the bondage of his old enemy and
-the seclusion of Arshak in the castle of oblivion. The accession of
-Pap was attended by the presentation of a solemn petition, in which
-sovereign and nation craved the assistance of their true pastor. Nerses
-devoted his energies to the restoration of the churches which had been
-destroyed by Shapur. But the son of Arshak was quite as licentious,
-although less capable than his father; and he is said to have added to
-the sum of the delinquencies of his predecessor the habitual practice
-of unspeakable vice. The monster was forbidden entry even into the
-porch of the church; and he retaliated by poisoning the katholikos with
-a cup of peace which, in token of repentance, he tendered with his own
-hand. The death of Nerses, which occurred not later than the year 374,
-[247] marks an epoch in the history of the Church.
-
-On the one hand its emoluments were considerably curtailed; on the
-other--and this is a fact with the most far-reaching consequences--it
-was dissevered for good and all from the Church of the Empire. It
-is quite evident that Nerses failed to gauge correctly the temper
-of his countrymen; and it was the defect of his undoubted virtues
-that he at once endeavoured to go too far and to accomplish too
-much. The reaction from his severe ordinances enabled the king to
-proceed unhindered in the work of overthrowing the structure which
-his victim had reared. The hospices were abolished, the convents were
-destroyed and their inmates given over to prostitution. Moreover the
-greater portion of the lands bestowed upon the Church by Tiridates
-were appropriated by the State. Of each seven domains belonging to
-the former institution the revenues of five were allotted to the
-Treasury. Nor can we doubt that popular support was forthcoming for
-the revolution which the monarch initiated in the relations with the
-Greek Church. The Armenians have at all periods approved a national
-policy, and preferred to perish than unite with their neighbours. A
-bishop of the House of Albianus, always obsequious to the throne,
-was invested with the vacant primacy. The consent of Cĉsarea was not
-even applied for, nor was the bishop despatched to the capital of the
-province of Cappadocia for consecration in accordance with the usual
-custom. With the possible exception of the two sons of St. Gregory
-and, of course, of the pseudo-katholikos, Chunak, each successive
-holder of the pontifical office, including the Illuminator, had been
-in the habit of proceeding with great pomp through the territory of
-the Empire to the steps of the episcopal throne in the Greek city. It
-was there that the chosen of the Armenians bowed his head before
-a prelate who loomed in the eyes of his countrymen as the living
-embodiment of the authority of the Church of Christ. The defiance
-offered him by the king was accepted by Basil in a similar spirit. He
-called together all the members of the provincial synod of Cĉsarea,
-without inviting the nominee of King Pap. A violent despatch was
-addressed to the Armenian bishops and a similar one to the king. The
-right of consecrating bishops was taken away from the katholikos, and
-he was left the single prerogative of blessing bread at the court of
-the king. The result of this hot temper upon either side was a bitter
-conflict in the Armenian Church itself. The clergy were divided into
-followers of the king and the House of Albianus, and those who held to
-the necessity of consecration in Cĉsarea and to allegiance to the House
-of Gregory. [248] The subsequent lapse of the greater part of Armenia
-under Persian influence promoted the policy initiated by Pap; and when,
-towards the close of the century, the chair was again occupied by a
-descendant of St. Gregory, the link with Cĉsarea was not restored.
-
-There can, I think, be no doubt that the story of the foundation of
-the Armenian Church by a direct mandate of Christ Himself was invented
-not earlier than the period at which we have now arrived. The mandate
-is said to have taken the form of an injunction to St. Gregory to
-build the church of Vagharshapat. Neither the author of the Life of
-the Illuminator, as we can trace that source through the Agathangelus
-treatise, nor the historian who continues his narrative, displays any
-cognisance with such a momentous event. The former tells us that it
-was at Astishat in the south of Armenia, the country of the Murad,
-that Gregory built the first Christian church. The cult of martyrs
-which he first introduced was not the cult of the Ripsimians but that
-of St. John the Baptist and Athenogenes. We learn from the latter
-that after the death of the saint, and at least down to the murder of
-Nerses, the mother-church of Armenia was situated at Astishat and not
-at Edgmiatsin. Faustus, indeed, expresses himself not once alone or
-in a doubtful manner upon this important point. Astishat contains the
-"first and great mother of Armenian churches," "the first and greatest
-of all the churches of Armenia, the principal and most honoured seat
-of the Christian religion." It was at Astishat that was situated
-the palace of the katholikos. The great synod which was convoked by
-Nerses of all Armenian bishops was held at Astishat. When that prelate
-wished to chide the chief of the king's eunuchs for casting covetous
-glances upon the wide domains which surrounded the church, he quoted
-the scriptural injunction against such ignoble conduct, and added that
-such was the will of Jesus Christ, "Whose choice had first fallen upon
-the church at Astishat for the glorification of His Name." [249] On
-the other hand, I cannot help detecting in these passages indications
-that their author was aware of the growing rivalry of the church at
-Edgmiatsin. Faustus wrote after the severance from Cĉsarea and after
-the partition of Armenia (A.D. 387). He displays acquaintance with the
-Ripsimian legend. But there is no trace in his pages of a knowledge of
-the vision of St. Gregory upon which Edgmiatsin has founded her claim.
-
-As time went on, several causes, which perhaps we may distinguish,
-contributed to widen further the breach with the Church of the
-Empire. The Persian occupation and the ultimate removal of the Arsakid
-dynasty, whose hereditary blood feud with the House of Sasan had
-long embittered the antagonism of the peoples, were no small factors
-in an estrangement from Greek influences which the policy of Persia
-lost no occasion of promoting. The invention by Mesrop of an Armenian
-alphabet, [250] and the institution of a school of translators during
-the pontificate of the son of Nerses, Isaac the Great (c. 390-439),
-constitute elements which, while they worked for the attachment
-of the Armenians to Greek culture and for the wider propagation of
-Christianity, were yet calculated to foster the strong proclivities
-of this people towards complete religious independence. Lastly--if
-indeed there be an end to such a catalogue, in which each item is as
-much an effect as a cause--the peculiar genius of the Armenian nation
-imprinted a stamp upon the dogma of their Church which was not the
-stamp sanctioned by that of the Empire.
-
-The Council of Chalcedon (A.D. 451) addressed itself to the solution of
-the problems which were the natural outcome of the dogma adopted at the
-Council of Nice. What was the true view of the mystery expressed by the
-words of the formula: Son of God, of one nature with the Father, Who
-came down from heaven and took flesh and became man? How explain the
-character of the union of God with man in the person of Christ? Over
-the answer which should be returned to this question conflicts arose
-which destroyed thousands of innocent people, and which prepared the
-way for the disappearance of the Roman Empire from the map of Asia,
-and for the triumph of Islam. The compromise adopted at Chalcedon
-is difficult to place in a short sentence; but perhaps no essential
-feature is omitted in the following phrase: Christ according to His
-Godhead is of one nature with the Father, according to His humanity is,
-apart from sin, of one nature with us. This one and the same Christ is
-recognised in two natures indissolubly united but yet distinct. The
-Armenians were not represented at this Council; [251] and, indeed,
-it is contemporary with the fierce religious persecutions directed
-against them by Yezdegerd II. But, when once the unfortunate nation,
-or what remained after the orgy of the fire-worshippers, had settled
-down to a more peaceful routine, they proceeded to hold a synod of
-their own, which assembled at Vagharshapat (A.D. 491), and which
-with all solemnity cursed the Council of Chalcedon. This procedure
-was repeated at several subsequent synods; nor has the bitterness
-which was consequent upon this open breach with the Church of the
-West subsided at the present day. At Edgmiatsin, the seat of this
-synod, held fourteen centuries ago, I was informed that the Armenian
-Church expressly rejects Chalcedon; and the emphasis of language was
-underlined by the tone of the voice. The Armenians therefore differ
-both with the Greek and with the Roman Church in their expression of
-the mystery of Christology. They will not hear of two natures. They
-hold that in Christ there is one person and one nature, one will and
-one energy; and their liturgy presents this dogma in an impressive
-manner in the Trisagion, which runs: "O God, holy God, mighty God,
-everlasting God, who wast crucified for us." [252] At the same time
-they deny and denounce the teaching of Eutyches, protagonist against
-the Nestorians. Eutyches held that the body of Christ is not to be
-regarded as of one nature with ours; the Armenians maintain that God
-became man in the fullest sense. [253]
-
-One might argue this question to all eternity; but one feels that the
-Greeks were the subtler disputants. The Armenians, like the Persian
-Mohammedans, would appear to be averse to abstractions; they go,
-perhaps, to extremes in the concreteness of their conception of God--a
-God-man in the crudest sense. This Christology has probably embodied
-the sentiments of the people; but it had the effect of estranging
-them not only with the Church of the Empire, but also with the great
-body of their fellow-Christians of different nationality within the
-Persian dominions. At the synod of Beth Lapat (A.D. 483 or 484) the
-old Christian Church of Persia welcomed into its bosom the flying
-forces of Nestorianism, and adopted the Nestorian confession. The
-Georgians, it is true, followed the lead of the Armenians, with whom
-their Church was directly connected. But these allies broke away
-before the close of the sixth century, and went over to the teaching
-of Chalcedon. As the centuries rolled by, these various breaches
-became wider, and they are still marked features in the Christianity
-of the East. Martyrdom and political slavery were alternatives which
-were gladly accepted rather than compromise dogmatic and doctrinal
-differences. When Heraclius visited Armenia after replacing the Cross
-in the churches of Jerusalem, the Armenians refused to camp with his
-troops. In the Middle Ages, when the Sasanians were already forgotten,
-when the caliphs, their successors, were approaching their doom, the
-stubborn hierarchy insisted upon baptizing babes a second time if the
-ceremony had been performed by a Greek priest. All attempts to effect a
-union--and they have been many and serious--have invariably failed. The
-more attractive the offers of the Greeks, the greater grew the hatred
-of them; nor have the popes met with better success. They have added
-costly objects to the treasury at Edgmiatsin; the result remains a
-blank. When we reflect that this obstinate people are as intelligent
-as any in the world in the various pursuits of civilised life, our
-anger at such conduct, which gave away the cause of civilisation, may
-be tempered by a different feeling. The Armenians have fought at all
-hazards to preserve their individuality, and the bulk of the nation
-have perished in the attempt. The remnant may be destined, like the
-son of Anak, to redress the wrongs inflicted by their ancestors upon
-the common Christian weal. On the other hand, the lesson which is
-taught by history is that no nation and no Christianity will succeed
-with the Armenians which endeavours to deflect them from their own
-opinions and to preclude them from working out their own salvation
-in their own way. [254]
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XVII
-
-TO ANI AND TO KARS
-
-
-October 14.--We left the cloister at half-past eight, our little
-party of five persons including the Armenian cook. We had hired
-in the district ten miserable ponies, of which five carried our
-effects. The most direct way to Ani crosses the basal slopes of
-Alagöz, from the southern to the most westerly extremities of the
-shield-shaped mass. You proceed from Edgmiatsin in a north-westerly
-direction, the ground rising at every step of your advance. On the
-point of course, beyond oases of verdure in the foreground, lie the
-stony and arid declivities of the mountain--contours of immense length
-and low vaulting, joining the plain to the horizontal outline in the
-sky. The belt of verdure consists of fields of the cotton and the
-castor-oil plants, of patches of orchard and vineyard, and sparse
-groves of poplar, rising from the dusty and boulder-strewn waste. It
-is sustained by runnels which exhaust the waters of the Kasagh or
-Abaran Su, the stream which collects the scanty drainage of the
-volcano upon its eastern flank. The boulders are worn by water and
-have been dispersed by the swollen river, during the season of spring
-floods. Where we crossed the Kasagh itself, or principal channel,
-it was a languid and soil-charged body of water, threading these
-stony tracts. We passed several villages within the irrigated area,
-some inhabited by Armenians, others by Tartars, and a few by both
-races alike. Hiznavuz, or Kiznaus, an Armenian settlement, containing
-the State-school of the district, was the last of these hamlets of
-the fertile zone. We stayed a few minutes before the open windows of
-the schoolhouse, listening to a lesson given in Russian to Armenian
-boys. Behind the village, a sterile eminence leads over into the
-barren highlands which compose the pedestal of Alagöz.
-
-The moderate elevation of these highlands above the plain of the Araxes
-and their long extension from east to west are conditions favourable
-to the full appreciation of the landscape, and of each new feature in
-the slowly-changing scene. Their free position contributes to invest
-them with the character of a natural gallery, which commands unbroken
-prospects over some of the grandest works of Nature in her most
-inspired moods. The European, whose conception of mountain scenery is
-founded upon the arbitrary peaks and scattered valleys characteristic
-of his Alps, who has looked with emotion upon the doubtful features
-of his lowlands from the summit of some famous pass, can scarcely
-fail to be deeply impressed by the attributes of a panorama in which
-reliefs and depressions of stupendous scale are disposed as members
-of a great design, and are seen in the pure atmosphere of an Eastern
-climate with all the clearness of a model in clay. At his feet lies
-a plain which is level as water, which in no very remote geological
-period was covered by an inland sea. It is a distance of some thirty
-miles to its opposite confines; yet the towns and the plantations
-are pencilled upon its surface as though they had been traced by
-a draughtsman's pen. The plain is bordered by the volcanic range
-which we have come to know as the Ararat system--a chain of which
-the jagged and fantastic outline is already familiar from many a
-rich sunset effect. The summits rise to nearly 8000 feet above the
-campagna; but how humble they appear behind the train of the fabric
-of Ararat, gathering immediately from the floor of the plain! The
-bold snow bastions of the north-western slope are seen in face from
-these highlands; and it is difficult to realise that the pronounced
-lineaments which compose that airy figure are removed by a space of
-nearly forty miles. We had not yet lost sight of the line of poplars
-which screens the cloister when the distinctive features of this
-magnificent landscape were unfolded to our view. The several ranges
-and mountain masses were disposed in the form of an amphitheatre, of
-which we seemed to occupy one of the middle tiers. In the east, along
-the Araxes, the crinkled buttresses of the northern border were still
-visible, projecting in a southerly direction beyond the cock-combed
-hill of Karniarch. In the west, at an interval of sixty miles from
-those eminences, the level ground extended to a double-peaked mountain
-which juts out into the valley from the Ararat system, and is known
-under the name of Takjaltu. Face to face with one another stood Alagöz
-and Ararat. In the plain we could discern an isolated hummock, north of
-the Araxes and bearing about south-west. It marks the site of Armavir.
-
-That this scene--in itself a world, and a world which fills the mind
-with wonder--has of necessity been the theatre of momentous events in
-the life of humanity, the traveller realises at a single glance. His
-pious predecessors were surely justified in accepting the ancient
-belief of the Armenians, that our first father and mother loved and
-suffered in this plain. [255] If we are to seek the site of Paradise
-within the limits of Armenia, neither the Euphrates nor the Tigris
-crosses a country equally appropriate to have been the earliest and
-fairest home of man. It looks the land of hope which Noah tilled and
-planted with vineyards, the second nursery of the human race. The
-Armenians, whose mythical history connects them closely with Babylonia
-and Assyria, who from the earliest times have been accustomed to
-receive Jewish immigrants and to see Jewish colonies established in
-their midst, must at a remote date have localised the events of the
-Biblical narrative in this the most favoured of all their valleys
-and at the foot of the loftiest of their mountains. [256] If the
-Jewish writings which they inherited were believed to have reference
-to their native surroundings, it was only natural that they should
-identify with the same districts the primeval setting of the later
-creations of the Jewish mind; the whole countryside became hallowed
-by religious tradition; nor need we feel surprise when we read that
-a tree in the neighbourhood of Karakala on the Araxes was believed
-to have sheltered Job and his three friends. [257] When the horizon
-narrows and embraces the particular history of the Armenians, we
-find that some of the first beginnings of their history are placed
-within this fertile and spacious plain; it was the chosen seat of
-Armenak, the son or grandson of their progenitor, Hayk, to which he
-descended from the mountains about the head waters of the Euphrates,
-accompanied by his whole race. Here were situated their most ancient
-cities, of some of which the relics still stand above ground and
-invite discussion of which city they denote the site. Armavir, the
-contemporary of Nineveh, with the grove of plane trees which worked the
-magic of the oaks of Dodona, has been identified with the ruins that
-are found on the little hillock which we distinguish from the detail
-of the landscape at our feet. [258] Further west, on the southern bank
-of the river, where it is enclosed by rocky cliffs of basaltic lava,
-due to the passage of a lava stream, modern travellers have discovered
-considerable remains of ancient masonry, which have been utilised
-to build the castle of Karakala, and which are still, I believe, in
-want of their older name. [259] Traces of the fortress of Ervandakert,
-and of Ervandashat, its companion city, which were built in the first
-century of our era by an Armenian monarch of Arsakid descent, have
-been remarked on either bank of the Arpa river, the ancient Akhurean,
-where it issues from the elevated country on the north of the Araxes
-and effects its confluence at the head of this plain. [260] In the days
-when those cities flourished, the haughty Araxes was spanned by bridges
-of which, here and there, a pier or a buttress still survives. [261]
-Below the lofty rock of Takjaltu lie the famous salt mines of Kulpi,
-which have been exploited from immemorial times.
-
-After leaving the Armenian village we continued in the same direction
-over the barren highlands, in possession of the landscape which I
-have endeavoured to describe. We were riding at walking pace; our
-immediate surroundings were indifferent to us; nor for the space of
-three hours did we meet a single settlement, except here and there a
-group of Kurdish tents. When at midday the clouds cleared above the
-summit of Alagöz, we remarked that the fangs of its rocky core were
-invisible behind the bulging contours of the outer sheath. Above us,
-upon those slopes, we could discern some small green patches, which
-mark the site of hamlets, peopled by Tartars and Armenians who eke
-out a scanty subsistence on the mountain side. When we had reached
-a point some thirteen miles in direct distance from Edgmiatsin,
-we crossed a close succession of deep ravines. The first of these
-was the most considerable of the three, and contained the broad
-bed of a dry watercourse, which descends from the central mountain
-mass. On the further side of the last among them we came upon the
-remains of a large church, of great simplicity but of much beauty of
-form. It was built of hewn stone, in the style of the best Armenian
-architecture; and the ancient frescos still stained the walls of the
-apse. But the lofty dome had fallen in, leaving nothing but a yawning
-circle, with fragments of cloud crossing the blue above our heads. An
-inscription in the interior bears the date 876 (Armenian era), which
-corresponds to the year A.D. 1426. Just beyond this ruin is situated
-the little Armenian village of Talysh, on the southern confines of
-which we visited the remains of some towers which are probably of
-the same period as the church, and which overlook the ravine upon the
-west. Both the starshina and the priest of Talysh were absent from the
-settlement; the inhabitants professed complete ignorance of the history
-of their antiquities, which, since they could neither read nor write,
-was perhaps not feigned. The afternoon was well advanced when we left
-this pleasant site; a mist arose, and developed into rain. In less than
-two hours we were glad to find shelter in the Tartar village of Akhja
-Kala, a refreshing oasis of green willows on these sterile slopes.
-
-The essential majesty of the Armenian landscapes derives enhanced
-value from the presence at all seasons of clouds. In this respect
-Armenia is more favoured than Persia, where month after month you
-long for a cloud to temper the glare. To the radiance of her pellucid
-atmosphere is added the charm of effects of vapour; but the vapour has
-already been tamed in the passage of the border ranges, and floats
-in quiet masses over the central regions of the tableland. We awoke
-on the following morning to a scene which is characteristic of the
-season and of this plain. The whole valley of the Araxes was covered
-by a sheet of white mist, and had the appearance of a vast sea. From
-invisible limits in the west to the foot of the Ararat fabric the
-deceptive substance followed the base of the mountains, as though we
-had suddenly been introduced to that geological period when the waters
-washed these rocky shores. In the east several islands rose above the
-shining surface, eminences of the plain. The high ground upon which we
-stood was bathed in pure sunlight, and all Nature was intensely still.
-
-As the morning advanced the vapours lifted or were dissolved; films of
-white cloud were wafted across the blue. We continued our march over
-highlands of the same stony character as those which we had traversed
-during the preceding day. But beyond the village the land had been
-cleared in places, and wheat planted, which was showing green above the
-ground. It is protected by the snows which cover these slopes during
-winter, and it is reaped in spring or early summer. The rocky heart of
-Alagöz was still concealed behind the declivities which swept towards
-us, on our right hand. In the great plain, which still lay beneath us,
-we missed the stretches of pleasant verdure which in that direction
-had become familiar to our eyes; desert tracts, seared by gullies,
-had taken the place of the gardens; while further west the valley was
-broken into hummock waves. A ground of ochre, washed in places with
-rose madder--such were the colours which clothed this naked expanse;
-the delicate tints were continued up the sides of the mountains which
-border the plain upon the south. These lower slopes of the Ararat
-system receive the light at sunrise; and, being composed of a marly
-substance, which is modelled into soft convexities, display a variety
-of tender hues. Bold peaks, of which the summits had been strewn with
-snow during the night, rise along the spine of the range; but they
-are dwarfed, even at this distance, by the fabric of Ararat. We could
-discern on the west of the mountain the pass which leads to Bayazid,
-and we had not yet lost sight of the mound of Armavir. But it was
-evident that the even ground in the valley of the Araxes was coming
-to an end. The western limits of the level plain may be placed in the
-neighbourhood of Karakala; and, according to Dubois, the last canal
-which derives from the Araxes waters the fields on the west of the
-village of Shagriar. [262]
-
-Villages became less rare as we rounded the mass of the mountain and
-opened a view over the country in the direction of the Arpa Chai. An
-hour from Akhja Kala our attention was attracted by a still distant
-eminence, rising above the shelving land upon that side. It was the
-crag of Bugutu, which is probably due to a later eruption on the flank
-of Alagöz. We passed two Tartar settlements, and crossed a couple of
-ravines, the first of which must have had a depth of nearly a hundred
-feet. It contained a pleasant growth of lofty poplars and other trees,
-and it was threaded by a babbling brook. When the prospect extended to
-the upper slopes of the mountain, we observed that they were sprinkled
-with fresh snow. A stage of two and a half hours brought us to the
-village of Talin, a prosperous and picturesque little township at
-the foot of Bugutu (Fig. 61).
-
-Both the Pristav and the priest were quickly forthcoming; we were
-by them conducted to a house which contained two storeys, and which
-was the residence of the priest. While food was being prepared,
-we were accompanied by our hosts in a walk round the place. We were
-informed that it contained some thousand inhabitants, all of whom were
-Armenians. It possesses a church, but is still without a school. The
-old prejudices survive, and it was impossible to persuade the young
-women to submit to the camera. But Talin is distinguished by the close
-proximity of a piece of architecture which appears to date from the
-golden period of the Bagratid dynasty and which ranks among the most
-charming examples of the Armenian style. It is a church--they call
-it cloister (vank), and it perhaps belonged to a monastery--which,
-although in ruins, is fairly well preserved. The roof has fallen
-in; the walls display wide breaches; but the masonry is still sharp
-and fresh, as when first put together, and the traceries might just
-have undergone the finishing touch. With its bold windows--no mere
-apertures--and bands of elegant sculpture, I thought it the most
-beautiful building I had yet seen in Armenia. I reproduce some of
-these chiselled mouldings of the exterior. The first, a vine pattern
-(Fig. 62), belongs to the southern transept; and the second (Fig. 63),
-representing a pear or apple, is taken from that upon the north. On
-the south side of the ruin we observed a sun-dial, carved in stone;
-and we were shown a square block, which had been found among the
-débris, and upon which was sculptured a relief, representing the
-Virgin and Child, attended by two angels. A graveyard surrounds the
-building; some of the old crosses have been built into the walls of
-the village church. A little on the east we noticed the remains of
-a small chapel. The ground was strewn with fallen stones, some red,
-others grey--the two colours which are so skilfully blended or placed
-in contrast by Armenian architects upon the broad, undecorated spaces
-of their walls. We enquired the history of the ruin, and were referred
-to a partially defaced inscription on one of the piers which once
-supported the dome. It mentions the name of King Sembat, a member of
-the Bagratid dynasty, which reigned from the ninth to the eleventh
-century. [263] The grandfather of the priest informed us that both
-the monastery and the church had been maintained up to a comparatively
-recent period. He said that the priests had fled during the campaign
-of Paskevich, since which date the buildings had been allowed to fall
-into decay.
-
-Ker Porter, who crossed the district on his way from Ani to Edgmiatsin,
-mentions the existence in this neighbourhood of extensive ruins--the
-deserted relics of two churches, of walls and houses, which he saw
-at a distance, but did not stay to examine. He calls the place Talys,
-and Ritter hazards the conjecture that these may have been the remains
-of Bagaran. [264] That city, which was founded by the same monarch
-who gave his name to Ervandakert and Ervandashat, became a royal
-residence of the Bagratid dynasty, and at the end of the fourteenth
-century of our era still continued to exist. We did not hear of further
-antiquities in the vicinity of Talin; but the correspondence of name
-suggests that Ker Porter's account may have been called forth by the
-former condition of the site which we visited. It was evident that
-these highlands had been the seat of a flourishing civilisation,
-later in date than that which produced the vanished cities of the
-plain. First at Talysh and next at Talin we discovered traces of this
-mediĉval culture, of which the evidence was lavished upon us when we
-had reached the banks of the Arpa, at Ani and at Khosha Vank.
-
-The upper chamber of the priest's house and the company therein
-assembled recalled the simplicity of the early Christian times. Our
-host was still a young man, and his natural capacities had not been
-blunted by indigence and ill-treatment. His villagers were well off,
-and appeared to live on terms of friendship with their neighbours of
-Tartar race. A Tartar khan, a grandee of the district, happened to
-be visiting the place on business (Fig. 64); and we were glad to see
-that his intercourse with the principal people was marked by tokens of
-mutual respect. His grave face and dignified figure contrasted with
-the vivacity of the Armenians; his presence added to the interest
-of the group which I photographed, and which included the Pristav
-(Fig. 65) and the priest (Fig. 66). Neither the official head of
-the village nor our clerical acquaintance possessed any education,
-except what had been provided by an Armenian primary school. But
-both, and especially the former, were men of great intelligence,
-and did honour to the peasant class from which they had sprung.
-
-We were in want of another pony, which we were able to hire at
-Talin; his owner, a Tartar belonging to Akhja Kala, accompanied or
-followed us on foot (Fig. 67). Measured on the map, it is a distance
-of sixteen miles from the village to the point at which we struck
-the Arpa Chai. We owed it to the nature of the ground and to the
-sorry condition of our horses that we were four and a half hours in
-performing the stage. It seemed an interminable ride; the landscape was
-monotonous; and we soon lost any glimpse of the valley of the Araxes,
-as we continued our north-westerly course. We crossed the neck of the
-ridge which culminates at its western extremity in the crag of Bugutu;
-and, on its further side, descended into the little Tartar settlement
-of Birmalek, where a stream trickles down from Alagöz. A dam had been
-constructed which, aided by the nature of the ground, had forced the
-waters to collect into a small lake. Beyond Birmalek a second ridge
-was placed athwart our way, and constrained us to deviate towards
-the west. In the hollow we passed a small settlement of Kurds, called
-Sapunji, of which the inhabitants were the wildest people we had yet
-met. It speaks well for the Russian officials that they did not dare
-to lay hands upon us, travelling, as we were, alone and unarmed. This
-second ridge was succeeded by another, similar in character, which
-was followed by several more. They are the outworks or spurs of the
-central mass of the mountain, from which they radiate outwards in
-a westerly direction towards the trough of the Arpa Chai. Although
-their relative elevation above the valleys is not considerable, our
-guide preferred to turn them than to take them in face. Their sides
-were clothed with burnt grass, or were sterile and strewn with stones,
-like the depressions which they confined. For more than two hours we
-continued among such dreary surroundings, crossing the western basal
-slopes of Alagöz. These decline, by an almost imperceptible transition,
-into a tract of open and undulating ground. We were refreshed by the
-sight of a village, which stood alone and without neighbours on the
-bare surface of the more even land.
-
-It belonged to a colony of Armenians from the plain of
-Alexandropol. Let us hope that they will be followed by further
-migrations of their countrymen into the valley of the Arpa Chai. That
-classical river of their ancestors crosses a region which was long
-famous for its salubrious climate and productive soil. It has not
-yet recovered from the state of abject desolation to which it was
-reduced when it formed the borderland between the Turkish and Persian
-empires. During a ride of nearly two hours from this settlement to
-the bank of the river, we were not aware of any sign of the presence
-of man.
-
-Yet the features of this more level zone reminded us of the plain of
-Alexandropol, of which in some sense it forms an outlying part. We
-stood in face of the western declivities of Alagöz, with the rocky
-core of the volcano again disclosed. The contours of the mountain were
-composed of a number of ridges, which in perspective appeared to belong
-to two principal groups. One group declined away into invisible limits
-on our left hand; the other into an uncertain distance on our right. We
-were placed in the fork between these two diverging branches. It was
-evident that the last group separated us from the valley of the Araxes;
-nor could we doubt that the principal and humble ridge in the reverse
-direction was the only barrier between us and the plains on the north
-(Fig. 68).
-
-In the west, to the far horizon stretched the loamy tracts about us,
-bare of surface, like the sea. Above the outline of this high land
-rose the peaks of the Ararat system, fretting the sky from south-west
-to a bold mountain in the south, which we recognised as the familiar
-Takjaltu. We knew that we were overlooking the trough of the Arpa; but
-the river was hidden from sight. The light was failing as we entered
-the Armenian village of Khosha Vank, on the left bank of the stream.
-
-It is a picturesque little settlement of some 120 tenements, grouped
-around a stately church. I have referred to it under the name which
-I received from the priest and the Pristav, but which more properly
-belongs to the neighbouring monastery. It is called Kizilkilisa (red
-church) on the Russian maps. It was our intention to sleep in Ani,
-after fording the river at this village; and we were surprised to learn
-that the ruins were four hours distant, and that it would be almost
-impossible to reach them that night. Since the baggage was behind us,
-we listened to the counsel of our informants, who conducted us to a
-stone house, containing a single room--the only decent building in
-the whole place. Although without a school, the inhabitants are no
-dullards; they seemed extremely ready to make a little money, and
-pleased to be able to exchange ideas. In fact we discovered on the
-following day that they had deceived us about Ani, with the express
-purpose of retaining us for the night. We waited some time in vain
-for the luggage to overtake us, and then composed ourselves to sleep.
-
-When morning came our effects had not yet arrived; we reflected that
-we had given the rendezvous at Ani, and, although we felt sure that
-the laggards would cross the river at our village, decided to push
-on. The Arpa flows between high banks, a deeply eroded and sinuous bed,
-hidden by precipitous cliffs of black rock. You form the conception of
-a trough or fissure in the surface of the tableland, which undulates
-away into the distance on every side. After fording the stream, we
-proceeded along the right bank, and, at no great distance, opened
-out a romantic valley on our left hand, similar in character to that
-which adjoins the site of the Armenian village. In both places the
-river describes a complete S, and is lost in the gloom of overhanging
-walls. The disposition of these rocky sides assumes the appearance of
-a glen, in which are situated the remains of an extensive monastery,
-bearing the name of Khosha Vank. Just beyond this standpoint we
-gained the high land above the river; and there before us, on the
-plain, lay the ruins which we had been seeking, at the distance of
-an hour's canter from the cloister, or of a couple of hours' ride
-from Kizilkilisa.
-
-Descrying horses in the direction of Ani, we galloped forward and
-overtook them; they proved to be our missing cavalcade. They had passed
-the river at a place lower down than where we had crossed it, and were
-pursuing their way in a most leisurely manner. After opening one of
-the cases in order to replenish the slides of the camera, we returned
-to the glen, and again forded the stream. We spent a considerable time
-at the cloister and in its neighbourhood; it was certainly the most
-remarkable building which we had yet seen. Reserving a description
-of its ancient church and halls of audience, I shall only refer to
-a couple of illustrations in this place. The one (Fig. 93, p. 386)
-shows the ensemble of the monastery; but, having been taken from the
-east, where the ground is open and the landscape tame, misses the
-peculiar characteristics of the site. The other (Fig. 94, p. 387)
-may convey some conception of the appearance of the glen, when seen
-from the river-bed below the cloister. From the flat and water-worn
-bottom rises a little tongue of higher land, upon which stand the
-remains of two little chapels. On the cliff above the ravine you see
-the pier of a ruined gateway, outlined against the sky. The track to
-Ani leads up the cliffside and passes that ruin, which stands on the
-plain in which the still-distant city lies.
-
-It was late afternoon when we reached the walls of the ancient capital
-(Fig. 70, p. 369), and passed within the great gateway. No massive
-doors creaked upon their hinges; we rode through empty archways into
-a deserted town. From among the débris of the public and private
-buildings rose the well-preserved remains of a number of handsome
-edifices--here an elegant church, there a polygonal chapel. An old
-priest with a few attendants were the sole inhabitants--they and the
-owls. We had only to follow the track to be brought to the humble
-tenement in which the priest lived. He stepped forth to meet us,
-a grey head, a feeble figure; he walked with difficulty, and with
-the demeanour of a man who is awaiting death. He told us that he
-had dwelt here since 1880, the only custodian of these priceless
-architectural treasures, and the only exponent of the topography of
-the site. He had been attacked in his house by a band of Kurds in
-1886; they had inflicted knife wounds, and stripped him of everything
-he possessed. We remained two whole days within the walls of Ani,
-examining the creations of a vanished civilisation, and collecting
-material with which I propose to deal in a separate chapter. At nine
-o'clock on the morning of the 19th of October we took leave of our
-aged host; and, leaving the city by the same gate through which we
-had entered it, pursued a track which leads in the direction of Kars.
-
-Clouds were clinging to the hill slopes upon our point of course
-and concealing the shield-shaped mass of Alagöz. Lost fragments
-of opaline vapour lay on the surface of the grassy plain. Here and
-there we perceived the ruins of little chapels and other buildings,
-or the scattered débris of masonry. From these suburbs we looked back
-upon the bold line of the city walls, with their double girdle and
-towers at regular intervals. It seemed as though the stream of life
-had wandered off into other channels, leaving behind this eloquent
-evidence of its former course. We could not descry the form of man
-or of animal in the landscape; even the sky was without a wing. We
-rode in silence and at ease along a beaten path, where the burnt
-herbage had been worn away from the rich brown soil. West of Ani,
-at a distance which leaves the site of the city open, rises a hill of
-irregular shape and moderate elevation, known as the Alaja Dagh. It
-is due to volcanic action, and covers a respectable area; its sides
-and summits are overgrown with grass. It is placed across the direct
-line between Kars and the ancient capital, and compels you to deviate
-a little to the north. As we rose along the north-eastern slopes of
-the mass, we were lifted at a convenient altitude above the plains.
-
-Outspread before us lay a vast extent of undulating ground, on
-the south, on the east, towards the north. After we had passed the
-small Armenian village of Jala, we could just discern in the lap of
-the expanse the city of Alexandropol, at a distance of over twenty
-miles. We had again opened out the northern slopes of Alagöz; and we
-could even see the meridional range which intersects it upon the east,
-and the gap through which we had journeyed to Erivan. When one reflects
-upon the significance of this panorama, it must be recognised that our
-standpoint on the skirts of the Alaja deserves a high rank among those
-apposite and commanding positions which Armenia appears to lavish upon
-her admirers, and which imprint her features indelibly upon the mind.
-
-We might be said to have been standing on the dividing line between
-two landscapes and even of two climates. On the north lay the immense
-plains around Kars and Alexandropol, vague and grey in spite of
-the clear atmosphere, and with their distant limits shrouded in
-haze. These pass over, along the course of the deeply-bedded Arpa,
-into the ever-widening valley of the Araxes, bathed at all seasons in
-sun. Had it not been for the projecting spurs of the hill which we were
-skirting, the prospect would have embraced the peaks of the Ararat
-system, bounding the expanse upon the south. Snow had fallen upon
-the upper slopes of the mountains--Alagöz, no longer a shield but a
-towering parapet; the Chaldir system, the border range in the far east.
-
-As we proceeded towards the west, the instructive lesson was
-developed--no ridge to cross, but continuous tracts of level land. The
-plain rises with gentle gradation from the right bank of the Arpa to
-the labyrinth of hills on the west of Kars. Its surface is slightly
-vaulted, and the configuration of the ground is such that you lose
-the outlook towards the east. We passed through Subotan, a prosperous
-village of Turks and Greeks. The gay dresses of the Greek girls
-formed a brilliant patch of colour, and their trinkets sparkled in
-the sun, which was already high (Fig. 69). Education is provided
-in a little schoolhouse, built and maintained at the charges of the
-Christian inhabitants, but supplied with a teacher by the State. A
-little further on we entered a second and smaller settlement, and
-again found ourselves among Greeks. I am under the impression that
-these scattered colonies date from the campaigns of Paskevich, when
-Christians in considerable numbers accompanied his armies across the
-frontier after their evacuation of Turkish territory.
-
-On and on we rode over the spacious plain, beating the brown and idle
-soil, with nothing to divert us from the simple pleasure of cantering
-along. Vague tracks came converging towards us from the distance,
-the arteries along which the supplies of the fortress flow. It was
-evident that there was a pronounced slope of the ground upwards; and,
-at length, on the western horizon we opened out a long, low ridge,
-against which we could just discern without the aid of glasses the
-yellow masonry of the castle of Kars (Fig. 98, p. 406). As we neared
-the site, we were impressed by its strange and romantic character. From
-the hills upon the west a mass of gloomy basalt projects towards
-the east into the level and loamy land. Concave towards the plain,
-to which it presents a line of cliffs, it forms an extensive bay
-and terminates on the east in a commanding promontory, called the
-Karadagh. The answering horn of this sinuous line is composed or
-accentuated by the cluster of modern buildings which the Russians
-have erected, and which jut out from the ancient city on the side of
-the cliff into the even ground. Their white faces and iron roofing,
-coloured a quiet red or green, present a contrast to the black masonry
-which mounts the slope behind them--groups of houses, a few minarets,
-a large church. Above these towers the well-preserved pile of the
-old castle--an object which is rendered the more conspicuous by the
-yellow stone of which it is composed. Further eastwards along the
-summit of the ridge you see the ruins of the old Armenian fortress,
-with the remains of a wall rising towards it from the foot of the
-cliff. In the bay itself you will always find a confused medley of
-sheep and cattle, of bullock-carts threading the piles of hay and
-stores. We were met and challenged by a gendarme upon our arrival,
-but were allowed to proceed to a modest inn.
-
-I am conscious of having hazarded to tire my reader with the continuous
-narrative of a journey of four days' duration and of more than the
-usual variety of interest. Anxious to avoid diverting his attention
-from the features of the country, I have not suffered him to rest,
-as we rested, at Ani; but have taken him without a break from the
-sunny depressions at the foot of Ararat to the wintry highlands
-about Kars. He has almost traversed from east to west one of the
-central regions of Armenia; and I would ask him to reflect that he
-has not crossed a single mountain barrier, but has throughout been
-riding upon the margin or over the surface of immense plains. In so
-far as it may be possible to parcel out this level surface, a triple
-division is suggested to the mind. In the north the basin-like area
-of the plain of Alexandropol (5000 feet) declines along the banks of
-the Arpa Chai; on the western side of the river the ground again rises
-and develops into the spacious plain of Kars (5700 feet). In the south
-lies the sheltered valley of the Araxes, commencing on the west with
-an elevation, in the neighbourhood of the confluence of the Arpa,
-which is rather less than 3000 feet above the sea.
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XVIII
-
-ANI, AND THE ARMENIAN KINGDOM OF THE MIDDLE AGES
-
-
-In Europe we may find examples of mediĉval towns from which the tide
-of life has long since receded, and which have been preserved almost
-intact to the present day. Less fortune attends the footsteps of the
-traveller in Armenia, until he arrives before the walls and towers of
-the city on the Arpa Chai. It is perhaps to the complete desolation
-of the neighbourhood that is due this welcome surprise. No settlement
-has arisen in the immediate vicinity to despoil these architectural
-remains. Favoured by the dryness of the Armenian climate, the pink
-volcanic stone displays all the freshness of the day when it was
-fashioned by the mason's tool. Even lichen has failed to effect
-much hold upon its surface, while our persistent ivies and sweet,
-irresistible wallflowers have not adventured into these sunny and
-treeless plains. We admire these buildings in much the same state
-and condition as when they delighted the eyes of Armenian monarchs
-nine centuries ago. Such a site would in Western lands be at least
-occupied by a small town or village; the solitude of Ani is not shared
-by any such presence; and the mood engendered by the spectacle of her
-many noble monuments is not disturbed by the contrast of commonplace
-successors or of miserable tenements, clinging to the creations of
-a culture that has disappeared.
-
-The impression of the ancient city which is perhaps likely to prove
-most permanent is due to the aspect from without of that long row of
-double walls with their even masonry and graceful towers at intervals
-(Fig. 70, p. 369). How well they are seen from the floor of this plain
-without limits; how strange they look among surroundings which scarcely
-display a trace of man! When we reflect that we are face to face with
-the capital of a kingdom, towards which the roads converged from every
-direction, and which was situated in the midst of a fertile province,
-famous for the production of corn, we are the more affected by the
-bareness and the loneliness of the countryside, which is only traversed
-here and there by a few vague tracks. Years upon years have elapsed
-since district and city throbbed with the pulse of human life. Yet
-if the Present be quite voiceless, the Past is doubly eloquent;
-and by reason not only of these many memorials, with their countless
-inscriptions, but also happily because of the comparative richness of
-the material which has been preserved in literature. In the case of
-many an old Armenian city, of which we shall visit the scanty remains,
-we have to deplore the broken skein of History. Ani has been better
-treated both by Time and by written records; and the dynasty which
-produced her splendour still lives in the lifelike narrative of the
-most attractive of the Armenian writers of that age. [265]
-
-In the ninth century of our era the plains and mountains of Armenia
-were divided between the two great contemporary Powers which held
-sway in the East. The western portion of the country formed a part
-of the Roman Empire; while that on the east, comprising by far
-the largest and most populous area, was subject to the caliphs at
-Baghdad. The span of this single century is sufficient to include
-the full splendour and the decay and incipient disruption of the
-caliphate. At its commencement Harun-al-Rashid (786-809) was real
-master of vast dominions--a personality round which the romance of
-the age collected to adorn the literature of all times. Before its
-close many of these possessions had become parcelled out among petty
-dynasties, whose titular overlord--a Mutaz (866-869), a Muhtadi
-(869-870), a Mutamid (870-892)--was scarcely better than a puppet
-in the hands of his Turkish bodyguard. Such was the period and such
-the political environment in which the Armenian dynasty of the Middle
-Ages rose by successive steps to the position of Kings of Armenia--a
-rank which was recognised by their co-religionists, the Greek Cĉsars,
-but which was conferred or confirmed by the Commander of the Faithful,
-within whose realm their dominions lay. [266]
-
-The native institutions of the Armenian people were not unfavourable to
-such a development. At the present day they cannot be said to possess
-a class of nobles, and they are devoid of natural leaders. But in the
-ninth century their councils were governed by a strong territorial
-nobility, a relic of the period when they possessed their own
-independent kings of Arsakid descent. The Arsakid dynasty had struggled
-on into the fifth century, when it succumbed to the Sasanian monarchy
-of Persia and Mesopotamia, and a Persian governor was sent to rule
-over the land (A.D. 428). But the great nobles maintained and perhaps
-increased their ascendency; they were supported by the obstinate
-patriotism of the people; and the interval between the overthrow of
-the ancient and the rise of the mediĉval kingdom is filled by the
-almost incessant clash of arms. From the east the pertinacity of
-the Armenian race is challenged at first by the Persians, eager to
-convert them to the religion of the Magi, and next by the Arabs, who,
-after supplanting the Sasanian dynasty, seek to impose upon them the
-precepts of Islam. Their neighbours upon the west are scarcely less
-obtrusive; and we may discover beneath the religious controversies
-with their fellow-Christians of the Roman Empire the same fervid
-self-assertion which has enabled this strange people to preserve,
-in the face of odds which appear to us to have been overwhelming,
-the inflexible individuality of their race. While their clergy are
-resisting the menaces or the blandishments of the Church of the
-Empire, their nobles are combating the worship of the Persians or of
-the Mohammedans at the head of the native levies. It thus happened
-that, when the bonds relaxed which bound the subject states to the
-Arab caliphate, the Armenians possessed, in their class of nobles as
-well as in their patriarchate, institutions which had been tested in
-the furnace of adversity during a period of over 400 years.
-
-Two Armenian families of princely rank were conspicuous at that
-time. The Artsruni had extended their possessions during the
-domination of the Arabs, until they comprised a vast territory and
-some of the richest districts in the neighbourhood of the ancient
-city of Van. They claimed descent from one of the kings of Assyria,
-whose two sons were reputed to have escaped to Armenia after having
-perpetrated parricide. They drew their name from the lofty office
-which had been bestowed upon their ancestor, that of bearing before
-the Arsakid king the emblem of the golden eagle--an emblem which
-is cherished by the Armenian inhabitants of Van at the present day
-as the distinctive ensign of their city and province. The family of
-the Bagratuni or Bagratids had attained a position in the centre and
-north of Armenia which rivalled and perhaps surpassed that of the
-Artsruni in the south. Of Jewish origin, they were already powerful
-in the earliest Arsakid times, when they had been invested with the
-hereditary privilege of crowning the king. Their ancient seats appear
-to have been placed in the Chorokh country, in the vicinity of the
-town of Ispir. But this nucleus became lost in the territory which
-they subsequently acquired, whether by marriage or by conquest. The
-province of Shirak, by which is designated the extensive grain-growing
-district on the right bank of the Arpa Chai, was perhaps the richest
-appanage of their House; but they were masters of the Armenian
-districts on the side of Georgia, while towards the west and south
-their possessions at one time extended into the plain of Pasin and
-the fertile districts about the present town of Mush. A branch of
-this same family established themselves in Georgia--the salubrious
-uplands and rich plains at the southern foot of Caucasus, which are
-separated from the highlands of Armenia by the belt of mountains on
-the right bank of the river Kur. The Georgians, like the Armenians,
-professed the Christian religion, and at the period with which we are
-dealing were being harassed by the Arab caliphs. During the decline
-of the caliphate, when native impulses were revived in Georgia as
-well as in Armenia, the movement centred in a dynasty of Bagratid
-descent. This dynasty outlived that of their kinsmen in Armenia by
-many centuries. The Georgian sovereigns weathered the storm of Seljuk
-invasion in the eleventh century, which swept before it the feeble
-thrones of the Armenian monarchs. Perhaps they owed their escape in
-part to the geographical position of their country, removed as it was
-by a zone of intricate mountains from the highway of the Armenian
-plains. Yet their capital, Tiflis, fell a prey to the same sultan
-who captured Ani, the famous Alp Arslan. During the first half of
-the twelfth century they were successful in expelling the invaders,
-and a little later their kingdom was increased to the limits of an
-extensive empire during the reign of the great queen Thamar. The
-Georgian Bagratids maintained their throne until the end of the
-eighteenth century, when the last king renounced his crown in favour
-of the Russian Tsars. [267]
-
-About the middle of the ninth century, to which I return from this
-brief digression, the reigning caliph, Mutawakil, despatched an army
-into Armenia with instructions to punish the inhabitants and to bring
-them over to the Mohammedan faith. His severity had been invited by the
-behaviour of his subjects, who had fallen upon and killed their Arab
-governor. The Arab commander, by name Bugha, acquitted himself of his
-congenial mission in a manner which accords with the best traditions
-of Eastern statecraft. He crossed the Taurus, descended into the
-plains about the Murad, and took prisoners all the Armenian chiefs of
-the districts through which his route lay. The Bagratid family had
-become involved in the preceding troubles; one of their members was
-already in the hands of the caliph; and his two sons were now added
-to the train of the avenging general, who directed his march from the
-territory of Taron (Mush) to that of Vaspurakan (Van). The Artsruni
-were not more fortunate in their resistance; their prince was captured,
-loaded with chains, and sent to the caliph. Bugha pursued a leisurely
-course through the Armenian country, giving over to the sword the less
-prominent among the people, selecting some for their birth or personal
-qualities as worthy of conversion to Islam. When he arrived at the
-capital of central Armenia, the city of Dvin, in the neighbourhood
-of the present town of Erivan, which had been conquered by the Arabs
-in A.D. 642, [268] he was met by a native prince who bore the title
-of commander-in-chief [269] and the name of Sembat. This notable
-was the great-grandson of a distinguished Bagratid chief, Ashot, who
-had been entrusted with the government of Armenia by the last of the
-Ommiad caliphs, and who had been deprived of sight by his countrymen,
-incensed at his Arab proclivities. According to the Armenians, this
-Ashot was the progenitor alike of the Georgian sovereigns and of the
-Armenian dynasty of the Middle Ages. His descendant endeavoured to
-propitiate the tyrant, who appeared to listen to his fair words. But
-Sembat was conveyed to Baghdad with the rest of the prisoners, and
-accompanied the triumphal return of the caliph's legate. Arrived
-at court, the Armenian princes were offered the choice of Islam and
-freedom or a painful and violent death. Sembat was one of those who
-refused to abjure his religion and who perished as a martyr to the
-Christian faith (A.D. 856 [C.]). [270]
-
-The pompous title of the deceased chieftain, together with his
-influence, descended to his son Ashot. This prince had contrived
-to  escape the meshes of the Moslem net; and in the period which
-immediately followed the departure of the Arab general he proved
-himself worthy to sustain the burden of his high position. In the
-flower of his age, he enjoyed the union of imposing physical qualities
-with habits of mind which gave peculiar weight to his counsels, and
-with a natural suavity of disposition and expression. An agreeable
-face--in which, however, the eyes, with their heavy black eyebrows,
-were shot with blood, like a speck of red upon a pearl--was set around
-with a magnificent beard, and sprang from broad shoulders in keeping
-with his fine stature. Whatever defects might belong to such an
-exterior were compensated by the habitual purity of his life. The
-prince was missed at the sumptuous banquets of the rich, but his
-presence was felt by the poor in every action of their daily life.
-He once said, "The service of humanity is a life-long service"; and
-his precept was illustrated by the example of his own long life. How
-far the qualities of the son of Sembat were instrumental in obtaining
-a reversal of the policy of the caliphate, or whether the complete
-change which ensued in the treatment of the Armenians may have been
-due to causes of a different order, our historian has omitted to
-relate. Five years after the martyrdom of his father and of the
-leading nobles of his country, Ashot is invested by the new Arab
-governor with the title of prince of princes, and becomes the
-recipient of almost royal distinctions (A.D. 861 [D.]). [271] Those
-of the nobles who had become apostates during the recent persecution
-openly return to their old faith. For twenty-five years he continues
-to exercise his authority, which reposes not only upon the goodwill
-of the Arab governor, but also upon the loyalty of his fellow-nobles,
-who consent that his family shall be assigned a special and quasi-
-royal rank, and be permanently elevated above all other princely
-families. At the end of this period the Armenian nobility unanimously
-petition the caliph in favour of the elevation of their prince to the
-rank of king. Their desire is conveyed to their suzerain by his
-representative in the country, a governor by name Isa. It is accorded
-with the greatest readiness. A royal crown is despatched, and placed
-by Isa himself upon the head of Ashot. Armenian royalty is revived in
-this branch of the Bagratid family after an interval of over 450 years
-(A.D. 885 [D.]). The reigning Cĉsar, Basil I., confirms this
-investiture, and accompanies the friendly sentiments of an attached
-ally and a spiritual father with the gift of a crown, the second to
-be worn by the new monarch. [272]
-
-For five years Ashot continued in the exercise of his kingly
-prerogative, supported by the Armenian nobles, the most powerful
-of whom he attached by marriage, and enjoying the favour both of
-the Caliph and of the Emperor. His capital was the city of Bagaran,
-on the banks of the Akhurean, the modern Arpa Chai, situated to the
-south of the later capital at Ani. [273] He died in advanced age
-(A.D. 889 [C.] or 890 [D.]) [274] and with unimpaired reputation at a
-date when the empire of the caliphs was in process of dismemberment,
-and when a number of petty Mussulman dynasties, such as the Tahirids
-and the Saffarids, had arisen in the adjacent lands. [275] We can
-scarcely doubt that his elevation was occasioned by the decline of the
-central authority; and he and his descendants were glad to purchase
-by the promise of an assured tribute the greater independence of the
-Armenian people and their own ascendency.
-
-At the time of the death of Ashot I. his son and successor Sembat was
-absent on an expedition of conquest in the country of the Upper Kur.
-He received the homage of his subjects upon his arrival at Erazgavors,
-a town in Shirak, which was his own particular residence. Thither
-repaired the prince of Georgia, Aternerseh, himself a Bagratid,
-proffering his sympathy and his aid (A.D. 890 [C.]). The succession
-was hotly disputed by Abas, brother of the deceased monarch, a vain
-and ambitious prince. His animosity appears to have been directed in
-the principal degree against the prince of Georgia; he broke the peace
-which he was induced to make at the instance of the patriarch with
-that potentate, and at length he turned his arms against the province
-of Shirak. The approach of Sembat at the head of a numerous army
-compelled him to take refuge in a strong place, and his condition was
-desperate when he obtained from the clemency of his royal nephew a
-pardon which he had not deserved. Sembat was already in possession of
-supreme power when he received from the Arab governor of Azerbaijan
-[276] on behalf of the caliph a royal crown such as had been bestowed
-upon his father. At the same time he confirmed the friendly relations
-which had subsisted between Ashot and the Byzantine Empire. The
-reigning emperor, Leo VI., received his ambassadors with great
-distinction, and dismissed them charged with valuable presents.
-In the missives between them the king of Armenia was addressed as
-a beloved son, and the Cĉsar with the reverence due to a father. Nor
-was this intercourse confined to a single and a splendid occasion; it
-appears to have been renewed every year. It naturally excited the
-jealousy of the Arab governor of Azerbaijan, the powerful neighbour
-of the new state upon the east.
-
-This individual, by name Afshin, is depicted by the priestly historian
-with all the resources of the vocabulary of hate. He is a wild beast;
-he is armed with the poignard of perfidy, and his death is described
-as the outcome of a loathsome malady which destroyed the body before
-the soul descended to hell. Throughout the reign we see him harassing
-the dominions of the Armenian monarch; but his first expedition
-appears to have been met by a vigorous and successful resistance,
-which no doubt helped the remonstrances of Sembat. At the head of
-his troops the king reasoned with his Mohammedan adversary, and
-represented that his friendship with the emperor of the Greeks was
-to the advantage of the master of Afshin. "You yourselves," he said,
-"may at any moment have need of the support of the Greeks, and your
-merchants require openings in Greek territory, whence they will draw
-riches which will swell the treasury at Baghdad." These advances were
-met on the part of the Arab governor by the offer of a peace, which was
-duly ratified. Afshin returned to Azerbaijan, and the king retraced
-his steps up the Araxes and appeared before the walls of Dvin. This
-city, which was at this period the acknowledged capital of Armenia,
-was reduced to an obedience from which it had lapsed. Its situation
-in the neighbourhood of the present town of Erivan was calculated
-to invest it with the character of a strong place on the side of the
-Arab possessions in Persia. Its subjection to Sembat does not appear
-to have been of long duration; during the subsequent portion of his
-reign we find it in the hands of the Mohammedans, serving, it would
-seem, as an advanced base to the troops of Afshin and of his successor.
-
-The diplomacy no less than the prowess of Sembat was successful in
-other directions nearer home. If his kingdom remained essentially
-feudal in character, its limits were at least extended over the
-adjacent lands. On the west his sovereignty was acknowledged as far as
-the city of Karin, the modern Erzerum; while on the north-east and east
-it embraced the foot of Caucasus and the shore of the Caspian Sea. The
-Armenian princes who ruled in the country on the southern side of the
-barrier of mountains which culminate in Ararat were attached to him by
-feudal or family ties; his name must at least have been respected among
-his countrymen beyond the limits of the lake of Van. His ascendency
-was for a second time challenged by Afshin, who advanced to Nakhichevan
-and Dvin; but he led his troops in person against the Mussulmans, and
-inflicted upon them a signal defeat. The subsequent defection to his
-enemy of his nephew, the prince of Vaspurakan (Van), who was joined
-for a time by the prince of Siunik, a province bordering that of Van
-upon the north, does not appear to have materially shaken his power; we
-find him directing his attention to the outer limits of his territory,
-and endeavouring to establish his dominion not only over the country
-of Taron (Mush), but also as far south as the Mesopotamian plains.
-
-This advance brought him into collision with an Arab emir, named Ahmed,
-who, in the decay of the caliphate, cherished pretensions to these
-districts. The Armenian prince of Taron was unable to withstand his
-Mussulman adversary, and Sembat was obliged to take the field in person
-(A.D. 896 [C.]). At the head of a numerous army he marched towards
-Taron, west of which his enemy was encamped. The reverse of his arms
-was due to the treachery of a countryman, a prince belonging to the
-province of Vaspurakan; and, indeed, the jealousy of the chiefs of
-the Van country seems to have paved the way for the successes of his
-Mussulman neighbours. His old enemy Afshin was not slow to profit by
-this turn of fortune. After attempting in vain to seduce the loyalty
-of the northern feudatories of Sembat, he entered the province of Kars
-and laid siege to that fortress. Thither had taken refuge the Armenian
-queen, a daughter of the king of Kolchis, and several of the wives of
-the principal nobles. The capitulation of Kars and the capture of the
-queen came as a melancholy pendant to the disaster of the king's arms
-in the south. He was obliged to purchase peace on humiliating terms,
-and to give his niece in marriage to the Mohammedan potentate. But
-it was not long before hostilities were again resumed in the same
-quarter. Afshin directed his march towards the city of Tiflis, swept
-like a whirlwind through the Georgian country, and advanced upon
-Shirak. Sembat and his army were obliged to take refuge in the strong
-places of his ally Aternerseh, upon whom he had previously bestowed
-a royal crown; while his adversary, after having endeavoured in vain
-to sap the loyalty of the Georgian prince, retraced his steps along
-the Araxes to Azerbaijan. Afshin was meditating a fresh attack when
-he fell a victim to a malignant malady, which appears also to have
-made ravages among his troops (901 [St.-M.], 898-99 [D.]).
-
-The tyrant was succeeded by his brother Yusuf in the government
-of Azerbaijan. Upon the accession of this potentate the Armenian
-monarch despatched an embassy to the caliph at Baghdad with the
-view of contracting a stable alliance with the nominal sovereign
-of Persia and of that portion of Armenia which lay within the Arab
-sphere. His advances were well received by the successor of the
-Prophet, who confirmed him in his royal dignity. [277] Although Yusuf
-continued to pursue the hostile policy of his predecessor, he appears
-to have been thwarted by the greater readiness of Sembat. Armenia
-enjoyed a short respite from the inroads of the Mussulmans. "At this
-period," says our historian, who is fond of allegory, "our Saviour
-visited the country of the Armenians, and protected their lives
-and property. Lands were bestowed, vines were planted and groves of
-olive-trees; the most ancient fruit-trees yielded their fruits. The
-harvests produced corn in excessive abundance; the cellars were filled
-with wine when the vintage had been gathered in. The mountains were
-in great joy, and so were the herdsmen and the shepherds, because of
-the quantity of pasturage and the increase in the flocks. The chiefs
-and notables of our country lived in perfect security and were not
-afraid of depredations; they were free to bestow their leisure and
-zeal upon the construction of churches in solid stone, with which
-they graced the towns, the open country, and the desert places." The
-king enjoyed the favour of his Byzantine ally, and the gifts of Heaven
-were supplemented by the imperial presents. The ambition of the king
-of Kolchis, who was striving to extend his dominions eastwards at the
-expense of his relative, the Armenian monarch, was restrained by a
-conjunction of the Armenian forces with those of the king of Georgia;
-the unhappy kinglet was taken prisoner and lodged in a fortress, from
-which he was released by the clemency of his captor and restored to
-his possessions. This mild treatment of a rival excited the jealousy
-of Aternerseh; the attached ally became converted into a perfidious
-enemy; and the incident, while it seems to mark the culmination of this
-brighter era, was the prelude of the domestic and foreign calamities
-in which the reign of Sembat was brought to a tragic close.
-
-A curious incident now occurs, which is characteristic of the
-times (A.D. 905 [St.-M.]). Yusuf prepares in secret to sever his
-allegiance to the caliph, and goes so far as to issue orders in his
-own name. Apprised of his proceedings, the sovereign at Baghdad sends
-messengers throughout his dominions to effect a rising against his
-rebellious servant. One of the highest in rank of these envoys arrives
-at the court of the Armenian monarch, and delivers a personal letter
-requiring the prince to assemble his forces and to march against
-the emir of Azerbaijan. As an inducement, the vassal is remitted
-the payment of a year's tribute. This request or command was at once
-difficult to comply with and impossible to elude or reject. Sembat
-was bound to Yusuf by the terms of a treaty, and still more forcibly
-deterred from offending his neighbour by motives of interest. It
-was only natural that he should have recourse to perfidy, the usual
-expedient in such circumstances among Eastern princes. But his
-double-dealing was of transitory advantage: and it may, perhaps,
-be excused by the reflection that his own weight would have been
-insufficient to turn the scale to the advantage of either side. Yusuf
-affected submission to his spiritual and temporal superior; the
-Armenians were confronted by a coalition of the contending influences;
-and the unhappy king was besieged by emissaries from both the Mussulman
-princes, demanding the arrears of tribute in imperious terms. On four
-occasions he had succeeded in acquitting his obligations by making
-the prescribed payment in kind; but this time he was compelled to
-discharge the debt in money, and to impose taxes which strained the
-structure of his feudal rule.
-
-A combination of some of the nobles with Aternerseh of Georgia was
-the outcome of these events. Ani, which was then a fortress, was
-handed over to Aternerseh, together with the treasures of the royal
-palace at Erazgavors. Sembat at the head of his forces hurried back
-to Shirak, whereupon the conspirators evacuated the province, laden
-with spoils. The Armenian monarch carried the war into the territory
-of Aternerseh, who was constrained to sue for peace. Many of the
-revolted nobles fell into the hands of their sovereign, who, after
-putting out their eyes, dispatched some to the Byzantine emperor
-for custody and others to the king of Kolchis. This rising had no
-sooner been quelled than the reigning prince of Vaspurakan separated
-himself from the king. The cause of quarrel was a dispute about the
-town of Nakhichevan in the valley of the Araxes, which Sembat had
-conferred on another noble, but to which this prince had a hereditary
-claim. Gagik--such was his name--had recourse to the common enemy,
-Yusuf, who was eager to profit by such dissension among his Christian
-neighbours. The emir bestowed upon him a royal crown in order to
-perpetuate his rivalry with Sembat. It was all in vain that our
-historian, who was at that time patriarch, endeavoured to avert the
-rising storm. He even journeyed to the court of the emir in Azerbaijan,
-taking with him magnificent presents, among which were included some
-of the sacred vessels belonging to the churches. He was treated with
-distinction by his Mussulman host so long as his gifts held out. When
-these were exhausted he was thrown into prison, where he lingered for
-a considerable time. The hardships of his condition were aggravated
-by the mortification which he must have experienced at the complete
-failure of his good offices. He was strictly refused an audience
-of his countryman, King Gagik, who shortly afterwards arrived at
-the court of Yusuf in order to concert an invasion of the territory
-of Sembat. At the approach of spring the emir set out for Armenia,
-taking with him the unhappy patriarch, loaded with chains. In the
-neighbourhood of Nakhichevan were received the messengers of Gagik,
-who announced the approach of their master with his troops (A.D. 909
-[St. M.]). Sembat endeavoured to pacify his enemy by a payment of
-money, which the emir swallowed without arresting his advance. The
-king was quite unable to cope with the forces arrayed against him;
-he fled to the fortresses of Georgia, whither he was pursued by his
-implacable adversary.
-
-It is unnecessary to follow in detail the developments of a situation,
-of which the historical interest consists in the light which it
-throws upon the Armenian monarchy of the Middle Ages, and upon the
-relations of that monarchy to the neighbouring states. We see the
-Artsrunian prince of the extensive province of Vaspurakan turning
-his arms against his own countrymen and their Bagratid king, and
-in active alliance with the enemies of his religion and race. The
-Mussulman horsemen overran the fertile plains of Armenia, and the
-tardy repentance of Gagik came too late. Sembat appealed in vain to
-the suzerain at Baghdad, who was too much occupied by domestic troubles
-to intervene. Better success attended his entreaties at the Byzantine
-court, and his old friend, Leo, collected troops and marched in person
-to his assistance. The death of the emperor at the inception of the
-enterprise, and the internal troubles of the new reign, removed all
-hope of succour from the side of the Roman provinces. The Christian
-state in the heart of Asia seemed doomed to destruction, and the king
-and queen were taken prisoners. Sembat was conducted to Dvin, where
-he was barbarously tortured in the presence of the populace. Every
-indignity was inflicted upon him, and each refinement of Oriental
-cruelty; after he had expired, his body was nailed to a wooden stake
-and exhibited to the townspeople (A.D. 914 [C.]).
-
-A desperate effort was made by his son Ashot to retrieve the fortunes
-of the Armenian arms. He expelled the Mohammedans from many of the
-fortified places which they had occupied, and allied himself closely
-with the king of Georgia, who placed the crown of Armenia upon his
-head. Yusuf was not slow to revenge the reverses of his adherents,
-and the whole country was given over to war. The wretched inhabitants
-fled to the mountains and the deserts; the remnant wandered about in
-a state of nakedness, and experienced all the tortures of famine. When
-winter came thousands perished in the snow. If they fell into the
-hands of the enemy they were either massacred or subjected to every
-description of torture. In many cases they were offered liberty and
-even affluence if they would abjure the Christian religion; but these
-advances were almost always without effect. Our historian relates with
-pride the tragic incidents of this period of martyrdom; and the
-profession of faith which he puts in the mouth of one of the victims
-is worthy of the highest conceptions of religious minds. "We are
-Christians," exclaimed a young noble in the presence of Yusuf; "we
-believe in God, Who is Truth and Who dwells in the midst of Light
-without limits." These afflictions might have excited the compassion
-of their Christian neighbours. But perhaps these neighbours were
-conscious of their own helplessness; they preferred to ride on the
-wave of the Mussulman invasion, and to share in the spoils of the
-Armenian provinces. Whole towns were destroyed and whole countrysides
-depopulated; while the nobles, instead of combining, were involved in
-civil war. This state of affairs continued for no less than seven
-years, exhausting the country and denuding it of cultivation. "We sow,
-but we do not reap; we plant, but gather not the fruit; the fig-tree
-bears not, and the vine and olive-tree are barren. We collect a little
-and abandon the rest." Page after page our author unfolds the tale of
-all the miseries which were endured by himself and his countrymen. He
-himself was a refugee at the court of the king of Georgia, where he
-was in correspondence with the patriarch of Constantinople. It was the
-aim of Byzantine policy to unite the Christian nations of Transcaucasia
-with the Armenians; and the historian, as the spiritual head of the
-latter people, used his best endeavours towards this end. Issuing from
-his retreat, he made his way to the province of Taron (Mush), whence he
-addressed a long missive to the Byzantine Cĉsar (A.D. 920 [C.]). In
-touching terms he entreated him to become the avenger of the Armenian
-Christians, whom he represented as the spiritual sons and servants of
-Constantine. At his instance the Byzantine court despatched an imperial
-legate to the son of Sembat, with the view of renewing the relations
-which had subsisted between his father and the deceased ruler of the
-Eastern Empire. Our writer met this envoy in the territory of Taron,
-and accompanied him to the presence of Ashot. The prince returned with
-the legate to Constantinople (A.D. 921 [C.]), where he was received in
-a manner becoming his royal rank. He was addressed as the son of a
-martyr and the spiritual son of the Cĉsar, was arrayed in purple and
-invested with the insignia of royalty. Meanwhile the historian was
-sojourning in the province of Terjan, a district which has retained
-its name to the present day. He naïvely exhibits the difficulties of
-his position, endeavouring, as he was, to avoid complying with the
-pressing invitations to the imperial city which were lavished upon
-him by his spiritual brothers of the Greek Church. He was deterred by
-the fear that he would be pressed to conform to the doctrine which
-had been laid down at the Council of Chalcedon. His peregrinations
-brought him to the scenes where St. Gregory the Illuminator passed
-his later years in the seclusion of an anchorite. He describes the
-cavern where the saint lived, and where his remains were deposited,
-to be removed by an angel to a grave in the vicinity. His account
-of this lonely place, so difficult of access, agrees in a striking
-manner with that of a modern traveller, which it invests with an
-impressive reality. [278] The patriarch found the district inhabited
-by anchorites, who maintained an altar in the holy cave.
-
-In the meantime Yusuf had become embroiled with his old ally
-of Vaspurakan, and the war was being carried into the southern
-province. A vigorous resistance was offered by King Gagik, who
-owed his title to his enemy. Hostilities appear to have lingered
-on without decisive result. Such was the state of affairs when King
-Ashot II. returned to his dominions, accompanied by several generals
-of the Roman Empire, together with a considerable detachment of the
-imperial troops. This material support, as well as a subsidy in money,
-enabled him to recover his position among his feudatories; and we
-may conclude that the relations between himself and King Gagik had
-become improved by the change in the attitude of the latter towards
-the Mussulman emir. But that crafty statesman knew too well the weak
-spots in the political organisation of the Armenians. If two kings
-did not suffice to divide his opponents, it could do no harm and
-might bring him fortune to create a third. His choice fell upon a
-cousin of King Ashot, who had previously been invested by that monarch
-with the title of general-in-chief. His name, which was also Ashot,
-introduces further confusion into the turbid narrative of the priestly
-historian. The stage becomes filled with a crowd of nobles, contending
-with each other and combining to mutual destruction round the persons
-of the two Ashots. Behind these figures emerge those of the king of
-Kolchis and the king of Georgia, while in the background we perceive
-the light cavalry of the Mohammedans and the gorgeous functionaries
-of the Byzantine Empire. It is scarcely possible during this troubled
-period to follow the threads of the emir's policy. No sooner has he
-placed a crown upon the forehead of the one Ashot, than he invests
-the other with similar insignia of royalty. [279] Nor does the king
-of the Van country yield in splendour to his colleagues; the caliph
-himself sends him a crown and magnificent robes. This act excites
-the fury of the emir of Azerbaijan, who presently revolts from his
-sovereign at Baghdad. His capture and imprisonment removed for awhile
-the sword suspended over the head of Gagik, and were the occasion of
-a general although transitory improvement in the condition of the
-Armenian provinces. The caliph sent one of the highest in rank of
-the officers about his person to take over the administration of the
-province of his rebellious emir. This official not only concluded a
-treaty of peace and alliance with Ashot II. (son of King Sembat), but
-also conferred upon him the title of Shahanshah, or king of kings. In
-this manner the Bagratid dynasty of Shirak recovered their titular
-sovereignty over Armenia; and the fact illustrates a marked divergence
-between the policy of the caliphate, which appears to have desired a
-strong Armenia, and that of the semi-independent emirs of Azerbaijan,
-who strove incessantly to prepare the country for their own yoke. On
-the other hand, while the caliphs were anxious to secure a counterpoise
-to their turbulent governors, the Byzantine Cĉsars were well pleased
-by any accretion of strength to a buffer state which was attached to
-themselves by community of faith.
-
-Our historian was not spared to witness the splendour of this dynasty,
-as it is manifested in the noble buildings of their capital, Ani,
-which had not yet become a royal residence. His closing years were
-spent under a recrudescence of the old troubles--disunion from within
-and new inroads of the Mussulmans from without. The release of Yusuf
-restored this malefactor to the scene of his iniquities; [280] he
-crossed the Kurdish mountains, and descended into the territory of
-Vaspurakan. King Gagik was in arrears with several instalments of the
-annual tribute, and was obliged to collect all the available riches of
-his country and deliver them up to his implacable foe. Yusuf continued
-his journey to Persia, and, upon his arrival, sent one of his officers
-to assert his authority over the Armenian provinces. There ensued an
-era of constant activity on the part of the Mussulmans. The patriarch
-became a fugitive, taking refuge in the little island of Lake Sevan,
-and proceeding thence to a small castle in his own possession. But the
-enemy surrounded the place and took him prisoner, together with the
-companions of his flight. Escaping from their clutches, he made his way
-to the court of Ashot, who was residing in the royal palace of Bagaran;
-and the curtain falls upon his narrative while he is on a visit to King
-Gagik, with whom he appears to have maintained relations which were
-perhaps prompted by motives of interest, since the patriarchal palace
-and domains were situated within his dominions. [281] Panic had taken
-hold of the feudal levies, and his countrymen were being massacred (924
-[C.]). In one of the closing sentences in which he describes that Reign
-of Terror he, in fact, resumes the larger history of his race: "Who
-can foretell our future? Spare me the attempt. We are like a harvest
-reaped by bad husbandmen amidst encircling gloom and cloud." [282]
-
-We close these graphic pages with the feeling that we have been
-privileged to gain some insight into the state of the country during
-the reigns of the Bagratid sovereigns, as well as to estimate the
-nature of their rule. If I have eliminated by this brief abstract
-whole chapters of our author, I may perhaps have saved my reader
-from becoming wearied by his declamations, and from losing the main
-thread of his thrilling narrative among the side issues in which he
-allows it to become involved. The sovereignty of the Bagratids was
-essentially feudal in character; and the loose ties of such a political
-organisation were ill adapted to withstand the strain to which they
-were subjected at the hands of their Mussulman neighbours. Indeed,
-the fact that such a dynasty could ever have arisen in the heart of
-Asia, among a people which could not have numbered more than a few
-millions of souls, can only be explained by the comparative weakness
-of their contemporaries professing the Mohammedan faith. The Armenian
-historians are fond of railing upon their countrymen on account of
-the internal divisions which precipitated their political fall. They
-are not less inclined to attribute the miseries of their nation to
-their desertion in critical moments by the Greek Empire. But they
-do not appear to have reflected that the frequent instances of
-treachery among the Armenian nobles need not have been due to any
-inherent defects in the character of the Armenian people. Similar
-examples abound in the annals of our European nations while they
-were still in the feudal stage of development. Again, the Greeks,
-while they were no doubt prejudiced by dogmatic differences, might,
-one cannot doubt, have established a good case for their abstention
-from more strenuous succour of the young state. Their subsidies were
-spent, and their troops were marched across Asia with little further
-result than the aggrandisement of one princelet at the expense of a
-competing claimant of the same race. The lesson which may be derived
-from a perusal of this contemporary record explains to us many points
-which would otherwise be obscure in the much more meagre annals of the
-subsequent period which witnessed the frail blossoming and premature
-destruction of the Armenian kingdom of the Middle Ages. When the hordes
-of Turks descended from the valleys of the Tien-shan and swept across
-the settled territories of Persia towards the richest portions of the
-Old World, they found upon the high road of the Armenian tableland a
-state which was as little adapted to provide a bulwark against their
-invasions as any other of the fissiparous fragments of the caliphs'
-empire.
-
-The narrative of John the Patriarch brings us down to the closing years
-of Ashot, second king of that name. The picture which he has presented
-of the troubled reigns of these Bagratid sovereigns may enable us to
-dispense with the repetition of similar struggles during the reigns of
-their successors. Even were I permitted by the scope of this work and
-by the material at my disposal to assign to that later period the same
-proportion of space which has been devoted to the actions of the first
-three kings, I should run the risk of inflicting upon my reader the
-same fatigue which I have myself experienced by the perusal of a Samuel
-of Ani [283] and a Matthew of Edessa, [284] to say nothing of the
-industrious compilers of our own times. The storm-clouds, beneath which
-the work of the priestly annalist closes, appear to have lifted over
-the setting of Ashot's career; and a mild light envelops the reign of
-his brother Abas, who succeeded him on the throne. This tranquil era
-seems to have been induced by the weakness or somnolence of the
-neighbours of Abas. The activity of the Sajid family in Azerbaijan,
-which had been manifest in the exploits of Afshin and of Yusuf, came
-to an end at the commencement of his reign. The caliphate was becoming
-more and more the shadow of a reality; and the death of Radi (A.D. 940)
-removed the last of the successors of the Prophet who sustained a
-measure of personal power and prestige. In the West the Armenian
-monarch might observe without anxiety the enforced seclusion of the
-Cĉsar, Constantine the Seventh, as well as the later application of
-his benignant mind to the affairs of state. Such a wholesome respite
-was employed by king and nobles in adorning Armenia with churches and
-monasteries. In the city of Kars, where Abas appears to have placed
-the seat of government, a cathedral of unusual grandeur rose into
-being. [285] The pugnacity of the race was exercised in fierce
-religious dissensions with the Church of the Empire. The western
-provinces, subject to the Cĉsars and administered by them, were
-convulsed by the rival battle-cries of Greeks and Armenians, each
-imputing to the other heretical opinions upon the unfathomable subject
-of the divinity of Christ. Many Armenians took refuge within the
-dominions of the Bagratid king; and if their babes had been baptized
-according to the Greek ritual, the ceremony was performed a second
-time by the jealous clergy of the Armenian Church (944 [C.]).
-
-But it was under the next two reigns that the brilliancy of the dynasty
-attained the culminating point. Upon the death of Abas his son Ashot
-assumed the government; and it was perhaps due to a combination of
-domestic dissensions and war with his neighbours that for ten years he
-remained an uncrowned king. On the part of the Mussulmans, an Arab
-emir, whom the historians name Hamdun, and who may perhaps be
-identified with the powerful adversary of the Cĉsars in Mesopotamia,
-Seif-ed-Daula of the Hamdanid family, made incursions into the
-southerly provinces of Armenia, and even threatened the dominions of
-Ashot. The signal victory of the Armenian monarch (A.D. 960) [286]
-appears to have gratified the caliph and his masters the Buwayhids,
-a petty dynasty which had arisen in Persia, and into whose hands had
-fallen Baghdad (945). The same event may have been instrumental in
-consolidating the power of Ashot at home. In the year 961 he was
-anointed king at Ani, in the presence and with the consent of the
-great nobles. The rulers of the neighbouring states, Mussulman and
-Christian, signified their goodwill by sending valuable presents.
-His suzerain at Baghdad bestowed upon him a royal crown, addressing
-him as Shah-i-Armen or Armenian shah. But we must impute to this
-sovereign a new division of authority, and a consequent reduction of
-the resisting powers of the Armenian nation in face of foreign
-aggression. By investing his brother Mushegh with royal prerogatives
-at Kars, he added yet another to the number of kinglets whose mutual
-jealousies prepared the way for the passage of the Seljuk Turks towards
-the Mediterranean and the Black Sea. His successor continued and even
-developed this baneful policy, adding to the kings of Kars the kings
-of Lori, in the mountains which border Armenia upon the north. This
-latter Bagratid dynasty struggled on into the thirteenth century;
-but the kings of Kars made over their realm to the Cĉsar Constantine
-the Tenth after the capture of Ani by the Seljuks under Alp Arslan.
-
-The reign of Ashot the Third is contemporary with the campaigns of
-Nikephorus Phokas and of John Zimiskes against the Saracens. Throughout
-this period the Arab emirs of Syria and Mesopotamia are actively
-engaged in harassing the outposts of the great Christian empire,
-and are not less actively repulsed. The conceptions of the Crusaders
-are anticipated by these generals over a century before the arrival
-of the Western chivalry. Both successively ascended the throne of
-the Cĉsars; and it was in the capacity of emperor of the Romans
-that Zimiskes, himself of Armenian descent, summoned the Armenian
-monarch to attach to his army a contingent of troops. His expedition
-appears to have excited the alarm of the Armenians; and the native
-levies had been marshalled to the proportions of a large army under
-the command of the three Armenian kinglets, Ashot, his colleague of
-Kars, and his colleague of Van. Zimiskes advanced into the territory
-of Mush; but an alliance was secured by the despatch of a body of
-10,000 Armenian warriors to share in the victories which were about
-to secure the triumph of the imperial arms over the followers of the
-Prophet. These brilliant feats are narrated for the benefit of King
-Ashot in a despatch which was addressed to him by the emperor, and
-which has been preserved by Matthew of Edessa. The Armenian monarch
-is styled Shahinshah of Great Armenia, the spiritual son of the Cĉsar
-(A.D. 974). [287]
-
-The reign of this prince has a special interest for the traveller
-to Ani; for it is at this period that the city on the Arpa emerges
-from the condition of a mere fortress into the splendour of a royal
-residence and capital of a kingdom. Ashot the Third is known to
-have added both to the defences and to the public buildings of
-a town which had witnessed the ceremony of his coronation. [288]
-It was considerably enlarged by his son and successor, Sembat the
-Second, who built the outer wall in face of which I have brought my
-reader at the commencement of this chapter. [289] Sembat also laid
-the foundations of the cathedral, but died before it was completed.
-[290] The title which is assigned to this king by the Armenian
-historians dissembles with truly Oriental ingenuity the inherent
-weakness of the structure which supported his throne. He is styled
-the king of Armenian kings, Shahinshah-Armen. Sembat was succeeded
-by his brother Gagik the First, a prince who is described as at once
-victorious in the field and strenuous in the works of peace. His
-military qualities may have been displayed in a campaign against
-the Mussulmans under the emir of Azerbaijan, Mamlun. But the credit
-of the victory over this successor of the Afshins and the Yusufs
-belongs in the principal degree to an Armenian prince of the country
-of Akhaltsykh, David, who endeavoured, at the head of forces composed
-of Georgians and Armenians, to wrest from the Moslem yoke the
-fortresses in the south of Armenia, Melazkert, Akhlat, Arjish. [291]
-It is rather in the sphere of a patron of art that we may be able to
-remember Gagik. It was during his reign that the noble cathedral at
-Ani was brought to completion, largely at the expense and by the
-initiative of his queen. [292] He built another of the great churches
-which adorned his capital, that of the Illuminator on the side of the
-Valley of Flowers. [293] The monastery of Marmashen, near Alexandropol,
-was constructed at this period by one of the Armenian princes, Vahram.
-[294] Lastly, the seat of the patriarchate was removed to Ani from the
-neighbouring town of Arghina. [295]
-
-Upon the death of King Gagik the eldest of his three sons ascended the
-ancestral throne. Rare natural intelligence belonged to John Sembat--
-the monarch is known under either name; but these mental qualities were
-perhaps clouded by an excessive corpulency. On the other hand, his
-brother Ashot displayed the union of physical symmetry to ardent
-courage and passion for war. The man of action chafed under the
-supremacy of the peaceable civilian; and no sooner was the natural
-heir in possession of his heritage than his ambitious brother broke
-into open revolt. A peace was at length concluded upon the terms that
-John should reign in Shirak, with the capital Ani, and Ashot over the
-remainder of his father's dominions. [296] This compact was observed
-at least so far that Ashot the Fourth was never permitted by his
-jealous colleague to enter the capital. [297] But the civil war
-loosened the bonds which attached the feudatories to their king, and
-the neighbouring states to a dynasty in its strength. The one partner
-was obliged to have recourse to the Cĉsar Basil; and it was not
-without the assistance of a contingent of imperial troops that
-Ashot IV. imposed his rule upon his allotted territories. The other
-was defeated at the commencement of his reign by the Bagratid king
-of Abkhasia and Georgia, whose troops entered and pillaged Ani. [298]
-These events appear to have been followed by a period of comparative
-tranquillity, during which either monarch was enabled to recover
-breath. But the Mussulman emirs were encroaching; the Seljuk Turks
-were harrying the frontiers; and the Armenian nation, the natural
-bulwark against their invasions, was distracted by the separate
-counsels of the king with Ani and the king without Ani, of the king
-of Lori and the king of Kars. The king of Van, upon whom the brunt of
-the Mussulman and Turkish incursions had fallen, was preparing or had
-already accomplished the cession of his kingdom to the Cĉsar, in
-despair of withstanding these unceasing assaults.
-
-The tribes composing the wave of the great Turkish invasion appear
-upon the stage of Armenian history as early as the commencement of the
-eleventh century. [299] The aspect and dress of these savages were
-as unfamiliar to the Armenians as their mode of conducting war. The
-Christian warriors, armed with the sword, encountered swarms of
-archers whose long hair floated behind them like that of women. [300]
-The signal defeat of his son David by these nomads about the year
-1018 caused the reigning king of the Van country to lose heart. The
-news was brought to him while he was residing in the delicious town
-of Vostan, upon the wooded spurs of the Kurdish mountains overlooking
-the lake of Van. His despondency was confirmed by the recollection of
-a prophecy in which St. Nerses, the fifth successor of St. Gregory,
-had foretold the advent of great calamities at the hands of a barbarous
-people a thousand years after the divine mission of Christ. Senekerim
-despatched his son to the court of Constantinople, where he was
-received with the greatest kindness by the Emperor Basil II. The Cĉsar
-accepted the gift of his extensive and populous realm, and gave in
-exchange a secure retreat within the borders of the Empire, the city
-and territory of Sivas (A.D. 1021). An imperial governor was sent to
-take over the ceded dominions, in which were included no less than 72
-fortresses, 4000 villages, and 8 towns. [301] Some display of force
-was necessary in order to fasten upon the southern province the rule
-of the Byzantine monarchs; and it is probable that the measures taken
-to assert their authority still further enfeebled the rampart they had
-come to defend. The progress of the shepherds may be traced through the
-pages of the Armenian historians during the ensuing years. In A.D. 1021
-they advanced from Azerbaijan upon the town of Nakhichevan under the
-conduct of their prince, the famous Toghrul Bey. This incursion was
-directed up the valley of the Araxes into the country about Ararat. It
-was resisted by a force of Georgians, who retired without coming to an
-engagement, and, a little later, by a small detachment of the Armenian
-army under Vasak, the commander-in-chief. But no concerted action
-was taken against the invaders, the Armenians contenting themselves
-with deeds of personal prowess, and the Turkomans swarming over the
-settled country, plundering, destroying, and putting the inhabitants
-to the sword. [302] In the year 1042 they were encountered by the
-king of Armenia, Gagik, the successor of John Sembat and Ashot. At
-the head of his troops he inflicted upon them a signal defeat on the
-banks of the Zanga, the river of Erivan. The Turks retired into the
-Van country, which they devastated anew. [303] Three years later
-they appeared again in the same province; but this time they were
-fugitives from Mesopotamia, where they had been repulsed by the
-emir of Mosul. Their prayer for a safe passage home into Persia was
-refused by the imperial governor residing at Arjish, on the lake of
-Van. But the forces at his disposal were routed by the tribesmen, who
-took him prisoner and put him to death. [304] The Turks returned in
-greater numbers during the following years, laying waste the southern
-province, flooding northwards into Pasin and into the valley of
-the Chorokh. To this period belong the sack of Arzen (near Erzerum)
-in 1049, and the pillage of Kars and massacre of its inhabitants in
-1050. Neither the imperial generals nor their Georgian and Armenian
-dependents were successful in making headway against the storm. [305]
-The year 1054 was made memorable in the native annals by the siege
-of Melazkert. Toghrul had arrived at the head of an immense army in
-the districts bordering the lake of Van on the side of Azerbaijan. The
-town of Berkri was taken by assault, that of Arjish purchased immunity;
-and the conqueror led his host across the level country at the foot
-of Sipan to the walls of the fortress on the Murad. Melazkert was at
-that time in the possession of the Empire, and was stoutly defended
-by its governor. After a close investiture, during which the garrison
-displayed great resource and bravery, the Seljuk king was constrained
-to retire. But he had already despatched detachments of his army in
-all directions; the Turks penetrated as far north as the slopes of
-Caucasus and the Pontic forests, and as far south as the mountains
-bordering the southern shore of Lake Van. [306] The area of their raids
-was still further extended during the subsequent decade. The territory
-of Mush was overrun in 1058; and the lonely cloister of Surb Karapet,
-which overlooks that extensive plain, witnessed the prowess of the
-Armenian chiefs, who directed their gaze towards it before falling
-upon their savage foes. [307] These bands had perhaps returned from
-the sack of Malatia beyond and on the west of the Euphrates. [308] In
-the following year the advancing tide reached the city of Sivas, that
-peaceful haven in the interior of Asia Minor which had been allotted
-to King Senekerim, and which was now in possession of his sons. These
-princes fled for their life, and the Turks were for a moment arrested
-by the spectacle of the multitude of white domes, belonging to the
-churches, which they mistook for the tents of their enemy. But both the
-city and the plain of Sivas were given over to pillage and massacre;
-streets and countryside were deluged with blood. [309] North, south,
-and west spread the relentless inundation; at one time the current
-sets towards the territory of Karin (Erzerum), at another it eddies
-around the mountains in the south between Diarbekr and Palu. [310]
-
-Armenian patriots of the present day brand the memory of King
-Senekerim, the Artsrunian, and insult his tomb in the cloister of
-Varag, overlooking Van. No more lenient judgment is meted out to the
-Bagratid king of Ani, who, as early as the year 1022, willed away
-his dominions to the same Cĉsar who had supplanted the sovereign of
-the southern province. But these events are but the outward signs of a
-general retreat of the Armenians before the advance of Turks and Kurds,
-battering in the gates of the caliphate and pressing forward into
-the settled countries. [311] A fairer view might impute it to these
-Christian kinglets that they failed to stand their ground upon the
-bulwarks of Eastern Christendom, drawing support from their powerful
-neighbours of the same faith, who were welded together in a single
-and magnificent empire. But that empire, so justly respected by the
-Mussulmans as the realm of the Romans, was an object of particular
-aversion to the Armenians as the home or the prey of the hated and
-unorthodox Greeks. On every page of Armenian history is written
-large the mutual suspicion which envenomed the relations of the
-two races. Where co-operation might have seemed impossible we may
-perhaps excuse the abdication of the weaker party, and even justify
-the usurpation of the stronger. And the judicial historian, who may
-sift the facts with greater care than the inquisitive traveller, will
-perhaps conclude that the blame must be laid on wider shoulders--upon
-the Pan-Greek policy of the Byzantine Cĉsars and their masterful
-hierarchy, and upon the perversity of two cultured and Christian
-peoples, who, rather than compose or postpone their quarrels, threw
-this culture and this religion into the maw of savages.
-
-At the time when the Bagratid kingdom of Armenia was suffering from
-a fresh division of the regal authority under John Sembat and Ashot,
-the neighbouring Empire was administered by a worthy successor of
-Nikephorus and of Zimiskes. The Emperor Basil the Second stands out
-in the Byzantine annals as a monarch who did not disgrace the title of
-the Roman Cĉsars. His personal intervention in the affairs of Armenia
-dates from the reign of Gagik the First, and was occasioned by the
-death of the prince of the Akhaltsykh country, David, who had during
-his lifetime been a fast ally of the emperor, and who had named him
-heir to his principality. Basil hurried to Armenia to take over his
-new possessions; he was greeted by the kings of Kars and of Van;
-but King Gagik excited his displeasure and provoked his resentment
-by somewhat pointedly remaining away. The Cĉsar appears to have
-made a peregrination of the Armenian country, visiting Shirak, and
-perhaps occupying some of the fortresses in the south, such as Akhlat,
-Melazkert, and Arjish. [312] Years later he was again summoned to the
-scene of his former successes; but on this occasion it was his duty
-to combat the folly of two Christian princes who had taken up arms
-against that Empire which alone could save them from their doom. King
-George the First of Georgia, in concert with King John Sembat of Ani,
-had been raiding in the imperial dominions. Basil established his
-camp in the plain of Erzerum, and summoned the Georgian monarch to
-submit. Upon the failure of his embassies he made his way by the
-plain of Pasin to the territory of Kars. The armies came together
-in the neighbourhood of Lake Chaldir; and if the issue of a furious
-engagement may have seemed uncertain, the result was established by
-the retirement of the Georgians into their strong places, and by the
-devastation of their country by the imperial forces, which included
-contingents of barbarous peoples such as Russians and Bulgarians. The
-emperor spent the winter in the neighbourhood of Trebizond, where
-he received an envoy from the king of Ani, no less a person than the
-patriarch, accompanied by twelve bishops, seventy monks, two scholars,
-and three hundred knights. The presence no less than the gifts of
-this distinguished embassy might have appeased the just wrath of the
-most Christian emperor; but his expectations were perhaps exceeded
-by the production of a testament in which John Sembat named him the
-heir to his dominions. This voluntary cession (A.D. 1022) secured the
-immunity of the kingdom of Ani; and Basil was free to exact his terms
-from the Georgian. Measures were taken to ensure the future safety of
-the domains of Akhaltsykh, and the imperial army was paraded upon the
-extremities of the Armenian country, carrying fear into the hearts of
-the inhabitants of Azerbaijan. Basil returned to his distant capital,
-having smoothed the way for the extension of the Empire across the
-natural bridge of the Asiatic highlands. The masters of Akhaltsykh
-in the north and of Van in the south could afford to wait for the
-death of a feeble and childless king. [313]
-
-But the Emperor Basil died in the year 1025, and was followed upon the
-throne by no less than six sovereigns within the space of seventeen
-years. His bold policy was committed to feeble hands and incapable
-brains; and perhaps the testament of King John was forgotten by
-the Emperor Romanus when he bestowed his niece in marriage upon its
-author. [314] The bridegroom did not profit by this opportunity of
-producing an heir who might have rivalled the claims of the heir of
-Basil. Upon the death of John, which occurred some years after this
-event, the reigning emperor, Michael, took steps to enforce those
-claims. One of the most powerful of the Armenian nobles, by name
-Sargis, supported the cession of the kingdom in accordance with the
-imperial demand. His proposal was resisted by his compeers, and the
-imperial forces were despatched into Shirak. Arrived under the walls
-of Ani, they were surprised by a sally of the garrison, who were led
-by the chiefs of the faction opposed to Sargis, under the supreme
-command of the intrepid Vahram (A.D. 1041). The Greek army was routed
-after incurring heavy losses, and the river of Ani was reddened by the
-blood of the Greeks. Gagik, the son of King Ashot, who was then a mere
-youth, was raised to his uncle's throne; and the hateful Sargis was
-taken prisoner by the successful party, but restored to liberty by
-the clemency of the young king. The imperial anger continued to harass
-an inexperienced prince who was regarded by the Byzantine court as an
-usurper; but the death of Michael in the same year suspended the
-delivery of a decisive blow. His nephew, another Michael, ruled or
-tyrannised for a few months; the disorders of his reign were followed
-by those consequent upon his expulsion; and a short period was perhaps
-necessary for his successor, Constantine Monomachus, to establish
-himself upon the throne. The revenge which he inherited against the
-kingdom of Ani was stimulated by the intrigues of Sargis, who
-suggested that the youthful Gagik should be enticed to Constantinople,
-in order to smooth the way for the surrender of the city. The promises
-of the emperor, and the oaths of the nobles that they would conserve
-his capital during his absence, were successful in drawing the monarch
-away; but a considerable display of force was rendered necessary
-before the garrison could be induced to surrender Ani. After a first
-reverse, measures were taken by the absent emperor to secure the
-triumph of his arms. A Kurdish emir, who was powerful in Karabagh and
-the valley of the Araxes, was induced to join his forces to those of
-the Empire; and matters had become hopeless when the city was
-delivered over to the emissary of the Cĉsar by the notables in
-concert with the patriarch (A.D. 1045). King Gagik was allotted a
-territory in Cappadocia and a palace at Constantinople. A Greek
-governor was despatched to take over Ani and the new possessions,
-which placed the crown upon the extension of the Roman Empire along
-the valley of the Araxes and round the shores of Lake Van. [315]
-
-In this manner and by these several stages the protagonists in a world
-struggle were brought face to face. The Seljuks reinforced the failing
-energies of Islam, but infused into the body to which they lent new
-vigour an intractable strain of barbarism which it has retained to
-the present day. On the high-road of their depredations they were now
-confronted by a redoubtable adversary, the champion of Christianity
-and of whatever culture the age possessed. But that religion, become
-debased, had already sapped the foundations of culture; the winged
-mind of the Greeks had been imprisoned by a rigorous dogmatism; and
-their bodies were either crushed by the discipline of the monastery
-or exhausted by the refinements of the life of sensual pleasure. The
-greatness of their inheritance and the extent of the resources
-which they administered had been equal to producing a Nikephorus,
-a Zimiskes and a Basil; but this grain of Roman genius was allowed
-to wither by the succeeding princes; and we feel the force of the
-comparison which is drawn by the Armenian historian between the quiet
-strength and benignant policy of Basil and the dissolute habits and
-feeble half-measures of Monomachus. [316] The safety of the provinces
-was made subordinate to the interests of the Greek hierarchy; the
-Armenians were irritated by renewed attempts to bring them over to
-Byzantine orthodoxy; and their resistance was punished by the removal
-of the strongest characters from the native seats in the defence
-of which they would have given their lives. The new territories
-were handed over to Greek eunuchs, to whom was entrusted their
-administration and defence. [317] In the year 1055 the inhabitants
-were massacred outside the walls of Ani by an enemy which perhaps
-consisted of a detachment of Seljuks in concert with the forces of
-the emir of Karabagh. [318] The final blow was delivered nine years
-later by the successor of Toghrul, the famous Alp Arslan. After a
-successful campaign in the Georgian country he arrived before Ani
-in the summer of 1064. The appearance of the city at that date is
-described in eloquent terms, if with some exaggeration, by Matthew
-of Edessa. Such was the number of the population assembled within
-its ramparts that the Turks believed them to comprise the greater
-part of the Armenian nation. Mass was celebrated in a thousand and
-one churches. Precipitous cliffs protected the site for almost the
-whole circuit, and it was embraced by the sinuous course of the Arpa
-Chai. On one side only was there level or slightly shelving ground for
-a distance about equal to the flight of an arrow. It was upon the walls
-which defended this vulnerable side that the Seljuk sultan directed
-his attack. After a siege of twenty-five days the Turks penetrated
-into the city. Each man carried a knife in either hand and a third
-between his teeth. The garrison had retired into the inner citadel,
-and the defenceless inhabitants were mown down like grass. One of
-the barbarians mounted upon the roof of the cathedral, and hurled to
-the ground the great cross which rose from the dome. A little door
-gave him access to the interior of the dome, whence he precipitated
-a crystal lamp, perhaps of Indian origin, which had been presented
-by King Sembat the Second. The capture of Ani prepared the way for
-the investiture of Kars; but the king of Kars appeased the victor
-by attiring himself in black robes, which he affected to be wearing
-out of respect for the death of Toghrul. From these successes the
-Seljuks were carried forward into the bosom of the Empire; and the
-signal defeat near Melazkert of the Cĉsar Romanus in 1071 finally
-decided the long struggle in favour of the Mohammedan world. [319]
-
-From these momentous issues, with which the fortunes of Ani were
-so closely connected, it is an abrupt descent to the plane of her
-subsequent history. I have already had occasion to mention the two
-chief actors in this minor drama, the Bagratid dynasty of Georgia
-and the Kurdish dynasty of Karabagh. [320] The Georgian Bagratids
-weathered the storm of the Seljuk invasions; and they attained during
-the course of the twelfth and the commencement of the thirteenth
-century a wide dominion over the adjacent lands. A lesser station must
-be assigned to the Mussulman family of the Beni-Cheddad, who in the
-decline of the caliphate had established themselves in the valleys of
-the Kur and the Araxes, and whose kinsmen probably wandered over the
-mountains of Karabagh, which at the present day still harbour Kurdish
-tribes. The particular clan to which they belonged is said to have
-been named Rewadi; but they became possessed of the important town
-of Gandzak in the valley of the Kur (the modern Elizabetpol), and of
-Dvin, the ancient Armenian metropolis, in that of the Araxes. I have
-twice spoken of their prince, a figure of some importance during the
-reigns of John Sembat and Gagik the Second, at first the ally and
-then the determined adversary of the Empire and the coadjutor of Alp
-Arslan. Abulsevar--the Chawir of the Arabs, the Aplesphares of the
-Greeks--is well known to the Byzantine annalists, and is styled by
-them, no less than by the Armenian writers, the prince of Dvin. [321]
-His son and successor, Fathlun, purchased Ani from the Seljuk sultan,
-and gave it over to his brother Manuchar (A.D. 1072). This ruler
-appears to have governed with moderation; and he was confirmed in
-his dignity by the successor of Alp Arslan, the humane Malek Shah,
-who extended the Seljuk empire to the Mediterranean. After the death
-of Manuchar in A.D. 1110 [322] the inhabitants were much harassed by
-their Mussulman and Georgian neighbours during the government of his
-son and successor, another Abulsevar. They appealed for help to the
-Bagratid king of Georgia, David the Second, and opened their gates to
-that monarch (A.D. 1124). Abulsevar and his sons were carried off to
-Tiflis, and the unhappy prince, with two of his children, perished
-in an unhealthy prison. [323] This revolution restored the city to
-a Christian administration, after a Mussulman occupation of sixty
-years. The cathedral, which had served as a mosque, was restored to
-Christian worship and consecrated anew with great pomp. But David
-the Second died in the following year; and his son and successor
-Dimitri was confronted with an investiture of Ani by Fathlun, the
-eldest son of the deceased ruler, who had been absent at the time of
-the Georgian conquest and who was thirsting to avenge his father. The
-issue of a lengthy siege was a happy compromise, by which the Kurdish
-emir assumed the government under a pledge to reserve the cathedral
-to the exclusive use of his Armenian subjects (A.D. 1125-26). [324]
-Fathlun was killed in battle in the year 1132, and was succeeded by
-his brother Mahmud. [325] The Kurdish dynasty continued to drag on a
-precarious existence as lords of Ani until towards the close of the
-twelfth century; but they lost Gandzak to the Seljuks in 1088, and
-Dvin to the Georgians in 1162. [326] The conqueror of Dvin, George the
-Third, was twice the conqueror of Ani. His first expedition belongs
-to the year 1161, when he made himself master of the place after a
-single day's siege. [327] But his success exasperated his Mussulman
-neighbours, and he was confronted in the same year by the emir of
-Akhlat at the head of an army numbering 80,000 men. The pompous title
-of this prince, that of Shah of Armenia, serves to accentuate his
-signal defeat by the Georgian king. But the Mussulmans renewed their
-attacks under the guidance or at the prompting of Ildigiz, the Atabeg
-governor of Azerbaijan. About the year 1165 George was constrained
-to restore Ani to them, and it again came into the possession of
-the Beni-Cheddad. From these it passed for the third time into the
-hands of the Georgians in 1173-74. [328] During the reign of Thamar
-the luckless inhabitants were surprised and massacred by the emir of
-Ardabil in eastern Azerbaijan. Even at that period, the commencement
-of the thirteenth century, the city was still rich and populous. [329]
-But the advent of the Tartars in A.D. 1239 was the occasion of a new
-catastrophe, the place being sacked by the savage bands of Jenghiz
-Khan. In 1319 Ani was visited by a severe earthquake, to which Armenian
-writers ascribe her final abandonment. But there exists evidence to
-show that this consummation was deferred to a later and uncertain date.
-
-I feel that I owe an apology to my reader for this long excursion into
-Armenian history. But my endeavour has been to encompass a double
-purpose, that of presenting in a sufficient narrative the capital
-events in the annals of Ani, and that of sketching in from various
-and scattered sources the larger history of the Armenian kingdom of
-the Middle Ages. The attention of the traveller, no less than that of
-the statesman and the man of culture, is frequently directed to that
-neglected but fascinating subject, which indeed explains the present
-condition of the Armenians and which conducts us to the threshold of
-our own era. We cannot learn much from the long intervening spaces
-of time during which Tartars and Turkomans, and Ottoman Turks and
-Persians ruled in a country which was forgotten by the West. A deep
-sleep settles on the land, given over to shepherds, from which it
-scarcely awakes at the distant calling of the modern epoch. The
-natural development of the Armenian people was suddenly arrested by
-the Seljuk conquest, and the abler among them were forced to seek new
-homes. Some stout spirits established themselves in the mountains of
-Cilicia, where they founded a petty kingdom which endured for nearly
-three hundred years (A.D. 1080-1375). The obstinacy of their race was
-made manifest by the long resistance of this colony to the spiritual
-guidance of the popes of Rome. The friends of the Crusaders, they were
-at length overwhelmed by the Turks, who suppressed the dynasty. Their
-descendants still maintain themselves about their adopted seats,
-secure in their mountain fastnesses. But perhaps the most remarkable
-outcome of this dispersal was the emigration of the inhabitants of Ani
-to Poland, Moldavia and Galicia, to Astrakhan on the northern shore
-of the Caspian, and thence to the Crimea. Many of these colonies have
-endured to the present day. Some among them were permitted to retain
-their own laws; and the jurisprudence of the Armenian kings figures
-in the code of the colony of Lemberg, which was administered by the
-Armenian notables with the express sanction of the Polish kings and
-which has been preserved to the curiosity of our own age. [330]
-
-
-
-My reader is now in possession of an outline of the history of
-the deserted city before the walls of which he stands. He is also
-familiar with the large surroundings which overpower this elegant
-architecture--in the distance the pile of Alagöz and the dome of
-Ararat; far and near the undulating upland plain, deeply cañoned by
-the sinuous course of the Arpa Chai. But the site of Ani calls for
-some particular description. [331] It has been built within the fork
-described by the meeting of two ravines which have been eroded by
-the action of water to a considerable depth below the level of the
-plain. In the more westerly of these ravines flows a small stream
-coming down from the Alaja Dagh (p. 330), which was known to the old
-priest by its older name of Tsaghkotz, [332] but which some travellers
-have called the Alaja Chai. The more easterly is occupied by the Arpa
-Chai, the ancient Akhurean. Near the confluence, the two streams are
-only separated by a narrow spit, and their waters hiss at the base of
-crags composed of lava. But the greater portion of the site consists
-of a spacious platform, flanked on two sides by the ravines. At a
-distance of about a mile above the junction of the waters two small
-side valleys descend into the principal depressions from within the
-area which they enclose. The one is directed towards the west and
-joins the trough of the Alaja; the other pursues a south-easterly
-course to the chasm of the Arpa Chai. The heads of these two side
-valleys are separated from one another by a considerable stretch of
-unbroken ground. It is on that side only and along that space that
-the site is weak. And it is there that the double line of walls have
-been erected, fronted in ancient times by a moat (Fig. 70). [333]
-
-
-    The character of this double wall and the appearance of the towers
-    are exhibited in my illustration, which was taken from outside,
-    in front of the principal gateway. The long line of fortifications
-    is seen extending towards the east. Such walls are composed at
-    Ani of an inner core of solid conglomerate, faced on either side
-    with rectangular blocks of hewn stone. One admires the exquisite
-    art with which the masonry is disposed and the minute fitting
-    at the joints. We enter the enclosure between the two parapets,
-    and walk for a short distance in an easterly direction. Above us,
-    upon the face of the inner wall, is placed a fine bas-relief
-    of a lion (Fig. 71); and almost immediately we arrive at the
-    inner gateway, just west of the great tower. A somewhat effaced
-    inscription is seen above the arch. It has been copied, but the
-    interpretation and date are obscure. [334] We know that these walls
-    were originally built by King Sembat the Second (A.D. 977-989);
-    [335] but they must have been restored and towers added at later
-    dates. The earliest inscription which has been discovered was
-    found on a round tower not far from this entrance. It is in Cufic
-    character, and records that the tower was erected by Manuchar the
-    son of Chawir, or Abulsevar. We have already seen that Manuchar was
-    the first ruler in Ani of the Kurdish family of the Beni-Cheddad
-    (A.D. 1072). Other inscriptions belong to the latter half of the
-    twelfth century and the commencement of the thirteenth. They are
-    in Armenian and establish the fact that some of the towers were
-    constructed by private persons as memorials to themselves. [336]
-
-    Once within the archway through the inner wall, the interior of
-    the city is displayed in a long perspective to our gaze. But we
-    might have to mount upon one of the parapets, in order to survey
-    the irregularities of the large triangular space as far as the
-    citadel at its further and narrow end. This north-easterly or
-    broader portion of the site is covered with the débris of the
-    private dwellings, not one of which has remained erect. They
-    must have been packed together in a most uncomfortable manner,
-    and they were probably built for the greater part of inferior
-    material. [337] It is as though a Persian runner had swished them
-    away with his long cane to open the view to the noble monuments
-    which still stand. Behind us, as we proceed, the long barrier of
-    the fortifications opens out on either side. The inner walls of
-    many of the towers have fallen in, and their vaulted interiors
-    are laid bare. They suggest the appearance of a series of apses
-    as they soar up into the sky.
-
-    Directing our steps towards the cathedral, the largest of the
-    buildings, we pass the scattered fragments of an octagonal
-    tower (No. 11 on the plan), which must have succumbed at a
-    comparatively recent date. It has been seen while still perfect by
-    my predecessors, who have described it as a minaret. It may have
-    also served as a watch-tower. One huge block of masonry which has
-    held together still displays the large proportions and the form
-    of the structure. The remains of a spiral staircase engage the
-    eye, and one is impressed with the excellence of the masonry. Two
-    inscriptions have been found upon this pile. One in Persian bears
-    the date Heg. 595 or A.D. 1198-99, and is to the effect that
-    one Kei-Sultan of the Beni-Cheddad family "forbids the sale of
-    sheep and camels in front of this mosque of Abu-l-Mamran." The
-    other is in Armenian and without date or personal sanction,
-    being a mere exhortation to obey the order. One must suppose,
-    in the absence of evidence to the contrary, that the minaret
-    belonged to a mosque which has disappeared. [338]
-
-    The cathedral will surprise the traveller, even if he have come
-    from Edgmiatsin. Although of small proportions, if judged by a
-    European standard, it is nevertheless a stately building. [339]
-    It bears the imprint of that undefinable quality, beauty, and can
-    scarcely fail to arouse a thrill of delight in the spectator. It
-    is seen to great advantage, adjacent edifices having disappeared
-    (Fig. 72). The extreme simplicity of the design--an oblong figure
-    of four almost unbroken walls--at once appeals to the eye. The
-    skill with which these plain spaces have been treated is the
-    feature which is admired in the next place. The apse is only
-    indicated by two niches which recess back from the face of the
-    wall on the east (Figs. 72 and 73). Two similar niches are seen
-    on the south, and, I think, also on the north side; but their
-    purpose is ornamental and to secure uniformity of design. The
-    remainder of the space is diversified by the lightest of false
-    arcades, which rises almost to the roof, embraces the niches and
-    extends to all four walls. My illustration (Fig. 72) displays
-    the southern and eastern fronts; that on the north resembles
-    its counterpart, but is less ornate. The façade is practically
-    the same as the eastern front, but without the niches and with
-    a low doorway. Similar doorways are conspicuous on the northern
-    and southern sides. One remarks the tall and slender pillars of
-    the false arcades, the cushion form of the capitals with their
-    richly chiselled faces, the low spring of the rounded arches which
-    curve inwards at the base, but scarcely suggest, so slight is the
-    curve, the horse-shoe shape. The row of these arched mouldings is
-    pleasantly broken at the doorway, which is surmounted by a narrow
-    window with a rectangular frame of chiselled stone. And the bold
-    arched moulding of pointed form, which envelops door and window,
-    takes the eye above the tops of the neighbouring arches and leads
-    it upwards to the loftier roof of the transept.
-
-    The architecture of the roof is less single of
-    feature. Multiplicity of outlines and contrast of shapes are the
-    characteristics which are here displayed. At one level you have
-    the aisles, at another the nave and transept, at yet another
-    the supreme crown of the dome. Here it is a group of gables;
-    there the large circle of the drum of the dome; there again the
-    cone formed by the roof of the dome. This uppermost member of the
-    series has unhappily fallen in; but enough remains of the drum
-    to enable the eye to complete the picture, and to reconstruct
-    the delicate mouldings of a false arcade. We have in fact a roof
-    scene essentially Byzantine in character, but which is quite free
-    of that suggestion of a series of box-like elevations which is
-    engendered by the appearance of some specimens of the style. On
-    the contrary, we receive the impression of a stately simplicity
-    underlying the diversity of outline and form.
-
-    The interior is quite remarkable from the standpoint of the history
-    of architecture; it is also calculated to deserve the admiration
-    of the lover of art. It has many of the characteristics of the
-    Gothic style, of which it establishes the Oriental origin. [340]
-    The dome is supported by four massive piers of coupled pillars with
-    plain capitals. Four similar piers are placed at either extremity
-    of the building, a pair at the entrance and one on each side of
-    the apse. A feature of the edifice is the extreme narrowness
-    of the aisles and the corresponding constriction of the side
-    chapels at their eastern extremity. The relative proportions of
-    the apse and of these minor apses may be discovered by a glance
-    at the illustration of the eastern front, where the extent of
-    the latter is indicated by the two arches with little windows,
-    one on either side of the niches. The Gothic appearance of
-    the interior is still further accentuated by the bold pointed
-    arches which spring from the piers. Our curiosity is aroused by
-    these characteristics; but our emotions awake as we contemplate
-    the magnificent apse (Fig. 74). [341] That element of grandeur
-    which we miss in Armenian churches is here made manifest in a
-    high degree. It is imparted by the apse to the whole interior;
-    and the apse becomes, by a happy inspiration of the architect,
-    indeed the head and soul of the church.
-
-    Vestiges of paintings upon the ceilings have been observed by my
-    predecessors; but I do not know that the building suffers from
-    their destruction. The plaster has fallen, and the perfection
-    of the masonry is exposed. The roofs as well as the walls are
-    composed of stone, and, as usual in Armenian churches, no wood or
-    metal has been used. Even at the present day the Armenian masons
-    are possessed of exceptional skill; and their natural gifts have
-    been here directed by the conceptions of genius. Although the
-    interior is almost free of ornament, the art of the sculptor has
-    been employed upon the enrichment of the outside niches, of the
-    doorways and windows, and of the mouldings of the false arcade. In
-    no case do we discover any trace of barbarism; the designs are
-    sober and full of grace, the execution is beyond praise. [342]
-    The impression which we take away from our survey of these various
-    features is that we have been introduced to a monument of the
-    highest artistic merit, denoting a standard of culture which was
-    far in advance of the contemporary standards in the West.
-
-    Several inscriptions in Armenian are visible upon the walls
-    and have been copied and translated. [343] The earliest in date
-    is found upon the south wall and is of some length. It records
-    that in the year 1010 (Arm. era 459), during the reign of Gagik,
-    king of the kings of Armenia and Georgia, the cathedral, which
-    had been founded by King Sembat, was completed by Katranideh,
-    queen of Armenia and daughter of the king of Siunik, at the
-    bidding of her husband, King Gagik. The queen adds that she had
-    also embellished the church with precious ornaments, an offering
-    to Christ on behalf of herself and of her sons Sembat, Abas,
-    and Ashot. [344] Two inscriptions belonging to the period of the
-    occupation of Ani by the Byzantines figure upon the façade. Both
-    appear to be without dates, but both refer to known personages. The
-    one mentions the Empress Zoe (1042), and is a memorial to her
-    general, Aron-Magistros, who was entrusted with the government
-    of the city. [345] The other is an edict of Bagrat-Magistros,
-    governor-general of the eastern provinces, abolishing by order
-    of Constantine Dukas (A.D. 1059-67) certain taxes which pressed
-    upon the inhabitants. Other inscriptions detail offerings on the
-    part of private individuals; and the date of one, if it has been
-    copied correctly, is as late as 1486. [346]
-
-    An edifice of much smaller scale than the cathedral, [347] but
-    closely resembling it in plan and style, is the church which is
-    dedicated to St. Gregory the Illuminator, and which occupies
-    a secluded site at the eastern extremity of the town upon the
-    side of the cliff which breaks away to the bed of the Arpa by a
-    series of black crags (No. 4). It is indeed a romantic spot. The
-    side valley already mentioned joins the valley of the Arpa at
-    this point, and is flanked by walls which descend to the river
-    with bold bastions. The stream hisses in a gloomy ravine of grey
-    and lichened rock. Subterraneous passages lead inwards into the
-    town. In presenting my photograph of the building I must ask my
-    reader to imagine for a moment that the ruinous porch has been
-    removed (Fig. 76). He will then seize the characteristics with
-    which he is already familiar: the oblong figure of unbroken walls;
-    the elegant false arcades; the roof scene of nave, and transept
-    and aisles, surmounted by a polygonal dome with a conical roof. The
-    niches in the exterior of this church are perhaps less pronounced
-    than in the case of the cathedral; but they are discovered upon
-    all four walls. The stone is uniform of hue. Tall double shafts
-    support the arches of the false arcade which extends round the
-    building. The face of these arches has been richly sculptured with
-    the most elegant traceries, while the spaces above the capitals,
-    between the arms of the arches, display the forms of birds
-    and flowers in moderate relief (Fig. 77, from north side). The
-    architect has wisely discarded the use of the pointed arch in any
-    part of this gem-like structure. But the slender pillars suggest
-    the Gothic. The Byzantine feature of a narthex is wanting both
-    to this building and to the cathedral. The porch has been added
-    at a later date and is purely Saracenic in character. It displays
-    several traceries and designs of high merit, among which I would
-    call attention to the zigzag moulding which is so common in Norman
-    architecture (Fig. 78).
-
-    Entering the building we are at once impressed by its almost
-    perfect preservation; the plaster adheres to the walls and
-    ceilings, and the frescos with which they were adorned are still
-    intelligible. Yet here we have a monument erected nearly 800
-    years ago, and which has not yet been touched by a restorer's
-    hand. The disposition of the interior resembles that of the
-    cathedral; the dome rests on four piers, the apse is flanked by
-    side chapels, which are of diminutive size. The frescos, which
-    are also found upon the façade, represent Biblical subjects. They
-    must have appreciably faded since they were seen and described
-    by my predecessors. [348] The legends which accompany them are
-    all in Georgian or in Greek characters. This fact has led to
-    the supposition that the church was designed for the Greek form
-    of worship. But we know that it was built by an Armenian, as the
-    church of an Armenian convent dedicated to an Armenian saint. One
-    can scarcely fail to remark the dim lighting of the interior, a
-    characteristic or defect which also belongs to the cathedral. Both
-    might easily have been flooded with light from the dome.
-
-    The commemorative inscriptions are found upon the exterior and
-    are in Armenian character. Within each of the three most easterly
-    arches upon the south wall there is an inscription of twenty-five
-    lines. It would appear that the lines are carried across, and
-    that they constitute a single text. We are informed that in
-    the year 1215 (Arm. era 664), during the government of Zakarea,
-    chief of the mandatories, and of his son Shahanshah, one Tigran,
-    of the family of Honentz, built a monastery upon this site in the
-    hope that his good work would bring long life to his House and
-    to the son of Zakarea. At the time when he bought it the place
-    was covered with rocks and brushwood; but there was a building
-    upon it known as Our Lady of the chapel. Tigran surrounded it
-    with a wall, constructed dwellings for the monks, erected this
-    church of St. Gregory, and enriched the church with ornaments
-    and precious vessels. He also bestowed a permanent endowment
-    upon the monastery. [349] The edifice is therefore a work of
-    the period of Georgian occupation. An inscription upon the east
-    wall belongs to a later epoch, the date being given as 759 of
-    the Armenian era, or A.D. 1310. [350] But the city was still
-    governed by a member of the family of Zakarea. It records that
-    one Matheh, chief secretary of the ruler Shahanshah, restored
-    some conduits which brought water to the monastery, but which
-    had been destroyed during certain foreign or civil troubles. It
-    supplies us with the names of two other personages--Khvandzeh,
-    the wife of this Shahanshah, and Zakarea, their son.
-
-    In the immediate neighbourhood of this church, but upon a
-    higher level, we observe two ruins which are of interest. The
-    one consists of the remains of a massive wall and a chamber which
-    stand in an isolated position (No. 22). They are of the character
-    which is usually known as Cyclopean. The other ruin is that of
-    a small and almost subterraneous bath. Recent excavations have
-    disclosed subsidiary chambers and passages; but the bath itself,
-    which is divided into four small vaulted chambers, could scarcely
-    have accommodated more than four bathers at a time (No. 13). [351]
-
-    Not far from St. Gregory, as you follow down the stream of the
-    Arpa, are met remains of a walled enclosure of the usual finished
-    masonry and in fair preservation. The walls descend the cliff-side
-    to a projecting mass of rock which rises from the bed of the
-    river with almost vertical sides. On the edge of this promontory,
-    overlooking the stream, is placed a little chapel which, although
-    ruinous, still retains many of the elements of its former beauty
-    (No. 9, Fig. 79). It is distinguished from the walls about it by
-    the pink stone of which it is built. The form of the roof is a
-    pleasant variation from the prevailing type, as is also the plan of
-    the interior. Six semicircular recesses are crowned by the circle
-    of the dome. Contiguous to this elegant monument is a chamber or
-    chapel of different form. At the upper end of the enclosure are
-    seen the ruins of the long vaulted staircase which was taken across
-    the enclosure and through the wall on the west, in order to debouch
-    upon the ravine on the western side of the promontory, and so to
-    lead down to the water's edge. About 300 yards still further down
-    the current you observe the piers of a bridge of which the single
-    arch has fallen in. It was on the cliff-side above this bridge that
-    the remains of a gateway were seen by my predecessors, bearing an
-    inscription of the year 1320. It commemorates the allocation of
-    a tax on cattle to the monastery of St. Gregory by one Sargis,
-    chief of the Custom-House. The gift is made for the repose of
-    the soul of the master of Sargis, Shahanshah, and for the long
-    life of Zakarea and the other sons of Shahanshah. Fragments of
-    inscriptions found within the neighbouring enclosure yield the
-    dates of 705 and 759 Arm. era (A.D. 1256 and 1310). [352] I am
-    inclined to think it possible that the enclosure and chapel may
-    have formed part of the same monastery of St. Gregory of which
-    I have already described the church.
-
-    One of the most conspicuous buildings is the mosque with the
-    polygonal minaret (No. 10, Fig. 80). It rises from the cliff on
-    the right bank of the Arpa and overlooks the ruinous bridge. An
-    Arabic inscription, done in brick and inlaid in the masonry
-    of the minaret not far from the summit of that lofty column,
-    displays to the city in colossal characters the name of Allah. The
-    mosque is the work of the first Mussulman prince of Ani, Manuchar,
-    the son of Abulsevar. This fact appears to be established by a
-    Cufic inscription which may be perceived in my illustration upon
-    the north-west wall, the wall adjoining the minaret. [353] Just
-    above it is seen a long Persian inscription which must be over
-    two hundred years later in date. It is in fact an edict of the
-    Mongol king of Persia, Abu-Said, one of the successors of Jenghiz
-    Khan. Abu-Said is styled Bahadur, or the brave. The edict is
-    therefore posterior to the year 718 of the Hegira (A.D. 1318-19),
-    when that sultan acquired this personal title. The contents of
-    this text are to the effect that the inhabitants of the city and
-    neighbouring provinces had been suffering from illegal exactions
-    on the part of their rulers. They had been emigrating and selling
-    their goods and houses. The obnoxious imposts are specified and
-    their abolition decreed. [354] Of the trilingual inscription which
-    was found by Khanikoff I saw no traces; it was a mere fragment
-    at the time of his visit. It mentions the name of Zakarea, to
-    which is attached the title of Atabeg; and it may belong to the
-    year 1237 and to the reign of Zakarea III. [355]
-
-    The architecture of the mosque resembles nothing that has yet
-    been mentioned. Five massive and isolated pillars, of which
-    originally there were six, [356] are seen rising from the floor
-    of the chamber and supporting the vaultings of the roof. The
-    circumference of these pillars is 9 feet 2 inches. The dimensions
-    of the chamber itself are insignificant, being only 47 feet
-    by 41 feet. Beneath it and below the level of the ground on
-    the north-west, but overlooking the river upon the south-east,
-    are four square apartments with narrow windows. My illustration,
-    which was taken from the south, does not embrace this feature;
-    nor does it quite reproduce the peculiar effect of the masonry,
-    in which pink and black stones have been variously employed.
-
-    During the summer preceding our visit excavations had been made
-    in Ani by the Russian archĉologist Mr. N. Marr. [357] Not the
-    least interesting result of his labours, as they were manifest
-    upon the site, is the discovery of a line of walls with bastions,
-    crossing the neck or narrowest portion of the platform from the
-    ravine of the Arpa to that of the Tsaghkotz. The one extremity
-    of this fortification starts from the former of these valleys
-    in the immediate neighbourhood of the mosque. South-west of this
-    neck, with its transverse rampart, the platform again opens out;
-    and at the same time it attains its greatest elevation, gathering
-    together and composing a hill with a flat top. The summit and sides
-    of this hill display the substructures of walls and buildings;
-    and at least two edifices in a fair state of preservation rise
-    against the background of sky. One can scarcely doubt that this
-    strong position was the site of the old fortress of Ani before
-    it became a city and the residence of the king. It is flanked by
-    the two ravines with the two rivers, which presently unite. It is
-    only accessible from the level ground on the north-east. But on
-    that side, as we have seen, it has the form of a narrow isthmus,
-    easily defensible by a line of walls. This fortress must have
-    composed the nucleus of the more recent city--that inner fortress
-    of which we read. Upon the summit of the hill, some four hundred
-    feet above the rivers, was built the citadel. And there is ground
-    for supposing that the citadel was also the palace, as in the
-    case of Trebizond and perhaps also of Melazkert.
-
-    Unfortunately nothing remains of the actual walls of the
-    palace; and the buildings which I have mentioned are two small
-    churches. One stands upon the north side of the fortified eminence,
-    and the other upon the south. The former is not noteworthy, except
-    for the fact that its northern wall rises from lower levels and
-    composes part of the wall of the citadel. But the edifice on the
-    south is of considerable interest. It consists of two vaulted
-    chambers placed side by side, and having the inner wall in common
-    (No. 28, Fig. 81, taken from the north). The more southerly is
-    the largest; and the round arches which support the roof rest upon
-    four pilasters of curious design. I photographed one of the best
-    preserved among them, which is adorned with the figures of two
-    birds in low relief (Fig. 82). They are represented in the act
-    of pouncing upon animals. The pilasters are composed of blocks
-    of black stone; while for the capitals and the upper portion of
-    the building only pink stone has been used. The façade and the
-    apse have fallen away. The dimensions are small: a length of
-    30 feet 9 inches and a breadth of 17 feet 4 inches. One of my
-    predecessors discovered in the contiguous building a bas-relief
-    upon which was portrayed two figures on horseback, one of which is
-    St. George with the dragon at his feet. But this piece, as well
-    as another, in which a mounted and aureoled archer is displayed,
-    surrounded by the forms of birds and wild animals, is no longer
-    to be seen. I showed the reproductions in Brosset's Atlas to the
-    aged priest; he recognised the latter of these sculptures and
-    informed us that it had been stolen. Quite probably both are now
-    lost in some museum. [358] Elements derived from Assyrian art may
-    be recognised in these bas-reliefs as well as the ornament of the
-    pilaster. But in the absence of inscriptions one is thrown back
-    upon internal evidence in assigning a date to the south chapel.
-
-    Such is the site of the ancient fortress of Ani, which must have
-    enjoyed a fine view over the city. I observed that this view
-    comprises the south and west sides of the cathedral, while the
-    north side is turned towards the town. The fact that the south
-    wall of that edifice has been more profusely decorated than its
-    counterpart which faces north confirms the supposition that the
-    palace was situated within the citadel, and that it was for the
-    royal windows that the decorative resources of the architect were
-    principally displayed.
-
-    If we descend the hill of the citadel in a southerly direction,
-    as it falls away to the crags which separate the two ravines about
-    the confluence of the rivers, we cross the remains of an inner
-    wall and pass the ruin of a little chapel, of which the four piers
-    as well as the cupola still stand. I photographed the charming
-    detail of the doorway on the south, overlooking the Arpa Chai
-    (No. 29, Fig. 83). [359] What a contrast between these classical
-    mouldings and the somewhat barbarous architecture of the chapel
-    in the citadel, between the sobriety of the designs in these
-    bands of sculptured stone and the wild spirit of the ornament on
-    those pilasters! Ani is indeed a museum of architectural styles--a
-    characteristic in keeping with her geographical position and with
-    the inquisitive and impressionable culture of her inhabitants. Just
-    west of this building is seen a piece of masonry which is in
-    the last stage of decay (No. 30, Fig. 84). It may represent the
-    apse of another chapel. From here the view ranges over the crags
-    below the citadel, of which the most southerly is crowned by the
-    walls of a third chapel. The Arpa is seen emerging from the deep
-    ravine on the left of the ruin; it is joined by its affluent in
-    the neighbourhood of the rock with the chapel. [360]
-
-    Just below the standpoint of this picture are situated the
-    remains of the outer wall which encircled the peninsula. At
-    the extremity of the figure stands a tower, which is concealed
-    by the lie of the ground. But portions of the wall are visible
-    in the illustration; and it appears to have extended along the
-    valley of the Alaja in a northerly direction, and to have been
-    joined to the outer fortifications of the city on the side of
-    the plain. Where I examined the masonry of this wall I found it
-    faced on both sides, and 3 feet 4 inches in thickness. Issuing
-    from the citadel or inner fortress, we examined the substructures
-    of a curious building which had been recently brought to light
-    by Mr. Marr. But the length of this notice warns me that I must
-    confine it to a description of the monuments which are still erect.
-
-    Let us therefore retrace our steps in the direction of the town,
-    keeping as close as we may to the ravine of the Alaja, the ancient
-    Tsaghkotzadzor or Vale of Flowers. On the summit of the cliff, in
-    full view of the city, rises a circular building with a drum-shaped
-    dome and a conical roof. Of this edifice, the chapel of St. Gregory
-    (No. 5), I am able to present three photographs, one of the east
-    side (Fig. 85), another of the entrance on the west (Fig. 86),
-    and a third of the interior (Fig. 87). It is a charming little
-    monument, which, like the cathedral, blends elements of Byzantine
-    and Gothic art. But the niche is here again a prominent feature,
-    a feature dear to the architecture of the East. The body of the
-    edifice is polygonal rather than circular, having no less than
-    twelve sides. Of these six are recessed, the niches facing the town
-    being framed by ornamental arches with classical cornices. The six
-    niches correspond with the same number of cavities in the design of
-    the interior. Although the inside diameter is not more than about
-    30 feet, including these cavities, [361] yet the impression as you
-    enter the chapel is one of space and height. Especially remarkable
-    is the great depth of the dome. Traces of paintings may be observed
-    upon the walls. Two small vaulted chambers have been built into the
-    wall on the east side, and are now in a ruinous condition. They
-    are seen in the illustration on either side of the window. They
-    may have served the purpose of sepulchral chambers, of which
-    there are also vestiges outside the building upon the north side.
-
-    We learn from the inscriptions that the chapel was dedicated
-    to St. Gregory; and it is a work of the period of the Armenian
-    kings. It seems to have been used as a place of burial by the
-    Pahlavuni or Pahlavid family, which furnished some of the most
-    illustrious names in Armenian history. The great noble who led the
-    faction which was opposed to the cession of Ani to the Byzantines
-    was a Pahlavid, Vahram. He met his death in battle against the
-    Beni-Cheddad of Dvin in A.D. 1047. Embodying as he did the policy
-    of resistance à outrance both to Mussulmans and Greeks, he has
-    been the idol of Armenian patriotism. The name of this hero figures
-    in the inscription over the door, which, although without a date,
-    is probably assignable to him. He bestows the revenue of certain
-    shops upon the church of St. Gregory to defray the cost of masses
-    for the soul of his son Apughamir. In the same place have been
-    found inscriptions of the mother of Vahram, the lady Shushan,
-    making over certain revenues to the same church and recording
-    the number of the masses obtained in return. She is styled the
-    wife of the prince Grigor. But a date is happily forthcoming to
-    elucidate the identity of these personages. It is furnished by a
-    long inscription of no less than fourteen lines upon the north
-    wall. Record is made that in the year of the Armenian era 489
-    (A.D. 1040) Aplgharib, prince of Armenia, erected a sepulchre
-    in this place [362] for his father Grigor, of whom he describes
-    himself as the youngest son, for his brother Hamzeh, and for his
-    maternal uncle Seda. Masses are to be said for his mother Shushan,
-    for his father Grigor, for his maternal uncle Seda, and for his
-    brother Hamzeh. I cannot help thinking that the sepulchre referred
-    to is represented by the remains which I observed upon the north
-    side of this building. And the vaulted chambers in the east wall
-    may be the tombs of Grigor and his wife Shushan, an inscription
-    over the highly decorated window on that side being a prayer to
-    Christ for mercy upon Grigor. [363]
-
-    A question of great interest with reference to this building is
-    whether it may be regarded as the same church which is mentioned by
-    the historians as a work of King Gagik I. We are informed by Samuel
-    of Ani that in the year 447 (A.D. 998) a church of St. Gregory was
-    completed by this monarch in the Tsaghkotzadzor. The same event
-    is recorded in the pages of Kirakos, who gives the same date,
-    and describes the situation as overlooking the Valley of the
-    Tsaghkotz. [364] Asoghik tells us that it was built on the model
-    of a large church at Vagharshapat, dedicated to the same saint,
-    which had fallen into ruin. He adds that the edifice of King Gagik
-    was built on a high platform on the side of the Tsaghkotz, and
-    in possession of an admirable view. He speaks of three doorways
-    and of the marvellous dome, reproducing the appearance of the
-    sky. [365] I did not observe more than one door to this edifice,
-    and perhaps the church which is referred to by these authorities
-    was some larger building in the immediate neighbourhood which
-    has disappeared.
-
-    The chapel of St. Gregory invites comparison with another monument
-    of the same order in the opposite quarter of the town (No. 6,
-    Fig. 88). [366] My illustration was taken from the north. The
-    design is less elaborate and the dimensions are rather larger,
-    the dome especially having a much greater span. But the effect
-    produced by the interior lacks the magic of the companion
-    building, while the symmetry is marred by the recess for the
-    altar on the east side. This building will not endure for many
-    years longer, unless steps be taken to save it from falling
-    in. The lower portions are in a state of advanced decay. The
-    ornament on the exterior closely resembles that employed upon
-    the cathedral. Inscriptions bristle upon the panels of the false
-    arcades. One records that in the year 483 (A.D. 1034) the prince
-    Aplgharib, having journeyed to Constantinople by order of Sembat
-    Shahanshah, obtained with great difficulty and at considerable
-    expense a piece of the Holy Cross. Upon his return he built this
-    church, and directed that nightly services should be held within
-    it until the coming of Christ. The name of Surb-Phrkich, or church
-    of the Redeemer, is given in this and the following inscription,
-    and may be applied either to this chapel or to some neighbouring
-    church with which it was in connection. A second inscription
-    belongs to the Armenian year 490 (A.D. 1041), and mentions the
-    contemporary reign of Sembat, son of Gagik Shahanshah. [367] The
-    chapel of the Redeemer is therefore the work of the same Pahlavid,
-    Aplgharib, who built the sepulchres to the chapel of St. Gregory,
-    and it belongs to the period of the kings. [368]
-
-    Continuing our walk along the cliff above the valley of the
-    Alaja, we pass a lofty mound, surmounted by the ruin of a wall
-    (No. 31). The old priest was of opinion that it denotes the site
-    of the priestly synod house, where endowments were received and
-    other business of the Church transacted. A little further, and
-    west of this mound we stay to examine a small chapel which has
-    been hollowed out of a solid mass of rock. But our attention is
-    distracted from this fantastic object by the walls and yawning
-    apartments of the castle (No. 12, Fig. 89). It is situated in
-    the extreme north-western angle of the town, where the ravine of
-    the Alaja is joined by the side-ravine already mentioned in the
-    description of the site. My photograph displays the southern side
-    of this extensive edifice and the junction of the valleys. The
-    entrance is on the east and faces the town (Fig. 90). You admire
-    the exquisite masonry of the walls and the elaborate decoration
-    of the doorway. That doorway is one of the most conspicuous
-    objects in Ani; and inasmuch as this building has been sought
-    to be identified with the royal palace, it has been despoiled
-    of many of its mosaics by patriotic Armenians, who strip them
-    off and carry them away as souvenirs. My reader will observe
-    the recurrence of the form of a Greek cross in the ornament on
-    the face of the gate. This ornament consists of inlays or, as
-    one might say, mosaics composed of a light red and of a black
-    stone. The effect is original and pleasant to the eye. In the
-    absence of any inscriptions--we searched in vain for any trace
-    of writing both on the outside of the edifice and within its
-    walls--I am inclined to consider that this so-called palace was
-    nothing more than a magazine and barrack, in close connection
-    with the outer defences of the city on the vulnerable side, the
-    side of the plain. The only ornament in the interior was found
-    over a doorway, and consisted of a chain moulding and inlays of
-    red and black stone. On the other hand, the uses of the place
-    appear to be denoted by the vaulted passages and by the spacious
-    underground chambers. Two of these chambers, smaller in size,
-    have evidently served as dungeons. [369]
-
-    Two edifices of considerable interest remain to be mentioned. Both
-    are situated in quarters of the town which must have been densely
-    built over, and both are in an advanced state of decay. The more
-    westerly is perhaps the most curious of all the monuments of Ani,
-    and I do not pretend to have quite unravelled the complexities
-    of its compound plan (No. 2). The eye is engrossed by the ruin
-    of a spacious portal, longest from west to east. The western
-    and southern walls have fallen away; but the east front and the
-    whole of the vaulting of the most easterly portion have been
-    spared by the ravages of time. Entering this portal from the west
-    (Fig. 91), we are able to reconstruct in fancy the features of the
-    design. There appear to have been three distinct domes to the roof,
-    supported by arches resting on pillars. Of the three divisions
-    which were thus introduced into the interior, the largest was that
-    in the centre. That on the east alone remains; and we may gauge
-    the dimensions of the whole figure when we consider that this
-    division measures within the pillars a square of 19 feet. The
-    architecture is pure Arab or Saracenic, recalling that of the
-    mosque. It is certainly later than the period of the kings. As
-    in the mosque, the effect is heightened by the mixture of black
-    with reddish blocks of stone. A large stone, sculptured with a
-    cross, is inlaid in the south-east wall, and may be the same as
-    the one which has been described by my predecessors as containing
-    the figure of a double-headed eagle. [370] The walls are covered
-    with inscriptions. The outer face of this portal or east front
-    is extremely elaborate (Fig. 92). The doorway on that side forms
-    the centre of a Saracenic façade in which honeycomb vaultings,
-    false niches, and a mosaic of black and pink stones have all been
-    made to play a part. Four inscriptions in Armenian are observed
-    upon this front.
-
-    This portal must have served as an entrance to two or more
-    chapels. Of these one alone remains. It is entered by a doorway
-    with rich mouldings in the north wall of the most easterly
-    division. The interior is of grey stone, and it is disposed
-    in four semicircles. [371] But the dimensions are small as
-    compared to those of the portal, and the portal is much longer
-    than the chapel. The ruinous masonry upon the west of the latter
-    building indicates the site of a second and contiguous chamber
-    or chapel. That of a third is denoted by similar evidence upon
-    the east wall. This structure projected beyond the east front of
-    the portal, to which it was placed at right angles. Traces of it
-    may be seen in my illustration. It bears an Armenian inscription.
-
-    The inscriptions, which unhappily I had not leisure to identify,
-    have been already published and translated. [372] The earliest in
-    date appears to have been found upon the doorway of the chapel,
-    and identifies it as a work of the period of the kings. It records
-    that in the year 480 (A.D. 1031) Apughamir, son of Vahram, prince
-    of princes, bestowed an endowment upon this church of the Apostles
-    for the health and long life of his brother Grigor. My reader
-    is already familiar with these names of members of the Pahlavid
-    family. The inscriptions upon the portal are of much later dates,
-    ranging over the period of Georgian occupation when the city was
-    governed by the Mkhargrdzels. Some are in the name of the Mongol
-    overlord. Most are of the nature of public proclamations; and
-    from the one latest in date we learn that in A.D. 1348 members
-    of this Georgian family were still personages at Ani, and that
-    the city had not yet been abandoned by her inhabitants.
-
-    The second of the monuments is also the last which I need mention;
-    it is situated between the cathedral and the chapel of the
-    Redeemer (No. 3). It is of small dimensions and, as usual, of
-    great elegance; but the roof and the whole of the upper portion
-    have unhappily fallen away. In fact, the only portions which
-    are still erect are the north wall, the apse, and part of the
-    south wall. A vaulted chamber extends around the edifice. Two
-    bas-reliefs are seen in two of the panels of the arcade upon the
-    north wall. The one on the left evidently represents the subject
-    of the Annunciation; while that on the right probably portrays
-    the figures of two saints. I could not discover any trace of an
-    inscription. But the old priest bases his opinion that the ruin
-    is that of a church dedicated to St. Stephen upon an inscription
-    which has disappeared. [373]
-
-    My illustration of the castle (Fig. 89) will have revealed
-    a characteristic of the ancient city which is of historical
-    interest. The ravine of the Alaja, as well as both the side
-    valleys, which open respectively to this ravine and to that of
-    the Arpa, present the appearance of having been riddled into
-    quite a network of cavities; such is the number of the troglodyte
-    dwellings which they contain. Legend peoples this underground city
-    with the souls of those citizens of Ani who, sooner than emigrate
-    into distant lands, preferred to die in her defence. A stir and
-    hum, as of a teeming and busy populace, may be heard by night
-    above the rustling of the Arpa Chai. [374] The tuff composing
-    the cliffs must at all times have invited such burrowings; and
-    we know that, when Ani was surprised during the reign of Thamar
-    by the emir of Ardabil, the inhabitants, who were still numerous,
-    took refuge in these caves. [375]
-
-    Our conception of the city of the kings would be wanting in an
-    essential feature were we to pass over the neighbouring convent
-    of Khosha Vank (Fig. 93). It was there, we can scarcely doubt,
-    that the monarch was often wont to deliberate; and it was under
-    the shadow of those walls that his bones were laid to rest by
-    the side of his ancestors. The triumphal archway through which
-    he would pass on his way from the capital may still be seen
-    on the summit of the cliff on the right bank of the Arpa Chai
-    (Fig. 94). The cloister is situated, as we have seen, upon the
-    opposite or left bank, [376] and is bordered on two sides by a
-    loop of the river. The bridge has disappeared. A small village has
-    grouped itself between the monastery and the bed of the stream,
-    where repose beneath the gloom of lofty cliffs of lava the two
-    chapels and the tomb of King Ashot.
-
-    The monastic buildings occupy a considerable area upon the high
-    ground within the bend of the river. They are surrounded by a
-    lofty wall. Entering from the west, we cross a court to an opposite
-    doorway which opens into a vast and gloomy chamber (Fig. 95). On
-    the further or eastern side of this chamber we perceive the door
-    of the church. The architecture of this outer hall or pronaos
-    is quite remarkable. In some respects it resembles that of the
-    mosque at Ani. The ceilings are vaulted, and there are no less
-    than four rows of pillars. The space is divided into the form
-    of a nave and two aisles. The circumference of the pillars is
-    9 1/2 feet. The central vaulting of the nave is surmounted by a
-    dome, different in shape from any of the domes which have been
-    described. Viewed from the outside, it becomes merged in a tall
-    belfry, which is seen on the left of my illustration (Fig. 96),
-    taken from the south-west. To the interior it displays a drum of
-    eight panels; and the only light which it transmits comes from
-    above. The panels are of stone and covered with sculpture in low
-    relief. Here it is an architectural figure, there a beautiful
-    vine pattern which is the subject of the ornament. One space
-    displays the form of the Virgin Mary, set in a rich frame. The two
-    extremities of the frame are supported by the shapes of animals,
-    a bull and a lion. On the back of the lion is seated an eagle,
-    and a child on that of the bull. Two angels keep watch, one on
-    either side of the Mother of Christ. The gloom of the building
-    is due to the design of this dome, as well as to the smallness
-    of the round windows, resembling the port-holes of a ship, of
-    which there are three in the north and two in the south wall.
-
-    The interior of this edifice is covered with inscriptions in
-    Armenian, which none of my party were able to read. Perhaps they
-    include some of those which were brought by Abich from this
-    cloister and which have been translated by Brosset. [377] One
-    of these inscriptions records a donation in the Armenian year
-    650 (A.D. 1201) under the government of Zakarea. Another is to
-    the effect that the monastery was restored in 1102 (A.D. 1652)
-    by one Daniel, a monk from Tigranocerta. We are told that the
-    buildings had previously fallen into ruin, and had become polluted
-    by accumulations of dust and filth. The cloister is styled Horomosi
-    Vank, and is described as having been constructed by the kings. I
-    will not venture to express an opinion upon the age of the pronaos;
-    but I would suggest that the belfry is perhaps of later date. The
-    sculptures in the dome appear to belong to a hoary antiquity. The
-    edifice may have served as a model for a rock chamber which is
-    described by a modern traveller as belonging to the cloister of
-    Surb Geghard. [378]
-
-    You enter the church through the door in the east wall of
-    the pronaos, passing a slab engraved with a pastoral staff,
-    which marks the place of burial of some spiritual dignitary. A
-    spacious dome rests upon four piers, and there is a single apse
-    with the usual daïs. The walls are covered with a coating of
-    whitewash. The interior measures roughly 53 feet by 33 feet,
-    the former dimension including the apse. The attendant priest
-    showed us an old but undated manuscript, which proved to be an
-    illustrated New Testament. It would appear from an inscription
-    that the church was dedicated to St. Gregory, [379] and it may
-    perhaps be ascribed to the period of the kings.
-
-    The monastic buildings are placed upon the south of the church
-    and pronaos, and are approached from the southern side of the
-    entrance court. They are just outside the area embraced by my
-    illustration of the south walls of the edifices just named. Two
-    large apartments, communicating with one another, serve as
-    antechambers to a great hall with pillars and vaulted ceilings,
-    which is entered from the second of the two chambers, and in plan
-    extends along the most easterly of its walls. The whole suite are
-    impressive examples of the art of the mason and stone-sculptor,
-    effect being gained by the regularity and perfect fitting of
-    the blocks, while the stone takes an admirable surface. Friezes
-    with stalactite patterns are employed in one room as a cornice
-    for the ceiling. In the second and smaller room there is a
-    square aperture in the centre of the roof with a stalactite
-    ornament. The same feature belongs to the hall of the synod
-    (Fig. 97), and is clearly seen in my photograph. At the further
-    end of the two rows of pillars may be discerned a niche with a
-    daïs, the recess being richly sculptured. It was there that was
-    placed the throne. But I think these buildings are all later than
-    the time of the kings, although they may have been used by the
-    Georgian princes who governed Ani. We learn from an inscription,
-    which was probably copied in the larger of the antechambers, that
-    at least one of these apartments was constructed in A.D. 1229 to
-    serve as a receptacle for the holy relics. [380]
-
-    On the north side of the church buildings there is nothing but
-    a narrow and vacant space separating them from the wall of the
-    cloister. But at the east end of this part of the enclosure, and in
-    line with the east front of the church, are situated the roofless
-    remains of a little chapel, crowning a ruinous substructure which
-    is overgrown by rank weeds, and of which the sculptured stones
-    litter the ground. The pendant of this building on the south side
-    of the church is seen in my illustration (Fig. 96). It is much
-    better preserved than the companion edifice, and the chamber in
-    the lower storey is still intact. This chamber is oblong in shape,
-    with a vaulted ceiling and an altar with sculptured stones. The
-    chapel is of triple design, with three apses, the whole surmounted
-    by a dome. It is possible that both these buildings, which so
-    closely correspond, were designed to receive the remains of some
-    high personages.
-
-    But the actual tomb of one of the kings has been spared by a happy
-    chance, and may be found quite close to the second and larger of
-    the chapels which repose in the bed of the Arpa Chai (Fig. 94). It
-    is placed near the south-eastern angle of the building. With what
-    a thrill of delight did we discover this eloquent relic--a rounded
-    slab resting on two stone steps! In spite of the lichen and the
-    wear of the stone, the words "Ashot Thagavor" (Ashot, the king)
-    were distinctly legible. The chapels are placed in a line from west
-    to east, and were originally three in number. Of these the most
-    westerly is falling into ruin, a state which has already overtaken
-    that on the east. The central member of the group is at once the
-    largest and the best preserved. It contains an inscription over
-    the south door to the effect that it was built in 460 (A.D. 1011)
-    by one George, son of the patriarch Martiros. But I have not
-    been able to identify this patriarch; and it is possible there
-    may be some error in the translation made by my dragoman, who,
-    although well educated, was not a scholar in old Armenian. The
-    king whose name appears on the tomb is probably Ashot the Third.
-
-    The inscriptions establish the fact that the monastery was
-    known by the name of Horomosi Vank, which probably signifies
-    the convent of the Greek. [381] History supplements and explains
-    this information. We learn from Asoghik that it was founded in
-    the tenth century under the reign of Abas by Armenian priests
-    who had emigrated from Greek territory. It was burnt by the
-    Mussulmans in A.D. 982. [382] An inscription of King John Sembat,
-    dated 487 (A.D. 1038), appears to have been found within its
-    walls; and it has been inferred that the cloister was restored
-    by that prince. [383] We know that he was buried by the side of
-    his predecessors who ruled at Ani; and we have an inscription
-    of John Sembat by which he bestows the revenue of a village in
-    support of the royal cemetery at this monastery of Horomos. [384]
-
-
-For the benefit of such of my readers whose leisure may be unequal to
-a perusal of this long description, I would single out for particular
-study the cathedral (Figs. 72 and 74), the church of St. Gregory
-(Figs. 76, 77, and 78), and the two polygonal chapels (Figs. 85 and
-88). These monuments are examples of the Armenian style at its very
-best, before it was brought under the direct influence of Mussulman
-art and adopted with slight variations Mussulman models. Except in
-the case of the church of St. Gregory, we have authentic evidence
-that they are works of the kingly period. The merits of the style
-are the diversity of its resources, the elegance of the ornament in
-low relief, the perfect execution of every part. It combines many of
-the characteristics of Byzantine art and of the style which we term
-Gothic, and which at that date was still unborn. The conical roofs of
-the domes are a distinctive feature, as also are the purely Oriental
-niches. Texier is of opinion that the former of these features was
-carried into Central Europe by the colonies of emigrants from the
-city on the Arpa Chai. [385]
-
-In the portals of St. Gregory and of the church of the Apostles
-(Figs. 78 and 92) we have elaborate examples of the later period
-when the influence of Mussulman art was supreme. And the pronaos of
-Khosha Vank, with its massive pillars and groined ceilings, with the
-finely sculptured panels in the dome, seems to blend some of the
-characteristics of the architecture of the kings with the plainer
-style which belongs to the mosque.
-
-But a lesson of wider import, transcending the sphere of the history
-of architecture, may be derived from a visit to the capital of the
-Bagratid dynasty, and from the study of the living evidence of a
-vanished civilisation which is lavished upon the traveller within
-her walls. Her monuments throw a strong light upon the character
-of the Armenian people, and they bring into pronouncement important
-features of Armenian history. They leave no doubt that this people may
-be included in the small number of races who have shown themselves
-susceptible of the highest culture. They exhibit the Armenians as
-able and sympathetic intermediaries between the civilisation of the
-Byzantine Empire, with its legacies from that of Rome, and the nations
-of the East. They testify to the tragic suddenness with which the
-development of the race was arrested at a time when they had attained a
-measure of political freedom, and when their capacities, thus favoured,
-were commencing to bear fruit. The Armenian architects thenceforward
-subserve the taste of their Mussulman masters; and during the long
-centuries which have elapsed since the Seljuk conquest, the genius of
-their countrymen has been exploited by the semi-barbarous peoples of
-Asia, while their abilities and character have progressively declined
-and become debased.
-
-For all these reasons a special duty devolves upon the traveller to
-address a pressing appeal both to the Armenians and to the Russian
-Government for the preservation of these monuments. I have already
-mentioned the abstraction of two important bas-reliefs, and the
-petty thefts which are taking place with increasing frequency. Of
-the buildings observed by my predecessors within comparatively recent
-years, the octagonal minaret has already succumbed. A like fate will
-presently overtake the chapel of the Redeemer, unless measures be
-promptly taken to maintain that edifice. The monastery of Horomos
-is falling into ruin. Rich Armenians spend vast sums upon the
-embellishment of Edgmiatsin; can none be found to conserve for the
-instruction of posterity the noblest examples of the genius of their
-race? The co-operation of the Russian Government should be secured
-in this laudable enterprise; nor need we despair that it will be
-forthcoming in such a cause. Much as that Government is inclined to
-discourage Armenian patriotism, it rarely omits to perform a service in
-the interests of culture when the appeal is general and the interests
-are clear.
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XIX
-
-KARS
-
-
-While Ani, the deserted stronghold and capital on the banks of the
-Arpa, appeals to the patriotism of Armenians, her neighbour Kars,
-that fortress at once of ancient and modern repute, awakens a feeling
-of national pride in the bosom of the English visitor. Few, indeed,
-of my countrymen have been privileged to gaze upon a site and scene
-which is associated in their memory with a most brilliant achievement
-of British officers. Of the sieges which Kars has sustained during
-the course of the present century only one has been conducted with
-any skill and spirit on the part of the defence. On that occasion a
-garrison of about fifteen thousand Turks resisted, under the strategy
-of an English general, a force of from thirty to forty thousand
-Russians for a period of over five months. The exploits of Williams
-and his companions in 1855 are still familiar to the townspeople. It
-is they who first traced the design of the fortifications, such as
-we see them at the present day. The old school of Russian officers
-still view with alarm or suspicion the approach of an Englishman to
-the neighbourhood of their prize. Kars is rigorously excluded from the
-jurisdiction of our consuls, and our travellers have rarely penetrated
-within her walls. On the other hand, the new school are of quite a
-different temper, and give free rein to the hospitable and amiable
-qualities which are natural to their race. They received me with open
-arms, overwhelmed me with attentions, and took pains to let me feel
-that, side by side with the Russian laurels, one in honour of their
-British opponents had not been allowed to fade.
-
-I have already endeavoured to describe the characteristics of the
-site of Kars as you approach the fortress from the east across the
-plain. The plan which I now offer will at once assist that description
-and supplement it with a view of the surrounding features. The volcanic
-mass which is pierced by the river where it projects into the level
-expanse is due to a local outbreak of basaltic lava, which is in
-orographical and, probably, in genetical connection with the volcanic
-water-parting between the Araxes and the Kur. The real boundary of
-these plains on the west and south-west is formed by the breaking
-away to the Pontic region of the uplands of the Soghanlu Dagh; and
-the low water-parting between the two great rivers extends from the
-northern extremity of the Soghanlu to the Kisir Dagh which confines
-Lake Chaldir on the west. Upon that line of intermediary elevation the
-principal points of eruption have been the Kabak Tepe or Kizilkaya
-(10,010 feet), and, further north, the Buga Tepe (8995 feet). Minor
-emissions of volcanic matter have issued from radial fissures,
-which may be traced back to these parent stems. In this manner we
-may connect the Ainalu Dagh, on the west of Kars, with Kabak Tepe;
-and, perhaps too, the local eruptions which have produced the rock
-of Kars with the system of the Ainalu. [386]
-
-It is with a feeling of astonishment, which will not be diminished
-by better acquaintance, that the traveller surveys the site of the
-fortress. That impression will be derived not so much from the course
-of the river--although one would expect to see it flowing towards
-rather than from the south, the direction of the Araxes to which it is
-tributary--but rather from the phenomenon which attends its approach
-to the cliffs on the northern margin of the plain. It is seen for some
-distance following at the base of a low ridge which culminates further
-eastwards in the towering parapet behind the town. All of a sudden,
-when the obstacle becomes most pronounced, instead of indulging in
-an easy and not very lengthy bend and taking the rampart in flank,
-the wayward stream throws its waters at the face of the cliff and
-disappears in an almost invisible gorge. For a distance of about
-four miles, measured along its banks in the trough of the chasm, it
-cleaves the mass of gloomy rock; then issues into the plainer land
-on the north of the rampart, which it has isolated from the heights
-on the west. An insular mass of mountain, rendered impregnable on one
-side by the precipices which overhang the river, and easily defended
-on other sides--such a site must have been fortified from the earliest
-times, commanding as it does a wide area of fertile plains.
-
-At the commencement of our era the district but not the town is
-described by Strabo under the name of Chorzene. [387] It is possible
-that the Chorsa or the Kolsa of Ptolemy occupied the position of
-the present Kars. [388] But it is not before the Middle Ages that we
-become apprised of its certain existence, when it is mentioned under
-its present name by the imperial author Constantine, and under that
-of Karutz by Armenian writers. [389] From both sources we learn that
-it was a capital of the Bagratid dynasty before the rise of Ani to
-the dignity of a royal residence. It was conferred by Ashot the Third
-(A.D. 951-977), the founder of the fortunes of Ani, upon his younger
-brother Mushegh together with the prerogatives of local kingship. The
-kinglets of Kars were submerged by the wave of Seljuk invasion; but
-the reigning prince contrived to appease the wrath of the conqueror
-of Ani, and to gain time for the cession of the principality to
-the Cĉsars, which was effected in the year 1064 in exchange for a
-retreat in Asia Minor. [390] The Byzantines did not remain long in
-the possession of their prize, and it became incorporated in the
-empire of the Seljuks. Nor, so far as I am aware, was it recovered
-from the Mussulmans until its capture by the Russians under Marshal
-Paskevich in 1828. The Armenians, the Seljuks, and the Ottomans have
-all successively imprinted their stamp upon the town, such as it has
-come down to our times. The only noteworthy building is a church of
-the period of the Armenian kings; and the citadel and walls are in
-part due to the Armenians and in part to the Seljuks and the Ottomans.
-
-The names Kars and Karutz are believed to be derived from the Georgian,
-in which language Kari signifies a gate. The fortress would be known
-in that tongue as Karis-Kholakhi, or the gate-town. It would seem
-to have been originally a stronghold of the Iberians, the ancestors
-of the Georgians of the present day. [391] If this derivation be
-correct, we must suppose that the Kars near Marash in Asia Minor,
-which is mentioned by a writer of the seventeenth century, was
-named after the city in northern Armenia. [392] During the Bagratid
-period the province of Kars was called Vanand, [393] and the river
-Akhurean. This last name was also applied to the present Arpa Chai
-from the confluence with the river of Kars to its junction with the
-Araxes. These appellations have disappeared during the long spell of
-Mussulman rule, nor have they been revived by the Russians. I must
-not weary my reader with an attempt to follow the fortunes of Kars
-from the eleventh to the nineteenth century. But it may interest
-him to know that among its conquerors figure two great names, that
-of Timur in the fourteenth century and that of Shah Abbas in the
-seventeenth. Nadir Shah attempted in vain to effect its capture in
-1744, although he brought up no less than sixteen large cannons and
-spared no pains to reduce the Ottoman garrison. [394] The memory of
-this failure and of that of the Russian general Nesvateff in 1807 had
-confirmed the Turks in the conviction that the place was impregnable
-when the army of Paskevich appeared beneath the walls. [395]
-
-The appearance of the fortified town upon that historic occasion must
-have been much more imposing than at the present day. Mounting the
-hillside from the plain on the south, the walls and houses of black
-stone rose then as now to the very summit of the ridge. But instead
-of ruinous parapets, interrupted by wide breaches, a double wall with
-an interval of about 16 feet frowned out upon the advancing host. The
-inner rampart was defended by towers, the outer by bastions; and the
-whole circumference of the figure which enclosed the western portion
-of the insular rock measured 2555 yards. The height of the walls
-ranged between 14 and 28 feet, and they were from 3 to 5 feet thick.
-
-At the north-west angle of the enclosure, and immediately overlooking
-the river, which winds at the foot of vertical cliffs, was placed the
-inner fortress or citadel--Narin Kala--consisting of not less than
-three fortified spaces of which the most westerly or innermost was
-the keep. It was built throughout of solid stone. For a considerable
-space on the side of the plain the outer wall of the city was flanked
-by a moat, communicating with a marsh. In the plain itself the suburb
-on the south, which has now been transfigured by the Russians and
-composes the modern town, was surrounded by walls and defended by
-towers. A fort had been erected on the horn of the Karadagh, beyond
-the smaller suburb of Bairam Pasha. On the left bank of the river the
-only work of importance appears to have been a quadrangular fort with
-towers at the angles, called Temir Pasha, and protecting the outlying
-houses on the margin of the stream. [396]
-
-The Russian army approached from the side of Gümri, the present
-Alexandropol, and passed within sight of the walls to the banks of
-the river where they encamped near the village of Küchik Keui. Their
-number amounted to about seven thousand men, while the besieged
-counted about eleven thousand under arms. But Paskevich was allowed
-to occupy the high land on the left bank, and to direct his attack
-from the south-west as well as from the south. The fortified suburb,
-Orta Kapi, was stormed on one flank and the Karadagh on the other. The
-citadel capitulated on the same day, the fifth after the commencement
-of operations. Kars was restored to the Turks after the termination
-of this war, and was again besieged by the Russians in 1855. Four
-British officers were despatched by our own Government to direct the
-defence, and the garrison numbered some fourteen thousand infantry,
-fifteen hundred artillery, and a small body of cavalry. The enemy,
-under Muravieff, were more than double this strength; the advance
-was again made from the side of Gümri, and the Russian headquarters
-were established in the vicinity of the river, on the south-west of
-the town. But on this occasion the Russian general discovered that
-all the approaches had been protected by works, which covered a large
-area. Under the conditions of modern warfare Kars is most assailable
-from the heights on the west, which rise from no great elevation along
-the left bank of the river, until they reach imposing proportions
-just north of the site, on the further side of the chasm. There
-they form a plateau which must be higher than the rock of Kars,
-and which overlooks the ridge of that insular mass, the town itself
-being turned towards the plain. Once gain possession of this line
-of heights and the old town is at your mercy. Realising this fact,
-General Williams and his subordinates had erected a line of forts
-to bar the approach on this side. The principal work on the west
-was situated some two miles from the town, at the extremity of
-the higher levels in that direction. It was called Fort Takhmas or
-Tahmasp. Inside of that position, immediately covering the heights on
-the north, a string of fortifications was constructed on the plateau,
-commencing on the south-west with Fort Lake, the strongest of all,
-and terminating on the north-east in Fort Teesdale near the edge of
-the cliff, where the river has almost effected its passage through
-the gorge. While such was the disposition of the defences on the left
-bank, the protected area on the right bank, the side of the plain,
-was considerably extended. A line of breastworks, enclosing a wide
-rectangular space, was taken from the foot of the Karadagh on the
-east to the margin of the river on the west. At the angles of this
-enclosure stood the Karadagh fort on the north, and the forts of
-Hafiz Pasha and Kanly on the south. The point of junction with the
-river was defended by Fort Suwari, and breastworks and redoubts,
-placed upon commanding positions, joined these works of the plain to
-those upon the heights already described. [397]
-
-With certain changes in name my reader can follow this disposition of
-the defences upon the plan at the commencement of the present chapter,
-which is founded upon plans made during the last Russo-Turkish war
-in 1877. The Russians have since added to the strength of the works
-and have vastly improved the communications between them. But they
-do not appear, so far as I was enabled to judge, to have materially
-altered their arrangement. The greater range of modern guns has perhaps
-already necessitated a further extension of outlying forts. The old
-citadel has sunk into insignificance; and the defence of the future
-will have to deal with a very large area, and will require many times
-as many men as in the past. How Williams with such a small force could
-have held out for five months against an organised army of twice his
-own strength is a question which I cannot answer with satisfaction
-to myself. His ultimate surrender was occasioned by starvation; but
-he had already repulsed, with enormous losses to the enemy, the main
-attack, which was directed against Fort Takhmas. [398] For the second
-time the victors were compelled at the peace to disgorge their prize,
-which they justly regarded as the outer bulwark of Erzerum and Asia
-Minor. Its permanent conquest was reserved for the war of 1877, when
-the Turks were left by England to their own resources, and when they
-practically gave it away to Loris Melikoff after the defeat at the
-Alaja Dagh. [399]
-
-My hopes of being able to investigate this historical site reposed upon
-the high authority of the letters which I carried with me and upon the
-doubtful factor of the personality of the governor. To measure this
-uncertain quantity was my first object, and I set out to accomplish
-it in fitting style. An open landau, driven by a Russian coachman of
-the Molokan sect, conveyed me from the modern town in the plain along
-the right bank of the river and for some distance into the gorge. A
-metalled road follows that bank under the shadow of the precipice for
-the space of about half a mile. It ends at a little respite of even
-ground between the cliff and the water's edge. In former days there
-had been planted here a grove and a flower garden, which was known as
-the paradise of Kars. But, since the present governor appropriated
-the place to himself, and built upon it his private residence, it
-goes by the name of paradise lost. General Fadéeff is not exactly a
-popular personage--if, indeed, he may still be numbered among mortal
-men. His abode is far removed from their habitations, and I came to
-the conclusion that it concealed a mystery. I rang in vain several
-times at the door. At last I contrived to summon a very pretty young
-woman with a very sulky countenance. As she spoke both French and
-German, I contrived to win her to my side, and she promised she would
-enquire after the General. She returned with a set expression which I
-felt I could not assail. I did, however, succeed in making her smile,
-and that was something pleasant in itself. His Excellency was absent;
-it was not known where, nor by what time he would return. I enquired
-whether he made a practice of sleeping out. At last she relented into
-suggesting I might call in the evening; she would do what she could,
-but she was only a subordinate member of the household. She did
-not come to the door when I repeated my visit, and I received the
-same unsatisfactory answers. The vice-governor, General Petander,
-examined my papers at the seat of government, but pleaded that his
-authority was extremely limited. He could not say when the Governor
-would return to his house. I was glad to escape from him to the
-hospitable home of Colonel Rzewuski, in command of the Uman regiment
-of Cossacks of Kuban. I had accepted an invitation to dine with him
-and Madame Rzewuski; and the party consisted of a group of as amiable
-and charming people as it would be possible to meet. All had travelled
-and knew the world. The conversation was free, and ranged at ease over
-every topic, including the mysterious Governor. They were immensely
-entertained by my own experiences in that quarter, and they repaid me
-by narrating the gallant deeds of Fadéeff, who appears to have been
-instrumental in the conquest of Kars in 1877. But they left me in
-doubt whether he still existed in the flesh. I thought I detected a
-certain legendary phraseology in their remarks about him, from which
-a master of the higher criticism would easily be able to establish
-that they were not contemporary with the personage of whom they spoke.
-
-My host was determined that I should not be blindfolded, and that
-I should see what might be seen without endangering the safety of
-Kars. His own aide-de-camp had recently returned from a visit to
-England, where he had been accorded facilities of a similar nature,
-and whence he brought back the most agreeable recollections. The
-deficiencies in our insular manners are in such cases outweighed in
-the mind of the visitor by the freedom of our life, the absence of
-suspicion against foreign designs, and, above all, by the world-wide
-bond of sport. Never in the height of the hunting season at home
-have I listened to a more animated discussion of the relative merits
-of our countries and packs of foxhounds than after dinner in the
-company of these officers in this remote corner of Russian Asia. From
-hounds we passed to horses, and to an interesting experiment which
-had recently been made by the Colonel. It is well known that the
-Cossack horses are of great endurance; but they have little pace,
-and their shoulders are of the worst. My host had crossed one of
-his mares with the English thoroughbred, and had produced a colt of
-much promise which had only just been broken. If I did not object I
-should ride him on the morrow, when he would take me to have a peep
-at the fortifications on the heights. In spite of the twinkle in his
-eye when he spoke of the vivacity of the youngster, I felt that the
-opportunity was cheap at this price, and merely stipulated that I
-should be allowed my English saddle.
-
-Very early on the following morning I sallied forth to the Colonel's
-residence, and was surprised to find a whole squadron of Cossack
-cavalry drawn up in the road. His aide-de-camp was conspicuous in a
-magnificent uniform, which set off his tall and graceful figure. The
-band of the regiment was mustered at its full strength; but these
-troops were only a portion of the effective, which numbered some
-eight or nine hundred horsemen. The remainder were distributed over
-the extensive tract of country between Akhaltsykh and the Turkish
-frontier at Sarikamish. An iron-grey charger, over 15 hands in
-height, was being paced to and fro before the door. He excited the
-admiration and the curiosity of the onlookers, having a long and
-elastic walk, and arching his neck to the hand of the groom instead of
-stolidly following where he was led. That was a horse, they were all
-saying--those of the country were ponies beside him, and, as for the
-mounts of the Cossacks, they looked mere dross by his side. My small
-and plain-flap saddle, which I recognised upon his back, brought out
-the points of his sloping shoulder and strong loins. A word from the
-aide-de-camp, and the squadron was brought to attention with the band
-at their head. When the Colonel emerged from the doorway a salute
-was exchanged, and when he had mounted, the march commenced and the
-band prepared to strike up. None too soon had I adjusted my stirrup
-leathers on the iron-grey, for at the first sound he bounded high
-into the air. But he had plenty of room at the head of the regiment,
-where the Colonel beckoned me to ride by his side.
-
-This was the second time I had ridden at the head of Cossacks; I
-mention the fact merely to justify the assertion that there can be
-few more inspiriting positions. One feels the peculiar quality of the
-material behind one; it is in the air and makes the pulse beat. There
-is no champing of bits and impatient curvetting; nor do the riders
-sit up in their saddles and look smart. They may be seen in every
-posture, lolling about in their shabby drab uniforms, and holding
-their reins long. But they communicate the impression that each man
-is a born soldier, and that one might march with them from one end of
-Asia to another without troubling much about the commissariat or the
-length of the particular stage. They are just the troops with which
-to traverse these vast plains. The long-backed horses are hardened to
-every kind of privation, and so are their owners, for every Cossack
-owns his mount. Where would you march? Say the word, and we go now.
-
-On this occasion the proceedings were quite of a gala order. We
-passed through the main streets of the modern town upon the plain;
-and all the Karslis were there assembled to hear the inspiriting music
-and to pass remarks upon the foreigner on the grey horse. We wound
-along the side of the river, at the foot of the precipice crowned
-by the citadel, where a window in the walls of that airy edifice
-marks the spot whence the Turks were wont to precipitate spies. We
-crossed to the left bank by the lower of the two bridges, and followed
-along the chaussée upon that side. It is now the principal avenue of
-communication with Alexandropol; but it is destined to be replaced by
-a road which will pass to the south of the town, leaving this chaussée
-with its secrets for purely military use. The further we proceeded
-the loftier loomed the walls of the chasm, especially that upon our
-left hand. It rises almost vertically from the margin of the road to
-the edge of the plateau, some five hundred feet above the stream.
-
-The heights on the left bank are here called by the name of Mukhliss,
-and such is their elevation that the buildings upon them--the military
-hospital and the redoubts--may be seen from the plain on the south of
-Kars, showing up behind the insular ridge against which the ancient
-town is built. Opposite the old citadel they are known as Vali Pasha,
-and, further west, as Takhmas. On the right bank the mass of rock
-which falls abruptly to the river is styled Kars and Karadagh. We had
-arrived at a point whence the solitary house of the Governor could
-be clearly seen beyond the winding channel on that side. The choice
-was offered between two roads. The one we had been following pursued
-its course through the chasm; the other took advantage of some milder
-acclivities in the cliff to mount to the plateau above our heads. The
-forts upon the plateau are the interesting feature of modern Kars;
-the word was given to take the upper road. The Colonel and myself
-were still riding in front of the band, and could look back upon the
-long train of one of the finest of Cossack regiments defiling in half
-column up the incline. When we had reached a considerable elevation,
-all of a sudden a human figure springs into the road. It is a little
-gendarme, and he stands immovable in the centre of the road. The
-regiment is at once brought to a halt. The figure enquires whether
-there be a foreigner riding with them, and receives an affirmative
-reply. Then he points to an adjacent bifurcation of the road, one
-branch leading to the heights, and the other rejoining the chaussée
-at a point some distance down the stream. He directs us to take the
-latter way. The Colonel bites his lip, turns pale and obeys. We have
-come up all this distance, and now we are to go down. The ghost of
-General Fadéeff must be chuckling--if ghosts can chuckle--behind
-those windows in the speck of a house on the opposite bank!
-
-It had been the plan of my kind host to cross the block of heights
-containing the forts, and thence to descend into the plain upon the
-north. A little Molokan village, called Blagodarnoe, is situated
-in the more level country on that side. A troop of his Cossacks was
-billeted within it, and it had been thought convenient to pay them a
-visit. The return journey would be made by way of the chaussée. There
-was now nothing for it but to proceed and to come home by the same
-route, since the little gendarme had given orders to this effect. We
-continued our passage through the chasm. I was impressed with the
-admirable communications which the Russians have established at great
-cost between the heights on either bank. Soon after regaining the main
-road we passed two opposite flights of steps, of which the one scaled
-the steep side of the plateau on the left, and the other that of the
-insular rock of Kars. Both were broad and perfectly maintained. The
-latter conducted from the water's edge to the Karadagh fort, now
-called Fort Fadéeff, invisible on the further side of the ridge. And
-from the base of these steps a military road was carried slantwise
-towards the citadel. During the last siege the garrison suffered
-from the want of ready access to the outlying positions. This want
-has now been supplied. Troops can be moved with rapidity between the
-town and these positions as well as between the positions themselves.
-
-The cliffs on either hand retain their elevation until you have reached
-the fourth military verst stone (over two and a half miles). Then
-they decline and become less rocky and steep. The formation on the
-right bank is continued into the distance in a low outline; that
-on the left already opens to plainer land at about the sixth stone
-(four miles). We now left the chaussée, and cantered over the plain,
-across which it was a pleasure to extend the iron-grey. He had all
-the makings of a very valuable horse.
-
-Luncheon was served in one of the neat little houses of the Molokan
-village, and many a glass of white liqueur was consumed before the
-meal. On the way home there was a display of Cossack exercises, a
-succession of riders galloping past us in single file, and vaulting to
-the ground with one foot in the stirrup in full career. Or they placed
-their bodies parallel with the flanks of their horses, avoiding the
-arrows of their ancestors or the bullets of their contemporaries. Like
-Kurds and Circassians they raised wild shouts; but, unlike these,
-they never got out of hand. Last of all there was a race, conducted
-on strict principles, in which I cantered in, an easy winner, on the
-grey. The squadron then re-formed, and we retraced our steps through
-the chasm to the inspiriting music of the band. It soon ceased playing;
-and with the last strain, at first low, then gradually louder, a sad
-and mysterious chant broke from the ranks. It was carried like sobs
-into the recesses of the gorge, rising and falling like the sighing
-of the wind. What did they sing in that expression of bottomless
-misery? Their homes had been laid waste, their parents were no more,
-nor their horses any longer at tether or stall. Then the theme would
-change abruptly, and a note of triumph would be heard. Nowhere except
-in Hungary have I heard such moving music, giving utterance through the
-canons of Western harmony to the tempestuous motives of Eastern songs.
-
-It remains to say a few words about the town of Kars, as you see
-it at the present day. It is a mere shadow of its former self. The
-old fortress city on the side of the insular rock is scarcely better
-than a heap of ruins. The suburb on the plain--Orta Kapi of Mussulman
-times--is rapidly pushing it out of existence. This suburb contains
-the residences of the high officials and officers, and can boast
-of a new Russian church, at its southern extremity, and of a number
-of single-storeyed but spacious and well-supplied shops. The church
-displays the masonry of the grey stone found at Kars; but the bulk
-of the buildings have their walls painted white, and their roofing
-of sheet metal, coloured pink or a soft green. The aspect of this
-modern quarter, jutting out from the hill into the plain opposite
-the answering horn of the Karadagh on the east, presents a striking
-contrast to the uniform grey of the old city, overlooking the bay
-of the plain. The stone of the walls and of the old Armenian church
-have weathered almost black. But the majority of the ancient houses
-have disappeared, and the walled area is for the most part covered
-with rubble and ruin, or with straggling hovels, resembling those of
-a village. The citadel was blown up by the Russians prior to their
-evacuation at the close of the Crimean War, [400] and has been rebuilt
-in a softer and yellow stone (Fig. 98). It now forms a most admirable
-target for artillery, being the only patch of brighter colour on a
-ground of the sombrest hue. The population of city and suburbs is
-censused at not more than 4000, of course excluding the garrison. Of
-these 2500 are Armenians and only some 850 are Turks. The Russians,
-including Molokans, number 250, and the Greeks over 300 souls. It is
-true that the total might perhaps be doubled if there were included
-in it those families who are allowed to reside here on sufferance,
-prior to being settled elsewhere. Kars is constantly receiving refugees
-from the Turkish provinces, flying before the excesses of the Kurds.
-
-Still the number of the inhabitants has grown smaller and smaller,
-if we even confine ourselves to the present century. Prior to the
-campaign of Paskevich, we are informed by a credible authority that
-Kars with its suburbs contained some 10,000 families, or from 50,000
-to 60,000 souls. [401] After it was evacuated by the Russian army upon
-the close of that war, the bulk of the Armenian population deserted
-their homes and followed the Russian retreat. [402] The figure then
-drops to a pretty uniform estimate of 2000 houses or families, giving
-a result of some 10,000 to 12,000 souls, of whom the vast majority
-were Mussulmans. [403] It must now be further reduced by more than
-one-half. Perhaps the projected railway will increase the prosperity
-of Kars if the military regulations be relaxed. But it will be a long
-time before it can recover its former splendour, when the fortress city
-contained no less than 3000 houses, 47 mosques and 18 schools. [404]
-
-I was prevented by the number and ubiquity of the gendarmes from making
-use of my camera. The only illustration which I am able to offer is
-a view of the citadel, reproduced from a photograph which has been
-placed at my disposal by my friend Mr. F. C. Conybeare (Fig. 98). I
-should have liked to reproduce the interesting features of the Armenian
-church, now converted into a temple of the Russian Orthodox profession
-and serving as the principal resort of the garrison. In Mussulman times
-it was used as a mosque. There can, I think, be little doubt that
-this is the same building which was erected by the Armenian monarch
-of the Bagratid dynasty, Abas, in A.D. 930. [405] The teachers in
-the Armenian school ascribed it to this prince, but were not certain
-about the date. I have remarked upon the blackness of its walls from
-without. The interior has been covered with a yellow buff paint, and
-its proportions are spoilt by an elaborate altar. It wears an air of
-comfort and even of luxury, all the ornaments being out of keeping
-with the austerity of the ancient pile. The form of this church is one
-I have not seen elsewhere, presenting on plan four semicircular arms
-with a rectangular projection between each arm. The vaulting of the
-ceilings above the projections composes with that of the ceilings of
-the apsidal recesses a group of eight arches. Another monument of the
-same period is said to be the ruinous castle at the upper end of the
-wall on the east. The wall on the south has well-nigh disappeared,
-and what remains is almost lost among the houses. The gate on this
-side contains an Arabic inscription, and several Armenian crosses
-are inserted into the adjacent rampart. From the citadel a wall still
-descends the side of the precipice, and is taken by an archway over
-the road to the margin of the river. I cannot help thinking that the
-plan of the place and its essential features have not changed much
-since the time of the Armenian kings. Sultan Murad III. (1574-1595)
-is credited with extensive works, but it may be questioned whether
-they were much more than restorations. A renewal is ascribed to Sultan
-Selim, but it appears doubtful to which monarch of that name. [406]
-The days of the fortified town, with its mediĉval castle and ramparts,
-are perhaps already numbered. The Russians will build in the open,
-where there will be room for their favourite boulevards, although trees
-are rare at present in Kars. The fortifications will year by year be
-extended over a larger area, the neighbourhood being sown with volcanic
-eminences admirably adapted both for the attack and for the defence.
-
-The Armenian inhabitants have a single elementary school, or, rather,
-one for boys and one for girls. It is housed in the buildings adjacent
-to the little church of St. Mary, under the citadel at the western
-extremity of the rock. The teachers simply cowered with fear during
-my visit. The Russian school dispenses a somewhat higher standard
-of education, and profits by the disabilities imposed upon its
-rival. I was shown specimens of the Easter cards which each child
-had received this year from inmates of schools in France. The little
-French boy sends some poetry translated into Russian to his Russian
-contemporary. The girls here received similar presents from French
-girls. It would appear as if no Russian school within the limits
-of the Empire had been passed over by the organisers of an act of
-demonstrative patriotism which, let us hope, is not spontaneous with
-the young.
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XX
-
-ACROSS THE SPINE OF ARMENIA
-
-
-The long and lofty barrier of the Ararat system affords a natural
-partition of the surface of the Armenian highlands, and, corresponding
-with the frontier between the Russian and the Turkish empires, divides
-Armenia into two. The fairest districts of either territory are
-found on their southern confines; and what the valley of the Araxes
-is to the Russian provinces, that is to those under Turkish rule the
-country of Van. Van, with her famous lake and immemorial antiquity,
-became the next, and not the least alluring objective of the journey
-which we had planned. A new world lay on the further side of the
-mountains towards which we now directed our course.
-
-October 22.--During our stay in Kars we had experienced the first spell
-of cold, bleak weather that the coming winter held in store. On the day
-of departure the district was visited by a storm of rain which delayed
-us until afternoon. At a few minutes after one o'clock we were crossing
-the bridge which spans the river, and taking a last view of the castle
-and the gorge. Above the entrance to the cleft the stream flows between
-humbler slopes; but they are still of rock, and the metalled road,
-which follows the western shore at no great distance, is without a
-prospect on either side. A few versts are covered among such cheerless
-surroundings; then the river comes towards you through a nice tract of
-flat pasture land which opens out upon the right bank. The meadows,
-brown of hue after the heats of summer, were seen to extend to the
-cultivated skirts of a hill range, some six miles distant, at the
-foot of which we were shown the village of Azat. A second settlement,
-Little Tikma, was nearer to us, in the same direction; and on our
-side of the water a group of low stone houses were aligned upon the
-road. We were surprised to hear the German tongue and the mournful
-sounds of a concertina; the dress, the hymn reminded us that the day
-was Sunday; and the simple people were delighted to converse with a
-son of Protestant England in the language of their fatherland. They
-told me that it was two years since they had left the colony at
-Tiflis, and migrated to these distant wilds. The soil was rich, and
-it only needed a small expense of capital to diffuse the river over
-the adjacent plain. But whence could they draw the money for works
-of this nature? They harvested their corn in the month of August,
-but the crops suffered from want of water. Although they possessed
-no school, they were not without the rudiments of learning; their
-frank, intelligent faces were a pleasure to see. Petrovka is the name
-of their settlement, which contains some forty houses. A few versts
-further we entered the Russian colony of Vladikars. We were crossing
-an open country which stretched away on either hand to the outlines
-of low hills. Several of these Russian villages were visible in the
-landscape, and the brown loam had been exposed by the plough.
-
-Vladikars bears a strong resemblance to Gorelovka--the same white
-faces and little windows of the neat stone houses, ranged at intervals
-on either side of the road. The inhabitants, too, display a family
-likeness to the dwellers in the northern watershed--the men with their
-lank figures and dull but honest faces, the women with their broad
-shoulders and massive hips. The feminine members of the colony were
-especially conspicuous--strapping wenches, as one might call them,
-attired in the gayest of printed cottons and exhibiting a plainness
-which was almost repulsive. I entered the oblong and single-storeyed
-building in which they conduct their services of prayer. A wooden
-bench along the walls, a few wooden chairs were its only furniture;
-you saw no pulpit or altar or religious picture; God resided in the
-living objects of His love. This village as well as its neighbours
-are peopled by Molokans, a sect of which the doctrine, like that of
-the Dukhobortsy, represents an extreme and a logical form of the
-Protestant faith. An old man to whom I turned, and whose striking
-features I was able to record (Fig. 99), spoke to me with much
-charm of voice and manner concerning their religious beliefs. They
-reverence Moses and the prophets and the Holy Gospel, but they practise
-their religion in their own way. Singing psalms appears to be their
-principal method of spiritual expression. Infants are not baptized,
-but are brought to this building; a passage from the New Testament
-is read in the child's presence and his name is publicly declared. A
-similar ceremony consecrates the marriage tie.
-
-A little beyond this village--in which is placed the eleventh verst
-stone--the road bifurcates. The well-metalled and well-maintained
-chaussée, which we had been following, pursues its course to the
-confines of the Turkish frontier at the station of Sarikamish. The
-other branch--which is in places a road, but more often a simple
-track--stretches off towards the south. Taking the latter direction,
-we drove for some distance over even ground, where here and there
-the rich, brown soil had been exposed by the plough. On our left hand
-rose a grassy and hummock-shaped eminence, scarcely a mile away. Hill
-ranges of similar appearance circled around us, their summits capped
-with lowering clouds and strewn with fresh snow. In such surroundings
-the gay houses of Novo-Michaelovka were a pleasing diversion for the
-eye. The elaborate fretwork of wooden gables and shutters, the lavish
-display of vermilion and cobalt, lent an air of festivity to the
-place (Fig. 100). It was evident that the inhabitants were extremely
-well-to-do; yet, like all these sectaries, they neither possessed nor
-appeared to desire a school in which to educate their young. Near
-this village we had again approached the banks of the river, which
-had a width of some 20 yards. We now crossed to the right bank.
-
-On our point of course, a little to our left, we held a bold and
-lofty hill, of which the outline assumes the appearance of two
-humps. It bears the name of Akh Deve or the white camel; and one can
-understand how appropriate would be this appellation during the winter
-months. Snow had not yet rested upon its grassy convexities, which
-still wore the ochreous hues of autumn, and were flushed in places by
-a detritus of red, volcanic stone. After losing all prospect for the
-space of some twenty minutes, during which we crossed a bleak side
-valley of the sluggish river, and a stream which winds along the base
-of rocky slopes, we again opened this landmark on the further rim of
-the amphitheatre, close by the village and station of Chermaly. The
-post house stands at a little distance from this Armenian village;
-our tired horses were replaced by a fresh team of four, having covered
-a stage of 23 versts or 15 miles.
-
-It was half-past four o'clock; we made our way over lofty uplands, of
-which the moist loam held our carriage-wheels. Or we jolted upon large
-boulders, embedded in the track. Away on our right rose the slopes
-of the Akh Deve. Magnificent eagles, with their square shoulders and
-long plumage, circled round us or observed us from adjacent rocks. We
-were not long in discovering the bait of this assemblage--the mangled
-remains of a horse. In three-quarters of an hour we had reached
-the skirts of the hill mass, whence we commanded an unbroken view
-towards the north. Vast tracts of idle soil extended to the horizon,
-except where, here and there, the yellow herbage was interrupted by
-little carpets of ploughed land. Hills, which appeared little better
-than hummocks, were set at random in the expanse. Their summits
-were streaked with snow; from the white linings of their satellite
-clouds vague lights descended upon the plain. We were standing upon
-the elevated but imperceptible water-parting between the Araxes and
-the river of Kars. A gradual descent of some 500 feet brought us to
-the considerable village of Kemurly, where we passed the night in the
-posting house. It was the first settlement which we had seen during
-a stage of 20 versts, or a little over 13 miles.
-
-The latter portion of the drive from the Akh Deve to the village had
-been performed under the shadow of night. It was only on the following
-morning--which broke serene and radiant--that we were able to realise
-the great significance of our position in a geographical sense. The
-even ground over which we had travelled from the banks of the Arpa to
-Kars, from Kars to the southward-flowing streams, does not descend,
-as one might expect, to the valley of the Araxes through a series of
-gradual inclines. The transition is effected by an exactly opposite
-process; the plain continues to rise until it has almost reached the
-latitude of the river, then suddenly breaks away, and overhangs the
-valley in a long line of gigantic cliffs. These cliffs extend for miles
-along the left bank of the Araxes; and it has been ascertained that
-for a space of over 30 miles they maintain about the same elevation,
-namely, a height of 6400 feet above the sea, and of 2000 to 2500
-feet above the river. [407] They may in fact be regarded as forming
-the rim of an extensive plateau, which commences at the confluence
-of the Arpa with the Araxes, and stretches westwards, unbroken by
-any considerable mountain barrier, along the narrows above Kagyzman,
-and along the broad depression of Pasin to the very threshold of the
-plain of Erzerum. Their peculiar boldness in the neighbourhood of
-Kagyzman may in part be attributed to the lavas which have issued in
-considerable volume from centres of emission along their edge. These
-eruptive centres, long since dormant, are seen in the shape of low
-convexities, stretching inwards from the brink of the cliff.
-
-There is seldom wanting to such formations a natural pass or opening,
-through which the communications with the lower levels flow. Our
-road availed itself of a deep and gulf-like inlet in the rim of the
-plateau. The descent along this avenue was comparatively long and
-gradual, commencing indeed above the village--which has an elevation
-of some 6500 feet [408]--and ending in the neighbourhood of the Lower
-Kemurly. Measured on the map from point to point, the distance between
-the two settlements is about 6 1/2 miles. The road was carried along
-the slopes through an infinitude of windings, which measured 18 versts
-or 12 miles.
-
-It was not yet eight o'clock when we proceeded in our carriage down the
-easy gradients of this descent. Beyond a foreground which was choked
-by a succession of shelving convexities rose the crags and peaks of
-the Ararat system--that long range to which in a collective sense this
-name may not be inapplicable, and which, like Ararat, is known to the
-inhabitants of these districts under the name of Aghri Dagh. Aghri
-Dagh! These words, with their roughness on the palate, are just as
-appropriate to express the ruggedness of the barrier which we were
-fronting, as they are unsuited to reflect the harmony of the giant in
-the east. The eye, already accustomed to the vaulted eminences of the
-tableland, is impressed by the contrast of these sharp, precipitous
-shapes. It seems some invasion of the border ranges into the area of
-the great plateaux. The sun was touching the summits of the chain,
-which were softened by a covering of fresh snow. But the underlying
-rock still asserted its essential character, moulding the snow into an
-infinite number of facets, which sparkled in the light (Fig. 101). The
-northern wall of the valley--the heights we were leaving behind us--is
-composed by the lofty cliffs already described. Their even outline
-was drawn across the sky into invisible limits, as we made our way
-over the broken ground to which they decline (Fig. 102).
-
-Marls and sandstone had taken the place of the layers of volcanic
-matter; far and wide, the slopes about us were broken into hummock
-shapes, tinged with delicate yellows and pinks. The only vestige of
-wood were some low trees and bush, seen on the lower tiers of the
-opposite mountains in the far west. Again we opened out the distant
-outline of Ararat, beyond the dark peak of Takjaltu. The Araxes was
-long invisible; when at length we overlooked the narrow floor of
-the valley, the river resembled a slender white thread. Kagyzman was
-distinguished on the first of the slopes which faced us--an oasis of
-verdure and some faint blue smoke. We felt the power of a southern sun;
-and, as we neared the end of the descent, bouquets of atraphaxis,
-with succulent flowers and blaze of madder, clothed the waste and
-sandy soil. At twenty minutes before ten we were at the Lower Kemurly;
-and, a little later, our wheels were cleaving the shallow waters of
-the Araxes, spread in a wide bed of silt and shingle, over which a
-rapid current flows (Fig. 103). The ground rises from the opposite
-margin of the river up the beautiful side valley of Kagyzman. The
-town is situated at an elevation of some 700 feet above the ford,
-which crosses a hollow of nearly 4000 feet above the sea. [409]
-
-The houses nestle among lofty trees, on the left or western bank of
-a broad depression, which harbours in its deep and wooded recesses a
-scanty affluent of the Araxes. The soft tracery and mellow tints of
-the luxuriant foliage are backed by the rugged sides of the Ararat
-system; while, in the north, the eye follows the horizontal edge
-of the tableland, with the low volcanic eminences protruding above
-that outline, and robed, this morning, in fresh snow (Fig. 104). The
-inhabitants of this little paradise are Armenians and Mohammedans,
-the latter of whom belong to the Sunni persuasion and are classed in
-the Russian census as Turks. [410] A strong detachment of Cossacks
-was quartered in the place--a significant outpost of the northern
-empire. I was anxious to cross the mountains on the following morning;
-and it was painful to realise that we were at the mercy of the civil
-authorities--of a sour-faced Nachalnik who had no doubt received his
-instructions, but in what sense remained to be seen. Had Fadéeff
-hardened his heart? Had the order come to arrest us? The question
-remained for some time in suspense. The route which we were taking
-excited suspicion; with what object were we pursuing this unbeaten
-track? There were not wanting practical difficulties which might excuse
-the authorities, should they decide to detain us at Kagyzman. We
-were in need of transport; to purchase suitable animals was next
-to impossible; and, as for hiring, the owners were not accustomed
-to cross the frontier, and might reasonably apprehend detention on
-the other side. Indeed we failed in all our efforts to induce them
-to make a contract; and we were brought to recognise that it would
-be necessary to abandon our intention, unless the Nachalnik would
-intervene. By dint of much persistence and some cajolery we were able
-to bring him round. He of course protested that Oriental methods were
-out of place in Russia; we approved the sentiment, and expressed the
-hope that something would be devised to take their place. The owners
-were given their orders to appear before dawn on the following day. I
-rose at four, certain that they would not obey. But there was still
-a hope that we might create the necessary quantity of initiative by
-rousing the Nachalnik from his sleep. This plan, based, as the reader
-knows, upon former experiences, was productive of instant success.
-
-By half-past seven our tiny caravan was in motion, pointing along
-the base of the mountains a little south of west. We sank by a steep
-incline to a long valley which follows the Araxes in the relation, as
-it appeared to us, of a parallel trough. It was filled with hummocks
-of a red, sandy substance; the slopes on either side screened off
-the view. Those on our left hand were the more stony, and were tinged
-in places a greenish hue. In about an hour after starting we opened
-out the river, flowing at some little distance from the heights upon
-which we stood. A lateral depression afforded access to the principal
-valley, which we followed, keeping to the high ground. The Araxes
-was threading the narrow bottom of a fork, of which the arms rose
-to thousands of feet above its bed. Close up now, on our left hand,
-towered the escarpments of the range, fronting the opposite cliffs
-of the tableland. At a little before nine we turned our backs to the
-river and rose, on a southerly course, up the mountain side.
-
-We had reached an elevation of some 5500 feet, when a little village,
-with a few willows and the ruins of an ancient monastery, broke
-upon our view (Fig. 105). It is inhabited by Armenians, and bears
-the name of Kara Vank (the black cloister). The even masonry of hewn
-stone which composed the crumbling edifice recalled the culture of a
-forgotten age. What a contrast it presented to the rude and featureless
-walls of the modern village church! We passed through this little
-settlement, which contains some thirty houses, and mounted the slopes
-on the further side. In a valley on our left hand we noticed some
-sparse brushwood, and bushes of wild rose here and there relieved the
-rock. We were nearing the level of the opposite edge of the tableland,
-of which the cliffs were seen descending to the narrow river valley
-with shelving sides of richly modelled marls. At a quarter before
-ten we made halt on the neck of a spur, whence we obtained a wide
-prospect over the more distant scene.
-
-We overlooked the surface of the tableland. Towards the east, the mass
-of Alagöz could be distinguished from banks of cloud, which clung
-to the recent snows upon its slopes. Kagyzman was still visible in
-the trough of the landscape; the two low cones on the cliffs beyond
-the town were especially prominent, enveloped in a sheet of unbroken
-snow. Our people identified them with the great and the small Jagluya,
-and said they were famous for their rich pasture-land. From east
-to west, in a wide half-circle, land and cloud were woven together,
-the horizontal outlines always felt and sometimes seen. But in the
-west these nebulous shapes met the profile of the savage ridges which
-were seen descending from the range about us, almost at right angles,
-into the narrows through which the river flows.
-
-From this point we continued during a considerable space of time to
-skirt these upper slopes. The keen air was full of sun; the prospect
-was inspiring; we loitered for an hour over our lunch. I focussed the
-camera upon one of the long meridional parapets which cleave the soft
-landscape of the west (Fig. 106). I would ask my reader to observe the
-deep incision of its flanking valley; these valleys extend to the very
-spine of the mountain system, and, in some places, appear to break it
-through. We were obliged to descend to the bottom of this particular
-ravine; a slender stream was rustling over the boulders in the hollow,
-which had an elevation of some 5800 feet. The rocky escarpments of
-the opposite parapet were seen to consist of a compound diabase,
-veined in places with beautiful marbles. Of wood there was little,
-even within these recesses--a brushwood of beech and willow and
-fir. The rose bushes were still with us, and the yellow immortelles,
-which we had not seen since our sojourn on Ararat.
-
-Beyond this valley we rose towards the summits of the chain and made
-our way through this winter's snow. We were on the pass at four o'clock
-(Fig. 107); a grass-grown eminence on our right hand was identified
-as the Akh Bulakh Dagh. The range was highest on our left; the saddle
-by which we crossed it has an elevation of some 8600 feet. Half an
-hour later we had passed into the opposite watershed, and planted
-our feet upon Turkish soil.
-
-Vast plains lay below us--dim tracts of even soil, broken in places
-by hummock shapes. The outline of an opposite chain was drawn across
-the horizon, loftier in the east, where it was crowned with snow,
-declining in the west to a range of blue-grey hills upon our right. It
-was the system of the Ala Dagh. Beyond this barrier, the harmonious
-shape of a single mountain formed a beautiful white presence in
-the sky. We could not doubt that it was Sipan, nearly seventy miles
-distant, the goal to which we were directing our steps. A thread of
-water on the plains reflected the blue heaven, and was recognised as
-the Murad. We had crossed the spine of Armenia, and were descending
-to the banks of the Euphrates, to the sources of the streams which
-issue into the Persian Gulf.
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XXI
-
-GEOGRAPHICAL
-
-
-In the present chapter I shall invite my reader to make good his
-advantage over the traveller, and to realise, before proceeding
-further with the journey, the true meaning and wider connection of
-those natural features which have composed the landscape day by day. At
-the same time I shall endeavour to trace the limits of north-eastern or
-Russian Armenia, extending our view for awhile to comprise the whole of
-Armenia, and again narrowing it to the area of the Russian provinces.
-
-But at the outset we are prompted to examine the conception so vaguely
-expressed by the metaphors of tableland and frame of mountain ranges
-which, with slight variations in the figure, have in the foregoing
-pages so often been employed. The pursuit of this analysis carries us
-beyond the sphere of our particular survey, compelling us to consider
-the structure of Asia as a whole.
-
-From the Mediterranean to the Pacific the Asiatic continent is
-traversed by a zone of elevated country, which, flanked on the north
-and south by great chains of mountains, breaks off on the west to the
-Ĉgean Sea and to the lowlands of China on the east. Extensive areas
-of land with considerably lesser altitude are outspread on either
-side of this gigantic system: in the north the plains of Russia
-and Siberia, in the south the peninsulas of Arabia and India. The
-mountain chains which confine the zone of elevated country have been
-reared during different geological periods; yet they are subject to
-common laws. They are disposed in extensive arcs, of greater or lesser
-curvature, which are festooned across the continent on either side
-of the plateau region with a general direction from east to west. The
-plateau region is in general synclinal or, in other words, of slightly
-hollow surface, and, in comparison with the flanking ranges, is flat.
-
-If we enquire of the geologist the origin of these phenomena,
-we receive an answer which, while it leaves many points obscure
-and doubtful, still enables us to trace the operation of fixed
-principles in the mighty work unfolded before our eyes. Our globe
-sails through the wan expanse of ĉther, diffusing the heat with which
-it is charged. The cooling crust shrinks and gathers inwards towards
-the centre; but the material of which it consists is inelastic and is
-thrown into gigantic wrinkles or folds. Radial contraction induces
-tangential stresses at the surface, colossal forces which bend over
-and invert the folds, and even thrust the strata one beneath another,
-causing them to be disposed like the tiles upon a roof. This lateral
-tension finds most relief where the crust is weakest; and it is at
-such points, or along such zones, that the process of mountain-making
-has been developed on the largest scale. It is the tendency of such
-folded ranges to form arcs of large curvature, which are drawn inwards,
-where the lateral pressure meets with most resistance, and expand
-outwards, where it is withstood in a lesser degree.
-
-In Asia the operation of this process of mountain-making has been
-accompanied by, or has produced, the elevation in mass of large
-portions of the earth's crust. The intensely folded regions, or, in
-other words, the great chains of mountains, are found along the inner
-and the outer margins of the elevated mass. Between these zones the
-stratified rocks have no doubt been subjected to the folding process;
-yet they have escaped the immense contortions that have taken place
-on either side.
-
-Throughout the continent the lateral force which has been most
-operative in mountain-making has proceeded from the north. The fact
-may perhaps be explained by supposing that this force is the result
-of the active pressure exerted by the hard, unyielding material of
-which the steppes of Siberia and the basin of the Arctic Ocean are
-composed. The great arcs which are described by the mountain ranges
-are in general convex to the south. Thus in western Asia the chains
-on the inner and outer margins of the elevated area are disposed in
-two roughly parallel series of arcs bulging towards the south. Of
-these series the inner arcs have less curvature than the outer,
-to which they are roughly parallel.
-
-The inner series may be traced with greatest singleness of feature on
-the west of Hindu Kush--that natural centre of the mountain systems
-of Asia which at once supplies the most convenient standpoint for a
-general survey of the structure of the continent, and is placed at
-the junction of the two great divisions, western and eastern, into
-which geographers have partitioned this vast area. The Hindu Kush
-inclines over into the Paropamisus; and the southern portion of the
-latter range is continued, on the north of Persia, by the mountains
-of Khorasan. A sharp bend in the belt, just east of the Caspian,
-turns southwards into the Elburz range, and the beautiful curve
-of the chain along the margin of the shore may be admired from the
-waters of that inland sea. The line of Elburz is protracted across
-the depression of the Araxes valley into the peaks of Karabagh; while
-the Karabagh system unites with the bold and lofty ridges which in
-full face of their gigantic neighbour, the Caucasus, overtower the
-right bank of the Kur. These ridges again connect with the chain we
-have ourselves crossed between Kutais and Akhaltsykh--a chain which
-joins the mountains on the southern shore of the Black Sea. The Pontic
-range forms a bow of wide span and gentle curvature, ending in the
-hump of Anatolia, where it meets the arc of the Bithynian border hills.
-
-The parallel series on the outer margin of the elevated area commences
-with the outer arc of the Hindu Kush system, the severely bent and
-S-shaped Salt Range. Thence it proceeds into the mountains which flank
-Persia upon the east and belong to the outer Iranian arc. [411] The
-bold sweep of this arc into the chain of Zagros may be recognised
-by a glance at the map. We remark the greater protraction of the
-north-western arm of the bow, a feature which may be traced in the
-configuration of most of the great Asiatic chains. We admire the clean
-and uniform outline of the curve, broken only by a slight indent
-at the straits of Ormuz, which may be answered by the bend in the
-inner system which we have already noticed on the east of the Caspian
-Sea. The outer Iranian arc effects a junction with the Tauric ranges
-along two parallel but fairly distinct orographical lines. Of these
-the inner line crosses over from the Zagros to the Ararat system,
-and assumes commanding orographical importance in the western arm of
-that system, known as the Aghri or Shatin Dagh. It is in the Shatin
-Dagh that the bend to the west-south-west is effected, which may be
-followed through a series of volcanoes into the Anti-Taurus and the
-Mediterranean range. The outer line is formed by the grand half-circle
-of the Kurdish mountains; from the parched plains about Diarbekr you
-see them, as from the well of an amphitheatre, covered or capped with
-gleaming snow. This principal chain of Taurus extends to the coast
-of Syria, and emerges from the sea in the island of Cyprus and in
-many a headland and island of the Anatolian coast.
-
-It can scarcely fail to impress the most casual of observers that
-this double series of arcs, from Hindu Kush to Mediterranean, meet
-or almost meet at three distinctly traceable and widely separated
-points. Such approximations occur in Hindu Kush, in Armenia, and in the
-mountainous districts which border the Ionian seaboard. We can scarcely
-doubt that they are due to the incidence of a strong opposing force,
-moving from the south and causing the arcs to be constricted, the
-ranges to be piled up one behind another, and mountain development to
-assume its grandest forms. It is probable that the resisting pressure
-has been furnished in the first two cases by the Indian and Arabian
-peninsulas. Another feature, less obvious but not less noteworthy,
-is furnished by the fact that in Armenia and Asia Minor the arcs have
-been fractured in the process of bending over at or near the points
-where the approximations between the two series have taken place. The
-closer the constriction, the sharper, of course, becomes the curve,
-and the greater the tendency to split. In Asia Minor the union of
-the series has resulted in complete fracture; the folded area sinks
-beneath the waters of the Ĉgean to be represented by the islands
-which stud the Archipelago, and, further west, by the mountains of
-the Dalmatian coast.
-
-On the east of Hindu Kush we are as yet in want of sufficient material
-for so convincing an analysis as the researches of geologists have
-rendered possible on the west. We know that in eastern Asia a vast
-area of elevated land is bounded both along the inner and the outer
-margins by mountain systems of wide extension and great height. Such
-are the systems of Altai and Tian-shan upon the north, and the mighty
-bow of the Himalayas on the south. Probably the Kuenlun range carries
-over the inner series of western Asia, extending eastwards from the
-Pamirs and serving as a buttress to the immensely elevated plateau
-of Tibet. If this view be correct, then the Tian-shan and Altai
-systems may perhaps be regarded as minor earth-waves, following close
-upon the heels of the Kuenlun, and supporting the highlands of the
-Tarim basin and the desert of Gobi, the Han-hai or Dry Sea of the
-Chinese. The plain reader may be content to observe the echelon of
-mountain ranges which extends from Hindu Kush towards Behring Sea;
-to note the constant curvature of the arcs towards the south, until,
-in the Altai group, the eastern arms of the bows are protracted ever
-further towards the north; to contrast the low-lying plains along
-the western ends of the echelon with the lofty highlands of Mongolia
-on the east. The necks of the valleys issue upon the depression of
-Siberia and the low country through which the Oxus and Jaxartes flow.
-
-In western Asia the elevated area with its flanking ranges is
-bordered on the north by the northern Paropamisus and further west
-by the Caucasus chain. The Paropamisus may perhaps be regarded as
-the most southerly of the many branches which belong to the system of
-Tian-shan. [412] Geologists invite us to connect the Paropamisus with
-the Caucasus, and trace the links of the broken chain to the mountains
-of Krasnovodsk on the Caspian, whence a submarine ridge carries the
-line into the mountains of Caucasus, to be protracted far to the west,
-through the Crimea, and emerge from the waters of the Black Sea in
-the Balkans, Carpathians and Alps. In this manner we see described on
-the north of the Asiatic highlands, with their series of inner arcs,
-a further arc of immense span and wide curvature, which is represented
-on the east by the northern Paropamisus and by the Caucasus on the
-west. Both these ranges may best be viewed as independent of the
-inner series; but Paropamisus is closely adpressed to the inner arc
-of Persia, and Caucasus is joined at a single point to the series,
-namely by the Meschic linking chain. Lines of elevation, similar
-to that which we have traced from Paropamisus, may be discovered,
-although with less orographical distinction, proceeding westwards
-and struggling over towards Europe from the more northerly branches
-of Tian-shan; they are almost lost in the great depression of the
-Turanian lowlands, but they follow arcs of increasing width of span.
-
-This interesting study of the structure of Asia, which is due to the
-researches of recent years, not only serves to explain the pronounced
-features of Asiatic landscapes, as integral members of a vast design,
-but also enables us to understand many of the movements of history and
-many of the phenomena of the human world. [413] India is enclosed on
-all sides by the sea or by the outer mountains, and appears reserved
-by natural causes for herself. China, with her teeming millions,
-is separated from western Asia by the whole bulk of the broadest
-and least hospitable portion of the system of lofty plateaux with
-peripheral ranges. The echelon of chains, which seam the continent
-in a north-easterly direction, are the nurseries of the hardiest
-tribes. The valleys which space these ranges are the arteries
-of human movement, and they lead from west to east, from east to
-west. Thus during the period of armed migrations which is represented
-by the Tartar conquests, one division of the Tartar armies might be
-fighting in China on the Yellow River while another was laying waste
-Khorasan. The bend of the arcs towards the south places the framework
-of Nature in harmony with the migrations of man. The tablelands of
-Persia, Armenia and Asia Minor are members of a continuous system
-of elevated plains at a temperate altitude, which extend like some
-great causeway along the breadth of Asia, giving access from east to
-west, from west to east. This causeway forms the natural avenue of
-commerce and of conquest, by which the tide of war or of commercial
-intercourse ebbs and flows between the remote recesses of Central Asia
-and the Ionian shore of the Mediterranean Sea. Only on the east is
-the causeway blocked by Nature to human traffic, by the constriction
-of the arcs on the north of India, leading over by a gigantic knot of
-mountains into the impassable plateau of Tibet. The stream is therefore
-diverted from the highlands to the lowlands; great cities arise on
-the lowlands, at the mouths of the Tian-shan valleys, Merv, Bokhara,
-Samarkand. And when we contemplate and contrast the structure of Asia
-and of Europe--the vast forces which have produced the stately body
-of eastern Asia dying out towards the west in the insignificant but
-widely ramified elevations of the European mountain chains--we may
-readily understand how different has been the influence exercised by
-structural features upon the peoples of either continent. In Asia such
-features are a factor of the first importance, determining climate,
-controlling migrations, setting barriers to intercourse or relentlessly
-fixing the highways which it must pursue. In Europe, on the other
-hand, they have done little more than diversify the scenery, and for
-purposes of peaceful or hostile movements among the nations may with
-some exceptions be almost left out of account. What are our European
-mountains but arbitrary wrinkles on the face of the continent? One
-valley leads over into another of much the same height above sea-level
-by a pass which is not more lofty than the neighbouring ridges. One
-plain is succeeded by a companion expanse of similar character, and
-only some small diversity in the forms of the spires of the churches
-tells the tale of national distinctions. Differentiation rather than
-the presence of marked ethnological types is characteristic of the
-peoples of Europe. But once the narrow strait is passed we may no
-longer dally with our geography; and the further we proceed towards
-the east and the inner sanctuaries of Nature the greater grows the
-necessity of comprehending phenomena which must always exercise a
-dominant influence upon human affairs. It will not suffice in Asia
-to observe the latitude of a great plain in order to know beforehand
-the degree of heat which it will support in summer, the rigour or
-the suavity of the climate during winter. You will be freezing
-in Erzerum while Erivan is relaxed in sunshine; yet both cities
-are placed on the margins of level expanses, and the advantage of
-latitude is in favour of the temperateness of that first named. Not
-even the convenient distinction of highlands and lowlands will
-carry us very far. We must enquire into the nature of the highlands;
-are the mountains their prevailing feature, or are those mountains,
-as we see them from the floor of the lowlands, a mere buttress to
-a sequence of elevated plains? Penetrate the chain, and you rise by
-successive steps from valley to valley, while each ridge is higher
-than the last. Follow its extension upon the map and you will see it
-rising from the Mediterranean and terminating in the knot of mountains
-north of India. Mark the characteristics of the people who inhabit it,
-be they Kurds or Lurs or Lazes, they will not offer much divergence
-from a common standard. Yet what a gulf of human nature between these
-and the inhabitants of the lowlands--a gulf which is scarcely spanned
-by the equalising tendencies of a long spell of misgovernment! When
-at length these alps expand, and you overlook a more level country,
-everything--climate, the aspect of the sky as well as of the land,
-people, language, cities, villages are new. And yet our diplomatists
-who dwell on the Bosphorus, and ruminate Asiatic problems with the
-aid of indifferent maps which they would not pretend to understand,
-group the highlands and the lowlands, the shepherds of the mountains
-and the cultivators of the plains, all together--a strange collection
-of birds and beasts and fishes--in a single scheme of administrative
-reforms. The Turk is little wiser; but we may perhaps view with a
-large indifference his passive resistance to such reforms.
-
-But to return to our plains and mountains--the country which we
-may still call Armenia takes its place as an integral member of the
-system of tablelands, buttressed by mountain ranges, which extends
-from the Hindu Kush to the Mediterranean Sea. It is not separated
-by any important natural frontier from Persia on the east or from
-Asia Minor on the west. Moreover most of the characteristics which
-are found in either of these neighbours are prevalent in Armenia
-to a greater or a lesser degree. The stratified rocks include the
-later Palĉozoic, the Cretaceous, Eocene and Miocene series; and
-these extend across the whole system. The salt deposits of Miocene
-age which are spread so widely over Persia are not among the least
-remarkable of the surface features of Armenia; although they have
-not produced that widespread devastation which attends the extension
-of the great salt deserts over the Persian plateau. [414] In Armenia
-they are friendly to man, providing him with one of his necessaries;
-and the various salt works, known in Turkey under the name of tuzla
-or salt pans, have been exploited from immemorial times. Considerable
-depressions of the surface of the highlands are phenomena common to
-all three countries; and the same may be said of the volcanoes which
-are dominant in Armenian landscapes, but are not wholly absent from
-the contiguous territories on either side. All participate in the
-benefits of a southern climate, and are exempted by their elevation
-above sea-level from the excesses of a southern sun. Slowly-flowing
-rivers threading vast plains, mountains which determine districts
-rather than states; a natural penury of vegetation, enhanced by the
-depredations of countless goats, but perhaps balanced in the eyes of
-the traveller by the beauty of the land-forms--such are some among
-the many impressions which may be derived in various degrees from a
-visit to any of the individual members of the group.
-
-But, if Armenia be closely linked with her neighbours on the west and
-east, she is divided by some of the most effective of natural barriers
-and natural distinctions from the countries which lie to the north
-and south. The zones of mountains which on the one side separate
-her from the coast of the Black Sea and the Georgian depression,
-and on the other from the lowlands of Mesopotamia, possess in an
-equal degree the rugged character due to intense folding and are
-both of considerable width. Sharp ridges with serrated outlines
-rising one behind another, narrow valleys in which the shadows lie,
-hissing rivers and bush-grown rocks, grassy uplands or stretches of
-forest determine the scenery both of the northern and of the southern
-zone. The alpine region has a breadth of some fifty miles more or
-less in the direction of the Black Sea, while the corresponding zone,
-facing the lowlands about Diarbekr, extends, on the whole, over a
-smaller span. Both zones are practically unlimited in length. They have
-been factors of paramount influence in the history of the peoples,
-not only screening the territories they confine from those which lie
-outside, but also investing them with distinct climatic conditions. For
-these parallel belts of peripheral mountains do in fact perform the
-function of supports or buttresses to a series of elevated plains;
-the valleys in the alpine region are but the succession of terraces
-which rise to the margin of a lofty platform. A difference in level
-of several thousands of feet is productive of marked features in the
-habits and character of the inhabitants; while the alps themselves must
-necessarily determine the mode of life of the dwellers within them,
-constraining them to follow the vocation of shepherds rather than that
-of agriculturists. Thus along the section between Diarbekr and the
-Armenian highlands three strongly-contrasted types of people will be
-met. The nomad Arabs or Arabic-speaking cultivators of the lowlands
-are succeeded by the pastoral Kurds with their tribal organisation,
-and these again by the Armenian tillers of the soil.
-
-I have already indicated the intimate connection of these peripheral
-mountains with the structural system of the Asiatic continent. The
-northerly belt belongs to the inner series of arcs, and that on
-the south to the outer series. The compression of these arcs--a
-phenomenon which has engaged our attention--has been effected in
-the greatest degree within the section of country between Diarbekr
-and Trebizond. You see the two opposite arcs, one bent to the south
-and the other to the north, endeavouring to meet under the stress of
-contending pressures; while on either side of the section the curves
-diminish in intensity and the spines of the ranges have been allowed
-to expand like the spokes of a wheel. The northern boundary of Armenia
-is constituted by the mountains of the northern peripheral region,
-which enter the country on the west in the Gumbet Dagh. The line may
-be followed on the map on the north of Shabin Karahisar through the
-Giaour Dagh and the Kuseh Dagh to the pass over the Vavuk Dagh, lying
-to the north-west of the town of Baiburt. From the Vavuk pass the spine
-of the chain confines the valley of the Chorokh by a well-defined and
-regular parapet; until just east of the town of Ispir it commences
-to lose this singleness of feature, and to favour a tendency towards
-bifurcation and branching out. The ridges stretch across the valley in
-an east-north-easterly direction, the direction which the spine has so
-long pursued; and their course may be traced through the mountainous
-country on the north of Olti until they become buried beneath the
-volcanic accumulations of the plateau country in the districts of
-Göleh and Ardahan. It is most interesting to trace their probable
-emergence from this canopy on the further side of the tableland, and
-to recognise in the elevations of Shishtapa (north of Alexandropol)
-and of Madatapa ridges that have survived the splitting and fracture
-of the Pontic chain. But this is a feature of greater interest to the
-geologist than to the geographer; and the latter will follow the Black
-Sea range through the heights of the Khachkar and Parkhal mountains
-to the Kukurt Dagh on the west of Artvin. The ridge which stretches
-thence in a north-north-easterly direction towards the seaboard,
-giving passage to the Chorokh and determining the Russian frontier,
-has been deflected by the mass of the Karchkhal mountains, the radial
-system to the north-east of Artvin. It crosses the river close to the
-coast behind Batum, and may be traced through the peaks of Taginaura,
-Gotimeria and Nepiszkaro along the plains of Imeritia to the passage
-of the Kur through the gorge of Borjom. These last-named peaks belong
-to the Akhaltsykh-Imeritian border range, which my reader has crossed
-with me by the pass of Zikar, and of which the direction is almost
-due east and west.
-
-It is impossible to delimit the northern frontier of Armenia by a
-slavish insistence upon the boundary of the Black Sea range. That
-system is the natural boundary for a distance of very many miles,
-as it extends along the course first of the Kelkid Su, the ancient
-Lycus, and then along that of the Chorokh. But the fracture of the arc
-which has taken place in the country watered by the uppermost branches
-of the Kur and Arpa Chai, and the eating back of the more easterly
-affluents of the Chorokh, which have carved out the intricate country
-in the neighbourhood of Olti, have resulted in the interruption of the
-normal sequence until it is again resumed in the Akhaltsykh-Imeritian
-range. It is consonant with the natural conditions to take the
-frontier across the valley of the Chorokh in the vicinity of Ispir,
-and to lead it by the heights which contain the sources of the Chorokh
-and the Serchemeh Chai to the Dümlü Dagh, the parent mountain of the
-Western Euphrates. It will then follow, first in an easterly and then
-in a north-easterly direction, the elevated water-parting between
-the basins of the Araxes and the Black Sea; and, after effecting
-a union through the Chamar Dagh with the volcanoes of the Soghanlu
-Dagh, will be protracted along the meridional and volcanic elevation
-which confines the highlands of Göleh and Ardahan on the west. The
-junction of these vaulted heights with the Akhaltsykh-Imeritian range
-may be traced through the ridge of the Sakulaperdi Dagh to the peak
-of Gotimeria. All the rivers on the northern slopes of this section
-of the Armenian frontier drain into the Black Sea.
-
-The passes across this zone are of considerable elevation, though
-a good number are open all the year round. I have been unable
-to ascertain the height of the pass over the Gumbet Dagh between
-Karahisar and Kerasun. But the valleys of the Upper Kelkid and the
-Upper Chorokh may be reached from Trebizond without encountering a
-greater altitude than something less than 7000 feet. To this figure
-must be added another 600 to 1000 feet before the traveller will
-have crossed the block of elevated tableland interposed between those
-valleys and the great Armenian cities, Erzinjan and Erzerum. East of
-Baiburt the spine of the Pontic range becomes more lofty: and the track
-which leads from Rizeh to Ispir in the Chorokh valley surmounts it at
-a height which has been estimated at 9000 feet above the sea. Where
-the frontier has become coterminous with the northern border heights
-of Erzerum and Pasin the roads are taken by passes of over 7000 feet
-(Erzerum-Bar-Olti) and 8500 feet (Hasan Kala-Olti) into the basin
-of the Black Sea; while during its protraction northwards through
-the Soghanlu Dagh to the Sakulaperdi Dagh it may be traversed by
-well-beaten paths or tolerable roads at elevations which range between
-6085 feet (Eshak-Meidan Pass) and about 7000 feet. The principal
-avenues of communication across the mountainous region are those of
-Erzinjan-Gümüshkhaneh, Baiburt-Gümüshkhaneh, Erzerum-Olti, Kars-Olti,
-Ardahan-Olti and Ardahan-Ardanuch. A road has been constructed from
-Kutais to Abastuman, and is gaining traffic every year.
-
-Copious rainfall and abundant vegetation are characteristic of the
-northern peripheral mountains. In some of the valleys the clouds
-settle for several months in the year, seldom lifting to disclose a
-view of the sun. It may often happen that during several weeks or even
-months crests and depressions alike will be shrouded in mist. In summer
-there is produced the likeness of a succession of forcing houses, the
-slopes and hollows being covered with a bewildering tangle of trees
-and creepers and scarcely passable undergrowth. From the branches
-are festooned the lichens, grey-white streamers like human hair;
-the crimson stools of a fungus shine out from the gloomy brakes,
-and the pointed pink petals of the Kolchian crocus clothe each
-respite of open ground. Such conditions are most prevalent in the
-narrow valleys near the Pontic coast, while the slopes which face
-the Rion and the opposite Caucasus are distinguished by magnificent
-forests. Several peoples, distributed over fairly distinct zones,
-inhabit these fastnesses. On the west we have the Greeks, inclined
-to commerce and close to a seaboard; they may be found struggling
-upwards to the spine of the range and even in a sporadic manner upon
-its southern slopes. Further east dwell the Lazis, a wild people; and
-their neighbours, the Ajars, in the mountains behind Batum. These are
-succeeded by a population of Georgian shepherds and small cultivators,
-whose picturesque chalets are surrounded with Indian corn.
-
-It remains to follow the extension of the mountains of the northern
-border during their progress eastwards from the Borjom gorge. The
-comparative narrowness of the belt in the neighbourhood of that great
-cleft is explained by the fracture of the arc to the south of this
-region and the covering up of its more southerly members by volcanic
-emissions. But this decrease in width is to some extent balanced
-by the propinquity of the Caucasus. It is in this neighbourhood
-that the single link connecting the belt with Caucasus stretches
-across the Georgian depression, dividing the Rion from the Kur;
-it may be known as the Meschic linking chain. East of this barrier
-the vegetation diminishes in luxuriance. The Akhaltsykh-Imeritian
-range is continued beyond the gorge by the latitudinal Trialethian
-chain--a system of which the backbone is formed by the Arjevan ridge,
-and which is bounded on three sides by the course of the Kur. A branch
-of this system is seen to continue the direction of the Pontic range,
-inclining off at a sharp angle from the principal elevation to form
-the valley of the Gujaretis. It culminates in the peaks of the Sanislo
-group at an extreme height of 9350 feet, and sinks beneath the lavas
-of the plateau region. The Trialethian mountains have undergone a
-process of uptilt, which has caused them to fall away abruptly towards
-the north and to form terraces of plateau-like character on the south.
-
-Just as on the west we were constrained to draw the natural frontier
-inwards from the spine of the Pontic range, so on the east the next
-successors of the Trialethian ridges lie outside the proper boundary of
-the Armenian plains. A glance at the map will show that a dislocation
-of the natural features has taken place in this region. The inner arc,
-so clearly defined on the one side by the Pontic chain and on the
-other by the Shah Dagh, overlooking Lake Gökcheh, has snapped during
-the process of bending over; and the survivors of the catastrophe,
-the ridges which obstruct the Khram and the Somketian mountains,
-are constrained to play a subordinate part. The water-parting and
-principal elevation is composed of volcanoes, reared in a meridional
-direction. What an impressive analogy to the phenomena on the side
-of the Black Sea! These volcanoes pursue two lines, one line close
-behind the other, and the outer or more easterly far the longer of the
-two. It is the outer series, known as the Gori Mokri, or wet mountains,
-that constitute the border of the Armenian highlands on this side. The
-traveller who journeys westwards from the plateau of Zalka (5000 feet)
-up the elevated valley of the river Kzia to the little upland plain
-of the same name (7000 feet) [415] will be treading on the dividing
-line between the folded mountains of the Trialethian system and the
-meridional volcanic series. On his left hand he will admire the shapely
-cone of Tawkoteli (9211 feet), which constitutes the most northerly
-of these volcanic elevations. The barrier is continued southwards
-through the Samsar Dagh (10,770 feet) to the Daly Dagh; and thence
-along the eastern shore of the lonely lake of Toporovan (6875 feet)
-to the dual crown of Agrikar (9765 feet) and to the conical summit
-of the Emlekli Dagh (10,016 feet). The sequence ends in the heights
-of Karakach (over 10,000 feet), of which the southerly extension is
-interrupted by the latitudinal ridges of Aglagan and Shishtapa. But
-the border is protracted along the parting of the waters into the
-westerly extremities of the Pambak chain.
-
-We may, perhaps, regard this chain as the most southerly
-of the latitudinal ridges which begin on the north with the
-Akhaltsykh-Imeritian and Trialethian systems. It extends the area
-of the highlands for some distance towards the east, when, after
-commencing to incline in an east-south-easterly direction, it effects a
-junction with the Shah Dagh. This last-named ridge takes the frontier
-along the eastern shore of Lake Gökcheh to the confines of Karabagh;
-and the elevation may be traced through the spine of the northern
-Karabagh mountains across the Kur to the range which faces the Caspian
-Sea. But Karabagh may be regarded as a separate geographical unit,
-combining in miniature many of the characteristics of the Armenian
-highlands--an inner plateau region flanked by peripheral ranges. The
-immemorial home of Armenian inhabitants, the seat of Tartar immigrants
-and the happy hunting-ground of nomad Kurds, it constitutes a solid
-outer buttress to Armenia on the side of the Caspian. [416] The true
-boundary must be taken southwards from the Ginal Dagh (over 11,000
-feet) to the Kety Dagh, where it forms a loop towards the west; and,
-after almost encircling an upland sheet of water, called the Ala Göl,
-is protracted through the heights of Sir-er-syrchaly (11,298 feet)
-and Salvarty (10,422 feet) to the valley of the Araxes at Migry just
-east of Ordubad. The Karadagh mountains on the southern bank of the
-river continue the ridges of Karabagh; and the natural frontier is
-pushed westwards up the course of the Araxes as far as the village
-of Julfa. From this point you have the choice of two methods of
-demarcation, both of which repose on geographical facts. The line may
-be taken south-eastwards along the marginal ridge of the Karadagh to
-the water-parting between the basin of the Araxes on the one side and
-that of Lake Urmi on the other. This parting is of little orographical
-relief, but it would conduct the frontier almost in a straight line
-to the serried ridges of the southern peripheral zone on the south
-of Lake Van. [417] Or the more pronounced bulwark between the Lake
-Van and Lower Araxes basins may seem to constitute the true boundary
-of the Armenian country. In this case an arbitrary line must be drawn
-from behind Bayazid, leading from the crest of these mountains, which
-at present constitute the Turko-Persian frontier to our original
-starting-point, Julfa. My reader will observe that we have left the
-barrier of the northern peripheral mountains, to explore the less
-certain limits on the side of Persia.
-
-We have now pursued the northern border of the Armenian highlands
-from the coast of the Black Sea to that of the Caspian, where the
-belt passes over into the mountains framing Persia upon the north to
-be protracted into the Hindu Kush. The corresponding southern zone
-is much more simple of feature; but it lies outside the province of
-the present chapter, being included, throughout its entire extension
-along these highlands, within Turkish territory. Between the northern
-and southern zones of peripheral mountains several distinct but minor
-members of the orographical system we have been examining furrow the
-surface of the tableland. These will receive their proper attention
-in the companion chapter of the second volume, situated as they are
-for the most part beyond the limits of our present survey. But one
-of them may be traced to the commanding elevation which determines
-the valley of the Araxes during its passage through Chaldiran to the
-confluence of the Arpa Chai; and it is this range--for it deserves
-to be described as a range--that not only constitutes the present
-frontier between the Russian and Turkish Empires, but in fact divides
-the area of Armenia into two parts. You must either cross the spine of
-this chain, which describes a symmetrical curve, or follow along the
-plains at its northern or southern flanks, should you desire to pass
-from the plateau region on the north and east to the corresponding
-districts on the south and west. In the preceding chapter we have
-become familiar with some of its interesting features; and we have
-been introduced to it under the general name of the Ararat system
-or Aghri Dagh. Shatin Dagh is another name under which its westerly
-portion is designated by some writers, and which is scarcely less well
-qualified to express its ruggedness. This range carries the natural
-frontier between the two divisions from the Kuseh Dagh (11,262 feet)
-in the west to Little Ararat (12,840 feet) in the east.
-
-It will thus be seen that the present area of Russian Armenia
-corresponds in a remarkable manner with the limits assigned by Nature
-to the more north-easterly of the two extensive regions into which she
-has parcelled Armenian soil. The Russian frontier is drawn from the
-coast of the Black Sea along the water-parting of the tributaries to
-the western bank of the Lower Chorokh through the peripheral region,
-and west of the town of Olti, to the Armenian border at the Chakhar
-Dagh. Thence it is taken across the Araxes to the spine of the Aghri
-or Shatin Dagh just north-west of the dome of Kuseh Dagh. It follows
-the spine of the range to the neighbourhood of Great Ararat, whose
-hallowed summit it embraces within the dominions of the Tsar. From the
-crest of the Little Ararat, whose south-eastern slopes are left to
-Persia, it reaches across the plain to the right bank of the Araxes
-a little below the famous monastery of Khor Virap. The Araxes forms
-the boundary between the Russian and Persian Empires from this point
-to near its confluence with the Kur.
-
-It is a misleading, nay, a false conception of natural features
-to distribute the surface of the plateau region into a number of
-distinct geographical units. That is a method which is favoured by
-Russian sciolists with political connections in their endeavour
-to confuse the essential unity of a country which Russia has not
-yet fully absorbed. Enter this region where you will and with the
-eyes of any qualified traveller, the same or similar impressive
-characteristics will at once appeal to the mind. The German scientist
-Koch has well described these idiosyncrasies as they may be observed
-from the marginal districts on the west. After a long and laborious
-climb from the valley of Ardanuch (1800 feet) to the summit of the
-pass which leads to Ardahan (at least 7000 feet), he was astonished
-to observe that instead of a rounded ridge, descending with more or
-less abruptness to lower levels on the further side, the elevation
-upon which he stood was continued towards the east by the gentle
-slope of a lofty plateau. "Here was the commencement," he says,
-"of the plateau which slopes away from the pass, and which is
-usually called the Armenian plateau." The same traveller journeyed
-back into the Chorokh region from the highlands of Göleh on the
-south of Ardahan. On this occasion he crossed the water-parting
-at the Kanly Dagh between Ardahan and Olti. He tells us that it
-consists of a narrow ridge with red, porphyritic rocks. He describes
-the double prospect from the summit, with its contrast of forms and
-impressions. On the one side, towards the Kur, a scarcely perceptible
-incline, forming upland valleys after a descent of only some 1500
-feet, and leading over to vague and vaulted heights. On the other,
-in the direction of Olti, rent mountains, gaping ravines--nowhere a
-gentle, convex shape. Where he was placed the climate was raw, even
-in early September, and scarcely tempered by a southern sun. Deep
-down, and far away, they could see the river of Olti, winding like
-a snake through a maze of sheltered valleys. [418] The language in
-which Herrmann Abich describes his impressions, coming from the side
-of Georgia up the valley of the Akstafa, and reaching the pass (7355
-feet) over the eastern marginal heights between the village of Bekant
-and the town of Alexandropol, is not dissimilar to that of Koch. He
-speaks of the strong contrast between the physical characteristics of
-the plateau region before him and those of the peripheral mountains he
-was leaving behind. He describes the prevailing horizontality of the
-land-forms which he overlooked, extending to the limits of sight. In
-another place he alludes to the lofty, rim-like elevation with which
-"the Armenian plateau breaks away to the valleys of Ajara." [419]
-I might multiply the instances in which the most competent observers
-have at the same time recognised the unity of the plateau region and
-its sharp distinction from the peripheral mountains.
-
-My reader has journeyed with me from the Zikar Pass to Akhaltsykh and
-Akhalkalaki; from the cañon of the Toporovan river and the basin of
-the Kur to the streams which constitute the most northerly sources of
-the Araxes. We have crossed the country from Alexandropol to Erivan,
-from Erivan to Kars, from Kars to Kagyzman. What an impressive unity
-underlies the pleasing diversity of the landscapes, which melt into one
-another as you pass! The partings of the waters are formed by slopes
-which you perceive with difficulty, so gradual has been the rise and
-the decline. The territories of Akhaltsykh, Akhalkalaki, Alexandropol,
-Kars and Ardahan are all bound up together in the distribution of the
-space, and share features in common to a much greater extent than they
-are distinguished by local idiosyncrasies. The mountains, of which
-the outlines are never absent from the landscape--soft, long-drawn,
-convex shapes--stand on the floor of the tableland, like pieces upon
-a chessboard, which one may move from square to square. Such are
-the radial mass of Dochus Punar near Akhaltsykh (over 9500 feet),
-the two considerable elevations which enclose Lake Chaldir (Akhbaba
-Dagh, 9973 feet; Kisir Dagh, 10,472 feet), and even the colossal
-Alagöz (13,436 feet). All are due to volcanic action, quite recent
-in geological time; and a similar origin belongs to the minor shapes
-which stud the country like bubbles upon a cooling body. Mountains
-of this character perform the function of boundary columns between
-the various districts, great and small. They determine but do not
-separate. How different in form and function from the folded ridges
-of the peripheral region, among which a single example of such recent
-volcanic fabrics could seldom be observed.
-
-If we desire for convenience to partition the plateau region which
-is Russian Armenia, it falls most naturally into two spheres. The
-one will comprise a rectangular area, of which the limits on the
-west and east are the meridional volcanic water-partings from the
-Soghanlu Dagh to the heights of Sakulaperdi on one side and from
-the Karakach Dagh to Tawkoteli on the other. The southern boundary
-of this area will be the cañon of the Araxes from its entrance into
-Russian territory to below the confluence of the Arpa Chai. Towards the
-north it includes the districts as far as the Sanislo extension of the
-Trialethian mountains and the Akhaltsykh-Imeritian border chain. The
-vast circumference of Alagöz is placed on its south-eastern confines,
-sending out long feelers towards the left bank of the Arpa Chai,
-pushing back the mountains of the eastern border and, as it were,
-propping up the highlands on the north-west. This volcano may be said
-to lead over to the second sphere, which is for a great part an area
-of considerable depression, and, as compared with the longitudinal
-axis and symmetrical shape of its companion, is of irregular form with
-the greatest length from north-west to south-east. These two spheres
-are distinguished by features which are sufficiently contrasted to
-suggest a double image to the mind.
-
-I. I have invited attention to the characteristics which Armenia
-shares in common with her neighbours in the series of the Asiatic
-tablelands, Persia on the east and Asia Minor on the west. In the
-brief survey to which I proceed of the plateau region within the
-Russian frontier it is necessary at the outset to remark upon some
-of the idiosyncrasies which distinguish Armenia as a whole from the
-other members of the series. There is in the first place the far
-greater elevation, investing her territory with the attributes of a
-roof to the adjacent countries, from which the waters gather to be
-precipitated in different directions, and to find their way not only
-to the Black Sea and the Caspian but also by almost endless stages to
-the Persian Gulf. The prominent part which has been played by recent
-volcanic action is another and not less impressive phenomenon. Which
-of her neighbours could compete with her in this respect? Where could
-one meet with an Ararat, a Sipan and a Nimrud, to say nothing of an
-Alagöz and a Bingöl? Both these manifestations are exemplified in a
-striking manner by the surface features of the rectangular area of
-the more northerly sphere.
-
-The higher levels of this region are situated at an altitude of some
-7000 feet above the sea. I am speaking not of the mountains but of
-the plains. The uplands which give rise to the Kur in the district of
-Göleh must come very near to this level. The parting of the waters of
-the Kur and Araxes near the village of Shishtapa, in an open landscape
-which may be compared to rolling downs, lies at about 7000 feet. Lake
-Chaldir has an elevation of 6522 feet; while of the smaller sheets of
-water Lake Toporovan, with 6876 feet, and the Arpa Göl, with 6706 feet,
-slightly better this already considerable figure. Where the plateau
-falls away to the abysmal cañon of the Araxes its edge is nearly 6500
-feet high. The town of Ardahan stands at a level of 5840 feet and Kars
-of 5700 feet. Alexandropol, the principal city, occupies the hollow of
-a vast basin-like plain; yet it is over 5000 feet above the sea. These
-elevations are much greater than the average even in Persia, though
-they are to a certain extent maintained in the frontier province of
-Azerbaijan and along the edge of the southern peripheral mountains
-(Tabriz, 4650 feet; but Tehran, 3800 feet; Ispahan, 5070 feet).
-
-The process of gradual uplift of the region by earth movements has been
-attended by eruptive action, flooding the country with volcanic matter,
-levelling inequalities of the ground and adding to the height. It has
-been estimated that the volcanic deposits laid bare in the ravines of
-the streams which descend from the radial Dochus Punar attain a depth
-of hundreds of yards. [420] A similar phenomenon is made manifest
-in the cañon of the Araxes--a cleft which in the neighbourhood of
-the village of Armutli, west of Kagyzman, has a depth of about 2000
-feet and a width on top of at least a mile. [421] There the Miocene
-sedimentary deposits are overlaid with tuffs and lavas in a belt over
-300 yards deep. [422] The points of emission of volcanic matter are
-in some cases true volcanoes, in others mere pustules or fissures
-of varying extent. One or other of these features is never absent
-from the landscape. But the fires are extinct; the viscous seas have
-long been solid; not a breath of smoke rises from the stark summits
-which erewhile were wreathed with vapours reflecting the glow of the
-flames beneath.
-
-The distribution of such shapes due to volcanic agency may often appear
-arbitrary to an unpractised traveller. Here a group of stately forms
-resembling the giants of a forest, there a number of insignificant
-eminences representing the small fry. All will be found to be subject
-to definite and ascertainable principles, the nature of which becomes
-clearer at each step forward of scientific research. Perhaps the
-most interesting principle which we see operative in this region is
-the outcrop of volcanoes along meridional lines. Such groups pursue
-a course at right angles to the strike of the rocks within the area
-of the peripheral mountains. In this connection we may recall the
-fact that the plateau region with which we are dealing occupies the
-apex of the bend over of the inner arc. Lines of fracture have been
-thrown out at right angles to the folding, and eruptive agency has
-fastened upon these weakened zones of the earth's crust. Not only may
-these lines be traced on the west and east of the plateau, of which,
-indeed, they have largely determined the shape, but also well inside
-of the marginal districts. In the west we have the Soghanlu group
-stretching north to Allah Akbar (10,218 feet), whence the direction
-is continued through the Ueurli Dagh (9055 feet) and the Arzian Dagh
-to the Chibukh-Naryn-Bashi Dagh. There the volcanic water-parting
-effects a junction with the Akhaltsykh-Imeritian chain in the ridge of
-the Sakulaperdi Dagh. In the east we have already followed the row of
-marginal volcanoes from Tawkoteli to Karakach. Inside these series we
-recognise this same north-south direction in the Abul-Samsar system,
-in the mountains on either side of Lake Chaldir, and, lastly, in the
-connection which we can scarcely err in assuming between the Kisir
-Dagh, overlooking the westerly shore of this lake, and its neighbour
-on the north, the Dochus Punar.
-
-Compared with Alagöz and Ararat even the absolute height of these
-mountains may be termed insignificant. The lofty level of the
-plains from which their slopes gather robs them of several thousand
-feet. Great Abul, with an altitude of nearly 11,000 feet, rises from a
-plain which itself lies at an elevation of 5500 feet. The dome-shaped
-vaultings of the Soghanlu Dagh near some of the sources of the Kars
-river are almost entirely shorn of their considerable stature by
-the height of the adjacent downs. In such surroundings the mountains
-appear to the eye as little more than hills.
-
-The rivers as a rule flow in deep cañons which they have eroded in the
-volcanic soil. Their head waters meander over grassy downs. Temperately
-they thread their way over the uplands or in the cañons, except where
-blocks of lava may have tumbled into the trough, causing the stream
-to wreathe and hiss. You pass from district to district either along
-such natural avenues, with the towering cliffs, for the most part
-bare, on either hand; or, emerging from the weird scene within the
-hollow, over the surface of almost limitless plains. Not a tree in the
-landscape, and only patches of fallow and stubble, without a boundary,
-with rarely a village discernible from afar.
-
-From time to time you may obtain a glimpse of the peripheral
-mountains--serrated summits, bush-grown slopes. These contrast to
-the soft convexities of the forms about you and the vaultings of
-the volcanic eminences. The surface of the friable soil is devoid of
-wood and almost of vegetation; and the volcanic matter of which it is
-composed produces tints of pink and ochre upon which the shadows lie
-transparent and thin. The rarefied atmosphere of these high regions
-braces the faculties and sharpens the senses; and whatever clouds may
-have climbed the barrier of the peripheral ranges are suspended high
-in the heaven, seldom obscuring the brilliant sun. During winter the
-land is covered with snow.
-
-It is a country admirably adapted to grow cereals. The plains
-through which the Arpa Chai (grain river) eats its way to the
-Araxes constituted one of the granaries of Armenia in historical
-times. [423] At the present day they have not recovered from the
-devastations of the Mussulman peoples, and the Russians are jealous
-of allowing the Armenians a free hand. Extraordinary fertility is
-induced by the intermixture of the lavas with alluvial or lacustrine
-deposits. The black earth of the plains about Akhalkalaki is famous
-[424]; and the soil in the neighbourhood of Alexandropol derives its
-richness from the incidence of a peculiar kind of lava side by side
-with the sediment of a former lake. The southerly extension of these
-vanished waters is marked by the belt of high ground extending from
-Alagöz across the plains to the Arpa Chai. The river has forced its
-way through this elevation between Ani and Magaspert. [425]
-
-Other effects of the violent disturbance to which the region has been
-subjected are manifest on a large scale. Thus all the way from the
-Soghanlu Dagh on the south to the neighbourhood of the mountains of
-the Ajars on the north the ground has fallen away to the labyrinth
-of valleys which feed the Chorokh by what geologists would call an
-extensive fault. The edge of the plateau region stands up boldly upon
-that side from the levels adjacent on the west. A still more recent
-earth movement may be represented by the uptilt towards the north-east
-of a considerable block of country lying between Kars and the junction
-of the Arpa with the Araxes. This phenomenon, which recalls a similar
-occurrence in the Trialethian district, has occasioned the curious
-course of the stream of Kars, which, rising in close vicinity to the
-flood of the same river to which ultimately it becomes tributary,
-pursues a course almost at right angles to that of the Araxes for
-a distance of thirty miles. To the same cause is in part due the
-extraordinary elevation of the levels along the left bank of the
-Araxes between Armutli and the confluence of the Arpa Chai.
-
-Besides the last-named stream this lofty stage of the Armenian
-tableland gives birth to one of the great rivers of western Asia. The
-Kur rises from the highlands on the south of Ardahan, between the wall
-of mountain which overlooks Lake Chaldir on the west and the rim of the
-plateau region. In Turkish times this district constituted a separate
-fief, and was governed by a hereditary prince of Georgian origin who
-resided at Urut. The name of the district, Göleh, still figures on
-the Russian maps. It is subject to a rigorous climate, the snow lying
-during eight months in some years. Only the hardiest of the cereals
-come to maturity; yet the olive and the pomegranate flourish in the
-valley of Artvin, but thirty miles distant, and even at this altitude
-and during winter the rays of a southern sun temper the cold. One of
-the principal arms of the river comes from the south-west, and is named
-the river of Ardahan; it is joined by four considerable tributaries,
-of which the most easterly is said by Koch to have been known to the
-inhabitants under the name of Kyürr. [426] Even at the present day the
-Kur is called the river of Ardahan until its entry into the passage of
-Borjom. The basin from within which these various branches gather has
-a length which may be computed at eight hours' journey on horseback
-and a breadth equivalent to about six hours. It abounds in springs,
-and marshes cover its floor. Below Ardahan, where it skirts the base
-of the Dochus Punar system, the Kur threads a narrow valley, deeply
-buried in the volcanic soil. So it flows past the grottoes of Vardzia
-and the Devil's City at Zeda Tmogvi, augmented by small affluents of
-which the largest is the Karri Chai. At Khertvis it is joined by the
-Toporovan river, bringing the drainage of the districts on the east,
-and swirling into the channel with foam-shot waves. The united volume
-dwells for a short space in wider landscapes, until it pierces the
-extreme base of the Sanislo branch of the Trialethian mountains,
-and is again confined in a narrow valley. Thence it issues upon the
-plains about Akhaltsykh, receives assembled tributaries from the
-northern border range, and disappears into the gorge of Borjom.
-
-II. A traveller coming from Alexandropol down the stream of the Arpa
-or along the valley of the Abaran, further east, can scarcely fail to
-become sensible of an appreciable change in climate and scenery by the
-time he shall have rounded the colossal pile of Alagöz. It is not,
-indeed, a new country or a new clime. The shapes which rise on the
-skyline are due to the same volcanic agency which has imprinted its
-character upon the northern landscapes. The shelving away of the ground
-to the basin-like depression which receives the Araxes recalls similar
-surface features in the northern districts. The rays of the sun fall
-from a heaven which remains blue. Clouds are still floating upon the
-azure, or are suspended upon the higher outlines. What has changed is
-the scale and intensity of the phenomena. The hills have given place
-to great mountains, the down-like expanses to one vast area of sloping
-ground. Into those dreamy spaces sweep the forms of the landscape,
-circled round them for a visible distance of some sixty miles.
-
-The valley of the Araxes from the neighbourhood of Sardarabad to that
-of Julfa--a space of over a hundred miles--composes nearly one-half
-of the more southerly sphere of north-eastern Armenia. We are already
-so familiar with its overpowering individuality that it would be
-turning finished ground to describe it anew. For many a mile it is
-only confined at an immense interval by the fabric of Ararat and the
-pile of Alagöz. But, even when the river--a ribbon in the expanse--has
-already distanced the Little Ararat, the folds of the landscape are
-ample into which it descends. Volcanoes on such a huge scale as these
-two Armenian giants could scarcely be expected to rise save on the
-margins of a great depression, whether subsidence may have been the
-cause or the effect. To the 7000 feet of the plateau region on the
-north this basin-like plain opposes a maximum elevation of 3000 feet
-and a minimum of something over 2000 feet.
-
-The vine flourishes and is cultivated in these plains of the Araxes,
-and fields of castor-oil plant grace the ground. Such oases with
-thriving villages soften the lap of the landscape, and diversify the
-wide stretches of rich but idle soil which the network of trenches
-with their fertilising waters have not yet reached. Irrigation rather
-than rainfall is here the productive agency; and, indeed, this valley,
-with a yearly rainfall of only about six inches, is probably the driest
-throughout Russian Transcaucasia. The storms of the Pontic region
-spend themselves before reaching this haven; but they beat against
-the volcanoes of the meridional water-parting on the easterly margin
-of the more northerly sphere. Even at Alexandropol the yearly rainfall
-is almost three times as great as in the neighbourhood of Ararat. And
-while the climate of the city on the Arpa may compare with St. Lawrence
-in North America, that of Erivan resembles Palermo or Barcelona. [427]
-
-On the north of this most extensive depression of the surface of
-Armenia lies the plateau region supporting Lake Gökcheh. The axis or
-greatest length of that expanse of sweet water lies about parallel
-to the course of the Araxes, to which it sends a tributary varying
-in volume with the season of the year through a trench-like passage
-at its south-westerly extremity. [428] On the north the lake is
-confined by a long ridge of the peripheral mountains, and its lofty
-level (6340 feet) is held up by the volcanic plateau of Akhmangan,
-acting as a dam on the side of the low-lying plains. The Akhmangan
-region consists of a gently vaulted platform, interrupted by a series
-of volcanic eminences extending over a distance of nearly thirty
-miles. Several of their cone-shaped summits attain a height of nearly
-11,000 feet, and one, the Akh Dagh, of close upon 12,000 feet above
-sea-level. An absence of springs, due to the nature of the volcanic
-rock, is characteristic not only of this region but also of that part
-of the neighbouring Karabagh country which lies within the embrace of
-the two mountainous zones. [429] In this respect it contrasts to the
-well-watered and wooded retreats of the district of Darachichak to
-the west of the lake. The wealthier citizens of Erivan take refuge
-in those pleasant upland valleys when the plain of the Araxes has
-become a furnace under the rays of a midsummer sun.
-
-The area of the country comprised within the two spheres of which I
-have been speaking is about 20,587 square miles. With the exception
-of a narrow strip on the right bank of the Araxes, measuring 1518
-square miles, the entire territory--more than commensurate with that
-of Servia--lies within the dominions of the Tsar.
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XXII
-
-STATISTICAL AND POLITICAL
-
-
-The solid block of territory over which Russia now rules on the
-tableland of Armenia is neither a new acquisition nor the fruit of a
-single conquest. At the commencement of the last century she gained a
-foothold upon it by the voluntary accession of the Georgian kingdom
-and its constitution into a Russian province in 1802. This event,
-the outcome of the folly of the Mussulman powers, who had driven
-the Christians to despair, was followed by the rapid expansion of
-the northern empire in these countries as the result of successful
-war. Karabagh was taken from Persia in 1813, and the important khanate
-of Erivan in 1828; from Turkey, the district of Akhaltsykh in 1829, and
-the fortress and province of Kars in 1878. Appearing as a deliverer of
-the Christian peoples and profiting by their aid, Russia has succeeded
-in advancing her border beyond the Araxes and to the threshold of
-Erzerum, and in establishing herself behind a well-rounded frontier
-which comprises the venerated mountain of Armenia as well as the seat
-of the supreme spiritual government to which the Armenians bow.
-
-The Armenian provinces constitute a part of the great administrative
-system of the Caucasus, which is presided over by a single
-Governor-General. Formerly it was usual to appoint a Grand Duke to this
-important post, who exercised, not without advantage to the country,
-a very large measure of personal initiative. At the present day
-it is occupied by a nobleman of high rank; but his administration
-has become much more intimately connected with the bureaucratic
-machine which is worked from St. Petersburg. He remains, however,
-the principal civil and military authority in the Caucasus, which
-consists of no less then twelve Governments, and is divided into
-North Caucasus and Transcaucasia. North Caucasus is composed of the
-Governments of Kuban, Terek and Stavropol; while the Governments of
-Chernomorsk (a narrow strip of coast at the foot of the Caucasus range
-between Novorossiysk on the Black Sea and a point a little north of
-Pitsunda), Kutais, Tiflis, Zakataly, Daghestan, Baku, Elizabetpol,
-Erivan and Kars are embraced under the title of Transcaucasia. Five of
-the Governments, namely Kuban, Terek, Daghestan, Zakataly and Kars,
-are still in the military stage of administration. The territories
-of North Caucasus lie quite outside the scope of the present work;
-and the Government of Daghestan ought more properly to be classed
-with the Northern Governments, lying as it does to the north of the
-main ridge of the Caucasus range. To the same category belong certain
-districts of the Government of Baku; but for statistical purposes it
-is advisable to retain them under Transcaucasia, in order to preserve
-the unity of the Government. On the other hand, the little Government
-of Chernomorsk may either be left out of account, or be included under
-North Caucasus. Transcaucasia will thus consist of seven Governments,
-of which the names and population, according to the two last censuses
-of 1886 and of 1897, are exhibited in the following table. I must
-explain that the figures of 1897 have not yet been split up into the
-different racial elements of which the populations of the various
-Governments are composed.
-
-
-TABLE I.--Population of Russian Transcaucasia (including Russian
-Armenia)
-
-+-----------+-----------+-----------+-----------+---------+----------+---------+
-|Government | Pop. 1886.| Armenian  | Pop. 1897.|Square   | Pop. per | Pop. per|
-|           |           | Pop. 1886.|           |Mileage. | sq. mile | sq. mile|
-|           |           |           |           |         | 1886.    | 1897.   |
-+-----------+-----------+-----------+-----------+---------+----------+---------+
-|Tiflis[430]|   875,429 |  211,743  |  958,775  |15,305.4 |  57.2    | 62.643  |
-|Erivan     |   670,405 |  375,700  |  804,757  |10,074.75|  66.54   | 79.878  |
-|Kars[431]  |   200,868 |   44,280  |  292,498  | 7,307.29|  27.489  | 40.028  |
-|Kutais     |   923,306 |   16,399  |1,075,861  |13,967.5 |  66.1    | 77.026  |
-|Elizabetpol|   728,943 |  258,324  |  871,557  |16,720.5 |  43.6    | 52.125  |
-|Baku       |   712,703 |   55,459  |  789,659  |15,094.59|  47.216  | 52.314  |
-|Zakatal    |    74,449 |      521  |   82,168  | 1,542.04|  48.28   | 53.285  |
-|-----------+-----------+-----------+-----------+---------+----------+---------+
-|Total      | 4,186,103 |  962,426  |4,875,275  |80,012.07|  52.318  | 60.931  |
-+-----------+-----------+-----------+-----------+---------+----------+---------+
-
-
-The admirable volume of statistics for Transcaucasia which we owe
-to the labours of M. de Seidlitz, and which was published at Tiflis
-by order of the civil government in 1893, supplies us with the most
-detailed information concerning these Russian provinces--the numbers
-of the different races and of the votaries of the various religious
-sects, and how the inhabitants may be classed and labelled as nobles
-or clergy, as tradesmen or as tillers of the soil. The figures are
-derived from the census of 1886, and we are thus presented with a
-fascinating statistical picture of the country towards the close
-of the nineteenth century. I do not propose to spoil the effect of
-his ingenious combinations by transferring them to my own pages in a
-mangled form; or to forestall the pleasure which the perusal of his
-serried columns is sure to bring to every well-regulated mind. But
-their aid will be useful, and indeed indispensable, in fixing upon a
-surer foundation those more general conceptions and conclusions which
-are suggested by the experience of travel. The country immediately
-on the north of the Armenian tableland--the plain of the Rion on the
-north-west, and the wide trough of the Kur on the north--is inhabited
-by various branches of the Georgian family and by settlers of Tartar
-race; while the Caucasus itself, the northern boundary of the whole
-geographical system, contains within its countless recesses an Homeric
-catalogue of nations whose names it is difficult to pronounce and whose
-languages are as mysterious as their names. Of a total population
-in Transcaucasia of 4,186,000, the Armenians numbered upwards of
-962,000 souls in 1886, or a proportion of nearly one quarter. But
-the importance of the Armenian element must be measured not so much
-by its numerical strength as by the solidarity of the Armenian people
-when compared to the peoples among whom they live. The Armenians are
-little divided by religious differences; the Roman Catholics are a
-mere handful among the solid ranks of the Gregorians; and the Gregorian
-Church is not only the symbol of national existence, but the stronghold
-of national hopes. Two other races in Transcaucasia slightly exceed the
-Armenians in number; the Tartars with 1,139,000, including Daghestan,
-and the different divisions of the Georgian family who number over a
-million souls. But the bitter religious antipathies of Sunni and Shiah
-divide the Tartars, and the Georgians are in a period of transition
-from their old feudal system to a new and more settled social order,
-while the union of their Church with the Orthodox Church of Russia
-has deprived them of the natural rallying point for that community of
-sentiment which is based on a consciousness of race pride. Should the
-Russians become possessed of the Armenian provinces of the Turkish
-Empire, the most numerous as well as the most solid of the elements
-of population in Transcaucasia will be furnished by the Armenian race.
-
-The distribution of the Armenians within the present limits of Russian
-Transcaucasia, but outside the area of the Armenian tableland, may
-be presented in a concise manner as follows:--In the Government of
-Elizabetpol, which includes Karabagh, they number 258,000; but only
-in the Governmental divisions of Shusha and Zangezur, that is to
-say in the tract of country between the Araxes on the east and the
-south-eastern shore of Lake Sevan on the west, do they constitute the
-numerically preponderating race; while in the other divisions and in
-the whole Government they are largely outnumbered by the Tartars. The
-Government of Tiflis contains nearly 212,000 Armenians, of whom I shall
-include 99,000 in my estimate for the tableland itself; the remainder
-are distributed over the other divisions of the Government, and in the
-town of Tiflis, where they attain the imposing number of 55,000 among a
-total population for the nineties of 145,000 souls. In the Government
-of Baku, out of a total Armenian population of 55,000 there are over
-24,000 in the town of Baku itself, where they are engaged in commerce
-and in the oil works; they are also numerous in the town and district
-of Shemakha, which lies to the west of Baku. In the Government of
-Kutais they only number 16,000, and most of these reside in the towns.
-
-The Armenians, being a commercial and industrial as well as an
-agricultural people, have spread themselves outside the natural limits
-of their country, attracted to the growing centres of industry upon
-its confines. They contribute a valuable and increasing element to the
-urban populations. But it is only when we have crossed the mountains
-which separate their highlands from the rest of Transcaucasia that
-we become conscious of treading upon Armenian soil. Throughout its
-extension from Akhalkalaki and Alexandropol on the north-east to Egin
-and Kharput on the south-west, that elevated stage of the Asiatic
-tablelands which we may still call Armenia bears the imprint of the
-individuality of the Armenian people to a greater degree than of any
-other race. In the immense expanse of these Armenian landscapes--where
-blue lakes lie lapped in treeless plains, swelling with ochreous
-surface from hummock to hill, from hill to some long descending
-mountain outline that sweeps from the summit of a snow-crowned
-cone--the note which is uttered by man is lost. Yet there is scarcely
-a remote valley or lonely island which does not attract a band of
-pilgrims to worship in the beautiful monasteries which date from the
-times of the kings of Armenia and keep alive the story of the past. The
-fertile ground is for the most part tilled by an Armenian peasantry,
-whose burrows, resembling large ant-hills, are scarcely perceptible
-in the scene. All the machinery of whatever civilisation the land may
-possess is furnished by Armenians. The language which you most often
-hear is the somewhat harsh Armenian tongue; the legends and historical
-memories which attach to the great works of Nature have for the most
-part an Armenian origin. Over the area of the Armenian tableland,
-as it is delimited in the present work, these people are found in
-nearly double the numbers of any other race. In the preceding chapter
-I have established the natural frontiers of the country within Russian
-territory; and in the companion chapter of the second volume I shall
-hope to perform the same task in respect of the Turkish area. Our
-present concern is with the population of the Russian provinces of
-the tableland, which I have endeavoured to exhibit according to its
-various racial elements in the following tabular statement.
-
-The little map, with which I accompany this table, will make plain
-to my reader the statistical area with which we are dealing. He will
-observe that it agrees in a general manner with the area enclosed
-by the natural frontier. It would not be possible to adapt exactly
-the statistical information at our disposal, based as it is upon
-Governmental units, to the geographical boundaries represented by
-the natural frontier; but those boundaries are so strongly marked
-that they correspond pretty closely with those of the administrative
-divisions. Only in two cases does the statistical area, as shown in
-the map within Russian territory, diverge in a marked degree from the
-geographical; and in both these cases it would have been easy to have
-made them approximately coincide. The one occurs about south of Tiflis,
-where I have preferred to include the ouezde of Borchali within the
-statistical area. It comprises a transitional region between the
-natural frontier and the valley of the Kur, presenting many of the
-characteristics of the tableland, and inhabited in considerable numbers
-by Armenians. The other is furnished by the administrative division of
-Olti, belonging to the Government of Kars. My reason for retaining it
-is principally because it corresponds on the east to the eastern limits
-of the Turkish vilayet of Erzerum on the west. Both these Governments,
-of Kars and of Erzerum, overlap into the Chorokh region; and in the
-case of Erzerum I have not been able to determine the exact boundaries
-of the overlapping administrative units. With these exceptions the
-natural area of the Armenian provinces in Russia corresponds fairly
-closely with the area comprised by the Governments of Erivan and Kars
-together with the ouezdes of Akhaltsykh, Akhalkalaki and Borchali,
-belonging to the Government of Tiflis. Karabagh I have excluded both
-from the geographical and from the statistical area, representing as
-it does an Armenia in miniature on the side of the Caspian Sea.
-
-
-TABLE II.--Population of the Armenian Tableland in Russia
-
-(Census of 1886 and figures of 1891 for Kars)
-
-+-------------+------------------+-----------+----------+----------------+
-|             | Govt. of Tiflis; |           |          |                |
-| Nationality.|   ouezdes of     | Govt. of  | Govt. of |   Totals.      |
-|             |  Akhalkalaki,    |  Erivan.  |  Kars.   |                |
-|             | Akhaltsykh and   |           |          |                |
-|             |   Borchali.      |           |          |                |
-+-------------+------------------+-----------+----------+----------------+
-|             |                  |           |          |                |
-| Armenians   |      99,258      |  375,700  |  44,280  |   519,238      |
-| Tartars     |      55,253      |  251,057  |     ...  |   306,310      |
-| Kurds       |       2,127      |   36,478  |  30,259  |    68,864      |
-| Greeks      |      19,170      |    1,026  |  27,567  |    47,763      |
-| Turks       |          31      |      ...  |  46,954  |    46,985      |
-| Georgians   |      31,069      |       33  |     ...  |    31,102      |
-| Russians    |      12,879      |    4,152  |  11,813  |    28,844      |
-| Karapapakhs |         ...      |      ...  |  27,247  |    27,247      |
-| Turkomans   |         ...      |      ...  |  10,174  |    10,174      |
-| Others      |       4,650      |    1,959  |   2,574  |     9,183[432] |
-+             +------------------+-----------+----------+----------------+
-|       Total |     224,437      |  670,405  | 200,868  | 1,095,710[433] |
-|             |                  |           |          |                |
-+-------------+------------------+-----------+----------+----------------+
-|  Sq. Miles. |    4,585.85      | 10,074.75 | 7,307.29 | 21,967.89[434] |
-|             |                  |           |          |                |
-+-------------+------------------+-----------+----------+----------------+
-|                                             Pop. per  |    49.877      |
-|                                             Sq. Mile. |                |
-+-------------------------------------------------------+----------------+
-
-
-Further analysis of the figures which have just been presented would
-show that the stronghold of the Armenians, the locality in which
-they are most numerous, is the rich country through which the Arpa
-Chai flows on its way to join the middle course of the Araxes. There
-is situated the fortress and modern town of Alexandropol, which is
-inhabited almost exclusively by Armenians; and there are placed,
-a little further south, the remains of the ancient city of Ani, of
-which the deserted site still testifies to the state and splendour
-of their kings. The upland plains about Akhalkalaki on the north are
-dotted with Armenian villages; while the valley of the Araxes on the
-south, from Kagyzman to Erivan, and especially in the district of
-Edgmiatsin, contains a considerable Armenian population. The town
-and district of Novo-Bayazet, on the western shore of Lake Sevan,
-is for the greater part Armenian. On the other hand, the eastern
-portion of the Araxes valley, commencing from the town of Ordubad,
-is held in large numbers by the Tartars, who run the Armenians
-close in the extensive and important area which is covered by the
-Government of Erivan. It must be remembered, in reference to the
-Armenian population of the Russian provinces, that their numbers have
-been considerably augmented by emigration from Turkey and Persia. It
-is computed that not less than 10,000 families from the district of
-Erzerum followed the Russian army out of Turkey in 1829; and numbers
-of their countrymen--it is said not less than 40,000--had already
-accompanied the same force from the frontier districts of Persia when
-it retired from Tabriz at the Peace of Turkomanchai.
-
-Next to the Armenians, the most numerous element in the population are
-the Tartars, who extend from the Persian frontier up the valley of
-the Araxes, and cover with their settlements the eastern districts
-of the plateau region and the whole of Karabagh. The Tartars of
-Transcaucasia represent a section of those warriors of Turkish race
-who, from the time of the appearance of the Seljuks down to the end
-of the eighteenth century, were driven to this country by political
-conditions from the northern provinces of Persia--that is, from
-Azerbaijan, and from the eastern shores of the Caspian Sea. Their
-language is still the lingua franca of the districts between Caucasus
-and the Armenian plateau. Within the area with which we are now dealing
-they belong almost entirely to the Shiah sect, and, besides sharing
-the religion of Persia, contain an admixture of Persian blood. It is
-not so long ago that their seats in Armenia formed a Persian khanate,
-and were administered by Persian sirdars; and the wealthy families
-who flourished during that period are still the owners of extensive
-gardens, and live on the proceeds of their land. In the humbler walks
-of life they are distinguished by their skill in all those methods
-of working mud which are practised in the East; they are plasterers,
-wall-makers, skilled men in the construction of works of irrigation;
-while most of the little tradesmen, the hucksters and fruit-sellers
-are Tartars, and many of the gardeners and drivers of carts. In the
-country they have passed from the nomadic stage, and are prosperous
-settlers upon the land. In the town of Erivan, where their numbers
-equal those of the Armenians, many of the largest gardens are owned
-by Tartar families, and many of the most prosperous houses of business
-are in Tartar hands. The degree of religious tolerance which they have
-achieved in that town was a matter of extreme astonishment to me, when
-I remembered how often I had in vain resented the bigotry of the Shiahs
-while travelling within the dominions of the Shah. The Persians are
-unable to enforce reciprocity in their country, and to repay us for
-the pleasure and the profit which they may derive in inspecting the
-great religious buildings of Europe by suppressing and impounding the
-vicious fanatics who drive us from the doors of their mosques. It is a
-pleasure to offer a well-deserved tribute to that sense of respect for
-themselves and for their religion of which the Shiahs of Erivan give
-so striking a proof by admitting the stranger, whatever his creed,
-into the innermost courts of their spacious and beautiful mosque;
-and it is not imprudent to hope and to expect that the narrow path
-which they are still treading may widen as the years increase. On
-the other hand, it is not without disappointment that we may note the
-small progress they have hitherto made in availing themselves of the
-opportunities of education which the Russian Government have placed
-within their reach. I have drawn attention to this circumstance in
-my notice of the schools of Erivan; and it is safe to prophesy that,
-unless a radical change be soon effected, the Tartars will be edged
-out by the Armenians and will diminish in numbers year by year.
-
-The remaining peoples native to the country upon whom it is necessary
-to bestow a passing glance are the Kurds, the Greeks, the Turks, the
-Georgians and the Karapapakhs. The Kurds within Russian territory have
-not yet abandoned their nomadic habits; they are found as far north
-as the country about Batum, but their principal pasture-grounds
-are on the Turkish frontier and in Karabagh. The Kurds in the
-neighbourhood of Ararat pursue two main directions during their
-summer wanderings; one body proceeds towards the north, through the
-districts of Edgmiatsin and Alexandropol, and stations itself upon
-the highlands about Akhaltsykh and Akhalkalaki; the other takes an
-easterly course and enters the Government of Elizabetpol. The total
-number of Kurds in Transcaucasia is given as 100,000, of whom the
-larger part inhabit within the area with which we are concerned;
-the rest are found in greatest number in Karabagh. The Greeks have
-several villages, principally in the Government of Kars; those which
-I saw were prosperous, and the gay dresses and trinkets of the women
-betokened a somewhat higher stage of comfort than that which is usual
-in the country as a whole. These Greeks speak Turkish and are learning
-Russian; their versatile genius enables them to change nationality as
-we take a change of air. They are excellent miners and road engineers;
-the fine chaussée which has recently been completed up the valley
-of the Toporovan river to Akhalkalaki was constructed by the skilled
-labour of Greek workmen. The small number of Georgians who are included
-in our area are found, as would be expected, in the valley of the
-Kur. In many places the race has received such a large admixture of
-Turkish blood that the inhabitants, although classed as Georgians,
-would call themselves Turks, and are in religion Mussulman. In such
-villages I found much discontent with the existing order, and the
-evident outward signs of breaking up and decay. The Turks are found
-almost exclusively in the Government of Kars, which is also the seat
-of a hybrid tribe called Karapapakhs, or "Black Caps," from the black
-lambskin caps which they wear. The origin of the German and of the
-Russian settlers has already been described in the course of this
-work (see Ch. VII.); the latter belong almost exclusively to the
-Dukhobortsy and Molokan sects, expelled by the Russian Church-State
-from the home provinces of the Russian Empire. The Dukhobortsy must
-have diminished in numbers to an appreciable extent since the date
-of these statistics, owing to the recent emigration of large numbers
-into the bosom of the British Empire (p. 116).
-
-When one reflects upon the social condition of the country, no
-circumstance is perhaps more striking than the complete separation
-of one race from another. Although living side by side, there
-is an entire absence of natural fusion of the different elements
-upon a common plane. Cases exist both in the Russian and in the
-Turkish provinces of Armenia where, from a sense of advantage or
-by compulsion, the people of a particular district have adopted
-the Mussulman religion during periods of Mussulman persecution, and
-have become, by intermarriage and closer intercourse, absorbed into
-the dominant race. I may instance in Russian Armenia the Georgian
-inhabitants of the valley of the Upper Kur, and across the Turkish
-frontier the Armenians of the Tortum district and the Greeks of many
-of the valleys of the peripheral region. But such examples have only
-aggravated the differences to which separation is due. They have
-converted the existing prejudices into animosities, and have retarded
-rather than advanced any tendency towards fusion. When Russia appeared
-on the scene, it might have been expected that at least in the case
-of Christians of various professions and nationalities a disposition
-to draw together might have made itself felt. As a matter of fact the
-reverse has been the case. To the old religious breaches has been added
-a new barrier--the hungry Russian Orthodox Church. Certainly in the
-case of a marriage between a Russian sectary and an Armenian--and I
-believe also in that of the other professions, should, for instance,
-an Armenian of the Gregorian persuasion wed a Protestant of the same
-nation--the children of such a mixed union are required by Russian law
-to be brought up in the Russian Orthodox faith. It makes no difference
-that neither of the parents professes that faith. The result has,
-therefore, been that the old heterogeneous collection have been
-increased by two more species of the Christian happy family--the
-Molokans and Dukhobortsy. And upon both is riveted isolation from
-their neighbours--or in the alternative the necessity of educating
-their children in a creed and religious system which they abhor.
-
-In such circumstances very little has been effected by the Russian
-settlers towards raising the standards already prevailing in their
-adopted country. Inasmuch as these sectaries belong to the flower of
-the peasantry in Russia, one should, perhaps, regret the presence of
-any artificial barriers. It is true that they do not stand as high in
-the scale of peoples as their Armenian neighbours with their ancient
-but deeply corroded culture and their natural aptitudes--these,
-happily, unimpaired. But in moral force the Russians are easily
-superior; and their methods of agriculture, if they were generally
-followed in the country, would produce an economical revolution. Up
-to the present time their example has been thrown away. Their neat
-stone houses, spacious carts, ploughs and field implements have
-not inspired the Armenians to forsake their ancestral habits--to
-improve the means of cultivation, and to emerge from their unhealthy
-burrows into the light and comfort of glass windows and solid walls
-of stone. This barrenness of result is, no doubt, in part due to the
-manner in which the Russian immigration took place. Expelled from their
-native country, the peasants came in whole villages, with their women
-and their children and their household goods. Their new settlements
-were grouped together and rendered self-sufficient; and neither the
-necessities nor the inducements of social intercourse drew them away
-from their own circles. To the traveller as well as to the native they
-are a piece of Russia laid down in Armenia; the curious stare and
-pass on. As an outpost of the northern empire they can be of little
-value owing to the religious opinions which they profess. It is well
-known in the country that the Government are reserving vast tracts
-of land in the hope that some day Russian colonists, these, it is
-expected, of the Orthodox faith, may be attracted to these salubrious
-uplands. The climate would suit them well. Should the Germans realise
-their scheme of colonising Asia Minor, an ethnical redistribution
-would be accomplished on a large scale. But the population of the
-country is at present so scanty and its resources so vast, that the
-Armenians have little to fear from such a development.
-
-Let us now proceed to the political side of our subject, and endeavour
-to measure the system of government under which these various peoples
-live. It will be interesting to keep in view both their dispositions
-towards it and the results, material and moral, which it may be
-considered to have brought about.
-
-The administration by Russia of the north-eastern half of Armenia has
-been occupied with races whose more recent political history consists
-in their passage from one domination to another; and the presence
-of discontent in certain quarters may be regarded as the inevitable
-outcome of the change. The Mussulman adherents of the old Turkish
-dominion share with their neighbours of Turkish origin the humiliation
-of a fallen state; and their Turkish sympathies and connections,
-while they excite the suspicions of the Russian Government, dispose
-them to yield to the lightest pressure, and to cross the border into
-Turkish soil. [435] The Armenians, who have been a mainstay to Russia
-both in her Persian and in her Turkish wars, whose lands were swept
-by the tide of battle, and who can recall the memory of conflicts
-which extended even to the walls of their sanctuary, the cloister
-of Edgmiatsin, are inclined to temper their sentiments of gratitude
-with the consciousness of the services which they rendered--services
-which many among them may be disposed to consider have only resulted
-in the imposition of a fresh and more burdensome yoke. North of the
-tableland the Georgian races, whose kingdom, harassed by Mohammedan
-peoples, was driven to seek assistance outside, have not yet forgotten
-the disappointment of the hope which many among them had cherished,
-that Russian intervention might assume the form of a protectorate
-rather than of a complete absorption of the Georgian element into
-the Russian State. But such regrets and disillusionments are but
-the familiar sequel to the constitution of empire upon a new soil;
-and human nature under such circumstances is more prone to count the
-loss than to recognise the gain. Over twenty years have now elapsed
-since Russia completed her subjugation of the Caucasus, whose peoples,
-untamed for so long a period, menaced the base of her advance; order
-and peace have been given to the country, and life and property are
-safe. Georgian children are no longer sold into slavery, and a middle
-class is forming amongst that people, whose traditional relation to
-one another was that of noble and serf. An experienced traveller,
-who visited the Armenian provinces in 1868, and passed through the
-more fertile regions of the country between Kars and Kagyzman, has
-left on record a striking picture of the misery of those Mussulman
-times. He was crossing the district of Shuragel, the ancient Shirak
-of the Armenians; and he speaks of deserted towns and villages, of
-Armenian peasants who clung to their ruined homes with a pertinacity
-of affection which neither poverty nor oppression could subdue, of
-the dispossession of the Christians by the Turkish Beys, and of the
-exactions and forays of the Kurds, which had curtailed agriculture
-and stifled industry, and had reduced both to the extreme limit on
-which human life is able to subsist. [436] If, at the present time,
-the Armenian peasant gathers for himself the crops which he has sown,
-and the restless Kurd consults his safety by a sober respect for the
-law, it is to Russia that the people owe this deliverance from the
-license and anarchy of former years.
-
-Had the Russian Government confined its energies to the amiable and
-disinterested task of establishing and maintaining public order as
-the guardian of a distracted country and the knight-errant who clears
-the land of thieves, it would have received the ungrudging gratitude
-of the Armenians, until in the maturity of time they had learnt to
-walk unaided and to cope alone with those lawless elements which
-might still resist the yoke of law. When that happy state had been
-accomplished it might only be natural to suppose that the progressive
-tendencies of the Armenian would lead him to take counsel with his
-neighbours and friends, to thank his protectors for past benefits,
-and to submit that the continuance of foreign tutelage was no longer
-necessary or desirable in the interests of a country to whose welfare
-they had contributed so much. To the Russians such a possible,
-but I think improbable, outcome of all their efforts was scarcely
-calculated to present so rosy an appearance as their ingenuous
-wards might have expected or hoped, and, if the advantages offered
-by the Russian Empire were not sufficiently apparent by themselves,
-it was necessary to reform and to educate a perversity which sooner
-or later would yield. The Russians are not a commercial people, and
-would be content to see the Armenians conduct the commerce of their
-native country and develop its vast resources, could they but collect
-the means; but only on one condition were they prepared to encourage
-such activity: that their subjects should become Russians, and that
-the province should be joined to the Russian Empire not only by the
-slender thread of annexation, but by the abiding tie of a common
-patriotism founded on a community of sentiment with themselves. But
-just at this point the real difficulties of empire arise. Races who
-stand on a low scale in Nature have become absorbed into the Russian
-system by the exertion of little further energy than was required to
-ingrain in them that wholesome respect for their northern conqueror
-which the first sharp conflict had inspired; and the broad, expansive
-Russian character has been able to assimilate them to itself. It is
-different when, whatever the degree of degradation to which they may
-have been reduced by Mussulman oppression, a people is conscious of
-elements of vitality impelling them to higher ideals and standards
-than those which guide the powerful protectors under whom they have
-commenced to breathe. An empire which is confronted with such a
-situation has few alternatives among which to choose. If it cannot
-attract the subject people towards it--if it cannot accomplish that
-task of self-change which is more difficult than any problem which
-the exercise of empire may present--it will sooner or later be driven
-to adopt the expedients of coercion and repression, and to lower the
-plane of civilised life by arresting the race for progress in which
-it was itself unfitted to compete.
-
-Such a political situation can best be gauged and appreciated if we
-approach it from several different points of view--the nature of the
-Russian system, the attitude of Armenians in particular towards it,
-the true significance of such struggles in the larger issues of the
-outside world.... The kindness and hospitality of the Russian people,
-the amiable disposition which, in spite of official exigencies,
-makes them wish the traveller well, the real desire which a large and
-increasing number among them cherish for social progress at home--are
-features in the Russian character which the shortest acquaintance
-will recognise with respect, and which make for the true advance of
-Russia as a civilised nation among her peers. But the moment that the
-elements of progress in Russia have asserted their right to rule,
-the Russian system, as we know it, will die and disappear, and the
-laws which govern its existence will be subject to new conditions,
-which may make for closer national concentration rather than for
-expansion abroad. Such reflections, although not new, are pertinent
-in this place. The element of finality, always relative, may justly
-appear in the eyes of many Armenians to be wanting to the political
-system and to the Government under which they live; and the abhorrence
-which that system inspires tempts them to convert the thought into a
-wish. The ultimate outcome of any revolution in the affairs of Russia
-is too uncertain, and the present evils of her Government are too
-substantial and apparent to induce them willingly to cast in their
-lot with the Russian people, and to abandon their hope of fulfilling
-their destiny in their own manner and, if possible, by themselves.
-
-A people whose commercial activity has brought them into contact with
-the most progressive races of Europe, and whose natural instinct
-renders them eager to assimilate Western thought, can scarcely be
-blamed if they chafe under a system which assumes to establish the
-opinions they shall hold and to select the books which they shall read,
-and which subjects every action of their daily life to an inquisitorial
-control. Such methods are only the manifestations of a settled and
-uniform plan. The Armenian must sink his individuality and resign his
-initiative into Russian hands. He must imbue himself with the ideas
-which his rulers have prepared for him, and which may be opposed to
-the tendencies and the capacities with which he has been endowed. In
-such a prospect he recognises nothing to admire and much to fear. He
-sees the more capable races either driven from the Russian Empire
-or made the object of a constant jealousy and antipathy rather than
-of increasing respect. He feels the grip of an organisation which is
-founded on European methods, and commands all the resources which those
-methods provide; but he distrusts the hands which wield these weapons,
-and he is indifferent to the objects to which they are turned. Even
-the material results of such a system leave him little to hope beyond
-what he has attained. The resources of the country still lie dormant,
-and the Government seems to lack the means or else the will to turn
-them to account. He sees the rich forests of the peripheral region,
-which might yield a considerable revenue in return for an outlay which
-would be comparatively small, left unexploited and neglected, while
-shiploads of wood are entering the ports to supply the requirements
-of the oil industry. That industry itself he sees promoted by foreign
-capital in Russian guise, while the jealousy of all foreign capital
-has closed the door to its beneficent action in the provinces of
-his home. Only a single military railway traverses the tableland,
-and there is scarcely a road upon it except such as are rendered
-necessary by the exigencies of the military arm. A few examples of the
-economical condition of these provinces may emphasise and explain such
-statements of a general kind. The two principal towns are Alexandropol
-and Erivan; yet the road which joins them makes the colossal circuit
-by the northern shore of Lake Sevan, where it meets the main avenue
-of traffic between Tiflis and Erivan. From a point further west on
-this roundabout line of communication a road has been cut with the
-laudable object of shortening the distance; but the same contempt
-for the smaller and more irksome duties of life to which we become
-accustomed in purely Eastern countries has allowed it to fall into ruin
-by neglect, and we are met by the sight, so familiar to the traveller
-in the East, of yawning culverts and broken bridges and parallel tracks
-which have diverged and avoided the perilous surface of the metalled
-way. In Erivan itself, the chief town of a district where capital might
-be turned to the greatest advantage, it is impossible or difficult to
-find a foreign newspaper, while the industrial skill of the advanced
-races of Europe is not represented by a single foreign enterprise, or,
-so far as I know, by a single foreign man of business or industrial
-employee. Persons who know the country well have told me that from
-the point of view of irrigation, so important a requirement in a land
-which suffers from want of rain, it has gone back since the times of
-the Persians, who are experts in such arts. As a consequence of this
-economical stagnation, the spectacle is often presented in a country
-which enjoys security and repose of miserable villages, pinched by the
-scantiest resources and in appearance not more prosperous than those on
-Turkish soil. I cannot help thinking that many of these evils are due
-to excessive centralisation in the Russian capital. When the Governor
-of the Transcaucasian provinces was a Grand Duke residing at Tiflis,
-he was able to gratify his personal interest in their welfare by the
-exercise of a large measure of independent initiative and control; at
-the present day the smallest projects are referred to St. Petersburg,
-and are made subservient to the general economic policy which governs
-the Empire as a whole. But such an explanation serves only to display
-and emphasise the character of the Russian system itself: how small
-are the prospects which it offers in return for the leaden yoke which
-it brings.
-
-Little by little, as all danger on the side of the Mussulman states
-has gradually disappeared, the Russian Government have considered
-it opportune to apply more drastic methods, and to impose upon the
-newest of their adopted children a fuller measure of the disciplinary
-régime. With what instruments they have worked, and how first the
-Church and next the schools have been the objects of their relentless
-embrace, has been already told in the foregoing chapters, notably
-those on Erivan and Edgmiatsin. On their side the Armenians have
-shown no disposition to adopt Russian ways of thought. The greater
-has grown the pressure, the more they have writhed and twisted; at the
-present moment they are lying still with broken wings. The situation
-is cruel in the extreme. From the Turkish provinces they are beaten
-up towards the Russian frontier by bands of long-beaked, predatory
-Kurds. Should they reach their asylum, they are caught in the meshes
-of a quite impervious network; they are sorted and sifted about by
-a swarm of active little officials--the police of the districts, the
-police of the towns, the political police. Camps are instituted where
-the great majority will be detained at pleasure, to be returned on
-the first opportunity to their rifled homes. The repetition of this
-process is causing the decimation of the Armenian people in a surer
-and much more efficacious manner than any massacres. It is true that
-the amelioration if not the removal of such conditions lies to some
-extent in their own hands. "Accept our system, follow the Georgians,
-and seek spiritual and political salvation within the bosom of the
-Russian Church-State." One cannot doubt that in that event the whole
-weight of the great Russian Empire would be thrown into the scale
-for the Armenians. What a tempting prospect for a people so sorely
-tried! Will they not before very long subscribe this obvious solution,
-for which there is so much to be said? I have put the question to all
-the Armenians with whom I have enjoyed opportunities of intercourse,
-and I have put it to those one or two European Consuls who have been in
-Armenia and know the Armenians well. The answer has invariably been in
-a negative sense. Many Armenians go so far as to openly profess their
-preference for the Turkish Government. They state the matter neatly
-in the form of an antithesis. It is a choice between two Oppressions,
-one physical and spasmodic, the other moral and systematic. It is not
-the first time in history that they have been offered the alternative
-of slavery in body or slavery in mind. A remnant may be absorbed;
-but the majority will follow their destiny, will wander out, and,
-perhaps, disappear.
-
-Such is the conclusion, so full of pathos, with such a vein of
-unconscious satire, throwing curious side lights upon the gilded
-figures of Christianity and Empire marching down purple steps with
-arms entwined.... My reader who may know the Armenians from his
-sad experience of an Armenian dragoman picked up in the Levant,
-will not, perhaps, be disposed to view the ruin of that people with
-feelings of keen regret. For myself, coming to the subject free
-from any prepossessions, but with the lessons of extensive travel
-in the countries west of India fresh imprinted on my mind, I must
-freely confess to exactly contrary sentiments. We are living in a
-time of startling changes in Asia; we are witnesses of one of those
-great waves from Europe upon Asia of which the tide-marks have all
-but vanished from the sands of the Present after many centuries of
-repose and stagnation. Some diversion of the current, it is true, has
-taken place towards Africa; but the reservoirs of Europe are being
-filled in a much greater measure than they are depleted by issues
-in that direction. A new and, to all appearances, a permanent factor
-of immense potentiality in its reflex influence upon the economy and
-diplomacy of Europe has arisen in the shape of the United States of
-America. American competition is already obliging the industrial
-states of Europe to compose those ancient quarrels which have so
-often exhausted their great resources, and which have been so long
-exploited with success by Oriental rulers. Day by day new inventions
-are annihilating the old-world obstacles of distance and of time. Asia
-is brought to our doors; and, when we lift the veil in which she has
-so long slumbered, there is nothing beneath but her fair frame and
-the flimsiest web of human littleness, yielding to the first and most
-clumsy attempt to brush it aside.
-
-Nepioi!--We are surely simpletons if through motives of adventure
-and cupidity we fondly cherish the vision of this long-lost continent
-parcelled out like virgin ground among ourselves. The Asiatic, with
-all his debility, is not the African; he is our father, from whose
-lips we received our first lessons, and his old age, become almost
-child-like, contains the germs of rejuvenescence, like the gods of
-ancient Greece. Tenderly and with affection should we approach these
-old races whom Providence has conducted to our threshold. They will
-repay us for our forbearance and solicitude. They worship strength;
-but the display of power in a brutal and ruthless spirit betrays in
-their eyes, who have seen the passage of so many despotisms, underlying
-elements of present weakness and certain failure. In some condition,
-one cannot help feeling, they are likely to survive us, the richer
-or the poorer for the example and imprint which we may have bestowed.
-
-In the Armenians we have a people who are peculiarly adapted to be the
-intermediaries of the new dispensation. They profess our religion,
-are familiar with some of our best ideals, and assimilate each new
-product of European culture with an avidity and thoroughness which no
-other race between India and the Mediterranean has given any evidence
-of being able to rival. These capacities they have made manifest under
-the greatest of disadvantages--as a subject race ministering to the
-needs of Mussulman masters. They know well that with every advance
-of true civilisation they are sure to rise, as they will certainly
-fall at each relapse.
-
-For nearly a thousand years they have been held in subjection; and
-it would be folly to expect that they should not have suffered in
-character by the menial pursuits which they have been constrained
-to follow. They have been rayas, exploited by races most often their
-inferiors in intellect; and I need not enlarge upon the results which
-have followed from such a condition. One should rather wonder that
-their defects are not more pronounced.
-
-On the other hand, they are possessed of virtues with which they are
-seldom credited. The fact that in Turkey they are rigorously precluded
-from bearing arms has disposed superficial observers to regard them
-as cowards. A different judgment might be meted out were they placed
-on an equality in this respect with their enemies the Kurds. At all
-events, when given the chance, they have not been slow to display
-martial qualities both in the domain of the highest strategy and in
-that of personal prowess. The victorious commander-in-chief for Russia
-in her Asiatic campaign of 1877 was an Armenian from the district of
-Lori--Loris Melikoff. In the same campaign the most brilliant general
-of division in the Russian army was an Armenian--Tergukasoff. [437]
-The gallant young staff-officer, Tarnaieff, who planned and led the
-hair-brained attack on the Azizi fort in front of Erzerum, was an
-Armenian, and paid for his daring with his life. At the present day
-the frontier police, engaged in controlling the Kurds of the border,
-are recruited from among Armenians. These examples may be sufficient
-to nail to the counter an inveterate lie, from which the Armenians
-have suffered, at least in British estimation, more, perhaps, than
-from any other supposed defect.
-
-If I were asked what characteristics distinguish the Armenians from
-other Orientals, I should be disposed to lay most stress on a quality
-known in popular speech as grit. It is this quality to which they owe
-their preservation as a people, and they are not surpassed in this
-respect by any European nation. Their intellectual capacities are
-supported by a solid foundation of character, and, unlike the Greeks,
-but like the Germans, their nature is averse to superficial methods;
-they become absorbed in their tasks and plumb them deep. There is
-no race in the Nearer East more quick of learning than the Persians;
-yet should you be visited by a Persian gentleman accompanied by his
-Armenian man of business, take a book down from your shelves, better
-one with illustrations, and, the conversation turning upon some subject
-treated by its author, hand it to them after a passing reference. The
-Persian will look at the pictures, which he may praise. The Armenian
-will devour the book, and at each pause in the conversation you
-will see him poring over it with knitted brows. These tendencies
-are naturally accompanied by forethought and balance; and they have
-given the Armenian his pre-eminence in commercial affairs. He is
-not less clever than the Greek; but he sees further, and, although
-ingrained with the petty vices of all Oriental traders, the Armenian
-merchant is quick to appreciate the advantages of fair dealing
-when they are suggested by the conditions under which his vocation
-is pursued. A friend with a large experience of the Balkans, with
-their heterogeneous urban populations, has told me, as an interesting
-fact, that in the statistics of bankruptcy for those countries the
-proportion of Armenians implicated is comparatively low. Inasmuch as
-such bankruptcies are usually more or less of a fraudulent nature,
-the fact indicates not, perhaps, so much the greater integrity of
-Armenians, as their power to resist an immediate temptation and their
-promptitude in recognising the monetary value of commercial stability.
-
-But in order to estimate this people at anything like their true
-worth, one should study them not in the Levant, with its widespread
-corruption, but in the Russian provinces of Armenia. Here they have
-most successfully utilised the interval between the period when the
-sword of Russia was the sword of the deliverer and that present-day
-period when the principles which inspire her rulers are those of
-Pan-orthodoxy and Panslavism. I was so much surprised by the results
-achieved, and by the contrast which was offered between the sterling
-progress of this newly-emancipated population and the stagnation and
-progressive relapse of their neighbours of different nationality,
-spread over the whole wide area of the Nearer Asia, that, without
-any certain previous purpose, I resolved to pursue the study further
-and to protract the journey into Turkish territory. For what was
-it that I saw? In every trade and in every profession, in business
-and in the Government services the Armenian was without a rival
-and in full possession of the field. He equips the postal service
-by which you travel, and if you are so fortunate as to find an inn
-the landlord will be an Armenian. Most of the villages in which you
-sojourn are inhabited by a brawny Armenian peasantry. In the towns,
-if the local governor attaches to your service the head of the local
-police, it will be a stalwart Armenian in Russian uniform who will
-find you either a lodging or a shady garden in which to erect your
-tents. If you remark on the way some well-built edifice which aspires
-to architectural design, it will be the work of an Armenian builder
-from Alexandropol. In that city itself, where the Armenians are most
-numerous, the love of building, which was so marked a characteristic
-of their forefathers, has blossomed again among kinder circumstances;
-a spacious cathedral and several large churches stand among new
-stone houses fronted with ambitious façades. In Erivan each richer
-merchant has lodged himself in an agreeable villa, of which the
-Italian architecture rises from the shade of poplars and willows and
-fruit trees laden with fruit. The excellent wine which is found in
-Erivan is made according to the newest methods by an Armenian who
-has studied for two years in Germany the most modern appliances of
-the industry in Europe. The monetary transactions of the country are
-in the hands of Armenian bankers. The skilled workmen--jewellers,
-watchmakers, carpenters--are Armenians. Even the ill-miened officer
-of mounted frontier police, whose long association with the wilder
-elements--Kurds and robbers of small and large degree--has lent him
-the appearance of a chief of brigands, will bear, not much to its
-honour, an Armenian name. The large majority of the people do not
-speak Russian, or speak it very imperfectly. Indeed, were it not
-for the fact that the governors and chief police officials of large
-districts are Russians, and that Cossacks and Russian regular soldiers
-may here and there be seen, the traveller would not suspect that he
-was in a Russian province, and would go the way he listed with the
-most serene composure until he was rudely awakened by some abrupt
-collision with the Russian system and brought to his proper mind. As
-it is, the Armenian has edged out the Russian, and, if Peace were
-allowed her conquests unhindered, he would ultimately rule in the land.
-
-Such a situation is suggestive; nor can we feel surprise if the
-Armenian has exercised his Oriental imagination upon it in a manner
-less prudent than may be calculated to appeal to the slower veined
-races of the West. The idea of a modern Armenian kingdom has set the
-spark to that national enthusiasm which the perusal of his historical
-records has fed. The example of Eastern Europe has seemed to justify
-his speculations. When I come to deal with the Turkish provinces,
-I shall endeavour to show the falseness of such premisses; but I do
-not believe that any such details have influenced his somewhat more
-general conceptions, and they are not pertinent here. The vision of an
-independent Armenian state, could it be realised in a remote future,
-will not appeal to all minds alike. Many will see a real danger to
-human progress in the creation of these small states. The national
-sentiment they would place among those realised ideals upon which, as
-our civilisation widens, it is necessary to build anew. The magnitude
-of the conflict, should any of the greater nations enter the arena of
-war, acts as a wholesome preventive to ambitions which the small state
-is prone to indulge on the least pretence. The gratification of such
-ambitions causes bad administration and ends in bankruptcy, while few
-of the advantages which are offered by a great empire can the people of
-a little country enjoy. Such considerations have great weight, and it
-would probably be well if, whenever it were practicable, our political
-actions were founded upon them; yet they scarcely indicate a solution
-in the present case. The Armenian, who is a convert to such views,
-might justly ask in what quarter he should look. The Turkish Empire
-will not even protect him, and massacres its Armenian subjects; while,
-should he turn his eyes to Russia, he sees no prospects of material
-advantage which would enable him to rise above the economic stage to
-which he has already attained, and surrender to Russian ideals could
-only be effected in his opinion at the price of moral and intellectual
-annihilation. Confronted with such an outlook, he seeks refuge within
-himself; and, should he consult his more sober perceptions, he will
-labour in silence and without ostentation to supply the requirements
-which his race still needs; to raise the peasant from his present
-degradation, to purify the Church, to promote the interest of his
-richer neighbours in work for the common good. These are the more
-legitimate ambitions which, however tedious, are certain of success,
-and which will establish, whatever be the revolution of politics,
-his right to influence the history of his country as one of the only
-stable native elements of progress in the Nearer East.
-
-If, before concluding these reflections, we turn to the broader issues
-upon which such questions bear, and, having examined the comparative
-failure of Russia in Armenia, consider its significance to the larger
-world, we may find that the very strength of the Russian system as
-a powerful factor in international life derives from the self-same
-character which has denied her victory here. Had Russia through
-a natural process of attraction been able to draw towards her the
-higher races who stood on her path, she would have been a greater
-nation, but perhaps a less formidable force. Round her she groups
-the less cultivated peoples--the nomads of Asia, the wanderers of
-the steppe--and arms them with the might of a European organisation
-which the intellect of Europe, impressed into her service, perfects
-as a weapon for her use. The dangers which such results threaten
-can only imperil the improvident and those whose nervous powers are
-unstrung; but the world has not yet advanced sufficiently to render
-those dangers unreal. The indolence of mind which shrinks from facing
-difficulties and leaves them to solve themselves is not the least
-element of weakness in her European neighbours by which Russia profits
-and through which she grows; but the victory will now as always be
-given to those states which unite with a higher civilisation a spirit
-of enterprise still healthy and powers still unimpaired.
-
-
-
-                             END OF VOL. I
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-NOTES
-
-
-[1] J. P. Fallmerayer, born in 1790, the son of humble parents,
-whose flocks he tended on the mountain-sides as a boy. Died in 1861;
-a great scholar, a great writer, whose work has not yet received all
-the recognition which it deserves.
-
-[2] Finlay, Mediĉval Greece and the Empire of Trebizond, Oxford,
-1877, p. 340.
-
-[3] The dimensions of the interior are: length to head of apse,
-33 feet; breadth, 21 feet 7 inches.
-
-[4] The ornament is as follows: [Illustration].
-
-The inscription is: [Illustration].
-
-I notice that M. Gabriel Millet identifies this figure as a Saint
-Michael (op. infra cit. p. 436).
-
-[5] Bejeshkean (op. infra cit.) publishes the inscription of
-Justinian on the face of the old gateway of Tabakhaneh, which has
-now disappeared. It records the restoration of the public edifices
-of the city by that emperor. See also Hamilton, op. infra cit.
-
-[6] The population of Trebizond at the present day is estimated at
-45,000 souls.
-
-[7] Since writing this chapter two articles in the Bulletin
-de Correspondance Hellénique (Paris) for 1895 have come to my
-notice. They are: G. Millet, Les monastères et les églises de
-Trébizonde, pp. 419-459; and J. Strzygowski, Les chapiteaux de Sainte
-Sophie de Trébizonde, pp. 517-522.
-
-[8] A railway, connecting the capital of Georgia, Tiflis, with
-Alexandropol and Kars, has been completed since the date of this
-journey. It winds its way up the valley of the Borchala.
-
-[9] At 11.15 A.M. 83° F.
-
-[10] Temperature 86° F.
-
-[11] Temperature at 10 P.M. 72° F.; 6.30 A.M. 66° F.
-
-[12] Radde (Reisen in Hoch Armenien, Petermann's Mitth., Gotha,
-1875, p. 59) says: "It appears that at least in this district potato
-culture is making considerable progress in recent times among the
-Armenians." He attributes this to the example of the Molokans and
-Dukhobortsy.
-
-[13] By the road the distance, according to our coachman, would be
-15 versts or 10 miles; by the track which we followed 10 versts or
-6 1/2 miles.
-
-[14] Dubois de Montpéreux, Voyage autour du Caucase, Paris 1839-43,
-vol. ii.
-
-[15] Brosset, Voyage archéologique en Transcaucasie, St. Petersburg,
-1849, 1re livraison, 2me rapport, pp. 119 seq., and atlas, plates
-v. and vi.; Dubois, op. cit. vol. ii. pp. 292 seq.
-
-[16] Brosset, op. cit. p. 143.
-
-[17] Population of Akhaltsykh:--
-
-(1) According to nationality: Armenians, 10,417; Georgians,
-    2730; Jews, 2545; others (including 145 Russians and 110 Poles),
-    424--Total, 16,116.
-(2) According to religion: Gregorian Armenians, 9678; Catholic
-    Armenians, 739; Roman Catholics, 2311; Jews, 2545; others
-    (including 777 Russian Orthodox, 9 Lutherans, and 57 Sunni
-    Mohammedans), 843. (Statistics concerning the populations of
-    Transcaucasia derived from the family lists of 1886. Published
-    by Government, Tiflis, 1893.)
-
-[18] They were: Akhaltsykh, Atzkur, Aspinja, Khertvis, Akhalkalaki,
-Ardahan (Dubois, op. cit. vol. ii. pp. 284-85).
-
-[19] The slave trade was carried on through Circassians, who kidnapped
-the inhabitants of Georgia proper and fled with them across the
-Turkish border to Akhaltsykh (Dubois, op. cit. vol. ii. pp. 261-62;
-Haxthausen, Transcaucasia, London, 1854, p. 100).
-
-[20] Adrien Dupré in Gamba, Voyage dans la Russie méridionale, Paris,
-1826, vol. i. p. 403.
-
-[21] For the interesting siege and capture of Akhaltsykh by Paskevich
-I may refer the reader to Monteith, Kars and Erzerum, London, 1856,
-ch. vi. pp. 182 seq.; Dubois, op. cit. vol. ii. pp. 258 seq., and
-a note to Haxthausen, op. cit. p. 100. Eli Smith, who travelled in
-the country in 1830-31, informs us that the siege of Akhaltsykh was
-one of the two occasions upon which the Turks gave the Russians a
-fair trial of their bravery. The other was at Baiburt (Missionary
-Researches in Armenia, London, 1834, p. 82).
-
-[22] Dubois saw it still standing in 1833. I cannot find when it
-was cut down. Brosset (op. cit. p. 149) mentions the conversion of
-the mosque.
-
-[23] Dubois, op. cit. vol. ii. p. 263.
-
-[24] Eli Smith informs us that at the time of his journey (1830-31)
-Akhaltsykh was the only place, coming within the range of his enquiry
-in Turkish Armenia, that contained any Jews (Missionary Researches,
-p. 100).
-
-[25] Brosset, op. cit. p. 149.
-
-[26] Dubois, op. cit. vol. ii. p. 267.
-
-[27] Brosset, op. cit. pp. 139, 149.
-
-[28] Brosset speaks of the church and tower of Akhashen as being
-remarkable both as an example of composite architecture and for
-possessing a fine sculptured cross on the door and a figure of
-St. Theodore on horseback (Voyage archéologique en Transcaucasie,
-St. Petersburg, 1849, 1re livraison, 2me rapport, p. 150).
-
-[29] Neither Dubois (Voyage autour du Caucase, Paris 1839-43,
-vol. ii. p. 330) nor Brosset (Voy. arch. 2me rapport, p. 176) has
-more than passing notices of Aspinja. But Dubois tells us that in his
-time all the inhabitants spoke Georgian except the mollah, who had
-recently arrived from Asia Minor. He adds that they were formerly
-Georgian Christians, and their ancient church still existed in a
-ruinous condition.
-
-[30] I have not verified their statement, which was repeated in other
-places, that according to a decree of 1890 they would be liable to
-military service in ten years after the date of the decree.
-
-[31] 229 houses, with 1360 inhabitants (Family lists of 1886).
-
-[32] He gives a population of 800 souls (op. cit. vol. ii. p. 304).
-
-[33] Dubois (op. cit. vol. ii. pp. 298, 299) informs us that the
-Mussulmans of these districts are the old Georgian inhabitants
-whom Safar Pasha compelled to embrace Islam in 1625. He adds that
-the Armenians escaped this persecution, having been accorded by the
-reigning Sultan liberty of conscience, like the Jews in France under
-similar conditions.
-
-The river Kur is essentially a Georgian river, even where it traverses
-districts which belong geographically to the Armenian tableland. For
-the history and character of the country about its upper course one
-may usefully consult the works of Dubois and Brosset already cited
-in this chapter, and Koch's Reise im pontischen Gebirge, Weimar, 1846.
-
-[34] Dubois (op. cit. vol. ii. p. 314) calls the Kur a torrent above
-Khertvis, and says it only becomes a river after the junction with
-the Toporovan river.
-
-[35] I must refer the reader to Dubois, op. cit. vol. ii. pp. 302 seq.,
-and Brosset, Voy. arch. p. 152.
-
-[36] So Abich explains the phenomena (Geologische Forschungen in den
-kaukasischen Ländern, part iii. p. 31).
-
-[37] Dubois, op. cit. vol. ii. pp. 308 seq.; Brosset, Voy. arch. 2me
-rapport, p. 165, who gives an account of the adjacent church of Tsunda;
-and Abich, op. cit. part iii. p. 34. I would refer my reader to the
-last of these writers for an account of the geology of the gorge of
-Zeda Tmogvi (part iii. pp. 35, 36).
-
-[38] Brosset is not quite sure about it (Voy. arch. 2me rapport,
-p. 165). The governor of Akhalkalaki had no doubt about the correctness
-of the identification.
-
-[39] Dubois, op. cit. vol. ii. p. 319; and see also Brosset, Atlas
-(plate xii.) to the Voyage archéologique and text, pp. 163 seq. I
-shall not attempt to reconcile the text of Brosset with his plan of
-the church, his plan with that of Dubois, or the measurements of either
-with my own. My own measurements at Vardzia and throughout the journey
-were made by myself with a long tape-measure which I always carried
-with me. The height of the church is given by Dubois as 40 feet.
-
-[40] In taking leave of Vardzia may I refer the reader to the
-excellent description of Dubois. He mentions the existence of a
-third and smaller church, which he says is adorned with ancient
-frescos, with inscriptions which are all in the Greek language. The
-frescos are in the Byzantine style, and cannot be much later than the
-middle of the eleventh century. Brosset, who also saw this chapel,
-maintains, on the other hand, that all the inscriptions are in the
-Georgian ecclesiastical character; he adds that there is a Greek
-inscription disposed about the emblems of a Calvary in an adjoining
-niche (Voy. arch. 2me rapport, p. 106).
-
-[41] The published total of 59,496 is made up as follows:--Armenians,
-42,301; Georgians, 9771; Russians, 6617; Kurds, 689; others, 118
-(official statistics based on the lists of 1886, Tiflis 1893). It
-is noticeable that the Governor's list places the Russians at 6300,
-a diminution since 1886.
-
-[42] The plain has a gulf-like extension or arm on the side of Lake
-Tabizkhuro. Coming from the lake, Radde estimated that the plain
-proper commences at the village of Kestano, which I take to be the
-Bejano of the Russian map, and that this village lay some 1000 feet
-lower than the level of the lake. The plain would therefore have an
-altitude of 5650 feet at its north-eastern extremity. From Bejano to
-the south-western shore of Lake Khozapin is a direct distance on the
-map of thirty-six miles.
-
-[43] Radde in Petermann's Mitth. 1876, p. 143.
-
-[44] Radde is almost certainly in error in making the pass of Karakaya,
-which is the shortest route, over 9500 feet high (Petermann's Mitth.,
-1876, p. 141).
-
-[45] Monteith (Kars and Erzeroum, pp. 85, 168, 173 seq.). Haxthausen
-informs us that "not one Turk accepted his life--every man remained
-dead upon the spot" (Transcaucasia, p. 100). He had received the
-story in this truly Oriental form.
-
-[46] Abich calls it "das am weitesten umfassende des armenischen
-Hochlandes" with the exception of the view from Ararat (Geologische
-Forschungen in den kaukasischen Ländern, Vienna, 1887, part
-iii. p. 39). But few have been or probably ever will be privileged
-to reach the summit of the mother of the world under conditions
-entirely favourable to such a panorama. And from such a height the
-world appears very insignificant.
-
-[47] According to Eli Smith (Missionary Researches in Armenia, London
-1834, pp. 195 seq.), upon whom I have based this account, the whole
-number of these German colonists was in 1830 about 2000 souls. Their
-present number may be estimated from the published statistics of
-1886. The following are the figures for the various colonies:--
-
-    Government of Tiflis: Town of Tiflis, 1117. Administrative
-    division (ouezde) of Tiflis: Alexandersdorf, 384; Marienfeld, 396;
-    Petersdorf, 195; Friedenthal, 83; Elizabeththal, 1148. Ouezde
-    of Borchali: Ekaterinenfeld, 1209; Alexandershilf, 366. Other
-    localities, 60. Total for Government of Tiflis, 4958.
-
-    Government of Elizabetpol: Helenendorf, 1457; Anenfeld, 437. Total,
-    1894.
-
-    Grand total, 6852 souls.
-
-[48] Eli Smith, speaking of the Roman Catholic missions, is not ashamed
-to make use of the following language:--"Unfortunately a missionary can
-hardly set his foot upon any spot in that field (the Mediterranean)
-without encountering some sentinel of the 'Mother of Harlots,' ready
-to challenge him and shout the alarm" (op. cit. p. 210). In the course
-of my reading I have incidentally collected parallel passages from
-the works of other writers belonging to the cloth, and it is with pain
-that I note that for foul thoughts, expressed through a foul mouth, it
-would be difficult to find their equal in the writings of lay authors.
-
-[49] The Armenian Lutherans of Baku were numbered at 350 souls in 1886
-(Official Statistics, etc.). According to Sembat, there are also
-communities at Shemakha, Erivan and its neighbourhood, Karakala,
-near Kars, and Tiflis.
-
-[50] Müller-Simonis, Du Caucase au Golfe Persique, Paris, 1892, p. 3.
-
-[51] Letter of the Rev. Athelstan Riley to Daily Chronicle of London,
-August 1897.
-
-[52] Maksimoff, Transcaucasia, quoted by Radde in Petermann's Mitth.,
-1896, p. 145.
-
-[53] See Count Tolstoy in the Times, October 23, 1895. I would also
-refer my reader to a book published since this chapter was written,
-entitled Christian Martyrdom in Russia, edited by Vladimir Tchertkoff,
-with a chapter and letter by Leo Tolstoy, London, 1897.
-
-[54] Tolstoy (the Times, loc. cit.) puts their present number at
-20,000, I know not upon what authority. The official figures based
-on the lists of 1886 are:--Government of Tiflis (Akhalkalaki and
-Borchali), 7263; Government of Elizabetpol, 2404; Government of Kars,
-2766; Government of Erivan, 15. Total, 12,448.
-
-[55] According to the statistics of 1886 it would contain 93 houses
-and 839 inhabitants.
-
-[56] Koch speaks of the surprise with which he saw rye being harvested
-in the country north of Erzerum at an altitude of at least 7500 feet
-(Reise im pontischen Gebirge, Weimar, 1846, p. 267). Telfer (Crimea
-and Transcaucasia, London, 1876, vol. i. p. 278) quotes from reports
-issued by the Tiflis Observatory which establish the following limits
-for the Southern Caucasus:--Barley, 8100 feet; corn, 7906 feet; wheat,
-7400 feet; vine, 3500 feet. Radde estimates that on the northern slopes
-of Alagöz corn ripens at 8300 feet (Petermann's Mitth., 1876, p. 147).
-
-[57] Lukeria Vasilievna Kalmakoff was given to me as her full name.
-
-[58] Count Tolstoy's informant says: "To Christ, as to an historical
-personage, the Dukhobortsy do not ascribe much importance" (The Times,
-loc. cit.). He goes on to tell how, when the Quakers visited them in
-1818 and heard their opinion about Jesus Christ (that he was a man),
-these pious people exclaimed, "Darkness!" I cannot reconcile this
-account with what I learnt at Gorelovka, except by the reflection
-that the Christian world itself holds many opinions upon this subject.
-
-[59] As a sequel to these events, the Dukhobortsy have emigrated in
-large numbers from their seats beyond Caucasus. Once the flower of
-the peasantry in Russia, and afterwards the special pride of Russian
-Governors in their seats of exile, they have now lost their hardiest
-spirits in a fresh exodus. And it is the British Empire which receives
-them! Their choice was at first bestowed upon the island of Cyprus;
-but the warm climate was unpropitious, and they lost some 100 souls in
-about eight months. The bulk of the emigrants appear to have taken
-ship from Cyprus for Canada and British North America during the
-spring of 1899.
-
-[60] The official statistics, based on the census of 1886, give
-Alexandropol a population of 24,230 souls, of whom 22,920 are
-Armenians. Only 200 of these are Armenian Catholic.
-
-[61] Ritter (Erdkunde, vol. x. pp. 438-39) identifies the modern name
-Shuragel with the country designated in Armenian literature as Shirak.
-
-[62] Ker Porter, Travels in Georgia, Persia, Armenia, etc., London,
-1821, vol. i. p. 168.
-
-[63] Wilbraham, Travels in the Transcaucasian Provinces, London,
-1839, p. 277.
-
-[64] For the explanation of this term see the chapter on Erivan.
-
-[65] Fragments of the walls of this building alone survive.
-
-[66] So the inscription on the south wall, as rendered by Brosset
-(Voyage archéologique, 3me rapport, p. 86; and Ruines d'Ani, p. 64).
-
-[67] Brosset, loc. cit.
-
-[68] Radde in Petermann's Mitth., 1876, p. 147.
-
-[69] "...contemplate the company of the stars by night, and them that
-bring winter and summer to mortals, the radiant potentates conspicuous
-in the heaven" (Ĉschylus, Agamemnon, ls. 4-7).
-
-[70] Bryce, Transcaucasia and Ararat, 4th and revised edition, London,
-1896, p. 312.
-
-[71] At Aralykh the thermometer ranged between 60° and 70° Fahrenheit
-between the hours of 6 A.M. and 9 A.M. on the several mornings. At
-mid-day it rose to about 80°.
-
-[72] The temperature at 6.30 P.M. was 50° Fahrenheit, but it sank
-rapidly in the cold wind.
-
-[73] Temperature 10.15 A.M., 72° Fahrenheit.
-
-[74] It is alluded to by some travellers under the name of Tash Kilisa.
-
-[75] Madame B. Chantre, À travers l'Arménie Russe, Paris, 1893, p. 219.
-
-[76] Markoff, Ascension du Grand Ararat, in Bulletin de la
-Soc. Roy. Belge de Géographie, Brussels, 1888, p. 579.
-
-[77] Temperature at 8 P.M., 18° F., and next morning at 5.45 A.M.,
-28° F.
-
-[78] See the photograph of the summit region (Fig. 36, p. 180),
-which clearly shows these various features.
-
-[79] Yet it looks a mere streak in the illustration (Fig. 36). The
-lower end of the snow slope was not well seen from the standpoint of
-that photograph. Actually it resembles a magnificent river.
-
-[80] Abich (Geologische Forschungen in den kaukasischen Ländern,
-Vienna, 1882, part ii. p. 455) ascribes to it an elevation of 14,600
-feet.
-
-[81] The temperature of the air a few feet below the summit out of
-the gale was 20° F. The height of the north-western elevation of
-the south-eastern summit of Ararat is given by my Hicks mountain
-aneroid as 17,493 feet. The reading is no doubt too high by several
-hundred feet. The Carey aneroid gives a still higher figure, and the
-Boylean-Mariotti mercurial barometer entirely refused to work.
-
-[82] The readings on the prismatic compass were 310° and 105°
-respectively.
-
-[83] Sophocles, OEdipus at Colonus, l. 610 seq.
-
-[84] Abich, Besteigung des Ararat, in Baer and Helmersen's
-Beiträge zur Kenntniss des Russischen Reiches, St. Petersburg,
-1849, vol. xiii. p. 63. He supports this suggestion by the fact that
-neither Parrot nor Spasky Avtonomoff mentions the existence of such
-a fissure. But whether you may be able to see any trace of it or not
-must depend upon the state of the snow.
-
-[85] Tournefort, Voyage du Levant, Paris, 1717, vol. ii. pp. 357
-seq. See also Ritter, Erdkunde, vol. x. p. 507.
-
-[86] I refer my reader to the works of Tournefort (already cited),
-Parrot (Reise zum Ararat, Berlin, 1834), and Dubois de Montpéreux
-(Voyage autour du Caucase, Paris, 1839-45, vol. iii.).
-
-[87] The measurements are my own. Dubois speaks of Akhury as being
-five leagues distant from the Kara Su.
-
-[88] Parrot says the same thing, op. cit. p. 108.
-
-[89] For a discussion of the name see Parrot, op. cit. p. 110. Ritter
-(Erdkunde, x. 508) also refers to Brosset (Bulletin de l'Acad. de
-Sc. de St. Pétersbourg, 1841, vol. viii. p. 43), but is in error
-when he says that Brosset spells it Aghuri. He actually spells it
-Acorhi, and throws doubt upon the popular derivation of the name. It
-would appear that the old Armenian name for the place was Akuri or
-Agguri, and that later Armenian writers turned the word into Ark-uri
-in order to extract the signification which I have given in the
-text. I have adopted the spelling of the Russian official map, which
-practically reproduces the old word. Dr. Belck has made the ingenious
-suggestion that the Adduri of the Assyrian inscription of Shalmaneser
-II. (859-824 B.C.)--a name which is applied to the mountains whither
-Arame, king of Urardhu or Ararat, fled before the armies of the
-Assyrian monarch--may be represented by the Armenian Akuri or Agguri
-(Verhandlungen der Berliner Gesellschaft für Anthropologie, 1893,
-p. 71). That the ancient name of a district often survives in that
-of a town in these countries is proved by the analogy of the town
-of Van, which bears the name of the kingdom of which it was formerly
-the capital, the Biaina of the Vannic texts.
-
-[90] Wagner (op. infra cit. p. 166) says that at the time of the
-catastrophe the Armenian inhabitants numbered nearly 1600 souls,
-besides Kurdish labourers.
-
-[91] Von Behagel (apud Parrot, op. cit. 2nd part, p. 183) says 1000
-feet. I quote Parrot p. 147.
-
-[92] Parrot, op. cit. p. 147. Von Behagel (loc. cit.) says that it was
-3258 Paris feet, or 3472 English feet, above the plain of the Araxes.
-
-[93] Parrot, op. cit. p. 135; Dubois, op. cit. vol. iii. p. 471. Most
-travellers tell this story with amplifications and variations. It
-is to be found in its earliest form in Faustus of Byzantium (book
-iii. chap. x.).
-
-[94] Parrot, op. cit. p. 205.
-
-[95] Von Behagel, apud Parrot, loc. cit.
-
-[96] Tournefort, op. cit. vol. ii. p. 368 seq.
-
-[97] The testimony of these witnesses is given by Abich, Geognostiche
-Reise zum Ararat, with two drawings of the chasm, in Monatsberichte der
-Gesellschaft für Erdkunde zu Berlin, series 2, vol. iv. 1846-47. The
-account is reproduced in his Geologische Forschungen in den
-kaukasischen Ländern, Vienna, 1882, part ii. pp. 395 seq., and
-illustrated by a fine geological view of the chasm in the Atlas,
-plate vi. It can best be understood in the reprint. See also Wagner,
-op. inf. cit., and Ritter, Erdkunde, x. pp. 507 seq.
-
-[98] See the summary of this report in Ritter, Erdkunde, x. pp. 509
-seq.
-
-[99] See Moriz Wagner (Reise nach dem Ararat und dem Hochland
-Armenien, Stuttgart, 1848, contained in Widermann and Hauff, Reisen
-und Landesbeschreibungen, Lieferung 35), and Abich in op. cit.
-
-[100] Consult the argument in Wagner, op. cit. pp. 176 seq.
-
-[101] See Ritter, Erdkunde, x. 510; and for former earthquakes
-see Dubois, op. cit. vol. iii. p. 474; Abich, Geolog. Forsch. part
-ii. pp. 390 seq. with map.
-
-[102] "5 versts in a direct line" are Abich's words, op. cit. p. 413.
-
-[103] Ritter, Erdkunde, x. pp. 512, 513.
-
-[104] Abich, Geolog. Forsch. part ii. p. 412.
-
-[105] Abich, op. cit. pp. 413, 414. It is evident that he had Wagner's
-objections in his mind.
-
-[106] This was the reading of my Hicks mountain aneroid, which was
-working well, and it agrees with Parrot who says that the shrine
-stood about 1000 feet above the cloister, i.e. at about 7400 English
-feet. I fear, therefore, that Madame Chantre is in error in ascribing
-to the site of the cloister, much lower down, an elevation of 2250
-metres or 7382 feet (L'Arménie Russe, p. 238). Monsieur Chantre, in
-his monograph on Ararat, confuses the site of the shrine with that
-of the cloister, an error which was also made by my Armenian guide
-(Annales de Géographie, Paris, 1893-94, vol. iii. pp. 81-94).
-
-[107] Abich, Geolog. Forsch. part ii. p. 412, and see for the glacier,
-etc. pp. 397, 399, 400. The illustration is contained on Table VI. of
-his atlas. Parrot appears to be silent on the subject of this glacier;
-but Von Behagel, his companion, offers some remarks upon it (Parrot,
-2nd part, p. 184). I may also refer my reader to Dr. Markoff's article
-in the Bulletin de la société royale Belge de géographie, 1888, p. 589.
-
-[108] Feodoroff, the companion of Parrot, measuring from the valley of
-the Araxes, estimated the difference at 7 feet; Khodzko at 120 feet;
-Bryce at "some 50 feet or so," all in favour of the more westerly
-elevation. My reader will notice that in the photograph (Fig. 37) the
-more easterly, viz. on the left hand, appears to be slightly higher;
-but this circumstance is due to the fact that it stands out a little
-in advance of its neighbour, when seen from the side of the country
-between Erivan and Aralykh.
-
-[109] In estimating the level of the zone of perpetual snow on Ararat
-I am leaving out of account those smaller or greater collections of
-snow which owe their subsistence all through the summer to special
-circumstances, such as shelter from the sun.
-
-Mr. D. W. Freshfield (Exploration of the Caucasus, London, 1896,
-vol. i. p. 55) gives 10,000 feet as a fair figure for the snow-level
-in the central chain of Caucasus.
-
-[110] The account of an ascent in 1897 has quite recently come
-into my hands. It is written by Herr A. Oswald, whose attempt
-was crowned with complete success (Eine Besteigung des Ararat in
-Jahrb. schweiz. Alpenclub, Berne, 1899-1900, vol. xxxv. pp. 157-183).
-
-[111] For Artaxata, Dvin, Khor Virap, etc., see Ker Porter's Travels
-(vol. ii. pp. 619 seq.); Morier (Second Journey, p. 316 and pp. 339
-seq.); Dubois (op. cit. vol. iii. pp. 382 seq.); Smith and Dwight
-(op. cit. pp. 273 seq.). Dubois mentions, but was unable to visit, the
-grottoes of Okhtchapert on the direct road between Erivan and Garni,
-p. 402. They are mentioned by Telfer (Crimea and Transcaucasia,
-vol. i. p. 210), who passed by them on his way to Garni from
-Erivan. Telfer's book should be consulted by English readers for an
-account of these various antiquities. I would also recommend to the
-archĉologist who is desirous of investigating the question of the
-site of Artaxata a reference to Dubois (vol. iii. p. 449).
-
-[112] Op. cit. vol. iii. p. 480.
-
-[113] According to the Jesuit, Père Monier, who wrote an account of
-the mission at Erivan in the eighteenth century, there were only 4000
-inhabitants of the town proper in his day. Of these only one-fourth
-were Armenians (Lettres Édifiantes, Mémoires du Levant, Paris, 1780,
-vol. iii. p. 25). In the thirties of last century the usual estimate
-seems to have been 2500 families or at least 10,000 souls, of whom
-some 700 to 1000 families were Armenian (Smith and Dwight, Missionary
-Researches, p. 279; Sijalski, Aufenthalt in Erivan, Das Ausland,
-Augsburg, 1839). The Armenians are rapidly turning the tables upon
-the Tartars.
-
-[114] Chardin, edit. Paris, 1811, vol. ii. p. 169.
-
-[115] "Erivân, apparens, quia regio ista prima apparuit Noe cum
-descenderet ex monte Ararat" (Villotte, Dict. Arm. p. 273, quoted by
-Langlès ap. Chardin, loc. cit.).
-
-[116] Moses of Khorene, vol. ii. p. 46.
-
-[117] Lane Poole, Mohammedan Dynasties, London, 1894, p. 259.
-
-[118] For the Mohammedan tradition see Travels of Evliya, translated by
-Von Hammer, London, 1850, vol. ii. p. 150. "In the year 810 (A.D. 1407)
-Khoja Khan Lejchani, a rich merchant of Timur's suite, settled here
-(at Erivan) with all his family and servants, cultivating plantations
-of rice, by which means a great Kent was soon formed. Five years later
-Shah Ismail gave to Revan Kul, one of his khans, an order to build
-a castle here, which, being finished in seven years, was named after
-him Revan or Erivan." The five years of Evliya are incomprehensible
-to me. Erivan is mentioned by John Katholikos, who wrote in the
-eleventh century, as having been a considerable place in the seventh
-(Saint-Martin's translation, Paris, 1841, p. 80).
-
-[119] Dubois de Montpéreux, Voyage autour du Caucase, Paris, 1839,
-vol. iii. pp. 346 seq. When Morier, secretary to the British Embassy
-to Persia, visited the sirdar or governor of Erivan in 1814, he was
-told by his host with great gravity that "if three or four of the
-kings of Fireng (Europe) were to unite to take this castle, they
-might just take the trouble of going back again, for their labours
-would be in vain" (Morier, Second Journey, London, 1818, p. 319). The
-sirdar's view was not held by British officers, one of whom, in giving
-an account of his visit in 1837, says, "I had expected to find the
-castle almost impregnable from the honours which were heaped upon the
-Marshal Paskevich for its capture, and was quite surprised to find
-a mere Turkish fort, strong indeed by nature on one side, but on the
-other three defended merely by a mud wall, and commanded from all the
-adjoining hills" (Wilbraham, Travels in the Transcaucasian Provinces,
-etc., London, 1839).
-
-[120] "In dieser abermahligen Veränderung seynd auch alle Türkische
-Moscheen der Stadt übern Hauffen geworffen ... also das etliche
-dergleichen Tempel bis zum Fundament erniedriget und übel ärger von
-Persianen verwüstet als jemahl die Kirchen der Christen von Türcken
-zugerichtet worden seynd. So züchtiget Gott die Mahumetaner mit
-Mahumetanern" (Schillinger, Persianische und Ost-Indianische Reise
-vom Jahr 1699 bis 1702, Nürnberg, 1707).
-
-[121] Tavernier, edit. of Paris, 1679, vol. i. p. 37; Père Monier,
-op. cit. vol. iii. p. 24.
-
-[122] Von Hammer, Geschichte des Osm. Reiches, vol. vii. p. 321.
-
-[123] Morier, Second Journey, p. 320.
-
-[124] Dubois de Montpéreux, op. cit. vol. iii p. 452.
-
-[125] Dubois, ibid. pp. 339 seq. and Atlas.
-
-[126] Dubois, ibid. p. 346, and Morier, Hajji Baba.
-
-[127] Chapter viii. of the Polojenye of 1836.
-
-[128] I was informed by a competent authority that, including Tiflis
-and the whole of Russian Transcaucasia, there were not less than 400
-Armenian schools in existence at the time of my visit. About one-third
-of the number would be schools for girls.
-
-[129] Müller-Simonis (Du Caucase au Golfe Persique, Paris, 1892,
-p. 62), speaking of the celebration of the ceremonies in honour of
-Ali and Hoseyn at Erivan, says: "Le soir les fanatiques qui devront
-représenter les martyres à la grande procession, font une promenade
-aux flambeaux, armés de sabres et de gourdins. Ils agitent en mesure
-leurs flambeaux et leurs armes, criant en même temps à tue-tête:
-'Hussein, Ali, Hussein, Ali.' Les reflets rouges des torches, ici
-découpant les blanches silhouettes des maisons, là plongeant en
-lueurs étranges sous la verdure des arbres, puis éclairant en plein
-les figures hideuses de ces dévots, forment un spectacle sauvage et
-fantastique." The picture is true to life. I have little doubt that
-such a procession may still be witnessed at Erivan.
-
-[130] According to Dubois de Montpéreux the fortifications of
-Edgmiatsin were restored by the Katholikos Simeon between 1763 and 1780
-(Voyage autour du Caucase, Paris, 1839-43, vol. iii. p. 360).
-
-[131] The true inwardness of this policy did not escape the
-notice of the French traveller Boré, who, writing in 1838, says:
-"En s'avançant vers l'Asie Centrale la Russie cherchait à réaliser
-une pensée politique habilement conçue, qui lui promet pour l'avenir
-des résultats avantageux. Comme puissance chrétienne, elle se déclare
-la protectrice de tous les chrétiens assujétis à la double puissance
-Mahométane qu'elle combattait.... Voilà pourquoi l'on tenait beaucoup
-encore à enclaver dans l'empire le monastère d'Echemiazin; attendu
-qu'étant le siège du chef principal de la communion arménienne, on
-devait tenir dans les liens de son pouvoir spirituel la majeure partie
-des Arméniens répandus dans les royaumes limitrophes" (Correspondance
-et Mémoires, Paris, 1840, vol. ii. pp. 36, 37).
-
-[132] Monteith, Kars and Erzerum, London, 1856, p. 38. During
-the campaigns against Persia the convent of Edgmiatsin obtained
-declarations from both belligerents that their territory should be
-considered neutral ground. The Russians, however, appear to have made
-use of it as a base (ibid. p. 133). While at Edgmiatsin I was told
-that in 1804 the Persians erected a battery upon the roof, which
-naturally suffered, although I am not aware that the Russians came
-to any harm from the battery.
-
-[133] Morier's Second Journey, London, 1818, pp. 323 seq. According
-to Von Haxthausen Russian influence had already become preponderant
-in the election of a katholikos as early as 1768, when the Katholikos
-Lukas sought and obtained the sanction of Russia upon his elevation
-(Transcaucasia, English edition, London, 1854, p. 307). We learn
-from another source that the Katholikos Ephraim (1809-31) was
-accorded the special protection of the Tsar, and that he did not
-assume his functions before receiving the imperial assurance at
-St. Petersburg that the pontificate of Armenia would ever receive
-such protection. This same Tsar, Alexander I., loaded the bishops and
-priests who accompanied Ephraim with honours and presents (Avdall's
-continuation of Chamchean's History, Calcutta, 1827, pp. 519-20).
-
-[134] Melikoff is said to have had under his command a body of
-2000 Armenian volunteers as well as some 400 officers of the same
-nationality. See the Reminiscences of a Delegate to the Congress of
-Berlin in the newspaper L'Arménie for 15th August 1892 (published
-in London).
-
-[135] Nine articles of the Polojenye deal with the election of a
-katholikos. Upon a vacancy of the Chair it is the duty of the synod
-to issue invitations to all Armenian dioceses, whether in Russia or
-elsewhere, calling upon them each to name two deputies, one clerical
-and one lay, who shall repair to Edgmiatsin after the lapse of a
-year. These deputies, should they be unable to attend in person,
-may signify their vote by letter. In addition to the deputies the
-members of the synod and seven of the oldest bishops of Edgmiatsin
-have votes ex officio. The election takes place in the church of the
-Illuminator. Four candidates are chosen by vote in the first place. A
-second ballot narrows the selection to two. The assembly then appoints
-three delegates who repair to the Governor-General of the Caucasus
-and officially communicate the result. The Governor-General transmits
-the two names to the Emperor through the Minister of the Interior. The
-Emperor confirms the katholikos and gives him the ukase. After he has
-taken the oath of allegiance to the Russian throne he is consecrated
-according to the rite of the Armenian Church.
-
-In Russia there are at present only six dioceses of the Armenian
-Church; they are specified in the Polojenye. They are:--1. New
-Nakhichevan and Bessarabia; 2. Astrakhan; 3. Erivan; 4. Tiflis;
-5. Karabagh; 6. Shirvan. Kars is at present a vicarate, dependent
-upon Erivan. In Turkey there are, I am informed, usually no less
-than fifty-two dioceses; but there are not always bishops to every
-diocese. In Persia there are two, namely New Julfa and Tabriz. It
-will thus be seen that the Armenians of Turkey have the preponderant
-vote, and that the clergy have a small majority over the lay members,
-to the extent of the synod and seven of the bishops of Edgmiatsin.
-
-At the last election, which took place on the 17th of May 1892, there
-were present in the church of St. Gregory 72 electors, including
-the synod and the 7 bishops. The number might have been about
-135. But several dioceses appointed the same delegate. The vote for
-Mgr. Khrimean was unanimous, the second candidate being only nominal.
-
-Other articles of the Polojenye to which I should like to call
-attention are to the following effect:--The usual Russian provision
-forbidding proselytising is inserted. The katholikos alone is permitted
-to make the holy oil. The synod is to consist of four bishops and
-four archimandrites, all resident at Edgmiatsin. It is to assemble
-at least twice a week. The katholikos is ex officio a member of
-synod and presides when he is present. It is not said whether the
-procurator has a right to be present at the deliberations; but the
-minutes and decisions must all be submitted to him. All monasteries
-are to be regulated according to the rule of St. Basil, and to become
-a monk it is necessary to obtain the sanction of the synod upon the
-recommendation of a bishop. A married man may become a monk if he have
-no children under age and if his wife agree to enter a convent. The
-Church schools are recognised; but their rules and curricula must be
-submitted to the synod. The synod must in turn submit them to the
-Minister of the Interior. Finally it is stated that the Armenian
-clergy are supported by the gifts of the Armenian people, and the
-nature of these gifts is specified.
-
-[136] According to Von Haxthausen (journey in 1843) the synod took the
-place of the general council of the Church, which it was impossible
-to assemble. He adds that in 1783 the Patriarch Lukas decreed that
-it should not consist of fewer than seven members; in 1802 there were
-nine members (Transcaucasia, English edition, p. 305).
-
-[137] Captain Richard Wilbraham, Travels, etc., London, 1839, p. 98. At
-the time of his visit in 1837 the procurator was actually an Armenian,
-but quite Russianised.
-
-[138] Transcaucasia, German edition, Leipzig, 1856, vol. i. pp. 256
-seq.; English edition, pp. 284 seq. Von Haxthausen speaks of the
-"Grobheit des Procurators." It is only just to add that the katholikos
-was absent during his visit.
-
-[139] I was shown the documents in the library. The method of the
-election of the Katholikos Makar affords great sport to the Jesuit
-Vernier. He hails with delight the constitution of Edgmiatsin into
-a state prison "où l'élu de la nation demeure sous la garde d'un
-gêolier Moscovite. Cet élu a fini par déplaire au despote couronné de
-St. Pétersbourg; le czar vient de rejeter avec mépris l'oecuménique
-qui avait réuni la majorité des suffrages, et de lui substituer
-arbitrairement un Russe qui n'a d'Arménien que le nom. Dans quelques
-années de par le knout, ce nom même disparaîtra, et quelque pape
-cosaque remplacera l'Arménien russifié et occupera à Edgmiatsin le
-trône de saint Grégoire. Terrible et juste vengeance de Dieu...." The
-italics are mine (Histoire du Patriarcat Arménien Catholique, Paris,
-1891, p. 285).
-
-[140] Sophocles, OEdipus Tyrannus, 1. 58.
-
-[141] The new catalogue, which has not yet been printed [September
-1900], will contain some 3500 titles. So far as I have been able to
-ascertain, there already exist two catalogues--(1) that published
-by the Academy of Sciences, St. Petersburg, 1840, and (2) that by
-Caréniantz, Tiflis, 1863, 4o [in Armenian].
-
-[142] For a description of this book and its ivory panels see
-Strgygowski, Das Etschmiadzin-Evangeliar, Vienna, 1891.
-
-[143] The institution of the twelve bishops, who reside in the palace
-of the katholikos and fulfil various offices about his person, dates
-from the commencement of the Armenian State Church. See Faustus of
-Byzantium, vi. 5, and Gelzer (Die Anfänge der Armenischen Kirche,
-in Berichte der K. S. Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften zu Leipzic,
-Phil.-Hist. Classe, 1895).
-
-[144] I was informed that the notes are those of the fifth century;
-but there appears to be no sufficient historical evidence for this
-belief. The historians, however, speak of this or that vartapet as
-having been a musician (erajisht). The Katholikos George IV. (d. 1882)
-transcribed the original notes from the Armenian manuscripts, but
-brought them into consonance with European methods.
-
-[145] So it is known to all the early travellers. Cp. Poser, 1621;
-Evliya, 1647, "the Three Churches, a great convent built by the Greek
-emperors"; Rhodes, 1648-49; Tavernier, 1655; Chardin, 1673; Jesuit
-Missionaries, seventeenth century, Letter of Père Monier; Schillinger,
-c. 1699; Tournefort, 1701, who notices the inappropriateness of
-the name.
-
-[146] It is given at length by Agathangelus, and may be found in
-that portion of the treatise to which I shall hereafter allude as
-"the Acts" (see note on p. 291, infra). There can be little doubt that
-the legend of the Ripsimians took the place of an old heathen legend,
-associated with the site at Vagharshapat. There seems to have been
-a local tradition that the cathedral and the chapels of Ripsime and
-Gaiane stand upon three rocks, whence in pagan times voices would
-be heard coming from underlying cavities and returning answers to
-questions addressed to them.
-
-[147] This is probably an anachronism.
-
-[148] I interpret him in the sense of there and back.
-
-[149] It appears to have been the custom among the Armenians down to
-comparatively recent times for pious people to place large blocks of
-stone in front of the entrance to a church by way of offering. Dubois
-de Montpéreux saw a number of such stones, 6 or 7 feet high, covered
-with crosses and arabesques, in front of the portal of the cathedral
-at Edgmiatsin. I do not know what has become of them.
-
-[150] Chardin (ed. Langlès, Paris, 1811, 8vo, vol. ii. p. 175). See
-also Tavernier (book i. ch. iii.). The Jesuit missionaries, however,
-later on in the seventeenth century, speak of a structure resembling
-a mausoleum and having four stone columns and an altar in the
-centre. There can be little doubt that this is an allusion to the
-erection of Eleazar.
-
-[151] Chardin, ibid.
-
-[152] History of Architecture, book i. ch. iv. Neo-Byzantine style. His
-remarks have reference to the shape of the dome and not to the pointed
-arches of the false arcade, which perhaps argue a much later date.
-
-[153] Dubois de Montpéreux, Voyage autour du Caucase, Paris, 1839-43,
-vol. iii. pp. 372 seq.
-
-[154] Ibid. Atlas, series iii. plate 7.
-
-[155] See Telfer, The Crimea and Transcaucasia, London, 1876,
-vol. i. p. 222, and Dubois, op. cit. vol. iii. pp. 382 seq.
-
-[156] Strgygowski, Das Etschmiadzin-Evangeliar, Vienna, 1891. I read
-the large inscription thus:--Iêsou boêthei pantas tous euchomenous en
-tê ekklêsia Zibithain (?)--kyrie eleêson ton doulon sou Archian--kai
-kyrie Eleêson Elpidin (for Elpida or Elpidian, the variation of the
-accusative of Elpis into -pidin being not unusual)--Daniêl, Tirer,
-Garikinis. The word Zibithain is taken as a proper name by Brosset
-(Voyage Archéologique, St. Petersburg, 1849-51, 3me rapp., p. 16),
-and by Strgygowski, who supposes it to be the same as Zuithai, found in
-Armenian writers, e.g. in Faustus of Byzantium, who speaks of a Zuithai
-as priest of the town of Artaxata during the persecution of Shapur
-(Faustus, iv. 56). Zuithai would be the priest in whose church the
-memorial had been placed. As for the three proper names at the end,
-that of Tirer has been found in an inscription of the thirteenth
-century. Garikinis denotes the proper name Garegin.
-
-[157] It is a matter of surmise that Nerses I. restored the sacred
-buildings of Vagharshapat after the destruction of that city by the
-Persian armies in the fourth century (see Faustus, v. 1); but the first
-restoration of the cathedral of which I can find any certain mention
-is that of the great Armenian chief Vahan Mamikonean in or about the
-year 483 (Lazar Pharpetzi in Langlois' Collection des historiens de
-l'Arménie, Paris, 1867-69, vol. ii. p. 352. And see Saint-Martin,
-Mémoires sur l'Arménie, Paris, 1818, vol. i. p. 328). Armenia was at
-this time struggling to rid herself of the Persian (Sasanian) yoke,
-having lost her Arsakid dynasty. The katholikos no longer resided at
-Edgmiatsin, the pontifical seat having been transferred to Dvin in
-A.D. 452 (Saint-Martin, ibid. vol. i. p. 437); nor does he return until
-A.D. 1441. In 618 it was again restored by the Katholikos Komitas
-(Saint-Martin, i. 116, quoting John Katholikos; and cp. Sebeos,
-Hist. of Heraclius, iii. 25 (in Armenian)), who substituted a dome
-in stone in place of the earlier wooden one. Certain repairs are
-attributed to the Katholikos Nerses III., surnamed the builder,
-A.D. 640-661, I know not upon what authority. After this there
-ensues a long period, for which we appear to have no records. The
-katholikos often changes his residence. After the destruction of the
-Cilician kingdom and in the year 1438 the right arm of St. Gregory,
-a relic which had become the palladium of the pontifical office,
-was transferred from Sis, the capital of that kingdom, to Edgmiatsin
-(Gelzer, article Armenien in Realencyklopädie für protestantische
-Theologie, Leipzic, 1896). Saint-Martin places the transfer thither of
-the seat of the pontificate in the year 1441. In 1442 the Katholikos
-Kirakos undertook the necessary repairs (Thomas Metsobatzi). We now
-leap to the reign of Shah Abbas of Persia, who, as is well known,
-transported a whole colony of Armenians from the valley of the Araxes
-to the outskirts of his capital, Ispahan. In 1614 this monarch carried
-off a number of the venerated stones of the church to New Julfa to form
-the nucleus of a new Edgmiatsin (Arakel of Tauris, ch. xxiv.). The
-famous monastery fell into woeful neglect. The Katholikos Moses
-(1629-33) restored it, but added no new feature. His successor
-Philip renewed the roof (inscriptions, records, etc.). I think I
-have mentioned subsequent additions. The steps which run round the
-church were added or extensively restored by the Katholikos Lukas
-(in 1784). But they have been modified by Makar I. Repairs are
-ascribed to the pontiffs Astvatsadur, Simeon and Ephraim, the last
-of whom repaired in 1816 the damages which the Persians had done to
-the roof by placing a battery upon it. For more detailed information
-I may refer my reader to a work entitled: Description of the Mother
-Church of the Armenians, by Vahan Vardapet Bastamean, Edgmiatsin,
-1877 (in Armenian and Russian).
-
-[158] See the translation of the De Edificiis by Stewart, annotated
-by Sir Charles Wilson, London, 1896, pp. 73 seq. (Palestine Pilgrims
-Text Society).
-
-[159] John Katholikos, c. xii. And see Sebeos, Hist. of Heraclius,
-iii. 33.
-
-[160] They bear the monograms of Nerses Katholikos and are reproduced
-by Strgygowski (op. cit.), to whom I refer my reader. I only saw one
-of them during my stay.
-
-[161] Brosset (Bull. Scient. de l'Acad. de Sc. de St. Pétersbourg,
-vol. ii. 1837) has transcribed the letters and published a valuable
-little notice on the subject.
-
-[162] The circumstance appealed to Brosset as a rare example of
-religious tolerance (Voyage Arch., rapp. 3, p. 19).
-
-[163] Dubois, Voyage autour du Caucase, vol. iii. p. 371. But see
-Haxthausen, Transcaucasia, p. 287.
-
-[164] I was unable to measure each apse; but I was assured that they
-were all of the same or nearly the same size. The portal is of course
-not included in the above measurements.
-
-[165] Telfer (Crimea and Transcaucasia, London, 1876, vol. i. p. 231)
-seems to refer to this throne, which he ascribes to Pope Innocent XI.,
-a gift to James IV. (1655-80).
-
-[166] See Morier, Second Journey, pp. 323 seq.
-
-[167] See Dubois de Montpéreux, op. cit. vol. iii. p. 213, and
-Neale's Holy Eastern Church, vol. i. p. 296. The former of these
-writers informs us that our church of St. Ripsime "a servi de type
-à une foule d'autres églises," and the latter has improved upon
-this statement by asserting that it is "the norm of all Armenian
-ecclesiastical buildings" (Dubois, vol. iii. p. 380, and Neale,
-vol. i. p. 293). Leaving Georgia out of account, both these statements
-are incorrect.
-
-[168] Unless we accept Neale's hypothesis that they served as a
-narthex. But the narthex is not a feature of the churches of Great
-Armenia.
-
-[169] According to Brosset (Voyage Arch., rapp. 3, p. 82) the diameter
-of the dome is not less than about 35 feet. The height is given by
-Neale, op. cit. p. 296, as 104 1/2 feet to the top of the cross.
-
-[170] Sebeos, History of Heraklius (in Armenian), part iii. ch. xxv.
-
-[171] For the theft and recovery of these relics see Smith and Dwight
-(Missionary Researches, London, 1834, p. 280), and Brosset (Voyage
-Arch., rapp. 3, p. 83).
-
-[172] Brosset, ibid. p. 82. The date reposes upon the authority of
-the historian, John Katholikos.
-
-[173] According to Agathangelus the third chapel was built upon the
-site of the wine-press. Further on we are told that it was situated
-north of the town, and that in it was buried the unfortunate nun who
-was left behind owing to sickness.
-
-[174] Brosset (Bull. Scientifique Acad. Sc. St. Pétersbourg, 1840,
-pp. 46 seq.) quotes a letter from Nahabet to this effect.
-
-[175] Brosset, ibid.
-
-[176] Belck, in Zeitschrift für Ethnologie, Berlin, 1893, Heft
-ii. p. 77.
-
-[177] Haxthausen, Transcaucasia, p. 295.
-
-[178] Schillinger, Persianische und Ost-Indianische Reise, Nürnberg,
-1707. I do not credit the statement of Evliya, who visited Edgmiatsin
-in A.D. 1647, to the effect that at that time the monastery was
-inhabited by about 500 monks.
-
-[179] Bryce, Transcaucasia and Ararat, note to 4th edition, London,
-1896, p. 314.
-
-[180] It is interesting to place together the two following passages,
-the first taken from a modern and representative Armenian source,
-the second from the work of a German scholar. I translate both
-from the German. Dr. Arshak Ter-Mikelean, professor of theology in
-the Academy at Edgmiatsin, writes (Die Armenische Kirche in ihren
-Beziehungen zur byzantinischen, Leipzic, 1892, p. 9): "The mother
-church of Gregory was not founded by him nor even by the apostles,
-who are only mortal men; but the everlasting Founder, the only Head of
-the Church, Himself descends in glory from Heaven and commands him to
-build a church after His plan and His directions on a prescribed site
-in the royal city, Vagharshapat. Christ Himself appears to Gregory
-in a vision and instructs him what he shall do ..."; and Professor
-Gelzer draws the inference (Die Anfänge der armenischen Kirche, in
-Berichte über die Verhandlungen der K. S. Gesell. der Wissenschaften
-zu Leipzic, Phil.-Hist. Classe, 1895, p. 127): "The ancient capital
-Vagharshapat ... bears at the present day the name Edgmiatsin, 'the
-Only Begotten descended from Heaven,' in everlasting remembrance that
-Christ Himself founded the Armenian Church and thereby established
-her as autokephalous and completely independent of every patriarchate,
-whether of the East or of the West."
-
-[181] Moses of Khorene mentions St. Bartholomew and St. Simon (ii. 34,
-in Langlois, Collection des hist. de l'Arménie, Paris, 1867-69,
-vol. ii. p. 98), and says that the former suffered martyrdom in
-the town of Arevban, while the other was reputed to have met the
-same fate in Veriospora. According to Gelzer (article Armenien in
-Realencyklopädie für protestantische Theologie, Leipzic, 1896) the
-martyrdom of St. Bartholomew in Urbanopolis, a town of Great Armenia,
-was known to Greek writers as early as the fifth century. Urbanopolis,
-Albanopolis, or Korbanopolis (Armenian, Arevbanos or Arebonos-Kaghak)
-may perhaps be identified with Arabion castellum, where in fact Vardan
-(c. 1270) tells us that the saint was murdered. Arabion castellum was
-a fort on the Stranga, or Great Zab, which Mr. F. C. Conybeare (Key of
-Truth, Oxford, 1898, p. cii.) connects with the modern Deir, where at
-the present day the monastery and church of St. Bartholomew stand. I
-surmise that nothing is known of the site of Veriospora. Moses,
-following the Edessene tradition, speaks of St. Thaddeus as one of
-the seventy disciples, relates at length his mission to King Abgar of
-Edessa (Urfa in Mesopotamia), and speaks of his conversion of King
-Sanatruk, successor of Abgar, and of his martyrdom in the canton
-of Chavarchan, called in his day Ardaz, as well-known facts. For
-St. Jude I rely on Issaverdens (Armenia and the Armenians, Venice,
-1878, vol. ii. p. 21), who relates that he was put to death and buried
-in the city of Urmi in Azerbaijan.
-
-[182] Moses of Khorene, ii. 30-36, in Langlois, op. cit. vol. ii.
-pp. 95 seq.; and Saint-Martin, Mémoires, etc. vol. i. p. 127.
-
-[183] Professor Carrière (La Légende d'Abgar dans l'histoire de Moïse
-de Khorène, Paris, 1895) shows that Moses used an Armenian version
-of the legend of Abgar which commenced to form about the middle of
-the third century but was subsequently remodelled. The same writer in
-this work relegates the unfortunate Moses of Khorene, or rather the
-writer who assumes the mask of this name, to a position inter deos
-minores and to a period not earlier than the eighth century. He had
-previously been made to step down several places, and was shivering
-somewhere in the seventh century. See Gutschmid, Kleine Schriften,
-Leipzic 1892, iii. p. 335.
-
-[184] Faustus of Byzantium, iii. 1, and iv. 3, in Langlois,
-op. cit. vol. i. pp. 210, 237.
-
-[185] Issaverdens, ii. 20, and Saint-Martin, i. p. 131.
-
-[186] Eusebius (Hist. eccl. vi. 46, 2), speaking of Dionysius of
-Alexandria (A.D. 248-265), says, "And in the same manner he writes
-to those in Armenia over whom Merujan was bishop on the subject of
-repentance." For the probable connection of this bishop with the Van
-country see Gelzer (Die Anfänge, etc. pp. 171 seq.).
-
-[187] Mr. F. C. Conybeare (Key of Truth, Oxford, 1898,
-pp. ci. seq.) discusses the locality of the see of Archelaus. He is
-called in the Acts of Archelaus bishop of Karkhar (episkopos Karcharôn
-or Kascharôn), which again is called a city of Mesopotamia, three days'
-hard riding from castellum Arabion, a fort on the river Stranga, the
-modern Great Zab. Karkhar was included in the Roman dominions. May
-it not have been somewhere in the neighbourhood of Sert?
-
-[188] Conybeare, ibid. pp. lviii. and ciii.
-
-[189] Conybeare, ibid. p. cx.
-
-[190] Conybeare, ibid. p. xcvi.
-
-[191] I refer to the long account contained in the Agathangelus
-treatise (see note infra).
-
-[192] Conybeare, op. cit. pp. cxi. cxii.
-
-[193] Ibid. pp. clx. clxi.
-
-[194] Letter of Lazar Pharpetzi ap. Conybeare, op. cit. p. cviii.;
-Nerses of Lampron, ibid. p. lxxxv.; Isaac Katholikos, ibid. Appendix
-vii. p. 171, and pp. lxxvi. lxxvii.
-
-[195] Conybeare (op. cit.) gives the gist of the canon of the Council
-of Shahapivan (pp. cvii. cviii.) and a translation of the canon of
-John Katholikos at the Council of Dvin and of portions of his tract
-(pp. 152 seq. in Appendix iv.).
-
-[196] Conybeare (ibid. Appendices i. to iv. inclusive) details these
-various persecutions from the original sources; his discussion of the
-identity of Sembat is a most interesting contribution to the history
-of Armenia in the Middle Ages (pp. lxi. seq.).
-
-[197] The visit is almost certainly a fable.
-
-[198] For some enquiry into the ethnical affinities and earliest
-history of the Armenians see Vol. II. of the present work, pp. 67 seq.
-
-[199] Note especially the interesting incident mentioned by Faustus
-of Byzantium (v. 4). An ally of the Sasanian king of Persia and a
-sincere imitator of his example thus addresses his army: "When you get
-to close quarters with the imperial troops I bid you try your best to
-make prisoners and avoid bloodshed; we must endeavour to carry them off
-with us as trophies, and we will make them work for us when we get home
-as artisans and masons for the construction of our cities and palaces."
-
-[200] Dion Cassius (lxxx. 3) adds this last statement. The preceding
-are based on Agathangelus (ch. i.). The chronology is that of A. von
-Gutschmid. See his article Persia in Ency. Brit. and Kleine Schriften,
-iii. pp. 402 seq.
-
-[201] Mommsen (Provinces of the Roman Empire, vol. ii. p. 75) tells
-us, on the authority of Dion Cassius ap. Suidas, that it was the
-Roman general Priscus who, after destroying Artaxata in A.D. 163,
-laid out the city which was called kainê tolis, or, in Armenian,
-Nor-Kaghak. This latter name is used by Armenian writers of the fifth
-century alongside of that of Vagharshapat (Edgmiatsin).
-
-[202] Herodian (vi. 5, 6) gives us an account of the war waged by
-Severus, which is not even noticed by the Armenian historian.
-
-[203] Agathangelus, ch. ii. Life of St. Gregory. A. von Gutschmid,
-who throws doubt upon the statement in the Life that St. Gregory
-was a son of Anak who was taken to Greece, views with a suspicion,
-which is quite natural, the words of the historian, "one was taken
-to Persia, the other to Greece." The territory of the Empire would
-have been hostile to such protégés of the Persian king. But even if
-this view be plausible it is surely not necessary to take the words
-too literally (Kleine Schriften, iii. 380).
-
-[204] Elisoeus Vardapet (ap. Langlois, Collection des hists. de
-l'Arménie, vol. ii. p. 206) gives the text of a petition despatched by
-the Armenian nobles to Theodosius II., in which occurs the following
-passage:-- ... "our king Tiridates, while yet a child, was taken to
-Greek territory and educated there in order to escape from his cruel
-and parricidal uncles...." On the other hand, Agathangelus leads us
-to infer that Ardashir took possession of Armenia after the murder
-of Chosroes and that it was then that the child Tiridates was taken
-to Greece. In this statement he comes into conflict with Zonaras,
-who tells us (xii. 21) that it was only in the time of Gallus (252 or
-253) that the Persians were able to possess themselves of Armenia,
-after the flight of the king, Tiridates. It does not seem open to
-doubt that it was not Ardashir but his successor Shapur I. who became
-master of Armenia; and these various sources may perhaps be partially
-reconciled in the manner suggested by Von Gutschmid (Kleine Schriften,
-iii. 405) and adopted in my text. Von Gutschmid interprets parricidal
-in the sense of the uncles having murdered, or helped to murder,
-not their own father but the father of Tiridates.
-
-[205] The campaign of Odaenathus against Shapur is placed in 265
-by Robertson Smith (article Palmyra in Ency. Brit.) and in 264 by
-Mommsen (Provinces of Roman Empire, ii. 104). We learn from Vopiscus
-(Aurel. 27) that an Armenian contingent was enrolled under the banner
-of Zenobia against the Emperor Aurelian in 271. What was the attitude
-of Tiridates during the war?
-
-[206] Tiridates was no doubt influenced by the persecutions of
-the emperors Decius (249-251) and Valerian (253-260). The latter
-persecution took place during the last three and a half years of the
-reign of Valerian.
-
-[207] Agathangelus is our earliest authority for the reign of
-Tiridates and for the events connected with the conversion of the
-Armenians as a nation to Christianity. But the scholars who examined
-this precious treatise were impressed with the scale and frequency
-of the interpolations to which the original text appeared to have
-been subjected; and partly for this reason, partly owing to the
-former ascendency of Moses of Khorene, full use was not made of the
-work. In 1877 there appeared in the pages of a German periodical one
-of those masterpieces of the higher criticism of which German writers
-now appear to have a monopoly. It is entitled Agathangelos, by Alfred
-von Gutschmid, and it has been incorporated in the collected edition
-of Von Gutschmid's minor works (Kleine Schriften von A. von Gutschmid,
-Leipzic, 1892, vol. iii. pp. 339 seq.). The author laboured under the
-disadvantage of not being an Armenian scholar; but he has nevertheless
-succeeded in discriminating between the various sources from which
-the treatise, as it has come down to us, has been built up. They
-are--1. An earliest source which we may call the Life of St. Gregory,
-and which also contains an account, running parallel, of the reigns
-of Chosroes and Tiridates down to the conversion of the latter. Von
-Gutschmid thinks that this writing was composed in Armenian during
-the pontificate of Sahak, or Isaac, the Great (A.D. 391-442). It
-seems more probable, however, that it was originally written in
-Greek or Syriac and subsequently translated into Armenian. 2. A
-later piece which we may distinguish as the Acts of St. Gregory and of
-St. Ripsime and her Companions. It is a hagiograph, which Von Gutschmid
-supposes to have been written about the year 450. It seems to me,
-however, that a certain passage in Faustus of Byzantium (iii. 13,
-in Langlois' translation, "jusqu'à changer même l'image de l'homme
-en une figure de bête") points to that author having been acquainted
-with the Acts; at all events he is familiar with the legend of the
-Ripsimians. Faustus appears to have written 395-416. To the Acts
-portion of the Agathangelus treatise belongs a long and possibly
-independent piece which contains the teaching of St. Gregory; but
-neither the Greek version nor the extant translations include it, and
-I am not aware that any consecutive account of its contents has yet
-appeared. In the Armenian text this last piece takes up over one-half
-of the treatise as a whole. And finally--3. The Vision or Apocalypse of
-St. Gregory, in which the saint receives the Divine mandate to build
-the church at Edgmiatsin. This piece, together with the prologue
-and epilogue to the whole work, was probably added by a priest of
-Vagharshapat (Edgmiatsin), who edited the treatise and gave it its
-present form, publishing it under the pseudonym of Agathangelus. Von
-Gutschmid thinks that the work as a whole may be assigned to the
-period of Persian persecution (A.D. 452-456). The fact that Lazar
-Pharpetzi displays an intimate acquaintance with it under the name
-of Agathangelus shows that it cannot be placed later than about the
-close of the fifth century. I do not know, however, that Lazar shows
-a knowledge of the Apocalypse, or that the statement contained in a
-Paris MS. can be conclusively disproved, that the Armenian text which
-has come down to us is a translation made in the seventh century, at
-the time of the discovery under Komitas of the relics of St. Ripsime,
-from a Greek original. Von Gutschmid, however, argues against this view
-(pp. 354 seq.). Ter-Mikelean (Die armenische Kirche, p. 5) supports the
-view that the work was translated at the close of the fourth century
-by Koriun from a Greek original (see Langlois, vol. ii. Introduction
-to Koriun, p. 4); but Von Gutschmid has shown that certain passages
-have been borrowed from Koriun, and until the Armenian text has
-been subjected to a searching philological criticism we are not safe
-in saying more than this. The student will find the various pieces
-enumerated above distinguished one from another, passage by passage,
-in the table given by Von Gutschmid (pp. 375 seq.). The latest edition
-of our present Greek text, which is a translation from the Armenian,
-is that of De Lagarde (Göttingen, 1887), but the references given in
-my notes are to that of Langlois. The best translation is that of
-the Mekhitarists in Italian (Venice, 1843). The French translation
-in Langlois omits some of the most important passages. As regards
-the historical importance of the pieces, Von Gutschmid concludes that
-the Life may be regarded as a source of absolute reliability for the
-conversion of the king and for the events in Armenia which succeeded
-the conversion. As regards what took place before that event, it is
-in the main reliable, although interwoven with legend. The Acts,
-on the other hand, and the Apocalypse are as good as useless as
-historical material.
-
-The scholarly study of Von Gutschmid rendered possible Professor
-Gelzer's profound and brilliant essay, Die Anfänge der armenischen
-Kirche, to which I have already alluded (p. 277, note 1) and in which
-he reviews the work of the Armenian writer known to us under the name
-of Faustus of Byzantium.
-
-[208] See p. 145 of the Italian translation of Agathangelus. Von
-Gutschmid (Kleine Schriften, iii. 358) is careful to point out the
-discrepancy in the two sources. While the Acts speak of possession
-by devils as the malady with which the people of Vagharshapat were
-afflicted and which caused them to be transformed into animals,
-the Life only mentions "possession" as one of the diseases which
-are enumerated.
-
-[209] See the Italian translation, p. 153.
-
-[210] Sozomen, ii. 8. He places the conversion before Constantine,
-but does not give the exact date.
-
-[211] "With Gallienus (260) there begins for the Christians a long
-period of peace, lasting about forty years" (Moeller, History of the
-Christian Church, A.D. 1-600, London, 1892, p. 196).
-
-[212] It seems impossible to precise the date of the conversion of
-Tiridates. The author of the Life in Agathangelus allows thirteen
-years for the captivity of Gregory, who was imprisoned in the first
-year of the restoration. But I am not aware that we are able to fix
-this latter date. The conversion probably occurred about the year 280.
-
-[213] Emin, Recherches sur le paganisme arménien, p. 20, note 1.
-
-[214] The Pontic regions.
-
-[215] The king himself preached (Agathangelus, Life of St. Gregory,
-in p. 253 of the Italian translation).
-
-[216] I insert the word "years" in deference to Professor Gelzer,
-who argues (Die Anfänge, etc., p. 166) that if the conversion took
-place about the year 280, the journey to Cĉsarea could scarcely
-have been undertaken before 285-290. He is wishing to show that
-the statements contained in a portion of the Agathangelus treatise
-ascribed by Von Gutschmid to the less reliable source, viz. the Acts,
-to the effect that St. Gregory was ordained by Leontius, archbishop
-of Cĉsarea, may quite well be true. We know that Leontius subscribed
-the Council of Nice (325); and his pontificate must have covered a
-period of forty-five years if St. Gregory was ordained by him in or
-about the year 280. The Life mentions the visit of Gregory to Cĉsarea
-but not the name of Leontius; and Von Gutschmid, while he regards the
-visit as historical, views with suspicion the connection with that
-particular prelate (Kleine Schriften, iii. pp. 415 and 418). That
-seems to me the sensible view. We learn from an independent source
-(Gelas. Cyzic. ii. 36, ap. Mansi, ii. p. 929) that in the year 325 and
-during the lifetime of Saint Gregory and Leontius, Great Armenia was in
-ecclesiastical subordination to Cĉsarea; and the link with the capital
-of Cappadocia was maintained until the death of the Katholikos Nerses
-I. about the year 374 (cp. Faustus, v. 29). The later story, to the
-effect that Tiridates received Christianity from the bishop of Rome
-(so in the petition of the Armenians in the year 450 to Theodosius,
-ap. Elisoeus in Langlois, ii. 206), is plainly a story with a purpose
-and must therefore be viewed with suspicion.
-
-[217] The car with the white mules is mentioned in the Life, and the
-escort of sixteen princes in the Acts.
-
-[218] A bishop of Sivas with this name was martyred under Diocletian;
-but this saint will not suit our chronology. Certain features in
-connection with the cult of the saint--a hind is offered up to him
-on his name day--have suggested to Von Gutschmid (Kleine Schriften,
-iii. 414) that Athenogenes was a heathen god of the chase, converted
-in comparatively remote times into a Christian martyr. A local cult of
-this nature seems to have attached to Herakles in certain countries;
-therefore it might quite well have been natural for Gregory to supplant
-the worship of his Armenian counterpart, Vahagn, at Astishat with that
-of Athenogenes, the saint corresponding to the god of the chase. This
-is ingenious but not convincing. The hunting features in the cult of
-Athenogenes may surely have been derived from his worship at Astishat
-in place of Vahagn (Herakles).
-
-[219] I adopt the Greek version of Agathangelus in this passage in
-preference to the Armenian text, which has "he laid the foundations
-of the church and erected an altar to the glory of Christ. It was
-here that he first commenced to build churches, and erected an altar
-in the name of the Holy Trinity and added a baptistery." See Gelzer
-(Die Anfänge, etc., p. 129).
-
-[220] After a second perusal of the passages in Agathangelus and
-Faustus (in Langlois: Agathangelus, cxiv. and cxv.; Faustus, iii. and
-iv. 14), I do not hesitate to identify the site of the temples of
-Astishat--Mount Karke, in face of the great range, Taurus--with the
-immediate surroundings of the present cloister of Surb Karapet (see
-Vol. II. p. 177). The view which I shall offer from the terrace of
-that famous monastery (Fig. 157) will be the view which excited the
-cupidity of the eunuch Hair; the ash trees in the foreground may be the
-descendants of the hatzeatz-drakht or garden of ash trees; finally,
-the confluence of rivers, overgrown with thick forest, to which the
-eunuch descended and where he met his death, may be represented by
-the still wooded banks of the Murad in the valley of Charbahur. The
-identification of the scene of the events narrated in the text with
-the present monastery of Surb Karapet may be found in the geography
-attributed to Vardan in Saint Martin (Mémoires, etc., vol. ii. p. 431).
-
-The baptism of Tiridates probably took place on the banks of the Upper
-Murad upon the site of another existing cloister of Surb Karapet,
-also called Uch Kilisa, near Diadin (see Smith and Dwight, Missionary
-Researches, p. 417).
-
-[221] Faustus, iii. 3.
-
-[222] Faustus, iii. 13.
-
-[223] Ibid.
-
-[224] Agathangelus, Life of St Gregory, sec. 158.
-
-[225] Faustus, iii. 13.
-
-[226] Faustus, v. 31. "The obsequies of the dead were conducted
-amid loud lamentations, accompanied by trumpets, guitars and
-harps. Monstrous dances took place, men and women, with bangles on
-their arms and painted faces, giving themselves up to every kind of
-abomination." The picture is coloured by malice, but is vivid.
-
-[227] Agathangelus, Life of St. Gregory, sec. 169.
-
-[228] Faustus, iv. 4.
-
-[229] Faustus, iv. 14. It seems plain from this chapter that these
-domains had been bestowed upon the family of Gregory by Tiridates
-and his successors.
-
-[230] Faustus, iii. 15 and 19. The profane delinquents were named Pap
-and Athenogenes, and the makeshift office-bearers Daniel the Syrian,
-Pharen and Shahak. The two last-named were formally invested with
-the office and sent to Cĉsarea to be consecrated.
-
-[231] Note especially the election of Nerses I., a descendant of
-St. Gregory who was loth to accept the office. "The numerous troops
-of all Armenia demanded and proclaimed Nerses as katholikos ... the
-entire assembly commenced to cry with a loud voice, 'It is Nerses who
-must be our pastor.' Nerses refused to accept the mandate, of which
-he professed himself unworthy. Nevertheless the assembly persisted
-in their resolution and continued to cry before the king, 'No one
-except Nerses shall be our pastor; nobody but he shall occupy the holy
-chair!'" The whole chapter (Faustus, iv. 3) is well worth reading,
-and contains some very vivid portraiture. Nerses was a layman and was
-raised to the pontificate in one day. He was then sent to Cĉsarea to
-be formally consecrated.
-
-[232] Professor Gelzer pertinently observes (Die Anfänge, etc.,
-p. 148) that the Armenian kings in pagan times had been in the
-practice of placing their own near relatives in priestly offices,
-and quotes Strabo to the effect that in the neighbouring provinces
-of Cappadocia and Pontus the high priest was deuteros kata timên
-meta basilea, or second in rank after the king. On the other hand,
-traces of Jewish custom are to be found in the existence of a second
-priestly House in Armenia during the early period of Christianity,
-who in a sense were rivals of the House of the Illuminator. I allude
-to the House of Albianus. It must not be forgotten that there were
-extensive settlements of Jews in Armenia at this period, brought
-thither by the Armenian king Tigranes (Faustus, iv. 55).
-
-[233] Eusebius, Hist. Eccl. ix. 8. For the date see Von Gutschmid
-(Kleine Schriften, iii. p. 412).
-
-[234] The doubts of Von Gutschmid would perhaps have been removed by
-the more correct translation given by Professor Gelzer of the passage
-relating to the journey in Agathangelus and by his editing of the
-context. The passage should read, "By land and sea they proceeded with
-haste until they reached the State of the Italians and the land of the
-Dalmatians and arrived in the imperial city of the Romans." Dalmatia
-is the prĉfectura per Illyricum. The name of the bishop is given
-in the text of Langlois as Sylvester, and as Eusebius in the Greek
-translation. The best Armenian MS. also has Eusebius. The name
-of Sylvester appears to have been substituted much later, when the
-"imperial city of the Romans" was very naturally identified with Rome
-and the prelate with the bishop of Rome.
-
-My friend Mr. F. C. Conybeare calls my attention to the interesting
-circumstance that the Armenian equivalent for Latin is Dalmatian. Thus
-in their Gospels it is said that the title King of the Jews was
-inscribed on the cross in Hebrew, Greek, and in Dalmatian.
-
-[235] And yet the homoousion was not incorporated into the Armenian
-Creed! But it does not appear that this omission was intentional. The
-creed already in use was allowed to stand. I confess to a feeling of
-astonishment, having regard to the unequivocal language in which
-the author of the Life attests the acceptance of the Council;
-but the canons could not have been much appreciated in Armenia at
-the time if we are to credit Koriun's statement that he himself,
-with Ghevond and Eznik, brought authentic copies of them to Armenia
-in the fifth century (Biography of Mesrop in Langlois' Collection,
-vol. ii. p. 12). Mr. F. C. Conybeare informs me that the Creed of Nice
-was only communicated to the Armenian diaspora in Persia and Southern
-Mesopotamia by the Katholikos Papken after the Council of Dvin, c. 490
-A.D. It was rejected by that diaspora as in contradiction with their
-already established Ebionite or Adoptionist tenets (see Letter-book of
-the Patriarchs, MS. of the Armenian Father, St. Anthony, in Stambul).
-
-Dr. Arshak Ter-Mikelean prints the Armenian and Nicene creeds
-side by side and accompanies them with some interesting remarks
-(Die armenische Kirche in ihren Beziehungen zur byzantinischen,
-Leipzig, 1892, p. 22 seq.). The statement of Agathangelus (Life of
-St. Gregory), that King Tiridates acted in concert with St. Gregory in
-making certain additions to the canons must be received with caution,
-although such additions do appear to have been actually made (see the
-note of the Mekhitarists to the Italian translation of Agathangelus,
-p. 196). His son, Chosroes II., appears to have come to the throne in
-314. As neither Agathangelus nor Faustus gives us dates, and as the
-most monstrous anachronisms occur in both treatises, one may do pretty
-well what one likes with the chronology. I should even mistrust them
-when they assign a given number of years for a particular period. In
-the East at the present day ten years means more than one and less
-than twenty years; and I see no reason to credit the old historians
-with much greater precision of statement. That the Armenians took part
-in the Council of Nice is attested by Agathangelus, Faustus, Moses
-of Khorene, etc., and also by the list of signatures of participants
-in the Council:--Armeniĉ majoris Aristarces, Threnius Diosponti (Von
-Gutschmid, Kleine Schriften, iii. 415). But we may reasonably doubt
-that either Tiridates or St. Gregory was alive at the time.
-
-[236] Lazar Pharpetzi, chs. x. and xi.; Moses of Khorene, iii. 36.
-
-[237] Moses of Khorene, iii. 10. The following chronology (which is
-not that of Moses) is taken from Saint Martin (apud Lebeau, Hist. du
-Bas-Empire). I attach to it a parallel list of the contemporary Greek
-Emperors and a similar column for the Sasanian monarchs, which is
-proudly filled by a single name. The date of Sapor II. rests on the
-authority of Th. Nöldeke.
-
-
-    Armenian Arsakid Kings.
-
-    Chosroes II. (the Little)               314-322
-    Tiran                                   322-337
-    Arshak                                  338-367
-    Pap                                     369-374
-
-
-    Roman Emperors.
-
-    Death of Constantine                        337
-    Constantius                             337-361
-    Julian                                  361-363
-    Valens                                  364-378
-    Theodosius (the Great)                  379-395
-
-
-    Persian Sasanian Kings.
-
-    Shapur II. (succeeds as an infant)      310-379
-
-
-[238] Faustus wrote c. A.D. 395-416.
-
-[239] Moses of Khorene (iii. 10) places the king at the head of a
-Greek army. The patriotism of Faustus was stronger than his veracity,
-and he maintains a discreet silence upon this circumstance.
-
-[240] The first statement in this sentence is all that we learn from
-Faustus; the two last rest on the authority of Moses of Khorene, who
-assigns the death of Verthanes to the third year of Tiran. Aristakes,
-the younger son of St. Gregory, and his successor in the functions
-of the pontifical office during the closing years of the life of
-the saint, was assassinated, apparently by a Roman prefect, at an
-uncertain date.
-
-[241] In A.D. 339-340, according to Th. Nöldeke (article Persia:
-Sasanians, in Ency. Brit.).
-
-[242] The peace of A.D. 363.
-
-[243] Agathangelus, Life of St. Gregory, sec. 154.
-
-[244] Faustus, iv. 3.
-
-[245] Mr. F. C. Conybeare has kindly communicated to me the following
-interesting note to this passage:--"These communities were really
-cities of refuge, imitated from the old Jewish legislation; and the
-Armenian monarch's aim was a wise one, namely, to set limits to the
-blood-feuds and vendettas of his subjects."
-
-[246] I adopt the ingenious suggestion of Professor Gelzer (Die
-Anfänge, etc., p. 155) that the dioceses of Korduk and Aghdznik were
-included in the provinces ceded to Persia under Jovian's treaty in
-363. Their bishops would have taken refuge in the dominions of the
-king and be receiving his support. The sequence of events in Faustus
-is against this hypothesis; but that is not of much account.
-
-[247] We know from Ammianus Marcellinus (xxx. 1) that King Pap himself
-died in 374.
-
-[248] Professor Gelzer, whose admirable essay I have freely used in the
-composition of this paragraph, adduces evidence from the correspondence
-of Basil to show that the advisers of King Pap proceeded cautiously
-along the path which they had chosen.
-
-[249] Such is the translation given by Professor Gelzer of the passage
-in Faustus iv. 14.
-
-[250] I am indebted to Mr. F. C. Conybeare for the following
-note to this passage:--The Armenian alphabet was imposed on Sahak
-(Isaac the Great) by the Persian Government as a political device to
-estrange the Armenians both from Greeks and from Syrians. The only
-historical account is that of Anania of Shirak (unedited chronicle in
-an uncial MS. at Mush), who relates that the twenty-nine consonants
-were "arranged in order" by Daniel, a Syrian philosopher, and sent
-(during the reign of Theodosius the Less) to the Armenian Satrap
-Vakortsh by Viram Shapu the king by hand of the Elder Abel. The seven
-vowels were still wanted, and Mesrop received these from Hayek, a
-noble of Taron. Stephanus, a scribe of Samosata, incorporated these
-seven vowels among the consonants.
-
-[251] Nor at the Councils of Constantinople and of Ephesus.
-
-[252] It appears that this formula was added to the Trisagion by the
-Synod of Vagharshapat (Ter-Mikelean, Die armenische Kirche, etc.,
-p. 47).
-
-[253] The subject is fully discussed by Ter-Mikelean (op. cit. pp. 52
-seq., and cp. pp. 70 and 89).
-
-[254] My reader may consider that I have been dealing too largely
-in ancient history. My excuse is that the position remains much the
-same at the present day. The differences between the Armenian and the
-Greek Churches are well summarised in a note by the Mekhitarists to the
-famous address delivered by Nerses of Lambron in the twelfth century
-to the council assembled at Romkla (Orazione sinodale di S. Nierses
-Lampronense, Venice, 1812, p. 188). The Greek Church demanded that
-the Armenian Church should:--1. Anathematise all those who assert that
-Christ has one nature. 2. Confess Jesus Christ in two natures. 3. Not
-address the Trisagion to the Second Person of the Trinity. 4. Celebrate
-the Dominical feasts in conformity with the Greek Church. 5. Prepare
-the Chrism or Holy Oil with oil alone. 6. Celebrate the Holy Communion
-with leavened bread and with water in the wine. 8. Receive the
-fourth, fifth, sixth, and seventh OEcumenical Councils. 9. Receive
-the nomination of the Armenian patriarch from the Greek Emperor. The
-attitude of the two Churches towards one another is regretfully but
-most pithily summed up by the same Nerses of Lambron. The Greeks
-thanked God that they were not like the Armenians; and the Armenians
-thanked God that they were not like the Greeks.
-
-It has been generally supposed that the Armenians subscribed the
-Councils of Constantinople and Ephesus; but I must repeat that this
-does not appear to have actually been the case (see Ter-Mikelean,
-op. cit.).
-
-Apart from dogma and ritual, the traveller notices a conspicuous
-difference between the Greek and the Armenian Church at the present
-day. You will not find eikons in Armenian houses, while no Russian
-house is without them. As regards the Church of Rome, the dogmatic
-breach is even wider than with the Greek Church; in common with the
-latter the Armenian Church rejects the Filioque. And of course it
-denies the infallibility of the Pope.
-
-[255] See especially Tournefort, Voyage du Levant, Paris, 1717,
-vol. ii. p. 335; Parrot, Reise zum Ararat, p. 83, and passim.
-
-The ingenious botanist, Tournefort, was tickled by the
-question--suggested by the tobacco fields through which he
-passed--whether the fragrant weed was included among the plants of
-the terrestrial paradise. Owing to the absence of olive trees in this
-region, he is puzzled by the story of the dove and the olive branch.
-
-[256] For the intercourse of the Armenians with the Jews I would
-refer my reader to Ritter, Erdkunde, vol. x. pp. 586 seq.
-
-[257] Dubois, Voyage autour du Caucase, vol. iii. p. 448.
-
-[258] Ibid. p. 419; and compare the account of this city given by
-Moses of Khorene.
-
-[259] See Ouseley's Travels, vol. iii. p. 450; Ker Porter's Travels,
-vol. ii. p. 640; Dubois, op. cit. vol. iii. p. 446. Ouseley and Ker
-Porter thought that they were the remains of Armavir. Dubois probably
-goes astray in assigning them to Tigranocerta.
-
-[260] Dubois, op. cit. vol. iii. p. 435 seq. On a hill at the
-confluence of the Arpa Chai with the Araxes, and on the western side of
-the former river, this traveller found relics of the ancient fortress
-of Ervandakert. It communicated with the Araxes by a subterranean
-passage. Ervandashat was situated on the eastern bank, a little higher
-up the stream.
-
-[261] At Ervandakert and at Karakala, according to the testimony of
-Dubois. See also Ker Porter (loc. cit.) for the relics of the bridge
-at the latter place.
-
-[262] Dubois, op. cit. vol. iii. pp. 421 and 449. Compare also Von
-Behagel's account (apud Parrot, op. cit.).
-
-[263] Probably Sembat II. (A.D. 977-89), the monarch who laid the
-foundations of the cathedral at Ani.
-
-[264] Ker Porter, op. cit. vol. i. p. 178; Ritter, Erdkunde,
-vol. x. p. 449.
-
-[265] John Katholikos. He has been translated by Saint-Martin (Paris,
-1841, a posthumous work). His History, which for a large part is
-a history of his own times, does not quite bring us down to the
-constitution of Ani into a royal residence.
-
-[266] The vanity of the Byzantine court denied them the actual
-title of king; and the imperial author, Constantine Porphyrogenitus,
-translates the Persian distinction which they afterwards acquired,
-that of Shahanshah, by the term archôn archontôn.
-
-[267] For the Artsruni and the Bagratuni I will refer my reader to
-Saint-Martin (Mémoires sur l'Arménie, Paris, 1818, vol. i. pp. 418
-seq.); for the Georgian Bagratuni to Brosset (Histoire de la Géorgie,
-Histoire ancienne, St. Petersburg, 1849, Addition IX.).
-
-[268] Dulaurier (Recherches sur la Chronologie Arménienne, Paris,
-1859, pp. 227 seq.).
-
-[269] Sparapet. This and the other Armenian titles of the age had
-come down from Arsakid times, having survived the destruction of
-monarchy. A family retained its title even when the functions which
-it designated were no longer capable of fulfilment (Saint-Martin,
-Mémoires, vol. i. p. 420).
-
-[270] The dates which I have taken from Chamchean's History of Armenia
-I have labelled C. Some are taken from the original work in Armenian;
-others from the abridged edition translated into English and entitled
-History of Armenia by Father Michael Chamich, translated by J. Avdall,
-Calcutta, 1827, 2 vols. 8vo. Those marked D. have been fixed by
-Dulaurier (op. cit.). Saint-Martin is my authority for some dates.
-
-[271] Thomas Artsruni specifies the length of the various stages in
-the career of Ashot. See Dulaurier (op. cit. pp. 266 seq.). The date
-861 corresponds with the last year of the caliph Mutawakil and the
-first of the reign of Muntasir. Lane Poole, Mohammedan Dynasties,
-London, 1894.
-
-[272] Kirakos, quoted by Dulaurier (op. cit.).
-
-[273] For discussions of the site of Bagaran (Pakaran) see Ritter
-(Erdkunde, vol. x. p. 449), and also Abich (Aus kaukasischen Ländern,
-Vienna, 1896, p. 203).
-
-[274] Chamchean and Saint-Martin place the death of Ashot in
-A.D. 889. But see Dulaurier (op. cit. p. 365).
-
-[275] The Tahirids became practically independent in Khorasan
-A.D. 820-872; they were dispossessed by the Saffarids of Fars and
-Seistan, A.D. 867-903.
-
-[276] Azerbaijan is, of course, the frontier province of Persia on
-the side of Armenia, having for capital the city of Tabriz.
-
-[277] Saint-Martin, following Chamchean, attributes another motive
-to this embassy. Sembat was desirous of severing his connection
-with the governor of Azerbaijan and of dealing directly with the
-caliph. Saint-Martin adds that the Caliph Muktafi, who had just
-succeeded (A.D. 902), granted the request.
-
-[278] Eugène Boré (Correspondance et Mémoires, Paris, 1840,
-vol. ii. p. 28). The place is situated in the neighbourhood of the
-town of Erzinjan, and the historian mentions the adjacent village
-of Tortan, which still appears to exist and to be known under that
-name. I have not been able to trace it upon any map; but the monastery
-of Surb Lusavorich and Mount Sepuh, the modern Kohanam Dagh, will be
-found indicated upon my map, accompanying this work.
-
-[279] Chamchean accounts for this change of policy towards the
-legitimate king by supposing that Yusuf wished to conciliate him
-prior to revolting from the caliph.
-
-[280] I adopt the colouring of John Katholikos. Among the many
-opprobrious terms under which he alludes to Yusuf are the following:
-second Pharaoh, prince of wild beasts, man-eater, astute serpent,
-Satan, foul-breathed basilisk. Such is the language of clerical
-writers in every age.
-
-[281] John Katholikos, ch. clxxxv.
-
-[282] Ibid. ch. clxxxvii.
-
-[283] Samuel of Ani, in Migne, Patrologiĉ cursus completus, series
-Grĉca, vol. xix. p. 718.
-
-[284] Matthew of Edessa, translated by Dulaurier (Paris, 1858).
-
-[285] Samuel of Ani ap. Migne, op. cit. vol. xix. p. 718.
-
-[286] Matthew of Edessa (op. cit. iii. p. 2) gives the date as
-A.D. 959-960. He makes the event contemporary with the expedition
-of the imperial forces against Crete, which started in 960 and was
-continued during 961. Saint-Martin (op. cit. vol. i. p. 364) assigns
-the Armenian victory to the latter year, and Chamchean to the year 962.
-
-[287] Matthew of Edessa, op. cit. pp. 14 seq.
-
-[288] Vardan. See Brosset, Ruines d'Ani, St. Petersburg, 1860, p. 102.
-
-[289] Samuel of Ani ap. Migne, op. cit. p. 721.
-
-[290] Ibid.
-
-[291] Matthew of Edessa, chs. xxii. and xxiii.; and Asoghik, iii. 38,
-quoted by Dulaurier.
-
-[292] Samuel of Ani ap. Migne, op. cit. p. 723.
-
-[293] Samuel of Ani (ibid.) and Asoghik.
-
-[294] Samuel of Ani (ibid.).
-
-[295] Samuel of Ani (ibid. p. 720) and Chamchean. According to Samuel
-of Ani, it was in A.D. 971 that the patriarch established the seat
-of his spiritual government at Arghina.
-
-[296] Aristakes of Lastivert (op. cit. ii. pp. 358 seq.) and Matthew
-of Edessa (op. cit. viii. p. 6).
-
-[297] Matthew of Edessa, op. cit. x. p. 8.
-
-[298] Matthew of Edessa and Aristakes of Lastivert.
-
-[299] When Senekerim of Van ceded his kingdom in A.D. 1021 it had been
-harried for twenty-two years. Such is the statement of Samuel of Ani
-(op. cit. p. 723). It is true he attributes these incursions to the
-"Saracens"; but he must mean the Turks, unless we are to discredit
-altogether the detailed statement of Matthew of Edessa (ch. xxxviii.),
-that it was a horde of Turks that defeated the forces of Senekerim. I
-shall not attempt to reconcile the Armenian accounts with the
-information which we have received from other sources concerning the
-early incursions of the Seljuks. The Byzantine writers do not appear
-to mention the invasions of 1021 and preceding years, or the invasion
-of 1042 (Brosset ap. Lebeau, Hist. du Bas Empire, vol. xiv. p. 353).
-
-[300] Matthew of Edessa and Aristakes of Lastivert.
-
-[301] Samuel of Ani, Thomas Artsruni (quoted by Dulaurier, Recherches
-sur la Chronologie Arménienne, pp. 282 seq.), and Chamchean. I
-prefer to translate oppida by villages and urbes by towns in the
-Latin version of Samuel of Ani, feeling sure that these terms, as
-understood in modern times, will be more in accordance with the facts.
-
-[302] Vardan (quoted by Dulaurier, notes to Matthew of Edessa,
-op. cit. p. 378), and Matthew of Edessa, ch. xi. If Toghrul Bey was
-over seventy years old when he died in A.H. 455, he would be in the
-flower of his age at the time of this expedition.
-
-[303] Matthew of Edessa, ch. lx. p. 71; and Chamchean, vol. ii. pp. 127
-seq.
-
-[304] Matthew of Edessa, ch. lxix. p. 80. See also Lebeau,
-op. cit. vol. xiv. p. 351.
-
-[305] The campaigns of this period are narrated by Matthew of Edessa
-(ch. lxxiii. pp. 83 seq.) and Aristakes (op. cit. pp. 268-82 and
-p. 285), as well as by the Greek and Arab historians. The subject is
-discussed by Saint-Martin (Mémoires, vol. ii. pp. 201 seq.).
-
-[306] Matthew of Edessa, ch. lxxviii. pp. 98 seq., and Aristakes,
-op. cit. 1863, ch. xvi. p. 289. Melazkert owed its deliverance largely
-to the intrepidity of a Frankish adventurer. It did not fall to the
-Turks until A.D. 1069, when it was taken after a siege of a single
-day by Alp Arslan (Matthew of Edessa, ch. cii.).
-
-[307] Matthew of Edessa, ch. lxxxi. p. 109.
-
-[308] Ibid. pp. 107, 108, and Aristakes, op. cit. 1864, ch. xxi.
-
-[309] Matthew of Edessa, ch. lxxxiv. pp. 111 seq.
-
-[310] See Aristakes, ch. xviii., and Matthew of Edessa, ch. lxxxvi.
-
-[311] We are informed in the History of Thomas Artsruni that Senekerim
-and the Artsrunian princes were accompanied in their emigration by a
-population of 14,000 males, besides women and children. See Dulaurier,
-Recherches, etc., p. 284. Chamchean (vol. ii. p. 113) increases this
-estimate to 400,000 souls, I know not upon what authority.
-
-[312] Chamchean, vol. ii. p. 104; Saint-Martin, Mémoires,
-vol. i. p. 366; Brosset ap. Lebeau, vol. xiv. pp. 184 seq. Chamchean
-and Saint-Martin place this expedition in A.D. 999, Lebeau in 991,
-while Aristakes assigns it to the year 1001. The latter attributes
-the capture of Arjish to Nikephorus, the Greek governor of Vaspurakan
-appointed by Basil.
-
-[313] Aristakes in op. cit. ch. ii., together with the authorities
-collected in the accompanying notes by M. Prudhomme. Chamchean
-attributes the cession of the kingdom of Ani to the terror which
-had been inspired by the Seljuk invasions. Basil's policy of taking
-over the hereditary possessions of the Armenian and Georgian princes
-and giving them seats in other parts of the Empire was continued
-by his brother Constantine. See Aristakes, op. cit., third series,
-vol. xvi. pp. 51 seq.
-
-[314] Samuel of Ani, op. cit. p. 723; and Lebeau,
-vol. xiv. p. 249. Aristakes is our authority for a curious story
-respecting the adventures of this testament (ch. x.).
-
-[315] Samuel of Ani; Matthew of Edessa; Aristakes; Kedrenus. The
-Byzantine historians omit the campaign of 1041, and maintain silence
-upon the disagreeable topic of the deception practised upon King Gagik.
-
-[316] Aristakes, ch. xvii.
-
-[317] Matthew of Edessa, chs. lxxxiv. and lxxxv.
-
-[318] Aristakes, ch. xvii.
-
-[319] Matthew of Edessa; Samuel of Ani; Aristakes. The king of Kars
-gave over his realm to the Empire shortly after the fall of Ani,
-taking in exchange the fortress of Tsamentav near Amasia in Asia Minor
-(Matthew of Edessa, ch. lxxxviii.).
-
-[320] Pp. 337 and 362.
-
-[321] Kedrenus calls him ruler of Tibion (= Tivin or Dvin) and parts
-of Persarmenia about the river Araxes (edit. Bekker, vol. ii. pp. 556
-seq.). See Matthew of Edessa (ch. x. with Dulaurier's note, and
-ch. cii. p. 165) and Aristakes (ch. x.). For the Beni-Cheddad see
-Saint-Martin (Mémoires, vol. i. p. 433; ii. p. 235) and Brosset (Ruines
-d'Ani, pp. 114 and 126, and Hist. de la Géorgie, Hist. ancienne,
-p. 343). Abulsevar marched with Alp Arslan in 1069 against the Empire
-(Matthew of Edessa, ch. cii.). His activity therefore ranges over a
-considerable period.
-
-[322] Samuel of Ani.
-
-[323] Samuel of Ani; Matthew of Edessa; the Georgian annalist, quoted
-by Brosset (Hist. de la Géorgie, p. 369).
-
-[324] Samuel of Ani and Matthew of Edessa.
-
-[325] Samuel of Ani.
-
-[326] Samuel of Ani and Matthew of Edessa.
-
-[327] Samuel of Ani; the continuation of Matthew of Edessa; the
-Georgian annalist in Brosset (Hist. de la Géorgie).
-
-[328] Brosset, Ruines d'Ani, p. 131, and Voyage Archéologique,
-livraison 1, rapport 1, p. 94.
-
-[329] The Georgian annalist, ap. Brosset, Hist. de la Géorgie.
-
-[330] The various emigrations of the inhabitants of Ani are
-exhibited by Minas Bejeshkean (Travels in Lehastan (Poland) and other
-Countries inhabited by Armenian Emigrants from Ani, Venice, 1830 (in
-Armenian)). His account is summarised by Brosset (Ruines d'Ani, pp. 138
-seq.) and by Ritter (Erdkunde, vol. x. pp. 597 seq.). For the code of
-the Armenians of Lemberg see Sitzungsberichte der phil.-hist. Klasse
-der k. Akad. der Wissenschaften, Vienna, 1862, pp. 255 seq.
-
-[331] Let me catalogue in this place the works of previous travellers
-having reference to Ani which I have collected. I shall annex the date
-of visit whenever I have been able to ascertain it. I have purposely
-omitted works written in Russian or in Armenian. The full titles will
-be found in the bibliography attached to Vol. II.
-
-(1) 1621, Poser (Reyse, etc., Jena, 1675, 4o). His account is confined
-to a few sentences. He mentions the existence of 200 churches in Ani
-and the immediate neighbourhood. (2) Tavernier (edit. Paris, 1679,
-Livre Premier, p. 24). A few misleading sentences. (3) 1817, Ker Porter
-(Travels in Georgia, etc., London, 1821-22, vol. i. pp. 169 seq.). A
-fantastic description. (4) 1836, Hamilton (Researches in Asia Minor,
-etc., London, 1842, vol. i. pp. 197 seq.). The best of these older
-notices. (5) 1837, Wilbraham (Travels, etc., London, 1839, pp. 287
-seq.). The hasty but vivid impressions of a tourist, from which
-the following is an extract: "The shapeless mounds of Babylon are
-like the skeleton; but the deserted, yet still standing city (Ani)
-resembles the corpse whose breath has fled, but which still retains
-the semblance of life." (6) 1837, Abbott (Notes of a Tour, Journal
-R.G.S., 1842, vol. xii. pp. 215 seq.). Not important. (7) 1838,
-Eugène Boré (Corr. et Mém., Paris, 1840, vol. ii. p. 2) mentions a
-mémoire in which he was about to resume the results of his seven days'
-sojourn in Ani, during which he copied inscriptions. The mémoire has
-been lost. (8) 1839, Texier (Description de l'Arménie, etc., Paris,
-1842, folio, pp. 93-116), with a plan, which is not oriented, and ten
-fine plates. Texier's account is both defective and unsatisfactory;
-but it is the first detailed description. I must warn my reader
-against accepting his history; he seems to confuse Timur with Alp
-Arslan in some places. (9) 1844, Herrmann Abich (Bull. hist.-phil. de
-l'Acad. de Sciences de St. Pétersbourg, 1845, vol. ii. pp. 369-76,
-with notice by Brosset; Aus kaukasischen Ländern, Reisebriefe,
-Vienna, 1896, pp. 176-200). The distinguished geologist devoted four
-days to the study of the ruins and drew out a plan of the site. His
-full account, for which consult the latter of the two references,
-had not been published, so far as I could ascertain, at the time
-of my own journey. But Brosset had already published the plan,
-the substantial accuracy of which I was able to test upon the spot
-(Voyage Archéologique, St. Petersburg, 1849-51, Atlas), and the
-inscriptions copied by Abich (in the same work, livr. 1, rapp. 3,
-pp. 86-111). (10) 1846, Muravieff, quoted by Khanikoff ap. Brosset
-(Voy. Arch. livr. 1, rapp. 3, pp. 121-52). (11) 1847, Nerses Sargisean
-of the Society of the Mekhitarists of Venice copied a number of
-the inscriptions. See Brosset (Ruines d'Ani, St. Petersburg, 1860,
-p. 5), and especially Brosset's article in the Bull. Acad. Sciences
-St. P., 1862, vol. iv. pp. 255-67. (12) 1848, Khanikoff copied the
-Mussulman inscriptions. See Brosset (Voy. Arch. livr. 1, rapp. 3,
-pp. 121-52). (13) 1850, Kästner (Lieut. Julius) was commissioned by
-Prince Vorontsoff, Governor of the Caucasus, to explore Ani, and spent
-forty-four days within its walls. He collected fifty inscriptions
-and made numerous drawings, which have been made use of by Brosset
-(Ruines d'Ani, pp. 4 seq.). (14) 18--, Ussher (Journey from London
-to Persepolis, London, 1865, pp. 243-45). A sketchy description.
-
-The whole subject has been fully treated, but unfortunately at second
-hand, by Brosset (Ruines d'Ani, St. Pet. 1860, and Bull. Acad. Sciences
-St. P., 1862, vol. iv. pp. 255-67). The traveller is deeply indebted
-to Brosset for these two valuable treatises. Fergusson has devoted a
-few pages to Ani in the first volume of his History of Architecture
-(see pp. 473-75).
-
-I ought not to close this list without referring to two works in
-Armenian which are of special value: Sargis Dgalaleantz (Journey in
-Great Armenia, Tiflis, 1842 and 1858, 8vo), and Alishan (Description of
-Great Armenia, Venice, 1855). Both these works contain accounts of Ani.
-
-[332] This ravine is the Armenian Tsaghkotzadzor or Valley of the
-Flower-garden.
-
-[333] The moat may have united the waters of the Alaja and the Arpa
-Chai. See Ruines d'Ani, p. 60.
-
-[334] See Brosset, Ruines d'Ani, pp. 18 and 144. It may belong to
-the Tartar period (Mongol) and have reference to the restoration
-of Ani after the earthquake of A.D. 1319. Texier (op. cit. p. 94)
-commits himself to the statement that it is in Arabic characters;
-but see Khanikoff, op. cit. p. 135.
-
-[335] On the authority of Samuel of Ani. See supra, p. 354.
-
-[336] See Brosset, Ruines d'Ani, pp. 16, 17, 58, 59; and Voyage Arch.,
-livr. 1, rapp. 3, p. 143. One of these inscriptions indicates that
-the name of the reigning prince of the Beni-Cheddad in A.D. 1160,
-just before the Georgian conquest, was Phatl (Fathlun). Several
-belong to the reign of Thamar, and exhibit the name of the Georgian
-ruler, Zakare-Shahanshah, who is styled "chief of the mandatories"
-and son of Sarkis Shahanshah. See Brosset (Voyage Arch., livr. 1,
-rapp. 1, pp. 92-94, and Ruines d'Ani, p. 18) for an explanation of
-this title. Two of these inscriptions of Zakare belong to the years
-1206 and 1215 respectively.
-
-[337] Ani is said to have contained not less than 100,000 inhabitants
-in the eleventh century. Yet the circumference of the city has been
-estimated at not more than 3 1/2 miles. I am inclined to think that
-a large proportion of the population lived without the walls.
-
-[338] The conjecture which Brosset throws out that the mosque referred
-to may be the cathedral is not, I think, a happy one. For this minaret
-see especially Khanikoff (op. cit. pp. 135-36), Brosset (Ruines d'Ani,
-p. 31), and Abich (Aus kauk. Länd. vol. i. p. 191). The inscription
-describes Kei-Sultan as "son of Mahmud, son of Chawir, son of Manuchar,
-Cheddadi." Kei-Sultan is not otherwise known. We must conclude that
-the Beni-Cheddad were still powerful in Ani as late as the end of
-the twelfth century.
-
-[339] The dimensions of the interior are as follows, according to
-my measurements:--Length, 105 feet 6 in. (viz. 76 feet 6 in. to the
-daïs of the apse, and 29 feet from the daïs to the extremity of the
-recess); breadth, 65 feet 6 in.; breadth of apse, 29 feet 7 in.
-
-[340] Texier reminds us that at the time when this cathedral was built
-(early eleventh century) the Romanesque style was universal in Europe
-(op. cit. p. 112). Yet in this building we have the characteristics
-of a style which might be found in Southern Europe in the thirteenth
-century--the pointed arch, the coupled piers. See also Fergusson,
-op. cit. p. 473.
-
-[341] I must caution my reader against the drawing of this apse in
-plate ix. of Brosset's Atlas to the Ruines d'Ani.
-
-[342] The cathedral has been recently constituted into quite a little
-museum, all fragments of sculptured stone found at Ani being preserved
-there. I photographed one of the most remarkable, which displays the
-familiar subject of the eagle and the hare (Fig. 75). Another contains
-a bas-relief of three saints and was probably placed above a doorway.
-
-[343] Brosset, Voyage Arch. livr. 1, rapp. 3, pp. 93-95, and Ruines
-d'Ani, pp. 22-28.
-
-[344] Siunik was one of the large provinces into which Armenia was
-divided. Samuel of Ani places the completion of the cathedral in
-Arm. era 457 = A.D. 1008. But he may refer to a stage which was not
-quite the ultimate one.
-
-[345] Brosset identifies this Aron with the Aron-Vestes of the
-Byzantines, who was sent to these countries about the year 1042,
-was commander of the imperial forces, became governor of Vaspurakan,
-Ani being attached to his jurisdiction, and was still in possession
-of his office in 1048 (Voyage Arch. loc. cit. p. 93).
-
-[346] I am not aware that any inscription mentions the name of
-the architect. Sic vos non vobis! But Asoghik tells us that it was
-Tirdat or Tiridates, an Armenian architect who is reputed to have
-restored St. Sophia at Constantinople after its partial destruction
-by an earthquake.
-
-[347] My measurements of the interior are:--Length, 41 feet (of
-which 15 feet is occupied by the apse measured from the daïs to
-the extremity of the recess); breadth, 26 feet. Texier mentions an
-adjacent baptistery (?).
-
-[348] See especially Texier, Muravieff, and Abich's Aus
-kauk. Länd. vol. i. pp. 198-99.
-
-[349] The inscription has been translated by Brosset (Ruines d'Ani,
-pp. 145-48).
-
-[350] Brosset (ibid. p. 15). I was able to verify the date, about
-which Brosset expresses some doubt (ibid. p. 148).
-
-[351] For these two ruins see also Abich, op. cit. vol. i. pp. 196-97.
-
-[352] For these inscriptions see Brosset, Ruines d'Ani, pp. 11-13. He
-reminds us of the importance of the date 1320 (Arm. era. 769) as being
-the year after the great earthquake. I must take this opportunity
-to caution my reader against accepting the tradition mentioned by
-Muravieff (ap. Brosset, Voyage Arch. livr. 1, rapp. 3, p. 127) that
-the little chapel was built in A.D. 1000 by King Gagik I. I may also
-mention that we could discover no traces of the guardhouse adjacent
-to the bridge (Ruines d'Ani, p. 10).
-
-[353] Khanikoff ap. Brosset, Voyage Arch. livr. 1, rapp. 3, p. 138.
-
-[354] Ibid. p. 138, and Ruines d'Ani, p. 30.
-
-[355] Ibid. p. 140, and Ruines d'Ani, p. 31.
-
-[356] Muravieff ap. Brosset, Voyage Arch. loc. cit. p. 129.
-
-[357] Mr. Marr has published an account of his discoveries of new
-epigraphical material in Armenia in the Zapiski of the Eastern Section
-of the Imp. Russian Arch. Society, vol. viii., 1893, pp. 69-103. He
-contributes four new inscriptions from Ani. I have not been able to
-find any account of his excavations.
-
-[358] The interior of the building which forms the subject of my
-illustration is given by Brosset in plate xiv. of the Atlas to
-the Ruines d'Ani. The detail and ornament there portrayed do not
-correspond with reality. The devils are more or less imaginary, and
-there appears to be only one of them in the actual design, viz. on
-the south wall, the first pilaster as you enter from the west--in low
-relief. Brosset styles this interior "a hall in the citadel"; but the
-following considerations are against this view:--1. It is oriented
-east; 2. It obviously had an apse; 3. Above the apse you see the form
-of a cross sculptured on the face of the arch which still remains.
-
-The bas-reliefs are given by Brosset, plates xxxv. and xxxvii. The
-former (representing the archer) was found in the valley of the
-Tsaghkotz with an inscription in Armenian, "Christ have pity on the
-lady Shushan, thy servant." This personage may be identified with the
-wife of the Pahlavid Grigor, mother of Vahram.
-
-[359] This building must be the subject of plate xiii. in Brosset's
-Atlas to the Ruines.
-
-[360] The rock with the chapel is described by Abich
-(op. cit. vol. i. p. 192). It was strongly fortified.
-
-[361] It is not exactly symmetrical, the measurement from west to
-east being nearly 31 feet.
-
-[362] Brosset translates, "J'ai construit ce lieu de repos." But it
-surely cannot refer to the chapel itself, which, as we have seen,
-has inscriptions of the mother of Aplgharib, and must therefore have
-been in existence before 1040. Brosset therefore supposes that the
-restoration of the church is alluded to (Ruines d'Ani, pp. 37 and
-106). For a more probable version of the inscription see Alishan,
-Shirak, p. 53.
-
-[363] For the inscriptions see Brosset (Voyage Arch. loc. cit. p. 91,
-and Ruines d'Ani, pp. 36 seq.). Aplgharib was brother to Vahram. I
-could find no trace of the curious figure found upon one of the
-windows which Brosset refers to (pp. 38 seq.). On the other hand,
-I was able to identify the two inscriptions last mentioned.
-
-[364] Kirakos ap. Dulaurier, Recherches sur la Chron. Arm. p. 280.
-
-[365] Asoghik ap. Brosset, Ruines d'Ani, p. 106.
-
-[366] Abich confuses the sites of these two monuments in his
-Reisebriefe (op. cit.).
-
-[367] Such is the translation of this inscription given by the editor
-of Aristakes of Lastivert. Brosset appears to have made a palpable
-error (Ruines d'Ani, p. 21, inscription of Christaphor).
-
-[368] Probably the inscription of this same Aplgharib given by Brosset
-(Ruines d'Ani, p. 28) belongs to this chapel. It runs thus:--"Under
-the pontificate of Ter Petros and the reign of Sembat son of Gagik
-Shahanshah in the year 485 (A.D. 1036) I, the Marzpan Aplgharib, son
-of the prince Grigor, grandson of Apughamir and brother of Vahram
-and Vasak, constructed at great expense this Surb-Phrkich in the
-metropolis of Ani." This inscription would establish as a fact that
-the chapel itself was dedicated to the Redeemer.
-
-[369] A perfect labyrinth of confusion has been brought into
-existence by the attribution of the east front of the portal of the
-church of the Apostles to this castle or palace (see plate xix. of
-Brosset's Atlas). Happily I am able to correct the error. It has been
-instrumental in leading Brosset to assign all the inscriptions found
-in that church to this castle. The name "palace of the Pahlavids"
-is purely imaginary.
-
-[370] Brosset, Ruines d'Ani, p. 51, and plate xxxvi. No. 3 of the
-Atlas. It has been wrongly attributed to the castle.
-
-[371] Abich describes this chapel as "a magnificent church in the form
-of a Greek cross with a central rotunda and four large semicircular
-niches at the sides" (op. cit. vol. i. p. 190).
-
-[372] See Brosset (Voyage Arch. livr. 1, rapp. 3, pp. 86, 100, 101,
-106, 109; and Ruines d'Ani, pp. 48-52).
-
-[373] This is the chapel which Abich names "Kirche der Maria
-Verkündigung" (op. cit. vol. i. p. 193).
-
-[374] Abich, op. cit. vol. i. p. 199.
-
-[375] See the Georgian annalist translated by Brosset (Hist. de
-la Géorgie).
-
-[376] I should be sorry to have to swear to this statement.
-
-[377] Voyage Arch. livr. 1, rapp. 3, pp. 96, 107, 109-10.
-
-[378] Telfer, Crimea and Transcaucasia, vol. i. p. 216. The chamber
-at Geghard is known as the Rusukna sanctuary, and was completed in
-A.D. 1288 (Arm. era 737) (ibid.).
-
-[379] An inscription of A.D. 1215, much mutilated, seems to infer this
-(Brosset, Voyage Arch. loc. cit. p. 97).
-
-[380] Brosset, Voyage Arch. loc. cit. p. 98. The dimensions of these
-various apartments are:--No. 1, length, 29 feet 4 inches; breadth, 29
-feet; No. 2, 27 feet by 27 feet 2 inches; No. 3, hall of the synod,
-18 1/2 paces by 18 paces. The reader will note that the architects
-avoided exact squares. In this they were governed by a right instinct.
-
-[381] Brosset, Voyage Arch. loc. cit. p. 99. Another derivation is
-from the Greek word for a priest, iereus (see M. Prudhomme, note to
-Aristakes, ch. ii.).
-
-[382] Asoghik ap. Brosset (Ruines d'Ani, p. 137).
-
-[383] Ruines d'Ani, p. 137.
-
-[384] Ibid. p. 61.
-
-[385] Texier (op. cit. p. 112):--"La façade de cette église (the
-cathedral) construite avec une simplicité remarquable ... peut être
-regardée comme le type de l'architecture allemande du moyen âge. Il
-est facile d'expliquer comment, dans toute cette contrée, on retrouve
-le dôme à toit conique particulier à l'architecture arménienne. En
-effet, après la prise d'Ani par les Mussulmans, un grand nombre de
-citoyens abandonnaient la ville...."
-
-[386] Abich, Geologische Forschungen in den kaukasischen Ländern,
-Vienna, 1882, part ii. pp. 47 seq. Das Plateau von Kars.
-
-[387] Strabo, xi. c. 528.
-
-[388] Ptolemy, v. 13, pages 135 and 136 of the folio edition. The
-identification with one of these towns is generally assumed; but in
-view of the statement of Evliya, noted below, that in his time there
-existed three towns of this name, it cannot be regarded as certain.
-
-[389] to kastron to Kars, Const. Porphyr. De adm. imp. cap. 44.
-
-[390] See Chapter XVIII. p. 353 and p. 364; and Saint-Martin, Mémoires
-sur l'Arménie, vol. i. p. iii. Tsamentav was the name of the appanage
-received in exchange. It was situated in the Cilician Taurus.
-
-[391] Koch, Reise im pontischen Gebirge, Weimar, 1846, p. 462.
-
-[392] Travels of Evliya, translated by Von Hammer, vol. ii. p. 181. The
-passage runs: "Eight hours further to the east we reach the frontier
-fortress of the Ottomans, the castle of Karss. There are three towns of
-that name; one is in Silefka, the Karss of Karatashlik; the second the
-Karss of Mera'ash, and the last that of Dúdemán, which is the present
-one." I am ignorant of the locality assigned to the first mentioned.
-
-[393] The name Vanand is said by Moses of Khorene (ii. 6) to be
-derived from that of the chieftain of a horde of Bulgarians who settled
-there. Now that Moses has been assigned to the eighth century of our
-era the statement need not surprise us.
-
-[394] Von Hammer, Geschichte des osm. Reiches, vol. viii. p. 58.
-
-[395] Uschakoff, Geschichte der Feldzüge, 1828, 1829, Leipzig, 1838,
-part i. p. 194.
-
-[396] Uschakoff, op. cit. i. pp. 191 seq.
-
-[397] Sandwith, Narrative of the Siege of Kars, London, 1856; Lake,
-Kars and Our Captivity in Russia, London, 1856.
-
-[398] According to Sandwith (op. cit. p. 286) no less than 6300
-Russians were buried by the besieged after the grand assault on
-Takhmas. Loris Melikoff informed the Daily News Correspondent in
-1877 that during the operations of 1855, at which he himself had been
-present, the Russians lost more than 8000 men, killed or disabled.
-
-[399] Loris Melikoff contented himself with making a strong
-demonstration against the forts on the left bank, and directed his
-main attack against the Karadagh and the forts in the plain. It was
-completely successful, having been undertaken at night. The Turks had
-concentrated their forces on the heights overlooking the left bank
-and might probably have gone on holding them after the capture of the
-town. But the Commander lost heart; the cunning Armenian who organised
-the victory left him an open door, and he took to his heels. I think
-one must regard these heights as practically impregnable, if held by
-a force well supplied with artillery, provisions, and water.
-
-In 1877 the garrison was 26,000 strong, augmented to an even higher
-figure by the townsmen. The attacking force seems to have been about
-equal in number. Kars fell on the night of the 17th of November. See
-Daily News Correspondence, London, 1878; Norman, Armenia and the
-Campaign of 1877, London, n.d.; Étude critique des opérations en
-Turquie d'Asie pendant la guerre en 1877-78 d'après des documents
-officiels, par un officier supérieur Turc (Constantinople and Leipzic,
-1896).
-
-[400] Ussher, Journey from London to Persepolis, London, 1865, p. 238.
-
-[401] Ker Porter (1819), Travels, etc., vol. ii. p. 648.
-
-[402] Wilbraham, Travels, etc., London, 1839, pp. 294, 314; Koch,
-Reise im pontischen Gebirge, Weimar, 1846, p. 460.
-
-[403] I may cite Brant (1835), Hamilton (1836), Abbott (1837), Consul
-Taylor (1868)--the last being an unpublished report. Taylor estimates
-2000 houses, of which 200 are Christian and the rest Moslem.
-
-[404] Travels of Evliya, translated by Von Hammer, London, 1850,
-vol. ii. p. 182.
-
-[405] Samuel of Ani, in Migne, Patrologiae cursus completus, series
-Grĉca, vol. xix. p. 718. "Abasus, Sembati filius, mirae magnificentiae
-templum excitat cathedrale in urbe Carsa."
-
-[406] Brosset, Ruines d'Ani, p. 8.
-
-[407] Abich, Geologische Forschungen in kaukasischen Ländern, Vienna,
-1882, vol. ii. p. 145, and Map I. He measures from the western
-foot of the Ala Dagh below the village of Kalabashi in an easterly
-direction. See also his various measurements (ibid. pp. 376, 377).
-
-[408] By my own instruments.
-
-[409] The bed of the river at the ford has an elevation of 3900 feet
-according to my barometers. Abich's readings are as follows:--Bank of
-the river below the village of Changly, above Kagyzman, 3932 feet;
-below the village of Kers, below Kagyzman, 3671 feet. The elevation
-of Kagyzman is 4621 feet. Evliya, who travelled in the middle of the
-seventeenth century, furnishes the following account of the place:--
-
-"The castle of Kaghzemán being situated on the Kiblah side of the
-Aras is reckoned to be on the frontier of Azerbeiján, but belongs
-to the Ottoman government of Karss. It is named after its builder,
-one of the daughters of Núshirván. It was taken out of the hands of
-Uzún Hassan by Sháh Ismail, and then submitted to Sultán Súleimán. It
-is the seat of a Sanjak Beg whose khass amounts to 200,000 aspers,
-9 ziámets, 178 timárs: 900 feudal militia, a judge appointed with 150
-aspers, and a garrison of 300 men, who are paid by the impost on salt;
-the salt mines, and a quarry of mill-stones, are on the west side of
-the castle. The mill-stones of Persia and Rúm come from Kaghzemán;
-the borax of the goldsmiths, barbers' whetting-stones, and the common
-whetting-stones are extracted from the mines of Kaghzemán; in two
-places gold and silver are found, but as the product was exceeded by
-the expenses they were abandoned; there are altogether 11 mines. The
-castle is a square strong building standing on a hill on the bank
-of the Aras; there are 700 small houses; it is not a commercial town
-(Bender), but a frontier town (Serhadd). Mount Aghrí, which appears to
-the west, is one of the most praiseworthy mountains in the world; it is
-near the town, and is the summer abode (Yaila) of Turcomans. The air
-is temperate and allows of the cultivation of gardens on some spots;
-the inhabitants are mild and some of them fair. The Levend troops
-(irregular levies) sing Persian songs with harmonious voices. As soon
-as I entered the town the Diván assembled, and notwithstanding the
-repeated oaths of the members of it, that they had not molested the
-Persian caravan, but only taken their custom duties, I took seven Aghás
-of them with me to prove the truth of what they said, by their presence
-at Erzerúm, whereunto I returned" (The Travels of Evliya, translated
-from the Turkish by Von Hammer, London, 1850, vol. i. p. 183).
-
-[410] According to the official statistics the population amounts to
-3435 souls, of whom the Armenians number 1709 and the Turks 1578.
-
-[411] Suess makes the outer Iranian arc commence at Tank, near
-Dereh Ismail Khan on the Indus (Das Antlitz der Erde, Leipzic, 1885,
-vol. ii. p. 552).
-
-[412] Such is the view of Suess.
-
-[413] Besides the great work of Suess already cited, I may refer
-my reader to Dr. Edmund Naumann's admirable study: Die Grundlinien
-Anatoliens und Centralasiens, in Heltner's Geographische Zeitschrift,
-ii. Jahrgang, 1896, pp. 7-25, with two maps. Also to a paper by the
-same author in the Report of the Sixth Int. Geog. Congress, London,
-1895, pp. (661)-(670).
-
-[414] For a comprehensive account of the salt deserts of Persia,
-extending over 500 miles of country, I may refer my reader to Lord
-Curzon's Persia, London, 1892, vol. ii. pp. 246 seq.
-
-[415] This must be a most interesting approach to Armenia from the side
-of Tiflis, and is worth suggesting to the lover of unbeaten tracks.
-
-[416] Karabagh is portrayed to us from various points of view by Smith
-and Dwight, Missionary Researches in Armenia, London, 1834, letters
-ix.-xiii.; Radde, G., Karabagh in Petermann's Mitt., Ergänzungsheft
-No. 100, Gotha, 1890; Abich, H., op. infra cit., part iii. p. 4; Madame
-B. Chantre, À travers l'Arménie Russe, Paris, 1893, chs. iv.-viii.
-
-[417] This demarcation has been adopted by Herrmann Abich, who,
-however, would include the Karadagh. He speaks of the elevation which
-may be traced from the neighbourhood of Ardabil in Persia through the
-volcano of Savalan all the way to the mountains south of Lake Van as
-the "natural physical frontier between Armenia and Azerbaijan" and
-as the "southern border chain of Great Armenia." But he is pressing
-the word chain a little unduly. See Geologische Forschungen in den
-kauk. Ländern, Vienna, 1882, part ii., introduction, pp. 10 and 11.
-
-[418] Karl Koch, Reise im pontischen Gebirge und türkischen Armenien,
-Weimar, 1846, pp. 203-4.
-
-[419] Herrmann Abich, Geologische Forschungen in den kauk. Ländern,
-Vienna, 1882 and 1887, part ii. pp. 20-21, part iii. p. 81.
-
-[420] Abich, op. cit. part iii. p. 18.
-
-[421] Ibid. part ii. p. 138.
-
-[422] Ibid. part ii. p. 139.
-
-[423] The old Armenian province of Shirak.
-
-[424] An analysis of this earth is given by Abich (op. cit. part
-iii. p. 49).
-
-[425] Abich, op. cit. part ii. pp. 35-46.
-
-[426] Karl Koch, op. cit. pp. 223 seq. He regards the south-western
-branch as the most considerable.
-
-[427] Abich, op. cit. part ii. p. 23.
-
-[428] See Vol. II. of the present work, Ch. IV. p. 44.
-
-[429] Abich, op. cit. part ii. pp. 9 and 38.
-
-[430] The Statistics of 1886 underestimate the population of Tiflis
-town. I have corrected them on the assumption that the population
-of the city in 1886 was 145,731. See the Caucasus Calendar for 1893,
-p. 20.
-
-[431] I have substituted the figures of 1891 for those of 1886. The
-former are given in the Caucasus Calendar for 1893, p. 43.
-
-[432] Including 2743 Jews, 2150 Assyrians, and 1665 Germans and Swedes.
-
-[433] 8 per cent must be added to these figures if it be assumed that
-the number of females is at least equal to that of the males.
-
-[434] This is the official figure. I make approximately the same area
-measure about 23,000 square miles, allowing for curvature of the earth.
-
-[435] See especially Ch. III. p. 68 and Ch. IV. pp. 75, 77.
-
-[436] Consul Taylor, an unpublished Report.
-
-[437] "The manner in which he (Tergukasoff) handled his men at Taghir
-on the 16th of June, when, with eight battalions, he thoroughly
-defeated the twelve which Mahomed Pasha opposed to him; the stubborn
-resistance with which he checked Mukhtar Pasha's onslaught on the
-21st at Eshek Khaliass; the gallant retreat which his half division
-effected in front of Ahmed Pasha's twenty-three battalions; and,
-finally, his dashing flank march from Igdyr to Bayazid, and the relief
-of that place in front of two Turkish corps, both superior to him in
-numbers, stamp him a general of division of the first class. Had the
-Czar many more like him, this war would have been completed a month
-ago." C. B. Norman (Times war correspondent), Armenia and the Campaign
-of 1877, London, n.d. p. 247. In most cases when Armenians enter the
-Russian service they Russianise their names by turning the Armenian
-termination -ean into the Russian -off, as Melikean into Melikoff.
-
-
-
-
-
-
-End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Armenia, Travels and Studies (Volume 1
-of 2), by H. F. B. Lynch
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-
-<pre>
-
-The Project Gutenberg EBook of Armenia, Travels and Studies (Volume 1 of 2), by 
-H. F. B. Lynch
-
-This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most
-other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
-whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of
-the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at
-www.gutenberg.org.  If you are not located in the United States, you'll have
-to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook.
-
-Title: Armenia, Travels and Studies (Volume 1 of 2)
-       The Russian Provinces
-
-Author: H. F. B. Lynch
-
-Release Date: March 18, 2016 [EBook #51492]
-
-Language: English
-
-Character set encoding: ASCII
-
-*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ARMENIA, TRAVELS AND STUDIES ***
-
-
-
-
-Produced by Jeroen Hellingman and the Online Distributed
-Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net/ for Project
-Gutenberg in commemoration of the 100th anniversary of the
-Armenian Genocide.
-
-
-
-
-
-
-</pre>
-
-<div class="front">
-<div class="div1 cover"><span class="pagenum">[<a href=
-"#toc">Contents</a>]</span>
-<div class="divBody">
-<p class="par first"></p>
-<div class="figure xd21e121width"><img src="images/new-cover.jpg" alt=
-"Newly Designed Front Cover." width="480" height="720"></div>
-<p class="par"></p>
-</div>
-</div>
-<div class="div1 titlepage"><span class="pagenum">[<a href=
-"#toc">Contents</a>]</span>
-<div class="divBody">
-<p class="par first"></p>
-<div class="figure xd21e127width"><img src="images/titlepage.png" alt=
-"Original Title Page." width="403" height="720"></div>
-<p class="par"></p>
-</div>
-</div>
-<div class="div1 frenchtitle"><span class="pagenum">[<a href=
-"#toc">Contents</a>]</span>
-<div class="divBody">
-<p class="par first xd21e134">ARMENIA</p>
-<p class="par xd21e134">TRAVELS AND STUDIES</p>
-<p class="par xd21e134">VOL. I</p>
-</div>
-</div>
-<div id="frontis" class="div1 frontispiece"><span class=
-"pagenum">[<a href="#toc">Contents</a>]</span>
-<div class="divBody">
-<p class="par first"></p>
-<div class="figure xd21e144width"><a href=
-"images/frontispiece-h.jpg"><img src="images/frontispiece.jpg" alt=
-"Ararat from Aralykh." width="720" height="225"></a>
-<p class="figureHead"><span class="sc">Ararat from Aralykh.</span></p>
-<p class="par first">Aralykh, <span class="measure" title=
-"838 meter">2750 feet</span>; Ararat, <span class="measure" title=
-"5156 meter">16,916 feet</span>.</p>
-</div>
-<p class="par"></p>
-</div>
-</div>
-<div class="titlePage">
-<div class="docTitle">
-<div class="mainTitle">ARMENIA</div>
-<div class="subTitle"><span class="sc">Travels and Studies</span></div>
-</div>
-<div class="byline">BY<br>
-<span class="docAuthor">H. F. B. LYNCH</span></div>
-<div class="docImprint">
-<div class="q xd21e173">
-<p class="par first"><span class="epigraph">Nature&rsquo;s vast frame,
-the web of human things.</span></p>
-<p class="par xd21e176"><span class="epigraph"><span class=
-"sc">Shelley</span>, <i>Alastor</i>.</span></p>
-<p class="par">Who can foretell our future? Spare me the attempt. We
-are like a harvest reaped by bad husbandmen amidst encircling gloom and
-cloud.</p>
-<p class="par xd21e176"><span class="sc">John Katholikos</span><br>
-<i>Armenian historian of the Xth century</i> Ch. <span class=
-"sc">CLXXXVII.</span></p>
-</div>
-</div>
-<div class="byline"><br>
-IN TWO VOLUMES<br>
-WITH 197 ILLUSTRATIONS, REPRODUCED FROM PHOTOGRAPHS AND SKETCHES BY THE
-AUTHOR, NUMEROUS MAPS AND PLANS, A BIBLIOGRAPHY<br>
-<span class="sc">And a Map of Armenia and Adjacent Countries</span><br>
-VOL. I<br>
-THE RUSSIAN PROVINCES</div>
-<div class="docImprint">LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO.<br>
-LONDON: 39 PATERNOSTER ROW<br>
-NEW YORK AND BOMBAY<br>
-<span class="docDate">1901</span></div>
-</div>
-<p><span class="pagenum">[<a id="xd21e220" href="#xd21e220" name=
-"xd21e220">v</a>]</span></p>
-<div class="div1 preface"><span class="pagenum">[<a href=
-"#toc">Contents</a>]</span>
-<div class="divHead">
-<h2 class="main">PREFACE</h2>
-</div>
-<div class="divBody">
-<p class="par first">This book contains the account of two separate
-journeys in Armenia, the first extending from August 1893 to March
-1894, and the second from May to September 1898. Before embarking upon
-them, I was already familiar with the contiguous countries, having
-spent a considerable portion of the years 1889 and 1890 in Mesopotamia
-and Persia. The routes shown in my map from Aleppo to Diarbekr and down
-the Tigris, and from Batum across Georgia and the Caspian to Resht,
-were taken during the course of these earlier wanderings, and they
-contribute no part of the ensuing narrative.</p>
-<p class="par">What attracted me to Armenia? I had no interests public
-or private in a country which has long been regarded even by Asiatic
-travellers as a land of passage along prescribed routes. One inducement
-was curiosity: what lay beyond those mountains, drawn in a wide
-half-circle along the margin of the Mesopotamian plains? The sources of
-the great rivers which carried me southwards, a lake with the
-dimensions of an inland sea, the mountain of the Ark, the fabled seat
-of Paradise.</p>
-<p class="par">With each step forward in my knowledge of the countries
-west of India came a corresponding increase of my original emotion.
-Sentimental were reinforced by purely practical considerations; and I
-seemed to see that the knot of politics tightening year by year around
-these <span class="pagenum">[<a id="xd21e230" href="#xd21e230" name=
-"xd21e230">vi</a>]</span>countries was likely to be resolved in
-Armenia. I became impatient to set foot upon Armenian soil.</p>
-<p class="par">When my wish was realised, my first experiences of the
-country and of the Armenians in the Russian provinces exceeded my
-expectations&mdash;fringed with doubt as these were by disappointment
-with much I had seen in the East. So I passed over the Russian
-frontier, struck across to the lake of Van, and spent the winter in
-Erzerum.</p>
-<p class="par">When I came to setting down on the map my routes in
-Turkish Armenia, the scantiness of existing knowledge was painfully
-plain. I soon realised that it would be necessary to undertake a second
-journey for the purpose of acquiring the necessary framework upon which
-to hang the routes. Meanwhile the events occurred with which we are all
-familiar&mdash;the Armenian massacres, and the comedy of the concert of
-Europe.</p>
-<p class="par">It was with difficulty that I was at length enabled to
-return to the country. These later travels were almost exclusively
-occupied with the natural features, our tents spread upon the great
-mountain masses, whence plain and lake and winding river were unfolded
-before us like a map.</p>
-<p class="par">Primitive methods were rendered necessary for
-transferring these features to paper. One is not allowed in Turkey the
-use of elaborate or obvious instruments, and miles of ground had to be
-crossed in full view of Turkish officials before reaching the field of
-our work. But I was able to transport to Erzerum a standard mercurial
-barometer, which was duly set up in that centre and read several times
-a day during our absence. We carried two aneroids, a boiling-point
-apparatus, a four-inch prismatic compass, used upon a tripod and
-carefully tested at Kew; lastly, a rather troublesome but very
-satisfactory little instrument called a telemeter, and made by Steward.
-The measurements were checked by cross-readings with the compass, and
-we found that they could be relied upon. Once we were upon the
-<span class="pagenum">[<a id="xd21e240" href="#xd21e240" name=
-"xd21e240">vii</a>]</span>mountains our operations were not impeded,
-and, indeed, were assisted by the authorities.</p>
-<p class="par">I was accompanied on this second journey by my friend,
-Mr. F. Oswald, who had been helping me disentangle the voluminous works
-of the great Abich upon the geology of the Caucasus and Russian
-Armenia. The varied talents of Oswald were of the greatest service to
-the work in hand, while his society was a constant source of pleasure
-and repose. He is now engaged with the geological results of this
-journey, and with a well-considered study of the geology of Armenia as
-a whole. These he hopes to publish before very long.</p>
-<p class="par">The illustrations are for the most part reproductions of
-my photographs, being a selection from a collection which fills several
-cases. On my first Armenian journey I was accompanied as far as Erzerum
-by Mr. E. Wesson of the Polytechnic in London, who not only developed
-the films and plates upon the spot, but rendered the most valuable
-assistance in the photographic work. He also displayed the qualities of
-a veteran campaigner before the journey was done. And I was always
-missing him after his return home and during the second journey, when
-the work devolved entirely upon myself.</p>
-<p class="par">My cousin, Major H. B. Lynch, now serving in South
-Africa, travelled with us as far as Ararat and took charge of the camp.
-It is, I think, a legitimate cause for satisfaction that, except for
-momentary lapses on the part of the cook, not one of the party during
-either of the two long journeys fell ill or became incapable of hard
-work. And on both occasions the horses were sold at a small profit when
-the coast was at length reached.</p>
-<p class="par">Why does one write a book? I find it difficult to answer
-the question, which, indeed, demands a knowledge of human nature
-greater than any I possess. There are societies and individuals who, I
-feel sure, would offer a price <span class="pagenum">[<a id="xd21e251"
-href="#xd21e251" name="xd21e251">viii</a>]</span>if the potential
-author would agree to keep his material to himself. The sum might
-probably be augmented by the contributions of weary students; and a
-revenue could be collected from these various sources far exceeding any
-royalties received from publishers. Moreover the author would escape
-the foreboding of condign punishment, which he is made to feel
-suspended over his head. On the other hand, there is the fascination of
-feeling possessed by a subject, stronger than yourself and elemental.
-And there is the joy and the impersonality of the work reacting upon
-the personality of the writer.</p>
-<p class="par">The country and the people which form the theme of the
-ensuing pages are deserving, the one of enthusiasm and the other of the
-highest interest. It is very strange that such a fine country should
-have lain in shadow for so many centuries, and that even the standard
-works of Greek and Roman writers should display so little knowledge of
-its features and character. Much has been done to dispel the darkness
-during the progress of the expired century; and I have been at some
-pains to collect and co-ordinate the work of my predecessors. In this
-task I have been assisted by my friend, the Hon. Mrs. Arthur Pelham, to
-whom the credit of the bibliography accompanying my second volume is
-due.</p>
-<p class="par">In taking leave of the book&mdash;and it has been a long
-connection&mdash;the mind rests with pleasure and gratitude upon the
-help given without stint by fellow-workers in the same or in different
-fields. To my friend, Mr. R. W. Graves, now Consul-General in Crete, I
-am indebted for a lengthy spell of hospitality and delightful
-companionship in distant Erzerum. I have borrowed freely from his
-intimate knowledge of extensive regions in Turkish Armenia, as well as
-from that acquired by my friend, Major Maunsell, now our Consul at Van,
-the principal contemporary authority on Kurdistan. Geheimrath Dr.
-<span class="pagenum">[<a id="xd21e257" href="#xd21e257" name=
-"xd21e257">ix</a>]</span>G. Radde of Tiflis has rendered me valuable
-assistance on more than one occasion; and it is also a pleasure to feel
-conscious in many ways of my obligations to my friend, Mr. L. de
-Klupffell, formerly of Batum. At home I have received much kindness
-from Mr. Fortescue of the British Museum library, and from Dr. Mill,
-who has so long presided over the library of the Royal Geographical
-Society, and whose recent retirement from that office in order to
-devote himself to his scientific work is keenly regretted by those whom
-he encouraged by his assistance and advice. The book has brought me
-several new friends, among them Mr. F. C. Conybeare of Oxford, the
-extent of my debt to whom, in various directions, it would be difficult
-to estimate. Professor Sayce has kindly looked over the sheets dealing
-with the Vannic empire, and contributed several valuable suggestions.
-Prof. E. Denison Ross has helped me with the Mussulman inscriptions,
-besides informing me upon a number of obscure points.</p>
-<p class="par">A portion of the narrative of the ascent of Ararat has
-already appeared in Messrs. Scribner&rsquo;s Magazine, reprinted in
-<i>Mountain Climbing</i>, a book published by this firm. Parts of the
-concluding chapters of each volume, entitled &ldquo;Statistical and
-Political,&rdquo; have seen the light in the shape of a series of
-articles in the <i>Contemporary Review</i>.</p>
-<p class="par signed">H. F. B. LYNCH.</p>
-<p class="par">The map which accompanies my first volume will be on
-sale separately at Messrs. Stanford&rsquo;s in Longacre. <span class=
-"pagenum">[<a id="xd21e271" href="#xd21e271" name=
-"xd21e271">xi</a>]</span></p>
-</div>
-</div>
-<div id="toc" class="div1 contents"><span class="pagenum">[<a href=
-"#toc">Contents</a>]</span>
-<div class="divHead">
-<h2 class="main">CONTENTS</h2>
-</div>
-<div class="divBody">
-<p class="par first tocChapter">CHAPTER I</p>
-<p class="par">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; <span class=
-"tocPageNum">PAGE</span></p>
-<p class="par tocChapter"><span class="sc"><a href="#ch1" id="xd21e285"
-name="xd21e285">The Coast and the Port</a></span>
-&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; <span class=
-"tocPageNum">1</span></p>
-<p class="par tocChapter">CHAPTER II</p>
-<p class="par tocChapter"><span class="sc"><a href="#ch2" id="xd21e295"
-name="xd21e295">Ascent to Armenia</a></span>
-&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; <span class=
-"tocPageNum">37</span></p>
-<p class="par tocChapter">CHAPTER III</p>
-<p class="par tocChapter"><span class="sc"><a href="#ch3" id="xd21e305"
-name="xd21e305">To Akhaltsykh</a></span>
-&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; <span class=
-"tocPageNum">53</span></p>
-<p class="par tocChapter">CHAPTER IV</p>
-<p class="par tocChapter"><span class="sc"><a href="#ch4" id="xd21e315"
-name="xd21e315">To Akhalkalaki</a></span>
-&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; <span class=
-"tocPageNum">72</span></p>
-<p class="par tocChapter">CHAPTER V</p>
-<p class="par tocChapter"><span class="sc"><a href="#ch5" id="xd21e326"
-name="xd21e326">At Akhalkalaki</a></span>
-&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; <span class=
-"tocPageNum">86</span></p>
-<p class="par tocChapter">CHAPTER VI</p>
-<p class="par tocChapter"><span class="sc"><a href="#ch6" id="xd21e336"
-name="xd21e336">Prospect from Abul</a></span>
-&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; <span class=
-"tocPageNum">92</span></p>
-<p class="par tocChapter">CHAPTER VII</p>
-<p class="par tocChapter"><span class="sc"><a href="#ch7" id="xd21e346"
-name="xd21e346">Gorelovka and Queen Lukeria</a></span>
-&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; <span class=
-"tocPageNum">96</span></p>
-<p class="par tocChapter">CHAPTER VIII</p>
-<p class="par tocChapter"><span class="sc"><a href="#ch8" id="xd21e356"
-name="xd21e356">To Alexandropol</a></span>
-&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; <span class=
-"tocPageNum">118</span></p>
-<p class="par tocChapter">CHAPTER IX</p>
-<p class="par tocChapter"><span class="sc"><a href="#ch9" id="xd21e366"
-name="xd21e366">At Alexandropol</a></span>
-&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; <span class=
-"tocPageNum">124</span></p>
-<p class="par tocChapter">CHAPTER X</p>
-<p class="par tocChapter"><span class="sc"><a href="#ch10" id=
-"xd21e376" name="xd21e376">To Erivan</a></span>
-&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; <span class=
-"tocPageNum">133</span> <span class="pagenum">[<a id="xd21e382" href=
-"#xd21e382" name="xd21e382">xii</a>]</span></p>
-<p class="par tocChapter">CHAPTER XI</p>
-<p class="par tocChapter"><span class="sc"><a href="#ch11" id=
-"xd21e388" name="xd21e388">To Ararat</a></span>
-&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; <span class=
-"tocPageNum">143</span></p>
-<p class="par tocChapter">CHAPTER XII</p>
-<p class="par tocChapter"><span class="sc"><a href="#ch12" id=
-"xd21e398" name="xd21e398">Ascent of Ararat</a></span>
-&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; <span class=
-"tocPageNum">156</span></p>
-<p class="par tocChapter">CHAPTER XIII</p>
-<p class="par tocChapter"><span class="sc"><a href="#ch13" id=
-"xd21e408" name="xd21e408">The Heart of Ararat</a></span>
-&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; <span class=
-"tocPageNum">179</span></p>
-<p class="par tocChapter">CHAPTER XIV</p>
-<p class="par tocChapter"><span class="sc"><a href="#ch14" id=
-"xd21e418" name="xd21e418">Return to Erivan</a></span>
-&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; <span class=
-"tocPageNum">200</span></p>
-<p class="par tocChapter">CHAPTER XV</p>
-<p class="par tocChapter"><span class="sc"><a href="#ch15" id=
-"xd21e428" name="xd21e428">At Erivan</a></span>
-&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; <span class=
-"tocPageNum">206</span></p>
-<p class="par tocChapter">CHAPTER XVI</p>
-<p class="par tocChapter"><span class="sc"><a href="#ch16" id=
-"xd21e439" name="xd21e439">Edgmiatsin and the Armenian
-Church</a></span> &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; <span class=
-"tocPageNum">228</span></p>
-<p class="par tocChapter">CHAPTER XVII</p>
-<p class="par tocChapter"><span class="sc"><a href="#ch17" id=
-"xd21e449" name="xd21e449">To Ani and to Kars</a></span>
-&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; <span class=
-"tocPageNum">316</span></p>
-<p class="par tocChapter">CHAPTER XVIII</p>
-<p class="par tocChapter"><span class="sc"><a href="#ch18" id=
-"xd21e459" name="xd21e459">Ani, and the Armenian Kingdom of the Middle
-Ages</a></span> &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; <span class=
-"tocPageNum">334</span></p>
-<p class="par tocChapter">CHAPTER XIX</p>
-<p class="par tocChapter"><span class="sc"><a href="#ch19" id=
-"xd21e469" name="xd21e469">Kars</a></span>
-&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; <span class=
-"tocPageNum">393</span></p>
-<p class="par tocChapter">CHAPTER XX</p>
-<p class="par tocChapter"><span class="sc"><a href="#ch20" id=
-"xd21e479" name="xd21e479">Across the Spine of Armenia</a></span>
-&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; <span class=
-"tocPageNum">409</span></p>
-<p class="par tocChapter">CHAPTER XXI</p>
-<p class="par tocChapter"><span class="sc"><a href="#ch21" id=
-"xd21e489" name="xd21e489">Geographical</a></span>
-&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; <span class=
-"tocPageNum">421</span></p>
-<p class="par tocChapter">CHAPTER XXII</p>
-<p class="par tocChapter"><span class="sc"><a href="#ch22" id=
-"xd21e500" name="xd21e500">Statistical and Political</a></span>
-&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; <span class=
-"tocPageNum">446</span> <span class="pagenum">[<a id="xd21e506" href=
-"#xd21e506" name="xd21e506">xiii</a>]</span></p>
-</div>
-</div>
-<div class="div1 contents"><span class="pagenum">[<a href=
-"#toc">Contents</a>]</span>
-<div class="divHead">
-<h2 class="main">LIST OF PLATES</h2>
-<ul>
-<li><span class="sc"><a href="#frontis">Ararat from Aralykh</a></span>
-&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; <span class=
-"tocPageNum"><i>Frontispiece</i></span></li>
-<li><span class="sc"><a href="#fig002">Trebizond from above the Head of
-the Western Ravine</a></span> &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
-<span class="tocPageNum"><i>To face page</i> 12</span></li>
-<li><span class="sc"><a href="#fig003">Trebizond: Hagia
-Sophia</a></span> &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; <span class=
-"tocPageNum">24</span></li>
-<li><span class="sc"><a href="#fig004">Trebizond: Fa&ccedil;ade of
-Hagia Sophia on the South</a></span>
-&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; <span class=
-"tocPageNum">25</span></li>
-<li><span class="sc"><a href="#fig007">Plain of the Rion from the
-Southern Slopes of Caucasus: Kutais in the Foreground</a></span>
-&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; <span class=
-"tocPageNum">46</span></li>
-<li><span class="sc"><a href="#fig010">View North from the Zikar
-Pass</a></span> &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; <span class=
-"tocPageNum"><i>Back to page</i> 52</span></li>
-<li><span class="sc"><a href="#fig011">View South from the Zikar
-Pass</a></span> &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; <span class=
-"tocPageNum">53</span></li>
-<li><span class="sc"><a href="#fig013">Safar: St. Saba from the
-West</a></span> &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; <span class=
-"tocPageNum">62</span></li>
-<li><span class="sc"><a href="#fig014">Safar: Porch of St.
-Saba</a></span> &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; <span class=
-"tocPageNum">63</span></li>
-<li><span class="sc"><a href="#fig015">Akhaltsykh from the Road to
-Akhalkalaki</a></span> &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
-<span class="tocPageNum"><i>To face page</i> 65</span></li>
-<li><span class="sc"><a href="#fig016">Castle of Khertvis</a></span>
-&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; <span class=
-"tocPageNum">76</span></li>
-<li><span class="sc"><a href="#fig018">Vardzia, the Troglodyte
-City</a></span> &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; <span class=
-"tocPageNum">80</span></li>
-<li><span class="sc"><a href="#fig020">Mount Abul from
-Akhalkalaki</a></span> &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
-<span class="tocPageNum">92</span></li>
-<li><span class="sc"><a href="#fig021">Summer Pavilion at
-Gorelovka</a></span> &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; <span class=
-"tocPageNum">109</span></li>
-<li><span class="sc"><a href="#fig023">Alag&ouml;z from the Plain of
-Alexandropol</a></span> &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
-<span class="tocPageNum">122</span></li>
-<li><span class="sc"><a href="#fig024">Alexandropol from the Armenian
-Cemetery</a></span> &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; <span class=
-"tocPageNum">125</span></li>
-<li><span class="sc"><a href="#fig029">Ararat from near
-Aramzalu</a></span> &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; <span class=
-"tocPageNum">153</span></li>
-<li><span class="sc"><a href="#fig034">Great Ararat from above Sardar
-Bulakh</a></span> &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; <span class=
-"tocPageNum">165</span></li>
-<li><span class="sc"><a href="#fig035">Our Kurd Porters on
-Ararat</a></span> &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; <span class=
-"tocPageNum">167</span></li>
-<li><span class="sc"><a href="#fig037">Akhury: The Great Chasm from
-Aralykh</a></span> &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; <span class=
-"tocPageNum">179</span></li>
-<li><span class="sc"><a href="#fig039">Akhury: Inside the Great
-Chasm</a></span> &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; <span class=
-"tocPageNum">194</span></li>
-<li><span class="sc"><a href="#fig042">Erivan and Ararat from the
-North</a></span> &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; <span class=
-"tocPageNum">208</span></li>
-<li><span class="sc"><a href="#fig046">Erivan: Interior of the Kiosque
-of the Sirdars</a></span> &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
-<span class="tocPageNum">216</span></li>
-<li><span class="sc"><a href="#fig049">Edgmiatsin: The Great Court and
-the Cathedral</a></span> &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
-<span class="tocPageNum">243</span></li>
-<li><span class="sc"><a href="#fig053">Edgmiatsin: Ceremony of the
-Consecration of the Katholikos&mdash;Anointing with Oil from the Beak
-of a Golden Dove</a></span> &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
-<span class="tocPageNum">254</span></li>
-<li><span class="sc"><a href="#fig055">Edgmiatsin: Interior of the
-Cathedral</a></span> &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; <span class=
-"tocPageNum">267</span></li>
-<li><span class="sc"><a href="#fig057">Edgmiatsin: Exterior of St.
-Ripsime</a></span> &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; <span class=
-"tocPageNum">269</span></li>
-<li><span class="sc"><a href="#fig058">Edgmiatsin: Exterior of St.
-Gaiane</a></span> &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; <span class=
-"tocPageNum">270</span></li>
-<li><span class="sc"><a href="#fig060">Edgmiatsin: Exterior of
-Shoghakath</a></span> &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; <span class=
-"tocPageNum">271</span></li>
-<li><span class="sc"><a href="#fig062">Talin: Mouldings on South Side
-of Ruinous Church</a></span> &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
-<span class="tocPageNum">322</span></li>
-<li><span class="sc"><a href="#fig070">Walls and Gateway of the City of
-Ani from Outside, looking East</a></span>
-&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; <span class=
-"tocPageNum">369</span> <span class="pagenum">[<a id="xd21e769" href=
-"#xd21e769" name="xd21e769">xiv</a>]</span></li>
-<li><span class="sc"><a href="#fig072">Ani: The Cathedral from
-South-East</a></span> &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; <span class=
-"tocPageNum"><i>To face page</i> 370</span></li>
-<li><span class="sc"><a href="#fig073">Ani: Niche in Eastern Wall of
-Cathedral</a></span> &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; <span class=
-"tocPageNum">371</span></li>
-<li><span class="sc"><a href="#fig074">Ani: Apse of the
-Cathedral</a></span> &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; <span class=
-"tocPageNum">372</span></li>
-<li><span class="sc"><a href="#fig076">Ani: Church of St. Gregory from
-the West</a></span> &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; <span class=
-"tocPageNum">373</span></li>
-<li><span class="sc"><a href="#fig077">Ani: North Wall of the Church of
-St. Gregory</a></span> &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
-<span class="tocPageNum">374</span></li>
-<li><span class="sc"><a href="#fig078">Ani: Detail of the Porch of St.
-Gregory</a></span> &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; <span class=
-"tocPageNum">375</span></li>
-<li><span class="sc"><a href="#fig080">Ani: Mosque and
-Minaret</a></span> &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; <span class=
-"tocPageNum">376</span></li>
-<li><span class="sc"><a href="#fig083">Ani: Detail of Doorway of Chapel
-near Citadel</a></span> &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
-<span class="tocPageNum">379</span></li>
-<li><span class="sc"><a href="#fig085">Ani: Chapel of St. Gregory, East
-Side</a></span> &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; <span class=
-"tocPageNum">380</span></li>
-<li><span class="sc"><a href="#fig086">Ani: Chapel of St. Gregory,
-Entrance</a></span> &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; <span class=
-"tocPageNum">381</span></li>
-<li><span class="sc"><a href="#fig087">Ani: Interior of the Chapel of
-St. Gregory</a></span> &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
-<span class="tocPageNum">382</span></li>
-<li><span class="sc"><a href="#fig088">Ani: Chapel of the
-Redeemer</a></span> &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; <span class=
-"tocPageNum">383</span></li>
-<li><span class="sc"><a href="#fig090">Ani: Doorway of the
-Castle</a></span> &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; <span class=
-"tocPageNum">384</span></li>
-<li><span class="sc"><a href="#fig091">Ani: Portal of the Church of the
-Apostles from the West</a></span> &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
-<span class="tocPageNum">385</span></li>
-<li><span class="sc"><a href="#fig092">Ani: East Front of the Church of
-the Apostles</a></span> &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
-<span class="tocPageNum">386</span></li>
-<li><span class="sc"><a href="#fig095">Khosha Vank: Pronaos</a></span>
-&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; <span class=
-"tocPageNum">387</span></li>
-<li><span class="sc"><a href="#fig096">Khosha Vank: Exterior of Pronaos
-and Church from South-West</a></span>
-&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; <span class=
-"tocPageNum">388</span></li>
-<li><span class="sc"><a href="#fig097">Khosha Vank: Hall of the
-Synod</a></span> &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; <span class=
-"tocPageNum">389</span></li>
-<li><span class="sc"><a href="#fig104">Looking down the Valley of
-Kagyzman</a></span> &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; <span class=
-"tocPageNum">417</span></li>
-<li><span class="sc"><a href="#fig106">A Rib or Buttress of Aghri
-Dagh</a></span> &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; <span class=
-"tocPageNum">419</span></li>
-<li><span class="sc"><a href="#fig107">Pass over Aghri Dagh</a></span>
-&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; <span class=
-"tocPageNum">420</span></li>
-</ul>
-<div class="div2 section"><span class="pagenum">[<a href=
-"#toc">Contents</a>]</span>
-<div class="divHead">
-<h3 class="main">ILLUSTRATIONS IN THE TEXT</h3>
-<ul>
-<li>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; <span class=
-"tocPageNum">PAGE</span></li>
-<li><span class="sc"><a href="#fig001">Entrance to the Black Sea from
-the Bosphorus</a></span> &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
-<span class="tocPageNum">3</span></li>
-<li><span class="sc"><a href="#fig005">Interior of Hagia
-Sophia</a></span> &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; <span class=
-"tocPageNum">27</span></li>
-<li><span class="sc"><a href="#fig006">Banks of the Rion above
-Kutais</a></span> &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; <span class=
-"tocPageNum">46</span></li>
-<li><span class="sc"><a href="#fig008">Road in the Forest</a></span>
-&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; <span class=
-"tocPageNum">50</span></li>
-<li><span class="sc"><a href="#fig009">Georgians</a></span>
-&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; <span class=
-"tocPageNum">51</span></li>
-<li><span class="sc"><a href="#fig012">Portrait of Ivan</a></span>
-&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; <span class=
-"tocPageNum">59</span></li>
-<li><span class="sc"><a href="#fig017">Group of Villagers at
-Khertvis</a></span> &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; <span class=
-"tocPageNum">77</span></li>
-<li><span class="sc"><a href="#fig019">Archimandrite and Deacon at
-Vardzia</a></span> &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; <span class=
-"tocPageNum">82</span></li>
-<li><span class="sc"><a href="#fig022">Head Waters of the Arpa
-Chai</a></span> &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; <span class=
-"tocPageNum">121</span></li>
-<li><span class="sc"><a href="#fig025">Byzantine Picture in Greek
-Church</a></span> &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; <span class=
-"tocPageNum">128</span></li>
-<li><span class="sc"><a href="#fig026">Wedding Party at
-Alexandropol</a></span> &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
-<span class="tocPageNum">130</span></li>
-<li><span class="sc"><a href="#fig027">Church of Marmashen from
-S.W.</a></span> &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; <span class=
-"tocPageNum">131</span></li>
-<li><span class="sc"><a href="#fig028">Alag&ouml;z from the Head Waters
-of the Abaran</a></span> &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
-<span class="tocPageNum">136</span></li>
-<li><span class="sc"><a href="#fig030">Ararat: Aralykh in the
-foreground</a></span> &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; <span class=
-"tocPageNum">155</span></li>
-<li><span class="sc"><a href="#fig031">Our Cavalcade on
-Ararat</a></span> &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; <span class=
-"tocPageNum">159</span></li>
-<li><span class="sc"><a href="#fig032">Our Encampment at Sardar
-Bulakh</a></span> &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; <span class=
-"tocPageNum">163</span></li>
-<li><span class="sc"><a href="#fig033">Little Ararat from near Sardar
-Bulakh</a></span> &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; <span class=
-"tocPageNum">164</span></li>
-<li><span class="sc"><a href="#fig036">Summit of Ararat from the
-South-East, taken at a height of about <span class="measure" title=
-"3962 meter">13,000 feet</span></a></span>
-&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; <span class=
-"tocPageNum">180</span> <span class="pagenum">[<a id="xd21e1098" href=
-"#xd21e1098" name="xd21e1098">xv</a>]</span></li>
-<li><span class="sc"><a href="#fig038">Boulders near Akhury</a></span>
-&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; <span class=
-"tocPageNum">191</span></li>
-<li><span class="sc"><a href="#fig040">Ararat from a house-top in
-Erivan</a></span> &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; <span class=
-"tocPageNum">207</span></li>
-<li><span class="sc"><a href="#fig041">Alag&ouml;z from a house-top in
-Erivan</a></span> &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; <span class=
-"tocPageNum">208</span></li>
-<li><span class="sc"><a href="#fig043">Entrance to G&ouml;k Jami,
-Erivan</a></span> &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; <span class=
-"tocPageNum">213</span></li>
-<li><span class="sc"><a href="#fig044">Court with basin of G&ouml;k
-Jami, Erivan</a></span> &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
-<span class="tocPageNum">214</span></li>
-<li><span class="sc"><a href="#fig045">The Temple, G&ouml;k
-Jami</a></span> &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; <span class=
-"tocPageNum">215</span></li>
-<li><span class="sc"><a href="#fig047">Pilgrims&rsquo; Court,
-Edgmiatsin</a></span> &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; <span class=
-"tocPageNum">230</span></li>
-<li><span class="sc"><a href="#fig048">The Katholikos Mekertich
-Khrimean</a></span> &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; <span class=
-"tocPageNum">237</span></li>
-<li><span class="sc"><a href="#fig050">The Lake at
-Edgmiatsin</a></span> &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; <span class=
-"tocPageNum">246</span></li>
-<li><span class="sc"><a href="#fig051">Ararat from the Lake at
-Edgmiatsin</a></span> &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; <span class=
-"tocPageNum">247</span></li>
-<li><span class="sc"><a href="#fig052">Armenian Nun</a></span>
-&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; <span class=
-"tocPageNum">252</span></li>
-<li><span class="sc"><a href="#fig054">Interior of the Portal of the
-Cathedral</a></span> &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; <span class=
-"tocPageNum">266</span></li>
-<li><span class="sc"><a href="#fig056-1">Episcopal Staves</a></span>
-&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; <span class=
-"tocPageNum">268</span></li>
-<li><span class="sc"><a href="#fig059">Sculptured Stone</a></span>
-&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; <span class=
-"tocPageNum">271</span></li>
-<li><span class="sc"><a href="#fig061">Village of Talin, with Mount
-Bugutu</a></span> &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; <span class=
-"tocPageNum">322</span></li>
-<li><span class="sc"><a href="#fig063">Mouldings on North Side of
-Ruinous Church at Talin</a></span> &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
-<span class="tocPageNum">323</span></li>
-<li class="itemGroup">
-<table class="itemGroupTable">
-<tr>
-<td><span class="sc"><a href="#fig064">Tartar Khan at
-Talin</a></span></td>
-<td rowspan="2" class="itemGroupBrace"><img src="images/rbrace2.png"
-alt="}" width="12" height="40"></td>
-<td rowspan="2">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; <span class=
-"tocPageNum">324</span></td>
-</tr>
-<tr>
-<td><span class="sc"><a href="#fig065">Pristav of Talin</a></span></td>
-</tr>
-</table>
-</li>
-<li><span class="sc"><a href="#fig066">Priest of Talin</a></span>
-&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; <span class=
-"tocPageNum">325</span></li>
-<li><span class="sc"><a href="#fig067">Tartar of Akhja Kala</a></span>
-&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; <span class=
-"tocPageNum">326</span></li>
-<li><span class="sc"><a href="#fig068">Alag&ouml;z from the Plains on
-the West</a></span> &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; <span class=
-"tocPageNum">327</span></li>
-<li><span class="sc"><a href="#fig069">Greek Girl of Subotan</a></span>
-&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; <span class=
-"tocPageNum">331</span></li>
-<li><span class="sc"><a href="#fig071">Ani: Bas-relief on the Inner
-Wall of the Gateway</a></span> &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
-<span class="tocPageNum">369</span></li>
-<li><span class="sc"><a href="#fig075">Ani: Sculptured Stone
-Moulding</a></span> &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; <span class=
-"tocPageNum">373</span></li>
-<li><span class="sc"><a href="#fig079">Ani: Walled Enclosure and
-Chapel</a></span> &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; <span class=
-"tocPageNum">376</span></li>
-<li><span class="sc"><a href="#fig081">Ani: Building on the
-Citadel</a></span> &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; <span class=
-"tocPageNum">378</span></li>
-<li><span class="sc"><a href="#fig082">Ani: Pilaster in the Building on
-the Citadel</a></span> &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
-<span class="tocPageNum">379</span></li>
-<li><span class="sc"><a href="#fig084">Ani: Landscape from the southern
-extremities of the site</a></span> &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
-<span class="tocPageNum">380</span></li>
-<li><span class="sc"><a href="#fig089">Ani: The Castle</a></span>
-&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; <span class=
-"tocPageNum">383</span></li>
-<li><span class="sc"><a href="#fig093">The Monastery of Khosha Vank:
-east side</a></span> &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; <span class=
-"tocPageNum">386</span></li>
-<li><span class="sc"><a href="#fig094">Khosha Vank: Chapels in the
-Ravine of the Arpa Chai</a></span> &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
-<span class="tocPageNum">387</span></li>
-<li><span class="sc"><a href="#fig098">The Citadel of Kars</a></span>
-&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; <span class=
-"tocPageNum">406</span></li>
-<li><span class="sc"><a href="#fig099">Molokan Elder at
-Vladikars</a></span> &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; <span class=
-"tocPageNum">411</span></li>
-<li><span class="sc"><a href="#fig100">House at
-Novo-Michaelovka</a></span> &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
-<span class="tocPageNum">412</span></li>
-<li><span class="sc"><a href="#fig101">Aghri Dagh from the Araxes
-Ca&ntilde;on</a></span> &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
-<span class="tocPageNum">414</span></li>
-<li><span class="sc"><a href="#fig102">Cliffs composing Northern Wall
-of Araxes Ca&ntilde;on</a></span> &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
-<span class="tocPageNum">415</span></li>
-<li><span class="sc"><a href="#fig103">The Araxes near
-Kagyzman</a></span> &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; <span class=
-"tocPageNum">416</span></li>
-<li><span class="sc"><a href="#fig105">Kara Vank on Aghri
-Dagh</a></span> &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; <span class=
-"tocPageNum">419</span></li>
-<li><span class="sc"><a href="#map08">Map of the Armenian
-Plateau</a></span> &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; <span class=
-"tocPageNum">452</span></li>
-</ul>
-<p><span class="pagenum">[<a id="xd21e1414" href="#xd21e1414" name=
-"xd21e1414">xvi</a>]</span></p>
-</div>
-</div>
-<div class="div2 section"><span class="pagenum">[<a href=
-"#toc">Contents</a>]</span>
-<div class="divHead">
-<h3 class="main">LIST OF MAPS AND PLANS</h3>
-<ul>
-<li><span class="sc"><a href="#map01">Plan of the Ancient
-Fortifications of Trebizond</a></span>
-&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; <span class="tocPageNum"><i>To
-face page</i> 13</span></li>
-<li><span class="sc"><a href="#map02">Trebizond and
-Surroundings</a></span> &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
-<span class="tocPageNum">30</span></li>
-<li><span class="sc"><a href="#map03">Plan of the Monastery and
-Churches of Edgmiatsin</a></span> &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
-<span class="tocPageNum"><i>Between pages</i> 244 <i>and</i>
-245</span></li>
-<li><span class="sc"><a href="#map04">Plan of the Deserted City of
-Ani</a></span> &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; <span class=
-"tocPageNum"><i>To face page</i> 390</span></li>
-<li><span class="sc"><a href="#map05">Kars and Surroundings</a></span>
-&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; <span class=
-"tocPageNum">395</span></li>
-<li><span class="sc"><a href="#map06">The Structural Features of
-Asia</a></span> &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; <span class=
-"tocPageNum"><i>Between pages</i> 422 <i>and</i> 423</span></li>
-<li><span class="sc">Map of Armenia and Adjacent Countries</span>
-&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; <span class=
-"tocPageNum"><i>Cover</i></span></li>
-</ul>
-<p><span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb1" href="#pb1" name=
-"pb1">1</a>]</span></p>
-</div>
-</div>
-</div>
-</div>
-</div>
-<div class="body">
-<div id="ch1" class="div1 chapter"><span class="pagenum">[<a href=
-"#xd21e285">Contents</a>]</span>
-<div class="divHead">
-<h2 class="label">CHAPTER I</h2>
-<h2 class="main"><span class="sc">THE COAST AND THE PORT</span></h2>
-</div>
-<div class="divBody">
-<p class="par first">On four different occasions, both in summer and in
-winter, I have sailed along the southern shore of the Black Sea almost
-from one extremity to the other; yet I do not remember having seen the
-sky free from heavy clouds during two consecutive days. As the ship
-speeds eastwards along the mountains of Bithynia, a thin veil of haze
-will blend the land outlines together; while, as the range grows in
-height with every mile of progress, the vapour will collect about its
-upper slopes in long, horizontal, black banks. Even when the sun of
-this southern climate has swept the sky of every lingering film, when
-the zenith and the water recall the hues of the Mediterranean&mdash;the
-whole scale of brilliant blues&mdash;somewhere upon the wide circle of
-the horizon will be lurking the scattered forces of the mist. But the
-stronghold of the cloud is in the mountains of Akhaltsykh, at the foot
-of Caucasus, in the extreme eastern angle of the sea. Can there exist a
-more gloomy coast? There the sky is always lowering above the inky
-water, and the forests of fir which clothe the range from foot to
-summit wave darkly, like feathers over a pall. Such, I think, are the
-impressions which the mind most closely associates with the aspect of
-this sea and shore. What a contrast to the smiling landscape of the
-Bosphorus, the strait through which we enter this sad sea or leave it
-on our return home! The cold draught follows the home-coming ship up
-the narrow channel between the wooded cliffs, and frets the running
-tide into crisp little waves which sparkle in the brilliant light. The
-dolphins leap from the blue water and dart shining through the air. To
-the traveller who is returning from a long journey in Asia and a
-tedious tossing on this grey sea, the Bosphorus, always bright and gay
-and <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb2" href="#pb2" name=
-"pb2">2</a>]</span>beautiful, may appear as the promised gate of
-paradise beyond the world of shades.</p>
-<p class="par">The character of the coast cannot fail to be affected by
-this climate, by this atmosphere. Just as the vapours gather thickest
-where the mountains are most lofty, at the south-eastern angle of the
-sea, so the vegetation increases in luxuriance and variety the further
-eastwards we proceed on our course. The cliffs or rolling hills about
-the entrance of the Bosphorus&mdash;the closing cliffs of the Greek
-legend, which caught the tail-feathers of the dove&mdash;soon give
-place to the belt of wooded mountains which rise from the immediate
-margin of the water, and stretch from west to east along the entire
-seaboard to the Phasis and Batum. Tier upon tier they rise from the
-narrow strip of sand and pebbles, and grow both in height and in
-boldness of outline as they stretch towards the east. The winds of the
-open sea, the cold winds of Scythia, fly over the barrier of the range;
-and the ship may often anchor in smooth water at a point where least
-protection would appear to be offered by the configuration of the
-shore. But the moisture of the air is arrested at the coast-line, and
-hangs about the upper tiers of the mountains or clings to the fir-clad
-slopes. These natural conditions are extremely favourable to
-vegetation, and the larger grows the scale upon which they are
-operating, the more abundant becomes the growth of trees and shrubs.
-When at last we have reached the neighbourhood of the Phasis, where the
-wall of this range towers highest above us on the one side, and the
-line of Caucasus closes the horizon on the other, the shore becomes
-clothed with dense forests, plants and creepers flourish with tropical
-exuberance; the traveller, threading the maze of evergreen woodland,
-might be walking along the banks of the Amazon or through the glades of
-Mazanderan.</p>
-<p class="par"><i>August 13, 14.</i>&mdash;Our ship is outward bound
-for the banks of the Phasis, &ldquo;the furthest point to which vessels
-sail.&rdquo; It was evening when we hove anchor from Constantinople,
-and night had already closed as we passed the cliffs of Buyukdere and
-opened the mouth of the strait (Fig. <a href="#fig001">1</a>). This
-morning we are skirting the Bithynian mountains, our head well up
-towards Amasra, behind us the bluff of Cape Baba, a promontory of twin
-hills. That cape hides the site of Heraklea, one of the most important
-of the old Greek cities, now patched with the relics of its former
-splendour, and shorn of the glory of its statue of Herakles, with
-lion-skin, club, quiver, bow and arrows all wrought of solid gold.
-<span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb3" href="#pb3" name=
-"pb3">3</a>]</span>The same lofty coast and bold headlands accompany
-our course; in a few hours we double Cape Karembe, and the sun has not
-yet set as we cast anchor off Ineboli, the outlet of the rich districts
-about Kastamuni, and perhaps at present the most prosperous of these
-western Pontic ports.</p>
-<p class="par"></p>
-<div class="figure xd21e1514width" id="fig001"><img src=
-"images/fig001.jpg" alt=
-"Fig. 1. Entrance to the Black Sea from the Bosphorus." width="605"
-height="334">
-<p class="figureHead"><span class="sc"><span class="figNum">Fig.
-1.</span> Entrance to the Black Sea from the Bosphorus.</span></p>
-</div>
-<p class="par"></p>
-<p class="par">Herakli, Ineboli, Sinope, Samsun&mdash;the ships often
-stop at one or two of these places; yet how little now remains of the
-old Greek cities of the Argonautic shore! Step on land, and there are
-the high-prowed galleys drawn up, quite in the ancient fashion, upon
-the narrow strip of sand. But the hill to which we look for the ancient
-akropolis appears bare of any building now, and it is only by careful
-searching and diligent enquiry that you will find some faced stone with
-a Greek inscription of the Roman period built into the buttress of a
-modern bridge, or mocking the ruder masonry of a Turkish wall. Here at
-Ineboli, indeed, half-bedded in the soil a few paces from the shore,
-lies a shining fragment of white marble with sculptures in relief. A
-line of white-faced houses with roofs of red tiles nestles beneath the
-mountain wall. The Greeks live on one side, the Turks on the other; and
-the intelligent man to whom you naturally address yourself is an
-Armenian in European dress. Our ship does not call at Sinope this
-voyage&mdash;Sinope of the open site and spacious roadstead, whose
-walls seem to have resisted the general crumbling, and rise from the
-water a still perfect model of a fortified medi&aelig;val town. During
-the night we round the hump of Anatolia, and before <span class=
-"pagenum">[<a id="pb4" href="#pb4" name="pb4">4</a>]</span>mid-day we
-are lying in the bay of Samsun, towards the centre of the long curve
-lined with white-faced, red-tiled houses, beyond which the ruined walls
-of ancient Amisus still emerge from the briars on the summit of the
-hillside which closes the landscape on the north-west. But at Samsun
-also destruction has been busy; I look in vain for the massive tower of
-old acquaintance at the south-eastern extremity of the shore. I
-recognise the spot where it stood at the end of the long sea-wall, some
-parts of which still remain; but the foundations alone have escaped
-demolition, and the few large blocks of stone which still lie scattered
-on the ground testify rather to the carelessness of the Turkish
-building-contractor than to any respect on the part of his employers
-for the beauty and interest of their town.</p>
-<p class="par">The sites of these coast towns have been determined by
-the characteristics of the range of wooded limestone ridges which rise
-along the shore. Sometimes it will be a cleft in this latitudinal belt
-of mountains, a transverse fissure in the grain of the range, which,
-with its rustling river giving access to the interior, has attracted a
-settlement. The eye rests with pleasure on the deep green of these
-narrow valleys; the limestone towers high above them and protects the
-rich growth of trees and shrubs. Or the range recedes from the margin
-of the water, sweeping inland in the shape of a vast amphitheatre, and
-curving outwards again to form a distant promontory of the bold and
-sinuous coast. The first description will apply to the position of
-Ineboli; the second may be illustrated in a typical manner by the site
-of Samsun. There the open stage of the wide hemicycle is filled with
-rolling hills and level expanses which yield abundant crops of cereals.
-It is true that the estuaries of the two larger rivers, Halys and Iris,
-present exceptions to the normal configuration of the seaboard. These
-considerable streams form extensive deltas which project far out into
-the sea. For awhile, as you pass them, you almost lose sight of the
-mountains, and the view ranges across low, marshy tracts, studded with
-trees. As we skirted the delta of the Halys, we looked down upon such a
-wooded plain across a narrow bank of sandy shore. It appeared as if
-inside that slender barrier the solid land had sunk beneath the level
-of the waters upon which we sailed. The delta of the Halys is as
-celebrated for its tobacco as that of the Iris for its Indian corn, and
-Bafra and Charshembeh are becoming serious rivals to the old Greek
-cities of the coast. <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb5" href="#pb5"
-name="pb5">5</a>]</span></p>
-<p class="par">Indeed, even along this remote seaboard the flowing tide
-of Western civilisation is surely setting eastwards again. How the
-conditions of human life around these lonely waters have altered within
-the last sixty years! Sixty years ago the first steamer drew her train
-of smoke and foam past these forelands and bays of still uncertain
-fame. The slave ships infested the harbours of the coast, and if a sail
-rose upon the horizon it was likely to be a slaver&rsquo;s sail. Armed
-bands still forayed into the recesses of Georgia for their loot of
-beautiful boys and girls, and parents who wished to preserve their
-daughters from the market would place them, when quite children, in one
-of the numerous fortified convents which crowned the summits of their
-native hills. Slowly the grip of law has fastened upon the peoples of
-Caucasia, a stern force moving with the insistence of a vice from
-distant Russia, from the north; while from the west, with, perhaps,
-less system, less coherence of methods, European commerce creeps along
-this Turkish shore of the sea, and extends ever further into the inland
-country the solvent influences of her sway. Already towards the middle
-of the century the Russians swept these waters with their steam
-cruisers, while their police boats blockaded all the coast of Circassia
-to guard against the import of arms. Only when the season was most
-tempestuous, when the cruisers had retired within their harbours and
-the Cossacks no longer dared to face the open sea, the captain of the
-slave ship would venture out upon his perilous voyage from some wooded
-inlet of the eastern shore. At the present time this traffic has either
-ceased entirely or is conducted through obscure and secret channels,
-where it would be difficult to trace. To Russia belongs the credit of
-this achievement, which has accompanied the extension of her empire
-down the eastern coast of the Black Sea. To Europe and to the
-increasing intercourse with European markets is due the growing
-prosperity of these towns of the Turkish seaboard, and indeed the very
-appearance which they present. New houses, in construction far more
-solid than their predecessors, are transforming the aspect of the
-shore; burnt bricks or stone masonry take the place of wood, and these
-materials are faced with a coat of concrete, painted a pure white. The
-window apertures are large, and at evening or morning a row of wide
-glass panes reflects the glow. Even the Government can show some signs
-of progress; carriageable roads have been constructed to the towns of
-the interior, from <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb6" href="#pb6" name=
-"pb6">6</a>]</span>Ineboli to the inland centre of Kastamuni, from
-Samsun to Amasia and Sivas.</p>
-<p class="par"><i>August 15.</i>&mdash;Weighing from Samsun at night,
-it is early morning as we cast anchor off Kerasun&mdash;Kerasun with
-its castled rock thrown seawards from the range, the lofty headland of
-the bay, from which the town curves westwards and sinks to the
-waterside under the shadow of the mountain wall. Were it not for the
-needle forms of minaret and cypress, rising against the terraces of
-white walls and red roofs which mount from the water&rsquo;s edge, we
-might be sailing on the Rhine, past some grim old burgh, dominating the
-cluster of peaceful habitations which cower at its skirts. In less than
-three hours the barges are emptied, and we are proceeding on our
-course. Almost immediately we pass close to a little island, a rare
-object along this shore. It is a mere fleck of rock, picturesquely
-encircled by feudal walls and towers. The range on our right hand is
-always rising in elevation; hard porphyritic rocks are beginning to
-take the place of the crumbling limestone; the ridges, clad with firs
-to the very summits, stand up one behind another ever loftier and more
-abrupt. At the same time the lower slopes increase in verdure; orchards
-and plantations clothe each respite of open ground. Small settlements
-succeed one another more closely, the houses peeping out with their
-white faces from the soft, leafy background of green.</p>
-<p class="par">Such is the appearance of the shore we are skirting this
-morning&mdash;the range growing in height, the vegetation increasing,
-the characteristic beauties of the coast now, perhaps, for the first
-time imprinting a lasting image upon the mind. Like the Mediterranean,
-this sea is almost tideless&mdash;the narrow strip of sand, upon which
-the waves plash, is unencumbered with those oozy beds of giant seaweed
-which, scattered in fragrant streamers upon our English seaboards, whet
-the freshness of our sea-breeze. Beyond this margin rise the first
-spurs of the mountains, or immediately descend into the deep, clear
-waters in the form of bold capes. If this coast yields to some in
-variety of outline, and is wanting in those combinations of sinuous
-bays and sea-thrown islands which lend such beauty to the landscapes of
-western Asia Minor and to the European shore of the Mediterranean Sea,
-it is surpassed by none in distinctness of character, in singleness of
-effect. Day after day it is the same long belt of mountains always
-following the shore, the same long series of <span class=
-"pagenum">[<a id="pb7" href="#pb7" name="pb7">7</a>]</span>parallel
-ridges rising roughly parallel to the shore. The persistence of the
-range, the regularity of the system, the many signs along the seaboard
-of an ever-increasing development in the scale of the mountain walls
-which lie behind&mdash;all contribute to the growing consciousness that
-this foot of the barrier, the pleasing inlets of this shore, are but
-the threshold of some commanding piece of natural architecture of which
-we long to realise the plan. While the imagination is stimulated by
-this largeness of feature, the eye also is pleased. Groves of lofty fir
-trees clothe the slopes and climb the summits, standing out on the
-undulating backs of the ridges against the light of the sky. Wherever
-the soil favours, there are pretty orchards, and an abundant growth of
-plants and trees. Nature strikes the first note of that
-&ldquo;evergreenness&rdquo; for which the coast of Kolchis has been
-famed.</p>
-<p class="par">Towards mid-day we are holding up for a well-defined
-headland, projecting towards the north. It is distinguished by bold
-bluffs, breaking off in the form of cliffs before they reach the
-water&rsquo;s edge, and by a succession of deep valleys which descend
-on either side to the margin of the shore. It is the promontory of the
-&ldquo;sacred mountain&rdquo;&mdash;Hieron Oros, now called Yoros,
-Ieros, or simply Oros&mdash;and it forms the western border of that
-series of smaller indentations which make up the beautiful bay of
-Trebizond. Platana, most picturesque of little settlements, nestles
-well under the shelter of this cape upon the west, when once you have
-doubled the points; while on the eastern side of the bay, exposed to
-the strong north-westerly winds of the seaboard, lies the site of the
-old city of Trebizond. From this port starts the principal avenue of
-communication between Turkish Armenia and the sea; and beyond the
-mountains, on the south of this wild coast range, now traversed by a
-metalled road, lie the plains of the Armenian tableland. The width of
-this mountain belt which borders Armenia&mdash;this continuous chain of
-latitudinal ridges which, rising one behind and higher than the other,
-lead up like a ladder to the edge of the Armenian plateau&mdash;is on
-this section of the range a direct distance of nearly fifty miles. When
-the roses are blowing in the gardens of the seaboard, the Armenian
-rivers may be bound with ice; an unbroken sheet of snow may dazzle the
-eyes of the traveller, as he penetrates from this border country of
-parallel crests and depressions to the open landscapes of the
-tableland.</p>
-<p class="par">Fifty miles of intricate mountain country, inhabited at
-all periods by a sparse and little civilised population of doubtful or
-<span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb8" href="#pb8" name=
-"pb8">8</a>]</span>mixed race! The fact goes far towards explaining the
-isolation of Armenia, the remoteness throughout history of the great
-grain-growing plains of the interior from the coast towns of the Black
-Sea. While the Greek cities of the seaboard, sheltered behind the
-barrier of the range, found a natural and almost uninterrupted
-connection with the main currents of Western history and Western life,
-the Armenian country and people, full exposed to the revolutions of
-Asia, belonged essentially to the East.</p>
-<p class="par">Yet these crumbling walls and towers, emerging at
-intervals from a leafy overgrowth of creepers and trees, claim a larger
-share of our attention than a merely passing notice of the port of
-Trebizond. For, in the first place, no traveller, about to enter the
-interior by this well-known and well-beaten route, can fail to undergo
-the spell which belongs to these ruins, or to feel his interest aroused
-by the monuments which still remain here of an empire long forgotten in
-the West. Nor will a mind which has been fed upon Western literature
-ignore the importance of realising the events of Western history as
-they touch this remote shore. The annals of Trebizond, while they
-illustrate and in themselves to a great extent resume the fortunes of
-these coast towns, were joined by a thread which was seldom severed to
-the web of Western things.</p>
-<p class="par"><i>August 16.</i>&mdash;The morning is the time to
-arrive at Trebizond, perhaps to wake when the ship lies secure at
-anchor, while a fresh land-wind blows. The vessel coming from the west
-crosses the bay from Cape Ieros to an answering headland in the east,
-and does not bring up till she has doubled this lesser promontory and
-closed or almost closed the wide bay from sight. The anchorage lies at
-the foot of the eastern suburb of the city, now the most flourishing
-portion of the town, and the suburb mounts the back of the little
-promontory, and descends to the water on the opposite or western side.
-The inlet which recedes from the cape is not deep or extensive, and the
-shelter which it offers is so partial that in stormy weather a ship may
-be obliged to run for Platana, and seek shelter under the lee of Cape
-Ieros, now some fifteen miles away. This configuration of the shore may
-be said to give two faces to the site of Trebizond. While the ancient
-city with the ruins looks seawards and westwards, commanding the softer
-landscape of the bay, to the anchorage belongs an easterly aspect, and
-a view past the estuary of the famous river Pyxitis along the wildest
-portion of the coast range. <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb9" href=
-"#pb9" name="pb9">9</a>]</span></p>
-<p class="par">Facing the anchorage, on the east of the white houses
-which climb the western skirts of the rising land, a bold cliff towers
-up above the water with abrupt walls of dark rock. The face of this
-cliff is almost bare of vegetation; but the summit, which is flat, is
-completely covered with a soft carpet of old turf. The elevation of
-this lofty platform above the sea-level is <span class="measure" title=
-"259 meter">850 feet</span>. East and west the hill descends with
-gentler gradients, on the one side to the estuary of the Pyxitis, and
-on the other to the little cape and to the town; but whether you
-approach it from the city or from the river valley, the slopes are no
-light matter to climb. On the south it joins on to the half-circle of
-the coast range, which recedes from beyond the river in a wide
-amphitheatre, embracing both the bays and all the town. Thus the town
-itself is shut off from the level ground about the river by this
-peninsula of table-topped rock; and while one road climbs these slopes
-to unite the two valleys, the other winds outwards along the foot of
-the cliff, following the curve of the shore.</p>
-<p class="par">I remember that, when for the first time I looked out
-upon the city, I was at once impressed with the manner in which this
-bold natural feature corresponded to the name of the town (<span class=
-"trans" title="Trapezous"><span class="Greek" lang=
-"el">&Tau;&rho;&alpha;&pi;&epsilon;&zeta;&omicron;&#8166;&sigmaf;</span></span>).
-Could the shape which is denoted by the figure of a table be presented
-by Nature in a more convincing manner than by this mass of rock,
-towering up above the sea and from the valleys to a summit which is
-almost perfectly flat? Yet the name does not appear to take its origin
-in a justification at once so striking and so clear, but rather to
-derive from the configuration of the ground in the western bay upon
-which the ancient fortress was built. Still this platform is surely the
-most impressive characteristic of the site of Trebizond. The Turks, who
-have no antiquarian sympathies, apply to it the bald and
-undiscriminating appellation of Boz Tepe, the grey hill, basing the
-name upon the colour of the trachytic rock of which the hill is
-composed. The Greeks of old knew it as the Mount of
-Mithros&mdash;Mithrios&mdash;from a statue of the god Mithras which
-used to stand upon this elevated spot. It is not easy to imagine a more
-delightful ground of vantage from which to overlook the town and
-command the coast. You may step a distance of some 500 paces by 200 on
-a level surface of springy turf, with no object between you and the
-wide expanse about you, in air which is at once full of sun and
-vigorous; and, if the day be clear, you may descry beyond the
-<span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb10" href="#pb10" name=
-"pb10">10</a>]</span>endless stretch of water the faint blue line of
-distant Caucasus closing the horizon in the east.</p>
-<p class="par">The anchorage of Trebizond receives the first flush of
-morning; a mellow light is thrown upon the terraces of the eastern
-suburb, circling seawards down the lower slopes of Mount Mithros to the
-point of the little cape. Here and there among the buildings rows of
-tall cypresses still hold the shadows of night; but the white faces of
-the houses soon dispel the darkness, and their glass windows reflect in
-a glow of dazzling splendour the lurid brilliance of the rising sun.
-Nowhere else than in these landscapes of the Black Sea and the Caspian
-is the dawn more essentially the &ldquo;rosy-fingered,&rdquo; or the
-sea at sunrise &ldquo;the glass-green.&rdquo; As the rays commence to
-break, the wind freshens and the black cypresses wave and sway. Down
-the coast, beyond the dark cliff of Mithros, the mountains of the
-seaboard are massed in savage parapets beneath the rising sun; the
-faithful clouds cling to their slopes or float above them, a sky of
-cold, silvery greys. Westwards, above the point of the little
-promontory, under the immediate lee of which we lie, you just discern
-the softer setting of the greater bay itself, as the outline of the
-range sweeps in long undulations far out into the western sea. The day
-wakes; the colours start; the world of pinks and opals disappears. The
-aspect of the town is warm and genial, even in winter, when the
-background of broken ridges look their wildest and the sparse fir trees
-stand out darkly from the snow. Sunny meadows and flashes of green turf
-caress the traveller, who may have journeyed through the long Eastern
-summer and autumn in countries where scarcely a blade of grass grows.
-The shore is soon astir, and the cries of the boatmen are carried down
-the wind. Large, high-prowed galleys bear down upon us, the crews
-racing for the first berth. We are surrounded by a swarm of ragged
-human beings, shouting, scrambling, gesticulating, as their boats and
-heavily laden barges drive against our tall iron sides.</p>
-<p class="par">The steamers anchor at some little distance from the
-shore, and it takes a long pull, at a time when the wind is setting off
-the land, to reach the little mole. The shore-boats are manned with
-ill-miened youngsters, whose clamour never ceases from ship-side to
-landing-stage. On the quay are arrayed the customs officers and their
-assistants, motley groups in which the cast-off wardrobes of Europe
-mingle with the coloured cottons of the East. What a relief to escape
-from all this turmoil, to repose for <span class="pagenum">[<a id=
-"pb11" href="#pb11" name="pb11">11</a>]</span>a few minutes in a
-spacious coffee-house, rising high above the harbour and the noise! A
-youth is just completing his lustral service of the morning; the floor
-has been swept and watered, the nargilehs are coiled&mdash;the peaceful
-figure of Ion rises in the mind.</p>
-<p class="par">Our road leads up the hillside, at first by the town
-garden and wide streets, lined with houses and shops built in European
-style, and then through the narrow alleys which intersect the Christian
-quarters, a labyrinth of winding ways. These <i>streets</i> of
-Trebizond have a width not exceeding six or eight feet, and sometimes
-less, and are lined by the dull walls of garden enclosures which shut
-out all prospect over the town. A raised pavement runs along them,
-sometimes on both sides of the way, and always on one. Here and there
-the fresh green leaves of a fig tree overhang the walls, or the
-cherry-laurel with its clusters of claret-coloured fruit, or the pink
-flowers of the oleander. The houses are, for a great part, quite
-Eastern in character&mdash;blank, featureless wall, broken only at
-mid-height by little windows with gratings made of laced strips or
-mortised cubes of wood. But the modern villa is rapidly taking their
-place.</p>
-<p class="par">What waifs of all the ages may be met within these
-alleys! Yet I think, and our Consul, Mr. Longworth, seems inclined to
-agree with me, that the Greek type prevails. Our conversation turns
-upon these race questions; one can indeed never cease learning what
-fallacious guides in such questions religion and nationality are. There
-are whole villages on this seaboard whose inhabitants are Mussulmans,
-and would resent being called by any other name than <i>Osmanli</i>;
-yet their Greek origin is established both by history and by the
-traditions which they themselves still in part retain. Thus take
-Surmeneh and Of, two considerable villages on the east of Trebizond.
-These versatile Greeks are as famous now for their theological eminence
-as they were formerly under the Eastern Empire, with this difference,
-that whereas in those days they supplied the Church with bishops, it is
-now mollahs that they furnish to Islam. Yet, fanatical as they are,
-they still hold to certain customs which connect them with the old
-faith they once served with such distinction, and have, no doubt, since
-persecuted with equal zeal. Under the stress of illness the Madonna
-again makes her appearance, her image is again suspended above the
-sick-bed; the sufferer sips the forbidden wine from the old cup of the
-Communion, which still remains a <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb12"
-href="#pb12" name="pb12">12</a>]</span>treasured object with the whole
-community, much as they might be puzzled to tell you why. As we are
-talking, a little girl happens to pass down the lane, a child of some
-ten years. Her limbs are scarcely covered by a loose cotton skirt,
-although her complexion has not suffered from the sun. The waxen
-texture of the flesh, the transparent colouring, and the rich setting
-of auburn hair remind one of the favourites of Venetian painters and of
-faces seen in North Italian towns. It is besides only natural that the
-people of this city should possess a strain of Italian blood; not so
-many centuries ago the Genoese controlled the commerce and menaced the
-independence of Trebizond.</p>
-<p class="par"></p>
-<div class="figure xd21e1590width" id="fig002"><img src=
-"images/fig002.jpg" alt=
-"Fig. 2. Trebizond from above the Head of the Western Ravine." width=
-"720" height="489">
-<p class="figureHead"><span class="sc"><span class="figNum">Fig.
-2.</span> Trebizond from above the Head of the Western
-Ravine.</span></p>
-</div>
-<p class="par"></p>
-<p class="par">It is a long climb from the anchorage to the British
-Consulate, which, although within the limits of this suburb of gardens,
-has an elevation of at least <span class="measure" title=
-"45.7 meter">150 feet</span>. Still, the site has the advantages of a
-middle position between the old fortified city in the western bay below
-us and the open walks around Boz Tepe. And if the mornings be devoted
-to the town and the ruins, the evenings may be spent on that airy
-platform or upon the lonely slopes of the adjacent hills.</p>
-<p class="par">There are many pleasant spots which, in the course of
-these rambles, invite a view over the town. The landscape which you
-overlook is that of the west&mdash;the vague succession of endless
-little capes and inlets, disappearing and combining to form the single
-feature of a wide and open bay. Below you lies the old city,
-medi&aelig;val walls and towers, overgrown by a canopy of leaves,
-gently sloping to the sea (Fig. <a href="#fig002">2</a>). Yet, however
-beautiful in itself may be the scene that expands before you, it is
-rather upon the thoughts and the memories which it raises that the mind
-is inclined to dwell. The sea is not so much the blue floor without
-limits to which the sinuous outline of the coast descends, as the open
-thoroughfare which leads across to Europe, joining Asia to the West.
-The fir-clad ridges, which close the prospect towards the interior, are
-rather the first outrunners of that wide belt of troughs and ridges in
-which so many armies have become entrapped, than the background of
-sterner features which supports the peaceful landscape in which the
-ruined burgh lies. The scene itself is the same that brought tears to
-the eyes of Xenophon, and which was associated in the mind of the
-Emperor Hadrian with his first view of this shore and sea.</p>
-<p class="par">But the morning is not the time, nor is this the
-occasion for such retrospective thoughts. Fresh from sleep, our first
-interest <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb13" href="#pb13" name=
-"pb13">13</a>]</span>is the ivy-grown ruins of Trapezus, which lie far
-below us in the western bay. We descend from the slopes about Boz Tepe,
-by the neat villas and garden enclosures of the eastern suburb, to the
-ravine which separates this suburb, with the anchorage and commercial
-quarter, from the site of the old fortified town. It is indeed a
-position not readily forgotten and not easy to mistake. If the
-descriptions of Trapezus which have come down to us portray in a
-defective manner the many remarkable features which are characteristic
-of the place, they, at least, leave no doubt as to the identity of the
-historical city with the position of these ruins. At the foot of the
-precipitous slopes of Boz Tepe, on the western side of that
-table-topped hill, the surface of the ground is broken by two deep
-ravines, which, at a narrow interval, descend from the interior to the
-seaboard about at right angles to the margin of the shore. They
-represent the lower course of two of those wooded valleys of which the
-landscape towards Cape Ieros contains a succession, various in feature,
-but in character the same. Peculiar to these two ravines is their close
-proximity to one another; the streams which flow along them are only
-about <span class="measure" title="366 meter">400 yards</span> apart as
-they approach the sea. Indeed, at one point, over <span class="measure"
-title="914 meter">1000 yards</span> from the coast, the mass of rock by
-which they are separated forms a neck or isthmus of which the top is
-less than <span class="measure" title="54.9 meter">60 yards</span>
-across. In this manner a site is constituted which is bounded on three
-sides by natural defences&mdash;on the west and east by the ravines,
-and on the north by the sea. Draw a wall across the neck or narrowest
-portion of the rock, and you at once enclose the figure of an irregular
-parallelogram, of which the fourth side is the short cross-wall. These
-natural features, so favourable for defence, have not escaped the
-ingenuity of man; the cross-wall has been built in the shape of a
-massive tower and citadel, while the inner sides of the ravines have
-been lined with walls and castellations, which still frown above the
-leafy abysses and the streams rustling through the shade.</p>
-<p class="par"></p>
-<div class="figure xd21e1622width" id="map01"><a href=
-"images/map01-h.jpg"><img src="images/map01.jpg" alt=
-"PLAN OF THE ANCIENT FORTIFICATIONS OF TREBIZOND" width="643" height=
-"720"></a>
-<p class="figureHead">PLAN OF THE ANCIENT FORTIFICATIONS OF
-TREBIZOND</p>
-<p class="par first">as they exist at the present day<br>
-drawn out on the spot in 1898</p>
-</div>
-<p class="par"></p>
-<p class="par">In appearance the protected enclosure, with its flanking
-ravines, has been described by some writers as a peninsular plateau,
-while to others it has suggested the shape of a table and seemed to
-justify the name of Trebizond (<span class="trans" title=
-"Trapezous"><span class="Greek" lang=
-"el">&Tau;&rho;&alpha;&pi;&epsilon;&zeta;&omicron;&#8166;&sigmaf;</span></span>).
-Neither likeness appears to me to be quite happily chosen. Both contain
-in themselves the conception of a disparity of levels, the plateau of a
-stage raised above the surrounding country, the table above the surface
-of the floor. Such are not the characteristics of the <span class=
-"pagenum">[<a id="pb14" href="#pb14" name="pb14">14</a>]</span>site.
-The metaphor of a table seems the more inappropriate, inasmuch as the
-least one might expect of such an object is that it should have a flat
-and horizontal top. This site possesses neither of these qualities. On
-the one hand, the upper portion, which supports the citadel, rises
-above the lower like a dais or step; while, on the other, the plane of
-the ground is an inclined plane, and follows the general configuration
-of the country, shelving from the hills towards the sea.</p>
-<p class="par">Yet these images and the impressions from which they
-derive are no doubt founded upon real conditions. The isolation of the
-figure, together with its elevation&mdash;not indeed above the levels
-which adjoin it on either side, but above the level of the
-sea&mdash;these are the two factors which have supplied the real
-substance of such impressions. The first of these features would appeal
-to the eye with more distinctness, were it not for the thick growth of
-trees and underwood which rises from the floors and up the slopes of
-the ravines, and almost conceals the escarpment of their sides. The
-depth of the gulfs may be gauged by the following measurement made at
-the head of the western ravine. Standing at the bottom of the abyss,
-the rock which supports the citadel and palace overtops you by about
-<span class="measure" title="45.7 meter">150 feet</span> at the highest
-point. The width across them, from cliff to cliff, varies considerably,
-according as each gulf opens or closes in; the length of each of the
-two bridges which span the ravines is about 100 paces. Both ravines
-tend to flatten as they descend towards the shore, or in other words,
-to increase in width and diminish in depth. As for the elevation of the
-enclosure, it is of course most considerable at the narrow isthmus and
-the citadel. This highest portion, containing the keep and palace, is
-about <span class="measure" title="61 meter">200 feet</span> above the
-sea.</p>
-<p class="par">It is plain from the description which has just been
-given that the characteristic features of the site attain their
-greatest development in that part of the enclosure which is most remote
-from the shore; that it is there the protecting gulfs are deepest, and
-the rock loftiest which they flank. Indeed, during the Byzantine and
-earlier Comnenian periods the fortress was confined to this upper
-portion, and the outer wall on the side of the sea was drawn from gulf
-to gulf at a distance of about <span class="measure" title=
-"421 meter">460 yards</span> from the present margin of the shore. A
-few sentences may suffice to present the plan of the fortifications, as
-it may be traced among the ruins that remain. At the very head of the
-<span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb15" href="#pb15" name=
-"pb15">15</a>]</span>formation came the keep and citadel, the outer
-wall being drawn across the narrow isthmus between the two ravines;
-this was the weakest point in the whole circumference of the fortress,
-and the works were strongest upon this side. Built into this outer wall
-stands a massive square tower, which rises boldly above the battlements
-and faces the approaches from the south. The ground shelves upwards
-almost from the immediate foot of the tower to the amphitheatre of
-hills which surround the bay. Thus the fortress is commanded by the
-slopes upon the south, where already it is by nature most vulnerable.
-It was from the south that its assailants delivered their principal
-attacks: the Goths, the Georgians, the Seljuks, the Turkomans, the
-Ottoman Turks. All the space inside the wall and between the two
-ravines was filled up at this uppermost part of the fortress, first by
-the keep, and then by the palace itself; the citadel served as the
-kingly residence, and the wall with the bold windows which rises along
-the edge of the western ravine was alike fortress and palace wall. This
-uppermost fortress or citadel, with the palace of the king, was
-separated from the lower but more extensive portion of the site by a
-cross-wall, equal in height to the walls along the ravines, and
-supported at either end by towers. So much loftier is this upper stage
-than the stage which lies below it that, whereas the palace, which
-occupies the most elevated point, towers high above the battlements of
-the cross-wall, the base of this wall itself overtops the highest
-buildings of the second and lower stage.</p>
-<p class="par">Below the cross-wall, with its massive double gate, lay
-that part of the fortress which contained the cathedral and public
-buildings, and formed the inhabited portion of the original fortified
-town. Like the citadel, it was protected on two sides by the ravines,
-lined on their inner edge by a lofty wall seven feet in thickness, with
-towers at intervals. A second cross-wall, extending from ravine to
-ravine, was its bulwark on the side of the sea, and constituted the
-outer rampart of the enclosure as it existed in the ancient form. This
-outer rampart followed the edge of a natural declivity in the surface
-of the shelving ground, and presented a bold front to the lower levels
-lying between it and the shore.</p>
-<p class="par">The third and lowest stage of the fortified enclosure
-filled the space that yet remained between this outer wall of the city
-and the immediate margin of the sea. The ravines open outwards as
-<span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb16" href="#pb16" name=
-"pb16">16</a>]</span>they approach the seaboard, and the figure widens
-which they bound; but on the other hand, the sides of these natural
-barriers flatten and take the surface of the adjoining ground. Thus the
-plan of the lower fortress did not display the same subservience to the
-natural features of the site, and was protracted on the west beyond the
-outer margin of the western ravine. Indeed, the area enclosed by this
-later work of the fourteenth century was considerably greater than that
-of the ancient burgh; and in proportion as it was deficient in natural
-defences, so it was stronger in those of art. A wall six feet and a
-half in thickness, with towers at irregular intervals, surrounded the
-new work; and, except on the side of the sea, this rampart was flanked
-by a second and lower wall with a moat on its outer side. But, although
-the lower fortress formed a third and separate unity, overstepping the
-natural limits of the site, it was connected in the closest manner with
-the upper enclosure, and with the walls flanking the ravines. On the
-east the new ramparts joined the old wall, and continued its direction
-in a straight line to the shore, at which point they turned at right
-angles, along the shore. Thus the old cross-wall was completely covered
-by the new fortifications, and the principal gate of the old city,
-leading through that wall and facing the sea, instead of standing at
-the outer extremity of the fortress, now became situated in about the
-middle of the fortified plan. The new wall along the sea was protracted
-further westwards than the western extremity of the old cross-wall; it
-was drawn across the mouth of the western ravine, and far overlapped
-the parallel line of the old wall. Some little distance west of the
-depression it again changed direction, and stretched up towards the
-south, until it reached a point opposite to the bridge which leads out
-from the middle fortress, and over 100 paces from the edge of the
-ravine. From this point, which was emphasised by a rectangular tower of
-extraordinary size, the line of wall was taken at right angles, and met
-the margin of the ravine.</p>
-<p class="par">This threefold disposition of the walls and
-fortifications is characteristic of the plan of the fortified city, and
-forms a feature well noted in the descriptions of the topographers and
-still distinguished in popular speech. Indeed, even at the present day,
-when most of the great gates have disappeared, and houses with several
-storeys obscure the plan, the hillside is lined by three complete
-fortresses, each separated from the other and one <span class=
-"pagenum">[<a id="pb17" href="#pb17" name="pb17">17</a>]</span>higher
-than another, yet all three welded closely into one. The appearance of
-the city in the days of her splendour must have justified her
-reputation as &ldquo;Queen of the Euxine,&rdquo; and lent colour to her
-claim to be the capital of a restored Roman Empire of the East. Between
-extensive suburbs, filled with busy streets and markets, rising from
-the shore on either hand, through a labyrinth of gardens and
-garden-houses, clustered on the higher slopes, the two converging lines
-of massive parapets and towers mounted slowly up the shelving ground.
-The further they receded from the margin of the seaboard, the clearer
-grew the essential features of the site&mdash;the ravines opening
-darkly at the immediate foot of either wall, the walls closely
-following the irregular course of the chasms, and now rising, now
-declining, along the uneven surface of the cliffs. Near the head of the
-figure stood the royal palace, raised high above the massive works of
-the citadel, deeply moated by the sister gulfs on either side. Broad
-windows opened from the royal reception hall of white marble to the
-varied prospects on every side, while within, the vast apartment was
-adorned with rich paintings, the portraits of successive holders of the
-imperial office, their insignia and arms. On the east, beyond the
-abyss, the slope gathered gradually to the side of Mithros, the
-table-topped hill, in which direction, just opposite the palace, the
-church and fortified enclosure of St. Eugenius crowned an almost
-isolated site which was flanked on the further side by a third and
-lesser ravine. Towards the interior, on the side of the narrow isthmus,
-the view ranged wide, above the battlements, over the hills encircling
-the broad bay; while the rising ground, opening upwards from the tongue
-of the isthmus, was occupied by the theatre and by the extensive walled
-enclosure of the polo-ground or hippodrome. A royal gate gave access
-from the palace to these pleasure-places, the distance of a short walk
-from the wall; and through this gate the imperial party and their
-brilliant court would pass to their marble seats above the race-course,
-whence the whole landscape of city and field and ocean lay outspread at
-their feet. If the several divisions of the fortified enclosure may be
-described as so many steps, or shelving terraces, rising one behind
-another from the shore, then the race-course outside the walls will be
-the fourth stage of the platform, the last and highest, and the fairest
-of all. Indeed the prospect over the walls and towers of the city to
-the distant sea beyond must at all times have been one of <span class=
-"pagenum">[<a id="pb18" href="#pb18" name=
-"pb18">18</a>]</span>surpassing beauty, whether seen from the windows
-of the Imperial residence, or from these airy heights above the town.
-To the palace was displayed the long perspective of the city
-architecture outlined against the blue bay&mdash;the massive
-cross-walls cleaving the crowded quarters, the domes of the churches
-glancing in the brilliant sunlight, and, interspersed, quiet respites
-of shade and leafiness, where some portico with frescoed walls and row
-of marble pillars recalled the habits of the classical age. From the
-higher standpoint of the race-course all the rich detail of this scene
-was blended and subdued; the eye would follow the long line of parapets
-and towers descending by the side of the sinuous streak of verdure
-which marked the course of the western ravine. The palace windows,
-which still rise above the head of that ravine, commanded the landscape
-of the west, the wide bay with its peaceful setting of cultivated
-hillsides stretching seawards to the distant cape.</p>
-<p class="par">Among the most pleasing and, perhaps, not the least
-striking feature in the composition of these scenes must at all times
-have been the luxuriance and variety of the vegetation which is natural
-to this soil. The necessary moisture is provided, not by stagnant pools
-and marshes, as in the country watered by the Kolchian rivers further
-east, but by salubrious springs, bubbling from the surface of the rock
-and collecting in rustling streams. The sun is indeed the fiery orb of
-Eastern landscapes; but the climate is tempered by the chilling winds
-from across the sea, bringing rain and mist in their train. The outcome
-of these conditions is the simultaneous exuberance of the trees and
-plants which flourish upon the coasts of the Mediterranean and of the
-leafy giants of our Northern woods; side by side with shady thickets of
-chestnut, elm, oak and hazel, groves of cypress, laurel and olive grace
-the shore. The wild vine hangs in festoons from the branches, and in
-sheltered places the orange tree, the lemon, and the pomegranate thrive
-and yield their fruit. All our fruits are found in the well-stocked
-gardens, while the fig of Trebizond is of old as famous as the grapes
-of Tripoli and the cherry of Kerasun. Cucumbers are cultivated, and
-heavy pumpkins, and tobacco, and Indian corn, with its reed-like stalks
-and luscious leaves. The beautiful pink flowers of the oleander may be
-seen rising above some orchard wall. In the middle of the seventeenth
-century we are told of upwards of thirty thousand gardens and vineyards
-inscribed in the city registers, and at that time the slopes about Boz
-Tepe were <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb19" href="#pb19" name=
-"pb19">19</a>]</span>completely covered with vines. But it is on the
-western rather than on the eastern side of the fortress that Nature has
-most freely lavished her gifts; and on no spot with more abundance or
-greater effectiveness than on the western ravine. The beauties of that
-valley, almost as we see them to-day, have been described in glowing
-language by Cardinal Bessarion in the fifteenth century, himself a son
-of Trebizond, and by the historian of the Comnenian empire whose warm
-imagination was kindled by scenes which recalled and intensified the
-graces of his native Tyrol.<a class="noteref" id="xd21e1673src" href=
-"#xd21e1673" name="xd21e1673src">1</a> A path leads down from the
-suburb on the west into the shade and freshness of the gorge, through
-thickets of lofty forest-trees, their leafy branches laced together by
-wild vines. Even at mid-day, when the sun hangs cloudless over the
-narrow vista, the rays scarcely penetrate to the deep shadows of the
-evergreens&mdash;a luxuriant undergrowth of myrtle, laurel and ivy,
-rising from the floor and up the cliffs. From the highest point of the
-castle rock some <span class="measure" title="45.7 meter">150
-feet</span> above you, amongst a wild confusion of creepers and trees,
-the bold wall of the palace, now reduced to an empty skeleton, still
-stands up against the sky; and the broad windows which once opened from
-the emperor&rsquo;s apartments still overlook the verdant scene below.
-Past mossy banks, upon which the iris and primrose flourish, through
-leafy brakes, where trees of laurel hide the ground, the little stream
-cascades into the laps of the hollows or plashes over ledges of hard
-rock.</p>
-<div class="blockquote">
-<p class="par first">But we are anticipating on our walk, which has not
-yet brought us further than the edge of the eastern ravine. We cross
-the bridge, and at once find ourselves within the fortified enclosure,
-which is traversed by a broad road. Following that road, we are passing
-through the middle fortress&mdash;that part of the site which
-constituted the inhabited quarter of the walled city in its original
-form. Now as in ancient times it is crowded by buildings, while a
-considerable portion is taken up by the <b>Serai</b>, or Government
-House (No. 17 on plan of Trebizond and surroundings), which is situated
-about in the middle of the space between the ravines, on the south side
-of our road. Here the pasha will be sitting within an inner room, a
-bundle of papers by his side on the divan. Entering the court, you have
-on one side this palace, thronged with applicants, and, on the other,
-the iron gratings of a prison, banding the faces of the captives as
-they stare on the scene below. Past the gateway of the <i>Serai</i>, a
-narrow way leads up the enclosure, diverging at right angles from the
-road which joins the ravines. It conducts us to the upper fortress
-through a quarter <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb20" href="#pb20"
-name="pb20">20</a>]</span>filled by private houses, and inhabited
-exclusively by Mohammedans. A walk of some two or three hundred yards
-brings us to the foot of the lofty cross-wall, which is almost as fresh
-to-day as when it was reared. By a steep incline we enter a gateway
-into a hollow tower adjoining the outer wall on the east, which
-constitutes the only passage into the citadel.</p>
-<p class="par">The massive ancient gate still rests upon its hinges,
-its rusty iron plates riddled with bullets. A second gate, placed at
-right angles to the first in the further wall, gives issue from the
-tower. <b>The citadel</b>, like the middle fortress, is occupied by
-modern houses; but they are less frequent, and are almost confined to
-the spaces immediately neighbouring the cross-wall. There is some
-difficulty in examining the extensive ancient works which still in part
-remain upon the site. One of the principal buildings is occupied by
-military stores, and is forbidden ground. I contrive to effect an
-entrance, and find it quite empty&mdash;a palpable reason for such
-exclusive measures. Then the walls which enclose the gardens of the
-private dwellings are no less the discreet protectors of the life of
-the harem than the veil to hide the squalor of faded opulence. While
-one of us is taking readings with the prismatic compass, the whole
-quarter is raised by the protestations of a young minx, who will insist
-that <i>she</i> is the object of his unmannerly stares. I have said
-that the palace is now a mere skeleton; a rambling old house, with a
-picturesque overhanging roof, fills a portion of the ground plan of the
-royal apartments, where they overlooked the western ravine. We are
-tardily given admission by a female voice. From an embrasure in the
-massive wall of the fortress, just below the row of eight arched
-windows, which stand up blank against the sky, we feast our eyes upon
-the charming view over the western ravine, following its sinuous
-outline into the background of leafy hills, or resting upon the
-cypresses and minaret of the Khatunieh mosque among the villas on the
-opposite margin of the abyss.</p>
-<p class="par">Within this outer wall, a little south of our
-standpoint, a square tower rises above the outline of the battlements,
-displaying in its upper storey the interior of a spacious apartment
-with windows opening upon the landscape. The fragment of a wall juts
-out towards us from beside the tower; and three large windows, of which
-two are double, with slim dividing pillars, have been spared to it by
-the ravages of time. Just north of us, three more windows rise from the
-outer wall, on a higher plane than those above our heads. Both rows are
-but the remains of much longer series, once the life and pride of these
-grim parapets. They enable us to reconstruct the ancient splendour of
-the imperial residence, which, day by day, is slowly passing towards
-the world of unsubstantial memories, to share the fate of sacred Troy
-and of King Priam, rich in flocks.</p>
-<p class="par">Above the palace, within the narrowing tongue of the
-circumvallation, the space is occupied by the substructures of the
-keep, over which we clamber to the parapets of the outer wall. Beside
-us, the square tower at the extreme end of the fortress frowns out upon
-the knife-like ridge between the ravines. It is probable that this
-tower is composed of a solid mass, for one cannot trace any sign of a
-passage in. The battlements of the wall rise to a height of nearly
-<span class="measure" title="61 meter">200 feet</span> above the
-western <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb21" href="#pb21" name=
-"pb21">21</a>]</span>ravine. Just on the east of the tower is placed
-the only entrance to the citadel from the side of the ridge. It
-consists of a long passage, flanked by a parallel outer wall, and
-abutting on a huge angular tower. But the inner doorway is now walled
-up, and one is obliged to retrace one&rsquo;s steps to the middle
-fortress, in order to pass without the walls.</p>
-<p class="par">The gate is situated just below the entrance to the
-citadel, in the wall on the east. It too is furnished with double
-doors, which, like their neighbours, have been riddled by musket fire.
-South of this gateway there is just enough room between the wall and
-the edge of the eastern ravine to permit of a narrow road. Leaving the
-interior of the fortress, one is taken along this road, with the wooded
-precipice on one hand and on the other the ivy-grown battlements.
-Peasants, carrying baskets, pass by on their way to market; and beneath
-a fig tree, teeming with fruit, some Mussulman women, resting from
-their wayfaring, cower within their veils as we approach. The colossal
-angular tower projects from the head of the irregular wall towards the
-leafy abyss, a large inscription gleaming white upon the wall which
-faces us, the record of the conquest of Mohammed II.</p>
-<p class="par">But the point at which you pause is at the head of the
-fortification, beneath the soaring escarpment of the square tower. It
-is the same site upon which the peoples from the remote recesses of
-Asia have stood with the lust of conquest in their eyes. On the
-opposite bank of the eastern ravine the drum-shaped dome of St.
-Eugenius rises from among a cluster of red-roofed villas. It was there
-that the Seljuk sultan issued his threats and insults, while the Greek
-emperor fasted and prayed. From within the limits of that same
-sanctuary were heard the shouts of the revellers, mingling with the
-voices of their concubines. And a white minaret proclaims the event of
-the long and unequal struggle between the full-blooded followers of the
-Prophet and the emaciated children of the Cross.</p>
-<p class="par">The tower itself has evidently been built at a later
-period than the wall from which it rises in a continuous face. The
-colour of the stone is slightly paler, and an inscription, now much
-decayed, attests it to be the work of the Emperor John the Fourth, the
-last but one of the Comnenian dynasty. The ground widens like a fan
-from the foot of this tower, and the ravines, which have almost met,
-diverge and become great valleys, stretching into the bosom of the
-hills. Within that ampler space, a few hundred yards south of the
-fortress, one may still recognise the enclosure of the hippodrome and
-the great gateway on its northern side. The wall still rises in places
-to a height of from six to ten feet, but all the interior structures
-have disappeared. A field of tobacco grows upon the site. Adjoining the
-gateway, and facing the palace, one is impressed by the shape and
-appearance of a projecting tongue of land with a flat top. The theatre
-may once have stood upon this spot.</p>
-<p class="par">The ancient churches of Trebizond, some converted into
-mosques and others into public baths, are among the most interesting
-relics which the town contains. Retracing our steps to the <b>middle
-fortress</b> and to the road which joins the two ravines, we have
-almost reached the bridge over the <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb22"
-href="#pb22" name="pb22">22</a>]</span>westerly depression before
-attaining the old <b>cathedral</b>, sacred to the golden-headed Virgin,
-of which the southern wall borders our road on the north (No. 18). How
-bare and bleak it looks, shorn of its southern and western porches, and
-covered with a thick coating of whitewash! A little court, paved with
-flagstones, adjoins it on the east, over which you pass to an entrance
-at the north-east corner which has destroyed the side apse on that
-side. If you scrutinise the outer wall of the principal apse, you may
-still distinguish beneath the whitewash a design of figures in mosaic,
-one of which perhaps represents the seated Virgin. Time has worn down
-the few sculptured mouldings of which any trace remains. There is
-little to attract the eye in this mangled group of gables, surmounted
-by the drum of a duodecagonal dome. On the northern side rises the
-minaret, adjoining the principal entrance which has made use of the old
-porch on the north. Four marble pillars with Ionic capitals, probably
-the spoil of some pagan temple, support the roof of this spacious
-porch. We are about to enter, when we are called aside to observe an
-old fountain in the court on the east. It contains a marble slab with a
-Greek inscription, which is illegible; and the water issues from a
-much-worn bronze spout, representing the head of a serpent or dragon,
-which is said to have belonged to a bronze model of such a monster,
-killed by the spear of Alexius the First. Near the fountain is a tomb,
-still maintained in good order, in which repose the remains of a
-shepherd youth to whom the townspeople attribute the capture of the
-fortress by the Ottoman Turks. The story runs that Mohammed the Second,
-foiled by the strength of the citadel, had recourse to a final
-expedient of which the result should determine the alternatives of
-further effort or abandonment of the siege. A number of shots were to
-be fired from a cannon at the chain which supported the drawbridge.
-Should it be severed, it would be a signal for a renewal of operations;
-in the contrary case the siege was to be raised. The experiment failed;
-the sultan broke up his camp and removed the bulk of his army, leaving,
-however, the loaded cannon still in site. A young shepherd, happening
-to pass by, was prompted by the hardihood of his years to try his skill
-at the difficult mark. He discharged the gun, and the drawbridge fell.
-This child of a short-lived future sped to the camp of Mohammed, who
-was making his way up the valley of the Pyxitis towards Baiburt. But
-his story was derided, and the sultan, in a fit of anger, caused him to
-be killed. The rage of the despot was turned to grief when the
-confirmation reached him of this miraculous exploit. His return was
-followed by the fall of the city; and he endeavoured to atone for his
-rash action by loading his victim with posthumous rewards. Over the
-coffin one may still see the ball suspended which decided the fate of
-Trebizond. And the martyr is known by a name which repeats the
-sultan&rsquo;s sorrowful exclamation: &ldquo;<i>Khosh
-Oghlan</i>,&rdquo; or &ldquo;Well done! Oghlan.&rdquo;</p>
-<p class="par">The interior of the mosque produces an effect of
-extraordinary massiveness, with its bulky piers supporting the dome,
-with the walls which join these piers to the walls of the church and
-screen off the aisles from the open space beneath the dome. Except for
-the two inner columns of the porch, not a single pillar is to be seen.
-The aisles are narrow, and <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb23" href=
-"#pb23" name="pb23">23</a>]</span>their ceilings low; they are
-surmounted by a gallery, from which you look through low, arched
-apertures into the nave. The Turks have placed a wooden stage in the
-northern arm of the church, between the two walls which screen off the
-aisle. This erection faces their altar, and is reserved for their
-women; you reach it by a staircase placed inside the building, in front
-of the north-east entrance. A doorway leads from this wooden structure
-into the old gallery over the aisle, through which you pass to the
-women&rsquo;s gallery in the original design, which fills the space
-above the ceilings of the narthex and exo-narthex on the western side
-of the mosque. Two lofty vaulted openings display the interior to this
-gallery; while the wall between narthex and exo-narthex is pierced by
-three arches in a similar style. The door on the west in the storey
-below, which in Christian times gave access through these outer spaces
-into the body of the church, is no longer used, now that the religious
-focus of the building has been changed from the apse to the southern
-arm between the aisles. The exo-narthex has a width of <span class=
-"measure" title="5.49 meter">18 feet</span>, and the narthex of
-<span class="measure" title="2.74 meter">9 feet</span> <span class=
-"measure" title="17.8 centimeter">7 inches</span>. The piers upon which
-repose the vaulted ceilings of these courts are of such thickness that
-the entire space, measured from the inner side of the outer wall to the
-outer side of the wall of the nave, amounts to <span class="measure"
-title="11.3 meter">37 feet</span> <span class="measure" title=
-"12.7 centimeter">5 inches</span>. The interior measurements of the
-church proper are a length of <span class="measure" title=
-"28.3 meter">93 feet</span> <span class="measure" title=
-"15.2 centimeter">6 inches</span> from the commencement of the nave to
-the head of the apse, and a breadth of only <span class="measure"
-title="15.2 meter">50 feet</span> <span class="measure" title=
-"12.7 centimeter">5 inches</span>. It is well lit from windows in the
-apse and along the walls; but the twelve windows in the dome are small.
-Beautiful marble plaques of various colours, and designs in mosaic, may
-still be admired in the apse; but there is an almost total lack of
-ornament elsewhere. As to the date of the building, it is ascribed by
-Texier to the Grand-Comneni; with much less knowledge I hesitate to
-offer the opinion that the design belongs to an earlier period.</p>
-<p class="par">From this mosque of the middle fortress, <i>Orta Hisar
-Jamisi</i>, the ancient cathedral, it is but a few steps to the bridge
-over the western ravine. Like its fellow on the east of the enclosure,
-it consists of a lofty stone embankment, with a single narrow arch
-through which the stream flows. The prospect on either side is of great
-beauty, while the deep shadows of the vegetation, rising from the floor
-of the ravine, rest the eye and refresh the sense. Towards the south,
-beyond an irregular line of ivy-grown parapets, and towers of varying
-features and size, the stately works of palace and citadel rise against
-the sky; while in the direction of the sea, where the depression
-flattens and is lost in a maze of houses, the tiers of red-tiled roofs
-are pierced by a double series of battlements and embowered forts. The
-wall of the middle fortress is seen extending for some distance along
-the uneven edge of its rocky support; but it is overpowered in the
-landscape by the outer line of walls, which, starting from the opposite
-side of the ravine, are drawn in a long perspective to the shore.</p>
-<p class="par">Our goal is now the famous church of Hagia Sophia; it is
-situated upon the coast on the west of the city, at a distance of over
-a mile from the walls (No. 25). The bridge leads over into the western
-suburb, and for a short space you follow the outer wall of the lower
-fortress, stretching <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb24" href="#pb24"
-name="pb24">24</a>]</span>westwards at right angles to the ravine. On
-the right hand this solid masonry and a massive rectangular tower; on
-the left, a little further on, the cypresses of the Turkish
-burying-field, the leaning white headstones with their gilt Arabic
-inscriptions better disposed and tended than is usually the case. We
-have passed the street which turns upwards to the <b>mosque
-Khatunieh</b> (No. 20), the spacious and still well-ordered mosque and
-<i>medresseh</i> which keeps alive the memory of the mother of Selim
-the First. Like the middle and lower fortress, this <b>western
-suburb</b> is inhabited for the most part by Mohammedans&mdash;what a
-contrast to the bustling town on the east of the city where the
-Christian quarters lie! There, busy streets, lined with the broad-paned
-windows of offices and shops; here, the silent graveyard and widely
-scattered dwellings which seem to shrink from contact with life. A
-brighter aspect belongs to the <b>meidan</b> or open place, to which we
-pass and which we cross (<i>Kavak Meidan</i>, or plane tree
-square)&mdash;an extensive stretch of green turf, resembling an English
-common, where in old times the <i>jerid</i> or spear exercise was
-performed. Several tombs (<i>kumbets</i>) are to be seen on this grassy
-lawn, but I do not know to whom they have been raised. A little later
-we have left the last settlements behind us, and are winding outwards
-towards the sea-shore.</p>
-<p class="par"></p>
-<div class="figure xd21e1791width" id="fig003"><img src=
-"images/fig003.jpg" alt="Fig. 3. Trebizond: Hagia Sophia." width="720"
-height="507">
-<p class="figureHead"><span class="sc"><span class="figNum">Fig.
-3.</span> Trebizond: Hagia Sophia.</span></p>
-</div>
-<p class="par"></p>
-<p class="par">The church of <b>Hagia Sophia</b>, or the Divine Wisdom,
-now converted into a mosque, has been described as one of the most
-interesting monuments of Byzantine architecture, sculpture, and
-painting that time has spared.<a class="noteref" id="xd21e1803src"
-href="#xd21e1803" name="xd21e1803src">2</a> This appreciation can only
-be partially tested by the traveller of the present day, because the
-frescos which once covered the interior of the building have been
-daubed over with successive coats of whitewash. It is possible that
-when the time comes for restoring the building to Christian worship, or
-at least, as we may hope, for preserving it as a relic to instruct an
-enlightened age, the scales may fall away and disclose in some of their
-ancient brightness the solemn faces and gorgeous robes of the
-Grand-Comneni as they looked down upon the congregation of monks and
-pilgrims six centuries ago. In the meanwhile we may consult those
-descriptions of the paintings which have come down to us in the
-accounts of modern travellers more fortunate than ourselves, for at
-some periods a portion of the plaster has fallen and revealed the rich
-work below. Of the sculpture and architectural merits we are able to
-judge on the spot, for, although the Turks have introduced some
-alterations in the structure, they are too clumsy to mislead.</p>
-<p class="par">The first view of the building, high-seated on the left
-hand where the road debouches upon the sands, at once exhibits the
-beauties which are peculiar to it: the choice of site and the skilful
-grouping of the component parts (Fig. <a href="#fig003">3</a>). A broad
-terrace or esplanade, which is partly natural and in part supported by
-an embankment and a wall, forms the summit of a gentle slope which
-rises from the water beyond a fringe of cactus and leafy shrubs. The
-surface of the platform is flat and even, and is covered by a green
-carpet of turf. The prospect ranges wide across the bay to Cape Ieros,
-and seawards without limit over the waves. On the east, <span class=
-"pagenum">[<a id="pb25" href="#pb25" name="pb25">25</a>]</span>rising
-ground shuts out the city and the suburb, while on the south, the open
-landscape of hill and valley is felt rather than observed.</p>
-<p class="par">From the peaceful elevation of this pleasant terrace the
-well-preserved remains of an ancient monastery look down upon the
-shore. On the west, at the further extremity of the platform, a lofty
-square bell-tower or campanile stands out alone, like a sentinel,
-fronting the sea; just below it lies the church, a cluster of roofs and
-gables centring in a drum-shaped dome. Of the monastic buildings only
-one has been spared, a massive square edifice at the south-western
-corner of the platform, which is almost concealed by trees.</p>
-<p class="par"></p>
-<div class="figure xd21e1819width" id="fig004"><img src=
-"images/fig004.jpg" alt=
-"Fig. 4. Trebizond: Fa&ccedil;ade of Hagia Sophia on the South." width=
-"720" height="500">
-<p class="figureHead"><span class="sc"><span class="figNum">Fig.
-4.</span> Trebizond: Fa&ccedil;ade of Hagia Sophia on the
-South.</span></p>
-</div>
-<p class="par"></p>
-<p class="par">We mount the slope and reach the platform on the
-southern side, with the church between us and the blue waters of the
-bay. A custodian has been found in some hovel among the orchards, but
-no meaner object breaks the grassy surface of the terrace from which
-the building rises, the even masonry exposed from base to dome. Against
-the plain grey spaces of the walls which lie behind it, the rich
-fa&ccedil;ade of the southern entrance at once attracts the eye (Fig.
-<a href="#fig004">4</a>). It consists of a porch or lateral structure,
-which once gave access to a door in the main wall of the church. Two
-graceful marble pillars with Corinthian capitals supported the
-fa&ccedil;ade; but the Turks have closed this entrance and walled up
-the columns, which are only visible from the inside. The new work does
-not rise much higher than the tops of the capitals, and the openings of
-the three arches which spring from the pillars have been filled with
-window glass. Of these, the central arch is slightly pointed, and those
-on either side are round. A pleasing feature of the design is the bold
-rounded arch which spans the porch from one wall to the other, and
-envelops the three lesser vaultings and their marble columns within a
-broad band of unsculptured stone. On the outer side, a narrow beading
-of grapes and vine-leaves accentuates the studied absence of all
-ornament upon the masonry of the span; and the keystone is enriched by
-the figure of the single-headed eagle of the Comneni, with open talons
-and wings outspread. The space of wall which is framed in this stately
-manner, and which is supported by the pillars of the fa&ccedil;ade,
-forms a panel or panels which are admirably adapted to receive that
-style of decorative treatment in which Byzantine art excelled. About in
-the centre, the space is broken by a quatrefoil window, above which,
-and on either side, plaques of varied mosaic have been inserted into
-the wall. Below the window, and from end to end, runs a frieze in low
-relief, surmounted by an inscription in Greek, &ldquo;Have mercy upon
-me, save me from my sins, O succour me, Lord, God, Holy! Holy!&rdquo;
-In the frieze may be discerned among the shapes of plants and trees,
-rendered with the highest skill and with much grace, human figures
-which indeed have suffered mutilation, but which, like corresponding
-works of the Romanesque style, appear deformed in size. Adam lies
-asleep among the foliage of the garden; a serpent, coiled round a
-leafless trunk, confronts the standing figure of Eve. Of the mosaics
-two at least of the plaques have been removed or have perished; you see
-the vacant oblong spaces on either side of the quatrefoil. The largest
-panels contain geometrical patterns; but the most beautiful and best
-preserved, if perhaps <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb26" href="#pb26"
-name="pb26">26</a>]</span>the smallest, is composed of two doves and
-two sprays of pomegranate in white on a black ground. This plaque has
-been placed just above the window and below the talons of the royal
-bird.</p>
-<p class="par">The reader will have divined that the great charm of
-this fa&ccedil;ade lies as much in the skill of the design&mdash;the
-wide span of the arch above the lesser arches, and the pleasing
-combination of these forms with the vertical lines of walls and
-columns, and with the sharp angle of the roof&mdash;as in the
-decorative effect of delicate mouldings and elaborate sculptures, and
-of rich mosaics thrown on the grey stone. Porches of similar plan give
-access to the interior, both on the western and northern sides; but
-their tympana or panels are without ornament. The western porch has an
-Arab niche with a deep honeycomb moulding from which the outer arch
-springs, and this moulding is continued in the form of imposts above
-the capitals of the columns. That on the north is without any
-remarkable feature, except that the capitals, which are of fresh white
-marble, appear to be of much later date. They are without carving, but
-in each is cut a panel, bearing the figure of a Latin cross.</p>
-<p class="par">A walk round the building confirms the impression which
-a first view produced. It is the number of roofs at various levels, the
-different grouping of the gables at every turn, that arrests and
-pleases the eye. The walls themselves are of hewn stone, with plain
-mouldings, of which the most delicate runs round the apse and side
-chapels, above the windows, in a continuous band. On the face of the
-apse itself you see the eagle of the Grand-Comneni, set in panel in the
-wall.</p>
-<p class="par">The entrance to the mosque is through the porch on the
-west. It is much shorter or less deep than its two counterparts, but,
-unlike them, gives access through a marble doorway to a second
-vestibule or outer court. This court or narthex extends the whole width
-of the building, and is both lofty and well lit. A door opens from it
-into the church proper, an airy interior of pleasing proportions, into
-which the light streams from the twelve windows in the circumference of
-the dome (Fig. <a href="#fig005">5</a>). Four massive marble pillars
-with carved Byzantine capitals support the pendentives from which the
-dome springs; but the sharpness of the sculpture has been obliterated
-by thick coats of buff and green paint. The Turks have also introduced
-some structural changes. The southern porch has been thrown into the
-body of the building, and an altar (<i>mihrab</i>) placed between the
-two columns which properly belong to the fa&ccedil;ade. In this manner
-the porch, with its orientation towards Mecca, has become the religious
-focus of the mosque; a wooden gallery, from which my illustration was
-taken, has been erected against the opposite wall. The apse, which is
-lit by three windows, is supplemented by two smaller apses or side
-chapels at the extremities of the aisles.</p>
-<p class="par"></p>
-<div class="figure xd21e1846width" id="fig005"><img src=
-"images/fig005.jpg" alt="Fig. 5. Interior of Hagia Sophia." width="561"
-height="417">
-<p class="figureHead"><span class="sc"><span class="figNum">Fig.
-5.</span> Interior of Hagia Sophia.</span></p>
-</div>
-<p class="par"></p>
-<p class="par">Like most of the ancient churches we are about to visit
-during the course of our journey south, Hagia Sophia is a building of
-small dimensions according to modern ideas. The interior has a length
-of not more than <span class="measure" title="21 meter">69 feet</span>
-from the inner door to the head of the apse, with a breadth, excluding
-the side porches, of <span class="measure" title="11 meter">36
-feet</span>. A building of this size is admirably adapted to the art of
-the painter in fresco, while his work <span class="pagenum">[<a id=
-"pb27" href="#pb27" name="pb27">27</a>]</span>derives the greatest
-possible advantage from the features of the design. The lofty vaulted
-spaces of the dome and apse were once resplendent with bright effects;
-and on the walls were depicted the richly-apparelled figures of the
-princes of the Comnenian line. From the partial glimpses of the
-paintings obtained by various travellers, it is possible to realise, at
-least in some measure, the former splendour of the scene. At the
-entrance above the door was seen the image of Alexius, first emperor of
-Trebizond, surrounded by his court, like Justinian at Ravenna; in his
-hands the golden globe of empire, and on his forehead a white diadem.
-On the right of the same door stood the first Manuel (r. <span class=
-"sc">A.D.</span> 1238&ndash;63), the prince who was known as &ldquo;the
-great captain,&rdquo; and who, according to the description at the side
-of the figure, was the founder of this monastery. The emperor was
-without crown, but his forehead was encircled by a cinglet with a
-double row of pearls. The front of the royal robe was adorned on either
-side by a band of large circular medallions, bearing the device of the
-single-headed eagle; a similar ornament, engraved with the equestrian
-figure of St. Eugenius, hung upon the royal breast. Many of the
-successors of these two princes were without doubt represented on the
-remaining spaces of the walls; while the portraits included those of
-saints and evangelists, all attired in costliest style. The apse
-displayed a group of three figures, of whom the central one appears to
-have designated St. Paul; on his right hand St. James and on his left
-St. John were identified by written scrolls. From the inner sides of
-the arches, as from the vault of heaven, the faces of angels looked
-down. The floor was paved by a rich marqueterie of marbles; you admired
-in particular a design of <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb28" href=
-"#pb28" name="pb28">28</a>]</span>geometrical character in which the
-tracing was done in black marble on a ground of vivid reds and pinks
-and greens.</p>
-<p class="par">But the impression which we should take away from this
-elaborate interior would be one of sadness, perhaps of pain. The art,
-the life, here represented, was an art in shackles, an expiring phase
-of life. The peculiar wooden quality of these expressionless faces may
-be gauged by the examples which have been preserved for us by the care
-of Texier. Strict conventions had taken the place of realities alike in
-life and in art; and how sad after the unsurpassed beauty of Hellenic
-vigour are the gaudy get-up and childish love of baubles which mark the
-declining years of the Greek world! Vanished, or hidden from sight
-behind the inexorable whitewash, lies the vivid evidence of that
-departed age; repugnant alike to the spirit and to the mission of
-Mohammedanism, this rich collection of Christian images must, from the
-first, have courted effacement. At the time of our visit the walls had
-been recently limed over to purify the edifice after the service of
-State prison to which, during the prevalence of cholera in the town, it
-had been temporarily assigned. In the upper storey of the campanile, a
-later work of the fifteenth century, the frescos are still exposed; but
-it is evident that they can never have possessed much importance. The
-baptistery, which is said to have been covered with such paintings, has
-been removed many years ago. It stood near the edge of the terrace, on
-the north.</p>
-<p class="par">Before retracing our steps towards the city, it is worth
-while to extend the excursion to the neighbouring ruin of <b>Mevla
-Khaneh</b> (House of gods, No. 23), if only for the sake of a ramble
-through the pleasant country lanes and a view over the peaceful
-landscape of the bay. Against the background of the line of heights, at
-a distance from Hagia Sophia of about three-quarters of a mile, the
-scanty remains of a heathen temple emerge from a leafy brake which
-fills a recess of the hillside. Portions of a tower and doorway, the
-lower parts of two walls have escaped the ravages of time. Small square
-niches are seen in the walls at close intervals, said to have contained
-the statues of the gods. From the floor of the temple rise tall elm
-trees, festooned with wild vine; and an ancient laurel tree bends over
-the ivy-grown masonry. Rarely do people pass this way; and, on the
-occasion of our visit, we were the unwilling authors of a rather
-serious offence. Among the lanes below the ruin we surprised a young
-woman, combing her long hair on the margin of a stream from which she
-had just stepped out.</p>
-<p class="par">One may return to Trebizond by the old road towards
-Platana, which has been replaced by a new <i>chauss&eacute;e</i> nearer
-the shore. From the Kavak Meidan, with its one fine plane tree, we
-proceed through the quarter of Sotke towards the gate of the same name
-in the wall of the lower fortress. The <b>riparian quarters</b> on the
-east of the city are well worthy of a visit; they may be reached either
-by crossing the crowded spaces of the fortified enclosure, or by making
-the more pleasant circuit by the side of the sea. Choosing the second
-alternative, we soon arrive at the angle of the wall, and are treading
-the broad strip of sand. All the elements of the picturesque are
-present in the varied scene&mdash;the line of walls, the massive
-<span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb29" href="#pb29" name=
-"pb29">29</a>]</span>tower just on the east of the gate of Molos, the
-broad-prowed ships drawn up on the shore, the groups of people in
-motley attire. In the autumn large quantities of nuts are spread out on
-the sand, awaiting shipment to France. The tower is flanked on the west
-by the parapet of a modern battery, while on the east it is adjoined by
-the vault through which the stream issues which comes from the western
-ravine. In front of the vault there is a little bridge. The submerged
-remains of a semicircular mole&mdash;a work of the old Greek
-times&mdash;are indicated by a line of surf in the sea. It is evident
-that the entrance to this harbour was on the east. On that side too
-there is a tower, projecting into the waves with the form of a wedge,
-and still joined to the north-eastern angle of the fortress by the
-substructures of a massive wall.</p>
-<p class="par">It is through an opening in that wall that we pass from
-the life of the sea-shore into the more intense and throbbing life of
-the <b>bazar</b>. In old times one of the great gates gave issue from
-the lower fortress to the important riparian quarters on the east. This
-gate, the bazar gate or gate of <i>Mumkhaneh</i> (candle factories),
-has been removed to give space to a broad street. The stream from the
-eastern ravine, which passes outside the walls, is taken by a tunnel
-through this crowded quarter. The bazars adjoin the fortress; they are
-well stocked and extensive. The more one walks in Trebizond, the more
-one is impressed by the shyness of the women; nowhere in the East have
-I seen them more ashamed to show the face. Nowhere does one realise
-more keenly the loss of colour and gaiety which this muffling and
-veiling of women entails. A fine example of an old Italian magazine may
-be seen in this neighbourhood; it is called the <b>Bezestan</b>
-(repository of stuffs, No. 16). Where the bazar is at its busiest, a
-massive square building of stone and brick rises above the lines of
-booths with their shadowed recesses. It is entered by four doors, of
-wood plated with iron, one on each side. In the centre is a well; the
-roof rested on four piers and <span class="corr" id="xd21e1897" title=
-"Source: sprung">sprang</span> from vaultings at each angle of the
-square. The piers and vaultings still remain, but the roof is gone. The
-place is occupied by sellers of quilts, or coverlets stuffed with
-cotton, which take the place of blankets in the East.</p>
-<p class="par">South of this building, beyond the large mosque of the
-quarter, which is without architectural interest, are situated the two
-Greek churches of Aivasil and Aiana, the first almost on the fringe of
-the bazars. <b>Aivasil</b> (No. 14) has been rebuilt, or rather the
-site of the old church has been covered by a modern and tasteless
-erection. But a long stone, part of a frieze, containing an inscription
-of Justinian, which belonged to the earlier edifice, is still preserved
-as an historical relic in the body of the church. <b>Aiana</b> (No.
-13), its close neighbour, is, on the other hand, quite intact, and
-remains a most interesting example of the beginnings of Christian
-architecture. A small and unpretentious building of stone, not too
-evenly put together, with the arches over the little windows
-constructed of brick, it would almost escape notice were it not for a
-large bas-relief in marble which is inserted into the wall over the
-door on the south. Although the stone is cracked and the sculpture has
-suffered mutilation, one can recognise that there is represented a
-colossal seated <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb30" href="#pb30" name=
-"pb30">30</a>]</span>figure, with a smaller figure, holding a shield,
-at her feet. The interior is built of brick, and consists of a nave and
-two aisles, the principal apse being flanked by two side
-apses.<a class="noteref" id="xd21e1910src" href="#xd21e1910" name=
-"xd21e1910src">3</a> But there is no dome; and the scanty light which
-falls on the withered frescos comes from nine little windows in the
-walls. Each aisle has two arches, the more easterly pair resting on
-piers, and the more westerly on marble pillars with Ionic capitals. One
-remarks the narrowness of the apse, in which is placed a primitive
-altar, resembling those in the oldest Armenian churches. It consists of
-a horizontal slab resting on a circular stone, and on the side of the
-slab is a Greek inscription. Several of the frescos remain with which
-the walls were once covered, the building being still used as a church.
-Besides Biblical subjects, one observes several portraits upon the wall
-on the west. The greater portion of the space is filled with the
-pictures of saints and monks; but on the north side there is
-represented a colossal figure, of which the head has unfortunately been
-effaced. The figure is attired in a purple robe, with bands of gold
-embroidered in black, the same costume as that in which the Emperor
-Alexius III. is depicted in the Bull at Sumelas. He holds a circular
-ornament or emblem in his left hand. An inscription, partially effaced,
-is seen on the wall below the figure.<a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e1922src" href="#xd21e1922" name="xd21e1922src">4</a> Such is this
-relic of the early city, with its spoils of still earlier temples,
-bridging the periods of the old worship and the new.</p>
-<p class="par"></p>
-<div class="figure xd21e1938width" id="map02"><a href=
-"images/map02-h.jpg"><img src="images/map02.jpg" alt=
-"TREBIZOND AND SURROUNDINGS, drawn out on the spot in 1898." width=
-"506" height="720"></a>
-<p class="figureHead">TREBIZOND AND SURROUNDINGS, drawn out on the spot
-in 1898.</p>
-</div>
-<p class="par"></p>
-<p class="par">Returning to the commercial quarter from the narrow
-alleys which surround this building, we pass an old house which is an
-example of a style of architecture now rapidly being replaced by the
-modern villa. The exterior, with its projecting upper storey and
-semicircular, roofed balcony, where the inmates would enjoy the
-freshness of the afternoon, produces an impression at once of somewhat
-costly solidity and of picturesque charm. The rooms are panelled in
-wood, both walls and ceilings; and screens of open woodwork, placed
-before the windows, preserve the privacy of the life within. In the
-little niches and in the details of the ornamentation the spirit is
-that of Persian art.</p>
-<p class="par">The magazines of the merchants are situated along the
-shore between the fortified city and the point of <i>G&uuml;zel
-Serai</i>. Proceeding eastwards, we need scarcely stop to visit the
-<b>Greek cathedral</b> (No. 12), a large modern building of
-extraordinary ugliness on the margin of the sea. On the south side of
-this pretentious church we are shown the tomb of the last of the
-Georgian kings. A road leads upwards through the crowded Christian
-quarter, <i>Frank Mahalla</i>, past the wall and tower of <b>G&uuml;zel
-Serai</b> (No. 10). <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb31" href="#pb31"
-name="pb31">31</a>]</span>These buildings date, I believe, from a
-comparatively recent period; but they occupy the site of the famous
-fortress of <b>Leontocastron</b>, long in dispute between the Comnenian
-emperor and the Genoese. The companion fort of <b>Daphnus</b>, another
-Genoese possession, probably stood in the bay on the west, where the
-quarter of <i lang="it">Dia Funda</i>, an Italian corruption of the
-Greek name, faces the modern anchorage. The walls of <i>G&uuml;zel
-Serai</i> overlook a park of artillery, drawn up on a grassy platform
-at the point.</p>
-<p class="par">Our walk through the eastern suburb may be protracted to
-the slope of Boz Tepe, where an ancient nunnery, famous for its
-frescos, commands the landscape of the city from a well-chosen site
-just outside its extreme fringe (No. 6). Adjacent to the building,
-which presents the appearance of a fortress, was placed the summer
-residence or pleasure-house whence the Grand-Comneni used to survey
-their beauteous capital. I can well remember the ruin of this palace,
-with its blank windows, such a pleasant frame to the charming view
-which they overlooked. Alas! this fragment has disappeared, to make
-room for an ugly guest-house which the avaricious nuns have built in
-its place. The chapel of the nunnery, dedicated to the Virgin,
-<b>Panagia Theoskepastos</b>, is built into the side of the cliff, its
-inner end being, in fact, a cave. Damp has blurred the frescos; but one
-may still recognise the royal portraits upon the north wall. The upper
-portions of two kingly figures, attired in purple robes, and on their
-right hand, side by side, two queens with jewelled crowns, still colour
-the mouldy side of the cave, and are almost hidden by a row of stalls.
-They have been identified by inscriptions which, I presume, have become
-effaced, as Alexius III. and his queen Theodora; as Andronicus and
-Eirene, mother respectively and son of the first-named prince.</p>
-<p class="par">Nor should the traveller omit a visit to the church of
-<b>St. Eugenius</b> (No. 19), although he may not have time to visit
-the <span class="corr" id="xd21e1983" title=
-"Source: grottos">grottoes</span> in the face of Boz Tepe, and to
-protract the excursion beyond the embouchure of the Pyxitis to the site
-of Xenophon&rsquo;s camp. That famous church is situated in the
-opposite direction, and has been already mentioned in the description
-of the upper fortress. It stands on the margin of the eastern ravine,
-almost opposite to the great polygonal tower. The site is separated
-from the slopes of Boz Tepe by a second and smaller ravine, which shows
-remains, on the western bank, of walls and towers. Houses cluster round
-the building, their horizontal outlines topped by its gables and
-crowned by its polygonal, drum-shaped dome. St. Eugenius dates from the
-period of the Grand-Comneni; but the frescos on the western wall, which
-some travellers have noticed, are now nothing more than patches of
-colour. It is a somewhat larger edifice than Hagia Sophia, which,
-although less graceful, it resembles in some respects. The dome rests
-upon two fluted columns on the west side, while, on the east, it is
-supported by piers. A flood of light fills the interior, which is plain
-and bare, the church having been converted to the service of Islam by
-the Ottoman conqueror. It was here that Mohammed II. is said to have
-worshipped on the first Friday after the capture of the city by his
-troops. The event is commemorated by the name of New Friday (<i>Yeni
-Juma</i>) under which the mosque is known.</p>
-</div>
-<p class="par"><span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb32" href="#pb32" name=
-"pb32">32</a>]</span></p>
-<p class="par">One is fortunate if it be possible to spend the later
-afternoons of days devoted to the study of the town among the restful
-surroundings of the pleasant country-side, upon the slopes of the
-adjacent hills. Such was my privilege in 1898. Our tents were pitched
-on the lofty plateau north-west of the city, the view ranging on the
-one side to the rocky cliffs of Boz Tepe, and, on the other, to the
-distant promontory of the sacred mountain. The crowded impressions of
-the day would take proportion and perspective. One saw a city which, in
-spite of the modern aspect of certain quarters, has lost little of the
-romance of the Middle Age. The earlier imprint upon its buildings is
-that of the era of Justinian;<a class="noteref" id="xd21e1994src" href=
-"#xd21e1994" name="xd21e1994src">5</a> their actual appearance is due
-to the Grand-Comneni; a great sleep has bridged the interval to the
-present time. Yet the life of the place, such as it is, pursues the old
-channels, and the throng in the streets is to-day not less
-heterogeneous than it was four centuries ago. The French, the
-Austrians, and the Russians conduct the carrying trade with Europe,
-reviving the function of the Genoese. The wares they bring are largely
-of British origin, and are largely imported by British merchants
-trading in Persia. Strings of Bactrian camels may be seen in the
-streets, about to start on the long stages which separate the seaport
-from Erzerum and Tabriz. The various peoples of Asia and of Europe
-still meet in the bazars.<a class="noteref" id="xd21e2002src" href=
-"#xd21e2002" name="xd21e2002src">6</a> But the romance of the city can
-never have equalled the romance of her surroundings, Nature being the
-subtlest weaver of mysteries, the mother with unending fables in whom
-the romantic spirit finds the only wholesome refuge from the dull
-realities of daily life. The most permanent memory which the traveller
-may take away from his visit may be the fruit of those half-hours
-between daylight and night which he spends in his encampment above the
-town. When once the sun has set there ensues a period of twilight, in
-which the glow of the south appears to be blended with the gorgeous
-effects of northern latitudes. Indeed, the view over the sea by day
-recalls the colouring on our English coasts; and the little silken
-Union Jack which fluttered over the tent of my companion, who was
-acting as consul, would often seem to wave on a field of its native
-blue. But in the evening there is produced a combination of elements,
-at once much softer and <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb33" href=
-"#pb33" name="pb33">33</a>]</span>much sterner than the setting of our
-English scenes. The spirit of Scythia, of the frozen North, meets the
-languid Mediterranean spirit, and spreads a robe of fire and paleness
-over the sea. Only the cypresses and the luxuriant foliage preserve the
-identity of the sinuous bays; and the succession of meridional ridges
-which feature the coast towards Cape Ieros are clothed with a forest of
-trees, fretting the splendour of the western sky.</p>
-<div class="div2 section"><span class="pagenum">[<a href=
-"#toc">Contents</a>]</span>
-<div class="divHead">
-<h3 class="main">SUPPLEMENTARY NOTE</h3>
-</div>
-<div class="divBody">
-<p class="par first">For the topography and antiquities of Trebizond I
-would refer the student who may be desirous of going more closely into
-the subject to the following works:&mdash;Ritter, <i lang="de">Erdkunde
-von Asien</i>, vol. xviii. pp. 852 <i>seq.</i>; and in particular to
-the following authorities, cited by Ritter, viz. <i>Travels of
-Evliya</i>, translated by von Hammer, London 1850, vol. ii. pp. 41
-<i>seq.</i>; Tournefort, <i lang="fr">Voyage du Levant</i>, Paris 1717,
-vol. ii. pp. 233 <i>seq.</i>; Hamilton, <i>Researches in Asia Minor,
-etc.</i>, London 1842, vol. ii. appendix v. p. 409 (inscription No. 49,
-over the gateway); Fallmerayer, J. P., <i lang="de">Fragmente aus dem
-Orient</i>, 2nd edition, Stuttgart 1877, with which should be read the
-<i lang="de">Original-Fragmente</i> of the same author, published in
-the <span lang="de">Abhandlungen</span> of the Academy of Munich (Hist.
-Classe), vols. iii. and iv., 1843&ndash;44. Fallmerayer was the first
-to investigate the subject in an adequate manner; his descriptions are
-charmingly written; and, while I have availed myself freely in
-composing a part of this chapter of the results of his researches, I
-must also acknowledge having come under the spell of his personality
-(for a slight biography of the historian see Mitterrutzner, <i lang=
-"de">Fragmente aus dem Leben des Fragmentisten</i>, Brixen 1887).</p>
-<p class="par">Among those who have advanced our knowledge of the place
-since Ritter wrote I would cite the following:&mdash;Texier, 1839,
-<i lang="fr">Description de l&rsquo;Arm&eacute;nie, etc.</i>, Paris
-1842, two vols. folio, with plates (see also the magnificent work by
-Texier and Pullan, <i lang="fr">L&rsquo;Architecture Byzantine</i>,
-London 1864); Pfaffenhoffen, <i lang="fr">Essai sur les aspres
-Comn&eacute;nats ou blancs d&rsquo;argent de Tr&eacute;bizonde</i>,
-Paris 1847; Finlay, <i>Medi&aelig;val Greece and the Empire of
-Trebizond</i> (vol. iv. of <i>History of Greece</i>, revised edition,
-Oxford 1877); Tozer, <i>Turkish Armenia</i>, London 1881, pp. 450
-<i>seq.</i> I have also had access to a book in Armenian which was
-shown to me at Trebizond, and which is entitled: <i>History of
-Pontus</i>, by the Rev. Father Minas Bejeshkean (Mekhitarist), a native
-of Trebizond, Venice 1819.<a class="noteref" id="xd21e2073src" href=
-"#xd21e2073" name="xd21e2073src">7</a></p>
-<p class="par">The plans which accompany this chapter were made at the
-close of my second journey by kind permission of the Turkish
-Government, and after I had already perused the accounts of my
-predecessors. There is <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb34" href="#pb34"
-name="pb34">34</a>]</span>one point in connection with the topography
-which one would like to feel sure about, namely, upon what eminence in
-the neighbourhood the statue of Hadrian was set up. I fancy it must
-have been erected on the Karlik Tepe, a bold peak about four miles
-south of the town, commanding a magnificent view. A small chapel now
-stands upon the summit.</p>
-<p class="par">The history of the empire of the Grand-Comneni of
-Trebizond forms a most instructive episode in the immemorial struggle
-between the East and the West. It was Fallmerayer who may be said to
-have given this history as a new possession to knowledge in his
-admirable <i lang="de">Geschichte des Kaiserthums von Trapezunt</i>,
-Munich 1827, followed by the <i lang="de">Original-Fragmente</i>, cited
-above. These sources have been utilised by Finlay in his <i>History of
-Greece and Trebizond</i>; but it is to be regretted that Fallmerayer
-himself did not rewrite his <i lang="de">Geschichte</i> after his later
-discoveries of new and important material. The outline of the subject
-may, perhaps, be presented in the following brief notice.</p>
-<p class="par">The further one pursues one&rsquo;s studies of the
-countries west of India, whether in the camp or in the library, the
-larger looms the stately fabric of the Roman Empire of the East, and
-the more is felt the need of a work dealing comprehensively with this
-great subject. Our historians have allowed their interest to be
-absorbed by Europe; upon Asia and the rule of the C&aelig;sars over
-some of the fairest portions of her vast territories for a period,
-which, commencing with the Roman Republic, may be said to extend down
-to the suppression of the despots of Trebizond by the Ottoman Turks in
-the latter half of the fifteenth century, they have scarcely bestowed
-more than an impatient glance. The period covers the bloom and fall of
-at least six great Asiatic dynasties&mdash;the Arsakids, Sasanians,
-Arab caliphs, Seljuk Turks, shahs of Kharizme, Tartar khans. It comes
-to an end among the ruins of Asiatic prosperity, when the Turkomans are
-pasturing their flocks among the d&eacute;bris of civilisation, and the
-Ottoman sultans, deriving their origin from a nomad Turkish tribe, are
-being carried to their zenith by the former subjects of the
-C&aelig;sars, severed in the corps of Janissaries from their Western
-culture and Christian religion, and living only with the breath of
-their Mohammedan and Oriental king. This startling revolution in the
-political and economical condition of Asia, the effects of which are
-operative at the present day, may be traced back to the decisive blow
-which was struck at the Roman Empire of the East by the victory of the
-Seljuk sultan, Alp Arslan, over the C&aelig;sar Romanus near Melazkert
-in Armenia in the year 1071. The three centuries of imperial rule in
-Asia which succeeded this event reveal few and spasmodic interruptions
-to the inclined plane of Western relapse. Then the darkness finally
-closes in; Constantinople falls (1453), and Western commerce is
-expelled from the Black Sea.</p>
-<p class="par">The empire of Trebizond takes its place in this great
-tragedy of history when the end is already in view. In the same year
-and the same month in which the Latins took Constantinople and the
-nobility of the imperial capital fled to the cities of Asia (April
-1204), two youthful scions of the illustrious House of Comnenus
-appeared at the head of a body of Georgian mercenaries before the gates
-of Trebizond. The Comneni, <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb35" href=
-"#pb35" name="pb35">35</a>]</span>whose name perhaps reveals an Italian
-origin, emerge into the light of history in the latter part of the
-tenth century, from a private station among the Greek nobility of Asia,
-where their hereditary estate was situated near Kastamuni, a town in
-the interior, which one may reach at the present day by a carriageable
-road from the port of Ineboli on the Black Sea. Manuel Comnenus, the
-first to bring fame to the family, was prefect of all the East under
-the C&aelig;sar, Basil the Second (in 976); and his son, the scholarly
-Isaac Comnenus, was chosen by his contemporaries to occupy the imperial
-throne. The nephew of Isaac, the Emperor Alexius Comnenus (r.
-1081&ndash;1118), is well known for the part which he played during the
-crusading era; and he was followed on the Byzantine throne by two of
-the most martial figures of that age of heroes, Kalo-Joannes (r.
-1118&ndash;43) and Manuel (r. 1143&ndash;80). Manuel was succeeded by
-his cousin Andronicus Comnenus (r. 1182&ndash;85), an emperor who did
-much to purify the corrupt provincial administration of the Byzantine
-monarchy, and who perished in a domestic revolution, due to his severe
-measures against the high nobility. The murder of this prince was
-followed at no long interval by the Latin conquest of the capital; and
-the two Comneni who came to Trebizond in 1204 were sons of Manuel, son
-and heir to Andronicus, who had also perished in the aforesaid
-revolution.</p>
-<p class="par">Their names were Alexius and David; and they were
-assisted in their enterprise by their paternal aunt, Thamar, the
-offspring of their grandfather and a Georgian lady. The political
-condition of Trebizond during the interval between the murder of
-Andronicus and the Latin conquest of the capital is not definitely
-known; but the Greek city was probably feeling the pressure of the
-neighbouring kingdom of Georgia at the time of the advent of the two
-Greek princes. The prospects of relief, on the one hand, from this
-pressure, and, on the other, from dependence upon the rotten court of
-Constantinople under the hopeful rule of an illustrious family, must
-have operated as powerful inducements to the townspeople to welcome the
-new r&eacute;gime. Alexius Comnenus is accepted as master of the city,
-and his rising fortunes attract to his victorious standard some of the
-noblest of the refugees from the capital, flying into Asia before the
-Latins. Others range themselves round the person of Theodore Laskaris
-in Bithynia; and two rival Greek or Roman empires are established upon
-Asiatic soil, that of Nic&aelig;a, or Nice, the capital of Bithynia,
-and the empire of Trebizond.</p>
-<p class="par">The successors of Laskaris fought their way back to
-Constantinople, which was recovered from the Latin barons in 1261. A
-much less splendid fate was reserved for the family of Alexius
-Comnenus; yet the little empire on the Black Sea survived the restored
-Byzantine Empire; and a space of nearly a hundred years separates the
-fall of the last of the Greek cities of the interior (conquest of
-Philadelphia by the Sultan Bayazid in 1390) from the overthrow of the
-rule of the Comneni at Trebizond (1461). During a period of over 250
-years these petty Greek princes contrived to elude the storms of
-Mussulman conquest behind the wall of mountains interposed between the
-interior and the coast. Sometimes <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb36"
-href="#pb36" name="pb36">36</a>]</span>as vassals of the Oriental
-dynasties, at other times in a state of independence, they ruled over
-the beautiful city and a narrow strip of seaboard of varying extent.
-Their possessions even included a part of the Crimea, of which the
-tribute was conveyed across the expanse of waters in the imperial
-galleys. Proud of their pompous titles of Grand-Comneni and Emperors of
-the Romans, or lords of all Anatolia, Georgia, and the Transmarine,
-they supplied their deficiencies in real power by elaborate
-ceremonials, and substituted the gorgeous cult of their patron saint,
-Eugenius, for the devotional exercises of the Christian religion. They
-might be consigned without regret to the limbo of history, were it not
-for the cause of which they were the late and debased representatives,
-but which, nevertheless, they contributed to sustain. Their territory
-afforded a home and holding ground to commerce; and, when the land
-routes through Asia Minor fell into disuse owing to the increase of
-anarchy, Trebizond became an emporium of the trade with the further
-Asia, diverted to the more secure avenue of the Armenian plains. This
-trade was conducted with great spirit by the Genoese from their
-factories at Trebizond, until Grand-Comneni, Italian merchants, and all
-the apparatus of civilisation were swept away by the Ottoman sultan,
-Mohammed the Second (1451&ndash;81). This type of Oriental
-exclusiveness came marching across the mountains some years after his
-conquest of Constantinople (1453). The citadel of Trebizond was given
-over to the Janissaries, the palace to a pasha; the last of the Comneni
-was transported to an exile in Europe, whence, not long afterwards, he
-was summoned to the capital and commanded to abjure the Christian
-faith. The firmness of his refusal and the dignity of his martyrdom
-cast a parting ray of glory through the shadows which had already
-closed upon his House. His body and those of the princes who died with
-him were thrown to the dogs beyond the walls of Constantinople. Only
-one-third of the inhabitants of Trebizond, and these the dregs of the
-populace, were suffered to remain in their native city. The remainder
-were compelled to emigrate, and their estates were confiscated. In 1475
-the policy of expulsion of all Western influences was crowned by the
-Ottoman occupation of Caffa and Tana, the more northerly dep&ocirc;ts
-of the Genoese in the Black Sea. European ships were expelled from
-these waters; where trade was banished ensued barbarism; and for three
-centuries these shores were forgotten by the West. A new era found
-expression in the Treaty of Adrianople (1829), which secured the free
-navigation of this sea. The first steamer made her appearance in 1836,
-and since then commerce has steadily increased. It flows along the
-shore, to be distributed throughout the interior, until it reaches the
-solid barrier of the Russian frontier. It is carried across Asia just
-outside that barrier on the backs of camels and mules. On the far side
-of the wall is heard the whistle of the locomotive, and the rumble of a
-train which not a bale of the hated products of European industry is
-permitted to invade.</p>
-<p class="par">Let the progressive states of modern Europe take heed
-lest their domestic rivalries result in the conversion of the Black Sea
-into a Russian lake, and the re-establishment of the old and melancholy
-order. <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb37" href="#pb37" name=
-"pb37">37</a>]</span></p>
-</div>
-</div>
-</div>
-<div class="footnotes">
-<hr class="fnsep">
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e1673" href="#xd21e1673src" name="xd21e1673">1</a></span> J. P.
-Fallmerayer, born in 1790, the son of humble parents, whose flocks he
-tended on the mountain-sides as a boy. Died in 1861; a great scholar, a
-great writer, whose work has not yet received all the recognition which
-it deserves.&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href=
-"#xd21e1673src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e1803" href="#xd21e1803src" name="xd21e1803">2</a></span> Finlay,
-<i>Medi&aelig;val Greece and the Empire of Trebizond</i>, Oxford, 1877,
-p. 340.&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href="#xd21e1803src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e1910" href="#xd21e1910src" name="xd21e1910">3</a></span> The
-dimensions of the interior are: length to head of apse, <span class=
-"measure" title="10.1 meter">33 feet</span>; breadth, <span class=
-"measure" title="6.4 meter">21 feet</span> <span class="measure" title=
-"17.8 centimeter">7 inches</span>.&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href=
-"#xd21e1910src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e1922" href="#xd21e1922src" name="xd21e1922">4</a></span> The
-ornament is as follows: <img src="images/p030-1.png" alt="" width="57"
-height="57"></p>
-<p class="par footnote cont">The inscription is: <img src=
-"images/p030-2.png" alt="" width="210" height="52"></p>
-<p class="par footnote cont">I notice that M. Gabriel Millet identifies
-this figure as a Saint Michael (<i>op. infra cit.</i> p.
-436).&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href="#xd21e1922src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e1994" href="#xd21e1994src" name="xd21e1994">5</a></span>
-Bejeshkean (<i>op. infra cit.</i>) publishes the inscription of
-Justinian on the face of the old gateway of Tabakhaneh, which has now
-disappeared. It records the restoration of the public edifices of the
-city by that emperor. See also Hamilton, <i>op. infra
-cit.</i>&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href="#xd21e1994src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e2002" href="#xd21e2002src" name="xd21e2002">6</a></span> The
-population of Trebizond at the present day is estimated at 45,000
-souls.&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href="#xd21e2002src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e2073" href="#xd21e2073src" name="xd21e2073">7</a></span> Since
-writing this chapter two articles in the <span lang="fr">Bulletin de
-Correspondance Hell&eacute;nique</span> (Paris) for 1895 have come to
-my notice. They are: G. Millet, <i lang="fr">Les monast&egrave;res et
-les &eacute;glises de Tr&eacute;bizonde</i>, pp. 419&ndash;459; and J.
-Strzygowski, <i lang="fr">Les chapiteaux de Sainte Sophie de
-Tr&eacute;bizonde</i>, pp. 517&ndash;522.&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href=
-"#xd21e2073src">&uarr;</a></p>
-</div>
-</div>
-<div id="ch2" class="div1 chapter"><span class="pagenum">[<a href=
-"#xd21e295">Contents</a>]</span>
-<div class="divHead">
-<h2 class="label">CHAPTER II</h2>
-<h2 class="main">ASCENT TO ARMENIA</h2>
-</div>
-<div class="divBody">
-<p class="par first">It had never been our intention to enter Armenia
-by the well-beaten avenue of Trebizond and Erzerum. The season was
-advanced; our first objective was Ararat; and it appeared doubtful
-whether, even with the utmost possible expedition, we should be able to
-accomplish the ascent of the mountain before the commencement of the
-winter snows. The attack is no doubt feasible from the side of Turkey;
-at least on two occasions it has been successful; but the journey is
-long from Erzerum to Bayazid, and the stages must be covered by your
-own horses; there is no posting system to furnish you with relays. Nor
-is it likely that you will find the same facilities at Bayazid that are
-offered in Russian territory, through the courtesy of the Russian
-Government, by the detachment of Cossacks which is stationed on the
-northern slopes. These considerations were decisive in determining us
-upon the approach from Georgia; but I was also anxious on other grounds
-to become acquainted with the Russian provinces of Armenia before
-investigating the condition of those under Turkish rule. With these
-purposes we rejoined our steamer on the night of the 16th of August and
-continued the voyage to Batum.</p>
-<p class="par"><i>August 17.</i>&mdash;From Trebizond to the Russian
-port is a run of a hundred miles; the early morning saw us skirting the
-redoubts that line the shore and doubling the little promontory on
-which the lighthouse stands. In the bight or tiny inlet that recedes
-from that low headland a depth of water of some thirty fathoms may be
-found; yet the bay as a whole is shallow and full of silt, and it is
-only on this western side, close in upon the land, that such soundings
-are obtained. The largest vessels may be seen brought up so near to the
-beach that their lofty sterns <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb38" href=
-"#pb38" name="pb38">38</a>]</span>almost overhang its shelving slopes.
-But the space is not extensive in this favoured quarter, and if this
-natural harbour is protected on the east by the wall of the coast
-range, it is exposed towards the north. The Russians have endeavoured
-to overcome these disadvantages by constructing a long breakwater of
-solid masonry, which projects from the side of the mountains into the
-bay; for years they have been engaged in dredging operations, but they
-have been hampered by the continual tendency of the anchorage to fill
-with sandy deposit along the eastern shore.</p>
-<p class="par">I should not trouble or divert my reader with a humble
-incident of travel, were it not that I am anxious to dispel the
-prevailing prejudices which attribute an unusual degree of severity to
-the service of the customs at this port. Some years ago, when returning
-from Persia to Europe, I had been summoned to the fearful presence of
-the presiding officers and had been amiably dismissed; but on that
-occasion I was invested with the more innocent character of an export,
-whereas now it was with the savoury attributes of imports from Great
-Britain that we were walking into the lion&rsquo;s mouth. Stories were
-abroad of ladies who had arrived in silken dresses and who had been
-seen to issue from the portals of this redoubtable Custom-House in
-whatever garments may have escaped the confiscation from their persons
-of the more valuable products of European looms. It was therefore with
-some apprehension and not without anxiety that we awaited the arrival
-of the inspector and his men. Their white caps and white tunics are
-soon in evidence on the ship&rsquo;s ladder; they step on deck, appear
-uncertain and desirous of information; then, after a cast or two, we
-see them settling to the line. In a remote corner of the deck, almost
-covered by the gigantic frame of Rudolph, lies a pile of miscellaneous
-but extremely creditable luggage, of which the hapless owners are
-ourselves. When the Swiss is interrogated he smiles blandly; the salute
-on their side is not less gracious and more effusive; then they leave
-the steamer and we are free. What is the incident? If you measure it by
-the paradoxical nature of the occurrence, it was more than an incident,
-it was an event. For the rest we were not slow to discover the
-explanation; there is not in Russia a more courteous official or kinder
-personality than the Director of Customs at Batum. M. de Klupffell is a
-veteran sportsman, and, as such, a friend of Englishmen; in my cousin
-he found an ardent votary of his own science and a companion
-<span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb39" href="#pb39" name=
-"pb39">39</a>]</span>in its pursuit; and we were linked together by a
-number of pleasant memories before the day of departure hurried us
-apart.</p>
-<p class="par">Five valuable days, of which not a minute was vacant,
-were consumed in completing the preparations for our journey and in
-procuring a supplementary supply of letters of introduction to those in
-authority at the centres through which we should pass. We were about to
-enter a country which, both for strategical and political reasons, is
-hedged in with scarcely visible but extremely palpable restrictions,
-and for the unprepared and ill-recommended traveller is almost of the
-nature of forbidden ground. There are wide districts in which our
-consul at Batum is not permitted to travel; I am sure he would not
-venture to cross the threshold of Kars. To make certain of being
-allowed to move about without hindrance and to enjoy the luxury of the
-confidence that your presence will be tolerated and that you will not
-suddenly be summarily expelled, it is necessary to supply yourself with
-a special authorisation from the proper Minister at St. Petersburg. But
-our ambassador at the Russian capital refuses to put forward the
-application; he has made a rule which nothing will induce him to break
-through. At Constantinople our embassy is of course completely
-helpless; there remains the doubtful method of private approach. The
-days were swelling into weeks while we lingered on the Bosphorus; it
-was useless to proceed without some form of pass in our pockets, but
-the precious months of summer were gliding away. At length we were
-sufficiently provided with recommendations to be warranted in trusting
-fortune to do the rest; we owed much to the kindness of our Russian
-acquaintances at Constantinople, and we were able to realise a fact of
-which we subsequently received such abundant evidence, that the highest
-Russian officials are as a rule enlightened men of the world as well as
-the kindest and most hospitable of hosts.</p>
-<p class="par">On the side of Georgia there are two principal
-approaches to Armenia, and the traveller who desires to consult his
-comfort may be advised to restrict his choice to these two roads. The
-more westerly ascends the valley of the Kur river and reaches the
-highlands about Akhaltsykh by the romantic gorge and passage of Borjom;
-the other, further east, leaves the railway between the Black Sea and
-the Caspian at the station of Akstafa, some fifty miles below Tiflis,
-and, mounting from the trough of the Kur along the course of the
-Akstafa, issues upon the open country on <span class="pagenum">[<a id=
-"pb40" href="#pb40" name="pb40">40</a>]</span>the west of Lake Sevan,
-near the posting-stage of Delijan.<a class="noteref" id="xd21e2142src"
-href="#xd21e2142" name="xd21e2142src">1</a> A bifurcation at that point
-leads by one branch to Alexandropol and by the other to Erivan. You may
-ride in a victoria and with relays of post-horses on either of these
-roads. Both conduct you from the steppes at the southern foot of
-Caucasus and from levels that are comparatively low across or aslant
-the grain of the peripheral ranges to the edge of the Armenian
-tableland. Those ranges are the continuation upon the east of the
-mountains which we have followed from the Bosphorus to Batum; they
-stand up like a wall from the flats of the Rion and from the plains
-which border the lower course of the Kur, with much the same appearance
-as we saw them rise with ever-increasing proportions along the floor of
-the Black Sea. Beyond those lowlands a mighty neighbour, the parallel
-chain of Caucasus, faces them on the north. Only at one point do these
-two great systems join hands together, in the belt of mountainous
-country which separates the watershed of the Kur from that of the Rion
-and which the railway crosses by the pass of Suram (about <span class=
-"measure" title="914 meter">3000 feet</span>). This linking chain is
-known to geographers under the name of the Meschic or Moschic;
-geologists are inclined to connect it with the structure of Caucasus;
-our senses might invest it with a separate existence, a transverse
-barrier as it were, thrown from range to range across the hollow which
-extends from sea to sea.</p>
-<p class="par">I was disinclined for several reasons to traverse this
-barrier, so that we might avail ourselves of either of the main roads.
-Erivan was our destination, the railway and the valley of the Akstafa
-our readiest means of access; but I was already familiar with the
-trough of the Kur between Tiflis and the Caspian, and I had read so
-many accounts of this approach to Armenia that the natural features of
-the several stages between the Georgian river and Lake Sevan seemed
-imprinted upon my mind. I was also anxious to gain some knowledge of
-the western portion of the tableland, of which I had only succeeded in
-obtaining from the literature of travel a wholly insufficient idea. To
-these districts the route by Borjom is at once the best-known avenue
-and that which combines with a lavish display of magnificent scenery
-the comforts of a beaten track. But to worm myself up the valley of the
-Kur to the Armenian highlands was, I thought, to miss an <span class=
-"pagenum">[<a id="pb41" href="#pb41" name="pb41">41</a>]</span>occasion
-which might not subsequently be offered of realising at the outset of
-our long journey the essential features and characteristics of the
-country we had come to see. In Asia so vast is the scale upon which
-Nature has operated, so much system has she bestowed upon her works,
-you may follow for hundreds of miles the same manifestations, till from
-some favourable point of vantage you may discover unfolded before you
-the clue and the abiding principles of her extensive and majestic plan.
-What approach was better calculated to offer large views over Nature
-and to instruct us in her designs than one which scaled the walls of
-the girdle ranges where they tower highest above land and sea? From
-Batum it might be possible to penetrate the mountains of Ajara, and
-debouch upon some of the most elevated regions of the plateau from
-which the upper waters and earliest affluents of the Kur decline; but
-the lower reaches of the Chorokh and its alpine tributaries intersect a
-most intricate and savage country, where the process of elevation has
-resulted in dislocation of the range, and has produced convulsions
-which, while they afford a most interesting field to the geologist and
-to the student of mountain-structure, have placed obstacles in the way
-of human communications which the traveller is not required to
-overcome. By following the bend of the chain up the coast and along the
-Rion until it again assumes a normal course, he may avoid this knot of
-ridges and maze of valleys and at the same time obtain a clearer and
-more definite conception of the geography of these lands. We learnt
-that there was a road from the plain of the Rion up the side and to the
-summit of the range; we soon decided upon the superior attractions
-which it promised, and took our tickets for the capital of the country
-on the west of the Meschic barrier, the ancient city of Kutais.</p>
-<p class="par"><i>August 22.</i>&mdash;Rain was falling as we slowly
-steamed away from the station; it is almost always raining at Batum.
-The clouds cannot leap the gigantic bulwark of the mountains at this
-south-eastern angle of the sea; they cling to the fir-clad slopes or
-put out hands and scale the escarpments until they become exhausted and
-dissolve. The town was soon behind us as we wound along the foot of the
-range on the narrow respite of the shore&mdash;Batum, with her grim
-defiance of the written law of Europe, with her peaceful situation at
-the gate of the oil industry, of which she receives the products by the
-railway from the Caspian to distribute them over all the world; a
-creation of modern Russia on the familiar official pattern <span class=
-"pagenum">[<a id="pb42" href="#pb42" name="pb42">42</a>]</span>of
-spreading boulevards with fine shops and large hotels. Here is the
-starting-point of the first train which skirts the coast of the
-Euxine&mdash;and even this remote example of the species turns aside
-from the mysterious seaboard to the cities of the interior after a
-brief space of some twenty miles. Yet within such limits we are carried
-through the wildest piece of country that may be found between the
-mouth of the river Rion and the entrance to the Black Sea, a district
-endowed with extraordinary fertility, which still remains unexploited
-and unreclaimed. It is inhabited here and there by a few straggling
-settlements, which contrast to the splendour of his natural
-surroundings the squalor of uncivilised man. We have outreached the
-furthest extension of the fringe of Greek elements; Georgian peoples
-live in the valleys of the interior and are thinly scattered upon the
-malarious coast; while further east, where the chain has left the sea
-and is aligned upon the plains, lowlands as well as mountains, the
-skirts of the range and its innermost recesses are the home of a
-population of Georgian race. Between Trebizond and the Russian fortress
-first the Lazis and then the Ajars may perhaps be regarded as
-transitional factors to the new order which commences after you have
-left Batum. I should not venture to pronounce upon the racial
-connections of the Lazis; they may represent the aboriginal occupants
-of their country, the wild tribes who harassed the army of Xenophon and
-were the settled plague of the Byzantine governors and of the emperors
-of the Comnenian line. The Ajars would appear to be of mixed parentage;
-like the Lazis they profess the Mohammedan faith. The Georgian
-districts which we are now entering still retain the names of the
-several independent principalities to which they formerly belonged, and
-except in the case of Abkhasia, up in the north at the foot of
-Caucasus, the Christian religion almost exclusively prevails. First
-comes Guria along the shore and the bend of the mountains; Imeritia
-extends on either bank of the Rion and as far as the pass of Suram;
-Mingrelia is the name of the country on the north of the Kolchian
-river, and it is bounded by Imeritia in the east.</p>
-<p class="par">For a distance of some fifteen miles the landscape was
-monotonous; on the one hand the almost vertical bulwark of the
-mountains, on the other the little grey waves breaking on the stony
-shore. But just before we arrived at the station of Kobulety the
-oppressive proximity of the range was relaxed, the country opened, and
-between low forest and maize-grown clearings <span class=
-"pagenum">[<a id="pb43" href="#pb43" name="pb43">43</a>]</span>the
-soil-charged waters of a river wound their way down towards the sea. It
-was the commencement of the scenery which is characteristic of Guria, a
-tract of virgin woodland which clothes the spurs of the receding chain
-and the alluvial flats and marshes of the coast. Rolling hills take the
-place of the abrupt wall of rock; they are covered with a jungle of
-bush and little trees, which is broken here and there by irregular
-patches planted with Indian corn. Dark streams heavy with loam descend
-between high banks. Not a village could we see, nor any human
-habitation; distant prospects were obscured by a veil of mist. Yet the
-day was fairly fine, and, if the clouds were deeply banked on the
-horizon, the zenith often burst to pure blue. As we proceeded, the
-forest increased both in grandeur and in luxuriance; clusters of
-magnificent trees rose from the bush and above the brushwood, until the
-features of hill and spur became lost beneath the lofty overgrowth and
-transformed to masses or ledges of tall stems and spreading branches
-outlined against the sky. The withered forks of lifeless trunks stood
-out in grim relief from this ground of shadow, or were projected in
-weird tracery upon the field of light&mdash;an eloquent proof that no
-human hand had yet disturbed the natural order of these primeval woods.
-The sea was lost behind leafy brakes festooned with luscious creepers,
-which flourish with almost tropical development in this warm climate
-and upon this soaking soil. Not a single road did we see; the stations
-are mere stages, and the only sign of the presence of man was one of
-the long-legged dappled pigs so common in Imeritia, which was
-trespassing on the line.</p>
-<p class="par">Such are the characteristics which broadly prevail
-between Kobulety and Lanchkhuty, a space of some twenty-four miles. But
-we had not yet reached the latter station, which is situated due north
-of the capital of Guria, Ozurgeti, when new features were discovered in
-the scene. On the left hand the view opened across an even country
-where the sappy stems and reed-like forms and flowers of the
-maize-plants alternated with stretches of unreclaimed bush; and in the
-distance a bold hill, only partially wooded, projected into the plain
-from a long, vague line of mountains which closed the horizon on the
-north. We felt that these must surely be the spurs of Caucasus, and
-that the Phasis would shortly be disclosed.</p>
-<p class="par">You cross that fabled river&mdash;the modern
-Rion&mdash;by the commonplace method of a railway bridge; it flows
-between high <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb44" href="#pb44" name=
-"pb44">44</a>]</span>banks through the wide expanse of these
-surroundings on the southern margin of the plain. Some distance east of
-these lower reaches the impetuous current that has pierced the
-Caucasus, from which it issues at Kutais, has been deflected by the
-mountains of the southern border, which turn it towards the west. You
-do not follow its tortuous course, which skirts the outworks of these
-mountains as they stretch inwards from the coast; the ground is flat,
-the railroad points more directly for the capital at the foot of the
-great chain on the north.</p>
-<p class="par">Mile upon mile the plain of the Rion was unfolded about
-us, a fertile province which might be made the granary of Georgia, but
-which would now appear to produce little else but the lowest of the
-cereals, an endless succession of plantations of Indian corn. The land
-is ill-reclaimed; little labour has been expended, and the bush starts
-up among the canes. At the stations we remarked groups of women and
-young girls clad in loose cotton dresses with cotton kerchiefs on their
-heads. Geese strutted along the line or paddled in the shallow streams,
-and we became familiar with the strange appearance of the Imeritian
-pigs. But still no village! At rare intervals a wooden hut with a large
-verandah, and here and there among the maize one of the rude wooden
-stages erected to command a prospect over the fields.</p>
-<p class="par">As we advanced, the dim and misty boundary of the
-Caucasus took shape and colour about the lower slopes. The soft hues of
-vegetation, the brighter flashes of naked strata were distinguished
-from the uncertain background of rock and cloud; bold ridges with
-fantastic outlines stood up on the horizon; but here and there the
-white vapour was still clinging to their highest parapets and spreading
-fanwise to the brief circle of clear sky. Above them lay a world of
-half-lights and banked cloud-masses, the veiled presence of the main
-chain. Behind us rose the wooded ridges of the southern range, till
-they vanished in the folds of the murky canopy which they hold so
-firmly and love so well; but the marshes had disappeared and the lowest
-spurs which met the plain were almost devoid of trees. On our point of
-course the two great ranges appeared to mingle together and arrest our
-even progress towards the east.</p>
-<p class="par">For a second time we were overlooking the stream of the
-Rion to regain the left bank. It was flowing with a rapid current in a
-direct line from the Caucasus, channelling the beached-up shingle of an
-extensive bed. In places the waters spread in <span class=
-"pagenum">[<a id="pb45" href="#pb45" name="pb45">45</a>]</span>shallow
-lakes and deposit a thick sediment of soil. This upper portion of the
-plain is barren and stony; it is partially covered with a low jungle of
-bush. It is confined on either side by the meeting flanks of the
-mountains; and as we made our way due north with the river serpenting
-beneath us, all prospect on our right hand was shut out by rising
-ground clothed with a forest of low oak trees.</p>
-<p class="par">On the opposite slopes, among the deepening tints of
-wood and clearing, beneath the growing distinction of light and shade,
-we could discern the white faces of a few scattered houses and then the
-gardens among which they stood. Two larger buildings were apparent,
-crowned with conical cupolas, of which the roofing was coloured a soft
-green. Such are the outskirts of Kutais; the town is hidden from the
-plain. Towering above the scene and almost infinitely high, we might
-feel vaguely but could scarcely see the gigantic framework of Caucasus,
-except where here and there a dazzling light among the clouds revealed
-the presence of a snowfield in the sky.</p>
-<p class="par">We were tempted to linger in the capital of Imeritia,
-and I can confidently recommend to the more leisurely traveller a
-protracted stay in this fascinating place. You will never tire of the
-beauty of site and grandeur of surroundings, while few street scenes
-are more picturesque than those which are disclosed during an afternoon
-ramble in the Jewish quarter of Kutais. It is a convenient centre for
-excursions into the recesses of Caucasus, and you have only to follow
-the windings of the valley of the Rion to be introduced to the inmost
-sanctuaries of the chain. In the ruins of the noble cathedral beyond
-the outskirts of the town, in the neighbouring and well-preserved
-monastery of Gelat, with its enchanting prospect from the slopes of
-Caucasus over the open landscape of the south, both the
-arch&aelig;ologist and the student of architecture will discover an
-abundant source of interest; while, if the study of Nature herself be
-among the objects of your journey, what richer field could be offered
-to the geologist or the naturalist than these mountains and untouched
-forests and flowery hills? But we ourselves were hurried away by the
-exigencies of travel after a short sojourn of two and a half days, and
-my present purpose must be confined to the elucidation of those natural
-features which accompanied the early stages of our ascent to Armenia,
-and which were unfolded to our view in an extensive panorama from the
-declivities about Kutais. <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb46" href=
-"#pb46" name="pb46">46</a>]</span></p>
-<p class="par">I shall therefore take my reader to some convenient
-standpoint in the environs, let us say to the cliffs on the right bank
-of the Rion and the hill upon which the massive ruins of the cathedral
-rise on the sky-line above the leafy brakes (Fig. 6, <i>a</i>). I can
-show you the position from the opposite bank of the river in a picture
-which was taken over a mile above the town from the road which ascends
-the valley and which we followed on our way to Gelat (Fig. <a href=
-"#fig006">6</a>). The Rion is flowing from you into the middle distance
-coming from the north; Kutais itself is hidden by a wooded promontory
-(Fig. 6, <i>d</i>); but you see the group of buildings which compose
-the Armenian and the Catholic churches, and which crown the extreme
-northerly projection of the site (Fig. 6, <i>b</i>). Three bridges span
-the Rion where it sweeps past the town confined between lofty banks,
-and lead from the busy streets to the peaceful heights which overlook
-them and command all the landscape of the plain. I cannot imagine a
-more charming walk than by the hill church of St. George (Fig. 6,
-<i>c</i>) to the pleasant eminence which I have already described.</p>
-<p class="par"></p>
-<div class="figure xd21e2200width" id="fig006"><img src=
-"images/fig006.jpg" alt="Fig. 6. Banks of the Rion above Kutais."
-width="604" height="381">
-<p class="figureHead"><span class="sc"><span class="figNum">Fig.
-6.</span> Banks of the Rion above Kutais.</span></p>
-</div>
-<p class="par"></p>
-<p class="par">We reach our point, and there before us expands the open
-landscape of which the second photograph embraces a considerable part
-(Fig. <a href="#fig007">7</a>). We are standing on the southern slopes
-of Caucasus, with a wide belt of hill and ridge behind us, and, beyond
-<span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb47" href="#pb47" name=
-"pb47">47</a>]</span>and far above such familiar natural features, the
-white serrations and air-borne snowfields of the inmost chain. The
-atmosphere is fresh and crisp even at this season and with this
-temperature;<a class="noteref" id="xd21e2214src" href="#xd21e2214"
-name="xd21e2214src">2</a> and banks of white cloud float in the sky. At
-our feet lies Kutais, with head upon the hillside and foot upon the
-margin of the plain; the eye follows the winding river which has just
-escaped from Caucasus and is flowing outwards towards the opposite
-range; the horizon is closed by that wall of mountain, emerging solid
-from a tender veil of mist. The plain itself is flat as water; it is
-coloured with the golden hues of the ripening maize-fields and featured
-by a labyrinth of vague detail. On the left hand, outside the
-photograph, a little north of east, you just discern high on the slopes
-beyond the left bank of the Rion the site of the monastery of Gelat;
-and the other day we thought we could descry from its lofty terrace, at
-the base of a distant promontory of Caucasus the shimmer of the sea in
-the west.</p>
-<p class="par"></p>
-<div class="figure xd21e2223width" id="fig007"><img src=
-"images/fig007.jpg" alt=
-"Fig. 7. Plain of the Rion from the Southern Slopes of Caucasus; Kutais in the Foreground."
-width="720" height="523">
-<p class="figureHead"><span class="sc"><span class="figNum">Fig.
-7.</span> Plain of the Rion from the Southern Slopes of Caucasus;
-Kutais in the Foreground.</span></p>
-</div>
-<p class="par"></p>
-<p class="par">Let us realise for a moment the meaning of the
-landscape, and allow the mind to assist the eye. The opposite mountains
-belong to the girdle of ranges which buttress the Armenian tableland,
-the same which we have followed along the coast of the Black Sea, and
-which we left at our entrance upon the plain of the Rion stretching
-eastwards away from the shore. Here they constitute the barrier which
-separates the lowlands of Imeritia from the highlands about Akhaltsykh
-in the south; and, if you wish to examine the structure of this barrier
-more closely, you will find that the back or spine of the system
-consists of a ridge which extends in an easterly direction to about the
-longitude of Tiflis. The Caucasus, with an axis inclining
-south-eastwards, steps up to this latitudinal chain, and just east of
-Kutais the two systems join hands in the belt of picturesque hill
-scenery which divides the watershed of the Kur from that of the Rion,
-and which we already know under the name of the Meschic linking range.
-East of Tiflis the axis of the Armenian border ranges is turned towards
-south-east, and follows a direction parallel with that of Caucasus
-along the trough of the Kur towards the Caspian Sea. Like the Caucasus
-here in the north, its opposite neighbour, that southern bulwark
-extends from sea to sea; and some geographers have applied to it the
-name of Little Caucasus, a misleading and, if we attach importance to
-the <i>phenomena</i> of Nature, a most <span class="pagenum">[<a id=
-"pb48" href="#pb48" name="pb48">48</a>]</span>inappropriate name. For
-while the northern range may be described as an isolated and
-independent structure&mdash;independent in appearance at
-least&mdash;which rises on the one side from about the same levels as
-those to which on the other side it declines, that on the south is in
-reality nothing more than a succession of steps or buttresses which
-lead up to and flank the Armenian highlands. The first stages of our
-journey will conduct us up the slopes of those mountains, from a plain
-which does not much exceed the sea-level, across a ridge of which the
-pass has an altitude of about <span class="measure" title=
-"2134 meter">7000 feet</span>, to plains which range between a height
-of 7000 and not less than <span class="measure" title="914 meter">3000
-feet</span> above the sea.</p>
-<p class="par"><i>August 25.</i>&mdash;From Kutais to where the
-southern range perceptibly commences to gather, about the village of
-Bagdad, is a direct distance of close on fifteen miles. So even is the
-plain that the road makes little deviation and covers the space in
-seventeen miles. At half-past eight on the morning of the 25th of
-August our victoria, drawn by four horses abreast, made its start from
-the little hotel in which we had lodged; it was followed by the cart
-which we had engaged for the luggage and to which was harnessed a
-similar team. We had hired both conveyances for the whole of the
-journey to Abastuman on the further slopes of the southern range; the
-regular avenue of communication with that summer watering-place is by
-the valley of the Kur and Borjom, and it is necessary to make your own
-arrangements if you desire to take the Imeritian road. We spent five
-hours upon the first stage of only seventeen miles; our coachman was
-obliged to harbour the strength of his horses for the long ascent to
-the summit of the chain, and we were always halting to take photographs
-and to realise the interest of the magnificent scenery which forms the
-distant setting of these lowlands. We were crossing the uppermost
-portion of the plain of the Rion, where it rises to the belt of hill
-and mountain which links the northern with the southern range; long
-stretches of woodland with an undergrowth of wild rhododendron had
-taken the place of the expanse of golden maize-fields, broken by little
-trees and intervals of bush. To emerge from the shady avenue upon a
-tract of open country was to feast our eyes upon a landscape of no
-ordinary character. On the one hand the airy pinnacles and gleaming
-snowfields of Caucasus, on the other the forest-clad walls of the
-Armenian border chain; in the west the varied detail that covers
-<span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb49" href="#pb49" name=
-"pb49">49</a>]</span>the floor of the plain as with a carpet, and
-behind us the spurs meeting in the east.</p>
-<p class="par">We were impressed by the hush of life over the plain and
-in the woodlands, by the sparseness of human habitations, and by the
-absence of traffic along the road. Such are the certain signs in the
-East of economical stagnation, when man is idle and the earth sleeps.
-It was therefore with pleasure that about one o&rsquo;clock we came
-upon a tiny village and lingered beneath a spreading tree. Not very far
-from this little settlement we crossed a stream at the base of the
-mountains, and at half-past one we came to a halt in the street of the
-village of Bagdad, after a short but perceptible rise. We noticed some
-vineyards during the course of our upward progress; the elevation of
-Bagdad, according to the single reading of my barometer, is
-<span class="measure" title="281 meter">922 feet</span>.<a class=
-"noteref" id="xd21e2255src" href="#xd21e2255" name=
-"xd21e2255src">3</a></p>
-<p class="par">It is at Bagdad that you begin the ascent of the
-mountains of the southern border. So broad is the range, the pass so
-lofty and the road so tortuous, that it would be no easy matter to
-cross them in a single day. The direct distance measured on a map from
-the village to the pass is no less than seventeen miles, and along the
-road you cover some thirty-one miles. There is a hut at about half-way
-which is a convenient night&rsquo;s quarter, and we resolved to make it
-the goal of our second stage.</p>
-<p class="par">We left Bagdad at three o&rsquo;clock, with the valleys
-still open about us, with the wooded slopes rising on every side. After
-we had passed to the right branch of the stream which we had crossed
-below the village, the gradients commenced to make themselves felt, and
-here and there among the foliage the first fir trees started, the
-delicate blue firs. We followed the course of the running water up the
-spacious valley, through the forest which clothes the range from foot
-to summit and stands up along the ridges against the sky.</p>
-<p class="par">The saturated atmosphere and warm climate of the
-seaboard were still with us; the one feeds, the other stimulates this
-luxuriant growth. Even on this fine day the clouds still lingered in
-the uppermost hollows, and when at four o&rsquo;clock we opened up a
-beautiful side valley, all the landscape of wooded fork and winding
-torrent reflected the silvery hues of a crown of captive vapour
-clinging to the recesses at the head of the glen.</p>
-<p class="par">Verst after verst we might count our progress on the
-white milestones, but we rarely observed a sign of the presence of man.
-<span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb50" href="#pb50" name=
-"pb50">50</a>]</span>A Georgian wayfarer, staff in hand, a
-peasant&rsquo;s cottage with its wide verandah, were the infrequent
-incidents in a scene which still belonged to Nature, and with which
-such figures and such objects harmonised. At last at the side of the
-road where the forest was thickest we came upon a solitary little
-cabin, a neat wooden structure, which we at once recognised as our
-shelter for the night. It was a quarter-past seven o&rsquo;clock and we
-had reached an altitude of <span class="measure" title="579 meter">1900
-feet</span>.<a class="noteref" id="xd21e2273src" href="#xd21e2273"
-name="xd21e2273src">4</a> During the space of some fourteen miles from
-our mid-day station, the valley to which we had throughout been
-faithful had narrowed to a deep trough; and an hour before our arrival
-at the hut of Zikari the read was taken for a short space along the
-left bank of the stream, in order to avoid a projecting buttress of its
-eastern wall.</p>
-<p class="par"></p>
-<div class="figure floatLeft xd21e2288width" id="fig008"><img src=
-"images/fig008.jpg" alt="Fig. 8. Road in the Forest." width="389"
-height="532">
-<p class="figureHead"><span class="sc"><span class="figNum">Fig.
-8.</span> Road in the Forest.</span></p>
-</div>
-<p class="par"></p>
-<p class="par"><i>August 26.</i>&mdash;Some distance below the hut the
-stream which we had followed is joined by a tributary coming from the
-east; the two branches of the fork collect a number of smaller
-affluents which have their sources near the summit of the chain. In
-continuing our course next morning up the more westerly of these
-branches, we were rapidly transported to the more open landscapes of
-the higher slopes, and made our way almost in a direct line for the
-pass, circling the outworks of the principal ridge. Filmy white clouds
-were suspended from the pine woods above us, when at a quarter-past
-seven we again took to the road; but for five hours the forest trees
-remained with us and increased rather than <span class=
-"pagenum">[<a id="pb51" href="#pb51" name=
-"pb51">51</a>]</span>diminished in size. In one place it was a lime of
-unusual proportions rearing a maze of branches from a quadruple trunk;
-at another we stood in wonder before a gigantic beech which measured
-<span class="measure" title="5.18 meter">17 feet</span> <span class=
-"measure" title="15.2 centimeter">6 inches</span> round the base. The
-undergrowth was supplied by laurel and holly, and cascades leapt from
-the rocks. The reader may see our road as it wound through this sylvan
-scenery (Fig. <a href="#fig008">8</a>), but he must allow his
-imagination to supply the inherent deficiencies of photographic
-methods. The rare inhabitants of these solitudes are of Georgian race
-and wear the dress of Georgia (Fig. <a href="#fig009">9</a>), but their
-straggling tenements are few and far between.</p>
-<p class="par"></p>
-<div class="figure floatRight xd21e2314width" id="fig009"><img src=
-"images/fig009.jpg" alt="Fig. 9" width="313" height="603">
-<p class="figureHead"><span class="sc">Fig. 9</span></p>
-</div>
-<p class="par"></p>
-<p class="par">Above the forest the groves of fir, higher still the
-grassy slopes and naked crags&mdash;such is the familiar order of
-mountain scenery as you slowly rise to the spine of a range. The two
-last features became apparent at the sixty-sixth verst-stone, or some
-twelve and a half miles from the hut. A profusion of wild raspberries
-were growing on the mossy banks and provided us with a delicious meal.
-We remarked the sharpness of the summits of the ridge above us and read
-the number of the seventy-second verst. The pass is just above this
-lofty standpoint, and we left the carriage to reach it by a short cut.
-We arrived there after a brief climb to find a fresh breeze blowing and
-all the wide belt of mountain at our feet.</p>
-<p class="par">I doubt whether there exists in the nearer Asia a
-standpoint which commands a prospect at once so grand and so
-instructive as that which is unfolded from the summit of the Zikar Pass
-(Zikarski Perival; altitude by my Hicks mountain aneroid, <span class=
-"measure" title="2184 meter">7164 feet</span>; <span class=
-"pagenum">[<a id="pb52" href="#pb52" name="pb52">52</a>]</span>Russian
-survey, <span class="measure" title="2165 meter">7104 feet</span>).
-With its double front towards north and south and the contrasting
-features of the dual landscape, it may be said to overlook two worlds.
-On the north the view ranges across the broad belt of wooded mountains,
-which culminate in this ridge, to the gigantic barrier of the Caucasus
-of which the peaks are distant some ninety to a hundred miles (Fig.
-<a href="#fig010">10</a>). Invisible in the hollow lies the plain of
-the Rion; the crests before you, boldly vaulted and clad with forest to
-the very summits, sweep away to a dim horizon of grey mist; above that
-uncertain background the snows and glaciers of Caucasus appear
-suspended in the air among the clouds. Dense vapour shrouds the scene,
-and above the flashes of the snow a long bank of white cloud spreads
-fanwise up the sky.</p>
-<p class="par"></p>
-<div class="figure xd21e2336width" id="fig010"><img src=
-"images/fig010.jpg" alt="Fig. 10. View North from the Zikar Pass."
-width="720" height="505">
-<p class="figureHead"><span class="sc"><span class="figNum">Fig.
-10.</span> View North from the Zikar Pass.</span></p>
-</div>
-<p class="par"></p>
-<p class="par">But turn to the south&mdash;the forms and texture of the
-earth&rsquo;s surface, the lights and shadows falling through a rarer
-atmosphere from lightly floating filaments of cloud, are those of a new
-world (Fig. <a href="#fig011">11</a>). The pine wood still struggles
-down the hillside, and gathers from the blighted trunks around you to
-clothe the first valleys of the southern watershed. But the view will
-no longer close with successive walls of mountain; the road ceases
-winding up the slopes of successive outworks; every vertical line, each
-deep vaulting relaxes and disappears. The highest plains of the
-tableland attain about the same elevation as the pass upon which you
-stand; all the outlines in the distance are horizontal, all the shapes
-shallow-vaulted and convex. If you follow the long-drawn profiles of
-the loftier masses, it is the form of a cone that breaks the sky-line,
-and never that of a peak. The colours are lightly washed ochres and
-madders; the surface of the volcanic soil is bare of all vegetation;
-the shadows lie transparent and thin. Such was our first view of
-Armenia and such the impression which our later travel confirmed.</p>
-<p class="par"></p>
-<div class="figure xd21e2349width" id="fig011"><img src=
-"images/fig011.jpg" alt="Fig. 11. View South from the Zikar Pass."
-width="720" height="495">
-<p class="figureHead"><span class="sc"><span class="figNum">Fig.
-11.</span> View South from the Zikar Pass.</span></p>
-</div>
-<p class="par"><span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb53" href="#pb53" name=
-"pb53">53</a>]</span></p>
-</div>
-<div class="footnotes">
-<hr class="fnsep">
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e2142" href="#xd21e2142src" name="xd21e2142">1</a></span> A
-railway, connecting the capital of Georgia, Tiflis, with Alexandropol
-and Kars, has been completed since the date of this journey. It winds
-its way up the valley of the Borchala.&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href=
-"#xd21e2142src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e2214" href="#xd21e2214src" name="xd21e2214">2</a></span> At 11.15
-<span class="sc">A.M.</span> <span class="measure" title=
-"28.3&deg; C.">83&deg; F.</span>&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href=
-"#xd21e2214src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e2255" href="#xd21e2255src" name="xd21e2255">3</a></span>
-Temperature <span class="measure" title="30&deg; C.">86&deg;
-F.</span>&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href="#xd21e2255src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e2273" href="#xd21e2273src" name="xd21e2273">4</a></span>
-Temperature at 10 <span class="sc">P.M.</span> <span class="measure"
-title="22.2&deg; C.">72&deg; F.</span>; 6.30 <span class=
-"sc">A.M.</span> <span class="measure" title="18.9&deg; C.">66&deg;
-F.</span>&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href="#xd21e2273src">&uarr;</a></p>
-</div>
-</div>
-<div id="ch3" class="div1 chapter"><span class="pagenum">[<a href=
-"#xd21e305">Contents</a>]</span>
-<div class="divHead">
-<h2 class="label">CHAPTER III</h2>
-<h2 class="main">TO AKHALTSYKH</h2>
-</div>
-<div class="divBody">
-<p class="par first">Where else except in London will you see clever
-driving? Is not England the only country where you can trust your
-coachman to shave his corners and keep his team in hand? With four
-horses abreast the process is perhaps not easy, especially down a
-fairly steep incline. We were pursued by a landau which contained some
-Russian officers who had been spectators of our photographic and
-hypsometrical operations on the summit of the pass; our driver became
-inspired with the spirit of rivalry, and within a few minutes the trot
-had developed into a canter, the canter into a headlong career. On the
-left hand a deep abyss, on the right a mossy bank, and the post of
-danger occupied by our plump little dragoman who sat on the left-hand
-box seat! The carriage grazed the bank and, before we had time to pull
-the Armenian to us, struck and overturned. No damage to the horses or
-to the rest of the company, but the unfortunate dragoman, moaning and
-sobbing on the road! Happily his contusions were not serious, and a
-draught of brandy almost restored him to the possession of himself.
-Assisted by our kind acquaintances, who were the unwitting cause of the
-disaster and who had hurried to the scene, we conveyed him down the
-slope to where a gay picnic party were regaling themselves with cakes
-and tea and a variety of strong liqueurs. At once the ladies busied
-themselves with the bruised and dust-covered youth, whose numbed senses
-quickly revived under their care. But the incident delayed us, and it
-was night before we arrived at the outskirts of Abastuman, situated in
-the pine woods some ten miles south of the pass, at an elevation of
-<span class="measure" title="1304 meter">4278 feet</span>. We were
-tempted to pitch our tents above the village, on the banks of a
-pleasant stream; but the darkness as <span class="pagenum">[<a id=
-"pb54" href="#pb54" name="pb54">54</a>]</span>well as the lateness of
-the hour decided us to have recourse to a crowded hotel.</p>
-<p class="par">We were again in the midst of wealth and luxury&mdash;an
-oasis strangely incongruous with the solemn character with which these
-vast and lonely landscapes are impressed. The strains of music floated
-on the air; a dance was proceeding, to which after a hurried meal my
-cousin and myself repaired. All that was most brilliant in the official
-world of the Caucasus was gathered in the bright ball-room; and as we
-made our way there through the garden we met a group of returning
-guests gathered about a slender and youthful figure, to whom all
-appeared to defer. It was the Grand Duke George of Russia, since
-Tsarevich, who was residing in this lofty station alike in winter as in
-summer for the benefit of his health. In the afternoon of the following
-day, which was devoted to work and to preparations, came a message from
-His Imperial Highness inviting us to mid-day dinner; so we deferred our
-start from early morning to a later hour. His villa was situated just
-above the street of pleasure-houses among the fir trees which clothe
-the valley from trough to ridge; and on the opposite side of the road
-the slope had been converted into a park, which contained living
-specimens of the big game of the Caucasian wilds. The dinner was
-<i lang="it">al fresco</i> in the garden of the villa; the Grand Duke
-welcomed us in perfect English and placed my cousin on his right and
-myself on his left hand. Opposite me and on my cousin&rsquo;s right sat
-the Duke of Oldenburg, a practised sportsman and a charming
-personality, whose lively humour made the talk flow. On my left I had a
-graver but extremely well-informed gentleman whose conversation
-impressed me, but whose name I forgot to record. M. Asbeleff of the
-suite of His Highness was also of the party, and most kindly provided
-us with introductions which were of great service to us at a later
-stage of our journey. Quite a respectable number of guests were
-gathered round the circular table, the majority clad in the white
-cotton tunics which are the summer uniform of the official class.</p>
-<p class="par">A <i lang="fr">pur&eacute;e</i> or thick soup was
-served, which I thought delicious, but which brought a twinkle from the
-playful eye of the Duke. As each successive dish of this dinner
-<i lang="fr">&agrave; la Russe</i> made its appearance a smile came
-from across the table, or &ldquo;Isn&rsquo;t it nasty?&rdquo; or some
-even less mildly deprecating words. I ventured to demur to his
-good-humoured criticism and to submit that, if <span class=
-"pagenum">[<a id="pb55" href="#pb55" name="pb55">55</a>]</span>the
-French alone possessed the art of cooking, the Russians succeeded,
-where the English failed signally, in making things taste nice. The
-champagne came in for a particular share of attention, having been
-produced by the Duke from his vineyards at Kutais. My cousin let out
-the secret that we had already made its acquaintance: that we had
-visited his cellars and had been greatly interested in his enterprise,
-especially on the evening at the hut of Zikari, when we had regaled
-ourselves with a bottle of his sparkling wine. He now insisted on our
-taking a little case with us, and promised it should be dry to suit
-what he said he knew to be our taste. My companion on the left
-discussed the objects of our journey, and was of opinion that we might
-succeed in reaching the slopes of Ararat before the first snows
-commenced. I told him that we were also anxious to study the condition
-of the country, and the conversation turned upon the limitations which
-he said were imposed in India upon foreigners travelling with similar
-aims. Can there be anything more fatuous than such restrictions? We
-both agreed that it was perfectly possible to guard against political
-intriguers and at the same time to leave <i>bona-fide</i> travellers
-free. The Grand Duke spoke English like an Englishman, and you could
-not have a more amiable host. We remarked that his features resembled
-those of his cousin, the Duke of York, of whom a portrait was placed on
-his writing-table together with the photographs of other members of our
-Royal House.</p>
-<p class="par">Two four-horsed posting carriages had been prepared for
-the drive to Akhaltsykh, distant 16&frac12; miles. By four
-o&rsquo;clock we had rejoined the rest of our party and were leaving
-behind us the pleasant station of Abastuman. We followed the tripping
-stream down the narrow valley, the rocky and beetling sides studded
-with firs from foot to summit; and from among them a ruined castle,
-ascribed as usual to Queen Thamar, frowned out upon the passage which
-it controls. But we had not gone far before a complete change came over
-the landscape; the valley opened, distant prospects were disclosed.
-Before us lay the scenery which is typical of Armenia and upon which
-our eyes had rested from the summit of the Zikar Pass. Nature is seldom
-abrupt in her processes; a transitional character invests the first
-slopes of the southern watershed; the narrow belt of pine-clad ridges
-interrupts the contrast between the luscious forests which cover the
-range on the side of the Black Sea littoral and the barren <span class=
-"pagenum">[<a id="pb56" href="#pb56" name=
-"pb56">56</a>]</span>highlands through which the upper waters of the
-Kur descend. We had issued from those recesses, and around us in a wide
-circle were unfolded the Armenian plains. The view ranged over an open
-country, for the most part bare of vegetation, and featured by a
-succession of convexities in the friable surface, from the foreground
-of hummock and hill to the sweeping outlines of the higher masses,
-changing colour and complexion with every change in the sky.</p>
-<p class="par">The ground was crumbling with excessive dryness; the
-soil is rich, and would no doubt yield crops of great value were it
-cultivated on a liberal scale. Yet all the cultivation we could see was
-of the nature of little patches of yellow stubble or lightly ploughed
-land. It was evident that the primitive methods of the East had not
-been superseded, and that agriculture still partook of the precarious
-character which is the outcome of centuries of political
-disturbance&mdash;the peasant uncertain of reaping what he has sown.
-Stony tracts interrupted these plots of reclamation, but in general the
-surface was apt for the plough. The springs of life had been exhausted
-by the drought of an Eastern summer; the fertile earth was bare as
-water, and transparent tints of pink and ochre invested the landscape
-far and wide. A spirit of vastness and loneliness breathed over the
-scene; the air was clear and crisp and recalled the bracing climate of
-the Persian tablelands.</p>
-<p class="par">Such characteristics were strange to some among our
-party, for only my cousin and myself knew the interior of Asia and
-recognised in the note which was now for the first time sounded the
-commencement of a familiar theme. We pursued our way in silence, each
-absorbed by his own reflections and all responsive to the same spell.
-Through the bleak landscape wound the little river and stretched the
-white line of the road. Here and there on the margin of the water or
-beyond the irregular border of the pebble-strewn bed a little orchard
-or a patch of garden planted with potatoes, formed a spot of verdure
-contrasting with the hues around.<a class="noteref" id="xd21e2396src"
-href="#xd21e2396" name="xd21e2396src">1</a></p>
-<p class="par">Where were the villages? For it seemed that there must
-be inhabitants who had gathered this scanty harvest and ploughed the
-surface of the darker soil. They select the slope of a hill or
-<span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb57" href="#pb57" name=
-"pb57">57</a>]</span>the rise of an undulation; the door and front of
-their dwellings are alone visible, the back is caverned into the
-shelving ground; you must pass close to such a settlement and by
-daylight to notice the incidence of a human element in the scene. We
-came upon four villages of this pattern before the mid-way station was
-reached. They were peopled by Tartars, who were occupied in threshing
-and winnowing the season&rsquo;s corn. The husks were flying in the air
-and the bright cottons of men and women fluttered in the breeze.</p>
-<p class="par">Benara, the posting-house which supplied us with fresh
-horses, is situated close to the bank of the stream, at no great
-distance above the point where it joins the Koblian Chai, a river which
-collects the drainage of the extreme north-western angle of the
-tableland. A little below this junction the united waters receive a
-further affluent, known as the Poskhov Chai, which gathers the streams
-from south-west and south-east. Even at this season the three combined
-form a river of fair size, flowing through the plain on an easterly
-course in a bed of many channels, and joining the Kur after passing
-through the town of Akhaltsykh. This river is usually called the
-Akhaltsykh Chai.</p>
-<p class="par">Our road followed its course, taking an abrupt bend
-eastwards and still faithful to the left bank. Some hillocks closed the
-view on the north for a short space; then they flattened, and in that
-direction the great plain rolled around us, bounded in the distance by
-hummock hills. At intervals we caught a glimpse of the pine-clad ridges
-of the border range, standing up on the horizon in the east. Behind us
-the long-drawn outlines and bare slopes of the mountains of the
-tableland, and towards the south the ground rising from the right bank
-of the river to the summit-line of a mountain mass of this character
-which has the hummock formation throughout.</p>
-<p class="par">Massed battalions of Russian soldiers, it seemed a whole
-army corps, were drawn up on the plain. We were passing a permanent
-camp with pavilions and stationary cannon, and for some distance the
-ground was dotted with white tents. A review was proceeding, and the
-dark uniforms of the troops gave their columns the appearance of a
-series of black blocks. A hymn was being sung; the stately music
-swelled over the hushed scene.</p>
-<p class="par">What a contrast between the landscape and such
-accidental incidents, the Russian road, the Russian camp! On the road
-little piles of stones heaped at regular intervals; but the country
-<span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb58" href="#pb58" name=
-"pb58">58</a>]</span>without a fence, without boundaries or divisions,
-a mere expanse of rolling soil.</p>
-<p class="par">The first town or larger village that we saw was Suflis,
-rising among orchards from the right bank. It is backed by the bleak
-mountain mass which the river skirts; the flat roofs, ranged in tiers,
-were scarcely distinguishable from the shelving ground, but the
-vertical lines of several minarets were seen from afar. Could you be
-shown a more typical example of a tumble-down Eastern township? Yet you
-are on the threshold of an important fortress and provincial centre
-where modern appliances are in vogue.... Suflis passed, we approached
-more closely to the river; the mass on our right broke off in cliffs to
-the margin of the water, while on our left hand a low ridge, which had
-the appearance of an outcrop of volcanic rock, stepped up to the border
-of the stream. The road followed down the defile, skirting huge
-boulders and overtowered by bold crags; until the heights on our left
-were crowned with masonry, partly ruinous; and before us, across the
-river, where the gorge opened, the cherry-coloured roofing of the
-modern town of Akhaltsykh was outspread among gardens on the level
-ground. A little further down we crossed a substantial bridge, and,
-without entering the town, pitched our tents on the sand of the
-river-bed. It was nearly seven o&rsquo;clock, and night had fallen
-before our camping operations were complete.</p>
-<p class="par">From the Olympian eminence of the Grand Duke&rsquo;s
-circle at Abastuman and from the steps of the Imperial throne, we came
-near to being hurled forth at Akhaltsykh into the abyss of a Russian
-prison. The gods must surely weep at the sorry manner in which their
-human ministers interpret their laws. Day broke without any shadow of
-presentiment&mdash;a fresh and breezy morning, the river rippling
-before us, and on the opposite bank the ancient fortress edging the
-steep crags and outlined on the luminous sky. The delicious sleep
-beneath a tent was followed by an early bathe; the town was silent,
-but, as we made our way up the margin of the current, a little village
-was discovered, of which the feminine occupants were already descending
-the slope with their many-shaped water-jars and divesting themselves of
-their loose cottons to splash on the brink of the stream. A little
-later we passed their hovels and recognised them as Armenians, and
-admired the beauty of one among them, now busy with the routine of her
-household, who with her arched eyebrows, aquiline nose, massive
-forehead, and coal-black tresses reminded us of Biblical heroines.
-<span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb59" href="#pb59" name=
-"pb59">59</a>]</span>The fascination of travel consists in its
-many-coloured contrasts; nothing ruffled the composure of our mood of
-detachment as we left this peaceful scene to explore a fresh hive of
-human beings with the easy confidence of men to whom the land belongs.
-Our first visit was as usual to the civil governor; he was to conduct
-us to the hive, remark upon the peculiar qualities of the honey, and
-deferentially withdraw while we pursued our own investigations into the
-mysteries of insect life. If our attitude could be convicted of any
-element of such fatuous vanity, the illusion was quickly and rudely
-dispelled. We were taken to a mean structure on the southern outskirts
-of the town, which resembled wooden boxes placed one above another,
-with broad wooden verandahs running round. These balconies were indeed
-the distinguishing feature; and, when we observed the groups of
-ill-miened loafers who loitered within them, it was hard to believe
-that we were anywhere else but in Turkey visiting a pasha at the
-<i>Serai</i>. After some palaver with the menials, who were not
-disposed to excessive courtesy, it transpired that the governor had
-left that very morning on a visit to Abastuman. We asked to see his
-deputy, and were ushered into the presence of a broad-shouldered
-official whose little eyes and cast of face were essentially Russian,
-and who did not receive us with any excessive show of warmth. Such is
-the manner of deputies all the world over&mdash;but our disappointment
-turned to surprise when who should enter the apartment but Wesson,
-closely escorted by a formidable individual whom we at once recognised
-as a commissary of police!</p>
-<p class="par"></p>
-<div class="figure floatRight xd21e2427width" id="fig012"><img src=
-"images/fig012.jpg" alt="Fig. 12. Portrait of Ivan." width="312"
-height="422">
-<p class="figureHead"><span class="sc"><span class="figNum">Fig.
-12.</span> Portrait of Ivan.</span></p>
-</div>
-<p class="par"></p>
-<p class="par">May I introduce the reader to Ivan Kuyumjibashoff, a
-personality no less alarming than his name (Fig. <a href=
-"#fig012">12</a>), and may I take this early opportunity to place him
-on his guard against <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb60" href="#pb60"
-name="pb60">60</a>]</span>the fallacy that the Armenians are not a
-martial race? For this man was a pure Armenian, in spite of the Russian
-termination of <i>-off</i> instead of <i>-ean</i>. Erzerum was his
-native city; his family had emigrated to Russia, and during the last
-war against the Turks Ivan had gained the cross of honour for personal
-bravery in the field. At his side hung a sword of which the scabbard
-and hilt were adorned with chased silver; the blade was his special
-pride, being of ancient Khorasan workmanship, a trophy from the Kurds.
-His features inspired fear; his skin of leather was the result of
-exposure; but we had not yet learnt that, like all true warriors who
-are not barbarians, the lion&rsquo;s fierceness was tempered by the
-meekness of the lamb. A cloud settled over the face of the deputy as
-the massive fist turned the handle of the door and the heavy tread fell
-on the bare boards. Arrived at his side, Ivan whispered something in
-his ear, and I ventured to ask what might be the business of this man.
-The official replied that he was the emissary of Captain Taranoffsky,
-the chief of the so-called <i lang="fr">gendarmerie</i>, and that he
-had been sent to conduct us to the presence of his superior, who would
-personally explain the purport of his summons. I enquired whether
-Colonel Alander was not the governor of Akhaltsykh, and his office the
-seat of supreme power; I was answered that there was another and
-separate jurisdiction which the governor did not control. The deputy
-added with an agreeable humour that, should we be thrown into prison,
-he would be powerless to take us out. Nothing therefore to be done but
-to follow Ivan; and would that his master had been as capable as
-himself!</p>
-<p class="par">In these Armenian provinces of Russia the machinery of
-administration is conducted by a handful of Russian officials through
-Armenians, who are employed even in the higher grades. The Armenian is
-a man of ancient culture and high natural capacity; neither the
-instinct nor the quality would be claimed by his Russian superior, who
-is the instrument of a system of government rather than a born ruler,
-and who in general is lacking in those attributes of pliancy and
-individual initiative which it is the tendency of rigid bureaucracies
-to destroy. Moreover the Russian official gives the impression of being
-overwhelmed by his system, like a child to whom his lessons are new;
-and, when you see him at work among such a people as the Armenians, you
-ask yourself how it has happened that a race with all the aptitudes are
-governed by such wooden figures <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb61"
-href="#pb61" name="pb61">61</a>]</span>as these. There are of course
-notable exceptions to this general statement, which resumes one&rsquo;s
-experience of the subordinate officers rather than of those who are
-highest placed. Taranoffsky was about as bad a specimen of his class as
-it has been my misfortune to meet. A short man of portly figure, fat
-red face, and little eyes, he had all the self-assertion which so often
-accompanies small stature, all the unfriendliness which seems the
-almost necessary outcome of a lack of physical grace. I at once
-perceived all the elements of an unpleasant situation; nor were my
-apprehensions disproved by the result. We were taken to a hotel,
-deprived of our papers and letters, and placed under close police
-surveillance pending a decision as to our future fate. The warmest pass
-of arms was that which took place over our photographic negatives,
-which our persecutor peremptorily required. I represented that many of
-the films were as yet undeveloped, and was absolute in my refusal to
-give them up. On the other hand I expressed myself anxious that he
-should see them developed in his presence, for which purpose I begged
-him to prepare a dark room. I forget whether he accepted this tempting
-proposal; <span class="corr" id="xd21e2454" title=
-"Source: tde">the</span> negatives remained intact. Permission was
-given us to drive under escort to the monastery of Safar, and the
-arrival that night or the following morning of Colonel Alander appeared
-to alleviate the disfavour with which we were viewed. Not that these
-two <i>imperia</i> work harmoniously together! How can it be expected
-that they should? The political police are particularly active in
-fortress towns such as Kars or Akhaltsykh; but I understood from Ivan
-that they are pretty widely distributed over the country, and that
-their functions extend to tracking down Socialists and Nihilists, and
-in general to the diffusion of alarm and annoyance far and wide.
-&ldquo;How ugly is man!&rdquo; has exclaimed a French novelist; indeed
-how ugly at such moments he appears.</p>
-<p class="par">If the morning was consumed by these unforeseen
-complications, the afternoon held in store for the harried travellers a
-further contrast and a rich reward. The monastery of Safar is situated
-a few miles<a class="noteref" id="xd21e2462src" href="#xd21e2462" name=
-"xd21e2462src">2</a> south-east of Akhaltsykh on the lofty slopes of a
-volcanic ridge; the drive thither displays the landscape of the town
-and surrounding country, and the goal is a group of buildings, of which
-the principal church is a gem of architecture, <span class=
-"pagenum">[<a id="pb62" href="#pb62" name="pb62">62</a>]</span>instinct
-with the graces that adorn and elevate life. For awhile we followed
-down the right bank of the river along the road toward Akhalkalaki and
-the east; then, almost reversing direction, turned up a side track on
-the right hand, which conducted us, always rising, across the bleak
-undulations at the back of the modern town. Here and there the soil had
-been sown and was yellow with stubble, or lay exposed in patches of
-plough; but cultivation was only partial, and for many a mile not a
-village could be discerned. Far and near, the surface of the earth was
-of a hummocky nature, like sands modelled by children&rsquo;s
-spades.</p>
-<p class="par"></p>
-<div class="figure xd21e2477width" id="fig013"><img src=
-"images/fig013.jpg" alt="Fig. 13. Safar: St. Saba from the West."
-width="519" height="720">
-<p class="figureHead"><span class="sc"><span class="figNum">Fig.
-13.</span> Safar: St. Saba from the West.</span></p>
-</div>
-<p class="par"></p>
-<p class="par">After jolting along this track for some distance, we
-again struck a metalled road. It winds along the side of the ridge upon
-which Safar is situated, and overlooks a deep ravine. The slope of the
-ridge is clothed in places by a scanty growth of bush and dotted by low
-trees; but the ravine and opposite hillside are bare and stony, and the
-landscape is bleak and wild in the extreme. The only signs of life and
-movement proceeded from a village of which the tenements were built
-into that opposite slope. The peasants in their gay cottons were
-threshing the season&rsquo;s harvest, and, as we returned, we saw them
-transporting it in little carts, drawn by eight oxen apiece, from the
-fields, where it had been left since the end of June in convenient
-places, up to the village threshing-floors. We were surprised at the
-evident prosperity of the occupants of this Georgian settlement; what
-could be more quaint than women with white gloves and parasols who
-dwelt in such hovels as those? We met several such groups on the road
-and about the monastery, which was the goal of their afternoon&rsquo;s
-walk; several families also, who had come from afar, were encamped at
-Safar, at once a pilgrimage and a pleasant residence during the summer
-months.</p>
-<p class="par">A similar practice no doubt prevailed with the powerful
-governors of Upper Georgia, of that remote and extensive province of
-Semo-Karthli which comprised the uppermost valleys of the Kur and
-Chorokh and the mountains of Ajara to the Kolchian coast. Known under
-the title of atabegs, they flourished in the fourteenth, fifteenth, and
-sixteenth centuries, became independent of the kings of Georgia, and
-were only suppressed at a late date by the Ottoman Turks.<a class=
-"noteref" id="xd21e2488src" href="#xd21e2488" name="xd21e2488src">3</a>
-Here was their seat of predilection during the heats of summer, and,
-except for the arid soil and crops of stones that cover the valleys,
-one cannot but approve <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb63" href="#pb63"
-name="pb63">63</a>]</span>their choice. You are at a height of some
-<span class="measure" title="305 meter">1000 feet</span> above the town
-of Akhaltsykh; deep below you flows the Kur, the river of Ardahan as
-they call it, on its way to pierce the barrier of the border ranges by
-the passage of Borjom. On the side of the ridge a narrow site, whence
-the ground declines abruptly to the abyss below, is filled by a cluster
-of little chapels, backed, at the extreme end, by an imposing church. I
-wish I could offer my reader an ampler description; but just at this
-point I am trusting entirely to my memory and bewailing the loss of a
-portion of the day&rsquo;s notes. Counting the chapels, they would tell
-you that the monastery contained twelve churches, while according to
-our notions it possesses only one. That one is St. Saba, of which I
-offer two illustrations, one to present the <i>ensemble</i> of the
-building with the adjacent belfry (Fig. <a href="#fig013">13</a>), the
-other to exhibit the charming detail of the porch on the west (Fig.
-<a href="#fig014">14</a>).</p>
-<p class="par"></p>
-<div class="figure xd21e2511width" id="fig014"><img src=
-"images/fig014.jpg" alt="Fig. 14. Safar: Porch of St. Saba." width=
-"518" height="720">
-<p class="figureHead"><span class="sc"><span class="figNum">Fig.
-14.</span> Safar: Porch of St. Saba.</span></p>
-</div>
-<p class="par"></p>
-<p class="par">In a treeless country, devoid of the rich bewilderment
-of a luxuriant Nature, and moulded on a scale which would mock the more
-ambitious creations of human effort and is everywhere present to the
-eye, such a jewel in stone as St. Saba and many another Armenian temple
-are seen at an advantage which they would scarcely possess in Western
-landscapes. Planted on the rough hillsides, overlooking vast expanses
-of plain and mountain, winding river and lonely lake, they offer at
-once a contrast to the bleakness of Nature and a quiet epitome of her
-startling forms. Take this church as an example of the most finished
-workmanship; what a pleasure to turn from the endless crop of chaotic
-boulders to the even surface of these walls of faced masonry which the
-dry climate preserves ever fresh, to the sharply chiselled stone-work
-of the elaborate mouldings and bands of arabesques! Or, if you extend
-the vision to comprise the distant scene about you, it will often
-happen that the mountain masses tower one above another like the roofs
-and gables by your side, and culminate in the shape of a dome with a
-conical summit which repeats these outlines, like a reflection, against
-the sky.</p>
-<p class="par">St. Saba, although created through the munificence of a
-Georgian atabeg, is probably the work of an Armenian architect, and may
-certainly be counted as an example of the Armenian style. If we may
-trust a mutilated inscription in the interior, which has been in part
-deciphered by Brosset, the present church was built by the Atabeg
-Sargis, the son of Beka, who flourished between 1306 and 1334; and, if
-we could only be certain of the <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb64"
-href="#pb64" name="pb64">64</a>]</span>signification of the four
-numeral letters which are plainly seen on the face of the wall at one
-side of the window of the western porch, we should perhaps be able to
-fix the exact date. Dubois, indeed, supposes that it was constructed by
-Manuchar, brother of the last of the atabegs, Kuarkuareh, who fought
-with such valour against the Turks. But Dubois is relying upon what he
-terms &ldquo;constant tradition,&rdquo; and Brosset cautions us against
-accepting anything that he has written about Safar. One would certainly
-not have thought that such a well-instructed traveller, as was Dubois,
-could have mistaken a monument of the fourteenth century for a
-production of the later years of the sixteenth; and personally I should
-be inclined to attribute the edifice to a period at least as early as
-the fourteenth century.<a class="noteref" id="xd21e2524src" href=
-"#xd21e2524" name="xd21e2524src">4</a></p>
-<p class="par"><i>August 30.</i>&mdash;The Tartar who had accompanied
-us on the excursion to Safar had fired my cousin with an account of
-some stag and big game shooting which was to be found some four
-hours&rsquo; journey from the town. According to arrangement he made
-his appearance in the early morning, and found my cousin already
-prepared. I had resolved to devote the day to the town and outskirts,
-should our persecutors leave me free. But I had no sooner reached the
-bridge from our encampment on the bed of the river, in order to see my
-cousin on his way, than the plans of both of us were arrested by the
-advent of Ivan the Terrible, who rose from the cushions of a landau and
-summoned us to be seated at his side. I need not devote space to a
-repetition of fresh annoyances, since they had already almost reached
-their term. Was the departure of Colonel Alander connected with our
-arrival, and had he gone to satisfy himself about us at Abastuman? When
-at length we were able to see him he greeted us kindly, and furnished
-me with all the information of which I was in want. Let me therefore at
-once introduce the reader to the town of Akhaltsykh and to the people
-who dwell therein.</p>
-<p class="par">The view of the place which I offer (Fig. <a href=
-"#fig015">15</a>) was taken on the road to Akhalkalaki from the right
-bank of the river, some distance below the bridge. Within the precincts
-of the town the camera was strictly interdicted, although, since our
-tents were pitched just opposite the fortress, we might well have
-sketched that old-fashioned stronghold from memory when the canvas was
-<span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb65" href="#pb65" name=
-"pb65">65</a>]</span>closed for the night. The river is flowing towards
-you through grassy meadows, which are verdant even at this season, and
-which are being browsed by flocks of sheep and goats. On the right
-bank, on the left of the picture, and stretching across the middle
-distance to a promontory which is washed by the stream, lies the modern
-town with its gardens and substantial houses (Fig. 15, <i>a</i>); on
-the opposite shore, following the cliff from the extreme right of the
-illustration, you have first the old town (<i>b</i>), then the fortress
-(<i>c</i>), and last the gorge (<i>d</i>).</p>
-<p class="par"></p>
-<div class="figure xd21e2566width" id="fig015"><img src=
-"images/fig015.jpg" alt=
-"Fig. 15. Akhaltsykh from the Road to Akhalkalaki." width="720" height=
-"509">
-<p class="figureHead"><span class="sc"><span class="figNum">Fig.
-15.</span> Akhaltsykh from the Road to Akhalkalaki.</span></p>
-</div>
-<p class="par"></p>
-<p class="par">The inhabitants of Akhaltsykh are censused at
-15,000&mdash;at the time of our visit the registered figure was 15,120,
-although the latest tabulated statistics which Colonel Alander was able
-to show me gave a total of 15,914 for 1891. This total was divided in
-the following manner, according to religion and race: Gregorian
-Armenians, 9620; Catholic Armenians, 2875; Georgians and Russians,
-excluding the garrison, 782; Roman Catholics, 97; and 2540 Jews. I
-cannot help thinking that the proportion of Armenians is excessive, and
-that the governor has included among those of the Catholic persuasion a
-considerable number of Armenian Catholics who are of Georgian race. At
-Kutais I had been informed by a Roman Catholic priest that I should
-find among the communion of the Armenian Catholics at Akhaltsykh many
-Georgians whose ancestors had been devout Catholics and had become
-united to the Armenian Catholics, as the nearest Catholic Church, when
-the Georgian Church followed the Greek in cutting off relations with
-Rome. The Georgian kings forbade them to hold their services in
-Georgian, which had been their practice previously. These men were no
-doubt the converts of the old Roman Catholic missions; it is known that
-at the commencement of the thirteenth century the kings of Georgia were
-in correspondence with the popes, and that these communications and the
-despatch of missionaries to Georgia were continued in the following
-century.<a class="noteref" id="xd21e2575src" href="#xd21e2575" name=
-"xd21e2575src">5</a> The published statistics of 1886 give the number
-of Georgians as 2730 souls, and evidently include the large majority of
-them among the <i>Roman</i> Catholics. It is therefore probable that
-both lists fall into error, and that of the two the published table is
-the more reliable in all that concerns distinction of race. I append it
-in a footnote,<a class="noteref" id="xd21e2584src" href="#xd21e2584"
-name="xd21e2584src">6</a> and have only to <span class=
-"pagenum">[<a id="pb66" href="#pb66" name="pb66">66</a>]</span>add in
-this connection that in both lists the number of males exceeds that of
-females, and that for this reason the totals are in general too small.
-In Colonel Alander&rsquo;s list the male population amounts to 8335, in
-the published list to 8480 souls. The women must be at least as
-numerous as the men, although, owing to Eastern prejudices, they are
-much more difficult to count.</p>
-<p class="par">In several senses the town of Akhaltsykh has undergone a
-revolution during the course of the present century. At the
-commencement of this period we are introduced to a flourishing city of
-the Ottoman Empire, the capital of a pashalik, which was composed of
-six <i>sanjaks</i> or administrative divisions,<a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e2609src" href="#xd21e2609" name="xd21e2609src">7</a> in close
-communication with the neighbouring cities of Kars and Erzerum and the
-emporium of an extensive traffic in Georgian slaves.<a class="noteref"
-id="xd21e2615src" href="#xd21e2615" name="xd21e2615src">8</a> At this
-time it is said to have contained some 40,000 inhabitants, of whom the
-greater portion were Mussulmans.<a class="noteref" id="xd21e2625src"
-href="#xd21e2625" name="xd21e2625src">9</a> The site of the city was
-the same as that of the old town of the present day, but the houses
-extended to the immediate confines of the citadel. The whole was
-defended by moats and a double row of walls with battlements and
-flanking towers. The right bank of the river was embellished by
-numerous gardens, but there does not appear to have been anything like
-a town upon this side. The citadel was remarkable for its beautiful
-mosque, with an imposing minaret more than <span class="measure" title=
-"39.6 meter">130 feet</span> high. This minaret, like the mosque, was
-built of blocks of hewn stone; and, so solid was its structure, that it
-suffered little damage during the Russian bombardment, although hit by
-no less than seven cannon balls. Such was Akhaltsykh prior to its
-conquest by the Russians under Paskevich in 1828.<a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e2635src" href="#xd21e2635" name="xd21e2635src">10</a> The
-conquerors introduced far-reaching changes, of <span class=
-"pagenum">[<a id="pb67" href="#pb67" name="pb67">67</a>]</span>which
-the evidence remains to the present time. They razed a portion of the
-town in the vicinity of the fortress, which had furnished cover to the
-Turks in the desperate attempt which they subsequently made to
-recapture their old stronghold. The outer walls of the city were either
-demolished or fell into ruin and disappeared. The mosque of the citadel
-was converted into a Russian church and shorn of its minaret.<a class=
-"noteref" id="xd21e2661src" href="#xd21e2661" name=
-"xd21e2661src">11</a> A new town was founded on the right bank of the
-river and assigned to Armenian colonists. The Mussulman population
-emigrated into Turkey; and Akhaltsykh, which received a large body of
-Armenian immigrants from Kars and Erzerum, became practically a
-Christian town. The native inhabitants who were Christians erected
-belfries near their churches and heard with joy the sound of Christian
-bells. But it would seem that no great measure of prosperity attended
-this new birth. The immigrants were bent on doing business and opening
-shops; only those among them who were agriculturists did well. Commerce
-declined owing to the inclusion of the town within the frontier line of
-the Russian customs and the consequent interruption of relations with
-the neighbouring cities in the south. The traffic in slaves was, of
-course, abolished, and no considerable industry took its place.
-Akhaltsykh was shut up in her corner of Asia; for the impracticable
-barrier of the border ranges walls her off from the sea. Still the fact
-that the place was a frontier fortress of the Russian Empire must have
-been productive of at least a local trade. In 1833 the population
-appears to have numbered only 11,000 souls;<a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e2667src" href="#xd21e2667" name="xd21e2667src">12</a> but it
-probably increased from that date, year by year. When Kars came into
-the permanent possession of the Russians, the newly-acquired fortress
-in part supplanted Akhaltsykh; and the progressive decline of the
-Turkish Empire has further contributed to relieve the Government of the
-necessity of providing the last-named stronghold with modern
-fortifications. At the time of my visit it was evident that the town
-was declining and losing importance year by year. I questioned several
-of the better-informed among the inhabitants as to the cause of this
-unhappy state of things. &ldquo;You have long enjoyed the blessings of
-security,&rdquo; I observed, &ldquo;both <span class="pagenum">[<a id=
-"pb68" href="#pb68" name="pb68">68</a>]</span>for property and life;
-yet in place of a steadily increasing prosperity I see nothing but
-signs of impoverishment and falling-off.&rdquo; As usual in the East, I
-received several answers; but all were unanimous in declaring that the
-principal reason was the depopulation of the surrounding country, owing
-to the persistent emigration of the Mussulmans and the want of
-colonists to take their place. Another cause, they said, was the
-decline in military importance to which I have already referred.</p>
-<p class="par">The modern town on the right bank was nearest to our
-encampment; may I therefore commence the account of what we saw at
-Akhaltsykh with a stroll through its garden-lined streets? The houses
-are nice little one-storeyed dwellings, some built of brick, others of
-stone. A feature were the quaint little spouts to carry off the
-rain-water, shaped at the ends to resemble dragons&rsquo; heads. I have
-already spoken of the &ldquo;cherry-coloured roofing&rdquo;&mdash;an
-effect which we discovered was due to no more interesting process than
-a coat of paint applied to corrugated iron. In a similar manner the
-roof of a church would be tinted a cool green, and the combination of
-these hues with the rich foliage was extremely pleasing to the eye.
-Where the scattered tenements collect together and you reach the
-business quarter, here and there a modern shop may be seen; but the
-handicrafts for which Akhaltsykh is in some degree famous are still
-carried on in those brick-built booths with their shadowed recesses
-which constitute the little world of the Eastern artificer, at once his
-workshop and the mart for his wares. We examined some of the
-productions of the workers in silver without being tempted to buy. We
-were made aware of the existence of a silk industry for which the raw
-material is brought from Georgia. We visited the schools and conversed
-with the masters; but the scholars were making holiday. Akhaltsykh
-possesses two important schools, the one belonging to the Armenian
-community, the other a Russian State school. That of the Armenians
-provides education to some 300 boys and youths, and to a still larger
-number of girls. Both the Gregorian Armenians and the Catholics attend
-this establishment; religious instruction is imparted to the members of
-either communion by teachers of their own persuasion in separate
-classes. We were told that the yearly income amounted to 14,000 roubles
-(&pound;1400), exclusive of what was received from the girls; and that
-this sum included the receipts of the theatre which is attached to this
-enterprising school. The Russian institution boasts of 300 <span class=
-"pagenum">[<a id="pb69" href="#pb69" name=
-"pb69">69</a>]</span>scholars, of whom 75 per cent are Armenians; it
-does not possess a branch for girls. On the other hand, it indulges in
-the modern fashion of technical instruction, a side which does not
-appear to be cultivated in the Armenian school. Its staff consists of
-fifteen teachers; a fee of twelve roubles (&pound;1:4s.) a year is
-levied, but many poor pupils are admitted free. A few boarders are
-received, whose parents live at a distance; and I may here remark that,
-except in cases which I shall endeavour to specify, all the schools of
-which I shall make mention in the following pages are practically
-day-schools. We were taken to see the churches&mdash;commonplace
-edifices&mdash;of which the Armenians, with so many examples of noble
-architecture about them, ought really to be ashamed. The largest of
-them is called the cathedral, and belongs to the Gregorians; there is
-also, not far from it, an Armenian Catholic church. West of the
-cathedral on the hillside&mdash;it appears in my illustration&mdash;we
-were shown a second church belonging to the Gregorian community; but I
-do not remember its name. It was at Akhaltsykh that we were first
-impressed by the custom of the Armenians to kiss the ground when they
-face the altar in prayer. Such abject prostration in the dust we had
-never before witnessed in any Christian church. It was Oriental; it was
-pathetic&mdash;the gesture of a poor <i>raya</i> at the feet of his
-savage lord.... Last of all we were shown the Court of Justice, where a
-resident magistrate and visiting judges from Tiflis dispense the law
-behind a barrier of baize-covered tables beneath a life-size portrait
-of the Tsar. And that is what we saw of the modern town of Akhaltsykh;
-I doubt whether there is much more to be seen.</p>
-<p class="par">The old town on the left bank presents a striking
-contrast to its young rival across the water. You gain the bridge and
-pause for a moment to follow the many-channelled river threading the
-banks of yellow pebbles in its bed; flowing through a landscape of wild
-and bare hills, which streams with the garish daylight of the East. The
-road mounts the slope of the opposite cliff or convexity, which, a
-little further west, joins the more abrupt ridge of crag and precipice
-crowned by the battlements of the fortress. In this cliff, with its
-swelling shapes, soft soil and irregular hummocks, the Armenians have
-discovered a burrowing-ground exactly suited to their requirements; the
-gaping apertures of chimneys and windows threaten to engulf the
-guileless traveller who walks, unwitting, between the houses up the
-hillside. No vegetation relieves the monotony of the constant hues of
-ochre, and the tiers <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb70" href="#pb70"
-name="pb70">70</a>]</span>of clay and stone which represent the larger
-tenements mingle naturally with the stone-strewn surface of the friable
-earth. We saw two churches; one is administered by the Armenian
-Catholics, the other, which is situated a little above the first, is a
-Russian Orthodox church. Besides these larger buildings there are two
-chapels or prayer-houses, which scarcely attain the dignity of a
-church. These belong to the Gregorians, and we were told that the Roman
-Catholics have a small chapel within the precincts of the old town. But
-what interested us most was the Jewish quarter with its two spacious
-synagogues. We admired the simplicity of these airy chambers&mdash;in
-the middle the pulpit, the benches disposed around; and we pictured to
-ourselves the eager faces of the congregation, upturned from those
-benches to the grave preacher and mobile to every turn of his
-discourse. The Jew is a rare creature upon the tableland of Armenia; he
-finds it difficult to exist by the side of the Armenian, who is his
-rival in his own peculiar sphere.<a class="noteref" id="xd21e2686src"
-href="#xd21e2686" name="xd21e2686src">13</a> There is a saying that in
-cleverness a Jew is equal to two Greeks, a single Armenian to two
-Jews.</p>
-<p class="par">The community gathered round us and almost filled the
-synagogue, in which we sat and rested for a considerable space. Two
-distinct types of physiognomy were represented; on the one hand the
-fat, florid cheeks and thick lips which are so characteristic of the
-coarser strain of Jew, on the other the cavernous features, wrinkled
-skin, aquiline nose and penetrating eyes which are the monument of the
-ancient refinement of the Jewish race. When we contrasted the
-destitution and even the misery of this quarter with the air of
-prosperity which the synagogue displayed, it was evident that the
-community were undergoing a period of adversity, and we enquired the
-reasons of this decline. They attributed their fallen state to the
-competition of the Armenians; the Armenians, they said, were good
-workers and a great people, the Jews few in numbers and isolated. There
-was nothing left for the poor Jew but to tramp round the villages,
-carrying his goods upon his back. They must emigrate, they were
-emigrating.... Alas! we thought, to what distant land across the
-mountains, across the sea, shall the poor Jew wander out? How shall he
-escape the dangers of the way, with the hand of the Government against
-him, with hatred and contempt dogging his weary steps? <span class=
-"pagenum">[<a id="pb71" href="#pb71" name="pb71">71</a>]</span>And the
-Christianity by our side appeared detestable to us, doubly odious by
-its want of every Christian virtue and by the mummery of its gaudy
-symbols and vulgar shows. The Jew carries with him the vastness of
-Asia, the sublimity of the worship of a single God; may the nations be
-fertilised by the powerful intellect and their religions elevated by
-the high conceptions of the Hebrew race!</p>
-<p class="par">The fortress, with which the old town naturally
-communicates, was to us strictly forbidden ground. Although I urged its
-worthlessness as a reason why we should be permitted to visit it,
-Captain Taranoffsky would on no account give way. The mosque, the
-present church, to which I have already alluded, was of course all that
-we wanted to see. It stands on the northern side of the fortress
-enclosure; the base of the minaret still remains and is crowned by a
-little cupola to which is affixed a cross. An inscription on the gate
-by which the court is entered gives as the date of construction the
-year of the Hegira 1166 (<span class="sc">A.D.</span>
-1752&ndash;53).<a class="noteref" id="xd21e2702src" href="#xd21e2702"
-name="xd21e2702src">14</a> Dubois informs us that the architect was an
-Italian;<a class="noteref" id="xd21e2708src" href="#xd21e2708" name=
-"xd21e2708src">15</a> but Brosset, who says that it was built upon the
-model of St. Sophia, is silent upon this point. For the character of
-the interior as it existed before the Russian occupation I may refer
-the reader to Dubois. The fountain in the centre of the court is
-supplied by an underground aqueduct which conveys the waters of a
-limpid spring, some seven miles off.<a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e2714src" href="#xd21e2714" name="xd21e2714src">16</a></p>
-<p class="par">From the old town we slowly made our way back to the
-encampment, enjoying the scene, observing the passers-by. Here and
-there we would meet a group of Russian soldiers in their white tunics,
-taking their evening stroll. Their large frames, fair hair, shaven
-faces and coarse features contrasted with the neatness of the Oriental
-type. Their little eyes, deeply set behind the flat nose, were answered
-on every side by the glances that proceeded from the large and lustrous
-eyes of the Armenian race. The sheep and cattle were winding into the
-town from the meadows, each animal finding its stable for itself.
-<span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb72" href="#pb72" name=
-"pb72">72</a>]</span></p>
-</div>
-<div class="footnotes">
-<hr class="fnsep">
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e2396" href="#xd21e2396src" name="xd21e2396">1</a></span> Radde
-(<i lang="de">Reisen in Hoch Armenien, Petermann&rsquo;s Mitth.</i>,
-Gotha, 1875, p. 59) says: &ldquo;It appears that at least in this
-district potato culture is making considerable progress in recent times
-among the Armenians.&rdquo; He attributes this to the example of the
-Molokans and Dukhobortsy.&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href=
-"#xd21e2396src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e2462" href="#xd21e2462src" name="xd21e2462">2</a></span> By the
-road the distance, according to our coachman, would be <span class=
-"measure" title="16 kilometer">15 versts</span> or <span class=
-"measure" title="16.1 kilometer">10 miles</span>; by the track which we
-followed <span class="measure" title="10.7 kilometer">10 versts</span>
-or 6&frac12; miles.&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href=
-"#xd21e2462src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e2488" href="#xd21e2488src" name="xd21e2488">3</a></span> Dubois
-de Montp&eacute;reux, <i lang="fr">Voyage autour du Caucase</i>, Paris
-1839&ndash;43, vol. ii.&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href=
-"#xd21e2488src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e2524" href="#xd21e2524src" name="xd21e2524">4</a></span> Brosset,
-<i lang="fr">Voyage arch&eacute;ologique en Transcaucasie</i>, St.
-Petersburg, 1849, <span lang="fr">1re livraison, 2me rapport</span>,
-pp. 119 <i>seq.</i>, and atlas, plates v. and vi.; Dubois, <i>op.
-cit.</i> vol. ii. pp. 292 <i>seq.</i>&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href=
-"#xd21e2524src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e2575" href="#xd21e2575src" name="xd21e2575">5</a></span> Brosset,
-<i>op. cit.</i> p. 143.&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href=
-"#xd21e2575src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e2584" href="#xd21e2584src" name="xd21e2584">6</a></span>
-Population of Akhaltsykh:&mdash;</p>
-<ul>
-<li><span class="itemNum">(1)</span> According to nationality:
-Armenians, 10,417; Georgians, 2730; Jews, 2545; others (including 145
-Russians and 110 Poles), 424&mdash;Total, 16,116.</li>
-<li><span class="itemNum">(2)</span> According to religion: Gregorian
-Armenians, 9678; Catholic Armenians, 739; Roman Catholics, 2311; Jews,
-2545; others (including 777 <span class="corr" id="xd21e2598" title=
-"Source: Russians">Russian</span> Orthodox, 9 Lutherans, and 57 Sunni
-Mohammedans), 843. (Statistics concerning the populations of
-Transcaucasia derived from the family lists of 1886. Published by
-Government, Tiflis, 1893.)</li>
-</ul>
-<p class="par">&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href=
-"#xd21e2584src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e2609" href="#xd21e2609src" name="xd21e2609">7</a></span> They
-were: Akhaltsykh, Atzkur, Aspinja, Khertvis, Akhalkalaki, Ardahan
-(Dubois, <i>op. cit.</i> vol. ii. pp. 284&ndash;85).&nbsp;<a class=
-"fnarrow" href="#xd21e2609src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e2615" href="#xd21e2615src" name="xd21e2615">8</a></span> The
-slave trade was carried on through Circassians, who kidnapped the
-inhabitants of Georgia proper and fled with them across the Turkish
-border to Akhaltsykh (Dubois, <a id="xd21e2617" name=
-"xd21e2617"></a><i>op. cit.</i> vol. ii. pp. 261&ndash;62; Haxthausen,
-<i>Transcaucasia</i>, London, 1854, p. 100).&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow"
-href="#xd21e2615src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e2625" href="#xd21e2625src" name="xd21e2625">9</a></span> Adrien
-Dupr&eacute; in Gamba, <i lang="fr">Voyage dans la Russie
-m&eacute;ridionale</i>, Paris, 1826, vol. i. p. 403.&nbsp;<a class=
-"fnarrow" href="#xd21e2625src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e2635" href="#xd21e2635src" name="xd21e2635">10</a></span> For the
-interesting siege and capture of Akhaltsykh by Paskevich I may refer
-the reader to Monteith, <i>Kars and Erzerum</i>, London, 1856, ch. vi.
-pp. 182 <i>seq.</i>; Dubois, <i>op. cit.</i> vol. ii. pp. 258
-<i>seq.</i>, and a note to Haxthausen, <i>op. cit.</i> p. 100. Eli
-Smith, who travelled in the country in 1830&ndash;31, informs us that
-the siege of Akhaltsykh was one of the two occasions upon which the
-Turks gave the Russians a fair trial of their bravery. The other was at
-Baiburt (<i>Missionary Researches in Armenia</i>, London, 1834, p.
-82).&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href="#xd21e2635src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e2661" href="#xd21e2661src" name="xd21e2661">11</a></span> Dubois
-saw it still standing in 1833. I cannot find when it was cut down.
-Brosset (<i>op. cit.</i> p. 149) mentions the conversion of the
-mosque.&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href="#xd21e2661src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e2667" href="#xd21e2667src" name="xd21e2667">12</a></span> Dubois,
-<i>op. cit.</i> vol. ii. p. 263.&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href=
-"#xd21e2667src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e2686" href="#xd21e2686src" name="xd21e2686">13</a></span> Eli
-Smith informs us that at the time of his journey (1830&ndash;31)
-Akhaltsykh was the only place, coming within the range of his enquiry
-in Turkish Armenia, that contained any Jews (<i>Missionary
-Researches</i>, p. 100).&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href=
-"#xd21e2686src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e2702" href="#xd21e2702src" name="xd21e2702">14</a></span>
-Brosset, <i>op. cit.</i> p. 149.&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href=
-"#xd21e2702src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e2708" href="#xd21e2708src" name="xd21e2708">15</a></span> Dubois,
-<i>op. cit.</i> vol. ii. p. 267.&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href=
-"#xd21e2708src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e2714" href="#xd21e2714src" name="xd21e2714">16</a></span>
-Brosset, <i>op. cit.</i> pp. 139, 149.&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href=
-"#xd21e2714src">&uarr;</a></p>
-</div>
-</div>
-<div id="ch4" class="div1 chapter"><span class="pagenum">[<a href=
-"#xd21e315">Contents</a>]</span>
-<div class="divHead">
-<h2 class="label">CHAPTER IV</h2>
-<h2 class="main">TO AKHALKALAKI</h2>
-</div>
-<div class="divBody">
-<p class="par first">The distance by road between Akhaltsykh and
-Akhalkalaki is <span class="measure" title="70.4 kilometer">66
-versts</span>, or nearly <span class="measure" title=
-"70.8 kilometer">44 miles</span>. The post divides the journey into
-four stages, of which the shortest is 9, the longest <span class=
-"measure" title="19.3 kilometer">12 miles</span>. The charges, which, I
-think, were uniform, whenever we were able to avail ourselves of
-posting facilities, were three kopeks or farthings per verst for each
-horse supplied, and twelve kopeks for the carriage between each two
-stations, said to be a charge for greasing the wheels. In addition, a
-tax of ten kopeks for the whole journey is levied upon each horse, the
-proceeds of which are due to Government by the contractors who supply
-the teams. A victoria may be procured in the larger centres, and for
-this luxury there is, I believe, no extra charge. Four horses will
-usually be harnessed to it abreast, and an equal number to the luggage
-cart.</p>
-<p class="par"><i>August 31.</i>&mdash;At ten o&rsquo;clock we left
-Akhaltsykh on our journey southwards and followed the tripping river on
-the right bank. It was the same road we had taken for a short distance
-on our way to Safar, the same aspect of the picturesque site of the
-town (Fig. <a href="#fig015">15</a>). Between us and the stream lay the
-stretch of meadow where the sheep and cattle of the townspeople
-browse&mdash;a grassy plain set in the barren landscape, a rare
-incident in an Eastern scene. Beyond the water the ground rose in
-gentle undulations of bank and hummock and hill, the parched and
-friable surface yellow with stubble or with the exhausted growth of
-weeds. In the background, some five miles distant, stretched the spurs
-of the border ranges, scantily wooded along the summits and upon the
-slopes. On our other hand, towards the south, all prospect was excluded
-by barren hummocks of crumbling soil.</p>
-<p class="par">We had covered about 2&frac12; miles, when before us lay
-the <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb73" href="#pb73" name=
-"pb73">73</a>]</span>junction of the rivers, of the river of Akhaltsykh
-with the Kur or Ardahan river, for it is known under both names. From
-their nearer margins to our road extended a stretch of alluvial ground,
-filling the angle between the two streams. Their further banks are
-high, and are bordered by hummock hills, a feature most pronounced on
-the bank of the Kur. The united waters break through the soft hummocks
-and become engulfed in the rocky barrier of the border ranges&mdash;a
-bold and lofty wall of mountain, partially covered with wood. In the
-hollow is situated a village with trees and pleasant verdure, an oasis
-in the sterile landscape around. We were told that its name was Tsinis
-and that it was inhabited by Mussulmans; beyond it, through the
-glasses, we discerned the road to Tiflis entering the jaws of the
-gorge.</p>
-<p class="par">Skirting the barren convexities which closed the view on
-our right hand, and upon slightly higher ground, we gained the left
-bank of the Kur and proceeded along it for a short space up stream.
-Leaving on our right a small Armenian village, we then descended to the
-river-bed; strips of vegetables had been planted along the water, which
-is here crossed by a strong wooden bridge. The stream was flowing
-towards us, newly escaped from the narrows, where it is confined by
-rocky cliffs of forbidding aspect, harbouring a scanty growth of
-stunted bush. A few poplars lined its immediate margin, and a slender
-fringe of green. It had a width of some <span class="measure" title=
-"27.4 meter">30 yards</span> at the mouth of the passage, a rapid
-current, charged with soil and tawny, which divides into several
-channels and forms a broad and pebbly bed as it issues upon the open
-plain. After crossing the bridge to the right bank, we passed a
-Mussulman village where the women were sifting the season&rsquo;s
-grain.</p>
-<p class="par">Our course for the rest of the day lay on this bank of
-the river; the road leaves the plain and dives into the narrows, where
-walls of rock enclose the swirling stream. The Kur is following the
-base of the border ranges, piercing the spurs where they meet the
-outskirts of the Dochus Punar. In places it has a width of some
-<span class="measure" title="45.7 meter">50 yards</span> or more, and
-the eye cannot penetrate the dull depths; but more often it is a narrow
-and shallow torrent, wreathing and foaming over the rocks. On the left
-bank, as we passed a break in the mountains, it is joined by the
-clearer waters of a little tributary, the Uravel, which wound below us
-at Safar.</p>
-<p class="par">The weather was delightful; a cool air, a brilliant sun,
-a few white clouds floating in the blue. Eagles, a small species,
-circled <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb74" href="#pb74" name=
-"pb74">74</a>]</span>against the heaven or alighted on grisly crags.
-The sides of these low mountains are composed of a lava, dry and
-barren, which in places is disposed in layers of conglomerate, like the
-masonry of a Cyclopean wall. We passed the seventh verst-stone from
-Akhaltsykh, having covered over 4&frac12; miles. A short space further
-and we were opposite a Georgian village, placed on the hillside of the
-left bank.</p>
-<p class="par">Between the thirteenth and sixteenth verst-stones
-(8&frac12; and 10&frac12; miles) the range opens, and is seen, beyond a
-plain of about half a mile in width, pursuing a direction from
-south-east towards north-west on the right bank. On our left hand we
-passed a few miserable houses which, we ascertained, were inhabited by
-Kurds. We entered a country of bleak hummocks, where barren and yellow
-hills closed the view. Among such surroundings lies the posting station
-of Rustav, <span class="measure" title="19.2 kilometer">18
-versts</span> or <span class="measure" title="19.3 kilometer">12
-miles</span> along our road. By half-past twelve o&rsquo;clock we had
-changed horses, having arrived a quarter of an hour before.</p>
-<p class="par">The characteristics of the landscape between Rustav and
-Khertvis may be summarised in a few words. For awhile the bare, low
-mountains again border the river on either side, at no great distance
-from the shore. But they tend to circle in amphitheatres and to leave a
-respite of even ground. Little rills descend from the heights above the
-valleys and give birth to verdure and shade. The further we proceed,
-these oases increase in extent, enhancing the contrast between sterile,
-lonely walls of rock, and luscious gardens where bright birds flit
-through the scene.</p>
-<p class="par">Thus on the left bank, shortly after leaving Rustav, the
-eye was greeted by such welcome relief. A high ridge of grey rock
-descended to the river, but rich verdure clothed its base. The lower
-slopes were terraced with plantations of Indian corn, and among the
-stubble herds of heifers grazed the sweet herbs. Rivulets started from
-the very summit, where a grove of trees was outlined on the sky. The
-falling water was diffused into a network of tiny channels, which fed
-the fertile earth. Such were the outskirts of a Mussulman village, of
-which the name is Gobet. The foreground, on our side of the river, was
-strewn with boulders of volcanic rock. Large lizards darted from cranny
-to cranny, and brilliant birds with blue breasts and yellow collars
-took wing at our approach.</p>
-<p class="par">The note, thus early sounded, attained increasing volume
-in the valleys of Akhashen, of Aspinja and of Khertvis. The first
-<span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb75" href="#pb75" name=
-"pb75">75</a>]</span>is situated some five miles from Rustav, and takes
-its name from a Mussulman village on the left bank.<a class="noteref"
-id="xd21e2782src" href="#xd21e2782" name="xd21e2782src">1</a> Akhashen
-is a characteristic Eastern village; the tenements are built in
-terraces up the slope, scarcely distinguished from the soil. We admired
-the bold site and pleasant setting of garden; at our feet, in the
-fuller light of this open circus, the Kur sent flashes of blue,
-reflecting the bright zenith, from the transparent surface of its
-yellow stream. On our left hand we recognised the familiar outline of
-the border ranges stretching away from south to north.</p>
-<p class="par">Next, Aspinja lay before us, an open valley, a bower of
-trees, water trickling from the hillside and collected in little
-channels which seamed the floor of fertile earth.<a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e2793src" href="#xd21e2793" name="xd21e2793src">2</a> We were
-skirting the gardens of two Mussulman villages, and some of the
-inhabitants happened to pass by. They looked unhappy; we spoke to one
-of their number and elicited the usual quantity of doubtful truths. It
-is certain that all the Mussulmans of the Kur valley are discontented;
-and these two communities were preparing to emigrate. Mention was made
-to us of a recent ordinance of the Russian Government under which they
-would be required to serve in the Russian army, and perhaps to fight
-against the forces of Islam.<a class="noteref" id="xd21e2804src" href=
-"#xd21e2804" name="xd21e2804src">3</a> Aspinja, which we soon reached,
-is also inhabited by Mussulmans. The slopes above the village are
-planted with orchards, and every corner of the little plain is
-cultivated. Indian corn, tobacco and the stubble of cereals were on all
-sides present to the eye. It is some distance beyond the oasis to the
-posting station, a stage of <span class="measure" title=
-"17.1 kilometer">16 versts</span> (10&frac12; miles) from Rustav.</p>
-<p class="par">It was nearly three o&rsquo;clock when we arrived at
-this station; luscious water-melons grew in the little garden and
-relieved the dulness of our mid-day meal. But the smiling landscape lay
-behind us, long out-distanced; and we were again in the fork of a
-barren gorge. Low ridges break off to the river in rocky cliffs, which
-descend to a narrow margin of level ground. From the <span class=
-"pagenum">[<a id="pb76" href="#pb76" name="pb76">76</a>]</span>valley
-of Aspinja these uninteresting walls are continued to the outskirts of
-Khertvis.</p>
-<p class="par">Such was the monotonous scene through which the Russian
-road wound during the course of our afternoon&rsquo;s drive. Beside us
-raced the river; we faced the current; at short intervals large, loose
-stones were disposed in the shape of circles in the shallows at no
-great distance from the shore. We were told that in winter fish are
-caught within these circles by means of traps placed at opposite sides.
-In summer the Georgian fisherman trusts to his casting-net, a laborious
-process which was being pursued by one of the fraternity for the reward
-of a few small fish. On the opposite bank we were impressed by the
-proportions of a cliff of lava, of which the face was disposed
-throughout in spheroidal blocks rising immediately from the
-water&rsquo;s edge.</p>
-<p class="par">At last the landscape opened, the most extensive of
-these oases, the fertile valley of Khertvis. It is heralded from afar
-by a line of orchards and by gardens terraced up the slope. A
-well-planned and elaborate system of aqueducts and channels dispense
-water on every side. Then the road rises up a hillside and commands a
-startling scene. Below you, crowning a crag at the confluence of two
-rivers, a well-preserved example of a medi&aelig;val castle on a large
-scale lifts its towers against a background of lofty cliffs (Fig.
-<a href="#fig016">16</a>). A village cowers at the foot of the
-fortress, almost hidden by dense trees. Such is the castle and township
-of Khertvis, situated at the junction of the river of Akhalkalaki with
-the Kur. The road follows the right bank of the first of these streams,
-and the station is some distance from the town. We were obliged to
-leave the carriage and entrust our effects to the villagers, who
-carried them down the steep sides of the high cliff. It was six
-o&rsquo;clock; we crossed the river of Akhalkalaki by a little
-footbridge, and pitched our tents on the floor of a shady garden, not
-far from the margin of the Kur.</p>
-<p class="par"></p>
-<div class="figure xd21e2822width" id="fig016"><img src=
-"images/fig016.jpg" alt="Fig. 16. Castle of Khertvis." width="720"
-height="512">
-<p class="figureHead"><span class="sc"><span class="figNum">Fig.
-16.</span> Castle of Khertvis.</span></p>
-</div>
-<p class="par"></p>
-<p class="par">A motley group of people collected about us; of what
-race, of what faith? Mussulmans! We expected and received the answer,
-although there was little except our knowledge of the checkered history
-of these valleys to indicate their adhesion to Islam. The owner of the
-garden bore the name of Bin Ali Bey Vishnadzi, and was of mixed
-Georgian and Turkish blood; he stands in the centre of my illustration,
-in Cossack dress, with his cap on one side (Fig. <a href=
-"#fig017">17</a>). His cast of countenance is Georgian, and the hair is
-somewhat fair; yet his uncle, Hasan Bey, has the <span class=
-"pagenum">[<a id="pb77" href="#pb77" name="pb77">77</a>]</span>Turkish
-type. His mixed ancestry is no exception among the villagers, and they
-all call themselves Turks. Their number was given to me as 1500, with
-200 houses; the Russian census, which classes them as Georgians, bears
-out these figures as approximately correct.<a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e2836src" href="#xd21e2836" name="xd21e2836src">4</a> Among them
-are a handful of Armenian Christians; the old man with a staff, seated
-in the foreground of my picture, was our guide from the road to our
-pleasant camping-ground, and belonged to the Armenian race.</p>
-<p class="par"></p>
-<div class="figure xd21e2840width" id="fig017"><img src=
-"images/fig017.jpg" alt="Fig. 17. Group of Villagers at Khertvis."
-width="607" height="410">
-<p class="figureHead"><span class="sc"><span class="figNum">Fig.
-17.</span> Group of Villagers at Khertvis.</span></p>
-</div>
-<p class="par"></p>
-<p class="par">If reliance can be placed on the figure given by Dubois,
-the population of Khertvis has almost doubled since 1833.<a class=
-"noteref" id="xd21e2849src" href="#xd21e2849" name="xd21e2849src">5</a>
-However this may be, the township is now in full decline; misery was
-written in the faces of a great part of the inhabitants, of whom many
-were preparing to leave Russian soil. As we passed through the streets,
-between the tumble-down houses, we observed that some of the shops had
-been permanently closed. Is it their unfitness to flourish under
-systematic government? Or the policy of the Russian Government to
-discourage Mussulmans, with their Turkish sympathies, or some special
-causes which we were unable to ascertain? Our stay was too short to
-sift fact from fable; and <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb78" href=
-"#pb78" name="pb78">78</a>]</span>a rigid reticence was observed by the
-leading people, who were evidently under the influence of
-fear.<a class="noteref" id="xd21e2857src" href="#xd21e2857" name=
-"xd21e2857src">6</a></p>
-<p class="par">The river of Akhalkalaki, or the Toporovan river, as it
-is sometimes called, enters the valley from a little north of east. It
-appeared to us to contain as much water as the Kur, into which it
-swirled.<a class="noteref" id="xd21e2871src" href="#xd21e2871" name=
-"xd21e2871src">7</a> The united streams for a short space pursue a
-westerly direction until they settle to a normal course towards the
-north. The affluent washes the northern side of the castled rock, which
-protects a tongue of alluvial ground at its southern base. On this land
-is situated the little township, embowered in leafy groves. The castle
-dates from a remote period; and even the present structure is ancient,
-although it belongs to different epochs. The citadel with the little
-chapel, occupying the summit of the perpendicular rock, is a work of
-the middle of the fourteenth century, when the Georgian atabegs were
-the lords of the land; the remaining portion, with its several towers,
-is more modern.<a class="noteref" id="xd21e2877src" href="#xd21e2877"
-name="xd21e2877src">8</a> We ourselves were unable to visit the
-edifice, which we were never tired of admiring from the river-bed.
-Behind it soar the walls of volcanic material, where the younger have
-been forced through the older lavas and have produced fantastic
-contortions of the rocks.<a class="noteref" id="xd21e2889src" href=
-"#xd21e2889" name="xd21e2889src">9</a></p>
-<p class="par"><i>September 1.</i>&mdash;From Khertvis we made an
-excursion up the valley of the Kur to the crypts of Vardzia, situated
-on the left bank, some nine miles above the confluence with the
-Toporovan. For the greater part of the journey, which is performed on
-ponies, you follow the right bank of the river, along a path which in
-many places becomes a mere track. We had soon left the shady groves
-behind us, our clever little ponies often obliged to pick their
-footsteps, where an outcrop of rock or blocks of fallen stone
-obstructed the margin of level ground. On either bank, beyond this
-margin, high hills enclose the narrow valley; here and there
-<span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb79" href="#pb79" name=
-"pb79">79</a>]</span>with naked crags, more generally with stone-strewn
-slopes, harbouring a scanty growth of parched grass. No oasis, not a
-sign of a human being, no visible animal life. The landscape streaming
-with light, and the brawling Kur breaking over the boulders which
-encumber its bed. But the climate was delicious, and the blue zenith
-was flaked with luminous cloud.</p>
-<p class="par">After over an hour&rsquo;s ride in this confined valley,
-we reached the ruins of a fort, or small castle, and issued upon more
-open ground. The valley expands on the right bank of the river in an
-irregular series of hill and dale. We passed the rush-grown banks of a
-little lake, so blue and clear that it lay like a jewel on the waste.
-It is called S&uuml;l&uuml;k, or lake of leeches; and Hasan Bey, our
-guide, told us that leeches abound. In a hollow on the further side of
-this lake we came upon the gardens of the Mussulman village of
-Margistan. Beyond this oasis, and beyond the open ground about us, we
-could see the valley contracting, the river flowing through a gorge,
-overhung by perpendicular cliffs; and we were shown our path climbing
-the side of the cliff and entering the jaws of the gorge.</p>
-<p class="par">We had crossed or skirted the volcanic circus, with the
-lake in the extinct crater, of which Dubois has furnished us with a
-learned account.<a class="noteref" id="xd21e2906src" href="#xd21e2906"
-name="xd21e2906src">10</a> Before us lay the defile through the
-gigantic dam of volcanic mountain which has opened, as if by miracle,
-to the puny stream.</p>
-<p class="par">Soon we are winding along that path, about at mid-height
-of the cliffs, the river brawling far beneath us, a tortuous thread of
-foam. It is a remarkable scene, a freak of Nature on a large scale, of
-which none of us, at least, has seen the like. The volcanic layers have
-been split by vertical fissures, and huge masses of conglomerate rock
-tower high above us, almost separated from the mountain side. Their
-masonry of cemented blocks gives them the appearance of castles, the
-work of a more than human hand; they threaten to tumble headlong into
-the valley, a fate to which some have already succumbed. They remind me
-of the Devil&rsquo;s city of Montpellier-le-Vieux, in the Cevennes
-country&mdash;a mere sprite&rsquo;s village by their side. The dark
-colour of the rocks, the gloom of the passage, the height of the
-cliffs, soaring from the twilight in the hollow to jagged summits some
-<span class="measure" title="152">500</span> to <span class="measure"
-title="183 meter">600 feet</span> <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb80"
-href="#pb80" name="pb80">80</a>]</span>above the gulf, all contribute
-to enhance the impression of mystery and to suggest the presence of a
-prince of fiends.</p>
-<p class="par">Opposite us, on the left bank, the bold outline of the
-fish-backed ridge is crowned with the ruinous remains of masonry,
-barely distinguished from the rock. A long line of crumbling edifices
-marks the site of a considerable fortress; in the depths beneath, at
-the foot of the perpendicular mountain, a wall descends the last slope
-to the margin of the water and cuts off access to the valley from the
-river-bed. A few miserable huts are seen in the hollow: who could
-inhabit such a weird and lonely spot? Kurds, they say, as though they
-were no human beings&mdash;a lingering remnant of Turkish times. The
-ruins are the relics of Zeda Tmogvi, a stronghold famous in the history
-of these lands.<a class="noteref" id="xd21e2935src" href="#xd21e2935"
-name="xd21e2935src">11</a></p>
-<p class="par">Beyond this gorge the valley opens and resumes the more
-normal character of a torrent bordered by lofty hillsides. The further
-you proceed, the floor of the hollow is covered by richer verdure,
-while a grove of fruit trees spreads shade. Are they wild or were they
-planted? The extreme loneliness of the scene was scarcely broken by a
-sign of human life. We forded the Kur, and, after winding through these
-orchards of the river margin, doubled a projecting spur of the valley
-wall. We were at the foot of a perpendicular cliff which displayed
-irregular rows of gaping caves at a considerable height above the
-river-bed. These grottoes have been cut in the face of a layer of
-volcanic rock of extraordinary smoothness and of flesh-coloured hue.
-The layer does not extend to the summit of the cliff, which is composed
-of a conglomerate with greyish tints (Fig. <a href=
-"#fig018">18</a>).</p>
-<p class="par"></p>
-<div class="figure xd21e2949width" id="fig018"><img src=
-"images/fig018.jpg" alt="Fig. 18. Vardzia, the Troglodyte City." width=
-"515" height="720">
-<p class="figureHead"><span class="sc"><span class="figNum">Fig.
-18.</span> Vardzia, the Troglodyte City.</span></p>
-</div>
-<p class="par"></p>
-<p class="par">It was Vardzia, a troglodyte city of a remote antiquity,
-which the Georgians and Armenians believe to have been founded in the
-twelfth century by the father of Queen Thamar, and to have been
-completed by that princess. They say it was a favourite residence of
-Thamar; you are shown the cave in which she resided during winter, the
-terrace where she spent the summer days, the chapel where her brilliant
-court assembled, even, it is affirmed, the tomb where her remains were
-placed. This last object had evidently escaped the knowledge of the
-resident priest, although Dubois has sought to establish its identity
-with a curious structure which he found in the little sacristy on the
-<span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb81" href="#pb81" name=
-"pb81">81</a>]</span>inner side of the church.<a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e2960src" href="#xd21e2960" name="xd21e2960src">12</a> Vardzia is,
-in fact, the city of Thamar, just as every castle in Georgia is the
-castle of Thamar and every antiquity a relic of the great queen.</p>
-<p class="par">We picked our way among the boulders up the steep side
-of the cliff until it became a perpendicular wall. There commence the
-irregular horizontal rows of caves, stretching eastwards, where the
-escarpments are most abrupt. A narrow path ends at a polygonal
-structure of which the roof has fallen off. This edifice is either
-modern or has been extensively restored; it forms a gateway and seals
-the approach to the caves. The gate passed, you stand on a level
-footway, partly hollowed in the rock and partly supported by rude
-masonry, which takes advantage of the inequalities of the cliff-side.
-In the steepest places this footway is tunnelled through the rock, and
-it can, of course, be barricaded at any point. Thus it would appear
-that Vardzia is inaccessible to siege, at least by any of the usual
-means. But one remembers that Timur employed an ingenious contrivance
-to reduce the Georgians, when they fled to their caves. From the
-heights above he suspended wooden stages, from which his warriors leapt
-into the crowded grottoes or scattered fire among the panic-stricken
-foe. Vardzia itself is said to have been taken by this conqueror, by
-what methods I do not know.</p>
-<p class="par">We were met by an old archimandrite and his deacon, the
-only inhabitants of this long-deserted place (Fig. <a href=
-"#fig019">19</a>). They are supported by the occasional contributions
-of pilgrims, who visit the church in great numbers at certain times.
-Both were sunk to an equal degree in abysmal ignorance, and the deacon
-was so shy in manner and movement, he seemed a half-tamed creature of
-the rocks. I asked them the meaning of the name Vardzia, which,
-according to Dubois, signifies, both in Georgian and Armenian, the
-fortress of the roses. They derived it from <i>zia</i>, which means
-uncle, and <i>vard</i>, I am here. They stoutly maintained this
-extraordinary derivation, in face of the doubt which we displayed.</p>
-<p class="par"></p>
-<div class="figure xd21e2989width" id="fig019"><img src=
-"images/fig019.jpg" alt="Fig. 19. Archimandrite and Deacon at Vardzia."
-width="426" height="611">
-<p class="figureHead"><span class="sc"><span class="figNum">Fig.
-19.</span> Archimandrite and Deacon at Vardzia.</span></p>
-</div>
-<p class="par"></p>
-<p class="par">We passed along the footway for some distance, with
-grottoes above us and beneath. Then we came to an imposing vaulted
-<span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb82" href="#pb82" name=
-"pb82">82</a>]</span>balcony, of which the inner side and roof are
-hollowed in the rock, and the other parts are built up with masonry.
-The footway forms the floor of this balcony, which looks important when
-seen from below. The vaulted ceiling is adorned with old frescos, which
-are in a state of advanced decay. A doorway opens from the inner wall
-to a spacious cave&mdash;an oblong area with an arched roof, disposed
-in the familiar shape of a simple nave and apse. This church has a
-length of <span class="measure" title="14 meter">46 feet</span>
-<span class="measure" title="7.62 centimeter">3 inches</span> and a
-breadth of <span class="measure" title="8.23 meter">27 feet</span>. For
-decoration it depends upon richly-coloured frescos, some of which may
-still be seen. In the apse are depicted Mary and the infant Christ; on
-the Virgin&rsquo;s right is placed a female aureoled figure, clad in
-white and with embroidered bands. On a pilaster, left of the apse, you
-discern the features of a woman <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb83"
-href="#pb83" name="pb83">83</a>]</span>whose dark complexion impresses
-the eye. It seems an Egyptian type; she has been honoured with an
-aureole; the old priest declared the portrait to be Queen
-Thamar&rsquo;s, but he was almost certainly in error. In the panel of
-the arch, which lies beyond, a king and queen are represented,
-aureoled, their hands extended towards a stage upon which are seated
-the Virgin and Child. An angel is flying towards the Virgin, bearing an
-object the nature of which we were unable to ascertain. A passage leads
-from the church to an adjoining chamber, in which the articles of value
-are preserved. Dubois informs us that above this church, and as it were
-a second storey, a second temple has been hewn of equal size. A
-subterranean passage connects it with the sacristy; and this same
-passage tunnels the cliff and debouches at the caves where the wine of
-the city was made and stored, and which are situated in an adjoining
-gorge. Dubois, who discovered this passage, found it blocked with
-d&eacute;bris and in disuse; its existence was not mentioned to
-ourselves.</p>
-<p class="par">Beyond the church we were taken to the apartments of
-Queen Thamar, which are situated further to the east. On our way we
-were shown a cave which must have served as a bath-chamber; an oblong
-well has been sunk into the floor. In the recess behind, a broad drain
-is visible, said to be the receptacle of the water-vessels. We also
-noticed a grotto which displayed a number of hewn pigeon-holes, and
-which had probably served the requirements of a chemist&rsquo;s
-shop.</p>
-<p class="par">The queen&rsquo;s grotto is a spacious vaulted chamber,
-<span class="measure" title="9.75 meter">32 feet</span> <span class=
-"measure" title="10.2 centimeter">4 inches</span> in length,
-<span class="measure" title="6.1 meter">20 feet</span> <span class=
-"measure" title="2.54 centimeter">1 inch</span> in breadth, and some
-<span class="measure" title="4.27 meter">14 feet</span> in height. A
-doorway gives access to this interior, and there is a small aperture or
-window on either side. On the opposite wall, and towards its right
-corner, you see a communicating apartment of much smaller dimensions;
-and to the left of this recess has been hewn an arched niche with a
-depth of over <span class="measure" title="1.22 meter">4 feet</span>.
-Several smaller niches adorn the chamber, of which a feature is a low
-divan, cut at the foot of each wall, a continuous ledge only
-<span class="measure" title="33 centimeter">13 inches</span> broad. On
-the right of the entrance, in the wall which runs at right angles, is
-situated another small apartment, lit by an aperture on its outer side.
-It may be that these smaller chambers served as sleeping-places; the
-ingenious Dubois boldly assumes that the first was a wardrobe and the
-second a kind of boudoir. In the floor are several hollow spaces, as
-usual in these caves. Above the grotto is situated the so-called summer
-<span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb84" href="#pb84" name=
-"pb84">84</a>]</span>apartment&mdash;an open cave issuing upon a
-terrace from which a fine view is obtained.</p>
-<p class="par">But what impressed us more than the caves and their
-associations was the solitude of the place, the sense of extreme
-remoteness&mdash;some pulseless corner, as it seemed, of the living
-world. A torrent winding between grave cliffs, covered with a scanty
-growth of parched herbage; no runnel diffusing life, and by our side
-the precious water collected in a cistern with a floor of cement. Where
-are the vineyards which must once have clothed the lower slopes,
-protected by the walls of the volcanic valley against the rigorous
-climate of a region over <span class="measure" title="1219 meter">4000
-feet</span> above the sea? Nature had blighted the scene with layers of
-lava and cinders; man reclaimed the spot with laborious patience, until
-the work perished under the curse of his fellow-man. But what enemy
-would penetrate to this hidden valley, concealed behind the most
-inaccessible zone of the border mountains, defended by the
-Devil&rsquo;s gorge? Perhaps the appearance of the opposite cliff
-affords a clue to this mystery. It is higher than the summit which
-towers immediately above you; the outline is horizontal and the edge
-flat. It is in fact an exposed rim of the great tableland, broken here
-by the ca&ntilde;on of the Kur. A series of plains extend hence to the
-furthest skirts of Persia, vague divisions of a single elevated
-stage.<a class="noteref" id="xd21e3045src" href="#xd21e3045" name=
-"xd21e3045src">13</a></p>
-<p class="par">The afternoon was far advanced as we retraced our steps
-to our encampment, and night already rested in the gorge. We were
-disappointed of a photograph of its solemn horrors, and made our way in
-silence beneath the twilight, following the murmuring stream. On the
-following day we proceeded to Akhalkalaki up the valley of the
-Toporovan. The posting station of Abazbek, <span class="measure" title=
-"14.9 kilometer">14 versts</span> from Aspinja, is situated some
-distance up the valley, and the stage between it and Akhalkalaki is one
-of <span class="measure" title="19.2 kilometer">18 versts</span> or
-<span class="measure" title="19.3 kilometer">12 miles</span>. It was
-between these points that we travelled for the first time in a
-<i>brichka</i>, or springless posting cart. The drive occupied about
-three hours, and the road, which was well constructed, mounted
-continuously, following <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb85" href=
-"#pb85" name="pb85">85</a>]</span>and fronting the swirling current of
-the Toporovan. The gardens of Khertvis extend for some distance beyond
-the castle, and a portion of the township lies upon this side. Then the
-margin of the river contracts to the verge of disappearance, and stony
-cliffs, with an elevation of about <span class="measure" title=
-"61 meter">200 feet</span>, border the water on either bank. It is in
-fact a deep crack in the surface of the plateau, upon which the town of
-Akhalkalaki stands. Not a village did we pass, or any oasis among the
-rocks; it was indeed a bleak scene. But the sky, flaked in places with
-wandering white clouds, was intensely clear and blue, and the foaming
-river refreshed the scene. After passing the low edifice of the castle
-of Akhalkalaki, which lines the edge of the cliff on the left bank, we
-crossed to that bank by a wooden bridge and wound slowly up the
-hillside. It was evident that we had arrived almost at the head of the
-formation, the point where the watercourse descends from the surface of
-the plateau and eats deeply into the volcanic soil. It was almost night
-when we reached the level summit of the cliff and breathed the crisper
-air. A place was found for our tents in an open space of the little
-town, which is situated at an elevation of <span class="measure" title=
-"1690 meter">5545 feet</span> above the sea. <span class=
-"pagenum">[<a id="pb86" href="#pb86" name="pb86">86</a>]</span></p>
-</div>
-<div class="footnotes">
-<hr class="fnsep">
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e2782" href="#xd21e2782src" name="xd21e2782">1</a></span> Brosset
-speaks of the church and tower of Akhashen as being remarkable both as
-an example of composite architecture and for possessing a fine
-sculptured cross on the door and a figure of St. Theodore on horseback
-(<i lang="fr">Voyage arch&eacute;ologique en Transcaucasie</i>, St.
-Petersburg, 1849, <span lang="fr">1re livraison, 2me rapport</span>, p.
-150).&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href="#xd21e2782src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e2793" href="#xd21e2793src" name="xd21e2793">2</a></span> Neither
-Dubois (<i lang="fr">Voyage autour du Caucase</i>, Paris 1839&ndash;43,
-vol. ii. p. 330) nor Brosset (<span lang="fr"><i>Voy. arch.</i> 2me
-rapport</span>, p. 176) has more than passing notices of Aspinja. But
-Dubois tells us that in his time all the inhabitants spoke Georgian
-except the mollah, who had recently arrived from Asia Minor. He adds
-that they were formerly Georgian Christians, and their ancient church
-still existed in a ruinous condition.&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href=
-"#xd21e2793src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e2804" href="#xd21e2804src" name="xd21e2804">3</a></span> I have
-not verified their statement, which was repeated in other places, that
-according to a decree of 1890 they would be liable to military service
-in ten years after the date of the decree.&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow"
-href="#xd21e2804src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e2836" href="#xd21e2836src" name="xd21e2836">4</a></span> 229
-houses, with 1360 inhabitants (Family lists of 1886).&nbsp;<a class=
-"fnarrow" href="#xd21e2836src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e2849" href="#xd21e2849src" name="xd21e2849">5</a></span> He gives
-a population of 800 souls (<i>op. cit.</i> vol. ii. p.
-304).&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href="#xd21e2849src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e2857" href="#xd21e2857src" name="xd21e2857">6</a></span> Dubois
-(<i>op. cit.</i> vol. ii. pp. 298, 299) informs us that the Mussulmans
-of these districts are the old Georgian inhabitants whom Safar Pasha
-compelled to embrace Islam in 1625. He adds that the Armenians escaped
-this persecution, having been accorded by the reigning Sultan liberty
-of conscience, like the Jews in France under similar conditions.</p>
-<p class="par footnote cont">The river Kur is essentially a Georgian
-river, even where it traverses districts which belong geographically to
-the Armenian tableland. For the history and character of the country
-about its upper course one may usefully consult the works of Dubois and
-Brosset already cited in this chapter, and Koch&rsquo;s <i lang=
-"de">Reise im pontischen Gebirge</i>, Weimar, 1846.&nbsp;<a class=
-"fnarrow" href="#xd21e2857src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e2871" href="#xd21e2871src" name="xd21e2871">7</a></span> Dubois
-(<i>op. cit.</i> vol. ii. p. 314) calls the Kur a torrent above
-Khertvis, and says it only becomes a river after the junction with the
-Toporovan river.&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href=
-"#xd21e2871src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e2877" href="#xd21e2877src" name="xd21e2877">8</a></span> I must
-refer the reader to Dubois, <i>op. cit.</i> vol. ii. pp. 302
-<i>seq.</i>, and Brosset, <i>Voy. arch.</i> p. 152.&nbsp;<a class=
-"fnarrow" href="#xd21e2877src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e2889" href="#xd21e2889src" name="xd21e2889">9</a></span> So Abich
-explains the phenomena (<i lang="de">Geologische Forschungen in den
-kaukasischen L&auml;ndern</i>, part iii. p. 31).&nbsp;<a class=
-"fnarrow" href="#xd21e2889src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e2906" href="#xd21e2906src" name="xd21e2906">10</a></span> Dubois,
-<i>op. cit.</i> vol. ii. pp. 308 <i>seq.</i>; Brosset, <span lang=
-"fr"><i>Voy. arch.</i> 2me rapport</span>, p. 165, who gives an account
-of the adjacent church of Tsunda; and Abich, <i>op. cit.</i> part iii.
-p. 34. I would refer my reader to the last of these writers for an
-account of the geology of the gorge of Zeda Tmogvi (part iii. pp. 35,
-36).&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href="#xd21e2906src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e2935" href="#xd21e2935src" name="xd21e2935">11</a></span> Brosset
-is not quite sure about it (<span lang="fr"><i>Voy. arch.</i> 2me
-rapport</span>, p. 165). The governor of Akhalkalaki had no doubt about
-the correctness of the identification.&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href=
-"#xd21e2935src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e2960" href="#xd21e2960src" name="xd21e2960">12</a></span> Dubois,
-<i>op. cit.</i> vol. ii. p. 319; and see also Brosset, Atlas (plate
-xii.) to the <i lang="fr">Voyage arch&eacute;ologique</i> and text, pp.
-163 <i>seq.</i> I shall not attempt to reconcile the text of Brosset
-with his plan of the church, his plan with that of Dubois, or the
-measurements of either with my own. My own measurements at Vardzia and
-throughout the journey were made by myself with a long tape-measure
-which I always carried with me. The height of the church is given by
-Dubois as <span class="measure" title="12.2 meter">40
-feet</span>.&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href=
-"#xd21e2960src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e3045" href="#xd21e3045src" name="xd21e3045">13</a></span> In
-taking leave of Vardzia may I refer the reader to the excellent
-description of Dubois. He mentions the existence of a third and smaller
-church, which he says is adorned with ancient frescos, with
-inscriptions which are all in the Greek language. The frescos are in
-the Byzantine style, and cannot be much later than the middle of the
-eleventh century. Brosset, who also saw this chapel, maintains, on the
-other hand, that all the inscriptions are in the Georgian
-ecclesiastical character; he adds that there is a Greek inscription
-disposed about the emblems of a Calvary in an adjoining niche
-(<span lang="fr"><i>Voy. arch.</i> 2me rapport</span>, p.
-106).&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href="#xd21e3045src">&uarr;</a></p>
-</div>
-</div>
-<div id="ch5" class="div1 chapter"><span class="pagenum">[<a href=
-"#xd21e326">Contents</a>]</span>
-<div class="divHead">
-<h2 class="label">CHAPTER V</h2>
-<h2 class="main">AT AKHALKALAKI</h2>
-</div>
-<div class="divBody">
-<p class="par first">At Akhalkalaki we had reached a country which is
-peopled in large preponderance by the Armenian race. The town is the
-centre of an administrative division (<i>ouezde</i>), which is
-dependent upon the Government of Tiflis. This division is partitioned
-into two administrative districts, of which the most northerly takes
-its name from the village of Baralet, on the way to Lake Tabizkhuro;
-while the more southerly is called the district of Bogdanovka, a
-Russian settlement on the road to Alexandropol. The population of the
-division amounts to a total, according to the published statistics, of
-59,500 souls; or, according to the figures which were kindly
-communicated to me by the Governor, of 66,000 souls. The numbers of the
-Armenians are given in the first of these lists as over 42,000, a
-proportion of seven-tenths of the whole; while in the Governor&rsquo;s
-list, which, I presume, is the most recent, they are censused at
-58,000, a proportion of seven-eighths. I am inclined to place more
-reliance on the total furnished by the Governor than upon his
-subdivision according to race; and I shall conclude that the Georgians
-contribute a sixth of the inhabitants and the Russian settlers
-something less than a tenth. These figures do not comprise the town of
-Akhalkalaki, which, out of a total population of something over 4000,
-contains 4000 Armenian inhabitants.<a class="noteref" id="xd21e3088src"
-href="#xd21e3088" name="xd21e3088src">1</a></p>
-<p class="par">Be they immigrants or aboriginal, the character of their
-surroundings is in harmony with the instincts of their race. A vast and
-elevated plain upon which the snow lies in winter and a southern sun
-shines. A fertile volcanic soil, abounding in <span class=
-"pagenum">[<a id="pb87" href="#pb87" name="pb87">87</a>]</span>springs
-and favourable to cereals of every kind. Measured from north-east to
-south-west, the plain of Akhalkalaki has a length of nearly forty
-miles;<a class="noteref" id="xd21e3095src" href="#xd21e3095" name=
-"xd21e3095src">2</a> its latitudinal extension may be gauged by the
-course of the Kur on the west, and, on the east, by that of the stream
-which issues from Lake Madatapa and skirts the outworks of the eastern
-meridional range. The plain is situated at an altitude which ranges
-between <span class="measure" title="1676">5500</span> and <span class=
-"measure" title="2134 meter">7000 feet</span>. The soil, when exposed
-by the plough, is black in colour, or, perhaps, dark chocolate, and
-reveals the influence of the lavas below. The extreme evenness of the
-surface is due to the fluid nature of these lavas, which streamed, at a
-comparatively recent period, from fissures at the southern base of the
-Trialethian Mountains and from vents at other points of the mountain
-girdle which encircles the flat expanse. On the floor of the plain
-itself the effects of volcanic action are visible in the forms of
-hummock and rounded hill. Volcanic emissions have produced the lap-like
-enclosures which are the reservoirs of the lonely lakes. Their waters
-are fed by springs from beneath the surface, and by copious rains from
-the clouds of the Pontic region, which fly the topmost bulwarks of the
-tableland and distil on the western slopes of the meridional volcanic
-barrier, the limit on the east of the even ground. From Agrikar to
-Karakach is the section of this barrier along which this process of
-condensation is most pronounced; the mountains are known by the natives
-under the collective name of <i>Mokri Gori</i>, the wet mountains. The
-principal stream, besides the Kur, is that which issues from Lake
-Toporovan, and, descending south, flows through Lake Tuman. After
-emerging on the southern shore, it receives an affluent from Lake
-Madatapa, and pursues a northerly course. Where we arrived upon its
-margin, half an hour south of Akhalkalaki, it was a nice flash of
-water, flowing slowly over the surface of the plateau. Below the town
-it is joined on the left bank by a stream which has descended from the
-northern slopes of the Chaldir Hills; and further west, on the right
-bank, by the river of Samsar, which brings the drainage of the
-north-easterly arm of the plain and flows in a deeply eroded
-bed.<a class="noteref" id="xd21e3114src" href="#xd21e3114" name=
-"xd21e3114src">3</a> <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb88" href="#pb88"
-name="pb88">88</a>]</span></p>
-<p class="par">At Akhalkalaki the Toporovan is bordered by lofty
-cliffs, a ca&ntilde;on or trough which has the appearance of a sinuous
-crack in the surface of the plain. Gaining the summit of either cliff,
-you stand on level ground, with a flat or undulating country sweeping
-around you to the distant limits of the mountain chains. You breathe a
-keener air when you emerge from the narrow valley; the town is placed
-at a little distance from the edge of the cliff which rises along the
-left bank. But how present my reader with a picture of a settlement
-which is nothing more than an agglomeration of one-storeyed,
-flat-roofed houses, placed, as it were at random, on the floor of the
-plain? It seemed ridiculous to focus the camera at such an
-insignificant object&mdash;the flat roofs, with their covering of
-withered turf, repeating and lifting the texture and colour of the
-ground. Moreover Akhalkalaki is a fortress; the camera is
-interdicted&mdash;a happy thought in this particular case.
-Fortress-spying would be a poor amusement in this country; like the
-fleet of Spain, they are so extremely difficult to detect. The old
-castle above the river has been restored and converted into a barrack;
-a similar purpose is served by some stone buildings in the environs of
-the town. I do not know that the god of war is otherwise represented;
-but greater honour has been paid to the demigods of justice, and the
-Governor remarked to me&mdash;what was indeed sufficiently
-evident&mdash;that the prison on the outskirts was the only
-two-storeyed edifice in the place. Just a house or two, including that
-of the Governor, had been provided with a roofing of metal sheets,
-painted a pleasant red. But all the tenements appeared well built, of
-solid stone masonry; and the street or two which the place contains
-were certainly spacious, although ill-maintained and deep in dust. When
-we arrived, we were greeted by a chorus of the pariah dogs, as though
-we were entering a purely Eastern town. Still there are a few modern
-shops, notably a large drapery establishment, where the necessaries of
-civilised life may be procured. A feature were the wooden hoods on the
-tops of the houses, a feature not uncommon in the towns of Armenia;
-they serve as screens to the apertures of the chimneys, and appear a
-dangerous contrivance to European eyes. Such was our impression of the
-aspect and character of Akhalkalaki, the <i>new fortress</i>. Vague
-tracks lead away into the surrounding country, which is bare and bleak
-in the immediate neighbourhood of the settlement. <span class=
-"pagenum">[<a id="pb89" href="#pb89" name="pb89">89</a>]</span></p>
-<p class="par">In addition to the principal avenue of outside
-communication by way of Akhaltsykh and the passage of Borjom, the town
-is connected with Georgia by a road which crosses the Trialethian
-Mountains and debouches by a short cut at the last-named place. We were
-shown this road, where it mounts the cliff on the right bank of the
-river, as we crossed to the left bank. Leaving Lake Tabizkhuro on the
-right, it mounts to the spine of the system, which it crosses by a pass
-of about <span class="measure" title="2438 meter">8000
-feet</span>.<a class="noteref" id="xd21e3132src" href="#xd21e3132"
-name="xd21e3132src">4</a> Tiflis may no doubt be reached by the valley
-of the Khram, but I have no information upon the nature of the route.
-Metalled roads are scarce in these distant provinces; it may surprise
-the reader to learn that the road we travelled over from Akhaltsykh was
-only completed in 1892. During all those previous years of Russian
-occupation the post was carried from the important centre of
-Alexandropol to foreign countries along a stony track in the valley of
-the Toporovan.</p>
-<p class="par">Akhalkalaki has belonged to Russia since the campaign of
-1828, when it was taken under Marshal Paskevich by assault. It was not
-the first time that Russian troops had entered the fortress; it had
-fallen in 1812 to the arms of General Kutlerusky, who marched from Gori
-and took the garrison by surprise. In the time of Paskevich the
-defenders were a determined body of men, recruited from among the most
-warlike of the inhabitants of these countries, and serving in their own
-land and under their own chiefs. Flushed by the fall of Kars, the
-general appeared before the place and summoned the Turkish commander to
-submit. His emissaries received the reply that the women and children
-had been removed, and that the men were determined to die at their
-posts. They numbered 1000, with fourteen cannon; and they reminded the
-Russians of the proverb that one soldier of the province of Akhaltsykh
-was equal to two of Kars and three from Erivan. Red standards were
-displayed on the walls, and, during the progress of the siege, the
-garrison was heard making the responses to the mollah, who led their
-prayers from the gallery of the minaret and who had himself sworn to
-share their fate. A Cossack officer stepped forth and endeavoured to
-parley with them; he fell, pierced by a number of bullets. No
-opposition was offered to the establishment of the batteries; no
-attempt appears to have been made to outwit the foe. The Russian
-<span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb90" href="#pb90" name=
-"pb90">90</a>]</span>cannon beat down the walls, their rifle fire
-decimated the defenders, following them from wall to wall. Paskevich
-then gave the order to cease firing, and called upon them afresh to
-submit. The old answer was returned; the assault was sounded; nor were
-the Cossacks appeased and the honour of the defenders satisfied until
-six hundred of the men of Akhaltsykh had eaten the dust.<a class=
-"noteref" id="xd21e3145src" href="#xd21e3145" name=
-"xd21e3145src">5</a></p>
-<p class="par">At the time of our visit Colonel Tarasoff was civil
-governor of the town and administrative division; he received us with
-the utmost courtesy. We would leave our tent to join his hospitable
-family circle, to discuss the many interesting features of the country
-and to drink endless glasses of delicious tea. We learnt that the road
-to Akhaltsykh had been made under his directions; Greek workmen
-performed the blasting and stone-cutting, while for the levelling
-forced labour was employed. The road is the property of the Russian
-Government, and horses are provided by contractors to carry the post.
-The administration is conducted on a primitive but common-sense
-principle: a head man in every village, responsible to a head of a
-group of villages, who is again answerable to the Governor himself.
-Besides police&mdash;among whom the Armenians are prominent, their
-fierce faces belying the reputed meekness of the race&mdash;Colonel
-Tarasoff has a force of Cossacks at his disposal; and it is of course
-open to him to send for the troops of the district, should any special
-emergency arise. In addition to the Governor, there is in each larger
-town a resident judicial officer, who dispenses justice <i lang="la">ex
-contractu</i> as well as <i lang="la">ex delicto</i>, and whose
-judgments are subject to revision at assize.</p>
-<p class="par">As usual in the Armenian provinces, the need of
-elementary education is supplied from a double source. Foremost in the
-field are the Armenians, with a separate organisation; the Russian
-State school is not so well attended, and, in this province, is
-probably not so well served. Yet the Russian principal impressed me as
-a capable and, certainly, as a most amiable individual; he was a
-Georgian, speaking Georgian as his native language; his wife and family
-affected the Georgian dress. His pupils consisted of 150 boys and
-youths, all, or almost all, Armenians. The school supplies a kind of
-secondary education as well as the elementary course. Of this privilege
-to its rival, the Armenian school was justly jealous; it is only
-allowed the two primary <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb91" href=
-"#pb91" name="pb91">91</a>]</span>classes, which the scholars complete
-in their twelfth year. The roll consisted of 250 boys and no less than
-300 girls. A reading-room and library were attached to the institution,
-and it was evident that the teachers were men of greater attainments
-than are required by the kind of instruction they are supposed to
-dispense.</p>
-<p class="par">I sat with Colonel Tarasoff in his Court, a well-ordered
-building, in which he is wont to reverse the procedure of his classical
-prototypes. Enter to us an old turbaned Mohammedan; status, mollah of
-doubtful fame. He has come to Akhalkalaki with the object of collecting
-money wherewith to purchase sacred books. But only the chief mollah has
-the right to take subscriptions for this purpose; and where is the
-written authorisation in favour of this mendicant, bearing the seal of
-the most holy man? Enough, that he cannot produce it; he must desist
-from his collection. He must be silent: the next case is called.</p>
-<p class="par">Enter a roughly-clad Georgian peasant, a lean figure, a
-dejected mien. He has been staying overnight at a village in the
-district, and has been robbed of three cows. The Governor has given
-orders that they must immediately be restored to him; two have been
-returned, he cannot recover the third. Decided that the village itself
-must pay the full equivalent; a look of delighted surprise lights the
-poor man&rsquo;s eyes.</p>
-<p class="par">Enter a Georgian of the middle class who impresses us as
-a stupid fellow; but he brings a highly original plaint. It appears
-that he has fallen out with his brother, and that they both occupy the
-same house. They have separated their goods and do not speak to one
-another. Complainant applies to the Governor to order his brother to
-open a separate door. I can scarcely refrain from betraying my host by
-a peal of laughter; he knits his brows and dismisses the case with a
-volley of hard words.</p>
-<p class="par">Enter a young man, one of two brothers who live together
-and share a common employ. It so happens that both have been summoned
-to perform military service; may one of them be exempt? Supporters of
-families are excused, and the conscription in Transcaucasia is as yet
-conducted on a very small scale. Still the Colonel upholds the summons;
-the service covers a short period, and will do both brothers good.
-<span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb92" href="#pb92" name=
-"pb92">92</a>]</span></p>
-</div>
-<div class="footnotes">
-<hr class="fnsep">
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e3088" href="#xd21e3088src" name="xd21e3088">1</a></span> The
-published total of 59,496 is made up as follows:&mdash;Armenians,
-42,301; Georgians, 9771; Russians, 6617; Kurds, 689; others, 118
-(official statistics based on the lists of 1886, Tiflis 1893). It is
-noticeable that the Governor&rsquo;s list places the Russians at 6300,
-a diminution since 1886.&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href=
-"#xd21e3088src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e3095" href="#xd21e3095src" name="xd21e3095">2</a></span> The
-plain has a gulf-like extension or arm on the side of Lake Tabizkhuro.
-Coming from the lake, Radde estimated that the plain proper commences
-at the village of Kestano, which I take to be the Bejano of the Russian
-map, and that this village lay some <span class="measure" title=
-"305 meter">1000 feet</span> lower than the level of the lake. The
-plain would therefore have an altitude of <span class="measure" title=
-"1722 meter">5650 feet</span> at its north-eastern extremity. From
-Bejano to the south-western shore of Lake Khozapin is a direct distance
-on the map of thirty-six miles.&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href=
-"#xd21e3095src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e3114" href="#xd21e3114src" name="xd21e3114">3</a></span> Radde in
-<i lang="de">Petermann&rsquo;s Mitth</i>. 1876, p. 143.&nbsp;<a class=
-"fnarrow" href="#xd21e3114src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e3132" href="#xd21e3132src" name="xd21e3132">4</a></span> Radde is
-almost certainly in error in making the pass of Karakaya, which is the
-shortest route, over <span class="measure" title="2896 meter">9500
-feet</span> high (<i lang="de">Petermann&rsquo;s Mitth.</i>, 1876, p.
-141).&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href="#xd21e3132src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e3145" href="#xd21e3145src" name="xd21e3145">5</a></span> Monteith
-(<i>Kars and Erzeroum</i>, pp. 85, 168, 173 <i>seq.</i>). Haxthausen
-informs us that &ldquo;not one Turk accepted his life&mdash;every man
-remained dead upon the spot&rdquo; (<i>Transcaucasia</i>, p. 100). He
-had received the story in this truly Oriental form.&nbsp;<a class=
-"fnarrow" href="#xd21e3145src">&uarr;</a></p>
-</div>
-</div>
-<div id="ch6" class="div1 chapter"><span class="pagenum">[<a href=
-"#xd21e336">Contents</a>]</span>
-<div class="divHead">
-<h2 class="label">CHAPTER VI</h2>
-<h2 class="main">PROSPECT FROM ABUL</h2>
-</div>
-<div class="divBody">
-<p class="par first">East of the town of Akhalkalaki, which almost
-touches the long train of the western slope, a bold mass of mountain
-features the landscape, square-seated on the floor of the plateau (Fig.
-<a href="#fig020">20</a>). It rises to a height of nearly <span class=
-"measure" title="3353 meter">11,000 feet</span>; but this imposing
-altitude is shorn of half its grandeur by the lofty levels of the
-adjacent plain (5500&ndash;<span class="measure" title=
-"1829 meter">6000 feet</span>). Still the mountain overpowers all the
-surrounding outlines; the summit overlooks the neighbouring heights.
-When we had issued from the chasm of the Toporovan river and gained the
-surface of the plateau, our first thought was to ascend this elevated
-viewing-stage, and command the flat expanse, bordered by dim and
-distant ranges, which was now unfolded before us on every side.</p>
-<p class="par"></p>
-<div class="figure xd21e3197width" id="fig020"><img src=
-"images/fig020.jpg" alt="Fig. 20. Mount Abul from Akhalkalaki." width=
-"720" height="498">
-<p class="figureHead"><span class="sc"><span class="figNum">Fig.
-20.</span> Mount Abul from Akhalkalaki.</span></p>
-</div>
-<p class="par"></p>
-<p class="par">Horses were impressed on the morning after our arrival
-to take us to the foot of the higher slopes. We were informed that it
-was necessary to make the half-circuit of the mountain and to start
-climbing on the eastern side. But why reject the tempting gradients of
-the nearer western slope, sweeping towards you with a succession of
-harmonious curves? Yet where obtain a satisfactory answer to this
-question? The actual experiment might involve the loss of a day. So we
-bowed to the decision of our native conductor, and became reconciled to
-the long ride. Mile after mile the great plain stretched to the
-westward, a solid sea, patched in places with fallow and stubble, but
-treeless, without a hedge, without a boundary of any kind. We were
-approaching the stony confines of the mountainous zone which borders
-the plateau on the east. The wretched village of Abul rears its stacks
-of cow-dung fuel among a waste of stones.</p>
-<p class="par">Seen from the side of Akhalkalaki, the mountain presents
-the appearance of a composite mass. A long trough mounts to
-<span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb93" href="#pb93" name=
-"pb93">93</a>]</span>the summit region, dividing the fabric into two
-halves. Each half is crowned by a well-defined summit; that on the
-south is single of form and considerably lower, its loftier neighbour
-on the north appears to possess two peaks. In reality this double peak
-conceals a third fang, which is prominent on the eastern side. The
-three-fanged summit communicates with its less elevated neighbour by a
-lofty <i>col</i>, the uppermost edge of the trough. The slopes of Abul
-display the volcanic origin of the mountain, and descend in long-drawn
-outlines to the plain. The lengthiest declines westwards from the more
-northerly summit, and has the shape of a long back or ridge. The
-steepest is the slope just beneath this summit, facing north; it is
-inclined at an angle of 30 degrees. The village of Abul is situated to
-the south of the western slope, and would present a convenient
-starting-point from which its easy gradients might be scaled. Our
-guide, however, assured us, I cannot conceive upon what foundation,
-that the ascent would occupy two days. So we left the village to skirt
-the base of the southern half of the mountain, of which the sides have
-a gradient of 18 degrees. Rounding the mass, we were able to reach on
-horseback some grassy uplands of the further slopes. This favourable
-nature of the ground extends to a considerable elevation, and had
-probably been the inducement which had influenced our leader to bring
-us such a long way. From these pastures it was a climb of one and a
-half hours over the rocks to the pinnacles of the loftiest and most
-northerly mass. We sent the horses back, with directions to meet us on
-the further side, since we had decided to descend by the western
-ridge.</p>
-<p class="par">Throughout the length and breadth of the Armenian
-highlands, themselves the loftiest section of the bridge of Asia
-between India and the Mediterranean Sea, there is perhaps no summit,
-with the possible exception of that of Ararat, which possesses a
-prospect at once so distant, so extensive and so full of interest as
-that which expands on every side from the triple peak of Abul.<a class=
-"noteref" id="xd21e3215src" href="#xd21e3215" name="xd21e3215src">1</a>
-You stand on a stage which commands the fabric of the nearer Asia,
-without dwarfing the proportions of the majestic structure, without
-confusing the varied members of the vast design. <span class=
-"pagenum">[<a id="pb94" href="#pb94" name="pb94">94</a>]</span>The
-tableland with its open landscapes is unfolded before you, swelling and
-falling from plain to hummock, from hummock to rounded ridge, from
-vaulted ridge to the soaring arcs of an Alag&ouml;z and an Ararat,
-crowned with perpetual snow. The troubled outlines of the border ranges
-encircle the mysterious scene; and, far away, from a gloomy background
-to this full sunlight and radiant atmosphere, lurid flashes are
-reflected through layers of murky vapour by the snows of Caucasus,
-infinitely high.</p>
-<p class="par">The detail of the landscape engages the mind with the
-same engrossing fascination as the panorama impresses the sense. From
-west right round to south, vast tracts of level ground are outspread at
-your feet. Here and there the plain is broken by barren convexities, of
-which the outlines mingle with the outlines of the surrounding chains.
-No wood or leafy hedgerows dull the mobile surface, which is responsive
-to every mood of the sky. But a large area is checkered with black and
-yellow patches&mdash;alternate fallow and stubble-field and standing
-corn. The reclamation extends to the slopes and recesses of the
-neighbouring mountains, struggling upwards to the verge of the rock.
-Yet this human note is lost in the immensity of the scene, which
-displays no other sign of the presence of man. Lonely lakes lie lapped
-in the hollows of these mountains and upon the floor of the plain. A
-deep crack in the solid earth features the distance from west to south,
-and is drawn towards you almost at right angles through the plain. It
-is formed by the sinuous clefts of the Kur and the Toporovan, and it is
-almost the limit of the level ground upon the west and north.</p>
-<p class="par">Beyond this ca&ntilde;on of the Kur, which is distant
-some twenty miles, ridge upon ridge of lofty and barren mountains are
-massed upon the horizon from south-west. They belong to the
-Dochus-Punar volcanic system, and they overpower all the ranges about
-us, with the exception of the dim Caucasian chain. From those slopes,
-as from these slopes upon which we are standing, lavas have streamed
-over the surface of the intermediate country and levelled the
-inequalities of the ground. That eruptive action is long extinct; the
-fires are dormant; no wreath of smoke crowns the familiar volcanic
-forms. The system is seen to sink to the ca&ntilde;on upon the north,
-where a gap in the outlines gives a passage to the Kur. On the northern
-side the heights are resumed by a long, serrated ridge, which belongs
-to the northern border mountains, and which extends from west by south
-to east by <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb95" href="#pb95" name=
-"pb95">95</a>]</span>north. A little west of north lies Lake
-Tabizkhuro, with the dome of Samsar rising from its shores. The
-foreground towards the north is filled with mountain masses, with
-vaulted summits and rounded slopes. Our guide was unable to name them
-to us, and I therefore busied myself with an outline sketch. A long
-ridge sweeps away from Abul on the north-eastern side in a hemicycle
-concave to the west. It mingles with the forms of the nearer masses, of
-which the most prominent may, I suppose, be identified with K&ouml;r
-Ogly and Godorebi, members of the Abul-Samsar eruptive group. The long
-bulwark of the Trialethian chain is either hidden by these nearer
-mountains, or only disclosed through brief vistas to a sea of outlines
-beyond. The northern horizon is closed by the snowy peaks of Caucasus,
-over a hundred miles away.</p>
-<p class="par">Towards the east we were not impressed by any commanding
-features in the mountain landscape, although we were overlooking the
-eastern wing of the meridional eruptive system, flanked by the
-Somkethian ridges on the further side. Between us and those vague
-shapes was lapped an extensive lake, Lake Toporovan, broken by the
-outline of the eastern fang of Abul. But what are those gleaming snows,
-just protruding above the horizon from a snowless vaulted ridge in the
-south-east? The flat horizontal outline is broken towards the centre by
-a low serration of snow-clad peaks. It is Alag&ouml;z, seventy miles
-distant in a straight line; it is even said that from here the dome of
-Ararat is visible, when it is not concealed by its faithful wreath of
-cloud. Compared to these, the nearer heights in the south are thrown
-into insignificance; the eye completes the circle to the point from
-which it started, the lofty ridges in the south-west.</p>
-<p class="par">Slowly we made our way over the piled-up boulders, down
-the back of the long ridge which descends to the westward, along the
-northern side of the deep trough. Before us, on the plain, we followed
-the fissure in the even surface which marks the course of the hidden
-river of Akhalkalaki, until it was lost in the radiance of the setting
-sun. Regaining our horses, we paused for awhile on the margin of a
-little marsh which is situated about at the foot of the mountain, some
-<span class="measure" title="1219 meter">4000 feet</span> below the
-topmost peak. The mournful chorus of frogs broke the intense silence,
-and contributed to the impression of the loneliness of Nature which
-inspired the mood of our homeward ride. <span class="pagenum">[<a id=
-"pb96" href="#pb96" name="pb96">96</a>]</span></p>
-</div>
-<div class="footnotes">
-<hr class="fnsep">
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e3215" href="#xd21e3215src" name="xd21e3215">1</a></span> Abich
-calls it &ldquo;<span lang="de">das am weitesten umfassende des
-armenischen Hochlandes</span>&rdquo; with the exception of the view
-from Ararat (<i lang="de">Geologische Forschungen in den kaukasischen
-L&auml;ndern</i>, Vienna, 1887, part iii. p. 39). But few have been or
-probably ever will be privileged to reach the summit of the <i>mother
-of the world</i> under conditions entirely favourable to such a
-panorama. And from such a height the world appears very
-insignificant.&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href=
-"#xd21e3215src">&uarr;</a></p>
-</div>
-</div>
-<div id="ch7" class="div1 chapter"><span class="pagenum">[<a href=
-"#xd21e346">Contents</a>]</span>
-<div class="divHead">
-<h2 class="label">CHAPTER VII</h2>
-<h2 class="main">GORELOVKA AND QUEEN LUKERIA</h2>
-</div>
-<div class="divBody">
-<p class="par first">Discussing the projects of our future travel, I
-was reminded by Colonel Tarasoff that we must not fail to make a stay
-in one of the villages of Russian peasants which were situated upon the
-route of our journey south. The Governor had so often sung the praises
-of these villagers that we were all anxious to comply with his advice.
-If only this fertile country could be inhabited by such a peasantry;
-what crops it would bear, what riches it would produce! He added:
-&ldquo;Be sure to visit Gorelovka; there you will see what Russian
-colonists can bring to pass.&rdquo;</p>
-<p class="par">Russian colonists! But, of course, Russia is not yet in
-a position to colonise, however much these distant provinces of her
-Asiatic empire may be in need of new methods, of new blood. Indeed, the
-rulers of Russia early recognised the expediency of introducing into
-their lawless possessions beyond Caucasus a leaven of orderly and
-strenuous elements from the West; and in the dearth at home of such
-material, which might be available for the purpose, they invited or
-encouraged settlements from abroad. It is possible that they were shown
-the way by the finger of Providence; it is at least certain that, when
-once the favourable opportunity arose, they did not suffer it to pass
-them by. In the earlier years of the present century the kingdom of
-W&uuml;rtemberg was the scene of a struggle among the Protestant
-community, of which the origin was no less curious than the results
-were strange. It had been solemnly announced by several popular pastors
-that the second coming of Christ was near at hand. Such was the
-confidence of the reverend teachers in their prophetical powers, that
-they had already fixed the date when the sun and moon should be
-darkened, the celestial bodies should reel, the ocean roar, and men
-expire from fright before the crowning event had <span class=
-"pagenum">[<a id="pb97" href="#pb97" name="pb97">97</a>]</span>been
-accomplished&mdash;the Son of Man appearing with glory in the clouds.
-These signs and stupendous portents should be revealed to a distracted
-world in 1836.</p>
-<p class="par">Greater credence was attached by the people to these
-terrible predictions by reason of what was passing in their little
-world. Their clergy were divided on a religious question well
-calculated to touch to the quick the popular mind. The predominant
-party succeeded in effecting an alteration in the prayers and hymns of
-their beloved Church. Passions became inflamed which appeared to herald
-persecution, which rallied the faithful in defence of the old forms.
-Were not the days of tribulation already upon them; and in what asylum
-among the mountains should these Christians of a larger Jud&aelig;a
-find the refuge which had been promised by the word of Christ? The same
-teachers assured them that such an asylum would not be wanting, and
-might be found in the neighbourhood of the Caspian Sea. The fearful
-nature of the Divine warning, the conviction that it would be early
-realised, the aversion which the new-fangled forms of worship inspired
-in many earnest souls&mdash;all contributed to steel the old Protestant
-courage; to induce a large body of human beings to leave home and
-native land behind them, and, without superfluous forethought, to
-embark on the perilous journey to that distant land where they might
-await in peace and spiritual contentment the glorious coming of the
-Redeemer of the human race. Their ranks were swelled&mdash;such is the
-irony of our complex society&mdash;by many who were in search of change
-and adventure; they left W&uuml;rtemberg 1500 families strong.
-Two-thirds of these are said to have perished before reaching Odessa,
-where the remnant was reinforced by a further body of their countrymen,
-to the number of 100 families. In the Emperor Alexander I. they found a
-friend who extended to them extensive privileges upon their arrival in
-Georgia in 1817. They were settled in several colonies in the
-Governments of Tiflis and Elizabetpol, which have endured to the
-present day. They have been tried by afflictions and internal
-dissensions; some have perished by wild beasts, some were carried into
-captivity during the course of the Persian war. Still their numbers
-have increased, their standards of life have been maintained, and the
-traveller rests with pleasure within their villages. But neither the
-paramount object of their migration nor the wider purpose of Alexander
-has been fulfilled up to the present time. The jealousy of the Russian
-Church-State has deprived them of much <span class="pagenum">[<a id=
-"pb98" href="#pb98" name="pb98">98</a>]</span>of their potential
-usefulness; and mankind are still groping beneath dark clouds of error,
-faintly silvered with the precious promise of perfect light.<a class=
-"noteref" id="xd21e3259src" href="#xd21e3259" name=
-"xd21e3259src">1</a></p>
-<p class="par">The fate or fortune of these German settlements was
-recalled to me at Akhalkalaki not only by the mention of the Russian
-colonial experiment, but also through our intercourse with a forlorn
-individual, whose history linked him with the early history of that
-courageous company. What use to conceal his name, since I cannot hide
-his identity, since I am only dealing with the current facts of
-provincial life? It was the mission of Sembat Baghdasareantz to sow
-abroad the seeds of the Gospel, carrying his liberty and even his life
-in his hand. An Armenian by birth, he had pursued his studies in
-Europe, where he had resided among the Methodists of Frankfurt,
-although not a member of that persuasion himself. A Protestant, he
-disclaimed allegiance to any particular denomination; he belonged to
-the society of Evangelical preachers which had been founded some
-seventy years ago in Shusha, the capital of the province of Karabagh,
-by missionaries from Basle. Zaremba is the name of the teacher whom his
-successors most closely associate with the origin and early struggles
-of their brotherhood; his memory is joined with that of his colleague
-Dittrich, who shared his labours from the first. These missionaries
-represented a Society whose devout zeal had been directed to the
-Mohammedans of distant Persia; prudence dictated the choice of a base
-within the territory of Russia; yet the Russian Church was a formidable
-enemy on Russian soil. She claimed the right of baptizing and holding
-within her own communion all converts to the Christian faith. But an
-exception had been made in favour of those communities of heterodox
-Christians which were tolerated by the Russian State; it was
-permissible for a Mohammedan to become converted to their tenets and to
-be enrolled as a member of their sect. The Society of Basle were
-therefore encouraged to attempt the expedient of a protected
-<span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb99" href="#pb99" name=
-"pb99">99</a>]</span>colony, which should receive a special charter
-from the Russian Government and be invested with the character of a
-tolerated sect. An example of such a colony was already before them;
-their Scotch brethren were engaged in preaching to the mountaineers of
-Caucasus from an adopted home at Karass. In the pursuit of this
-purpose, Zaremba and Dittrich were sent to St. Petersburg in 1821. They
-were received by the same Alexander who had favoured the Germans, and
-in a spirit which partook of their own zeal. Liberal provisions were
-attached to the charter of their prospective colony, among which the
-right of baptizing converts was included. They were further authorised
-to establish a printing press, to found elementary schools, and to
-organise a seminary in which the higher learning should be dispensed.
-In the meanwhile they were invited to travel in Transcaucasia with the
-view of selecting a locality for their future home.</p>
-<p class="par">When the missionaries arrived in Georgia in the spring
-of 1823, their interest was aroused by the condition of the German
-colonists&mdash;their co-religionists, almost their countrymen, settled
-in this remote country without spiritual direction, without the
-elements of ecclesiastical order. Could there exist a prior claim upon
-their own activities than was furnished by the spectacle of this flock
-without shepherds, severed from the homestead and wandering where it
-might? Their first summer was devoted to the charge of these brethren,
-among whom the slow blight of purely worldly preoccupations had already
-sapped the vigour of early zeal. The success of their efforts appears
-to have awakened the Lutheran Consistory of St. Petersburg, to whom the
-spiritual interests of their co-religionists in Russia are entrusted by
-Russian law. The Consistory sent a pastor, duly commissioned; and the
-colonists were resigned into his hands. But the hardy Germans had not
-quarrelled with ecclesiastical authority in their native country in
-order to subject themselves to similar tyranny in their new seats; they
-disclaimed any connection with the Consistory, and refused to accept
-its nominee. The dispute was referred to Alexander, and was by him
-decided with his usual good sense. He consented that the Society of
-Basle should supply them with pastors, and he went so far as to endow
-their churches himself.</p>
-<p class="par">When the missionaries next turned their attention to the
-pursuit of their original purpose, they were confronted by difficulties
-of a different kind. To their surprise they were informed by the
-Governor-General of Transcaucasia that the Government <span class=
-"pagenum">[<a id="pb100" href="#pb100" name=
-"pb100">100</a>]</span>possessed no land on the Persian frontier which
-could be spared for the settlement they had in view. The Mission itself
-would be allotted a building in any town which they might select; and,
-although the privilege of receiving converts would not be legally
-attachable, the Governor himself would exert his influence to protect
-them in its exercise should their efforts be blessed with fruit. Shusha
-was their choice for the establishment of their Mission; schools were
-opened and a printing press set up. But in the countries west of India
-the conversion of Mohammedans has at all times been an arduous and
-ungrateful task. Our own missionaries, established in Persia, are
-roused to extreme enthusiasm should a stray Moslem embrace their faith.
-I remember travelling across Persia with one of these pampered
-individuals, who appeared to me to be admirably equipped for early
-perdition among the surroundings in which his walk in life lay. The
-experiment was boldly made by the missionaries of Shusha, although the
-conquests of Russia, a few years after their installation, provided
-them with an ample field for conducting their operations without
-crossing into Persian soil. Zaremba followed in the track of the armies
-of Paskevich, distributing the Scriptures, duly translated into
-Turkish, and arguing the eternal truth of Christianity and the errors
-of Islam. But his books were torn in pieces by a population among whom
-contempt for Christians is engendered through their mother&rsquo;s
-milk; and I do not know that the bread which he cast upon the waters
-has been found up to the present day. Better results might be expected
-from their labours among the Armenians, whose clergy they discovered
-sunk in the depths of ignorance, where the beginning of the twentieth
-century finds them still. But they had not anticipated the existence of
-this sphere for their activities; and in the absence of special powers
-it was not permissible to them to receive converts from a Christian
-Church. It was open to the proselyte to enter the Orthodox Church of
-Russia; but, if he desired to be baptized by a minister of the
-tolerated sects, his own clergy could claim him back. It was inevitable
-that, with the progress of their schools and religious teaching, such a
-case should soon arise. It is, no doubt, the lofty virtue and the
-traditional practice of the Armenian Church to respect the religious
-tenets of other Christian Churches, and to inculcate a large tolerance
-among their congregation of the doctrines held by their brothers of a
-varying creed. In this respect the reverend traveller, to whose
-<span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb101" href="#pb101" name=
-"pb101">101</a>]</span>work I am indebted for this little history,
-might have learnt but failed to learn a valuable lesson from a clergy
-whose general standards he justly condemns.<a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e3294src" href="#xd21e3294" name="xd21e3294src">2</a> But the
-attitude of these militant missionaries, no less than the success of
-their efforts, touched the vanity of the Armenian hierarchy to the
-quick. Two deacons of their persuasion had become allied to the Swiss
-teachers, without formally renouncing their own Church. They were
-accused of influencing the people against their old religious
-practices, and, according to a time-honoured usage, it was ordered by
-the katholikos that they should be bound and sent to Edgmiatsin. The
-missionaries appealed to the Governor-General, who, in the spirit of a
-Roman proconsul, inquired for what reason they were interfering in the
-concerns of the Armenian Church. Let the Germans remain Germans and the
-Armenians remain Armenians&mdash;a ruling which was modified by the
-Imperial Government, to whom this high functionary referred the case.
-It was decided, much to the dismay of the religious communities, that
-if a man were determined to leave the bosom of the Armenian Church, it
-was not permitted to the clergy to retain him by force. But this
-favourable disposition on the part of the central Government was in
-advance of Russian methods. The victory of the missionaries was not of
-long duration; the multitude of their enemies overbore the power of
-their few friends. Their printing press is long since silent; they have
-no successors, except a few Armenian preachers, faithful to the old
-traditions, of whom our friend at Akhalkalaki was one. He himself was
-confined by Government within the limits of this remote fortress; two
-years he had already passed in this manner of imprisonment; for three
-more years he was sentenced to remain. He earned his own subsistence as
-clerk and assistant in the large draper&rsquo;s shop. In Shusha itself,
-if I may trust the official statistics, the members of the Armenian
-Protestant community did not exceed twenty-six souls in 1886.<a class=
-"noteref" id="xd21e3300src" href="#xd21e3300" name="xd21e3300src">3</a>
-Russian policy of the present day abhors <span class="pagenum">[<a id=
-"pb102" href="#pb102" name="pb102">102</a>]</span>missionary effort; it
-has been justly remarked by a recent clerical traveller that if a
-priest wishes to travel in the Russian provinces he must divest himself
-of his clerical character and clerical garb.<a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e3306src" href="#xd21e3306" name="xd21e3306src">4</a> I myself can
-testify to the extreme difficulty with which the Protestant
-missionaries in Turkey obtain permission to cross Russian soil. Such is
-the jealousy of that Orthodox Church, the object of British episcopal
-blandishments, to whose mercies it is announced that the Archbishop of
-Canterbury is about to transfer his long-cherished pupils, the
-Chald&aelig;an or Assyrian Christians of Kurdistan.<a class="noteref"
-id="xd21e3312src" href="#xd21e3312" name="xd21e3312src">5</a></p>
-<p class="par">To Sembat the Russian colonists were an object of
-peculiar interest, not indeed in the same capacity in which they
-appealed to the Governor, but by reason of the kind of religion which
-they professed. Here was a people who, like himself, were exiles for
-the sake of religion, who resembled, in their aversion to the trammels
-of ecclesiasticism, the congregations in whose bosom he had himself
-been reared. The history of the Dukhobortsy or Dukhoborians&mdash;I
-became familiar with the latter termination, and such is the name of
-the sect to which these settlers belong&mdash;composes a chapter which
-is neither the least remarkable nor the most creditable in the history
-of the Russian Church-State. Their origin would appear to be wrapt in
-some mystery; according to one account a discharged soldier first
-disseminated the teaching in the Government of Kharkov and in the year
-1740.<a class="noteref" id="xd21e3320src" href="#xd21e3320" name=
-"xd21e3320src">6</a> Count Tolstoy adopts the view, which would appear
-the more probable, that it was a foreigner, a Quaker, immigrant to
-Russia, who spread the seeds of their belief.<a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e3329src" href="#xd21e3329" name="xd21e3329src">7</a> Neither
-their opinions, nor the temper which was the outcome of their
-convictions, were calculated to promote the smoothness of their early
-course. In a country where Church interests permeate every act of
-policy, they denied the necessity, even the expediency of a Church.
-Among a people attached with devotion to their temples, images and
-eikons, they professed the uselessness of all such external aids to
-religious life. The crusty formulas cracked under their merciless
-logic; and the grim earnestness with which these <i>spiritual
-<span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb103" href="#pb103" name=
-"pb103">103</a>]</span>combatants</i> grappled with themselves and with
-society wore out the patience or aroused the apathy of the State.
-Already in the eighteenth century they suffered persecution; and so
-bitter grew the feeling against them, that in the early years of the
-nineteenth century the Emperor Alexander I. settled them in the Tauric
-province, in the neighbourhood of the Sea of Azov. But Alexander was
-not the man to become the instrument of their enemies, whose hostile
-instances provoked an Imperial rebuke. It had been proposed that a
-further migration of the sect should be required; the ukase of 1816
-enacted that no such migration should take place. The same edict
-recited the favourable testimony to their character which had been
-received from the official in whose district they lived, dwelt on the
-proved futility of the measures previously taken against them, and
-proclaimed that, far from meditating the repetition of any such
-measures, it was the Imperial will that every unnecessary restriction
-should be removed and that all annoyance of the sectaries should cease.
-The humane, the wise policy of this enlightened ruler has not been
-followed by his successors on the throne. Nicholas the First expelled
-them to the Transcaucasian provinces, and they are being persecuted at
-the present day. The principal emigrations took place between 1841 and
-1845. They were allotted seats in the bleak country on the south of
-Akhalkalaki, whence they have spread into the Government of Elizabetpol
-and into the more recently acquired province of Kars. According to the
-census of 1886 their numbers in their adopted country amounted to
-12,500 souls at that date.<a class="noteref" id="xd21e3343src" href=
-"#xd21e3343" name="xd21e3343src">8</a></p>
-<p class="par">In the eyes of a philosopher the Dukhobortsy may appear
-to practise pure religion, and to observe the spirit of the teaching of
-Christ. Yet in the view of the majority of Christians their doctrines
-would be deemed heretical and their religious usages would be
-condemned. Such an attitude is the fruitful parent of misrepresentation
-and calumny; and the account of them which we received from our
-itinerant preacher was not untinctured by these defects. In justice to
-him one must remember that his own services would be repudiated by
-these fellow-offenders with him against the majesty of the Orthodox
-Church; that neither a Zaremba nor an Eli Smith would be welcomed by
-these simple <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb104" href="#pb104" name=
-"pb104">104</a>]</span>peasants and solicited to direct and elevate
-their spiritual life. The imagination of the Oriental may have been
-coloured by the prejudice of the Christian teacher; yet I cannot doubt
-that the tales which he told us about them were widely current in the
-gossip of the countryside. According to Sembat, considerable mystery
-surrounded the religion of these peasants, which he himself had not
-sufficient knowledge to dispel. Pagan practices were freely imputed to
-them; and they were said to worship images of birds and beasts. Whether
-they worshipped them, or only regarded them as symbols, it was at least
-certain that they were in the habit of making such images, and we could
-judge for ourselves what purpose they served. And then he related to us
-a portion of the story of Lukeria&mdash;half-goddess and
-half-queen.</p>
-<p class="par"><i>September 5.</i>&mdash;In the East mankind is usually
-a monotonous animal, which you would scarcely notice, such is the
-majesty of his natural surroundings, were it not for the needs which
-you share in common with him, and which he most indifferently supplies.
-It was therefore with expectations of no ordinary character that we set
-out from Akhalkalaki to visit the Russian colonies on the southern
-margin of the great plain. The direct distance between the town and
-Gorelovka, the principal settlement, is seventeen miles. The road,
-although it constitutes the avenue of communication with Alexandropol,
-is little better than a track. In places the carriage is jolted in a
-merciless manner by protruding boulders, embedded in the soil. We
-started at half-past two, on a course a little east of south; the
-vastness of the expanse and the billowing surface of the naked soil
-suggested the appearance of the sea. But the horizon was outlined by
-the forms of lofty ranges, encircling the floor of the plain. Banks of
-white and grey cloud were suspended about their summits, while the
-zenith was blue and the air crisp, yet full of sun.</p>
-<p class="par">At three o&rsquo;clock we gained the margin of the
-Toporovan river, a flash of water slowly flowing over the surface of
-the plain. On the further bank a small Armenian village; a little
-Tartar settlement on this shore. We paused awhile, that we might
-realise the features of the landscape, the same we had commanded from
-the summit of Abul. On our left hand we were skirting some stony
-hummocks, which flank the mass of Abul. That broad-based mountain rose
-beyond them, closing the landscape in the east. On our point of course,
-some eight miles distant, a range of gentle vaulting stretched from
-east by south to west by <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb105" href=
-"#pb105" name="pb105">105</a>]</span>north. It may be identified with
-the outer framework of the mountains which encircle Lake Chaldir. In
-the south-west we discerned a break in the ranges, the distant passage
-of the Kur. On our right the level plain; and beyond it, at a long
-interval, the lofty ridges which border the Kur on the left bank.
-Behind us, from a second cleft or opening in the mountains, a long
-serrated ridge, which belongs to the northern border ranges, and which
-formed a striking feature in the prospect from Abul. This chain and
-that in the west appeared to be the highest, except for the nearer
-outline of Abul.</p>
-<p class="par">In another half-hour we had passed the track which leads
-to Manzara, and were crossing the richest portion of the plain. The
-deepness of the furrows in the black earth argued careful cultivation;
-the crops had already been gathered in. We were now pursuing a rather
-more easterly direction, and could see a gap in the outlines on our
-point of course. The hummocks still followed us, at an interval of a
-couple of miles, and, beyond them, the meridional range to which Abul
-belongs. But, on our right hand, we now lost the open prospects; low,
-rocky hills advanced from the region of Lake Chaldir. It seemed a neck
-of the plain; for, further south, the view again opens, and the plain
-expands anew, in the form of a gulf-like extension, towards the
-water-parting between the Araxes and the Kur. It was evident that we
-were reaching considerably higher levels, for the crops were still
-standing, although ripe. The reapers were busy, gaily clad Armenians,
-the women helping in the work. In the distance, at the base of the
-eastern mountains, we saw a village, which was inhabited by Armenian
-Catholics. The cereals consisted of oats, from which they make bread,
-and a species of bearded wheat. At half-past four we arrived at the
-first considerable village, which, indeed, proved to consist of two
-villages, both of which adjoin the road. The first is called Khojabek,
-and is inhabited by Armenians; it contains fifty houses, and possesses
-a church but no school. The second, Bogdanovka, is a Russian settlement
-with eighty houses, the first of those settlements which we were so
-anxious to see.<a class="noteref" id="xd21e3364src" href="#xd21e3364"
-name="xd21e3364src">9</a> At this double village we crossed a stream
-which was said to issue from Lake Chonchal, and which bears the same
-name as the lake.</p>
-<p class="par">Bogdanovka is not a favourable specimen of its species.
-I did not notice any appreciable contrast between the Russian and
-<span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb106" href="#pb106" name=
-"pb106">106</a>]</span>the Armenian village; it is indeed possible that
-they may have mutually affected one another, not to the advantage of
-the Russian settlement&mdash;in both cases rambling, stone-built
-tenements, and flat roofs, topped with turf. Dirty little lanes, of
-uneven surface, debouch upon the principal street. But the gait, the
-physiognomy of the two races&mdash;what a remarkable contrast in this
-respect! Large, lustrous, coal-black eyes: little, colourless pupils;
-shapely features, animate with expression: formless protuberances from
-a massive, heavy skull. The ugliness of the women especially appalled
-us, and we were impressed with the deliberate slouch of the men&rsquo;s
-walk.</p>
-<p class="par">We had come a distance of <span class="measure" title=
-"19.2 kilometer">18 versts</span> (<span class="measure" title=
-"19.3 kilometer">12 miles</span>). After changing horses, we gained
-some rising ground on the further side. From here we could see Lake
-Chonchal, with a village at the foot of the rising ground on its
-opposite shore. In half an hour we were at the tiny lake and village of
-Orlovka&mdash;a ragged-looking place, of which a striking feature was
-the stacks of <i>tezek</i> or dried manure. This was the second Russian
-village; we were disappointed. Gorelovka, the goal of our journey, was
-to come next.</p>
-<p class="par">The range on our left still continued; but on our right
-the hills had receded, and were replaced by gently rising ground.
-Patches of arable land mounted the slopes about us, suggesting that the
-rising tide of reclamation was flowing into these remote solitudes. We
-noticed that the soil had become more turf-like and fibrous in
-character; we thought it well adapted to potato culture, but not a
-field of potatoes could we see. These uplands provide good pasture
-during summer and sweet hay for the long winter months. It was a
-landscape of open downs at a great elevation; we had reached a height
-of some <span class="measure" title="2134 meter">7000 feet</span>. Such
-are the bleak surroundings of Gorelovka. We were chilled to the bones
-when we arrived at half-past six.</p>
-<hr class="tb">
-<p class="par"></p>
-<p class="par">The impression which we had received at the two smaller
-villages was quickly dispelled by our new surroundings. Great was our
-pleasure when we recognised that the high opinion of Colonel Tarasoff
-was amply justified by those to whom it applied. It is true that these
-sectaries are the flower of the peasantry in Russia; but that peasantry
-is none the less honoured by what they have achieved.</p>
-<p class="par">Gorelovka is the largest village in the district; it
-contains <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb107" href="#pb107" name=
-"pb107">107</a>]</span>150 houses and a population of some 1500 souls.
-The inhabitants said it was fifty-two years since they came hither from
-Russia, and were allotted lands. Each house pays fifteen roubles (about
-thirty shillings) annually to the State for the rent of their lands.
-Snow lies on the ground for about eight months in the year, and, like
-the Armenians, they heat their houses with <i>tezek</i> fuel, or cakes
-of dried manure. I admired their ploughs and spacious waggons; they are
-their own handiwork. You do not see such ploughs and waggons among
-their neighbours&mdash;Armenians, Tartars and Turks. On the other hand,
-they have not improved upon the usual threshing implements&mdash;the
-flat beams encrusted with sharp stones. They said they had found this
-method in use in the country, and that it satisfied their needs. Their
-markets are Alexandropol and Akhalkalaki. Cereals struggle for
-existence at this altitude; yet the patches of plough and stubble,
-spread upon the hillsides, climb higher every year.<a class="noteref"
-id="xd21e3398src" href="#xd21e3398" name="xd21e3398src">10</a> It is
-pleasant to watch the waggons, loaded with hay, winding homewards over
-the springy turf.</p>
-<p class="par">A Dukhobortsy village is not built into the earth, like
-the burrows of the Armenians and the Kurds. The Russians cheat the
-climate by the additional thickness which they put into their solid
-stone walls. Their dwellings are low, one-storeyed houses; the masonry
-is covered over with plaster, which receives several coats of
-whitewash. A long street traverses the village&mdash;straight, broad
-and well maintained; the houses are aligned upon it at intervals. The
-roofs are almost flat, and consist of stout beams, supporting a
-superstructure of earth and sods of turf. The chimneys are mere
-apertures in the roof, protected by little wooden hoods. We found the
-interiors clean and comfortable; the wooden ceilings are neatly mitred,
-and the walls are distempered white. The deep embrasures of the windows
-testify to the thickness of the walls. In some of the Russian
-settlements, through which we passed later, the people had adorned
-their homes with gay shutters and combings of fretwork design; in
-Gorelovka no work of fancy adorns the dwellings of the peasants,
-<span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb108" href="#pb108" name=
-"pb108">108</a>]</span>and they have lavished all their skill in
-wood-carving upon the residence of their queen.</p>
-<p class="par">The inhabitants are tall and powerfully built, and,
-although they are bronzed in complexion almost beyond recognition, the
-fair hair bears witness to their northern origin. Their limbs are
-loosely put together, so that, apart from the difference of their dress
-and demeanour, they present a strong contrast to the neatly-made
-natives of the country, by reason of their lofty stature and the
-unbuckled slouch of their walk. The features are irregular, the eyes
-small, and the countenance is wanting in animation, in the case of both
-women and men. The dress of the men consists of dark blue trousers and
-jacket and a peaked military cap; this costume gives them the
-appearance of old soldiers, and all seem to shave the beard. The women
-wear very clean cotton dresses of showy patterns and bright hues.</p>
-<p class="par">Next morning, according to arrangement, we were to
-visit, in company with our host, Alexei Zupkoff, the venerable
-<i>starshina</i>, or head of the village, the residence and garden of
-the queen. The brother of the queen joined our party&mdash;Michael
-Vasilievich Ghubanoff, the same of whom Count Tolstoy speaks. We passed
-down the long, straight street of the village, the spacious intervals
-between the white houses opening to the breezy downs. Entering an
-enclosure, we found ourselves in a delightful flower-garden, among
-trees and thick rose-bushes, allowed to spread in freedom, and only
-saved from rankness and riot by the loving hand of man. How strange,
-after our wanderings among peoples whose material standards hover on
-the extreme margin where life is just possible and no more, appeared to
-us the sight of these garden flowers and the scent of the double rose.
-A low one-storeyed building faces the garden on two sides; the one wing
-contains the chapel and reception room, the other the private
-apartments in which the queen used to live. Passing within the doorway,
-we stood in a little hall from which rooms opened, one on either side.
-Both apartments are spacious, and their size was enhanced by the
-complete absence of furniture. Large stone stoves are built into the
-rooms, and form the most prominent feature in them; these stoves are
-usual in all the houses, but in this house they are decorated with a
-scroll of stone carving, which is not the case elsewhere. The ceilings
-are low, and the walls are so thick that the windows have the
-appearance of fortress embrasures, with their deep cavernous sills. The
-two large rooms on either side <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb109"
-href="#pb109" name="pb109">109</a>]</span>of the hall were formerly
-devoted, the one to prayer meetings and the other to social gatherings;
-but it was evident that they were not in use at the time of my visit,
-and I was told that assemblies in this house had been interdicted by
-Government, on account of the fresh outbreak of fanaticism which was
-apprehended should the people come together beneath the roof of their
-former queen.</p>
-<p class="par">The general arrangement and appearance of the chapel or
-apartment in which they used to meet for prayer is this&mdash;the low
-ceiling is composed of narrow pine planks, the surface being relieved
-by delicate wood beadings along the seams where plank meets plank. The
-large pier of the stove projects boldly into it from the side of the
-door. The walls of such rooms are in general covered with a neat paper
-of common Russian pattern, and the floors are either painted a reddish
-colour, or the boards are left natural, and stopped, and scrubbed
-daily, like the deck of a yacht. Round this particular apartment there
-runs a low bench; this is the only sitting-place. Large pots of
-flowers, carefully pruned and tended, bloomed in the deep embrasures of
-the windows, and broke the light, diffused about the sober apartment in
-a warm and regular glow. In that part of the building where the queen
-used to live, the rooms, although smaller, presented a similar
-appearance; they were maintained in the same state of scrupulous
-cleanliness as though she inhabited them still. The furniture had all
-been removed from them; but, in addition to the pots of beautiful
-flowers, there was in each a dish of Easter eggs.</p>
-<p class="par"></p>
-<div class="figure xd21e3446width" id="fig021"><img src=
-"images/fig021.jpg" alt="Fig. 21. Summer Pavilion at Gorelovka." width=
-"720" height="505">
-<p class="figureHead"><span class="sc"><span class="figNum">Fig.
-21.</span> Summer Pavilion at Gorelovka.</span></p>
-</div>
-<p class="par"></p>
-<p class="par">In the centre of the garden among the rose-bushes stands
-the summer pavilion of the queen (Fig. <a href="#fig021">21</a>). The
-kernel of the structure may be described as consisting of two square
-boxes, placed one above the other, and serving as living rooms. Each
-side of the upper room is broken by a large window; so that the view
-from within embraces the whole settlement and all the landscape around.
-The lower room contains a bed and a row of pegs, on which, behind a
-light covering, hang the dresses of the queen; that above is bare of
-all furniture, and was always used as a sitting-room. A broad wooden
-balcony with staircase runs round this inner kernel, supported on
-pillars of wood. They have lavished all their skill upon the decoration
-of this balcony, enriching it with delicate fretwork traceries and with
-figures placed at the angles of the roof. At each corner sits a dove
-with wings <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb110" href="#pb110" name=
-"pb110">110</a>]</span>outspread, while on the summit of the roof a
-dove is just alighting, the wings just closing, the legs outstretched.
-In front of the pavilion, on the side of the house, there is a large
-standard lantern, a work of curious design and fancy, surmounted by an
-image of St. George and the dragon, carved with much life and vigour in
-wood.</p>
-<p class="par">By my side stood the man who had made these images, and
-I asked him whether they had any religious meaning, peculiar to their
-creed. I was loath to put the question, so obvious was their purpose,
-so universal the symbolism they implied. He answered good-humouredly
-that they were pure ornaments, and that he was flattered by my
-appreciation of his skill.</p>
-<p class="par">In a room, removed from the part of the village in which
-the queen lived, they showed us her furniture and effects, her personal
-ornaments, and every detail of her attire. Everything that belonged to
-her had been carefully kept and cherished, like the relics of a saint.
-Her possessions had been those of a simple peasant woman, verging on
-the middle class&mdash;a velvet chair or two, some statuettes in
-plaster, a few chromo-lithographs. Many trays of coloured Easter eggs
-were here collected&mdash;the offerings, I suppose, of many happy
-Easters, when she had led their congregations of prayer.</p>
-<p class="par">Seven years had elapsed, at the time of our visit, since
-they had lost their beloved Lukeria Vasilievna, their leader both in
-spiritual and in temporal matters; they honoured and obeyed her like a
-queen.<a class="noteref" id="xd21e3466src" href="#xd21e3466" name=
-"xd21e3466src">11</a> Her influence was supreme among the settlers on
-these highlands; and it appears to have extended to all the colonists
-in Transcaucasia of the Dukhobortsy sect. The traveller Radde, who
-visited Gorelovka in 1875, was privileged to meet her in her home. He
-describes her as a widow in the thirties, strong, tall, of full but
-still shapely forms. Her features wore the imprint of beauty. He
-testifies to the veneration in which she was held. That Lukeria was
-nothing more to them than the contemporary holder of an office which
-had been the outcome of their religious and social needs, would, I
-think, be no less fallacious to suppose than to credit the rumours
-current in the country that it had been in the character of a divine
-personage that her people had submitted themselves to her will. A
-childlike nature, at once the product of the religious temperament and
-its peculiar pride, may find it difficult <span class="pagenum">[<a id=
-"pb111" href="#pb111" name="pb111">111</a>]</span>to discriminate
-between the emotions of worship and of love. When I questioned them,
-they strongly disclaimed for Lukeria any pretension to supernatural
-gifts, and they rejected as a fable the imputation that they had paid
-her divine honours. They had loved and revered in her a good and noble
-woman, who raised their lives, relieved their sorrows, and led their
-aspirations towards the higher life. The evidence of her work and
-example is written in the appearance of this model village, and in the
-demeanour of its inhabitants. All were well clothed and clean and well
-nourished; it was a pleasure to see them go about their business in
-their quiet, earnest way. I saw no poor people in Gorelovka, not a sign
-of the habitual squalor of the East. Provision had been made for the
-orphans and the destitute, and I understood that all the colonists of
-the neighbourhood contribute to the funds. But what impressed me most,
-beside the evidence of their affection in these dwellings and this
-enclosure maintained in neatest order, as though in spirit she
-inhabited them still, was the love of flowers which the queen appears
-to have developed in her people and brought them to share with her. In
-the decline of wealth and of the arts, the sight of garden flowers
-becomes more and more rare in the East; and, at best, they are there
-little more than the ornament of luxury and the setting of sensual
-delights. At Gorelovka one cannot doubt that these geraniums and roses
-are cultivated for their own sake alone.</p>
-<p class="par">The religion of the Dukhobortsy resembles that of our
-own extreme Protestants; it is the Government fans their zeal into
-destroying flames. That they are Christians there can, I think, be
-scarcely any doubt; they told me positively that they acknowledged and
-worshipped Christ as God.<a class="noteref" id="xd21e3475src" href=
-"#xd21e3475" name="xd21e3475src">12</a> But God is a spirit, and they
-that worship God must worship Him in spirit and in truth. The spirit of
-God dwells in the souls of His servants, who themselves are sons of
-God. How therefore can a church, an image or an eikon claim reverence
-as a holy thing? In these there dwells no spirit, no effluence of
-Godhood; the Church of God is the human soul. Reasoning thus, the
-Dukhobortsy bow to one another after prayer, saluting the divinity that
-resides in man. Scripture they <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb112"
-href="#pb112" name="pb112">112</a>]</span>accept; but the book of God
-must be a living book, a book to which there is never any end. Hence
-their religious conceptions float about in the mouths of the people, in
-the form of psalms. New psalms may be sung; but the old psalms never
-perish&mdash;the Word of God, old yet ever new. They reject priests and
-all the apparatus of official religion, and themselves conduct whatever
-simple ceremonies may be necessary upon birth, at marriage and after
-death.</p>
-<p class="par">The moral ideas of the Dukhobortsy are such as might be
-expected from a people who hold this lofty view of the nature of man.
-Man, being the receptacle of the divinity, must not injure, must not
-kill his fellow-man. Hence they do not see the necessity of judicial
-tribunals; for they do not wish to wrong any man. Nor do they consider
-that one man should exercise authority over another; each one must do
-his duty, because it is his duty, and no compulsion can be necessary
-from outside.</p>
-<p class="par">That from such peaceful surroundings there should issue
-fierce dissensions, that a people trained to mutual love and
-forbearance should be inflamed by the worst passions of an opposite
-nature, and turn the hand which they had been unwilling to lift against
-their fellow-men upon the brothers of their own creed, is a melancholy
-example of the failure of purely emotional methods to elevate
-permanently the nature of man. It seems there are no short cuts to
-virtue; the standards attained under the impulse of religious
-enthusiasm have but an ephemeral life. With the death of Lukeria was
-removed the personality and visible example for which simple natures
-crave; and the exaggeration of sentiment, of which she had been the
-object, brought with it its own revenge. Although cut off at the early
-age of forty-three years, the queen was already a widow when she died.
-Her marriage had been childless, and, even had she possessed a natural
-successor, the place which she occupied in the imagination of her
-people would perhaps have been impossible to fill. Yet scarcely a year
-had elapsed from the time of her death when a pretended successor
-arose&mdash;a boy, who, I believe, claimed relationship with her, and
-who presumed to be worthy to wear the mantle which had hitherto
-descended on none. The inhabitants of Gorelovka, whose version of the
-story I am giving, were emphatic in their statement that this youth was
-an impostor. &ldquo;He told lies,&rdquo; was the expression which they
-used. His authority had never been acknowledged by them, and he had
-stirred up their own brethren against <span class="pagenum">[<a id=
-"pb113" href="#pb113" name="pb113">113</a>]</span>them. I gathered that
-they had not stopped short of actual violence in the ardour of
-religious and partisan zeal. Gorelovka, it appears, had been solid
-against the usurper; but opinions had been divided in the neighbouring
-villages and throughout the community settled in Transcaucasia of the
-Dukhobortsy sect. The Russian Government, as was natural, surveyed the
-situation from the standpoint of hard-headed prudence; they were not
-anxious to see installed a successor to Lukeria and a revival of the
-old religious flame. The weight of their authority was thrown in the
-scale against the pretender; he was suppressed without delay and
-banished from the country to a remote exile in the north.</p>
-<p class="par">At the time of our visit the feud was slumbering; Count
-Tolstoy informs us how it broke out anew. It would appear that the
-pretender&mdash;his name was Peter Veriguin&mdash;was supported by the
-large majority of the Dukhobortsy, who were incensed at the action of
-the authorities in making over to the brother of Lukeria, our friend
-Ghubanoff, the succession to the communal funds. From his place of
-exile Veriguin corresponded with his disaffected brethren; Government,
-apprised of the fact, removed him to Siberia during the winter of
-1894&ndash;5. While he was in Moscow on his way to the land of
-forgetfulness, he was visited by his relations and by some of his
-spiritual allies. Them he charged to convey a proposal to the brethren:
-that they should abstain from participation in the violent acts of
-Government, should refuse to serve in the capacity of soldiers, and
-should destroy all their arms. This proposal was accepted by the whole
-of the larger party; and they prepared to translate it into action
-without delay.</p>
-<p class="par">In the Government of Elizabetpol, on the first day of
-the festival of Easter, eleven Dukhobortsy, who were performing
-military service with a reserve battalion, refused to parade, and
-formally signified that they intended to serve no more. At their head
-was an individual who, in spite of his legal disability as a sectarian,
-had been promoted to the rank of a non-commissioned officer for his
-high qualities and the exceptional nature of his deserts. Their example
-was followed in other provinces, in Akhalkalaki, in Kars. No pains were
-spared by the authorities to save them from their rashness; when
-persuasion failed, fear was tried. Five recalcitrants in Akhalkalaki
-were taken into the prison yard and placed in line. A firing party of
-Cossacks was <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb114" href="#pb114" name=
-"pb114">114</a>]</span>called in and ordered to load with ball; the
-prisoners asked and received permission to pray. The command
-&ldquo;make ready&rdquo; was next issued, and a few minutes passed. The
-former soldiers quietly awaited the word to fire. It was not given; the
-muzzles were lowered, and they were conducted to their cells. In other
-places Cossacks charged the prisoners and made pretence to cut them
-down. When the sectarians still persisted in their decision, they were
-beaten with the lash. Asked how they justified their action, they
-answered that they were Christians, endeavouring to observe the
-precepts of Christ. Nor was their refusal to serve in the army the only
-issue with Government into which they were carried by their aversion to
-violence in human affairs. It so happened that a certain prisoner, in
-course of transportation, was brought to one of their villages. It was
-the duty of the elder of the village to provide for his further escort
-and to hand him over to a sure man. This charge had fallen by turn upon
-the brother of the sergeant who had renounced service on the first day
-of Easter. The man informed the elder that he could not escort the
-prisoner because he would be unable to use force. He asked him to
-report his refusal to the authorities; but the elder answered that he
-was not prepared to turn traitor; he should bring the prisoner to the
-house of his temporary warder, who would act as he thought best. The
-man returned to his house; the elder brought the prisoner, and went
-away. The warder treated his charge as though he were a pilgrim, warmed
-him, gave him to eat and drink, gave him a bed. Next morning, observing
-that the prisoner was a poor man, he supplied him with money and
-offered to direct him on his way. When they had arrived outside the
-village, he showed him two roads, of which he gave him the choice. He
-told him that the one led to his destination as prisoner and the other
-to liberty. The prisoner preferred the first road, and came to the
-place of his destination. In this case no evil consequences ensued.</p>
-<p class="par">In 1895 the prison of Elizabetpol contained no less than
-120 members of the Dukhobortsy sect. All had been sentenced for
-offences of the nature already described; but the crown of the
-people&rsquo;s offence was not yet come. In a country where the holding
-of arms is regarded in the light of a civil duty, they determined to
-burn every weapon in their possession of which the purpose was to kill
-men. The night of the 28th of June, the eve of the feast of Peter and
-Paul, was chosen for the simultaneous <span class="pagenum">[<a id=
-"pb115" href="#pb115" name="pb115">115</a>]</span>execution of this
-resolve. In Kars and in Elizabetpol the event passed off without
-serious trouble; but the case was different in the province of
-Akhalkalaki. About three versts from the village of Orlovka there is an
-excavation in the rock, which the people call &ldquo;The Cave.&rdquo;
-In this spot it was their habit to hold their large prayer meetings; it
-was now chosen as the tryst for the burning of arms. On the appointed
-night about 2000 people were there collected; a pile was made, fuel and
-petroleum added, and the whole ignited in due course. In the morning,
-when the flames were exhausted, the assembly offered up prayer, and
-each man returned to his home. The day passed quietly; they returned in
-the evening, and collected together the metal parts which had escaped
-the fire. These they melted into a mass, in the presence of a still
-larger concourse, among whom were many women and young children.</p>
-<p class="par">In Gorelovka, which was on the side of Government, the
-restless symptoms among the opposite party, and the fact that they were
-collecting arms, had not passed unobserved. Anticipating attack, the
-villagers had denounced their co-religionists and had received a
-garrison of Cossacks and regular troops. On the 30th of June an order
-came to all the settlements that the Governor was about to arrive in
-Bogdanovka from Gorelovka and that he required all the settlers to
-repair to that place. Those who were at home obeyed the summons; their
-absent kinsmen, although apprised of the order, remained where they
-were and engaged in prayer. A messenger arrived and repeated the
-injunction. The old men answered that they were praying, that their
-prayers would continue, and that, if the Governor wished to see them,
-it was his part to come to them, they being many and he one. A second
-messenger was sent with no better fortune. Then the watchers ran in
-with the news that the Cossacks were close at hand. No sooner had the
-assemblage closed together than the horsemen were upon them. An officer
-rode at their head and cried &ldquo;Oura!&rdquo; The crowd was ridden
-down and mercilessly beaten with the sharp lashes which the Cossacks
-use. A man was seen to brandish his whip in the air for shame of
-striking. The officer approached him, shouted to him that he was
-deceiving the Tsar, and struck him in the face with his lash. Bruised
-and covered with blood, the people were taken to the Governor; the
-women followed, although the Cossacks tried to whip them away.
-Approaching Bogdanovka, they met the <span class="pagenum">[<a id=
-"pb116" href="#pb116" name="pb116">116</a>]</span>carriage of the high
-official, and the officer shouted &ldquo;Hats off!&rdquo; The old men
-answered him that they would know how to do their duty when the
-Governor passed and saluted them. Again &ldquo;Whips, Oura!&rdquo; and
-a second pitiless beating, until the grass was red with blood. The
-Governor stopped the whipping and proceeded to Bogdanovka, where he
-collected the brethren who had remained behind. When he began to
-upbraid them, a man stepped forward with a military certificate in his
-hand. This document he handed in to the Governor, announcing that in
-future he refused to serve. The Governor lost command of his temper and
-beat him with a stick. Then the people declared that they would no
-longer obey Government or comply with any of its demands. The Governor
-retaliated by ordering them to be whipped, and even threatened to shoot
-them down. The next measure was to quarter Cossacks in their villages,
-who lived at free quarters and violated the women. Four hundred and
-sixty-four families were expelled from the district and sent to starve
-in Georgian villages. These became labourers to the Georgians and
-continued to maintain their high character.<a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e3504src" href="#xd21e3504" name="xd21e3504src">13</a></p>
-<p class="par">Reflecting upon this story after reading these accounts,
-the mind travels back to the dawn of Christianity and to the annals of
-the early Church. The famous letter of Pliny appears fresh and modern,
-while the grave language of the London <i>Times</i> in the leading
-article which it publishes mingles naturally with the spirit of a
-pre-Christian age: &ldquo;The first principles of their creed lead
-straight to social anarchy, tempered only by the whims of the
-&lsquo;sons of God.&rsquo; They are doubtless sincere fanatics, and as
-such must be looked upon with a measure of pity and respect.&rdquo; It
-is interesting to place by the side of this paragraph in a modern
-newspaper the words of the great historian of the Roman world:
-&ldquo;The Christians were not less averse to the business than to the
-pleasures of this world. The defence of our persons and property they
-knew not how to reconcile with the patient doctrine which enjoined an
-unlimited forgiveness of past injuries and commanded them to invite the
-repetition of fresh insults. Their simplicity <span class=
-"pagenum">[<a id="pb117" href="#pb117" name="pb117">117</a>]</span>was
-offended by the use of oaths, by the pomp of magistracy, and by the
-active contention of public life; nor could their humane ignorance be
-convinced that it was lawful on any occasion to shed the blood of our
-fellow-creatures, either by the sword of justice or by that of war,
-even though their criminal or hostile attempts should threaten the
-peace and safety of the whole community;... while they inculcated the
-maxims of passive obedience, they refused to take any active part in
-the civil administration or the military defence of the empire.... This
-indolent, or even criminal disregard to the public welfare exposed them
-to the contempt and reproaches of the pagans, who very frequently
-asked, What must be the fate of the empire, attacked on every side by
-the barbarians, if all mankind should adopt the pusillanimous
-sentiments of the new sect?&rdquo;</p>
-<p class="par">Have the Christians of the present day become pagans, or
-did the pagans only change their name? <span class="pagenum">[<a id=
-"pb118" href="#pb118" name="pb118">118</a>]</span></p>
-</div>
-<div class="footnotes">
-<hr class="fnsep">
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e3259" href="#xd21e3259src" name="xd21e3259">1</a></span>
-According to Eli Smith (<i>Missionary Researches in Armenia</i>, London
-1834, pp. 195 <i>seq.</i>), upon whom I have based this account, the
-whole number of these German colonists was in 1830 about 2000 souls.
-Their present number may be estimated from the published statistics of
-1886. The following are the figures for the various
-colonies:&mdash;</p>
-<div class="blockquote">
-<p class="par footnote first">Government of Tiflis: Town of Tiflis,
-1117. Administrative division (<i>ouezde</i>) of Tiflis:
-Alexandersdorf, 384; Marienfeld, 396; Petersdorf, 195; Friedenthal, 83;
-Elizabeththal, 1148. <i>Ouezde</i> of Borchali: Ekaterinenfeld, 1209;
-Alexandershilf, 366. Other localities, 60. Total for Government of
-Tiflis, 4958.</p>
-<p class="par footnote">Government of Elizabetpol: Helenendorf, 1457;
-Anenfeld, 437. Total, 1894.</p>
-<p class="par footnote">Grand total, 6852 souls.</p>
-</div>
-<p class="par">&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href=
-"#xd21e3259src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e3294" href="#xd21e3294src" name="xd21e3294">2</a></span> Eli
-Smith, speaking of the Roman Catholic missions, is not ashamed to make
-use of the following language:&mdash;&ldquo;Unfortunately a missionary
-can hardly set his foot upon any spot in that field (the Mediterranean)
-without encountering some sentinel of the &lsquo;Mother of
-Harlots,&rsquo; ready to challenge him and shout the alarm&rdquo;
-(<i>op. cit.</i> p. 210). In the course of my reading I have
-incidentally collected parallel passages from the works of other
-writers belonging to the cloth, and it is with pain that I note that
-for foul thoughts, expressed through a foul mouth, it would be
-difficult to find their equal in the writings of lay
-authors.&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href="#xd21e3294src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e3300" href="#xd21e3300src" name="xd21e3300">3</a></span> The
-Armenian Lutherans of Baku were numbered at 350 souls in 1886 (Official
-Statistics, etc.). According to Sembat, there are also communities at
-Shemakha, Erivan and its neighbourhood, Karakala, near Kars, and
-Tiflis.&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href="#xd21e3300src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e3306" href="#xd21e3306src" name="xd21e3306">4</a></span>
-M&uuml;ller-Simonis, <i lang="fr">Du Caucase au Golfe Persique</i>,
-Paris, 1892, p. 3.&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href=
-"#xd21e3306src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e3312" href="#xd21e3312src" name="xd21e3312">5</a></span> Letter
-of the Rev. Athelstan Riley to <i>Daily Chronicle</i> of London, August
-1897.&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href="#xd21e3312src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e3320" href="#xd21e3320src" name="xd21e3320">6</a></span>
-Maksimoff, <i>Transcaucasia</i>, quoted by Radde in <i lang=
-"de">Petermann&rsquo;s Mitth.</i>, 1896, p. 145.&nbsp;<a class=
-"fnarrow" href="#xd21e3320src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e3329" href="#xd21e3329src" name="xd21e3329">7</a></span> See
-Count Tolstoy in the <i>Times</i>, October 23, 1895. I would also refer
-my reader to a book published since this chapter was written, entitled
-<i>Christian Martyrdom in Russia</i>, edited by Vladimir Tchertkoff,
-with a chapter and letter by Leo Tolstoy, London, 1897.&nbsp;<a class=
-"fnarrow" href="#xd21e3329src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e3343" href="#xd21e3343src" name="xd21e3343">8</a></span> Tolstoy
-(the <i>Times</i>, loc. cit.) puts their present number at 20,000, I
-know not upon what authority. The official figures based on the lists
-of 1886 are:&mdash;Government of Tiflis (Akhalkalaki and Borchali),
-7263; Government of Elizabetpol, 2404; Government of Kars, 2766;
-Government of Erivan, 15. Total, 12,448.&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href=
-"#xd21e3343src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e3364" href="#xd21e3364src" name="xd21e3364">9</a></span>
-According to the statistics of 1886 it would contain 93 houses and 839
-inhabitants.&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href=
-"#xd21e3364src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e3398" href="#xd21e3398src" name="xd21e3398">10</a></span> Koch
-speaks of the surprise with which he saw rye being harvested in the
-country north of Erzerum at an altitude of at least <span class=
-"measure" title="2286 meter">7500 feet</span> (<i lang="de">Reise im
-pontischen Gebirge</i>, Weimar, 1846, p. 267). Telfer (<i>Crimea and
-Transcaucasia</i>, London, 1876, vol. i. p. 278) quotes from reports
-issued by the Tiflis Observatory which establish the following limits
-for the Southern Caucasus:&mdash;Barley, <span class="measure" title=
-"2469 meter">8100 feet</span>; corn, <span class="measure" title=
-"2410 meter">7906 feet</span>; wheat, <span class="measure" title=
-"2256 meter">7400 feet</span>; vine, <span class="measure" title=
-"1067 meter">3500 feet</span>. Radde estimates that on the northern
-slopes of Alag&ouml;z corn ripens at <span class="measure" title=
-"2530 meter">8300 feet</span> (<i lang="de">Petermann&rsquo;s
-Mitth.</i>, 1876, p. 147).&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href=
-"#xd21e3398src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e3466" href="#xd21e3466src" name="xd21e3466">11</a></span>
-<i>Lukeria Vasilievna Kalmakoff</i> was given to me as her full
-name.&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href="#xd21e3466src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e3475" href="#xd21e3475src" name="xd21e3475">12</a></span> Count
-Tolstoy&rsquo;s informant says: &ldquo;To Christ, as to an historical
-personage, the Dukhobortsy do not ascribe much importance&rdquo;
-(<i>The Times</i>, loc. cit.). He goes on to tell how, when the Quakers
-visited them in 1818 and heard their opinion about Jesus Christ (that
-he was a man), these pious people exclaimed, &ldquo;Darkness!&rdquo; I
-cannot reconcile this account with what I learnt at Gorelovka, except
-by the reflection that the Christian world itself holds many opinions
-upon this subject.&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href=
-"#xd21e3475src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e3504" href="#xd21e3504src" name="xd21e3504">13</a></span> As a
-sequel to these events, the Dukhobortsy have emigrated in large numbers
-from their seats beyond Caucasus. Once the flower of the peasantry in
-Russia, and afterwards the special pride of Russian Governors in their
-seats of exile, they have now lost their hardiest spirits in a fresh
-exodus. And it is the British Empire which receives them! Their choice
-was at first bestowed upon the island of Cyprus; but the warm climate
-was unpropitious, and they lost some 100 souls in about eight months.
-The bulk of the emigrants appear to have taken ship from Cyprus for
-Canada and British North America during the spring of
-1899.&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href="#xd21e3504src">&uarr;</a></p>
-</div>
-</div>
-<div id="ch8" class="div1 chapter"><span class="pagenum">[<a href=
-"#xd21e356">Contents</a>]</span>
-<div class="divHead">
-<h2 class="label">CHAPTER VIII</h2>
-<h2 class="main">TO ALEXANDROPOL</h2>
-</div>
-<div class="divBody">
-<p class="par first">To-night we are to sleep on the banks of the Arpa,
-by the waters which swell the flood of the Araxes and sweep the base of
-Ararat! This was the reflection which lightened the mood of sorrowful
-meditation that our visit to Gorelovka had inspired. Our grave hosts,
-for whom one felt a vivid sympathy, a warm affection, conducted us in
-their spacious waggons to the posting station of Efremovka, a few
-versts&rsquo; distance along our road. It is a Russian settlement with
-some ninety houses and a population of 860 souls, besides a collection
-of huge and formidable dogs. The station is a stage of <span class=
-"measure" title="17.1 kilometer">16 versts</span> (10&frac12; miles)
-from Bogdanovka, and of <span class="measure" title="22.4 kilometer">21
-versts</span> (<span class="measure" title="22.5 kilometer">14
-miles</span>) from the succeeding post house of Shishtapa, which was
-our destination for the afternoon. At Efremovka we took leave of our
-companions, and, at the same time, of the solid villages of this
-Russian zone.</p>
-<p class="par">A country of elevated uplands, a natural carpet of
-springy turf, broken here and there by patches of cultivation which
-struggle upwards from the plainer levels to the hillsides. Grey lights
-descending from a grey heaven upon a surface swelling and falling like
-the sea. In the east the near reliefs of the mountains of the
-meridional border, their base checkered with plots of fallow and
-stubble, their summits veiled with cloud. At their foot the lake and
-marsh of Madatapa, with the Russian village of Troitskoy upon its
-shore. In the west the vague downs, rising to a distant horizon of
-loftier shapes, similar to themselves. Such were the opening phases of
-the scene through which we passed to the scarcely perceptible
-water-parting between the Araxes and the Kur. After less than an
-hour&rsquo;s drive from Efremovka we could see the village of Korakhbur
-(Armenian Catholic) on the hillside, about a mile away on our left
-hand; on <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb119" href="#pb119" name=
-"pb119">119</a>]</span>our right was an Armenian hamlet, which was
-named to us Jaila; both are situated in the southern watershed. The
-height of the parting between the basins, at the point where we crossed
-it, is placed by the Russian map at <span class="measure" title=
-"2066 meter">6777 feet</span>, a figure which, if it errs, is below the
-truth. And now for the first time were disclosed the gleaming peaks
-which we had seen from Abul&mdash;beyond a line of hummock hills the
-group of snowy teeth which break the horizontal outline of
-Alag&ouml;z.</p>
-<p class="par">Tazaken, a Turkish settlement; Khancharli, a large
-village of Armenian Catholics, were rapidly left behind. The landscape
-opened to a lofty range of swelling shapes and rounded outlines on the
-western margin of the plain. They were the mountains about Lake
-Chaldir; the declining sun was about to touch them from behind a shroud
-of mist. Sheets of light were thrown upon those distant opaline masses
-as upon the coast of a hazy sea.</p>
-<p class="par">At a quarter to six&mdash;we had left Efremovka at
-4.20&mdash;we were winding between the two Shishtapas, on our right the
-Turkish Shishtapa, washed by the young stream of the Arpa; the Armenian
-Shishtapa further away on our left. At six o&rsquo;clock we crossed a
-bridge which spans a tributary of the Arpa, coming from the east. The
-confluence takes place some hundred yards below the bridge, and the
-name of the tributary was given to us as Kizil-Goch (the red lamb). It
-is a solid stone bridge with a curious stone ornament; on the further
-side you rise to an eminence which overlooks the Arpa, and upon which
-the lonely post station of Shishtapa is built.</p>
-<p class="par">The doors were heavily barred; when at length they
-yielded, after many grumblings, a wizened figure in official uniform
-stepped forth. It was the postmaster&mdash;it seemed the embodiment of
-some immense and ideal sorrow of which all human griefs are but the
-mirrored images. How cross the threshold upon which he stood, how
-enlist his sympathy with our puny wants, who himself was the
-incarnation of Want? But the keenness of the air overcame our
-hesitation; a night in tents and without blankets was the alternative
-course. So with a greeting, which was coldly returned, we led the way
-to the interior, followed by our dismal host. It appeared to consist of
-a single room, a spacious apartment with bare floor and white-washed
-walls. A few chairs and a large table were the only furniture; the only
-ornaments the usual coloured oleograph of the reigning emperor, and,
-perhaps, the almanac and the posting map, which <span class=
-"pagenum">[<a id="pb120" href="#pb120" name="pb120">120</a>]</span>were
-suspended on the walls. Yet the postmaster was not the only occupant of
-the building; children appeared, and with them a young and beautiful
-girl. A Polish maiden? one could not doubt of the answer, as one
-admired the slender form, the swelling bust, the full lips and the pale
-face with its animated eyes. Ah! the pitiful story eloquently told by
-this unambiguous presence&mdash;the mother already a victim to the
-prolonged atrophy of these cheerless surroundings, the father a sapless
-tree in an alien soil. Who sent them to such cold solitudes, these warm
-natures and passionate temperaments? Find a wilderness and it will be
-tenanted by a Pole.... The practical question arose: how accommodate
-ourselves and the family within the four white walls? The father
-protested that it was completely impossible; the girl came to our
-assistance, and revealed the existence of an adjoining closet, which
-she offered to share with the children for the night. After partaking
-of a frugal meal, after several futile attempts at sustained
-conversation, our strange party disposed itself for the night.</p>
-<p class="par">For myself, I could not sleep, for all the comfort of my
-camp bed, and memories of sound slumbers which it evoked. Was it the
-grave faces of the Russian peasants and the strange irony of their
-history and circumstances that haunted and kept the mind strung? Or
-were the senses fluttering under the presence of the fair woman whose
-soft breathing one could almost hear? God residing in those frames of
-steel, God incarnate in her voluptuousness!&mdash;Yet <i>their</i> God
-was not the God of the pantheist, but a stern, a militant God.... And
-thought wandered out into the stony by-paths, the home of the sprites
-that mock thought. The ingenious wickedness of man with his Churches
-and his heretics, and all the cowering crowd of Jews, Armenians,
-Poles!</p>
-<p class="par">A faint light was already diffused over the cheerless
-apartment as I passed down the row of heavy sleepers and gained the
-door and the open air. Day had broken&mdash;a morning of perfect
-stillness, the vapours lingering on the saturated grass. A cold, grey
-world of bleak uplands and mist-veiled mountains, a chill atmosphere
-which sent one pacing to and fro. But when the sun rose above the haze
-into the clear vault of heaven, the colours started, the chill softened
-into delicious freshness, and the peculiar beauty of the scene was
-revealed. One looked in vain for the snowy fangs of Alag&ouml;z; they
-had been lost to view behind the amphitheatre of nearer outlines which
-composed the closing phases <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb121" href=
-"#pb121" name="pb121">121</a>]</span>of our stage of yesterday. But
-within the limits of those gentler shapes was outspread an ideal
-landscape, typical of the most elevated areas of the tableland (Fig.
-<a href="#fig022">22</a>). The plainer levels were invested with the
-character of swelling downs, and down and hillside were carpeted with
-turf. Over the green and fibrous surface flowed the Arpa and its
-tributary, flashes of white and luminous blue. Here and there brief
-patches of cultivation checkered the soil, especially towards
-north-west and west. In the middle distance one could discern two
-villages of moderate size&mdash;the two Shishtapas, barely
-distinguished from the waste. Beyond the Turkish Shishtapa, obscuring
-all but the first line of the settlement, lay a captive cloud, an
-opaque opaline mass. The illustration shows the rivers descending
-towards you and uniting at your feet. The hills which line the distance
-circle round and mass behind you, closing the prospect towards the
-south. In that direction the united waters bid farewell to the grassy
-uplands, and enter the stony tracts which slope to the plain of
-Alexandropol between the outworks of the Chaldir system and those of
-the meridional border range.</p>
-<p class="par"></p>
-<div class="figure xd21e3562width" id="fig022"><img src=
-"images/fig022.jpg" alt="Fig. 22. Head Waters of the Arpa Chai." width=
-"607" height="334">
-<p class="figureHead"><span class="sc"><span class="figNum">Fig.
-22.</span> Head Waters of the Arpa Chai.</span></p>
-</div>
-<p class="par"></p>
-<p class="par"><i>September 7.</i>&mdash;By half-past eight we were
-following the course of the Arpa and taking leave of the green meadows
-and blue streams. We were soon involved among the hummock ridges which
-confine the amphitheatre of the Shishtapas, and through which the river
-winds in a stony valley, at some little distance to the west of the
-<span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb122" href="#pb122" name=
-"pb122">122</a>]</span>track. Progress was retarded by the steepness of
-the inclines as we crossed this elevated ground. Once again in
-possession of a prospect, we were skirting the bases of successive
-promontories, which projected, on our left hand, from the mountains of
-the meridional border into the broken surface of a volcanic plateau.
-This plateau extends for many miles to the westward, and is bounded by
-lofty mountains on that side. The Arpa was running off into the easier
-levels in the west, while the road hugged the rocky eastern shore. The
-waters of the river were not visible after leaving Shishtapa; they are
-buried in a ca&ntilde;on, of which you trace the sinuous edges through
-the bleak and boulder-strewn waste. Ala-Kilisa, a village of
-Armenian-speaking Greeks; Amasia, a Turkish settlement; Karachanta and
-Kara Mehemet, the first inhabited by Turks, the second by Armenians,
-were successively left behind. At half-past ten we arrived at the
-station of Jellap, a stage of twenty versts (thirteen miles).</p>
-<p class="par">The post house is situated at some little distance from
-the village&mdash;an Armenian settlement which is exposed to view after
-you have left the station, high-seated among the rocks above the road.
-It is a gloomy habitation, standing in a stony valley by the banks of a
-stream which descends to the trough of the Arpa from the rocky hummocks
-to which the road adheres. Starting at a few minutes after eleven, we
-commenced by crossing a projecting promontory, mounting the slopes of
-the puny ridges by steep gradients, and never regaining the prospect
-which had been lost before reaching Jellap. At length, at half-past
-eleven, the valleys opened; and we overlooked the landscape of the
-plain of Alexandropol.</p>
-<p class="par"></p>
-<div class="figure xd21e3579width" id="fig023"><img src=
-"images/fig023.jpg" alt=
-"Fig. 23. Alag&ouml;z from the Plain of Alexandropol." width="720"
-height="505">
-<p class="figureHead"><span class="sc"><span class="figNum">Fig.
-23.</span> Alag&ouml;z from the Plain of Alexandropol.</span></p>
-</div>
-<p class="par"></p>
-<p class="par">A vast plain lay before us, level as water, to the floor
-of which the ground declines on every side. A single mountain, which
-has the appearance of a gigantic bank of soil, is drawn in a long
-horizontal outline along its southern verge. This outline is the
-dominant feature in the scene, extending from north of east to south of
-west (Fig. <a href="#fig023">23</a>). The heart and highest points of
-the volcanic elevation are situated in the easterly portion of the
-mass; they are represented by the jagged profile of the broken outer
-side of a crater, and they gleam with perpetual snow. Some conception
-of the stupendous proportions of the mountain may be derived from a
-rough measurement of its protraction in a latitudinal sense. On the
-east the volcanic emissions have been arrested by the barrier of the
-border ranges; on the west they have descended <span class=
-"pagenum">[<a id="pb123" href="#pb123" name="pb123">123</a>]</span>from
-the central or subordinate points of eruption to the valley of the Arpa
-Chai. From that valley, in the neighbourhood of Ani, to the road which
-passes between the volcano and the meeting slopes of the border chain
-is a distance of over <span class="measure" title="64.4 kilometer">40
-miles</span>. Throughout this space the bulk of the giant is thrown
-across the landscape, his head and body resting against the framework
-of the border ranges, his feet extended to the margin of the historic
-stream.</p>
-<p class="par">Such a prospect is the rich reward of the traveller; we
-paused to admire and to realise the scene. It was difficult to believe
-that those snowy peaks were over <span class="measure" title=
-"48.3 kilometer">30 miles</span> distant; yet a glance at the map
-brought home to us this fact. The floor of the plain has an elevation
-of some <span class="measure" title="1524 meter">5000 feet</span>,
-while those peaks are <span class="measure" title="3962 meter">13,000
-feet</span> high. Between us and the base of the mountain no meaner
-object disturbed the view, which ranged uninterrupted across dim tracts
-of earth and stone, tinted with shades of ochre in the burnt grass and
-scanty stubble, but treeless, without verdure of any kind. In the east
-the limit of the plain is the outline of the border ranges, of which we
-were touching the skirts; they describe a wide curve, concave towards
-the expanse, and appear to pass over into a meridional direction before
-the point of intersection with the volcanic mass. Their sides are bare
-of vegetation, as are those of the volcano, and they are much broken
-into hummock forms. From north-west descend the slopes of the Chaldir
-system, of which the base is inclined towards the plain. In the west
-the eye is unable to discern a boundary to the misty distance of flat
-or undulating ground. A little to the right of the white summits in the
-south your attention is directed to a slender line of grey&mdash;a low
-relief upon the surface of the plain. It is Alexandropol; such is the
-first view of the site of the city, backed by Alag&ouml;z. We made
-rapid progress across the level interval and arrived in the town at a
-quarter before one. <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb124" href="#pb124"
-name="pb124">124</a>]</span></p>
-</div>
-</div>
-<div id="ch9" class="div1 chapter"><span class="pagenum">[<a href=
-"#xd21e366">Contents</a>]</span>
-<div class="divHead">
-<h2 class="label">CHAPTER IX</h2>
-<h2 class="main">AT ALEXANDROPOL</h2>
-</div>
-<div class="divBody">
-<p class="par first">The city and district of Alexandropol are included
-in the administrative division of the Government of Erivan. Yet they
-are separated from the capital and territory of that name by a natural
-barrier of vast extent. The mass of Alag&ouml;z, which one may compare
-to a gigantic shield with a central boss, interrupts communication with
-the valley of the Araxes. It must be turned and cannot be crossed. In a
-geographical sense the province of Alexandropol unites more naturally
-with that of Kars; while, if we measure its importance by the
-populousness of its principal town, it deserves to enjoy a position of
-primacy in the Government of which it may form part. The city has
-double the number of inhabitants as compared to Erivan, if I can trust
-the figure given me by the governor and corroborated by the leading
-notables&mdash;a round total of 30,000 souls.<a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e3616src" href="#xd21e3616" name="xd21e3616src">1</a></p>
-<p class="par">Its extreme youth and the fact that it is almost
-exclusively peopled by Armenians are the most remarkable features about
-Alexandropol. At the commencement of the nineteenth century the site
-was partly vacant and partly tenanted by an insignificant village
-called G&uuml;mri. The district formed part of the outlying province of
-Shuragel,<a class="noteref" id="xd21e3621src" href="#xd21e3621" name=
-"xd21e3621src">2</a> which belonged to the Georgian kingdom at the time
-of the annexation of Georgia by Russia in 1801. The Cossacks who came
-to take over this important piece of territory appear to have
-established a camp in the vicinity of G&uuml;mri; the place was early
-developed into a frontier station on the side of Turkey, and in 1817,
-when it was visited by an <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb125" href=
-"#pb125" name="pb125">125</a>]</span>English traveller, was already
-occupied by a considerable Russian garrison.<a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e3629src" href="#xd21e3629" name="xd21e3629src">3</a> In the war
-between Russia and Turkey, which broke out in the spring of 1828, this
-partially fortified position served the Russians as an advanced base.
-It was on the line of advance or defence on the side of G&uuml;mri that
-the Russian military authorities placed the greatest store. There the
-Russian possessions were most open to attack; but, on the other hand,
-it was through G&uuml;mri that they could take the offensive with the
-greatest advantage, since it enabled them to cut off Akhaltsykh and the
-northern provinces from Erzerum and those upon the west. How Turkey
-could have permitted her powerful neighbour to acquire this strip
-without an appeal to arms can probably best be explained on the ground
-of Oriental fatalism. When Marshal Paskevich had taken Erivan and
-concluded the war with Persia by the Peace of Turkomanchai (February
-1828), his hands were free to cut large slices from the Ottoman empire;
-and it was at G&uuml;mri, overlooking the Arpa Chai, the boundary
-against Turkey, that he effected the concentration of his troops. From
-G&uuml;mri he set out in person at the head of his army on the 26th of
-June 1828. The outcome of this war was the capture of Kars and Erzerum,
-and the permanent acquisition by Russia of Akhaltsykh and the northern
-districts under the Treaty of Adrianople (1829). The restoration to the
-Sultan of the two first-named strongholds increased the strategical
-value of the station on the Arpa Chai. G&uuml;mri was slowly but
-persistently converted into a first-rate fortress, the necessary timber
-for the constructions being supplied to his hereditary enemies by the
-Pasha of Kars from the forests of the Soghanlu Dagh. In 1836 the place
-was visited by the Emperor Nicholas I. in person, who inspected the
-works, which, however, were only in an inchoate state.<a class=
-"noteref" id="xd21e3635src" href="#xd21e3635" name="xd21e3635src">4</a>
-The inhabitants date the prosperity of their town from the Imperial
-visit, which at once inaugurated an era of rapid expansion and
-transformed the village of G&uuml;mri into the city of Alexandropol.
-Since Russia has become possessed of Kars, the fortress on the Arpa has
-somewhat declined in importance; but it is still occupied by a
-considerable garrison, and the strength of its defences should enable
-it to give a good account of itself in time of war.</p>
-<p class="par"></p>
-<div class="figure xd21e3642width" id="fig024"><img src=
-"images/fig024.jpg" alt=
-"Fig. 24. Alexandropol from the Armenian Cemetery." width="720" height=
-"510">
-<p class="figureHead"><span class="sc"><span class="figNum">Fig.
-24.</span> Alexandropol from the Armenian Cemetery.</span></p>
-</div>
-<p class="par"><span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb126" href="#pb126" name=
-"pb126">126</a>]</span></p>
-<p class="par">Our experiences at Akhaltsykh had warned me to proceed
-with caution in endeavouring to realise the topography of the site. It
-was not often or in public that I could have recourse to my compass;
-yet I contrived to collect sufficient particulars of an innocent nature
-to supply my own wants and those of my lay readers. Conceive in the
-first place a fordable river flowing on a southerly course through a
-plain of vast extent and slightly basin-like surface. On the left or
-eastern bank beyond a strip of quite level ground rises a ridge of
-insignificant elevation, roughly parallel to the stream. Of no great
-breadth upon the summit, it tends to circle inwards on the north of the
-town, which it screens from the river. South of the site it dies away
-into the plain. The north-west angle of this ridge is occupied by the
-citadel, and consists of a spacious table surface, with plenty of room
-for barracks and magazines. The entire formation is strongly fortified
-with earthworks and with massive structures in brick or stone. Such is
-the principal or, at least, the most conspicuous feature in the
-defences of Alexandropol. But it is by no means the only advantage
-which they derive from Nature.</p>
-<p class="par">Just inside and, therefore, east of this longitudinal
-ridge a second back of nearly equal height and of similar direction
-rises beyond a ravine which is threaded by a brook, and which widens as
-it extends from the citadel towards the south. It forms the standpoint
-from which I took my photograph of the town (Fig. <a href=
-"#fig024">24</a>), extending eastwards at its skirts. The tombs seen in
-the foreground belong to a straggling Armenian cemetery. From this
-position on the inner ridge I estimated the distance across the ravine
-at about five hundred yards, and our distance from the river at about
-three-quarters of a mile. As the valley narrows towards the citadel, it
-is filled with the trees of a little park, whither the citizens repair
-to escape the dazzling light of summer and to enjoy the contrast of
-deep shade and murmuring waters. It forms a welcome patch of verdure in
-the treeless expanse. On this same ridge, but further south, are seen
-the graves of officers and men who fell in the last Russo-Turkish war.
-They are grouped about a monument to Loris Melikoff; but I believe that
-great general of Armenian origin is buried at Tiflis.</p>
-<p class="par">In the manner I have tried to describe, Alexandropol is
-screened on the west at first by the river, and then by two long
-<span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb127" href="#pb127" name=
-"pb127">127</a>]</span>ridges, with a valley between which may be
-compared to a gigantic moat. I am not aware that the inner crest is
-strengthened by fortifications; but it offers an admirable second line
-of defence. The curious feature about the site is that the ridging
-formation is not yet exhausted; three minor and roughly parallel
-elevations are covered with the houses of the town. They cause the
-streets to go up and down, and make them none too pleasant walking. As
-a fortress, I should be inclined to conclude that the place is weak
-upon the east and south; while the nature of the ground beyond the
-river, rising as it does from the right bank to a height almost equal
-to that of the outer ridge, exposes it to a bombardment from that
-side.</p>
-<p class="par">It must not be supposed that these characteristics of
-the topography are prominent in the landscape. They are lost in the
-folds of the plain and overpowered by the scale of their surroundings.
-Look where you will, you have around you the floor of a sea-like
-expanse, bounded at immense intervals by mountainous coasts. In the
-east it is the indented outline of the range on the side of Georgia,
-curving round from a south-easterly into a due meridional direction as
-it approaches the point of intersection with Alag&ouml;z. From that
-point the great volcano composes a side of the frame, inclining a
-little south of an east-west line. It forms a magnificent object as
-seen from Alexandropol, high in the sky, yet with scarcely perceptible
-gradient in the profile on either side of the core of precipitous
-peaks. You follow its train declining into the vague spaces of the
-west, where the bulging convexities become broken into hummock forms.
-The greatest breadth of the plain, as it appears to the eye, would be
-measured from the wall of the range which intersects with Alag&ouml;z
-to a distant mass of mountain in the south-west. That vague boundary
-probably belongs to one of the elevations on the plateau which extends
-between Kars and the Araxes. Between it and the skirts of the volcano
-there is a broad depression in the outlines, giving passage to the Arpa
-Chai. The misty prospects on the west and north-west did not reveal
-during the course of our stay the limits of the level surface in those
-directions.</p>
-<p class="par">Let us see now what these latter-day Armenians have made
-of their city; for the public and private edifices are creations of
-their own. It is evident that they have inherited the love of building
-which distinguished their forefathers, and that the craft of that
-excellent masonry which we admire in their ancient <span class=
-"pagenum">[<a id="pb128" href="#pb128" name=
-"pb128">128</a>]</span>monuments has not become extinct. On the other
-hand, they share to the full in the tastelessness of the modern peoples
-in the decorative arts. Their churches are at once pretentious and
-commonplace both in design and in ornamentation. Of those exquisite
-mouldings with their lace-work chisellings which adorn the exteriors of
-their medi&aelig;val counterparts there is, indeed, scarcely a trace on
-these ambitious structures. But even the standard of the seventeenth
-century, of which many a specimen has been preserved elsewhere, notably
-in the porches of much older churches, has not been maintained into our
-times. Size and a certain effect, rather than elegance of proportion
-and a loving care for detail, are the characteristics of the new style.
-The cathedral, dedicated to the Trinity, is a spacious building, which
-is held up to your admiration, as blending the features of the old
-models. It is difficult to understand how such an assertion and such a
-comparison can be forthcoming from people who have at their doors in
-the neighbouring cloister of Marmashen an example of the art of their
-ancestors. I need only say of the cathedral that it is built of black
-volcanic stone, relieved by courses of the same material but with a
-ruddy hue. I was informed that it was commenced in 1859 and completed
-in 1874.</p>
-<p class="par"></p>
-<div class="figure floatLeft xd21e3668width" id="fig025"><img src=
-"images/fig025.jpg" alt="Fig. 25. Byzantine Picture in Greek Church."
-width="336" height="465">
-<p class="figureHead"><span class="sc"><span class="figNum">Fig.
-25.</span> Byzantine Picture in Greek Church.</span></p>
-</div>
-<p class="par"></p>
-<p class="par">Besides this temple the Gregorian Armenians have three
-churches, of which the most considerable is a large structure in grey
-stone, named after the Virgin Mary. The Armenian Catholics are
-possessed of a single but roomy church. The Greek chapel of St. George
-is of some interest because of its connection with the Greek colony of
-Erzerum, who, like so many of the ancestors of the Armenian inhabitants
-of Alexandropol, <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb129" href="#pb129"
-name="pb129">129</a>]</span>followed the armies of Marshal Paskevich
-upon his evacuation of Turkish territory. It contains a picture of St.
-George and the dragon (Fig. <a href="#fig025">25</a>) which is of
-considerable merit, and is said to contain the date of 1327. But those
-figures, as they now appear, are due to a recent restoration. The
-father of a M. Mergoroff, whom I met during my stay, was principally
-concerned in its transportation at the time of the exodus. I understand
-that it was brought to G&uuml;mri, whence it migrated to a village
-called Zalga, only returning after the lapse of seven years. M.
-Mergoroff writes a curious hand, partly composed of Greek letters and
-partly based upon the Russian alphabet. This characteristic may
-correspond to the present culture of his countrymen at Alexandropol,
-numbering some four hundred souls.</p>
-<p class="par">This flourishing town is badly supplied in respect of
-education, the Armenian schools being restricted by Government to a
-purely elementary course, and having the rank only of schools of two
-classes.<a class="noteref" id="xd21e3685src" href="#xd21e3685" name=
-"xd21e3685src">5</a> They are three in number and are attended by 700
-boys, besides two institutions which dispense instruction to 500 girls.
-The Russian State school is said to be limited in accommodation, and is
-attended by no more than 140 youths, principally Armenians. The
-inhabitants have been agitating for a Russian <i>gymnasium</i> or High
-School, such as has been vouchsafed to their less numerous compatriots
-at Erivan. They attribute their ill-success and the greater advantages
-enjoyed by Akhaltsykh to the fact that the latter town belongs to the
-Government of Tiflis while they are dependent upon Erivan. At
-Alexandropol I heard little of the much-vexed school question, which I
-shall treat in a subsequent chapter. But the inhabitants were loud in
-their complaints that, while forbidden to raise the standard of their
-own schools, they were not provided with adequate education by
-Government. Such a situation is typical of the application of Russian
-methods, and would be humorous if its results were less grave.</p>
-<p class="par">I must have spent much of my time in attending the
-various ceremonies attendant upon the wedding of a M. Ter Mikelean. I
-think I may have come near to getting married myself, the lady being
-none other than his intended bride. For on one occasion, when we were
-all assembled in a lower apartment, and, the bride&rsquo;s father being
-dead, her nearest male relation was conducting her sale by formal
-auction, my own bid seemed for some time to <span class=
-"pagenum">[<a id="pb130" href="#pb130" name="pb130">130</a>]</span>hold
-its own against all rivals, amounting, so far as I remember, to twenty
-pounds. I was relieved at discovering that there was a want of reality
-about the proceedings, and that it had been arranged beforehand that
-the damsel should be knocked down to the chosen bridegroom. When we
-were taken upstairs, and, among a throng of women, were permitted to
-gaze upon the girl&rsquo;s features, my apprehensions were almost
-converted into regret. Such a sweetly pretty face, recalling the
-favourites of Andrea del Sarto, with their fresh simplicity and candid
-eyes! I was in part rewarded by her consenting to form the centre of a
-wedding group, and thus to enable me to perpetuate her youthful beauty
-(Fig. <a href="#fig026">26</a>). The lady with the head-dress, standing
-behind her, is her amiable mother, a type of Giovanni Bellini; while
-the gentleman with his back to the wall is M. Vahan Barsamiantz,
-engaged in an export business of the fruits of the castor-oil plant,
-which is cultivated in the valley of the Araxes. The musicians in the
-foreground were the most lively and strenuous performers I have ever
-met, being rarely silent and never tired. Every member of the group was
-an Armenian. When night came there were dances in the open air to the
-light of streaming torches. The strains were not yet hushed as we
-regained our encampment, which we had placed in a shabby garden of the
-suburbs.</p>
-<p class="par"></p>
-<div class="figure xd21e3699width" id="fig026"><img src=
-"images/fig026.jpg" alt="Fig. 26. Wedding Party at Alexandropol."
-width="419" height="579">
-<p class="figureHead"><span class="sc"><span class="figNum">Fig.
-26.</span> Wedding Party at Alexandropol.</span></p>
-</div>
-<p class="par"><span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb131" href="#pb131" name=
-"pb131">131</a>]</span></p>
-<p class="par">I must not omit a notice of an excursion which we made
-to the neighbouring cloister of Marmashen. It is a monument of the
-period of the medi&aelig;val kings of Armenia, and is of the same order
-of architecture as those at Ani. It is situated about five miles north
-of Alexandropol, on the rocky banks of the Arpa Chai. As we drove over
-the plain, we remarked that ploughing had not yet commenced, and that
-the stubble still stood in the somewhat stony soil. Not a fence or
-other boundary, and not a single tree diversified the expanse of
-ground. Sowing takes place in April, rains fall in May and June, and
-the harvest is gathered during July and August. The surroundings of the
-monastery are bleak and unrelieved by vegetation; the church and
-chapels are falling into ruin, and rise from among piles of
-d&eacute;bris. My illustration (Fig. <a href="#fig027">27</a>) displays
-the principal edifice from the south-west and the chapel which adjoins
-it on the south. A companion but larger chapel on the north is hidden
-from view,<a class="noteref" id="xd21e3712src" href="#xd21e3712" name=
-"xd21e3712src">6</a> and a third structure of the same order, but more
-distant on that further side, is beyond the range of the picture. The
-visitor cannot fail to admire the simplicity of the design of the
-church and the absence of any excrescences. The device of the niche has
-been used to lighten the wall on the east, where the plan of the
-interior requires an apse and two side chapels. Each of the two
-recesses upon that side has a depth of <span class="measure" title=
-"0.914 meter">3 feet</span> <span class="measure" title=
-"20.3 centimeter">8 inches</span>; while the similar features on the
-north and south sides have probably been added for the sake of
-uniformity. The wall <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb132" href="#pb132"
-name="pb132">132</a>]</span>spaces have been diversified with elegant
-false arcades, and the window on the west is framed in a band of
-exquisite chiselling. All these features will be familiar to my reader
-when he has read my account of Ani, and I need not, therefore, dwell
-upon them in this place. He will also become acquainted with the
-personages who erected these edifices, and whose names figure in the
-long inscriptions on the walls of the church. From these we learn that
-it was built by none other than the great prince Vahram, the hero of
-the resistance offered by the inhabitants of Ani to the occupation of
-their city by the Byzantine C&aelig;sar. It was commenced in the year
-<span class="sc">A.D.</span> 988, and does not appear to have been
-completed until 1029.<a class="noteref" id="xd21e3727src" href=
-"#xd21e3727" name="xd21e3727src">7</a> On the other hand, a memorial
-tablet, inserted into the wall on the west, contains a well-preserved
-inscription which we copied, giving the date of 470 of the Armenian
-era, or <span class="sc">A.D.</span> 1021. Presumably the building
-would have been in use at that time. According to an inscription on the
-north wall it was extensively restored in <span class="sc">A.D.</span>
-1225 by descendants of Vahram.<a class="noteref" id="xd21e3744src"
-href="#xd21e3744" name="xd21e3744src">8</a> The wife of that prince and
-perhaps, too, his own remains were buried at Marmashen.</p>
-<p class="par"></p>
-<div class="figure xd21e3750width" id="fig027"><img src=
-"images/fig027.jpg" alt="Fig. 27. Church of Marmashen from S. W."
-width="425" height="452">
-<p class="figureHead"><span class="sc"><span class="figNum">Fig.
-27.</span> Church of Marmashen from S. W.</span></p>
-</div>
-<p class="par"></p>
-<p class="par">The interior, a nave and two narrow aisles, has a length
-of <span class="measure" title="18.6 meter">61 feet</span>, measured to
-the head of the apse, and a breadth of <span class="measure" title=
-"10.4 meter">34 feet</span>. The da&iuml;s of the apse is not less than
-<span class="measure" title="1.22 meter">4 feet</span> in height, the
-face of the da&iuml;s being decorated with a sculptured frieze of
-intricate design. In other respects the masonry is free of ornament,
-and the walls have been left bare. The name of the cloister is said to
-be a corruption of Marmarashen, which would signify the marble edifice.
-Yet the material used is a pink volcanic stone, and I did not observe
-any marble about the church. A porch extended at one time the whole
-breadth of the fa&ccedil;ade, and must have had a length of nearly
-<span class="measure" title="11.3 meter">37 feet</span>. A prominent
-feature of this approach were four octagonal pillars, of which the
-remains still exist. They have a circumference of <span class="measure"
-title="2.13 meter">7 feet</span> <span class="measure" title=
-"25.4 centimeter">10 inches</span> in the shaft. I cannot say that I
-admire the dome, and it is, perhaps, due in its present form to the
-restoration of the thirteenth century. <span class="pagenum">[<a id=
-"pb133" href="#pb133" name="pb133">133</a>]</span></p>
-</div>
-<div class="footnotes">
-<hr class="fnsep">
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e3616" href="#xd21e3616src" name="xd21e3616">1</a></span> The
-official statistics, based on the census of 1886, give Alexandropol a
-population of 24,230 souls, of whom 22,920 are Armenians. Only 200 of
-these are Armenian Catholic.&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href=
-"#xd21e3616src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e3621" href="#xd21e3621src" name="xd21e3621">2</a></span> Ritter
-(<i lang="de">Erdkunde</i>, vol. x. pp. 438&ndash;39) identifies the
-modern name Shuragel with the country designated in Armenian literature
-as Shirak.&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href="#xd21e3621src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e3629" href="#xd21e3629src" name="xd21e3629">3</a></span> Ker
-Porter, <i>Travels in Georgia, Persia, Armenia, etc.</i>, London, 1821,
-vol. i. p. 168.&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href=
-"#xd21e3629src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e3635" href="#xd21e3635src" name="xd21e3635">4</a></span>
-Wilbraham, <i>Travels in the Transcaucasian Provinces</i>, London,
-1839, p. 277.&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href=
-"#xd21e3635src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e3685" href="#xd21e3685src" name="xd21e3685">5</a></span> For the
-explanation of this term see the chapter on Erivan.&nbsp;<a class=
-"fnarrow" href="#xd21e3685src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e3712" href="#xd21e3712src" name="xd21e3712">6</a></span>
-Fragments of the walls of this building alone survive.&nbsp;<a class=
-"fnarrow" href="#xd21e3712src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e3727" href="#xd21e3727src" name="xd21e3727">7</a></span> So the
-inscription on the south wall, as rendered by Brosset (<span lang=
-"fr"><i>Voyage arch&eacute;ologique</i>, 3me rapport</span>, p. 86; and
-<i lang="fr">Ruines d&rsquo;Ani</i>, p. 64).&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow"
-href="#xd21e3727src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e3744" href="#xd21e3744src" name="xd21e3744">8</a></span> Brosset,
-<i>loc. cit.</i>&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href=
-"#xd21e3744src">&uarr;</a></p>
-</div>
-</div>
-<div id="ch10" class="div1 chapter"><span class="pagenum">[<a href=
-"#xd21e376">Contents</a>]</span>
-<div class="divHead">
-<h2 class="label">CHAPTER X</h2>
-<h2 class="main">TO ERIVAN</h2>
-</div>
-<div class="divBody">
-<p class="par first">During our stay at Alexandropol it had required no
-small effort to detach our minds from the paramount object with which
-they were filled. Every day, every hour, which separated us from Ararat
-diminished the prospects of a successful ascent. We were impatient, and
-anxious to leap the intervening stages, like pilgrims almost in sight
-of their long-sought shrine.</p>
-<p class="par">It was, therefore, with a sense of relief that, at one
-o&rsquo;clock, on the 12th of September, we set out from the city in
-the direction of Alag&ouml;z. We were to make for the passage between
-the volcano and the border mountains, and to rest in that valley for
-the night. The road is a mere track, yet we were able to engage a
-private carriage to take us to Erivan. One is astounded in the East at
-the performances of a victoria, should the necessities of a European or
-the ostentation of an Oriental have summoned such an object of luxury
-to their wilds. Our luggage accompanied us in a springless waggon,
-which, like the carriage, was privately horsed. The post road to Erivan
-makes the long deviation down the valleys of the border ranges to the
-junction with the road from Tiflis at the station of Delijan.</p>
-<p class="par">The great plain lay around us, level and devoid of
-objects, like the bosom of a sea. Before us stretched the mountain, the
-unwieldy bulk of a colossus, a formidable barrier to the country on the
-south. In such an expanse the human note is overwhelmed by Nature; one
-hardly notices the signs of the presence of ubiquitous man. There are
-villages which you scarcely see until you have passed within their
-precincts; such were Tapa Dolak, through which we drove at a quarter
-before one, and Golgat, which we reached at four o&rsquo;clock. Both
-are inhabited by Armenians; neither possesses a school or school-house,
-but the <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb134" href="#pb134" name=
-"pb134">134</a>]</span>second owns and the first was building a church.
-After obtaining a view, on our right hand, of two considerable Armenian
-villages, we arrived at Norashen, where we were to rest the horses, at
-half-past four o&rsquo;clock. It is an Armenian settlement with
-ninety-five tenements and a population of 900 souls, and it was in
-process of erecting a school. Let the reader picture to himself rude
-structures of stone and wood and earth, which, at one end, issue upon
-irregular little lanes, and, at the other, are buried into a slope of
-the ground. Through such entrances you pass to subterraneous chambers
-which serve as stables and as living rooms. In the midst of these
-sordid surroundings four stone walls are a prominent object; they
-belong to a little chapel, which has a roof of sods and a bare
-interior; the bells are hung in a wooden structure at the side. Men
-with tanned complexions, deep wrinkles, and bent knees issue from the
-tenements and slouch along the lanes. Children crowd about you, their
-little stomachs unduly swollen and barely covered by a single cotton
-shirt. Nobody can read or write; we questioned several. Such is the
-description which, with variations, applies to most of these villages,
-and is true of Norashen.</p>
-<p class="par">With what emotion one turned to the contemplation of the
-magnificent landscape which was outspread at our feet! The squalor of
-man, the grandeur of his natural environment&mdash;the reflection
-recurs and recurs in the East. We were standing on the lower slopes of
-the mountain, some <span class="measure" title="457 meter">1500
-feet</span> above the floor of the plain. A gentle incline, of which
-the surface was checkered with alternate patches of fallow and stubble,
-stretched away from a foreground of loose stones and garnered corn-land
-to the dim lights and opaline mists of a vast amphitheatre, where the
-expanse of level land was confined and choked by a wide girdle of
-mountains&mdash;long volcanic outlines and fantastic shapes of cone and
-peak mingling with the gloom of the distance and the gloom of the sky.
-But the zenith was intensely blue, and we breathed a strong, yet sunlit
-air. Behind us, in the opposite segment of the heaven, white, luminous
-clouds touched and concealed the snowy region where Alag&ouml;z sits
-enthroned; yet we were able to observe that the snow lies in drifts
-within that region, for many of the flatter places were free of snow. A
-prominent feature, to which I have already alluded, is the manner in
-which the heart, or central rock mass of the volcano, is seen to rise
-beyond the edge of a rounded bank of softer texture, which follows the
-inner ridge at a respectful interval, and appears to be separated from
-it <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb135" href="#pb135" name=
-"pb135">135</a>]</span>by a deep ravine. One cannot fail to observe the
-contrast between the roundness and softness of the outwork and the
-steep sides and black rocks of the inner ridge.</p>
-<p class="par">In fact, as you skirt the slopes of the volcano, you
-never touch the sides which mount immediately to the snows. You follow
-along the direction of gently vaulted banks of soil, parallel to the
-upstanding core of the mass. Their surface is patched with cultivation
-to a height which has been estimated at <span class="measure" title=
-"2530 meter">8300 feet</span>.<a class="noteref" id="xd21e3805src"
-href="#xd21e3805" name="xd21e3805src">1</a> The herbage is sweet and
-produces excellent crops of hay; the earth is black and rich. Soon
-after leaving Norashen&mdash;we started at about six&mdash;you turn the
-flank of the range which meets the volcano at right angles, and then
-recedes in a hollow, concave to the shield-shaped pile. You enter the
-passage between Alag&ouml;z and the border mountains, and you arrive at
-the head waters of the southward-flowing streams. In this region are
-situated G&uuml;zeldere and Kerwanserai, the first an Armenian village,
-the second a Kurdish settlement. In the latter we found a station-house
-maintained by Armenians, who provided us with a guide and a Chinese
-lantern to take us to the guest-house, distant about two versts, which
-stands above the village of Haji Khalil. It occupied us some little
-time, groping our way through the thick darkness, and we did not arrive
-until eight o&rsquo;clock.</p>
-<p class="par">The little guest-house proved a dreary and comfortless
-shelter; we sighed for the comparative luxury of a Persian
-<i>chapar-khaneh</i> or the cleanliness of a Swiss hut. A fetid odour
-exuded from the peeling walls and cracked flooring, and legions of
-active fleas rose from beneath the boards. We slept, as we might, on
-the wooden <i>takht</i> or da&iuml;s, until, at half-past one, the door
-thundered with heavy knocks. After some parley the intruders were
-admitted to our chamber&mdash;was it a dream, or whence issued these
-strange shapes? One awaited the wild <i>staccato</i>, followed by the
-flowing iambic:&mdash;</p>
-<div class="lgouter">
-<p class="line"><span class="trans" title=
-"astr&#333;n katoida nykter&#333;n hom&#275;gyrin"><span class="Greek"
-lang="el">&#7940;&sigma;&tau;&rho;&omega;&nu;
-&kappa;&#8049;&tau;&omicron;&iota;&delta;&alpha;
-&nu;&upsilon;&kappa;&tau;&#8051;&rho;&omega;&nu;
-&#8001;&mu;&#8053;&gamma;&upsilon;&rho;&iota;&nu;</span></span></p>
-<p class="line"><span class="trans" title=
-"kai tous pherontas cheima kai theros brotois"><span class="Greek"
-lang="el">&kappa;&alpha;&#8054; &tau;&omicron;&#8058;&sigmaf;
-&phi;&#8051;&rho;&omicron;&nu;&tau;&alpha;&sigmaf;
-&chi;&epsilon;&#8150;&mu;&alpha; &kappa;&alpha;&#8054;
-&theta;&#8051;&rho;&omicron;&sigmaf;
-&beta;&rho;&omicron;&tau;&omicron;&#8150;&sigmaf;</span></span></p>
-<p class="line"><span class="trans" title=
-"lamprous dynastas emprepontas aitheri"><span class="Greek" lang=
-"el">&lambda;&alpha;&mu;&pi;&rho;&omicron;&#8058;&sigmaf;
-&delta;&upsilon;&nu;&#8049;&sigma;&tau;&alpha;&sigmaf;
-&#7952;&mu;&pi;&rho;&#8051;&pi;&omicron;&nu;&tau;&alpha;&sigmaf;
-&#7940;&iota;&theta;&epsilon;&rho;&iota;</span></span><a class=
-"noteref" id="xd21e3849src" href="#xd21e3849" name=
-"xd21e3849src">2</a></p>
-</div>
-<p class="par first">Yet the floor, the walls, the companions were all
-real&mdash;everything, except those figures at the door. The flicker of
-a lamp <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb136" href="#pb136" name=
-"pb136">136</a>]</span>was reflected upon their bearded faces and bare
-necks, upon the heavy folds of the brown draperies hanging about their
-shoulders, upon the blunt ends of their wooden staves. Did they
-proclaim the line of bonfires?&mdash;Watchmen, stationed by an unseen
-hand to guard us, and come to announce the break of day. The break of
-day? It cost us a pang to convince them of their error; we were loth to
-commence fresh contests with the fleas. Poor watchmen, who had
-forestalled the stars with longing for the morning! How many times was
-Troy taken in watchmen&rsquo;s dreams?</p>
-<p class="par"></p>
-<div class="figure xd21e3860width" id="fig028"><img src=
-"images/fig028.jpg" alt=
-"Fig. 28. Alag&ouml;z from the Head Waters of the Abaran." width="603"
-height="333">
-<p class="figureHead"><span class="sc"><span class="figNum">Fig.
-28.</span> Alag&ouml;z from the Head Waters of the Abaran.</span></p>
-</div>
-<p class="par"></p>
-<p class="par"><i>September 13.</i>&mdash;At a quarter to six we were
-on the road. A chill was in the air, and heavy, sleepy clouds lay on
-the ground. But the zenith was softly blue, and a pleasant light fell
-on the valley with its spacious floor and ample expanse of sky. Our
-station was situated at a slightly higher altitude than the threshold
-of the pass; I should estimate our elevation, from the readings of my
-barometers, at about <span class="measure" title="2134 meter">7000
-feet</span>. After an hour&rsquo;s drive, our track joined a newly-made
-road, metalled and ditched on either side; progress was fairly rapid
-down the incline of the valley, parallel with the current of the
-Abaran. This road was intended to serve as the postal avenue to Erivan
-from Alexandropol, and it bifurcates from the existing post road; but a
-series of misfortunes appear to have attended its construction, and it
-had not yet been used by the post. Verst after verst we drove along it,
-through a landscape which changes little from the <span class=
-"pagenum">[<a id="pb137" href="#pb137" name=
-"pb137">137</a>]</span>features at the entrance of the pass. On our
-right hand rose the huge volcano, no longer an extended horizontal
-outline, but a shield-shaped mass, bellying upwards to the rim of a
-crater, which circled from us with a wide sweep (Fig. <a href=
-"#fig028">28</a>). The slopes of the mountain were inclined at an angle
-of scarcely more than eleven degrees&mdash;soft convexities, broken
-into gullies and little hummocks, and, here and there, strewn with a
-shingle of greenish hue. The peaks had gradually disappeared as we
-rounded the base of the pile&mdash;a transition of which the phases
-were frequently withdrawn from observation through the incidence of
-clouds. On our left, at varying but always ample interval, the outer
-spurs of the border mountains described a parallel half-circle with the
-contour of Alag&ouml;z&mdash;one might almost mistake them for some
-outer shell of the volcano, so closely did they appear to follow the
-curve of its base. But, unlike their big neighbour, the slopes of these
-outworks were covered with brushwood, which developed into dwarf trees
-as we advanced. The floor of the valley revealed in most parts the hand
-of the reclaimer, by the side of a stretch of turf, by the margin of a
-rotting marsh. Yet mile after mile we could see no settlement; we
-seldom met a wayfarer, except for some drivers with a string of
-donkeys, laden with grapes from the valley of the Araxes, and a group
-of supple Kurdish girls. At a quarter to eight we drew rein for a few
-minutes in the large Armenian village of Bash Abaran. The inhabitants
-were busy getting in their corn from the open; here and there it had
-not yet been cut. In another hour we opened out a vista of Ararat, and,
-at a quarter to ten, we feasted our eyes upon the whole majestic
-fabric, before descending into the village of Ali Kuchak.</p>
-<p class="par">One may safely say of the scene which expanded before us
-that it is unsurpassed upon the surface of our globe. Nor is it
-difficult to account for the strength and permanence of the impression
-which it produces upon the mind. Nowhere has Nature worked on a scale
-more stupendous; yet on none of her works has she bestowed greater
-unity of conception, a design more harmonious, surroundings more
-august. Whatever mysteries compose the spell of the wide ocean and the
-open firmament, all the exquisite shades of light which temper the
-gloom of a northern climate, all the many-coloured radiance of the
-south, have been lavished upon the panorama which centres in Ararat and
-is spread like a kingdom at his feet. <span class="pagenum">[<a id=
-"pb138" href="#pb138" name="pb138">138</a>]</span></p>
-<p class="par">Seen at this distance&mdash;measured on the map it is a
-space of fifty-six miles to the summit&mdash;the mountain is little
-more than an outline upon the horizon; yet what an outline! what a soul
-in those soaring shapes! Side by side stand two of the most beauteous
-forms in Nature, the pyramid and the dome. Both are developed on lines
-of almost ideal perfection, with proportions which startle the eye in
-spite of all their symmetry; and both are supported by a common base.
-The pyramid is one, and the dome is one; yet the structure is single
-which they combine to raise. From the dim east into the dim west you
-follow that long-drawn profile, rising from a distant promontory,
-declining to a distant promontory, centring in the roof of the dome, in
-the peak of the cone. The dome has an elevation of <span class=
-"measure" title="5182 meter">17,000 feet</span>, the cone of nearly
-<span class="measure" title="3962 meter">13,000 feet</span>; and the
-base reclines on a plain which forms the greatest depression in the
-relief of Armenia, and which has an altitude of scarcely more than
-<span class="measure" title="914 meter">3000 feet</span> above the
-sea.</p>
-<p class="par">The standpoint from which we looked upon the wonders of
-this landscape were the basal slopes of the opposite colossus of
-Alag&ouml;z, where they descend to that same spacious plain. It is the
-plain which the Araxes waters; yet we could not see the river, hidden
-in the unseen hollow of the expanse. Between us and our horizon flat
-tracts of naked earth stretched away from the stony ground about us to
-a distant region of half lights and soft mist; above those shadows rose
-the mountain, bathed in light and luminous vapour, to wreaths of white
-cloud, hanging to the snows of the dome. On our left hand, a wooded
-hill&mdash;the only spot of verdure in the scene&mdash;jutted out into
-the levels from the border ranges, which here recede from the plain.
-Its summit outline is broken by a fantastic peak, like the comb of a
-cock, and it may perhaps be identified with the volcanic elevation of
-Karniarch. Below us lay the village, a cluster of stacks of
-<i>tezek</i> fuel, and driving smoke, proceeding from scarcely visible
-huts of mud and stone. Ledges or tongues of rock and cliff projected on
-our right from the base of Alag&ouml;z; they represent the extreme
-outrunners of the northern mountain and sink into the landscape, like
-the capes of a rock-bound coast. We were about to leave that coast
-behind us and to cross the floor of this sea-like plain; hues of ochre
-were lightly laid upon its gently undulating surface and mingled with
-the nearer tints of yellow and umber in the stubble and fallow of the
-cultivated land. <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb139" href="#pb139"
-name="pb139">139</a>]</span></p>
-<p class="par">All our thoughts, our whole ambition, were centred on
-that distant mountain; our emotions satisfied, we reflected that the
-spot where we were standing was the nearest point which we should reach
-to the summer resort of Darachichak. It might be possible to hire
-horses and ride the distance of some twenty miles; all the official
-world of Erivan would be assembled in that pleasant valley, and we had
-need of their assistance for our ascent. So, once arrived within the
-village, we sent for the elder; and we were glad to hear that the place
-was the seat of a <i>Pristav</i>, or head of an administrative group of
-villages. A lean and lank Armenian responded to our summons; he came
-with a slouching gait and with sleep in his eyes, and he was engaged in
-buttoning his long grey coat. The official dress of Russia and the
-peaked cap of white canvas on such a truly Oriental figure as this!
-However, he promised to procure us horses, and, putting faith in his
-official dignity, I decided to split our party into two. My cousin and
-myself would adventure upon the journey into the mountains; Wesson,
-Rudolph and the Armenian would proceed in the victoria and with the
-waggon to the town of Erivan.</p>
-<p class="par">Our companions started on their journey, while we with
-our saddles made our way to a neighbouring village in which the horses
-were to be found. We were accompanied by the Pristav&rsquo;s man, a
-sinister-looking villain; the saddles followed on a bullock cart. But
-at a winding of the path, just after leaving the settlement, the wheels
-sank into an abysmal depth of mud. I have no doubt that this incident
-is of daily occurrence, and that neither village would entertain the
-notion of making a road. The horses were on the meadows; their owners
-refused to catch them, and we were obliged to essay the task ourselves.
-But in this open country they eluded all our efforts; we were obliged
-to return without attaining our end. The Pristav received our
-maledictions with equanimity, and we were reduced to the tame expedient
-of two sorry ponies, which were only equal to carrying us to the
-nearest considerable station on the road to Erivan.</p>
-<p class="par">How poor in resources is this magnificent country! what
-a curse appears to lie on these fertile lands! Our Pristav had the
-charge of thirty-six villages, of which six were inhabited by Persian
-Tartars and the remainder by a population of his own race. His district
-extended from Bash Abaran to Ashtarak; yet he told <span class=
-"pagenum">[<a id="pb140" href="#pb140" name="pb140">140</a>]</span>us
-that in the whole of this considerable region there did not exist a
-single school.</p>
-<p class="par">Baffled of our purpose, we mounted our ponies and took
-to the road to Erivan, two solitary figures in the lonely waste. The
-provincial capital was over thirty-five miles distant, and it was
-already half-past four o&rsquo;clock. The prospect over the plain,
-which I have just described, is so far deceptive that you under-rate
-the extension of these stony basal slopes. This mistaken estimate is
-due in part to the position of the hill of Karniarch, which blocks the
-view towards the south-east. To gain Erivan, you are obliged to round
-the base of that elevation; nor, in that direction, do the rocky
-inclines die away in the level campagna before you have reached the
-gardens of the town. The base of Alag&ouml;z appears to mingle with the
-base of the volcanic masses which line the inner edges of the border
-range; mile after mile you cross a bleak and boulder-strewn country
-which sweeps into the plain. To add to our impression of the complete
-forlornness of this region, a violent storm arose. The immense expanse
-of heaven was filled with driving clouds, riven by lightning; the
-torrents roared, and the blast bent the stunted bushes which rise along
-their margin among the rocks. We were reminded of the famous night upon
-the Brocken, as our tired ponies tottered forward into the blinding
-rain. Shelter there was none; it was a case of struggling onwards and
-taking pleasure in the elemental war. And the road! was there ever
-outside of Persia such a strange caricature of a road? It wound like a
-snake, avoiding every hillock; the traffic made short cuts from bend to
-bend. There were bridges broken in the back with a ford alongside them;
-there were yawning culverts and parallel tracks avoiding the horrors of
-the metalled way. Not a soul did we meet, until, as the evening
-advanced, we passed through some considerable Armenian villages which
-presented the strange spectacle of a lamp-lit street. But where was
-Ashtarak, the goal of our journey? should we ever accomplish our
-self-imposed stage? When our mounts could go no further, my cousin
-points out a long building by the side of a large church. No door could
-we see or opening on to the ground, only a lofty verandah with a
-ladder, a feature which recalled the old lawless times. We clamoured,
-and were admitted after sundry explanations, and a stable was found for
-our weary hacks.</p>
-<p class="par">We were received by a young Armenian who spoke a little
-<span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb141" href="#pb141" name=
-"pb141">141</a>]</span>French, and who ushered us into the presence of
-a <i>vardapet</i> or monastic priest. I regret my inability to place on
-the page the handsome features of our host, Monseigneur Achote&mdash;so
-he transcribed his rank and name. He told us that we were welcome to
-the monastery of Mugni, and that he himself happened to be the only
-priest in residence. Assisted by his clerk, he busied himself about our
-comforts; clothed us afresh, gave us to eat and drink. Monseigneur
-belongs to the new school of Armenian ecclesiastics; he has received an
-excellent education, and possesses wide sympathies and broad views. His
-room was littered with books and papers; his talk was animated, and one
-could not doubt that his ardent patriotism was sincere. Next
-morning&mdash;September 14&mdash;we visited the church of Mugni, a
-plain but solid stone structure, quite in the grand style. An open
-portal, resting on four solid piers, gives access to the doorway with
-its richly carved mouldings, and is surmounted by a little tower in
-which the bells are hung. The exterior is of grey stone, varied by
-blocks of red volcanic rock; here and there carved slabs of such rock
-have been inserted, a familiar feature in Armenian architecture. The
-interior is quite plain and the masonry uncovered; so thick are the
-walls that in the apse you are shown two secret chambers built into the
-frame of the church. Access to these chambers is obtained by removing a
-block of stone in the ceilings of two recesses in the apse. In the old
-lawless times these rooms served as a refuge; they are capacious and
-receive the light of day. The head of St. George is preserved in a
-little side chapel, a treasure of considerable value to the monastery.
-It seemed so strange that our enlightened host should be profiting by
-the possession of this relic, and I thought that he answered my smile.
-An inscription informs us that the church was built&mdash;or may it not
-be <i>restored</i> or <i>embellished</i>?&mdash;by Mgr. Peter of
-Argulis in the year of the Armenian era 1118 or <span class=
-"sc">A.D.</span> 1668, with his people&rsquo;s money and his own.</p>
-<p class="par">Monseigneur&rsquo;s windows looked out upon a wretched
-village, which appeared doubly miserable in the cold light. At
-half-past nine we mounted our ponies, and set out for Ashtarak. Mugni
-lies to the south of the hill of Karniarch&mdash;a name which our
-native guide pronounced <i>Garnara</i>. The surrounding country
-maintains the stony and inhospitable character of the waste through
-which we had lately passed. A short ride brought us to the descent into
-the little township&mdash;an oasis of verdure, a pretty <span class=
-"pagenum">[<a id="pb142" href="#pb142" name=
-"pb142">142</a>]</span>church, with a cluster of roofs and gables, tall
-poplars, terraces of flat house-tops. But when we had passed within the
-precincts, this pleasant impression faded; were the crumbling walls of
-the houses in course of demolition, or was this rude masonry of mud and
-stone succumbing to the storm of yesterday? We proceeded down a narrow
-street which is lined with lofty trees and channelled by a swirling
-stream. Here the owners of the ponies were lying in wait for us; a sure
-instinct had placed them upon our way. According to the published
-statistics Ashtarak possesses some 3000 inhabitants, all of Armenian
-race.</p>
-<p class="par">By eleven o&rsquo;clock we had procured horses and were
-again on the road to Erivan. The entire region is strewn with rocks and
-presents the same bleak appearance, except where, here and there, a
-stream descends the barren slopes and sustains a slender line of green.
-In such places you may discern the rare site of a village, a few
-poplars, the grouped architecture of a church. At length, after long
-winding between the stony eminences, we opened out a view over the
-great plain. The sky had not yet cleared, and mists obscured the forms
-of the mountains; but the whole lap of the plain was revealed. Patches
-of soft blue relieved the surface of the dim country&mdash;the
-vegetation of the rich campagna about the banks of the Araxes. We rode
-on, always descending, over these stony uplands, until they dipped to
-the floor of the level ground. Luxuriant gardens filled the
-gently-pursing hollow, intensely green after the heavy rain of the
-preceding day. Pools of water lay on the road; the water-courses were
-brimming over. The orchards were clothed with fruit of ideal perfection
-in form and colour; we admired the size and brilliant hues of the
-clustering peaches, side by side with the bending branches of the apple
-and the pear trees, with the deep shade of the walnut and the mulberry
-trees. Ripe grapes hung in abundance from the low vine-stocks.... Such
-are the outskirts of Erivan, a town embowered in foliage. We reached
-the central park at half-past one o&rsquo;clock. <span class=
-"pagenum">[<a id="pb143" href="#pb143" name="pb143">143</a>]</span></p>
-</div>
-<div class="footnotes">
-<hr class="fnsep">
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e3805" href="#xd21e3805src" name="xd21e3805">1</a></span> Radde in
-<i lang="de">Petermann&rsquo;s Mitth.</i>, 1876, p. 147.&nbsp;<a class=
-"fnarrow" href="#xd21e3805src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e3849" href="#xd21e3849src" name="xd21e3849">2</a></span>
-&ldquo;...contemplate the company of the stars by night, and them that
-bring winter and summer to mortals, the radiant potentates conspicuous
-in the heaven&rdquo; (&AElig;schylus, <i>Agamemnon</i>, ls.
-4&ndash;7).&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href="#xd21e3849src">&uarr;</a></p>
-</div>
-</div>
-<div id="ch11" class="div1 chapter"><span class="pagenum">[<a href=
-"#xd21e388">Contents</a>]</span>
-<div class="divHead">
-<h2 class="label">CHAPTER XI</h2>
-<h2 class="main">TO ARARAT</h2>
-</div>
-<div class="divBody">
-<p class="par first">Erivan is a town of gardens in which a network of
-irrigation channels preserves from early spring into late autumn the
-perfection of the foliage. In the heart of the business quarter is
-situated a little park, disposed into shady alleys and promenades for
-the citizens, but presenting also pathless spaces of forest land. We
-were tempted to pitch our tents in the secluded portion. But the storm
-had soaked the soil; solid walls were a preferable shelter. We encamped
-in the naked rooms of a building which faced the park and bore the
-pretentious inscription, <i lang="fr">H&ocirc;tel de Londres</i>. Our
-first care was to dispatch a mounted messenger to General Frese,
-Governor of Erivan, who was residing at the summer resort of
-Darachichak. I begged His Excellency to instruct his people to assist
-us in our preparations, and to furnish us with a letter to the
-commandant of the Cossacks, stationed on the slopes of Ararat.</p>
-<p class="par">On the morning of the 16th of September our courier
-returned and informed us that the Governor had sent the necessary
-instructions to the <i>Nachalnik</i>, or chief of the district police.
-I had already made the acquaintance of that important official, chief
-of police for the district of Erivan, and acting chief of police for
-the town of Erivan. A brief experience had taught me that without his
-active co-operation all private efforts were made in vain; the forces
-one set in motion returned in useless circles to the point from which
-they had started. But it so happened that the Nachalnik was an
-extremely amiable person; he had helped us, he would help us again.
-Without delay he provided us with a letter to the Cossacks; nothing
-remained but to make a start. But in the East one can never count upon
-being able to proceed on one&rsquo;s journey before the cavalcade is
-already on the outward road. I had read of the difficulties which had
-been <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb144" href="#pb144" name=
-"pb144">144</a>]</span>experienced by previous travellers in finding
-horses in the district neighbouring Ararat to convey them to the higher
-slopes. I had therefore made contracts with owners in Erivan to provide
-us with the necessary animals. When I summoned these individuals, they
-were no longer forthcoming, they were nowhere to be found. I then
-endeavoured to hire a carriage, to take us as far as Aralykh, with the
-resolve to trust to fortune later on. I offered handsome prices to
-several drivers; they pleaded the badness of the road and refused to
-go. Finally I had recourse to the posting authorities; they swore that
-in all their stables not a single horse remained. Convinced of the
-futility of further steps on my own initiative, I sought out the
-private abode of the chief of police. The hour of the mid-day meal was
-already over; a fierce sun was beating upon the silent streets.</p>
-<p class="par">I crossed the shady alleys of the little park, in which
-not another person moved. A few steps through the blinding glare of an
-adjacent side-road, deep in white dust, brought me to the enclosure
-which surrounds the residence of the Nachalnik. I knocked at the little
-postern door. A drowsy servant opened to me, and, in answer to my
-enquiries, informed me that his master was asleep. Compromising for
-once with the valuable principle of always addressing oneself to the
-supreme authority, I turned away and walked to the station of the town
-police. But not a single officer was in attendance at headquarters; a
-couple of men were dozing in the guard room, outstretched upon the
-wooden seats. No other course was open but to arouse the Nachalnik; I
-returned and again knocked at the little door. It was pleasant to be
-offered a seat in a spacious verandah, overlooking a garden; nor was it
-long before the master of the house appeared. There are individuals in
-whom a tendency to corpulence, while it appears to dispose them
-favourably towards their fellow-men, has induced a provoking habit of
-restful satisfaction, and has built up a wall of self-possession
-against which nervous temperaments beat in vain. The Nachalnik was not
-wanting in these passive qualities; and I could not doubt that they
-would be exercised on the present occasion as I observed the approach
-of his burly form. The white tunic was partially buttoned, the hair was
-matted on the brow, the eyes were still heavy with sleep. I quickly
-apprised him of the nature and extent of our troubles; how the owners
-of our hired horses had broken their contracts, how the various forms
-of transport had been successively requisitioned, with equal failure
-<span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb145" href="#pb145" name=
-"pb145">145</a>]</span>in every case. Tartar pony men, Molokan
-<i>droshky</i> drivers, Armenian posting contractors&mdash;not a man
-among them could be induced to stir. Our luggage, accompanied by Wesson
-and Rudolph, had left that morning in a waggon of the post; we
-ourselves were determined to follow them, if necessary on foot. To this
-petulance he replied with the utmost composure, to the effect that the
-people were free to make their own bargains, and that he could not
-compel them to go. It was the familiar story, the honourable attempt to
-rule the East upon Western principles, the patient endeavour, rich both
-in humour and in pathos, to infuse the drowsy mass with the elements of
-vitality and make it respond to those inducements of enlightened
-self-interest which move the peoples of the West. In the mouth of the
-Nachalnik the enunciation of this principle was not without a certain
-vein of almost tragic irony. Himself the child of a race which has
-scarcely yet assimilated the motives and the restraints of civilised
-life, he had been transplanted from the frozen North to this burning
-valley; and the hot sun was already drying up those scanty springs of
-action which had so recently been set free. It was plain that the
-position could not be carried directly; but it occurred to me at that
-moment that there was a weak place on another side. This heavy man,
-whose languid negatives and long-drawn affirmatives were capable of
-almost infinite resistance, could be stirred to a fury of words and
-gestures by the suggestion that his authority had been slighted, or his
-orders left unfulfilled. He had been endowed with a talent, rare in one
-of his temperament, for grandiose histrionic expression; and it was not
-so much, I think, the matter at issue which moved him, as the
-favourable opportunity which was offered in such circumstances for a
-luxurious display of his talent to himself. I had observed in the
-garden the graceful figure of the young sergeant whom he had lent to me
-the day before. He had changed his travelling dress for the elegant
-skirted coat of Georgia; a row of silvered cartridge-heads glittered
-upon his breast, and the dark moustache was carefully pencilled upon
-the clean-shaven cheeks. I beckoned him to me and begged him to confirm
-what I said. The sergeant had been obliged to use the name of the
-Nachalnik, and in that name to threaten horse-owners and posting
-contractors in turn. Yet not a man among them could be made to move. I
-added that it would seem as if, in the absence of the Governor, there
-was an end to all authority in the town. At this speech the
-<span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb146" href="#pb146" name=
-"pb146">146</a>]</span>Nachalnik rose from his chair and summoned his
-servants about him. He cursed the mongrel race of horse-keepers,
-Persians or Tartars, the blood of brigands all. Who could tell in what
-holes these thieves were hiding? We should go by the post, and post
-horses <i>must</i> be found. Arrived at Aralykh, the Cossacks would
-mount us on their own horses; and we should no doubt be able to impress
-some animals in the neighbourhood for the transport of our tents. His
-emissaries flew in all directions, with the result that, within the
-respectable space of three hours, a post cart, drawn by a pair of
-horses, was standing at our door.</p>
-<hr class="tb">
-<p class="par"></p>
-<p class="par">Erivan is situated on the northern skirts of the valley
-of the Middle Araxes&mdash;a valley distinguished by its important
-geographical situation, by the great works of natural architecture
-which are aligned upon it, and by the high place which it holds both in
-legend and in history as the scene of momentous catastrophes in the
-fortunes of the human race. The natural avenue from east to west across
-the tableland of Armenia, it gives easy access to the heart of Asia
-Minor from the shores of the Caspian Sea. The nations about and beyond
-the Caspian have found their way along this avenue to the coasts of the
-Black Sea and the Mediterranean; and, while tradition connects these
-scenes with the site of Paradise, the bloody wars which they have
-witnessed have suggested to a graceful writer the appropriate
-recollection of the curse of the flaming sword.<a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e3973src" href="#xd21e3973" name="xd21e3973src">1</a> Along the
-line of the 40th degree of latitude a succession of plains extend
-across the tableland, varying in their depression below the higher
-levels, watered by the Araxes and by the upper course of the Western
-Euphrates, and each giving access to the other by natural passages. The
-first is this valley of the Araxes, with its more narrow continuation
-westwards through the district between Kagyzman and Khorasan; the
-second is the plain of Pasin; the third the plain of Erzerum. Yet while
-the plains of Pasin and of Erzerum are situated respectively at an
-altitude of <span class="measure" title="1676">5500</span> and
-<span class="measure" title="1753 meter">5750 feet</span>, the valley
-of the Araxes in the neighbourhood of Erivan is only <span class=
-"measure" title="853 meter">2800 feet</span> above the sea. Both on the
-north and south of this considerable depression, even the plainer
-levels of the tableland attain the imposing altitude of <span class=
-"measure" title="2134 meter">7000 feet</span>, while its surface has
-been uplifted by volcanic action into long and irregular convexities of
-mountain and hill and hummock. <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb147"
-href="#pb147" name="pb147">147</a>]</span></p>
-<p class="par">On either side of the extensive plain which borders the
-course of the Middle Araxes rise mountains of astounding proportions
-and of large variety of form. Let us dwell for a moment on the
-character of the northern barrier, which closes the prospect from the
-slopes of Ararat at a distance of from <span class="measure" title=
-"48.3">30</span> to <span class="measure" title="80.5 kilometer">50
-miles</span>. The immense bulk of Alag&ouml;z extends across the
-horizon from the longitude of Ararat to the districts adjoining the
-left bank of the Arpa Chai. In that direction the mass occupies a space
-of about <span class="measure" title="64.4 kilometer">40 miles</span>,
-rising from the level tracts through which the Araxes flows to a height
-of over <span class="measure" title="3962 meter">13,000 feet</span> and
-inclined from north of east to south of west. The snowy fangs of the
-shattered crater are situated a little west of the longitude of the
-dome of Ararat; from those peaks the outline of the mountain is
-shadowed on either side in an almost horizontal bar. On the west the
-streams of molten matter have met with little resistance to their
-onward flow; the eastern slopes have been confined by the bulwark of
-the border ranges, and are of comparatively insignificant extent. Where
-the base gathers beyond the river is a distance from the slopes of
-Ararat of about <span class="measure" title="56.3 kilometer">35
-miles</span>; the two summits are nearly <span class="measure" title=
-"96.6 kilometer">60 miles</span> apart. Yet so large is the scale of
-this colossal mountain, and so even the surface of the intervening
-plain, that, seen through the clear atmosphere of an Eastern climate,
-it fills the eye with its huge presence, sweeping the valley with
-massive foundations, and drawn across the sky in a long and rounded
-bank, broken only by the trident of shining peaks.</p>
-<p class="par">Such is the character, to a point about north of Ararat,
-of the northern wall of this valley of the Araxes&mdash;the length of a
-single mountain, an unbroken barrier from west to east. At that point
-the mass of Alag&ouml;z meets the spurs of the border ranges, and its
-base mingles with the base of the volcanic elevations which rise along
-their inner edge. These elevations continue the wall of mountain
-eastwards, but incline it towards the south; they come forward in front
-of the giant volcano and narrow the plain. Yet so gradual is the
-transition that it is scarcely perceptible; until the eye is awakened
-by the change in the sky-line, so even before, so restless now, fretted
-by the shapes of cones and little craters which, behind the soft
-convexities of flanking outworks, feature the chain which separates the
-basin of Lake Sevan from the waters which wash the base of Ararat.</p>
-<p class="par">On the southern side of the great plain there is a
-remarkable <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb148" href="#pb148" name=
-"pb148">148</a>]</span>correspondence with the northern border in the
-constitution of the mountain masses, and an interesting difference in
-the manner in which they are disposed. On the north you have first a
-single mountain, and then a mountain system; on the south the line
-commences with a mountain system and ends with a single mass. On the
-north the mountain system steps out in advance of the mountain; on the
-south, by a happy reversal of the order, the mountain stands forward
-alone. Alag&ouml;z and the belt south of Lake Sevan are answered by the
-Ararat system and by the fabric of Ararat.</p>
-<p class="par">The range which I have termed the Ararat system is known
-in the country under the name of Aghri Dagh, a name which is equally
-applied to Ararat, but of which the roughness on the palate appears to
-express with greater felicity the rugged character of the system to
-which Ararat belongs. From the wild and mountainous country which,
-about the 42nd degree of longitude, borders the right bank of the Upper
-Araxes before it enters the plain of Pasin, there extends across the
-plateau in an easterly direction a long and comparatively narrow range,
-which, skirted on the one side by the course of the Araxes, and on the
-other by the plain of Alashkert, composes the spine of this central
-region of the tableland, and is interposed as a barrier between north
-and south. The appearance of the chain presents a striking contrast to
-the convex shapes which feature the adjacent landscapes; the sides are
-abrupt, the summits sharp, and the peaks rise from deep valleys to a
-height which reaches over <span class="measure" title=
-"3353 meter">11,000 feet</span>. Where the Araxes leaves the narrows
-near the town of Kagyzman, this range is seen massed upon the right
-bank of the river; and after following the stream along the 40th degree
-of latitude, it inclines to the south-east. Aided by this slight
-inclination in the direction of its southern barrier, the valley
-rapidly expands, and attains its greatest dimensions at a point just
-south of Alag&ouml;z. It is at that point that the western slope of
-Ararat, which has risen in advance of this satellite system from a low
-cape in the west, begins to gather in height and volume, concealing the
-rough features of these obsequious mountains behind the royal sweep of
-a long train.</p>
-<p class="par">At the back of this even western slope a pass of about
-<span class="measure" title="2134 meter">7000 feet</span> connects the
-fabric of Ararat with the spinal system which it succeeds and resumes.
-Ararat takes up the line of the southern border, and draws his entire
-length along the valley in a direction <span class="pagenum">[<a id=
-"pb149" href="#pb149" name="pb149">149</a>]</span>from north-west to
-south-east (Frontispiece). There he stands, like some vast cathedral,
-on the floor of the open plain. The human quality of this natural
-structure cannot fail to impress the eye; and, although its proportions
-are not less gigantic than those of the opposite mass of Alag&ouml;z,
-it contrasts with the Cyclopean forms of that neighbouring mountain a
-subtle grace of feature and a harmonious symmetry of design. Slowly the
-long slope rises from the western distance, a gently undulating line;
-and, as it rises, the base gradually widens, advancing with almost
-imperceptible acclivity into the expanse of plain. So it continues,
-always rising against the sky-ground, always gathering at the base,
-until at a height of <span class="measure" title="4115 meter">13,500
-feet</span> it reaches the zone of perpetual snow. The summit region of
-Ararat presents the appearance of a vast dome of snow, crowning a long
-oval figure of which the axis is from north-west to south-east. The
-whole length of this roof, on its north-eastern side, is exposed to the
-valley of the Araxes. The vaulting is less pronounced upon the west
-than on the east, and ascends through a succession of snowfields to the
-highest point of the dome. The average inclination of this
-north-western slope, where it rises more immediately towards the summit
-from the almost horizontal train, is only 18&deg;, while its whole
-length has been computed by Parrot at no less than <span class=
-"measure" title="32.2 kilometer">20 miles</span>. From the massive
-roof, which attains a maximum elevation of nearly <span class="measure"
-title="5182 meter">17,000 feet</span> above the sea, or <span class=
-"measure" title="4267 meter">14,000 feet</span> above the plain, the
-outline sinks by a steeper but still easy gradient towards the
-south-east; the snow-covered slope dips at an angle of about 30&deg;,
-and the side of the dome, when seen from that point of the compass,
-presents the appearance of an almost perfect cone. The south-eastern
-side of Ararat is encumbered below the snow-line by banks or causeways
-of piled-up rocks, which branch off from wedge-shaped ridges descending
-fanwise from the summit region, and fall into the plain. On the
-south-east these causeways narrow the fork of an upland valley, of
-which the saddle is placed at a height of <span class="measure" title=
-"2682 meter">8800 feet</span>. This valley separates the greater from
-the lesser Ararat, and determines the extension of the south-eastern
-slope. The horizontal distance of the valley from the summit of the
-greater Ararat is about <span class="measure" title="8.05 kilometer">5
-miles</span>. From this saddle the outline of the fabric rises, and now
-more rapidly than before. The shape of a beautiful pyramid is
-presented; the pointed summit reaches an altitude of about <span class=
-"measure" title="3962 meter">13,000 feet</span>, and is placed at a
-distance from <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb150" href="#pb150" name=
-"pb150">150</a>]</span>the valley of only <span class="measure" title=
-"3.22 kilometer">2 miles</span>. The south-eastern slope of this lesser
-mountain at first declines with rapid gradients, which give sharpness
-to the graceful cone, and then is drawn through the eastern distance, a
-gently undulating outline, sinking to a dim promontory in the east.</p>
-<p class="par">Such is the profile and such the appearance of the
-majestic structure upon which eye and mind dwell. When we come to
-investigate the underlying principle, we find that, along a line of
-upheaval which has been uniform in a direction from north-west to
-south-east, two mountains have been reared by volcanic action, their
-axes following the line of upheaval and their summits <span class=
-"measure" title="11.3 kilometer">7 miles</span> apart. The
-south-eastern slope of the greater mountain and the north-western side
-of the smaller are contiguous at an altitude of about <span class=
-"measure" title="2438 meter">8000 feet</span>; they meet, as we have
-seen, in a fork or valley at an elevation which ranges between
-<span class="measure" title="2286">7500</span> and <span class=
-"measure" title="2682 meter">8800 feet</span>. In other words, this
-valley is the point of intersection between the bases of either
-mountain; and that part of the fabric which lies below it may be
-regarded as the common foundation of both. But the base of the smaller
-and more pointed mountain is merged into the base of the larger and
-less steep; and the forms of the lower portion of the structure
-continue the contours of Great Ararat as they sweep away to the
-south-east. The pyramid of Little Ararat rises directly from the upland
-valley; Great Ararat rises from the floor of the plain. These features
-lend unity to the whole fabric, and preserve an exactly proportionate
-relation between the shape and size of the two mountains and the
-protraction of their basal slopes.</p>
-<p class="par">The base or foundation of the Ararat fabric gathers
-immediately from the surface of the plain, advancing ever further into
-the even country as the weight of the upper structure grows. If the
-ground plan of the entire fabric may be described as a long elliptical
-figure of which the axis is from north-west to south-east, then the
-point at which the base is most developed lies north-east of the summit
-of Great Ararat, in the latitude of Erivan. When already, along the
-axis of this figure, we have followed the long-drawn outline from the
-cape in the distant west to where, beyond the Little Ararat, it slowly
-falls away into the east, the eye turns naturally to the face of the
-mountain, and dwells with ever-increasing admiration upon the subtle
-structural qualities there displayed&mdash;the combination of grace
-with extraordinary solidity, the easy transition from the lower to the
-middle slopes, and of these <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb151" href=
-"#pb151" name="pb151">151</a>]</span>to the uppermost seams. From the
-margin of the marshes which border the right bank of the Araxes the
-ground commences to incline; yet so gradual is at first the rise that,
-if we measure on our base plan, we find that it is not more than about
-<span class="measure" title="914 meter">3000 feet</span> within a space
-of <span class="measure" title="16.1 kilometer">10 miles</span>. If it
-be permissible, in the gradual process from one gradient to another, to
-fix a division between the upper structure and the base, the dividing
-line may be drawn at an elevation of about <span class="measure" title=
-"1768 meter">5800 feet</span>, at a distance from the summit of
-6&frac12; miles, and of <span class="measure" title="16.1 kilometer">10
-miles</span> from the floor of the plain. Beyond that line, the seams
-which mount to the dome of snow appear to commence their long climb;
-the eye follows them on their upward course until they attain the
-summit region and end in a long cornice of snow. The extraordinary
-elevation of Ararat above the plain of the Araxes&mdash;it may be
-doubted whether there exists in the world another mountain which rises
-immediately from a level surface to such a height&mdash;is balanced and
-controlled by this broad and massive base, and by the exquisite
-proportions of the upper structure which rises to the snowy roof. Yet
-neither the strength nor the symmetry of this admirable fabric has been
-proof against decay. Momentous convulsions from within have completed
-the work of gradual corrosion, and have opened a wide breach in the
-very heart of the mountain, where it faces the river and the plain.
-From the snow-beds of the lofty cornice to the base at the gathering of
-the seams the whole side of Ararat has been fractured and rent asunder;
-the standing portion overhangs the recess with steep walls, which
-spread within it perpetual gloom. Further east, just in advance of the
-saddle which divides the Ararats, a grassy hill of unwieldy shape and
-flat summit interrupts the basal slopes, and offers an isolated
-contrast to the symmetry of the neighbouring forms. The chasm of Akhury
-and the hill of Takjaltu are minor features in the structure of Ararat
-which are seen and recognised from afar.</p>
-<p class="par">But most of all, as we realise the vision, which in the
-noblest shapes of natural architecture, the dome and the pyramid, fills
-the immense length of the southern horizon and soars above the
-landscape of the plain, the essential unity of the vast edifice and the
-correspondence of the parts between themselves are imprinted upon the
-mind. If Little Ararat, rising on the flank of the giant mountain, may
-recall, both in form and in position, the minaret which, beside the
-vault of a Byzantine temple, bears witness to a conflicting creed, this
-contrast is softened in the natural structure <span class=
-"pagenum">[<a id="pb152" href="#pb152" name="pb152">152</a>]</span>by
-the similarity of the processes which have produced the two neighbours,
-and by their intimate connection with one another as constituents in a
-single plan. In this respect they suggest a comparison to a stately
-ship at sea, with all the close weaving and interdependence of hull and
-masts and sails. In the harmony of a common system each supplements and
-continues the other, and what Great Ararat is to the western portion of
-the fabric Little Ararat is to that on the east. The long north-western
-slope of the larger mountain is answered on the south-east by the train
-which sweeps from the side of the smaller towards the mists of the
-Caspian Sea; and there is the same correspondence between the slopes
-which are contiguous as between those which are most remote. The
-steeper side of the greater Ararat is turned towards the needle form of
-the lesser; and, standing in the valley which divides the two
-mountains, it appears that the degree of inclination of either slope is
-in exactly inverse proportion to their size. This pleasing interplay
-between constancy in essential principles and diversity of form invests
-the long outline of the dual structure with a peculiar charm. The
-differing shapes repeat one another, and one base supports the
-whole.</p>
-<p class="par">The plain itself, on the confines of which, and opposite
-to one another, these several ranges and mountain masses rise, is not
-unworthy of the works around it, and spreads at their feet a long
-perspective of open and even ground. Where the valley attains its
-greatest extension, just west of Erivan, the width of its floor, or
-level surface, is over twenty miles; and even when the spurs of the
-Lake Sevan system have inclined the northern boundary to the south, the
-space between these spurs and the extreme base of Ararat is scarcely
-less than ten miles. But these are divisions which the mind appreciates
-and the eye is unable to perceive, so gradual is the transition from
-one level to another, from plain to mountain-side. On the north the
-dappled landscape of the campagna mingles with the patches of field and
-garden which, fed by a number of slender rivulets, clothe the first
-slopes of Alag&ouml;z; on the south the gathering foundations of Ararat
-are accompanied by an almost insensible inclination in the surface of
-the dry and sandy soil. From either side the prospect extends unbroken
-to the long summit lines which confront one another at an interval of
-nearly sixty miles. From invisible limits in the western distance
-issues the looping thread of the Araxes, and, <span class=
-"pagenum">[<a id="pb153" href="#pb153" name=
-"pb153">153</a>]</span>skirting the base of the Ararat fabric, bends
-slowly south-eastwards and disappears.</p>
-<hr class="tb">
-<p class="par"></p>
-<p class="par">The shady walks of the little park were beginning to
-fill with groups of loungers when, at five o&rsquo;clock in the
-afternoon of the 16th of September, we started from the central square
-of Erivan. A single horseman accompanied us, a <i>chapar</i> or courier
-belonging to the country police. This was the first occasion, since we
-had entered Russian territory, upon which an escort had been considered
-necessary by those responsible for our safety. We were approaching the
-Turkish border, and along that extended mountain frontier acts of
-brigandage are still not unknown. Yet the prince of brigands, the
-redoubted Kerim, no longer flouts the nachalniks; and a stream of laden
-carts and leisurely wayfarers attests the public confidence. Slowly we
-threaded the clay-built walls of successive orchards, the trees within
-them bending with fruit, until beyond this oasis of foliage and
-freshness opened, like an ocean at the mouth of a harbour, the free
-expanse of plain.</p>
-<p class="par"></p>
-<div class="figure xd21e4106width" id="fig029"><img src=
-"images/fig029.jpg" alt="Fig. 29. Ararat from near Aramzalu." width=
-"720" height="509">
-<p class="figureHead"><span class="sc"><span class="figNum">Fig.
-29.</span> Ararat from near Aramzalu.</span></p>
-</div>
-<p class="par"></p>
-<p class="par">The springless <i>troika</i> bumped heavily on the
-projecting slabs of massive boulders, embedded in the fairway. The road
-which leads through this stony region is little better than a natural
-track. The rocky slopes of the northern mountain border extend to the
-south of Erivan, until they die away into the level surface of the
-valley a few versts from the town. The evening was advancing and we had
-no time to linger; we were obliged to put up with the jolting and push
-on. At the promise of a rouble to the driver the pace quickened; we
-clutched the bare sides of the little post cart, and tightened our seat
-on the narrow belt of chains, cushioned with a bundle of hay. At the
-half stage our courier took his leave and was succeeded by a fresh
-horseman; and so throughout the journey one horseman gave place to
-another with only a few minutes&rsquo; delay. These chapars are young
-men, native to the country, who find their own mounts; they wear the
-drab skirted coat of Georgia and the usual lambskin cap. Their stations
-are often isolated, and are distinguished by the curious structures
-which adjoin them&mdash;lofty platforms, built upon piles, which serve
-the purpose of watch towers, and from which they command the
-inequalities of the ground (Fig. <a href="#fig029">29</a>). Away on our
-right the distant chain of the Ararat system was shadowed in tints of
-opal and indigo upon a rich ground of orange and amber hues; the sun
-sets behind those mountains, and it was <span class="pagenum">[<a id=
-"pb154" href="#pb154" name="pb154">154</a>]</span>touching with globe
-of red fire the fantastic peaks of the range. About us the plain lay
-grey and dim, and all the light and glory was in the western sky. In
-the south the misty fabric of Ararat loomed more gigantic as night
-approached; ever higher, before us, in the paling vault of heaven the
-dome and the pyramid rose. As we neared the first station on the road
-to Aralykh, the village of Aramzalu, it seemed as if the snowy roof of
-the mountain were suspended in the sky above our heads, a cold and
-ghostly island, holding the last glimmer of day.</p>
-<p class="par">Of the forty versts (26&frac12; miles), which separate
-Erivan from Aralykh, we had covered thirteen versts (8&frac12; miles)
-within the space of an hour and a half. The next stage is the village
-of Kamarlu, a distance of fifteen versts. Between these two stations
-the road follows the course of the Araxes, at an interval of two or
-three miles, and is lined on either side by the walls of extensive
-gardens, watered by a network of little channels which carry the river
-into the plain. The character of the soil favours the well-metalled
-avenue which leads within the fringe of poplars and fruit trees and
-forms the principal artery of this fertile and populous zone. Night had
-fallen; the road was clear; the fresh pair of horses were less than an
-hour in covering the ten miles.</p>
-<p class="par">In the post house of Kamarlu, where we again changed
-horses, we were surprised to find our cook. He had been retained as a
-hostage for the way-money of the fourgon, which our people had been
-unable to pay. We released him, and stowed him away with difficulty in
-a corner of the cart. At Kamarlu you leave the region of gardens, and
-make direct for the margin of the river, which flows between high banks
-through a melancholy district of waste land and cracking soil. In this
-yellow stream, of which the width at this point can scarcely exceed
-eighty yards, it is difficult to recognise with becoming emotion the
-haughty flood of the Araxes; yet the river is still crossed by fords or
-ferries, and still retains, I believe, the ancient distinction that it
-does not brook a bridge. A standing hawser of woven wire is laid from
-bank to bank, and the force of the stream propels along it a wide and
-solid pontoon. Transported without delay to the opposite bank, we made
-rapid progress along the roadway across low and marshy ground, and
-arrived just after nine at the row of trim cantonments which compose
-the military station of Aralykh, eleven versts from Kamarlu (Fig.
-<a href="#fig030">30</a>).</p>
-<p class="par">We made halt before the entrance to a single-storeyed
-dwelling <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb155" href="#pb155" name=
-"pb155">155</a>]</span>built of clay and painted white. A young Russian
-officer in white linen tunic received us at the door. As we passed
-within the house, the burly figure of Rudolph was seen emerging from
-the shades. Our host had lodged the whole party in his quarters, and
-would not hear of our living in our tents. At Aralykh there are
-stationed a squadron of Cossacks and a detachment of regular cavalry.
-The regulars are employed in protecting the customs, and the Cossacks
-in hunting the Kurds. It was interesting to notice the
-contrast&mdash;in demeanour as well as in habits&mdash;between the
-polished young lieutenant of regulars and the kind but boisterous
-colonel of Cossacks. How small are the differences between opposite
-nationalities when compared with such essential divisions as these! In
-this hospitable house the manners of Europe prevailed over those of the
-East. As we sat in the comfortable room of the Russian officer it was
-strange to reflect that we were at the foot of Ararat, face to face
-with the memories of primeval simplicity among the thousand pretty
-nicknacks of a leisurely writing table and the various implements of a
-modern toilette. Perhaps the link, which connects all human
-development, was in this case supplied by a primitive reckoning table
-with rows of skewered beads.</p>
-<p class="par"></p>
-<div class="figure xd21e4135width" id="fig030"><img src=
-"images/fig030.jpg" alt="Fig. 30. Ararat: Aralykh in the foreground."
-width="607" height="428">
-<p class="figureHead"><span class="sc"><span class="figNum">Fig.
-30.</span> Ararat: Aralykh in the foreground.</span></p>
-</div>
-<p class="par"><span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb156" href="#pb156" name=
-"pb156">156</a>]</span></p>
-</div>
-<div class="footnotes">
-<hr class="fnsep">
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e3973" href="#xd21e3973src" name="xd21e3973">1</a></span> Bryce,
-<i>Transcaucasia and Ararat</i>, 4th and revised edition, London, 1896,
-p. 312.&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href="#xd21e3973src">&uarr;</a></p>
-</div>
-</div>
-<div id="ch12" class="div1 chapter"><span class="pagenum">[<a href=
-"#xd21e398">Contents</a>]</span>
-<div class="divHead">
-<h2 class="label">CHAPTER XII</h2>
-<h2 class="main">ASCENT OF ARARAT</h2>
-</div>
-<div class="divBody">
-<p class="par first">Next morning the sun had already risen as I let
-myself down through the open casement of the window and dropped into
-the garden among the dry brushwood encumbering its sandy floor. Not a
-soul was stirring, and not a sound disturbed the composure of an
-Eastern morning, the great world fulfilling its task in silence and all
-nature sedate and serene. A narrow strip of plantation runs at the back
-of Aralykh, on the south, sustained by ducts from the Kara Su or
-Blackwater, a stream which leads a portion of the waters of the Araxes
-into the cotton fields and marshes which border the right bank. Within
-this fringe of slim poplars, and just on its southern verge, there is a
-little mound and an open summer-house&mdash;as pleasant a place as it
-is possible to imagine, but which, perhaps, only differs from other
-summer-houses in the remarkable situation which it occupies and in the
-wonderful view which it commands. It is placed on the extreme foot of
-Ararat, exactly on the line where all inclination ceases and the floor
-of the plain begins. It immediately faces the summit of the larger
-mountain, bearing about south-west (Frontispiece).</p>
-<p class="par">Before you the long outline of the Ararat fabric fills
-the southern horizon&mdash;the gentle undulations of the north-western
-slope, as it gathers from its lengthy train; the bold bastions of the
-snowfields, rising to the rounded dome; and, further east, beyond the
-saddle where the two mountains commingle, the needle form of the lesser
-Ararat, free at this season from snow. Yet, although Aralykh lies at
-the flank of Ararat, confronting the side which mounts most directly
-from the plain to the roof of snow, the distance from a perpendicular
-drawn through the summit is over <span class="measure" title=
-"25.7 kilometer">16 miles</span>. Throughout that space the fabric is
-<span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb157" href="#pb157" name=
-"pb157">157</a>]</span>always rising towards the snow-bank <span class=
-"measure" title="4267 meter">14,000 feet</span> above our heads, with a
-symmetry and, so to speak, with a rhythm of structure which holds the
-eye in spell. First, there is a belt of loose sand, about <span class=
-"measure" title="3.22 kilometer">2 miles</span> in depth, beginning on
-the margin of marsh and irrigation, and seen from this garden, which
-directly adjoins it, like the sea-bed from a grove on the shore. On the
-ground of yellow, thus presented, rests a light tissue of green,
-consisting of the sparse bushes of the ever-fresh camelthorn, a plant
-which strikes down into beds of moisture, deep-seated beneath the
-surface of the soil. Although it is possible, crossing this sand-zone,
-to detect the growing slope, yet this feature is scarcely perceptible
-from Aralykh, whence its smooth, unbroken surface and cool relief of
-green suggest the appearance of an embroidered carpet, spread at the
-threshold of an Eastern temple for the services of prayer. Beyond this
-band or belt of sandy ground, composed no doubt of a pulverised
-detritus, which the piety of Parrot was quick to recognise as a leaving
-of the flood, the broad and massive base of Ararat sensibly gathers and
-inclines, seared by the sinuous furrows of dry watercourses, and
-stretching, uninterrupted by any step or obstacle, hill or terrace or
-bank, to the veil of thin mist which hangs at this hour along the
-higher seams. Not a patch of verdure, not a streak of brighter colour
-breaks the long monotony of ochre in the burnt grass and the bleached
-stones. All the subtle sensations with which the living earth surrounds
-us&mdash;wide as are the tracts of barren desert within the limits of
-the plain itself&mdash;seem to cease, arrested at the fringe of this
-plantation, as on a magician&rsquo;s line. When the vapours obscuring
-the middle slopes of the mountain dissolve and disappear, you see the
-shadowed jaws of the great chasm&mdash;the whole side of the mountain
-burst asunder from the cornice of the snow-roof to the base, the base
-itself depressed and hollow throughout its width of about <span class=
-"measure" title="16.1 kilometer">10 miles</span>. No cloud has yet
-climbed to the snows of the summit, shining in the brilliant blue.</p>
-<p class="par">It was the morning of the 17th of September, a period of
-the year when the heats have moderated; when the early air, even in the
-plain of the Araxes, has acquired a suggestion of crispness, and the
-sun still overpowers the first symptoms of winter chills.<a class=
-"noteref" id="xd21e4170src" href="#xd21e4170" name="xd21e4170src">1</a>
-The tedious arrangements of Eastern travel <span class=
-"pagenum">[<a id="pb158" href="#pb158" name=
-"pb158">158</a>]</span>occupied the forenoon; and it had been arranged
-that we should dine with our host, the Lieutenant, before making the
-final start. Six little hacks, impressed in the district and sadly
-wanting in flesh, were loaded with our effects; our party was mounted
-on Cossack horses, which, by the extreme courtesy of the Russian
-authorities, had been placed at our disposal for a week. We took leave
-of our new friend under a strong sentiment of gratitude and esteem; but
-a new and pleasurable surprise was awaiting us, as we passed down the
-neat square. All the Cossacks at that time quartered in
-Aralykh&mdash;the greater number were absent on the slopes of the
-mountain, serving the usual patrols&mdash;had been drawn up in marching
-order, awaiting the arrival of their Colonel, who had contrived to keep
-the secret by expressing his willingness to accompany us a few versts
-of the way. My cousin and I were riding with the Colonel, and the
-purpose of these elaborate arrangements was explained to us with a sly
-smile; the troop with their Colonel were to escort us on our first
-day&rsquo;s journey, and to bivouac at Sardar Bulakh. The order was
-given to march in half column. It was perhaps the first time that an
-English officer had ridden at the head of these famous troops. We
-crossed the last runnel on the southern edge of the plantation and
-entered the silent waste.</p>
-<p class="par">For awhile we slowly rode through the camelthorn, the
-deep sand sinking beneath our horses&rsquo; feet. It was nearly one
-o&rsquo;clock, and the expanse around us streamed in the full glare of
-noon. A spell seems to rest upon the landscape of the mountain, sealing
-all the springs of life. Only, among the evergreen shrubs about us, a
-scattered group of camels cropped the spinous foliage, little lizards
-darted, a flock of sand-grouse took wing. Our course lay slantwise
-across the base of Ararat, towards the hill of Takjaltu, a table-topped
-mass, overgrown with yellow herbage, which rises in advance of the
-saddle between the mountains, and lies just below you as you overlook
-the landscape from the valley of Sardar Bulakh. Gullies of chalk and
-ground strewn with stones succeed the even surface of the belt of sand,
-and in turn give way to the covering of burnt grass which clothes the
-deep slope of the great sweeping base, and encircles the fabric with a
-continuous stretch of ochre, extending up the higher seams. Mile after
-mile we rode at easy paces over the parched turf and the cracking soil.
-When we had accomplished a space of about <span class="measure" title=
-"16.1 kilometer">10 miles</span>, and attained a height of nearly
-<span class="measure" title="1829 meter">6000 feet</span>, the land
-broke <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb159" href="#pb159" name=
-"pb159">159</a>]</span>about us into miniature ravines, deep gullies,
-strewn with stones and boulders, searing the slope about the line of
-the limit where the base may be said to determine and the higher seams
-begin. Winding down the sides of these rocky hollows, one might turn in
-the saddle at a bend of the track, and observe the long line of
-horsemen defiling into the ravine (Fig. <a href="#fig031">31</a>). I
-noticed that by far the greater number among them&mdash;if, indeed, one
-might not say all&mdash;were men in the opening years of
-manhood&mdash;lithe, well-knit figures, and fair complexions, set round
-with fair hair. At a nearer view the feature which most impressed me
-was the smallness of their eyes. They wear the long, skirted coat of
-Circassia, a thin and worn khaki; the faded pink on the cloth of their
-shoulder-straps relieves the dull drab. Their little caps of Circassian
-pattern fit closely round their heads. Their horses are clumsy,
-long-backed creatures, wanting in all the characteristics of quality;
-and, as each man maintains his own animal, few among them are shod. Yet
-I am assured that the breed is workmanlike and enduring, and I have
-known it to yield most satisfactory progeny when crossed with English
-racing blood. As we rounded the heap of grass-grown soil which is known
-as Takjaltu, we were joined by a second detachment of Cossacks, coming
-from Akhury. Together we climbed up the troughs of <span class=
-"pagenum">[<a id="pb160" href="#pb160" name="pb160">160</a>]</span>the
-ridges which sweep fanwise down the mountain side, and emerged on the
-floor of the upland valley which leads between the greater and the
-lesser Ararat, and crosses the back of the Ararat fabric in a direction
-from south-west to north-east. We were here at an elevation of
-<span class="measure" title="2286 meter">7500 feet</span> above the
-sea, or nearly <span class="measure" title="1524 meter">5000
-feet</span> above the plain. Both the stony troughs and ridges, up
-which we had just marched, as well as the comparatively level ground
-upon which we now stood, were covered with a scorched but abundant
-vegetation, which had served the Kurds during earlier summer as pasture
-for their flocks, and still sheltered numerous coveys of plump
-partridges, in which this part of the mountain abounds.</p>
-<p class="par"></p>
-<div class="figure floatRight xd21e4210width" id="fig031"><img src=
-"images/fig031.jpg" alt="Fig. 31. Our Cavalcade on Ararat." width="412"
-height="600">
-<p class="figureHead"><span class="sc"><span class="figNum">Fig.
-31.</span> Our Cavalcade on Ararat.</span></p>
-</div>
-<p class="par"></p>
-<p class="par">At the mouth of this valley, on the gently sloping
-platform which its even surface presents, we marked out the spaces of
-our bivouac, the pickets for the horses, and the fires. Our men were
-acquainted with every cranny; we had halted near the site of their
-summer encampment, from which they had only recently descended to their
-winter quarters in the plain. As we dismounted we were met by a
-graceful figure, clad in a Circassian coat of brown material let in
-across the breast with pink silk&mdash;a young man of most engaging
-appearance and manners, presented to us as the chief of the Kurds on
-Ararat who own allegiance to the Tsar. In the high refinement of his
-features, in the bronzed complexion and soft brown eyes, the Kurd made
-a striking contrast to the Cossacks&mdash;a contrast by no means to the
-advantage of the Cis-Caucasian race. The young chief is also worthy to
-be remembered in respect of the remarkable name which he bears. His
-Kurdish title of Shamden Agha has been developed and embroidered into
-the sonorous appellation of Hasan Bey Shamshadinoff, under which he is
-officially known.</p>
-<p class="par">From the edge of the platform upon which we were
-standing the ground falls away with some abruptness down to the base
-below, and lends to the valley its characteristic appearance of an
-elevated stage and natural viewing-place, overtowered by the summit
-regions of the dome and the pyramid, and commanding all the landscape
-of the plain. On the south-west, as it rises towards the pass between
-the two mountains&mdash;a pass of <span class="measure" title=
-"2682 meter">8800 feet</span>, leading into Turkish and into Persian
-territory, to Bayazid or Maku&mdash;the extent of even ground which
-composes this platform cannot much exceed a quarter of a mile. It is
-choked by the rocky causeways which, sweeping down the side of Great
-Ararat, <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb161" href="#pb161" name=
-"pb161">161</a>]</span>tumble headlong to the bottom of the fork, and,
-taking the inclination of the ever-widening valley, descend on the
-north-western skirt of the platform in long, oblique curves of
-branching troughs and ridges, falling fanwise over the base. The width
-of the platform, at the mouth of the valley, may be about
-three-quarters of a mile. It is here that the Kurds of the surrounding
-region gather, as the shades of night approach, to water their flocks
-at the lonely pool which is known as the sirdar&rsquo;s well. On the
-summit of the lesser Ararat there is a little lake, formed of melted
-snows; the water permeates the mountain, and feeds the sirdar&rsquo;s
-pool. Close by, at the foot of the lesser mountain, is the famous
-covert of birch&mdash;low bushes, the only stretch of wood upon the
-fabric, which is entirely devoid of trees. The wood was soon crackling
-upon our fires, and the water hissing in the pots; but the wretched
-pack-horses, upon which our tents had been loaded, were lagging several
-hours behind. We ourselves had reached camp at six o&rsquo;clock; it
-was after nine before our baggage arrived. As we stretched upon the
-slope, the keen air of the summit region swept the valley and chilled
-us to the skin; the temperature sank to below freezing, and we had
-nothing but the things in which we stood.<a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e4226src" href="#xd21e4226" name="xd21e4226src">2</a> Our friends,
-the Cossack officers, were lavish of assistance; they wrapped us in the
-hairy coats of the Caucasus, placed <i>vodki</i> and partridges before
-us, and ranged us around their hospitable circle, beside the leaping
-flames.</p>
-<p class="par">But the mind was absent from the picturesque bivouac,
-and the eye which ranged the deepening shadows was still dazzled by the
-evening lights. Mind and sense alike were saturated with the beauty and
-the brilliance of the landscape, which, as you rise towards the edge of
-the platform after rounding the mass of Takjaltu, opens to an
-ever-increasing perspective, with ever-growing clearness of essential
-features and mystery gathering upon all lesser forms. The sun,
-revolving south of the zenith, lights the mountains on the north of the
-plain, and fills all the valley from the slopes of Ararat with the full
-flood of his rays&mdash;tier after tier of crinkled hummock ranges,
-aligned upon the opposite margin of the valley at a distance of over
-twenty miles, their summit outline fretted with shapes of cones and
-craters, their faces buttressed in sand, bare and devoid of all
-vegetation, yet richly clothed in lights and hues of
-fairyland&mdash;ochres flushed with delicate madder, <span class=
-"pagenum">[<a id="pb162" href="#pb162" name=
-"pb162">162</a>]</span>amethyst, shaded opaline, while the sparse
-plantations about the river and the labyrinth of the plain insensibly
-transfigure, as you rise above them, into an impalpable web of grey. In
-the lap of the landscape lies the river, a thin, looping
-thread&mdash;flashes of white among the shadows, in the lights a bright
-mineral green. Here and there on its banks you descry a naked
-mound&mdash;conjuring a vision of forgotten civilisations and the
-buried hives of man. It is a vast prospect over the world.... Yet
-vaster far is the expanse you feel about you beyond the limits of
-sight. It is nothing but a segment of that expanse, a brief vista from
-north to east between two mountain sides. On the north the slopes of
-Great Ararat hide the presence of Alag&ouml;z, while behind the needle
-form of Little Ararat all the barren chains and lonely valleys of
-Persia are outspread.... The evening grows, and the sun&rsquo;s
-returning arc bends behind the dome of snow. The light falls between
-the two mountains, and connects the Little Ararat in a common harmony
-with the richening tints of the plain. There it stands on the further
-margin of the platform, the clean, sharp outline of a pyramid, clothed
-in hues of a tender yellow, seamed with violet veins. At its feet,
-where its train sweeps the floor of the river valley in long and
-regular folds&mdash;far away in the east, towards the mists of the
-Caspian&mdash;the sandy ground breaks into a troubled surface, like
-angry waves set solid under a spell, and from range to range stretch a
-chain of low white hummocks, like islands across a sea. Just there, in
-the distance, beneath the Little Ararat, you see a patch of shining
-white, so vivid that it presents the appearance of a glacier, set in
-the burnt waste. It is probably caused by some chemical efflorescence,
-resting on the dry bed of a lake. All the landscape reveals the frenzy
-of volcanic forces, fixed for ever in an imperishable mould; the
-imagination plays with the forms of distant castles and fortresses of
-sand. Alone the slopes about you wear the solid colours, and hold you
-to the real world&mdash;the massive slopes of Great Ararat, raised high
-above the world. The wreath of cloud which veils the summit till the
-last breath of warm air dies has floated away in the calm heaven before
-the western lights have paled. Behind the lofty piles of rocky
-causeways, concealing the higher seams, rises the immediate roof of
-Ararat foreshortened in the sky&mdash;the short side or gable of the
-dome, a faultless cone of snow.</p>
-<p class="par">When we drew aside the curtain of our tent next morning,
-full <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb163" href="#pb163" name=
-"pb163">163</a>]</span>daylight was streaming over the open upland
-valley, and the vigorous air had already lost its edge.<a class=
-"noteref" id="xd21e4246src" href="#xd21e4246" name="xd21e4246src">3</a>
-The sun had risen high above the Sevan ranges, and swept the plain
-below us of the lingering vapours which at morning cling like shining
-wool to the floor of the river valley, or float in rosy feathers
-against the dawn. The long-backed Cossack horses had been groomed and
-watered and picketed in line; the men were sitting smoking in little
-groups or were strolling about the camp in pairs (Fig. <a href=
-"#fig032">32</a>). A few Kurds, who had come down with milk and
-provisions, stood listlessly looking on, the beak nose projecting from
-the bony cheeks, the brown chest opening from the many-coloured tatters
-draped about the shoulders and waist.</p>
-<p class="par"></p>
-<div class="figure xd21e4260width" id="fig032"><img src=
-"images/fig032.jpg" alt="Fig. 32. Our Encampment at Sardar Bulakh."
-width="586" height="430">
-<p class="figureHead"><span class="sc"><span class="figNum">Fig.
-32.</span> Our Encampment at Sardar Bulakh.</span></p>
-</div>
-<p class="par"></p>
-<p class="par">The space of level ground between the two mountains
-cannot much exceed three-quarters of a mile. On the east the graceful
-seams of Little Ararat rise immediately from the slope upon our right,
-gathering just beyond the covert of low birchwood, and converging in
-the form of a pyramid towards a summit which has been broken across the
-point. The platform of this valley is a base for Little
-Ararat&mdash;the rib on the flank of the greater mountain from which
-the smaller proceeds. So sharp are the lines of the <span class=
-"pagenum">[<a id="pb164" href="#pb164" name=
-"pb164">164</a>]</span>Little Ararat, so clean the upward slope, that
-the summit, when seen from this pass or saddle, seems to rise as high
-in the heaven above us as the dome of Great Ararat itself. The burnt
-grass struggles towards the little birch covert, but scarcely touches
-the higher seams. The mountain side is broken into a loose rubble; deep
-gullies sear it in perpendicular furrows, which contribute to the
-impression of height. The prevailing colour of the stones is a bleached
-yellow verging upon a delicate pink; but these paler strata are divided
-by veins of bluish andesite pointing upwards, like spear-heads, from
-the base (Fig. <a href="#fig033">33</a>).</p>
-<p class="par"></p>
-<div class="figure xd21e4275width" id="fig033"><img src=
-"images/fig033.jpg" alt=
-"Fig. 33. Little Ararat from near Sardar Bulakh." width="417" height=
-"595">
-<p class="figureHead"><span class="sc"><span class="figNum">Fig.
-33.</span> Little Ararat from near Sardar Bulakh.</span></p>
-</div>
-<p class="par"></p>
-<p class="par">Very different, on the side of Great Ararat, are the
-shapes which meet the eye. We are facing the south-eastern slope of the
-mountain, the slope which follows the direction of its axis, the short
-side or gable of the dome. In the descending train of the giant volcano
-this valley is but an incidental or lesser feature; yet it marks, and
-in a sense determines, an important alteration in the disposition of
-the surface forms. It is here that the streams of molten matter
-descending the mountain side have been arrested and deflected from
-their original direction, to fall over the massive base. The dam or
-obstacle which has produced this deviation is the sharp, harmonious
-figure of the lesser Ararat, emerging from the sea of piled-up
-boulders, and cleaving the <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb165" href=
-"#pb165" name="pb165">165</a>]</span>chaos of troughs and ridges like
-the lofty prow of a ship. The course of these streams of lava is
-signalised by these causeways of agglomerate rocks; you may follow from
-a point of vantage upon the mountain the numerous branches into which
-they have divided to several parent or larger streams. On this side of
-Ararat they have been turned in an oblique direction, from south-east
-towards north-east; they skirt the western margin of the little valley,
-curving outwards to the river and the plain. It is just beneath the
-first of these walls of loose boulders that our two little tents are
-pitched; beyond it you see another, and yet another still higher, and
-above them the dome of snow.</p>
-<p class="par">The distance from this valley of the summit of Great
-Ararat, if we measure upon the survey of the Russian Government along a
-horizontal line, is rather over <span class="measure" title=
-"8.05 kilometer">5 miles</span>. The confused sea of boulders, of which
-I have just described the nature, extends, according to my own
-measurements, to a height of about <span class="measure" title=
-"3658 meter">12,000 feet</span>. Above that zone, so arduous to
-traverse, lies the summit region of the mountain, robed in perpetual
-snow. From whatever point you regard that summit on this south-eastern
-side, the appearance of its height falls short of reality in a most
-substantial degree. Not only does the curve of the upward slope lend
-itself to a most deceitful foreshortening when you follow it from
-below, but, indeed, the highest point or crown of the dome is invisible
-from this the gable side.</p>
-<p class="par"></p>
-<div class="figure xd21e4295width" id="fig034"><img src=
-"images/fig034.jpg" alt=
-"Fig. 34. Great Ararat from above Sardar-Bulakh." width="566" height=
-"720">
-<p class="figureHead"><span class="sc"><span class="figNum">Fig.
-34.</span> Great Ararat from above Sardar-Bulakh<span class="corr" id=
-"xd21e4301" title="Not in source">.</span></span></p>
-</div>
-<p class="par"></p>
-<p class="par">If you strike a direct course from the encampment
-towards the roof of snow, and, crossing the grain of successive walls
-and depressions, emerge upon some higher ridge, the numerous
-ramifications of the lava system may be followed to their source, and
-are seen to issue from larger causeways which rise in bold relief from
-the snows of the summit region, and open fanwise down the higher slopes
-(Fig. <a href="#fig034">34</a>). In shape these causeways may be said
-to resemble the sharp side of a wedge; the massive base from which the
-bank rises narrows to a pointed spine. As the eye pursues the circle of
-the summit where it vanishes towards the north, these ribs of rock
-which radiate down the mountain diminish in volume and relief. Their
-sharp edges commence to cut the snowy canopy about <span class=
-"measure" title="914 meter">3000 feet</span> below the dome. It is
-rather on this south-eastern side of Ararat, the side which follows the
-direction of the axis of the fabric&mdash;the line upon which the
-forces have acted by which the whole fabric has been reared&mdash;that
-a formation so characteristic of the surface of the summit <span class=
-"pagenum">[<a id="pb166" href="#pb166" name=
-"pb166">166</a>]</span>region at once attains its greatest development,
-and is productive of a phenomenon which cannot fail to arrest the eye.
-At a height of about <span class="measure" title="4267 meter">14,000
-feet</span>, a causeway of truly gigantic proportions breaks abruptly
-from the snow. The head of the ridge is bold and lofty, and towers high
-above the snow-slope with steep and rocky sides. The ridge itself is in
-form a wedge or triangle, cut deep down into the side of the mountain,
-and marked along the spine by a canal-shaped depression which
-accentuates the descending curve (see Fig. 34). The troughs and ridges,
-which you will now be crossing, have their origin in this parent ridge;
-you see it bending outwards, away from Little Ararat, and dividing into
-branches and systems of branches as it reaches the lower slopes.
-Whether its want of connection with the roof of Ararat, or the inherent
-characteristics of its uppermost end, be sufficient evidence to justify
-the supposition of Abich that this ridge at its head marks a separate
-eruptive centre on the flank of Ararat, I am not competent adequately
-to discuss. I can only observe that it is not difficult to find another
-explanation. It is possible that the ridge where it narrows to the
-summit has been fractured and swept away. This peak, or sharp end of
-the causeway, to whatever causes its origin may be ascribed, is a
-distinguishing feature on the slope of Ararat, seen far and wide like a
-tooth or hump or shoulder on this the south-eastern side.<a class=
-"noteref" id="xd21e4317src" href="#xd21e4317" name=
-"xd21e4317src">4</a></p>
-<p class="par">Although the most direct way to the summit region leads
-immediately across the zone of boulders from the camp by the
-sirdar&rsquo;s pool, yet it is not that which most travellers have
-followed, or which the natives of the district recommend. This line of
-approach, which I followed for some distance a few days after our
-ascent, is open to the objection that it is no doubt more difficult to
-scale the slope of snow upon this side. The tract of uncovered rocks
-which breaks the snow-fields, offering ladders to the roof of the dome,
-is situated further to the south-east of the mountain, above the neck
-of the valley of the pool. Whether it would not be more easy to reach
-these ladders by skirting slantwise from the higher slopes, is a
-question which is not in itself unreasonable, and which only actual
-experience will decide. It was in this manner, I believe, that the
-English traveller, my friend the Rt. Hon. James Bryce, made an ascent
-which, as a feat, is, I think, the most remarkable of any of the
-recorded climbs. Starting from the pool at one o&rsquo;clock in the
-<span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb167" href="#pb167" name=
-"pb167">167</a>]</span>morning, he reached the summit, alone, at about
-two in the afternoon, accomplishing within a space of about six hours
-the last <span class="measure" title="1524 meter">5000 feet</span>, and
-returning to the point from which he started before sunrise on the
-following day. We ourselves were advised to follow up the valley,
-keeping the causeways upon our right, and only then, when we should
-have reached a point about south-east of the summit, to strike across
-the belt of rock.</p>
-<p class="par">At twenty minutes before two on the 18th of September
-our little party left camp in marching order, all in the pride of
-health and spirits, and eager for the attack. Thin wreaths of cloud
-wrapped the snows of the summit&mdash;the jealous spell which baffles
-the bold lover even when he already grasps his prize. We had taken
-leave of the Cossack officers and their band of light-hearted men. Our
-friends were returning to Akhury and Aralykh, the one body to hunt the
-Kurds of the frontier, the other to languish in dull inactivity until
-their turn should come round again. Four Cossacks were deputed to
-remain and guard our camp; we ourselves had decided to dispense with
-any escort and to trust to our Kurdish allies. Of these, ten sturdy
-fellows accompanied us as porters to carry our effects, their rifles
-slung over their many-coloured tatters beside the burden allotted to
-each (Fig. <a href="#fig035">35</a>). With my cousin and myself were
-the young Swiss, Rudolph Taugwalder, a worthy example of his race and
-profession&mdash;the large limbs, the rosy cheeks, the open mien
-without guile&mdash;and young Ernest Wesson, fresh from the Polytechnic
-in London, burning to distinguish himself. My Armenian dragoman
-followed as best he was able until the camp at the snow was reached;
-his plump little figure was not well adapted to toil over the giant
-rocks. Of our number was also an Armenian from Akhury, who had tendered
-his services as guide; he was able to indicate a place for our
-night&rsquo;s encampment, but he did not venture upon the slope of
-snow.</p>
-<p class="par"></p>
-<div class="figure xd21e4333width" id="fig035"><img src=
-"images/fig035.jpg" alt="Fig. 35. Our Kurd Porters on Ararat." width=
-"720" height="480">
-<p class="figureHead"><span class="sc"><span class="figNum">Fig.
-35.</span> Our Kurd Porters on Ararat.</span></p>
-</div>
-<p class="par"></p>
-<p class="par">A little stream trickles down the valley, but sinks
-exhausted at this season before reaching the sirdar&rsquo;s well. In
-the early summer it is of the volume of a torrent, which winds past the
-encampment, like a serpent of silver, uttering a dull, rumbling
-sound.<a class="noteref" id="xd21e4342src" href="#xd21e4342" name=
-"xd21e4342src">5</a> It is fed by the water from the snow-fields, and
-there is said to be a spring which contributes to support it at a
-height of nearly <span class="measure" title="3353 meter">11,000
-feet</span>.<a class="noteref" id="xd21e4351src" href="#xd21e4351"
-name="xd21e4351src">6</a> After half an hour&rsquo;s walk over the
-stony surface <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb168" href="#pb168" name=
-"pb168">168</a>]</span>of the platform&mdash;the ragged herbage burnt
-yellow by the sun&mdash;we entered the narrows of the mountain saddle,
-and followed the dry bed of this rivulet at the foot of rocky spurs.
-The tufts of sappy grass sparsely studded on the margin of the
-water-course gave place, as we advanced, to a continuous carpet of soft
-and verdant turf; here and there the eye rested on the deep green of
-the juniper, or the graceful fretwork of a wild rose tree quivered in
-the draught. The warm rays flashed in the thin atmosphere, and tempered
-the searching breeze. The spurs on our right descend from the shoulder
-of Great Ararat, from the causeway of which it forms the head, and are
-seen to diverge into two systems as they enter the narrow pass. The one
-group pushes forward to the Little Ararat and is lost in confused
-detail; the other and, perhaps, the larger system bends boldly along
-the side of the valley, sweeping outwards towards the base. At three
-o&rsquo;clock we reached a large pool of clouded water, collected on a
-table surface of burnt grass; close by is an extensive bed of nettles,
-and a circle of loose stones. This spot is, no doubt, the site of a
-Kurdish encampment, and appeared to have been only recently abandoned
-by the shepherds and their flocks. The further we progressed, the more
-the prospect opened over the slopes of Ararat; we were approaching the
-level of the tops of the ridges which skirt the valley side. Passing,
-as we now were, between the two Ararats, we again remarked that the
-greater seemed no higher than the lesser, so completely is the eye
-deceived. In the hollows of the gully there were small pools of water,
-but the stream itself was dry.</p>
-<p class="par">By half-past three we had left the gentle water-course,
-and were winding inwards, up the slope of Great Ararat, to cross the
-black and barren region, the girdle of sharp crags and slippery
-boulders which is drawn round the upper seams of the mountain, like a
-succession of <i lang="fr">chevaux de frise</i>. We thought it must
-have been on some other side of Ararat that the animals descended from
-the Ark. For a space of more than three hours we laboured on over a
-chaos of rocks, through a labyrinth of troughs and ridges, picking a
-path and as often retracing it, or scrambling up the polished sides of
-the larger blocks which arrest the most crafty approach. The Kurds,
-although sorely taxed by their burdens, were at an advantage compared
-to ourselves; they could slip, like cats, from ledge to ledge in their
-laced slippers of hide. In one place we passed a gigantic heap of
-boulders, towering several <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb169" href=
-"#pb169" name="pb169">169</a>]</span>hundred feet above our heads. The
-rock is throughout of the same character and colour&mdash;an andesitic
-lava of a dark slaty hue. A little later we threaded up a ravine or
-gully, and, after keeping for awhile to the bottom of the depression,
-climbed slowly along the back of the ridge. I noticed that the grain or
-direction of the formation lay towards east-south-east. From the head
-of this ravine we turned into a second, by a natural gap or pass; loose
-rocks were piled along the sides of the hollow, which bristled with
-fantastic, but unreal, shapes. Here a seated group of camels seemed to
-munch in silence on the line of fading sky, or the knotty forms of
-lifeless willows stretched a menace of uplifted arms. In the sheltered
-laps of this higher region, as we approached our journey&rsquo;s end,
-the snow still lay in ragged patches, which increased in volume and
-depth.... The surface cleared, the view opened; we emerged from the
-troubled sea of stone. Beyond a lake of snow and a stretch of rubble
-rose the ghostly sheet of the summit region, holding the last glimmer
-of day.</p>
-<p class="par">It was seven o&rsquo;clock, and we had no sooner halted
-than the biting frost numbed our limbs.<a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e4372src" href="#xd21e4372" name="xd21e4372src">7</a> The ground
-about us was not uneven, but an endless crop of pebbles filled the
-plainer spaces between little capes of embedded rock. At length upon
-the margin of the snow-lake we found a tiny tongue of turf-grown
-soil&mdash;just sufficient emplacement to hold the flying tent which we
-had brought for the purpose of this lofty bivouac near the line of
-continuous snow. We were five to share the modest area which the
-sloping canvas enclosed; yet the temperature in the tent sank below
-freezing before the night was done. Down the slope beside us the snow
-water trickled beneath a thin covering of ice. The sheep-skin coats
-which we had brought from Aralykh protected us from chill, but the
-hardy Kurds slept in their seamy tatters upon the naked rocks around.
-One among them sought protection as the cold became intenser, and we
-wrapped him in a warm cape. It was the first time I had passed the
-night at so great an elevation&mdash;<span class="measure" title=
-"3717 meter">12,194 feet</span> above the sea&mdash;and it is possible
-that the unwonted rarity of the atmosphere contributed to keep us
-awake. But, whether it may have arisen from the conditions which
-surrounded us, or from a nervous state of physical excitement inspired
-by our enterprise, not one among us, excepting the dragoman, succeeded
-in courting sleep. That plump little person <span class=
-"pagenum">[<a id="pb170" href="#pb170" name="pb170">170</a>]</span>had
-struggled on bravely to this his furthest goal, and his heavy breathing
-fell upon the silence of the calm, transparent night.</p>
-<p class="par">The site of our camp below the snow-line marks a new
-stage, or structural division, in the fabric of Ararat. Of these
-divisions, which differ from one another not only in the
-characteristics presented by each among them, but also in the gradient
-of slope, it is natural to distinguish three. We are dealing in
-particular with that section of the mountain which lies between Aralykh
-and the summit, and with the features of the south-eastern side. First,
-there is the massive base of the mountain, about <span class="measure"
-title="16.1 kilometer">10 miles</span> in depth, extending from the
-floor of the river valley to a height of about <span class="measure"
-title="1829 meter">6000 feet</span>. At that point the higher seams
-commence to gather, and the belt of rock begins. The arduous tracts
-which we had just traversed, where large, loose blocks of hard, black
-lava are piled up like a beach, compose the upper portion of this
-middle region, and may be said to touch the lower margin of the
-continuous fields of snow. The line of contact between the extremities
-of the one and the other stage partakes of the nature of a transitional
-system, a neutral zone on the mountain side, where the rocky layers of
-the middle slopes have not yet shelved away, nor the immediate seams of
-the summit region settled to their long climb. In this sense the fields
-of stone about our encampment, with their patches of last year&rsquo;s
-snow, are invested with the attributes of a natural threshold at the
-foot of the great dome. The stage which is highest in the structure of
-Ararat, the stage which holds the dome, has its origin in this
-threshold, or neutral district, at an altitude which varies between
-<span class="measure" title="3658">12,000</span> and <span class=
-"measure" title="3962 meter">13,000 feet</span>.</p>
-<p class="par">Very different in character and in appearance from the
-region we were leaving behind was the slope which faced our encampment,
-robed in perpetual snow. You have pursued the ramifications of the lava
-system to the side of their parent stems; and in place of blind troughs
-and prospectless ledges a noble singleness of feature breaks upon the
-extricated view. You command the whole summit structure of Ararat on
-the short, or gable side; and the shape which rises from the open
-ground about you is that of a massive cone. The regular seams which
-mount to the summit stretch continuous to the crown of snow, and are
-inclined at an angle which diverges very little from an average of
-30&deg;. The gradients from which these higher seams gather&mdash;the
-slopes about our camp&mdash;cannot exceed half that inclination, or an
-angle <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb171" href="#pb171" name=
-"pb171">171</a>]</span>of 15&deg;. Such is the outline, so harmonious
-and simple, which a first glance reveals.... A more intimate study of
-the summit region, as it expands to a closer view, disclosed
-characteristics which were not exactly similar to those with which we
-had already become familiar in the neighbourhood of Sardar Bulakh. It
-was there the north-eastern hemisphere of the mountain&mdash;if the
-term may be applied to the oval figure which the summit region
-presents&mdash;displayed to the prospect upon the segment between east
-and south-east. Our present position lay more to the southward, between
-the two hemispheres; we were placed near the axis of the figure, and
-the roof, as viewed from our encampment, bore nearly due north-west.
-The gigantic causeway which at Sardar Bulakh was seen descending on our
-left hand from the distant snows, now rose on our right, like a rocky
-headland, confronting a gleaming sea of ice. But, when the eye pursues
-the summit circle vanishing towards the west, you miss the sister forms
-of lesser causeways, radiating down the mountain side. It is true that
-the greater proximity of our standpoint to the foot of these highest
-slopes curtailed the segment of the circle which we are able to
-command. This circumstance is not in itself sufficient to explain the
-change in the physiognomy of the summit region, as we see it on this
-side. In place of those bold, black ribs or ridges, spread fanwise down
-the incline, furrowing the snows with their sharp edges, and lined
-along the troughs of their contiguous bases with broad streaks of
-sheltered nev&eacute;, it seems as if the fabric had fallen asunder,
-the surface slipped away&mdash;all the flank of the mountain depressed
-and hollow, from our camp to the roof of the dome. The canopy of snow
-which encircles the summit&mdash;a broad, inviolate bank, unbroken by
-any rift or rock projection for a depth of some <span class="measure"
-title="610 meter">2000 feet</span>&mdash;breaks sharply off on the
-verge of this depression, and leaves the shallow cavity bare. From the
-base of the giant causeway just above us to the gently-pursing outline
-of the roof you follow the edge of the great snow-field, bordering a
-rough and crumbling region which offers scanty foothold to the snow,
-where the hollow slope bristles with pointed boulders, and the bold
-crags pierce the ruin around them in upstanding combs or saw-shaped
-ridges, holding slantwise to the mountain side. On the west side of
-this broad and uncovered depression, near the western extremity of the
-cone, a long strip of snow descends from the summit, caught by some
-trough, or sheltering fissure, in the rough face of the cliff.
-<span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb172" href="#pb172" name=
-"pb172">172</a>]</span>Beyond it, just upon the sky-line, the bare
-rocks reappear, and climb the slope, like a natural ladder, to a point
-where the roof of the dome is lowest and appears to offer the readiest
-access to the still invisible crown.<a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e4414src" href="#xd21e4414" name="xd21e4414src">8</a></p>
-<p class="par">In the attenuated atmosphere surrounding the summit
-every foot that is gained tells. An approach which promises to ease the
-gradient at the time when it presses most seems to offer advantages
-which some future traveller may be encouraged to essay. We ourselves
-were influenced in the choice of a principle upon which to base our
-attack by the confident counsels of the Armenian, which the local
-knowledge of the Kurds confirmed. We were advised to keep to the
-eastern margin of the depression, by the edge of the great snow-field.
-You see the brown rocks still baffling the snow-drifts near the point
-where the deceitful slope appears to end, where on the verge of the
-roof it just dips a little, then stands up, like a low white wall, on
-the luminous ground of blue.</p>
-<p class="par">The troubled sea of boulders flowing towards the Little
-Ararat, from which we had just emerged, still hemmed us in from any
-prospect over the tracts which lay below. The flush of dawn broke
-between the two mountains from a narrow vista of sky. The even surface
-of the snow slope loomed white and cold above our heads, while the
-night still lingered on the dark stone about us, shadowing the little
-laps of ice. Before six o&rsquo;clock we were afoot and ready; it
-wanted a few minutes to the hour as we set out from our camp. To the
-Swiss was entrusted the post of leader; behind him followed in varying
-order my cousin and Wesson and myself. Slowly we passed from the shore
-of the snow-lake to the gathering of the higher seams, harbouring our
-strength for the steeper gradients as we made across the beach of
-boulders, stepping firmly from block to block.</p>
-<p class="par">The broad, white sheet of the summit circle descends to
-the snow-lakes of the lower region in a tongue, or gulf of deep
-nev&eacute;; you may follow on the margin of the great depression the
-western edge of this gleaming surface unbroken down the side of the
-cone. On the east the black wall of the giant causeway borders the
-shining slope, invading the field of perpetual winter to a height of
-over <span class="measure" title="4267 meter">14,000 feet</span>. The
-width of the snow-field between these limits varies as it descends; on
-a level with the shoulder, or <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb173"
-href="#pb173" name="pb173">173</a>]</span>head of the causeway, it
-appeared to span an interval of nearly <span class="measure" title=
-"183 meter">200 yards</span>.<a class="noteref" id="xd21e4434src" href=
-"#xd21e4434" name="xd21e4434src">9</a> The depth of the bed must be
-considerable, and, while the surface holds the tread in places, it as
-often gives and lets you through. No rock-projection, or gap, or
-fissure breaks the slope of the white fairway; but the winds have
-raised the crust about the centre into a ribbon of tiny waves. Our plan
-was to cross the stony region about us, slanting a little east, and to
-mount by the rocks on the western margin of the snow-field, adhering as
-closely as might be possible to the side of the snow. It was in the
-execution of this plan&mdash;so simple in its conception&mdash;that the
-trained instinct of the Swiss availed. Of those who have attempted the
-ascent of Ararat&mdash;and their number is not large&mdash;so many have
-failed to reach the summit that, upon a mountain which makes few, if
-any, demands upon the resources of the climber&rsquo;s craft, their
-discomfiture must be attributed to other reasons: to the peculiar
-nature of the ground traversed, no less than to the inordinate duration
-of the effort; to the wearisome recurrence of the same kind of
-obstacles, and to the rarity of the air. Now the disposition of the
-rocks upon the surface of the depression is by no means the same as
-that which we have studied in connection with the seams which lie
-below. The path no longer struggles across a troubled sea of ridges, or
-strays within the blind recesses of a succession of gigantic waves of
-stone. On the other hand, the gradients are as a rule steeper; and the
-clearings are covered with a loose rubble, which slips from under the
-feet. The boulders are piled one upon another in heaps as they happened
-to fall, and the sequence of forms is throughout arbitrary and subject
-to no fixed law. In one place it is a tower of this loose masonry which
-blocks all further approach; in another a solid barrier of sharp crags,
-laced together, which it is necessary to circumvent. When the limbs
-have been stiffened and the patience exhausted by the long and devious
-escalade, the tax upon the lungs is at its highest, and the strain upon
-the heart most severe. Many of the difficulties which travellers have
-encountered upon this stage of the climb may be avoided, or met at a
-greater advantage, by adhering to the edge of the snow. But the
-fulfilment of this purpose is by no means so easy as might at first
-sight appear. You are always winding inwards to <span class=
-"pagenum">[<a id="pb174" href="#pb174" name=
-"pb174">174</a>]</span>avoid the heaps of boulders, or emerging on the
-backs of gigantic blocks of lava towards the margin of the shining
-slope. In the choice of the most direct path, where many offered, the
-Swiss was never at fault; he made up the cone without a moment&rsquo;s
-hesitation, like a hound threading a close covert, and seldom if ever
-foiled.</p>
-<p class="par">At twenty minutes to seven, when the summit of Little
-Ararat was about on a level with the eye, we paused for awhile and
-turned towards the prospect, now opening to a wider range. The day was
-clear, and promised warmth; above us the snowy dome of Ararat shone in
-a cloudless sky. The landscape on either side of the beautiful pyramid
-lay outspread at our feet; from north-east, the hidden shores of Lake
-Sevan, to where the invisible seas of Van and Urmi diffused a soft veil
-of opaline vapour over the long succession of lonely ranges in the
-south-east and south. The wild borderland of Persia and Turkey here for
-the first time expands to view. The scene, however much it may belie
-the conception at a first and hasty glance, bears the familiar imprint
-of the characteristics peculiar to the great tableland. The mountains
-reveal their essential nature and disclose the familiar forms&mdash;the
-surface of the tableland broken into long furrows, of which the ridges
-tend to hummock shapes. So lofty is the stage, so aloof this mighty
-fabric from all surrounding forms, the world lies dim and featureless
-about it like the setting of a dream. In the foreground are the valleys
-on the south of Little Ararat, circling round to the Araxes floor; and,
-on the north-east, beside the thread of the looping river, is a little
-lake, dropped like a turquoise on the sand where the mountain sweeps
-the plain.</p>
-<p class="par">In the space of another hour we had reached an elevation
-about equal to that of the head of the causeway on the opposite side of
-the snow, a point which I think we should be justified in fixing at
-over <span class="measure" title="4267 meter">14,000
-feet</span>.<a class="noteref" id="xd21e4449src" href="#xd21e4449"
-name="xd21e4449src">10</a> We were now no longer threading along the
-shore of an inlet; alone the vague horizon of the summit circle was the
-limit of the broad, white sea. But on our left hand the snowless region
-of rock and rubble still accompanied our course, and a group of red
-crags stood up above our heads, just where the upward slope appeared to
-end.</p>
-<p class="par">Yet another two hours of continuous climbing, and, at
-about <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb175" href="#pb175" name=
-"pb175">175</a>]</span>half-past nine, the loose boulders about us
-open, and we are approaching the foot of these crags. The end seems
-near; but the slope is deceitful, and when once we have reached the
-head of the formation the long white way resumes. But the blue vault
-about us streams with sunlight; the snow is melting in the crannies; a
-genial spirit lightens our toil.</p>
-<p class="par">And now, without any sign or warning, the mysterious
-spell which holds the mountain begins to throw a web about us,
-craftily, from below. The spirits of the air come sailing through the
-azure with shining gossamer wings, while the heavier vapours gather
-around us from dense banks serried upon the slope beneath us, a
-thousand feet lower down.</p>
-<p class="par">The rocks still climb the increasing gradient, but the
-snow is closing in. At eleven we halt to copy an inscription, which has
-been neatly written in Russian characters on the face of a boulder
-stone. It records that on the third day of the eighth month of 1893 the
-expedition led by the Russian traveller Postukhoff passed the night in
-this place. At the foot of the stone lie several objects: a bottle
-filled with fluid, an empty tin of biscuits, a tin containing specimens
-of rock.</p>
-<p class="par">At half-past eleven I take the angle of the snow slope,
-at this point 35&deg;. About this time the Swiss thinks it prudent to
-link us all together with his rope. The surface of the rocks is still
-uncovered, but their bases are embedded in deep snow.</p>
-<p class="par">It is now, after six hours&rsquo; arduous climbing, that
-the strain of the effort tells. The lungs are working at the extreme of
-their capacity, and the pressure upon the heart is severe. At noon I
-call a halt, and release young Wesson from his place in the file of
-four. His pluck is still strong, but his look and gait alarm me, and I
-persuade him to desist. We leave him to rest in a sheltered place, and
-there await our return. From this time on we all three suffer, even the
-Swiss himself. My cousin is affected with mountain sickness; as for me,
-I find it almost impossible to breathe and climb at the same time. We
-make a few steps upwards and then pause breathless, and gasp again and
-again. The white slope vanishing above us must end in the crown of the
-dome; and the boulders strewn more sparsely before us promise a fairer
-way. But the further we go, the goal seems little closer; and the
-shallow snow, resting on a crumbling rubble, makes us lose one step in
-every three. A strong smell of sulphur permeates the atmosphere; it
-proceeds from the sliding <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb176" href=
-"#pb176" name="pb176">176</a>]</span>surface upon which we are
-treading, a detritus of pale sulphurous stones.</p>
-<p class="par">At 1.25 we see a plate of white metal, affixed to a
-cranny in the rocks. It bears an inscription in Russian character which
-dates from 1888. I neglect to copy out the unfamiliar letters; but
-there can be little doubt that they record the successful ascent of Dr.
-Markoff, an ascent which cost him dear.</p>
-<p class="par">A few minutes later, at half-past one, the slope at last
-eases, the ground flattens, the struggling rocks sink beneath the
-surface of a continuous field of snow. At last we stand upon the summit
-of Ararat&mdash;but the sun no longer pierces the white vapour; a
-fierce gale drives across the forbidden region, and whips the eye
-straining to distinguish the limits of snow and cloud. Vague forms
-hurry past on the wings of the whirlwind; in place of the landscape of
-the land of promise we search dense banks of fog.</p>
-<p class="par">Disappointed perhaps, but relieved of the gradient, and
-elated with the success of our climb, we run in the teeth of the wind
-across the platform, our feet scarcely sinking in the storm-swept crust
-of the surface, the gently undulating roof of the dome.... Along the
-edge of a spacious snow-field which dips towards the centre, and is
-longest from north-west to south-east, on the vaulted rim of the saucer
-which the surface resembles, four separate elevations may conveniently
-be distinguished as the highest points in the irregular oval figure
-which the whole platform appears to present. The highest among these
-rounded elevations bears north-west from the spot where we first touch
-the summit or emerge upon the roof. That spot itself marks another of
-these inequalities; the remaining two are situated respectively in this
-manner&mdash;the one about midway between the two already mentioned,
-but nearer to the first and on the north side; the other about south of
-the north-western elevation, and this seems the lowest of all. The
-difference in height between the north-western elevation and that upon
-the south-east is about <span class="measure" title="61 meter">200
-feet</span>; and the length of the figure between these points&mdash;we
-paced only a certain portion of the distance&mdash;is about
-<span class="measure" title="457 meter">500 yards</span>. The width of
-the platform, so far as we could gauge it, may be some <span class=
-"measure" title="274 meter">300 yards</span>. A single object testifies
-to the efforts of our fore-runners and to the insatiable enterprise of
-man&mdash;a stout stake embedded upon the north-western elevation in a
-little pyramid of stones. It is here that we take our observations, and
-make our <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb177" href="#pb177" name=
-"pb177">177</a>]</span>longest halt.<a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e4490src" href="#xd21e4490" name="xd21e4490src">11</a> Before us
-lies a valley or deep depression, and on the further side rises the
-north-western summit, a symmetrical cone of snow. This summit connects
-with the bold snow buttresses beyond it, terraced upon the
-north-western slope. The distance down and up from where we stand to
-that summit may be about <span class="measure" title="366 meter">400
-yards</span>; but neither the Swiss nor ourselves consider it higher,
-and we are prevented from still further exploring the summit region by
-the increasing violence of the gale and by the gathering gloom of
-cloud. The sides and floor of the saddle between the two summits are
-completely covered with snow, and we see no trace of the lateral
-fissure which Abich, no doubt under different circumstances, was able
-to observe.</p>
-<p class="par">We remain forty minutes upon the summit; but the dense
-veil never lifts from the platform, nor does the blast cease to pierce
-us through. No sooner does an opening in the driving vapours reveal a
-vista of the world below than fresh levies fly to the unguarded
-interval, and the wild onset resumes. Yet what if the spell had lost
-its power, and the mountain and the world lain bare? had the tissue of
-the air beamed clear as crystal, and the forms of earth and sea,
-embroidered beneath us, shone like the tracery of a shield?</p>
-<p class="par">We should have gained a balloon view over Nature. Should
-we catch her voice so well?&mdash;the ancient voice heard at cool of
-day in the garden, or the voice that spoke in accents of thunder to a
-world condemned to die. &ldquo;It repented the Lord that he had made
-man, and it grieved him at his heart. The earth was filled with
-violence: God looked upon the earth and behold it was corrupt. In the
-second month, the seventeenth day of the month, the same day were all
-the fountains of the great deep broken up and the windows of heaven
-were opened. And the rain was upon the earth forty days and forty
-nights.&rdquo;</p>
-<p class="par">We are standing on the spot where the ark of gopher
-rested, where first the patriarch alighted on the face of an earth
-renewed. Before him lie the valleys of six hundred years of sorrow; the
-airiest pinnacle supports him, a boundless hope fills his eyes. The
-pulse of life beats strong and fresh around him; the busy swarms thrill
-with sweet freedom, elect of all living things. In <span class=
-"pagenum">[<a id="pb178" href="#pb178" name="pb178">178</a>]</span>the
-settling exhalations stands the bow of many colours, eternal token of
-God&rsquo;s covenant with man.</p>
-<p class="par">The peaks which rise on the distant borderland where
-silence has first faltered into speech are wrapped about with the
-wreaths of fancy, a palpable world of cloud. Do we fix our foot upon
-these solid landmarks to wish the vague away, to see the hard summits
-stark and naked, and all the floating realm of mystery flown? The truth
-is firm, and it is well to touch and feel it and know where the legend
-begins; but the legend itself is truth transfigured, as the snow
-distils into cloud. The reality of life speaks in every syllable of
-that solemn, stately tale&mdash;divine hope bursting the bounds of
-matter to compromise with despair. And the ancient mountain summons the
-spirits about him, and veils a futile frown, as the rising sun
-illumines the valleys of Asia and the life of man lies bare. The
-spectres walk in naked daylight&mdash;Violence and Corruption and
-Decay. The traveller finds in majestic Nature consolation for these
-sordid scenes; while a spirit seems to whisper in his ears, &ldquo;Turn
-from him!&mdash;turn from him, that he may rest till he shall
-accomplish, as an hireling, his day.&rdquo; <span class=
-"pagenum">[<a id="pb179" href="#pb179" name="pb179">179</a>]</span></p>
-</div>
-<div class="footnotes">
-<hr class="fnsep">
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e4170" href="#xd21e4170src" name="xd21e4170">1</a></span> At
-Aralykh the thermometer ranged between <span class="measure" title=
-"15.6&deg;">60&deg;</span> and <span class="measure" title=
-"21.1&deg; Celcius">70&deg; Fahrenheit</span> between the hours of 6
-<span class="sc">A.M.</span> and 9 <span class="sc">A.M.</span> on the
-several mornings. At mid-day it rose to about 80&deg;.&nbsp;<a class=
-"fnarrow" href="#xd21e4170src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e4226" href="#xd21e4226src" name="xd21e4226">2</a></span> The
-temperature at 6.30 <span class="sc">P.M.</span> was <span class=
-"measure" title="10&deg; Celcius">50&deg; Fahrenheit</span>, but it
-sank rapidly in the cold wind.&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href=
-"#xd21e4226src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e4246" href="#xd21e4246src" name="xd21e4246">3</a></span>
-Temperature 10.15 <span class="sc">A.M.</span>, <span class="measure"
-title="22.2&deg; Celcius">72&deg; Fahrenheit</span>.&nbsp;<a class=
-"fnarrow" href="#xd21e4246src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e4317" href="#xd21e4317src" name="xd21e4317">4</a></span> It is
-alluded to by some travellers under the name of Tash
-Kilisa.&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href="#xd21e4317src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e4342" href="#xd21e4342src" name="xd21e4342">5</a></span> Madame
-B. Chantre, <i lang="fr">&Agrave; travers l&rsquo;Arm&eacute;nie
-Russe</i>, Paris, 1893, p. 219.&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href=
-"#xd21e4342src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e4351" href="#xd21e4351src" name="xd21e4351">6</a></span> Markoff,
-<i lang="fr">Ascension du Grand Ararat</i>, in <i lang="fr">Bulletin de
-la Soc. Roy. Belge de G&eacute;ographie</i>, Brussels, 1888, p.
-579.&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href="#xd21e4351src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e4372" href="#xd21e4372src" name="xd21e4372">7</a></span>
-Temperature at 8 <span class="sc">P.M.</span>, <span class="measure"
-title="-7.77&deg; C.">18&deg; F.</span>, and next morning at 5.45
-<span class="sc">A.M.</span>, <span class="measure" title=
-"-2.21&deg; C.">28&deg; F.</span>&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href=
-"#xd21e4372src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e4414" href="#xd21e4414src" name="xd21e4414">8</a></span> See the
-photograph of the summit region (Fig. <a href="#fig036">36</a>, p.
-180), which clearly shows these various features.&nbsp;<a class=
-"fnarrow" href="#xd21e4414src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e4434" href="#xd21e4434src" name="xd21e4434">9</a></span> Yet it
-looks a mere streak in the illustration (Fig. <a href=
-"#fig036">36</a>). The lower end of the snow slope was not well seen
-from the standpoint of that photograph. Actually it resembles a
-magnificent river.&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href=
-"#xd21e4434src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e4449" href="#xd21e4449src" name="xd21e4449">10</a></span> Abich
-(<i lang="de">Geologische Forschungen in den kaukasischen
-L&auml;ndern</i>, Vienna, 1882, part ii. p. 455) ascribes to it an
-elevation of <span class="measure" title="4450 meter">14,600
-feet</span>.&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href=
-"#xd21e4449src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e4490" href="#xd21e4490src" name="xd21e4490">11</a></span> The
-temperature of the air a few feet below the summit out of the gale was
-<span class="measure" title="-6.66&deg; C.">20&deg; F.</span> The
-height of the north-western elevation of the south-eastern summit of
-Ararat is given by my Hicks mountain aneroid as <span class="measure"
-title="5332 meter">17,493 feet</span>. The reading is no doubt too high
-by several hundred feet. The Carey aneroid gives a still higher figure,
-and the Boylean-Mariotti mercurial barometer entirely refused to
-work.&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href="#xd21e4490src">&uarr;</a></p>
-</div>
-</div>
-<div id="ch13" class="div1 chapter"><span class="pagenum">[<a href=
-"#xd21e408">Contents</a>]</span>
-<div class="divHead">
-<h2 class="label">CHAPTER XIII</h2>
-<h2 class="main">THE HEART OF ARARAT</h2>
-</div>
-<div class="divBody">
-<p class="par first">Retracing our steps down the side of the cone, we
-soon regained the streaming sunlight. I called a halt, and we rested on
-some rocks, embedded in snow. Our next task was to search for Wesson;
-but he had left his sheltered cranny, and, as the day was warm, we
-concluded that he had returned to camp. The Swiss and myself determined
-to try a glissade down the snow slope; my cousin preferred to adhere to
-the rocks. I was aware of the danger of the glissade down Ararat, and
-we therefore planned our course with care. We broke the descent at
-several points, made errors on the side of caution, and glided safely
-into one of the inlets about the base of the cone. It was still some
-distance to the encampment; we proceeded with the utmost leisure across
-the boulder-strewn waste. At last we beheld the lake of snow, and our
-tiny tent beside it, and the gaunt figures of the Kurds. These also
-perceived us, and sent us a cry of greeting, which vibrated in the
-still air. Wesson and the dragoman were there to meet us; my cousin
-arrived almost at the same time. Our climb had been accomplished
-without a single mishap, and all except the dragoman, who pleaded that
-he had been half frozen in camp, were pleased with the day&rsquo;s
-work. It was twenty minutes past six o&rsquo;clock; yet I thought it
-best to strike our tent and seek a less exposed and less elevated spot.
-After a toilsome walk of about half an hour we found some grass in a
-little valley, and there composed ourselves for the night.</p>
-<p class="par"></p>
-<div class="figure xd21e4523width" id="fig037"><img src=
-"images/fig037.jpg" alt=
-"Fig. 37. Akhury: The Great Chasm from Aralykh." width="720" height=
-"509">
-<p class="figureHead"><span class="sc"><span class="figNum">Fig.
-37.</span> Akhury: The Great Chasm from Aralykh.</span></p>
-</div>
-<p class="par"></p>
-<p class="par">I had sent two Kurds to collect firewood while we were
-sleeping; it was morning before they returned. We breakfasted beside a
-pleasant fire, and decided to devote the earlier hours to rest. I was
-able to avail myself of a convenient physical habit of being refreshed
-by violent exercise. The summit was clear of <span class=
-"pagenum">[<a id="pb180" href="#pb180" name=
-"pb180">180</a>]</span>cloud, and I sallied forth with the camera to
-seek a standpoint in full view of the cone. At some little distance
-from our camp I found such an eminence, whence all the characteristics
-of the summit region were exposed (Fig. <a href="#fig036">36</a>). The
-peak of Great Ararat bore almost due north-west of this point, that of
-Little Ararat a little south of east.<a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e4537src" href="#xd21e4537" name="xd21e4537src">1</a> On the left
-of the picture you see the hollow in the face of the cone and the rocks
-struggling upwards to its top; on the right is the shoulder, or head of
-the causeway, bordering the snow slope on the opposite side. In the
-afternoon we regained our standing encampment in the valley of Sardar
-Bulakh.</p>
-<p class="par"></p>
-<div class="figure xd21e4541width" id="fig036"><img src=
-"images/fig036.jpg" alt=
-"Fig. 36. Summit of Ararat from the South-East, taken at a height of about 13,000 feet."
-width="577" height="438">
-<p class="figureHead"><span class="sc"><span class="figNum">Fig.
-36.</span> Summit of Ararat from the South-East, taken at a height of
-about <span class="measure" title="3962 meter">13,000
-feet</span>.</span></p>
-</div>
-<p class="par"></p>
-<p class="par">Relieved of the tension of a fixed purpose, we were able
-to turn with real enjoyment to the contemplation of the surroundings in
-which we were placed. There can scarcely exist in the world another
-such standpoint as the platform of the sirdar&rsquo;s well. You never
-tire of the contrasting shapes of the massive dome and the graceful
-pyramid; below you in the plains the silent operations of Nature
-proceed on their daily course. <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb181"
-href="#pb181" name="pb181">181</a>]</span>Morning breaks, and the floor
-of the plain is shrouded in white mist; the sun rises, and the opposite
-peaks of the Sevan ranges are crowned with banks of billowing cloud.
-Stray films wander out into the blue vault of heaven, and graze the
-sides of the dome. As the day grows, the warm air mounts these sides
-and melts the snows, which distil into a white vaporous mass. The
-ground of the landscape increases in definition of feature&mdash;the
-rich campagna, the looping river, the sites of the towns. It is the
-subtle quality no less than the scale of the composition which
-distinguishes this prospect from other views, similar in character,
-which are unfolded from the summit of a pass. And if you turn from the
-immense expanse and rest the eye on the forms about you, those forms
-respond to your emotions and invest them with a deeply religious cast.
-This vast fabric, so harmonious in design, in position so
-self-sufficient, touches chords in the nature of man which sound
-through all the religions, and die away only when they die. Yet how
-vulgar appear their dogmas in this pure atmosphere of religion, in the
-courts of this great cathedral of the natural world! You feel that this
-mountain has been the parent of religions, whence they strayed into
-devious paths. To this parent you would again collect the distracted;
-in this atmosphere you long to bathe the populations of our great
-towns. Our morbid dramatists, our nervous novelists need the
-inspiration of these surroundings&mdash;the promptings of Nature in her
-loftiest manifestations, from which the life of man can never with
-impunity be divorced.</p>
-<p class="par">In a lighter sense, to the traveller who seeks rest and
-enjoyment, I can confidently recommend a pilgrimage to this beautiful
-upland valley, and a sojourn among the marvels of this site. For the
-sportsman there are partridges in abundance; the botanist and the man
-of taste will admire the brilliancy of the flowers which nestle in the
-crannies of the rocks. Junipers clothe the ground, and a plant with
-spiked foliage like the juniper, and with a lovely little flower like a
-star. I have taken a specimen to Kew, and they call it <i lang=
-"la">Acantholimon echinus</i>&mdash;a peculiarly appropriate name. Tiny
-bushes of wild rose flutter in the breezes; and, a little lower down,
-the earth is yellow with immortelles (<i lang="la">Helichrysum</i>),
-which, as I write, recall the southern sun. The journey to Erivan, by
-way of Tiflis, can be performed in luxury; from Erivan you can drive in
-a victoria to the foot of Ararat; on the mountain you have need of
-nothing but a tent <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb182" href="#pb182"
-name="pb182">182</a>]</span>and a cook. The Kurds are well-behaved, and
-will provide you with milk and mutton, of which it is a treat to taste.
-The old lawless times are passing into legend, thanks to the vigorous
-rule of the Tsars. The Russian officials abound in real kindness of
-disposition; and, if you can only succeed in patching a peace with the
-<i>system</i>, you feel that they really wish you well. We returned to
-Aralykh on the 22nd of September after an absence of nearly six
-days.</p>
-<hr class="tb">
-<p class="par"></p>
-<p class="par">The cantonment of Aralykh faces the jaws of the great
-chasm which extends from the snowy roof to the base of Ararat, and lays
-the heart of the mountain bare (Fig. <a href="#fig037">37</a>). We were
-anxious to penetrate within these dark recesses, and, after a
-day&rsquo;s rest, carried our project into effect.</p>
-<p class="par">It is a melancholy reflection that nothing is
-lasting&mdash;that <i>the strength of the earth withers and the
-strength of the human body, that faith dies and the closest friendships
-dissolve. In the world of sense Time is all-powerful, and nothing
-escapes destruction at his hands.</i><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e4579src" href="#xd21e4579" name="xd21e4579src">2</a> This painful
-lesson is written with terrible emphasis on the fabric of Ararat, where
-it fronts the historic river and the historic plains. Another
-earthquake, and the massive roof may tumble headlong into the abyss
-which now yawns beneath its cornice of snow. I have already observed
-that Herrmann Abich was able to remark a lateral fissure between the
-two highest elevations in the surface of the crown of the dome. He
-suggests that this fissure may have been caused by the convulsion of
-1840, to which the present configuration of the chasm is due.<a class=
-"noteref" id="xd21e4587src" href="#xd21e4587" name="xd21e4587src">3</a>
-It would therefore appear that Time has already taken a decisive step
-towards the overthrow of the uppermost portion of the cone. The chasm
-itself and the subsidence of the flank of the mountain date from an
-epoch beyond the range of history. Tournefort, who visited Ararat in
-1701, presents us with such a vivid picture of the rent side of the
-giant, that one cannot doubt that the essential features of the chasm
-existed in his day.<a class="noteref" id="xd21e4596src" href=
-"#xd21e4596" name="xd21e4596src">4</a> The little monastery of St.
-Jacob, which, prior to the catastrophe <span class="pagenum">[<a id=
-"pb183" href="#pb183" name="pb183">183</a>]</span>of 1840, stood within
-the recesses of the gulf, probably occupied the same site when it was
-first erected in the early Christian times. The reader may not be
-acquainted with the story of the catastrophe, and may like to learn or
-to recall it in this place.</p>
-<p class="par">Several travellers have presented us with a description
-of the locality as it existed before those events.<a class="noteref"
-id="xd21e4612src" href="#xd21e4612" name="xd21e4612src">5</a> Some
-<span class="measure" title="16.1 kilometer">10 miles</span> from the
-banks of the Kara Su, on the base or pedestal of Ararat, at a height of
-some <span class="measure" title="1707 meter">5600 feet</span> above
-the sea, or <span class="measure" title="884 meter">2900 feet</span>
-above the plain,<a class="noteref" id="xd21e4630src" href="#xd21e4630"
-name="xd21e4630src">6</a> was situated the Armenian village of Akhury
-or Arguri&mdash;the only village, we are informed by Dubois, which had
-hazarded a position on the side of the mountain,<a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e4634src" href="#xd21e4634" name="xd21e4634src">7</a> and a place
-which boasted a remote antiquity. According to Armenian tradition, it
-was there that Noah built the altar, and offered up the burnt
-sacrifice, after his departure from the Ark and safe descent of the
-mountain, with his family and the living creatures of every kind. It
-was at Akhury or Arguri&mdash;a name which is said to signify in the
-Armenian language <i>he has planted the vine</i><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e4642src" href="#xd21e4642" name="xd21e4642src">8</a>&mdash;that,
-according to the same tradition, the patriarch planted his vineyard and
-drank to excess of its wine. The inhabitants would point to an ancient
-willow of stunted growth, bent by the action of snow and ice; it stood
-in an isolated spot above the village, a rare object on a mountain
-which is almost devoid of trees. They believed that it drew its origin
-from a plank of the Ark which had taken root; and they would not suffer
-any damage to be done to the sacred object, or the least of its
-branches to be taken away. The population amounted to about
-<span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb184" href="#pb184" name=
-"pb184">184</a>]</span>1000 souls;<a class="noteref" id="xd21e4662src"
-href="#xd21e4662" name="xd21e4662src">9</a> the houses numbered some
-two hundred, and were built of stone with the usual flat roofs. The
-settlement owed its prosperity, and even its existence, to a stream
-which then, as now, issued from the jaws of the chasm, fed by the
-melting ice and snow. It was placed at the open exit from the gorge,
-where the trough flattens out into the base. The church and the larger
-portion of the village were on the right bank of the stream; on the
-left, opposite the church, stood a square-shaped fortress, built of
-clay after the fashion of the country. A near eminence was crowned by
-the walls of a spacious palace, which served as a summer residence for
-the Persian sirdars of Erivan. It was indeed a delightful resort during
-the heats of summer. A cool draught descended from the snows of the
-summit region; and the little stream supported considerable vineyards
-and orchards, so that the traveller, on approaching Akhury, could take
-refuge from the glare of the plain in quite a little wood of apricot
-trees. The church&mdash;said to have been called <i>Araxilvank</i>
-(Arakelotz Vank?)&mdash;was reputed to have been built on the site of
-Noah&rsquo;s altar. It dated from the eighth or ninth century; and to
-such a height had the ground about it risen since its foundation, that
-the two side doors had become embedded in soil up to the crossbeams.
-Just beyond this pleasant oasis you entered the chasm, and, after
-proceeding for nearly two miles up its boulder-strewn hollow, you
-reached the little monastery of St. Jacob, which stood on the edge of a
-natural terrace a few hundred feet above the bottom of the gulf,
-immediately overlooking the right bank of the stream. The chasm had at
-this spot a depth of some <span class="measure" title="183">600</span>
-to <span class="measure" title="244 meter">800 feet</span>,<a class=
-"noteref" id="xd21e4678src" href="#xd21e4678" name=
-"xd21e4678src">10</a> and the elevation of the site of the monastery
-above sea-level was <span class="measure" title="1949 meter">6394
-feet</span>.<a class="noteref" id="xd21e4693src" href="#xd21e4693"
-name="xd21e4693src">11</a> Parrot, who established his headquarters in
-this lonely cloister, has handed down to us a charming illustration of
-the place, and a pleasant description of the chapel, with its walled
-enclosure and garden and orchard, the residence, at the time of his
-visit, of a single monk. Like the church of Akhury, it commemorated a
-religious event in the story of Ararat. A monk of the name of Jacob,
-afterwards bishop of Nisibis, reputed to have been a contemporary and
-relative of St. Gregory, was <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb185" href=
-"#pb185" name="pb185">185</a>]</span>seized with the desire to convince
-the sceptics of the truth of the Biblical narrative, and to assure
-himself of the presence of the Ark on the summit of Ararat by the
-evidence of his own eyes. In the pursuit of this purpose he made
-several attempts to scale the mountain from the north-east side. On
-each occasion he fell asleep, exhausted by the effort; as often as he
-awoke, he would find that he had been miraculously transported to the
-point from which he had set out. At length God looked with compassion
-upon his fruitless labours, and sent an angel who appeared to him in
-his sleep. The Divine message was to the effect that the summit was
-unattainable by mortal man; but the angel deposited on his breast a
-fragment of the holy Ark, as a reward for his faith and pains.<a class=
-"noteref" id="xd21e4705src" href="#xd21e4705" name=
-"xd21e4705src">12</a> Beyond St. Jacob&rsquo;s, on the same or eastern
-side of the chasm and on the edge of the precipice, was situated a tiny
-shrine, built of hewn stone, at an altitude of about <span class=
-"measure" title="305 meter">1000 feet</span> above the
-monastery.<a class="noteref" id="xd21e4717src" href="#xd21e4717" name=
-"xd21e4717src">13</a> It stood by the side of one of the rare springs
-which are found on Ararat&mdash;a well of which the waters are still
-deemed to possess miraculous powers, and which still attracts numerous
-pilgrims from the plains. As you followed the gulf still further, the
-sides increased in steepness and the abyss in depth, until, at a
-distance of about two and a half miles from the cloister,<a class=
-"noteref" id="xd21e4723src" href="#xd21e4723" name=
-"xd21e4723src">14</a> it ended in an almost perpendicular wall of rock
-which towered up to the snowy cornice of the dome. Tournefort, whose
-description is in other respects fantastic, has used language to
-portray the aspect of the upper end of the chasm which would be true at
-the present day. He speaks of the terrible appearance of the ravine,
-one of those natural wonders which testify to the greatness of the
-Saviour, as his Armenian companion observed. He could not help
-trembling as he overlooked the precipices, and he asks his readers, if
-they would form some conception of the character of the phenomenon, to
-imagine one of the loftiest mountains in the world opening its bosom to
-a vertical cleft. From the heights above, masses of rock were
-continually falling into the abyss with a noise that inspired
-fear.<a class="noteref" id="xd21e4731src" href="#xd21e4731" name=
-"xd21e4731src">15</a></p>
-<p class="par">On the evening of the 20th of June 1840 a terrific
-earthquake shook the mountain, and not only the shrine and cloister,
-but the entire village of Akhury with the sirdar&rsquo;s palace were
-destroyed <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb186" href="#pb186" name=
-"pb186">186</a>]</span>and swept away. An eye-witness, who was
-pasturing cattle on the grassy slopes above the chasm on the side
-opposite to the shrine and the well, tells us that he was thrown on to
-his knees by a sudden reeling of the ground, and that, even in this
-position, he was unable to maintain himself, but was overturned by the
-continuing shocks. Close by his side the earth cracked; a terrific
-rolling sound filled his ears; when he dared look up, he could see
-nothing but a mighty cloud of dust, which glimmered with a reddish hue
-above the ravine. But the quaking and cracking were renewed; he lay
-outstretched upon the ground, and thus awaited death. At length the
-sounds became fainter, and he was able to look towards the ravine.
-Through the dust he perceived a dark mass in the hollow, but of what it
-was composed he could not see. The sun went down; the great cloud
-passed away from the valley; as he descended with his cattle in the
-failing light, he could see nothing within the abyss except the dark
-mass. Another spectator has left us an account of the various phases of
-the phenomenon, as they were experienced from a standpoint below the
-village. He happened to be working in a garden a few versts from
-Akhury, on the side of the plain. His wife and daughter were with him;
-two of his sons appeared towards evening and brought him a report about
-his cattle. Two riders, returning to the village, exchanged a few words
-with the party, and rode on. The sun was beginning to sink behind the
-mountains, and he and his people were preparing to go home. In an
-instant the ground beneath their feet oscillated violently, and all
-were thrown down. At the same time loud reports and a rolling sound, as
-if of thunder, increased the panic into which they fell. A hurricane of
-wind swept towards them from the chasm and overturned every object that
-was not firm. In the same direction there arose an immense cloud of
-dust, overtopped, towards the upper portion of the ravine, by a darker
-cloud, as of black smoke. After a momentary pause the same phenomena
-were repeated; only this time a dark mass swept towards them from the
-direction of the village with a rolling and a rushing sound. It reached
-the two riders; they were engulfed and disappeared. Immediately
-afterwards the two sons were overtaken by the same fate. The mass
-rolled onwards to the gardens, and broke down the walled enclosures.
-Large stones came tumbling about the unfortunate peasants; and a great
-crag swept down upon the prostrate witness, and settling by his side,
-caught his <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb187" href="#pb187" name=
-"pb187">187</a>]</span>mantle fast. Extricating himself with
-difficulty, he succeeded in lifting his unconscious wife and daughter
-from the earth, and in flying with them over the quaking ground. After
-each shock they could hear the sound of cracking in the chasm,
-accompanied by sharp reports. They were joined by fugitives, escaping
-from the neighbouring gardens, and they endeavoured to make their way
-to Aralykh. It was morning before they reached their goal; during the
-night the sounds and shocks continued, always fainter but at periodical
-intervals. This catastrophe was followed on the 24th of June by a
-second and scarcely less momentous collapse. On this occasion a mass of
-mud and water burst from the chasm, as though some colossal dam had
-given way. Blocks of rock and huge pieces of ice were precipitated over
-the base, and the flood extended for a space of about thirteen miles.
-Not a trace was left of the gardens and fields which it devastated, and
-the Kara Su was temporarily dammed by the viscous stream.<a class=
-"noteref" id="xd21e4746src" href="#xd21e4746" name=
-"xd21e4746src">16</a></p>
-<p class="par">It is to the credit of the times in which we live that
-no such event could now occur in Russian territory without exhaustive
-and local scientific investigation, while the results of the
-catastrophe were still fresh. The task of reporting to the Government
-was entrusted to a Major of Engineers, who was ordered to open an
-enquiry on the spot. His account was to the effect that masses of rock
-were precipitated into the chasm from the overhanging heights; that
-they were accompanied in their descent by vast quantities of snow,
-unloosed by the sinking foundations of the uppermost seams. A river of
-boulders and snow and ice streamed with lightning rapidity down the
-gulf, buried the cloister and the village with all its inhabitants, and
-choked up the trough of the abyss. The earthquake was attended by the
-opening of fissures in the ground, from which there issued water and
-sand, and even flames.<a class="noteref" id="xd21e4772src" href=
-"#xd21e4772" name="xd21e4772src">17</a> The mention of this last
-phenomenon appears to have aroused the curiosity of men of learning,
-and to have excited in them a strong desire for further light. The site
-was visited in 1843 by a German man of science, Dr. Wagner, and in 1844
-by the great geologist Herrmann <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb188"
-href="#pb188" name="pb188">188</a>]</span>Abich, whose researches are
-always careful and complete.<a class="noteref" id="xd21e4782src" href=
-"#xd21e4782" name="xd21e4782src">18</a> These two authorities
-unfortunately arrived at opposite conclusions as to the character of
-the convulsion. Wagner begins by discrediting the account of the
-Russian Major, and suggests that he had never left the walls of Erivan,
-having lost his travelling money at play. He considers it absurd to
-suppose that the mass which destroyed Akhury and the fragments of rocks
-which were projected far and wide can be attributed to the operation of
-purely seismic forces, dislocating the crown and sides of the abyss.
-They must have been due to eruptive volcanic action, of which he
-thought he could see the traces at the upper end of the chasm, the
-site, according to his view, of one of the old craters of Ararat. They
-were impelled through the air by steam and escaping gases from a
-fissure in the bottom of the ravine. We must therefore form the
-conception of an eruption accompanied by an earthquake, not of a
-landslip effected by seismic shocks.<a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e4796src" href="#xd21e4796" name="xd21e4796src">19</a></p>
-<p class="par">That this theory is open to objection on the simple
-ground of probability, it does not require scientific knowledge to
-perceive. In the first place an eruption of Ararat is unknown within
-the historical period; in the second, the destruction of Akhury was
-only one of many catastrophes which were occasioned by earth movements
-on the same day. On that same evening the valley of the Araxes was
-visited by a violent earthquake, and thousands of houses were
-overthrown.<a class="noteref" id="xd21e4806src" href="#xd21e4806" name=
-"xd21e4806src">20</a> It is true that Wagner supposes an eruption of
-steam rather than of fire, and favours the hypothesis of vast
-reservoirs of water beneath the mountain having burst in upon the
-molten mass below. But this ingenious supposition is rendered
-unnecessary and improbable by the minute researches of the next trained
-worker in the same field. Abich asks how it would be possible for
-eruptive action to have broken forth in a narrow valley&mdash;on such a
-scale that huge crags of <span class="measure" title="30.5">100</span>
-to <span class="measure" title="45.7 meter">150 feet</span> in
-circumference were propelled for a distance of over three
-miles<a class="noteref" id="xd21e4827src" href="#xd21e4827" name=
-"xd21e4827src">21</a>&mdash;without leaving any trace of volcanic
-ejectamenta on the adjoining heights and on the slopes beyond. A
-careful examination of the disposition and character of the
-d&eacute;bris, as they were <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb189" href=
-"#pb189" name="pb189">189</a>]</span>disclosed within the trough of the
-chasm, as well as on the surface of the base of the mountain,
-established in his mind the veracity in all essentials of the official
-version of the Russian Major of Engineers. He observed that the
-fragments of rock which are strewn over the basal slopes before the
-entrance to the chasm is reached, become concentrated as you proceed,
-and are collected into long ridges of boulders, which issue from the
-mouth of the gulf. Yet not a single one among these fragments was found
-to be identical in nature with the fragments on the adjacent valley
-sides. How account for this striking circumstance on the hypothesis of
-an eruption from fissures along the base of the valley? When he came to
-investigate the origin of these piled-up boulders, he discovered that
-they exactly corresponded with the rock of the seams which are found
-along the upper end of the chasm, overhanging the abyss. He was even
-able to ascribe approximately the former position of the largest of the
-crags which recline upon the base to a site on the left wall of the
-chasm, immediately beneath and supporting the snows. From his writings
-we may extract the following explanation of the phenomena to which the
-destruction of Akhury was due. The upper structure of Ararat had been
-seriously weakened on the north-eastern side by the slow but persistent
-action of snow and ice, and by the corrosive tendencies of veins of
-sulphurate of iron. The earthquake precipitated portions of the higher
-seams into the chasm, together with masses of snow. A dense cloud of
-dust was induced by the falling rocks, and the setting sun lent to this
-cloud a lurid hue. Immense quantities of boulders were hurried down the
-trough of the chasm, accompanied by a stream of mud and melting ice.
-The course of this composite current was directed upon the village by
-the configuration of the left wall of the chasm. As the sides of the
-valley fell in, its upper portion became obstructed at the neck or
-narrow which still exists about at the point where the little shrine
-used to overlook the abyss. A mighty dam was formed by the fallen
-masses, and the head of the valley became a huge morass. Further lapses
-of rock and snow took place from the summit region, and the heats of
-June dissolved the frozen elements in the morass. On the 24th the dam
-yielded to the overpowering pressure, and the second act of the
-catastrophe was fulfilled.</p>
-<p class="par">As a result of this earthquake, the ridge enclosing the
-uppermost end of the chasm was found to have acquired about double
-<span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb190" href="#pb190" name=
-"pb190">190</a>]</span>its former extent. The height of the precipice
-had also increased considerably, especially on the eastern side. The
-summit remained intact, but the fabric of Ararat lay henceforth exposed
-to its innermost core.<a class="noteref" id="xd21e4842src" href=
-"#xd21e4842" name="xd21e4842src">22</a></p>
-<hr class="tb">
-<p class="par"></p>
-<p class="par">We set out at a quarter-past eight in the morning,
-mounted on little hacks. The Armenian Makar, who had accompanied us on
-the previous expedition, was deputed to be our guide. It took us some
-twenty minutes to cross the belt of sand and camelthorn at a pace of
-about six miles an hour. Then the ground commenced to rise with more
-perceptible acclivity, and we made our way across the massive base. The
-still air, and the restfulness of the stately fabric before us
-exercised upon us their now familiar spell. Grey clouds enveloped the
-snows of the summit region, collected above a veil of tender mist.</p>
-<p class="par">We were pointing towards the entrance to the chasm, and
-we noticed that, in that direction, there exists a considerable
-concavity in the surface of the base. One might almost form the
-conception of a flaw in the mountain, extending to the pedestal upon
-which it is reared. On either side of us, but more especially on our
-left hand, the rounded contours of the basal slopes were curving
-inwards to a wide depression, up the trough of which we rode. Is this
-feature the result of landslip and of floods issuing from the chasm, or
-was the pedestal always weaker upon this side? I am inclined to ascribe
-it in part to an inherent defect in the structure, which has been
-enlarged and accentuated in the process of centuries. It would appear
-that the streams of lava which fed the base on the north-west and
-south-east were not directed in equal volume to these north-eastern
-slopes. Such a distribution of the molten matter which contributed to
-build up the fabric would account, at least in some measure, for the
-subsequent subsidence of Ararat on this its north-eastern flank.</p>
-<p class="par"></p>
-<div class="figure xd21e4855width" id="fig038"><img src=
-"images/fig038.jpg" alt="Fig. 38." width="608" height="434">
-<p class="figureHead"><span class="sc"><span class="figNum">Fig.
-38.</span></span></p>
-</div>
-<p class="par"></p>
-<p class="par">As we proceeded, this hollow formation became more
-pronounced; we were approaching the mouth of the chasm. We observed how
-much more copious was the flora which covers this portion of the base.
-In place of the burnt herbage over which we had ridden on our journey
-to Sardar Bulakh, we here admired an abundant growth of low and thorny
-bushes of which the tiny and delicate pink and white flowers were
-showered upon a ground of grey and green (<i lang="la">Atraphaxis
-spinosa</i>). Long streamers of sansola <span class="pagenum">[<a id=
-"pb191" href="#pb191" name="pb191">191</a>]</span>(<i lang="la">Kochia
-prostrata</i>, Schrad.) bent towards us, and gigantic yellow grasses
-rose like spears (<i lang="la">Calamagrostis epigejos</i>, Roth.). The
-stream which issues from the chasm&mdash;exhausted at this
-season&mdash;feeds and fertilises the sandy soil, and, perhaps, the
-layers of mud which were left by the flood of 1840 have not been
-without effect on the nature of the land. We were reminded of that
-catastrophe by the huge fragments of conglomerate rock which are strewn
-over the hollow throughout a considerable area. On our return I took a
-photograph of the largest of these crags, where it lay, among bouquets
-of spangled atraphaxis, outlined against the sky (Fig. <a href=
-"#fig038">38</a>). Abich informs us that the fragment which lies
-immediately in front of it was incorporated with it at the time of his
-first visit in 1844; the mass then measured at the base <span class=
-"measure" title="86.9 meter">285 feet</span> in circumference, with a
-height of <span class="measure" title="13.7 meter">45
-feet</span>.<a class="noteref" id="xd21e4884src" href="#xd21e4884"
-name="xd21e4884src">23</a> I have already said that this careful
-investigator was able to trace its origin to a site at the upper end of
-the chasm, overhanging the abyss. According to his theory, it must have
-fallen in after the first act of the catastrophe, and been transported
-in the course of the second act to its present place. It was pushed
-down the trough of the ravine and over the gentle incline of these
-basal slopes by <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb192" href="#pb192"
-name="pb192">192</a>]</span>the action of the viscous stream, until
-that action lost its force when the stream was freed from the
-compression of the gorge and radiated outwards over the
-pedestal.<a class="noteref" id="xd21e4892src" href="#xd21e4892" name=
-"xd21e4892src">24</a> To us plain people the position of these crags
-was a source of amazement, and the Greeks would have made the chasm the
-residence of a Cyclops who hurled such missiles at adventuresome
-men.</p>
-<p class="par">At half-past ten we halted at a small Kurdish village,
-situated at the mouth of the chasm. These Kurds have erected hovels of
-loose stones with roofs of mud, and they can boast or deplore, in the
-person of a <i>starshina</i>, a direct official connection with the
-Russian Government. It was amusing to see a Kurd in the dress of a
-Russian dignitary stepping out to meet his European visitors. He wore a
-dark blue coat; a large brass badge of office hung upon his breast.
-Ever since the great convulsion the Kurds have haunted the site of
-Akhury, rummaging for anything valuable in the buried ruins. Makar
-explained to us that we were now standing where once stood the
-prosperous township, with its ancient church and pleasant gardens. The
-woods of apricot, the rich vineyards have disappeared entirely; it
-would be difficult to discover a single tree. Just west of the
-miserable hamlet you still remark the deep watercourse which is the
-principal vent for the drainage of the ravine. The channel is dry at
-this season, and is overhung by steep banks some <span class="measure"
-title="30.5">100</span> to <span class="measure" title="45.7 meter">150
-feet</span> high. We observed that these banks are composed of a sandy
-soil, inlaid with rocks. Yet the valley, even in autumn, is not
-entirely devoid of water; here and there we were refreshed by the sight
-of growing grass, and by the sound of little runnels. The trough of the
-ravine has at this point an elevation above sea-level of about
-<span class="measure" title="1698 meter">5570 feet</span>, while its
-sides, which are formed by the cleft in the base of outer sheath of the
-mountain, are as yet scarcely more than <span class="measure" title=
-"61 meter">200 feet</span> high. It extends almost in a straight line,
-and in a south-westerly direction, to the very heart of Ararat. The
-flanking cliffs rise and the valley narrows, until the formation
-assumes the proportions of a gulf many thousands of feet in depth,
-overhung by the snows of the summit region. Imagine a gigantic cutting,
-with a length of several miles, at the uppermost end of which an almost
-perpendicular precipice supports the snowy roof of Ararat! Even from
-this standpoint we could perceive the vertical seams at the head of the
-chasm, shadowed walls of grey rock with veins of <span class=
-"pagenum">[<a id="pb193" href="#pb193" name=
-"pb193">193</a>]</span>orange hue, the higher ledges sprinkled with the
-first snows of autumn and half concealed by light, dissolving mist.</p>
-<p class="par">We mounted to the top of the cliff on the right or
-eastern side of the ravine, in order to obtain a view on either hand.
-Towards the east stretched the contours of the upper portion of the
-base, clothed with withered grass and strewn with stones. Abich tells
-us that these fragments are different in origin and character from the
-boulders and stones in the trough of the ravine; and, as we have seen,
-he uses the fact as a powerful weapon against the eruptive theory which
-Wagner propounds. Looking across the valley, our eyes rested on a
-little settlement on its opposite or western flank. It occupies a
-higher site than that of the Kurdish village, and may have been about a
-mile distant from where we stood. It interested us as well by its
-lonely and dangerous position as by an adjacent and isolated group of
-trees. It is called New Akhury, and, according to the official
-statistics, contains a population of some 400 Tartar inhabitants. It is
-the seat of a Cossack station, and bids fair to increase in size before
-the next earthquake shall sweep it away.</p>
-<p class="par">Makar directed our attention to some fallen gravestones,
-not many yards distant from where we stood. They are the remains of the
-cemetery of the old Akhury, and among them we admired several crosses
-with rich chasing in the old Armenian style. We found them overgrown
-with a thick, orange-hued lichen, resembling the appearance of rust. He
-told us that many of his relations had been buried in this graveyard,
-and he pointed out in particular a group of seven stones. He said that
-they marked the graves of seven brothers who had been killed in the
-gardens of the vanished township by the attacks of a single snake.</p>
-<p class="par">After regaling ourselves with delicious milk and eating
-an egg or two, we started at noon on our excursion up the ravine. We
-made our way along the eastern side of the chasm, sometimes picking our
-course as we might among the boulders, at others following a beaten
-path on higher ground. Not far beyond the hamlet we noticed a little
-spring, of which the water was trickling over. The next object to
-excite our interest was the peculiar formation of the floor of a side
-valley, in which we found ourselves at half-past twelve. Throughout an
-area of some <span class="measure" title="320">350</span> by
-<span class="measure" title="183 meter">200 yards</span> the ground was
-perfectly level, like a billiard table, with a smooth surface of sand
-and little pebbles. The length of this round ellipse followed the
-direction of the main ravine, which lay <span class="pagenum">[<a id=
-"pb194" href="#pb194" name="pb194">194</a>]</span>at some considerable
-depth beneath it, and from which the basin of this valley was separated
-by a low bulwark of rock and soil. We were impressed by the sharp
-distinction between the bottom of this flat area and the banks which,
-on the one side, were formed by this bulwark and, on the other, by
-towering cliffs, overgrown with grass. The basin has an entrance and an
-exit gully, through which the waters collect and escape. Not a single
-pool lingered within it at this season, and it was difficult to realise
-that this warm and sunny recess probably owes its most distinctive
-features to the erosive action of ice.</p>
-<p class="par">We mounted ever higher up the slopes which flank the
-ravine. In the trough of the gulf we noticed another flat space,
-similar in character but less pronounced than that which I have
-described. Bushes of wild rose luxuriate on these cliff-sides, and from
-this foreground of rich tints and red berries we looked across to the
-dark and perpendicular precipices which encircle the head of the chasm.
-At every lift in the restless vapours we feasted our eyes on the snows
-of the summit, and we remarked the great length and horizontal profile
-of the summit-outline, seen between the opening arms of the abyss.
-Muffled women&rsquo;s figures, astride of their horses, came winding
-down the path. They were Armenian ladies, returning from a pilgrimage
-to St. Jacob&rsquo;s Well; foot-attendants held their bridles and
-picked their way.</p>
-<p class="par">At two o&rsquo;clock we arrived at the famous rose bush
-and the holy well. The path has been worn by the feet of pilgrims, who
-journey hither from the plains. The water issues from a recess in the
-side of the mountain which has been levelled with a masonry of hewn
-stone. The overflow nourishes the rose-tree, on the twigs of which are
-attached countless little ribbons of rag, shreds from the garments of
-the devout. Just beyond these sacred objects you are shown a level
-site, overhanging the ravine. Rows of stones are interlaced upon its
-surface, a sign for pious wayfarers. Here was placed the little shrine
-which during the great earthquake must have tumbled headlong into the
-chasm. The pilgrims insert tiny sticks into the ground with the same
-little ribbons of rag. The holy water is a talisman against all kinds
-of calamities, and it is supposed to attract the birds which destroy
-the locusts when they desolate the country-side.</p>
-<p class="par"></p>
-<div class="figure xd21e4938width" id="fig039"><img src=
-"images/fig039.jpg" alt="Fig. 39. Akhury: Inside the Great Chasm."
-width="720" height="506">
-<p class="figureHead"><span class="sc"><span class="figNum">Fig.
-39.</span> Akhury: Inside the Great Chasm.</span></p>
-</div>
-<p class="par"></p>
-<p class="par">It is a fine standpoint from which to command the upper
-end of the chasm, which has here a width of some <span class="measure"
-title="457 meter">500 yards</span>. My illustration (Fig. <a href=
-"#fig039">39</a>) was taken from a spot close to the well and
-<span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb195" href="#pb195" name=
-"pb195">195</a>]</span>the site of the shrine, but perhaps a little
-lower down. The site itself has an elevation above sea-level of about
-<span class="measure" title="2286 meter">7500 feet</span>.<a class=
-"noteref" id="xd21e4958src" href="#xd21e4958" name=
-"xd21e4958src">25</a> The camera has belittled the natural features,
-and I must ask my reader to interpret my picture with the help of the
-reflection that the snows which overhang these perpendicular precipices
-are nearly <span class="measure" title="5182 meter">17,000 feet</span>
-high. We penetrated further up the romantic valley, along the bed of a
-dry watercourse. Skirting the buttresses of the eastern wall, we
-observed that they were composed of a compact grey andesite with
-something of the appearance of slate. Seams of a rock similar in
-character, but which have turned red in weathering, lend variety to the
-surface of these bold bastions; while the dark face of the wall which
-mounts to the summit region is scored by extensive veins of that
-decomposed and orange-hued lava which spells destruction wherever it
-appears. The bottom of the ravine is covered by a deep beach of
-boulders, worn by the action of ice and water. Animal life is
-represented by a flock of crows or jackdaws, which croak and circle
-round you as you advance.</p>
-<p class="par">Behind the lofty wall of rock which is seen on the left
-of my illustration, in jagged outline against the snows, a glacier
-descends from the summit region which is probably the only true glacier
-on Ararat, and which I should judge to be gradually decreasing in
-extent. According to Abich, the long ridges which have the appearance
-of piles of boulders, and which are seen in his illustration descending
-the trough of the chasm to a point some distance below St.
-Jacob&rsquo;s Well, were composed in 1874 of compact and dirty glacier
-ice, covered over with stones and d&eacute;bris. He informs us that in
-1844 there was a direct but deeply buried connection between this ice
-and the ice in the circus at the lower end of the glacier; and that in
-1874 this connection had been severed, and the ice-hills themselves had
-decreased about one-third in height.<a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e4982src" href="#xd21e4982" name="xd21e4982src">26</a> On the top
-of these ridges he discovered <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb196"
-href="#pb196" name="pb196">196</a>]</span>a series of marshes and
-little lakes, of which the largest was several hundred paces in
-circumference. I cannot testify myself to the present condition of
-these ice-hills; I cannot even say that they exist. I did not see any
-ice in the trough of the chasm, although it was evident that its
-present condition was largely due to ice action, and although we
-admired a little lake of glacier water, set like a turquoise in the
-waste of mud and stones. It is computed that the actual glacier
-descends as low as a level of about <span class="measure" title=
-"2438 meter">8000 feet</span>&mdash;a notable fact when we consider
-that the line of perpetual snow on this side of Ararat is as high as
-<span class="measure" title="4267 meter">14,000 feet</span>.</p>
-<p class="par">We lingered for some little space in the ravine beyond
-St. Jacob&rsquo;s Well, waiting for the clouds to lift. But they hung
-jealously about the upper slopes of the precipices, whence a mist
-descended upon us like rain. The mountain thundered; from time to time
-the mist was gently parted, and gave passage to the sun. If we were
-disappointed of a clear view of the higher regions, we were at least
-able to appreciate to the full the vista down the weird chasm to the
-fair landscape of the plain. The comparative straightness of the gulf
-renders such a prospect possible, even from its uppermost end. No
-projecting spur or interposed eminence obstructs the continuous stretch
-of the hollow outlines to the distant campagna of the river-side. On
-the horizon were the crinkled mountains in the direction of Lake Sevan,
-flushed with tints of delicate yellow and amethyst, lightly shaded with
-opal hues. Deep gloom lay upon the floor of the abyss, and only the
-pools of blue glacier water caught the brilliance of day. On the open
-base beyond these shadows the sinuous lines of dry watercourses led the
-eye into the expanse of the plain; and we could still see the recumbent
-blocks which once hung in pinnacles above the spot upon which we
-stood.</p>
-<p class="par">Evening was drawing in when we again reached the
-entrance to the chasm. We skirt the Kurdish village, we pass a pool of
-water and a group of barefooted Kurdish girls. Away on our left are the
-mud houses of the Tartar settlement, and the green clump of trees. To
-these succeed the bouquets of pink and white atraphaxis, and the
-scattered crags of conglomerate rock. A flora of great variety starts
-from the sand and among the stone. While we are crossing this upper
-region of the base, the sun disappears behind the still, grey clouds;
-the blue zenith pales and fades. A full moon rises from the grey
-clouds, wreathing <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb197" href="#pb197"
-name="pb197">197</a>]</span>the landscape with soft lights. Heavy quiet
-reigns over the vast and lonely scene, and the only sound is the
-cicada&rsquo;s hum. The low, dark outline of the trees of Aralykh is a
-mere shadow on the plain. Nature touches the chords of that stately and
-solemn movement which issues in and faintly accompanies the life of
-man.</p>
-<p class="par">SUPPLEMENTARY NOTE</p>
-<p class="par">The identification of Mount Ararat with the mountain
-upon which the Ark rested is at least as early as the adoption of
-Christianity by the Armenians, and may have been originally made by
-Jewish prisoners of war. But there does not appear to have existed in
-the neighbourhood of Ararat an independent local tradition of the
-Flood; and the mountain is still locally known not as Ararat, but as
-Masis to the Armenians, and as Aghri Dagh to the Tartars. It is,
-however, called Ararat in Armenian literature as early as Faustus of
-Byzantium, who uses the name in relating the story of St. Jacob of
-Nisibis (<i>Faustus</i>, iii. 10. The name appears to have been wrongly
-spelt Sararat by the copyists). The Ararat of Scripture is the Assyrian
-Urardhu; and the &ldquo;mountains of Ararat&rdquo; of <a class=
-"biblink xd21e43" title="Link to cited location in Bible" href=
-"https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=gen%208:4">Genesis viii.
-4</a> must be sought within the country of Urardhu. Dr. Belck has quite
-recently examined, in the light of his remarkable researches into the
-lore of the Vannic texts, the question of the original geographical
-application of the term Urardhu (<i lang="de">Zeitschrift f&uuml;r
-Ethnologie</i>, Berlin, 1899, pp. 113 <i>seq.</i>); it appears to have
-spread from a district in Kurdistan, south-west of Lake Urmi, to the
-country about Lake Van. It would, therefore, seem that the tendency of
-the term has been to travel north; for the Urardhu or Ararat of the
-historical period is the province about Mount Ararat, one of the great
-divisions in the kingdom of the Arsakid monarchs of Armenia, and well
-known under the name of Ararat to Agathangelus and the earliest
-Armenian writers. Mount Ararat could scarcely have been known to the
-peoples of the lowlands, among whom the Biblical legend of the Flood
-originated. Various aspects of the subject are well discussed by Suess
-(<i lang="de">Das Antlitz der Erde</i>, Leipzic, 1885, vol. i. pp.
-25&ndash;92; <i lang="de">Die Sintfluth</i>), Bryce (<i>Transcaucasia
-and Ararat</i>, edition of 1896, pp. 211 <i>seq.</i>), and Sayce
-(<i>Dictionary of the Bible</i>, London, 1898, <i>sub voce
-Ararat</i>).</p>
-<p class="par">The fabric of Ararat composes an elliptical figure with
-an axis from north-west to south-east. The base plan measures about
-<span class="measure" title="45.1 kilometer">28 miles</span> in length,
-and about <span class="measure" title="37 kilometer">23 miles</span> in
-width. The fabric is built up by two mountains: Great Ararat
-(<span class="measure" title="5156 meter">16,916 feet</span> above the
-sea) and Little Ararat (<span class="measure" title="3914 meter">12,840
-feet</span>). Their bases are contiguous at a level of <span class=
-"measure" title="2682 meter">8800 feet</span>, and their summits are
-<span class="measure" title="11.3 kilometer">7 miles</span> apart. Both
-are due to eruptive volcanic action; but no eruption of Ararat is known
-to have occurred during the historical period, and the summit of the
-greater mountain presents all the appearance of a very ancient and much
-worn-down volcano with a central <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb198"
-href="#pb198" name="pb198">198</a>]</span>chimney or vent, long since
-filled in. I have already described the summit region of Great Ararat.
-The estimates or measurements of my predecessors are at variance with
-one another in detail; but one may assert that it consists of two
-separate elevations, divided one from the other by a depression some
-<span class="measure" title="30.5">100</span> to <span class="measure"
-title="45.7 meter">150 feet</span> in depth. The more easterly is much
-the larger, having the character of a spacious platform of saucer-like
-form. The more westerly presents the shape of a symmetrical cone, when
-seen from the platform; and is in connection with the snow-laden and
-almost horizontal bastions at the head of the north-western slope. Both
-elevations have about the same height; but, if anything, the more
-westerly is the higher.<a class="noteref" id="xd21e5069src" href=
-"#xd21e5069" name="xd21e5069src">27</a> The reader will be able to
-distinguish them in my photograph (Fig. <a href="#fig037">37</a>), as
-well as to observe how they mingle together as mere crinkles in the
-crown of the dome. Parrot was inclined to think that the Ark came to
-rest in the depression between these two elevations.</p>
-<p class="par">Yielding in height to the most lofty peaks of the
-Caucasus in the north (Elburz, <span class="measure" title=
-"5646 meter">18,525 feet</span>), which are visible from the summit,
-and to Demavend (over <span class="measure" title="5486 meter">18,000
-feet</span>) in the belt of mountains which rise along the southern
-shore of the Caspian Sea, Ararat is by far the loftiest of the
-mountains of Armenia, and is over <span class="measure" title=
-"305 meter">1000 feet</span> more elevated than the highest peak in
-Europe, Mont Blanc (<span class="measure" title="4810 meter">15,780
-feet</span>). Moreover, Elburz and Kazbek, Mont Blanc, and even
-Demavend, all rise among a sea of mountains, of which they are little
-more than the highest crests. The isolation of Ararat is not its least
-interesting feature&mdash;a feature which I would fain hope is already
-imprinted upon my reader&rsquo;s mind. The plains which it overlooks
-belong to three empires; the frontiers of Persia, Turkey, and Russia
-meet upon its slopes.</p>
-<p class="par">It has been estimated that as late as the month of May
-the colossal mountain is covered with snow to a level of <span class=
-"measure" title="2743 meter">9000 feet</span> below the summit; and the
-appearance of this immense white sheet from the blooming campagna of
-the valley of the Araxes is one of the fine sights in the world. But by
-the month of September the snowy canopy will be confined to the dome of
-Great Ararat; and the limit of perpetual snow on the side facing the
-plain on the north is not less elevated than from <span class="measure"
-title="4115">13,500</span> to <span class="measure" title=
-"4267 meter">14,000 feet</span> above the sea. The extensive depression
-through which the Araxes flows collects the heats of summer; and the
-warm air from this reservoir ascends the northern slopes of the
-mountain, melting the snow to a height which is greater than might be
-expected in this latitude.<a class="noteref" id="xd21e5113src" href=
-"#xd21e5113" name="xd21e5113src">28</a></p>
-<p class="par">The best season for an ascent is the latter half of
-September. During <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb199" href="#pb199"
-name="pb199">199</a>]</span>October there is more chance of obtaining a
-view from the summit, which is usually most free from clouds in that
-month. But the days are, of course, shorter, and the fresh snow
-commences to lie. I should recommend the traveller with time upon his
-hands who may be anxious to extend our knowledge of the mountain to
-adopt the following programme:&mdash;(1) Ascend Little Ararat from
-Sardar Bulakh. (Good accounts are furnished by Parrot, <i>op. cit.</i>
-pp. 219 <i>seq.</i>; Stuart, <i>Proceedings R.G.S.</i> 1877, vol. xxi.
-pp. 77&ndash;92; Kovaleffsky, <i lang="fr">Voyage au Mont Ararat</i>,
-Moscow, 1899 [<i>in Russian</i>]; Artsruni, <i lang="de">Verhand.
-Gesell. Erdkunde Berlin</i>, vol. xxii. 1895, pp. 606 <i>seq.</i>;
-Ebeling, <i lang="de">Verhand. Gesell. Erdkunde Berlin</i>, vol. xxv.
-1898, pp. 130&ndash;132.) (2) Extend the journey to the southern slopes
-of Great Ararat, and thoroughly explore that side of the mountain. (3)
-Ascend Great Ararat, perhaps from a point a little further south than
-that indicated in my account; and (4) investigate the condition of the
-glacier in the chasm of Akhury. An interesting excursion may also be
-made to the little crater lake known as Kip G&ouml;l on the
-north-western slopes (see the accounts of Monsieur and of Madame
-Chantre in their writings already cited).</p>
-<p class="par">I append a list of the successful ascents of Great
-Ararat up to and including our own, so far as I have been able to
-ascertain them<a class="noteref" id="xd21e5156src" href="#xd21e5156"
-name="xd21e5156src">29</a>:&mdash;</p>
-<ul>
-<li><span class="itemNum">1.</span> F. Parrot, 1829. Started from the
-monastery of St. Jacob (chasm of Akhury) and made the ascent by the
-north-western slope.</li>
-<li><span class="itemNum">2.</span> K. Spasky-Avtonomoff, 1834. From
-Akhury.</li>
-<li><span class="itemNum">3.</span> Herrmann Abich, 1845. From Sardar
-Bulakh.</li>
-<li><span class="itemNum">4.</span> H. D. Seymour, 1845. (From New
-Akhury?).</li>
-<li><span class="itemNum">5.</span> J. Khodzko, N. V. Khanikoff, and
-others, 1850. From Sardar Bulakh.</li>
-<li><span class="itemNum">6.</span> R. Stuart and others, 1856. From
-Bayazid.</li>
-<li><span class="itemNum">7.</span> J. Bryce, 1876. From Sardar
-Bulakh.</li>
-<li><span class="itemNum">8.</span> G. P. Baker, 1878. From Sardar
-Bulakh.</li>
-<li><span class="itemNum">9.</span> Sivoloboff, 1882.</li>
-<li><span class="itemNum">10.</span> E. Markoff, 1888. From Sardar
-Bulakh.</li>
-<li><span class="itemNum">11.</span> Semenoff, 1888 (?).</li>
-<li><span class="itemNum">12.</span> Raphalovich and others, 1889. From
-Sardar Bulakh.</li>
-<li><span class="itemNum">13.</span> T. G. Allen and W. L. Sachtleben
-(1892?). From Bayazid.</li>
-<li><span class="itemNum">14.</span> Postukhoff, 1893. From Sardar
-Bulakh.</li>
-<li><span class="itemNum">15.</span> H. B. Lynch, H. F. B. Lynch, and
-Rudolph Taugwalder, 1893. From Sardar Bulakh.</li>
-</ul>
-<p class="par"><span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb200" href="#pb200" name=
-"pb200">200</a>]</span></p>
-</div>
-<div class="footnotes">
-<hr class="fnsep">
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e4537" href="#xd21e4537src" name="xd21e4537">1</a></span> The
-readings on the prismatic compass were 310&deg; and 105&deg;
-respectively.&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href=
-"#xd21e4537src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e4579" href="#xd21e4579src" name="xd21e4579">2</a></span>
-Sophocles, <i>&OElig;dipus at Colonus</i>, l. 610
-<i>seq.</i>&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href="#xd21e4579src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e4587" href="#xd21e4587src" name="xd21e4587">3</a></span> Abich,
-<i lang="de">Besteigung des Ararat</i>, in Baer and Helmersen&rsquo;s
-<i lang="de">Beitr&auml;ge zur Kenntniss des Russischen Reiches</i>,
-St. Petersburg, 1849, vol. xiii. p. 63. He supports this suggestion by
-the fact that neither Parrot nor Spasky Avtonomoff mentions the
-existence of such a fissure. But whether you may be able to see any
-trace of it or not must depend upon the state of the
-snow.&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href="#xd21e4587src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e4596" href="#xd21e4596src" name="xd21e4596">4</a></span>
-Tournefort, <i lang="fr">Voyage du Levant</i>, Paris, 1717, vol. ii.
-pp. 357 <i>seq.</i> See also Ritter, <i lang="de">Erdkunde</i>, vol. x.
-p. 507.&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href="#xd21e4596src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e4612" href="#xd21e4612src" name="xd21e4612">5</a></span> I refer
-my reader to the works of Tournefort (already cited), Parrot (<i lang=
-"de">Reise zum Ararat</i>, Berlin, 1834), and Dubois de
-Montp&eacute;reux (<i lang="fr">Voyage autour du Caucase</i>, Paris,
-1839&ndash;45, vol. iii.).&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href=
-"#xd21e4612src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e4630" href="#xd21e4630src" name="xd21e4630">6</a></span> The
-measurements are my own. Dubois speaks of Akhury as being five leagues
-distant from the Kara Su.&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href=
-"#xd21e4630src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e4634" href="#xd21e4634src" name="xd21e4634">7</a></span> Parrot
-says the same thing, <i>op. cit.</i> p. 108.&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow"
-href="#xd21e4634src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e4642" href="#xd21e4642src" name="xd21e4642">8</a></span> For a
-discussion of the name see Parrot, <i>op. cit.</i> p. 110. Ritter
-(<i lang="de">Erdkunde</i>, x. 508) also refers to Brosset (<i lang=
-"fr">Bulletin de l&rsquo;Acad. de Sc. de St. P&eacute;tersbourg</i>,
-1841, vol. viii. p. 43), but is in error when he says that Brosset
-spells it Aghuri. He actually spells it Acorhi, and throws doubt upon
-the popular derivation of the name. It would appear that the old
-Armenian name for the place was Akuri or Agguri, and that later
-Armenian writers turned the word into Ark-uri in order to extract the
-signification which I have given in the text. I have adopted the
-spelling of the Russian official map, which practically reproduces the
-old word. Dr. Belck has made the ingenious suggestion that the Adduri
-of the Assyrian inscription of Shalmaneser II. (859&ndash;824
-<span class="sc">B.C.</span>)&mdash;a name which is applied to the
-mountains whither Arame, king of Urardhu or Ararat, fled before the
-armies of the Assyrian monarch&mdash;may be represented by the Armenian
-Akuri or Agguri (<i lang="de">Verhandlungen der Berliner Gesellschaft
-f&uuml;r Anthropologie</i>, 1893, p. 71). That the ancient name of a
-district often survives in that of a town in these countries is proved
-by the analogy of the town of Van, which bears the name of the kingdom
-of which it was formerly the capital, the Biaina of the Vannic
-texts.&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href="#xd21e4642src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e4662" href="#xd21e4662src" name="xd21e4662">9</a></span> Wagner
-(<i>op. infra cit.</i> p. 166) says that at the time of the catastrophe
-the Armenian inhabitants numbered nearly 1600 souls, besides Kurdish
-labourers.&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href="#xd21e4662src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e4678" href="#xd21e4678src" name="xd21e4678">10</a></span> Von
-Behagel (<i>apud</i> Parrot, <i>op. cit.</i> 2nd part, p. 183) says
-<span class="measure" title="305 meter">1000 feet</span>. I quote
-Parrot p. 147.&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href=
-"#xd21e4678src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e4693" href="#xd21e4693src" name="xd21e4693">11</a></span> Parrot,
-<i>op. cit.</i> p. 147. Von Behagel (<i>loc. cit.</i>) says that it was
-3258 Paris feet, or 3472 English feet, above the plain of the
-Araxes.&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href="#xd21e4693src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e4705" href="#xd21e4705src" name="xd21e4705">12</a></span> Parrot,
-<i>op. cit.</i> p. 135; Dubois, <i>op. cit.</i> vol. iii. p. 471. Most
-travellers tell this story with amplifications and variations. It is to
-be found in its earliest form in Faustus of Byzantium (book iii. chap.
-x.).&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href="#xd21e4705src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e4717" href="#xd21e4717src" name="xd21e4717">13</a></span> Parrot,
-<i>op. cit.</i> p. 205.&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href=
-"#xd21e4717src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e4723" href="#xd21e4723src" name="xd21e4723">14</a></span> Von
-Behagel, <i>apud</i> Parrot, <i>loc. cit.</i>&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow"
-href="#xd21e4723src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e4731" href="#xd21e4731src" name="xd21e4731">15</a></span>
-Tournefort, <i>op. cit.</i> vol. ii. p. 368 <i>seq.</i>&nbsp;<a class=
-"fnarrow" href="#xd21e4731src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e4746" href="#xd21e4746src" name="xd21e4746">16</a></span> The
-testimony of these witnesses is given by Abich, <i lang=
-"de">Geognostiche Reise zum Ararat</i>, with two drawings of the chasm,
-in <i lang="de">Monatsberichte der Gesellschaft f&uuml;r Erdkunde zu
-Berlin</i>, series 2, vol. iv. 1846&ndash;47. The account is reproduced
-in his <i lang="de">Geologische Forschungen in den kaukasischen
-L&auml;ndern</i>, Vienna, 1882, part ii. pp. 395 <i>seq.</i>, and
-illustrated by a fine geological view of the chasm in the Atlas, plate
-vi. It can best be understood in the reprint. See also Wagner, <i>op.
-inf. cit.</i>, and Ritter, <i lang="de">Erdkunde</i>, x. pp. 507
-<i>seq.</i>&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href="#xd21e4746src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e4772" href="#xd21e4772src" name="xd21e4772">17</a></span> See the
-summary of this report in Ritter, <i lang="de">Erdkunde</i>, x. pp. 509
-<i>seq.</i>&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href="#xd21e4772src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e4782" href="#xd21e4782src" name="xd21e4782">18</a></span> See
-Moriz Wagner (<i lang="de">Reise nach dem Ararat und dem Hochland
-Armenien</i>, Stuttgart, 1848, contained in Widermann and Hauff,
-<i lang="de">Reisen und Landesbeschreibungen</i>, <span lang=
-"de">Lieferung 35</span>), and Abich in <i>op. cit.</i>&nbsp;<a class=
-"fnarrow" href="#xd21e4782src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e4796" href="#xd21e4796src" name="xd21e4796">19</a></span> Consult
-the argument in Wagner, <i>op. cit.</i> pp. 176
-<i>seq.</i>&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href="#xd21e4796src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e4806" href="#xd21e4806src" name="xd21e4806">20</a></span> See
-Ritter, <i lang="de">Erdkunde</i>, x. 510; and for former earthquakes
-see Dubois, <i>op. cit.</i> vol. iii. p. 474; Abich, <i lang=
-"de">Geolog. Forsch.</i> part ii. pp. 390 <i>seq.</i> with
-map.&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href="#xd21e4806src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e4827" href="#xd21e4827src" name="xd21e4827">21</a></span>
-&ldquo;<span class="measure" title="5.33 kilometer">5 versts</span> in
-a direct line&rdquo; are Abich&rsquo;s words, <i>op. cit.</i> p.
-413.&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href="#xd21e4827src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e4842" href="#xd21e4842src" name="xd21e4842">22</a></span> Ritter,
-<i lang="de">Erdkunde</i>, x. pp. 512, 513.&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow"
-href="#xd21e4842src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e4884" href="#xd21e4884src" name="xd21e4884">23</a></span> Abich,
-<i lang="de">Geolog. Forsch.</i> part ii. p. 412.&nbsp;<a class=
-"fnarrow" href="#xd21e4884src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e4892" href="#xd21e4892src" name="xd21e4892">24</a></span> Abich,
-<i>op. cit.</i> pp. 413, 414. It is evident that he had Wagner&rsquo;s
-objections in his mind.&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href=
-"#xd21e4892src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e4958" href="#xd21e4958src" name="xd21e4958">25</a></span> This
-was the reading of my Hicks mountain aneroid, which was working well,
-and it agrees with Parrot who says that the shrine stood about
-<span class="measure" title="305 meter">1000 feet</span> above the
-cloister, <i>i.e.</i> at about 7400 English feet. I fear, therefore,
-that Madame Chantre is in error in ascribing to the site of the
-cloister, much lower down, an elevation of 2250 metres or <span class=
-"measure" title="2250 meter">7382 feet</span> (<i lang=
-"fr">L&rsquo;Arm&eacute;nie Russe</i>, p. 238). Monsieur Chantre, in
-his monograph on Ararat, confuses the site of the shrine with that of
-the cloister, an error which was also made by my Armenian guide
-(<i lang="fr">Annales de G&eacute;ographie</i>, Paris, 1893&ndash;94,
-vol. iii. pp. 81&ndash;94).&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href=
-"#xd21e4958src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e4982" href="#xd21e4982src" name="xd21e4982">26</a></span> Abich,
-<i lang="de">Geolog. Forsch.</i> part ii. p. 412, and see for the
-glacier, etc. pp. 397, 399, 400. The illustration is contained on Table
-VI. of his atlas. Parrot appears to be silent on the subject of this
-glacier; but Von Behagel, his companion, offers some remarks upon it
-(Parrot, 2nd part, p. 184). I may also refer my reader to Dr.
-Markoff&rsquo;s article in the <i lang="fr">Bulletin de la
-soci&eacute;t&eacute; royale Belge de g&eacute;ographie</i>, 1888, p.
-589.&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href="#xd21e4982src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e5069" href="#xd21e5069src" name="xd21e5069">27</a></span>
-Feodoroff, the companion of Parrot, measuring from the valley of the
-Araxes, estimated the difference at <span class="measure" title=
-"2.13 meter">7 feet</span>; Khodzko at <span class="measure" title=
-"36.6 meter">120 feet</span>; Bryce at &ldquo;some <span class=
-"measure" title="15.2 meter">50 feet</span> or so,&rdquo; all in favour
-of the more westerly elevation. My reader will notice that in the
-photograph (Fig. <a href="#fig037">37</a>) the more easterly, viz. on
-the left hand, appears to be slightly higher; but this circumstance is
-due to the fact that it stands out a little in advance of its
-neighbour, when seen from the side of the country between Erivan and
-Aralykh.&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href="#xd21e5069src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e5113" href="#xd21e5113src" name="xd21e5113">28</a></span> In
-estimating the level of the zone of perpetual snow on Ararat I am
-leaving out of account those smaller or greater collections of snow
-which owe their subsistence all through the summer to special
-circumstances, such as shelter from the sun.</p>
-<p class="par footnote cont">Mr. D. W. Freshfield (<i>Exploration of
-the Caucasus</i>, London, 1896, vol. i. p. 55) gives <span class=
-"measure" title="3048 meter">10,000 feet</span> as a fair figure for
-the snow-level in the central chain of Caucasus.&nbsp;<a class=
-"fnarrow" href="#xd21e5113src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e5156" href="#xd21e5156src" name="xd21e5156">29</a></span> The
-account of an ascent in 1897 has quite recently come into my hands. It
-is written by Herr A. Oswald, whose attempt was crowned with complete
-success (<i lang="de">Eine Besteigung des Ararat</i> in <span lang=
-"de">Jahrb. schweiz. Alpenclub</span>, Berne, 1899&ndash;1900, vol.
-xxxv. pp. 157&ndash;183).&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href=
-"#xd21e5156src">&uarr;</a></p>
-</div>
-</div>
-<div id="ch14" class="div1 chapter"><span class="pagenum">[<a href=
-"#xd21e418">Contents</a>]</span>
-<div class="divHead">
-<h2 class="label">CHAPTER XIV</h2>
-<h2 class="main">RETURN TO ERIVAN</h2>
-</div>
-<div class="divBody">
-<p class="par first"><i>September 25.</i>&mdash;We passed the morning
-upon the mound, in the little open summer-house, face to face with the
-airy snowfields which we had scaled to their topmost vaulting, with the
-cavernous recesses which we had penetrated to their inmost core. Such
-is the silence of Nature at the foot of this solemn mountain that the
-faintest sound reaches the ear. I was therefore startled by a clamour
-of voices in the direction of the cantonment, and I hurried down
-towards the noise. A booted figure in drab uniform, covered with dust
-from head to foot, was gesticulating under the influence of extreme
-excitement to a little group of Russian military in their white tunics,
-accompanied by some languid Orientals at a respectful interval. It was
-the officer of Cossacks who had joined our party near Takjaltu, and who
-had left us at Sardar Bulakh. Suiting his gestures to his words, he was
-narrating a thrilling story of a night encounter with the Kurds. His
-little eyes were bloodshot and distended with emotion; his legs were
-parted and his feet planted firm. His detachment had fallen in with a
-band of marauders, who had carried off some cattle from over beyond
-Akhury, and made away towards the Turkish frontier. They had fired on
-the Kurds, who had returned their fire; they had recovered the cattle
-and chased the Kurds away. I enquired what bag he had made of these
-human vultures, and he replied, with a sigh, that they had carried off
-their dead.</p>
-<p class="par">On the further side of the Araxes, opposite Aralykh, is
-situated the celebrated monastery of Khor Virap, which marks the spot
-where, according to Armenian tradition, Saint Gregory, the founder of
-Christianity in Armenia, was imprisoned for thirteen years in a deep
-pit. The country about and behind the cloister <span class=
-"pagenum">[<a id="pb201" href="#pb201" name="pb201">201</a>]</span>is
-extremely rich in historical and arch&aelig;ological interest, and I
-would recommend the traveller to prolong his excursion up the romantic
-valley of the Garni, whence he can return across the mountains to
-Erivan. He will examine the sites of Artaxata and Dvin, and, proceeding
-up the river, will reach the gorge with the basaltic columns, and the
-platform where once stood the temple of King Tiridates&mdash;a
-beautiful Greek shrine given to these solitudes, like the temple of
-Segesta to the lonely Sicilian hills. Hard by this platform above the
-river are found the relics of the city of Garni; and, near the sources
-of the stream, at a distance of some five miles from Garni, the caves
-and monastery of Surb Geghard, reputed to have been founded by St.
-Gregory, respond to the spirit of a landscape which for grandeur and
-severity is unsurpassed among these wilds. I was anxious to make the
-acquaintance of some at least among these antiquities; we therefore
-despatched our luggage with the Swiss and the cook to Erivan, and,
-availing ourselves of the offer of a victoria as far as Khor Virap,
-resolved to trust to fortune for the remainder of the way.<a class=
-"noteref" id="xd21e5243src" href="#xd21e5243" name=
-"xd21e5243src">1</a></p>
-<p class="par">Had we been able to procure riding-horses, we might
-probably have ridden from the ferry over the Araxes direct to the
-cloister across the plain. In a carriage we were obliged to retrace our
-steps as far as Kamarlu, where the road which runs parallel to the
-course of the river crosses the road to Erivan. The stage which we had
-made after nightfall between that village and Aralykh was now performed
-in the light of day. The alluvial flats between the Araxes and the base
-of Ararat are channelled by a network of irrigation runnels, which
-diffuse the stream of the Kara Su. From the fields and marshes rise
-luxuriant cotton and castor oil plants, the one with yellow single
-blossoms, like a wild rose, and drooping fruit, resembling flakes of
-snow; the other, higher than these, raising a tender, juicy stem to
-shining, palm-shaped leaves. Here and there, where the water fails,
-bushes of hardy camelthorn spring up, like weeds, upon the <span class=
-"pagenum">[<a id="pb202" href="#pb202" name=
-"pb202">202</a>]</span>fallow land. The oppressive climate of Aralykh,
-no less than the plague of insects which infest it, are due to the sand
-upon the pedestal of the mountain, and to these swamps with their
-effluvia and mosquito swarms. Even at this season the sun beats
-fiercely upon the plain; and, when we reached the ferry, a herd of
-buffaloes and bullocks, awaiting transport, were rolling parched
-tongues and casting longing eyes at the river from the bank of
-crumbling mud.</p>
-<p class="par">A double pontoon, staged across with planks, received
-our carriage, and was swiftly impelled along the hawser by the force of
-the stream. From the opposite margin a dreary tract of baked alluvial
-soil extends to the zone of gardens and orchards which commences at
-Kamarlu. I have already alluded to the excellence of the road within
-that zone; but by day you will be loth to hasten along it, such is the
-charm and so great the interest of the scene. The traffic from the
-lower Araxes, from Persia and distant Mesopotamia, finds its way along
-this <i>chauss&eacute;e</i> to Erivan. The district is inhabited by
-well-to-do people, who can afford the richness of their national dress.
-Beneath the foliage of the needle poplars, between the well-maintained
-mud walls&mdash;over which you look to the vineyards and to the
-vegetable gardens, where the tomato and the chili abound&mdash;a stream
-of wayfarers, some on horseback, fill the pleasant avenue, chatting and
-smiling under the expansive influence of ease and shade. At intervals
-you pass a house or cluster of houses, where groups of Armenian women
-in their holiday attire are gathered before the open doors. They are
-clad in their gayest cottons, and wear their picturesque head-dress and
-veils of white gauze. Some among them nurse their babes at the open
-bosom, the little infant cleaving to the full breasts. Tartars, with
-their black lambskin hats and dark blue or black garments, compose an
-element which a cynic would be loth to dispense with in such a scene of
-piping peace; yet it would be difficult to detect a trace on their
-clean-shaven faces of passions which have, perhaps, been blunted by
-time. Laden waggons pass, and numerous bullock-carts, with their heavy,
-creaking wheels. We were amused by the appearance of a curious pair of
-riders who, to judge from the deference which was bestowed upon them,
-were evidently of exalted rank. The man wore a flowing beard and was
-dressed in Oriental apparel; but he held in his hand a parasol of
-European pattern, and his locks were surmounted by an English
-<i>billycock</i> hat. His <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb203" href=
-"#pb203" name="pb203">203</a>]</span>wife was by his side, astride of
-her Arab; but the graceful animal was almost invisible beneath her, his
-withers overtowered by the huge bulk of her stomach, and his back
-enveloped in the folds of her robes. It was an Assyrian bishop,
-journeying from Mosul.</p>
-<p class="par">Kamarlu is perhaps a type of these villages of the
-campagna, in which the population is composed of Armenians and Tartars,
-of lambs and lions living side by side. It can boast a Russian
-schoolhouse, a necessary institution in the case of the Tartars, to
-judge by the barbarous and hideous frescos which enliven the
-fa&ccedil;ade of their little mosque. The Armenians have their school,
-and there are two Gregorian churches in which they satisfy their
-spiritual needs. The houses are built of sun-baked bricks and mud;
-wooden stages rise to some height above the flat roofs, and provide
-airy sleeping-places for the inhabitants during the summer heats. After
-regaling ourselves with the delicious white grapes of the district, we
-turned aside from the road to Erivan. Crossing the outskirts of the
-village, we remarked the huge clay wine jars which were strewn about in
-the courtyards. Beyond a few fields, planted with cotton, we again
-entered the open desert, and pursued our way over the crumbling mud. A
-rude and winding track leads towards the river through patches of dusty
-desert shrubs. Ararat fills the landscape, and is rarely seen to
-greater advantage than from such tracts of naked land. On our left hand
-rose a buttress of the Sevan mountains which had been a landmark from
-the slopes of Ararat. It is composed of a sandy rock of various hues,
-which has weathered into fanciful shapes. In the delicate evening
-lights it is invested with the appearance of some castle in
-fairyland.</p>
-<p class="par">From time to time we passed strings of three or four
-large waggons, drawn by teams of oxen. Whole families of Armenians were
-gathered within them, well dressed and well-to-do. They were returning
-to their dwellings within the zone of gardens from a pilgrimage to Khor
-Virap. The men were emptying their little glasses, which they would
-replenish from wine-skins, and feasting on water melons.</p>
-<p class="par">We arrived at the mound which rises from the flats about
-the river and can be clearly seen from Ararat. According to
-Dubois,<a class="noteref" id="xd21e5294src" href="#xd21e5294" name=
-"xd21e5294src">2</a> it consists of a mass of dolomite, isolated on the
-surface of the plain. The church and cloister have been built on the
-side of <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb204" href="#pb204" name=
-"pb204">204</a>]</span>the eminence; the monastic dwellings screened
-the church from our view. St. Gregory&rsquo;s dungeon is situated
-within the precincts; and it would appear that the place was famous in
-the saint&rsquo;s lifetime for a much-frequented temple of the
-fire-worshippers.</p>
-<p class="par">We were scarcely beneath the walls when the figure of a
-horseman springs forward from some recess into the road. Throwing his
-white Arab on to his haunches at a few yards before our carriage, he
-challenges and constrains us to pull up dead. This proceeding on his
-part, no less than his forbidding countenance, throws me completely off
-my guard. On Russian soil one is obliged to smother the irritation
-which is always threatening to burst forth from a British breast. I
-shout to him to move aside, or we will whip the horses and drive
-through him; to this he answers by drawing his revolver and threatening
-to shoot. I ask him by what right he dared to obstruct the roadway; he
-replies by enquiring by what credentials we presume to pass. It flashes
-through me that the game is in the hands of this ruffian&mdash;we had
-been spoilt by the attentions of the high officials, and to such an
-extent that we had forgotten to bring even our passports, which had
-gone in our despatch box to Erivan. It was useless to urge that one
-could not be obliged to show a passport in order to be allowed to visit
-a church. He paid no heed to any of our arguments, and compelled us to
-return with him to Kamarlu. He even added the insult of requiring us to
-suit our pace to his, and to follow at a walk or amble by his side.
-This we flatly refused to do, and, taking the reins from the trembling
-coachman, proceeded at a brisk trot. Simon Ter-Harutiunoff&mdash;such
-was the name of this ferocious person&mdash;is linked in our memory
-with the companion picture of Ivan the Terrible, our stern custodian
-during the Akhaltsykh days. Both are Armenians, and either might be
-taken as a model for the embodiment of the fighting instincts in man.
-Tartars and Cossacks are amenable creatures besides them; and of the
-two, we were inclined to bestow the palm upon Simon. His face was black
-with exposure to the sun; the eyes were yellow round the dark iris and
-shot with red veins. His features were large and pronounced, but of
-singular deformity; the massive head was placed upon broad shoulders
-above a frame of great bulk and iron strength. He wore two medals, won
-during the war with Turkey through personal bravery. His function in
-time of peace was to police the Persian frontier in the district of
-Khor Virap. <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb205" href="#pb205" name=
-"pb205">205</a>]</span></p>
-<p class="par">These particulars we learnt in the office of the
-Pristav, upon our return under such escort to Kamarlu. We claimed and
-were permitted to proceed to Erivan; but the chapars were instructed to
-prevent us from diverging, and to hand us over to the Nachalnik at the
-provincial capital. In this manner we were foiled in our antiquarian
-researches among these ancient sites. At Khor Virap we saw nothing but
-some slight convexities in the surface of the ground, which may be
-caused by buried remains. Beyond the mound we observed a natural wall
-of rock, rising like a gigantic ruin above the plain.</p>
-<p class="par">Evening had approached as we left the village, and
-proceeded through the gardens, and crossed to the barren zone beyond.
-From the rising ground we looked back over the forest of poplars to the
-sun setting behind the peaks of the Ararat chain. The satellite range
-wore the same tints of deep, opaque opaline which fretted the horizon
-during our outward journey. It was shadowed upon the same ground of
-orange and amber; and the opal hues of the land forms extended round
-the circle and included the huge, horizontal outline of Alag&ouml;z.
-But the Sevan mountains, in the opposite segment, were touched with
-pink and luminous yellows; the higher summits were white with fresh
-snow. In the south-east the landscape was dim and vaporous; nor could
-the eye distinguish among the gathering shadows the basal slopes of
-Ararat. The snow-fields of the dome shone with a cold light in the sky,
-above vague banks of cloud. It was after eight o&rsquo;clock when we
-reached the pleasant town garden, and discussed our adventures with the
-Nachalnik over a cigar. <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb206" href=
-"#pb206" name="pb206">206</a>]</span></p>
-</div>
-<div class="footnotes">
-<hr class="fnsep">
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e5243" href="#xd21e5243src" name="xd21e5243">1</a></span> For
-Artaxata, Dvin, Khor Virap, etc., see Ker Porter&rsquo;s <i>Travels</i>
-(vol. ii. pp. 619 <i>seq.</i>); Morier (<i>Second Journey</i>, p. 316
-and pp. 339 <i>seq.</i>); Dubois (<i>op. cit.</i> vol. iii. pp. 382
-<i>seq.</i>); Smith and Dwight (<i>op. cit.</i> pp. 273 <i>seq.</i>).
-Dubois mentions, but was unable to visit, the grottoes of Okhtchapert
-on the direct road between Erivan and Garni, p. 402. They are mentioned
-by Telfer (<i>Crimea and Transcaucasia</i>, vol. i. p. 210), who passed
-by them on his way to Garni from Erivan. Telfer&rsquo;s book should be
-consulted by English readers for an account of these various
-antiquities. I would also recommend to the arch&aelig;ologist who is
-desirous of investigating the question of the site of Artaxata a
-reference to Dubois (vol. iii. p. 449).&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href=
-"#xd21e5243src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e5294" href="#xd21e5294src" name="xd21e5294">2</a></span> <i>Op.
-cit.</i> vol. iii. p. 480.&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href=
-"#xd21e5294src">&uarr;</a></p>
-</div>
-</div>
-<div id="ch15" class="div1 chapter"><span class="pagenum">[<a href=
-"#xd21e428">Contents</a>]</span>
-<div class="divHead">
-<h2 class="label">CHAPTER XV</h2>
-<h2 class="main">AT ERIVAN</h2>
-</div>
-<div class="divBody">
-<p class="par first">Oriental cities&mdash;and Erivan is still
-essentially Oriental&mdash;may perhaps be said to be built upon two
-planes. There is the plane of the street, and there is the plane of the
-flat roofs, all at about the same level. Where the climate during
-summer renders the rooms of the house untenantable after the walls have
-been heated through by the sun, the daily life of the inhabitants
-undergoes a corresponding division into the life of the street and the
-life of the roof. About an hour before sunset the entire population
-mounts from the lower apartments, or even from the cellars, to the open
-platforms, floored with mud and sometimes protected by a low
-balustrade, which receive the freshness of the evening breeze. It is
-there that the last and first meals of the day are served, and the
-quilts spread upon which sleep is enjoyed beneath the stars. A strange
-scene it is when the faint light of morning has broken, and when the
-recumbent forms commence to stir. The divisions made by the narrow
-streets are scarcely perceptible; your own roof appears to join the
-roofs of your neighbours, and these to compose a single and elevated
-stage above the landscape of dim earth and flashing stream. Figures,
-erect from the waist, are revealed in every posture; and it may happen
-that the cotton drapery has dropped from a woman&rsquo;s shoulders as
-she stretches her arms in the fancied seclusion of some partial screen.
-Such scenes are the daily accompaniment of a summer sojourn in the
-towns upon the lowlands through which the Euphrates and the Tigris
-flow. In Armenia, with a mean level of several thousand feet above the
-sea, the practice of sleeping in the open is confined to the depression
-of this plain of the Araxes; and even here it is only partially
-indulged. The better-to-do among the inhabitants take refuge in the
-adjacent mountains when their dwellings have <span class=
-"pagenum">[<a id="pb207" href="#pb207" name=
-"pb207">207</a>]</span>become little better than furnaces. The
-traveller is advised to swelter within four walls rather than tempt
-fever from the expanse of irrigated land by exposing himself to the
-night air.</p>
-<p class="par"></p>
-<div class="figure xd21e5321width" id="fig040"><img src=
-"images/fig040.jpg" alt="Fig. 40. Ararat from a house-top in Erivan."
-width="615" height="435">
-<p class="figureHead"><span class="sc"><span class="figNum">Fig.
-40.</span> Ararat from a house-top in Erivan.</span></p>
-</div>
-<p class="par"></p>
-<p class="par">Yet the twofold division of the city into an upper and a
-lower region is nowhere more productive of startling contrast than in
-this town of gardens which is Erivan. In the streets, lined as they are
-with the rude stone walls of the enclosures, surmounted by a crumbling
-ridge of clay, the vistas are confined by inexorable foliage to the
-space of a stone&rsquo;s throw. The central park, with its wide spaces,
-enjoys no further landscape than that which is limited by the zones of
-the adjacent buildings or by its own lofty forest trees. Where you are
-not threading the narrow alleys of the more thickly inhabited quarters,
-you will be winding by irregular ways, deep in white dust, by the side
-of swirling water or within hearing of its murmur beyond the bulwark
-which screens the orchard from the lane. But from the standpoint of the
-roof the horizon expands to boundaries which are so remote that they
-are scarcely conceivable by a European mind. The foliage or the hollow
-of the site eliminates the middle distance; and the opposite piles of
-Great Ararat in the south (Fig. <a href="#fig040">40</a>) and of
-<span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb208" href="#pb208" name=
-"pb208">208</a>]</span>Alag&ouml;z in the north (Fig. <a href=
-"#fig041">41</a>) rise immediately from the soft foreground of the
-embowered houses. The landscape from the high ground on the north, as
-you approach Erivan by the road from Tiflis, is difficult to forget
-(Fig. <a href="#fig042">42</a>). The whole fabric of Ararat is exposed
-from base to summits; but so tall are the poplars and luxuriant the
-countless varieties of fruit trees, that they almost conceal the domes
-of the mosques and the cupolas of the churches, spread over the
-straggling township at your feet.</p>
-<p class="par"></p>
-<div class="figure xd21e5342width" id="fig041"><img src=
-"images/fig041.jpg" alt=
-"Fig. 41. Alag&ouml;z from a house-top in Erivan." width="601" height=
-"414">
-<p class="figureHead"><span class="sc"><span class="figNum">Fig.
-41.</span> Alag&ouml;z from a house-top in Erivan.</span></p>
-</div>
-<p class="par"></p>
-<p class="par">All this verdure is mainly due to the river Zanga, the
-Hrazdan of the Armenians, which collects the drainage of a section of
-the southern slopes of the border range, and which is fed by the waters
-of Lake Sevan, called also G&ouml;kcheh, from its sky-blue colour, and
-by Armenian writers the Lake of Gegham. This beautiful alpine sea is
-surrounded by lofty mountains and has an area 2&frac12; times as large
-as that of Geneva. It produces salmon trout of delicious flavour which
-are seldom absent from the bill of fare in the provincial capital. It
-finds an outlet through the Zanga into the Araxes at a difference in
-the level of <span class="measure" title="1097 meter">3600 feet</span>.
-The brawling Zanga, already weakened by the canals which diffuse its
-waters, pursues a devious course at the foot of high and rocky banks on
-the western outskirts of the town. Further eastwards <span class=
-"pagenum">[<a id="pb209" href="#pb209" name="pb209">209</a>]</span>the
-irrigation is supplied by the Kirk Bulakh, a stream of which the name
-signifies forty springs, and which has its sources at no great distance
-from Erivan. Such abundance of running water should secure to this
-growing city a large measure of prosperity under settled government. As
-the centre of the most populous of the Armenian provinces of the
-Russian Empire, to which it gives its name, it is already a place of
-some pretensions. But the inhabitants do not at present number more
-than 15,000, of whom half are Tartars and half Armenians. This total
-also comprises about 300 Russians, whose most conspicuous units are the
-drivers of the carriages on hire, belonging, I believe, exclusively to
-the Molokan sect.<a class="noteref" id="xd21e5356src" href="#xd21e5356"
-name="xd21e5356src">1</a></p>
-<p class="par"></p>
-<div class="figure xd21e5369width" id="fig042"><img src=
-"images/fig042.jpg" alt="Fig. 42. Erivan and Ararat from the North."
-width="720" height="515">
-<p class="figureHead"><span class="sc"><span class="figNum">Fig.
-42.</span> Erivan and Ararat from the North.</span></p>
-</div>
-<p class="par"></p>
-<p class="par">Erivan does not possess any monuments of first-rate
-merit or of great antiquity. Her origin is obscure. Noah may quite well
-have lived here before the Deluge, as one of the earliest of modern
-European visitors was informed by his Armenian friends.<a class=
-"noteref" id="xd21e5378src" href="#xd21e5378" name="xd21e5378src">2</a>
-The popular derivation of the name is from the Armenian verb
-<i>erevel</i>, and it is said to signify <i>appearing</i>. The place
-would, indeed, be about the first locality in the plain region to
-appear to the eyes of the patriarch of old.<a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e5387src" href="#xd21e5387" name="xd21e5387src">3</a> Hither may
-have been directed his steps and those of his family when the waters
-had receded from a world renewed. This may be the site of the original
-city of Noah, perhaps preserved beneath the soil upon which is built
-the present town. The more learned are inclined to a much later
-foundation, but do not yield in point of philological plausibility to
-the champions of the identification with Noah&rsquo;s city. They say
-that the name has been shortened from Erovantavan, which they render
-<i>the place where Erovant was defeated</i>. Erovant or Ervand was an
-Armenian monarch of the first century who was vanquished in this region
-by the lawful heir to the throne of the Arsakids at the head of a
-Persian army. The event and the survival of the name Erovantavan are
-attested by Moses of Khorene.<a class="noteref" id="xd21e5403src" href=
-"#xd21e5403" name="xd21e5403src">4</a> The <span class=
-"pagenum">[<a id="pb210" href="#pb210" name=
-"pb210">210</a>]</span>Mohammedan derivation from Revan Kul, a prince
-of the reign of Shah Ismail (1502&ndash;1524),<a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e5408src" href="#xd21e5408" name="xd21e5408src">5</a> who is said
-to have fortified the place by his master&rsquo;s order, cannot be
-reconciled with the fact that Erivan was already in existence certainly
-in the eleventh and probably in the seventh century.<a class="noteref"
-id="xd21e5414src" href="#xd21e5414" name="xd21e5414src">6</a> But it
-played no prominent part whether in ancient or medi&aelig;val history
-until the advent of the Ottoman Empire. From the sixteenth century into
-modern times it was continually disputed between the Sultans and their
-powerful neighbours on the east, the Persian Shahs. The enumeration of
-the sieges it sustained at the hands of Turks and Persians would be a
-tax upon my reader&rsquo;s patience which I am not disposed to levy.
-When the Russians appeared on the scene it was in Persian possession;
-and an unsuccessful attempt on their part to capture the fortress in
-1804 supplied the ground for the firm belief in its impregnability
-which was cherished by its Persian governors. This confidence was
-rudely shattered by Paskevich in October 1827. His shells wrought
-fearful havoc in the unsubstantial town, and one is said to have
-pierced the dome of the mosque in the citadel, whither thousands of the
-wretched inhabitants had fled for protection against the hail of the
-cannon. The Russian army entered the place without encountering any
-serious obstacle, and the Russian flag has waved there ever
-since.<a class="noteref" id="xd21e5426src" href="#xd21e5426" name=
-"xd21e5426src">7</a></p>
-<p class="par">One might expect to find some mosques of considerable
-age in a city which flourished under its Mohammedan masters. One must,
-however, recollect that the Ottoman Turks are Sunnis and <span class=
-"pagenum">[<a id="pb211" href="#pb211" name="pb211">211</a>]</span>the
-Persians Shiahs; what the one may erect the other loves to destroy. We
-are expressly told that when Shah Safi took the place in <span class=
-"sc">A.D.</span> 1635 all the mosques built by the Turks were razed to
-the ground.<a class="noteref" id="xd21e5448src" href="#xd21e5448" name=
-"xd21e5448src">8</a> About the same time the position of the town, or
-perhaps only of the fortress, underwent a change, being removed some
-eight hundred paces to its present site on the rocky cliffs at the foot
-of which the Zanga flows.<a class="noteref" id="xd21e5454src" href=
-"#xd21e5454" name="xd21e5454src">9</a> The Persians do not appear to
-have enriched it at that period with any remarkable buildings; and it
-was recovered by the Turks in 1724.<a class="noteref" id="xd21e5460src"
-href="#xd21e5460" name="xd21e5460src">10</a> Some ten years later it
-again fell into the hands of the Persians as one of the conquests of
-Nadir Shah. The principal mosque is said to date from the reign of this
-monarch. The curious old tower which was seen by Chardin as well as by
-Tournefort, and of which the lineaments have been handed down to us by
-the former of these travellers, has long since disappeared.</p>
-<p class="par">Still the buildings which at present exist are well
-worth a visit; and I propose to invite my reader to accompany me in a
-leisurely ramble through the alleys of Erivan. The more populous
-quarters are divided into a western and an eastern half, at first by
-the broad, metalled road which comes from Tiflis, and, further south,
-by the central park. Speaking generally, the eastern half is inhabited
-by the Tartars and the western by the Armenians. In the one you will
-discover the mosques, in the other the churches. But the churches are
-either small and quite insignificant stone structures, or have been
-restored beyond recognition in comparatively recent and tasteless
-times. I counted no less than six, including the Russian church at the
-southern extremity of the town. Of these the oldest foundation would
-appear to be that of Surb Katholike<span class="marginnote">Surb
-Katholike</span>, which stands in a pleasant walled garden, adjoining
-the great road, in the upper or northern quarter. An ancient elm dwarfs
-the humble oblong edifice, which is entered from a portal on the south
-side, added in 1861. The interior, which is very low, is disposed in a
-nave and aisles, an apse and two side apses or chapels. Chardin
-attributes a church of this name to the latest <span class=
-"pagenum">[<a id="pb212" href="#pb212" name=
-"pb212">212</a>]</span>kings of Armenia, and the priests assured me
-that it was indeed the earliest in date at Erivan. It was here that in
-Persian times the katholikos would officiate, while residing in the
-provincial capital.</p>
-<p class="par">A little lower down the road we pass Paulos
-Petros<span class="marginnote">Paulos Petros.</span> (Paul and Peter),
-the largest and the least pleasing of the town churches. But once we
-have left the wide avenue to become involved in the network of gardens
-on the north and north-west, any mediocrity in the buildings we visit
-is amply compensated by the charm of the enclosures in which they
-stand. Such verdure of every shade and constant hum of flowing water!
-To Surb Joannes<span class="marginnote">Surb Joannes.</span> we come
-first&mdash;four walls and a metal roof, to which is attached a wooden
-belfry, painted green. You see the Zanga issuing from a cleft in the
-barren hills, of which the hardness contrasts with the foliage at their
-base. The little portal of Joannes is quite a pretty feature, and I was
-informed that the church dates from the latter part of the seventeenth
-century. A more ambitious structure is Surb Zoravar<span class=
-"marginnote">Surb Zoravar.</span>, situated some little distance in an
-easterly direction, but still within the zone of these high slopes on
-the north. It is surrounded by old gardens and overshadowed by walnut
-trees. The body of the church is quite plain, four walls and a roof of
-low pitch; but an elaborate portal, surmounted by a belfry and
-supported by four massive piers, extends the whole length of the west
-front. Two piers in the centre are panelled and richly carved by the
-most delicate of chisels. There is a very old doorway on the south side
-with spiral mouldings, and the frescos over the principal
-entrance&mdash;a rare feature&mdash;are well drawn and show good
-feeling for colour. I understand that the present church has supplanted
-an older building; but I will not vouch for the statement that the
-portal is due to Moses Katholikos (<span class="sc">A.D.</span>
-1629&ndash;<span class="corr" id="xd21e5488" title=
-"Source: 1363">1632</span>), as I was informed by the aged and ignorant
-priest. He came at last, after many peals from the belfry, his
-tottering frame supported by a lay companion. The clergy of Erivan are
-not more enlightened than the most backward of their profession in
-remote districts of the Turkish provinces.</p>
-<p class="par"></p>
-<div class="figure xd21e5492width" id="fig043"><img src=
-"images/fig043.jpg" alt="Fig. 43. Entrance to G&ouml;k Jami, Erivan."
-width="442" height="610">
-<p class="figureHead"><span class="sc"><span class="figNum">Fig.
-43.</span> Entrance to G&ouml;k Jami, Erivan.</span></p>
-</div>
-<p class="par"></p>
-<p class="par">On the other hand the greater material well-being of the
-laity is made manifest by the air of comparative comfort presented by
-the interiors of their places of worship. Of course one misses the pews
-of our English churches, or the serried lines of chairs which furnish
-the temples of the Continent. But the floors are <span class=
-"pagenum">[<a id="pb213" href="#pb213" name="pb213">213</a>]</span>well
-carpeted and the bare walls kept in repair. From Surb Zoravar one may
-readily regain the Tiflis road and pass in a southerly direction along
-the central park. Thence it is no great distance to the principal
-mosque of the city, the G&ouml;k Jami<span class="marginnote">G&ouml;k
-Jami.</span> or mosque of heaven. This edifice is situated in the
-western half of Erivan, and is surrounded by dwellings of Tartars in
-considerable number, overlapping into the Armenian quarters. It is
-approached from the narrow streets of a bazar consisting of booths, and
-is entered by a handsome doorway at the side of an imposing minaret, of
-which the surface is diversified by designs in polychrome tiles (Fig.
-<a href="#fig043">43</a>). You pass through a vaulted passage into the
-great court (Fig. <a href="#fig044">44</a>). It is a vast place, shady
-and serene. Lofty elms of great age shadow the basin of overflowing
-water which bubbles in the centre of the paved spaces. Upon its margin
-are gathered figures in long robes and turbans, or attired in the
-Persian fashion and wearing the Persian lambskin hat. These are busy
-with their ablutions; while elsewhere, beneath the shade, mollahs are
-instructing groups of their younger pupils, seated on mats spread upon
-the flags. Beds of single dahlias refresh and please the eye. Of life
-and movement there is no <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb214" href=
-"#pb214" name="pb214">214</a>]</span>lack; people are coming and going;
-there in the distance a train of shapeless forms in deep blue draperies
-makes its way to the women&rsquo;s mosque. But the absence of the least
-suspicion of haste spreads an atmosphere of delightful repose. It
-requires no small fortitude&mdash;they would call it diseased
-curiosity&mdash;to pace from side to side and ascertain that this
-quadrangle measures 87 paces by 58. The latter is the dimension of the
-side on the south, upon which is built the temple itself (Fig. <a href=
-"#fig045">45</a>). Beneath the spacious dome men and women are gathered
-indiscriminately, the women veiled in Persian fashion. There is nothing
-very remarkable in the architecture of the mosque; but the floral
-paintings which adorn the ceiling of a companion and smaller edifice on
-the north side of the court are of very high merit. The remainder of
-the quadrangle is taken up by rows of low buildings, containing
-chambers in which the older scholars pursue their studies. One wonders
-what they may be learning. A mollah of importance informs us that the
-G&ouml;k Jami was built in the time of Nadir Shah (<span class=
-"sc">A.D.</span> 1736&ndash;1747) by the sirdar, Hoseyn Ali Khan.</p>
-<p class="par"></p>
-<div class="figure xd21e5522width" id="fig044"><img src=
-"images/fig044.jpg" alt=
-"Fig. 44. Court with basin of G&ouml;k Jami, Erivan." width="617"
-height="433">
-<p class="figureHead"><span class="sc"><span class="figNum">Fig.
-44.</span> Court with basin of G&ouml;k Jami, Erivan.</span></p>
-</div>
-<p class="par"></p>
-<p class="par">With the exception of the mosque in the fortress, the
-religious edifices of the Mohammedans are extremely well maintained. I
-counted three mosques in the Tartar quarters. <span class=
-"pagenum">[<a id="pb215" href="#pb215" name="pb215">215</a>]</span>That
-of Haji Nusrallah Bey and the Shehr Jami<span class="marginnote">Haji
-Nusrallah Bey.<br>
-Shehr Jami.</span> (town mosque) are almost exactly similar in design.
-The former is evidently a replica of the latter, which displays a
-Turkish inscription on the outer door with a date which we read as 1098
-(<span class="sc">A.D.</span> 1687). But it must have been restored
-since that time. Although much smaller than G&ouml;k Jami, it bears
-some resemblance to that building; and the walled court with its
-fountain and beds of long-stalked dahlias is as pleasant a refuge from
-dusty alleys as man could desire.</p>
-<p class="par"></p>
-<div class="figure xd21e5542width" id="fig045"><img src=
-"images/fig045.jpg" alt="Fig. 45. The Temple. G&ouml;k Jami." width=
-"604" height="440">
-<p class="figureHead"><span class="sc"><span class="figNum">Fig.
-45.</span> The Temple. G&ouml;k Jami.</span></p>
-</div>
-<p class="par"></p>
-<p class="par">But perhaps the most interesting monument is the kiosque
-of the sirdars<span class="marginnote">Kiosque of the sirdars.</span>,
-in the extreme southern angle of the town. We may approach it from the
-west, and take Surb Sargis<span class="marginnote">Surb Sargis.</span>
-on the way. That church and pleasant terrace on the high land above the
-Zanga commands an extensive view over the southern quarters and across
-the plain to Ararat. The deeply-bedded river is flowing on an easterly
-course towards the fortress and the gardens of the sirdars outside its
-walls. After skirting those parapets it will turn abruptly in the
-reverse direction, and pursue a more tranquil career to the Araxes. The
-fortress to which we proceed is still some distance off, and the walls
-of mud <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb216" href="#pb216" name=
-"pb216">216</a>]</span>and rubble which line the cliffs on the left
-bank of the Zanga are rapidly falling into total ruin. While they are
-flanked by the swirling stream they may once have possessed some power
-of resistance; but after the river has deserted the site beyond the
-abrupt bend, the town is exposed immediately to the plain. The
-sirdar&rsquo;s palace composes the kernel of the fortified area, and
-its windows overlook the river. But the extensive buildings of his
-well-stocked harem, the magazines of his garrison and the abodes of his
-courtiers have either disappeared altogether or are rapidly crumbling
-away. From among a heap of ruins rises intact a single edifice, which
-is kept in repair by the Russians. It is the pavilion in which the
-sirdar was wont to beguile his leisure. From the window in the alcove
-of this elaborate interior (Fig. <a href="#fig046">46</a>) he would
-feast his eyes on the landscape&mdash;the river at his feet, his own
-shady garden in the plain, the dim spaces backed by the fabric of
-Ararat. Here he exercised his skill as a marksman upon the donkeys of
-the unfortunate peasants, sending a ball through them as they wound
-along the road on the right bank of the Zanga towards the bridge with
-its two pointed arches.<a class="noteref" id="xd21e5562src" href=
-"#xd21e5562" name="xd21e5562src">11</a> This bridge is placed just
-below the pavilion, and is still the only avenue of communication
-between Erivan and the country beyond the river. What consummation of
-Oriental felicity to sit on cushions in this glittering apartment and
-watch the caravans which fill your coffers defiling below! From time to
-time there may come an embassy to your overlord of Persia, and there
-will be a report to dictate upon the size and splendour of the
-cavalcade. The beauties of Georgia and Circassia luxuriate in the
-adjoining halls, and water flows in abundance everywhere. The governor
-of Erivan was quite a little king in the country, and, when he
-travelled, the inhabitants of the villages along his route would
-immolate an ox in his honour.<a class="noteref" id="xd21e5569src" href=
-"#xd21e5569" name="xd21e5569src">12</a></p>
-<p class="par"></p>
-<div class="figure xd21e5576width" id="fig046"><img src=
-"images/fig046.jpg" alt=
-"Fig. 46. Erivan: Interior of the Kiosque of the Sirdars." width="720"
-height="522">
-<p class="figureHead"><span class="sc"><span class="figNum">Fig.
-46.</span> Erivan: Interior of the Kiosque of the Sirdars.</span></p>
-</div>
-<p class="par"></p>
-<p class="par">The incrustation which my reader may admire upon the
-vaulting of the alcove is composed of pieces of mirror which shine like
-the facets of a jewel. An encrusted cornice of the same material
-surmounts the walls of the pavilion below a ceiling profusely adorned
-with floral designs, conspicuous being the iris and the rose. Eight
-paintings on canvas, applied to shallow recesses, are distributed
-around the room. I believe they are copies, made since the Russian
-occupation, of originals which had fallen into decay. The two which are
-comprised by my <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb217" href="#pb217"
-name="pb217">217</a>]</span>illustration, one on either side of the
-alcove, represent on the left hand the figure of Hoseyn Khan Sirdar,
-and, on the right, the Persian hero Feramez. Of the remainder, three
-are portraits&mdash;Fath Ali, Shah of Persia (1797&ndash;1834), his son
-Abbas Mirza and Hasan Khan, brother to the Sirdar Hoseyn; while an
-equal number are indifferent renderings of heroic personages&mdash;the
-warriors Sherab and Rustem, and a Persian Amazon. One of my
-predecessors has recorded that at the time of his visit in 1834 the
-panels in the alcove were adorned with four pictures setting forth
-subjects which were well conceived to amuse the fancy of an old
-debauchee. A Mussulman was receiving wine from a fair Georgian in the
-presence of the monks of Edgmiatsin, whose arguments had been less
-potent to effect his conversion than the fleshly charms of the
-Christian girl. A Persian beauty in loose trousers and diaphanous upper
-garment was making her obeisance to the Shah. Here a prince of the
-blood royal in costume of the chase dallied with a maiden while her
-aged father lay asleep; there the beautiful features of Joseph spread
-havoc among the assembled ladies at the house of the wife of
-Potiphar.<a class="noteref" id="xd21e5587src" href="#xd21e5587" name=
-"xd21e5587src">13</a> These various incitements to delight no longer
-grace the forlorn kiosque, and perhaps their disappearance is no great
-loss to the world of art. The original decoration, which is quite
-intact, upon the walls and ceiling enables us to judge how great had
-been the artistic decadence of Persia since her painters displayed
-their skill upon the walls of the Chehel Situn, the noble pavilion on
-the banks of the Zenda Rud.</p>
-<p class="par">From this kiosque we may make our way to the adjoining
-mosque of the fortress<span class="marginnote">Mosque of the
-fortress.</span>, which is now no longer frequented by the faithful. It
-stands a little east of the old palace; the interior beneath the
-spacious dome is decorated with much skill by means of little bricks of
-many colours. The great court is already ruinous. An old henna-stained
-attendant informed us that it was erected in the reign of Fath Ali Shah
-and that it was known as the Abbas Mirza Jami. Walls and palace and
-mosque are, I conclude, already doomed. Hard by their crumbling remains
-are seen the barracks of the Russian garrison and the metal roof of a
-Russian church. The last of the sirdars is already long since dead, he
-whose portrait hangs on the wall of the pavilion. He died in a
-miserable stable, bereft of everything but the squalid garment which
-clothed his aged body. Yet his memory is pleasantly associated with one
-of <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb218" href="#pb218" name=
-"pb218">218</a>]</span>the favourite episodes of Persian romance. It is
-related that a young Georgian travelled to this fortress above the
-Zanga to catch a glimpse of his betrothed in the sirdar&rsquo;s harem.
-The girl, espying her lover, precipitated herself towards him from the
-window, and was saved from certain death by a willow which broke her
-fall. The pair were captured; but the incident touched the heart of her
-jealous owner, who pardoned them both and let them go. His generous
-speech has been preserved: &ldquo;Hearts so closely united let no man
-endeavour to part.&rdquo;<a class="noteref" id="xd21e5603src" href=
-"#xd21e5603" name="xd21e5603src">14</a></p>
-<p class="par">Perhaps the best introduction to the population of a
-city consists in a visit to the schools. Erivan is better supplied in
-respect both of elementary and secondary education than any other town
-in the Armenian provinces of the Russian Empire. But, before recording
-my personal impressions of what I saw during a brief inspection, I
-should like to review the conditions which govern the schools. When
-Russia became mistress of a large portion of Armenia, her rulers found
-that their Armenian subjects were already in possession of a school
-system of which, with their customary tenacity, they were extremely
-jealous, and which probably dated from the invention of the Armenian
-alphabet as early as the fifth century. The Church has been for long
-ages the pillar of Armenian nationality; and the schools were
-affiliated to the Church. There were not therefore wanting all the
-elements of a bitter quarrel; and if any question more than another has
-envenomed the relations between the Armenians and their Russian rulers
-it is this question of the schools.</p>
-<p class="par">When the constitution of the Armenian Church and its
-relations to the Government were embodied in a State document, a
-chapter was inserted by virtue of which the Tsar of Russia formally
-recognised the Church schools.<a class="noteref" id="xd21e5617src"
-href="#xd21e5617" name="xd21e5617src">15</a> They were stated to have
-as their object the religious and moral education of the children, and
-to be under the guidance and supervision of the bishops. It was
-provided that their rules and curricula should be submitted to the
-synod at Edgmiatsin, and that this body should in turn transmit them
-for acceptance to the Minister of the Interior. A rider was added to
-the effect that it was a matter of importance that the clergy should
-become acquainted with the Russian language, and with the history and
-geography of the Russian Empire. <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb219"
-href="#pb219" name="pb219">219</a>]</span></p>
-<p class="par">It is only fair to the Government to remark, by way of
-parenthesis, that although a period of over half a century has elapsed
-since the promulgation of this document, few teachers and still fewer
-pupils have yet displayed even moderate proficiency in the speaking and
-writing of Russian. With the growth of material prosperity, which was
-the outcome of the Russian occupation, the Armenian schools prospered
-and their standards rose. The teachers, who were laymen, were taken
-from good families; and one may safely assert that at the present day
-the Armenian youth are instructed by the best educated and best
-informed among their countrymen. Many of them have studied in Europe,
-principally in Germany, and are men of far higher attainments in the
-field of knowledge than such as might be required by the teaching which
-they are permitted to dispense. The first step taken by Government to
-cut the wings of the national schools was the limitation of the
-standard of instruction. The class is in Russia the measure of this
-standard, the first class standing at the bottom of the scale. Schools
-of five classes were frequently attached to the churches; and the
-scholars who desired to pursue their studies still further passed to
-the so-called seminary of the diocese in which they lived. In this
-manner it was possible for a youth to receive all but the highest
-university education in his native language and through his native
-institutions. It is true that the Minister of the Interior had a right
-of censorship; but in view of the gravity of the fancied danger this
-safeguard was only partial. So the Government drew the pen through the
-third, fourth, and fifth classes and left the Armenians nothing more
-than the elementary course. Such action was thought to be arbitrary in
-view of the fact that these schools are supported by purely voluntary
-contributions.</p>
-<p class="par">Empire! what insidious wickedness, surpassing the
-horrors of war, is committed in the name of empire! Surely it is a
-right as elementary as that of security for life and property to
-supervise the education of your children. One might sympathise with the
-Russian Government had they merely required that the standard of
-instruction should not fall below the standard of schools in Russia.
-Nor should we be inclined to withhold our sympathy if they had only
-renewed their insistence upon the necessity of a knowledge of Russian.
-That was the wise as well as the humane policy. The ukase of 1884 was
-conceived in a very different spirit, and may be branded as an infamous
-document. It provided <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb220" href=
-"#pb220" name="pb220">220</a>]</span>that Church schools with more than
-two classes should be placed upon the same basis as private schools in
-Russia, that is to say that the whole of the instruction should be
-conducted in the Russian language. This was tantamount to closing such
-schools. The supreme control of the elementary schools was transferred
-from the Ministry of the Interior to the Department of Education. The
-seminaries were suffered to exist upon the basis of the decree of 1836,
-but their object was defined to be the preparation of clergymen to meet
-the requirements of the Armenian Church.</p>
-<p class="par">The synod at Edgmiatsin, although already placed in
-leading strings by Government, did not see their way to accept this
-decree. They urged that, since it had been issued during a vacancy of
-the Chair, its consideration should be postponed until the election of
-a new katholikos. Government retaliated by closing the schools. Nor
-were they again opened until in 1886 the pontiff Makar signified his
-consent to the provisions of the ukase, subject to some small
-concession as to the scope of the curricula in schools of two classes.
-The higher classes remained closed. Such was the situation at the time
-of my visit. It had, however, been further enacted that after the lapse
-of a prescribed period every teacher in an Armenian school should be
-required to possess a certificate from the Russian Department of
-Education. In order to obtain this certificate the candidate must pass
-an examination conducted in the Russian language. The term of grace was
-coming to an end in a few months, and I gathered that few teachers had
-acquired the necessary linguistic proficiency.<a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e5632src" href="#xd21e5632" name="xd21e5632src">16</a></p>
-<p class="par">Education is not a department of human activity which
-can be properly conducted upon military principles. The only discipline
-healthy for the mind is that which is derived from the unfettered
-exercise of the faculties with which it has been endowed. In Erivan I
-had occasion to remark the contrast in intellectual atmosphere between
-the Russian and the Armenian school. Here were offered two typical
-examples of these diverse species, still existing side by side. As the
-capital of a diocese, the Church has still the right to possess a
-seminary in the town of Erivan. The seminary embraces the standards
-which we may call secondary education, and has no less than six
-classes. It has contrived to evade the restrictions which are in the
-spirit of the ukase of 1884 <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb221" href=
-"#pb221" name="pb221">221</a>]</span>in respect of the character of its
-pupils. It was quite obvious that very few were destined to take
-orders, although perhaps the majority of the 360 scholars were included
-in the elementary classes. There was no trace of any clerical bias in
-the choice of treatises; and the teachers in secular subjects were, I
-believe, all laymen. One at least was a young man of exceptional
-ability, trained in Europe at his own expense. It would be difficult to
-find among the staff of our secondary schools a master better equipped
-for his task. The pupils, whose age extended from ten to twenty years,
-did not appear to acquire knowledge by rote. The Principal spoke the
-German language fluently and was in touch with the thought of the West.
-Yet even this privileged institution has been clipped of much of its
-usefulness by being placed at an unfair advantage as compared to the
-Russian school. It is interdicted the seventh and eighth classes,
-although there can be no doubt in respect of the competency of its
-staff. It is perhaps for this reason that it is not as a rule attended
-by sons of the richest citizens. Its income of &pound;1800 a year is
-principally subscribed by Armenians of means. Only about a sixth of the
-sum comes from the pupils. The majority receive their education free of
-charge.</p>
-<p class="par">The subjects taught in the highest class are theology
-and psychology, mathematics, physics, logic, modern history and modern
-languages. In the latter category they are restricted by order to
-Russian and French. The instruction is conducted in Armenian except in
-the case of Russian language and literature, when the Russian tongue is
-used. Their text-book in psychology was a Russian translation of
-Alexander Bain and in logic of W. S. Jevons. Besides this seminary,
-which is attached to the church of Surb Sargis, there is a school for
-girls with 200 pupils.</p>
-<p class="par">The Russian school is mainly supported by the State out
-of revenues derived from taxation. It has the rank and is known by the
-name of a <i>gymnasium</i> in the German acceptation of that term. Its
-subvention produces a yearly income of &pound;4500, which is
-supplemented by the fees paid by nine-tenths of the scholars, amounting
-to about &pound;4 a head. Out of 260 boys and youths some 26 were
-boarders and the rest day pupils. The boarders sleep in a long
-dormitory, kept scrupulously clean and neat. The majority pay for their
-maintenance &pound;25 a year; the poorer can only afford &pound;15. The
-school is housed in a commodious building in the centre of the town and
-exhibits every sign of prosperity. It has <span class="pagenum">[<a id=
-"pb222" href="#pb222" name="pb222">222</a>]</span>large and
-well-furnished reception rooms for days of f&ecirc;te. The class rooms,
-with their rows of forms and large black-boards, inspire a salutary
-awe. The library is well stocked and does the Russian Director great
-credit, as does the general organisation of the institution.</p>
-<p class="par">But the spirit of the place is that of the camp; the
-methods are purely military, and one almost expects the sound of a
-bugle to announce which lesson shall be rehearsed. Since human memory
-is of brief span and the recollection of facts is of no great value, it
-is not so much this faculty that requires cultivation as the habit of
-study and the power to collate facts. The education dispensed by this
-school will not produce scholars or thinkers; indeed the pen is here
-the servant of the sword. But at least it serves to sharpen the wits,
-and to induce a nimbleness of mind which can scarcely fail to be of use
-to its Mohammedan members.</p>
-<p class="par">All who can afford to buy a uniform appear in trousers
-and tunic of blue cloth, enlivened with brass buttons. A dress of
-similar material is worn by the ushers. The pupils are drilled and put
-through simple military exercises; they may be seen marching with music
-at their head. Yet this is a civil institution. It is the only
-<i>gymnasium</i> or High School in the Russian provinces of the
-Armenian plateau. At the time of my visit the school list contained the
-names of 159 Armenians, 67 Russians, 9 Georgians, 7 Poles and 18
-Tartars. Only the last belonged to the Mohammedan religion.</p>
-<p class="par">When it is remembered that the Tartars compose one-half
-of the inhabitants and are numerous in the districts about Erivan, the
-poor show which they make among the inmates of this important school is
-a very significant fact. As a body, they shut themselves off from
-Western education; and for this reason they appear destined to be edged
-out by the Armenians, as a species unable to adapt itself to the new
-environment. They are still in possession of some of the richest land
-in the province, and many among them are wealthy men of leisure. These
-khans occasionally send a son to the school. But the Director informed
-me that youths of this class were rarely successful; they were indolent
-and left at an early age. Those who belonged to the middle class stayed
-longer and were much more hopeful. Although I passed through every room
-while the students were pursuing their tasks, I only counted six
-Tartars, all told. The method of procedure was extremely entertaining.
-Accompanied by the amiable Director, <span class="pagenum">[<a id=
-"pb223" href="#pb223" name="pb223">223</a>]</span>I was introduced to
-the presiding usher, who would descend from his da&iuml;s and extend
-his hand. Some fifty to a hundred bright black eyes were focussed upon
-us; all were standing, not a muscle moved and not a sound was heard.
-Then some such little comedy as this would be gone through:&mdash;</p>
-<p class="par"><i>The Director</i> (addressing myself in German).
-&ldquo;This is the Latin class. Permit me to present you to M.
-&mdash;&mdash;off&rdquo;. (In Russian) <span class="corr" id=
-"xd21e5663" title="Not in source">&ldquo;</span>Pupils, you may sit
-down<span class="corr" id="xd21e5666" title=
-"Not in source">&rdquo;</span> (a single clap and shuffle&mdash;perfect
-silence). <span class="corr" id="xd21e5669" title=
-"Not in source">&ldquo;</span>You, Sir, will please address the
-Professor in the Latin tongue.&rdquo;</p>
-<p class="par"><i>Myself</i> (after a long and embarrassed pause).
-&ldquo;<span lang="la">Gratias ago; clementiam, benigne rector,
-reposco. Consuetudinem lingu&aelig; Latin&aelig; parum conservo. Verum
-versus video in nigra ista tabula inscriptos, mihi valde familiares:
-&lsquo;O utinam tunc quum Laced&aelig;mona classe petebat, obrutus
-insanis esset adulter aquis.&rsquo; Vellem interrogare discipulos
-quisnam ille fuerit adulter.</span>&rdquo;</p>
-<p class="par"><i>The Usher</i> (a forlorn and crushed individual. At
-first listless; but he encounters the flashing eyes of the little
-Director, and stammers). &ldquo;Sv ... svit ... niet, niet ...&rdquo;
-(and he proceeds in Russian).</p>
-<p class="par"><i>The Director.</i> &ldquo;My colleague desires me to
-state that he quite understands what you said. You wished to express
-admiration of our new blackboards. I thank you in his and my name. Is
-there any question you would like to put?&rdquo;</p>
-<p class="par"><i>Myself.</i> &ldquo;There appear to be about thirty
-boys in this class. I wonder what proportion Tartars bear to Armenians
-among them.&rdquo;</p>
-<p class="par"><i>The Director.</i> &ldquo;Russians, stand up!&rdquo;
-(some four or five fair-haired and closely-cropped youths rise in their
-places. Their faces show intelligence, and one likes
-them)&mdash;&ldquo;Armenians, stand up!&rdquo; (the first batch sit
-down; practically the whole class springs to its
-feet)&mdash;&ldquo;Tartars, stand up!&rdquo; (one little boy at the
-extreme end of the class confronts his seated schoolmates).</p>
-<p class="par">One feature of this institution seemed specially well
-conceived; it was the manner in which the religious difficulty was
-solved. Two different religions&mdash;the Mohammedan and the
-Christian&mdash;and three distinct professions of the latter&mdash;the
-Gregorian Armenian, Roman Catholic (Poles), and so-called Russian
-Orthodox&mdash;were represented among the pupils and were expounded to
-their several votaries by as many diverse types of the holders of
-sacerdotal office. Separate rooms were set aside in which the
-<span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb224" href="#pb224" name=
-"pb224">224</a>]</span>mollah taught Islam, and the papa or padre or
-vardapet explained the New Testament. In this manner each youth
-received instruction in the faith of his fathers at the hands of one of
-its official exponents; while the rub and wear of continual intercourse
-in the secular classes accustomed Mohammedan and Christian, Russian
-Orthodox and Gregorian Armenian to respect their classmates and to
-tolerate each other&rsquo;s faith. The extension of such a system over
-the whole of these provinces would be likely to work incalculable good;
-and, side by side with glaring defects in the methods of secular
-instruction, it is a real pleasure to be able to congratulate the State
-schools upon such a salutary feature and cordially to wish them
-success.</p>
-<p class="par">The Tartars of Erivan are for the most part of Turkish
-descent, and of kindred race to the bulk of the inhabitants of the
-neighbouring Persian province of Azerbaijan. But some of the number
-included under this name in the statistics may more properly be
-designated as Persians. All profess the Shiah tenets. I had expected to
-find them extremely fanatical, judging by my experience of their
-co-religionists in Persia, and by an account given of them by a French
-traveller.<a class="noteref" id="xd21e5702src" href="#xd21e5702" name=
-"xd21e5702src">17</a> But not only are Christians permitted to enter
-their mosques; they are even received with cordiality by the groups
-assembled in the outer courts. I do not know whether this altered
-demeanour may be due to a policy of <i>no nonsense</i> pursued by the
-Russian Government. If such be the case it is a significant fact. How
-often have I stood before the door of a mosque in Persia, casting eager
-glances at the vista of priceless treasures within! On each occasion I
-have in vain appealed to the Governor, who would urge that he could not
-be responsible for my safety, and beg me not to attempt to enter. At
-Erivan I was invited to penetrate into every part, and to stand by the
-side of the faithful while they prayed. I have already stated that the
-Tartar inhabitants include many men of means, who live on the proceeds
-of their extensive gardens. But a good <span class="pagenum">[<a id=
-"pb225" href="#pb225" name="pb225">225</a>]</span>proportion of the
-large shop-keepers belong to this race, and are well-mannered and
-fairly well-educated men. I fancy, however, that they would scarcely be
-able to compete with the Armenians, were it not for the support of
-patrons of their own blood. For the rest, the small hucksters and the
-sellers of fruit are in a very large proportion Tartar. So, almost
-exclusively, are the workers in mud after their various kinds:
-plasterers, embankers, makers of ducts to water the gardens. The
-gardeners and drivers of carts largely belong to this nation; but there
-is scarcely a carpenter or a skilled mason who is not an Armenian.</p>
-<p class="par">While the Tartars are reputed to hoard, the Armenians
-are excessively lavish, and spend large sums in building themselves
-fine houses. Many an ornate villa in Italian style may be seen emerging
-from the foliage of the gardens. Here and there quite a little palace
-faces the street. Yet, with all their comparative wealth, they have not
-yet emerged from the material stage, and I searched in vain for a
-bookseller. Indeed, in spite of many signs of progress and of her
-favourable geographical position, Erivan can scarcely yet be said to be
-connected with the pulse of the great world. Here is a city not so far
-from Europe, and needing capital for her development; yet scarcely any
-capital has found its way in. Teheran, although much more distant, has
-a numerous European colony; and there is not an enterprise, from banks
-to electric lighting and tramways, which a number of candidates are not
-contending with each other to supply. You will not meet a single
-foreign industrialist in Erivan, nor be able to purchase any but
-Russian newspapers. Even the Armenians are not encouraged to develop
-the resources of the country. The following question which I addressed
-to a prominent Armenian capitalist may exhibit, together with the
-answer, the magnitude of those resources and the reasons assigned for
-the fact that they are not exploited.</p>
-<p class="par"><i>Q.</i> &ldquo;Can you explain to me why so little use
-is made of your natural advantages&mdash;the immense extent of idle
-soil and the abundance of water? In the north you have the vast
-reservoir of Lake Sevan; in the south the Araxes, running in full
-stream to the Caspian Sea. Cultivation might surely be increased to
-many times its present area without any great expense.&rdquo;</p>
-<p class="par"><i>A.</i> &ldquo;The waste lands are for the most part
-in the hands of the Russian Government, and they are not inclined to
-sell or lease them to Armenians. They are believed to be keeping them
-for Russians, but the Russians do not come. A successful piece of
-<span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb226" href="#pb226" name=
-"pb226">226</a>]</span>reclamation has been made by General
-Cheremetieff in the neighbourhood of Ararat. We have made repeated
-proposals to take lands and irrigate them, but we have never been able
-to obtain permission.&rdquo;</p>
-<p class="par">Perhaps, if these lines come to the eyes of M. Witte, he
-will give the matter the attention which it deserves.</p>
-<p class="par">The same exclusive economical policy, as manifested in
-protective duties, has deflected commerce from the natural avenue of
-the valley of the Araxes, and caused it to pursue more lengthy and less
-convenient routes. There is scarcely any transit trade with Persia. The
-prosperity of the place is therefore dependent on native industries,
-which comprise the cultivation and export of cotton, wine and rice.
-Cotton to the value of about &pound;400,000 is annually despatched by
-waggon or camel to the station of Akstafa on the Tiflis railway, and
-thence, vi&acirc; Batum and the Black Sea or Baku and the Caspian, to
-the manufacturing centres of Russia. Three large Russian firms are
-locally represented by offices and factories, where the cotton is
-purchased and cleaned and pressed. The presses, which are of English
-make, are driven by horse power. While this industry is in the hands of
-Russians the trade in wine is conducted by Armenians; and very
-excellent wine have they succeeded in producing. The value of the
-yearly export, which goes exclusively to Russia, is as yet only
-&pound;20,000. But the enterprise of M. Karapet Afrikean, who has
-closely studied his subject in Germany, has already effected a marked
-improvement in the quality of the wine, and is likely to lead to a
-great increase in the demand. Rice is also exported and in considerable
-quantities to Erzerum and the Turkish provinces. The fruits of Erivan
-are almost unrivalled in the world; but I do not know that they are
-preserved and sent away.</p>
-<p class="par">Such is the city which, with its vast and populous
-province, absorbs all the time and all the energies of its Russian
-governor, sitting at his green baize table overlooking the park.
-General Frese has a real affection for that table, which he has shaped
-to fit his figure. From early morning to late night his erect and
-military form is condemned to that inactive but rigid posture. He never
-indulges in the relaxation of an arm-chair. While you puff your
-cigarette among his hospitable cushions, he will discourse upon the
-mighty rivers and forests of Siberia from across the field of green
-baize. Dinner is served in a room displaying all the skill of Persian
-artists, and overlooking, through a window <span class=
-"pagenum">[<a id="pb227" href="#pb227" name=
-"pb227">227</a>]</span>composed of tiny panes of glass, a miniature
-garden disposed as for the stage of a theatre. I need hardly say that
-this work of fancy was not created by the order of the present occupant
-of Government House. Still the fare at his table is worthy of the most
-refined palate; such excellent trout and tender chickens and the pick
-of the native wine! Immediately after the meal he resumes his seat in
-the adjoining room behind the green baize. He attributes the
-backwardness of the country to excessive centralisation at St.
-Petersburg, a process which has been tending to assume increasing
-proportions now that the Caucasus is no longer administered by a Grand
-Duke. <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb228" href="#pb228" name=
-"pb228">228</a>]</span></p>
-</div>
-<div class="footnotes">
-<hr class="fnsep">
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e5356" href="#xd21e5356src" name="xd21e5356">1</a></span>
-According to the Jesuit, P&egrave;re Monier, who wrote an account of
-the mission at Erivan in the eighteenth century, there were only 4000
-inhabitants of the town proper in his day. Of these only one-fourth
-were Armenians (<i lang="fr">Lettres &Eacute;difiantes, M&eacute;moires
-du Levant</i>, Paris, 1780, vol. iii. p. 25). In the thirties of last
-century the usual estimate seems to have been 2500 families or at least
-10,000 souls, of whom some 700 to 1000 families were Armenian (Smith
-and Dwight, <i>Missionary Researches</i>, p. 279; Sijalski, <i lang=
-"de">Aufenthalt in Erivan, Das Ausland</i>, Augsburg, 1839). The
-Armenians are rapidly turning the tables upon the
-Tartars.&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href="#xd21e5356src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e5378" href="#xd21e5378src" name="xd21e5378">2</a></span> Chardin,
-edit. Paris, 1811, vol. ii. p. 169.&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href=
-"#xd21e5378src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e5387" href="#xd21e5387src" name="xd21e5387">3</a></span>
-&ldquo;<span lang="la">Eriv&acirc;n, apparens, quia regio ista prima
-apparuit Noe cum descenderet ex monte Ararat</span>&rdquo; (Villotte,
-<i>Dict. Arm.</i> p. 273, quoted by Langl&egrave;s ap. Chardin, <i>loc.
-cit.</i>).&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href="#xd21e5387src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e5403" href="#xd21e5403src" name="xd21e5403">4</a></span> Moses of
-Khorene, vol. ii. p. 46.&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href=
-"#xd21e5403src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e5408" href="#xd21e5408src" name="xd21e5408">5</a></span> Lane
-Poole, <i>Mohammedan Dynasties</i>, London, 1894, p.
-259.&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href="#xd21e5408src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e5414" href="#xd21e5414src" name="xd21e5414">6</a></span> For the
-Mohammedan tradition see <i>Travels of Evliya</i>, translated by Von
-Hammer, London, 1850, vol. ii. p. 150. &ldquo;In the year 810
-(<span class="sc">A.D.</span> 1407) Khoja Khan Lejchani, a rich
-merchant of Timur&rsquo;s suite, settled here (at Erivan) with all his
-family and servants, cultivating plantations of rice, by which means a
-great Kent was soon formed. Five years later Shah Ismail gave to Revan
-Kul, one of his khans, an order to build a castle here, which, being
-finished in seven years, was named after him Revan or Erivan.&rdquo;
-The <i>five years</i> of Evliya are incomprehensible to me. Erivan is
-mentioned by John Katholikos, who wrote in the eleventh century, as
-having been a considerable place in the seventh (Saint-Martin&rsquo;s
-translation, Paris, 1841, p. 80).&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href=
-"#xd21e5414src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e5426" href="#xd21e5426src" name="xd21e5426">7</a></span> Dubois
-de Montp&eacute;reux, <i lang="fr">Voyage autour du Caucase</i>, Paris,
-1839, vol. iii. pp. 346 <i>seq.</i> When Morier, secretary to the
-British Embassy to Persia, visited the sirdar or governor of Erivan in
-1814, he was told by his host with great gravity that &ldquo;if three
-or four of the kings of Fireng (Europe) were to unite to take this
-castle, they might just take the trouble of going back again, for their
-labours would be in vain&rdquo; (Morier, <i>Second Journey</i>, London,
-1818, p. 319). The sirdar&rsquo;s view was not held by British
-officers, one of whom, in giving an account of his visit in 1837, says,
-&ldquo;I had expected to find the castle almost impregnable from the
-honours which were heaped upon the Marshal Paskevich for its capture,
-and was quite surprised to find a mere Turkish fort, strong indeed by
-nature on one side, but on the other three defended merely by a mud
-wall, and commanded from all the adjoining hills&rdquo; (Wilbraham,
-<i>Travels in the Transcaucasian Provinces</i>, etc., London,
-1839).&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href="#xd21e5426src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote" lang="de"><span class="label"><a class=
-"noteref" id="xd21e5448" href="#xd21e5448src" name=
-"xd21e5448">8</a></span> &ldquo;In dieser abermahligen Ver&auml;nderung
-seynd auch alle T&uuml;rkische Moscheen der Stadt &uuml;bern Hauffen
-geworffen ... also das etliche dergleichen Tempel bis zum Fundament
-erniedriget und &uuml;bel &auml;rger von Persianen verw&uuml;stet als
-jemahl die Kirchen der Christen von T&uuml;rcken zugerichtet worden
-seynd. So z&uuml;chtiget Gott die Mahumetaner mit Mahumetanern&rdquo;
-(Schillinger, <i>Persianische und Ost-Indianische Reise vom Jahr 1699
-bis 1702</i>, N&uuml;rnberg, 1707).&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href=
-"#xd21e5448src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e5454" href="#xd21e5454src" name="xd21e5454">9</a></span>
-Tavernier, edit. of Paris, 1679, vol. i. p. 37; P&egrave;re Monier,
-<i>op. cit.</i> vol. iii. p. 24.&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href=
-"#xd21e5454src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e5460" href="#xd21e5460src" name="xd21e5460">10</a></span> Von
-Hammer, <i lang="de">Geschichte des Osm. Reiches</i>, vol. vii. p.
-321.&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href="#xd21e5460src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e5562" href="#xd21e5562src" name="xd21e5562">11</a></span> Morier,
-<i>Second Journey</i>, p. 320.&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href=
-"#xd21e5562src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e5569" href="#xd21e5569src" name="xd21e5569">12</a></span> Dubois
-de Montp&eacute;reux, <i>op. cit.</i> vol. iii p. 452.&nbsp;<a class=
-"fnarrow" href="#xd21e5569src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e5587" href="#xd21e5587src" name="xd21e5587">13</a></span> Dubois,
-<i>ibid.</i> pp. 339 <i>seq.</i> and Atlas.&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow"
-href="#xd21e5587src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e5603" href="#xd21e5603src" name="xd21e5603">14</a></span> Dubois,
-<i>ibid.</i> p. 346, and Morier, <i>Hajji Baba</i>.&nbsp;<a class=
-"fnarrow" href="#xd21e5603src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e5617" href="#xd21e5617src" name="xd21e5617">15</a></span> Chapter
-viii. of the <i>Polojenye</i> of 1836.&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href=
-"#xd21e5617src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e5632" href="#xd21e5632src" name="xd21e5632">16</a></span> I was
-informed by a competent authority that, including Tiflis and the whole
-of Russian Transcaucasia, there were not less than 400 Armenian schools
-in existence at the time of my visit. About one-third of the number
-would be schools for girls.&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href=
-"#xd21e5632src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e5702" href="#xd21e5702src" name="xd21e5702">17</a></span>
-M&uuml;ller-Simonis (<i lang="fr">Du Caucase au Golfe Persique</i>,
-Paris, 1892, p. 62), speaking of the celebration of the ceremonies in
-honour of Ali and Hoseyn at Erivan, says: &ldquo;<span lang="fr">Le
-soir les fanatiques qui devront repr&eacute;senter les martyres
-&agrave; la grande procession, font une promenade aux flambeaux,
-arm&eacute;s de sabres et de gourdins. Ils agitent en mesure leurs
-flambeaux et leurs armes, criant en m&ecirc;me temps &agrave;
-tue-t&ecirc;te: &lsquo;Hussein, Ali, Hussein, Ali.&rsquo; Les reflets
-rouges des torches, ici d&eacute;coupant les blanches silhouettes des
-maisons, l&agrave; plongeant en lueurs &eacute;tranges sous la verdure
-des arbres, puis &eacute;clairant en plein les figures hideuses de ces
-d&eacute;vots, forment un spectacle sauvage et
-fantastique.</span>&rdquo; The picture is true to life. I have little
-doubt that such a procession may still be witnessed at
-Erivan.&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href="#xd21e5702src">&uarr;</a></p>
-</div>
-</div>
-<div id="ch16" class="div1 chapter"><span class="pagenum">[<a href=
-"#xd21e439">Contents</a>]</span>
-<div class="divHead">
-<h2 class="label">CHAPTER XVI</h2>
-<h2 class="main">EDGMIATSIN AND THE ARMENIAN CHURCH</h2>
-</div>
-<div class="divBody">
-<p class="par first">At five o&rsquo;clock in the afternoon of the 4th
-of October we set out for Edgmiatsin. It is a drive of about thirteen
-miles across the plain. Our luggage was consigned to a waggon of the
-post, and we ourselves enjoyed the luxury of a light victoria, drawn by
-four horses abreast. They covered the distance in an hour and forty
-minutes, although the road is in many places a mere track.</p>
-<p class="par">What a drive! It is so well within reach of Europe that
-it ought to be included, like the journey to Italy, in the programme of
-a liberal education. The railway will before long arrive at Erivan, and
-then the pilgrimage will be still easier to undertake. Not all the
-tourists in the world will disturb the harmony of this landscape; the
-screeching trains, the loud hotels, the Babel of tongues will be lost,
-like a flight of starlings, in this expanse. It is here that the spirit
-of Asia is most intensely present&mdash;an inner sanctuary to those
-outer courts through which the traveller may have wandered and never
-crossed the threshold of this plain. And it is a spirit and an
-influence which arouse deep chords within us and send them sounding
-through our lives.</p>
-<p class="par">The landscape at once combines and accentuates the
-salient features of the Asiatic highlands. There is the plain which was
-once the bed of an inland sea. It stretches west and east without
-visible limits; and this evening it has all the appearance of water. In
-the west it is mirage which produces this effect. The long
-north-western slope of the Ararat fabric assumes the character of a
-dark and narrow promontory rising on an opposite shore. From the east,
-beyond the train of the Little Ararat, a cold mist&mdash;may it be from
-the Caspian?&mdash;is slowly wafted over the steppe, and the illusion
-is complete. Into those liquid spaces sweep the basal vaultings of
-Alag&ouml;z&mdash;the boulder-strewn declivities <span class=
-"pagenum">[<a id="pb229" href="#pb229" name=
-"pb229">229</a>]</span>which we keep on our right hand, and which seem
-to embody on a typical scale that quality of hopeless sterility which
-is characteristic of vast portions of the continent. But the same vague
-distance receives the Zanga, diffused into many channels, and lost
-beneath luxuriant foliage. For over a quarter of an hour after leaving
-Erivan we pass at a rapid trot between the walls of orchards; and in
-places the water gushes from the conduits across the road. Once outside
-this intricate zone the track wanders over the idle soil, skirting the
-stony slopes in the north. In the opposite direction the plain blooms
-with fields of cotton and rice, sustained by a small canal which
-pursues a westerly course before it falls into the Araxes, if indeed it
-flow so far.</p>
-<p class="par">And there are the mountains of Asia&mdash;the volcanoes
-with their vaulted summits, as well as those long ridges with their
-serrated outline which represent the operation of less impetuous forces
-through longer spaces of time. To this second category belongs the fine
-chain on the west of Ararat which gains in definition as we proceed. It
-stands a little back and behind the fabric of Ararat, and volcanoes too
-have built themselves up upon this wall. But its rugged and tumbled
-appearance is the feature which predominates, in striking contrast to
-the symmetry of the mountain of the Ark. That giant overpowers the
-lesser Ararat and appropriates their common base. One stands in wonder
-at the force which could have rent that massive pedestal and opened the
-yawning chasm which fronts the plain. Night creeps into those recesses,
-where the blaze of a Kurdish camp-fire calls attention to the
-extraordinary transparence of the air. The snow-fields, bare and cold
-above the amber of the sunset, are already free of their coronal of
-cloud. One full-puffed vapour still floats behind the uppermost
-pinnacle; another clings to the bastion on the north-west. While we
-admire this stately scene, made more impressive by the heavy silence, a
-grove of trees rises from the steppe on our point of course. Two little
-conical shapes just emerge above their outline, and are recognised as
-the domes of Edgmiatsin.</p>
-<p class="par">We pass through the thin plantation, sustained by
-runnels derived from Alag&ouml;z, and come to a halt before the doorway
-of a lofty mud wall with round towers at intervals. It might belong to
-a Persian fortress; but it is the outer wall which surrounds the
-cloister with the cathedral of St. Gregory. The massive gate is
-<span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb230" href="#pb230" name=
-"pb230">230</a>]</span>closed, and we thump and thump for some time in
-vain. The parapet with its crumbling surface betrays no sign of the
-life within. But there is just sufficient light to reveal the
-surroundings of the fortified enclosure&mdash;a straggling village of
-above-ground houses, outlying churches, poplars, dust.<a class=
-"noteref" id="xd21e5758src" href="#xd21e5758" name=
-"xd21e5758src">1</a></p>
-<p class="par"></p>
-<div class="figure xd21e5765width" id="fig047"><img src=
-"images/fig047.jpg" alt="Fig. 47. Pilgrims&rsquo; Court, Edgmiatsin."
-width="612" height="450">
-<p class="figureHead"><span class="sc"><span class="figNum">Fig.
-47.</span> Pilgrims&rsquo; Court, Edgmiatsin.</span></p>
-</div>
-<p class="par"></p>
-<p class="par">At last the hinges creak and the porter appears. We are
-ushered into a court, like that of a college at Cambridge, adjoining
-the great gate which is in the south wall. It is known as the
-pilgrims&rsquo; court (Fig. <a href="#fig047">47</a>). Low buildings,
-rudely built, with a continuous wooden verandah, compose the
-quadrangle. The windows are all lit up behind a line of young trees of
-which the foliage rustles in the night air. Several figures may be
-discerned on the steps of a basin of water in the centre of the court.
-The place is all bustle and stir. Every room, so we are told, in the
-whole monastery is occupied by as many people as it will hold. Quarters
-have been reserved for us in the principal court; but we are not
-expected until to-morrow. Sooner than <span class="pagenum">[<a id=
-"pb231" href="#pb231" name="pb231">231</a>]</span>disturb the peace of
-evening we retire to a room in the village where we erect our camp
-beds. It is quite a dormitory. My immediate neighbour speaks English
-and is a correspondent of the <i>Daily News</i>. He is an Armenian
-gentleman who has come all the way from Tabriz, partly in the capacity
-of delegate of his countrymen in the Persian city, and partly as the
-representative of the London newspaper. He talks incessantly; his
-companions do the same. The great event of the coming days will form an
-epoch in their lives, and every incident will be indelibly imprinted
-upon their memories. A thrilling and detailed narrative will be
-despatched to London, where it will filter through the brain of the
-sub-editor and issue in the form of a paragraph in small type.</p>
-<p class="par">But the newspaper will be to blame; for it is an event,
-this consecration of the latest pontiff of the Armenian Church. It is
-an event both by reason of the personality of the new katholikos and
-because within recent years the fact has slowly dawned upon Europe that
-the politics of Western Asia must react upon the Western peoples, and
-that in those politics the Armenians are destined to play a part. The
-Church is at the present day the only native institution which has been
-preserved to that people. All their aspirations as human beings
-desirous to live as human beings are focussed by that single
-organisation. The broad democratic basis upon which reposes the
-election of the patriarch invests him with a representative character.
-Moreover he is not chosen by a section of his countrymen but by the
-nation as a whole. The Armenians of Turkey and of Persia as well as
-those within Russian territory contribute their suffrages. It is
-therefore only natural that, in the absence of secular institutions,
-the head of the Church should be much more than a merely spiritual
-ruler, and should reflect and in no small measure be expected to
-instruct the temporal hopes and fears of his flock.</p>
-<p class="par">The Russian Government have not been slow in recognising
-this fact; nor does the anxiety with which it is regarded in official
-circles date from the contemporary prominence of the Armenian Question.
-In the heyday of their relations with this Christian nation which
-hailed them as liberators, and which was placed in the very centre of
-the Mussulman peoples over which they were slowly establishing their
-sway, the Russians lavished favours upon Edgmiatsin;<a class="noteref"
-id="xd21e5786src" href="#xd21e5786" name="xd21e5786src">2</a> and
-rightly or wrongly they are now <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb232"
-href="#pb232" name="pb232">232</a>]</span>accused by their Armenian
-allies, become their subjects, of having excited hopes which, when they
-had served the ends of Russian policy, were rudely and almost brutally
-suppressed. It is certain that the Armenian inhabitants of the
-provinces which now belong to Russia favoured the Russians in their
-campaigns against Persia and Turkey at the risk of reprisals on the
-part of their Mussulman masters. They smoothed the way for the
-extension of the Russian Empire from the valley of the Kur to that of
-the Araxes. The first great step in this direction was effected at the
-commencement of the present century, when the kingdom of Georgia was
-organised into a Russian province. The acquisition of Georgia afforded
-the Russians a foothold upon the tableland, and brought them into
-direct contact with the Persians and with the Turks. Their first battle
-against the Persians was fought on the 20th of June 1804, and resulted
-in the repulse of the Shah&rsquo;s forces, which were led by his son,
-the famous Abbas Mirza. This action took place in the immediate
-neighbourhood of Edgmiatsin, and on the same day upon which was
-celebrated the annual festival of St. Ripsime, one of the saints who
-are the special glory of the cloister. The Armenians did not disguise
-the direction of their sympathies, and attributed, the Russian victory
-to the intervention of their Saint.<a class="noteref" id="xd21e5802src"
-href="#xd21e5802" name="xd21e5802src">3</a> Ten years later, when the
-monastery was visited by Morier, the patriarch was wearing a high
-Russian order, of which the star glittered on his purple robe.<a class=
-"noteref" id="xd21e5811src" href="#xd21e5811" name="xd21e5811src">4</a>
-<span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb233" href="#pb233" name=
-"pb233">233</a>]</span></p>
-<p class="par">In 1828 Edgmiatsin was annexed to Russia after the
-capture of Erivan from the Persians and as a result of the Treaty of
-Turkomanchai. Throughout the wars which ensued with Turkey the
-Armenians espoused the Russian cause; and one cannot doubt that their
-assistance was of considerable benefit both to Paskevich during the
-campaigns of 1828&ndash;29, and to Loris Melikoff, himself of Armenian
-origin, in that of 1877.<a class="noteref" id="xd21e5832src" href=
-"#xd21e5832" name="xd21e5832src">5</a> Little by little a certain
-bitterness becomes appreciable in these honeymoon relations. The origin
-or perhaps the reflection of this new feeling may be found in the
-provisions of the important statute which defines the status of the
-Armenian Church in Russia and regulates the constitution of Edgmiatsin.
-This statute, which is generally known as the <i>Polojenye</i>, is
-headed by the signature of the Tsar Nicholas and bears the date of
-March 1836. It was translated for me by one of the monks. In some
-respects it deals most liberally with the national Church. Her
-congregations are accorded full liberty of worship, and her clergy are
-relieved from all civil burdens. The principle of the election of the
-katholikos by the whole Armenian people professing the national
-religion is expressly recognised. The method of his election is
-minutely prescribed. The national delegates assemble in the church of
-St. Gregory, and submit two names to the Emperor, who makes the
-appointment.<a class="noteref" id="xd21e5844src" href="#xd21e5844"
-name="xd21e5844src">6</a> On the other hand, in <span class=
-"pagenum">[<a id="pb234" href="#pb234" name="pb234">234</a>]</span>true
-Russian fashion, what is given with one hand is taken away with the
-other. The synod of Edgmiatsin is an ancient institution which,
-according to Armenian traditions, advises the katholikos, and may even
-resist him should he desire to effect changes in matters intimately
-affecting the national faith.<a class="noteref" id="xd21e5873src" href=
-"#xd21e5873" name="xd21e5873src">7</a> The <i>Polojenye</i> emphasises
-and develops the constitutional importance of this body, and places it
-under the titular presidency of the Emperor. The decrees of the synod
-are headed &ldquo;By order of the Emperor of Russia&rdquo;; and they
-are submitted to a Russian procurator, resident at Edgmiatsin, who
-examines into their validity. In matters of a purely spiritual nature
-the katholikos takes counsel with the synod, but need not necessarily
-accept its recommendations. But in all the general business of the
-Church, as well as of the cloister, it is the synod which has
-jurisdiction subject to the approval of the Minister of the Interior.
-In the synod, which consists of eight priests resident at Edgmiatsin,
-the katholikos has no more than a casting vote. It is true that he
-might act by Bull. But such action, were it contrary to the resolutions
-of the synod, would, as matters now stand, be revolutionary. In this
-manner the katholikos is put into leading strings, of which the ends
-are held by the officials on the banks of the Neva, duly instructed by
-a professed and resident spy. <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb235"
-href="#pb235" name="pb235">235</a>]</span></p>
-<p class="par">Nor are the remaining provisions of this double-faced
-instrument calculated to shed balm over the wounded dignity of the head
-of the Church. It is the Emperor who appoints the members of the synod,
-although the katholikos is entrusted with the important function of
-submitting two names for the Imperial choice. It is not legal for the
-pontiff to punish a member of the synod without the Imperial consent.
-The same authority is necessary should he desire to suspend a bishop.
-He may not leave the cloister for more than four months except with the
-sanction of the Tsar. When a bishopric falls vacant he submits names to
-the Emperor, with whom the appointment rests. Should the bishop desire
-to go abroad for more than four months, application must be made to the
-same high quarter. But perhaps the most serious because the most
-insidious weapon against the independence of the national Church is the
-provision which enacts that a year shall elapse between the death of a
-katholikos and the election of his successor. This clause was accepted
-with singular want of foresight at a time when travelling was even
-slower than it is at the present day, and when it was difficult to
-collect the delegates from Turkey and Persia within a lesser period. In
-practice it is not easy for the new katholikos to take up his duties
-until some time subsequent to his election; and, should further delay
-be of advantage to the Government, the Tsar can always defer confirming
-the choice of the representatives. Thus a vacancy in the Chair is
-always accompanied by a long interregnum, during which the Government
-plays off one party against the other, and succeeds in obtaining
-whatever concessions may have been resisted during the preceding
-pontificate.</p>
-<p class="par">An English traveller who visited Edgmiatsin the year
-after the conclusion of this enactment found the synod with its Russian
-procurator in full swing. The katholikos was at once reduced to a
-position of president of the synod, and the synod to one of
-subservience to Russian policy.<a class="noteref" id="xd21e5888src"
-href="#xd21e5888" name="xd21e5888src">8</a> Von Haxthausen speaks of
-the procurator as a Russian and quite an autocrat; this was in
-1843.<a class="noteref" id="xd21e5894src" href="#xd21e5894" name=
-"xd21e5894src">9</a> At that time the pontiff Nerses was in occupation
-of the Chair, and his conspicuous abilities were <span class=
-"pagenum">[<a id="pb236" href="#pb236" name=
-"pb236">236</a>]</span>regarded with suspicion by the Russian
-authorities. His schemes for the higher education of the Armenians had
-come to nothing owing to Russian opposition. But the hardest blow was
-reserved for the year 1885, when the Katholikos Makar was appointed by
-the Emperor in defiance of the expressed sentiments of the delegates of
-the nation. It was then realised that the independence of the Church
-was at an end. The ukase of investiture confirmed this pessimist view.
-Instead of the usual wording &ldquo;upon the recommendation of the
-Armenian people,&rdquo; the appointment was based &ldquo;upon the
-recommendation of the clergy.&rdquo; Instead of the pictures from
-Armenian history which adorned the ukase of the pontiff George, Russian
-insignia and coats of arms enlivened the scroll. The constitutional
-phrase has been restored to the ukase confirming the present pontiff,
-but not the patriotic pictures!<a class="noteref" id="xd21e5910src"
-href="#xd21e5910" name="xd21e5910src">10</a></p>
-<p class="par"></p>
-<div class="figure floatRight xd21e5926width" id="fig048"><img src=
-"images/fig048.jpg" alt="Fig. 48. The Katholikos Mekertich Khrimean."
-width="357" height="461">
-<p class="figureHead"><span class="sc"><span class="figNum">Fig.
-48.</span> The Katholikos Mekertich Khrimean.</span></p>
-</div>
-<p class="par"></p>
-<p class="par">Still, in spite of the fetters which have been imposed
-upon the actions of the katholikos, as much by the manner in which the
-<i>Polojenye</i> is worked by the Russian bureaucracy as by the
-provisions which that statute contains, the average Armenian and
-especially the lower classes are immensely interested in the event of
-the coming days. At Batum, at Kutais, at Alexandropol, at
-Erivan&mdash;wherever we have been in the society of Armenians, talk
-has centred upon the triumphal journey and the approaching consecration
-of His Holiness Mekertich Khrimean. It is not only the ancient
-ceremony, and it is not merely the assembling of delegates from all
-parts of the Armenian world that appeals to the heart of the nation. It
-is the personality and reputation of the man. The people forgets, but
-it does not change. The imagination of the race still sees in the
-holder of the pontifical office not alone or so much an archbishop or
-katholikos&mdash;the keystone of the edifice of the Church&mdash;as a
-high priest in the old Biblical sense. Khrimean is the ideal of a high
-priest. He is a figure which steps straight out from the Old
-<span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb237" href="#pb237" name=
-"pb237">237</a>]</span>Testament with all the fire and all the poetry.
-At the ceremony of his consecration it seemed as if at the foot of
-Ararat the ancient spirit were still alive, and that the holy oil which
-descended upon that venerable head from the beak of the golden dove
-anointed a law-giver to the people who announced the Divine Word. This
-impression was in part derived from the Semitic cast of his features.
-The large brown eyes and aquiline nose above a long and full beard, are
-characteristics which we associate with the Jewish nation, but which
-are not uncommon among the Armenians. What is more rare among this
-people is the spirituality and refinement which is written in every
-line of this handsome face (Fig. <a href="#fig048">48</a>). But the
-whole character of the man would seem to have been moulded upon a
-Biblical model rather than upon that of the Christian hierarchy. He is
-the tried statesman to whom the people look for guidance in the
-abeyance of the kingly office. With him religion and patriotism are
-almost interchangeable terms; and the strong reality which he has given
-to the old Armenian history may be illustrated by an act which those
-who lack sympathy with such a character might almost regard as
-childish. In the cloister of Varag near Van, over which he has presided
-for many years, are buried the remains of Senekerim, king of the Van
-country, who abdicated his kingdom in favour of the Byzantine emperor,
-Basil II., and retired to the town of Sivas in Asia Minor, which he
-received in exchange. Over his tomb a wooden canopy had been erected
-and decorated in a manner befitting royal rank. But such honours, paid
-to so unworthy a monarch, shocked the keen sense <span class=
-"pagenum">[<a id="pb238" href="#pb238" name="pb238">238</a>]</span>of
-the patriot in Khrimean; he stripped the frame of its trappings and
-ornaments, and the structure stands bare to this day. The simple
-surroundings among which his life has been passed recall the setting of
-a Bible story. At a later stage of our journey, when we arrived in the
-town of Van, I was shown the house where he had resided and which he
-has now devoted to a school for girls. As I alighted to visit the
-school a man with the appearance and dress of a peasant stepped forward
-to hold the reins of my horse. Yet this individual was none other than
-the nephew of the Katholikos, and the brother of Khoren Khrimean, who
-has accompanied his uncle to Edgmiatsin, and who does the honours of
-the patriarchal household with so much dignity and natural grace.
-During our stay in Van, his native province, we were afforded an
-instance of the magnetic influence which through a long life Mekertich
-Khrimean has exercised upon his countrymen, and which takes the form of
-superstitious veneration among the humble and the poor. As we were
-winding up the slopes of Mount Varag on our way to the ancient
-monastery where he lived so long, teaching in the school which he had
-founded within its walls, and often taking this very path from the
-cloister to preach in the little church of Hankusner, on the outskirts
-of the gardens of Van, our attention was called to a spot where an
-assassin had lain in wait for him, deputed by his enemies to kill him
-as he rode unaccompanied towards the town. The story is told that when
-the man perceived him and raised his rifle to his shoulder, a sudden
-fear seized his limbs, his arm shook like a wand; and he fell upon his
-knees before his victim, whose look he had been unable to bear. As a
-writer Khrimean has expressed through the vehicle of a prose which is
-full of poetry and emotion conceptions of Scripture and thoughts upon
-the troubles of his time which might have sprung from the warm
-imagination of the early Christians in the East. He has often suffered
-for the fire of his sermons, and he possesses both the style of the
-consummate orator and the personal charm which keeps an audience under
-a spell. He has for many years been in the forefront of the Armenian
-movement; and it was he who pleaded the Armenian cause at the Congress
-of Berlin. A people whose spirit has been crushed and whose manhood has
-been degraded gather new life from such a teacher and learn to become
-men. But perhaps the most striking quality in a character which is at
-once complex and clear as the light of <span class="pagenum">[<a id=
-"pb239" href="#pb239" name="pb239">239</a>]</span>day is the
-ever-welling kindness and open-armed sympathy with which he shares the
-troubles of his fellow-men. As the throng press round him, the holder
-of their highest office, and endeavour to kiss his hand or gain a
-glimpse of his face, the mind travels back to that solemn scene in
-which the Greek king receives his stricken and distracted people:
-&ldquo;O my poor children, known to me, not unknown is the subject of
-your prayer; well am I aware that you are sore afflicted all; yet,
-though you suffer, there is not one among you who suffers even as I.
-For the grief you bear comes to each one alone&mdash;himself for
-himself he suffers&mdash;and to none other else; but my soul mourns for
-the State and for myself and you.&rdquo;<a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e5948src" href="#xd21e5948" name="xd21e5948src">11</a></p>
-<p class="par">Side by side with personal relations of greater freedom
-than I had anticipated towards this remarkable man, there grew up at
-Edgmiatsin and during the course of subsequent travel a fairly intimate
-acquaintance with the events of his life. He was born on the 5th of
-April 1820; and it is therefore in his seventy-fourth year that he
-ascends the throne of St. Thaddeus and of St. Gregory. His father and
-uncle were well-to-do citizens of Van, who had come to be known under
-the name of Khrimean because of a trade which they had conducted with
-the Crimea. The young Mekertich had a single brother and no sisters;
-and he appears to have been educated with some care by his uncle. His
-youth and early manhood were devoted to secular pursuits. For five or
-six years he acted in the capacity of an overseer in a weaving
-business. But already in 1841 he had become a traveller and a thinker;
-in that year he made a journey in the province of Ararat and visited
-Edgmiatsin. At the age of twenty-five he married and in due course
-became a father; but his wife died after giving birth to a daughter who
-only lived to be six or seven years old. To a layman of intellectual
-tastes among the Armenians of Turkey there is scarcely any other
-profession open than the honourable but ill-paid calling of a teacher.
-Shortly after his marriage Khrimean proceeded to the capital and earned
-his living by private tuition. His first book appeared in 1850, and
-consisted of a description in poetry of his travels in Ararat. The
-period of his residence in Constantinople was diversified by further
-journeys; to Jerusalem and the Holy Land, of which he published an
-account; and to Cilicia, the seat of the latest Armenian dynasty, where
-he remained some time as <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb240" href=
-"#pb240" name="pb240">240</a>]</span>a teacher in the convent of Sis.
-In 1854 he returned to his native city, and in the following year took
-orders and became a <i>vardapet</i> or monastic priest. It is at this
-date that the more conspicuous portion of his life may be said to have
-commenced. The pulpit gave full scope to his natural eloquence; while
-the qualities of the student and writer, which he had carefully
-cultivated, were displayed in the columns of a journal which he founded
-about 1856 and named the <i>Eagle of Vaspurakan</i>, or of the province
-of Van. The proceeds of the sale of this periodical, which was at first
-printed at Constantinople, whither he had returned in 1855, enabled him
-to purchase an instrument of great rareness in Turkey, which the
-Armenians prize with the same childish affection and reverence as the
-Persian highlanders value a rifle or sporting gun. Khrimean re-entered
-Van with the title of abbot of the famous monastery which overlooks the
-landscape of the city and the rock and the waters from the slopes of
-Mount Varag. He came the proud possessor of a printing press, with
-which to conquer the sloth of the faint-hearted among the laymen and
-edify the crass ignorance of the priests.</p>
-<p class="par">In the good old times in Turkey one might read or write
-what books one liked, and the freedom which was enjoyed by the average
-individual might have excited the envy of the citizens of some of the
-European states. When the abbot of Varag cast his stone into the
-stagnant waters, the report woke little echo beyond the borders of his
-native province and the ranks of his countrymen. But the waves which he
-set in motion have never yet subsided; and who can tell upon what shore
-of promise or disappointment they are destined to break and disappear?
-If ever there was a good cause, such was the cause which he championed,
-and no advocate could be more pure-minded than himself. His avowed
-object and real aim was the elevation of the Armenians and their
-preparation for the new era which he foresaw. That era he conceived as
-one of national activity in the rapid decline of the Mussulman peoples
-and the approach of new influences from the West. If we tax him with
-having resuscitated a realised and played-out ideal&mdash;that national
-ideal which is still the bane of our modern Europe, but which, except
-perhaps in the case of some paradoxical German Professors, has lost its
-hold upon educated minds, he might reply that it is the only talisman
-with which to touch the Armenians, the most obstinate nationalists
-which the world has ever seen. He might <span class="pagenum">[<a id=
-"pb241" href="#pb241" name="pb241">241</a>]</span>further point to the
-almost hopeless condition of the Ottoman Empire, and under his breath
-he might suggest that the methods of Russian despotism were not such as
-to excite the enthusiasm of a strongly individual people capable of
-assimilating Western culture at first hand. Lastly, he might dwell upon
-the fact that the Armenians have a long history, and that their
-progress, to be solid and permanent, must be based on a revival of
-consciousness in the dignity of their past.</p>
-<p class="par">But the inculcation of such doctrines in the minds of
-his countrymen was sure to produce a ferment among a people who have
-been regarded as the inferiors and almost as the slaves of the
-Mussulmans for upwards of eight hundred years. It was imputed to him
-that he was working to revive the old Armenian kingdom&mdash;a
-consummation which a sensible Turk should regard with equanimity, since
-the time necessary to attain this end would far exceed all possible
-limits which he might assign to his solicitude for posterity. But
-sensible people are a minority of the inhabitants of this globe, and
-they are not numerous in the governing circles of the Ottoman Empire.
-The great activity of the Abbot of Varag, who trained his youths in the
-school of the cloister to conduct unaided the redoubtable magazine,
-slowly aroused the suspicion of the authorities. His own party in the
-Church supported him with much zeal, and another monastery, still more
-famous, that of Surb Karapet above Mush plain, was added to his
-spiritual administration. No sooner was he installed than a second
-printing press was set up and another school founded. The Armenians of
-the plain of Mush were edified by a new local journal, the <i>Little
-Eagle of Taron</i>. In 1869 he was elected Patriarch of Constantinople,
-a dignity which he only held for four years. The Turkish Government had
-become alive to his great and growing popularity, and it was found
-expedient that he should resign. Then came the tribulations of the
-Russo-Turkish war, during which the new movement among the Armenians
-cost them several little massacres and untoward events. When the
-Congress met at Berlin the ex-patriarch, who had been busy with
-literature, undertook, in concert with an archiepiscopal colleague, a
-mission on behalf of his nation to the German capital. This was his
-first visit to the West, and he extended his journey to Italy, France
-and England. The result of his efforts and of those of Nerses,
-Patriarch of Constantinople, was the insertion of the <span class=
-"pagenum">[<a id="pb242" href="#pb242" name=
-"pb242">242</a>]</span>well-known clause in the Treaty of Berlin
-pledging Europe to supervise the execution of reforms in the Asiatic
-provinces of Turkey inhabited by Armenians. Khrimean returned to his
-native country the object of the resentment of the Ottoman authorities;
-much of this portion of his life was spent in Van. But Armenian
-discontent was spreading; the alarm of Government was increasing; and
-in 1889 the eloquent preacher was sent to Jerusalem in honorary exile.
-In the month of May 1892 he was elected to the primacy of the Armenian
-Church. The Russian bureaucracy perhaps reflected that their safeguards
-at Edgmiatsin were quite sufficient to bridle the vigour of a
-septuagenarian. These shrewd diplomats therefore humoured the Armenians
-in the matter, and the election was allowed to stand. The Sultan raised
-difficulties about releasing the exiled prelate from his Ottoman
-nationality and oath of allegiance. When this objection had been
-overcome his consent was qualified by the condition that the
-katholikos-elect should not pass through Constantinople. A year elapsed
-in these parleyings. For two years the Armenian Church had been without
-a head. During that period it had been ruled by the Russian procurator.
-Now in the autumn the elect of the nation is at length presented to the
-delegates who have assembled from all parts of the Armenian world. And
-he comes from Russia, from the north, released from exile in Turkey at
-the pressing instance of the Tsar. One must admire the extraordinary
-cleverness of these Russian bureaucrats!</p>
-<p class="par">The sun was already high when we sallied forth from our
-lodging, having with great difficulty prepared our breakfast in the
-crowded room. We passed down the long and dusty street of the village,
-which is dignified by the historical name of Vagharshapat. Nothing
-remains of the capital of King Tiridates, which was built upon this
-site or in the immediate neighbourhood. You are shown the remains of an
-old bridge which spanned the Kasagh, or river of Vagharshapat, some
-little distance north-west of the present settlement. The river has
-changed its course since it was erected. But the character of the
-masonry is rather that which was prevalent in the Middle
-Ages&mdash;conglomerate piles, faced with carefully hewn and jointed
-blocks of stone. Several shops bestow a modern appearance upon the
-street, having windows and being disposed as in Europe. A commonplace
-edifice with many windows and standing in private grounds recalls an
-Institute in one of our provincial towns. It is the <span class=
-"pagenum">[<a id="pb243" href="#pb243" name=
-"pb243">243</a>]</span>Academy or Seminary. We entered the cloister
-from a door on the north, through which we issued into an open space on
-the west of the great court. A covered way conducted us to the
-quadrangle, in the centre of which rises the cathedral (Fig. <a href=
-"#fig049">49</a>, taken from south-west).</p>
-<p class="par">Imagine the Old Court of Trinity College at Cambridge
-without the gateway, the hall and chapel, and with a church of some
-size placed in the centre where the fountain stands. All four sides of
-the figure are defined by low buildings, resembling the dwellings which
-constitute two sides of the Cambridge court. I had always understood
-that our quadrangle at Trinity was the largest in the world; although I
-believe some American university was building one a few inches bigger
-not so very long ago. But the great court of Edgmiatsin perhaps already
-makes the record; it has a length, from west to east, of <span class=
-"measure" title="106 meter">349 feet</span> <span class="measure"
-title="15.2 centimeter">6 inches</span>, and a breadth of <span class=
-"measure" title="102 meter">335 feet</span> <span class="measure"
-title="5.08 centimeter">2 inches</span>. These measurements I took
-myself, much to the astonishment of the crowd which assembled; they
-were at a loss to find a theory which might explain so strange an act.
-The length will be very much increased in a short while, when the
-condemned east side has disappeared. A fine row of stone buildings is
-in course of erection, which will enlarge that dimension by many yards.
-Our cousins across the Atlantic must bestir themselves.</p>
-<p class="par"></p>
-<div class="figure xd21e5997width" id="fig049"><img src=
-"images/fig049.jpg" alt=
-"Fig. 49. Edgmiatsin: The Great Court and the Cathedral." width="720"
-height="500">
-<p class="figureHead"><span class="sc"><span class="figNum">Fig.
-49.</span> Edgmiatsin: The Great Court and the Cathedral.</span></p>
-</div>
-<p class="par"></p>
-<p class="par">The western side of the court on the south of the
-covered way is devoted to the residence of the Katholikos, while the
-block on the north of the same passage is occupied by the bishops.
-There is no style or pomp about the pontifical dwelling; and it would
-bear the same relation to the Master&rsquo;s Lodge at Trinity as a
-four-roomed cottage to a mansion. At the back is a little garden. The
-north side consists of the rooms inhabited by the monks, and a terrace,
-raised on pointed arches, extends from end to end. The building on the
-east is in process of demolition, and, like its fellows on the two
-sides which have already been described, is composed of comparatively
-fragile material. I was given to understand that it had once housed the
-seminary and printing press; a little bakery still occupies the
-junction with the buildings on the south. These are constructed of
-stone, and, although very plain, lend an air of solidity to the entire
-quadrangle. Beginning on the west of this block we have first a long
-refectory on the ground floor. Its dimensions are a length of
-<span class="measure" title="47.2 meter">155 feet</span>, and a breadth
-of <span class="measure" title="4.88 meter">16 feet</span> <span class=
-"measure" title="15.2 centimeter">6 inches</span>. But it is a very
-<span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb244" href="#pb244" name=
-"pb244">244</a>]</span>humble place when compared to the magnificent
-dining halls at Cambridge, and it is not more than <span class=
-"measure" title="4.27 meter">14 feet</span> in height. The ceiling is
-vaulted, and like the walls is whitewashed over; the apartment is well
-lit and is cool in summer. Two rows of narrow tables extend down it,
-and on the west side is the throne and the canopy of the Katholikos,
-both in carved wood. Should he join the monks at dinner, his table is
-spread beneath the canopy. Parallel with this refectory and facing the
-outhouses on the south is placed a similar chamber for the servants, a
-part of the space upon the east being occupied by the kitchen. The
-storey above the refectories is tenanted by the library, while the
-eastern portion of the buildings is taken up by granaries and store
-rooms both on the ground and upper floors.</p>
-<p class="par"></p>
-<div class="figure xd21e6022width" id="map03"><a href=
-"images/map03-h.png"><img src="images/map03.png" alt=
-"Plan of the Monastery of Edgmiatsin" width="720" height="501"></a>
-<p class="figureHead"><span class="sc">Plan of the Monastery of
-Edgmiatsin</span></p>
-<p class="par first">(<i>Based upon Brosset</i>)</p>
-<p class="par"><span class="sc">Plan of the Cathedral of
-Edgmiatsin</span></p>
-<p class="par"><span class="sc">Plan of Surb Gaiane</span></p>
-<p class="par"><span class="sc">Plan of Surb Ripisme</span></p>
-<p class="par"><span class="sc">Plan of Shoghakath</span></p>
-</div>
-<p class="par"></p>
-<p class="par">Except for the pilgrims&rsquo; court, with adjacent
-structures, and the garden of the Katholikos&mdash;the one on the
-southern, the other on the south-western side&mdash;the space between
-the outer wall and the great court is for the most part vacant ground.
-What edifices there have been raised within it are of an unsubstantial
-character, and may have been allowed to fall into ruin. The fine sites
-which are thus forthcoming are being rapidly utilised, and I have
-already referred to the row of buildings which will extend the great
-court upon the east and which at the time of our visit were approaching
-completion. In a line with this new block, in which red and grey stones
-diversify the masonry, is situated further south the house which lodges
-the printing press, a solid stone structure. The transformation of
-Edgmiatsin from a residence of ignorant monks into a seat of education,
-the home of cultured men, is proceeding year by year; and it is even
-possible that the bricks and mortar, or, to speak more correctly, the
-excellent masonry is in advance of the needs which it is intended to
-supply. Wealthy Armenians are fond of endowing the famous cloister, for
-which they do not need the incitement of meetings at some Devonshire
-House. But the form of gift dearest to them is the erection of a
-building, which stands there so that all may see. This preference for
-the concrete and visible is deeply ingrained in them, and they are able
-to gratify it owing to the great skill of the Armenian masons. Plans
-were shown me which provided a palace for the Katholikos and the
-rebuilding of the north side of the quadrangle. These, I believe, have
-already been decided upon, one of our party at the private table of the
-Katholikos having provided the greater part of the <span class=
-"pagenum">[<a id="pb245" href="#pb245" name=
-"pb245">245</a>]</span>funds. I was also invited to look at some very
-elaborate drawings for the enlargement and adornment of the church. No
-sooner had they been handed round than one of the guests of His
-Holiness expressed his readiness to defray the cost. Speaking as one
-who came fresh to Edgmiatsin, I did my best to dissuade the acceptance
-of this last project. To enlarge the church would be to dwarf the fine
-proportions of the court; indeed the contrary course would be
-well-advised. One would not very much regret the abolition of the
-portal, while the excrescence on the east, containing the treasury and
-room of relics, should certainly be pulled down. His Holiness favoured
-the idea of erecting a new church outside the walls, to supplement the
-space available in the present building.</p>
-<p class="par">We were assigned a room in the condemned block on the
-east of the quadrangle, wherein we spread our rugs and erected our camp
-beds. It was <span class="measure" title="7.92 meter">26 feet</span>
-square, with a lofty wooden ceiling, supported by two pillars of the
-same material. The adjoining apartment was in process of demolition,
-but, although without a roof, it served admirably as a kitchen, while
-the flooring provided fuel for our fire. When all was in order we
-should not have exchanged the results of our improvisation even for the
-creations of the Cambridge upholsterer, mellowed in the hands of the
-Cambridge bedmaker; while, as for living, was it not preferable to
-possess the whole of our scapegrace cook than to share the services of
-the most virtuous of gyps? Each day as we mounted our staircase, which
-exactly recalled its sad Cambridge counterparts, I was struck by the
-resemblance of my new surroundings to those among which I had grown up
-in the Old Court of Trinity, with the sky and the fountain and the
-adjacent cloister, where the glory of the foliage and lawn and river is
-spread in mystery beyond the trellis screens.</p>
-<p class="par">Even beneath this tropical sun the mind of man has
-surpassed his difficulties; and just as the Cam has been converted from
-a melancholy ditch into a brimming waterway, threading a landscape of
-lawn and forest, so the Kasagh has been impressed into the service of
-an artificial lake, bordered by shady avenues. Extremely pleasant is
-the stroll round this spacious basin, which is due to the refinement of
-Nerses V. (1761&ndash;1857). It is situated just outside and south of
-the cloister; and while from one side the view discloses the dome and a
-cupola of the cathedral (Fig. <a href="#fig050">50</a>), on the other
-it is the vault of Ararat and the pyramid <span class="pagenum">[<a id=
-"pb246" href="#pb246" name="pb246">246</a>]</span>of the Lesser Ararat
-that are outlined above the soft foreground of water and trees (Fig.
-<a href="#fig051">51</a>). It was a pleasure to instance this work to
-General Frese and my Russian acquaintances as bearing testimony to the
-sense of security inspired by Russian rule. The cloister and even the
-bazar are surrounded by walls worthy of a fortress, a relic from the
-old Persian times. The Russians appear on the scene, and the imprisoned
-monks disport in the open, which they make to bloom with luscious
-groves.</p>
-<p class="par"></p>
-<div class="figure xd21e6068width" id="fig050"><img src=
-"images/fig050.jpg" alt="Fig. 50. The Lake at Edgmiatsin." width="612"
-height="374">
-<p class="figureHead"><span class="sc"><span class="figNum">Fig.
-50.</span> The Lake at Edgmiatsin.</span></p>
-</div>
-<p class="par"></p>
-<p class="par">On the morning following a restful day which introduced
-us to our new environment I was invited to visit His Holiness. He had
-arrived within the walls of the cloister during our sojourn on Ararat,
-and it appeared that he had scarcely been able to leave his apartments
-owing to the enthusiasm of the humbler among his admirers, who could
-not be restrained from pressing round him whenever he walked abroad.
-This enforced seclusion had developed a tendency to asthma; but with
-this exception I found him in excellent health. Even the garden had
-been invaded by the peasants, who would wait hour after hour to catch a
-glimpse of their <i>Hayrik</i>&mdash;a term of endearment, signifying
-little father, under which Khrimean is very generally known. Two
-footmen in scarlet robes with blue sashes stood upon the flight of
-steps or busied themselves with errands. I was ushered into a long
-apartment, modestly furnished in European style, where I <span class=
-"pagenum">[<a id="pb247" href="#pb247" name="pb247">247</a>]</span>was
-received by an Armenian gentleman, of the handsome aquiline type of
-face, who addressed me in fluent English. He had been interpreter to
-the delegates to the Berlin Congress, and more recently had been much
-in the society of the Katholikos, residing at Jaffa (Jerusalem). Baron
-Serapion Murad&mdash;the first name is the equivalent of
-Mr.&mdash;holds a position of the first importance in the counsels of
-His Holiness at this juncture in his career. He is the shrewd man of
-the world, who weighs you in the balance with a single glance of his
-intelligent eyes. I appear to have emerged on the right side of the
-scale; for his formidable scrutiny rapidly relaxed into an amiable
-smile. We passed from this outer room into a chamber with a da&iuml;s
-at the further side; and presently the Katholikos entered and mounted
-the da&iuml;s, begging us be seated on two chairs which were placed on
-the floor below, but quite close to his own arm-chair.</p>
-<p class="par"></p>
-<div class="figure xd21e6083width" id="fig051"><img src=
-"images/fig051.jpg" alt="Fig. 51. Ararat from the Lake at Edgmiatsin."
-width="604" height="336">
-<p class="figureHead"><span class="sc"><span class="figNum">Fig.
-51.</span> Ararat from the Lake at Edgmiatsin.</span></p>
-</div>
-<p class="par"></p>
-<p class="par">I do not remember having ever seen a more handsome and
-engaging face; and I experienced a thrill of pleasure at the mere fact
-of sitting beside him and seeing the smile, which was evidently
-habitual to those features, play around the limpid brown eyes. The
-voice too is one of great sweetness, and the manner a quiet dignity
-with strength behind. The footmen and the da&iuml;s and the antechamber
-were soon forgotten in this presence&mdash;forms necessary to little
-men and perhaps useful to their superiors, though they are always
-kicking them off when they are not stumbling among their folds. Happily
-the temperament <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb248" href="#pb248"
-name="pb248">248</a>]</span>of His Holiness is averse to all baubles;
-the cross of diamonds was absent from his conical cowl, and his black
-silk robe, upon which fell a beard which was not yet white, was
-unrelieved by the star of his Russian order. These ornaments are
-strangely out of place on such a figure, and their formulas out of
-keeping with this character. I was closely questioned upon all the
-incidents of our climb on Ararat; nor was it doubted that we had
-reached the summit. In the old days such a pretension would have been
-met with a smile. Then we passed to his sojourn in England, and I asked
-his opinion of Mr. Gladstone, with whom he had enjoyed some
-intercourse. He had been impressed, like so many others, with the
-theological cast of that supple mind. The face contracted when we came
-to speak of his life in the Turkish provinces; and he laid stress upon
-the terrible reality of the sufferings of the Armenian inhabitants. All
-the struggles and hopes and anguish of his strenuous days and sleepless
-nights seemed to rise in the mind and choke the voice. Then he sank
-back, with a sigh which seemed to regret them. &ldquo;I have
-come,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;to the land of
-Forgetfulness.&rdquo;&mdash;And from the quadrangle came the sound of a
-slowly-moving Russian anthem, and the measured step of a detachment of
-Russian soldiers.</p>
-<p class="par">His Holiness invited me to take my meals in his private
-dining-room, and expressed his regret that he would not be present
-himself. It happened to be a fast day, and nothing was offered but
-lentils and peas. But on the day following quite a banquet was spread
-before us&mdash;salmon trout from Lake Sevan, delicious <i>dolmas</i>
-of minced meat and rice bound together by tender cabbage leaves, and
-the usual not very tasty chickens. At the head of the table sat the
-vicar or substitute of the Katholikos, with M. Pribil on a special
-mission representing the Emperor on his right hand, and General Frese
-on his left. One or two Armenian notables were of the party, which,
-however, consisted for the most part of bishops resident at Edgmiatsin.
-All wore their black silk cowls during the meal. As one looked down the
-line of clerics the aquiline type of face predominated&mdash;fine human
-animals they seemed, with their pronounced features and limpid eyes and
-the long beards which keep their colour and speak of a mind at ease.
-One of the monks present spoke French fluently; but he had been
-imported from the Crimea by the present Katholikos. His name was Khoren
-Stephaneh. Many <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb249" href="#pb249"
-name="pb249">249</a>]</span>a pleasant talk I had with him, but not
-during dinner; they have too much respect in the East for their food
-and cook to divert the tongue at such a time from its proper function.
-What little ripples of conversation diversified the natural sounds of
-the meal were due to that restless spirit of the West, which is always
-asking questions and living several hours in advance of the actually
-present time. I do not know that either of the high Russian
-functionaries were much troubled by this particular product of Western
-culture; but, if they were, they must have suffered from the inability
-of their hosts to comprehend their language. The wine of the cloister
-flowed freely, and was supplemented by European liqueurs. Then the
-restless spirit broke bounds, attacking first the taciturnity of the
-Governor of Erivan. The formula I had heard so often was the first to
-take wing; and &ldquo;How long are you staying here?&rdquo; came across
-the table in a somewhat loud voice. It was not the least unkindly
-meant. Next the same little sprite perched upon M. Pribil, and
-extracted several questions, which it let fly. When we rose from table
-he engaged me in a discursive conversation which ranged freely over the
-Armenian Question. He affirmed that the Armenians did not compose more
-than one-fifth of the population of the Russian provinces south of
-Caucasus.</p>
-<p class="par">The apartment was soon empty, every one retiring to
-their siesta; but I strolled out and made my way to the humble monastic
-buildings which adjoin the lonely church of Saint Gaiane. There I found
-a new friend whom I had learnt to value, a young monk recently
-ordained. Mesrop Ter-Mosesean belongs to the new school of clerics who
-will before long remove that stigma of crass ignorance which still
-attaches to the bulk of the Armenian priesthood. Men like Khrimean have
-long perceived that in matters of education Germany occupies the first
-position among the nations of the world. With greater insight than the
-Turks, who send their young men to Paris&mdash;the very worst school
-for the full-blooded Oriental&mdash;they encourage their promising
-scholars to study in Germany, and find the necessary funds. The monk of
-Gaiane had just returned from the German University, and he does credit
-to the solid attainments which it supplies. He is a splendid physical
-example of his race. Tall, with the bold features of the handsome type
-which I have described, with a massive forehead and teeth white as
-snow, he combines with these outward advantages a manner which is most
-<span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb250" href="#pb250" name=
-"pb250">250</a>]</span>winning and a simple, straightforward character.
-Hours I spent in his little sitting-room during my sojourn, and I was
-always sorry to come away. He occupies the post of librarian at
-Edgmiatsin, and he is now busy with the compilation of a new and
-comprehensive catalogue.<a class="noteref" id="xd21e6105src" href=
-"#xd21e6105" name="xd21e6105src">12</a> On this occasion we walked
-across to the library, and found it full of people. It is entered from
-the side of the Katholikos&rsquo; garden. I was shocked by the
-spectacle of valuable manuscripts lying open on a long table, and being
-fingered by a promiscuous crowd. Such was the license of this national
-festival. I noticed among them a New Testament of the tenth century,
-bound in richly carved ivory sides. The type and pose of the Christ in
-the centre of the one panel recalled that of a Roman emperor.<a class=
-"noteref" id="xd21e6111src" href="#xd21e6111" name=
-"xd21e6111src">13</a> Beautiful manuscripts of the thirteenth century
-and a minutely illuminated missal of the seventeenth figured among the
-treasures which any hand was allowed to soil.</p>
-<p class="par">Evensong was at hand, and my companion and myself
-entered the dimly-lit church. The Katholikos was already seated in the
-throne with the canopy, attired in a rich white satin robe. The cross
-of diamonds flashed from his cowl. Bishops and monks composed two rows,
-extending to the da&iuml;s of the apse; they wore robes of yellow silk,
-embroidered with coloured garlands of flowers. The congregation was
-very numerous, but clustered in groups about the Katholikos; there was
-no order or assignment of places, as with us. They sat or knelt upon
-the floor. On either side of the lines of clerics were gathered the
-choir, in gorgeous dresses, holding large and cumbrous books of
-Armenian music. The priests conducting the service stood upon the
-pavement of the church with their backs to the da&iuml;s. Above them
-rose the shapes of crosses and gorgeous eikons, held aloft by their
-attendants. Incense was scattered at intervals. I noticed that His
-Holiness twice changed raiment, although I was at a loss to discover
-when and where the transformation had taken place. The strongly nasal
-chants hurt my unaccustomed ear, and I found it impossible to educate
-my sympathy into communion with this show.</p>
-<p class="par">An hour or two later symbols and eikons and tight little
-<span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb251" href="#pb251" name=
-"pb251">251</a>]</span>formulas were all blissfully asleep; and the
-great court flooded over with good, healthy human spirits, released
-from the restraints of the day. Bonfires were lit within it, from which
-the leaping flames shot into the shadows of the church of the
-Illuminator and revealed the circles of the dancers. From many a
-brightly-lit room, given over to the pilgrims, came the shrill sounds
-of the flute and the beats of the small drum. Hai-this and
-Hai-that&mdash;the refrain and burden of every song celebrated the
-glories of the sons of Hayk. In the street of Vagharshapat our friends
-the musicians from Alexandropol were reaping a golden harvest. Was
-there ever collected together a more motley crowd? They must have come
-great distances. There were ladies from Akhaltsykh, with the pretty
-fillets across the brow; there were frock-coats and uniforms. The
-bright calicoes of peasant women enlivened the scene; some of the men,
-the poorest class, wore their rough sheepskin hats, while the
-better-to-do had donned low caps with a peak, like that of a naval
-officer. Long before midnight quiet had settled upon the great
-quadrangle, and nothing was heard but the plash of the fountain. But
-sombre patches marked the spots where whole families were encamped;
-while the steps all around the church and every niche and doorway were
-black with the forms of serried human beings in every attitude of
-slumber.</p>
-<p class="par">Next morning, the 8th of October, popular excitement was
-at its highest, the central event which they had come to celebrate
-being imminent. From the earliest dawn throngs of sheepskins and peak
-hats and coloured calicoes had been busy reconnoitring the most
-suitable positions; and, when the hour approached, all the roofs which
-commanded a view of the portal, and a good part of the quadrangle
-enjoying the same advantage, were densely packed with spectators. Rows
-of Russian soldiers kept clear the approaches to the western or
-principal entrance of the church. They wore dark green uniforms with
-shoulder-straps of a faded pink, and peaked caps of white canvas.
-Wesson and I made our way with difficulty to the residence of the
-Katholikos, where, in the private room of Baron Murad, we set up the
-camera right in face of the scene of the approaching ceremony. It had
-been decided to perform the rite of consecration upon a da&iuml;s in
-front of the portal. This improvised wooden structure was covered with
-carpets and costly embroideries. Over the doorway of the portal were
-emblazoned large Armenian letters upon a ground of cloth <span class=
-"pagenum">[<a id="pb252" href="#pb252" name="pb252">252</a>]</span>or
-canvas. The inscription reminded us that we were assembled upon the
-actual site where Jesus Christ is believed to have descended from
-heaven. The name of the cloister and cathedral is said to signify
-&ldquo;The Only-Begotten has descended&rdquo;; and the text over the
-doorway may be translated &ldquo;The Only-Begotten has descended from
-the Father, and the light of glorification with Him.&rdquo; Upon a
-higher plane, from the tower of the belfry, was suspended a banner,
-embroidered with the device of the Katholikos and with the eagle of
-Vaspurakan (Van). The device consisted of a mitre, surmounting the
-figures of two angels, one carrying a cross and the other a pastoral
-staff. These emblems crossed one another, and at the intersection was
-placed an ornament of diamond shape peculiar to the Katholikos. The
-eagle with the wings outspread was purely personal to Khrimean,
-recalling the many links which attach him to Van. The scroll was to the
-following effect:&mdash;&ldquo;O God, the knower of hearts, protect for
-long years our chief of shepherds (<i>Hovapet</i>) Mekertich
-Hayrik.&rdquo; Left and right of the da&iuml;s, in niches of the
-fa&ccedil;ade of the portal, were exhibited two eikons, or religious
-pictures, richly framed, of which that on the left&mdash;a Virgin and
-Child&mdash;was a painting of very high merit, said to be of Byzantine
-origin.</p>
-<p class="par"></p>
-<div class="figure floatLeft xd21e6132width" id="fig052"><img src=
-"images/fig052.jpg" alt="Fig. 52. Armenian Nun." width="352" height=
-"554">
-<p class="figureHead"><span class="sc"><span class="figNum">Fig.
-52.</span> Armenian Nun.</span></p>
-</div>
-<p class="par"></p>
-<p class="par">At a quarter to nine the procession is formed, and
-proceeds from the pontifical residence down the avenue of soldiers to
-the church door. The service which is held within the cathedral of the
-Illuminator lasts for over an hour. The party assembled in our upper
-chamber spend the time with conversation and in <span class=
-"pagenum">[<a id="pb253" href="#pb253" name=
-"pb253">253</a>]</span>gazing down upon the multitude. It consists of a
-nun from Tiflis, a frock-coated teacher in a school of that city, and a
-pretty woman of the rich Armenian <i lang="fr">bourgeoisie</i> of
-Tiflis, attired in a dress of Parisian model. The nun is a charming
-woman, and we make great friends. She informs me that she is almost an
-unique specimen of her order; the convent at Tiflis is perhaps a
-solecism. Nunneries are not popular with the Armenians. I think my
-reader may appreciate the magnificent robes which belong to her office,
-and of which, by her kindness, I am able to supply an illustration
-(Fig. <a href="#fig052">52</a>). I notice that among the women
-assembled in the quadrangle the Armenian national dress is not often
-seen. The Georgian head-dress&mdash;a band of black velvet, embroidered
-with beads or jewels, across the temples, and a white silk kerchief
-over the head&mdash;appears to predominate. This fact would show that
-the greater number of those present have come from Tiflis and the
-northern districts.</p>
-<p class="par">Just as we are getting a little bored with the finicking
-architecture of the portal there is a movement and a rustle, and the
-procession issues from the church. First to appear are the high Russian
-officials in Court dress&mdash;M. Pribil, General Frese and the rest.
-They take up position on the floor of the quadrangle in front of the
-crowd, and face the still vacant da&iuml;s. Between them and this
-central object room is left for the choir and deacons, who are
-presently introduced. Hats are doffed in spite of the fierce sun. A
-brief, intense pause, and the twelve bishops<a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e6151src" href="#xd21e6151" name="xd21e6151src">14</a> in gorgeous
-attire mount the da&iuml;s from behind. They escort the venerable form
-of the Katholikos, over whose head two attendants support a canopy of
-crimson material, embroidered with gold lace. For a short space the
-aged patriarch fronts the multitude in a standing posture; then sinks
-on the carpet with his feet beneath his body in Eastern fashion. Erect
-beside him, a bishop reads from a heavy volume. From time to time you
-detect a movement of the deeply-bowed head of the seated figure, as a
-particular passage is recited. Next a bishop advances, bearing in his
-hands the image of a dove, wrought in gold. It is the receptacle of the
-holy oil. In the southern apse of the cathedral stands a chest
-containing a vase, in which is preserved <span class="pagenum">[<a id=
-"pb254" href="#pb254" name="pb254">254</a>]</span>oil blessed by St.
-Gregory. It is nothing, they say, but a mass of dry material. Of this
-substance they take a pinch and mix it with consecrated oil, specially
-prepared and scented with essence of flowers. Such is the liquid which
-is allowed to flow from the beak of the dove upon the head of the
-father of the nation. The bishops gather round, and each with his thumb
-spreads the oil over the scalp, making the figure of a cross at the
-same time (Fig. <a href="#fig053">53</a>). Then a mass of wool is
-applied to the crown of the head, in the folds of a muslin veil which
-is adjusted to fall over the face. The Katholikos rises after a brief
-interval, places his feet in his embroidered slippers and with the
-bishops re-enters the church. The ceremony has occupied a quarter of an
-hour.</p>
-<p class="par"></p>
-<div class="figure xd21e6169width" id="fig053"><img src=
-"images/fig053.jpg" alt=
-"Fig. 53. Edgmiatsin: Ceremony of the Consecration of the Katholikos&mdash;Anointing with Oil from the Beak of a Golden Dove."
-width="720" height="511">
-<p class="figureHead"><span class="sc"><span class="figNum">Fig.
-53.</span> Edgmiatsin: Ceremony of the Consecration of the
-Katholikos&mdash;Anointing with Oil from the Beak of a Golden
-Dove.</span></p>
-</div>
-<p class="par"></p>
-<p class="par">Some little time elapses, and the same procession leaves
-the building, accompanying the anointed pontiff to his residence. The
-choir sing from their great books the old Armenian chants<a class=
-"noteref" id="xd21e6178src" href="#xd21e6178" name=
-"xd21e6178src">15</a> with their loud lamentations and long shakes. The
-band of the Russian regiment play a slow and solemn music, of which the
-sweetness puts to shame the nasal choristers. They are mostly Armenians
-in this band. These strains bring the rite to a conclusion, and we all
-disperse to our various amusements or occupations.</p>
-<p class="par">The dinner &ldquo;in hall&rdquo; upon this festival of
-the consecration was a very interesting incident. We were all to dine
-in the refectory. When I entered, the long apartment was crammed. The
-scholars of the Academy partook of the meal in the parallel chamber.
-The bishops, the monks, the delegates composed a sombre assembly,
-stretching in rows of long perspective down the tables. A single
-exception to this dark apparel was furnished by a delegate from
-Karabagh, who was seated next myself. He wore his national
-dress&mdash;a spare black tunic, fastened at the neck, displaying the
-front and sleeves of a light blue silken vest. His face was large and
-expressive of great resolution, especially the chin, which, like the
-cheeks, was shaved. The bronze complexion heightened the whiteness of
-the bold moustache. One was reminded of the best type of peasant
-proprietors in Europe; and, indeed, a view of the faces round one
-confirmed <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb255" href="#pb255" name=
-"pb255">255</a>]</span>that favourable impression which one receives
-from the society of Armenians in their native country. There is
-depicted a striking union of force of character with intelligence. In
-the midst of these reflections the Katholikos enters the building, and
-we all rise from our seats. He sits on his throne beneath the canopy,
-and a monk ministers to his needs. On either side stands a scarlet
-footman with a blue sash; the choir are drawn up behind. After the
-first course His Holiness rises, wearing his cowl and the glittering
-cross, and proposes the toast of the Emperor. It is a delight to hear
-him speak. He has all the personal fascination of Mr. Gladstone. Dinner
-proceeds as the catalogue of toasts is gone through, and between each
-toast European melodies are sung by the choir, and songs by an Armenian
-tenor of repute. The health of the Emperor is received with cries of
-<i>Oura</i>; but the remaining toasts without exception with the
-Armenian cheer of <i>Ketsze!</i> the equivalent of the French
-<i>Vive!</i> In proposing the health of M. Pribil His Holiness recites
-the various occasions upon which that functionary has come to
-Edgmiatsin to attend the consecration or the funeral of a Katholikos.
-Turning to his guest with a winning smile, he begs him to defer his
-next ceremonial visit until after the lapse of a moderate interval.</p>
-<p class="par">In the evening the whole quadrangle was illuminated with
-strings of coloured glasses containing candles. They made a very pretty
-show. At intervals huge firebrands threw a lurid light upon the
-buildings. The numerous choir of the Academy was marshalled in the
-court, including many ladies. The programme comprised several cantatas
-and some concerted music, and the standard was fairly high. But it
-appears difficult to eliminate the nasal pronunciation. The
-music-master was a great swell with his inspired look and flowing hair.
-The band discoursed the waltzes of the immortal Strauss. Before eleven
-all sound was hushed save the plash of the fountain, and darkness
-unrelieved had settled upon the scene. I made my way to the rooms of
-His Holiness and ascertained that he would receive me in spite of the
-lateness of the hour.</p>
-<p class="par">I found him reclining on a wooden couch in a bare
-white-washed apartment; a single rug was suspended upon the wall beside
-the couch. Such is the bed and such the furniture natural to the object
-of all this pomp, which I do not doubt is profoundly distasteful to
-such a character. He took my hand in his, and <span class=
-"pagenum">[<a id="pb256" href="#pb256" name="pb256">256</a>]</span>we
-sat together for some time, the office of interpreter being, I think,
-performed by Dr. Arshak Ter Mikelean. Our talk ranged over many
-subjects; but I should have preferred to sit still, look in those eyes
-and hear that voice. I think we both felt that we were very near each
-other; and religion is a subtler thing than can be defined in creeds
-and dogmas or embodied in what the world calls &ldquo;views.&rdquo;</p>
-<p class="par">On the following days the state of tension was gradually
-relaxed; the cloister settled down to ordinary life, and it was
-possible to examine the churches at one&rsquo;s ease. These are
-actually four in number, although in Mohammedan times the district was
-known under the name of Uch Kilisa, or Three Churches.<a class=
-"noteref" id="xd21e6209src" href="#xd21e6209" name=
-"xd21e6209src">16</a> Their origin is bound up with a legend which
-plays such a considerable part in the history of the Armenian Church
-that, before passing to a description of them, it may not be
-inappropriate to instruct or amuse my readers with this curious
-story.<a class="noteref" id="xd21e6212src" href="#xd21e6212" name=
-"xd21e6212src">17</a></p>
-<p class="par">Towards the close of the third century, while Tiridates
-was on the throne of Armenia, the Emperor Diocletian
-(284&ndash;305),<a class="noteref" id="xd21e6220src" href="#xd21e6220"
-name="xd21e6220src">18</a> in search of a beauteous spouse, sent
-artists into all parts of his empire to depict the charms of suitable
-candidates for the imperial embrace. Now there happened to be in Rome a
-convent of nuns of austere life, of which the superior was called
-Gaiane. Under her charge was a virgin of surpassing beauty and of royal
-lineage, whose name was Ripsime. The artists entered her retreat by
-force, committed her lineaments to their tablets, and sent the portrait
-with several others to their master. The emperor had no sooner gazed
-upon the image of the high-born virgin than he fell violently in love.
-No pains were spared to hurry forward the preparations for the
-marriage, and the wretched bride was in despair. Her vow of chastity
-and the <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb257" href="#pb257" name=
-"pb257">257</a>]</span>hatred she felt for the persecutor of her sect
-encouraged her to adopt the counsels of despair. She took to flight,
-attended by Gaiane and a numerous company of the nuns; and after many
-wanderings the band arrived upon the banks of the distant Araxes, in
-the outskirts of the Armenian capital of Vagharshapat. There they
-discovered a secluded retreat in a place which served as a store for
-vats, the city possessing extensive vineyards. One of their number was
-versed in the art of the manufacture of glass objects; she made glass
-pearls, and their price defrayed the cost of their daily
-sustenance.</p>
-<p class="par">Meanwhile the emperor had despatched messengers in every
-direction, and a Roman ambassador arrived at the court of the Armenian
-king. He was the bearer of a letter to that monarch from his master,
-who related how the Empire was suffering from the misdeeds of the
-Christians, and in particular how a beautiful virgin whom he himself
-had desired to marry had been abstracted by her infatuated co-sectaries
-and taken into the territory of his Armenian ally. The emperor begged
-his beloved colleague to track the party out, and, with the exception
-of the wondrous virgin, to put them all to death. As for the lovely
-fugitive, it would only be necessary to send her back; but the missive
-added, with an amiability truly worthy of an emperor, that the king
-might keep her if overcome by her charms.</p>
-<p class="par">As might be expected, no time was lost on the part of
-Tiridates to institute and elaborate the search. The band was found;
-the beauty of Ripsime needed no identification; and the fame of it
-attracted a multitude of all ranks&mdash;princes and nobles, shoulder
-to shoulder with the common people, closing round her under the sting
-of licentious desire. The nuns raised their hands to heaven and drew
-their veils about their faces; and perhaps this display of modesty
-averted their ruin. Early on the following morning there arrived from
-the palace magnificent litters and costly robes, the design of the king
-being to take to wife the Christian maiden and make her queen of the
-Armenians. But at this juncture a peal of thunder carried terror into
-all hearts, and a voice was heard descending from the sky. It was the
-voice of the Saviour, adjuring the nuns to take courage and remain firm
-for the glorification of His name among the peoples of the north.
-&ldquo;Thou Ripsime,&rdquo; it proceeded, &ldquo;hast been cast out
-(<span class="trans" title="exerriphth&#275;s"><span class="Greek"
-lang="el">&#7952;&xi;&epsilon;&rho;&rho;&#8055;&phi;&theta;&eta;&sigmaf;</span></span>)
-with Gaiane and thy companions from the realm of death into that of
-eternal life.&rdquo; Meanwhile the thunder had <span class=
-"pagenum">[<a id="pb258" href="#pb258" name=
-"pb258">258</a>]</span>caused a panic among the assembled people, and
-the king&rsquo;s officers hastened to the royal presence, bringing a
-written report of all they had heard. But the monarch hardened his
-heart, and, since she refused the pomp he offered, gave orders that the
-maiden should be taken by force and brought to the royal
-apartments.</p>
-<p class="par">These directions were executed, but not without
-difficulty; the pious virgin was of stalwart frame, and the soldiers
-were obliged to drag her along the ground, or carry her struggling in
-their arms. When they had placed her in the king&rsquo;s chamber, and
-it was announced that the king had entered, the people outside the
-palace feasted and danced and sang. But their rejoicings were
-premature; for the intrepid Roman maiden was more than a match even for
-the powers of so redoubtable an antagonist. Tiridates was widely famed
-for physical strength and deeds of prowess; yet, although he persisted
-in his suit for not less than seven hours, he was at last compelled
-through sheer exhaustion to give in. The offices of Gaiane were
-invoked; she consented to speak, but her counsels were addressed to
-confirming the courage of her companion. Her Latin speech was
-understood by some among those present; they took stones and tore her
-face and broke her teeth. After a brief repose the king returned, and
-again endeavoured to overcome the girl&rsquo;s obstinacy; but after a
-long struggle the inspired amazon was a second time victorious; she
-threw the king (<span class="trans" title="erripsen"><span class=
-"Greek" lang=
-"el">&#7956;&rho;&rho;&iota;&psi;&epsilon;&nu;</span></span>),
-destroyed his diadem, and dismissed him from the chamber, fainting and
-gathering around him his tattered robes.</p>
-<p class="par">A tender respect for the honour of women is a virtue of
-Christian origin, which the romance of Western chivalry converted into
-a cult of the fair sex. But the king of Armenia was an Oriental, a
-heathen and a barbarian; nor had he been instructed in the code which
-precludes the sentiment of humiliation in the vanquished where the
-victor is possessed of a female form. His passion as a lover was
-overcome by his fury as a thwarted despot; the virgin had fled from the
-palace, but his savage emissaries were soon on her track. The
-unfortunate maiden directed her steps to the retreat where the vats
-were stored, and gave the alarm to her companions. All those present,
-excepting one who was stricken with illness, accompanied her flight.
-But when they had reached some rising ground near the road which led to
-Artaxata, they were overtaken, bound with <span class="pagenum">[<a id=
-"pb259" href="#pb259" name="pb259">259</a>]</span>cords and put to
-death with great cruelty. With Ripsime there perished thirty-two of her
-attendants, while the poor nun who had been left behind presently met
-the same fate. The martyrdom of Gaiane and of two companions took place
-on the following day and was attended with tortures which I should
-shudder to commit to paper.</p>
-<p class="par">Not many days after this tragedy its author was visited
-by the vengeance of heaven; a demon entered his body, and, like his
-prototype of Babylon, the king of Armenia was turned into an animal
-eating grass. In the form of a wild boar he resisted all attempts to
-confine him; and similar punishments overtook the royal family and
-attendants. At length the sister of the king, by name Khosrovidukht,
-beheld in the watches of night a vision. A man with a radiant face
-appeared and addressed her, to the effect that the only remedy was to
-send to the town of Artaxata and summon thence a prisoner named
-Gregory. When she related the vision people shook their heads, and
-attributed it to the incipient madness of the princess. For Gregory,
-who was once an honoured servant of King Tiridates, had been cast by
-the tyrant into a deep pit, on account of his profession of
-Christianity, not less than fifteen years ago. Would even his bones be
-forthcoming from such a place? But when several times the vision had
-been repeated, and the princess renewed her insistence, a great noble
-was despatched to the place where the pit was situated, near the town
-of Artaxata. A rope was let down into the cavern; and, to the
-astonishment of all, there emerged a human form, blackened to the
-colour of coal. It was none other than St. Gregory.</p>
-<p class="par">The saint was met by the king and nobles, foaming and
-devouring their flesh, as he approached the city along the road from
-Artaxata. Sinking on his knees, he obtained from heaven the restoration
-of their reason, although not of their human forms. His next care was
-the burial of the martyrs; he found their bodies, lying where they
-fell, and still untouched by corruption after the lapse of nine days.
-No dog or beast or bird had approached the remains. St. Gregory took
-them with him to the place where the vats were stored; and for
-sixty-six days he sojourned in that place, instructing the king and
-nobles. After the lapse of that period he related to them a vision
-which he had beheld during the middle watches of the night. The royal
-party had come at sunrise to prostrate themselves before the holy
-man.</p>
-<p class="par">During his vigil, while his mind was revolving the
-recent acts <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb260" href="#pb260" name=
-"pb260">260</a>]</span>of Divine grace, a violent peal of thunder,
-followed by a terrible rumbling sound, had fallen upon his startled
-sense. The firmament opened as a tent opens, and from the heaven
-descended the form of a man, radiant with celestial light. The name of
-Gregory was pronounced; the saint looked upon the face of the man, and
-fell trembling to the ground. Enjoined to raise his eyes, he beheld the
-waters above the firmament cloven and parcelled apart like hills and
-valleys, extending beyond the range of sight. Streams of light poured
-down from on high upon the earth, and, with the light, innumerable
-cohorts of shining human figures with wings of living flame. At their
-head was One of terrible face whom all followed as the supreme ruler of
-the host; He bore in his hand a golden mallet, and, alighting on the
-ground in the centre of the city, struck with His mallet the crust of
-the broad earth. The report of the blow penetrated into the abysses
-below the earth; far and near all inequalities of the surface were
-smoothed out, and the land became a uniform plain.</p>
-<p class="par">And the saint perceived in the middle of the city, near
-the palace of the king, a circular pedestal made of gold and of the
-size of a large plateau, upon which was reared an immensely lofty
-column of fire with a cloud for capital, surmounted by a flaming cross.
-As he gazed he became aware of three other pedestals. One rose from the
-spot where the holy Gaiane suffered martyrdom; a second from the site
-of the massacre of Ripsime and her companions; and the third from the
-position occupied by the magazine of vats. These pedestals were of the
-colour of blood; the columns were of cloud, and the capitals of fire.
-The crosses resembled the cross of the Saviour, and might be likened to
-pure light. The three columns were equal in height one with another,
-but a little lower than that which rose near the royal palace. Upon the
-summits of all four were suspended arcs of wondrous appearance; and
-above the intersection of the arcs was displayed an edifice with a
-dome, the substance being cloud. On the arcs stood the thirty-seven
-martyrs, figures of ineffable beauty attired in white robes; while the
-crown of the figure above the edifice was a throne of Divine fashioning
-surmounted by the cross of Christ. The light of the throne mingled with
-the light of the cross and descended to the bases of the columns.</p>
-<p class="par">When Gregory had related this vision he bade all present
-gird up their loins and lose no time in erecting chapels to the
-martyred virgins, where their remains might be deposited. Thus the
-saints <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb261" href="#pb261" name=
-"pb261">261</a>]</span>might intercede for the afflicted king and
-people and assist them to become healed. Forthwith the multitude set to
-work, collected stones and bricks and cedar-wood; and, under the
-guidance of the saint, constructed three chapels after a prescribed
-design. One was placed towards the north and on the east of the city,
-on the spot where Ripsime and her companions met their death. The site
-of the second was further south, where the Superior Gaiane was
-massacred; while that of the third was close to the magazine of vats.
-These they built and adorned with lamps of gold and silver, with
-candelabra of which the flames were never quenched. Coffins were made
-for the remains of the martyrs; but no man was suffered to touch these
-relics, for none had been baptized. The saint himself and in solitude
-consigned the bodies to their receptacles. And when this was done he
-fell on his knees and prayed for the healing of the king, that haply
-the king might share in the work. The prayer was granted, and the horn
-fell from the royal hands and feet. To the monarch was assigned the
-task of digging tombs in the chapels to receive the coffins of the
-martyrs; and his consort, the queen Ashkhen, together with his sister
-Khosrovidukht, were associated with him in the work. The return of his
-vigour was signalised on the part of the king by a labour worthy of the
-patriarch Hayk. He made a journey to the summit of Ararat, which the
-compiler rightly observes would occupy seven days.<a class="noteref"
-id="xd21e6267src" href="#xd21e6267" name="xd21e6267src">19</a> When he
-had completed this feat, he was seen bearing upon his shoulders eight
-blocks of stone of gigantic size which he had taken from the crest of
-the mountain. These he placed before the threshold of the chapel of the
-martyred Ripsime in expiation of the unholy battle which he had
-waged.<a class="noteref" id="xd21e6270src" href="#xd21e6270" name=
-"xd21e6270src">20</a> In this manner all was accomplished according to
-the vision of St. Gregory; while, as for the locality where had stood
-the column of fire on the golden pedestal, it was surrounded by the
-saint with a high wall and heavy gates; the sign of the cross was
-erected within it, that the pilgrims might there worship the
-all-powerful God. Upon his return from C&aelig;sarea, and after the
-baptism of king and people, St. Gregory completed his task by building
-the cathedral upon this site. <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb262"
-href="#pb262" name="pb262">262</a>]</span></p>
-<p class="par">Such is the legend which, with variations, has supplied
-the patent of the famous monastery, and invested the pilgrimage to the
-church of Christ descended and to the chapels of the martyrs with the
-character at once of a religious and of a patriotic act. The first of
-these edifices stands in the centre of the great quadrangle of the
-cloister, and, as we have seen, is believed to have been originally
-raised by St. Gregory the Illuminator, to whom the Armenians attribute
-their conversion to Christianity. The spot where the Saviour alighted
-and struck the broad earth with the mallet is situated about the middle
-of the building; and in the old days was indicated by a slab of hewn
-stone, <span class="measure" title="0.914 meter">3 feet</span> square
-and <span class="measure" title="1.52 meter">5 feet</span> in
-thickness.<a class="noteref" id="xd21e6289src" href="#xd21e6289" name=
-"xd21e6289src">21</a> This stone was said to have been substituted for
-the original marble slab which was reputed to have been due to St.
-Gregory himself and to have been carried off by Shah Abbas.<a class=
-"noteref" id="xd21e6292src" href="#xd21e6292" name=
-"xd21e6292src">22</a> In the first quarter of the eighteenth century,
-during the pontificate of Astvatsadur, an elaborate altar was placed
-upon this hallowed site, and still stands there beneath the dome. It is
-surmounted by a canopy supported by four pillars of Tabriz marble, and
-is well seen in my illustration of the interior (Fig. <a href=
-"#fig055">55</a>). It appears to have replaced one of simpler design
-erected by the Katholikos Eleazar.</p>
-<div class="blockquote">
-<p class="par first">I cannot invite my reader to admire the
-architecture of this <b>cathedral</b>, although the interior, with its
-spacious body, central dome and four apses, one at each point of the
-compass, is sufficiently remarkable. Much the same design is seen in
-the church of St. Ripsime; but in that building it underlies important
-developments which probably argue a later date. The original form of
-the exterior is rather difficult to unravel owing to the excrescences,
-of which I may safely say that none are improvements, that have been
-added at various times. But let me briefly undertake the work of
-demolition, addressing myself to the illustration, which was taken from
-the south-west (Fig. <a href="#fig049">49</a>).</p>
-<p class="par">The portal on the left of the picture is a work of the
-seventeenth century; it was commenced by the Katholikos Philip and
-completed by his successor Jacob in 1658. It is probably due to the
-mania for portals prevalent in Armenia at that period and not to a
-feature of the earlier plan. Just east of and adjoining the balcony of
-this structure is seen a window with a richly carved column in the
-centre, surmounted by a cross and supporting two ornamental arches.
-This window and the upper portion of the building to which it belongs
-are in subservience to the <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb263" href=
-"#pb263" name="pb263">263</a>]</span>portal, with which they are in
-architectural harmony, and which they link with the main edifice. The
-lower part, including the frieze or quasi-classical moulding, which
-runs right round the church, is in a different style and of a different
-form of masonry, being indeed an integral member of the body of the
-church. You have only to remove the window and pointed roof, build up
-the wall above the cornice and cover it with a flat roof, and you
-obtain precisely the same projection which the picture shows on the
-south side and which is necessitated by the south apse.</p>
-<p class="par">We have now obtained the figure of a body with four
-projecting members, each of which represents an apse. The roof would
-appear to have been always built at a very low angle; it is, as usual,
-of stone. But we have yet to disencumber the apse on the east, which is
-completely hidden by the stupid building which contains the treasury
-and room of relics&mdash;an annexe which from outside lengthens and
-perverts the original edifice. We owe this feature to the Katholikos
-George IV., who died in 1882. This apse had a lesser projection than
-its fellows from the wall of the church, owing to the incidence of the
-two indispensable side chapels, which were small and merely entailed a
-slight advance of the rectangular walls. Over each apse it has been
-customary to have a belfry; when the portal was added this feature of
-the apse on the west was transferred to that structure. The open
-cupolas with belfries which are at present seen over the three apses
-were built in the year 1682 by the Katholikos Eleazar. They are of
-bright red stone, of which the hue contrasts in a displeasing manner
-with the dull grey of the body of the church.</p>
-<p class="par">The central dome, which is supported on piers in the
-interior, consists of a polygonal drum with a window in each face
-surmounted by a conical roof. A false arcade with slender columns and
-pointed arches enriches, together with a carved cornice, the simplicity
-of the design. This dome is believed to date from the seventh century,
-and to be the work which the Katholikos Komitas (617&ndash;625) erected
-in place of an earlier structure in wood. If this be the case we have
-an example of this form of dome in Armenia a hundred years before the
-time when it is supposed by Fergusson to have been developed.<a class=
-"noteref" id="xd21e6318src" href="#xd21e6318" name=
-"xd21e6318src">23</a> It is a pity that some vandal has daubed it over
-with plaster and paint, which invests it with a grotesque appearance.
-Above each window is a medallion containing the head of a saint, and I
-saw traces of spiral carving on the columns. An almost flat-roofed
-building with this dome in the centre, with four projecting apses, one
-at each point of the compass and each surmounted by a little
-belfry&mdash;such would appear to have been the original exterior of
-the edifice which we see at the present day.</p>
-<p class="par">An ingenious traveller, whose judgment was influenced by
-the cornice of the building, and perhaps too by certain stone slabs
-with Greek inscriptions which are inserted in the walls, has
-conjectured that this exterior, with the exception of the dome and
-belfries, dates at least in part from <span class="pagenum">[<a id=
-"pb264" href="#pb264" name="pb264">264</a>]</span>the reign of King
-Tiridates (end of the third and commencement of the fourth
-century).<a class="noteref" id="xd21e6327src" href="#xd21e6327" name=
-"xd21e6327src">24</a> He has gone so far as to present us with an
-illustration, showing what he conceives to have been the original
-form.<a class="noteref" id="xd21e6335src" href="#xd21e6335" name=
-"xd21e6335src">25</a> We know from Moses of Khorene that this monarch
-erected at Garni in the district of Erivan a building of surpassing
-beauty to his sister Khosrovidukht; and it is almost certain that the
-remains of a purely classical building which have been seen by modern
-travellers upon that site belong to this monument or to one of the same
-period.<a class="noteref" id="xd21e6340src" href="#xd21e6340" name=
-"xd21e6340src">26</a> The presumption of Dubois is therefore justified
-that a building of the reign of Tiridates would be likely to display
-classical features and ornaments. But his conjecture as regards this
-particular church must at present be considered to belong to the realm
-of hypothesis. The presence of the slabs with the Greek inscriptions
-would prove nothing; they may have been taken from an earlier building,
-or they may quite well be later in date than the invention and use of
-the Armenian alphabet in the fifth century. Dubois indeed is inclined
-to ascribe them to a period earlier than the conversion of Tiridates,
-and to see in them memorials of a Christianity practised in Armenia
-prior to the preaching of St. Gregory. This conjecture, which is
-adopted with complacency by Ritter, is probably quite baseless. The
-inscriptions have quite recently been subjected to the critical
-scrutiny of a scholar in Byzantine lore. I may refer my reader to his
-work. They are incised upon two slabs inserted in the wall, rather high
-up and a little east of the northern apse. The slabs are close
-together. I was unable to decipher the writing with the aid of my
-glasses, as the stone has been much worn. The slab with the figures of
-Paulos and Thekla is attributed by this scholar to the fifth or the
-sixth century, and its companion to about the same date. His opinion is
-based upon internal evidence.<a class="noteref" id="xd21e6351src" href=
-"#xd21e6351" name="xd21e6351src">27</a></p>
-<p class="par">It would take too long to pursue a study relying on this
-kind of testimony into the approximate date of the cathedral. It must
-suffice to have placed my reader in possession of the leading facts. As
-regards the evidence of literature as to restorations and additions it
-is summarised in the accompanying note.<a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e6437src" href="#xd21e6437" name="xd21e6437src">28</a> If the
-essential features of the present building <span class=
-"pagenum">[<a id="pb265" href="#pb265" name="pb265">265</a>]</span>be
-due to the restoration of Vahan Mamikonean (<span class=
-"sc">A.D.</span> 483), it will be a work anterior to Justinian. At that
-time the Armenian architect would not have enjoyed the advantage of
-studying the designs of the several churches which, according to
-Procopius, that emperor erected in Western Armenia.<a class="noteref"
-id="xd21e6478src" href="#xd21e6478" name="xd21e6478src">29</a> It would
-appear preferable to ascribe these features to the restoration under
-Komitas (618), if we were obliged to choose between the two. But this
-and kindred questions respecting the origin of the church and monastery
-are wrapped in obscurity. At what date did Edgmiatsin become the
-residence of the katholikos? This cardinal question still remains
-without a certain answer. We know that he transferred his seat from
-Vagharshapat to Dvin in the year 452, and that he did not return until
-1441. We also know that the seventh century was a period of building
-activity; after Komitas we have the Katholikos Nerses III.
-(640&ndash;661), surnamed the builder, who erected a magnificent church
-in close vicinity to the churches of Edgmiatsin and buried the relics
-of St. Gregory beneath its four colossal pillars.<a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e6487src" href="#xd21e6487" name="xd21e6487src">30</a> There is no
-reason to doubt that the four Byzantine capitals <span class=
-"pagenum">[<a id="pb266" href="#pb266" name=
-"pb266">266</a>]</span>which are preserved in the Academy belonged to
-this edifice.<a class="noteref" id="xd21e6496src" href="#xd21e6496"
-name="xd21e6496src">31</a> The independence of the national church, so
-jealously guarded by the Armenians, was intimately bound up with the
-Edgmiatsin legend; and the pontiffs appear to have spared no pains
-during the earlier centuries to maintain the holy places and prevent
-them sharing the fate of the temporal capital, Vagharshapat.</p>
-<p class="par"></p>
-<div class="figure xd21e6503width" id="fig054"><img src=
-"images/fig054.jpg" alt=
-"Fig. 54. Interior of the Portal of the Cathedral." width="412" height=
-"565">
-<p class="figureHead"><span class="sc"><span class="figNum">Fig.
-54.</span> Interior of the Portal of the Cathedral.</span></p>
-</div>
-<p class="par"></p>
-<p class="par">The entrance from the portal to the church is through a
-rather low doorway, conducting you into the apse-formed projection on
-the west. The stone panels about and above this doorway are richly
-carved and show traces of gilding (Fig. <a href="#fig054">54</a>). In
-the south wall of the building you are shown an old door, long walled
-up, which is supposed to date from a hoar antiquity and is called the
-door of Tiridates. Lastly you will probably be taken to the belfry
-above the portal and be shown the famous Tibetan bell. It bears the
-thrice repeated legend <i>&Ocirc;m a hum</i>, the mystic formula of the
-Buddhists.<a class="noteref" id="xd21e6518src" href="#xd21e6518" name=
-"xd21e6518src">32</a> Before the portal are several tombstones,
-commemorating deceased pontiffs, and among them that of the enlightened
-Nerses V. One in marble is raised over the remains of Sir John
-Macdonald, British envoy to the court of Persia. The bald inscription
-contrasts with the eloquence of the situation under the shadow of this
-St. Peter&rsquo;s of distant Armenia and among the graves of the
-highest dignitaries of her national church.<a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e6524src" href="#xd21e6524" name="xd21e6524src">33</a></p>
-<p class="par"></p>
-<div class="figure xd21e6531width" id="fig055"><img src=
-"images/fig055.jpg" alt=
-"Fig. 55. Edgmiatsin: Interior of the Cathedral." width="510" height=
-"720">
-<p class="figureHead"><span class="sc"><span class="figNum">Fig.
-55.</span> Edgmiatsin: Interior of the Cathedral.</span></p>
-</div>
-<p class="par"><span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb267" href="#pb267" name=
-"pb267">267</a>]</span></p>
-<p class="par">Passing now to the interior (Fig. <a href=
-"#fig055">55</a> and plan), it is the form which is
-impressive&mdash;the quadruple apse with a canopy altar in each of
-these recesses, except that on the west. In the centre, beneath the
-dome, stands the altar which I have already described; there are
-therefore four altars in this church. In front of the apse on the east
-rises the parapet of the da&iuml;s, as usual; but the higher level of
-the floor in those on the north and south is approached by steps which
-extend from wall to wall. The lateral chapels on the east, which are so
-constant a feature in Armenian churches, are scarcely noticeable in
-this building, being, I think, incorporated in the additions which were
-made by George IV. at the back of the church. The space on the floor of
-the edifice is railed off in two places from north to south. There is
-of course no pulpit, and there are no pews. The light falls from twelve
-little windows in the spacious dome upon a scene which is rendered dim
-by the darkness of the mural paintings, and which serves to enhance the
-flashing ornaments on the central altar. I am told that there are in
-all no less than thirty-five windows; but they are small and
-insignificant. Their distribution is not subordinate to any plan. The
-paintings on the walls are of no merit; they represent Biblical
-subjects, and while some are in fresco, others are on canvas applied to
-the stone. They must have been added at a comparatively recent date;
-for we are expressly told by Chardin that in his time the interior was
-quite bare. The dome has been pleasantly decorated in the Persian style
-with coloured arabesques. These and the various frescos are attributed
-to an Armenian artist who lived during the reign of Nadir Shah
-(1736&ndash;47).<a class="noteref" id="xd21e6544src" href="#xd21e6544"
-name="xd21e6544src">34</a></p>
-<p class="par"></p>
-<div class="figure floatLeft xd21e6554width" id="fig056-1"><img src=
-"images/fig056-1.jpg" alt="Fig. 56. 1." width="103" height="720">
-<p class="figureHead"><span class="sc"><span class="figNum">Fig. 56.
-1.</span></span></p>
-</div>
-<p class="par"></p>
-<p class="par"></p>
-<div class="figure floatRight xd21e6562width"><img src=
-"images/fig056-2.jpg" alt="Fig. 56. 2." width="101" height="720">
-<p class="figureHead"><span class="sc"><span class="figNum">Fig. 56.
-2.</span></span></p>
-</div>
-<p class="par"></p>
-<p class="par">The church is large if compared to other ancient
-Armenian temples, but small if judged by a Western standard. The area
-enclosed must be rather less than in the case of the cathedral at Ani,
-although the dimensions are about the same when the four projections
-are included. The measurements of the interior, which I took myself,
-give an extreme length of <span class="measure" title="32.9 meter">108
-feet</span> <span class="measure" title="10.2 centimeter">4
-inches</span>, and an extreme breadth of just over <span class=
-"measure" title="29.9 meter">98 feet</span>. Each apse has a depth of
-about <span class="measure" title="4.57 meter">15 feet</span>
-<span class="measure" title="7.62 centimeter">3 inches</span>&mdash;a
-dimension which I have included in my totals.<a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e6586src" href="#xd21e6586" name="xd21e6586src">35</a> In the
-south apse stands the chest containing the vessel with the holy oil,
-and beside it a little lamp which flickers night and day. The recess of
-its opposite counterpart is adorned with mural paintings representing
-eight full-length portraits of the pillars of the Armenian Church. They
-are identified as St. Gregory, with his sons Aristakes and Verthanes,
-and his grandson Grigor; as Yusik, Nerses the First, Sahak and Mesrop.
-The ceremony of ordination of bishops takes place in this northern
-apse. A cistern has been sunk below the floor in front of the recess to
-serve in time of siege. Two thrones are conspicuous in the body of the
-church, both of which may be discerned in my illustration. The
-<span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb268" href="#pb268" name=
-"pb268">268</a>]</span>first, which adjoins the central altar, is
-inscribed with the name of Petros Katholikos (Peter II. 1748) and is
-said to have been a present from the Pope.<a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e6591src" href="#xd21e6591" name="xd21e6591src">36</a> The second,
-situated further east, is that which was occupied by the Katholikos
-during the service which I attended. It is the gift of Armenians during
-the pontificate of Astvatsadur (1715&ndash;25).</p>
-<p class="par">The <b>treasury and room of relics</b> contain many
-interesting objects. To these chambers is allotted the building on the
-east of the church. Both are entered from the interior and through
-doors in the east wall, that on the north of the apse communicating
-with the treasury, and that on the south with the apartment containing
-the relics. Among the treasures are several objects which deserve the
-attention of the student of art, examples of medi&aelig;val Armenian
-craft being, I imagine, none too frequent. I observed a crystal cross,
-said to belong to the Bagratid period, and some other crosses reputed
-to have come from Ani. A gold crown, inlaid with jewels, is ascribed to
-King Tiridates, and, whatever its origin, is a very interesting object.
-The same may be said of a silver saucer with repouss&eacute; figures
-dating from the pontificate of Nerses IV. (1166&ndash;73). There are a
-quantity of jewelled mitres and embroidered stoles and ornaments for
-the church. There are seals of the pontiffs and coins of the Rupenian
-(Cilician) dynasty. Some store is set upon a head of Dionysus which is
-believed to be of Egyptian origin. The monastery has become possessed
-of a most curious object in the shape of a huge caldron, standing on
-three legs, and having as handles four tigers in the act of climbing.
-It was found not many years ago in a cloister near Tiflis; buried
-within it was a bell. An inscription <span class="pagenum">[<a id=
-"pb269" href="#pb269" name="pb269">269</a>]</span>round the rim gives
-the date of the Armenian era 781 or <span class="sc">A.D.</span> 1331.
-In the chamber of relics are preserved a fine collection of episcopal
-staves surmounted by a cross above a knot of hissing serpents&rsquo;
-heads (Fig. 56, Nos. 1 and 2). Many are of exquisite workmanship.</p>
-<p class="par">The principal relics are the hand and arm of St.
-Gregory, preserved in a silver gilt case; the head of the holy spear,
-reputed to possess the power of staying epidemics;<a class="noteref"
-id="xd21e6609src" href="#xd21e6609" name="xd21e6609src">37</a> a
-fragment of the Ark, to which is attached a jewelled cross; the head
-and arm of St. Thaddeus, the apostle; the hand and arm of St. Jacob of
-Nisibis; a panel carved with a crucified Christ, said to be the work of
-St. John the Apostle and to have been procured by Ashot Patricius;
-finally a box containing relics of St. Ripsime.</p>
-<p class="par">The <b>chapels of the martyrs</b>, which are churches
-rather than chapels, are situated within short walks from the
-monastery. Thus St. Gaiane is not more than about a quarter of a mile
-distant in a southerly direction. St. Ripsime is a little further, say
-three-quarters of a mile; it is placed to the east of Edgmiatsin and is
-the first building which you see as you drive from Erivan, on the very
-outskirts of the trees and greenery. Shoghakath is a near neighbour of
-Ripsime on the side of the great cloister.</p>
-<p class="par"></p>
-<div class="figure xd21e6623width" id="fig057"><img src=
-"images/fig057.jpg" alt="Fig. 57. Edgmiatsin: Exterior of St. Ripsime."
-width="559" height="720">
-<p class="figureHead"><span class="sc"><span class="figNum">Fig.
-57.</span> Edgmiatsin: Exterior of St. Ripsime.</span></p>
-</div>
-<p class="par"></p>
-<p class="par">Of these the largest and certainly the most interesting
-is that which commemorates the brave deeds of the beautiful virgin from
-Rome. In designing the <b>church of the Holy Ripsime</b> the architect
-has been faithful to the essential features of that of
-Edgmiatsin&mdash;the quadruple apse and the central dome. But the
-problem before him was how to eliminate the unsightly projections of
-the apsidal arms, and how to rear the whole fabric by successive stages
-to the crown of the dome. His solution of the problem, if somewhat
-rudimentary and fantastic, is certainly successful from the point of
-view of looks (Fig. <a href="#fig057">57</a> and plan). My reader will
-of course eliminate the portal and belfry in appreciating this piece of
-architecture. They were added, the portal in 1653 by the Katholikos
-Philippos, and the belfry in 1790. He will observe that the outer walls
-compose a rectangular figure; and a moment&rsquo;s reflection will show
-him that such a figure could only be presented by a stupendous
-thickening of the wall on either side of each apse. This difficulty has
-been in part surmounted by the introduction of niches, two for each
-apsidal recess. These external niches are nearly six feet deep on the
-north and south sides, a little shallower on the west and east. The
-treatment of this feature is quite inchoate; but we shall see it in
-perfection at Ani. At the same time it is evident that provision had to
-be made for a side chapel on either side of the apse on the east. These
-have been supplied according to a design which I have not seen
-elsewhere, although it appears to be repeated in the church of Sion in
-the valley of the Tana, a tributary of the Kur, erected at the end of
-the tenth century.<a class="noteref" id="xd21e6638src" href=
-"#xd21e6638" name="xd21e6638src">38</a> Between the <span class=
-"pagenum">[<a id="pb270" href="#pb270" name="pb270">270</a>]</span>four
-apsidal recesses of the interior are inserted the narrow openings of
-four circular and much smaller cavities, communicating by doors which
-are almost imperceptible with rectangular chambers or chapels. Of these
-chambers the two on the east provide the requirements of the church,
-while those on the west were probably added for uniformity.<a class=
-"noteref" id="xd21e6654src" href="#xd21e6654" name=
-"xd21e6654src">39</a> The effect of the eight recesses, crowned by a
-dome of unusual diameter for the size of the structure,<a class=
-"noteref" id="xd21e6664src" href="#xd21e6664" name=
-"xd21e6664src">40</a> is extremely pleasing to the eye; and St. Ripsime
-is the most impressive ecclesiastical edifice which I have yet
-presented to my reader. The drum of the dome has sixteen sides; besides
-the windows which it contains, light is admitted through bold apertures
-in each of the apsidal recesses. Standing beneath the dome, one admires
-the great height of the building. The interior measurements are a
-length of <span class="measure" title="22.6 meter">74 feet</span>
-<span class="measure" title="2.54 centimeter">1 inch</span> and a
-breadth of <span class="measure" title="17.7 meter">58 feet</span>
-<span class="measure" title="10.2 centimeter">4 inches</span>.</p>
-<p class="par">The question of the date of Ripsime is again not free
-from difficulty. We know that the Katholikos Komitas rebuilt the church
-in <span class="sc">A.D.</span> 618;<a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e6693src" href="#xd21e6693" name="xd21e6693src">41</a> nor, so far
-as I have been able to ascertain, do we possess records of any
-subsequent change in the plan. Students of architecture may be inclined
-to assign it to a later period. The tomb of the martyr is placed in a
-grotto beneath the apse on the east.<a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e6699src" href="#xd21e6699" name="xd21e6699src">42</a> Just west
-of the portal there is a low building, serving as a residence for
-monks, and, adjoining it, an enclosure for cows. Church and cloister
-are surrounded by a high mud wall, with round towers at the angles.</p>
-<p class="par"></p>
-<div class="figure xd21e6709width" id="fig058"><img src=
-"images/fig058.jpg" alt="Fig. 58. Edgmiatsin: Exterior of St. Gaiane."
-width="720" height="513">
-<p class="figureHead"><span class="sc"><span class="figNum">Fig.
-58.</span> Edgmiatsin: Exterior of St. Gaiane.</span></p>
-</div>
-<p class="par"></p>
-<p class="par"><b>St. Gaiane</b> is an edifice of much humbler
-architectural pretensions, which is said to date from the pontificate
-of Ezra (<span class="sc">A.D.</span> 628&ndash;640) (Fig. <a href=
-"#fig058">58</a> and plan).<a class="noteref" id="xd21e6726src" href=
-"#xd21e6726" name="xd21e6726src">43</a> The porch was added, as we
-learn from an inscription, in the year 1687 by the Katholikos Eleazar.
-It serves as a place of burial for the pontiffs and contains many
-alabaster slabs. On the north side have been inserted in the archway of
-a wide aperture two old Armenian crosses, framed within an ornamental
-trophy. Entering the building from this portal we are impressed with
-its simplicity; and this feeling is enhanced by the absence of all
-decoration, the beautiful masonry being left without any covering of
-lime. The architect has wisely dispensed with the quadruple apse, and
-has contented himself with one. But he has retained the rectangular
-form of the side chapels, and he has separated them by a wall from the
-body of the building. Four <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb271" href=
-"#pb271" name="pb271">271</a>]</span>detached piers support a dome
-which is much smaller than that of Ripsime, but resembles it in the
-sense of great height which it lends to the interior. The length of the
-building is <span class="measure" title="21.3 meter">70 feet</span>
-<span class="measure" title="5.08 centimeter">2 inches</span>, and the
-breadth <span class="measure" title="14.3 meter">47 feet</span>. The
-vault, containing the grave of Gaiane, is approached from one of the
-side chapels, and is covered by a simple stone with a little carpet,
-upon which devotees offer coins. The adjacent cloister consists of a
-humble building on the south-west. The church is surrounded by tombs.
-Lying against the north wall are some interesting old stones, one of
-which is exquisitely sculptured (Fig. <a href="#fig059">59</a>). It
-probably constituted a boundary-stone, and may have been brought hither
-as an offering to the saint. The two figures which are seen in my
-illustration of the building represent opposite types among the
-inhabitants of Edgmiatsin. The white-headed abbot on the left belongs
-to the old school, with habits and standards which are not agreeable or
-exalted. That on the right is the figure of Dr. Arshak Ter-Mikelean,
-fresh from the atmosphere of a German university.</p>
-<p class="par"></p>
-<div class="figure floatRight xd21e6748width" id="fig059"><img src=
-"images/fig059.jpg" alt="Fig. 59. Sculptured Stone." width="316"
-height="439">
-<p class="figureHead"><span class="sc"><span class="figNum">Fig.
-59.</span> Sculptured Stone.</span></p>
-</div>
-<p class="par"></p>
-<p class="par">The third and smallest of the churches marks the site of
-the wine-press, where the holy martyrs sojourned and where St. Gregory
-resided after his release from the pit at Artaxata. It is situated to
-the north-east of Edgmiatsin and to the west of St. Ripsime. It bears
-the name of <b>Shoghakath</b>, or Effusion of Light. I was informed
-that the attendants of Saints Ripsime and Gaiane were buried in a vault
-on the south side of the apse.<a class="noteref" id="xd21e6761src"
-href="#xd21e6761" name="xd21e6761src">44</a> In disposition the
-building resembles St. Gaiane; but it is much longer (<span class=
-"measure" title="17.7 meter">58 feet</span> <span class="measure"
-title="5.08 centimeter">2 inches</span>) in comparison with its breadth
-(<span class="measure" title="7.32 meter">24 feet</span> <span class=
-"measure" title="20.3 centimeter">8 inches</span>). We learn from an
-inscription over the door of the church that the portal was added by
-the Katholikos Nahapet in <span class="sc">A.D.</span> 1693. The belfry
-is due to the same pontiff;<a class="noteref" id="xd21e6783src" href=
-"#xd21e6783" name="xd21e6783src">45</a> his grave is conspicuous within
-the portal (Fig. 60 and plan). The dome rests on four massive piers
-attached to the wall. The joints of the pink and grey stone are visible
-in the interior, as in the case of the two buildings described; and so
-admirably are they fitted <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb272" href=
-"#pb272" name="pb272">272</a>]</span>that one would regret the
-introduction of any internal decoration. A scrutiny of the exterior
-reveals the fact that the church has been most carefully restored,
-stones having been removed here and there and replaced. Brosset informs
-us that mention is made in certain records of Armenian Councils of the
-construction by Nerses III. (<span class="sc">A.D.</span>
-640&ndash;649) in the town of Vagharshapat of a church of Shoghakath;
-but he supposes&mdash;it would appear upon inconclusive
-evidence&mdash;that this name is intended to designate the cathedral,
-Edgmiatsin.<a class="noteref" id="xd21e6797src" href="#xd21e6797" name=
-"xd21e6797src">46</a> If it be taken to refer to the wine-press chapel,
-then all three edifices will have been rebuilt in the seventh century
-by the testimony of records. I may add that according to an inscription
-in the monastery of Uch Kilisa, near Diadin, that cloister was also
-restored in the seventh century.<a class="noteref" id="xd21e6803src"
-href="#xd21e6803" name="xd21e6803src">47</a> If the buildings as we now
-see them were erected in that century, the framework at least of
-Edgmiatsin must be attributed to an earlier date.</p>
-</div>
-<p class="par"></p>
-<p class="par"></p>
-<div class="figure xd21e6811width" id="fig060"><img src=
-"images/fig060.jpg" alt="Fig. 60. Edgmiatsin: Exterior of Shoghakath."
-width="540" height="720">
-<p class="figureHead"><span class="sc"><span class="figNum">Fig.
-60.</span> Edgmiatsin: Exterior of Shoghakath.</span></p>
-</div>
-<p class="par"></p>
-<p class="par">I return from this detailed description of the cathedral
-and the chapels of the martyrs to the more general tenour of the
-contents of this chapter. Edgmiatsin is rapidly developing into a home
-of the higher education, and it enjoys the proud privilege of
-possessing an institution which is unique in all Armenia for the
-comparatively exalted standard of the course of study which it
-provides. The Academy at once dispenses the usual curriculum of a
-seminary and supplies a higher course, extending over three years. Such
-an excessive disporting in the realms of dangerous knowledge was only
-sanctioned by the Russian Government on the understanding that the
-privilege should be confined to candidates for the priesthood. The
-nature of their profession may have appeared a sufficient guarantee
-that the learning imparted would be strictly subordinated to
-&ldquo;views.&rdquo; Besides, there was always the safeguard that the
-curriculum must be submitted to the Russian bureaucracy, and approved
-in due course by these aureoled arbiters, enthroned above the shifting
-mists and slippery quagmires among which poor Knowledge often faints
-and sometimes sinks. Her youngest and hardiest offspring, pertinacious
-Natural Science, has been excluded from these intellectual preserves;
-and I was assured that the mere mention of the name of this arch-enemy
-in a prospectus would produce the same effect among the august censors
-as a challenge from the prince of devils among the blessed. The course
-is confined to theology, history and literature, foreign as well as
-Armenian. To these subjects is added a study which the <span class=
-"pagenum">[<a id="pb273" href="#pb273" name=
-"pb273">273</a>]</span>Germans have developed under the name of
-<i lang="de">P&auml;dagogik</i>. Within this formula, I was given to
-understand, are included at Edgmiatsin, besides the art of the teacher,
-a certain general knowledge of philosophy and psychology. The students
-are obliged to pass a certain standard by examination at the end of
-each year.</p>
-<p class="par">The idea of founding such an institution was conceived
-by Nerses V. (d. 1857), whose liberal mind sought to satisfy by this
-project the needs of his countrymen both in secular and religious
-education.<a class="noteref" id="xd21e6827src" href="#xd21e6827" name=
-"xd21e6827src">48</a> His proposal was rejected by the Russian
-Government, and he was himself sent into honorary exile. Better fortune
-attended the instances of George IV.; and the Academy was actually
-founded during his pontificate in 1873 or 1874. An inscription over the
-door records that the principal aim of the founder was the
-encouragement of the study of Armenian theology and literature. It is
-interesting to note that the bulk of the scholars do not in fact become
-enrolled in the priesthood. As a rule there are about 150 to 200
-students in the various grades of the seminary and the academy; but I
-was informed that during the last ten years only about 15 had taken
-orders. The rest have become teachers in the Armenian schools, or
-migrated to universities in Russia, or adopted professional or
-commercial pursuits. I enquired as to the nature of the instruction in
-theology, and learnt that until the year 1892 that pompous term had
-been applied to a simple course of religious instruction. In that year
-a promising scholar who had been sent to Germany for education appeared
-upon the scene. I have already mentioned the name of Dr. Arshak
-Ter-Mikelean; he took his degree in the University of Jena, and now
-presides over the theological course. At the time of my visit two young
-Armenians were studying theology at Leipzic at the expense of the
-Armenian Church. At the same date the students in the academical course
-numbered about forty.</p>
-<p class="par">My reader is aware that in Russian Armenia the word
-seminarist does not necessarily apply exclusively to candidates for the
-priesthood. The seminary is nothing more than the highest grade in the
-Armenian school system, with the single exception of the more exalted
-course provided by this Academy. The great majority of the pupils are
-maintained out of the revenues of the cloister; but those who are able
-pay what they can. A youth enters the seminary when about thirteen or
-fourteen years old, and the academy at about nineteen or twenty.
-<span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb274" href="#pb274" name=
-"pb274">274</a>]</span>Both institutions are housed in the same
-building. Each diocese is invited to make a certain number of
-presentations; and boys and young men are encouraged to come from the
-Turkish provinces. As a matter of fact few are able to avail themselves
-of the offer. The scholars reside within the building, one dormitory
-being allotted to the academy and another to the seminary. These
-dormitories are kept scrupulously neat and clean. There is a fine music
-room with a grand piano, and there is also a nice library with casts of
-the immortal works of Greek sculpture illuminating the shadows above
-the shelves. How strange they seem in this distant land, where the
-study of the classics is not included even in <i>the higher
-education</i>!</p>
-<p class="par">The effect which is being produced upon the character of
-the monastic priests by the wise solicitude for education which has
-characterised the Armenian movement is almost incalculable. In old days
-the monks were chosen by the bishops from among their attendants; and
-this custom obtained even after the development of seminarial
-instruction within the cloister. But in 1892 the synod issued a decree
-enjoining that, except in very special circumstances, no person should
-be ordained monk who had not passed through a seminary. He is nominated
-by the bishop, but must be approved by the synod. It is a pity that
-hitherto no steps have been taken to raise the standard of the ordinary
-clergy. But we must admit that it would not be easy to effect such a
-reform from above. For all practical purposes we may count three grades
-in the hierarchy of the Armenian Church. In the first figure the
-bishops, the second comprises the monks and parish priests, and the
-third includes the deacons. Over all three is exalted the authority of
-the katholikos, the keystone of the dome of the edifice. Celibacy is
-imposed upon the bishops and monks, while marriage is rendered
-obligatory upon the parish priests. Thus a sharp division exists
-between the two orders of clergy, arising out of a complete difference
-in mode of life. Moreover the ordinary clergy are elected by the
-laity&mdash;a custom to which the people jealously cling. The
-inhabitants of a town or village select their future pastor from among
-their own number. Of course the bishop might refuse to ordain. But such
-a course would only be warranted in very special circumstances; the
-same being predicated of the right of the bishop to depose a priest.
-Thus the parish clergy occupy a special and somewhat independent
-<span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb275" href="#pb275" name=
-"pb275">275</a>]</span>position. In the rural districts the spread of
-education has not yet commenced to touch them; nor will they emerge
-from their present deplorable debasement until a general quickening of
-public opinion shall take place.</p>
-<p class="par">The monks or celibate priests are, I believe, always
-connected with convents; they are known under the style of
-<i>vardapet</i>, or doctor, which is attached to their individual
-names. They are governed according to the rule of St. Basil of
-C&aelig;sarea, the contemporary and monitor of the Armenian pontiff,
-Nerses the Great (<span class="sc">A.D.</span> 340&ndash;374). They do
-not practise the tonsure, and they wear their beards. They are attired
-in long black robes with conical cowls. Their numbers must have
-considerably diminished since 1700, at which date we are informed this
-convent alone contained over a hundred monks.<a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e6852src" href="#xd21e6852" name="xd21e6852src">49</a> At present
-there are in all not more than some fifty vardapets within the wide
-limits of the Russian provinces. Of these about half reside at
-Edgmiatsin. As members of the synod or as bursars, as overseers of the
-printing press or as editors of the official journal, <i>Ararat</i>,
-their profession is no sinecure. All monks in Russian territory are
-ordained at Edgmiatsin, and it is the custom for all bishops, whether
-in Russian Armenia or abroad, to be consecrated in the church of the
-Illuminator.</p>
-<p class="par">The revenues dispensed by the katholikos are derived
-from several sources. There is the property of the monastery,
-consisting of lands and villages in the valley of the Araxes and
-elsewhere, to which, in the absence of statutes of mortmain, additions
-are constantly being made. The income from this source and from
-offerings and contributions of various kinds amounts, I believe, to
-about &pound;8000 a year. The general property of the Church is also
-administered from Edgmiatsin, the synod being specially invested with
-this important function. Donations in lands or money are frequently
-forthcoming, and are devoted to the support of the various
-institutions. The accounts of the monasteries and bishoprics in Russia
-are audited and passed by the synod. But the clergy are supported by
-their own flocks; and, beyond submitting their accounts to the proper
-authority, the parishes are practically autonomous.</p>
-<p class="par">There can be little doubt that the overseeing by the
-<span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb276" href="#pb276" name=
-"pb276">276</a>]</span>katholikos and synod of the administration of
-the funds of the Church in Russia has already effected a salutary
-change. Should Russia become possessed of the Turkish provinces, and
-should her counsels incline to the sounder policy of encouraging the
-Armenians to work out their salvation in their own way, this
-concentration is likely to promote a general reform of the Armenian
-clergy. The authority of the katholikos at the present day extends to
-practically all Armenians professing the national religion. That
-authority suffered division during the troubled period of long duration
-which followed the overthrow of the Bagratid dynasty (<span class=
-"sc">A.D.</span> 1045) and the gradual dispersal of the Armenian
-people. But the Katholikos of Sis has quite recently professed his
-spiritual allegiance to Edgmiatsin;<a class="noteref" id="xd21e6873src"
-href="#xd21e6873" name="xd21e6873src">50</a> and the recluse of
-Akhtamar, that beauteous island in the lake of Van, alone continues
-pretence to the title and station of a supreme pontiff. His
-jurisdiction is confined to his rock and a few villages on the
-mainland. The patriarchate of Constantinople is an institution which is
-the result of political exigencies, and which in no way derogates from
-the spiritual supremacy of the successor of St. Gregory, enthroned in
-the cloister near the banks of the Araxes.</p>
-<p class="par">My reader has perhaps divined from a perusal of the
-foregoing paragraphs that an interesting feature of the Armenian Church
-is the power enjoyed by the laity, which indeed may be described as
-predominant. With them rests the choice of the ordinary clergy, and in
-practice their voice prevails in the selection of a katholikos. That
-Church is indeed a compromise, so far as her ministers are concerned,
-between opposite principles in the organisation of Christianity. The
-monastic priests represent the principle of elevating a hierarchy into
-a position of lofty independence. From among their ranks are taken the
-bishops. But the great body of the clergy are strictly the ministers of
-the people, supported by their voluntary contributions. From these
-conclusions, derived from a study of contemporary conditions, I pass to
-a brief examination of the Edgmiatsin legend, and of the history and
-character of that interesting ecclesiastical edifice which rises in the
-background of all that I have written in the present chapter.</p>
-<hr class="tb">
-<p class="par"></p>
-<p class="par">The Armenians boast that the Gospel was preached to
-their ancestors by the first apostles, and that they were the first
-people <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb277" href="#pb277" name=
-"pb277">277</a>]</span>to adopt Christianity as the religion of the
-State. They separate these two events by a respectable interval, for
-they attribute the conversion of king and people to a miracle performed
-by St. Gregory towards the close of the third century. We have seen
-that the current version of that miracle comprises a vision by which
-Jesus Christ becomes in effect the Founder of their cathedral church.
-The inference is perhaps legitimate that they hold their own Church, as
-an organisation, to have been established by Christ Himself; and its
-independence of all hierarchies, whether of the East or of the West, to
-be based upon the same supreme sanction.<a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e6887src" href="#xd21e6887" name="xd21e6887src">51</a> We are
-carried back by a discussion of these claims to the very dawn of the
-Christian religion; and it will be wise to keep them before us as
-prominent landmarks to control the discursiveness of an enquiry which
-must also be brief.</p>
-<p class="par">I. The apostles mentioned by Armenian writers as having
-carried the Gospel into Armenia are St. Bartholomew, St.
-Thaddeus&mdash;the son or brother of St. James&mdash;St. Simon and St.
-Jude.<a class="noteref" id="xd21e6902src" href="#xd21e6902" name=
-"xd21e6902src">52</a> Of <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb278" href=
-"#pb278" name="pb278">278</a>]</span>these the two first named are
-alone in general repute. But the fame of St. Thaddeus reposes upon no
-less a title than that of having executed a commission from Jesus
-Christ Himself to the court of an Arsakid king of Lower Armenia or
-Mesopotamia, whom the Armenians claim as one of their own royal line.
-King Abgar of Edessa is said to have corresponded with the Saviour and
-to have begged Him to come to his capital and heal him of a malady. The
-letter is preserved which purports to contain the reply of Jesus, to
-the effect that after His ascension He would despatch one of the
-disciples. With this epistle came a portrait of the features of the
-Redeemer, which in subsequent times was the peculiar pride of Edessa.
-In due course the disciple arrived in the person of St. Thaddeus, and
-the king was restored to health. Monarch and people embraced the
-Christian faith. After the death of Abgar, which appears to have taken
-place at no long interval, his dominions were divided between his son
-and nephew. The former returned at once to the religion of his
-ancestors and reopened the temples of the gods. The latter, who seems
-to have reigned over a portion of Armenia proper, and who bore the name
-of Sanatruk, was visited by the apostle and embraced the faith. But
-fear of the Armenian nobles compelled the ruler to apostatise; the
-disciple was overwhelmed by the storm which he had himself aroused, and
-perished in the border province of Armenia on the side of Persia, in
-the country which receives the eastern slopes of Ararat.<a class=
-"noteref" id="xd21e6926src" href="#xd21e6926" name=
-"xd21e6926src">53</a> The legend of Abgar and his correspondence has
-provoked the attack of modern criticism and has perished in the unequal
-affray.<a class="noteref" id="xd21e6938src" href="#xd21e6938" name=
-"xd21e6938src">54</a> But the preaching and martyrdom of St. Thaddeus
-at the hands of King Sanatruk are well known to one of the earliest and
-most reliable of Armenian historians; and the same authority of the
-fourth century speaks of the throne of the Armenian pontiffs as the
-chair of St. Thaddeus.<a class="noteref" id="xd21e6950src" href=
-"#xd21e6950" name="xd21e6950src">55</a> In the absence of conclusive
-evidence that this saint did not preach in Armenia I shall prefer to
-suppose that he did. <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb279" href="#pb279"
-name="pb279">279</a>]</span>The name of St. Bartholomew is often
-mentioned in connection with that of St. Thaddeus; he is said to have
-been active in the mountainous region to the south of Lake Van, and to
-have been flayed alive by the same monarch who put his colleague to
-death.<a class="noteref" id="xd21e6959src" href="#xd21e6959" name=
-"xd21e6959src">56</a></p>
-<p class="par">These stories were perhaps invented at a comparatively
-late period. We are on surer ground when we surmise that Christianity
-was professed in Armenia long anterior to the miraculous cure of King
-Tiridates and his conversion by St. Gregory. Indeed it would be strange
-if such had failed to be the case. The interposition of one vast desert
-between the Holy Land and Armenia is a comparatively modern
-geographical fact. It is due entirely to bad government. In the first
-century the two countries were united by a long string of cities, the
-populous capitals of the low-lying districts. From such centres as
-Edessa and Nisibis the religion was carried into the border ranges, and
-over the passes to the plains of the tableland. There the first regions
-designated by Nature to receive the new culture were situated in the
-fertile country about the shores of Lake Van, and further east around
-the margin of Lake Urmi. As early as the middle of the third century we
-hear of an Armenian bishop, whose name, that of Merujan, would
-naturally connect him with the great Artsruni family, which possessed
-extensive territories in the neighbourhood of Van and subsequently
-furnished to that country a line of medi&aelig;val kings.<a class=
-"noteref" id="xd21e6964src" href="#xd21e6964" name=
-"xd21e6964src">57</a> It is also probable that the Archelaus, in whose
-mouth is placed a disputation with Mani towards the close of the same
-century (<i>c.</i> <span class="sc">A.D.</span> 275&ndash;277), was
-bishop of a see not far removed from Van.<a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e6985src" href="#xd21e6985" name="xd21e6985src">58</a> These early
-ecclesiastics would almost certainly have made use of the Syriac
-character, and it is more than likely that many among them were
-Syrians. Their activity and the circle of their disciples may not have
-extended to Northern Armenia; although there is presumptive evidence to
-show that the Christianity of Albania (Eastern Caucasus or Daghestan)
-and Siunik (country around <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb280" href=
-"#pb280" name="pb280">280</a>]</span>Lake G&ouml;kcheh and part of
-Karabagh) dated back to pre-Gregorian times.<a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e7016src" href="#xd21e7016" name="xd21e7016src">59</a> It seems at
-first sight strange that the earliest historians, such as Agathangelus
-and Faustus, maintain silence upon this older Christianity of their
-native land; but the edict of Tiridates against the enemies of
-paganism, preserved in the earliest source of the first of these works,
-implies the existence of Christians within the limits of his dominions
-whom the king persecutes after the example of his colleagues at Rome;
-and the luminous argument of one of the latest scholars in this field
-carries conviction that the priestly compiler Agathangelus and the monk
-Faustus had good reasons to ignore this pre-Gregorian Christianity, as
-being opposed to the character of the later orthodoxy.<a class=
-"noteref" id="xd21e7022src" href="#xd21e7022" name=
-"xd21e7022src">60</a> The big gap left by Armenian writers between the
-preaching of the apostles and the advent of St. Gregory in narrating
-the religious history of their country is in itself a suspicious fact;
-Armenian vanity was satisfied by the connection of their ancestors with
-the first disciples, and would not be wounded by a temporary relapse;
-but the laborious methods of modern research are year by year
-illuminating the interval, and removing the shroud which is perhaps due
-to ecclesiastical prejudice or fraud.</p>
-<p class="par">What was the nature of this early Christianity which
-made its way in despite of persecution among a barbarous people,
-professing a crude and perhaps unamiable form of paganism? It is
-difficult to believe that the religion of the first Christians
-resembled even remotely the later State religion of the Roman Empire,
-which under the name of Christianity was spread over the world by the
-imperial armies and has been bequeathed as a troublesome legacy to the
-modern world. The origins of this great spiritual movement are veiled
-in twilight; but from the shadows and uncertain glimmer shines forth a
-Personality which no doubts and no disappointments can assail. Round
-this Personality centred many and diverse spiritual conceptions, old as
-time itself and young as time. They were quickened into new life by the
-emotional quality of a great example; and they were kept alive and made
-to focus upon the domain of morality by the daily and intimate
-intercourse of the members of a brotherhood which should embrace all
-the creatures of God. It is essential to the fruitfulness of such a
-community that they should maintain, not internal discipline nor even
-the agreement of the members upon matters of doctrine among themselves,
-but <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb281" href="#pb281" name=
-"pb281">281</a>]</span>the enthusiasm which prompted their first
-efforts, a high sense of individual responsibility among the members,
-and the habit of mutual tolerance, mutual help, mutual consolation,
-and, above all, of mutual love. The simple ceremonies of the early
-Church were calculated to promote this spirit. The candidate was
-admonished by the rite of baptism of the serious nature of the resolve
-which he had taken to break with the world of sense and appearance, and
-to become initiated into the higher meaning and purpose by which it is
-supported and inspired. The fast redressed the balance between the soul
-and the unruly flesh; and the agapes or love-feasts induced a close
-communion among the brothers, the necessary corollary to communion with
-God.</p>
-<p class="par">It is scarcely open to doubt that the theoretical side
-of the religion was not defined by any rigid formula. &ldquo;Tell
-me,&rdquo; says Archelaus, &ldquo;over whom it was that the Holy Spirit
-descended like a dove. Who is this one whom John baptizes? If He was
-already perfect, if He was already the Son, if He was already Virtue,
-the Holy Spirit could not have entered into Him; a kingdom cannot enter
-into a kingdom. Whose was the voice which came from heaven and bore
-testimony to Him: &lsquo;This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well
-pleased&rsquo;?&rdquo; It is clear that the theory of Archelaus was of
-an adoptionist nature, or, in other words, that he believed Jesus to
-have been adopted as the Son of God by the descent of the Holy Spirit
-at the baptism. It is also plain that he was not arguing as an
-irresponsible disputant, but as giving voice to a strong current of
-orthodox opinion in his Church, as opposed to the docetic teaching of
-Mani, representing Jesus as a heavenly spirit assuming the mask of man.
-Other currents there certainly were in other dioceses than that of
-Archelaus, and perhaps even among his own flock. But there seems strong
-reason for believing that the adoptionist Christology was firmly
-established towards the close of the third century in outlying portions
-of the Roman Empire and among the Christian communities outside its
-pale.<a class="noteref" id="xd21e7034src" href="#xd21e7034" name=
-"xd21e7034src">61</a> In Antioch it had been suppressed in the person
-of Bishop Paul of Samosata after the overthrow of his patron, Zenobia,
-queen of Palmyra, by the Emperor Aurelian in the year 272. The weight
-of the Empire was placed in the scale of those tendencies which were to
-crystallise in the celebrated formula of Nice (<span class=
-"sc">A.D.</span> 325): <i>Christ a very God, begotten of God, but not a
-creature of God; Son of God, of one nature with <span class=
-"pagenum">[<a id="pb282" href="#pb282" name="pb282">282</a>]</span>the
-Father; Who came down from heaven, and took flesh, and became man, and
-suffered and ascended into heaven; Who was before He was begotten and
-Who has always been</i>. The same Council of Nice enjoined that the
-followers of Bishop Paul, or Pauliani, should be re-baptized before
-admission to the Church. The recalcitrant were driven out into the
-mountain fastnesses, where after the lapse of several centuries and
-under the Armenian terminology of Paulicians (Paulikean), the
-inheritors of their spirit again emerge as a sharp thorn in the side of
-the orthodox Churches both of Constantinople and of Armenia. The
-history of the wholesale persecutions of this hardy people by the
-successors of the C&aelig;sars during the ninth century, and of the
-successful reprisals which they made, is outside the scope of these
-remarks; they were driven into the arms of the Mohammedan Power, and
-their decimation by the imperial armies drove another nail into the
-coffin which was being prepared for the cancerous body of the Roman
-Empire.</p>
-<p class="par">The connection of the assailants of Armenian orthodoxy,
-who were known as Paulicians, with their namesakes in the more westerly
-provinces of the Empire, and of these with Paul of Samosata, has not
-yet, perhaps, in spite of the luminous researches of the scholar I have
-quoted, been sufficiently worked out. But we rise from a perusal of his
-work with the conviction that this connection was at least of the
-nature of a strong family resemblance dating back to apostolic times.
-The important document which he has disinterred from the library at
-Edgmiatsin, and of which the title suggests the hopes that were excited
-in the breast of Socrates by the pretensions of a certain work of
-Anaxagoras, affords us a full and detailed, if partially mutilated
-account of the religious profession of the descendants of these
-Armenian heretics, as copied from previous copies by a member of the
-sect in 1782. The same voice which found expression in the disputation
-of Archelaus rings out from the pages of the <i>Key of Truth</i> not
-less clearly than of old. Jesus is human, though free from sin, until
-He is baptized by John in the Jordan when He has reached His thirtieth
-year. Then the Spirit of the Father, descending upon Him, fills Him
-with the Godhead. After adoption the elect Christ is forthwith led up
-to the mountain, where He enjoys the mystery of intercourse with the
-Father for forty days. Baptism must therefore constitute a central
-event in the life of the Christian, or imitator of Christ. <span class=
-"pagenum">[<a id="pb283" href="#pb283" name="pb283">283</a>]</span>He
-must come to baptism after the full awakening of his individual
-conscience to a knowledge of sin and to the nature of repentance. He
-must come at mature age, when the heats of youth are passed and his
-natural instincts have been brought under control. No remission of sins
-can be effective until he shall have reached this age; nor is baptism
-under other circumstances more than an empty form. Through baptism he
-becomes a Christian; and the meal which follows baptism is the symbol
-of that feast of divine converse with God of which the Son of God,
-after His adoption, partook. The Holy Ghost enters the catechumen
-immediately after baptism, and he in effect becomes filled with the
-spirit of God. The note of aversion to hierarchical grades which is
-struck in this treatise was no doubt accentuated by the opposition of
-the sect to the methods of their natural enemies, the Orthodox Church.
-But their polity&mdash;if the word may stand&mdash;could in this
-respect be based on Scripture; and it encouraged that sense of
-individual responsibility and that habit of self-reliance which are not
-less effective qualities in the domain of evangelical enterprise than
-the opposite methods of the Jesuits. The elect of God composed a body
-of which each member was sublimely conscious of his resolve to pursue a
-life of ideal justice by communion with the spirit which resided in
-himself. The example which they set was not that of a selected and
-exotic hierarchy, but was the example of simple peasants and artisans.
-When we meet such people, whatever the proximate origin of their
-particular tenets, we take farewell with a tear and perhaps with a
-sigh. The Dukhobortsy, of whom I have spoken, would find much in the
-manual of these Armenian adoptionists with which those resolute
-children of the Reformation in Europe would cordially agree.</p>
-<p class="par">Traces of adoptionism are to be found in the teaching of
-St. Gregory himself and in the early institutions of the Armenian State
-Church. We must regret that what is probably the earliest source for
-our knowledge of that teaching has not yet been translated into one of
-our Western tongues.<a class="noteref" id="xd21e7057src" href=
-"#xd21e7057" name="xd21e7057src">62</a> In one passage the saint
-instructs us that the Spirit, coming down at the Baptism, gave to Jesus
-the glory which became His. John the Baptist is represented as the
-depositary of the Divine favours conferred of old upon Israel; and it
-was he who conferred these favours&mdash;priesthood, prophecy and
-kingship&mdash;upon our Lord Jesus Christ.<a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e7063src" href="#xd21e7063" name="xd21e7063src">63</a> It
-<span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb284" href="#pb284" name=
-"pb284">284</a>]</span>is, I think, scarcely fair to argue from such
-passages that the Christianity of Gregory was, as a whole, of an
-adoptionist type. But it is interesting to remember in this connection
-that the Armenians celebrate the birth and the baptism of Christ upon
-one and the same day, the 6th of January. And we may perhaps be
-surprised to read that in the canons of St. Sahak, one of the pillars
-of the early State Church (390&ndash;439), the feast of the birth of
-Christ is not included in the list of festivals which are formulated in
-some detail.<a class="noteref" id="xd21e7071src" href="#xd21e7071"
-name="xd21e7071src">64</a> We know that St. Gregory himself brought to
-Armenia with great pomp certain relics of St. John the Baptist; and the
-number of monasteries in Armenia which are dedicated to the hermit on
-the Jordan testify to the peculiar veneration in which he has been
-held. But the influence of orthodoxy in the West must early have
-restrained these adoptionist tendencies; and it is not improbable that
-they became identified with that stubborn <i>heresy of their native
-land</i> which is often mentioned and deplored by Armenian
-writers.<a class="noteref" id="xd21e7080src" href="#xd21e7080" name=
-"xd21e7080src">65</a> There are reasons for supposing that the
-Messalianism (<i>meteslenuthium</i>) against which is directed a cruel
-canon of the Armenian Council of Shahapivan, convened in about the
-middle of the fifth century, was in effect a manifestation of this
-native heresy, and was identical with the Paulicianism which was
-specifically stigmatised by a canon of the Council held in Dvin (valley
-of the Araxes) in the year 719. The first of these synods enacted that
-priests convicted of Messalianism should be branded on the forehead
-with the figure of a fox. This particular punishment was the same which
-was meted out to the Paulicians of Armenia during the persecutions of
-the eleventh century. The Council of Dvin forbade all intercourse with
-members of this sect under pain of heavy punishments. The pontiff of
-the day, John the Philosopher, composed a tract against them, in which
-he speaks of them as dregs of the incestuous flock of the Paulicians,
-and informs us that they had been placed under a ban by Nerses
-Katholikos, under which name he is probably alluding to Nerses III.
-(640&ndash;661).<a class="noteref" id="xd21e7095src" href="#xd21e7095"
-name="xd21e7095src">66</a> He represents them as joining hands with
-certain refugees from the Albanian Church (Eastern Caucasus) who were
-opposed <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb285" href="#pb285" name=
-"pb285">285</a>]</span>to the use of images. There is at least a family
-resemblance between these sectaries of the eighth century and those
-who, under the name of Thonraki (Thonraketzi), suffered persecution in
-the tenth and eleventh centuries at the hands of the Armenian State
-Church. Their fiercest adversary, Gregory Magistros, who in the middle
-of the eleventh century carried fire and sword into their mountain
-retreats, alludes to them as having imbibed the poison of Paul of
-Samosata, and adds the important statement that their proximate founder
-was one Sembat, and that for 170 years they had been continuously
-admonished and anathematised by successive patriarchs and bishops of
-Armenia as well as of Albania.<a class="noteref" id="xd21e7106src"
-href="#xd21e7106" name="xd21e7106src">67</a> Their seats in Armenia
-were in the radial mountain mass of the Ala Dagh (Thonrak), in Sasun,
-south of Mush, and in the neighbourhood of Khinis, whence were derived
-the band who were the object of perhaps the latest persecution, that of
-1837&ndash;45. It was on this occasion that the documentary proof of
-their professions was wrested from them and taken to Edgmiatsin. It is
-the book entitled the <i>Key of Truth</i>. The plain of Khinis
-contained members of this sect into quite recent times; but they
-suffered severely owing to the customary powers possessed by the heads
-of the Gregorian community in Turkey to inflict corporal punishment
-upon members of their own flock. The sectaries were not recognised by
-the Government as an independent religion. Not many years ago the
-remnant came over to the American missionaries and embraced the
-Protestant faith.</p>
-<p class="par">II. What does my reader know about the ancient history
-of Armenia? At least he remembers the wonderful march of Xenophon
-(401&ndash;400 <span class="sc">B.C.</span>), who crossed the entire
-block of the Armenian tableland from the plains of Mesopotamia to the
-Black Sea. At that time the country was under the overlordship of the
-Ach&aelig;menian king of Persia&mdash;that splendid dynasty which was
-at length destroyed by a great wave from Europe, and of which the
-latest champion was murdered by a satrap of Bactria after his decisive
-defeat in the belt of mountains south of Lake Van by Alexander the
-Great (331 <span class="sc">B.C.</span>). The name of the Greek hero is
-still alive in Southern Armenia, sharing the honours in this respect
-with Solomon. Perhaps our next familiar memory will be the visit of
-Hannibal to the court of Artaxias, one of the <span class=
-"pagenum">[<a id="pb286" href="#pb286" name=
-"pb286">286</a>]</span>numerous governors in the empire of the
-successors of Alexander, and a ruler whose territory embraced the scene
-of these travels.<a class="noteref" id="xd21e7128src" href="#xd21e7128"
-name="xd21e7128src">68</a> Nor are we likely to have forgotten the
-recoil of the East upon the West which took place under the leadership
-of the picturesque Mithradates, that strangely composite embodiment of
-two diverse cultures. Behind Mithradates looms the power of a great
-king of Armenia, whom, again, we know as a scion of a new dynasty which
-had arisen in Asia&mdash;the Arsakid or Parthian dynasty. With these
-Arsakid kings of Armenia we are fairly familiar; the Parthian archers
-ride unrevenged through the polished verse of Horace, and the Arsakids
-of Persia and Armenia supply the pages of Tacitus with several lively
-interludes to his throbbing narrative. Some acquaintance with these
-various events is part of the equipment of most among us&mdash;a little
-less or a little more. We may learn a great deal more of the subsequent
-history of Armenia; but from what sources shall we collect material for
-a fuller knowledge of the older period? The Armenian historians are all
-but worthless; the West was little inquisitive; and even now we can
-scarcely answer the leading questions: whence the Armenians came to the
-seats which they have occupied throughout the historical period, and
-how they fared in culture, in art, or in arms. Upon these subjects the
-Fool is almost as well instructed as the Wise Man; we search the mists
-in vain for any definite image; till from among them emerge the thrones
-of these Arsakids&mdash;a Northern or Scythian dynasty, holding Persia
-as well as Armenia, and crowning a polity which was of a strongly
-feudal type.<a class="noteref" id="xd21e7131src" href="#xd21e7131"
-name="xd21e7131src">69</a></p>
-<p class="par">The last of the kings of this dynasty who ruled over
-Persia was the ally and kinsman of the father of King Tiridates, who
-was destined, after much vicissitude of fortune, to embrace
-Christianity and to adopt it as the religion of the State. Ardavan and
-Chosroes were seated on the thrones of Persia and Armenia, when a
-prince of the Persian province which is now known under the name of
-Fars (Shiraz, Persepolis) overthrew the former of these monarchs by a
-decisive battle, in which Ardavan himself was slain (<span class=
-"sc">A.D.</span> 227). The victor, Ardashir, became master of the great
-Persian monarchy in which the king of Armenia held the second place.
-His dynasty, the Sasanian, supplanted the <span class="pagenum">[<a id=
-"pb287" href="#pb287" name="pb287">287</a>]</span>Arsakids in Persia,
-and continued to rule until the middle of the seventh century, when it
-succumbed to the Arabs and to Islam. The Sasanians are familiar to all
-of us as the permanent enemies of the Roman Empire; and the traveller
-may be said to be on terms of intimacy with them, for they have left
-him several monuments of great solidity and architectural merit which
-mock the squalor of their surroundings at the present day. These, it is
-true, they erected with the aid of architects and artisans taken
-captive in their wars with the Empire.<a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e7143src" href="#xd21e7143" name="xd21e7143src">70</a> Fars was in
-those days a centre of Zoroastrianism or Mazdaism; and Ardashir was the
-champion of the fire-worshippers, leaned on their support and closely
-identified them with his dynasty.</p>
-<p class="par">When the news of the death of his kinsman and ally was
-brought to the Arsakid king of Armenia, profound grief filled the soul
-of Chosroes. For the moment he was powerless to arrest the triumph of
-the usurper; but in the following year (<span class="sc">A.D.</span>
-228) he had matured extensive preparations, and, at the head of an army
-which comprised Huns from beyond Caucasus as well as other nomads,
-marched to the frontiers of Persia and laid waste her provinces to the
-gates of Ctesiphon. Thirsting to avenge his race, he endeavoured to
-enlist the Parthian satraps in the empire of Ardashir; but these
-temporising or jealous princelets had thrown in their lot with the
-Sasanian monarch and could not be induced to stir. He was, however,
-assisted by a portion of the Medes and by the sons of Ardavan.<a class=
-"noteref" id="xd21e7151src" href="#xd21e7151" name=
-"xd21e7151src">71</a></p>
-<p class="par">For a period of ten years the war was continued by the
-Armenian potentate; his capital, Vagharshapat,<a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e7167src" href="#xd21e7167" name="xd21e7167src">72</a> was filled
-with the booty of successful raids; and, while the temples of the gods
-throughout Armenia were adorned with costly offerings, their priests
-received munificent largesses. His fortunes were assisted by an
-alliance with the Empire; the reigning C&aelig;sar, Alexander
-<span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb288" href="#pb288" name=
-"pb288">288</a>]</span>Severus, was alarmed by the rise of the new
-dynasty, and may have been stung by impertinent messages on the part of
-Ardashir. A Roman army attacked Persia from the side of Armenia, while
-two more divisions, one under the leadership of the emperor, assailed
-other portions of the dominions of the king of kings.<a class="noteref"
-id="xd21e7189src" href="#xd21e7189" name="xd21e7189src">73</a> If the
-result of the various engagements may appear ambiguous (231&ndash;233),
-it at least ensured the quiescence of the Persian during several years.
-Ardashir continued to be harassed by the Armenian ally of the Romans,
-and resolved to rid himself by any means of his inveterate foe. A
-Parthian of the blood royal volunteered to execute his desire; he went
-over with his family as a refugee to the court of Chosroes, who
-received him with the greatest warmth as a valuable ally. After much
-pleasant intercourse, when spring came on and the king was preparing to
-take the field, Anak&mdash;for such was his name&mdash;bethought
-himself of the pledge which he had given and of the reward promised by
-Ardashir. In company with his own brother he succeeded in drawing the
-king aside, when the two villains despatched him with their swords. The
-crime was committed at Vagharshapat; the guilty pair fled down the
-valley, hoping to cross the Araxes at the bridge of Artaxata. But they
-were cut off by the Armenian horsemen and precipitated into the river.
-The king, before he expired, gave orders that the family of Anak should
-forthwith be massacred. Only two little children were rescued from the
-carnage; one was brought up in Persia, and the other, Gregory, in
-Greece (<span class="sc">A.D.</span> 238).<a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e7195src" href="#xd21e7195" name="xd21e7195src">74</a></p>
-<p class="par">This unnatural treachery on the part of a Parthian
-towards the Parthian King of Armenia in the interests of a dynasty
-which had supplanted the Parthians on the throne of Persia came near to
-costing the Armenians the permanent loss of their independence. But
-Ardashir appears to have contented himself with the enjoyment of his
-personal revenge and of a few raids into Armenian territory. His death
-occurred a few years after the date of the tragedy (in 241 or 242); and
-the government of Armenia appears to have been conducted by the nobles,
-under <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb289" href="#pb289" name=
-"pb289">289</a>]</span>the nominal sovereignty of the son of Chosroes,
-by name Tiridates, a child of tender years. It was not until the year
-252 or 253 that the successor of Ardashir was enabled to establish his
-sway over Armenia with the assistance of the uncles of Tiridates, whose
-cruel treatment compelled the youthful king to take refuge in the
-Empire.<a class="noteref" id="xd21e7208src" href="#xd21e7208" name=
-"xd21e7208src">75</a> But the triumph of Shapur was not destined to be
-of long duration; the young Tiridates grew up and prospered in the
-territory and under the protection of the Romans; and, after
-distinguishing himself by personal bravery in a campaign of the emperor
-against the Goths, was restored to his native dominions with the
-support of a Roman army and perhaps in consequence of the victory of
-Odaenathus, prince of Palmyra, over the armies of the Persian king (264
-or 265).<a class="noteref" id="xd21e7220src" href="#xd21e7220" name=
-"xd21e7220src">76</a> It was in the first year of his restoration that
-occurred an event which no Armenian can hear related without
-experiencing a thrill of emotion.</p>
-<p class="par">When the son of Anak, the murderer, who was being
-educated in Roman territory, at C&aelig;sarea, the capital of
-Cappadocia, had come to years of discretion, he was
-informed&mdash;perhaps after his marriage and the birth of two
-children&mdash;by the faithful guardian or governess under whose care
-he had grown up, of the crime committed by his father. Forthwith the
-pious youth&mdash;for he had been brought up in the Christian
-faith&mdash;sallied forth in search of the son of the murdered monarch,
-and attached himself to the person of the exiled Tiridates, whom he
-commenced to serve with the utmost zeal. Upon the subject of his origin
-and parentage Gregory maintained a wise silence; but he was
-<span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb290" href="#pb290" name=
-"pb290">290</a>]</span>unable or unwilling to conceal his religion,
-which at that time happened to be not only unpopular, but subject to
-persecution.<a class="noteref" id="xd21e7240src" href="#xd21e7240"
-name="xd21e7240src">77</a> Tiridates in vain endeavoured to wean his
-servant from the Christian faith; time after time he assailed his
-constancy with reproach and even with imprisonment; but the decisive
-moment arrived when he had recovered his long-lost dominions, and stood
-within the famous temple of Anahid, hard by the present town of
-Erzinjan. At the feast which followed the sacrifice he gave vent to his
-emotion in words characteristic of a king. Addressing his trusty
-counsellor among the assembled guests, he commanded him to make an
-offering of garlands and leafy branches to the shrine of the great
-goddess; and, upon his refusal, &ldquo;How dare you,&rdquo; exclaimed
-the king, &ldquo;adore a God whom I do not adore?&rdquo; The resources
-of persuasion and torture were without effect upon the will of the
-Christian; and the monarch was meditating some fresh inducement when
-one of the nobles approached and said: &ldquo;Sire, this Gregory is not
-deserving of life, and hence his unwillingness to live and see the
-light. We knew not who he was, this long while that he has sojourned
-among us&mdash;but now we know: he is son of that Anak who killed thy
-royal father, and to whom Armenia owed her exhaustion and
-captivity.&rdquo; When Tiridates heard these words, he gave orders to
-bind the martyr and to conduct him to the castle of Artaxata. There he
-was cast into a pit of great depth, where he was left to perish.</p>
-<p class="par">For thirteen years Gregory languished in this noisome
-dungeon, forgotten by the world but saved from death by the
-ministrations of a widow who resided in the castle. The hatred or fear
-of the Christians, so early manifest in the new reign, was emphasised
-by Tiridates in a pompous edict, which admonished his subjects to
-beware of the resentment of the gods&mdash;of Aramazd, who gave
-fertility; of Anahid, the goddess defender; of Vahagn, the courageous
-god. The king had been a witness&mdash;so it proceeded&mdash;during his
-sojourn in the Empire, of the great solicitude of the C&aelig;sars for
-the cult of the national divinities, to the prosperity and glory of
-their people. Following the example of his august instructors, he bade
-his subjects, nobles and peasants, to lay hands on any offender against
-the gods. They should bind him, hand and foot, and bring him to the
-gate of the palace. <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb291" href="#pb291"
-name="pb291">291</a>]</span>His lands and possessions would be bestowed
-upon the denouncer. The religious policy of a Decius and a Valerian was
-at least extended by Tiridates to the holier sphere of legitimate
-homicide. At the head of the Roman cavalry he rode down the Persian
-cohorts, and among his levies were reckoned a contingent of Huns. Of
-lofty stature and broad shoulders, his appearance was the signal of
-victory; and it became a proverb that Tiridates would destroy the dams
-in his impatience, and in his courage arrest the rivers in their course
-towards the sea.</p>
-<p class="par">At the point where the historian I have been following
-was perhaps about to change his theme, and to present the opposite
-picture of a king and people overtaken by calamities which could only
-be attributed to the wrath of heaven, the priestly compiler of the
-Agathangelus treatise has gone to work with his scissors, and has
-substituted for the more straightforward account of the authority he
-was using one of those prolix and portentous legends, familiar to the
-student of hagiographical literature, which were at once the outcome of
-the diseased fancy of the cloister and the food with which it was
-sustained. The tale of the advent of the Roman virgins, of the assault
-upon the modesty of the fairest among them, of their martyrdom and of
-the transformation of the royal violator into a wild boar, wallowing in
-mud and eating grass, bears the imprint at every phase of a monkish
-invention, which was probably stolen in its essential features from the
-literature of Greek monasteries and adapted to the local conditions at
-Vagharshapat.<a class="noteref" id="xd21e7249src" href="#xd21e7249"
-name="xd21e7249src">78</a> But carelessness or want of skill on
-<span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb292" href="#pb292" name=
-"pb292">292</a>]</span>the part of the compiler has happily preserved
-for us a fragment of the original story, from which we learn that the
-Armenians were afflicted by an extraordinary outbreak of diverse
-diseases: leprosy, palsy, dropsy, madness.<a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e7303src" href="#xd21e7303" name="xd21e7303src">79</a> We are
-given to infer that the king himself was visited by some grave malady,
-and that he was cured in a miraculous manner upon the appearance and at
-the hands of Gregory, who had long been numbered among the
-dead.<a class="noteref" id="xd21e7309src" href="#xd21e7309" name=
-"xd21e7309src">80</a> <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb293" href=
-"#pb293" name="pb293">293</a>]</span>We are told how, from all parts of
-Armenia, the people flocked to the province of Ararat, to Vagharshapat,
-the royal residence; how they were cured of their various disorders;
-and how king and people embraced the faith in the service of which the
-saintly doctor had effected their cure. The testimony of the historian
-is supported by a Greek writer of the fifth century, who attributes the
-conversion of King Tiridates to a miracle.<a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e7315src" href="#xd21e7315" name="xd21e7315src">81</a></p>
-<p class="par">It is not unlikely that the mind of the monarch was
-influenced by some occurrence of the nature deducible from the mangled
-narrative of the original biographer. Tiridates was a full-blooded
-heathen, prone to all forms of superstition, and free from any taint of
-rationalising tendencies. Yet we may suspect that the number and power
-of the Armenian Christians prior to his conversion loomed much larger
-in the consciousness of himself and of his contemporaries than we are
-led to suppose by Armenian histories. Was he desirous of finding a
-counterpoise to the Mazdaism of his Persian enemy, which had been
-elevated by the Sasanians into a strongly organised State religion and
-identified with the throne? Was he impressed with the cohesion of the
-Christians among themselves, and by the contrast thus offered to the
-fissiparous tendencies of his feudal polity? Was the widow in the
-castle of Artaxata a Christian, and was the old authority of the
-prisoner in the king&rsquo;s counsels exploited by her co-religionists
-at an opportune moment, when his wisdom should appear restored, as by a
-miracle, to a necessitous land? If such questions be mere matters of
-surmise, we at least know that at the date of the conversion the Roman
-Empire was hesitating in a policy towards the Christians, and that the
-repressive measures of a Valerian were no longer in repute.<a class=
-"noteref" id="xd21e7320src" href="#xd21e7320" name=
-"xd21e7320src">82</a> The Armenian king became a convert before their
-revival under Diocletian (284&ndash;305); and Christianity was adopted
-as the religion of the State in Armenia some thirty years prior to its
-triumph in the West by the decisive action of the Milvian Bridge (312),
-and over a hundred years before the edicts of Theodosius the First
-against the practice of paganism.<a class="noteref" id="xd21e7329src"
-href="#xd21e7329" name="xd21e7329src">83</a> <span class=
-"pagenum">[<a id="pb294" href="#pb294" name="pb294">294</a>]</span></p>
-<p class="par">The measures taken by Tiridates and his statesman and
-mentor, Gregory, to supplant polytheism by Christianity were such as
-might have excited the envy of a C&aelig;sar, and which only an Eastern
-despot could hope to enforce. From Vagharshapat the king proceeded down
-the valley to Artaxata at the head of the troops which garrisoned the
-capital. On the way he set fire to the temple of the god Dir, from whom
-he is said to have derived his name (Dirtad or gift of Dir).<a class=
-"noteref" id="xd21e7335src" href="#xd21e7335" name=
-"xd21e7335src">84</a> In a graphic figure our historian likens the
-priests and their followers to demons; and he relates how, some on
-horseback, others on foot, and all fully armed, they hurried hither and
-thither, gesticulating and screaming, until they were put to flight.
-But the swarm took refuge in the temple of Anahid at Artaxata, where
-from the roof they discharged arrows and precipitated a hail of stones
-upon the advancing host. Gregory, making the sign of the Cross, ran to
-the gate of the edifice, which dissolved into its foundations, wreathed
-in flames. The dusky troop vanished like a puff of smoke from the face
-of the land, to Caucasus and Chaldia<a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e7341src" href="#xd21e7341" name="xd21e7341src">85</a> in the
-north. The treasures of the temple were distributed among the needy;
-some of the priests were selected or accepted for the service of the
-Church, to which body was also allotted the confiscated land.</p>
-<p class="par">King and minister travelled the country in all
-directions, preaching,<a class="noteref" id="xd21e7346src" href=
-"#xd21e7346" name="xd21e7346src">86</a> overthrowing temples and
-endowing the Church with their rich possessions. One after another the
-most famous sanctuaries succumbed to the royal zeal: the fane of
-Aramazd, father of the gods, at Ani, the modern Kemakh, the
-burial-place of the kings; that of Nanea, daughter of Aramazd, at Til,
-beyond the Western Euphrates; the temple of Mithra, son of Aramazd, at
-Pakharij in Terjan, and the temple of Barshamin at Tortan. A more
-personal delight may have thrilled the saint&mdash;if saints be capable
-of such emotions&mdash;as he shattered the golden statue of the goddess
-Anahid at Erzinjan, and watched the lofty walls of her numerous shrines
-sinking to the level of the ground. They were the most magnificent of
-all the sacred edifices in Armenia, and they were defended to the last
-by quite an army of dusky foes. Within the vacant enclosures was
-erected the sign of the Cross.</p>
-<p class="par">Months and perhaps years were occupied in the overthrow
-of <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb295" href="#pb295" name=
-"pb295">295</a>]</span>these strongholds of paganism;<a class="noteref"
-id="xd21e7356src" href="#xd21e7356" name="xd21e7356src">87</a> but it
-was not until after the return of Gregory from ordination at
-C&aelig;sarea of Cappadocia, whither he was escorted by sixteen of the
-great nobles and conducted in a car drawn by white mules,<a class=
-"noteref" id="xd21e7365src" href="#xd21e7365" name=
-"xd21e7365src">88</a> that king and people received at the hands of the
-minister, no longer a layman, the crowning benefit of baptism. The
-first act of Gregory upon his return to his native country was to
-destroy the temples of Astishat in the province of Taron (Mush), which
-lay upon his road and which were still frequented. These were three in
-number and dedicated to three gods. The first was the shrine of Vahagn,
-destroyer of serpents; the second belonged to Anahid, the golden
-mother; while the third preserved the cult of the goddess Astghik, the
-Aphrodite of the fair mythology of Greece. They were situated on the
-summit of Mount Karke, close to the Euphrates, and in full view of the
-chain of the Taurus mountains. The place was called Astishat because of
-the frequent sacrifices which were offered up; and it was there that
-the kings of Armenia had been wont to appease the gods. The saint was
-carrying with him certain relics obtained in Roman territory, namely a
-parcel of the bones of St. John the Baptist and of those of the holy
-martyr Athenogenes.<a class="noteref" id="xd21e7368src" href=
-"#xd21e7368" name="xd21e7368src">89</a> When his numerous party had
-<span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb296" href="#pb296" name=
-"pb296">296</a>]</span>arrived in front of the temples, and were not
-further from the Euphrates than a space which a horseman would cover in
-two careers of his steed, the white mules of the car with the relics
-came to a standstill in the hollow of a valley, where there was a
-little water and which still remained to be crossed. Efforts were being
-made in vain to induce them to proceed, when an angel appeared to
-Gregory and signified the Divine Will. The relics should be deposited
-upon the spot where they were stationed. Forthwith the entire company
-busied themselves with the erection of a chapel, where in due course
-the bones of the saints were laid to rest. The next care of pontiff and
-princes was to demolish the temples of the idols which stood above the
-valley. In their place Gregory laid the foundations of a church, and
-erected an altar to the glory of God.<a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e7382src" href="#xd21e7382" name="xd21e7382src">90</a> It was here
-that he first commenced to build churches, and to erect altars in the
-name of Christ. For twenty days he sojourned on the spot; and having
-prepared fonts for baptism, baptized first the great princes who had
-journeyed with him, and next the people to the number of over a hundred
-and ninety thousand. In the chapel of St. John and Athenogenes he
-dispensed the holy sacrament; and it was ordained that an annual
-festival should be celebrated in that place in honour of the saints and
-in commemoration of the first foundation of Christian churches and
-ordination of Christian priests. From Astishat the Illuminator
-journeyed to Bagaran in the province of Ararat; but it was at the foot
-of Mount Nepat and on the banks of the river Euphrates that the son of
-Anak administered to king and assembled army the regenerating rite. A
-church was erected upon the site and endowed with a remnant of the
-relics; and a festival was appointed in honour of the saints in place
-of that of Amanor, at the season of first fruits.<a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e7394src" href="#xd21e7394" name="xd21e7394src">91</a>
-<span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb297" href="#pb297" name=
-"pb297">297</a>]</span></p>
-<p class="par">It would not be easy to find an account equally graphic
-and circumstantial of the methods employed to substitute Christianity
-for polytheism, which, although, no doubt, they were less violent and
-more gradually operative in more civilised countries, were yet
-essentially similar. We learn from the Armenian writer how the churches
-rose on the sites of the temples, how the ancient festival in honour of
-the god was converted into the festival of a martyr, and how, in fact,
-while the myth was new and unfamiliar, much of the ritual and all the
-surroundings remained the same. The sacred groves were taken by storm
-amid scenes of carnage which our historian skilfully veils by the use
-of metaphor. The lands and slaves of the heathen fanes were made over
-to the Church; the number of the chapels exceeded that of the shrines
-which had been demolished, and separate endowments were made to all by
-royal decree. The children of the priests were distributed among the
-newly founded seminaries, where they were instructed in the Greek and
-Syriac languages and introduced to the literature of the Church. Their
-loyalty to the new religion was stimulated by an annual salary; and the
-most deserving among them were consecrated bishops. Such was the nature
-of the revolution accomplished by St. Gregory with a thoroughness and
-decision which we cannot but admire. The old cult was not extinguished,
-but irremediably disabled; it lurked even in the highest places, and we
-hear of a queen of Armenia who encouraged the polytheists to
-assassinate Verthanes, the son and successor of St. Gregory.<a class=
-"noteref" id="xd21e7417src" href="#xd21e7417" name=
-"xd21e7417src">92</a> Many Armenians practised Christianity as a mere
-matter of form, regarding it as an aberration of the human intelligence
-to which they had been compelled to subscribe.<a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e7420src" href="#xd21e7420" name="xd21e7420src">93</a> Those who
-had embraced the faith with conviction were limited to the circles
-which spoke Greek or Syriac, or were at least fairly familiar with
-those idioms.<a class="noteref" id="xd21e7423src" href="#xd21e7423"
-name="xd21e7423src">94</a> Yet Gregory preached to the Armenians in the
-Armenian language.<a class="noteref" id="xd21e7427src" href=
-"#xd21e7427" name="xd21e7427src">95</a> Under the shadow of night the
-devotees of the old religion would adore <span class="pagenum">[<a id=
-"pb298" href="#pb298" name="pb298">298</a>]</span>their divinities and
-chant the tempestuous epics of their native land.<a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e7436src" href="#xd21e7436" name="xd21e7436src">96</a> Years
-elapsed before they would abandon their lamentations for the dead, a
-practice specially repugnant to the Christian spirit.<a class="noteref"
-id="xd21e7439src" href="#xd21e7439" name="xd21e7439src">97</a> Still,
-in spite of the constant undercurrent and frequent ebullitions of
-paganism, the institutions of the Illuminator were never jeopardised by
-a decisive relapse. The religion which he invested with all the
-authority of the State became inextricably interwoven with the
-self-consciousness of the Armenian nation, and derived from their
-inveterate obstinacy or admirable heroism a stability which hardened
-the more it was threatened from without.</p>
-<p class="par">Then, as now, the keystone of the ecclesiastical edifice
-was the person of the katholikos. I do not know that we can instance
-among Christian organisations any counterpart of this high office.
-Beside it that of the king seems mere fable and tinsel. The title
-itself was unimportant and unpretentious, designating as it did among
-the Christians of the East an archbishop with plenary powers (<i lang=
-"la">ad universalitatem causarum</i>), such as were necessary in
-countries removed by distance from the hierarchical centres. It is
-applied by our earliest extant authority to St. Gregory;<a class=
-"noteref" id="xd21e7447src" href="#xd21e7447" name=
-"xd21e7447src">98</a> and, so moderate are the claims or pronounced the
-hierarchical spirit of his successor, Faustus, that he coins the
-cumbrous superlative, katholikos of katholikoi, to express the superior
-dignity of the metropolitan of C&aelig;sarea.<a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e7453src" href="#xd21e7453" name="xd21e7453src">99</a> But,
-whatever grade in the army of the Church may have been assigned to him
-by his clerical colleagues, the position occupied in his native country
-by the katholikos of Armenia was one of extraordinary glamour. The
-office was hereditary in the family of the Illuminator; and that family
-had been endowed with territories extending over fifteen provinces and
-comprising several princely residences.<a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e7456src" href="#xd21e7456" name="xd21e7456src">100</a> The
-pontifical palace was at Astishat, in the neighbourhood of the
-mother-church of Armenia and the chapels of St. John the Baptist and of
-St. Athenogenes. From the spacious terrace expanded a landscape which
-aroused the envy of the richest laymen and which was only commensurate
-with a fraction of the <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb299" href=
-"#pb299" name="pb299">299</a>]</span>pontifical possessions. When the
-scions of the family were unwilling to sustain the burden of the office
-it was entrusted to prominent clerics of the church at Astishat, while
-the unworthy heirs pursued the vocation of arms or the attractions of
-pleasure, surrounded by a court which polluted the sanctity of the
-pontifical residence.<a class="noteref" id="xd21e7462src" href=
-"#xd21e7462" name="xd21e7462src">101</a> It was customary for the
-descendants of Gregory to marry into the king&rsquo;s family, and they
-were accorded many of the honours due to royalty alone. As often as the
-king aroused and probably deserved the censure of the katholikos, that
-spiritual castigation was unflinchingly enforced. In a vacancy of the
-Chair, owing to failure in the line or renunciation on the part of the
-heirs, it was not the priesthood who chose the successor but the king,
-the nobles and the army.<a class="noteref" id="xd21e7465src" href=
-"#xd21e7465" name="xd21e7465src">102</a> In these several respects the
-office was identified with the existing institutions of the country,
-and it was perhaps indeed modelled upon that of the high priest among
-the polytheists and the Jews.<a class="noteref" id="xd21e7468src" href=
-"#xd21e7468" name="xd21e7468src">103</a> But, however great was the
-prestige derived from such a splendid establishment and from the fame
-of the first occupant of the Chair, the hold of the pontificate upon
-the imagination of later generations was derived from a less antique
-and more constantly operative source. Two descendants of the
-Illuminator, one in the fourth, the other in the fifth century, added
-new and peculiar lustre to the institution. Nerses the First introduced
-the refinements of hierarchical government; Sahak the Great
-<span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb300" href="#pb300" name=
-"pb300">300</a>]</span>gave to the people an alphabet of their own. The
-throne of the successors of Tiridates crumbled away in the course of
-about a century from the death of the first Christian monarch; that of
-the successors of St. Gregory has weathered the storms of sixteen
-centuries and remains a solid and impressive monument at the present
-day.</p>
-<p class="par">Two events of high importance remain to be mentioned in
-this brief survey of the momentous revolution carried through by the
-great king and his great minister. The first is the journey to Europe.
-The reciprocal advantage of the ancient alliance between Tiridates and
-the Empire had been experienced in the campaigns which were waged by
-the C&aelig;sar Galerius against the Persians (<span class=
-"sc">A.D.</span> 296 and 297); and the memory of comradeship in arms
-may have preserved the first Christian State from incurring the active
-displeasure of the colleague of Diocletian during the subsequent
-onslaughts upon the Christian religion (303&ndash;311). But the
-C&aelig;sar Maximin was less patient or more oblivious, and their new
-faith cost the Armenians a war (312).<a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e7489src" href="#xd21e7489" name="xd21e7489src">104</a> The advent
-of Constantine averted their ruin and set the seal of political wisdom
-upon the spiritual policy of their monarch; and it was only natural
-that the two exalted instruments of the Christian profession should
-desire to profit in every sense by the Christian sympathies of so great
-a prince. The journey of Gregory and Tiridates to the court of
-Constantine has been regarded as unauthentic by a competent authority;
-yet it probably took place. The meeting perhaps occurred in Serdica, a
-residence of the emperor in Illyria, and it was attended by the friend
-and relation of Constantine, Bishop Eusebius of Nicomedia. The highest
-honours were paid to the aged visitors, and the emperor prostrated
-himself at the feet of the saint. The pair were escorted with much pomp
-to their native country, having still further strengthened the link
-which attached them to their powerful neighbours, and perhaps concluded
-a formal treaty.<a class="noteref" id="xd21e7498src" href="#xd21e7498"
-name="xd21e7498src">105</a> <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb301" href=
-"#pb301" name="pb301">301</a>]</span></p>
-<p class="par">The second event reposes upon less questionable
-evidence; it is the participation of the Armenian Church in the
-deliberations of the Council of Nice (325), and her formal subscription
-of its acts. The great age of Gregory may well have deterred him from
-personal attendance; his younger son Aristakes represented the
-Armenians in the famous assembly. Upon his return he communicated the
-canons to his father, who accepted them and contributed a few
-additions. The formula of Nice with its uncompromising identification
-of Christ with God was adopted as the dogmatic base of the State
-religion.<a class="noteref" id="xd21e7515src" href="#xd21e7515" name=
-"xd21e7515src">106</a></p>
-<p class="par">III. A general impression which one receives from the
-perusal of the early histories is that the Armenians of the fourth
-century were not far removed from barbarism. The king might here and
-there set up a copy of a classical building; but I should doubt whether
-he could have left us any monument which might approach the originality
-of the creations of the Bagratid sovereigns <span class=
-"pagenum">[<a id="pb302" href="#pb302" name="pb302">302</a>]</span>in
-the Middle Ages. Very few among his subjects had a knowledge of Greek
-and Syriac, still less of Latin, the languages of the literature of
-their day. The Scriptures&mdash;that mine of knowledge&mdash;were read
-in the Syriac or Greek versions to congregations of which not even the
-most intelligent members could profit by the service.<a class="noteref"
-id="xd21e7562src" href="#xd21e7562" name="xd21e7562src">107</a>
-Identity of interests with the Empire on the score of culture was a
-bond which, I suppose, scarcely existed in that age; and, alas, when at
-length it became a reality, how fragile it proved&mdash;how fragile
-such bonds have always proved! Still, although we must be careful in
-thinking of the Armenians of the fourth century as we might think of
-their descendants in the tenth, the ties which should have united them
-to their powerful neighbours on the west were of a nature which could
-appeal to all. There was the tie of a common religion, which either
-nation had recently adopted and subscribed at a joint conference. Both
-were threatened by a common enemy&mdash;the fire-worshippers of Persia,
-enlisting all the resources of the further East. From that Persian
-dynasty the Armenian monarchs were separated by difference of origin
-and by a blood feud, unmitigated by the lapse of time. They had been
-restored to their possessions by the Roman power. A great king and a
-great statesman, in whom they recognised a saint, had crowned their
-life work by the conclusion of an alliance with Rome which in no
-previous age could have reposed upon so stable a base. Shall we
-therefore be edified by the spectacle of their successors following in
-their footsteps, patiently waiving differences, insisting upon elements
-of union, ranging themselves upon the side of Christianity and
-civilisation and fighting their battles in such sacred causes as
-these?</p>
-<p class="par">King Tiridates was followed on the throne by his son
-Chosroes the Little, to whom is ascribed a reign of nine
-years.<a class="noteref" id="xd21e7567src" href="#xd21e7567" name=
-"xd21e7567src">108</a> If perhaps <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb303"
-href="#pb303" name="pb303">303</a>]</span>his stature was small and his
-body feeble, he at least possessed the merit of keeping well with the
-successor of Gregory, whom his queen in vain endeavoured to remove from
-the world. His name is therefore in favour with the priestly historian,
-who indeed narrates the events of this period in a somewhat fabulous
-manner, but presents us with a picture of contemporary society which is
-lifelike and full of movement and colour.<a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e7645src" href="#xd21e7645" name="xd21e7645src">109</a> That the
-early years of the reign were not disturbed by a war with Persia was
-perhaps due to the youth of the Persian monarch; but the storm burst
-before its close. After sustaining with success the brunt of a Hunnish
-invasion&mdash;in which, however, the capital, Vagharshapat, was
-temporarily lost&mdash;Chosroes was called to the defence of his
-eastern frontiers by the approach of a Persian army. The first
-encounter took place near the shores of Lake Van, and resulted in a
-victory for the Armenians. The assistance of imperial troops<a class=
-"noteref" id="xd21e7654src" href="#xd21e7654" name=
-"xd21e7654src">110</a> may have nerved the king&rsquo;s resistance,
-which continued until the close of his life. With Chosroes is
-contemporary the pontificate of Verthanes, the eldest son of the
-Illuminator. That saintly personage did not long survive the successor
-of Tiridates; but he may have lived to confirm the reign of his son
-Tiran, and he was perhaps instrumental in placing him upon the
-throne.<a class="noteref" id="xd21e7657src" href="#xd21e7657" name=
-"xd21e7657src">111</a></p>
-<p class="par">It is during the rule of Tiran that we observe for the
-first time manifestations of that bitter rivalry between the head of
-the Church and the head of the State which was destined, as much,
-perhaps, as any other cause, to bring about the downfall of the
-dynasty. Such an outcome of the ecclesiastical institutions of the
-first Christian monarch might indeed have been foreseen. Had Armenia
-not been exposed to a struggle for life and death with enemies from
-without, her statesmen might well have solved the problem of this
-dangerous dualism without endangering the safety of the nation.
-Enveloped as they were in such a struggle, the only policy was to
-postpone the issue; King Tiran chose the opposite course. He had given
-his daughter in marriage to the son of Verthanes, Yusik; but after the
-experience of a single night <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb304" href=
-"#pb304" name="pb304">304</a>]</span>the youth deserted his bride, in
-apprehension, it is said, of the terrible progeny which she was
-destined to give to the world. Such conduct and such explanations could
-scarcely have satisfied her royal parents; but the princess died after
-giving birth to twin sons. Upon the death of Verthanes, Yusik was
-placed in the pontifical chair, the ceremony of his installation being
-performed at Artaxata. The king was a lukewarm Christian and, perhaps,
-an inveterate sinner; the katholikos was at once pious and severe. A
-long feud and partial estrangements resulted in an open rupture; and,
-when the sovereign on a certain feast day was about to attend divine
-service, he was publicly denounced by the enraged prelate and forbidden
-to enter the church. Yusik was beaten to death under royal orders; and
-a similar fate befell the saintly bishop of Astishat, who, although a
-Syrian and not a member of the family of St. Gregory, was summoned by
-king and nobles to fill the vacancy in the Chair. We are told that King
-Tiran lived on friendly terms with Persia; however this may be, he
-contrived to fall into the hands of these powerful neighbours, who put
-out his eyes and led him to the feet of their master.</p>
-<p class="par">A deputation of the great barons was forthwith
-despatched to Constantinople in order to obtain succour from the
-emperor. Before their return a Persian army was let loose upon Armenia,
-and those of the inhabitants of every rank who were able to make good
-their escape took refuge upon Greek territory. The arrival of imperial
-troops&mdash;it is said with the emperor at their head&mdash;was
-shortly followed by a decisive victory and the capture of the harem of
-the Persian king. That potentate was summoned to restore Tiran to his
-native country; but, upon the refusal of his blind prisoner to
-undertake the office, the son of Tiran, Arshak, was placed upon the
-throne. Two occurrences in the reign of this prince, as it is described
-by Faustus, may be identified with known events. The one is his
-connection with the great massacre of Christians in Persia which took
-place during the reign of Shapur.<a class="noteref" id="xd21e7666src"
-href="#xd21e7666" name="xd21e7666src">112</a> Our historian attributes
-the wrath of the Persian monarch to the monstrous perfidy of the
-Christian sovereign of Armenia. The other is the conclusion of a treaty
-between the Roman and Persian empires, of which a provision was the
-engagement on the part of the former power not to offer any assistance
-to Arshak. These terms are familiar to us from other sources as having
-been wrung <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb305" href="#pb305" name=
-"pb305">305</a>]</span>from the commander of the luckless Roman army
-after the death of Julian.<a class="noteref" id="xd21e7680src" href=
-"#xd21e7680" name="xd21e7680src">113</a></p>
-<p class="par">The reign of Arshak is, indeed, contemporary with the
-great wars which were waged by Shapur with the power which disputed his
-supremacy over the East. However little credit we may attach to the
-narrative of the Armenian historian, it is at least plain that a king
-who owed his throne to the C&aelig;sars was often their enemy and never
-their loyal ally. We are told, indeed, that on one occasion his armies
-violated the Roman territory and advanced as far as Angora; on another
-that the king himself led his troops against those of the Empire, and
-fell upon them as they were preparing to receive a Persian attack. When
-the duel was being waged most fiercely he maintained an attitude of
-expectant neutrality, waiting to see which of the antagonists would
-offer him the best terms. The only palliation which we may discover for
-such a course of outrageous conduct is derived from the obscure notice
-of a religious persecution, directed against the Armenian pontiff,
-Nerses, by one of the successors of Constantine. Yet that prelate with
-true wisdom enjoined resistance to the Persians at a moment when it
-might well have seemed a desperate course. The king, left to his fate
-by the provision in the Roman treaty, maintained for awhile a
-courageous front to the Persian onslaught. But he was at length
-compelled to sue for peace and to place his person in the power of his
-enemy under a guarantee of security. His former treachery was requited,
-as it deserved, by the same treatment; and, while he himself was taken
-to Persia and consigned to the castle of oblivion, his queen, after a
-brief resistance, was brought to the presence of Shapur and outraged
-before the eyes of his army until she expired.</p>
-<p class="par">A series of massacres on a large scale and organised by
-Shapur in person was the sequel of these events. The unfortunate
-Armenians were collected into large bodies and trampled down under the
-feet of elephants. The number of the victims is said to have amounted
-to thousands and tens of thousands of either sex and every age. The
-great cities, including Artaxata and Vagharshapat, were ruthlessly
-destroyed. Whole populations, among which were conspicuous the numerous
-Jewish colonies, were driven off into captivity. From this calamity,
-which must have occurred after the year 363 and before 379, the Arsakid
-dynasty does not appear to have recovered. The son of Arshak,
-<span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb306" href="#pb306" name=
-"pb306">306</a>]</span>by name Pap, was indeed placed upon the throne
-by the emperor, and reigned for several years. But, like his father, he
-turned his arms against his protectors the moment they had cleared his
-frontiers of the inveterate foe. Like his father he coquetted with the
-Persian power, forgetting the unspeakable insults to which his family
-had been subjected. He even possessed the effrontery to despatch to the
-emperor an insulting message, summoning him to <i>restore</i> Edessa
-and C&aelig;sarea and ten other cities which he averred had belonged to
-his ancestors. Pap was put to death by imperial order, and another
-member of the Arsakid family sent to reign in his place. But that
-prince was expelled by the most valiant of the Armenian chieftains, who
-proceeded to administer the country in the interests of the sons of
-Pap. When these had come of age the royal authority was divided between
-them, while the numerous Persian party among the Armenians selected a
-rival Arsakid and enlisted in his favour Persian support. Armenian
-politics were becoming a farce when the rulers of the two great powers
-arrived at a solution to which both had been provoked. The buffer state
-was divided between them, the Persians taking the greater portion, and
-the smaller, including the valley of the Western Euphrates, falling to
-the Roman Empire (<span class="sc">A.D.</span> 387). Phantom kings of
-Arsakid descent were set up by either power, until in the course of
-time Persian governors and Greek prefects administered the government
-in either sphere.</p>
-<p class="par">I have anticipated in this brief summary upon the sequel
-of the ecclesiastical policy pursued by King Tiran. After the murder of
-the bishop of Taron, whose diocese included Astishat, a priest of the
-church in this religious centre was elevated to the pontifical dignity
-and duly consecrated at C&aelig;sarea. He was succeeded by a scion of
-the House of Albianus&mdash;a House of which the founder is mentioned
-first in the list of bishops chosen by St. Gregory from the ranks of
-the children of the heathen priests.<a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e7700src" href="#xd21e7700" name="xd21e7700src">114</a> Meanwhile
-the sons of Yusik&mdash;the terrible progeny given to the world by his
-bride of a single night&mdash;had reached an age which permitted the
-full indulgence of their wicked appetites in every kind of vice. They
-are said to have met their death in the pontifical palace, where their
-wassail was cut short by the angel of God. One of the twins, by name
-Athenogenes, had already produced an heir; and it was this child who,
-when he had reached the estate of manhood, was acclaimed katholikos by
-army and nation during <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb307" href=
-"#pb307" name="pb307">307</a>]</span>the reign of King Arshak.
-Nerses&mdash;such was his name&mdash;had been brought up at
-C&aelig;sarea, the native city of his contemporary, St. Basil the
-Great. After an early marriage he adopted the military profession and
-became chamberlain and counsellor to his king. He is delineated as the
-ideal of a perfect cavalier&mdash;tall and supple of figure, with a
-face of great beauty, which enlisted the sympathy of both sexes and all
-classes. Yet the youth wore the flower of a blameless private life; and
-his high capacities were from the first bestowed upon the intimate care
-of the poor or afflicted, and the protection of the oppressed. His
-function at court was to stand behind the person of the king, attired
-in a rich and elegant robe, and bearing in his hand the royal sword of
-tried steel with its golden scabbard and belt inlaid with precious
-stones. Such was the station which he was fulfilling when the nobles
-and assembled troops approached the steps of the throne. They had come
-to demand his acceptance of the high office, hereditary in his family;
-but the embarrassed chamberlain waved them aside. His profession of
-personal unworthiness was received with laughter; his indignant
-protests by the clash of shields. Upon his persistence King Arshak gave
-orders that he should be bound in his presence, and shorn of his long
-and abundant hair. Many of the bystanders shed tears when the ruthless
-scissors severed those silky and floating locks. Stripped of his gay
-apparel, he was made to assume the garb of a priest; and it was
-difficult to recognise in the face of the deacon, who was being
-ordained by a venerable bishop, the brave soldier and princely courtier
-of a few minutes ago.<a class="noteref" id="xd21e7708src" href=
-"#xd21e7708" name="xd21e7708src">115</a></p>
-<p class="par">The national character of the Armenian Church is mainly
-derived from the institutions of St. Gregory; but it was this Nerses,
-his direct descendant, who brought it into line with the Church of the
-Empire in the important sphere of internal development and discipline.
-The family likeness which it still presents to the neighbouring Greek
-Church is largely due to this prelate. The monastery is still the pivot
-of the ecclesiastical organisation; and it was this contemporary,
-perhaps this disciple of St. Basil of C&aelig;sarea, who spread
-broadcast cloisters and convents over the land. A single rule was
-established for the several orders of monks; and the laity were bidden
-to observe certain wholesome regulations, among which was included
-abstention from animal food. The poor and the sick were lodged in
-hospices, and were <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb308" href="#pb308"
-name="pb308">308</a>]</span>not allowed to beg; a humane enactment
-provided that their neighbours should bring them food to their public
-or private dwellings. In each district was founded a school for the
-instruction of the people in the Greek and Syriac languages. Every
-action of the great katholikos bears the imprint of a high purpose, and
-overwelling zeal. That purpose was to conquer the lusts of a
-full-blooded and intemperate people by subduing their unruly bodies and
-fanning into life the spark of the soul. But just in the execution of
-this lofty project he was brought into conflict with the king, and the
-fate of his grandfather stared him in the face. The son of Tiran was
-indeed the son of that obstinate sinner, nor was Nerses less inflexible
-than Yusik. Perhaps the monarch acted with design, and wished to divide
-his people into separate communities of the black and the white sheep.
-The saints might be handed over to the sway of their prince-prelate;
-over the sinners his own prerogative would remain supreme. He
-proclaimed an edict which enacted that every debtor or accused person,
-those who had shed the blood or taken the property of their neighbours,
-should assemble in an appointed place, where no law would be allowed to
-touch them and each man might lead his life after his own
-guise.<a class="noteref" id="xd21e7715src" href="#xd21e7715" name=
-"xd21e7715src">116</a> To that haven beyond their dreams flocked the
-company of the unrighteous&mdash;women with the husbands of other
-women, and men with the wives of other men. The brigands and the
-assassins and the unjust judges and the perjured witnesses, all
-collected at the given tryst. The place was at first a village; but it
-soon prospered, and became a town, which again extended until it filled
-an entire valley. Then the king built a palace in the midst of his
-congenial subjects and called the city by his own name (Arshakavan).
-Upon the return of the katholikos&mdash;he is said to have been exiled
-by a Roman emperor; but his vicar during his absence had not betrayed
-his trust&mdash;this truly original and royal solution of the problem
-of joint government was vigorously arraigned. The pontiff taxed the
-monarch with having founded a second Sodom; but, relenting to a mood of
-greater amiability, he suggested that the sovereign might continue to
-reside in his city if he would entrust its management into the hands of
-the katholikos. The rejection of this kind proposal was shortly
-followed by the outbreak <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb309" href=
-"#pb309" name="pb309">309</a>]</span>of a malady, which decimated the
-inhabitants. The king was constrained to sue for pardon from the saint
-and to disband his colony. The quarrel broke out anew when the
-inveterate profligate shed the blood of a subject and espoused his
-beautiful wife. Nerses left the court and did not return. Arshak, in
-open defiance, appointed a katholikos in his stead&mdash;a certain
-Chunak, who was nothing better than one of his minions. He could not
-hope that his action might be endorsed at C&aelig;sarea; so he summoned
-all the bishops of his own country and bade them consecrate the object
-of his choice. Only two could be persuaded to perform the ceremony; and
-these were perhaps pensioners of the king.<a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e7720src" href="#xd21e7720" name="xd21e7720src">117</a></p>
-<p class="par">The full activity of the lawful pontiff was not resumed
-until after the calamity which resulted in the bondage of his old enemy
-and the seclusion of Arshak in the castle of oblivion. The accession of
-Pap was attended by the presentation of a solemn petition, in which
-sovereign and nation craved the assistance of their true pastor. Nerses
-devoted his energies to the restoration of the churches which had been
-destroyed by Shapur. But the son of Arshak was quite as licentious,
-although less capable than his father; and he is said to have added to
-the sum of the delinquencies of his predecessor the habitual practice
-of unspeakable vice. The monster was forbidden entry even into the
-porch of the church; and he retaliated by poisoning the katholikos with
-a cup of peace which, in token of repentance, he tendered with his own
-hand. The death of Nerses, which occurred not later than the year
-374,<a class="noteref" id="xd21e7728src" href="#xd21e7728" name=
-"xd21e7728src">118</a> marks an epoch in the history of the Church.</p>
-<p class="par">On the one hand its emoluments were considerably
-curtailed; on the other&mdash;and this is a fact with the most
-far-reaching consequences&mdash;it was dissevered for good and all from
-the Church of the Empire. It is quite evident that Nerses failed to
-gauge correctly the temper of his countrymen; and it was the defect of
-his undoubted virtues that he at once endeavoured to go too far and to
-accomplish too much. The reaction from his severe ordinances enabled
-the king to proceed unhindered in the work of overthrowing the
-structure which his victim had reared. The <span class=
-"pagenum">[<a id="pb310" href="#pb310" name=
-"pb310">310</a>]</span>hospices were abolished, the convents were
-destroyed and their inmates given over to prostitution. Moreover the
-greater portion of the lands bestowed upon the Church by Tiridates were
-appropriated by the State. Of each seven domains belonging to the
-former institution the revenues of five were allotted to the Treasury.
-Nor can we doubt that popular support was forthcoming for the
-revolution which the monarch initiated in the relations with the Greek
-Church. The Armenians have at all periods approved a national policy,
-and preferred to perish than unite with their neighbours. A bishop of
-the House of Albianus, always obsequious to the throne, was invested
-with the vacant primacy. The consent of C&aelig;sarea was not even
-applied for, nor was the bishop despatched to the capital of the
-province of Cappadocia for consecration in accordance with the usual
-custom. With the possible exception of the two sons of St. Gregory and,
-of course, of the pseudo-katholikos, Chunak, each successive holder of
-the pontifical office, including the Illuminator, had been in the habit
-of proceeding with great pomp through the territory of the Empire to
-the steps of the episcopal throne in the Greek city. It was there that
-the chosen of the Armenians bowed his head before a prelate who loomed
-in the eyes of his countrymen as the living embodiment of the authority
-of the Church of Christ. The defiance offered him by the king was
-accepted by Basil in a similar spirit. He called together all the
-members of the provincial synod of C&aelig;sarea, without inviting the
-nominee of King Pap. A violent despatch was addressed to the Armenian
-bishops and a similar one to the king. The right of consecrating
-bishops was taken away from the katholikos, and he was left the single
-prerogative of blessing bread at the court of the king. The result of
-this hot temper upon either side was a bitter conflict in the Armenian
-Church itself. The clergy were divided into followers of the king and
-the House of Albianus, and those who held to the necessity of
-consecration in C&aelig;sarea and to allegiance to the House of
-Gregory.<a class="noteref" id="xd21e7735src" href="#xd21e7735" name=
-"xd21e7735src">119</a> The subsequent lapse of the greater part of
-Armenia under Persian influence promoted the policy initiated by Pap;
-and when, towards the close of the century, the chair was again
-occupied by a descendant of St. Gregory, the link with C&aelig;sarea
-was not restored. <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb311" href="#pb311"
-name="pb311">311</a>]</span></p>
-<p class="par">There can, I think, be no doubt that the story of the
-foundation of the Armenian Church by a direct mandate of Christ Himself
-was invented not earlier than the period at which we have now arrived.
-The mandate is said to have taken the form of an injunction to St.
-Gregory to build the church of Vagharshapat. Neither the author of the
-Life of the Illuminator, as we can trace that source through the
-Agathangelus treatise, nor the historian who continues his narrative,
-displays any cognisance with such a momentous event. The former tells
-us that it was at Astishat in the south of Armenia, the country of the
-Murad, that Gregory built the first Christian church. The cult of
-martyrs which he first introduced was not the cult of the Ripsimians
-but that of St. John the Baptist and Athenogenes. We learn from the
-latter that after the death of the saint, and at least down to the
-murder of Nerses, the mother-church of Armenia was situated at Astishat
-and not at Edgmiatsin. Faustus, indeed, expresses himself not once
-alone or in a doubtful manner upon this important point. Astishat
-contains the &ldquo;first and great mother of Armenian churches,&rdquo;
-&ldquo;the first and greatest of all the churches of Armenia, the
-principal and most honoured seat of the Christian religion.&rdquo; It
-was at Astishat that was situated the palace of the katholikos. The
-great synod which was convoked by Nerses of all Armenian bishops was
-held at Astishat. When that prelate wished to chide the chief of the
-king&rsquo;s eunuchs for casting covetous glances upon the wide domains
-which surrounded the church, he quoted the scriptural injunction
-against such ignoble conduct, and added that such was the will of Jesus
-Christ, &ldquo;<i>Whose choice had first fallen upon the church at
-Astishat for the glorification of His Name</i>.&rdquo;<a class=
-"noteref" id="xd21e7744src" href="#xd21e7744" name=
-"xd21e7744src">120</a> On the other hand, I cannot help detecting in
-these passages indications that their author was aware of the growing
-rivalry of the church at Edgmiatsin. Faustus wrote after the severance
-from C&aelig;sarea and after the partition of Armenia (<span class=
-"sc">A.D.</span> 387). He displays acquaintance with the Ripsimian
-legend. But there is no trace in his pages of a knowledge of the vision
-of St. Gregory upon which Edgmiatsin has founded her claim.</p>
-<p class="par">As time went on, several causes, which perhaps we may
-distinguish, contributed to widen further the breach with the Church of
-the Empire. The Persian occupation and the ultimate removal of the
-Arsakid dynasty, whose hereditary blood feud with the House of Sasan
-had long embittered the antagonism of <span class="pagenum">[<a id=
-"pb312" href="#pb312" name="pb312">312</a>]</span>the peoples, were no
-small factors in an estrangement from Greek influences which the policy
-of Persia lost no occasion of promoting. The invention by Mesrop of an
-Armenian alphabet,<a class="noteref" id="xd21e7755src" href=
-"#xd21e7755" name="xd21e7755src">121</a> and the institution of a
-school of translators during the pontificate of the son of Nerses,
-Isaac the Great (<i>c.</i> 390&ndash;439), constitute elements which,
-while they worked for the attachment of the Armenians to Greek culture
-and for the wider propagation of Christianity, were yet calculated to
-foster the strong proclivities of this people towards complete
-religious independence. Lastly&mdash;if indeed there be an end to such
-a catalogue, in which each item is as much an effect as a
-cause&mdash;the peculiar genius of the Armenian nation imprinted a
-stamp upon the dogma of their Church which was not the stamp sanctioned
-by that of the Empire.</p>
-<p class="par">The Council of Chalcedon (<i>A.D.</i> 451) addressed
-itself to the solution of the problems which were the natural outcome
-of the dogma adopted at the Council of Nice. What was the true view of
-the mystery expressed by the words of the formula: <i>Son of God, of
-one nature with the Father, Who came down from heaven and took flesh
-and became man?</i> How explain the character of the union of God with
-man in the person of Christ? Over the answer which should be returned
-to this question conflicts arose which destroyed thousands of innocent
-people, and which prepared the way for the disappearance of the Roman
-Empire from the map of Asia, and for the triumph of Islam. The
-compromise adopted at Chalcedon is difficult to place in a short
-sentence; but perhaps no essential feature is omitted in the following
-phrase: <i>Christ according to His Godhead is of one nature with the
-Father, according to His humanity is, apart from sin, of one nature
-with us. This one and the same Christ is recognised in two natures
-indissolubly united but yet distinct.</i> The Armenians were not
-represented at this Council;<a class="noteref" id="xd21e7775src" href=
-"#xd21e7775" name="xd21e7775src">122</a> and, indeed, it is
-contemporary with the fierce religious persecutions directed against
-them by Yezdegerd II. But, when once the unfortunate nation, or
-<span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb313" href="#pb313" name=
-"pb313">313</a>]</span>what remained after the orgy of the
-fire-worshippers, had settled down to a more peaceful routine, they
-proceeded to hold a synod of their own, which assembled at Vagharshapat
-(<span class="sc">A.D.</span> 491), and which with all solemnity cursed
-the Council of Chalcedon. This procedure was repeated at several
-subsequent synods; nor has the bitterness which was consequent upon
-this open breach with the Church of the West subsided at the present
-day. At Edgmiatsin, the seat of this synod, held fourteen centuries
-ago, I was informed that the Armenian Church expressly rejects
-Chalcedon; and the emphasis of language was underlined by the tone of
-the voice. The Armenians therefore differ both with the Greek and with
-the Roman Church in their expression of the mystery of Christology.
-They will not hear of two natures. They hold that in Christ there is
-one person and one nature, one will and one energy; and their liturgy
-presents this dogma in an impressive manner in the Trisagion, which
-runs: &ldquo;O God, holy God, mighty God, everlasting God, <i>who wast
-crucified for us</i>.&rdquo;<a class="noteref" id="xd21e7787src" href=
-"#xd21e7787" name="xd21e7787src">123</a> At the same time they deny and
-denounce the teaching of Eutyches, protagonist against the Nestorians.
-Eutyches held that the body of Christ is not to be regarded as of one
-nature with ours; the Armenians maintain that God became man in the
-fullest sense.<a class="noteref" id="xd21e7793src" href="#xd21e7793"
-name="xd21e7793src">124</a></p>
-<p class="par">One might argue this question to all eternity; but one
-feels that the Greeks were the subtler disputants. The Armenians, like
-the Persian Mohammedans, would appear to be averse to abstractions;
-they go, perhaps, to extremes in the concreteness of their conception
-of God&mdash;a God-man in the crudest sense. This Christology has
-probably embodied the sentiments of the people; but it had the effect
-of estranging them not only with the Church of the Empire, but also
-with the great body of their fellow-Christians of different nationality
-within the Persian dominions. At the synod of Beth Lapat (<span class=
-"sc">A.D.</span> 483 or 484) the old Christian Church of Persia
-welcomed into its bosom the flying forces of Nestorianism, and adopted
-the Nestorian confession. The Georgians, it is true, followed the lead
-of the Armenians, with whom their Church was directly connected. But
-these allies broke away before the close of the sixth century, and went
-over to the teaching of Chalcedon. As the centuries rolled <span class=
-"pagenum">[<a id="pb314" href="#pb314" name="pb314">314</a>]</span>by,
-these various breaches became wider, and they are still marked features
-in the Christianity of the East. Martyrdom and political slavery were
-alternatives which were gladly accepted rather than compromise dogmatic
-and doctrinal differences. When Heraclius visited Armenia after
-replacing the Cross in the churches of Jerusalem, the Armenians refused
-to camp with his troops. In the Middle Ages, when the Sasanians were
-already forgotten, when the caliphs, their successors, were approaching
-their doom, the stubborn hierarchy insisted upon baptizing babes a
-second time if the ceremony had been performed by a Greek priest. All
-attempts to effect a union&mdash;and they have been many and
-serious&mdash;have invariably failed. The more attractive the offers of
-the Greeks, the greater grew the hatred of them; nor have the popes met
-with better success. They have added costly objects to the treasury at
-Edgmiatsin; the result remains a blank. When we reflect that this
-obstinate people are as intelligent as any in the world in the various
-pursuits of civilised life, our anger at such conduct, which gave away
-the cause of civilisation, may be tempered by a different feeling. The
-Armenians have fought at all hazards to preserve their individuality,
-and the bulk of the nation have perished in the attempt. The remnant
-may be destined, like the son of Anak, to redress the wrongs inflicted
-by their ancestors upon the common Christian weal. On the other hand,
-the lesson which is taught by history is that no nation and no
-Christianity will succeed with the Armenians which endeavours to
-deflect them from their own opinions and to preclude them from working
-out their own salvation in their own way.<a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e7809src" href="#xd21e7809" name="xd21e7809src">125</a>
-<span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb316" href="#pb316" name=
-"pb316">316</a>]</span></p>
-</div>
-<div class="footnotes">
-<hr class="fnsep">
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e5758" href="#xd21e5758src" name="xd21e5758">1</a></span>
-According to Dubois de Montp&eacute;reux the fortifications of
-Edgmiatsin were restored by the Katholikos Simeon between 1763 and 1780
-(<i lang="fr">Voyage autour du Caucase</i>, Paris, 1839&ndash;43, vol.
-iii. p. 360).&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href=
-"#xd21e5758src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e5786" href="#xd21e5786src" name="xd21e5786">2</a></span> The true
-inwardness of this policy did not escape the notice of the French
-traveller Bor&eacute;, who, writing in 1838, says: &ldquo;<span lang=
-"fr">En s&rsquo;avan&ccedil;ant vers l&rsquo;Asie Centrale la Russie
-cherchait &agrave; r&eacute;aliser une pens&eacute;e politique
-habilement con&ccedil;ue, qui lui promet pour l&rsquo;avenir des
-r&eacute;sultats avantageux. Comme puissance chr&eacute;tienne, elle se
-d&eacute;clare la protectrice de tous les chr&eacute;tiens
-assuj&eacute;tis &agrave; la double puissance Mahom&eacute;tane
-qu&rsquo;elle combattait.... Voil&agrave; pourquoi l&rsquo;on tenait
-beaucoup encore &agrave; enclaver dans l&rsquo;empire le
-monast&egrave;re d&rsquo;Echemiazin; attendu qu&rsquo;&eacute;tant le
-<span class="corr" id="xd21e5792" title=
-"Source: si&eacute;ge">si&egrave;ge</span> du chef principal de la
-communion arm&eacute;nienne, on devait tenir dans les liens de son
-pouvoir spirituel la majeure partie des Arm&eacute;niens
-r&eacute;pandus dans les royaumes limitrophes</span>&rdquo; (<i lang=
-"fr">Correspondance et M&eacute;moires</i>, Paris, 1840, vol. ii. pp.
-36, 37).&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href="#xd21e5786src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e5802" href="#xd21e5802src" name="xd21e5802">3</a></span>
-Monteith, <i>Kars and Erzerum</i>, London, 1856, p. 38. During the
-campaigns against Persia the convent of Edgmiatsin obtained
-declarations from both belligerents that their territory should be
-considered neutral ground. The Russians, however, appear to have made
-use of it as a base (<i>ibid.</i> p. 133). While at Edgmiatsin I was
-told that in 1804 the Persians erected a battery upon the roof, which
-naturally suffered, although I am not aware that the Russians came to
-any harm from the battery.&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href=
-"#xd21e5802src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e5811" href="#xd21e5811src" name="xd21e5811">4</a></span>
-Morier&rsquo;s <i>Second Journey</i>, London, 1818, pp. 323 <i>seq.</i>
-According to Von Haxthausen Russian influence had already become
-preponderant in the election of a katholikos as early as 1768, when the
-Katholikos Lukas sought and obtained the sanction of Russia upon his
-elevation (<i>Transcaucasia</i>, English edition, London, 1854, p.
-307). We learn from another source that the Katholikos Ephraim
-(1809&ndash;31) was accorded the special protection of the Tsar, and
-that he did not assume his functions before receiving the imperial
-assurance at St. Petersburg that the pontificate of Armenia would ever
-receive such protection. This same Tsar, Alexander I., loaded the
-bishops and priests who accompanied Ephraim with honours and presents
-(<i>Avdall&rsquo;s continuation of Chamchean&rsquo;s History</i>,
-Calcutta, 1827, pp. 519&ndash;20).&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href=
-"#xd21e5811src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e5832" href="#xd21e5832src" name="xd21e5832">5</a></span> Melikoff
-is said to have had under his command a body of 2000 Armenian
-volunteers as well as some 400 officers of the same nationality. See
-the <i>Reminiscences of a Delegate to the Congress of Berlin</i> in the
-newspaper <span lang="fr">L&rsquo;Arm&eacute;nie</span> for 15th August
-1892 (published in London).&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href=
-"#xd21e5832src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e5844" href="#xd21e5844src" name="xd21e5844">6</a></span> Nine
-articles of the <i>Polojenye</i> deal with the election of a
-katholikos. Upon a vacancy of the Chair it is the duty of the synod to
-issue invitations to all Armenian dioceses, whether in Russia or
-elsewhere, calling upon them each to name two deputies, one clerical
-and one lay, who shall repair to Edgmiatsin after the lapse of a year.
-These deputies, should they be unable to attend in person, may signify
-their vote by letter. In addition to the deputies the members of the
-synod and seven of the oldest bishops of Edgmiatsin have votes <i>ex
-officio</i>. The election takes place in the church of the Illuminator.
-Four candidates are chosen by vote in the first place. A second ballot
-narrows the selection to two. The assembly then appoints three
-delegates who repair to the Governor-General of the Caucasus and
-officially communicate the result. The Governor-General transmits the
-two names to the Emperor through the Minister of the Interior. The
-Emperor confirms the katholikos and gives him the ukase. After he has
-taken the oath of allegiance to the Russian throne he is consecrated
-according to the rite of the Armenian Church.</p>
-<p class="par footnote cont">In Russia there are at present only six
-dioceses of the Armenian Church; they are specified in the
-<i>Polojenye</i>. They are:&mdash;1. New Nakhichevan and Bessarabia; 2.
-Astrakhan; 3. Erivan; 4. Tiflis; 5. Karabagh; 6. Shirvan. Kars is at
-present a vicarate, dependent upon Erivan. In Turkey there are, I am
-informed, usually no less than fifty-two dioceses; but there are not
-always bishops to every diocese. In Persia there are two, namely New
-Julfa and Tabriz. It will thus be seen that the Armenians of Turkey
-have the preponderant vote, and that the clergy have a small majority
-over the lay members, to the extent of the synod and seven of the
-bishops of Edgmiatsin.</p>
-<p class="par footnote cont">At the last election, which took place on
-the 17th of May 1892, there were present in the church of St. Gregory
-72 electors, including the synod and the 7 bishops. The number might
-have been about 135. But several dioceses appointed the same delegate.
-The vote for Mgr. Khrimean was unanimous, the second candidate being
-only nominal.</p>
-<p class="par footnote cont">Other articles of the <i>Polojenye</i> to
-which I should like to call attention are to the following
-effect:&mdash;The usual Russian provision forbidding proselytising is
-inserted. The katholikos alone is permitted to make the holy oil. The
-synod is to consist of four bishops and four archimandrites, all
-resident at Edgmiatsin. It is to assemble at least twice a week. The
-katholikos is <i>ex officio</i> a member of synod and presides when he
-is present. It is not said whether the procurator has a right to be
-present at the deliberations; but the minutes and decisions must all be
-submitted to him. All monasteries are to be regulated according to the
-rule of St. Basil, and to become a monk it is necessary to obtain the
-sanction of the synod upon the recommendation of a bishop. A married
-man may become a monk if he have no children under age and if his wife
-agree to enter a convent. The Church schools are recognised; but their
-rules and curricula must be submitted to the synod. The synod must in
-turn submit them to the Minister of the Interior. Finally it is stated
-that the Armenian clergy are supported by the gifts of the Armenian
-people, and the nature of these gifts is specified.&nbsp;<a class=
-"fnarrow" href="#xd21e5844src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e5873" href="#xd21e5873src" name="xd21e5873">7</a></span>
-According to Von Haxthausen (journey in 1843) the synod took the place
-of the general council of the Church, which it was impossible to
-assemble. He adds that in 1783 the Patriarch Lukas decreed that it
-should not consist of fewer than seven members; in 1802 there were nine
-members (<i>Transcaucasia</i>, English edition, p. 305).&nbsp;<a class=
-"fnarrow" href="#xd21e5873src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e5888" href="#xd21e5888src" name="xd21e5888">8</a></span> Captain
-Richard Wilbraham, <i>Travels</i>, etc., London, 1839, p. 98. At the
-time of his visit in 1837 the procurator was actually an Armenian, but
-quite Russianised.&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href=
-"#xd21e5888src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e5894" href="#xd21e5894src" name="xd21e5894">9</a></span>
-<i>Transcaucasia</i>, German edition, Leipzig, 1856, vol. i. pp. 256
-<i>seq.</i>; English edition, pp. 284 <i>seq.</i> Von Haxthausen speaks
-of the &ldquo;<span lang="de">Grobheit des Procurators</span>.&rdquo;
-It is only just to add that the katholikos was absent during his
-visit.&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href="#xd21e5894src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e5910" href="#xd21e5910src" name="xd21e5910">10</a></span> I was
-shown the documents in the library. The method of the election of the
-Katholikos Makar affords great sport to the Jesuit Vernier. He hails
-with delight the constitution of Edgmiatsin into a state prison
-&ldquo;<span lang="fr">o&ugrave; l&rsquo;&eacute;lu de la nation
-demeure sous la garde d&rsquo;un g&ecirc;olier Moscovite. Cet
-&eacute;lu a fini par d&eacute;plaire au despote couronn&eacute; de St.
-P&eacute;tersbourg; le czar vient de rejeter avec m&eacute;pris
-l&rsquo;&oelig;cum&eacute;nique qui avait r&eacute;uni la
-majorit&eacute; des suffrages, et de lui substituer arbitrairement un
-Russe qui n&rsquo;a d&rsquo;Arm&eacute;nien que le nom. <i>Dans
-quelques ann&eacute;es de par le knout</i>, ce nom m&ecirc;me
-dispara&icirc;tra, et <i>quelque pape cosaque</i> remplacera
-l&rsquo;Arm&eacute;nien russifi&eacute; et occupera &agrave; Edgmiatsin
-le tr&ocirc;ne de saint Gr&eacute;goire. Terrible et juste vengeance de
-Dieu....</span>&rdquo; The italics are mine (<i lang="fr">Histoire du
-Patriarcat Arm&eacute;nien Catholique</i>, Paris, 1891, p.
-285).&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href="#xd21e5910src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e5948" href="#xd21e5948src" name="xd21e5948">11</a></span>
-Sophocles, <i>&OElig;dipus Tyrannus</i>, 1. 58.&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow"
-href="#xd21e5948src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e6105" href="#xd21e6105src" name="xd21e6105">12</a></span> The new
-catalogue, which has not yet been printed [September 1900], will
-contain some 3500 titles. So far as I have been able to ascertain,
-there already exist two catalogues&mdash;(1) that published by the
-Academy of Sciences, St. Petersburg, 1840, and (2) that by
-Car&eacute;niantz, Tiflis, 1863, 4<sup>o</sup> [in
-Armenian].&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href="#xd21e6105src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e6111" href="#xd21e6111src" name="xd21e6111">13</a></span> For a
-description of this book and its ivory panels see Strgygowski, <i lang=
-"de">Das Etschmiadzin-Evangeliar</i>, Vienna, 1891.&nbsp;<a class=
-"fnarrow" href="#xd21e6111src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e6151" href="#xd21e6151src" name="xd21e6151">14</a></span> The
-institution of the twelve bishops, who reside in the palace of the
-katholikos and fulfil various offices about his person, dates from the
-commencement of the Armenian State Church. See <i>Faustus of
-Byzantium</i>, vi. 5, and Gelzer (<i lang="de">Die Anf&auml;nge der
-Armenischen Kirche</i>, in <i lang="de">Berichte der K. S. Gesellschaft
-der Wissenschaften zu Leipzic</i>, Phil.-Hist. Classe,
-1895).&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href="#xd21e6151src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e6178" href="#xd21e6178src" name="xd21e6178">15</a></span> I was
-informed that the notes are those of the fifth century; but there
-appears to be no sufficient historical evidence for this belief. The
-historians, however, speak of this or that <i>vartapet</i> as having
-been a musician (<i>erajisht</i>). The Katholikos George IV. (d. 1882)
-transcribed the original notes from the Armenian manuscripts, but
-brought them into consonance with European methods.&nbsp;<a class=
-"fnarrow" href="#xd21e6178src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e6209" href="#xd21e6209src" name="xd21e6209">16</a></span> So it
-is known to all the early travellers. Cp. Poser, 1621; Evliya, 1647,
-&ldquo;the Three Churches, a great convent built by the Greek
-emperors&rdquo;; Rhodes, 1648&ndash;49; Tavernier, 1655; Chardin, 1673;
-Jesuit Missionaries, seventeenth century, Letter of P&egrave;re Monier;
-Schillinger, c. 1699; Tournefort, 1701, who notices the
-inappropriateness of the name.&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href=
-"#xd21e6209src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e6212" href="#xd21e6212src" name="xd21e6212">17</a></span> It is
-given at length by Agathangelus, and may be found in that portion of
-the treatise to which I shall hereafter allude as &ldquo;the
-Acts&rdquo; (see note on p. 291, <i>infra</i>). There can be little
-doubt that the legend of the Ripsimians took the place of an old
-heathen legend, associated with the site at Vagharshapat. There seems
-to have been a local tradition that the cathedral and the chapels of
-Ripsime and Gaiane stand upon three rocks, whence in pagan times voices
-would be heard coming from underlying cavities and returning answers to
-questions addressed to them.&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href=
-"#xd21e6212src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e6220" href="#xd21e6220src" name="xd21e6220">18</a></span> This is
-probably an anachronism.&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href=
-"#xd21e6220src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e6267" href="#xd21e6267src" name="xd21e6267">19</a></span> I
-interpret him in the sense of there and back.&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow"
-href="#xd21e6267src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e6270" href="#xd21e6270src" name="xd21e6270">20</a></span> It
-appears to have been the custom among the Armenians down to
-comparatively recent times for pious people to place large blocks of
-stone in front of the entrance to a church by way of offering. Dubois
-de Montp&eacute;reux saw a number of such stones, <span class="measure"
-title="1.83">6</span> or <span class="measure" title="2.13 meter">7
-feet</span> high, covered with crosses and arabesques, in front of the
-portal of the cathedral at Edgmiatsin. I do not know what has become of
-them.&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href="#xd21e6270src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e6289" href="#xd21e6289src" name="xd21e6289">21</a></span> Chardin
-(ed. Langl&egrave;s, Paris, 1811, 8vo, vol. ii. p. 175). See also
-Tavernier (book i. ch. iii.). The Jesuit missionaries, however, later
-on in the seventeenth century, speak of a structure resembling a
-mausoleum and having four stone columns and an altar in the centre.
-There can be little doubt that this is an allusion to the erection of
-Eleazar.&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href="#xd21e6289src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e6292" href="#xd21e6292src" name="xd21e6292">22</a></span>
-Chardin, <i>ibid.</i>&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href=
-"#xd21e6292src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e6318" href="#xd21e6318src" name="xd21e6318">23</a></span>
-<i>History of Architecture</i>, book i. ch. iv. Neo-Byzantine style.
-His remarks have reference to the shape of the dome and not to the
-pointed arches of the false arcade, which perhaps argue a much later
-date.&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href="#xd21e6318src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e6327" href="#xd21e6327src" name="xd21e6327">24</a></span> Dubois
-de Montp&eacute;reux, <i lang="fr">Voyage autour du Caucase</i>, Paris,
-1839&ndash;43, vol. iii. pp. 372 <i>seq.</i>&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow"
-href="#xd21e6327src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e6335" href="#xd21e6335src" name="xd21e6335">25</a></span>
-<i>Ibid.</i> Atlas, series iii. plate 7.&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href=
-"#xd21e6335src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e6340" href="#xd21e6340src" name="xd21e6340">26</a></span> See
-Telfer, <i>The Crimea and Transcaucasia</i>, London, 1876, vol. i. p.
-222, and Dubois, <i>op. cit.</i> vol. iii. pp. 382
-<i>seq.</i>&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href="#xd21e6340src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e6351" href="#xd21e6351src" name="xd21e6351">27</a></span>
-Strgygowski, <i lang="de">Das Etschmiadzin-Evangeliar</i>, Vienna,
-1891. I read the large inscription thus:&mdash;<span class="trans"
-title=
-"I&#275;sou bo&#275;thei pantas tous euchomenous en t&#275; ekkl&#275;sia Zibithain"><span class="Greek"
-lang="el">&#7992;&eta;&sigma;&omicron;&#8166;
-&beta;&omicron;&#8053;&theta;&epsilon;&iota;
-&pi;&#8049;&nu;&tau;&alpha;&sigmaf; &tau;&omicron;&#8058;&sigmaf;
-&epsilon;&#8016;&chi;&omicron;&mu;&#8051;&nu;&omicron;&upsilon;&sigmaf;
-&#8050;&nu; &tau;&#8135;
-&#7952;&kappa;&kappa;&lambda;&eta;&sigma;&#8055;&#8115;
-&Zeta;&iota;&beta;&iota;&theta;&alpha;&iota;&nu;</span></span>
-(?)&mdash;<span class="trans" title=
-"kyrie ele&#275;son ton doulon sou Archian&mdash;kai kyrie Ele&#275;son Elpidin"><span class="Greek"
-lang="el">&kappa;&#8059;&rho;&iota;&epsilon;
-&#7952;&lambda;&#8051;&eta;&sigma;&omicron;&nu; &tau;&#8056;&nu;
-&delta;&omicron;&#8166;&lambda;&omicron;&nu; &sigma;&omicron;&#8166;
-&#7944;&rho;&chi;&#8055;&alpha;&nu;&mdash;&kappa;&alpha;&#8054;
-&kappa;&#8059;&rho;&iota;&epsilon;
-&#7960;&lambda;&#8051;&eta;&sigma;&omicron;&nu;
-&#7964;&lambda;&pi;&iota;&delta;&iota;&nu;</span></span> (for
-<span class="trans" title="Elpida"><span class="Greek" lang=
-"el">&#7960;&lambda;&pi;&iota;&delta;&alpha;</span></span> or
-<span class="trans" title="Elpidian"><span class="Greek" lang=
-"el">&#7960;&lambda;&pi;&iota;&delta;&#8055;&alpha;&nu;</span></span>,
-the variation of the accusative of <span class="trans" title=
-"Elpis"><span class="Greek" lang=
-"el">&#7964;&lambda;&pi;&iota;&sigmaf;</span></span> into <span class=
-"trans" title="-pidin"><span class="Greek" lang=
-"el">-&pi;&iota;&delta;&iota;&nu;</span></span> being not
-unusual)&mdash;<span class="trans" title=
-"Dani&#275;l, Tirer, Garikinis"><span class="Greek" lang=
-"el">&Delta;&alpha;&nu;&#8055;&eta;&lambda;,
-&Tau;&#8055;&rho;&epsilon;&rho;,
-&Gamma;&alpha;&rho;&#8055;&kappa;&iota;&nu;&iota;&sigmaf;</span></span>.
-The word <span class="trans" title="Zibithain"><span class="Greek"
-lang="el">&Zeta;&iota;&beta;&iota;&theta;&alpha;&iota;&nu;</span></span>
-is taken as a proper name by Brosset (<i lang="fr">Voyage
-Arch&eacute;ologique</i>, St. Petersburg, 1849&ndash;51, <span lang=
-"fr">3me rapp.</span>, p. 16<span class="corr" id="xd21e6428" title=
-"Not in source">)</span>, and by Strgygowski, who supposes it to be the
-same as Zuithai, found in Armenian writers, <i>e.g.</i> in Faustus of
-Byzantium, who speaks of a Zuithai as priest of the town of Artaxata
-during the persecution of Shapur (Faustus, iv. 56). Zuithai would be
-the priest in whose church the memorial had been placed. As for the
-three proper names at the end, that of Tirer has been found in an
-inscription of the thirteenth century. Garikinis denotes the proper
-name Garegin.&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href=
-"#xd21e6351src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e6437" href="#xd21e6437src" name="xd21e6437">28</a></span> It is a
-matter of surmise that Nerses I. restored the sacred buildings of
-Vagharshapat after the destruction of that city by the Persian armies
-in the fourth century (see Faustus, v. 1); but the first restoration of
-the cathedral of which I can find any certain mention is that of the
-great Armenian chief Vahan Mamikonean in or about the year 483 (Lazar
-Pharpetzi in Langlois&rsquo; <i lang="fr">Collection des historiens de
-l&rsquo;Arm&eacute;nie</i>, Paris, 1867&ndash;69, vol. ii. p. 352. And
-see Saint-Martin, <i lang="fr">M&eacute;moires sur
-l&rsquo;Arm&eacute;nie</i>, Paris, 1818, vol. i. p. 328). Armenia was
-at this time struggling to rid herself of the Persian (Sasanian) yoke,
-having lost her Arsakid dynasty. The katholikos no longer resided at
-Edgmiatsin, the pontifical seat having been transferred to Dvin in
-<span class="sc">A.D.</span> 452 (Saint-Martin, <i>ibid.</i> vol. i. p.
-437); nor does he return until <span class="sc">A.D.</span> 1441. In
-618 it was again restored by the Katholikos Komitas (Saint-Martin, i.
-116, quoting John Katholikos; and cp. Sebeos, <i>Hist. of
-Heraclius</i>, iii. 25 (in Armenian)), who substituted a dome in stone
-in place of the earlier wooden one. Certain repairs are attributed to
-the Katholikos Nerses III., surnamed the builder, <span class=
-"sc">A.D.</span> 640&ndash;661, I know not upon what authority. After
-this there ensues a long period, for which we appear to have no
-records. The katholikos often changes his residence. After the
-destruction of the Cilician kingdom and in the year 1438 the right arm
-of St. Gregory, a relic which had become the palladium of the
-pontifical office, was transferred from Sis, the capital of that
-kingdom, to Edgmiatsin (Gelzer, article <i lang="de">Armenien</i> in
-<i lang="de">Realencyklop&auml;die f&uuml;r protestantische
-Theologie</i>, Leipzic, 1896). Saint-Martin places the transfer thither
-of the seat of the pontificate in the year 1441. In 1442 the Katholikos
-Kirakos undertook the necessary repairs (Thomas Metsobatzi). We now
-leap to the reign of Shah Abbas of Persia, who, as is well known,
-transported a whole colony of Armenians from the valley of the Araxes
-to the outskirts of his capital, Ispahan. In 1614 this monarch carried
-off a number of the venerated stones of the church to New Julfa to form
-the nucleus of a new Edgmiatsin (Arakel of Tauris, ch. xxiv.). The
-famous monastery fell into woeful neglect. The Katholikos Moses
-(1629&ndash;33) restored it, but added no new feature. His successor
-Philip renewed the roof (inscriptions, records, etc.). I think I have
-mentioned subsequent additions. The steps which run round the church
-were added or extensively restored by the Katholikos Lukas (in 1784).
-But they have been modified by Makar I. Repairs are ascribed to the
-pontiffs Astvatsadur, Simeon and Ephraim, the last of whom repaired in
-1816 the damages which the Persians had done to the roof by placing a
-battery upon it. For more detailed information I may refer my reader to
-a work entitled: <i>Description of the Mother Church of the
-Armenians</i>, by Vahan Vardapet Bastamean, Edgmiatsin, 1877 (in
-Armenian and Russian).&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href=
-"#xd21e6437src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e6478" href="#xd21e6478src" name="xd21e6478">29</a></span> See the
-translation of the <i lang="la">De Edificiis</i> by Stewart, annotated
-by Sir Charles Wilson, London, 1896, pp. 73 <i>seq.</i> (Palestine
-Pilgrims Text Society).&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href=
-"#xd21e6478src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e6487" href="#xd21e6487src" name="xd21e6487">30</a></span> John
-Katholikos, c. xii. And see Sebeos, <i>Hist. of Heraclius</i>, iii.
-33.&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href="#xd21e6487src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e6496" href="#xd21e6496src" name="xd21e6496">31</a></span> They
-bear the monograms of Nerses Katholikos and are reproduced by
-Strgygowski (<i>op. cit.</i>), to whom I refer my reader. I only saw
-one of them during my stay.&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href=
-"#xd21e6496src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e6518" href="#xd21e6518src" name="xd21e6518">32</a></span> Brosset
-(<i lang="fr">Bull. Scient. de l&rsquo;Acad. de Sc. de St.
-P&eacute;tersbourg</i>, vol. ii. 1837) has transcribed the letters and
-published a valuable little notice on the subject.&nbsp;<a class=
-"fnarrow" href="#xd21e6518src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e6524" href="#xd21e6524src" name="xd21e6524">33</a></span> The
-circumstance appealed to Brosset as a rare example of religious
-tolerance (<i lang="fr">Voyage Arch.</i>, rapp. 3, p.
-19).&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href="#xd21e6524src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e6544" href="#xd21e6544src" name="xd21e6544">34</a></span> Dubois,
-<i lang="fr">Voyage autour du Caucase</i>, vol. iii. p. 371. But see
-Haxthausen, <i>Transcaucasia</i>, p. 287.&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href=
-"#xd21e6544src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e6586" href="#xd21e6586src" name="xd21e6586">35</a></span> I was
-unable to measure each apse; but I was assured that they were all of
-the same or nearly the same size. The portal is of course not included
-in the above measurements.&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href=
-"#xd21e6586src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e6591" href="#xd21e6591src" name="xd21e6591">36</a></span> Telfer
-(<i>Crimea and Transcaucasia</i>, London, 1876, vol. i. p. 231) seems
-to refer to this throne, which he ascribes to Pope Innocent XI., a gift
-to James IV. (1655&ndash;80).&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href=
-"#xd21e6591src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e6609" href="#xd21e6609src" name="xd21e6609">37</a></span> See
-Morier, <i>Second Journey</i>, pp. 323 <i>seq.</i>&nbsp;<a class=
-"fnarrow" href="#xd21e6609src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e6638" href="#xd21e6638src" name="xd21e6638">38</a></span> See
-Dubois de Montp&eacute;reux, <i>op. cit.</i> vol. iii. p. 213, and
-Neale&rsquo;s <i>Holy Eastern Church</i>, vol. i. p. 296. The former of
-these writers informs us that our church of St. Ripsime
-&ldquo;<span lang="fr">a servi de type &agrave; une foule
-d&rsquo;autres &eacute;glises,</span>&rdquo; and the latter has
-improved upon this statement by asserting that it is &ldquo;the norm of
-all Armenian ecclesiastical buildings&rdquo; (Dubois, vol. iii. p. 380,
-and Neale, vol. i. p. 293). Leaving Georgia out of account, both these
-statements are incorrect.&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href=
-"#xd21e6638src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e6654" href="#xd21e6654src" name="xd21e6654">39</a></span> Unless
-we accept Neale&rsquo;s hypothesis that they served as a
-<i>narthex</i>. But the <i>narthex</i> is not a feature of the churches
-of Great Armenia.&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href=
-"#xd21e6654src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e6664" href="#xd21e6664src" name="xd21e6664">40</a></span>
-According to Brosset (<i>Voyage Arch.</i>, rapp. 3, p. 82) the diameter
-of the dome is not less than about <span class="measure" title=
-"10.7 meter">35 feet</span>. The height is given by Neale, <i>op.
-cit.</i> p. 296, as 104&frac12; feet to the top of the
-cross.&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href="#xd21e6664src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e6693" href="#xd21e6693src" name="xd21e6693">41</a></span> Sebeos,
-<i>History of Heraklius</i> (in Armenian), part iii. ch.
-xxv.&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href="#xd21e6693src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e6699" href="#xd21e6699src" name="xd21e6699">42</a></span> For the
-theft and recovery of these relics see Smith and Dwight (<i>Missionary
-Researches</i>, London, 1834, p. 280), and Brosset (<i lang="fr">Voyage
-Arch.</i>, rapp. 3, p. 83).&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href=
-"#xd21e6699src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e6726" href="#xd21e6726src" name="xd21e6726">43</a></span>
-Brosset, <i>ibid.</i> p. 82. The date reposes upon the authority of the
-historian, John Katholikos.&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href=
-"#xd21e6726src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e6761" href="#xd21e6761src" name="xd21e6761">44</a></span>
-According to Agathangelus the third chapel was built upon the site of
-the wine-press. Further on we are told that it was situated
-<i>north</i> of the town, and that in it was buried the unfortunate nun
-who was left behind owing to sickness.&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href=
-"#xd21e6761src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e6783" href="#xd21e6783src" name="xd21e6783">45</a></span> Brosset
-(<i lang="fr">Bull. Scientifique Acad. Sc. St. P&eacute;tersbourg</i>,
-1840, pp. 46 <i>seq.</i>) quotes a letter from Nahabet to this
-effect.&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href="#xd21e6783src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e6797" href="#xd21e6797src" name="xd21e6797">46</a></span>
-Brosset, <i>ibid.</i>&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href=
-"#xd21e6797src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e6803" href="#xd21e6803src" name="xd21e6803">47</a></span> Belck,
-in <i lang="de">Zeitschrift f&uuml;r Ethnologie</i>, Berlin, 1893, Heft
-ii. p. 77.&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href="#xd21e6803src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e6827" href="#xd21e6827src" name="xd21e6827">48</a></span>
-Haxthausen, <i>Transcaucasia</i>, p. 295.&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href=
-"#xd21e6827src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e6852" href="#xd21e6852src" name="xd21e6852">49</a></span>
-Schillinger, <i lang="de">Persianische und Ost-Indianische Reise</i>,
-N&uuml;rnberg, 1707. I do not credit the statement of Evliya, who
-visited Edgmiatsin in <span class="sc">A.D.</span> 1647, to the effect
-that at that time the monastery was inhabited by about 500
-monks.&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href="#xd21e6852src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e6873" href="#xd21e6873src" name="xd21e6873">50</a></span> Bryce,
-<i>Transcaucasia and Ararat</i>, note to 4th edition, London, 1896, p.
-314.&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href="#xd21e6873src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e6887" href="#xd21e6887src" name="xd21e6887">51</a></span> It is
-interesting to place together the two following passages, the first
-taken from a modern and representative Armenian source, the second from
-the work of a German scholar. I translate both from the German. Dr.
-Arshak Ter-Mikelean, professor of theology in the Academy at
-Edgmiatsin, writes (<i lang="de">Die Armenische Kirche in ihren
-Beziehungen zur byzantinischen</i>, Leipzic, 1892, p. 9): &ldquo;The
-mother church of Gregory was not founded by him nor even by the
-apostles, who are only mortal men; but the everlasting Founder, the
-only Head of the Church, Himself descends in glory from Heaven and
-commands him to build a church after His plan and His directions on a
-prescribed site in the royal city, Vagharshapat. Christ Himself appears
-to Gregory in a vision and instructs him what he shall do ...&rdquo;;
-and Professor Gelzer draws the inference (<i lang="de">Die Anf&auml;nge
-der armenischen Kirche</i>, in <i lang="de">Berichte &uuml;ber die
-Verhandlungen der K. S. Gesell. der Wissenschaften zu Leipzic,
-Phil.-Hist. Classe</i>, 1895, p. 127): &ldquo;The ancient capital
-Vagharshapat ... bears at the present day the name Edgmiatsin,
-&lsquo;the Only Begotten descended from Heaven,&rsquo; in everlasting
-remembrance that Christ Himself founded the Armenian Church and thereby
-established her as autokephalous and completely independent of every
-patriarchate, whether of the East or of the West.&rdquo;&nbsp;<a class=
-"fnarrow" href="#xd21e6887src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e6902" href="#xd21e6902src" name="xd21e6902">52</a></span> Moses
-of Khorene mentions St. Bartholomew and St. Simon (ii. 34, in Langlois,
-<i lang="fr">Collection des hist. de l&rsquo;Arm&eacute;nie</i>, Paris,
-1867&ndash;69, vol. ii. p. 98), and says that the former suffered
-martyrdom in the town of Arevban, while the other was reputed to have
-met the same fate in Veriospora. According to Gelzer (article <i lang=
-"de">Armenien</i> in <i lang="de">Realencyklop&auml;die f&uuml;r
-protestantische Theologie</i>, Leipzic, 1896) the martyrdom of St.
-Bartholomew in Urbanopolis, a town of Great Armenia, was known to Greek
-writers as early as the fifth century. Urbanopolis, Albanopolis, or
-Korbanopolis (Armenian, Arevbanos or Arebonos-Kaghak) may perhaps be
-identified with Arabion castellum, where in fact Vardan (<i>c.</i>
-1270) tells us that the saint was murdered. Arabion castellum was a
-fort on the Stranga, or Great Zab, which Mr. F. C. Conybeare (<i>Key of
-Truth</i>, Oxford, 1898, p. cii.) connects with the modern Deir, where
-at the present day the monastery and church of St. Bartholomew stand. I
-surmise that nothing is known of the site of Veriospora. Moses,
-following the Edessene tradition, speaks of St. Thaddeus as one of the
-seventy disciples, relates at length his mission to King Abgar of
-Edessa (Urfa in Mesopotamia), and speaks of his conversion of King
-Sanatruk, successor of Abgar, and of his martyrdom in the canton of
-Chavarchan, called in his day Ardaz, as well-known facts. For St. Jude
-I rely on Issaverdens (<i>Armenia and the Armenians</i>, Venice, 1878,
-vol. ii. p. 21), who relates that he was put to death and buried in the
-city of Urmi in Azerbaijan.&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href=
-"#xd21e6902src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e6926" href="#xd21e6926src" name="xd21e6926">53</a></span> Moses
-of Khorene, ii. 30&ndash;36, in Langlois, <i>op. cit.</i> vol. ii. pp.
-95 <i>seq.</i>; and Saint-Martin, <i lang="fr">M&eacute;moires</i>,
-etc. vol. i. p. 127.&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href=
-"#xd21e6926src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e6938" href="#xd21e6938src" name="xd21e6938">54</a></span>
-Professor Carri&egrave;re (<i lang="fr">La L&eacute;gende d&rsquo;Abgar
-dans l&rsquo;histoire de Mo&iuml;se de Khor&egrave;ne</i>, Paris, 1895)
-shows that Moses used an Armenian version of the legend of Abgar which
-commenced to form about the middle of the third century but was
-subsequently remodelled. The same writer in this work relegates the
-unfortunate Moses of Khorene, or rather the writer who assumes the mask
-of this name, to a position <i lang="la">inter deos minores</i> and to
-a period not earlier than the eighth century. He had previously been
-made to step down several places, and was shivering somewhere in the
-seventh century. See Gutschmid, <i lang="de">Kleine Schriften</i>,
-Leipzic 1892, iii. p. 335.&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href=
-"#xd21e6938src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e6950" href="#xd21e6950src" name="xd21e6950">55</a></span> Faustus
-of Byzantium, iii. 1, and iv. 3, in Langlois, <i>op. cit.</i> vol. i.
-pp. 210, 237.&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href=
-"#xd21e6950src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e6959" href="#xd21e6959src" name="xd21e6959">56</a></span>
-Issaverdens, ii. 20, and Saint-Martin, i. p. 131.&nbsp;<a class=
-"fnarrow" href="#xd21e6959src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e6964" href="#xd21e6964src" name="xd21e6964">57</a></span>
-Eusebius (<i lang="la">Hist. eccl.</i> vi. 46, 2), speaking of
-Dionysius of Alexandria (<span class="sc">A.D.</span> 248&ndash;265),
-says, &ldquo;And in the same manner he writes to those in Armenia over
-whom Merujan was bishop on the subject of repentance.&rdquo; For the
-probable connection of this bishop with the Van country see Gelzer
-(<i lang="de">Die Anf&auml;nge</i>, etc. pp. 171
-<i>seq.</i>).&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href=
-"#xd21e6964src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e6985" href="#xd21e6985src" name="xd21e6985">58</a></span> Mr. F.
-C. Conybeare (<i>Key of Truth</i>, Oxford, 1898, pp. ci. <i>seq.</i>)
-discusses the locality of the see of Archelaus. He is called in the
-<i>Acts of Archelaus</i> bishop of Karkhar (<span class="trans" title=
-"episkopos Karchar&#333;n"><span class="Greek" lang=
-"el">&#7952;&pi;&#8055;&sigma;&kappa;&omicron;&pi;&omicron;&sigma;
-&Kappa;&alpha;&rho;&chi;&#8049;&rho;&omega;&nu;</span></span> or
-<span class="trans" title="Kaschar&#333;n"><span class="Greek" lang=
-"el">&Kappa;&alpha;&sigma;&chi;&#8049;&rho;&omega;&nu;</span></span>),
-which again is called a city of Mesopotamia, three days&rsquo; hard
-riding from castellum Arabion, a fort on the river Stranga, the modern
-Great Zab. Karkhar was included in the Roman dominions. May it not have
-been somewhere in the neighbourhood of Sert?&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow"
-href="#xd21e6985src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e7016" href="#xd21e7016src" name="xd21e7016">59</a></span>
-Conybeare, <i>ibid.</i> pp. lviii. and ciii.&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow"
-href="#xd21e7016src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e7022" href="#xd21e7022src" name="xd21e7022">60</a></span>
-Conybeare, <i>ibid.</i> p. cx.&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href=
-"#xd21e7022src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e7034" href="#xd21e7034src" name="xd21e7034">61</a></span>
-Conybeare, <i>ibid.</i> p. xcvi.&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href=
-"#xd21e7034src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e7057" href="#xd21e7057src" name="xd21e7057">62</a></span> I refer
-to the long account contained in the Agathangelus treatise (see note
-<i>infra</i>).&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href=
-"#xd21e7057src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e7063" href="#xd21e7063src" name="xd21e7063">63</a></span>
-Conybeare, <i>op. cit.</i> pp. cxi. cxii.&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href=
-"#xd21e7063src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e7071" href="#xd21e7071src" name="xd21e7071">64</a></span>
-<i>Ibid.</i> pp. clx. clxi.&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href=
-"#xd21e7071src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e7080" href="#xd21e7080src" name="xd21e7080">65</a></span> Letter
-of Lazar Pharpetzi ap. Conybeare, <i>op. cit.</i> p. cviii.; Nerses of
-Lampron, <i>ibid.</i> p. lxxxv.; Isaac Katholikos, <i>ibid.</i>
-Appendix vii. p. 171, and pp. lxxvi. lxxvii.&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow"
-href="#xd21e7080src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e7095" href="#xd21e7095src" name="xd21e7095">66</a></span>
-Conybeare (<i>op. cit.</i>) gives the gist of the canon of the Council
-of Shahapivan (pp. cvii. cviii.) and a translation of the canon of John
-Katholikos at the Council of Dvin and of portions of his tract (pp. 152
-<i>seq.</i> in Appendix iv.).&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href=
-"#xd21e7095src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e7106" href="#xd21e7106src" name="xd21e7106">67</a></span>
-Conybeare (<i>ibid.</i> Appendices i. to iv. inclusive) details these
-various persecutions from the original sources; his discussion of the
-identity of Sembat is a most interesting contribution to the history of
-Armenia in the Middle Ages (pp. lxi. <i>seq.</i>).&nbsp;<a class=
-"fnarrow" href="#xd21e7106src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e7128" href="#xd21e7128src" name="xd21e7128">68</a></span> The
-visit is almost certainly a fable.&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href=
-"#xd21e7128src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e7131" href="#xd21e7131src" name="xd21e7131">69</a></span> For
-some enquiry into the ethnical affinities and earliest history of the
-Armenians see Vol. II. of the present work, pp. 67
-<i>seq.</i>&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href="#xd21e7131src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e7143" href="#xd21e7143src" name="xd21e7143">70</a></span> Note
-especially the interesting incident mentioned by Faustus of Byzantium
-(v. 4). An ally of the Sasanian king of Persia and a sincere imitator
-of his example thus addresses his army: &ldquo;When you get to close
-quarters with the imperial troops I bid you try your best to make
-prisoners and avoid bloodshed; we must endeavour to carry them off with
-us as trophies, and we will make them work for us when we get home as
-artisans and masons for the construction of our cities and
-palaces.&rdquo;&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href=
-"#xd21e7143src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e7151" href="#xd21e7151src" name="xd21e7151">71</a></span> Dion
-Cassius (lxxx. 3) adds this last statement. The preceding are based on
-Agathangelus (ch. i.). The chronology is that of A. von Gutschmid. See
-his article <i>Persia</i> in <i>Ency. Brit.</i> and <i lang="de">Kleine
-Schriften</i>, iii. pp. 402 <i>seq.</i>&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href=
-"#xd21e7151src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e7167" href="#xd21e7167src" name="xd21e7167">72</a></span> Mommsen
-(<i>Provinces of the Roman Empire</i>, vol. ii. p. 75) tells us, on the
-authority of Dion Cassius ap. Suidas, that it was the Roman general
-Priscus who, after <i>destroying</i> Artaxata in <span class=
-"sc">A.D.</span> 163, laid out the city which was called <span class=
-"trans" title="kain&#275; tolis"><span class="Greek" lang=
-"el">&kappa;&alpha;&iota;&nu;&#8052;
-&tau;&#8057;&lambda;&iota;&sigmaf;</span></span>, or, in Armenian,
-Nor-Kaghak. This latter name is used by Armenian writers of the fifth
-century alongside of that of Vagharshapat (Edgmiatsin).&nbsp;<a class=
-"fnarrow" href="#xd21e7167src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e7189" href="#xd21e7189src" name="xd21e7189">73</a></span>
-Herodian (vi. 5, 6) gives us an account of the war waged by Severus,
-which is not even noticed by the Armenian historian.&nbsp;<a class=
-"fnarrow" href="#xd21e7189src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e7195" href="#xd21e7195src" name="xd21e7195">74</a></span>
-Agathangelus, ch. ii. <i>Life of St. Gregory</i>. A. von Gutschmid, who
-throws doubt upon the statement in the Life that St. Gregory was a son
-of Anak who was taken to Greece, views with a suspicion, which is quite
-natural, the words of the historian, &ldquo;one was taken to Persia,
-the other to Greece.&rdquo; The territory of the Empire would have been
-hostile to such prot&eacute;g&eacute;s of the Persian king. But even if
-this view be plausible it is surely not necessary to take the words too
-literally (<i lang="de">Kleine Schriften</i>, iii. 380).&nbsp;<a class=
-"fnarrow" href="#xd21e7195src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e7208" href="#xd21e7208src" name="xd21e7208">75</a></span>
-Elis&oelig;us Vardapet (ap. Langlois, <i lang="fr">Collection des
-hists. de l&rsquo;Arm&eacute;nie</i>, vol. ii. p. 206) gives the text
-of a petition despatched by the Armenian nobles to Theodosius II., in
-which occurs the following passage:&mdash; ... &ldquo;our king
-Tiridates, while yet a child, was taken to Greek territory and educated
-there in order to escape from his cruel and parricidal
-uncles....&rdquo; On the other hand, Agathangelus leads us to infer
-that Ardashir took possession of Armenia after the murder of Chosroes
-and that it was then that the child Tiridates was taken to Greece. In
-this statement he comes into conflict with Zonaras, who tells us (xii.
-21) that it was only in the time of Gallus (252 or 253) that the
-Persians were able to possess themselves of Armenia, after the flight
-of the king, Tiridates. It does not seem open to doubt that it was not
-Ardashir but his successor Shapur I. who became master of Armenia; and
-these various sources may perhaps be partially reconciled in the manner
-suggested by Von Gutschmid (<i lang="de">Kleine Schriften</i>, iii.
-405) and adopted in my text. Von Gutschmid interprets <i>parricidal</i>
-in the sense of the uncles having murdered, or helped to murder, not
-their own father but the father of Tiridates.&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow"
-href="#xd21e7208src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e7220" href="#xd21e7220src" name="xd21e7220">76</a></span> The
-campaign of Odaenathus against Shapur is placed in 265 by Robertson
-Smith (article <i>Palmyra</i> in <i>Ency. Brit.</i>) and in 264 by
-Mommsen (<i>Provinces of Roman Empire</i>, ii. 104). We learn from
-Vopiscus (<i>Aurel.</i> 27) that an Armenian contingent was enrolled
-under the banner of Zenobia against the Emperor Aurelian in 271. What
-was the attitude of Tiridates during the war?&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow"
-href="#xd21e7220src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e7240" href="#xd21e7240src" name="xd21e7240">77</a></span>
-Tiridates was no doubt influenced by the persecutions of the emperors
-Decius (249&ndash;251) and Valerian (253&ndash;260). The latter
-persecution took place during the last three and a half years of the
-reign of Valerian.&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href=
-"#xd21e7240src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e7249" href="#xd21e7249src" name="xd21e7249">78</a></span>
-Agathangelus is our earliest authority for the reign of Tiridates and
-for the events connected with the conversion of the Armenians as a
-nation to Christianity. But the scholars who examined this precious
-treatise were impressed with the scale and frequency of the
-interpolations to which the original text appeared to have been
-subjected; and partly for this reason, partly owing to the former
-ascendency of Moses of Khorene, full use was not made of the work. In
-1877 there appeared in the pages of a German periodical one of those
-masterpieces of the higher criticism of which German writers now appear
-to have a monopoly. It is entitled <i>Agathangelos</i>, by Alfred von
-Gutschmid, and it has been incorporated in the collected edition of Von
-Gutschmid&rsquo;s minor works (<i lang="de">Kleine Schriften von A. von
-Gutschmid</i>, Leipzic, 1892, vol. iii. pp. 339 <i>seq.</i>). The
-author laboured under the disadvantage of not being an Armenian
-scholar; but he has nevertheless succeeded in discriminating between
-the various sources from which the treatise, as it has come down to us,
-has been built up. They are&mdash;1. An earliest source which we may
-call the <i>Life of St. Gregory</i>, and which also contains an
-account, running parallel, of the reigns of Chosroes and Tiridates down
-to the conversion of the latter. Von Gutschmid thinks that this writing
-was composed in Armenian during the pontificate of Sahak, or Isaac, the
-Great (<span class="sc">A.D.</span> 391&ndash;442). It seems more
-probable, however, that it was originally written in Greek or Syriac
-and subsequently translated into Armenian. 2. A later piece which we
-may distinguish as the <i>Acts of St. Gregory and of St. Ripsime and
-her Companions</i>. It is a hagiograph, which Von Gutschmid supposes to
-have been written about the year 450. It seems to me, however, that a
-certain passage in Faustus of Byzantium (iii. 13, in Langlois&rsquo;
-translation, &ldquo;<span lang="fr">jusqu&rsquo;&agrave; changer
-m&ecirc;me l&rsquo;image de l&rsquo;homme en une figure de
-b&ecirc;te</span>&rdquo;) points to that author having been acquainted
-with the Acts; at all events he is familiar with the legend of the
-Ripsimians. Faustus appears to have written 395&ndash;416. To the Acts
-portion of the Agathangelus treatise belongs a long and possibly
-independent piece which contains the teaching of St. Gregory; but
-neither the Greek version nor the extant translations include it, and I
-am not aware that any consecutive account of its contents has yet
-appeared. In the Armenian text this last piece takes up over one-half
-of the treatise as a whole. And finally&mdash;3. <i>The Vision or
-Apocalypse of St. Gregory</i>, in which the saint receives the Divine
-mandate to build the church at Edgmiatsin. This piece, together with
-the prologue and epilogue to the whole work, was probably added by a
-priest of Vagharshapat (Edgmiatsin), who edited the treatise and gave
-it its present form, publishing it under the pseudonym of Agathangelus.
-Von Gutschmid thinks that the work as a whole may be assigned to the
-period of Persian persecution (<span class="sc">A.D.</span>
-452&ndash;456). The fact that Lazar Pharpetzi displays an intimate
-acquaintance with it under the name of Agathangelus shows that it
-cannot be placed later than about the close of the fifth century. I do
-not know, however, that Lazar shows a knowledge of the Apocalypse, or
-that the statement contained in a Paris MS. can be conclusively
-disproved, that the Armenian text which has come down to us is a
-translation made in the seventh century, at the time of the discovery
-under Komitas of the relics of St. Ripsime, from a Greek original. Von
-Gutschmid, however, argues against this view (pp. 354 <i>seq.</i>).
-Ter-Mikelean (<i lang="de">Die armenische Kirche</i>, p. 5) supports
-the view that the work was translated at the close of the fourth
-century by Koriun from a Greek original (see Langlois, vol. ii.
-<i>Introduction to Koriun</i>, p. 4); but Von Gutschmid has shown that
-certain passages have been borrowed from Koriun, and until the Armenian
-text has been subjected to a searching philological criticism we are
-not safe in saying more than this. The student will find the various
-pieces enumerated above distinguished one from another, passage by
-passage, in the table given by Von Gutschmid (pp. 375 <i>seq.</i>). The
-latest edition of our present Greek text, which is a translation from
-the Armenian, is that of De Lagarde (G&ouml;ttingen, 1887), but the
-references given in my notes are to that of Langlois. The best
-translation is that of the Mekhitarists in Italian (Venice, 1843). The
-French translation in Langlois omits some of the most important
-passages. As regards the historical importance of the pieces, Von
-Gutschmid concludes that the Life may be regarded as a source of
-absolute reliability for the conversion of the king and for the events
-in Armenia which succeeded the conversion. As regards what took place
-before that event, it is in the main reliable, although interwoven with
-legend. The Acts, on the other hand, and the Apocalypse are as good as
-useless as historical material.</p>
-<p class="par footnote cont">The scholarly study of Von Gutschmid
-rendered possible Professor Gelzer&rsquo;s profound and brilliant
-essay, <i lang="de">Die Anf&auml;nge der armenischen Kirche</i>, to
-which I have already alluded (p. 277, note 1) and in which he reviews
-the work of the Armenian writer known to us under the name of Faustus
-of Byzantium.&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href=
-"#xd21e7249src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e7303" href="#xd21e7303src" name="xd21e7303">79</a></span> See p.
-145 of the Italian translation of Agathangelus. Von Gutschmid (<i lang=
-"de">Kleine Schriften</i>, iii. 358) is careful to point out the
-discrepancy in the two sources. While the Acts speak of possession by
-devils as the malady with which the people of Vagharshapat were
-afflicted and which caused them to be transformed into animals, the
-Life only mentions &ldquo;possession&rdquo; as one of the diseases
-which are enumerated.&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href=
-"#xd21e7303src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e7309" href="#xd21e7309src" name="xd21e7309">80</a></span> See the
-Italian translation, p. 153.&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href=
-"#xd21e7309src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e7315" href="#xd21e7315src" name="xd21e7315">81</a></span>
-Sozomen, ii. 8. He places the conversion before Constantine, but does
-not give the exact date.&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href=
-"#xd21e7315src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e7320" href="#xd21e7320src" name="xd21e7320">82</a></span>
-&ldquo;With Gallienus (260) there begins for the Christians a long
-period of peace, lasting about forty years&rdquo; (Moeller, <i>History
-of the Christian Church</i>, <span class="sc">A.D.</span> 1&ndash;600,
-London, 1892, p. 196).&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href=
-"#xd21e7320src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e7329" href="#xd21e7329src" name="xd21e7329">83</a></span> It
-seems impossible to precise the date of the conversion of Tiridates.
-The author of the Life in Agathangelus allows thirteen years for the
-captivity of Gregory, who was imprisoned in the first year of the
-restoration. But I am not aware that we are able to fix this latter
-date. The conversion probably occurred about the year
-280.&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href="#xd21e7329src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e7335" href="#xd21e7335src" name="xd21e7335">84</a></span> Emin,
-<i lang="fr">Recherches sur le paganisme arm&eacute;nien</i>, p. 20,
-note 1.&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href="#xd21e7335src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e7341" href="#xd21e7341src" name="xd21e7341">85</a></span> The
-Pontic regions.&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href=
-"#xd21e7341src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e7346" href="#xd21e7346src" name="xd21e7346">86</a></span> The
-king himself preached (Agathangelus, <i>Life of St. Gregory</i>, in p.
-253 of the Italian translation).&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href=
-"#xd21e7346src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e7356" href="#xd21e7356src" name="xd21e7356">87</a></span> I
-insert the word &ldquo;years&rdquo; in deference to Professor Gelzer,
-who argues (<i lang="de">Die Anf&auml;nge</i>, etc., p. 166) that if
-the conversion took place about the year 280, the journey to
-C&aelig;sarea could scarcely have been undertaken before 285&ndash;290.
-He is wishing to show that the statements contained in a portion of the
-Agathangelus treatise ascribed by Von Gutschmid to the less reliable
-source, viz. the Acts, to the effect that St. Gregory was ordained by
-Leontius, archbishop of C&aelig;sarea, may quite well be true. We know
-that Leontius subscribed the Council of Nice (325); and his pontificate
-must have covered a period of forty-five years if St. Gregory was
-ordained by him in or about the year 280. The Life mentions the visit
-of Gregory to C&aelig;sarea but not the name of Leontius; and Von
-Gutschmid, while he regards the visit as historical, views with
-suspicion the connection with that particular prelate (<i lang=
-"de">Kleine Schriften</i>, iii. pp. 415 and 418). That seems to me the
-sensible view. We learn from an independent source (Gelas. Cyzic. ii.
-36, ap. Mansi, ii. p. 929) that in the year 325 and during the lifetime
-of Saint Gregory and Leontius, Great Armenia was in ecclesiastical
-subordination to C&aelig;sarea; and the link with the capital of
-Cappadocia was maintained until the death of the Katholikos Nerses I.
-about the year 374 (cp. Faustus, v. 29). The later story, to the effect
-that Tiridates received Christianity from the bishop of Rome (so in the
-petition of the Armenians in the year 450 to Theodosius, ap.
-Elis&oelig;us in Langlois, ii. 206), is plainly a story with a purpose
-and must therefore be viewed with suspicion.&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow"
-href="#xd21e7356src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e7365" href="#xd21e7365src" name="xd21e7365">88</a></span> The car
-with the white mules is mentioned in the Life, and the escort of
-sixteen princes in the Acts.&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href=
-"#xd21e7365src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e7368" href="#xd21e7368src" name="xd21e7368">89</a></span> A
-bishop of Sivas with this name was martyred under Diocletian; but this
-saint will not suit our chronology. Certain features in connection with
-the cult of the saint&mdash;a hind is offered up to him on his name
-day&mdash;have suggested to Von Gutschmid (<i lang="de">Kleine
-Schriften</i>, iii. 414) that Athenogenes was a heathen god of the
-chase, converted in comparatively remote times into a Christian martyr.
-A local cult of this nature seems to have attached to Herakles in
-certain countries; therefore it might quite well have been natural for
-Gregory to supplant the worship of his Armenian counterpart, Vahagn, at
-Astishat with that of Athenogenes, the saint corresponding to the god
-of the chase. This is ingenious but not convincing. The hunting
-features in the cult of Athenogenes may surely have been <i>derived
-from</i> his worship at Astishat in place of Vahagn
-(Herakles).&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href="#xd21e7368src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e7382" href="#xd21e7382src" name="xd21e7382">90</a></span> I adopt
-the Greek version of Agathangelus in this passage in preference to the
-Armenian text, which has &ldquo;he laid the foundations of the church
-and erected an altar to the <i>glory of Christ</i>. It was here that he
-first commenced to build churches, and erected an altar in the <i>name
-of the Holy Trinity</i> and added a baptistery.&rdquo; See Gelzer
-(<i lang="de">Die Anf&auml;nge</i>, etc., p. 129).&nbsp;<a class=
-"fnarrow" href="#xd21e7382src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e7394" href="#xd21e7394src" name="xd21e7394">91</a></span> After a
-second perusal of the passages in Agathangelus and Faustus (in
-Langlois: Agathangelus, cxiv. and cxv.; Faustus, iii. and iv. 14), I do
-not hesitate to identify the site of the temples of
-Astishat&mdash;Mount Karke, in face of the great range,
-Taurus&mdash;with the immediate surroundings of the present cloister of
-Surb Karapet (see Vol. II. p. 177). The view which I shall offer from
-the terrace of that famous monastery (Fig. 157) will be the view which
-excited the cupidity of the eunuch Hair; the ash trees in the
-foreground may be the descendants of the <i>hatzeatz-drakht</i> or
-garden of ash trees; finally, the confluence of rivers, overgrown with
-thick forest, to which the eunuch descended and where he met his death,
-may be represented by the still wooded banks of the Murad in the valley
-of Charbahur. The identification of the scene of the events narrated in
-the text with the present monastery of Surb Karapet may be found in the
-geography attributed to Vardan in Saint Martin (<i lang=
-"fr">M&eacute;moires</i>, etc., vol. ii. p. 431).</p>
-<p class="par footnote cont">The baptism of Tiridates probably took
-place on the banks of the Upper Murad upon the site of another existing
-cloister of Surb Karapet, also called Uch Kilisa, near Diadin (see
-Smith and Dwight, <i>Missionary Researches</i>, p. 417).&nbsp;<a class=
-"fnarrow" href="#xd21e7394src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e7417" href="#xd21e7417src" name="xd21e7417">92</a></span>
-Faustus, iii. 3.&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href=
-"#xd21e7417src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e7420" href="#xd21e7420src" name="xd21e7420">93</a></span>
-Faustus, iii. 13.&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href=
-"#xd21e7420src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e7423" href="#xd21e7423src" name="xd21e7423">94</a></span>
-<i>Ibid.</i>&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href=
-"#xd21e7423src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e7427" href="#xd21e7427src" name="xd21e7427">95</a></span>
-Agathangelus, <i>Life of St Gregory</i>, sec. 158.&nbsp;<a class=
-"fnarrow" href="#xd21e7427src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e7436" href="#xd21e7436src" name="xd21e7436">96</a></span>
-Faustus, iii. 13.&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href=
-"#xd21e7436src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e7439" href="#xd21e7439src" name="xd21e7439">97</a></span>
-Faustus, v. 31. &ldquo;The obsequies of the dead were conducted amid
-loud lamentations, accompanied by trumpets, guitars and harps.
-Monstrous dances took place, men and women, with bangles on their arms
-and painted faces, giving themselves up to every kind of
-abomination.&rdquo; The picture is coloured by malice, but is
-vivid.&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href="#xd21e7439src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e7447" href="#xd21e7447src" name="xd21e7447">98</a></span>
-Agathangelus, <i>Life of St. Gregory</i>, sec. 169.&nbsp;<a class=
-"fnarrow" href="#xd21e7447src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e7453" href="#xd21e7453src" name="xd21e7453">99</a></span>
-Faustus, iv. 4.&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href=
-"#xd21e7453src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e7456" href="#xd21e7456src" name="xd21e7456">100</a></span>
-Faustus, iv. 14. It seems plain from this chapter that these domains
-had been bestowed upon the family of Gregory by Tiridates and his
-successors.&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href="#xd21e7456src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e7462" href="#xd21e7462src" name="xd21e7462">101</a></span>
-Faustus, iii. 15 and 19. The profane delinquents were named Pap and
-Athenogenes, and the makeshift office-bearers Daniel the Syrian, Pharen
-and Shahak. The two last-named were formally invested with the office
-and sent to C&aelig;sarea to be consecrated.&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow"
-href="#xd21e7462src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e7465" href="#xd21e7465src" name="xd21e7465">102</a></span> Note
-especially the election of Nerses I., a descendant of St. Gregory who
-was loth to accept the office. &ldquo;The numerous troops of all
-Armenia demanded and proclaimed Nerses as katholikos ... the entire
-assembly commenced to cry with a loud voice, &lsquo;It is Nerses who
-must be our pastor.&rsquo; Nerses refused to accept the mandate, of
-which he professed himself unworthy. Nevertheless the assembly
-persisted in their resolution and continued to cry before the king,
-&lsquo;No one except Nerses shall be our pastor; nobody but he shall
-occupy the holy chair!&rsquo;&rdquo; The whole chapter (Faustus, iv. 3)
-is well worth reading, and contains some very vivid portraiture. Nerses
-was a layman and was raised to the pontificate in one day. He was then
-sent to C&aelig;sarea to be formally consecrated.&nbsp;<a class=
-"fnarrow" href="#xd21e7465src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e7468" href="#xd21e7468src" name="xd21e7468">103</a></span>
-Professor Gelzer pertinently observes (<i lang="de">Die
-Anf&auml;nge</i>, etc., p. 148) that the Armenian kings in pagan times
-had been in the practice of placing their own near relatives in
-priestly offices, and quotes Strabo to the effect that in the
-neighbouring provinces of Cappadocia and Pontus the high priest was
-<span class="trans" title=
-"deuteros kata tim&#275;n meta basilea"><span class="Greek" lang=
-"el">&delta;&epsilon;&#8059;&tau;&epsilon;&rho;&omicron;&sigmaf;
-&kappa;&alpha;&tau;&#8048; &tau;&#8055;&mu;&eta;&nu;
-&mu;&epsilon;&tau;&#8048;
-&beta;&alpha;&sigma;&iota;&lambda;&#8051;&alpha;</span></span>, or
-second in rank after the king. On the other hand, traces of Jewish
-custom are to be found in the existence of a second priestly House in
-Armenia during the early period of Christianity, who in a sense were
-rivals of the House of the Illuminator. I allude to the House of
-Albianus. It must not be forgotten that there were extensive
-settlements of Jews in Armenia at this period, brought thither by the
-Armenian king Tigranes (Faustus, iv. 55).&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href=
-"#xd21e7468src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e7489" href="#xd21e7489src" name="xd21e7489">104</a></span>
-Eusebius, <i>Hist. Eccl.</i> ix. 8. For the date see Von Gutschmid
-(<i lang="de">Kleine Schriften</i>, iii. p. 412).&nbsp;<a class=
-"fnarrow" href="#xd21e7489src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e7498" href="#xd21e7498src" name="xd21e7498">105</a></span> The
-doubts of Von Gutschmid would perhaps have been removed by the more
-correct translation given by Professor Gelzer of the passage relating
-to the journey in Agathangelus and by his editing of the context. The
-passage should read, &ldquo;By land and sea they proceeded with haste
-until they reached the State of the Italians and the land of the
-Dalmatians and arrived in the imperial city of the Romans.&rdquo;
-Dalmatia is the <i lang="la">pr&aelig;fectura per Illyricum</i>. The
-name of the bishop is given in the text of Langlois as Sylvester, and
-as Eusebius in the Greek translation. The best Armenian MS. also has
-Eusebius. The name of Sylvester appears to have been substituted much
-later, when the &ldquo;imperial city of the Romans&rdquo; was very
-naturally identified with Rome and the prelate with the bishop of
-Rome.</p>
-<p class="par footnote cont">My friend Mr. F. C. Conybeare calls my
-attention to the interesting circumstance that the Armenian equivalent
-for Latin is Dalmatian. Thus in their Gospels it is said that the title
-King of the Jews was inscribed on the cross in Hebrew, Greek, and <i>in
-Dalmatian</i>.&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href=
-"#xd21e7498src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e7515" href="#xd21e7515src" name="xd21e7515">106</a></span> And
-yet the <span class="trans" title="homoousion"><span class="Greek"
-lang="el">&#8001;&mu;&omicron;&omicron;&#8059;&sigma;&iota;&omicron;&nu;</span></span>
-was not incorporated into the Armenian Creed! But it does not appear
-that this omission was intentional. The creed already in use was
-allowed to stand. I confess to a feeling of astonishment, having regard
-to the unequivocal language in which the author of the Life attests the
-acceptance of the Council; but the canons could not have been much
-appreciated in Armenia at the time if we are to credit Koriun&rsquo;s
-statement that he himself, with Ghevond and Eznik, brought authentic
-copies of them to Armenia in the fifth century (Biography of Mesrop in
-Langlois&rsquo; <i>Collection</i>, vol. ii. p. 12). Mr. F. C. Conybeare
-informs me that the Creed of Nice was only communicated to the Armenian
-diaspora in Persia and Southern Mesopotamia by the Katholikos Papken
-after the Council of Dvin, <i>c.</i> 490 <span class="sc">A.D.</span>
-It was rejected by that diaspora as in contradiction with their already
-established Ebionite or Adoptionist tenets (see Letter-book of the
-Patriarchs, MS. of the Armenian Father, St. Anthony, in Stambul).</p>
-<p class="par footnote cont">Dr. Arshak Ter-Mikelean prints the
-Armenian and Nicene creeds side by side and accompanies them with some
-interesting remarks (<i lang="de">Die armenische Kirche in ihren
-Beziehungen zur byzantinischen</i>, Leipzig, 1892, p. 22 <i>seq.</i>).
-The statement of Agathangelus (<i>Life of St. Gregory</i>), that King
-Tiridates acted in concert with St. Gregory in making certain additions
-to the canons must be received with caution, although such additions do
-appear to have been actually made (see the note of the Mekhitarists to
-the Italian translation of Agathangelus, p. 196). His son, Chosroes
-II., appears to have come to the throne in 314. As neither Agathangelus
-nor Faustus gives us dates, and as the most monstrous anachronisms
-occur in both treatises, one may do pretty well what one likes with the
-chronology. I should even mistrust them when they assign a given number
-of years for a particular period. In the East at the present day <i>ten
-years</i> means more than one and less than twenty years; and I see no
-reason to credit the old historians with much greater precision of
-statement. That the Armenians took part in the Council of Nice is
-attested by Agathangelus, Faustus, Moses of Khorene, etc., and also by
-the list of signatures of participants in the Council:&mdash;<i lang=
-"la">Armeni&aelig; majoris Aristarces, Threnius Diosponti</i> (Von
-Gutschmid, <i lang="de">Kleine Schriften</i>, iii. 415). But we may
-reasonably doubt that either Tiridates or St. Gregory was alive at the
-time.&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href="#xd21e7515src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e7562" href="#xd21e7562src" name="xd21e7562">107</a></span> Lazar
-Pharpetzi, chs. x. and xi.; Moses of Khorene, iii. 36.&nbsp;<a class=
-"fnarrow" href="#xd21e7562src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e7567" href="#xd21e7567src" name="xd21e7567">108</a></span> Moses
-of Khorene, iii. 10. The following chronology (which is not that of
-Moses) is taken from Saint Martin (apud Lebeau, <i lang="fr">Hist. du
-Bas-Empire</i>). I attach to it a parallel list of the contemporary
-Greek Emperors and a similar column for the Sasanian monarchs, which is
-proudly filled by a single name. The date of Sapor II. rests on the
-authority of Th. N&ouml;ldeke.</p>
-<div class="table">
-<table>
-<thead>
-<tr class="label">
-<td colspan="2" class="cellHeadLeft cellHeadTop cellHeadBottom">
-<i>Armenian Arsakid Kings.</i></td>
-<td colspan="2" class="cellHeadTop cellHeadBottom"><i>Roman
-Emperors.</i></td>
-<td colspan="2" class="cellHeadRight cellHeadTop cellHeadBottom">
-<i>Persian Sasanian Kings.</i></td>
-</tr>
-</thead>
-<tbody>
-<tr>
-<td class="cellLeft">Chosroes II. (the Little)</td>
-<td>314&ndash;322</td>
-<td>Death of Constantine</td>
-<td>337</td>
-<td>Shapur II. (succeeds as an infant) 310&ndash;379</td>
-</tr>
-<tr>
-<td class="cellLeft">Tiran</td>
-<td>322&ndash;337</td>
-<td>Constantius</td>
-<td>337&ndash;361</td>
-<td></td>
-</tr>
-<tr>
-<td class="cellLeft">Arshak</td>
-<td>338&ndash;367</td>
-<td>Julian</td>
-<td>361&ndash;363</td>
-<td></td>
-</tr>
-<tr>
-<td class="cellLeft">Pap</td>
-<td>369&ndash;374</td>
-<td>Valens</td>
-<td>364&ndash;378</td>
-<td></td>
-</tr>
-<tr>
-<td class="cellLeft cellBottom"></td>
-<td class="cellBottom"></td>
-<td class="cellBottom">Theodosius (the Great)</td>
-<td class="cellBottom">379&ndash;395</td>
-<td class="cellBottom"></td>
-</tr>
-</tbody>
-</table>
-</div>
-<p class="par">&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href=
-"#xd21e7567src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e7645" href="#xd21e7645src" name="xd21e7645">109</a></span>
-Faustus wrote <i>c.</i> <span class="sc">A.D.</span>
-395&ndash;416.&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href=
-"#xd21e7645src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e7654" href="#xd21e7654src" name="xd21e7654">110</a></span> Moses
-of Khorene (iii. 10) places the king at the head of a Greek army. The
-patriotism of Faustus was stronger than his veracity, and he maintains
-a discreet silence upon this circumstance.&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow"
-href="#xd21e7654src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e7657" href="#xd21e7657src" name="xd21e7657">111</a></span> The
-first statement in this sentence is all that we learn from Faustus; the
-two last rest on the authority of Moses of Khorene, who assigns the
-death of Verthanes to the third year of Tiran. Aristakes, the younger
-son of St. Gregory, and his successor in the functions of the
-pontifical office during the closing years of the life of the saint,
-was assassinated, apparently by a Roman prefect, at an uncertain
-date.&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href="#xd21e7657src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e7666" href="#xd21e7666src" name="xd21e7666">112</a></span> In
-<span class="sc">A.D.</span> 339&ndash;340, according to Th.
-N&ouml;ldeke (article <i>Persia: Sasanians</i>, in <i>Ency.
-Brit.</i>).&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href="#xd21e7666src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e7680" href="#xd21e7680src" name="xd21e7680">113</a></span> The
-peace of <span class="sc">A.D.</span> 363.&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow"
-href="#xd21e7680src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e7700" href="#xd21e7700src" name="xd21e7700">114</a></span>
-Agathangelus, <i>Life of St. Gregory</i>, sec. 154.&nbsp;<a class=
-"fnarrow" href="#xd21e7700src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e7708" href="#xd21e7708src" name="xd21e7708">115</a></span>
-Faustus, iv. 3.&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href=
-"#xd21e7708src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e7715" href="#xd21e7715src" name="xd21e7715">116</a></span> Mr. F.
-C. Conybeare has kindly communicated to me the following interesting
-note to this passage:&mdash;&ldquo;These communities were really cities
-of refuge, imitated from the old Jewish legislation; and the Armenian
-monarch&rsquo;s aim was a wise one, namely, to set limits to the
-blood-feuds and vendettas of his subjects.&rdquo;&nbsp;<a class=
-"fnarrow" href="#xd21e7715src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e7720" href="#xd21e7720src" name="xd21e7720">117</a></span> I
-adopt the ingenious suggestion of Professor Gelzer (<i lang="de">Die
-Anf&auml;nge</i>, etc., p. 155) that the dioceses of Korduk and
-Aghdznik were included in the provinces ceded to Persia under
-Jovian&rsquo;s treaty in 363. Their bishops would have taken refuge in
-the dominions of the king and be receiving his support. The sequence of
-events in Faustus is against this hypothesis; but that is not of much
-account.&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href="#xd21e7720src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e7728" href="#xd21e7728src" name="xd21e7728">118</a></span> We
-know from Ammianus Marcellinus (xxx. 1) that King Pap himself died in
-374.&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href="#xd21e7728src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e7735" href="#xd21e7735src" name="xd21e7735">119</a></span>
-Professor Gelzer, whose admirable essay I have freely used in the
-composition of this paragraph, adduces evidence from the correspondence
-of Basil to show that the advisers of King Pap proceeded cautiously
-along the path which they had chosen.&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href=
-"#xd21e7735src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e7744" href="#xd21e7744src" name="xd21e7744">120</a></span> Such
-is the translation given by Professor Gelzer of the passage in Faustus
-iv. 14.&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href="#xd21e7744src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e7755" href="#xd21e7755src" name="xd21e7755">121</a></span> I am
-indebted to Mr. F. C. Conybeare for the following note to this
-passage:&mdash;The Armenian alphabet was imposed on Sahak (Isaac the
-Great) by the Persian Government as a political device to estrange the
-Armenians both from Greeks and from Syrians. The only historical
-account is that of Anania of Shirak (unedited chronicle in an uncial
-MS. at Mush), who relates that the twenty-nine consonants were
-&ldquo;arranged in order&rdquo; by Daniel, a Syrian philosopher, and
-sent (during the reign of Theodosius the Less) to the <i>Armenian</i>
-Satrap Vakortsh by Viram Shapu the king by hand of the Elder Abel. The
-seven vowels were still wanted, and Mesrop received these from Hayek, a
-noble of Taron. Stephanus, a scribe of Samosata, incorporated these
-seven vowels among the consonants.&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href=
-"#xd21e7755src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e7775" href="#xd21e7775src" name="xd21e7775">122</a></span> Nor at
-the Councils of Constantinople and of Ephesus.&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow"
-href="#xd21e7775src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e7787" href="#xd21e7787src" name="xd21e7787">123</a></span> It
-appears that this formula was added to the Trisagion by the Synod of
-Vagharshapat (Ter-Mikelean, <i lang="de">Die armenische Kirche</i>,
-etc., p. 47).&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href=
-"#xd21e7787src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e7793" href="#xd21e7793src" name="xd21e7793">124</a></span> The
-subject is fully discussed by Ter-Mikelean (<i>op. cit.</i> pp. 52
-<i>seq.</i>, and cp. pp. 70 and 89).&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href=
-"#xd21e7793src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e7809" href="#xd21e7809src" name="xd21e7809">125</a></span> My
-reader may consider that I have been dealing too largely in ancient
-history. My excuse is that the position remains much the same at the
-present day. The differences between the Armenian and the Greek
-Churches are well summarised in a note by the Mekhitarists to the
-famous address delivered by Nerses of Lambron in the twelfth century to
-the council assembled at Romkla (<i lang="it">Orazione sinodale di S.
-Nierses Lampronense</i>, Venice, 1812, p. 188). The Greek Church
-demanded that the Armenian Church should:&mdash;1. Anathematise all
-those who assert that Christ has one nature. 2. Confess Jesus Christ in
-two natures. 3. Not address the Trisagion to the Second Person of the
-Trinity. 4. Celebrate the Dominical feasts in conformity with the Greek
-Church. 5. Prepare the Chrism or Holy Oil with oil alone. 6. Celebrate
-the Holy Communion with leavened bread and with water in the wine. 8.
-Receive the fourth, fifth, sixth, and seventh &OElig;cumenical
-Councils. 9. Receive the nomination of the Armenian patriarch from the
-Greek Emperor. The attitude of the two Churches towards one another is
-regretfully but most pithily summed up by the same Nerses of Lambron.
-The Greeks thanked God that they were not like the Armenians; and the
-Armenians thanked God that they were not like the Greeks.</p>
-<p class="par footnote cont">It has been generally supposed that the
-Armenians subscribed the Councils of Constantinople and Ephesus; but I
-must repeat that this does not appear to have actually been the case
-(see Ter-Mikelean, <i>op. cit.</i>).</p>
-<p class="par footnote cont">Apart from dogma and ritual, the traveller
-notices a conspicuous difference between the Greek and the Armenian
-Church at the present day. You will not find eikons in Armenian houses,
-while no Russian house is without them. As regards the Church of Rome,
-the dogmatic breach is even wider than with the Greek Church; in common
-with the latter the Armenian Church rejects the <i>Filioque</i>. And of
-course it denies the infallibility of the Pope.&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow"
-href="#xd21e7809src">&uarr;</a></p>
-</div>
-</div>
-<div id="ch17" class="div1 chapter"><span class="pagenum">[<a href=
-"#xd21e449">Contents</a>]</span>
-<div class="divHead">
-<h2 class="label">CHAPTER XVII</h2>
-<h2 class="main">TO ANI AND TO KARS</h2>
-</div>
-<div class="divBody">
-<p class="par first"><i>October 14.</i>&mdash;We left the cloister at
-half-past eight, our little party of five persons including the
-Armenian cook. We had hired in the district ten miserable ponies, of
-which five carried our effects. The most direct way to Ani crosses the
-basal slopes of Alag&ouml;z, from the southern to the most westerly
-extremities of the shield-shaped mass. You proceed from Edgmiatsin in a
-north-westerly direction, the ground rising at every step of your
-advance. On the point of course, beyond oases of verdure in the
-foreground, lie the stony and arid declivities of the
-mountain&mdash;contours of immense length and low vaulting, joining the
-plain to the horizontal outline in the sky. The belt of verdure
-consists of fields of the cotton and the castor-oil plants, of patches
-of orchard and vineyard, and sparse groves of poplar, rising from the
-dusty and boulder-strewn waste. It is sustained by runnels which
-exhaust the waters of the Kasagh or Abaran Su, the stream which
-collects the scanty drainage of the volcano upon its eastern flank. The
-boulders are worn by water and have been dispersed by the swollen
-river, during the season of spring floods. Where we crossed the Kasagh
-itself, or principal channel, it was a languid and soil-charged body of
-water, threading these stony tracts. We passed several villages within
-the irrigated area, some inhabited by Armenians, others by Tartars, and
-a few by both races alike. Hiznavuz, or Kiznaus, an Armenian
-settlement, containing the State-school of the district, was the last
-of these hamlets of the fertile zone. We stayed a few minutes before
-the open windows of the schoolhouse, listening to a lesson given in
-Russian to Armenian boys. Behind the village, a sterile eminence leads
-over into the barren highlands which compose the pedestal of
-Alag&ouml;z. <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb317" href="#pb317" name=
-"pb317">317</a>]</span></p>
-<p class="par">The moderate elevation of these highlands above the
-plain of the Araxes and their long extension from east to west are
-conditions favourable to the full appreciation of the landscape, and of
-each new feature in the slowly-changing scene. Their free position
-contributes to invest them with the character of a natural gallery,
-which commands unbroken prospects over some of the grandest works of
-Nature in her most inspired moods. The European, whose conception of
-mountain scenery is founded upon the arbitrary peaks and scattered
-valleys characteristic of his Alps, who has looked with emotion upon
-the doubtful features of his lowlands from the summit of some famous
-pass, can scarcely fail to be deeply impressed by the attributes of a
-panorama in which reliefs and depressions of stupendous scale are
-disposed as members of a great design, and are seen in the pure
-atmosphere of an Eastern climate with all the clearness of a model in
-clay. At his feet lies a plain which is level as water, which in no
-very remote geological period was covered by an inland sea. It is a
-distance of some thirty miles to its opposite confines; yet the towns
-and the plantations are pencilled upon its surface as though they had
-been traced by a draughtsman&rsquo;s pen. The plain is bordered by the
-volcanic range which we have come to know as the Ararat system&mdash;a
-chain of which the jagged and fantastic outline is already familiar
-from many a rich sunset effect. The summits rise to nearly <span class=
-"measure" title="2438 meter">8000 feet</span> above the campagna; but
-how humble they appear behind the train of the fabric of Ararat,
-gathering immediately from the floor of the plain! The bold snow
-bastions of the north-western slope are seen in face from these
-highlands; and it is difficult to realise that the pronounced
-lineaments which compose that airy figure are removed by a space of
-nearly forty miles. We had not yet lost sight of the line of poplars
-which screens the cloister when the distinctive features of this
-magnificent landscape were unfolded to our view. The several ranges and
-mountain masses were disposed in the form of an amphitheatre, of which
-we seemed to occupy one of the middle tiers. In the east, along the
-Araxes, the crinkled buttresses of the northern border were still
-visible, projecting in a southerly direction beyond the cock-combed
-hill of Karniarch. In the west, at an interval of sixty miles from
-those eminences, the level ground extended to a double-peaked mountain
-which juts out into the valley from the Ararat system, and is known
-under the name of Takjaltu. Face to face with one another stood
-Alag&ouml;z <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb318" href="#pb318" name=
-"pb318">318</a>]</span>and Ararat. In the plain we could discern an
-isolated hummock, north of the Araxes and bearing about south-west. It
-marks the site of Armavir.</p>
-<p class="par">That this scene&mdash;in itself a world, and a world
-which fills the mind with wonder&mdash;has of necessity been the
-theatre of momentous events in the life of humanity, the traveller
-realises at a single glance. His pious predecessors were surely
-justified in accepting the ancient belief of the Armenians, that our
-first father and mother loved and suffered in this plain.<a class=
-"noteref" id="xd21e7849src" href="#xd21e7849" name="xd21e7849src">1</a>
-If we are to seek the site of Paradise within the limits of Armenia,
-neither the Euphrates nor the Tigris crosses a country equally
-appropriate to have been the earliest and fairest home of man. It looks
-the land of hope which Noah tilled and planted with vineyards, the
-second nursery of the human race. The Armenians, whose mythical history
-connects them closely with Babylonia and Assyria, who from the earliest
-times have been accustomed to receive Jewish immigrants and to see
-Jewish colonies established in their midst, must at a remote date have
-localised the events of the Biblical narrative in this the most
-favoured of all their valleys and at the foot of the loftiest of their
-mountains.<a class="noteref" id="xd21e7864src" href="#xd21e7864" name=
-"xd21e7864src">2</a> If the Jewish writings which they inherited were
-believed to have reference to their native surroundings, it was only
-natural that they should identify with the same districts the primeval
-setting of the later creations of the Jewish mind; the whole
-countryside became hallowed by religious tradition; nor need we feel
-surprise when we read that a tree in the neighbourhood of Karakala on
-the Araxes was believed to have sheltered Job and his three
-friends.<a class="noteref" id="xd21e7872src" href="#xd21e7872" name=
-"xd21e7872src">3</a> When the horizon narrows and embraces the
-particular history of the Armenians, we find that some of the first
-beginnings of their history are placed within this fertile and spacious
-plain; it was the chosen seat of Armenak, the son or grandson of their
-progenitor, Hayk, to which he descended from the mountains about the
-head waters of the Euphrates, accompanied by his whole race. Here were
-situated their most ancient cities, of <span class="pagenum">[<a id=
-"pb319" href="#pb319" name="pb319">319</a>]</span>some of which the
-relics still stand above ground and invite discussion of which city
-they denote the site. Armavir, the contemporary of Nineveh, with the
-grove of plane trees which worked the magic of the oaks of Dodona, has
-been identified with the ruins that are found on the little hillock
-which we distinguish from the detail of the landscape at our
-feet.<a class="noteref" id="xd21e7880src" href="#xd21e7880" name=
-"xd21e7880src">4</a> Further west, on the southern bank of the river,
-where it is enclosed by rocky cliffs of basaltic lava, due to the
-passage of a lava stream, modern travellers have discovered
-considerable remains of ancient masonry, which have been utilised to
-build the castle of Karakala, and which are still, I believe, in want
-of their older name.<a class="noteref" id="xd21e7886src" href=
-"#xd21e7886" name="xd21e7886src">5</a> Traces of the fortress of
-Ervandakert, and of Ervandashat, its companion city, which were built
-in the first century of our era by an Armenian monarch of Arsakid
-descent, have been remarked on either bank of the Arpa river, the
-ancient Akhurean, where it issues from the elevated country on the
-north of the Araxes and effects its confluence at the head of this
-plain.<a class="noteref" id="xd21e7898src" href="#xd21e7898" name=
-"xd21e7898src">6</a> In the days when those cities flourished, the
-haughty Araxes was spanned by bridges of which, here and there, a pier
-or a buttress still survives.<a class="noteref" id="xd21e7907src" href=
-"#xd21e7907" name="xd21e7907src">7</a> Below the lofty rock of Takjaltu
-lie the famous salt mines of Kulpi, which have been exploited from
-immemorial times.</p>
-<p class="par">After leaving the Armenian village we continued in the
-same direction over the barren highlands, in possession of the
-landscape which I have endeavoured to describe. We were riding at
-walking pace; our immediate surroundings were indifferent to us; nor
-for the space of three hours did we meet a single settlement, except
-here and there a group of Kurdish tents. When at midday the clouds
-cleared above the summit of Alag&ouml;z, we remarked that the fangs of
-its rocky core were invisible behind the bulging contours of the outer
-sheath. Above us, upon those slopes, we could discern some small green
-patches, which mark the site of hamlets, peopled by Tartars and
-Armenians who eke out a scanty <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb320"
-href="#pb320" name="pb320">320</a>]</span>subsistence on the mountain
-side. When we had reached a point some thirteen miles in direct
-distance from Edgmiatsin, we crossed a close succession of deep
-ravines. The first of these was the most considerable of the three, and
-contained the broad bed of a dry watercourse, which descends from the
-central mountain mass. On the further side of the last among them we
-came upon the remains of a large church, of great simplicity but of
-much beauty of form. It was built of hewn stone, in the style of the
-best Armenian architecture; and the ancient frescos still stained the
-walls of the apse. But the lofty dome had fallen in, leaving nothing
-but a yawning circle, with fragments of cloud crossing the blue above
-our heads. An inscription in the interior bears the date 876 (Armenian
-era), which corresponds to the year <span class="sc">A.D.</span> 1426.
-Just beyond this ruin is situated the little Armenian village of
-Talysh, on the southern confines of which we visited the remains of
-some towers which are probably of the same period as the church, and
-which overlook the ravine upon the west. Both the <i>starshina</i> and
-the priest of Talysh were absent from the settlement; the inhabitants
-professed complete ignorance of the history of their antiquities,
-which, since they could neither read nor write, was perhaps not
-feigned. The afternoon was well advanced when we left this pleasant
-site; a mist arose, and developed into rain. In less than two hours we
-were glad to find shelter in the Tartar village of Akhja Kala, a
-refreshing oasis of green willows on these sterile slopes.</p>
-<p class="par">The essential majesty of the Armenian landscapes derives
-enhanced value from the presence at all seasons of clouds. In this
-respect Armenia is more favoured than Persia, where month after month
-you long for a cloud to temper the glare. To the radiance of her
-pellucid atmosphere is added the charm of effects of vapour; but the
-vapour has already been tamed in the passage of the border ranges, and
-floats in quiet masses over the central regions of the tableland. We
-awoke on the following morning to a scene which is characteristic of
-the season and of this plain. The whole valley of the Araxes was
-covered by a sheet of white mist, and had the appearance of a vast sea.
-From invisible limits in the west to the foot of the Ararat fabric the
-deceptive substance followed the base of the mountains, as though we
-had suddenly been introduced to that geological period when the waters
-washed these rocky shores. In the east several islands rose above the
-shining surface, eminences of the plain. The high ground upon
-<span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb321" href="#pb321" name=
-"pb321">321</a>]</span>which we stood was bathed in pure sunlight, and
-all Nature was intensely still.</p>
-<p class="par">As the morning advanced the vapours lifted or were
-dissolved; films of white cloud were wafted across the blue. We
-continued our march over highlands of the same stony character as those
-which we had traversed during the preceding day. But beyond the village
-the land had been cleared in places, and wheat planted, which was
-showing green above the ground. It is protected by the snows which
-cover these slopes during winter, and it is reaped in spring or early
-summer. The rocky heart of Alag&ouml;z was still concealed behind the
-declivities which swept towards us, on our right hand. In the great
-plain, which still lay beneath us, we missed the stretches of pleasant
-verdure which in that direction had become familiar to our eyes; desert
-tracts, seared by gullies, had taken the place of the gardens; while
-further west the valley was broken into hummock waves. A ground of
-ochre, washed in places with rose madder&mdash;such were the colours
-which clothed this naked expanse; the delicate tints were continued up
-the sides of the mountains which border the plain upon the south. These
-lower slopes of the Ararat system receive the light at sunrise; and,
-being composed of a marly substance, which is modelled into soft
-convexities, display a variety of tender hues. Bold peaks, of which the
-summits had been strewn with snow during the night, rise along the
-spine of the range; but they are dwarfed, even at this distance, by the
-fabric of Ararat. We could discern on the west of the mountain the pass
-which leads to Bayazid, and we had not yet lost sight of the mound of
-Armavir. But it was evident that the even ground in the valley of the
-Araxes was coming to an end. The western limits of the level plain may
-be placed in the neighbourhood of Karakala; and, according to Dubois,
-the last canal which derives from the Araxes waters the fields on the
-west of the village of Shagriar.<a class="noteref" id="xd21e7929src"
-href="#xd21e7929" name="xd21e7929src">8</a></p>
-<p class="par">Villages became less rare as we rounded the mass of the
-mountain and opened a view over the country in the direction of the
-Arpa Chai. An hour from Akhja Kala our attention was attracted by a
-still distant eminence, rising above the shelving land upon that side.
-It was the crag of Bugutu, which is probably due to a later eruption on
-the flank of Alag&ouml;z. We passed two Tartar settlements, and crossed
-a couple of ravines, the first <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb322"
-href="#pb322" name="pb322">322</a>]</span>of which must have had a
-depth of nearly a hundred feet. It contained a pleasant growth of lofty
-poplars and other trees, and it was threaded by a babbling brook. When
-the prospect extended to the upper slopes of the mountain, we observed
-that they were sprinkled with fresh snow. A stage of two and a half
-hours brought us to the village of Talin, a prosperous and picturesque
-little township at the foot of Bugutu (Fig. <a href=
-"#fig061">61</a>).</p>
-<p class="par"></p>
-<div class="figure xd21e7949width" id="fig061"><img src=
-"images/fig061.jpg" alt="Fig. 61. Village of Talin, with Mount Bugutu."
-width="605" height="253">
-<p class="figureHead"><span class="sc"><span class="figNum">Fig.
-61.</span> Village of Talin, with Mount Bugutu.</span></p>
-</div>
-<p class="par"></p>
-<p class="par">Both the Pristav and the priest were quickly
-forthcoming; we were by them conducted to a house which contained two
-storeys, and which was the residence of the priest. While food was
-being prepared, we were accompanied by our hosts in a walk round the
-place. We were informed that it contained some thousand inhabitants,
-all of whom were Armenians. It possesses a church, but is still without
-a school. The old prejudices survive, and it was impossible to persuade
-the young women to submit to the camera. But Talin is distinguished by
-the close proximity of a piece of architecture which appears to date
-from the golden period of the Bagratid dynasty and which ranks among
-the most charming examples of the Armenian style. It is a
-church&mdash;they call it cloister (<i>vank</i>), and it perhaps
-belonged to a monastery&mdash;which, although in ruins, is fairly well
-preserved. The roof has fallen in; the walls display wide breaches; but
-the masonry is still sharp and fresh, as when first put together, and
-the traceries might just have undergone the finishing touch. With its
-bold windows&mdash;no mere apertures&mdash;and bands of elegant
-sculpture, I thought it the most beautiful building I had yet seen in
-Armenia. I reproduce some of these chiselled mouldings of the exterior.
-The first, a vine pattern (Fig. <a href="#fig062">62</a>), belongs to
-the southern transept; and the second <span class="pagenum">[<a id=
-"pb323" href="#pb323" name="pb323">323</a>]</span>(Fig. <a href=
-"#fig063">63</a>), representing a pear or apple, is taken from that
-upon the north. On the south side of the ruin we observed a sun-dial,
-carved in stone; and we were shown a square block, which had been found
-among the d&eacute;bris, and upon which was sculptured a relief,
-representing the Virgin and Child, attended by two angels. A graveyard
-surrounds the building; some of the old crosses have been built into
-the walls of the village church. A little on the east we noticed the
-remains of a small chapel. The ground was strewn with fallen stones,
-some red, others grey&mdash;the two colours which are so skilfully
-blended or placed in contrast by Armenian architects upon the broad,
-undecorated spaces of their walls. We enquired the history of the ruin,
-and were referred to a partially defaced inscription on one of the
-piers which once supported the dome. It mentions the name of King
-Sembat, a member of the Bagratid dynasty, which reigned from the ninth
-to the eleventh century.<a class="noteref" id="xd21e7969src" href=
-"#xd21e7969" name="xd21e7969src">9</a> The grandfather of the priest
-informed us that both the monastery and the church had been maintained
-up to a comparatively recent period. He said that the priests had fled
-during the campaign of Paskevich, since which date the buildings had
-been allowed to fall into decay.</p>
-<p class="par"></p>
-<div class="figure xd21e7977width" id="fig062"><img src=
-"images/fig062.jpg" alt=
-"Fig. 62. Talin: Mouldings on South Side of Ruinous Church." width=
-"522" height="720">
-<p class="figureHead"><span class="sc"><span class="figNum">Fig.
-62.</span> Talin: Mouldings on South Side of Ruinous Church.</span></p>
-</div>
-<p class="par"></p>
-<p class="par"></p>
-<div class="figure xd21e7985width" id="fig063"><img src=
-"images/fig063.jpg" alt=
-"Fig. 63. Mouldings on North Side of Ruinous Church at Talin." width=
-"425" height="506">
-<p class="figureHead"><span class="sc"><span class="figNum">Fig.
-63.</span> Mouldings on North Side of Ruinous Church at
-Talin.</span></p>
-</div>
-<p class="par"></p>
-<p class="par"></p>
-<div class="figure floatLeft xd21e7993width" id="fig064"><img src=
-"images/fig064.jpg" alt="Fig. 64. Tartar Khan at Talin." width="244"
-height="608">
-<p class="figureHead"><span class="sc"><span class="figNum">Fig.
-64.</span> Tartar Khan at Talin.</span></p>
-</div>
-<p class="par"></p>
-<p class="par"></p>
-<div class="figure floatRight xd21e8001width" id="fig065"><img src=
-"images/fig065.jpg" alt="Fig. 65. Pristav of Talin." width="241"
-height="607">
-<p class="figureHead"><span class="sc"><span class="figNum">Fig.
-65.</span> Pristav of Talin.</span></p>
-</div>
-<p class="par"></p>
-<p class="par">Ker Porter, who crossed the district on his way from Ani
-to Edgmiatsin, mentions the existence in this neighbourhood of
-<span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb324" href="#pb324" name=
-"pb324">324</a>]</span>extensive ruins&mdash;the deserted relics of two
-churches, of walls and houses, which he saw at a distance, but did not
-stay to examine. He calls the place Talys, and Ritter hazards the
-conjecture that these may have been the remains of Bagaran.<a class=
-"noteref" id="xd21e8012src" href="#xd21e8012" name=
-"xd21e8012src">10</a> That city, which was founded by the same monarch
-who gave his name to Ervandakert and Ervandashat, became a royal
-residence of the Bagratid dynasty, and at the end of the fourteenth
-century of our era still continued to exist. We did not hear of further
-antiquities in the vicinity of Talin; but the correspondence of name
-suggests that Ker Porter&rsquo;s account may have been called forth by
-the former condition of the site which we visited. It was evident that
-these highlands had been the seat of a flourishing civilisation, later
-in date than that which produced the vanished cities of the plain.
-First at Talysh and next at Talin we discovered traces of this
-medi&aelig;val culture, of which the evidence was lavished upon us when
-we had reached the banks of the Arpa, at Ani and at Khosha Vank.</p>
-<p class="par">The upper chamber of the priest&rsquo;s house and the
-company therein assembled recalled the simplicity <span class=
-"pagenum">[<a id="pb325" href="#pb325" name="pb325">325</a>]</span>of
-the early Christian times. Our host was still a young man, and his
-natural capacities had not been blunted by indigence and ill-treatment.
-His villagers were well off, and appeared to live on terms of
-friendship with their neighbours of Tartar race. A Tartar khan, a
-grandee of the district, happened to be visiting the place on business
-(Fig. <a href="#fig064">64</a>); and we were glad to see that his
-intercourse with the principal people was marked by tokens of mutual
-respect. His grave face and dignified figure contrasted with the
-vivacity of the Armenians; his presence added to the interest of the
-group which I photographed, and which included the Pristav (Fig.
-<a href="#fig065">65</a>) and the priest (Fig. <a href=
-"#fig066">66</a>). Neither the official head of the village nor our
-clerical acquaintance possessed any education, except what had been
-provided by an Armenian primary school. But both, and especially the
-former, were men of great intelligence, and did honour to the peasant
-class from which they had sprung.</p>
-<p class="par"></p>
-<div class="figure floatRight xd21e8035width" id="fig066"><img src=
-"images/fig066.jpg" alt="Fig. 66. Priest of Talin." width="242" height=
-"610">
-<p class="figureHead"><span class="sc"><span class="figNum">Fig.
-66.</span> Priest of Talin.</span></p>
-</div>
-<p class="par"></p>
-<p class="par">We were in want of another pony, which we were able to
-hire at Talin; his owner, a Tartar belonging to Akhja Kala, accompanied
-or followed us on foot (Fig. <a href="#fig067">67</a>). Measured on the
-map, it is a distance of sixteen miles from the village to the point at
-which we struck the Arpa Chai. We owed it to the nature of the ground
-and to the sorry condition of our horses that we were four and a half
-hours in performing the stage. It seemed an interminable ride; the
-landscape was monotonous; and we soon lost any glimpse of the valley of
-the Araxes, as we continued our north-westerly course. We crossed the
-neck of the ridge which culminates at its western extremity in the crag
-of Bugutu; and, on its further side, descended into the little Tartar
-settlement of Birmalek, where a stream trickles down from Alag&ouml;z.
-A dam <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb326" href="#pb326" name=
-"pb326">326</a>]</span>had been constructed which, aided by the nature
-of the ground, had forced the waters to collect into a small lake.
-Beyond Birmalek a second ridge was placed athwart our way, and
-constrained us to deviate towards the west. In the hollow we passed a
-small settlement of Kurds, called Sapunji, of which the inhabitants
-were the wildest people we had yet met. It speaks well for the Russian
-officials that they did not dare to lay hands upon us, travelling, as
-we were, alone and unarmed. This second ridge was succeeded by another,
-similar in character, which was followed by several more. They are the
-outworks or spurs of the central mass of the mountain, from which they
-radiate outwards in a westerly direction towards the trough of the Arpa
-Chai. Although their relative elevation above the valleys is not
-considerable, our guide preferred to turn them than to take them in
-face. Their sides were clothed with burnt grass, or were sterile and
-strewn with stones, like the depressions which they confined. For more
-than two hours we continued among such dreary surroundings, crossing
-the western basal slopes of Alag&ouml;z. These decline, by an almost
-imperceptible transition, into a tract of open and undulating ground.
-We were refreshed by the sight of a village, which stood alone and
-without neighbours on the bare surface of the more even land.</p>
-<p class="par">It belonged to a colony of Armenians from the plain of
-Alexandropol. Let us hope that they will be followed by further
-migrations of their countrymen into the valley of the Arpa Chai. That
-classical river of their ancestors crosses a region which was
-<span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb327" href="#pb327" name=
-"pb327">327</a>]</span>long famous for its salubrious climate and
-productive soil. It has not yet recovered from the state of abject
-desolation to which it was reduced when it formed the borderland
-between the Turkish and Persian empires. During a ride of nearly two
-hours from this settlement to the bank of the river, we were not aware
-of any sign of the presence of man.</p>
-<p class="par"></p>
-<div class="figure xd21e8054width" id="fig067"><img src=
-"images/fig067.jpg" alt="Fig. 67. Tartar of Akhja Kala." width="360"
-height="522">
-<p class="figureHead"><span class="sc"><span class="figNum">Fig.
-67.</span> Tartar of Akhja Kala.</span></p>
-</div>
-<p class="par"></p>
-<p class="par">Yet the features of this more level zone reminded us of
-the plain of Alexandropol, of which in some sense it forms an outlying
-part. We stood in face of the western declivities of Alag&ouml;z, with
-the rocky core of the volcano again disclosed. The contours of the
-mountain were composed of a number of ridges, which in perspective
-appeared to belong to two principal groups. One group declined away
-into invisible limits on our left hand; the other into an uncertain
-distance on our right. We were placed in the fork between these two
-diverging branches. It was evident that the last group separated us
-from the valley of the Araxes; nor could we doubt that the principal
-and humble ridge in the reverse direction was the only barrier between
-us and the plains on the north (Fig. <a href="#fig068">68</a>).</p>
-<p class="par"></p>
-<div class="figure xd21e8068width" id="fig068"><img src=
-"images/fig068.jpg" alt=
-"Fig. 68. Alag&ouml;z from the Plains on the West." width="602" height=
-"310">
-<p class="figureHead"><span class="sc"><span class="figNum">Fig.
-68.</span> Alag&ouml;z from the Plains on the West.</span></p>
-</div>
-<p class="par"></p>
-<p class="par">In the west, to the far horizon stretched the loamy
-tracts about us, bare of surface, like the sea. Above the outline of
-this high land rose the peaks of the Ararat system, fretting the sky
-from south-west to a bold mountain in the south, which we recognised as
-the familiar Takjaltu. We knew that we were overlooking the trough of
-the Arpa; but the river was hidden from sight. The light was failing as
-we entered <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb328" href="#pb328" name=
-"pb328">328</a>]</span>the Armenian village of Khosha Vank, on the left
-bank of the stream.</p>
-<p class="par">It is a picturesque little settlement of some 120
-tenements, grouped around a stately church. I have referred to it under
-the name which I received from the priest and the Pristav, but which
-more properly belongs to the neighbouring monastery. It is called
-Kizilkilisa (red church) on the Russian maps. It was our intention to
-sleep in Ani, after fording the river at this village; and we were
-surprised to learn that the ruins were four hours distant, and that it
-would be almost impossible to reach them that night. Since the baggage
-was behind us, we listened to the counsel of our informants, who
-conducted us to a stone house, containing a single room&mdash;the only
-decent building in the whole place. Although without a school, the
-inhabitants are no dullards; they seemed extremely ready to make a
-little money, and pleased to be able to exchange ideas. In fact we
-discovered on the following day that they had deceived us about Ani,
-with the express purpose of retaining us for the night. We waited some
-time in vain for the luggage to overtake us, and then composed
-ourselves to sleep.</p>
-<p class="par">When morning came our effects had not yet arrived; we
-reflected that we had given the rendezvous at Ani, and, although we
-felt sure that the laggards would cross the river at our village,
-decided to push on. The Arpa flows between high banks, a deeply eroded
-and sinuous bed, hidden by precipitous cliffs of black rock. You form
-the conception of a trough or fissure in the surface of the tableland,
-which undulates away into the distance on every side. After fording the
-stream, we proceeded along the right bank, and, at no great distance,
-opened out a romantic valley on our left hand, similar in character to
-that which adjoins the site of the Armenian village. In both places the
-river describes a complete S, and is lost in the gloom of overhanging
-walls. The disposition of these rocky sides assumes the appearance of a
-glen, in which are situated the remains of an extensive monastery,
-bearing the name of Khosha Vank. Just beyond this standpoint we gained
-the high land above the river; and there before us, on the plain, lay
-the ruins which we had been seeking, at the distance of an hour&rsquo;s
-canter from the cloister, or of a couple of hours&rsquo; ride from
-Kizilkilisa.</p>
-<p class="par">Descrying horses in the direction of Ani, we galloped
-forward and overtook them; they proved to be our missing cavalcade.
-<span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb329" href="#pb329" name=
-"pb329">329</a>]</span>They had passed the river at a place lower down
-than where we had crossed it, and were pursuing their way in a most
-leisurely manner. After opening one of the cases in order to replenish
-the slides of the camera, we returned to the glen, and again forded the
-stream. We spent a considerable time at the cloister and in its
-neighbourhood; it was certainly the most remarkable building which we
-had yet seen. Reserving a description of its ancient church and halls
-of audience, I shall only refer to a couple of illustrations in this
-place. The one (Fig. 93, p. 386) shows the <i>ensemble</i> of the
-monastery; but, having been taken from the east, where the ground is
-open and the landscape tame, misses the peculiar characteristics of the
-site. The other (Fig. 94, p. 387) may convey some conception of the
-appearance of the glen, when seen from the river-bed below the
-cloister. From the flat and water-worn bottom rises a little tongue of
-higher land, upon which stand the remains of two little chapels. On the
-cliff above the ravine you see the pier of a ruined gateway, outlined
-against the sky. The track to Ani leads up the cliffside and passes
-that ruin, which stands on the plain in which the still-distant city
-lies.</p>
-<p class="par">It was late afternoon when we reached the walls of the
-ancient capital (Fig. 70, p. 369), and passed within the great gateway.
-No massive doors creaked upon their hinges; we rode through empty
-archways into a deserted town. From among the d&eacute;bris of the
-public and private buildings rose the well-preserved remains of a
-number of handsome edifices&mdash;here an elegant church, there a
-polygonal chapel. An old priest with a few attendants were the sole
-inhabitants&mdash;they and the owls. We had only to follow the track to
-be brought to the humble tenement in which the priest lived. He stepped
-forth to meet us, a grey head, a feeble figure; he walked with
-difficulty, and with the demeanour of a man who is awaiting death. He
-told us that he had dwelt here since 1880, the only custodian of these
-priceless architectural treasures, and the only exponent of the
-topography of the site. He had been attacked in his house by a band of
-Kurds in 1886; they had inflicted knife wounds, and stripped him of
-everything he possessed. We remained two whole days within the walls of
-Ani, examining the creations of a vanished civilisation, and collecting
-material with which I propose to deal in a separate chapter. At nine
-o&rsquo;clock on the morning of the 19th of October we took leave of
-our aged host; and, <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb330" href="#pb330"
-name="pb330">330</a>]</span>leaving the city by the same gate through
-which we had entered it, pursued a track which leads in the direction
-of Kars.</p>
-<p class="par">Clouds were clinging to the hill slopes upon our point
-of course and concealing the shield-shaped mass of Alag&ouml;z. Lost
-fragments of opaline vapour lay on the surface of the grassy plain.
-Here and there we perceived the ruins of little chapels and other
-buildings, or the scattered d&eacute;bris of masonry. From these
-suburbs we looked back upon the bold line of the city walls, with their
-double girdle and towers at regular intervals. It seemed as though the
-stream of life had wandered off into other channels, leaving behind
-this eloquent evidence of its former course. We could not descry the
-form of man or of animal in the landscape; even the sky was without a
-wing. We rode in silence and at ease along a beaten path, where the
-burnt herbage had been worn away from the rich brown soil. West of Ani,
-at a distance which leaves the site of the city open, rises a hill of
-irregular shape and moderate elevation, known as the Alaja Dagh. It is
-due to volcanic action, and covers a respectable area; its sides and
-summits are overgrown with grass. It is placed across the direct line
-between Kars and the ancient capital, and compels you to deviate a
-little to the north. As we rose along the north-eastern slopes of the
-mass, we were lifted at a convenient altitude above the plains.</p>
-<p class="par">Outspread before us lay a vast extent of undulating
-ground, on the south, on the east, towards the north. After we had
-passed the small Armenian village of Jala, we could just discern in the
-lap of the expanse the city of Alexandropol, at a distance of over
-twenty miles. We had again opened out the northern slopes of
-Alag&ouml;z; and we could even see the meridional range which
-intersects it upon the east, and the gap through which we had journeyed
-to Erivan. When one reflects upon the significance of this panorama, it
-must be recognised that our standpoint on the skirts of the Alaja
-deserves a high rank among those apposite and commanding positions
-which Armenia appears to lavish upon her admirers, and which imprint
-her features indelibly upon the mind.</p>
-<p class="par">We might be said to have been standing on the dividing
-line between two landscapes and even of two climates. On the north lay
-the immense plains around Kars and Alexandropol, vague and grey in
-spite of the clear atmosphere, and with their distant limits shrouded
-in haze. These pass over, along the course of <span class=
-"pagenum">[<a id="pb331" href="#pb331" name="pb331">331</a>]</span>the
-deeply-bedded Arpa, into the ever-widening valley of the Araxes, bathed
-at all seasons in sun. Had it not been for the projecting spurs of the
-hill which we were skirting, the prospect would have embraced the peaks
-of the Ararat system, bounding the expanse upon the south. Snow had
-fallen upon the upper slopes of the mountains&mdash;Alag&ouml;z, no
-longer a shield but a towering parapet; the Chaldir system, the border
-range in the far east.</p>
-<p class="par"></p>
-<div class="figure floatLeft xd21e8103width" id="fig069"><img src=
-"images/fig069.jpg" alt="Fig. 69. Greek Girl of Subotan." width="399"
-height="720">
-<p class="figureHead"><span class="sc"><span class="figNum">Fig.
-69.</span> Greek Girl of Subotan.</span></p>
-</div>
-<p class="par"></p>
-<p class="par">As we proceeded towards the west, the instructive lesson
-was developed&mdash;no ridge to cross, but continuous tracts of level
-land. The plain rises with gentle gradation from the right bank of the
-Arpa to the labyrinth of hills on the west of Kars. Its surface is
-slightly vaulted, and the configuration of the ground is such that you
-lose the outlook towards the east. We passed through Subotan, a
-prosperous village of Turks and Greeks. The gay dresses of the Greek
-girls formed a brilliant <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb332" href=
-"#pb332" name="pb332">332</a>]</span>patch of colour, and their
-trinkets sparkled in the sun, which was already high (Fig. <a href=
-"#fig069">69</a>). Education is provided in a little schoolhouse, built
-and maintained at the charges of the Christian inhabitants, but
-supplied with a teacher by the State. A little further on we entered a
-second and smaller settlement, and again found ourselves among Greeks.
-I am under the impression that these scattered colonies date from the
-campaigns of Paskevich, when Christians in considerable numbers
-accompanied his armies across the frontier after their evacuation of
-Turkish territory.</p>
-<p class="par">On and on we rode over the spacious plain, beating the
-brown and idle soil, with nothing to divert us from the simple pleasure
-of cantering along. Vague tracks came converging towards us from the
-distance, the arteries along which the supplies of the fortress flow.
-It was evident that there was a pronounced slope of the ground upwards;
-and, at length, on the western horizon we opened out a long, low ridge,
-against which we could just discern without the aid of glasses the
-yellow masonry of the castle of Kars (Fig. 98, p. 406). As we neared
-the site, we were impressed by its strange and romantic character. From
-the hills upon the west a mass of gloomy basalt projects towards the
-east into the level and loamy land. Concave towards the plain, to which
-it presents a line of cliffs, it forms an extensive bay and terminates
-on the east in a commanding promontory, called the Karadagh. The
-answering horn of this sinuous line is composed or accentuated by the
-cluster of modern buildings which the Russians have erected, and which
-jut out from the ancient city on the side of the cliff into the even
-ground. Their white faces and iron roofing, coloured a quiet red or
-green, present a contrast to the black masonry which mounts the slope
-behind them&mdash;groups of houses, a few minarets, a large church.
-Above these towers the well-preserved pile of the old castle&mdash;an
-object which is rendered the more conspicuous by the yellow stone of
-which it is composed. Further eastwards along the summit of the ridge
-you see the ruins of the old Armenian fortress, with the remains of a
-wall rising towards it from the foot of the cliff. In the bay itself
-you will always find a confused medley of sheep and cattle, of
-bullock-carts threading the piles of hay and stores. We were met and
-challenged by a gendarme upon our arrival, but were allowed to proceed
-to a modest inn.</p>
-<p class="par">I am conscious of having hazarded to tire my reader with
-the <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb333" href="#pb333" name=
-"pb333">333</a>]</span>continuous narrative of a journey of four
-days&rsquo; duration and of more than the usual variety of interest.
-Anxious to avoid diverting his attention from the features of the
-country, I have not suffered him to rest, as we rested, at Ani; but
-have taken him without a break from the sunny depressions at the foot
-of Ararat to the wintry highlands about Kars. He has almost traversed
-from east to west one of the central regions of Armenia; and I would
-ask him to reflect that he has not crossed a single mountain barrier,
-but has throughout been riding upon the margin or over the surface of
-immense plains. In so far as it may be possible to parcel out this
-level surface, a triple division is suggested to the mind. In the north
-the basin-like area of the plain of Alexandropol (<span class="measure"
-title="1524 meter">5000 feet</span>) declines along the banks of the
-Arpa Chai; on the western side of the river the ground again rises and
-develops into the spacious plain of Kars (<span class="measure" title=
-"1737 meter">5700 feet</span>). In the south lies the sheltered valley
-of the Araxes, commencing on the west with an elevation, in the
-neighbourhood of the confluence of the Arpa, which is rather less than
-<span class="measure" title="914 meter">3000 feet</span> above the sea.
-<span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb334" href="#pb334" name=
-"pb334">334</a>]</span></p>
-</div>
-<div class="footnotes">
-<hr class="fnsep">
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e7849" href="#xd21e7849src" name="xd21e7849">1</a></span> See
-especially Tournefort, <i lang="fr">Voyage du Levant</i>, Paris, 1717,
-vol. ii. p. 335; Parrot, <i lang="de">Reise zum Ararat</i>, p. 83, and
-<i>passim</i>.</p>
-<p class="par footnote cont">The ingenious botanist, Tournefort, was
-tickled by the question&mdash;suggested by the tobacco fields through
-which he passed&mdash;whether the fragrant weed was included among the
-plants of the terrestrial paradise. Owing to the absence of olive trees
-in this region, he is puzzled by the story of the dove and the olive
-branch.&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href="#xd21e7849src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e7864" href="#xd21e7864src" name="xd21e7864">2</a></span> For the
-intercourse of the Armenians with the Jews I would refer my reader to
-Ritter, <i lang="de">Erdkunde</i>, vol. x. pp. 586
-<i>seq.</i>&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href="#xd21e7864src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e7872" href="#xd21e7872src" name="xd21e7872">3</a></span> Dubois,
-<i lang="fr">Voyage autour du Caucase</i>, vol. iii. p.
-448.&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href="#xd21e7872src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e7880" href="#xd21e7880src" name="xd21e7880">4</a></span>
-<i>Ibid.</i> p. 419; and compare the account of this city given by
-Moses of Khorene.&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href=
-"#xd21e7880src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e7886" href="#xd21e7886src" name="xd21e7886">5</a></span> See
-Ouseley&rsquo;s <i>Travels</i>, vol. iii. p. 450; Ker Porter&rsquo;s
-<i>Travels</i>, vol. ii. p. 640; Dubois, <i>op. cit.</i> vol. iii. p.
-446. Ouseley and Ker Porter thought that they were the remains of
-Armavir. Dubois probably goes astray in assigning them to
-Tigranocerta.&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href=
-"#xd21e7886src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e7898" href="#xd21e7898src" name="xd21e7898">6</a></span> Dubois,
-<i>op. cit.</i> vol. iii. p. 435 <i>seq.</i> On a hill at the
-confluence of the Arpa Chai with the Araxes, and on the western side of
-the former river, this traveller found relics of the ancient fortress
-of Ervandakert. It communicated with the Araxes by a subterranean
-passage. Ervandashat was situated on the eastern bank, a little higher
-up the stream.&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href=
-"#xd21e7898src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e7907" href="#xd21e7907src" name="xd21e7907">7</a></span> At
-Ervandakert and at Karakala, according to the testimony of Dubois. See
-also Ker Porter (<i>loc. cit.</i>) for the relics of the bridge at the
-latter place.&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href=
-"#xd21e7907src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e7929" href="#xd21e7929src" name="xd21e7929">8</a></span> Dubois,
-<i>op. cit.</i> vol. iii. pp. 421 and 449. Compare also Von
-Behagel&rsquo;s account (<i>apud</i> Parrot, <i>op.
-cit.</i>).&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href="#xd21e7929src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e7969" href="#xd21e7969src" name="xd21e7969">9</a></span> Probably
-Sembat II. (<span class="sc">A.D.</span> 977&ndash;89), the monarch who
-laid the foundations of the cathedral at Ani.&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow"
-href="#xd21e7969src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e8012" href="#xd21e8012src" name="xd21e8012">10</a></span> Ker
-Porter, <i>op. cit.</i> vol. i. p. 178; Ritter, <i lang=
-"de">Erdkunde</i>, vol. x. p. 449.&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href=
-"#xd21e8012src">&uarr;</a></p>
-</div>
-</div>
-<div id="ch18" class="div1 chapter"><span class="pagenum">[<a href=
-"#xd21e459">Contents</a>]</span>
-<div class="divHead">
-<h2 class="label">CHAPTER XVIII</h2>
-<h2 class="main">ANI, AND THE ARMENIAN KINGDOM OF THE MIDDLE AGES</h2>
-</div>
-<div class="divBody">
-<p class="par first">In Europe we may find examples of medi&aelig;val
-towns from which the tide of life has long since receded, and which
-have been preserved almost intact to the present day. Less fortune
-attends the footsteps of the traveller in Armenia, until he arrives
-before the walls and towers of the city on the Arpa Chai. It is perhaps
-to the complete desolation of the neighbourhood that is due this
-welcome surprise. No settlement has arisen in the immediate vicinity to
-despoil these architectural remains. Favoured by the dryness of the
-Armenian climate, the pink volcanic stone displays all the freshness of
-the day when it was fashioned by the mason&rsquo;s tool. Even lichen
-has failed to effect much hold upon its surface, while our persistent
-ivies and sweet, irresistible wallflowers have not adventured into
-these sunny and treeless plains. We admire these buildings in much the
-same state and condition as when they delighted the eyes of Armenian
-monarchs nine centuries ago. Such a site would in Western lands be at
-least occupied by a small town or village; the solitude of Ani is not
-shared by any such presence; and the mood engendered by the spectacle
-of her many noble monuments is not disturbed by the contrast of
-commonplace successors or of miserable tenements, clinging to the
-creations of a culture that has disappeared.</p>
-<p class="par">The impression of the ancient city which is perhaps
-likely to prove most permanent is due to the aspect from without of
-that long row of double walls with their even masonry and graceful
-towers at intervals (Fig. <a href="#fig070">70</a>, p. 369). How well
-they are seen from the floor of this plain without limits; how strange
-they <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb335" href="#pb335" name=
-"pb335">335</a>]</span>look among surroundings which scarcely display a
-trace of man! When we reflect that we are face to face with the capital
-of a kingdom, towards which the roads converged from every direction,
-and which was situated in the midst of a fertile province, famous for
-the production of corn, we are the more affected by the bareness and
-the loneliness of the countryside, which is only traversed here and
-there by a few vague tracks. Years upon years have elapsed since
-district and city throbbed with the pulse of human life. Yet if the
-Present be quite voiceless, the Past is doubly eloquent; and by reason
-not only of these many memorials, with their countless inscriptions,
-but also happily because of the comparative richness of the material
-which has been preserved in literature. In the case of many an old
-Armenian city, of which we shall visit the scanty remains, we have to
-deplore the broken skein of History. Ani has been better treated both
-by Time and by written records; and the dynasty which produced her
-splendour still lives in the lifelike narrative of the most attractive
-of the Armenian writers of that age.<a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e8149src" href="#xd21e8149" name="xd21e8149src">1</a></p>
-<p class="par">In the ninth century of our era the plains and mountains
-of Armenia were divided between the two great contemporary Powers which
-held sway in the East. The western portion of the country formed a part
-of the Roman Empire; while that on the east, comprising by far the
-largest and most populous area, was subject to the caliphs at Baghdad.
-The span of this single century is sufficient to include the full
-splendour and the decay and incipient disruption of the caliphate. At
-its commencement Harun-al-Rashid (786&ndash;809) was real master of
-vast dominions&mdash;a personality round which the romance of the age
-collected to adorn the literature of all times. Before its close many
-of these possessions had become parcelled out among petty dynasties,
-whose titular overlord&mdash;a Mutaz (866&ndash;869), a Muhtadi
-(869&ndash;870), a Mutamid (870&ndash;892)&mdash;was scarcely better
-than a puppet in the hands of his Turkish bodyguard. Such was the
-period and such the political environment in which the Armenian dynasty
-of the Middle Ages rose by successive steps to the position of Kings of
-Armenia&mdash;a rank which was recognised by their co-religionists, the
-Greek C&aelig;sars, but which was conferred or confirmed by the
-<span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb336" href="#pb336" name=
-"pb336">336</a>]</span>Commander of the Faithful, within whose realm
-their dominions lay.<a class="noteref" id="xd21e8156src" href=
-"#xd21e8156" name="xd21e8156src">2</a></p>
-<p class="par">The native institutions of the Armenian people were not
-unfavourable to such a development. At the present day they cannot be
-said to possess a class of nobles, and they are devoid of natural
-leaders. But in the ninth century their councils were governed by a
-strong territorial nobility, a relic of the period when they possessed
-their own independent kings of Arsakid descent. The Arsakid dynasty had
-struggled on into the fifth century, when it succumbed to the Sasanian
-monarchy of Persia and Mesopotamia, and a Persian governor was sent to
-rule over the land (<span class="sc">A.D.</span> 428). But the great
-nobles maintained and perhaps increased their ascendency; they were
-supported by the obstinate patriotism of the people; and the interval
-between the overthrow of the ancient and the rise of the medi&aelig;val
-kingdom is filled by the almost incessant clash of arms. From the east
-the pertinacity of the Armenian race is challenged at first by the
-Persians, eager to convert them to the religion of the Magi, and next
-by the Arabs, who, after supplanting the Sasanian dynasty, seek to
-impose upon them the precepts of Islam. Their neighbours upon the west
-are scarcely less obtrusive; and we may discover beneath the religious
-controversies with their fellow-Christians of the Roman Empire the same
-fervid self-assertion which has enabled this strange people to
-preserve, in the face of odds which appear to us to have been
-overwhelming, the inflexible individuality of their race. While their
-clergy are resisting the menaces or the blandishments of the Church of
-the Empire, their nobles are combating the worship of the Persians or
-of the Mohammedans at the head of the native levies. It thus happened
-that, when the bonds relaxed which bound the subject states to the Arab
-caliphate, the Armenians possessed, in their class of nobles as well as
-in their patriarchate, institutions which had been tested in the
-furnace of adversity during a period of over 400 years.</p>
-<p class="par">Two Armenian families of princely rank were conspicuous
-at that time. The Artsruni had extended their possessions during the
-domination of the Arabs, until they comprised a vast territory and some
-of the richest districts in the neighbourhood <span class=
-"pagenum">[<a id="pb337" href="#pb337" name="pb337">337</a>]</span>of
-the ancient city of Van. They claimed descent from one of the kings of
-Assyria, whose two sons were reputed to have escaped to Armenia after
-having perpetrated parricide. They drew their name from the lofty
-office which had been bestowed upon their ancestor, that of bearing
-before the Arsakid king the emblem of the golden eagle&mdash;an emblem
-which is cherished by the Armenian inhabitants of Van at the present
-day as the distinctive ensign of their city and province. The family of
-the Bagratuni or Bagratids had attained a position in the centre and
-north of Armenia which rivalled and perhaps surpassed that of the
-Artsruni in the south. Of Jewish origin, they were already powerful in
-the earliest Arsakid times, when they had been invested with the
-hereditary privilege of crowning the king. Their ancient seats appear
-to have been placed in the Chorokh country, in the vicinity of the town
-of Ispir. But this nucleus became lost in the territory which they
-subsequently acquired, whether by marriage or by conquest. The province
-of Shirak, by which is designated the extensive grain-growing district
-on the right bank of the Arpa Chai, was perhaps the richest appanage of
-their House; but they were masters of the Armenian districts on the
-side of Georgia, while towards the west and south their possessions at
-one time extended into the plain of Pasin and the fertile districts
-about the present town of Mush. A branch of this same family
-established themselves in Georgia&mdash;the salubrious uplands and rich
-plains at the southern foot of Caucasus, which are separated from the
-highlands of Armenia by the belt of mountains on the right bank of the
-river Kur. The Georgians, like the Armenians, professed the Christian
-religion, and at the period with which we are dealing were being
-harassed by the Arab caliphs. During the decline of the caliphate, when
-native impulses were revived in Georgia as well as in Armenia, the
-movement centred in a dynasty of Bagratid descent. This dynasty
-outlived that of their kinsmen in Armenia by many centuries. The
-Georgian sovereigns weathered the storm of Seljuk invasion in the
-eleventh century, which swept before it the feeble thrones of the
-Armenian monarchs. Perhaps they owed their escape in part to the
-geographical position of their country, removed as it was by a zone of
-intricate mountains from the highway of the Armenian plains. Yet their
-capital, Tiflis, fell a prey to the same sultan who captured Ani, the
-famous Alp Arslan. During the first half of the twelfth century they
-<span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb338" href="#pb338" name=
-"pb338">338</a>]</span>were successful in expelling the invaders, and a
-little later their kingdom was increased to the limits of an extensive
-empire during the reign of the great queen Thamar. The Georgian
-Bagratids maintained their throne until the end of the eighteenth
-century, when the last king renounced his crown in favour of the
-Russian Tsars.<a class="noteref" id="xd21e8178src" href="#xd21e8178"
-name="xd21e8178src">3</a></p>
-<p class="par">About the middle of the ninth century, to which I return
-from this brief digression, the reigning caliph, Mutawakil, despatched
-an army into Armenia with instructions to punish the inhabitants and to
-bring them over to the Mohammedan faith. His severity had been invited
-by the behaviour of his subjects, who had fallen upon and killed their
-Arab governor. The Arab commander, by name Bugha, acquitted himself of
-his congenial mission in a manner which accords with the best
-traditions of Eastern statecraft. He crossed the Taurus, descended into
-the plains about the Murad, and took prisoners all the Armenian chiefs
-of the districts through which his route lay. The Bagratid family had
-become involved in the preceding troubles; one of their members was
-already in the hands of the caliph; and his two sons were now added to
-the train of the avenging general, who directed his march from the
-territory of Taron (Mush) to that of Vaspurakan (Van). The Artsruni
-were not more fortunate in their resistance; their prince was captured,
-loaded with chains, and sent to the caliph. Bugha pursued a leisurely
-course through the Armenian country, giving over to the sword the less
-prominent among the people, selecting some for their birth or personal
-qualities as worthy of conversion to Islam. When he arrived at the
-capital of central Armenia, the city of Dvin, in the neighbourhood of
-the present town of Erivan, which had been conquered by the Arabs in
-<span class="sc">A.D.</span> 642,<a class="noteref" id="xd21e8195src"
-href="#xd21e8195" name="xd21e8195src">4</a> he was met by a native
-prince who bore the title of commander-in-chief<a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e8204src" href="#xd21e8204" name="xd21e8204src">5</a> and the name
-of Sembat. This notable was the great-grandson of a distinguished
-Bagratid chief, Ashot, who had been entrusted with the government of
-Armenia by the last of the Ommiad caliphs, and who had been deprived of
-sight by his <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb339" href="#pb339" name=
-"pb339">339</a>]</span>countrymen, incensed at his Arab proclivities.
-According to the Armenians, this Ashot was the progenitor alike of the
-Georgian sovereigns and of the Armenian dynasty of the Middle Ages. His
-descendant endeavoured to propitiate the tyrant, who appeared to listen
-to his fair words. But Sembat was conveyed to Baghdad with the rest of
-the prisoners, and accompanied the triumphal return of the
-caliph&rsquo;s legate. Arrived at court, the Armenian princes were
-offered the choice of Islam and freedom or a painful and violent death.
-Sembat was one of those who refused to abjure his religion and who
-perished as a martyr to the Christian faith (<span class=
-"sc">A.D.</span> 856 [C.]).<a class="noteref" id="xd21e8218src" href=
-"#xd21e8218" name="xd21e8218src">6</a></p>
-<p class="par"><span class="marginnote">Ashot I., <span class=
-"sc">A.D.</span> 856&ndash;889 or 890.</span>The pompous title of the
-deceased chieftain, together with his influence, descended to his son
-Ashot. This prince had contrived to escape the meshes of the Moslem
-net; and in the period which immediately followed the departure of the
-Arab general he proved himself worthy to sustain the burden of his high
-position. In the flower of his age, he enjoyed the union of imposing
-physical qualities with habits of mind which gave peculiar weight to
-his counsels, and with a natural suavity of disposition and expression.
-An agreeable face&mdash;in which, however, the eyes, with their heavy
-black eyebrows, were shot with blood, like a speck of red upon a
-pearl&mdash;was set around with a magnificent beard, and sprang from
-broad shoulders in keeping with his fine stature. Whatever defects
-might belong to such an exterior were compensated by the habitual
-purity of his life. The prince was missed at the sumptuous banquets of
-the rich, but his presence was felt by the poor in every action of
-their daily life. He once said, &ldquo;The service of humanity is a
-life-long service&rdquo;; and his precept was illustrated by the
-example of his own long life. How far the qualities of the son of
-Sembat were instrumental in obtaining a reversal of the policy of the
-caliphate, or whether the complete change which ensued in the treatment
-of the Armenians may have been due to causes of a different order, our
-historian has omitted to relate. Five years after the martyrdom of his
-father and of the leading nobles of his country, Ashot is invested by
-the new Arab governor with the <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb340"
-href="#pb340" name="pb340">340</a>]</span>title of <i>prince of
-princes</i>, and becomes the recipient of almost royal distinctions
-(<span class="sc">A.D.</span> 861 [D.]).<a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e8245src" href="#xd21e8245" name="xd21e8245src">7</a> Those of the
-nobles who had become apostates during the recent persecution openly
-return to their old faith. For twenty-five years he continues to
-exercise his authority, which reposes not only upon the goodwill of the
-Arab governor, but also upon the loyalty of his fellow-nobles, who
-consent that his family shall be assigned a special and quasi-royal
-rank, and be permanently elevated above all other princely families. At
-the end of this period the Armenian nobility unanimously petition the
-caliph in favour of the elevation of their prince to the rank of king.
-Their desire is conveyed to their suzerain by his representative in the
-country, a governor by name Isa. It is accorded with the greatest
-readiness. A royal crown is despatched, and placed by Isa himself upon
-the head of Ashot. Armenian royalty is revived in this branch of the
-Bagratid family after an interval of over 450 years (<span class=
-"sc">A.D.</span> 885 [D.]). The reigning C&aelig;sar, Basil I.,
-confirms this investiture, and accompanies the friendly sentiments of
-an attached ally and a spiritual father with the gift of a crown, the
-second to be worn by the new monarch.<a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e8261src" href="#xd21e8261" name="xd21e8261src">8</a></p>
-<p class="par">For five years Ashot continued in the exercise of his
-kingly prerogative, supported by the Armenian nobles, the most powerful
-of whom he attached by marriage, and enjoying the favour both of the
-Caliph and of the Emperor. His capital was the city of Bagaran, on the
-banks of the Akhurean, the modern Arpa Chai, situated to the south of
-the later capital at Ani.<a class="noteref" id="xd21e8269src" href=
-"#xd21e8269" name="xd21e8269src">9</a> He died in advanced age
-(<span class="sc">A.D.</span> 889 [C.] or 890 [D.])<a class="noteref"
-id="xd21e8281src" href="#xd21e8281" name="xd21e8281src">10</a> and with
-unimpaired reputation at a date when the empire of the caliphs was in
-process of dismemberment, and when a number of petty Mussulman
-dynasties, such as the Tahirids and the Saffarids, had arisen in the
-adjacent lands.<a class="noteref" id="xd21e8290src" href="#xd21e8290"
-name="xd21e8290src">11</a> We can scarcely doubt that his elevation was
-occasioned by the decline of the central authority; and he and his
-descendants were glad to purchase by the promise of an <span class=
-"pagenum">[<a id="pb341" href="#pb341" name=
-"pb341">341</a>]</span>assured tribute the greater independence of the
-Armenian people and their own ascendency.</p>
-<p class="par"><span class="marginnote">Sembat I., <span class=
-"sc">A.D.</span> 890&ndash;914.</span>At the time of the death of Ashot
-I. his son and successor Sembat was absent on an expedition of conquest
-in the country of the Upper Kur. He received the homage of his subjects
-upon his arrival at Erazgavors, a town in Shirak, which was his own
-particular residence. Thither repaired the prince of Georgia,
-Aternerseh, himself a Bagratid, proffering his sympathy and his aid
-(<span class="sc">A.D.</span> 890 [C.]). The succession was hotly
-disputed by Abas, brother of the deceased monarch, a vain and ambitious
-prince. His animosity appears to have been directed in the principal
-degree against the prince of Georgia; he broke the peace which he was
-induced to make at the instance of the patriarch with that potentate,
-and at length he turned his arms against the province of Shirak. The
-approach of Sembat at the head of a numerous army compelled him to take
-refuge in a strong place, and his condition was desperate when he
-obtained from the clemency of his royal nephew a pardon which he had
-not deserved. Sembat was already in possession of supreme power when he
-received from the Arab governor of Azerbaijan<a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e8311src" href="#xd21e8311" name="xd21e8311src">12</a> on behalf
-of the caliph a royal crown such as had been bestowed upon his father.
-At the same time he confirmed the friendly relations which had
-subsisted between Ashot and the Byzantine Empire. The reigning emperor,
-Leo VI., received his ambassadors with great distinction, and dismissed
-them charged with valuable presents. In the missives between them the
-king of Armenia was addressed as a beloved son, and the C&aelig;sar
-with the reverence due to a father. Nor was this intercourse confined
-to a single and a splendid occasion; it appears to have been renewed
-every year. It naturally excited the jealousy of the Arab governor of
-Azerbaijan, the powerful neighbour of the new state upon the east.</p>
-<p class="par">This individual, by name Afshin, is depicted by the
-priestly historian with all the resources of the vocabulary of hate. He
-is a wild beast; he is armed with the poignard of perfidy, and his
-death is described as the outcome of a loathsome malady which destroyed
-the body before the soul descended to hell. Throughout the reign we see
-him harassing the dominions of the Armenian monarch; but his first
-expedition appears to have <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb342" href=
-"#pb342" name="pb342">342</a>]</span>been met by a vigorous and
-successful resistance, which no doubt helped the remonstrances of
-Sembat. At the head of his troops the king reasoned with his Mohammedan
-adversary, and represented that his friendship with the emperor of the
-Greeks was to the advantage of the master of Afshin. &ldquo;You
-yourselves,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;may at any moment have need of the
-support of the Greeks, and your merchants require openings in Greek
-territory, whence they will draw riches which will swell the treasury
-at Baghdad.&rdquo; These advances were met on the part of the Arab
-governor by the offer of a peace, which was duly ratified. Afshin
-returned to Azerbaijan, and the king retraced his steps up the Araxes
-and appeared before the walls of Dvin. This city, which was at this
-period the acknowledged capital of Armenia, was reduced to an obedience
-from which it had lapsed. Its situation in the neighbourhood of the
-present town of Erivan was calculated to invest it with the character
-of a strong place on the side of the Arab possessions in Persia. Its
-subjection to Sembat does not appear to have been of long duration;
-during the subsequent portion of his reign we find it in the hands of
-the Mohammedans, serving, it would seem, as an advanced base to the
-troops of Afshin and of his successor.</p>
-<p class="par">The diplomacy no less than the prowess of Sembat was
-successful in other directions nearer home. If his kingdom remained
-essentially feudal in character, its limits were at least extended over
-the adjacent lands. On the west his sovereignty was acknowledged as far
-as the city of Karin, the modern Erzerum; while on the north-east and
-east it embraced the foot of Caucasus and the shore of the Caspian Sea.
-The Armenian princes who ruled in the country on the southern side of
-the barrier of mountains which culminate in Ararat were attached to him
-by feudal or family ties; his name must at least have been respected
-among his countrymen beyond the limits of the lake of Van. His
-ascendency was for a second time challenged by Afshin, who advanced to
-Nakhichevan and Dvin; but he led his troops in person against the
-Mussulmans, and inflicted upon them a signal defeat. The subsequent
-defection to his enemy of his nephew, the prince of Vaspurakan (Van),
-who was joined for a time by the prince of Siunik, a province bordering
-that of Van upon the north, does not appear to have materially shaken
-his power; we find him directing his attention to the outer limits of
-his territory, and endeavouring <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb343"
-href="#pb343" name="pb343">343</a>]</span>to establish his dominion not
-only over the country of Taron (Mush), but also as far south as the
-Mesopotamian plains.</p>
-<p class="par">This advance brought him into collision with an Arab
-emir, named Ahmed, who, in the decay of the caliphate, cherished
-pretensions to these districts. The Armenian prince of Taron was unable
-to withstand his Mussulman adversary, and Sembat was obliged to take
-the field in person (<span class="sc">A.D.</span> 896 [C.]). At the
-head of a numerous army he marched towards Taron, west of which his
-enemy was encamped. The reverse of his arms was due to the treachery of
-a countryman, a prince belonging to the province of Vaspurakan; and,
-indeed, the jealousy of the chiefs of the Van country seems to have
-paved the way for the successes of his Mussulman neighbours. His old
-enemy Afshin was not slow to profit by this turn of fortune. After
-attempting in vain to seduce the loyalty of the northern feudatories of
-Sembat, he entered the province of Kars and laid siege to that
-fortress. Thither had taken refuge the Armenian queen, a daughter of
-the king of Kolchis, and several of the wives of the principal nobles.
-The capitulation of Kars and the capture of the queen came as a
-melancholy pendant to the disaster of the king&rsquo;s arms in the
-south. He was obliged to purchase peace on humiliating terms, and to
-give his niece in marriage to the Mohammedan potentate. But it was not
-long before hostilities were again resumed in the same quarter. Afshin
-directed his march towards the city of Tiflis, swept like a whirlwind
-through the Georgian country, and advanced upon Shirak. Sembat and his
-army were obliged to take refuge in the strong places of his ally
-Aternerseh, upon whom he had previously bestowed a royal crown; while
-his adversary, after having endeavoured in vain to sap the loyalty of
-the Georgian prince, retraced his steps along the Araxes to Azerbaijan.
-Afshin was meditating a fresh attack when he fell a victim to a
-malignant malady, which appears also to have made ravages among his
-troops (901 [St.-M.], 898&ndash;99 [D.]).</p>
-<p class="par">The tyrant was succeeded by his brother Yusuf in the
-government of Azerbaijan. Upon the accession of this potentate the
-Armenian monarch despatched an embassy to the caliph at Baghdad with
-the view of contracting a stable alliance with the nominal sovereign of
-Persia and of that portion of Armenia which lay within the Arab sphere.
-His advances were well received by the successor of the Prophet, who
-confirmed him in <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb344" href="#pb344"
-name="pb344">344</a>]</span>his royal dignity.<a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e8332src" href="#xd21e8332" name="xd21e8332src">13</a> Although
-Yusuf continued to pursue the hostile policy of his predecessor, he
-appears to have been thwarted by the greater readiness of Sembat.
-Armenia enjoyed a short respite from the inroads of the Mussulmans.
-&ldquo;At this period,&rdquo; says our historian, who is fond of
-allegory, &ldquo;our Saviour visited the country of the Armenians, and
-protected their lives and property. Lands were bestowed, vines were
-planted and groves of olive-trees; the most ancient fruit-trees yielded
-their fruits. The harvests produced corn in excessive abundance; the
-cellars were filled with wine when the vintage had been gathered in.
-The mountains were in great joy, and so were the herdsmen and the
-shepherds, because of the quantity of pasturage and the increase in the
-flocks. The chiefs and notables of our country lived in perfect
-security and were not afraid of depredations; they were free to bestow
-their leisure and zeal upon the construction of churches in solid
-stone, with which they graced the towns, the open country, and the
-desert places.&rdquo; The king enjoyed the favour of his Byzantine
-ally, and the gifts of Heaven were supplemented by the imperial
-presents. The ambition of the king of Kolchis, who was striving to
-extend his dominions eastwards at the expense of his relative, the
-Armenian monarch, was restrained by a conjunction of the Armenian
-forces with those of the king of Georgia; the unhappy kinglet was taken
-prisoner and lodged in a fortress, from which he was released by the
-clemency of his captor and restored to his possessions. This mild
-treatment of a rival excited the jealousy of Aternerseh; the attached
-ally became converted into a perfidious enemy; and the incident, while
-it seems to mark the culmination of this brighter era, was the prelude
-of the domestic and foreign calamities in which the reign of Sembat was
-brought to a tragic close.</p>
-<p class="par">A curious incident now occurs, which is characteristic
-of the times (<span class="sc">A.D.</span> 905 [St.-M.]). Yusuf
-prepares in secret to sever his allegiance to the caliph, and goes so
-far as to issue orders in his own name. Apprised of his proceedings,
-the sovereign at Baghdad sends messengers throughout his dominions to
-effect a rising against his rebellious servant. One of the highest in
-rank of these envoys arrives at the court of the Armenian monarch, and
-delivers a personal letter requiring the prince to assemble his
-<span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb345" href="#pb345" name=
-"pb345">345</a>]</span>forces and to march against the emir of
-Azerbaijan. As an inducement, the vassal is remitted the payment of a
-year&rsquo;s tribute. This request or command was at once difficult to
-comply with and impossible to elude or reject. Sembat was bound to
-Yusuf by the terms of a treaty, and still more forcibly deterred from
-offending his neighbour by motives of interest. It was only natural
-that he should have recourse to perfidy, the usual expedient in such
-circumstances among Eastern princes. But his double-dealing was of
-transitory advantage: and it may, perhaps, be excused by the reflection
-that his own weight would have been insufficient to turn the scale to
-the advantage of either side. Yusuf affected submission to his
-spiritual and temporal superior; the Armenians were confronted by a
-coalition of the contending influences; and the unhappy king was
-besieged by emissaries from both the Mussulman princes, demanding the
-arrears of tribute in imperious terms. On four occasions he had
-succeeded in acquitting his obligations by making the prescribed
-payment in kind; but this time he was compelled to discharge the debt
-in money, and to impose taxes which strained the structure of his
-feudal rule.</p>
-<p class="par">A combination of some of the nobles with Aternerseh of
-Georgia was the outcome of these events. Ani, which was then a
-fortress, was handed over to Aternerseh, together with the treasures of
-the royal palace at Erazgavors. Sembat at the head of his forces
-hurried back to Shirak, whereupon the conspirators evacuated the
-province, laden with spoils. The Armenian monarch carried the war into
-the territory of Aternerseh, who was constrained to sue for peace. Many
-of the revolted nobles fell into the hands of their sovereign, who,
-after putting out their eyes, dispatched some to the Byzantine emperor
-for custody and others to the king of Kolchis. This rising had no
-sooner been quelled than the reigning prince of Vaspurakan separated
-himself from the king. The cause of quarrel was a dispute about the
-town of Nakhichevan in the valley of the Araxes, which Sembat had
-conferred on another noble, but to which this prince had a hereditary
-claim. Gagik&mdash;such was his name&mdash;had recourse to the common
-enemy, Yusuf, who was eager to profit by such dissension among his
-Christian neighbours. The emir bestowed upon him a royal crown in order
-to perpetuate his rivalry with Sembat. It was all in vain that our
-historian, who was at that time patriarch, endeavoured to avert the
-rising storm. He even journeyed to <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb346"
-href="#pb346" name="pb346">346</a>]</span>the court of the emir in
-Azerbaijan, taking with him magnificent presents, among which were
-included some of the sacred vessels belonging to the churches. He was
-treated with distinction by his Mussulman host so long as his gifts
-held out. When these were exhausted he was thrown into prison, where he
-lingered for a considerable time. The hardships of his condition were
-aggravated by the mortification which he must have experienced at the
-complete failure of his good offices. He was strictly refused an
-audience of his countryman, King Gagik, who shortly afterwards arrived
-at the court of Yusuf in order to concert an invasion of the territory
-of Sembat. At the approach of spring the emir set out for Armenia,
-taking with him the unhappy patriarch, loaded with chains. In the
-neighbourhood of Nakhichevan were received the messengers of Gagik, who
-announced the approach of their master with his troops (<span class=
-"sc">A.D.</span> 909 [St. M.]). Sembat endeavoured to pacify his enemy
-by a payment of money, which the emir swallowed without arresting his
-advance. The king was quite unable to cope with the forces arrayed
-against him; he fled to the fortresses of Georgia, whither he was
-pursued by his implacable adversary.</p>
-<p class="par">It is unnecessary to follow in detail the developments
-of a situation, of which the historical interest consists in the light
-which it throws upon the Armenian monarchy of the Middle Ages, and upon
-the relations of that monarchy to the neighbouring states. We see the
-Artsrunian prince of the extensive province of Vaspurakan turning his
-arms against his own countrymen and their Bagratid king, and in active
-alliance with the enemies of his religion and race. The Mussulman
-horsemen overran the fertile plains of Armenia, and the tardy
-repentance of Gagik came too late. Sembat appealed in vain to the
-suzerain at Baghdad, who was too much occupied by domestic troubles to
-intervene. Better success attended his entreaties at the Byzantine
-court, and his old friend, Leo, collected troops and marched in person
-to his assistance. The death of the emperor at the inception of the
-enterprise, and the internal troubles of the new reign, removed all
-hope of succour from the side of the Roman provinces. The Christian
-state in the heart of Asia seemed doomed to destruction, and the king
-and queen were taken prisoners. Sembat was conducted to Dvin, where he
-was barbarously tortured in the presence of the populace. Every
-indignity was inflicted upon him, and each refinement of Oriental
-cruelty; after he had expired, his body <span class="pagenum">[<a id=
-"pb347" href="#pb347" name="pb347">347</a>]</span>was nailed to a
-wooden stake and exhibited to the townspeople (<span class=
-"sc">A.D.</span> 914 [C.]).</p>
-<p class="par"><span class="marginnote">Ashot II. (Erkath) <span class=
-"sc">A.D.</span> 915</span>A desperate effort was made by his son Ashot
-to retrieve the fortunes of the Armenian arms. He expelled the
-Mohammedans from many of the fortified places which they had occupied,
-and allied himself closely with the king of Georgia, who placed the
-crown of Armenia upon his head. Yusuf was not slow to revenge the
-reverses of his adherents, and the whole country was given over to war.
-The wretched inhabitants fled to the mountains and the deserts; the
-remnant wandered about in a state of nakedness, and experienced all the
-tortures of famine. When winter came thousands perished in the snow. If
-they fell into the hands of the enemy they were either massacred or
-subjected to every description of torture. In many cases they were
-offered liberty and even affluence if they would abjure the Christian
-religion; but these advances were almost always without effect. Our
-historian relates with pride the tragic incidents of this period of
-martyrdom; and the profession of faith which he puts in the mouth of
-one of the victims is worthy of the highest conceptions of religious
-minds. &ldquo;We are Christians,&rdquo; exclaimed a young noble in the
-presence of Yusuf; &ldquo;we believe in God, Who is Truth and Who
-dwells in the midst of Light without limits.&rdquo; These afflictions
-might have excited the compassion of their Christian neighbours. But
-perhaps these neighbours were conscious of their own helplessness; they
-preferred to ride on the wave of the Mussulman invasion, and to share
-in the spoils of the Armenian provinces. Whole towns were destroyed and
-whole countrysides depopulated; while the nobles, instead of combining,
-were involved in civil war. This state of affairs continued for no less
-than seven years, exhausting the country and denuding it of
-cultivation. &ldquo;We sow, but we do not reap; we plant, but gather
-not the fruit; the fig-tree bears not, and the vine and olive-tree are
-barren. We collect a little and abandon the rest.&rdquo; Page after
-page our author unfolds the tale of all the miseries which were endured
-by himself and his countrymen. He himself was a refugee at the court of
-the king of Georgia, where he was in correspondence with the patriarch
-of Constantinople. It was the aim of Byzantine policy to unite the
-Christian nations of Transcaucasia with the Armenians; and the
-historian, as the spiritual head of the latter people, used his best
-endeavours towards this end. Issuing from his retreat, he made his way
-to the province of <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb348" href="#pb348"
-name="pb348">348</a>]</span>Taron (Mush), whence he addressed a long
-missive to the Byzantine C&aelig;sar (<span class="sc">A.D.</span> 920
-[C.]). In touching terms he entreated him to become the avenger of the
-Armenian Christians, whom he represented as the spiritual sons and
-servants of Constantine. At his instance the Byzantine court despatched
-an imperial legate to the son of Sembat, with the view of renewing the
-relations which had subsisted between his father and the deceased ruler
-of the Eastern Empire. Our writer met this envoy in the territory of
-Taron, and accompanied him to the presence of Ashot. The prince
-returned with the legate to Constantinople (<span class=
-"sc">A.D.</span> 921 [C.]), where he was received in a manner becoming
-his royal rank. He was addressed as the son of a martyr and the
-spiritual son of the C&aelig;sar, was arrayed in purple and invested
-with the insignia of royalty. Meanwhile the historian was sojourning in
-the province of Terjan, a district which has retained its name to the
-present day. He na&iuml;vely exhibits the difficulties of his position,
-endeavouring, as he was, to avoid complying with the pressing
-invitations to the imperial city which were lavished upon him by his
-spiritual brothers of the Greek Church. He was deterred by the fear
-that he would be pressed to conform to the doctrine which had been laid
-down at the Council of Chalcedon. His peregrinations brought him to the
-scenes where St. Gregory the Illuminator passed his later years in the
-seclusion of an anchorite. He describes the cavern where the saint
-lived, and where his remains were deposited, to be removed by an angel
-to a grave in the vicinity. His account of this lonely place, so
-difficult of access, agrees in a striking manner with that of a modern
-traveller, which it invests with an impressive reality.<a class=
-"noteref" id="xd21e8374src" href="#xd21e8374" name=
-"xd21e8374src">14</a> The patriarch found the district inhabited by
-anchorites, who maintained an altar in the holy cave.</p>
-<p class="par">In the meantime Yusuf had become embroiled with his old
-ally of Vaspurakan, and the war was being carried into the southern
-province. A vigorous resistance was offered by King Gagik, who owed his
-title to his enemy. Hostilities appear to have lingered on without
-decisive result. Such was the state of affairs when King Ashot II.
-returned to his dominions, accompanied by several generals of the Roman
-Empire, together with <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb349" href=
-"#pb349" name="pb349">349</a>]</span>a considerable detachment of the
-imperial troops. This material support, as well as a subsidy in money,
-enabled him to recover his position among his feudatories; and we may
-conclude that the relations between himself and King Gagik had become
-improved by the change in the attitude of the latter towards the
-Mussulman emir. But that crafty statesman knew too well the weak spots
-in the political organisation of the Armenians. If two kings did not
-suffice to divide his opponents, it could do no harm and might bring
-him fortune to create a third. His choice fell upon a cousin of King
-Ashot, who had previously been invested by that monarch with the title
-of general-in-chief. His name, which was also Ashot, introduces further
-confusion into the turbid narrative of the priestly historian. The
-stage becomes filled with a crowd of nobles, contending with each other
-and combining to mutual destruction round the persons of the two
-Ashots. Behind these figures emerge those of the king of Kolchis and
-the king of Georgia, while in the background we perceive the light
-cavalry of the Mohammedans and the gorgeous functionaries of the
-Byzantine Empire. It is scarcely possible during this troubled period
-to follow the threads of the emir&rsquo;s policy. No sooner has he
-placed a crown upon the forehead of the one Ashot, than he invests the
-other with similar insignia of royalty.<a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e8384src" href="#xd21e8384" name="xd21e8384src">15</a> Nor does
-the king of the Van country yield in splendour to his colleagues; the
-caliph himself sends him a crown and magnificent robes. This act
-excites the fury of the emir of Azerbaijan, who presently revolts from
-his sovereign at Baghdad. His capture and imprisonment removed for
-awhile the sword suspended over the head of Gagik, and were the
-occasion of a general although transitory improvement in the condition
-of the Armenian provinces. The caliph sent one of the highest in rank
-of the officers about his person to take over the administration of the
-province of his rebellious emir. This official not only concluded a
-treaty of peace and alliance with Ashot II. (son of King Sembat), but
-also conferred upon him the title of <i>Shahanshah</i>, or king of
-kings. In this manner the Bagratid dynasty of Shirak recovered their
-titular sovereignty over Armenia; and the fact illustrates a marked
-divergence between the policy of the caliphate, which appears to have
-desired a strong Armenia, and that of the semi-independent emirs of
-Azerbaijan, who strove <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb350" href=
-"#pb350" name="pb350">350</a>]</span>incessantly to prepare the country
-for their own yoke. On the other hand, while the caliphs were anxious
-to secure a counterpoise to their turbulent governors, the Byzantine
-C&aelig;sars were well pleased by any accretion of strength to a buffer
-state which was attached to themselves by community of faith.</p>
-<p class="par">Our historian was not spared to witness the splendour of
-this dynasty, as it is manifested in the noble buildings of their
-capital, Ani, which had not yet become a royal residence. His closing
-years were spent under a recrudescence of the old
-troubles&mdash;disunion from within and new inroads of the Mussulmans
-from without. The release of Yusuf restored this malefactor to the
-scene of his iniquities;<a class="noteref" id="xd21e8394src" href=
-"#xd21e8394" name="xd21e8394src">16</a> he crossed the Kurdish
-mountains, and descended into the territory of Vaspurakan. King Gagik
-was in arrears with several instalments of the annual tribute, and was
-obliged to collect all the available riches of his country and deliver
-them up to his implacable foe. Yusuf continued his journey to Persia,
-and, upon his arrival, sent one of his officers to assert his authority
-over the Armenian provinces. There ensued an era of constant activity
-on the part of the Mussulmans. The patriarch became a fugitive, taking
-refuge in the little island of Lake Sevan, and proceeding thence to a
-small castle in his own possession. But the enemy surrounded the place
-and took him prisoner, together with the companions of his flight.
-Escaping from their clutches, he made his way to the court of Ashot,
-who was residing in the royal palace of Bagaran; and the curtain falls
-upon his narrative while he is on a visit to King Gagik, with whom he
-appears to have maintained relations which were perhaps prompted by
-motives of interest, since the patriarchal palace and domains were
-situated within his dominions.<a class="noteref" id="xd21e8397src"
-href="#xd21e8397" name="xd21e8397src">17</a> Panic had taken hold of
-the feudal levies, and his countrymen were being massacred (924 [C.]).
-In one of the closing sentences in which he describes that Reign of
-Terror he, in fact, resumes the larger history of his race: &ldquo;Who
-can foretell our future? Spare me the attempt. We are like a harvest
-reaped by bad husbandmen amidst encircling gloom and
-cloud.&rdquo;<a class="noteref" id="xd21e8400src" href="#xd21e8400"
-name="xd21e8400src">18</a></p>
-<p class="par">We close these graphic pages with the feeling that we
-have been privileged to gain some insight into the state of the country
-<span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb351" href="#pb351" name=
-"pb351">351</a>]</span>during the reigns of the Bagratid sovereigns, as
-well as to estimate the nature of their rule. If I have eliminated by
-this brief abstract whole chapters of our author, I may perhaps have
-saved my reader from becoming wearied by his declamations, and from
-losing the main thread of his thrilling narrative among the side issues
-in which he allows it to become involved. The sovereignty of the
-Bagratids was essentially feudal in character; and the loose ties of
-such a political organisation were ill adapted to withstand the strain
-to which they were subjected at the hands of their Mussulman
-neighbours. Indeed, the fact that such a dynasty could ever have arisen
-in the heart of Asia, among a people which could not have numbered more
-than a few millions of souls, can only be explained by the comparative
-weakness of their contemporaries professing the Mohammedan faith. The
-Armenian historians are fond of railing upon their countrymen on
-account of the internal divisions which precipitated their political
-fall. They are not less inclined to attribute the miseries of their
-nation to their desertion in critical moments by the Greek Empire. But
-they do not appear to have reflected that the frequent instances of
-treachery among the Armenian nobles need not have been due to any
-inherent defects in the character of the Armenian people. Similar
-examples abound in the annals of our European nations while they were
-still in the feudal stage of development. Again, the Greeks, while they
-were no doubt prejudiced by dogmatic differences, might, one cannot
-doubt, have established a good case for their abstention from more
-strenuous succour of the young state. Their subsidies were spent, and
-their troops were marched across Asia with little further result than
-the aggrandisement of one princelet at the expense of a competing
-claimant of the same race. The lesson which may be derived from a
-perusal of this contemporary record explains to us many points which
-would otherwise be obscure in the much more meagre annals of the
-subsequent period which witnessed the frail blossoming and premature
-destruction of the Armenian kingdom of the Middle Ages. When the hordes
-of Turks descended from the valleys of the Tien-shan and swept across
-the settled territories of Persia towards the richest portions of the
-Old World, they found upon the high road of the Armenian tableland a
-state which was as little adapted to provide a bulwark against their
-invasions as any other of the fissiparous fragments of the
-caliphs&rsquo; empire. <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb352" href=
-"#pb352" name="pb352">352</a>]</span></p>
-<p class="par"><span class="marginnote">Abas, <span class=
-"sc">A.D.</span> 928&ndash;951.</span>The narrative of John the
-Patriarch brings us down to the closing years of Ashot, second king of
-that name. The picture which he has presented of the troubled reigns of
-these Bagratid sovereigns may enable us to dispense with the repetition
-of similar struggles during the reigns of their successors. Even were I
-permitted by the scope of this work and by the material at my disposal
-to assign to that later period the same proportion of space which has
-been devoted to the actions of the first three kings, I should run the
-risk of inflicting upon my reader the same fatigue which I have myself
-experienced by the perusal of a Samuel of Ani<a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e8418src" href="#xd21e8418" name="xd21e8418src">19</a> and a
-Matthew of Edessa,<a class="noteref" id="xd21e8424src" href=
-"#xd21e8424" name="xd21e8424src">20</a> to say nothing of the
-industrious compilers of our own times. The storm-clouds, beneath which
-the work of the priestly annalist closes, appear to have lifted over
-the setting of Ashot&rsquo;s career; and a mild light envelops the
-reign of his brother Abas, who succeeded him on the throne. This
-tranquil era seems to have been induced by the weakness or somnolence
-of the neighbours of Abas. The activity of the Sajid family in
-Azerbaijan, which had been manifest in the exploits of Afshin and of
-Yusuf, came to an end at the commencement of his reign. The caliphate
-was becoming more and more the shadow of a reality; and the death of
-Radi (<span class="sc">A.D.</span> 940) removed the last of the
-successors of the Prophet who sustained a measure of personal power and
-prestige. In the West the Armenian monarch might observe without
-anxiety the enforced seclusion of the C&aelig;sar, Constantine the
-Seventh, as well as the later application of his benignant mind to the
-affairs of state. Such a wholesome respite was employed by king and
-nobles in adorning Armenia with churches and monasteries. In the city
-of Kars, where Abas appears to have placed the seat of government, a
-cathedral of unusual grandeur rose into being.<a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e8430src" href="#xd21e8430" name="xd21e8430src">21</a> The
-pugnacity of the race was exercised in fierce religious dissensions
-with the Church of the Empire. The western provinces, subject to the
-C&aelig;sars and administered by them, were convulsed by the rival
-battle-cries of Greeks and Armenians, each imputing to the other
-heretical opinions upon the unfathomable subject of the divinity of
-Christ. Many Armenians took refuge within the dominions of the Bagratid
-king; and if their babes had been baptized according to the Greek
-ritual, the ceremony was <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb353" href=
-"#pb353" name="pb353">353</a>]</span>performed a second time by the
-jealous clergy of the Armenian Church (944 [C.]).</p>
-<p class="par"><span class="marginnote">Ashot III., <span class=
-"sc">A.D.</span> 951&ndash;977.</span>But it was under the next two
-reigns that the brilliancy of the dynasty attained the culminating
-point. Upon the death of Abas his son Ashot assumed the government; and
-it was perhaps due to a combination of domestic dissensions and war
-with his neighbours that for ten years he remained an uncrowned king.
-On the part of the Mussulmans, an Arab emir, whom the historians name
-Hamdun, and who may perhaps be identified with the powerful adversary
-of the C&aelig;sars in Mesopotamia, Seif-ed-Daula of the Hamdanid
-family, made incursions into the southerly provinces of Armenia, and
-even threatened the dominions of Ashot. The signal victory of the
-Armenian monarch (<span class="sc">A.D.</span> 960)<a class="noteref"
-id="xd21e8448src" href="#xd21e8448" name="xd21e8448src">22</a> appears
-to have gratified the caliph and his masters the Buwayhids, a petty
-dynasty which had arisen in Persia, and into whose hands had fallen
-Baghdad (945). The same event may have been instrumental in
-consolidating the power of Ashot at home. In the year 961 he was
-anointed king at Ani, in the presence and with the consent of the great
-nobles. The rulers of the neighbouring states, Mussulman and Christian,
-signified their goodwill by sending valuable presents. His suzerain at
-Baghdad bestowed upon him a royal crown, addressing him as Shah-i-Armen
-or Armenian shah. But we must impute to this sovereign a new division
-of authority, and a consequent reduction of the resisting powers of the
-Armenian nation in face of foreign aggression. By investing his brother
-Mushegh with royal prerogatives at Kars, he added yet another to the
-number of kinglets whose mutual jealousies prepared the way for the
-passage of the Seljuk Turks towards the Mediterranean and the Black
-Sea. His successor continued and even developed this baneful policy,
-adding to the kings of Kars the kings of Lori, in the mountains which
-border Armenia upon the north. This latter Bagratid dynasty struggled
-on into the thirteenth century; but the kings of Kars made over their
-realm to the C&aelig;sar Constantine the Tenth after the capture of Ani
-by the Seljuks under Alp Arslan.</p>
-<p class="par">The reign of Ashot the Third is contemporary with the
-campaigns of Nikephorus Phokas and of John Zimiskes against the
-<span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb354" href="#pb354" name=
-"pb354">354</a>]</span>Saracens. Throughout this period the Arab emirs
-of Syria and Mesopotamia are actively engaged in harassing the outposts
-of the great Christian empire, and are not less actively repulsed. The
-conceptions of the Crusaders are anticipated by these generals over a
-century before the arrival of the Western chivalry. Both successively
-ascended the throne of the C&aelig;sars; and it was in the capacity of
-emperor of the Romans that Zimiskes, himself of Armenian descent,
-summoned the Armenian monarch to attach to his army a contingent of
-troops. His expedition appears to have excited the alarm of the
-Armenians; and the native levies had been marshalled to the proportions
-of a large army under the command of the three Armenian kinglets,
-Ashot, his colleague of Kars, and his colleague of Van. Zimiskes
-advanced into the territory of Mush; but an alliance was secured by the
-despatch of a body of 10,000 Armenian warriors to share in the
-victories which were about to secure the triumph of the imperial arms
-over the followers of the Prophet. These brilliant feats are narrated
-for the benefit of King Ashot in a despatch which was addressed to him
-by the emperor, and which has been preserved by Matthew of Edessa. The
-Armenian monarch is styled Shahinshah of Great Armenia, the spiritual
-son of the C&aelig;sar (<span class="sc">A.D.</span> 974).<a class=
-"noteref" id="xd21e8467src" href="#xd21e8467" name=
-"xd21e8467src">23</a></p>
-<p class="par">The reign of this prince has a special interest for the
-traveller to Ani; for it is at this period that the city on the Arpa
-emerges from the condition of a mere fortress into the splendour of a
-royal residence and capital of a kingdom. Ashot the Third is known to
-have added both to the defences and to the public buildings of a town
-which had witnessed the ceremony of his coronation.<a class="noteref"
-id="xd21e8477src" href="#xd21e8477" name="xd21e8477src">24</a> It was
-considerably enlarged by his son and successor, Sembat the
-Second<span class="marginnote">Sembat II., <span class="sc">A.D.</span>
-977&ndash;989.</span>, who built the outer wall in face of which I have
-brought my reader at the commencement of this chapter.<a class=
-"noteref" id="xd21e8489src" href="#xd21e8489" name=
-"xd21e8489src">25</a> Sembat also laid the foundations of the
-cathedral, but died before it was completed.<a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e8495src" href="#xd21e8495" name="xd21e8495src">26</a> The title
-which is assigned to this king by the Armenian historians dissembles
-with truly Oriental ingenuity the inherent weakness of the structure
-which supported his throne. He is styled the king of Armenian kings,
-Shahinshah-Armen. Sembat was succeeded by his brother Gagik the
-First<span class="marginnote">Gagik I., <span class="sc">A.D.</span>
-989&ndash;1019.<a class="noteref" id="xd21e8504src" href="#xd21e8504"
-name="xd21e8504src">27</a></span>, <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb355"
-href="#pb355" name="pb355">355</a>]</span>a prince who is described as
-at once victorious in the field and strenuous in the works of peace.
-His military qualities may have been displayed in a campaign against
-the Mussulmans under the emir of Azerbaijan, Mamlun. But the credit of
-the victory over this successor of the Afshins and the Yusufs belongs
-in the principal degree to an Armenian prince of the country of
-Akhaltsykh, David, who endeavoured, at the head of forces composed of
-Georgians and Armenians, to wrest from the Moslem yoke the fortresses
-in the south of Armenia, Melazkert, Akhlat, Arjish.<a class="noteref"
-id="xd21e8515src" href="#xd21e8515" name="xd21e8515src">28</a> It is
-rather in the sphere of a patron of art that we may be able to remember
-Gagik. It was during his reign that the noble cathedral at Ani was
-brought to completion, largely at the expense and by the initiative of
-his queen.<a class="noteref" id="xd21e8518src" href="#xd21e8518" name=
-"xd21e8518src">29</a> He built another of the great churches which
-adorned his capital, that of the Illuminator on the side of the Valley
-of Flowers.<a class="noteref" id="xd21e8524src" href="#xd21e8524" name=
-"xd21e8524src">30</a> The monastery of Marmashen, near Alexandropol,
-was constructed at this period by one of the Armenian princes,
-Vahram.<a class="noteref" id="xd21e8530src" href="#xd21e8530" name=
-"xd21e8530src">31</a> Lastly, the seat of the patriarchate was removed
-to Ani from the neighbouring town of Arghina.<a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e8536src" href="#xd21e8536" name="xd21e8536src">32</a></p>
-<p class="par"><span class="marginnote">John Sembat, <span class=
-"sc">A.D.</span> 1020&ndash;1041.</span>Upon the death of King Gagik
-the eldest of his three sons ascended the ancestral throne. Rare
-natural intelligence belonged to John Sembat&mdash;the monarch is known
-under either name; but these mental qualities were perhaps clouded by
-an excessive corpulency. On the other hand, his brother
-Ashot<span class="marginnote">Ashot IV., <span class="sc">A.D.</span>
-1020&ndash;1040.<a class="noteref" id="xd21e8557src" href="#xd21e8557"
-name="xd21e8557src">33</a></span> displayed the union of physical
-symmetry to ardent courage and passion for war. The man of action
-chafed under the supremacy of the peaceable civilian; and no sooner was
-the natural heir in possession of his heritage than his ambitious
-brother broke into open revolt. A <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb356"
-href="#pb356" name="pb356">356</a>]</span>peace was at length concluded
-upon the terms that John should reign in Shirak, with the capital Ani,
-and Ashot over the remainder of his father&rsquo;s dominions.<a class=
-"noteref" id="xd21e8565src" href="#xd21e8565" name=
-"xd21e8565src">34</a> This compact was observed at least so far that
-Ashot the Fourth was never permitted by his jealous colleague to enter
-the capital.<a class="noteref" id="xd21e8577src" href="#xd21e8577"
-name="xd21e8577src">35</a> But the civil war loosened the bonds which
-attached the feudatories to their king, and the neighbouring states to
-a dynasty in its strength. The one partner was obliged to have recourse
-to the C&aelig;sar Basil; and it was not without the assistance of a
-contingent of imperial troops that Ashot IV. imposed his rule upon his
-allotted territories. The other was defeated at the commencement of his
-reign by the Bagratid king of Abkhasia and Georgia, whose troops
-entered and pillaged Ani.<a class="noteref" id="xd21e8583src" href=
-"#xd21e8583" name="xd21e8583src">36</a> These events appear to have
-been followed by a period of comparative tranquillity, during which
-either monarch was enabled to recover breath. But the Mussulman emirs
-were encroaching; the Seljuk Turks were harrying the frontiers; and the
-Armenian nation, the natural bulwark against their invasions, was
-distracted by the separate counsels of the king with Ani and the king
-without Ani, of the king of Lori and the king of Kars. The king of Van,
-upon whom the brunt of the Mussulman and Turkish incursions had fallen,
-was preparing or had already accomplished the cession of his kingdom to
-the C&aelig;sar, in despair of withstanding these unceasing
-assaults.</p>
-<p class="par">The tribes composing the wave of the great Turkish
-invasion appear upon the stage of Armenian history as early as the
-commencement of the eleventh century.<a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e8588src" href="#xd21e8588" name="xd21e8588src">37</a> The aspect
-and dress of these savages were as unfamiliar to the Armenians as their
-mode of conducting war. The Christian warriors, armed with the sword,
-encountered swarms of archers whose long hair floated behind them like
-that of women.<a class="noteref" id="xd21e8600src" href="#xd21e8600"
-name="xd21e8600src">38</a> The signal defeat of his son David by these
-nomads about the year 1018 caused the reigning king of the Van
-<span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb357" href="#pb357" name=
-"pb357">357</a>]</span>country to lose heart. The news was brought to
-him while he was residing in the delicious town of Vostan, upon the
-wooded spurs of the Kurdish mountains overlooking the lake of Van. His
-despondency was confirmed by the recollection of a prophecy in which
-St. Nerses, the fifth successor of St. Gregory, had foretold the advent
-of great calamities at the hands of a barbarous people a thousand years
-after the divine mission of Christ. Senekerim despatched his son to the
-court of Constantinople, where he was received with the greatest
-kindness by the Emperor Basil II. The C&aelig;sar accepted the gift of
-his extensive and populous realm, and gave in exchange a secure retreat
-within the borders of the Empire, the city and territory of Sivas
-(<span class="sc">A.D.</span> 1021). An imperial governor was sent to
-take over the ceded dominions, in which were included no less than 72
-fortresses, 4000 villages, and 8 towns.<a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e8608src" href="#xd21e8608" name="xd21e8608src">39</a> Some
-display of force was necessary in order to fasten upon the southern
-province the rule of the Byzantine monarchs; and it is probable that
-the measures taken to assert their authority still further enfeebled
-the rampart they had come to defend. The progress of the shepherds may
-be traced through the pages of the Armenian historians during the
-ensuing years. In <span class="sc">A.D.</span> 1021 they advanced from
-Azerbaijan upon the town of Nakhichevan under the conduct of their
-prince, the famous Toghrul Bey. This incursion was directed up the
-valley of the Araxes into the country about Ararat. It was resisted by
-a force of Georgians, who retired without coming to an engagement, and,
-a little later, by a small detachment of the Armenian army under Vasak,
-the commander-in-chief. But no concerted action was taken against the
-invaders, the Armenians contenting themselves with deeds of personal
-prowess, and the Turkomans swarming over the settled country,
-plundering, destroying, and putting the inhabitants to the
-sword.<a class="noteref" id="xd21e8627src" href="#xd21e8627" name=
-"xd21e8627src">40</a> In the year 1042 they were encountered by the
-king of Armenia, Gagik, the successor of John Sembat and Ashot. At the
-head of his troops he inflicted upon them a signal defeat on the banks
-of the Zanga, the river of Erivan. The Turks retired into the Van
-country, which they devastated anew.<a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e8636src" href="#xd21e8636" name="xd21e8636src">41</a> Three years
-<span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb358" href="#pb358" name=
-"pb358">358</a>]</span>later they appeared again in the same province;
-but this time they were fugitives from Mesopotamia, where they had been
-repulsed by the emir of Mosul. Their prayer for a safe passage home
-into Persia was refused by the imperial governor residing at Arjish, on
-the lake of Van. But the forces at his disposal were routed by the
-tribesmen, who took him prisoner and put him to death.<a class=
-"noteref" id="xd21e8643src" href="#xd21e8643" name=
-"xd21e8643src">42</a> The Turks returned in greater numbers during the
-following years, laying waste the southern province, flooding
-northwards into Pasin and into the valley of the Chorokh. To this
-period belong the sack of Arzen (near Erzerum) in 1049, and the pillage
-of Kars and massacre of its inhabitants in 1050. Neither the imperial
-generals nor their Georgian and Armenian dependents were successful in
-making headway against the storm.<a class="noteref" id="xd21e8649src"
-href="#xd21e8649" name="xd21e8649src">43</a> The year 1054 was made
-memorable in the native annals by the siege of Melazkert. Toghrul had
-arrived at the head of an immense army in the districts bordering the
-lake of Van on the side of Azerbaijan. The town of Berkri was taken by
-assault, that of Arjish purchased immunity; and the conqueror led his
-host across the level country at the foot of Sipan to the walls of the
-fortress on the Murad. Melazkert was at that time in the possession of
-the Empire, and was stoutly defended by its governor. After a close
-investiture, during which the garrison displayed great resource and
-bravery, the Seljuk king was constrained to retire. But he had already
-despatched detachments of his army in all directions; the Turks
-penetrated as far north as the slopes of Caucasus and the Pontic
-forests, and as far south as the mountains bordering the southern shore
-of Lake Van.<a class="noteref" id="xd21e8665src" href="#xd21e8665"
-name="xd21e8665src">44</a> The area of their raids was still further
-extended during the subsequent decade. The territory of Mush was
-overrun in 1058; and the lonely cloister of Surb Karapet, which
-overlooks that extensive plain, witnessed the prowess of the Armenian
-chiefs, who directed their gaze towards it before falling upon their
-savage foes.<a class="noteref" id="xd21e8677src" href="#xd21e8677"
-name="xd21e8677src">45</a> These bands had perhaps returned from the
-sack of Malatia beyond and <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb359" href=
-"#pb359" name="pb359">359</a>]</span>on the west of the
-Euphrates.<a class="noteref" id="xd21e8682src" href="#xd21e8682" name=
-"xd21e8682src">46</a> In the following year the advancing tide reached
-the city of Sivas, that peaceful haven in the interior of Asia Minor
-which had been allotted to King Senekerim, and which was now in
-possession of his sons. These princes fled for their life, and the
-Turks were for a moment arrested by the spectacle of the multitude of
-white domes, belonging to the churches, which they mistook for the
-tents of their enemy. But both the city and the plain of Sivas were
-given over to pillage and massacre; streets and countryside were
-deluged with blood.<a class="noteref" id="xd21e8690src" href=
-"#xd21e8690" name="xd21e8690src">47</a> North, south, and west spread
-the relentless inundation; at one time the current sets towards the
-territory of Karin (Erzerum), at another it eddies around the mountains
-in the south between Diarbekr and Palu.<a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e8695src" href="#xd21e8695" name="xd21e8695src">48</a></p>
-<p class="par">Armenian patriots of the present day brand the memory of
-King Senekerim, the Artsrunian, and insult his tomb in the cloister of
-Varag, overlooking Van. No more lenient judgment is meted out to the
-Bagratid king of Ani, who, as early as the year 1022, willed away his
-dominions to the same C&aelig;sar who had supplanted the sovereign of
-the southern province. But these events are but the outward signs of a
-general retreat of the Armenians before the advance of Turks and Kurds,
-battering in the gates of the caliphate and pressing forward into the
-settled countries.<a class="noteref" id="xd21e8700src" href=
-"#xd21e8700" name="xd21e8700src">49</a> A fairer view might impute it
-to these Christian kinglets that they failed to stand their ground upon
-the bulwarks of Eastern Christendom, drawing support from their
-powerful neighbours of the same faith, who were welded together in a
-single and magnificent empire. But that empire, so justly respected by
-the Mussulmans as the realm of the Romans, was an object of particular
-aversion to the Armenians as the home or the prey of the hated and
-unorthodox Greeks. On every page of Armenian history is written large
-the mutual suspicion which envenomed the relations of the two races.
-Where co-operation might have seemed impossible we may perhaps excuse
-the abdication of the weaker party, and even justify the usurpation of
-the stronger. And the judicial historian, who may sift the facts with
-greater care than the <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb360" href=
-"#pb360" name="pb360">360</a>]</span>inquisitive traveller, will
-perhaps conclude that the blame must be laid on wider
-shoulders&mdash;upon the Pan-Greek policy of the Byzantine C&aelig;sars
-and their masterful hierarchy, and upon the perversity of two cultured
-and Christian peoples, who, rather than compose or postpone their
-quarrels, threw this culture and this religion into the maw of
-savages.</p>
-<p class="par">At the time when the Bagratid kingdom of Armenia was
-suffering from a fresh division of the regal authority under John
-Sembat and Ashot, the neighbouring Empire was administered by a worthy
-successor of Nikephorus and of Zimiskes. The Emperor Basil the Second
-stands out in the Byzantine annals as a monarch who did not disgrace
-the title of the Roman C&aelig;sars. His personal intervention in the
-affairs of Armenia dates from the reign of Gagik the First, and was
-occasioned by the death of the prince of the Akhaltsykh country, David,
-who had during his lifetime been a fast ally of the emperor, and who
-had named him heir to his principality. Basil hurried to Armenia to
-take over his new possessions; he was greeted by the kings of Kars and
-of Van; but King Gagik excited his displeasure and provoked his
-resentment by somewhat pointedly remaining away. The C&aelig;sar
-appears to have made a peregrination of the Armenian country, visiting
-Shirak, and perhaps occupying some of the fortresses in the south, such
-as Akhlat, Melazkert, and Arjish.<a class="noteref" id="xd21e8710src"
-href="#xd21e8710" name="xd21e8710src">50</a> Years later he was again
-summoned to the scene of his former successes; but on this occasion it
-was his duty to combat the folly of two Christian princes who had taken
-up arms against that Empire which alone could save them from their
-doom. King George the First of Georgia, in concert with King John
-Sembat of Ani, had been raiding in the imperial dominions. Basil
-established his camp in the plain of Erzerum, and summoned the Georgian
-monarch to submit. Upon the failure of his embassies he made his way by
-the plain of Pasin to the territory of Kars. The armies came together
-in the neighbourhood of Lake Chaldir; and if the issue of a furious
-engagement may have seemed uncertain, the result was established by the
-retirement of the Georgians into their strong places, and by the
-devastation of their country by the imperial forces, which included
-<span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb361" href="#pb361" name=
-"pb361">361</a>]</span>contingents of barbarous peoples such as
-Russians and Bulgarians. The emperor spent the winter in the
-neighbourhood of Trebizond, where he received an envoy from the king of
-Ani, no less a person than the patriarch, accompanied by twelve
-bishops, seventy monks, two scholars, and three hundred knights. The
-presence no less than the gifts of this distinguished embassy might
-have appeased the just wrath of the most Christian emperor; but his
-expectations were perhaps exceeded by the production of a testament in
-which John Sembat named him the heir to his dominions. This voluntary
-cession (<span class="sc">A.D.</span> 1022) secured the immunity of the
-kingdom of Ani; and Basil was free to exact his terms from the
-Georgian. Measures were taken to ensure the future safety of the
-domains of Akhaltsykh, and the imperial army was paraded upon the
-extremities of the Armenian country, carrying fear into the hearts of
-the inhabitants of Azerbaijan. Basil returned to his distant capital,
-having smoothed the way for the extension of the Empire across the
-natural bridge of the Asiatic highlands. The masters of Akhaltsykh in
-the north and of Van in the south could afford to wait for the death of
-a feeble and childless king.<a class="noteref" id="xd21e8727src" href=
-"#xd21e8727" name="xd21e8727src">51</a></p>
-<p class="par">But the Emperor Basil died in the year 1025, and was
-followed upon the throne by no less than six sovereigns within the
-space of seventeen years. His bold policy was committed to feeble hands
-and incapable brains; and perhaps the testament of King John was
-forgotten by the Emperor Romanus when he bestowed his niece in marriage
-upon its author.<a class="noteref" id="xd21e8740src" href="#xd21e8740"
-name="xd21e8740src">52</a> The bridegroom did not profit by this
-opportunity of producing an heir who might have rivalled the claims of
-the heir of Basil. Upon the death of John, which occurred some years
-after this event, the reigning emperor, Michael, took steps to enforce
-those claims. One of the most powerful of the Armenian nobles, by name
-Sargis, supported the cession of the kingdom in accordance with the
-imperial demand. His proposal was resisted by his compeers, and the
-imperial forces were despatched into Shirak. Arrived under the walls of
-Ani, they were surprised by a sally of the garrison, who were led by
-the chiefs of the faction opposed to <span class="pagenum">[<a id=
-"pb362" href="#pb362" name="pb362">362</a>]</span>Sargis, under the
-supreme command of the intrepid Vahram (<span class="sc">A.D.</span>
-1041). The Greek army was routed after incurring heavy losses, and the
-river of Ani was reddened by the blood of the Greeks. Gagik<span class=
-"marginnote">Gagik II., <span class="sc">A.D.</span>
-1042&ndash;45.</span>, the son of King Ashot, who was then a mere
-youth, was raised to his uncle&rsquo;s throne; and the hateful Sargis
-was taken prisoner by the successful party, but restored to liberty by
-the clemency of the young king. The imperial anger continued to harass
-an inexperienced prince who was regarded by the Byzantine court as an
-usurper; but the death of Michael in the same year suspended the
-delivery of a decisive blow. His nephew, another Michael, ruled or
-tyrannised for a few months; the disorders of his reign were followed
-by those consequent upon his expulsion; and a short period was perhaps
-necessary for his successor, Constantine Monomachus, to establish
-himself upon the throne. The revenge which he inherited against the
-kingdom of Ani was stimulated by the intrigues of Sargis, who suggested
-that the youthful Gagik should be enticed to Constantinople, in order
-to smooth the way for the surrender of the city. The promises of the
-emperor, and the oaths of the nobles that they would conserve his
-capital during his absence, were successful in drawing the monarch
-away; but a considerable display of force was rendered necessary before
-the garrison could be induced to surrender Ani. After a first reverse,
-measures were taken by the absent emperor to secure the triumph of his
-arms. A Kurdish emir, who was powerful in Karabagh and the valley of
-the Araxes, was induced to join his forces to those of the Empire; and
-matters had become hopeless when the city was delivered over to the
-emissary of the C&aelig;sar by the notables in concert with the
-patriarch (<span class="sc">A.D.</span> 1045). King Gagik was allotted
-a territory in Cappadocia and a palace at Constantinople. A Greek
-governor was despatched to take over Ani and the new possessions, which
-placed the crown upon the extension of the <i>Roman</i> Empire along
-the valley of the Araxes and round the shores of Lake Van.<a class=
-"noteref" id="xd21e8764src" href="#xd21e8764" name=
-"xd21e8764src">53</a></p>
-<p class="par">In this manner and by these several stages the
-protagonists in a world struggle were brought face to face. The Seljuks
-reinforced the failing energies of Islam, but infused into the body to
-which they lent new vigour an intractable strain of barbarism
-<span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb363" href="#pb363" name=
-"pb363">363</a>]</span>which it has retained to the present day. On the
-high-road of their depredations they were now confronted by a
-redoubtable adversary, the champion of Christianity and of whatever
-culture the age possessed. But that religion, become debased, had
-already sapped the foundations of culture; the winged mind of the
-Greeks had been imprisoned by a rigorous dogmatism; and their bodies
-were either crushed by the discipline of the monastery or exhausted by
-the refinements of the life of sensual pleasure. The greatness of their
-inheritance and the extent of the resources which they administered had
-been equal to producing a Nikephorus, a Zimiskes and a Basil; but this
-grain of Roman genius was allowed to wither by the succeeding princes;
-and we feel the force of the comparison which is drawn by the Armenian
-historian between the quiet strength and benignant policy of Basil and
-the dissolute habits and feeble half-measures of Monomachus.<a class=
-"noteref" id="xd21e8771src" href="#xd21e8771" name=
-"xd21e8771src">54</a> The safety of the provinces was made subordinate
-to the interests of the Greek hierarchy; the Armenians were irritated
-by renewed attempts to bring them over to Byzantine orthodoxy; and
-their resistance was punished by the removal of the strongest
-characters from the native seats in the defence of which they would
-have given their lives. The new territories were handed over to Greek
-eunuchs, to whom was entrusted their administration and
-defence.<a class="noteref" id="xd21e8774src" href="#xd21e8774" name=
-"xd21e8774src">55</a> In the year 1055 the inhabitants were massacred
-outside the walls of Ani by an enemy which perhaps consisted of a
-detachment of Seljuks in concert with the forces of the emir of
-Karabagh.<a class="noteref" id="xd21e8777src" href="#xd21e8777" name=
-"xd21e8777src">56</a> The final blow was delivered nine years later by
-the successor of Toghrul, the famous Alp Arslan. After a successful
-campaign in the Georgian country he arrived before Ani in the summer of
-1064. The appearance of the city at that date is described in eloquent
-terms, if with some exaggeration, by Matthew of Edessa. Such was the
-number of the population assembled within its ramparts that the Turks
-believed them to comprise the greater part of the Armenian nation. Mass
-was celebrated in a thousand and one churches. Precipitous cliffs
-protected the site for almost the whole circuit, and it was embraced by
-the sinuous course of the Arpa Chai. On one side only was there level
-or slightly shelving ground for a distance about equal to the flight of
-an arrow. It was upon the walls which defended this vulnerable side
-that the Seljuk sultan directed his attack. <span class=
-"pagenum">[<a id="pb364" href="#pb364" name=
-"pb364">364</a>]</span>After a siege of twenty-five days the Turks
-penetrated into the city. Each man carried a knife in either hand and a
-third between his teeth. The garrison had retired into the inner
-citadel, and the defenceless inhabitants were mown down like grass. One
-of the barbarians mounted upon the roof of the cathedral, and hurled to
-the ground the great cross which rose from the dome. A little door gave
-him access to the interior of the dome, whence he precipitated a
-crystal lamp, perhaps of Indian origin, which had been presented by
-King Sembat the Second. The capture of Ani prepared the way for the
-investiture of Kars; but the king of Kars appeased the victor by
-attiring himself in black robes, which he affected to be wearing out of
-respect for the death of Toghrul. From these successes the Seljuks were
-carried forward into the bosom of the Empire; and the signal defeat
-near Melazkert of the C&aelig;sar Romanus in 1071 finally decided the
-long struggle in favour of the Mohammedan world.<a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e8783src" href="#xd21e8783" name="xd21e8783src">57</a></p>
-<p class="par">From these momentous issues, with which the fortunes of
-Ani were so closely connected, it is an abrupt descent to the plane of
-her subsequent history. I have already had occasion to mention the two
-chief actors in this minor drama, the Bagratid dynasty of Georgia and
-the Kurdish dynasty of Karabagh.<a class="noteref" id="xd21e8788src"
-href="#xd21e8788" name="xd21e8788src">58</a> The Georgian Bagratids
-weathered the storm of the Seljuk invasions; and they attained during
-the course of the twelfth and the commencement of the thirteenth
-century a wide dominion over the adjacent lands. A lesser station must
-be assigned to the Mussulman family of the Beni-Cheddad, who in the
-decline of the caliphate had established themselves in the valleys of
-the Kur and the Araxes, and whose kinsmen probably wandered over the
-mountains of Karabagh, which at the present day still harbour Kurdish
-tribes. The particular clan to which they belonged is said to have been
-named Rewadi; but they became possessed of the important town of
-Gandzak in the valley of the Kur (the modern Elizabetpol), and of Dvin,
-the ancient Armenian metropolis, in that of the Araxes. I have twice
-spoken of their prince, a figure of some importance during the reigns
-of John Sembat and Gagik the Second, at first the ally and then the
-determined adversary of the Empire and the coadjutor of Alp Arslan.
-Abulsevar&mdash;the Chawir of the Arabs, the Aplesphares of the
-Greeks&mdash;is well known to the <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb365"
-href="#pb365" name="pb365">365</a>]</span>Byzantine annalists, and is
-styled by them, no less than by the Armenian writers, the prince of
-Dvin.<a class="noteref" id="xd21e8793src" href="#xd21e8793" name=
-"xd21e8793src">59</a> His son and successor, Fathlun, purchased Ani
-from the Seljuk sultan, and gave it over to his brother Manuchar
-(<span class="sc">A.D.</span> 1072). This ruler appears to have
-governed with moderation; and he was confirmed in his dignity by the
-successor of Alp Arslan, the humane Malek Shah, who extended the Seljuk
-empire to the Mediterranean. After the death of Manuchar in
-<span class="sc">A.D.</span> 1110<a class="noteref" id="xd21e8815src"
-href="#xd21e8815" name="xd21e8815src">60</a> the inhabitants were much
-harassed by their Mussulman and Georgian neighbours during the
-government of his son and successor, another Abulsevar. They appealed
-for help to the Bagratid king of Georgia, David the Second, and opened
-their gates to that monarch (<span class="sc">A.D.</span> 1124).
-Abulsevar and his sons were carried off to Tiflis, and the unhappy
-prince, with two of his children, perished in an unhealthy
-prison.<a class="noteref" id="xd21e8821src" href="#xd21e8821" name=
-"xd21e8821src">61</a> This revolution restored the city to a Christian
-administration, after a Mussulman occupation of sixty years. The
-cathedral, which had served as a mosque, was restored to Christian
-worship and consecrated anew with great pomp. But David the Second died
-in the following year; and his son and successor Dimitri was confronted
-with an investiture of Ani by Fathlun, the eldest son of the deceased
-ruler, who had been absent at the time of the Georgian conquest and who
-was thirsting to avenge his father. The issue of a lengthy siege was a
-happy compromise, by which the Kurdish emir assumed the government
-under a pledge to reserve the cathedral to the exclusive use of his
-Armenian subjects (<span class="sc">A.D.</span>
-1125&ndash;26).<a class="noteref" id="xd21e8830src" href="#xd21e8830"
-name="xd21e8830src">62</a> Fathlun was killed in battle in the year
-1132, and was succeeded by his brother Mahmud.<a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e8833src" href="#xd21e8833" name="xd21e8833src">63</a> The Kurdish
-dynasty continued to drag on a precarious existence as lords of Ani
-until towards the close of the twelfth century; but they lost Gandzak
-to the Seljuks in 1088, and Dvin to the Georgians in 1162.<a class=
-"noteref" id="xd21e8837src" href="#xd21e8837" name=
-"xd21e8837src">64</a> The conqueror of Dvin, George the Third, was
-twice the conqueror of Ani. His first expedition belongs to the year
-1161, <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb366" href="#pb366" name=
-"pb366">366</a>]</span>when he made himself master of the place after a
-single day&rsquo;s siege.<a class="noteref" id="xd21e8842src" href=
-"#xd21e8842" name="xd21e8842src">65</a> But his success exasperated his
-Mussulman neighbours, and he was confronted in the same year by the
-emir of Akhlat at the head of an army numbering 80,000 men. The pompous
-title of this prince, that of Shah of Armenia, serves to accentuate his
-signal defeat by the Georgian king. But the Mussulmans renewed their
-attacks under the guidance or at the prompting of Ildigiz, the Atabeg
-governor of Azerbaijan. About the year 1165 George was constrained to
-restore Ani to them, and it again came into the possession of the
-Beni-Cheddad. From these it passed for the third time into the hands of
-the Georgians in 1173&ndash;74.<a class="noteref" id="xd21e8848src"
-href="#xd21e8848" name="xd21e8848src">66</a> During the reign of Thamar
-the luckless inhabitants were surprised and massacred by the emir of
-Ardabil in eastern Azerbaijan. Even at that period, the commencement of
-the thirteenth century, the city was still rich and populous.<a class=
-"noteref" id="xd21e8857src" href="#xd21e8857" name=
-"xd21e8857src">67</a> But the advent of the Tartars in <span class=
-"sc">A.D.</span> 1239 was the occasion of a new catastrophe, the place
-being sacked by the savage bands of Jenghiz Khan. In 1319 Ani was
-visited by a severe earthquake, to which Armenian writers ascribe her
-final abandonment. But there exists evidence to show that this
-consummation was deferred to a later and uncertain date.</p>
-<p class="par"></p>
-<div class="figure xd21e8868width" id="fig070"><img src=
-"images/fig070.jpg" alt=
-"Fig. 70. Walls and Gateway of the City of Ani from Outside, looking East."
-width="720" height="511">
-<p class="figureHead"><span class="sc"><span class="figNum">Fig.
-70.</span> Walls and Gateway of the City of Ani from Outside, looking
-East.</span></p>
-</div>
-<p class="par"></p>
-<p class="par">I feel that I owe an apology to my reader for this long
-excursion into Armenian history. But my endeavour has been to encompass
-a double purpose, that of presenting in a sufficient narrative the
-capital events in the annals of Ani, and that of sketching in from
-various and scattered sources the larger history of the Armenian
-kingdom of the Middle Ages. The attention of the traveller, no less
-than that of the statesman and the man of culture, is frequently
-directed to that neglected but fascinating subject, which indeed
-explains the present condition of the Armenians and which conducts us
-to the threshold of our own era. We cannot learn much from the long
-intervening spaces of time during which Tartars and Turkomans, and
-Ottoman Turks and Persians ruled in a country which was forgotten by
-the West. A deep sleep settles on the land, given over to shepherds,
-from which it scarcely awakes at the distant calling of the modern
-epoch. The natural development of the Armenian people was <span class=
-"pagenum">[<a id="pb367" href="#pb367" name=
-"pb367">367</a>]</span>suddenly arrested by the Seljuk conquest, and
-the abler among them were forced to seek new homes. Some stout spirits
-established themselves in the mountains of Cilicia, where they founded
-a petty kingdom which endured for nearly three hundred years
-(<span class="sc">A.D.</span> 1080&ndash;1375). The obstinacy of their
-race was made manifest by the long resistance of this colony to the
-spiritual guidance of the popes of Rome. The friends of the Crusaders,
-they were at length overwhelmed by the Turks, who suppressed the
-dynasty. Their descendants still maintain themselves about their
-adopted seats, secure in their mountain fastnesses. But perhaps the
-most remarkable outcome of this dispersal was the emigration of the
-inhabitants of Ani to Poland, Moldavia and Galicia, to Astrakhan on the
-northern shore of the Caspian, and thence to the Crimea. Many of these
-colonies have endured to the present day. Some among them were
-permitted to retain their own laws; and the jurisprudence of the
-Armenian kings figures in the code of the colony of Lemberg, which was
-administered by the Armenian notables with the express sanction of the
-Polish kings and which has been preserved to the curiosity of our own
-age.<a class="noteref" id="xd21e8882src" href="#xd21e8882" name=
-"xd21e8882src">68</a></p>
-<hr class="tb">
-<p class="par"></p>
-<p class="par">My reader is now in possession of an outline of the
-history of the deserted city before the walls of which he stands. He is
-also familiar with the large surroundings which overpower this elegant
-architecture&mdash;in the distance the pile of Alag&ouml;z and the dome
-of Ararat; far and near the undulating upland plain, deeply
-ca&ntilde;oned by the sinuous course of the Arpa Chai. But the site of
-Ani calls for some particular description.<a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e8913src" href="#xd21e8913" name="xd21e8913src">69</a> It has
-<span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb368" href="#pb368" name=
-"pb368">368</a>]</span>been built within the fork described by the
-meeting of two ravines which have been eroded by the action of water to
-a considerable depth below the level of the plain. In the more westerly
-of these ravines flows a small stream coming down from the Alaja Dagh
-(p. 330), which was known to the old priest by its older name of
-Tsaghkotz,<a class="noteref" id="xd21e9021src" href="#xd21e9021" name=
-"xd21e9021src">70</a> but which some travellers have called the Alaja
-Chai. The more easterly is occupied by the Arpa Chai, the ancient
-Akhurean. Near the confluence, the two streams are only separated by a
-narrow spit, and their waters hiss at the base of crags composed of
-lava. But the greater portion of the site consists of a spacious
-platform, flanked on two sides by the ravines. At a distance of about a
-mile above the junction of the waters two small side valleys descend
-into the principal <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb369" href="#pb369"
-name="pb369">369</a>]</span>depressions from within the area which they
-enclose. The one is directed towards the west and joins the trough of
-the Alaja; the other pursues a south-easterly course to the chasm of
-the Arpa Chai. The heads of these two side valleys are separated from
-one another by a considerable stretch of unbroken ground. It is on that
-side only and along that space that the site is weak. And it is there
-that the double line of walls have been erected, fronted in ancient
-times by a moat (Fig. <a href="#fig070">70</a>).<a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e9030src" href="#xd21e9030" name="xd21e9030src">71</a></p>
-<p class="par"></p>
-<div class="figure xd21e9037width" id="fig071"><img src=
-"images/fig071.jpg" alt=
-"Fig. 71. Ani: Bas-relief on the Inner Wall of the Gateway." width=
-"607" height="423">
-<p class="figureHead"><span class="sc"><span class="figNum">Fig.
-71.</span> Ani: Bas-relief on the Inner Wall of the Gateway.</span></p>
-</div>
-<p class="par"></p>
-<div class="blockquote">
-<p class="par first">The character of this <b>double wall</b> and the
-appearance of the towers are exhibited in my illustration, which was
-taken from outside, in front of the principal gateway. The long line of
-fortifications is seen extending towards the east. Such walls are
-composed at Ani of an inner core of solid conglomerate, faced on either
-side with rectangular blocks of hewn stone. One admires the exquisite
-art with which the masonry is disposed and the minute fitting at the
-joints. We enter the enclosure between the two parapets, and walk for a
-short distance in an easterly direction. Above us, upon the face of the
-inner wall, is placed a fine <b>bas-relief of a lion</b> (Fig. <a href=
-"#fig071">71</a>); and almost immediately we arrive at the inner
-gateway, just west of the great tower. A somewhat effaced inscription
-is seen above the arch. It has been copied, but the interpretation
-<span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb370" href="#pb370" name=
-"pb370">370</a>]</span>and date are obscure.<a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e9058src" href="#xd21e9058" name="xd21e9058src">72</a> We know
-that these walls were originally built by King Sembat the Second
-(<span class="sc">A.D.</span> 977&ndash;989);<a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e9077src" href="#xd21e9077" name="xd21e9077src">73</a> but they
-must have been restored and towers added at later dates. The earliest
-inscription which has been discovered was found on a round tower not
-far from this entrance. It is in Cufic character, and records that the
-tower was erected by Manuchar the son of Chawir, or Abulsevar. We have
-already seen that Manuchar was the first ruler in Ani of the Kurdish
-family of the Beni-Cheddad (<span class="sc">A.D.</span> 1072). Other
-inscriptions belong to the latter half of the twelfth century and the
-commencement of the thirteenth. They are in Armenian and establish the
-fact that some of the towers were constructed by private persons as
-memorials to themselves.<a class="noteref" id="xd21e9086src" href=
-"#xd21e9086" name="xd21e9086src">74</a></p>
-<p class="par"></p>
-<div class="figure xd21e9105width" id="fig072"><img src=
-"images/fig072.jpg" alt="Fig. 72. Ani: The Cathedral from South-East."
-width="720" height="506">
-<p class="figureHead"><span class="sc"><span class="figNum">Fig.
-72.</span> Ani: The Cathedral from South-East.</span></p>
-</div>
-<p class="par"></p>
-<p class="par">Once within the archway through the inner wall, the
-interior of the city is displayed in a long perspective to our gaze.
-But we might have to mount upon one of the parapets, in order to survey
-the irregularities of the large triangular space as far as the citadel
-at its further and narrow end. This north-easterly or broader portion
-of the site is covered with the d&eacute;bris of the private dwellings,
-not one of which has remained erect. They must have been packed
-together in a most uncomfortable manner, and they were probably built
-for the greater part of inferior material.<a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e9114src" href="#xd21e9114" name="xd21e9114src">75</a> It is as
-though a Persian runner had swished them away with his long cane to
-open the view to the noble monuments which still stand. Behind us, as
-we proceed, the long barrier of the fortifications opens out on either
-side. The inner walls of many of the towers have fallen in, and their
-vaulted interiors are laid bare. They suggest the appearance of a
-series of apses as they soar up into the sky.</p>
-<p class="par">Directing our steps towards the cathedral, the largest
-of the buildings, we pass the scattered fragments of an <b>octagonal
-tower</b> (No. 11 on the plan), which must have succumbed at a
-comparatively recent date. It has been seen while still perfect by my
-predecessors, who have described it as a minaret. It may have also
-served as a watch-tower. One huge block of masonry which has held
-together still displays the large proportions and the form of the
-structure. The remains of a spiral staircase engage the eye, and one is
-impressed with the excellence of the masonry. <span class=
-"pagenum">[<a id="pb371" href="#pb371" name="pb371">371</a>]</span>Two
-inscriptions have been found upon this pile. One in Persian bears the
-date Heg. 595 or <span class="sc">A.D.</span> 1198&ndash;99, and is to
-the effect that one Kei-Sultan of the Beni-Cheddad family
-&ldquo;forbids the sale of sheep and camels in front of this mosque of
-Abu-l-Mamran.&rdquo; The other is in Armenian and without date or
-personal sanction, being a mere exhortation to obey the order. One must
-suppose, in the absence of evidence to the contrary, that the minaret
-belonged to a mosque which has disappeared.<a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e9127src" href="#xd21e9127" name="xd21e9127src">76</a></p>
-<p class="par"></p>
-<div class="figure xd21e9140width" id="fig073"><img src=
-"images/fig073.jpg" alt=
-"Fig. 73. Ani: Niche in Eastern Wall of Cathedral." width="523" height=
-"720">
-<p class="figureHead"><span class="sc"><span class="figNum">Fig.
-73.</span> Ani: Niche in Eastern Wall of Cathedral.</span></p>
-</div>
-<p class="par"></p>
-<p class="par">The <b>cathedral</b> will surprise the traveller, even
-if he have come from Edgmiatsin. Although of small proportions, if
-judged by a European standard, it is nevertheless a stately
-building.<a class="noteref" id="xd21e9152src" href="#xd21e9152" name=
-"xd21e9152src">77</a> It bears the imprint of that undefinable quality,
-beauty, and can scarcely fail to arouse a thrill of delight in the
-spectator. It is seen to great advantage, adjacent edifices having
-disappeared (Fig. <a href="#fig072">72</a>). The extreme simplicity of
-the design&mdash;an oblong figure of four almost unbroken
-walls&mdash;at once appeals to the eye. The skill with which these
-plain spaces have been treated is the feature which is admired in the
-next place. The apse is only indicated by two niches which recess back
-from the face of the wall on the east (Figs. <a href="#fig072">72</a>
-and <a href="#fig073">73</a>). Two similar niches are seen on the
-south, and, I think, also on the north side; but their purpose is
-ornamental and to secure uniformity of design. The remainder of the
-space is diversified by the lightest of false arcades, which rises
-almost to the roof, embraces the niches and extends to all four walls.
-My illustration (Fig. <a href="#fig072">72</a>) displays the southern
-and eastern fronts; that on the north resembles its counterpart, but is
-less ornate. The fa&ccedil;ade is practically the same as the eastern
-front, but without the niches and with a low doorway. Similar doorways
-are conspicuous on the northern and southern sides. One remarks the
-tall and slender pillars of the false arcades, the cushion form of the
-capitals with their richly chiselled faces, the low spring of the
-rounded arches which curve inwards at the base, but scarcely suggest,
-so slight is the curve, the horse-shoe shape. The row of these arched
-mouldings is pleasantly broken at the doorway, which is surmounted by a
-narrow window with a rectangular frame of chiselled stone. And the bold
-arched moulding of pointed form, which envelops door and window, takes
-the eye above the tops of the neighbouring arches and leads it upwards
-to the loftier roof of the transept.</p>
-<p class="par">The architecture of the roof is less single of feature.
-Multiplicity of outlines and contrast of shapes are the characteristics
-which are here displayed. At one level you have the aisles, at another
-the nave and transept, at yet another the supreme crown of the dome.
-Here it is a group of gables; there the large circle of the drum of the
-dome; there <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb372" href="#pb372" name=
-"pb372">372</a>]</span>again the cone formed by the roof of the dome.
-This uppermost member of the series has unhappily fallen in; but enough
-remains of the drum to enable the eye to complete the picture, and to
-reconstruct the delicate mouldings of a false arcade. We have in fact a
-roof scene essentially Byzantine in character, but which is quite free
-of that suggestion of a series of box-like elevations which is
-engendered by the appearance of some specimens of the style. On the
-contrary, we receive the impression of a stately simplicity underlying
-the diversity of outline and form.</p>
-<p class="par">The interior is quite remarkable from the standpoint of
-the history of architecture; it is also calculated to deserve the
-admiration of the lover of art. It has many of the characteristics of
-the Gothic style, of which it establishes the Oriental origin.<a class=
-"noteref" id="xd21e9189src" href="#xd21e9189" name=
-"xd21e9189src">78</a> The dome is supported by four massive piers of
-coupled pillars with plain capitals. Four similar piers are placed at
-either extremity of the building, a pair at the entrance and one on
-each side of the apse. A feature of the edifice is the extreme
-narrowness of the aisles and the corresponding constriction of the side
-chapels at their eastern extremity. The relative proportions of the
-apse and of these minor apses may be discovered by a glance at the
-illustration of the eastern front, where the extent of the latter is
-indicated by the two arches with little windows, one on either side of
-the niches. The Gothic appearance of the interior is still further
-accentuated by the bold pointed arches which spring from the piers. Our
-curiosity is aroused by these characteristics; but our emotions awake
-as we contemplate the magnificent apse (Fig. <a href=
-"#fig074">74</a>).<a class="noteref" id="xd21e9201src" href=
-"#xd21e9201" name="xd21e9201src">79</a> That element of grandeur which
-we miss in Armenian churches is here made manifest in a high degree. It
-is imparted by the apse to the whole interior; and the apse becomes, by
-a happy inspiration of the architect, indeed the head and soul of the
-church.</p>
-<p class="par"></p>
-<div class="figure xd21e9208width" id="fig074"><img src=
-"images/fig074.jpg" alt="Fig. 74. Ani: Apse of the Cathedral." width=
-"524" height="720">
-<p class="figureHead"><span class="sc"><span class="figNum">Fig.
-74.</span> Ani: Apse of the Cathedral.</span></p>
-</div>
-<p class="par"></p>
-<p class="par">Vestiges of paintings upon the ceilings have been
-observed by my predecessors; but I do not know that the building
-suffers from their destruction. The plaster has fallen, and the
-perfection of the masonry is exposed. The roofs as well as the walls
-are composed of stone, and, as usual in Armenian churches, no wood or
-metal has been used. Even at the present day the Armenian masons are
-possessed of exceptional skill; and their natural gifts have been here
-directed by the conceptions of genius. Although the interior is almost
-free of ornament, the art of the sculptor has been employed upon the
-enrichment of the outside niches, of the doorways and windows, and of
-the mouldings of the false arcade. In no case do we discover any trace
-of barbarism; the designs are sober and full of grace, the execution is
-beyond praise.<a class="noteref" id="xd21e9217src" href="#xd21e9217"
-name="xd21e9217src">80</a> The impression which <span class=
-"pagenum">[<a id="pb373" href="#pb373" name="pb373">373</a>]</span>we
-take away from our survey of these various features is that we have
-been introduced to a monument of the highest artistic merit, denoting a
-standard of culture which was far in advance of the contemporary
-standards in the West.</p>
-<p class="par"></p>
-<div class="figure xd21e9225width" id="fig075"><img src=
-"images/fig075.jpg" alt="Fig. 75. Ani: Scupltured Stone Moulding."
-width="530" height="499">
-<p class="figureHead"><span class="sc"><span class="figNum">Fig.
-75.</span> Ani: Scupltured Stone Moulding.</span></p>
-</div>
-<p class="par"></p>
-<p class="par">Several inscriptions in Armenian are visible upon the
-walls and have been copied and translated.<a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e9235src" href="#xd21e9235" name="xd21e9235src">81</a> The
-earliest in date is found upon the south wall and is of some length. It
-records that in the year 1010 (Arm. era 459), during the reign of
-Gagik, king of the kings of Armenia and Georgia, the cathedral, which
-had been founded by King Sembat, was completed by Katranideh, queen of
-Armenia and daughter of the king of Siunik, at the bidding of her
-husband, King Gagik. The queen adds that she had also embellished the
-church with precious ornaments, an offering to Christ on behalf of
-herself and of her sons Sembat, Abas, and Ashot.<a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e9244src" href="#xd21e9244" name="xd21e9244src">82</a> Two
-inscriptions belonging to the period of the occupation of Ani by the
-Byzantines figure upon the fa&ccedil;ade. Both appear to be without
-dates, but both refer to known personages. The one mentions the Empress
-Zoe (1042), and is a memorial to her general, Aron-Magistros, who was
-entrusted with the government of the city.<a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e9250src" href="#xd21e9250" name="xd21e9250src">83</a> The other
-is an edict of Bagrat-Magistros, governor-general of the eastern
-provinces, abolishing by order of Constantine Dukas (<span class=
-"sc">A.D.</span> 1059&ndash;67) certain taxes which pressed upon the
-inhabitants. Other inscriptions detail offerings on the part of private
-individuals; and the date of one, if it has been copied correctly, is
-as late as 1486.<a class="noteref" id="xd21e9259src" href="#xd21e9259"
-name="xd21e9259src">84</a></p>
-<p class="par"></p>
-<div class="figure xd21e9268width" id="fig076"><img src=
-"images/fig076.jpg" alt=
-"Fig. 76. Ani: Church of St. Gregory from the West." width="509"
-height="720">
-<p class="figureHead"><span class="sc"><span class="figNum">Fig.
-76.</span> Ani: Church of St. Gregory from the West.</span></p>
-</div>
-<p class="par"><span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb374" href="#pb374" name=
-"pb374">374</a>]</span></p>
-<p class="par">An edifice of much smaller scale than the
-cathedral,<a class="noteref" id="xd21e9278src" href="#xd21e9278" name=
-"xd21e9278src">85</a> but closely resembling it in plan and style, is
-the church which is dedicated to <b>St. Gregory the Illuminator</b>,
-and which occupies a secluded site at the eastern extremity of the town
-upon the side of the cliff which breaks away to the bed of the Arpa by
-a series of black crags (No. 4). It is indeed a romantic spot. The side
-valley already mentioned joins the valley of the Arpa at this point,
-and is flanked by walls which descend to the river with bold bastions.
-The stream hisses in a gloomy ravine of grey and lichened rock.
-Subterraneous passages lead inwards into the town. In presenting my
-photograph of the building I must ask my reader to imagine for a moment
-that the ruinous porch has been removed (Fig. <a href=
-"#fig076">76</a>). He will then seize the characteristics with which he
-is already familiar: the oblong figure of unbroken walls; the elegant
-false arcades; the roof scene of nave, and transept and aisles,
-surmounted by a polygonal dome with a conical roof. The niches in the
-exterior of this church are perhaps less pronounced than in the case of
-the cathedral; but they are discovered upon all four walls. The stone
-is uniform of hue. Tall double shafts support the arches of the false
-arcade which extends round the building. The face of these arches has
-been richly sculptured with the most elegant traceries, while the
-spaces above the capitals, between the arms of the arches, display the
-forms of birds and flowers in moderate relief (Fig. 77, from north
-side). The architect has wisely discarded the use of the pointed arch
-in any part of this gem-like structure. But the slender pillars suggest
-the Gothic. The Byzantine feature of a <i>narthex</i> is wanting both
-to this building and to the cathedral. The porch has been added at a
-later date and is purely Saracenic in character. It displays several
-traceries and designs of high merit, among which I would call attention
-to the zigzag moulding which is so common in Norman architecture (Fig.
-<a href="#fig078">78</a>).</p>
-<p class="par"></p>
-<div class="figure xd21e9303width" id="fig077"><img src=
-"images/fig077.jpg" alt=
-"Fig. 77. Ani: North Wall of the Church of St. Gregory." width="523"
-height="720">
-<p class="figureHead"><span class="sc"><span class="figNum">Fig.
-77.</span> Ani: North Wall of the Church of St. Gregory.</span></p>
-</div>
-<p class="par"></p>
-<p class="par">Entering the building we are at once impressed by its
-almost perfect preservation; the plaster adheres to the walls and
-ceilings, and the frescos with which they were adorned are still
-intelligible. Yet here we have a monument erected nearly 800 years ago,
-and which has not yet been touched by a restorer&rsquo;s hand. The
-disposition of the interior resembles that of the cathedral; the dome
-rests on four piers, the apse is flanked by side chapels, which are of
-diminutive size. The frescos, which are also found upon the
-fa&ccedil;ade, represent Biblical subjects. They must have appreciably
-faded since they were seen and described by my predecessors.<a class=
-"noteref" id="xd21e9312src" href="#xd21e9312" name=
-"xd21e9312src">86</a> The legends which accompany them are all in
-Georgian or in Greek characters. This fact has led to the supposition
-that the church was designed for the Greek form of worship. But we know
-that <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb375" href="#pb375" name=
-"pb375">375</a>]</span>it was built by an Armenian, as the church of an
-Armenian convent dedicated to an Armenian saint. One can scarcely fail
-to remark the dim lighting of the interior, a characteristic or defect
-which also belongs to the cathedral. Both might easily have been
-flooded with light from the dome.</p>
-<p class="par"></p>
-<div class="figure xd21e9321width" id="fig078"><img src=
-"images/fig078.jpg" alt=
-"Fig. 78. Ani: Detail of the Porch of St. Gregory." width="513" height=
-"720">
-<p class="figureHead"><span class="sc"><span class="figNum">Fig.
-78.</span> Ani: Detail of the Porch of St. Gregory.</span></p>
-</div>
-<p class="par"></p>
-<p class="par">The commemorative inscriptions are found upon the
-exterior and are in Armenian character. Within each of the three most
-easterly arches upon the south wall there is an inscription of
-twenty-five lines. It would appear that the lines are carried across,
-and that they constitute a single text. We are informed that in the
-year 1215 (Arm. era 664), during the government of Zakarea, chief of
-the mandatories, and of his son Shahanshah, one Tigran, of the family
-of Honentz, built a monastery upon this site in the hope that his good
-work would bring long life to his House and to the son of Zakarea. At
-the time when he bought it the place was covered with rocks and
-brushwood; but there was a building upon it known as <i>Our Lady of the
-chapel</i>. Tigran surrounded it with a wall, constructed dwellings for
-the monks, erected this church of St. Gregory, and enriched the church
-with ornaments and precious vessels. He also bestowed a permanent
-endowment upon the monastery.<a class="noteref" id="xd21e9333src" href=
-"#xd21e9333" name="xd21e9333src">87</a> The edifice is therefore a work
-of the period of Georgian occupation. An inscription upon the east wall
-belongs to a later epoch, the date being given as 759 of the Armenian
-era, or <span class="sc">A.D.</span> 1310.<a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e9342src" href="#xd21e9342" name="xd21e9342src">88</a> But the
-city was still governed by a member of the family of Zakarea. It
-records that one Matheh, chief secretary of the ruler Shahanshah,
-restored some conduits which brought water to the monastery, but which
-had been destroyed during certain foreign or civil troubles. It
-supplies us with the names of two other personages&mdash;Khvandzeh, the
-wife of this Shahanshah, and Zakarea, their son.</p>
-<p class="par">In the immediate neighbourhood of this church, but upon
-a higher level, we observe two ruins which are of interest. The one
-consists of the remains of a <b>massive wall</b> and a <b>chamber</b>
-which stand in an isolated position (No. 22). They are of the character
-which is usually known as Cyclopean. The other ruin is that of a small
-and almost subterraneous <b>bath</b>. Recent excavations have disclosed
-subsidiary chambers and passages; but the bath itself, which is divided
-into four small vaulted chambers, could scarcely have accommodated more
-than four bathers at a time (No. 13).<a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e9362src" href="#xd21e9362" name="xd21e9362src">89</a></p>
-<p class="par">Not far from St. Gregory, as you follow down the stream
-of the Arpa, are met remains of a <b>walled enclosure</b> of the usual
-finished masonry and in fair preservation. The walls descend the
-cliff-side to a projecting mass of rock which rises from the bed of the
-river with almost vertical sides. On the edge of this promontory,
-overlooking the stream, is placed a little <b>chapel</b> which,
-although ruinous, still retains many of the elements of its former
-beauty (No. 9, Fig. 79). It is distinguished from the <span class=
-"pagenum">[<a id="pb376" href="#pb376" name=
-"pb376">376</a>]</span>walls about it by the pink stone of which it is
-built. The form of the roof is a pleasant variation from the prevailing
-type, as is also the plan of the interior. Six semicircular recesses
-are crowned by the circle of the dome. Contiguous to this elegant
-monument is a chamber or chapel of different form. At the upper end of
-the enclosure are seen the ruins of the long vaulted staircase which
-was taken across the enclosure and through the wall on the west, in
-order to debouch upon the ravine on the western side of the promontory,
-and so to lead down to the water&rsquo;s edge. About <span class=
-"measure" title="274 meter">300 yards</span> still further down the
-current you observe the piers of a <b>bridge</b> of which the single
-arch has fallen in. It was on the cliff-side above this bridge that the
-remains of a gateway were seen by my predecessors, bearing an
-inscription of the year 1320. It commemorates the allocation of a tax
-on cattle to the monastery of St. Gregory by one Sargis, chief of the
-Custom-House. The gift is made for the repose of the soul of the master
-of Sargis, Shahanshah, and for the long life of Zakarea and the other
-sons of Shahanshah. Fragments of inscriptions found within the
-neighbouring enclosure yield the dates of 705 and 759 Arm. era
-(<span class="sc">A.D.</span> 1256 and 1310).<a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e9388src" href="#xd21e9388" name="xd21e9388src">90</a> I am
-inclined to think it possible that the enclosure and chapel may have
-formed part of the same monastery of St. Gregory of which I have
-already described the church.</p>
-<p class="par"></p>
-<div class="figure xd21e9404width" id="fig079"><img src=
-"images/fig079.jpg" alt="Fig. 79. Ani: Walled Enclosure and Chapel."
-width="613" height="362">
-<p class="figureHead"><span class="sc"><span class="figNum">Fig.
-79.</span> Ani: Walled Enclosure and Chapel.</span></p>
-</div>
-<p class="par"></p>
-<p class="par">One of the most conspicuous buildings is the <b>mosque
-with the polygonal minaret</b> (No. 10, Fig. 80). It rises from the
-cliff on the right bank of the Arpa and overlooks the ruinous bridge.
-An Arabic inscription, done in brick and inlaid in the masonry of the
-minaret not far from the summit of that lofty column, displays to the
-city in colossal <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb377" href="#pb377"
-name="pb377">377</a>]</span>characters the name of Allah. The mosque is
-the work of the first Mussulman prince of Ani, Manuchar, the son of
-Abulsevar. This fact appears to be established by a Cufic inscription
-which may be perceived in my illustration upon the north-west wall, the
-wall adjoining the minaret.<a class="noteref" id="xd21e9418src" href=
-"#xd21e9418" name="xd21e9418src">91</a> Just above it is seen a long
-Persian inscription which must be over two hundred years later in date.
-It is in fact an edict of the Mongol king of Persia, Abu-Said, one of
-the successors of Jenghiz Khan. Abu-Said is styled Bahadur, or the
-brave. The edict is therefore posterior to the year 718 of the Hegira
-(<span class="sc">A.D.</span> 1318&ndash;19), when that sultan acquired
-this personal title. The contents of this text are to the effect that
-the inhabitants of the city and neighbouring provinces had been
-suffering from illegal exactions on the part of their rulers. They had
-been emigrating and selling their goods and houses. The obnoxious
-imposts are specified and their abolition decreed.<a class="noteref"
-id="xd21e9427src" href="#xd21e9427" name="xd21e9427src">92</a> Of the
-trilingual inscription which was found by Khanikoff I saw no traces; it
-was a mere fragment at the time of his visit. It mentions the name of
-Zakarea, to which is attached the title of Atabeg; and it may belong to
-the year 1237 and to the reign of Zakarea III.<a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e9436src" href="#xd21e9436" name="xd21e9436src">93</a></p>
-<p class="par"></p>
-<div class="figure xd21e9446width" id="fig080"><img src=
-"images/fig080.jpg" alt="Fig. 80. Ani: Mosque and Minaret." width="520"
-height="720">
-<p class="figureHead"><span class="sc"><span class="figNum">Fig.
-80.</span> Ani: Mosque and Minaret.</span></p>
-</div>
-<p class="par"></p>
-<p class="par">The architecture of the mosque resembles nothing that
-has yet been mentioned. Five massive and isolated pillars, of which
-originally there were six,<a class="noteref" id="xd21e9455src" href=
-"#xd21e9455" name="xd21e9455src">94</a> are seen rising from the floor
-of the chamber and supporting the vaultings of the roof. The
-circumference of these pillars is <span class="measure" title=
-"2.74 meter">9 feet</span> <span class="measure" title=
-"5.08 centimeter">2 inches</span>. The dimensions of the chamber itself
-are insignificant, being only <span class="measure" title=
-"14.3 meter">47 feet</span> by <span class="measure" title=
-"12.5 meter">41 feet</span>. Beneath it and below the level of the
-ground on the north-west, but overlooking the river upon the
-south-east, are four square apartments with narrow windows. My
-illustration, which was taken from the south, does not embrace this
-feature; nor does it quite reproduce the peculiar effect of the
-masonry, in which pink and black stones have been variously
-employed.</p>
-<p class="par">During the summer preceding our visit excavations had
-been made in Ani by the Russian arch&aelig;ologist Mr. N.
-Marr.<a class="noteref" id="xd21e9475src" href="#xd21e9475" name=
-"xd21e9475src">95</a> Not the least interesting result of his labours,
-as they were manifest upon the site, is the discovery of a line of
-walls with bastions, crossing the neck or narrowest portion of the
-platform from the ravine of the Arpa to that of the Tsaghkotz. The one
-extremity of this fortification starts from the former of these valleys
-in the immediate neighbourhood of the mosque. South-west of this neck,
-with its transverse rampart, the platform again opens out; and at the
-same time it attains its greatest elevation, gathering together and
-composing a hill with a flat top. The summit and sides of this hill
-display the substructures of walls and buildings; and at least two
-edifices in a fair <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb378" href="#pb378"
-name="pb378">378</a>]</span>state of preservation rise against the
-background of sky. One can scarcely doubt that this strong position was
-the site of the old fortress of Ani before it became a city and the
-residence of the king. It is flanked by the two ravines with the two
-rivers, which presently unite. It is only accessible from the level
-ground on the north-east. But on that side, as we have seen, it has the
-form of a narrow isthmus, easily defensible by a line of walls. This
-fortress must have composed the nucleus of the more recent
-city&mdash;that inner fortress of which we read. Upon the summit of the
-hill, some four hundred feet above the rivers, was built the
-<b>citadel</b>. And there is ground for supposing that the citadel was
-also the palace, as in the case of Trebizond and perhaps also of
-Melazkert.</p>
-<p class="par"></p>
-<div class="figure xd21e9487width" id="fig081"><img src=
-"images/fig081.jpg" alt="Fig. 81. Ani: Building on the Citadel." width=
-"604" height="436">
-<p class="figureHead"><span class="sc"><span class="figNum">Fig.
-81.</span> Ani: Building on the Citadel.</span></p>
-</div>
-<p class="par"></p>
-<p class="par"></p>
-<div class="figure xd21e9495width" id="fig082"><img src=
-"images/fig082.jpg" alt=
-"Fig. 82. Ani: Pilaster in the Building on the Citadel." width="460"
-height="607">
-<p class="figureHead"><span class="sc"><span class="figNum">Fig.
-82.</span> Ani: Pilaster in the Building on the Citadel.</span></p>
-</div>
-<p class="par"></p>
-<p class="par">Unfortunately nothing remains of the actual walls of the
-palace; and the buildings which I have mentioned are <b>two small
-churches</b>. One stands upon the north side of the fortified eminence,
-and the other upon the south. The former is not noteworthy, except for
-the fact that its northern wall rises from lower levels and composes
-part of the wall of the citadel. But the edifice on the south is of
-considerable interest. It consists of two vaulted chambers placed side
-by side, and having the inner wall in common (No. 28, Fig. 81, taken
-from the north). The more southerly is the largest; and the round
-arches which support the roof rest upon four pilasters of curious
-design. I photographed one of the best preserved among them, which is
-adorned with the figures of two birds in low relief (Fig. <a href=
-"#fig082">82</a>). They are represented in the act of pouncing upon
-animals. The pilasters are composed of blocks of black <span class=
-"pagenum">[<a id="pb379" href="#pb379" name=
-"pb379">379</a>]</span>stone; while for the capitals and the upper
-portion of the building only pink stone has been used. The
-fa&ccedil;ade and the apse have fallen away. The dimensions are small:
-a length of <span class="measure" title="9.14 meter">30 feet</span>
-<span class="measure" title="22.9 centimeter">9 inches</span> and a
-breadth of <span class="measure" title="5.18 meter">17 feet</span>
-<span class="measure" title="10.2 centimeter">4 inches</span>. One of
-my predecessors discovered in the contiguous building a bas-relief upon
-which was portrayed two figures on horseback, one of which is St.
-George with the dragon at his feet. But this piece, as well as another,
-in which a mounted and aureoled archer is displayed, surrounded by the
-forms of birds and wild animals, is no longer to be seen. I showed the
-reproductions in Brosset&rsquo;s Atlas to the aged priest; he
-recognised the latter of these sculptures and informed us that it had
-been stolen. Quite probably both are now lost in some museum.<a class=
-"noteref" id="xd21e9525src" href="#xd21e9525" name=
-"xd21e9525src">96</a> Elements derived from Assyrian art may be
-recognised <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb380" href="#pb380" name=
-"pb380">380</a>]</span>in these bas-reliefs as well as the ornament of
-the pilaster. But in the absence of inscriptions one is thrown back
-upon internal evidence in assigning a date to the south chapel.</p>
-<p class="par"></p>
-<div class="figure xd21e9537width" id="fig083"><img src=
-"images/fig083.jpg" alt=
-"Fig. 83. Ani: Detail of Doorway of Chapel near Citadel." width="524"
-height="720">
-<p class="figureHead"><span class="sc"><span class="figNum">Fig.
-83.</span> Ani: Detail of Doorway of Chapel near Citadel.</span></p>
-</div>
-<p class="par"></p>
-<p class="par"></p>
-<div class="figure xd21e9545width" id="fig084"><img src=
-"images/fig084.jpg" alt=
-"Fig. 84. Ani: Landscape from the southern extremities of the site."
-width="613" height="424">
-<p class="figureHead"><span class="sc"><span class="figNum">Fig.
-84.</span> Ani: Landscape from the southern extremities of the
-site.</span></p>
-</div>
-<p class="par"></p>
-<p class="par">Such is the site of the ancient fortress of Ani, which
-must have enjoyed a fine view over the city. I observed that this view
-comprises the south and west sides of the cathedral, while the north
-side is turned towards the town. The fact that the south wall of that
-edifice has been more profusely decorated than its counterpart which
-faces north confirms the supposition that the palace was situated
-within the citadel, and that it was for the royal windows that the
-decorative resources of the architect were principally displayed.</p>
-<p class="par">If we descend the hill of the citadel in a southerly
-direction, as it falls away to the crags which separate the two ravines
-about the confluence of the rivers, we cross the remains of an inner
-wall and pass the ruin of a <b>little chapel</b>, of which the four
-piers as well as the cupola still stand. I photographed the charming
-detail of the doorway on the south, overlooking the Arpa Chai (No. 29,
-Fig. 83).<a class="noteref" id="xd21e9559src" href="#xd21e9559" name=
-"xd21e9559src">97</a> What a contrast between these classical mouldings
-and the somewhat barbarous architecture of the chapel in the citadel,
-between the sobriety of the designs in these bands of sculptured stone
-and the wild spirit of the ornament on those pilasters! Ani is indeed a
-museum of architectural styles&mdash;a characteristic in keeping with
-her geographical position and with the inquisitive and impressionable
-culture of her inhabitants. Just west of this building is seen a piece
-of masonry which is in the last stage of decay (No. 30, Fig. 84). It
-may represent the apse of another chapel. From here the view ranges
-over <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb381" href="#pb381" name=
-"pb381">381</a>]</span>the crags below the citadel, of which the most
-southerly is crowned by the walls of a third chapel. The Arpa is seen
-emerging from the deep ravine on the left of the ruin; it is joined by
-its affluent in the neighbourhood of the rock with the chapel.<a class=
-"noteref" id="xd21e9568src" href="#xd21e9568" name=
-"xd21e9568src">98</a></p>
-<p class="par">Just below the standpoint of this picture are situated
-the remains of the outer wall which encircled the peninsula. At the
-extremity of the figure stands a tower, which is concealed by the lie
-of the ground. But portions of the wall are visible in the
-illustration; and it appears to have extended along the valley of the
-Alaja in a northerly direction, and to have been joined to the outer
-fortifications of the city on the side of the plain. Where I examined
-the masonry of this wall I found it faced on both sides, and
-<span class="measure" title="0.914 meter">3 feet</span> <span class=
-"measure" title="10.2 centimeter">4 inches</span> in thickness. Issuing
-from the citadel or inner fortress, we examined the substructures of a
-curious building which had been recently brought to light by Mr. Marr.
-But the length of this notice warns me that I must confine it to a
-description of the monuments which are still erect.</p>
-<p class="par"></p>
-<div class="figure xd21e9584width" id="fig085"><img src=
-"images/fig085.jpg" alt=
-"Fig. 85. Ani: Chapel of St. Gregory. East Side." width="511" height=
-"720">
-<p class="figureHead"><span class="sc"><span class="figNum">Fig.
-85.</span> Ani: Chapel of St. Gregory. East Side.</span></p>
-</div>
-<p class="par"></p>
-<p class="par">Let us therefore retrace our steps in the direction of
-the town, keeping as close as we may to the ravine of the Alaja, the
-ancient Tsaghkotzadzor or Vale of Flowers. On the summit of the cliff,
-in full view of the city, rises a circular building with a drum-shaped
-dome and a conical roof. Of this edifice, <b>the chapel of St.
-Gregory</b> (No. 5), I am able to present three photographs, one of the
-east side (Fig. <a href="#fig085">85</a>), another of the entrance on
-the west (Fig. <a href="#fig086">86</a>), and a third of the interior
-(Fig. <a href="#fig087">87</a>). It is a charming little monument,
-which, like the cathedral, blends elements of Byzantine and Gothic art.
-But the niche is here again a prominent feature, a feature dear to the
-architecture of the East. The body of the edifice is polygonal rather
-than circular, having no less than twelve sides. Of these six are
-recessed, the niches facing the town being framed by ornamental arches
-with classical cornices. The six niches correspond with the same number
-of cavities in the design of the interior. Although the inside diameter
-is not more than about <span class="measure" title="9.14 meter">30
-feet</span>, including these cavities,<a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e9609src" href="#xd21e9609" name="xd21e9609src">99</a> yet the
-impression as you enter the chapel is one of space and height.
-Especially remarkable is the great depth of the dome. Traces of
-paintings may be observed upon the walls. Two small vaulted chambers
-have been built into the wall on the east side, and are now in a
-ruinous condition. They are seen in the illustration on either side of
-the window. They may have served the purpose of sepulchral chambers, of
-which there are also vestiges outside the building upon the north
-side.</p>
-<p class="par"></p>
-<div class="figure xd21e9616width" id="fig086"><img src=
-"images/fig086.jpg" alt=
-"Fig. 86. Ani: Chapel of St. Gregory. Entrance." width="516" height=
-"720">
-<p class="figureHead"><span class="sc">Fig. 86. Ani: Chapel of St.
-Gregory. Entrance.</span></p>
-</div>
-<p class="par"></p>
-<p class="par">We learn from the inscriptions that the chapel was
-dedicated to St. Gregory; and it is a work of the period of the
-Armenian kings. It seems to have been used as a place of burial by the
-Pahlavuni or Pahlavid family, which furnished some of the most
-illustrious names in Armenian history. The great noble who led the
-faction which was opposed to the cession of Ani to the Byzantines was a
-Pahlavid, Vahram. He met his <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb382" href=
-"#pb382" name="pb382">382</a>]</span>death in battle against the
-Beni-Cheddad of Dvin in <span class="sc">A.D.</span> 1047. Embodying as
-he did the policy of resistance <i lang="fr">&agrave; outrance</i> both
-to Mussulmans and Greeks, he has been the idol of Armenian patriotism.
-The name of this hero figures in the inscription over the door, which,
-although without a date, is probably assignable to him. He bestows the
-revenue of certain shops upon the church of St. Gregory to defray the
-cost of masses for the soul of his son Apughamir. In the same place
-have been found inscriptions of the mother of Vahram, the lady Shushan,
-making over certain revenues to the same church and recording the
-number of the masses obtained in return. She is styled the wife of the
-prince Grigor. But a date is happily forthcoming to elucidate the
-identity of these personages. It is furnished by a long inscription of
-no less than fourteen lines upon the north wall. Record is made that in
-the year of the Armenian era 489 (<span class="sc">A.D.</span> 1040)
-Aplgharib, prince of Armenia, erected a sepulchre in this
-place<a class="noteref" id="xd21e9634src" href="#xd21e9634" name=
-"xd21e9634src">100</a> for his father Grigor, of whom he describes
-himself as the youngest son, for his brother Hamzeh, and for his
-maternal uncle Seda. Masses are to be said for his mother Shushan, for
-his father Grigor, for his maternal uncle Seda, and for his brother
-Hamzeh. I cannot help thinking that the sepulchre referred to is
-represented by the remains which I observed upon the north side of this
-building. And the vaulted chambers in the east wall may be the tombs of
-Grigor and his wife Shushan, an inscription over the highly decorated
-window on that side being a prayer to Christ for mercy upon
-Grigor.<a class="noteref" id="xd21e9650src" href="#xd21e9650" name=
-"xd21e9650src">101</a></p>
-<p class="par"></p>
-<div class="figure xd21e9666width" id="fig087"><img src=
-"images/fig087.jpg" alt=
-"Fig. 87. Ani: Interior of the Chapel of St. Gregory." width="511"
-height="720">
-<p class="figureHead"><span class="sc"><span class="figNum">Fig.
-87.</span> Ani: Interior of the Chapel of St. Gregory.</span></p>
-</div>
-<p class="par"></p>
-<p class="par">A question of great interest with reference to this
-building is whether it may be regarded as the same church which is
-mentioned by the historians as a work of King Gagik I. We are informed
-by Samuel of Ani that in the year 447 (<span class="sc">A.D.</span>
-998) a church of St. Gregory was completed by this monarch in the
-Tsaghkotzadzor. The same event is recorded in the pages of Kirakos, who
-gives the same date, and describes the situation as overlooking the
-Valley of the Tsaghkotz.<a class="noteref" id="xd21e9678src" href=
-"#xd21e9678" name="xd21e9678src">102</a> Asoghik tells us that it was
-built on the model of a large church at Vagharshapat, dedicated to the
-same saint, which had fallen into ruin. He adds that the edifice of
-King Gagik was built on a high platform on the side of the Tsaghkotz,
-and in possession of an admirable view. He speaks of three doorways and
-of the marvellous dome, reproducing the appearance of the sky.<a class=
-"noteref" id="xd21e9684src" href="#xd21e9684" name=
-"xd21e9684src">103</a> I did not observe more than one door to this
-edifice, and perhaps the church which is referred to by these
-authorities was some larger building in the immediate neighbourhood
-which has disappeared.</p>
-<p class="par"></p>
-<div class="figure xd21e9691width" id="fig088"><img src=
-"images/fig088.jpg" alt="Fig. 88. Ani: Chapel of the Redeemer." width=
-"523" height="720">
-<p class="figureHead"><span class="sc"><span class="figNum">Fig.
-88.</span> Ani: Chapel of the Redeemer.</span></p>
-</div>
-<p class="par"><span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb383" href="#pb383" name=
-"pb383">383</a>]</span></p>
-<p class="par"></p>
-<div class="figure xd21e9700width" id="fig089"><img src=
-"images/fig089.jpg" alt="Fig. 89. Ani: The Castle." width="598" height=
-"420">
-<p class="figureHead"><span class="sc"><span class="figNum">Fig.
-89.</span> Ani: The Castle.</span></p>
-</div>
-<p class="par"></p>
-<p class="par">The chapel of St. Gregory invites comparison with
-another monument of the same order in the opposite quarter of the town
-(No. 6, Fig. 88).<a class="noteref" id="xd21e9709src" href="#xd21e9709"
-name="xd21e9709src">104</a> My illustration was taken from the north.
-The design is less elaborate and the dimensions are rather larger, the
-dome especially having a much greater span. But the effect produced by
-the interior lacks the magic of the companion building, while the
-symmetry is marred by the recess for the altar on the east side. This
-building will not endure for many years longer, unless steps be taken
-to save it from falling in. The lower portions are in a state of
-advanced decay. The ornament on the exterior closely resembles that
-employed upon the cathedral. Inscriptions bristle upon the panels of
-the false arcades. One records that in the year 483 (<span class=
-"sc">A.D.</span> 1034) the prince Aplgharib, having journeyed to
-Constantinople by order of Sembat Shahanshah, obtained with great
-difficulty and at considerable expense a piece of the Holy Cross. Upon
-his return he built this church, and directed that nightly services
-should be held within it until the coming of Christ. The name of
-Surb-Phrkich, or church of the Redeemer, is given in this and the
-following inscription, and may be applied either to this chapel or to
-some neighbouring church with which it was in connection. A second
-inscription belongs to the Armenian year 490 (<span class=
-"sc">A.D.</span> 1041), and mentions the contemporary reign of Sembat,
-son of Gagik Shahanshah.<a class="noteref" id="xd21e9724src" href=
-"#xd21e9724" name="xd21e9724src">105</a> The <b>chapel of the
-Redeemer</b> is therefore the work of the same Pahlavid, Aplgharib, who
-built the sepulchres to the chapel of St. Gregory, and it belongs to
-the period of the kings.<a class="noteref" id="xd21e9734src" href=
-"#xd21e9734" name="xd21e9734src">106</a> <span class="pagenum">[<a id=
-"pb384" href="#pb384" name="pb384">384</a>]</span></p>
-<p class="par">Continuing our walk along the cliff above the valley of
-the Alaja, we pass a lofty mound, surmounted by the ruin of a wall (No.
-31). The old priest was of opinion that it denotes the site of the
-priestly <b>synod house</b>, where endowments were received and other
-business of the Church transacted. A little further, and west of this
-mound we stay to examine a small chapel which has been hollowed out of
-a solid mass of rock. But our attention is distracted from this
-fantastic object by the walls and yawning apartments of the
-<b>castle</b> (No. 12, Fig. <a href="#fig089">89</a>). It is situated
-in the extreme north-western angle of the town, where the ravine of the
-Alaja is joined by the side-ravine already mentioned in the description
-of the site. My photograph displays the southern side of this extensive
-edifice and the junction of the valleys. The entrance is on the east
-and faces the town (Fig. <a href="#fig090">90</a>). You admire the
-exquisite masonry of the walls and the elaborate decoration of the
-doorway. That doorway is one of the most conspicuous objects in Ani;
-and inasmuch as this building has been sought to be identified with the
-royal palace, it has been despoiled of many of its mosaics by patriotic
-Armenians, who strip them off and carry them away as souvenirs. My
-reader will observe the recurrence of the form of a Greek cross in the
-ornament on the face of the gate. This ornament consists of inlays or,
-as one might say, mosaics composed of a light red and of a black stone.
-The effect is original and pleasant to the eye. In the absence of any
-inscriptions&mdash;we searched in vain for any trace of writing both on
-the outside of the edifice and within its walls&mdash;I am inclined to
-consider that this so-called palace was nothing more than a magazine
-and barrack, in close connection with the outer defences of the city on
-the vulnerable side, the side of the plain. The only ornament in the
-interior was found over a doorway, and consisted of a chain moulding
-and inlays of red and black stone. On the other hand, the uses of the
-place appear to be denoted by the vaulted passages and by the spacious
-underground chambers. Two of these chambers, smaller in size, have
-evidently served as dungeons.<a class="noteref" id="xd21e9760src" href=
-"#xd21e9760" name="xd21e9760src">107</a></p>
-<p class="par"></p>
-<div class="figure xd21e9764width" id="fig090"><img src=
-"images/fig090.jpg" alt="Fig. 90. Ani: Doorway of the Castle." width=
-"504" height="720">
-<p class="figureHead"><span class="sc"><span class="figNum">Fig.
-90.</span> Ani: Doorway of the Castle.</span></p>
-</div>
-<p class="par"></p>
-<p class="par">Two edifices of considerable interest remain to be
-mentioned. Both are situated in quarters of the town which must have
-been densely built over, and both are in an advanced state of decay.
-The more westerly is perhaps the most curious of all the monuments of
-Ani, and I do not pretend to have quite unravelled the complexities of
-its compound plan (No. 2). The eye is engrossed by the ruin of a
-spacious portal, longest from west to east. The western and southern
-walls have fallen away; but the east front and the whole of the
-vaulting of the most easterly <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb385"
-href="#pb385" name="pb385">385</a>]</span>portion have been spared by
-the ravages of time. Entering this portal from the west (Fig. <a href=
-"#fig091">91</a>), we are able to reconstruct in fancy the features of
-the design. There appear to have been three distinct domes to the roof,
-supported by arches resting on pillars. Of the three divisions which
-were thus introduced into the interior, the largest was that in the
-centre. That on the east alone remains; and we may gauge the dimensions
-of the whole figure when we consider that this division measures within
-the pillars a square of <span class="measure" title="5.79 meter">19
-feet</span>. The architecture is pure Arab or Saracenic, recalling that
-of the mosque. It is certainly later than the period of the kings. As
-in the mosque, the effect is heightened by the mixture of black with
-reddish blocks of stone. A large stone, sculptured with a cross, is
-inlaid in the south-east wall, and may be the same as the one which has
-been described by my predecessors as containing the figure of a
-double-headed eagle.<a class="noteref" id="xd21e9782src" href=
-"#xd21e9782" name="xd21e9782src">108</a> The walls are covered with
-inscriptions. The outer face of this portal or east front is extremely
-elaborate (Fig. <a href="#fig092">92</a>). The doorway on that side
-forms the centre of a Saracenic fa&ccedil;ade in which honeycomb
-vaultings, false niches, and a mosaic of black and pink stones have all
-been made to play a part. Four inscriptions in Armenian are observed
-upon this front.</p>
-<p class="par"></p>
-<div class="figure xd21e9792width" id="fig091"><img src=
-"images/fig091.jpg" alt=
-"Fig. 91. Ani: Portal of the Church of the Apostles from the West."
-width="527" height="720">
-<p class="figureHead"><span class="sc"><span class="figNum">Fig.
-91.</span> Ani: Portal of the Church of the Apostles from the
-West.</span></p>
-</div>
-<p class="par"></p>
-<p class="par">This portal must have served as an entrance to two or
-more chapels. Of these one alone remains. It is entered by a doorway
-with rich mouldings in the north wall of the most easterly division.
-The interior is of grey stone, and it is disposed in four
-semicircles.<a class="noteref" id="xd21e9801src" href="#xd21e9801"
-name="xd21e9801src">109</a> But the dimensions are small as compared to
-those of the portal, and the portal is much longer than the chapel. The
-ruinous masonry upon the west of the latter building indicates the site
-of a second and contiguous chamber or chapel. That of a third is
-denoted by similar evidence upon the east wall. This structure
-projected beyond the east front of the portal, to which it was placed
-at right angles. Traces of it may be seen in my illustration. It bears
-an Armenian inscription.</p>
-<p class="par"></p>
-<div class="figure xd21e9808width" id="fig092"><img src=
-"images/fig092.jpg" alt=
-"Fig. 92. Ani: East Front of the Church of the Apostles." width="720"
-height="510">
-<p class="figureHead"><span class="sc"><span class="figNum">Fig.
-92.</span> Ani: East Front of the Church of the Apostles.</span></p>
-</div>
-<p class="par"></p>
-<p class="par">The inscriptions, which unhappily I had not leisure to
-identify, have been already published and translated.<a class="noteref"
-id="xd21e9817src" href="#xd21e9817" name="xd21e9817src">110</a> The
-earliest in date appears to have been found upon the doorway of the
-chapel, and identifies it as a work of the period of the kings. It
-records that in the year 480 (<span class="sc">A.D.</span> 1031)
-Apughamir, son of Vahram, prince of princes, bestowed an endowment upon
-this <b>church of the Apostles</b> for the health and long life of his
-brother Grigor. My reader is already familiar with these names of
-members of the Pahlavid family. The inscriptions upon the portal are of
-much later dates, ranging over the period of Georgian occupation when
-the city was governed by the Mkhargrdzels. Some are in the name of the
-Mongol overlord. Most are of the nature of public proclamations; and
-from the one latest in date we learn that in <span class=
-"sc">A.D.</span> 1348 members <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb386"
-href="#pb386" name="pb386">386</a>]</span>of this Georgian family were
-still personages at Ani, and that the city had not yet been abandoned
-by her inhabitants.</p>
-<p class="par"></p>
-<div class="figure xd21e9838width" id="fig093"><img src=
-"images/fig093.jpg" alt=
-"Fig. 93. The Monastery of Khosha Vank: east side." width="615" height=
-"455">
-<p class="figureHead"><span class="sc"><span class="figNum">Fig.
-93.</span> The Monastery of Khosha Vank: east side.</span></p>
-</div>
-<p class="par"></p>
-<p class="par">The second of the monuments is also the last which I
-need mention; it is situated between the cathedral and the chapel of
-the Redeemer (No. 3). It is of small dimensions and, as usual, of great
-elegance; but the roof and the whole of the upper portion have
-unhappily fallen away. In fact, the only portions which are still erect
-are the north wall, the apse, and part of the south wall. A vaulted
-chamber extends around the edifice. Two bas-reliefs are seen in two of
-the panels of the arcade upon the north wall. The one on the left
-evidently represents the subject of the Annunciation; while that on the
-right probably portrays the figures of two saints. I could not discover
-any trace of an inscription. But the old priest bases his opinion that
-the ruin is that of a <b>church dedicated to St. Stephen</b> upon an
-inscription which has disappeared.<a class="noteref" id="xd21e9850src"
-href="#xd21e9850" name="xd21e9850src">111</a></p>
-<p class="par">My illustration of the castle (Fig. <a href=
-"#fig089">89</a>) will have revealed a characteristic of the ancient
-city which is of historical interest. The ravine of the Alaja, as well
-as both the side valleys, which open respectively to this ravine and to
-that of the Arpa, present the appearance of having been riddled into
-quite a network of cavities; such is the number of the troglodyte
-dwellings which they contain. Legend peoples this underground city with
-the souls of those citizens of Ani who, sooner than emigrate into
-distant lands, preferred to die in her defence. A stir and hum, as of a
-teeming and busy populace, may be heard by night above the rustling of
-the Arpa Chai.<a class="noteref" id="xd21e9864src" href="#xd21e9864"
-name="xd21e9864src">112</a> The tuff composing the cliffs must at all
-times have invited such burrowings; and we know that, when Ani was
-surprised <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb387" href="#pb387" name=
-"pb387">387</a>]</span>during the reign of Thamar by the emir of
-Ardabil, the inhabitants, who were still numerous, took refuge in these
-caves.<a class="noteref" id="xd21e9872src" href="#xd21e9872" name=
-"xd21e9872src">113</a></p>
-<p class="par"></p>
-<div class="figure xd21e9879width" id="fig094"><img src=
-"images/fig094.jpg" alt=
-"Fig. 94. Khosha Vank: Chapels in the Ravine of the Arpa Chai." width=
-"604" height="380">
-<p class="figureHead"><span class="sc"><span class="figNum">Fig.
-94.</span> Khosha Vank: Chapels in the Ravine of the Arpa
-Chai.</span></p>
-<p class="par first"><i>Triumphal Archway.</i></p>
-</div>
-<p class="par"></p>
-<p class="par">Our conception of the city of the kings would be wanting
-in an essential feature were we to pass over the neighbouring
-<b>convent of Khosha Vank</b> (Fig. <a href="#fig093">93</a>). It was
-there, we can scarcely doubt, that the monarch was often wont to
-deliberate; and it was under the shadow of those walls that his bones
-were laid to rest by the side of his ancestors. The triumphal archway
-through which he would pass on his way from the capital may still be
-seen on the summit of the cliff on the right bank of the Arpa Chai
-(Fig. <a href="#fig094">94</a>). The cloister is situated, as we have
-seen, upon the opposite or left bank,<a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e9901src" href="#xd21e9901" name="xd21e9901src">114</a> and is
-bordered on two sides by a loop of the river. The bridge has
-disappeared. A small village has grouped itself between the monastery
-and the bed of the stream, where repose beneath the gloom of lofty
-cliffs of lava the <b>two chapels</b> and the <b>tomb of King
-Ashot</b>.</p>
-<p class="par"></p>
-<div class="figure xd21e9912width" id="fig095"><img src=
-"images/fig095.jpg" alt="Fig. 95. Khosha Vank: Pronaos." width="504"
-height="720">
-<p class="figureHead"><span class="sc"><span class="figNum">Fig.
-95.</span> Khosha Vank: Pronaos.</span></p>
-</div>
-<p class="par"></p>
-<p class="par">The monastic buildings occupy a considerable area upon
-the high ground within the bend of the river. They are surrounded by a
-lofty wall. Entering from the west, we cross a court to an opposite
-doorway which opens into a vast and gloomy chamber (Fig. <a href=
-"#fig095">95</a>). On the further or eastern side of this chamber we
-perceive the door of the church. The architecture of this outer hall or
-<i>pronaos</i> is quite remarkable. In some respects it resembles that
-of the mosque at Ani. The ceilings are vaulted, and there are no less
-than four rows of pillars. The space is divided into the form of a nave
-and two aisles. The circumference of the pillars is <span class=
-"pagenum">[<a id="pb388" href="#pb388" name=
-"pb388">388</a>]</span>9&frac12; feet. The central vaulting of the nave
-is surmounted by a dome, different in shape from any of the domes which
-have been described. Viewed from the outside, it becomes merged in a
-tall belfry, which is seen on the left of my illustration (Fig.
-<a href="#fig096">96</a>), taken from the south-west. To the interior
-it displays a drum of eight panels; and the only light which it
-transmits comes from above. The panels are of stone and covered with
-sculpture in low relief. Here it is an architectural figure, there a
-beautiful vine pattern which is the subject of the ornament. One space
-displays the form of the Virgin Mary, set in a rich frame. The two
-extremities of the frame are supported by the shapes of animals, a bull
-and a lion. On the back of the lion is seated an eagle, and a child on
-that of the bull. Two angels keep watch, one on either side of the
-Mother of Christ. The gloom of the building is due to the design of
-this dome, as well as to the smallness of the round windows, resembling
-the port-holes of a ship, of which there are three in the north and two
-in the south wall.</p>
-<p class="par"></p>
-<div class="figure xd21e9934width" id="fig096"><img src=
-"images/fig096.jpg" alt=
-"Fig. 96. Khosha Vank: Exterior of Pronaos and Church from South-West."
-width="720" height="510">
-<p class="figureHead"><span class="sc"><span class="figNum">Fig.
-96.</span> Khosha Vank: Exterior of Pronaos and Church from
-South-West.</span></p>
-</div>
-<p class="par"></p>
-<p class="par">The interior of this edifice is covered with
-inscriptions in Armenian, which none of my party were able to read.
-Perhaps they include some of those which were brought by Abich from
-this cloister and which have been translated by Brosset.<a class=
-"noteref" id="xd21e9943src" href="#xd21e9943" name=
-"xd21e9943src">115</a> One of these inscriptions records a donation in
-the Armenian year 650 (<span class="sc">A.D.</span> 1201) under the
-government of Zakarea. Another is to the effect that the monastery was
-restored in 1102 (<span class="sc">A.D.</span> 1652) by one Daniel, a
-monk from Tigranocerta. We are told that the buildings had previously
-fallen into ruin, and had become polluted by accumulations of dust and
-filth. The cloister is styled Horomosi Vank, and is described as having
-been constructed by the kings. I will not venture to express an opinion
-upon the age of the <i>pronaos</i>; but I would suggest that the belfry
-is perhaps of later date. The sculptures in the dome appear to belong
-to a hoary antiquity. The edifice may have served as a model for a rock
-chamber which is described by a modern traveller as belonging to the
-cloister of Surb Geghard.<a class="noteref" id="xd21e9957src" href=
-"#xd21e9957" name="xd21e9957src">116</a></p>
-<p class="par">You enter the church through the door in the east wall
-of the <i>pronaos</i>, passing a slab engraved with a pastoral staff,
-which marks the place of burial of some spiritual dignitary. A spacious
-dome rests upon four piers, and there is a single apse with the usual
-da&iuml;s. The walls are covered with a coating of whitewash. The
-interior measures roughly <span class="measure" title="16.2 meter">53
-feet</span> by <span class="measure" title="10.1 meter">33 feet</span>,
-the former dimension including the apse. The attendant priest showed us
-an old but undated manuscript, which proved to be an illustrated New
-Testament. It would appear from an inscription that the church was
-dedicated to St. Gregory,<a class="noteref" id="xd21e9980src" href=
-"#xd21e9980" name="xd21e9980src">117</a> and it may perhaps be ascribed
-to the period of the kings.</p>
-<p class="par">The monastic buildings are placed upon the south of the
-church and <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb389" href="#pb389" name=
-"pb389">389</a>]</span><i>pronaos</i>, and are approached from the
-southern side of the entrance court. They are just outside the area
-embraced by my illustration of the south walls of the edifices just
-named. Two large apartments, communicating with one another, serve as
-antechambers to a great hall with pillars and vaulted ceilings, which
-is entered from the second of the two chambers, and in plan extends
-along the most easterly of its walls. The whole suite are impressive
-examples of the art of the mason and stone-sculptor, effect being
-gained by the regularity and perfect fitting of the blocks, while the
-stone takes an admirable surface. Friezes with stalactite patterns are
-employed in one room as a cornice for the ceiling. In the second and
-smaller room there is a square aperture in the centre of the roof with
-a stalactite ornament. The same feature belongs to the hall of the
-synod (Fig. <a href="#fig097">97</a>), and is clearly seen in my
-photograph. At the further end of the two rows of pillars may be
-discerned a niche with a da&iuml;s, the recess being richly sculptured.
-It was there that was placed the throne. But I think these buildings
-are all later than the time of the kings, although they may have been
-used by the Georgian princes who governed Ani. We learn from an
-inscription, which was probably copied in the larger of the
-antechambers, that at least one of these apartments was constructed in
-<span class="sc">A.D.</span> 1229 to serve as a receptacle for the holy
-relics.<a class="noteref" id="xd21e10001src" href="#xd21e10001" name=
-"xd21e10001src">118</a></p>
-<p class="par"></p>
-<div class="figure xd21e10027width" id="fig097"><img src=
-"images/fig097.jpg" alt="Fig. 97. Khosha Vank: Hall of the Synod."
-width="515" height="720">
-<p class="figureHead"><span class="sc"><span class="figNum">Fig.
-97.</span> Khosha Vank: Hall of the Synod.</span></p>
-</div>
-<p class="par"></p>
-<p class="par">On the north side of the church buildings there is
-nothing but a narrow and vacant space separating them from the wall of
-the cloister. But at the east end of this part of the enclosure, and in
-line with the east front of the church, are situated the roofless
-remains of a little chapel, crowning a ruinous substructure which is
-overgrown by rank weeds, and of which the sculptured stones litter the
-ground. The pendant of this building on the south side of the church is
-seen in my illustration (Fig. <a href="#fig096">96</a>). It is much
-better preserved than the companion edifice, and the chamber in the
-lower storey is still intact. This chamber is oblong in shape, with a
-vaulted ceiling and an altar with sculptured stones. The chapel is of
-triple design, with three apses, the whole surmounted by a dome. It is
-possible that both these buildings, which so closely correspond, were
-designed to receive the remains of some high personages.</p>
-<p class="par">But the actual tomb of one of the kings has been spared
-by a happy chance, and may be found quite close to the second and
-larger of the chapels which repose in the bed of the Arpa Chai (Fig.
-<a href="#fig094">94</a>). It is placed near the south-eastern angle of
-the building. With what a thrill of delight did we discover this
-eloquent relic&mdash;a rounded slab resting on two stone steps! In
-spite of the lichen and the wear of the stone, the words &ldquo;Ashot
-Thagavor&rdquo; (Ashot, the king) were distinctly legible. The chapels
-are placed in a line from west to east, and were originally three in
-number. Of these the most westerly is falling into ruin, a state which
-has already overtaken that on the east. The central member of the group
-is at once <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb390" href="#pb390" name=
-"pb390">390</a>]</span>the largest and the best preserved. It contains
-an inscription over the south door to the effect that it was built in
-460 (<span class="sc">A.D.</span> 1011) by one George, son of the
-patriarch Martiros. But I have not been able to identify this
-patriarch; and it is possible there may be some error in the
-translation made by my dragoman, who, although well educated, was not a
-scholar in old Armenian. The king whose name appears on the tomb is
-probably Ashot the Third.</p>
-<p class="par">The inscriptions establish the fact that the monastery
-was known by the name of Horomosi Vank, which probably signifies the
-convent of the Greek.<a class="noteref" id="xd21e10051src" href=
-"#xd21e10051" name="xd21e10051src">119</a> History supplements and
-explains this information. We learn from Asoghik that it was founded in
-the tenth century under the reign of Abas by Armenian priests who had
-emigrated from Greek territory. It was burnt by the Mussulmans in
-<span class="sc">A.D.</span> 982.<a class="noteref" id="xd21e10068src"
-href="#xd21e10068" name="xd21e10068src">120</a> An inscription of King
-John Sembat, dated 487 (<span class="sc">A.D.</span> 1038), appears to
-have been found within its walls; and it has been inferred that the
-cloister was restored by that prince.<a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e10077src" href="#xd21e10077" name="xd21e10077src">121</a> We know
-that he was buried by the side of his predecessors who ruled at Ani;
-and we have an inscription of John Sembat by which he bestows the
-revenue of a village in support of the royal cemetery at this monastery
-of Horomos.<a class="noteref" id="xd21e10083src" href="#xd21e10083"
-name="xd21e10083src">122</a></p>
-</div>
-<p class="par"></p>
-<p class="par"></p>
-<div class="figure xd21e10089width" id="map04"><a href=
-"images/map04-h.jpg"><img src="images/map04.jpg" alt=
-"PLAN OF THE DESERTED CITY OF ANI," width="688" height="720"></a>
-<p class="figureHead">PLAN OF THE DESERTED CITY OF ANI,</p>
-<p class="par first">based on the survey by Herrmann Abich in 1844, and
-revised on the spot by H.F.B. Lynch in 1894</p>
-</div>
-<p class="par"></p>
-<p class="par">For the benefit of such of my readers whose leisure may
-be unequal to a perusal of this long description, I would single out
-for particular study the cathedral (Figs. <a href="#fig072">72</a> and
-<a href="#fig074">74</a>), the church of St. Gregory (Figs. <a href=
-"#fig076">76</a>, <a href="#fig077">77</a>, and <a href=
-"#fig078">78</a>), and the two polygonal chapels (Figs. <a href=
-"#fig085">85</a> and <a href="#fig088">88</a>). These monuments are
-examples of the Armenian style at its very best, before it was brought
-under the direct influence of Mussulman art and adopted with slight
-variations Mussulman models. Except in the case of the church of St.
-Gregory, we have authentic evidence that they are works of the kingly
-period. The merits of the style are the diversity of its resources, the
-elegance of the ornament in low relief, the perfect execution of every
-part. It combines many of the characteristics of Byzantine art and of
-the style which we term Gothic, and which at that date was still
-unborn. The conical roofs of the domes are a distinctive feature, as
-also are the purely Oriental niches. Texier is of opinion that the
-former of these features was carried into Central Europe by the
-colonies of emigrants from the city on the Arpa Chai.<a class="noteref"
-id="xd21e10119src" href="#xd21e10119" name="xd21e10119src">123</a>
-<span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb391" href="#pb391" name=
-"pb391">391</a>]</span></p>
-<p class="par">In the portals of St. Gregory and of the church of the
-Apostles (Figs. <a href="#fig078">78</a> and <a href="#fig092">92</a>)
-we have elaborate examples of the later period when the influence of
-Mussulman art was supreme. And the <i>pronaos</i> of Khosha Vank, with
-its massive pillars and groined ceilings, with the finely sculptured
-panels in the dome, seems to blend some of the characteristics of the
-architecture of the kings with the plainer style which belongs to the
-mosque.</p>
-<p class="par">But a lesson of wider import, transcending the sphere of
-the history of architecture, may be derived from a visit to the capital
-of the Bagratid dynasty, and from the study of the living evidence of a
-vanished civilisation which is lavished upon the traveller within her
-walls. Her monuments throw a strong light upon the character of the
-Armenian people, and they bring into pronouncement important features
-of Armenian history. They leave no doubt that this people may be
-included in the small number of races who have shown themselves
-susceptible of the highest culture. They exhibit the Armenians as able
-and sympathetic intermediaries between the civilisation of the
-Byzantine Empire, with its legacies from that of Rome, and the nations
-of the East. They testify to the tragic suddenness with which the
-development of the race was arrested at a time when they had attained a
-measure of political freedom, and when their capacities, thus favoured,
-were commencing to bear fruit. The Armenian architects thenceforward
-subserve the taste of their Mussulman masters; and during the long
-centuries which have elapsed since the Seljuk conquest, the genius of
-their countrymen has been exploited by the semi-barbarous peoples of
-Asia, while their abilities and character have progressively declined
-and become debased.</p>
-<p class="par">For all these reasons a special duty devolves upon the
-traveller to address a pressing appeal both to the Armenians and to the
-Russian Government for the preservation of these monuments. I have
-already mentioned the abstraction of two important bas-reliefs, and the
-petty thefts which are taking place with increasing frequency. Of the
-buildings observed by my predecessors within comparatively recent
-years, the octagonal minaret has already succumbed. A like fate will
-presently overtake the chapel of the Redeemer, unless measures be
-promptly taken to maintain that edifice. The monastery of Horomos is
-<span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb392" href="#pb392" name=
-"pb392">392</a>]</span>falling into ruin. Rich Armenians spend vast
-sums upon the embellishment of Edgmiatsin; can none be found to
-conserve for the instruction of posterity the noblest examples of the
-genius of their race? The co-operation of the Russian Government should
-be secured in this laudable enterprise; nor need we despair that it
-will be forthcoming in such a cause. Much as that Government is
-inclined to discourage Armenian patriotism, it rarely omits to perform
-a service in the interests of culture when the appeal is general and
-the interests are clear. <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb393" href=
-"#pb393" name="pb393">393</a>]</span></p>
-</div>
-<div class="footnotes">
-<hr class="fnsep">
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e8149" href="#xd21e8149src" name="xd21e8149">1</a></span> John
-Katholikos. He has been translated by Saint-Martin (Paris, 1841, a
-posthumous work). His History, which for a large part is a history of
-his own times, does not quite bring us down to the constitution of Ani
-into a royal residence.&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href=
-"#xd21e8149src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e8156" href="#xd21e8156src" name="xd21e8156">2</a></span> The
-vanity of the Byzantine court denied them the actual title of king; and
-the imperial author, Constantine Porphyrogenitus, translates the
-Persian distinction which they afterwards acquired, that of Shahanshah,
-by the term <span class="trans" title=
-"arch&#333;n archont&#333;n"><span class="Greek" lang=
-"el">&#7940;&rho;&chi;&omega;&nu;
-&#7936;&rho;&chi;&#8057;&nu;&tau;&omega;&nu;</span></span>.&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow"
-href="#xd21e8156src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e8178" href="#xd21e8178src" name="xd21e8178">3</a></span> For the
-Artsruni and the Bagratuni I will refer my reader to Saint-Martin
-(<i lang="fr">M&eacute;moires sur l&rsquo;Arm&eacute;nie</i>, Paris,
-1818, vol. i. pp. 418 <i>seq.</i>); for the Georgian Bagratuni to
-Brosset (<i lang="fr">Histoire de la G&eacute;orgie, Histoire
-ancienne</i>, St. Petersburg, 1849, Addition IX.).&nbsp;<a class=
-"fnarrow" href="#xd21e8178src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e8195" href="#xd21e8195src" name="xd21e8195">4</a></span>
-Dulaurier (<i lang="fr">Recherches sur la Chronologie
-Arm&eacute;nienne</i>, Paris, 1859, pp. 227
-<i>seq.</i>).&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href=
-"#xd21e8195src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e8204" href="#xd21e8204src" name="xd21e8204">5</a></span>
-<i>Sparapet.</i> This and the other Armenian titles of the age had come
-down from Arsakid times, having survived the destruction of monarchy. A
-family retained its title even when the functions which it designated
-were no longer capable of fulfilment (Saint-Martin, <i lang=
-"fr">M&eacute;moires</i>, vol. i. p. 420).&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow"
-href="#xd21e8204src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e8218" href="#xd21e8218src" name="xd21e8218">6</a></span> The
-dates which I have taken from Chamchean&rsquo;s <i>History of
-Armenia</i> I have labelled C. Some are taken from the original work in
-Armenian; others from the abridged edition translated into English and
-entitled <i>History of Armenia by Father Michael Chamich</i>,
-translated by J. Avdall, Calcutta, 1827, 2 vols. 8vo. Those marked D.
-have been fixed by Dulaurier (<i>op. cit.</i>). Saint-Martin is my
-authority for some dates.&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href=
-"#xd21e8218src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e8245" href="#xd21e8245src" name="xd21e8245">7</a></span> Thomas
-Artsruni specifies the length of the various stages in the career of
-Ashot. See Dulaurier (<i>op. cit.</i> pp. 266 <i>seq.</i>). The date
-861 corresponds with the last year of the caliph Mutawakil and the
-first of the reign of Muntasir. Lane Poole, <i>Mohammedan
-Dynasties</i>, London, 1894.&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href=
-"#xd21e8245src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e8261" href="#xd21e8261src" name="xd21e8261">8</a></span> Kirakos,
-quoted by Dulaurier (<i>op. cit.</i>).&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href=
-"#xd21e8261src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e8269" href="#xd21e8269src" name="xd21e8269">9</a></span> For
-discussions of the site of Bagaran (Pakaran) see Ritter (<i lang=
-"de">Erdkunde</i>, vol. x. p. 449), and also Abich (<i lang="de">Aus
-kaukasischen L&auml;ndern</i>, Vienna, 1896, p. 203).&nbsp;<a class=
-"fnarrow" href="#xd21e8269src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e8281" href="#xd21e8281src" name="xd21e8281">10</a></span>
-Chamchean and Saint-Martin place the death of Ashot in <span class=
-"sc">A.D.</span> 889. But see Dulaurier (<i>op. cit.</i> p.
-365).&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href="#xd21e8281src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e8290" href="#xd21e8290src" name="xd21e8290">11</a></span> The
-Tahirids became practically independent in Khorasan <span class=
-"sc">A.D.</span> 820&ndash;872; they were dispossessed by the Saffarids
-of Fars and Seistan, <span class="sc">A.D.</span>
-867&ndash;903.&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href=
-"#xd21e8290src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e8311" href="#xd21e8311src" name="xd21e8311">12</a></span>
-Azerbaijan is, of course, the frontier province of Persia on the side
-of Armenia, having for capital the city of Tabriz.&nbsp;<a class=
-"fnarrow" href="#xd21e8311src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e8332" href="#xd21e8332src" name="xd21e8332">13</a></span>
-Saint-Martin, following Chamchean, attributes another motive to this
-embassy. Sembat was desirous of severing his connection with the
-governor of Azerbaijan and of dealing directly with the caliph.
-Saint-Martin adds that the Caliph Muktafi, who had just succeeded
-(<span class="sc">A.D.</span> 902), granted the request.&nbsp;<a class=
-"fnarrow" href="#xd21e8332src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e8374" href="#xd21e8374src" name="xd21e8374">14</a></span>
-Eug&egrave;ne Bor&eacute; (<i lang="fr">Correspondance et
-M&eacute;moires</i>, Paris, 1840, vol. ii. p. 28). The place is
-situated in the neighbourhood of the town of Erzinjan, and the
-historian mentions the adjacent village of Tortan, which still appears
-to exist and to be known under that name. I have not been able to trace
-it upon any map; but the monastery of Surb Lusavorich and Mount Sepuh,
-the modern Kohanam Dagh, will be found indicated upon my map,
-accompanying this work.&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href=
-"#xd21e8374src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e8384" href="#xd21e8384src" name="xd21e8384">15</a></span>
-Chamchean accounts for this change of policy towards the legitimate
-king by supposing that Yusuf wished to conciliate him prior to
-revolting from the caliph.&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href=
-"#xd21e8384src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e8394" href="#xd21e8394src" name="xd21e8394">16</a></span> I adopt
-the colouring of John Katholikos. Among the many opprobrious terms
-under which he alludes to Yusuf are the following: second Pharaoh,
-prince of wild beasts, man-eater, astute serpent, Satan, foul-breathed
-basilisk. Such is the language of clerical writers in every
-age.&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href="#xd21e8394src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e8397" href="#xd21e8397src" name="xd21e8397">17</a></span> John
-Katholikos, ch. clxxxv.&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href=
-"#xd21e8397src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e8400" href="#xd21e8400src" name="xd21e8400">18</a></span>
-<i>Ibid.</i> ch. clxxxvii.&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href=
-"#xd21e8400src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e8418" href="#xd21e8418src" name="xd21e8418">19</a></span> Samuel
-of Ani, in Migne, <i lang="la">Patrologi&aelig; cursus completus,
-series Gr&aelig;ca</i>, vol. xix. p. 718.&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href=
-"#xd21e8418src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e8424" href="#xd21e8424src" name="xd21e8424">20</a></span> Matthew
-of Edessa, translated by Dulaurier (Paris, 1858).&nbsp;<a class=
-"fnarrow" href="#xd21e8424src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e8430" href="#xd21e8430src" name="xd21e8430">21</a></span> Samuel
-of Ani ap. Migne, <i>op. cit.</i> vol. xix. p. 718.&nbsp;<a class=
-"fnarrow" href="#xd21e8430src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e8448" href="#xd21e8448src" name="xd21e8448">22</a></span> Matthew
-of Edessa (<i>op. cit.</i> iii. p. 2) gives the date as <span class=
-"sc">A.D.</span> 959&ndash;960. He makes the event contemporary with
-the expedition of the imperial forces against Crete, which started in
-960 and was continued during 961. Saint-Martin (<i>op. cit.</i> vol. i.
-p. 364) assigns the Armenian victory to the latter year, and Chamchean
-to the year 962.&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href=
-"#xd21e8448src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e8467" href="#xd21e8467src" name="xd21e8467">23</a></span> Matthew
-of Edessa, <i>op. cit.</i> pp. 14 <i>seq.</i>&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow"
-href="#xd21e8467src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e8477" href="#xd21e8477src" name="xd21e8477">24</a></span> Vardan.
-See Brosset, <i lang="fr">Ruines d&rsquo;Ani</i>, St. Petersburg, 1860,
-p. 102.&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href="#xd21e8477src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e8489" href="#xd21e8489src" name="xd21e8489">25</a></span> Samuel
-of Ani ap. Migne, <i>op. cit.</i> p. 721.&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href=
-"#xd21e8489src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e8495" href="#xd21e8495src" name="xd21e8495">26</a></span>
-<i>Ibid.</i>&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href=
-"#xd21e8495src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e8504" href="#xd21e8504src" name="xd21e8504">27</a></span> These
-dates are taken from Chamchean. But the subject is not free from
-difficulty. See Prudhomme&rsquo;s note appended to his translation of
-Aristakes of Lastivert in the <i lang="fr">Revue de l&rsquo;Orient</i>
-for 1863&ndash;64, ch. ii. In general the Armenian historians have a
-profound contempt for precision in dates and accuracy in statement.
-Matthew of Edessa is perhaps the worst sinner in this
-respect.&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href="#xd21e8504src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e8515" href="#xd21e8515src" name="xd21e8515">28</a></span> Matthew
-of Edessa, chs. xxii. and xxiii.; and Asoghik, iii. 38, quoted by
-Dulaurier.&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href="#xd21e8515src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e8518" href="#xd21e8518src" name="xd21e8518">29</a></span> Samuel
-of Ani ap. Migne, <i>op. cit.</i> p. 723.&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href=
-"#xd21e8518src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e8524" href="#xd21e8524src" name="xd21e8524">30</a></span> Samuel
-of Ani (<i>ibid.</i>) and Asoghik.&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href=
-"#xd21e8524src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e8530" href="#xd21e8530src" name="xd21e8530">31</a></span> Samuel
-of Ani (<i>ibid.</i>).&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href=
-"#xd21e8530src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e8536" href="#xd21e8536src" name="xd21e8536">32</a></span> Samuel
-of Ani (<i>ibid.</i> p. 720) and Chamchean. According to Samuel of Ani,
-it was in <span class="sc">A.D.</span> 971 that the patriarch
-established the seat of his spiritual government at
-Arghina.&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href="#xd21e8536src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e8557" href="#xd21e8557src" name="xd21e8557">33</a></span> I have
-taken the dates of the deaths of these two kings from Matthew of
-Edessa, who is precise upon the point (see chs. liii. and lvi.).
-Chamchean (vol. ii. p. 122) places the death of John Sembat in 1039,
-and makes him predecease his brother Ashot IV. Brosset and Saint-Martin
-adopt the date 1039, but refuse the next fence, over which the nimble
-compiler sails with ease, that of the later death of Ashot IV. Perhaps
-there is an error in the English translation of Chamchean. One ends by
-getting tired of playing with dates. Happily there is an inscription at
-Ani which, if rightly translated by the editor of Aristakes (<i>op.
-cit.</i> ch. x. note), establishes the fact that John Sembat was alive
-in 1041.&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href="#xd21e8557src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e8565" href="#xd21e8565src" name="xd21e8565">34</a></span>
-Aristakes of Lastivert (<i>op. cit.</i> ii. pp. 358 <i>seq.</i>) and
-Matthew of Edessa (<i>op. cit.</i> viii. p. 6).&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow"
-href="#xd21e8565src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e8577" href="#xd21e8577src" name="xd21e8577">35</a></span> Matthew
-of Edessa, <i>op. cit.</i> x. p. 8.&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href=
-"#xd21e8577src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e8583" href="#xd21e8583src" name="xd21e8583">36</a></span> Matthew
-of Edessa and Aristakes of Lastivert.&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href=
-"#xd21e8583src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e8588" href="#xd21e8588src" name="xd21e8588">37</a></span> When
-Senekerim of Van ceded his kingdom in <span class="sc">A.D.</span> 1021
-it had been harried for twenty-two years. Such is the statement of
-Samuel of Ani (<i>op. cit.</i> p. 723). It is true he attributes these
-incursions to the &ldquo;Saracens&rdquo;; but he must mean the Turks,
-unless we are to discredit altogether the detailed statement of Matthew
-of Edessa (ch. xxxviii.), that it was a horde of Turks that defeated
-the forces of Senekerim. I shall not attempt to reconcile the Armenian
-accounts with the information which we have received from other sources
-concerning the early incursions of the Seljuks. The Byzantine writers
-do not appear to mention the invasions of 1021 and preceding years, or
-the invasion of 1042 (Brosset ap. Lebeau, <i lang="fr">Hist. du Bas
-Empire</i>, vol. xiv. p. 353).&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href=
-"#xd21e8588src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e8600" href="#xd21e8600src" name="xd21e8600">38</a></span> Matthew
-of Edessa and Aristakes of Lastivert.&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href=
-"#xd21e8600src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e8608" href="#xd21e8608src" name="xd21e8608">39</a></span> Samuel
-of Ani, Thomas Artsruni (quoted by Dulaurier, <i lang="fr">Recherches
-sur la Chronologie Arm&eacute;nienne</i>, pp. 282 <i>seq.</i>), and
-Chamchean. I prefer to translate <i>oppida</i> by villages and
-<i>urbes</i> by towns in the Latin version of Samuel of Ani, feeling
-sure that these terms, as understood in modern times, will be more in
-accordance with the facts.&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href=
-"#xd21e8608src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e8627" href="#xd21e8627src" name="xd21e8627">40</a></span> Vardan
-(quoted by Dulaurier, notes to Matthew of Edessa, <i>op. cit.</i> p.
-378), and Matthew of Edessa, ch. xi. If Toghrul Bey was over seventy
-years old when he died in <i>A.H.</i> 455, he would be in the flower of
-his age at the time of this expedition.&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href=
-"#xd21e8627src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e8636" href="#xd21e8636src" name="xd21e8636">41</a></span> Matthew
-of Edessa, ch. lx. p. 71; and Chamchean, vol. ii. pp. 127
-<i>seq.</i>&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href="#xd21e8636src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e8643" href="#xd21e8643src" name="xd21e8643">42</a></span> Matthew
-of Edessa, ch. lxix. p. 80. See also Lebeau, <i>op. cit.</i> vol. xiv.
-p. 351.&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href="#xd21e8643src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e8649" href="#xd21e8649src" name="xd21e8649">43</a></span> The
-campaigns of this period are narrated by Matthew of Edessa (ch. lxxiii.
-pp. 83 <i>seq.</i>) and Aristakes (<i>op. cit.</i> pp. 268&ndash;82 and
-p. 285), as well as by the Greek and Arab historians. The subject is
-discussed by Saint-Martin (<i lang="fr">M&eacute;moires</i>, vol. ii.
-pp. 201 <i>seq.</i>).&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href=
-"#xd21e8649src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e8665" href="#xd21e8665src" name="xd21e8665">44</a></span> Matthew
-of Edessa, ch. lxxviii. pp. 98 <i>seq.</i>, and Aristakes, <i>op.
-cit.</i> 1863, ch. xvi. p. 289. Melazkert owed its deliverance largely
-to the intrepidity of a Frankish adventurer. It did not fall to the
-Turks until <span class="sc">A.D.</span> 1069, when it was taken after
-a siege of a single day by Alp Arslan (Matthew of Edessa, ch.
-cii.).&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href="#xd21e8665src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e8677" href="#xd21e8677src" name="xd21e8677">45</a></span> Matthew
-of Edessa, ch. lxxxi. p. 109.&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href=
-"#xd21e8677src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e8682" href="#xd21e8682src" name="xd21e8682">46</a></span>
-<i>Ibid.</i> pp. 107, 108, and Aristakes, <i>op. cit.</i> 1864, ch.
-xxi.&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href="#xd21e8682src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e8690" href="#xd21e8690src" name="xd21e8690">47</a></span> Matthew
-of Edessa, ch. lxxxiv. pp. 111 <i>seq.</i>&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow"
-href="#xd21e8690src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e8695" href="#xd21e8695src" name="xd21e8695">48</a></span> See
-Aristakes, ch. xviii., and Matthew of Edessa, ch.
-lxxxvi.&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href="#xd21e8695src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e8700" href="#xd21e8700src" name="xd21e8700">49</a></span> We are
-informed in the History of Thomas Artsruni that Senekerim and the
-Artsrunian princes were accompanied in their emigration by a population
-of 14,000 males, besides women and children. See Dulaurier, <i lang=
-"fr">Recherches</i>, etc., p. 284. Chamchean (vol. ii. p. 113)
-increases this estimate to 400,000 souls, I know not upon what
-authority.&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href="#xd21e8700src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e8710" href="#xd21e8710src" name="xd21e8710">50</a></span>
-Chamchean, vol. ii. p. 104; Saint-Martin, <i lang=
-"fr">M&eacute;moires</i>, vol. i. p. 366; Brosset ap. Lebeau, vol. xiv.
-pp. 184 <i>seq.</i> Chamchean and Saint-Martin place this expedition in
-<span class="sc">A.D.</span> 999, Lebeau in 991, while Aristakes
-assigns it to the year 1001. The latter attributes the capture of
-Arjish to Nikephorus, the Greek governor of Vaspurakan appointed by
-Basil.&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href="#xd21e8710src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e8727" href="#xd21e8727src" name="xd21e8727">51</a></span>
-Aristakes in <i>op. cit.</i> ch. ii., together with the authorities
-collected in the accompanying notes by M. Prudhomme. Chamchean
-attributes the cession of the kingdom of Ani to the terror which had
-been inspired by the Seljuk invasions. Basil&rsquo;s policy of taking
-over the hereditary possessions of the Armenian and Georgian princes
-and giving them seats in other parts of the Empire was continued by his
-brother Constantine. See Aristakes, <i>op. cit.</i>, third series, vol.
-xvi. pp. 51 <i>seq.</i>&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href=
-"#xd21e8727src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e8740" href="#xd21e8740src" name="xd21e8740">52</a></span> Samuel
-of Ani, <i>op. cit.</i> p. 723; and Lebeau, vol. xiv. p. 249. Aristakes
-is our authority for a curious story respecting the adventures of this
-testament (ch. x.).&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href=
-"#xd21e8740src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e8764" href="#xd21e8764src" name="xd21e8764">53</a></span> Samuel
-of Ani; Matthew of Edessa; Aristakes; Kedrenus. The Byzantine
-historians omit the campaign of 1041, and maintain silence upon the
-disagreeable topic of the deception practised upon King
-Gagik.&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href="#xd21e8764src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e8771" href="#xd21e8771src" name="xd21e8771">54</a></span>
-Aristakes, ch. xvii.&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href=
-"#xd21e8771src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e8774" href="#xd21e8774src" name="xd21e8774">55</a></span> Matthew
-of Edessa, chs. lxxxiv. and lxxxv.&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href=
-"#xd21e8774src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e8777" href="#xd21e8777src" name="xd21e8777">56</a></span>
-Aristakes, ch. xvii.&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href=
-"#xd21e8777src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e8783" href="#xd21e8783src" name="xd21e8783">57</a></span> Matthew
-of Edessa; Samuel of Ani; Aristakes. The king of Kars gave over his
-realm to the Empire shortly after the fall of Ani, taking in exchange
-the fortress of Tsamentav near Amasia in Asia Minor (Matthew of Edessa,
-ch. lxxxviii.).&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href=
-"#xd21e8783src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e8788" href="#xd21e8788src" name="xd21e8788">58</a></span> Pp. 337
-and 362.&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href="#xd21e8788src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e8793" href="#xd21e8793src" name="xd21e8793">59</a></span>
-Kedrenus calls him ruler of Tibion (= Tivin or Dvin) and parts of
-Persarmenia about the river Araxes (edit. Bekker, vol. ii. pp. 556
-<i>seq.</i>). See Matthew of Edessa (ch. x. with Dulaurier&rsquo;s
-note, and ch. cii. p. 165) and Aristakes (ch. x.). For the Beni-Cheddad
-see Saint-Martin (<i lang="fr">M&eacute;moires</i>, vol. i. p. 433; ii.
-p. 235) and Brosset (<i lang="fr">Ruines d&rsquo;Ani</i>, pp. 114 and
-126, and <i lang="fr">Hist. de la G&eacute;orgie, Hist. ancienne</i>,
-p. 343). Abulsevar marched with Alp Arslan in 1069 against the Empire
-(Matthew of Edessa, ch. cii.). His activity therefore ranges over a
-considerable period.&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href=
-"#xd21e8793src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e8815" href="#xd21e8815src" name="xd21e8815">60</a></span> Samuel
-of Ani.&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href="#xd21e8815src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e8821" href="#xd21e8821src" name="xd21e8821">61</a></span> Samuel
-of Ani; Matthew of Edessa; the Georgian annalist, quoted by Brosset
-(<i lang="fr">Hist. de la G&eacute;orgie</i>, p. 369).&nbsp;<a class=
-"fnarrow" href="#xd21e8821src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e8830" href="#xd21e8830src" name="xd21e8830">62</a></span> Samuel
-of Ani and Matthew of Edessa.&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href=
-"#xd21e8830src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e8833" href="#xd21e8833src" name="xd21e8833">63</a></span> Samuel
-of Ani.&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href="#xd21e8833src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e8837" href="#xd21e8837src" name="xd21e8837">64</a></span> Samuel
-of Ani and Matthew of Edessa.&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href=
-"#xd21e8837src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e8842" href="#xd21e8842src" name="xd21e8842">65</a></span> Samuel
-of Ani; the continuation of Matthew of Edessa; the Georgian annalist in
-Brosset (<i lang="fr">Hist. de la G&eacute;orgie</i>).&nbsp;<a class=
-"fnarrow" href="#xd21e8842src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e8848" href="#xd21e8848src" name="xd21e8848">66</a></span>
-Brosset, <i lang="fr">Ruines d&rsquo;Ani</i>, p. 131, and <i lang=
-"fr">Voyage Arch&eacute;ologique</i>, livraison 1, rapport 1, p.
-94.&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href="#xd21e8848src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e8857" href="#xd21e8857src" name="xd21e8857">67</a></span> The
-Georgian annalist, ap. Brosset, <i lang="fr">Hist. de la
-G&eacute;orgie</i>.&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href=
-"#xd21e8857src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e8882" href="#xd21e8882src" name="xd21e8882">68</a></span> The
-various emigrations of the inhabitants of Ani are exhibited by Minas
-Bejeshkean (<i>Travels in Lehastan</i> (Poland) <i>and other Countries
-inhabited by Armenian Emigrants from Ani</i>, Venice, 1830 (in
-Armenian)). His account is summarised by Brosset (<i lang="fr">Ruines
-d&rsquo;Ani</i>, pp. 138 <i>seq.</i>) and by Ritter (<i lang=
-"de">Erdkunde</i>, vol. x. pp. 597 <i>seq.</i>). For the code of the
-Armenians of Lemberg see <i lang="de">Sitzungsberichte der phil.-hist.
-Klasse der k. Akad. der Wissenschaften</i>, Vienna, 1862, pp. 255
-<i>seq.</i>&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href="#xd21e8882src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e8913" href="#xd21e8913src" name="xd21e8913">69</a></span> Let me
-catalogue in this place the works of previous travellers having
-reference to Ani which I have collected. I shall annex the date of
-visit whenever I have been able to ascertain it. I have purposely
-omitted works written in Russian or in Armenian. The full titles will
-be found in the bibliography attached to Vol. II.</p>
-<p class="par footnote cont">(1) 1621, Poser (<i>Reyse</i>, etc., Jena,
-1675, 4<sup>o</sup>). His account is confined to a few sentences. He
-mentions the existence of 200 churches in Ani and the immediate
-neighbourhood. (2) Tavernier (edit. Paris, 1679, <i lang="fr">Livre
-Premier</i>, p. 24). A few misleading sentences. (3) 1817, Ker Porter
-(<i>Travels in Georgia</i>, etc., London, 1821&ndash;22, vol. i. pp.
-169 <i>seq.</i>). A fantastic description. (4) 1836, Hamilton
-(<i>Researches in Asia Minor</i>, etc., London, 1842, vol. i. pp. 197
-<i>seq.</i>). The best of these older notices. (5) 1837, Wilbraham
-(<i>Travels</i>, etc., London, 1839, pp. 287 <i>seq.</i>). The hasty
-but vivid impressions of a tourist, from which the following is an
-extract: &ldquo;The shapeless mounds of Babylon are like the skeleton;
-but the deserted, yet still standing city (Ani) resembles the corpse
-whose breath has fled, but which still retains the semblance of
-life.&rdquo; (6) 1837, Abbott (<i>Notes of a Tour, Journal R.G.S.</i>,
-1842, vol. xii. pp. 215 <i>seq.</i>). Not important. (7) 1838,
-Eug&egrave;ne Bor&eacute; (<i lang="fr">Corr. et M&eacute;m.</i>,
-Paris, 1840, vol. ii. p. 2) mentions a <i lang="fr">m&eacute;moire</i>
-in which he was about to resume the results of his seven days&rsquo;
-sojourn in Ani, during which he copied inscriptions. The <i lang=
-"fr">m&eacute;moire</i> has been lost. (8) 1839, Texier (<i lang=
-"fr">Description de l&rsquo;Arm&eacute;nie</i>, etc., Paris, 1842,
-folio, pp. 93&ndash;116), with a plan, which is not oriented, and ten
-fine plates. Texier&rsquo;s account is both defective and
-unsatisfactory; but it is the first detailed description. I must warn
-my reader against accepting his history; he seems to confuse Timur with
-Alp Arslan in some places. (9) 1844, Herrmann Abich (<i lang="fr">Bull.
-hist.-phil. de l&rsquo;Acad. de Sciences de St. P&eacute;tersbourg</i>,
-1845, vol. ii. pp. 369&ndash;76, with notice by Brosset; <i lang=
-"de">Aus kaukasischen L&auml;ndern, Reisebriefe</i>, Vienna, 1896, pp.
-176&ndash;200). The distinguished geologist devoted four days to the
-study of the ruins and drew out a plan of the site. His full account,
-for which consult the latter of the two references, had not been
-published, so far as I could ascertain, at the time of my own journey.
-But Brosset had already published the plan, the substantial accuracy of
-which I was able to test upon the spot (<i lang="fr">Voyage
-Arch&eacute;ologique</i>, St. Petersburg, 1849&ndash;51, Atlas), and
-the inscriptions copied by Abich (in the same work, livr. 1, rapp. 3,
-pp. 86&ndash;111). (10) 1846, Muravieff, quoted by Khanikoff ap.
-Brosset (<i lang="fr">Voy. Arch.</i> livr. 1, rapp. 3, pp.
-121&ndash;52). (11) 1847, Nerses Sargisean of the Society of the
-Mekhitarists of Venice copied a number of the inscriptions. See Brosset
-(<i lang="fr">Ruines d&rsquo;Ani</i>, St. Petersburg, 1860, p. 5), and
-especially Brosset&rsquo;s article in the <i lang="fr">Bull. Acad.
-Sciences St. P.</i>, 1862, vol. iv. pp. 255&ndash;67. (12) 1848,
-Khanikoff copied the Mussulman inscriptions. See Brosset (<i lang=
-"fr">Voy. Arch.</i> livr. 1, rapp. 3, pp. 121&ndash;52). (13) 1850,
-K&auml;stner (Lieut. Julius) was commissioned by Prince Vorontsoff,
-Governor of the Caucasus, to explore Ani, and spent forty-four days
-within its walls. He collected fifty inscriptions and made numerous
-drawings, which have been made use of by Brosset (<i lang="fr">Ruines
-d&rsquo;Ani</i>, pp. 4 <i>seq.</i>). (14) 18&mdash;, Ussher (<i>Journey
-from London to Persepolis</i>, London, 1865, pp. 243&ndash;45). A
-sketchy description.</p>
-<p class="par footnote cont">The whole subject has been fully treated,
-but unfortunately at second hand, by Brosset (<i lang="fr">Ruines
-d&rsquo;Ani</i>, St. Pet. 1860, and <i lang="fr">Bull. Acad. Sciences
-St. P.</i>, 1862, vol. iv. pp. 255&ndash;67). The traveller is deeply
-indebted to Brosset for these two valuable treatises. Fergusson has
-devoted a few pages to Ani in the first volume of his <i>History of
-Architecture</i> (see pp. 473&ndash;75).</p>
-<p class="par footnote cont">I ought not to close this list without
-referring to two works in Armenian which are of special value: Sargis
-Dgalaleantz (<i>Journey in Great Armenia</i>, Tiflis, 1842 and 1858,
-8vo), and Alishan (<i>Description of Great Armenia</i>, Venice, 1855).
-Both these works contain accounts of Ani.&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href=
-"#xd21e8913src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e9021" href="#xd21e9021src" name="xd21e9021">70</a></span> This
-ravine is the Armenian Tsaghkotzadzor or Valley of the
-Flower-garden.&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href=
-"#xd21e9021src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e9030" href="#xd21e9030src" name="xd21e9030">71</a></span> The
-moat may have united the waters of the Alaja and the Arpa Chai. See
-<i lang="fr">Ruines d&rsquo;Ani</i>, p. 60.&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow"
-href="#xd21e9030src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e9058" href="#xd21e9058src" name="xd21e9058">72</a></span> See
-Brosset, <i lang="fr">Ruines d&rsquo;Ani</i>, pp. 18 and 144. It may
-belong to the Tartar period (Mongol) and have reference to the
-restoration of Ani after the earthquake of <span class="sc">A.D.</span>
-1319. Texier (<i>op. cit.</i> p. 94) commits himself to the statement
-that it is in Arabic characters; but see Khanikoff, <i>op. cit.</i> p.
-135.&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href="#xd21e9058src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e9077" href="#xd21e9077src" name="xd21e9077">73</a></span> On the
-authority of Samuel of Ani. See <i>supra</i>, p. 354.&nbsp;<a class=
-"fnarrow" href="#xd21e9077src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e9086" href="#xd21e9086src" name="xd21e9086">74</a></span> See
-Brosset, <i lang="fr">Ruines d&rsquo;Ani</i>, pp. 16, 17, 58, 59; and
-<i lang="fr">Voyage Arch.</i>, livr. 1, rapp. 3, p. 143. One of these
-inscriptions indicates that the name of the reigning prince of the
-Beni-Cheddad in <span class="sc">A.D.</span> 1160, just before the
-Georgian conquest, was Phatl (Fathlun). Several belong to the reign of
-Thamar, and exhibit the name of the Georgian ruler, Zakare-Shahanshah,
-who is styled &ldquo;chief of the mandatories&rdquo; and son of Sarkis
-Shahanshah. See Brosset (<i lang="fr">Voyage Arch.</i>, livr. 1, rapp.
-1, pp. 92&ndash;94, and <i lang="fr">Ruines d&rsquo;Ani</i>, p. 18) for
-an explanation of this title. Two of these inscriptions of Zakare
-belong to the years 1206 and 1215 respectively.&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow"
-href="#xd21e9086src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e9114" href="#xd21e9114src" name="xd21e9114">75</a></span> Ani is
-said to have contained not less than 100,000 inhabitants in the
-eleventh century. Yet the circumference of the city has been estimated
-at not more than 3&frac12; miles. I am inclined to think that a large
-proportion of the population lived without the walls.&nbsp;<a class=
-"fnarrow" href="#xd21e9114src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e9127" href="#xd21e9127src" name="xd21e9127">76</a></span> The
-conjecture which Brosset throws out that the mosque referred to may be
-the cathedral is not, I think, a happy one. For this minaret see
-especially Khanikoff (<i>op. cit.</i> pp. 135&ndash;36), Brosset
-(<i lang="fr">Ruines d&rsquo;Ani</i>, p. 31), and Abich (<i lang=
-"de">Aus kauk. L&auml;nd.</i> vol. i. p. 191). The inscription
-describes Kei-Sultan as &ldquo;son of Mahmud, son of Chawir, son of
-Manuchar, Cheddadi.&rdquo; Kei-Sultan is not otherwise known. We must
-conclude that the Beni-Cheddad were still powerful in Ani as late as
-the end of the twelfth century.&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href=
-"#xd21e9127src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e9152" href="#xd21e9152src" name="xd21e9152">77</a></span> The
-dimensions of the interior are as follows, according to my
-measurements:&mdash;Length, <span class="measure" title="32 meter">105
-feet</span> 6 in. (viz. <span class="measure" title="23.2 meter">76
-feet</span> 6 in. to the da&iuml;s of the apse, and <span class=
-"measure" title="8.84 meter">29 feet</span> from the da&iuml;s to the
-extremity of the recess); breadth, <span class="measure" title=
-"19.8 meter">65 feet</span> 6 in.; breadth of apse, <span class=
-"measure" title="8.84 meter">29 feet</span> 7 in.&nbsp;<a class=
-"fnarrow" href="#xd21e9152src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e9189" href="#xd21e9189src" name="xd21e9189">78</a></span> Texier
-reminds us that at the time when this cathedral was built (early
-eleventh century) the Romanesque style was universal in Europe (<i>op.
-cit.</i> p. 112). Yet in this building we have the characteristics of a
-style which might be found in Southern Europe in the thirteenth
-century&mdash;the pointed arch, the coupled piers. See also Fergusson,
-<i>op. cit.</i> p. 473.&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href=
-"#xd21e9189src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e9201" href="#xd21e9201src" name="xd21e9201">79</a></span> I must
-caution my reader against the drawing of this apse in plate ix. of
-Brosset&rsquo;s Atlas to the <i lang="fr">Ruines
-d&rsquo;Ani</i>.&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href=
-"#xd21e9201src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e9217" href="#xd21e9217src" name="xd21e9217">80</a></span> The
-cathedral has been recently constituted into quite a little museum, all
-fragments of sculptured stone found at Ani being preserved there. I
-photographed one of the most remarkable, which displays the familiar
-subject of the eagle and the hare (Fig. 75). Another contains a
-bas-relief of three saints and was probably placed above a
-doorway.&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href="#xd21e9217src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e9235" href="#xd21e9235src" name="xd21e9235">81</a></span>
-Brosset, <i lang="fr">Voyage Arch.</i> livr. 1, rapp. 3, pp.
-93&ndash;95, and <i lang="fr">Ruines d&rsquo;Ani</i>, pp.
-22&ndash;28.&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href=
-"#xd21e9235src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e9244" href="#xd21e9244src" name="xd21e9244">82</a></span> Siunik
-was one of the large provinces into which Armenia was divided. Samuel
-of Ani places the completion of the cathedral in Arm. era 457 =
-<span class="sc">A.D.</span> 1008. But he may refer to a stage which
-was not quite the ultimate one.&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href=
-"#xd21e9244src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e9250" href="#xd21e9250src" name="xd21e9250">83</a></span> Brosset
-identifies this Aron with the Aron-Vestes of the Byzantines, who was
-sent to these countries about the year 1042, was commander of the
-imperial forces, became governor of Vaspurakan, Ani being attached to
-his jurisdiction, and was still in possession of his office in 1048
-(<i lang="fr">Voyage Arch.</i> loc. cit. p. 93).&nbsp;<a class=
-"fnarrow" href="#xd21e9250src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e9259" href="#xd21e9259src" name="xd21e9259">84</a></span> I am
-not aware that any inscription mentions the name of the architect.
-<i lang="la">Sic vos non vobis!</i> But Asoghik tells us that it was
-Tirdat or Tiridates, an Armenian architect who is reputed to have
-restored St. Sophia at Constantinople after its partial destruction by
-an earthquake.&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href=
-"#xd21e9259src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e9278" href="#xd21e9278src" name="xd21e9278">85</a></span> My
-measurements of the interior are:&mdash;Length, <span class="measure"
-title="12.5 meter">41 feet</span> (of which <span class="measure"
-title="4.57 meter">15 feet</span> is occupied by the apse measured from
-the da&iuml;s to the extremity of the recess); breadth, <span class=
-"measure" title="7.92 meter">26 feet</span>. Texier mentions an
-adjacent baptistery (?).&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href=
-"#xd21e9278src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e9312" href="#xd21e9312src" name="xd21e9312">86</a></span> See
-especially Texier, Muravieff, and Abich&rsquo;s <i lang="de">Aus kauk.
-L&auml;nd.</i> vol. i. pp. 198&ndash;99.&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href=
-"#xd21e9312src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e9333" href="#xd21e9333src" name="xd21e9333">87</a></span> The
-inscription has been translated by Brosset (<i lang="fr">Ruines
-d&rsquo;Ani</i>, pp. 145&ndash;48).&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href=
-"#xd21e9333src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e9342" href="#xd21e9342src" name="xd21e9342">88</a></span> Brosset
-(<i>ibid.</i> p. 15). I was able to verify the date, about which
-Brosset expresses some doubt (<i>ibid.</i> p. 148).&nbsp;<a class=
-"fnarrow" href="#xd21e9342src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e9362" href="#xd21e9362src" name="xd21e9362">89</a></span> For
-these two ruins see also Abich, <i>op. cit.</i> vol. i. pp.
-196&ndash;97.&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href=
-"#xd21e9362src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e9388" href="#xd21e9388src" name="xd21e9388">90</a></span> For
-these inscriptions see Brosset, <i lang="fr">Ruines d&rsquo;Ani</i>,
-pp. 11&ndash;13. He reminds us of the importance of the date 1320 (Arm.
-era. 769) as being the year after the great earthquake. I must take
-this opportunity to caution my reader against accepting the tradition
-mentioned by Muravieff (ap. Brosset, <i lang="fr">Voyage Arch.</i>
-livr. 1, rapp. 3, p. 127) that the little chapel was built in
-<span class="sc">A.D.</span> 1000 by King Gagik I. I may also mention
-that we could discover no traces of the guardhouse adjacent to the
-bridge (<i lang="fr">Ruines d&rsquo;Ani</i>, p. 10).&nbsp;<a class=
-"fnarrow" href="#xd21e9388src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e9418" href="#xd21e9418src" name="xd21e9418">91</a></span>
-Khanikoff ap. Brosset, <i lang="fr">Voyage Arch.</i> livr. 1, rapp. 3,
-p. 138.&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href="#xd21e9418src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e9427" href="#xd21e9427src" name="xd21e9427">92</a></span>
-<i>Ibid.</i> p. 138, and <i lang="fr">Ruines d&rsquo;Ani</i>, p.
-30.&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href="#xd21e9427src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e9436" href="#xd21e9436src" name="xd21e9436">93</a></span>
-<i>Ibid.</i> p. 140, and <i lang="fr">Ruines d&rsquo;Ani</i>, p.
-31.&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href="#xd21e9436src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e9455" href="#xd21e9455src" name="xd21e9455">94</a></span>
-Muravieff ap. Brosset, <i lang="fr">Voyage Arch.</i> loc. cit. p.
-129.&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href="#xd21e9455src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e9475" href="#xd21e9475src" name="xd21e9475">95</a></span> Mr.
-Marr has published an account of his discoveries of new epigraphical
-material in Armenia in the <i>Zapiski</i> of the Eastern Section of the
-Imp. Russian Arch. Society, vol. viii., 1893, pp. 69&ndash;103. He
-contributes four new inscriptions from Ani. I have not been able to
-find any account of his excavations.&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href=
-"#xd21e9475src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e9525" href="#xd21e9525src" name="xd21e9525">96</a></span> The
-interior of the building which forms the subject of my illustration is
-given by Brosset in plate xiv. of the Atlas to the <i lang="fr">Ruines
-d&rsquo;Ani</i>. The detail and ornament there portrayed do not
-correspond with reality. The devils are more or less imaginary, and
-there appears to be only one of them in the actual design, viz. on the
-south wall, the first pilaster as you enter from the west&mdash;in low
-relief. Brosset styles this interior &ldquo;a hall in the
-citadel&rdquo;; but the following considerations are against this
-view:&mdash;1. It is oriented east; 2. It obviously had an apse; 3.
-Above the apse you see the form of a cross sculptured on the face of
-the arch which still remains.</p>
-<p class="par footnote cont">The bas-reliefs are given by Brosset,
-plates xxxv. and xxxvii. The former (representing the archer) was found
-in the valley of the Tsaghkotz with an inscription in Armenian,
-&ldquo;Christ have pity on the lady Shushan, thy servant.&rdquo; This
-personage may be identified with the wife of the Pahlavid Grigor,
-mother of Vahram.&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href=
-"#xd21e9525src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e9559" href="#xd21e9559src" name="xd21e9559">97</a></span> This
-building must be the subject of plate xiii. in Brosset&rsquo;s Atlas to
-the <i lang="fr">Ruines</i><span class="corr" id="xd21e9563" title=
-"Not in source">.</span>&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href=
-"#xd21e9559src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e9568" href="#xd21e9568src" name="xd21e9568">98</a></span> The
-rock with the chapel is described by Abich (<i>op. cit.</i> vol. i. p.
-192). It was strongly fortified.&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href=
-"#xd21e9568src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e9609" href="#xd21e9609src" name="xd21e9609">99</a></span> It is
-not exactly symmetrical, the measurement from west to east being nearly
-<span class="measure" title="9.45 meter">31 feet</span>.&nbsp;<a class=
-"fnarrow" href="#xd21e9609src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e9634" href="#xd21e9634src" name="xd21e9634">100</a></span>
-Brosset translates, &ldquo;<span lang="fr">J&rsquo;ai construit ce lieu
-de repos.</span>&rdquo; But it surely cannot refer to the chapel
-itself, which, as we have seen, has inscriptions of the mother of
-Aplgharib, and must therefore have been in existence before 1040.
-Brosset therefore supposes that the <i>restoration</i> of the church is
-alluded to (<i lang="fr">Ruines d&rsquo;Ani</i>, pp. 37 and 106). For a
-more probable version of the inscription see Alishan, <i>Shirak</i>, p.
-53.&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href="#xd21e9634src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e9650" href="#xd21e9650src" name="xd21e9650">101</a></span> For
-the inscriptions see Brosset (<i lang="fr">Voyage Arch.</i> loc. cit.
-p. 91, and <i lang="fr">Ruines d&rsquo;Ani</i>, pp. 36 <i>seq.</i>).
-Aplgharib was brother to Vahram. I could find no trace of the curious
-figure found upon one of the windows which Brosset refers to (pp. 38
-<i>seq.</i>). On the other hand, I was able to identify the two
-inscriptions last mentioned.&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href=
-"#xd21e9650src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e9678" href="#xd21e9678src" name="xd21e9678">102</a></span>
-Kirakos ap. Dulaurier, <i lang="fr">Recherches sur la Chron. Arm.</i>
-p. 280.&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href="#xd21e9678src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e9684" href="#xd21e9684src" name="xd21e9684">103</a></span>
-Asoghik ap. Brosset, <i lang="fr">Ruines d&rsquo;Ani</i>, p.
-106.&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href="#xd21e9684src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e9709" href="#xd21e9709src" name="xd21e9709">104</a></span> Abich
-confuses the sites of these two monuments in his <i lang=
-"de">Reisebriefe</i> (<i>op. cit.</i>).&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href=
-"#xd21e9709src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e9724" href="#xd21e9724src" name="xd21e9724">105</a></span> Such
-is the translation of this inscription given by the editor of Aristakes
-of Lastivert. Brosset appears to have made a palpable error (<i lang=
-"fr">Ruines d&rsquo;Ani</i>, p. 21, inscription of
-Christaphor).&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href=
-"#xd21e9724src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e9734" href="#xd21e9734src" name="xd21e9734">106</a></span>
-Probably the inscription of this same Aplgharib given by Brosset
-(<i lang="fr">Ruines d&rsquo;Ani</i>, p. 28) belongs to this chapel. It
-runs thus:&mdash;&ldquo;Under the pontificate of Ter Petros and the
-reign of Sembat son of Gagik Shahanshah in the year 485 (<span class=
-"sc">A.D.</span> 1036) I, the Marzpan Aplgharib, son of the prince
-Grigor, grandson of Apughamir and brother of Vahram and Vasak,
-constructed at great expense this Surb-Phrkich in the metropolis of
-Ani.&rdquo; This inscription would establish as a fact that the chapel
-itself was dedicated to the Redeemer.&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href=
-"#xd21e9734src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e9760" href="#xd21e9760src" name="xd21e9760">107</a></span> A
-perfect labyrinth of confusion has been brought into existence by the
-attribution of the east front of the portal of the church of the
-Apostles to this castle or palace (see plate xix. of Brosset&rsquo;s
-Atlas). Happily I am able to correct the error. It has been
-instrumental in leading Brosset to assign all the inscriptions found in
-that church to this castle. The name &ldquo;palace of the
-Pahlavids&rdquo; is purely imaginary.&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href=
-"#xd21e9760src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e9782" href="#xd21e9782src" name="xd21e9782">108</a></span>
-Brosset, <i lang="fr">Ruines d&rsquo;Ani</i>, p. 51, and plate xxxvi.
-No. 3 of the Atlas. It has been wrongly attributed to the
-castle.&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href="#xd21e9782src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e9801" href="#xd21e9801src" name="xd21e9801">109</a></span> Abich
-describes this chapel as &ldquo;a magnificent church in the form of a
-Greek cross with a central rotunda and four large semicircular niches
-at the sides&rdquo; (<i>op. cit.</i> vol. i. p. 190).&nbsp;<a class=
-"fnarrow" href="#xd21e9801src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e9817" href="#xd21e9817src" name="xd21e9817">110</a></span> See
-Brosset (<i lang="fr">Voyage Arch.</i> livr. 1, rapp. 3, pp. 86, 100,
-101, 106, 109; and <i lang="fr">Ruines d&rsquo;Ani</i>, pp.
-48&ndash;52).&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href=
-"#xd21e9817src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e9850" href="#xd21e9850src" name="xd21e9850">111</a></span> This
-is the chapel which Abich names &ldquo;<span lang="de">Kirche der Maria
-Verk&uuml;ndigung</span>&rdquo; (<i>op. cit.</i> vol. i. p.
-193).&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href="#xd21e9850src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e9864" href="#xd21e9864src" name="xd21e9864">112</a></span> Abich,
-<i>op. cit.</i> vol. i. p. 199.&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href=
-"#xd21e9864src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e9872" href="#xd21e9872src" name="xd21e9872">113</a></span> See
-the Georgian annalist translated by Brosset (<i lang="fr">Hist. de la
-G&eacute;orgie</i>).&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href=
-"#xd21e9872src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e9901" href="#xd21e9901src" name="xd21e9901">114</a></span> I
-should be sorry to have to swear to this statement.&nbsp;<a class=
-"fnarrow" href="#xd21e9901src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e9943" href="#xd21e9943src" name="xd21e9943">115</a></span>
-<i lang="fr">Voyage Arch.</i> livr. 1, rapp. 3, pp. 96, 107,
-109&ndash;10.&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href=
-"#xd21e9943src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e9957" href="#xd21e9957src" name="xd21e9957">116</a></span>
-Telfer, <i>Crimea and Transcaucasia</i>, vol. i. p. 216. The chamber at
-Geghard is known as the Rusukna sanctuary, and was completed in
-<span class="sc">A.D.</span> 1288 (Arm. era 737)
-(<i>ibid.</i>).&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href=
-"#xd21e9957src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e9980" href="#xd21e9980src" name="xd21e9980">117</a></span> An
-inscription of <span class="sc">A.D.</span> 1215, much mutilated, seems
-to infer this (Brosset, <i lang="fr">Voyage Arch.</i> loc. cit. p.
-97).&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href="#xd21e9980src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e10001" href="#xd21e10001src" name="xd21e10001">118</a></span>
-Brosset, <i lang="fr">Voyage Arch.</i> loc. cit. p. 98. The dimensions
-of these various apartments are:&mdash;No. 1, length, <span class=
-"measure" title="8.84 meter">29 feet</span> <span class="measure"
-title="10.2 centimeter">4 inches</span>; breadth, <span class="measure"
-title="8.84 meter">29 feet</span>; No. 2, <span class="measure" title=
-"8.23 meter">27 feet</span> by <span class="measure" title=
-"8.23 meter">27 feet</span> <span class="measure" title=
-"5.08 centimeter">2 inches</span>; No. 3, hall of the synod, 18&frac12;
-paces by 18 paces. The reader will note that the architects avoided
-exact squares. In this they were governed by a right
-instinct.&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href="#xd21e10001src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e10051" href="#xd21e10051src" name="xd21e10051">119</a></span>
-Brosset, <i lang="fr">Voyage Arch.</i> loc. cit. p. 99. Another
-derivation is from the Greek word for a priest, <span class="trans"
-title="iereus"><span class="Greek" lang=
-"el">&#7984;&#8051;&rho;&epsilon;&upsilon;&sigmaf;</span></span> (see
-M. Prudhomme, note to Aristakes, ch. ii.).&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow"
-href="#xd21e10051src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e10068" href="#xd21e10068src" name="xd21e10068">120</a></span>
-Asoghik ap. Brosset (<i lang="fr">Ruines d&rsquo;Ani</i>, p.
-137).&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href="#xd21e10068src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e10077" href="#xd21e10077src" name="xd21e10077">121</a></span>
-<i lang="fr">Ruines d&rsquo;Ani</i>, p. 137.&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow"
-href="#xd21e10077src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e10083" href="#xd21e10083src" name="xd21e10083">122</a></span>
-<i>Ibid.</i> p. 61.&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href=
-"#xd21e10083src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e10119" href="#xd21e10119src" name="xd21e10119">123</a></span>
-Texier (<i>op. cit.</i> p. 112):&mdash;&ldquo;<span lang="fr">La
-fa&ccedil;ade de cette &eacute;glise <span lang="en">(the
-cathedral)</span> construite avec une simplicit&eacute; remarquable ...
-peut &ecirc;tre regard&eacute;e comme le type de l&rsquo;architecture
-allemande du moyen &acirc;ge. Il est facile d&rsquo;expliquer comment,
-dans toute cette contr&eacute;e, on retrouve le d&ocirc;me &agrave;
-toit conique particulier &agrave; l&rsquo;architecture
-arm&eacute;nienne. En effet, apr&egrave;s la prise d&rsquo;Ani par les
-Mussulmans, un grand nombre de citoyens abandonnaient la
-ville....</span>&rdquo;&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href=
-"#xd21e10119src">&uarr;</a></p>
-</div>
-</div>
-<div id="ch19" class="div1 chapter"><span class="pagenum">[<a href=
-"#xd21e469">Contents</a>]</span>
-<div class="divHead">
-<h2 class="label">CHAPTER XIX</h2>
-<h2 class="main">KARS</h2>
-</div>
-<div class="divBody">
-<p class="par first">While Ani, the deserted stronghold and capital on
-the banks of the Arpa, appeals to the patriotism of Armenians, her
-neighbour Kars, that fortress at once of ancient and modern repute,
-awakens a feeling of national pride in the bosom of the English
-visitor. Few, indeed, of my countrymen have been privileged to gaze
-upon a site and scene which is associated in their memory with a most
-brilliant achievement of British officers. Of the sieges which Kars has
-sustained during the course of the present century only one has been
-conducted with any skill and spirit on the part of the defence. On that
-occasion a garrison of about fifteen thousand Turks resisted, under the
-strategy of an English general, a force of from thirty to forty
-thousand Russians for a period of over five months. The exploits of
-Williams and his companions in 1855 are still familiar to the
-townspeople. It is they who first traced the design of the
-fortifications, such as we see them at the present day. The old school
-of Russian officers still view with alarm or suspicion the approach of
-an Englishman to the neighbourhood of their prize. Kars is rigorously
-excluded from the jurisdiction of our consuls, and our travellers have
-rarely penetrated within her walls. On the other hand, the new school
-are of quite a different temper, and give free rein to the hospitable
-and amiable qualities which are natural to their race. They received me
-with open arms, overwhelmed me with attentions, and took pains to let
-me feel that, side by side with the Russian laurels, one in honour of
-their British opponents had not been allowed to fade.</p>
-<p class="par">I have already endeavoured to describe the
-characteristics of the site of Kars as you approach the fortress from
-the east across the plain. The plan which I now offer will at once
-<span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb394" href="#pb394" name=
-"pb394">394</a>]</span>assist that description and supplement it with a
-view of the surrounding features. The volcanic mass which is pierced by
-the river where it projects into the level expanse is due to a local
-outbreak of basaltic lava, which is in orographical and, probably, in
-genetical connection with the volcanic water-parting between the Araxes
-and the Kur. The real boundary of these plains on the west and
-south-west is formed by the breaking away to the Pontic region of the
-uplands of the Soghanlu Dagh; and the low water-parting between the two
-great rivers extends from the northern extremity of the Soghanlu to the
-Kisir Dagh which confines Lake Chaldir on the west. Upon that line of
-intermediary elevation the principal points of eruption have been the
-Kabak Tepe or Kizilkaya (<span class="measure" title=
-"3051 meter">10,010 feet</span>), and, further north, the Buga Tepe
-(<span class="measure" title="2742 meter">8995 feet</span>). Minor
-emissions of volcanic matter have issued from radial fissures, which
-may be traced back to these parent stems. In this manner we may connect
-the Ainalu Dagh, on the west of Kars, with Kabak Tepe; and, perhaps
-too, the local eruptions which have produced the rock of Kars with the
-system of the Ainalu.<a class="noteref" id="xd21e10170src" href=
-"#xd21e10170" name="xd21e10170src">1</a></p>
-<p class="par">It is with a feeling of astonishment, which will not be
-diminished by better acquaintance, that the traveller surveys the site
-of the fortress. That impression will be derived not so much from the
-course of the river&mdash;although one would expect to see it flowing
-towards rather than from the south, the direction of the Araxes to
-which it is tributary&mdash;but rather from the phenomenon which
-attends its approach to the cliffs on the northern margin of the plain.
-It is seen for some distance following at the base of a low ridge which
-culminates further eastwards in the towering parapet behind the town.
-All of a sudden, when the obstacle becomes most pronounced, instead of
-indulging in an easy and not very lengthy bend and taking the rampart
-in flank, the wayward stream throws its waters at the face of the cliff
-and disappears in an almost invisible gorge. For a distance of about
-four miles, measured along its banks in the trough of the chasm, it
-cleaves the mass of gloomy rock; then issues into the plainer land on
-the north of the rampart, which it has isolated from the heights on the
-west. An insular mass of mountain, rendered impregnable on one side by
-the precipices which overhang the river, and easily defended on other
-sides&mdash;<span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb395" href="#pb395" name=
-"pb395">395</a>]</span>such a site must have been fortified from the
-earliest times, commanding as it does a wide area of fertile
-plains.</p>
-<p class="par"></p>
-<div class="figure xd21e10186width" id="map05"><a href=
-"images/map05-h.jpg"><img src="images/map05.jpg" alt=
-"KARS AND SURROUNDINGS" width="720" height="635"></a>
-<p class="figureHead">KARS AND SURROUNDINGS</p>
-</div>
-<p class="par"></p>
-<p class="par">At the commencement of our era the district but not the
-town is described by Strabo under the name of Chorzene.<a class=
-"noteref" id="xd21e10192src" href="#xd21e10192" name=
-"xd21e10192src">2</a> It is possible that the Chorsa or the Kolsa of
-Ptolemy occupied the position of the present Kars.<a class="noteref"
-id="xd21e10195src" href="#xd21e10195" name="xd21e10195src">3</a> But it
-is not before the Middle Ages that we become apprised of its certain
-existence, when it is mentioned under its present name by the imperial
-author Constantine, and under that of Karutz by Armenian
-writers.<a class="noteref" id="xd21e10198src" href="#xd21e10198" name=
-"xd21e10198src">4</a> From both sources we learn that it was a capital
-of the Bagratid dynasty before the rise of Ani to the dignity of a
-royal residence. It was conferred by Ashot the Third (<span class=
-"sc">A.D.</span> 951&ndash;977), the founder of the fortunes of Ani,
-upon his younger brother Mushegh together with the prerogatives of
-local kingship. The kinglets of Kars were submerged by the wave of
-Seljuk invasion; but the reigning prince contrived to appease the wrath
-of the conqueror of Ani, and to gain time for the cession of the
-principality to the C&aelig;sars, which was effected in the year 1064
-in exchange for a retreat in Asia Minor.<a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e10214src" href="#xd21e10214" name="xd21e10214src">5</a> The
-Byzantines did not remain long in the possession of their prize, and it
-became incorporated in the empire of the Seljuks. Nor, so far as I am
-aware, was it recovered from the Mussulmans until its capture by the
-Russians under Marshal Paskevich in 1828. The Armenians, the Seljuks,
-and the Ottomans have all successively imprinted their stamp upon the
-town, such as it has come down to our times. The only noteworthy
-building is a church of the period of the Armenian kings; and the
-citadel and walls are in part due to the Armenians and in part to the
-Seljuks and the Ottomans.</p>
-<p class="par">The names Kars and Karutz are believed to be derived
-from the Georgian, in which language Kari signifies a gate. The
-fortress would be known in that tongue as Karis-Kholakhi, or the
-gate-town. It would seem to have been originally a stronghold of the
-Iberians, the ancestors of the Georgians of <span class=
-"pagenum">[<a id="pb396" href="#pb396" name="pb396">396</a>]</span>the
-present day.<a class="noteref" id="xd21e10224src" href="#xd21e10224"
-name="xd21e10224src">6</a> If this derivation be correct, we must
-suppose that the Kars near Marash in Asia Minor, which is mentioned by
-a writer of the seventeenth century, was named after the city in
-northern Armenia.<a class="noteref" id="xd21e10230src" href=
-"#xd21e10230" name="xd21e10230src">7</a> During the Bagratid period the
-province of Kars was called Vanand,<a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e10235src" href="#xd21e10235" name="xd21e10235src">8</a> and the
-river Akhurean. This last name was also applied to the present Arpa
-Chai from the confluence with the river of Kars to its junction with
-the Araxes. These appellations have disappeared during the long spell
-of Mussulman rule, nor have they been revived by the Russians. I must
-not weary my reader with an attempt to follow the fortunes of Kars from
-the eleventh to the nineteenth century. But it may interest him to know
-that among its conquerors figure two great names, that of Timur in the
-fourteenth century and that of Shah Abbas in the seventeenth. Nadir
-Shah attempted in vain to effect its capture in 1744, although he
-brought up no less than sixteen large cannons and spared no pains to
-reduce the Ottoman garrison.<a class="noteref" id="xd21e10238src" href=
-"#xd21e10238" name="xd21e10238src">9</a> The memory of this failure and
-of that of the Russian general Nesvateff in 1807 had confirmed the
-Turks in the conviction that the place was impregnable when the army of
-Paskevich appeared beneath the walls.<a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e10245src" href="#xd21e10245" name="xd21e10245src">10</a></p>
-<p class="par">The appearance of the fortified town upon that historic
-occasion must have been much more imposing than at the present day.
-Mounting the hillside from the plain on the south, the walls and houses
-of black stone rose then as now to the very summit of the ridge. But
-instead of ruinous parapets, interrupted by wide breaches, a double
-wall with an interval of about <span class="measure" title=
-"4.88 meter">16 feet</span> frowned out upon the advancing host. The
-inner rampart was defended by towers, the outer by bastions; and the
-whole circumference of the figure which enclosed the western portion of
-the insular rock measured <span class="measure" title="2336 meter">2555
-yards</span>. The height of the walls ranged between <span class=
-"measure" title="4.27">14</span> and <span class="measure" title=
-"8.53 meter">28 feet</span>, and they were from <span class="measure"
-title="0.914">3</span> to <span class="measure" title="1.52 meter">5
-feet</span> thick. <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb397" href="#pb397"
-name="pb397">397</a>]</span></p>
-<p class="par">At the north-west angle of the enclosure, and
-immediately overlooking the river, which winds at the foot of vertical
-cliffs, was placed the inner fortress or citadel&mdash;<i>Narin
-Kala</i>&mdash;consisting of not less than three fortified spaces of
-which the most westerly or innermost was the keep. It was built
-throughout of solid stone. For a considerable space on the side of the
-plain the outer wall of the city was flanked by a moat, communicating
-with a marsh. In the plain itself the suburb on the south, which has
-now been transfigured by the Russians and composes the modern town, was
-surrounded by walls and defended by towers. A fort had been erected on
-the horn of the Karadagh, beyond the smaller suburb of Bairam Pasha. On
-the left bank of the river the only work of importance appears to have
-been a quadrangular fort with towers at the angles, called <i>Temir
-Pasha</i>, and protecting the outlying houses on the margin of the
-stream.<a class="noteref" id="xd21e10281src" href="#xd21e10281" name=
-"xd21e10281src">11</a></p>
-<p class="par">The Russian army approached from the side of G&uuml;mri,
-the present Alexandropol, and passed within sight of the walls to the
-banks of the river where they encamped near the village of K&uuml;chik
-Keui. Their number amounted to about seven thousand men, while the
-besieged counted about eleven thousand under arms. But Paskevich was
-allowed to occupy the high land on the left bank, and to direct his
-attack from the south-west as well as from the south. The fortified
-suburb, <i>Orta Kapi</i>, was stormed on one flank and the Karadagh on
-the other. The citadel capitulated on the same day, the fifth after the
-commencement of operations. Kars was restored to the Turks after the
-termination of this war, and was again besieged by the Russians in
-1855. Four British officers were despatched by our own Government to
-direct the defence, and the garrison numbered some fourteen thousand
-infantry, fifteen hundred artillery, and a small body of cavalry. The
-enemy, under Muravieff, were more than double this strength; the
-advance was again made from the side of G&uuml;mri, and the Russian
-headquarters were established in the vicinity of the river, on the
-south-west of the town. But on this occasion the Russian general
-discovered that all the approaches had been protected by works, which
-covered a large area. Under the conditions of modern warfare Kars is
-most assailable from the heights on the west, which rise from no great
-elevation along the left bank of the river, until they reach
-<span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb398" href="#pb398" name=
-"pb398">398</a>]</span>imposing proportions just north of the site, on
-the further side of the chasm. There they form a plateau which must be
-higher than the rock of Kars, and which overlooks the ridge of that
-insular mass, the town itself being turned towards the plain. Once gain
-possession of this line of heights and the old town is at your mercy.
-Realising this fact, General Williams and his subordinates had erected
-a line of forts to bar the approach on this side. The principal work on
-the west was situated some two miles from the town, at the extremity of
-the higher levels in that direction. It was called Fort Takhmas or
-Tahmasp. Inside of that position, immediately covering the heights on
-the north, a string of fortifications was constructed on the plateau,
-commencing on the south-west with Fort Lake, the strongest of all, and
-terminating on the north-east in Fort Teesdale near the edge of the
-cliff, where the river has almost effected its passage through the
-gorge. While such was the disposition of the defences on the left bank,
-the protected area on the right bank, the side of the plain, was
-considerably extended. A line of breastworks, enclosing a wide
-rectangular space, was taken from the foot of the Karadagh on the east
-to the margin of the river on the west. At the angles of this enclosure
-stood the Karadagh fort on the north, and the forts of Hafiz Pasha and
-Kanly on the south. The point of junction with the river was defended
-by Fort Suwari, and breastworks and redoubts, placed upon commanding
-positions, joined these works of the plain to those upon the heights
-already described.<a class="noteref" id="xd21e10296src" href=
-"#xd21e10296" name="xd21e10296src">12</a></p>
-<p class="par">With certain changes in name my reader can follow this
-disposition of the defences upon the plan at the commencement of the
-present chapter, which is founded upon plans made during the last
-Russo-Turkish war in 1877. The Russians have since added to the
-strength of the works and have vastly improved the communications
-between them. But they do not appear, so far as I was enabled to judge,
-to have materially altered their arrangement. The greater range of
-modern guns has perhaps already necessitated a further extension of
-outlying forts. The old citadel has sunk into insignificance; and the
-defence of the future will have to deal with a very large area, and
-will require many times as many men as in the past. How Williams with
-such a small force could have held out for five months against an
-<span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb399" href="#pb399" name=
-"pb399">399</a>]</span>organised army of twice his own strength is a
-question which I cannot answer with satisfaction to myself. His
-ultimate surrender was occasioned by starvation; but he had already
-repulsed, with enormous losses to the enemy, the main attack, which was
-directed against Fort Takhmas.<a class="noteref" id="xd21e10310src"
-href="#xd21e10310" name="xd21e10310src">13</a> For the second time the
-victors were compelled at the peace to disgorge their prize, which they
-justly regarded as the outer bulwark of Erzerum and Asia Minor. Its
-permanent conquest was reserved for the war of 1877, when the Turks
-were left by England to their own resources, and when they practically
-gave it away to Loris Melikoff after the defeat at the Alaja
-Dagh.<a class="noteref" id="xd21e10319src" href="#xd21e10319" name=
-"xd21e10319src">14</a></p>
-<p class="par">My hopes of being able to investigate this historical
-site reposed upon the high authority of the letters which I carried
-with me and upon the doubtful factor of the personality of the
-governor. To measure this uncertain quantity was my first object, and I
-set out to accomplish it in fitting style. An open landau, driven by a
-Russian coachman of the Molokan sect, conveyed me from the modern town
-in the plain along the right bank of the river and for some distance
-into the gorge. A metalled road follows that bank under the shadow of
-the precipice for the space of about half a mile. It ends at a little
-respite of even ground between the cliff and the water&rsquo;s edge. In
-former days there had been planted here a grove and a flower garden,
-which was known as the <i>paradise of Kars</i>. But, since the present
-governor appropriated the place to himself, and built upon it his
-private residence, it goes by the name of <i>paradise lost</i>. General
-Fad&eacute;eff is not exactly a popular personage&mdash;if, indeed, he
-may still be numbered among mortal men. His abode is far removed from
-their <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb400" href="#pb400" name=
-"pb400">400</a>]</span>habitations, and I came to the conclusion that
-it concealed a mystery. I rang in vain several times at the door. At
-last I contrived to summon a very pretty young woman with a very sulky
-countenance. As she spoke both French and German, I contrived to win
-her to my side, and she promised she would enquire after the General.
-She returned with a set expression which I felt I could not assail. I
-did, however, succeed in making her smile, and that was something
-pleasant in itself. His Excellency was absent; it was not known where,
-nor by what time he would return. I enquired whether he made a practice
-of sleeping out. At last she relented into suggesting I might call in
-the evening; she would do what she could, but she was only a
-subordinate member of the household. She did not come to the door when
-I repeated my visit, and I received the same unsatisfactory answers.
-The vice-governor, General Petander, examined my papers at the seat of
-government, but pleaded that his authority was extremely limited. He
-could not say when the Governor would return to his house. I was glad
-to escape from him to the hospitable home of Colonel Rzewuski, in
-command of the Uman regiment of Cossacks of Kuban. I had accepted an
-invitation to dine with him and Madame Rzewuski; and the party
-consisted of a group of as amiable and charming people as it would be
-possible to meet. All had travelled and knew the world. The
-conversation was free, and ranged at ease over every topic, including
-the mysterious Governor. They were immensely entertained by my own
-experiences in that quarter, and they repaid me by narrating the
-gallant deeds of Fad&eacute;eff, who appears to have been instrumental
-in the conquest of Kars in 1877. But they left me in doubt whether he
-still existed in the flesh. I thought I detected a certain legendary
-phraseology in their remarks about him, from which a master of the
-higher criticism would easily be able to establish that they were not
-contemporary with the personage of whom they spoke.</p>
-<p class="par">My host was determined that I should not be blindfolded,
-and that I should see what might be seen without endangering the safety
-of Kars. His own aide-de-camp had recently returned from a visit to
-England, where he had been accorded facilities of a similar nature, and
-whence he brought back the most agreeable recollections. The
-deficiencies in our insular manners are in such cases outweighed in the
-mind of the visitor by the freedom of our life, the absence of
-suspicion against foreign <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb401" href=
-"#pb401" name="pb401">401</a>]</span>designs, and, above all, by the
-world-wide bond of sport. Never in the height of the hunting season at
-home have I listened to a more animated discussion of the relative
-merits of our <i>countries</i> and packs of foxhounds than after dinner
-in the company of these officers in this remote corner of Russian Asia.
-From hounds we passed to horses, and to an interesting experiment which
-had recently been made by the Colonel. It is well known that the
-Cossack horses are of great endurance; but they have little pace, and
-their shoulders are of the worst. My host had crossed one of his mares
-with the English thoroughbred, and had produced a colt of much promise
-which had only just been broken. If I did not object I should ride him
-on the morrow, when he would take me to have a peep at the
-fortifications on the heights. In spite of the twinkle in his eye when
-he spoke of the vivacity of the youngster, I felt that the opportunity
-was cheap at this price, and merely stipulated that I should be allowed
-my English saddle.</p>
-<p class="par">Very early on the following morning I sallied forth to
-the Colonel&rsquo;s residence, and was surprised to find a whole
-squadron of Cossack cavalry drawn up in the road. His aide-de-camp was
-conspicuous in a magnificent uniform, which set off his tall and
-graceful figure. The band of the regiment was mustered at its full
-strength; but these troops were only a portion of the effective, which
-numbered some eight or nine hundred horsemen. The remainder were
-distributed over the extensive tract of country between Akhaltsykh and
-the Turkish frontier at Sarikamish. An iron-grey charger, over 15 hands
-in height, was being paced to and fro before the door. He excited the
-admiration and the curiosity of the onlookers, having a long and
-elastic walk, and arching his neck to the hand of the groom instead of
-stolidly following where he was led. That <i>was</i> a horse, they were
-all saying&mdash;those of the country were ponies beside him, and, as
-for the mounts of the Cossacks, they looked mere dross by his side. My
-small and plain-flap saddle, which I recognised upon his back, brought
-out the points of his sloping shoulder and strong loins. A word from
-the aide-de-camp, and the squadron was brought to attention with the
-band at their head. When the Colonel emerged from the doorway a salute
-was exchanged, and when he had mounted, the march commenced and the
-band prepared to strike up. None too soon had I adjusted my stirrup
-leathers on the iron-grey, for at the first sound he bounded high into
-the air. <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb402" href="#pb402" name=
-"pb402">402</a>]</span>But he had plenty of room at the head of the
-regiment, where the Colonel beckoned me to ride by his side.</p>
-<p class="par">This was the second time I had ridden at the head of
-Cossacks; I mention the fact merely to justify the assertion that there
-can be few more inspiriting positions. One feels the peculiar quality
-of the material behind one; it is in the air and makes the pulse beat.
-There is no champing of bits and impatient curvetting; nor do the
-riders sit up in their saddles and look smart. They may be seen in
-every posture, lolling about in their shabby drab uniforms, and holding
-their reins long. But they communicate the impression that each man is
-a born soldier, and that one might march with them from one end of Asia
-to another without troubling much about the commissariat or the length
-of the particular stage. They are just the troops with which to
-traverse these vast plains. The long-backed horses are hardened to
-every kind of privation, and so are their owners, for every Cossack
-owns his mount. Where would you march? Say the word, and we go now.</p>
-<p class="par">On this occasion the proceedings were quite of a gala
-order. We passed through the main streets of the modern town upon the
-plain; and all the Karslis were there assembled to hear the inspiriting
-music and to pass remarks upon the foreigner on the grey horse. We
-wound along the side of the river, at the foot of the precipice crowned
-by the citadel, where a window in the walls of that airy edifice marks
-the spot whence the Turks were wont to precipitate spies. We crossed to
-the left bank by the lower of the two bridges, and followed along the
-chauss&eacute;e upon that side. It is now the principal avenue of
-communication with Alexandropol; but it is destined to be replaced by a
-road which will pass to the south of the town, leaving this
-chauss&eacute;e with its secrets for purely military use. The further
-we proceeded the loftier loomed the walls of the chasm, especially that
-upon our left hand. It rises almost vertically from the margin of the
-road to the edge of the plateau, some five hundred feet above the
-stream.</p>
-<p class="par">The heights on the left bank are here called by the name
-of Mukhliss, and such is their elevation that the buildings upon
-them&mdash;the military hospital and the redoubts&mdash;may be seen
-from the plain on the south of Kars, showing up behind the insular
-ridge against which the ancient town is built. Opposite the old citadel
-they are known as Vali Pasha, and, further west, as Takhmas. On the
-right bank the mass of rock which falls <span class="pagenum">[<a id=
-"pb403" href="#pb403" name="pb403">403</a>]</span>abruptly to the river
-is styled Kars and Karadagh. We had arrived at a point whence the
-solitary house of the Governor could be clearly seen beyond the winding
-channel on that side. The choice was offered between two roads. The one
-we had been following pursued its course through the chasm; the other
-took advantage of some milder acclivities in the cliff to mount to the
-plateau above our heads. The forts upon the plateau are the interesting
-feature of modern Kars; the word was given to take the upper road. The
-Colonel and myself were still riding in front of the band, and could
-look back upon the long train of one of the finest of Cossack regiments
-defiling in half column up the incline. When we had reached a
-considerable elevation, all of a sudden a human figure springs into the
-road. It is a little gendarme, and he stands immovable in the centre of
-the road. The regiment is at once brought to a halt. The figure
-enquires whether there be a foreigner riding with them, and receives an
-affirmative reply. Then he points to an adjacent bifurcation of the
-road, one branch leading to the heights, and the other rejoining the
-chauss&eacute;e at a point some distance down the stream. He directs us
-to take the latter way. The Colonel bites his lip, turns pale and
-obeys. We have come up all this distance, and now we are to go down.
-The ghost of General Fad&eacute;eff must be chuckling&mdash;if ghosts
-can chuckle&mdash;behind those windows in the speck of a house on the
-opposite bank!</p>
-<p class="par">It had been the plan of my kind host to cross the block
-of heights containing the forts, and thence to descend into the plain
-upon the north. A little Molokan village, called Blagodarnoe, is
-situated in the more level country on that side. A troop of his
-Cossacks was billeted within it, and it had been thought convenient to
-pay them a visit. The return journey would be made by way of the
-chauss&eacute;e. There was now nothing for it but to proceed and to
-come home by the same route, since the little gendarme had given orders
-to this effect. We continued our passage through the chasm. I was
-impressed with the admirable communications which the Russians have
-established at great cost between the heights on either bank. Soon
-after regaining the main road we passed two opposite flights of steps,
-of which the one scaled the steep side of the plateau on the left, and
-the other that of the insular rock of Kars. Both were broad and
-perfectly maintained. The latter conducted from the water&rsquo;s edge
-to the Karadagh fort, now called Fort Fad&eacute;eff, <span class=
-"pagenum">[<a id="pb404" href="#pb404" name=
-"pb404">404</a>]</span>invisible on the further side of the ridge. And
-from the base of these steps a military road was carried slantwise
-towards the citadel. During the last siege the garrison suffered from
-the want of ready access to the outlying positions. This want has now
-been supplied. Troops can be moved with rapidity between the town and
-these positions as well as between the positions themselves.</p>
-<p class="par">The cliffs on either hand retain their elevation until
-you have reached the fourth military verst stone (over two and a half
-miles). Then they decline and become less rocky and steep. The
-formation on the right bank is continued into the distance in a low
-outline; that on the left already opens to plainer land at about the
-sixth stone (four miles). We now left the chauss&eacute;e, and cantered
-over the plain, across which it was a pleasure to extend the iron-grey.
-He had all the makings of a very valuable horse.</p>
-<p class="par">Luncheon was served in one of the neat little houses of
-the Molokan village, and many a glass of white liqueur was consumed
-before the meal. On the way home there was a display of Cossack
-exercises, a succession of riders galloping past us in single file, and
-vaulting to the ground with one foot in the stirrup in full career. Or
-they placed their bodies parallel with the flanks of their horses,
-avoiding the arrows of their ancestors or the bullets of their
-contemporaries. Like Kurds and Circassians they raised wild shouts;
-but, unlike these, they never got out of hand. Last of all there was a
-race, conducted on strict principles, in which I cantered in, an easy
-winner, on the grey. The squadron then re-formed, and we retraced our
-steps through the chasm to the inspiriting music of the band. It soon
-ceased playing; and with the last strain, at first low, then gradually
-louder, a sad and mysterious chant broke from the ranks. It was carried
-like sobs into the recesses of the gorge, rising and falling like the
-sighing of the wind. What did they sing in that expression of
-bottomless misery? Their homes had been laid waste, their parents were
-no more, nor their horses any longer at tether or stall. Then the theme
-would change abruptly, and a note of triumph would be heard. Nowhere
-except in Hungary have I heard such moving music, giving utterance
-through the canons of Western harmony to the tempestuous motives of
-Eastern songs.</p>
-<p class="par">It remains to say a few words about the town of Kars, as
-<span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb405" href="#pb405" name=
-"pb405">405</a>]</span>you see it at the present day. It is a mere
-shadow of its former self. The old fortress city on the side of the
-insular rock is scarcely better than a heap of ruins. The suburb on the
-plain&mdash;<i>Orta Kapi</i> of Mussulman times&mdash;is rapidly
-pushing it out of existence. This suburb contains the residences of the
-high officials and officers, and can boast of a new Russian church, at
-its southern extremity, and of a number of single-storeyed but spacious
-and well-supplied shops. The church displays the masonry of the grey
-stone found at Kars; but the bulk of the buildings have their walls
-painted white, and their roofing of sheet metal, coloured pink or a
-soft green. The aspect of this modern quarter, jutting out from the
-hill into the plain opposite the answering horn of the Karadagh on the
-east, presents a striking contrast to the uniform grey of the old city,
-overlooking the bay of the plain. The stone of the walls and of the old
-Armenian church have weathered almost black. But the majority of the
-ancient houses have disappeared, and the walled area is for the most
-part covered with rubble and ruin, or with straggling hovels,
-resembling those of a village. The citadel was blown up by the Russians
-prior to their evacuation at the close of the Crimean War,<a class=
-"noteref" id="xd21e10383src" href="#xd21e10383" name=
-"xd21e10383src">15</a> and has been rebuilt in a softer and yellow
-stone (Fig. <a href="#fig098">98</a>). It now forms a most admirable
-target for artillery, being the only patch of brighter colour on a
-ground of the sombrest hue. The population of city and suburbs is
-censused at not more than 4000, of course excluding the garrison. Of
-these 2500 are Armenians and only some 850 are Turks. The Russians,
-including Molokans, number 250, and the Greeks over 300 souls. It is
-true that the total might perhaps be doubled if there were included in
-it those families who are allowed to reside here on sufferance, prior
-to being settled elsewhere. Kars is constantly receiving refugees from
-the Turkish provinces, flying before the excesses of the Kurds.</p>
-<p class="par">Still the number of the inhabitants has grown smaller
-and smaller, if we even confine ourselves to the present century. Prior
-to the campaign of Paskevich, we are informed by a credible authority
-that Kars with its suburbs contained some 10,000 families, or from
-50,000 to 60,000 souls.<a class="noteref" id="xd21e10395src" href=
-"#xd21e10395" name="xd21e10395src">16</a> After it was evacuated by the
-Russian army upon the close of that war, the bulk of the Armenian
-population deserted their homes and followed the <span class=
-"pagenum">[<a id="pb406" href="#pb406" name=
-"pb406">406</a>]</span>Russian retreat.<a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e10403src" href="#xd21e10403" name="xd21e10403src">17</a> The
-figure then drops to a pretty uniform estimate of 2000 houses or
-families, giving a result of some 10,000 to 12,000 souls, of whom the
-vast majority were Mussulmans.<a class="noteref" id="xd21e10412src"
-href="#xd21e10412" name="xd21e10412src">18</a> It must now be further
-reduced by more than one-half. Perhaps the projected railway will
-increase the prosperity of Kars if the military regulations be relaxed.
-But it will be a long time before it can recover its former splendour,
-when the fortress city contained no less than 3000 houses, 47 mosques
-and 18 schools.<a class="noteref" id="xd21e10415src" href="#xd21e10415"
-name="xd21e10415src">19</a></p>
-<p class="par"></p>
-<div class="figure xd21e10421width" id="fig098"><img src=
-"images/fig098.jpg" alt="Fig. 98. The Citadel of Kars." width="486"
-height="614">
-<p class="figureHead"><span class="sc"><span class="figNum">Fig.
-98.</span> The Citadel of Kars.</span></p>
-</div>
-<p class="par"><span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb407" href="#pb407" name=
-"pb407">407</a>]</span></p>
-<p class="par">I was prevented by the number and ubiquity of the
-gendarmes from making use of my camera. The only illustration which I
-am able to offer is a view of the citadel, reproduced from a photograph
-which has been placed at my disposal by my friend Mr. F. C. Conybeare
-(Fig. <a href="#fig098">98</a>). I should have liked to reproduce the
-interesting features of the Armenian church, now converted into a
-temple of the Russian Orthodox profession and serving as the principal
-resort of the garrison. In Mussulman times it was used as a mosque.
-There can, I think, be little doubt that this is the same building
-which was erected by the Armenian monarch of the Bagratid dynasty,
-Abas, in <span class="sc">A.D.</span> 930.<a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e10437src" href="#xd21e10437" name="xd21e10437src">20</a> The
-teachers in the Armenian school ascribed it to this prince, but were
-not certain about the date. I have remarked upon the blackness of its
-walls from without. The interior has been covered with a yellow buff
-paint, and its proportions are spoilt by an elaborate altar. It wears
-an air of comfort and even of luxury, all the ornaments being out of
-keeping with the austerity of the ancient pile. The form of this church
-is one I have not seen elsewhere, presenting on plan four semicircular
-arms with a rectangular projection between each arm. The vaulting of
-the ceilings above the projections composes with that of the ceilings
-of the apsidal recesses a group of eight arches. Another monument of
-the same period is said to be the ruinous castle at the upper end of
-the wall on the east. The wall on the south has well-nigh disappeared,
-and what remains is almost lost among the houses. The gate on this side
-contains an Arabic inscription, and several Armenian crosses are
-inserted into the adjacent rampart. From the citadel a wall still
-descends the side of the precipice, and is taken by an archway over the
-road to the margin of the river. I cannot help thinking that the plan
-of the place and its essential features have not changed much since the
-time of the Armenian kings. Sultan Murad III. (1574&ndash;1595) is
-credited with extensive works, but it may be questioned whether they
-were much more than restorations. A renewal is ascribed to Sultan
-Selim, but it appears doubtful to which monarch of that name.<a class=
-"noteref" id="xd21e10446src" href="#xd21e10446" name=
-"xd21e10446src">21</a> The days of the fortified town, with its
-medi&aelig;val castle and ramparts, are perhaps already numbered. The
-Russians will build in the open, where there will <span class=
-"pagenum">[<a id="pb408" href="#pb408" name="pb408">408</a>]</span>be
-room for their favourite boulevards, although trees are rare at present
-in Kars. The fortifications will year by year be extended over a larger
-area, the neighbourhood being sown with volcanic eminences admirably
-adapted both for the attack and for the defence.</p>
-<p class="par">The Armenian inhabitants have a single elementary
-school, or, rather, one for boys and one for girls. It is housed in the
-buildings adjacent to the little church of St. Mary, under the citadel
-at the western extremity of the rock. The teachers simply cowered with
-fear during my visit. The Russian school dispenses a somewhat higher
-standard of education, and profits by the disabilities imposed upon its
-rival. I was shown specimens of the Easter cards which each child had
-received this year from inmates of schools in France. The little French
-boy sends some poetry translated into Russian to his Russian
-contemporary. The girls here received similar presents from French
-girls. It would appear as if no Russian school within the limits of the
-Empire had been passed over by the organisers of an act of
-demonstrative patriotism which, let us hope, is not spontaneous with
-the young. <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb409" href="#pb409" name=
-"pb409">409</a>]</span></p>
-</div>
-<div class="footnotes">
-<hr class="fnsep">
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e10170" href="#xd21e10170src" name="xd21e10170">1</a></span>
-Abich, <i lang="de">Geologische Forschungen in den kaukasischen
-L&auml;ndern</i>, Vienna, 1882, part ii. pp. 47 <i>seq.</i> <i lang=
-"de">Das Plateau von Kars.</i>&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href=
-"#xd21e10170src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e10192" href="#xd21e10192src" name="xd21e10192">2</a></span>
-Strabo, xi. c. 528.&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href=
-"#xd21e10192src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e10195" href="#xd21e10195src" name="xd21e10195">3</a></span>
-Ptolemy, v. 13, pages 135 and 136 of the folio edition. The
-identification with one of these towns is generally assumed; but in
-view of the statement of Evliya, noted below, that in his time there
-existed three towns of this name, it cannot be regarded as
-certain.&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href="#xd21e10195src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e10198" href="#xd21e10198src" name="xd21e10198">4</a></span>
-<span class="trans" title="to kastron to Kars"><span class="Greek"
-lang="el">&tau;&#8056; &kappa;&#8049;&sigma;&tau;&rho;&omicron;&nu;
-&tau;&#8056; &Kappa;&#8049;&rho;&sigmaf;</span></span>, Const. Porphyr.
-<i>De adm. imp.</i> cap. 44.&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href=
-"#xd21e10198src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e10214" href="#xd21e10214src" name="xd21e10214">5</a></span> See
-Chapter XVIII. p. 353 and p. 364; and Saint-Martin, <i lang=
-"fr">M&eacute;moires sur l&rsquo;Arm&eacute;nie</i>, vol. i. p. iii.
-Tsamentav was the name of the appanage received in exchange. It was
-situated in the Cilician Taurus.&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href=
-"#xd21e10214src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e10224" href="#xd21e10224src" name="xd21e10224">6</a></span> Koch,
-<i lang="de">Reise im pontischen Gebirge</i>, Weimar, 1846, p.
-462.&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href="#xd21e10224src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e10230" href="#xd21e10230src" name="xd21e10230">7</a></span>
-<i>Travels of Evliya</i>, translated by Von Hammer, vol. ii. p. 181.
-The passage runs: &ldquo;Eight hours further to the east we reach the
-frontier fortress of the Ottomans, the castle of Karss. There are three
-towns of that name; one is in Silefka, the Karss of Karatashlik; the
-second the Karss of Mera&rsquo;ash, and the last that of
-D&uacute;dem&aacute;n, which is the present one.&rdquo; I am ignorant
-of the locality assigned to the first mentioned.&nbsp;<a class=
-"fnarrow" href="#xd21e10230src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e10235" href="#xd21e10235src" name="xd21e10235">8</a></span> The
-name Vanand is said by Moses of Khorene (ii. 6) to be derived from that
-of the chieftain of a horde of Bulgarians who settled there. Now that
-Moses has been assigned to the eighth century of our era the statement
-need not surprise us.&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href=
-"#xd21e10235src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e10238" href="#xd21e10238src" name="xd21e10238">9</a></span> Von
-Hammer, <i lang="de">Geschichte des osm. Reiches</i>, vol. viii. p.
-58.&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href="#xd21e10238src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e10245" href="#xd21e10245src" name="xd21e10245">10</a></span>
-Uschakoff, <i lang="de">Geschichte der Feldz&uuml;ge, 1828, 1829</i>,
-Leipzig, 1838, part i. p. 194.&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href=
-"#xd21e10245src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e10281" href="#xd21e10281src" name="xd21e10281">11</a></span>
-Uschakoff, <i>op. cit.</i> i. pp. 191 <i>seq.</i>&nbsp;<a class=
-"fnarrow" href="#xd21e10281src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e10296" href="#xd21e10296src" name="xd21e10296">12</a></span>
-Sandwith, <i>Narrative of the Siege of Kars</i>, London, 1856; Lake,
-<i>Kars and Our Captivity in Russia</i>, London, 1856.&nbsp;<a class=
-"fnarrow" href="#xd21e10296src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e10310" href="#xd21e10310src" name="xd21e10310">13</a></span>
-According to Sandwith (<i>op. cit.</i> p. 286) no less than 6300
-Russians were buried by the besieged after the grand assault on
-Takhmas. Loris Melikoff informed the <i>Daily News</i> Correspondent in
-1877 that during the operations of 1855, at which he himself had been
-present, the Russians lost more than 8000 men, killed or
-disabled.&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href="#xd21e10310src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e10319" href="#xd21e10319src" name="xd21e10319">14</a></span>
-Loris Melikoff contented himself with making a strong demonstration
-against the forts on the left bank, and directed his main attack
-against the Karadagh and the forts in the plain. It was completely
-successful, having been undertaken at night. The Turks had concentrated
-their forces on the heights overlooking the left bank and might
-probably have gone on holding them after the capture of the town. But
-the Commander lost heart; the cunning Armenian who organised the
-victory left him an open door, and he took to his heels. I think one
-must regard these heights as practically impregnable, if held by a
-force well supplied with artillery, provisions, and water.</p>
-<p class="par footnote cont">In 1877 the garrison was 26,000 strong,
-augmented to an even higher figure by the townsmen. The attacking force
-seems to have been about equal in number. Kars fell on the night of the
-17th of November. See <i>Daily News Correspondence</i>, London, 1878;
-Norman, <i>Armenia and the Campaign of 1877</i>, London, n.d.;
-<span lang="fr"><i>&Eacute;tude critique des op&eacute;rations en
-Turquie d&rsquo;Asie pendant la guerre en 1877&ndash;78
-d&rsquo;apr&egrave;s des documents officiels</i>, par un officier
-sup&eacute;rieur Turc</span> (Constantinople and Leipzic,
-1896).&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href="#xd21e10319src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e10383" href="#xd21e10383src" name="xd21e10383">15</a></span>
-Ussher, <i>Journey from London to Persepolis</i>, London, 1865, p.
-238.&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href="#xd21e10383src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e10395" href="#xd21e10395src" name="xd21e10395">16</a></span> Ker
-Porter (1819), <i>Travels</i>, etc., vol. ii. p. 648.&nbsp;<a class=
-"fnarrow" href="#xd21e10395src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e10403" href="#xd21e10403src" name="xd21e10403">17</a></span>
-Wilbraham, <i>Travels</i>, etc., London, 1839, pp. 294, 314; Koch,
-<i lang="de">Reise im pontischen Gebirge</i>, Weimar, 1846, p.
-460.&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href="#xd21e10403src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e10412" href="#xd21e10412src" name="xd21e10412">18</a></span> I
-may cite Brant (1835), Hamilton (1836), Abbott (1837), Consul Taylor
-(1868)&mdash;the last being an unpublished report. Taylor estimates
-2000 houses, of which 200 are Christian and the rest
-Moslem.&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href="#xd21e10412src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e10415" href="#xd21e10415src" name="xd21e10415">19</a></span>
-<i>Travels of Evliya</i>, translated by Von Hammer, London, 1850, vol.
-ii. p. 182.&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href=
-"#xd21e10415src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e10437" href="#xd21e10437src" name="xd21e10437">20</a></span>
-Samuel of Ani, in Migne, <i lang="la">Patrologiae cursus completus</i>,
-series Gr&aelig;ca, vol. xix. p. 718. &ldquo;<span lang="la">Abasus,
-Sembati filius, mirae magnificentiae templum excitat cathedrale in urbe
-Carsa.</span>&rdquo;&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href=
-"#xd21e10437src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e10446" href="#xd21e10446src" name="xd21e10446">21</a></span>
-Brosset, <i lang="fr">Ruines d&rsquo;Ani</i>, p. 8.&nbsp;<a class=
-"fnarrow" href="#xd21e10446src">&uarr;</a></p>
-</div>
-</div>
-<div id="ch20" class="div1 chapter"><span class="pagenum">[<a href=
-"#xd21e479">Contents</a>]</span>
-<div class="divHead">
-<h2 class="label">CHAPTER XX</h2>
-<h2 class="main">ACROSS THE SPINE OF ARMENIA</h2>
-</div>
-<div class="divBody">
-<p class="par first">The long and lofty barrier of the Ararat system
-affords a natural partition of the surface of the Armenian highlands,
-and, corresponding with the frontier between the Russian and the
-Turkish empires, divides Armenia into two. The fairest districts of
-either territory are found on their southern confines; and what the
-valley of the Araxes is to the Russian provinces, that is to those
-under Turkish rule the country of Van. Van, with her famous lake and
-immemorial antiquity, became the next, and not the least alluring
-objective of the journey which we had planned. A new world lay on the
-further side of the mountains towards which we now directed our
-course.</p>
-<p class="par"><i>October 22.</i>&mdash;During our stay in Kars we had
-experienced the first spell of cold, bleak weather that the coming
-winter held in store. On the day of departure the district was visited
-by a storm of rain which delayed us until afternoon. At a few minutes
-after one o&rsquo;clock we were crossing the bridge which spans the
-river, and taking a last view of the castle and the gorge. Above the
-entrance to the cleft the stream flows between humbler slopes; but they
-are still of rock, and the metalled road, which follows the western
-shore at no great distance, is without a prospect on either side. A few
-versts are covered among such cheerless surroundings; then the river
-comes towards you through a nice tract of flat pasture land which opens
-out upon the right bank. The meadows, brown of hue after the heats of
-summer, were seen to extend to the cultivated skirts of a hill range,
-some six miles distant, at the foot of which we were shown the village
-of Azat. A second settlement, Little Tikma, was nearer to us, in the
-same direction; and on our side of the water a group of low stone
-houses were aligned upon the road. We were surprised to hear
-<span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb410" href="#pb410" name=
-"pb410">410</a>]</span>the German tongue and the mournful sounds of a
-concertina; the dress, the hymn reminded us that the day was Sunday;
-and the simple people were delighted to converse with a son of
-Protestant England in the language of their fatherland. They told me
-that it was two years since they had left the colony at Tiflis, and
-migrated to these distant wilds. The soil was rich, and it only needed
-a small expense of capital to diffuse the river over the adjacent
-plain. But whence could they draw the money for works of this nature?
-They harvested their corn in the month of August, but the crops
-suffered from want of water. Although they possessed no school, they
-were not without the rudiments of learning; their frank, intelligent
-faces were a pleasure to see. Petrovka is the name of their settlement,
-which contains some forty houses. A few versts further we entered the
-Russian colony of Vladikars. We were crossing an open country which
-stretched away on either hand to the outlines of low hills. Several of
-these Russian villages were visible in the landscape, and the brown
-loam had been exposed by the plough.</p>
-<p class="par">Vladikars bears a strong resemblance to
-Gorelovka&mdash;the same white faces and little windows of the neat
-stone houses, ranged at intervals on either side of the road. The
-inhabitants, too, display a family likeness to the dwellers in the
-northern watershed&mdash;the men with their lank figures and dull but
-honest faces, the women with their broad shoulders and massive hips.
-The feminine members of the colony were especially
-conspicuous&mdash;strapping wenches, as one might call them, attired in
-the gayest of printed cottons and exhibiting a plainness which was
-almost repulsive. I entered the oblong and single-storeyed building in
-which they conduct their services of prayer. A wooden bench along the
-walls, a few wooden chairs were its only furniture; you saw no pulpit
-or altar or religious picture; God resided in the living objects of His
-love. This village as well as its neighbours are peopled by Molokans, a
-sect of which the doctrine, like that of the Dukhobortsy, represents an
-extreme and a logical form of the Protestant faith. An old man to whom
-I turned, and whose striking features I was able to record (Fig.
-<a href="#fig099">99</a>), spoke to me with much charm of voice and
-manner concerning their religious beliefs. They reverence Moses and the
-prophets and the Holy Gospel, but they practise their religion in their
-own way. Singing psalms appears to be their principal method of
-spiritual expression. Infants are not baptized, but are brought to this
-building; a <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb411" href="#pb411" name=
-"pb411">411</a>]</span>passage from the New Testament is read in the
-child&rsquo;s presence and his name is publicly declared. A similar
-ceremony consecrates the marriage tie.</p>
-<p class="par"></p>
-<div class="figure xd21e10479width" id="fig099"><img src=
-"images/fig099.jpg" alt="Fig. 99. Molokan Elder at Vladikars." width=
-"422" height="592">
-<p class="figureHead"><span class="sc"><span class="figNum">Fig.
-99.</span> Molokan Elder at Vladikars.</span></p>
-</div>
-<p class="par"></p>
-<p class="par">A little beyond this village&mdash;in which is placed
-the eleventh verst stone&mdash;the road bifurcates. The well-metalled
-and well-maintained <i>chauss&eacute;e</i>, which we had been
-following, pursues its course to the confines of the Turkish frontier
-at the station of Sarikamish. The other branch&mdash;which is in places
-a road, but more often a simple track&mdash;stretches off towards the
-south. Taking the latter direction, we drove for some distance over
-even ground, where here and there the rich, brown soil had been exposed
-by the plough. On our left hand rose a grassy and hummock-shaped
-eminence, scarcely a mile away. Hill ranges of similar appearance
-circled around us, their summits capped with lowering clouds and strewn
-with fresh snow. In such surroundings the gay houses of
-Novo-Michaelovka were a pleasing diversion for the eye. The elaborate
-fretwork of wooden gables and shutters, the lavish display of vermilion
-and cobalt, lent an air of festivity to the place (Fig. <a href=
-"#fig100">100</a>). It was evident that the inhabitants were extremely
-well-to-do; yet, like all these sectaries, they neither possessed nor
-appeared to desire a school in which to educate their young. Near this
-<span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb412" href="#pb412" name=
-"pb412">412</a>]</span>village we had again approached the banks of the
-river, which had a width of some <span class="measure" title=
-"18.3 meter">20 yards</span>. We now crossed to the right bank.</p>
-<p class="par">On our point of course, a little to our left, we held a
-bold and lofty hill, of which the outline assumes the appearance of two
-humps. It bears the name of Akh Deve or the white camel; and one can
-understand how appropriate would be this appellation during the winter
-months. Snow had not yet rested upon its grassy convexities, which
-still wore the ochreous hues of autumn, and were flushed in places by a
-detritus of red, volcanic stone. After losing all prospect for the
-space of some twenty minutes, during which we crossed a bleak side
-valley of the sluggish river, and a stream which winds along the base
-of rocky slopes, we again opened this landmark on the further rim of
-the amphitheatre, close by the village and station of Chermaly. The
-post house stands at a little distance from this Armenian village; our
-tired horses were replaced by a fresh team of four, having covered a
-stage of <span class="measure" title="24.5 kilometer">23 versts</span>
-or <span class="measure" title="24.1 kilometer">15 miles</span>.</p>
-<p class="par"></p>
-<div class="figure xd21e10508width" id="fig100"><img src=
-"images/fig100.jpg" alt="Fig. 100. House at Novo-Michaelovka." width=
-"609" height="432">
-<p class="figureHead"><span class="sc"><span class="figNum">Fig.
-100.</span> House at Novo-Michaelovka.</span></p>
-</div>
-<p class="par"></p>
-<p class="par">It was half-past four o&rsquo;clock; we made our way
-over lofty uplands, of which the moist loam held our carriage-wheels.
-Or we jolted upon large boulders, embedded in the track. Away
-<span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb413" href="#pb413" name=
-"pb413">413</a>]</span>on our right rose the slopes of the Akh Deve.
-Magnificent eagles, with their square shoulders and long plumage,
-circled round us or observed us from adjacent rocks. We were not long
-in discovering the bait of this assemblage&mdash;the mangled remains of
-a horse. In three-quarters of an hour we had reached the skirts of the
-hill mass, whence we commanded an unbroken view towards the north. Vast
-tracts of idle soil extended to the horizon, except where, here and
-there, the yellow herbage was interrupted by little carpets of ploughed
-land. Hills, which appeared little better than hummocks, were set at
-random in the expanse. Their summits were streaked with snow; from the
-white linings of their satellite clouds vague lights descended upon the
-plain. We were standing upon the elevated but imperceptible
-water-parting between the Araxes and the river of Kars. A gradual
-descent of some <span class="measure" title="152 meter">500 feet</span>
-brought us to the considerable village of Kemurly, where we passed the
-night in the posting house. It was the first settlement which we had
-seen during a stage of <span class="measure" title="21.3 kilometer">20
-versts</span>, or a little over <span class="measure" title=
-"20.9 kilometer">13 miles</span>.</p>
-<p class="par">The latter portion of the drive from the Akh Deve to the
-village had been performed under the shadow of night. It was only on
-the following morning&mdash;which broke serene and radiant&mdash;that
-we were able to realise the great significance of our position in a
-geographical sense. The even ground over which we had travelled from
-the banks of the Arpa to Kars, from Kars to the southward-flowing
-streams, does not descend, as one might expect, to the valley of the
-Araxes through a series of gradual inclines. The transition is effected
-by an exactly opposite process; the plain continues to rise until it
-has almost reached the latitude of the river, then suddenly breaks
-away, and overhangs the valley in a long line of gigantic cliffs. These
-cliffs extend for miles along the left bank of the Araxes; and it has
-been ascertained that for a space of over <span class="measure" title=
-"48.3 kilometer">30 miles</span> they maintain about the same
-elevation, namely, a height of <span class="measure" title=
-"1951 meter">6400 feet</span> above the sea, and of <span class=
-"measure" title="610">2000</span> to <span class="measure" title=
-"762 meter">2500 feet</span> above the river.<a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e10542src" href="#xd21e10542" name="xd21e10542src">1</a> They may
-in fact be regarded as forming the rim of an extensive plateau, which
-commences at the confluence of the Arpa with the Araxes, and stretches
-westwards, unbroken by any considerable mountain barrier, along the
-narrows above Kagyzman, and along the broad <span class=
-"pagenum">[<a id="pb414" href="#pb414" name=
-"pb414">414</a>]</span>depression of Pasin to the very threshold of the
-plain of Erzerum. Their peculiar boldness in the neighbourhood of
-Kagyzman may in part be attributed to the lavas which have issued in
-considerable volume from centres of emission along their edge. These
-eruptive centres, long since dormant, are seen in the shape of low
-convexities, stretching inwards from the brink of the cliff.</p>
-<p class="par"></p>
-<div class="figure xd21e10556width" id="fig101"><img src=
-"images/fig101.jpg" alt=
-"Fig. 101. Aghri Dagh from the Araxes Ca&ntilde;on." width="597"
-height="361">
-<p class="figureHead"><span class="sc"><span class="figNum">Fig.
-101.</span> Aghri Dagh from the Araxes Ca&ntilde;on.</span></p>
-</div>
-<p class="par"></p>
-<p class="par">There is seldom wanting to such formations a natural
-pass or opening, through which the communications with the lower levels
-flow. Our road availed itself of a deep and gulf-like inlet in the rim
-of the plateau. The descent along this avenue was comparatively long
-and gradual, commencing indeed above the village&mdash;which has an
-elevation of some <span class="measure" title="1981 meter">6500
-feet</span><a class="noteref" id="xd21e10567src" href="#xd21e10567"
-name="xd21e10567src">2</a>&mdash;and ending in the neighbourhood of the
-Lower Kemurly. Measured on the map from point to point, the distance
-between the two settlements is about 6&frac12; miles. The road was
-carried along the slopes through an infinitude of windings, which
-measured <span class="measure" title="19.2 kilometer">18 versts</span>
-or <span class="measure" title="19.3 kilometer">12 miles</span>.</p>
-<p class="par">It was not yet eight o&rsquo;clock when we proceeded in
-our carriage down the easy gradients of this descent. Beyond a
-foreground which was choked by a succession of shelving convexities
-rose the crags and peaks of the Ararat system&mdash;that long range to
-which in a collective sense this name may not be inapplicable, and
-which, like Ararat, is known to the inhabitants of these districts
-<span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb415" href="#pb415" name=
-"pb415">415</a>]</span>under the name of Aghri Dagh. Aghri Dagh! These
-words, with their roughness on the palate, are just as appropriate to
-express the ruggedness of the barrier which we were fronting, as they
-are unsuited to reflect the harmony of the giant in the east. The eye,
-already accustomed to the vaulted eminences of the tableland, is
-impressed by the contrast of these sharp, precipitous shapes. It seems
-some invasion of the border ranges into the area of the great plateaux.
-The sun was touching the summits of the chain, which were softened by a
-covering of fresh snow. But the underlying rock still asserted its
-essential character, moulding the snow into an infinite number of
-facets, which sparkled in the light (Fig. <a href="#fig101">101</a>).
-The northern wall of the valley&mdash;the heights we were leaving
-behind us&mdash;is composed by the lofty cliffs already described.
-Their even outline was drawn across the sky into invisible limits, as
-we made our way over the broken ground to which they decline (Fig.
-<a href="#fig102">102</a>).</p>
-<p class="par"></p>
-<div class="figure xd21e10587width" id="fig102"><img src=
-"images/fig102.jpg" alt=
-"Fig. 102. Cliffs composing Northern Wall of Araxes Ca&ntilde;on."
-width="605" height="354">
-<p class="figureHead"><span class="sc"><span class="figNum">Fig.
-102.</span> Cliffs composing Northern Wall of Araxes
-Ca&ntilde;on.</span></p>
-</div>
-<p class="par"></p>
-<p class="par">Marls and sandstone had taken the place of the layers of
-volcanic matter; far and wide, the slopes about us were broken into
-hummock shapes, tinged with delicate yellows and pinks. The only
-vestige of wood were some low trees and bush, seen on the lower tiers
-of the opposite mountains in the far west. Again we opened out the
-distant outline of Ararat, beyond the dark peak of Takjaltu. The Araxes
-was long invisible; when at length we overlooked the narrow floor of
-the valley, the river resembled a <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb416"
-href="#pb416" name="pb416">416</a>]</span>slender white thread.
-Kagyzman was distinguished on the first of the slopes which faced
-us&mdash;an oasis of verdure and some faint blue smoke. We felt the
-power of a southern sun; and, as we neared the end of the descent,
-bouquets of atraphaxis, with succulent flowers and blaze of madder,
-clothed the waste and sandy soil. At twenty minutes before ten we were
-at the Lower Kemurly; and, a little later, our wheels were cleaving the
-shallow waters of the Araxes, spread in a wide bed of silt and shingle,
-over which a rapid current flows (Fig. <a href="#fig103">103</a>). The
-ground rises from the opposite margin of the river up the beautiful
-side valley of Kagyzman. The town is situated at an elevation of some
-<span class="measure" title="213 meter">700 feet</span> above the ford,
-which crosses a hollow of nearly <span class="measure" title=
-"1219 meter">4000 feet</span> above the sea.<a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e10607src" href="#xd21e10607" name="xd21e10607src">3</a></p>
-<p class="par"></p>
-<div class="figure xd21e10634width" id="fig103"><img src=
-"images/fig103.jpg" alt="Fig. 103. The Araxes near Kagyzman." width=
-"608" height="403">
-<p class="figureHead"><span class="sc"><span class="figNum">Fig.
-103.</span> The Araxes near Kagyzman.</span></p>
-</div>
-<p class="par"><span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb417" href="#pb417" name=
-"pb417">417</a>]</span></p>
-<p class="par">The houses nestle among lofty trees, on the left or
-western bank of a broad depression, which harbours in its deep and
-wooded recesses a scanty affluent of the Araxes. The soft tracery and
-mellow tints of the luxuriant foliage are backed by the rugged sides of
-the Ararat system; while, in the north, the eye follows the horizontal
-edge of the tableland, with the low volcanic eminences protruding above
-that outline, and robed, this morning, in fresh snow (Fig. <a href=
-"#fig104">104</a>). The inhabitants of this little paradise are
-Armenians and Mohammedans, the latter of whom belong to the Sunni
-persuasion and are classed in the Russian census as Turks.<a class=
-"noteref" id="xd21e10647src" href="#xd21e10647" name=
-"xd21e10647src">4</a> A strong detachment of Cossacks was quartered in
-the place&mdash;a significant outpost of the northern empire. I was
-anxious to cross the mountains on the following morning; and it was
-painful to realise that we were at the mercy of the civil
-authorities&mdash;of a sour-faced Nachalnik who had no doubt received
-his instructions, but in what sense remained to be seen. Had
-Fad&eacute;eff hardened his heart? Had the order come to arrest us? The
-question remained for some time in suspense. The route which we were
-taking excited suspicion; with what object were we pursuing this
-unbeaten track? There were not wanting practical difficulties which
-might excuse the authorities, should they decide to detain us at
-Kagyzman. We were in need of transport; to purchase suitable animals
-was next to impossible; and, as for hiring, the owners were not
-accustomed to cross the frontier, and might reasonably apprehend
-detention on the other side. Indeed we failed in all our efforts to
-induce them to make a contract; and we were brought to recognise that
-it would be necessary to abandon our intention, unless the Nachalnik
-would <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb418" href="#pb418" name=
-"pb418">418</a>]</span>intervene. By dint of much persistence and some
-cajolery we were able to bring him round. He of course protested that
-Oriental methods were out of place in Russia; we approved the
-sentiment, and expressed the hope that something would be devised to
-take their place. The owners were given their orders to appear before
-dawn on the following day. I rose at four, certain that they would not
-obey. But there was still a hope that we might create the necessary
-quantity of initiative by rousing the Nachalnik from his sleep. This
-plan, based, as the reader knows, upon former experiences, was
-productive of instant success.</p>
-<p class="par"></p>
-<div class="figure xd21e10653width" id="fig104"><img src=
-"images/fig104.jpg" alt=
-"Fig. 104. Looking down the Valley of Kagyzman." width="720" height=
-"493">
-<p class="figureHead"><span class="sc"><span class="figNum">Fig.
-104.</span> Looking down the Valley of Kagyzman.</span></p>
-</div>
-<p class="par"></p>
-<p class="par">By half-past seven our tiny caravan was in motion,
-pointing along the base of the mountains a little south of west. We
-sank by a steep incline to a long valley which follows the Araxes in
-the relation, as it appeared to us, of a parallel trough. It was filled
-with hummocks of a red, sandy substance; the slopes on either side
-screened off the view. Those on our left hand were the more stony, and
-were tinged in places a greenish hue. In about an hour after starting
-we opened out the river, flowing at some little distance from the
-heights upon which we stood. A lateral depression afforded access to
-the principal valley, which we followed, keeping to the high ground.
-The Araxes was threading the narrow bottom of a fork, of which the arms
-rose to thousands of feet above its bed. Close up now, on our left
-hand, towered the escarpments of the range, fronting the opposite
-cliffs of the tableland. At a little before nine we turned our backs to
-the river and rose, on a southerly course, up the mountain side.</p>
-<p class="par"></p>
-<div class="figure xd21e10663width" id="fig106"><a href=
-"images/fig106-h.jpg"><img src="images/fig106.jpg" alt=
-"Fig. 106. A Rib or Buttress of Aghri Dagh." width="720" height=
-"273"></a>
-<p class="figureHead"><span class="sc"><span class="figNum">Fig.
-106.</span> A Rib or Buttress of Aghri Dagh<span class="corr" id=
-"xd21e10669" title="Not in source">.</span></span></p>
-</div>
-<p class="par"></p>
-<p class="par">We had reached an elevation of some <span class=
-"measure" title="1676 meter">5500 feet</span>, when a little village,
-with a few willows and the ruins of an ancient monastery, broke upon
-our view (Fig. <a href="#fig105">105</a>). It is inhabited by
-Armenians, and bears the name of Kara Vank (the black cloister). The
-even masonry of hewn stone which composed the crumbling edifice
-recalled the culture of a forgotten age. What a contrast it presented
-to the rude and featureless walls of the modern village church! We
-passed through this little settlement, which contains some thirty
-houses, and mounted the slopes on the further side. In a valley on our
-left hand we noticed some sparse brushwood, and bushes of wild rose
-here and there relieved the rock. We were nearing the level of the
-opposite edge of the tableland, of which the cliffs were seen
-descending to the narrow river valley with shelving sides of richly
-modelled marls. At a quarter <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb419" href=
-"#pb419" name="pb419">419</a>]</span>before ten we made halt on the
-neck of a spur, whence we obtained a wide prospect over the more
-distant scene.</p>
-<p class="par"></p>
-<div class="figure xd21e10684width" id="fig105"><img src=
-"images/fig105.jpg" alt="Fig. 105. Kara Vank on Aghri Dagh." width=
-"606" height="427">
-<p class="figureHead"><span class="sc"><span class="figNum">Fig.
-105.</span> Kara Vank on Aghri Dagh.</span></p>
-</div>
-<p class="par"></p>
-<p class="par">We overlooked the surface of the tableland. Towards the
-east, the mass of Alag&ouml;z could be distinguished from banks of
-cloud, which clung to the recent snows upon its slopes. Kagyzman was
-still visible in the trough of the landscape; the two low cones on the
-cliffs beyond the town were especially prominent, enveloped in a sheet
-of unbroken snow. Our people identified them with the great and the
-small Jagluya, and said they were famous for their rich pasture-land.
-From east to west, in a wide half-circle, land and cloud were woven
-together, the horizontal outlines always felt and sometimes seen. But
-in the west these nebulous shapes met the profile of the savage ridges
-which were seen descending from the range about us, almost at right
-angles, into the narrows through which the river flows.</p>
-<p class="par">From this point we continued during a considerable space
-of time to skirt these upper slopes. The keen air was full of sun; the
-prospect was inspiring; we loitered for an hour over our lunch. I
-focussed the camera upon one of the long meridional parapets which
-cleave the soft landscape of the west (Fig. <a href="#fig106">106</a>).
-I would ask my reader to observe the deep incision of its flanking
-<span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb420" href="#pb420" name=
-"pb420">420</a>]</span>valley; these valleys extend to the very spine
-of the mountain system, and, in some places, appear to break it
-through. We were obliged to descend to the bottom of this particular
-ravine; a slender stream was rustling over the boulders in the hollow,
-which had an elevation of some <span class="measure" title=
-"1768 meter">5800 feet</span>. The rocky escarpments of the opposite
-parapet were seen to consist of a compound diabase, veined in places
-with beautiful marbles. Of wood there was little, even within these
-recesses&mdash;a brushwood of beech and willow and fir. The rose bushes
-were still with us, and the yellow immortelles, which we had not seen
-since our sojourn on Ararat.</p>
-<p class="par">Beyond this valley we rose towards the summits of the
-chain and made our way through this winter&rsquo;s snow. We were on the
-pass at four o&rsquo;clock (Fig. <a href="#fig107">107</a>); a
-grass-grown eminence on our right hand was identified as the Akh Bulakh
-Dagh. The range was highest on our left; the saddle by which we crossed
-it has an elevation of some <span class="measure" title=
-"2621 meter">8600 feet</span>. Half an hour later we had passed into
-the opposite watershed, and planted our feet upon Turkish soil.</p>
-<p class="par"></p>
-<div class="figure xd21e10712width" id="fig107"><img src=
-"images/fig107.jpg" alt="Fig. 107. Pass over Aghri Dagh." width="720"
-height="505">
-<p class="figureHead"><span class="sc"><span class="figNum">Fig.
-107.</span> Pass over Aghri Dagh.</span></p>
-</div>
-<p class="par"></p>
-<p class="par">Vast plains lay below us&mdash;dim tracts of even soil,
-broken in places by hummock shapes. The outline of an opposite chain
-was drawn across the horizon, loftier in the east, where it was crowned
-with snow, declining in the west to a range of blue-grey hills upon our
-right. It was the system of the Ala Dagh. Beyond this barrier, the
-harmonious shape of a single mountain formed a beautiful white presence
-in the sky. We could not doubt that it was Sipan, nearly seventy miles
-distant, the goal to which we were directing our steps. A thread of
-water on the plains reflected the blue heaven, and was recognised as
-the Murad. We had crossed the spine of Armenia, and were descending to
-the banks of the Euphrates, to the sources of the streams which issue
-into the Persian Gulf. <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb421" href=
-"#pb421" name="pb421">421</a>]</span></p>
-</div>
-<div class="footnotes">
-<hr class="fnsep">
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e10542" href="#xd21e10542src" name="xd21e10542">1</a></span>
-Abich, <i lang="de">Geologische Forschungen in kaukasischen
-L&auml;ndern</i>, Vienna, 1882, vol. ii. p. 145, and Map I. He measures
-from the western foot of the Ala Dagh below the village of Kalabashi in
-an easterly direction. See also his various measurements (<i>ibid.</i>
-pp. 376, 377).&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href=
-"#xd21e10542src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e10567" href="#xd21e10567src" name="xd21e10567">2</a></span> By my
-own instruments.&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href=
-"#xd21e10567src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e10607" href="#xd21e10607src" name="xd21e10607">3</a></span> The
-bed of the river at the ford has an elevation of <span class="measure"
-title="1189 meter">3900 feet</span> according to my barometers.
-Abich&rsquo;s readings are as follows:&mdash;Bank of the river below
-the village of Changly, above Kagyzman, <span class="measure" title=
-"1198 meter">3932 feet</span>; below the village of Kers, below
-Kagyzman, <span class="measure" title="1119 meter">3671 feet</span>.
-The elevation of Kagyzman is <span class="measure" title=
-"1408 meter">4621 feet</span>. Evliya, who travelled in the middle of
-the seventeenth century, furnishes the following account of the
-place:&mdash;</p>
-<p class="par footnote cont">&ldquo;The castle of Kaghzem&aacute;n
-being situated on the Kiblah side of the Aras is reckoned to be on the
-frontier of Azerbeij&aacute;n, but belongs to the Ottoman government of
-Karss. It is named after its builder, one of the daughters of
-N&uacute;shirv&aacute;n. It was taken out of the hands of Uz&uacute;n
-Hassan by Sh&aacute;h Ismail, and then submitted to Sult&aacute;n
-S&uacute;leim&aacute;n. It is the seat of a Sanjak Beg whose khass
-amounts to 200,000 aspers, 9 zi&aacute;mets, 178 tim&aacute;rs: 900
-feudal militia, a judge appointed with 150 aspers, and a garrison of
-300 men, who are paid by the impost on salt; the salt mines, and a
-quarry of mill-stones, are on the west side of the castle. The
-mill-stones of Persia and R&uacute;m come from Kaghzem&aacute;n; the
-borax of the goldsmiths, barbers&rsquo; whetting-stones, and the common
-whetting-stones are extracted from the mines of Kaghzem&aacute;n; in
-two places gold and silver are found, but as the product was exceeded
-by the <span class="corr" id="xd21e10626" title=
-"Source: expences">expenses</span> they were abandoned; there are
-altogether 11 mines. The castle is a square strong building standing on
-a hill on the bank of the Aras; there are 700 small houses; it is not a
-commercial town (Bender), but a frontier town (Serhadd). Mount
-Aghr&iacute;, which appears to the west, is one of the most
-praiseworthy mountains in the world; it is near the town, and is the
-summer abode (Yaila) of Turcomans. The air is temperate and allows of
-the cultivation of gardens on some spots; the inhabitants are mild and
-some of them fair. The Levend troops (irregular levies) sing Persian
-songs with harmonious voices. As soon as I entered the town the
-Div&aacute;n assembled, and notwithstanding the repeated oaths of the
-members of it, that they had not molested the Persian caravan, but only
-taken their custom duties, I took seven Agh&aacute;s of them with me to
-prove the truth of what they said, by their presence at Erzer&uacute;m,
-whereunto I returned&rdquo; (<i>The Travels of Evliya, translated from
-the Turkish by Von Hammer</i>, London, 1850, vol. i. p.
-183).&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href="#xd21e10607src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e10647" href="#xd21e10647src" name="xd21e10647">4</a></span>
-According to the official statistics the population amounts to 3435
-souls, of whom the Armenians number 1709 and the Turks
-1578.&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href="#xd21e10647src">&uarr;</a></p>
-</div>
-</div>
-<div id="ch21" class="div1 chapter"><span class="pagenum">[<a href=
-"#xd21e489">Contents</a>]</span>
-<div class="divHead">
-<h2 class="label">CHAPTER XXI</h2>
-<h2 class="main">GEOGRAPHICAL</h2>
-</div>
-<div class="divBody">
-<p class="par first">In the present chapter I shall invite my reader to
-make good his advantage over the traveller, and to realise, before
-proceeding further with the journey, the true meaning and wider
-connection of those natural features which have composed the landscape
-day by day. At the same time I shall endeavour to trace the limits of
-north-eastern or Russian Armenia, extending our view for awhile to
-comprise the whole of Armenia, and again narrowing it to the area of
-the Russian provinces.</p>
-<p class="par">But at the outset we are prompted to examine the
-conception so vaguely expressed by the metaphors of tableland and frame
-of mountain ranges which, with slight variations in the figure, have in
-the foregoing pages so often been employed. The pursuit of this
-analysis carries us beyond the sphere of our particular survey,
-compelling us to consider the structure of Asia as a whole.</p>
-<p class="par">From the Mediterranean to the Pacific the Asiatic
-continent is traversed by a zone of elevated country, which, flanked on
-the north and south by great chains of mountains, breaks off on the
-west to the &AElig;gean Sea and to the lowlands of China on the east.
-Extensive areas of land with considerably lesser altitude are outspread
-on either side of this gigantic system: in the north the plains of
-Russia and Siberia, in the south the peninsulas of Arabia and India.
-The mountain chains which confine the zone of elevated country have
-been reared during different geological periods; yet they are subject
-to common laws. They are disposed in extensive arcs, of greater or
-lesser curvature, which are festooned across the continent on either
-side of the plateau region with a general direction from east to west.
-The plateau region is in general synclinal or, in other words, of
-slightly <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb422" href="#pb422" name=
-"pb422">422</a>]</span>hollow surface, and, in comparison with the
-flanking ranges, is flat.</p>
-<p class="par"></p>
-<div class="figure xd21e10737width" id="map06"><a href=
-"images/map06-h.jpg"><img src="images/map06.jpg" alt=
-"THE STRUCTURAL FEATURES OF ASIA" width="720" height="553"></a>
-<p class="figureHead">THE STRUCTURAL FEATURES OF ASIA</p>
-<p class="par first">Engraved and printed by Wagner &amp; Debes,
-Leipzig.</p>
-</div>
-<p class="par"></p>
-<p class="par">If we enquire of the geologist the origin of these
-phenomena, we receive an answer which, while it leaves many points
-obscure and doubtful, still enables us to trace the operation of fixed
-principles in the mighty work unfolded before our eyes. Our globe sails
-through the wan expanse of &aelig;ther, diffusing the heat with which
-it is charged. The cooling crust shrinks and gathers inwards towards
-the centre; but the material of which it consists is inelastic and is
-thrown into gigantic wrinkles or folds. Radial contraction induces
-tangential stresses at the surface, colossal forces which bend over and
-invert the folds, and even thrust the strata one beneath another,
-causing them to be disposed like the tiles upon a roof. This lateral
-tension finds most relief where the crust is weakest; and it is at such
-points, or along such zones, that the process of mountain-making has
-been developed on the largest scale. It is the tendency of such folded
-ranges to form arcs of large curvature, which are drawn inwards, where
-the lateral pressure meets with most resistance, and expand outwards,
-where it is withstood in a lesser degree.</p>
-<p class="par">In Asia the operation of this process of mountain-making
-has been accompanied by, or has produced, the elevation in mass of
-large portions of the earth&rsquo;s crust. The intensely folded
-regions, or, in other words, the great chains of mountains, are found
-along the inner and the outer margins of the elevated mass. Between
-these zones the stratified rocks have no doubt been subjected to the
-folding process; yet they have escaped the immense contortions that
-have taken place on either side.</p>
-<p class="par">Throughout the continent the lateral force which has
-been most operative in mountain-making has proceeded from the north.
-The fact may perhaps be explained by supposing that this force is the
-result of the active pressure exerted by the hard, unyielding material
-of which the steppes of Siberia and the basin of the Arctic Ocean are
-composed. The great arcs which are described by the mountain ranges are
-in general convex to the south. Thus in western Asia the chains on the
-inner and outer margins of the elevated area are disposed in two
-roughly parallel series of arcs bulging towards the south. Of these
-series the inner arcs have less curvature than the outer, to which they
-are roughly parallel.</p>
-<p class="par">The inner series may be traced with greatest singleness
-of <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb423" href="#pb423" name=
-"pb423">423</a>]</span>feature on the west of Hindu Kush&mdash;that
-natural centre of the mountain systems of Asia which at once supplies
-the most convenient standpoint for a general survey of the structure of
-the continent, and is placed at the junction of the two great
-divisions, western and eastern, into which geographers have partitioned
-this vast area. The Hindu Kush inclines over into the Paropamisus; and
-the southern portion of the latter range is continued, on the north of
-Persia, by the mountains of Khorasan. A sharp bend in the belt, just
-east of the Caspian, turns southwards into the Elburz range, and the
-beautiful curve of the chain along the margin of the shore may be
-admired from the waters of that inland sea. The line of Elburz is
-protracted across the depression of the Araxes valley into the peaks of
-Karabagh; while the Karabagh system unites with the bold and lofty
-ridges which in full face of their gigantic neighbour, the Caucasus,
-overtower the right bank of the Kur. These ridges again connect with
-the chain we have ourselves crossed between Kutais and
-Akhaltsykh&mdash;a chain which joins the mountains on the southern
-shore of the Black Sea. The Pontic range forms a bow of wide span and
-gentle curvature, ending in the hump of Anatolia, where it meets the
-arc of the Bithynian border hills.</p>
-<p class="par">The parallel series on the outer margin of the elevated
-area commences with the outer arc of the Hindu Kush system, the
-severely bent and S-shaped Salt Range. Thence it proceeds into the
-mountains which flank Persia upon the east and belong to the outer
-Iranian arc.<a class="noteref" id="xd21e10755src" href="#xd21e10755"
-name="xd21e10755src">1</a> The bold sweep of this arc into the chain of
-Zagros may be recognised by a glance at the map. We remark the greater
-protraction of the north-western arm of the bow, a feature which may be
-traced in the configuration of most of the great Asiatic chains. We
-admire the clean and uniform outline of the curve, broken only by a
-slight indent at the straits of Ormuz, which may be answered by the
-bend in the inner system which we have already noticed on the east of
-the Caspian Sea. The outer Iranian arc effects a junction with the
-Tauric ranges along two parallel but fairly distinct orographical
-lines. Of these the inner line crosses over from the Zagros to the
-Ararat system, and assumes commanding orographical importance in the
-western arm of that system, known as the Aghri or Shatin Dagh. It is in
-the Shatin Dagh <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb424" href="#pb424"
-name="pb424">424</a>]</span>that the bend to the west-south-west is
-effected, which may be followed through a series of volcanoes into the
-Anti-Taurus and the Mediterranean range. The outer line is formed by
-the grand half-circle of the Kurdish mountains; from the parched plains
-about Diarbekr you see them, as from the well of an amphitheatre,
-covered or capped with gleaming snow. This principal chain of Taurus
-extends to the coast of Syria, and emerges from the sea in the island
-of Cyprus and in many a headland and island of the Anatolian coast.</p>
-<p class="par">It can scarcely fail to impress the most casual of
-observers that this double series of arcs, from Hindu Kush to
-Mediterranean, meet or almost meet at three distinctly traceable and
-widely separated points. Such approximations occur in Hindu Kush, in
-Armenia, and in the mountainous districts which border the Ionian
-seaboard. We can scarcely doubt that they are due to the incidence of a
-strong opposing force, moving from the south and causing the arcs to be
-constricted, the ranges to be piled up one behind another, and mountain
-development to assume its grandest forms. It is probable that the
-resisting pressure has been furnished in the first two cases by the
-Indian and Arabian peninsulas. Another feature, less obvious but not
-less noteworthy, is furnished by the fact that in Armenia and Asia
-Minor the arcs have been fractured in the process of bending over at or
-near the points where the approximations between the two series have
-taken place. The closer the constriction, the sharper, of course,
-becomes the curve, and the greater the tendency to split. In Asia Minor
-the union of the series has resulted in complete fracture; the folded
-area sinks beneath the waters of the &AElig;gean to be represented by
-the islands which stud the Archipelago, and, further west, by the
-mountains of the Dalmatian coast.</p>
-<p class="par">On the east of Hindu Kush we are as yet in want of
-sufficient material for so convincing an analysis as the researches of
-geologists have rendered possible on the west. We know that in eastern
-Asia a vast area of elevated land is bounded both along the inner and
-the outer margins by mountain systems of wide extension and great
-height. Such are the systems of Altai and Tian-shan upon the north, and
-the mighty bow of the Himalayas on the south. Probably the Kuenlun
-range carries over the inner series of western Asia, extending
-eastwards from the Pamirs and serving as a buttress to the immensely
-elevated plateau of Tibet. If this view be correct, then the Tian-shan
-and <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb425" href="#pb425" name=
-"pb425">425</a>]</span>Altai systems may perhaps be regarded as minor
-earth-waves, following close upon the heels of the Kuenlun, and
-supporting the highlands of the Tarim basin and the desert of Gobi, the
-Han-hai or Dry Sea of the Chinese. The plain reader may be content to
-observe the echelon of mountain ranges which extends from Hindu Kush
-towards Behring Sea; to note the constant curvature of the arcs towards
-the south, until, in the Altai group, the eastern arms of the bows are
-protracted ever further towards the north; to contrast the low-lying
-plains along the western ends of the echelon with the lofty highlands
-of Mongolia on the east. The necks of the valleys issue upon the
-depression of Siberia and the low country through which the Oxus and
-Jaxartes flow.</p>
-<p class="par">In western Asia the elevated area with its flanking
-ranges is bordered on the north by the northern Paropamisus and further
-west by the Caucasus chain. The Paropamisus may perhaps be regarded as
-the most southerly of the many branches which belong to the system of
-Tian-shan.<a class="noteref" id="xd21e10772src" href="#xd21e10772"
-name="xd21e10772src">2</a> Geologists invite us to connect the
-Paropamisus with the Caucasus, and trace the links of the broken chain
-to the mountains of Krasnovodsk on the Caspian, whence a submarine
-ridge carries the line into the mountains of Caucasus, to be protracted
-far to the west, through the Crimea, and emerge from the waters of the
-Black Sea in the Balkans, Carpathians and Alps. In this manner we see
-described on the north of the Asiatic highlands, with their series of
-inner arcs, a further arc of immense span and wide curvature, which is
-represented on the east by the northern Paropamisus and by the Caucasus
-on the west. Both these ranges may best be viewed as independent of the
-inner series; but Paropamisus is closely adpressed to the inner arc of
-Persia, and Caucasus is joined at a single point to the series, namely
-by the Meschic linking chain. Lines of elevation, similar to that which
-we have traced from Paropamisus, may be discovered, although with less
-orographical distinction, proceeding westwards and struggling over
-towards Europe from the more northerly branches of Tian-shan; they are
-almost lost in the great depression of the Turanian lowlands, but they
-follow arcs of increasing width of span.</p>
-<p class="par">This interesting study of the structure of Asia, which
-is due to the researches of recent years, not only serves to explain
-the pronounced features of Asiatic landscapes, as integral members of
-<span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb426" href="#pb426" name=
-"pb426">426</a>]</span>a vast design, but also enables us to understand
-many of the movements of history and many of the phenomena of the human
-world.<a class="noteref" id="xd21e10779src" href="#xd21e10779" name=
-"xd21e10779src">3</a> India is enclosed on all sides by the sea or by
-the outer mountains, and appears reserved by natural causes for
-herself. China, with her teeming millions, is separated from western
-Asia by the whole bulk of the broadest and least hospitable portion of
-the system of lofty plateaux with peripheral ranges. The echelon of
-chains, which seam the continent in a north-easterly direction, are the
-nurseries of the hardiest tribes. The valleys which space these ranges
-are the arteries of human movement, and they lead from west to east,
-from east to west. Thus during the period of armed migrations which is
-represented by the Tartar conquests<span class="corr" id="xd21e10794"
-title="Not in source">,</span> one division of the Tartar armies might
-be fighting in China on the Yellow River while another was laying waste
-Khorasan. The bend of the arcs towards the south places the framework
-of Nature in harmony with the migrations of man. The tablelands of
-Persia, Armenia and Asia Minor are members of a continuous system of
-elevated plains at a temperate altitude, which extend like some great
-causeway along the breadth of Asia, giving access from east to west,
-from west to east. This causeway forms the natural avenue of commerce
-and of conquest, by which the tide of war or of commercial intercourse
-ebbs and flows between the remote recesses of Central Asia and the
-Ionian shore of the Mediterranean Sea. Only on the east is the causeway
-blocked by Nature to human traffic, by the constriction of the arcs on
-the north of India, leading over by a gigantic knot of mountains into
-the impassable plateau of Tibet. The stream is therefore diverted from
-the highlands to the lowlands; great cities arise on the lowlands, at
-the mouths of the Tian-shan valleys, Merv, Bokhara, Samarkand. And when
-we contemplate and contrast the structure of Asia and of
-Europe&mdash;the vast forces which have produced the stately body of
-eastern Asia dying out towards the west in the insignificant but widely
-ramified elevations of the European mountain chains&mdash;we may
-readily understand how different has been the influence exercised by
-structural features upon the peoples of either continent. In Asia such
-features are a factor of the first importance, determining climate,
-controlling migrations, <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb427" href=
-"#pb427" name="pb427">427</a>]</span>setting barriers to intercourse or
-relentlessly fixing the highways which it must pursue. In Europe, on
-the other hand, they have done little more than diversify the scenery,
-and for purposes of peaceful or hostile movements among the nations may
-with some exceptions be almost left out of account. What are our
-European mountains but arbitrary wrinkles on the face of the continent?
-One valley leads over into another of much the same height above
-sea-level by a pass which is not more lofty than the neighbouring
-ridges. One plain is succeeded by a companion expanse of similar
-character, and only some small diversity in the forms of the spires of
-the churches tells the tale of national distinctions. Differentiation
-rather than the presence of marked ethnological types is characteristic
-of the peoples of Europe. But once the narrow strait is passed we may
-no longer dally with our geography; and the further we proceed towards
-the east and the inner sanctuaries of Nature the greater grows the
-necessity of comprehending phenomena which must always exercise a
-dominant influence upon human affairs. It will not suffice in Asia to
-observe the latitude of a great plain in order to know beforehand the
-degree of heat which it will support in summer, the rigour or the
-suavity of the climate during winter. You will be freezing in Erzerum
-while Erivan is relaxed in sunshine; yet both cities are placed on the
-margins of level expanses, and the advantage of latitude is in favour
-of the temperateness of that first named. Not even the convenient
-distinction of highlands and lowlands will carry us very far. We must
-enquire into the nature of the highlands; are the mountains their
-prevailing feature, or are those mountains, as we see them from the
-floor of the lowlands, a mere buttress to a sequence of elevated
-plains? Penetrate the chain, and you rise by successive steps from
-valley to valley, while each ridge is higher than the last. Follow its
-extension upon the map and you will see it rising from the
-Mediterranean and terminating in the knot of mountains north of India.
-Mark the characteristics of the people who inhabit it, be they Kurds or
-Lurs or Lazes, they will not offer much divergence from a common
-standard. Yet what a gulf of human nature between these and the
-inhabitants of the lowlands&mdash;a gulf which is scarcely spanned by
-the equalising tendencies of a long spell of misgovernment! When at
-length these alps expand, and you overlook a more level country,
-everything&mdash;climate, the aspect of the sky as well as of the land,
-people, language, cities, villages <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb428"
-href="#pb428" name="pb428">428</a>]</span>are new. And yet our
-diplomatists who dwell on the Bosphorus, and ruminate Asiatic problems
-with the aid of indifferent maps which they would not pretend to
-understand, group the highlands and the lowlands, the shepherds of the
-mountains and the cultivators of the plains, all together&mdash;a
-strange collection of birds and beasts and fishes&mdash;in a single
-scheme of administrative reforms. The Turk is little wiser; but we may
-perhaps view with a large indifference his passive resistance to such
-reforms.</p>
-<p class="par">But to return to our plains and mountains&mdash;the
-country which we may still call Armenia takes its place as an integral
-member of the system of tablelands, buttressed by mountain ranges,
-which extends from the Hindu Kush to the Mediterranean Sea. It is not
-separated by any important natural frontier from Persia on the east or
-from Asia Minor on the west. Moreover most of the characteristics which
-are found in either of these neighbours are prevalent in Armenia to a
-greater or a lesser degree. The stratified rocks include the later
-Pal&aelig;ozoic, the Cretaceous, Eocene and Miocene series; and these
-extend across the whole system. The salt deposits of Miocene age which
-are spread so widely over Persia are not among the least remarkable of
-the surface features of Armenia; although they have not produced that
-widespread devastation which attends the extension of the great salt
-deserts over the Persian plateau.<a class="noteref" id="xd21e10803src"
-href="#xd21e10803" name="xd21e10803src">4</a> In Armenia they are
-friendly to man, providing him with one of his necessaries; and the
-various salt works, known in Turkey under the name of <i>tuzla</i> or
-salt pans, have been exploited from immemorial times. Considerable
-depressions of the surface of the highlands are phenomena common to all
-three countries; and the same may be said of the volcanoes which are
-dominant in Armenian landscapes, but are not wholly absent from the
-contiguous territories on either side. All participate in the benefits
-of a southern climate, and are exempted by their elevation above
-sea-level from the excesses of a southern sun. Slowly-flowing rivers
-threading vast plains, mountains which determine districts rather than
-states; a natural penury of vegetation, enhanced by the depredations of
-countless goats, but perhaps balanced in the eyes of the traveller by
-the beauty of the land-forms&mdash;such are some among the many
-impressions which may be derived in various <span class=
-"pagenum">[<a id="pb429" href="#pb429" name=
-"pb429">429</a>]</span>degrees from a visit to any of the individual
-members of the group.</p>
-<p class="par">But, if Armenia be closely linked with her neighbours on
-the west and east, she is divided by some of the most effective of
-natural barriers and natural distinctions from the countries which lie
-to the north and south. The zones of mountains which on the one side
-separate her from the coast of the Black Sea and the Georgian
-depression, and on the other from the lowlands of Mesopotamia, possess
-in an equal degree the rugged character due to intense folding and are
-both of considerable width. Sharp ridges with serrated outlines rising
-one behind another, narrow valleys in which the shadows lie, hissing
-rivers and bush-grown rocks, grassy uplands or stretches of forest
-determine the scenery both of the northern and of the southern zone.
-The alpine region has a breadth of some fifty miles more or less in the
-direction of the Black Sea, while the corresponding zone, facing the
-lowlands about Diarbekr, extends, on the whole, over a smaller span.
-Both zones are practically unlimited in length. They have been factors
-of paramount influence in the history of the peoples, not only
-screening the territories they confine from those which lie outside,
-but also investing them with distinct climatic conditions. For these
-parallel belts of peripheral mountains do in fact perform the function
-of supports or buttresses to a series of elevated plains; the valleys
-in the alpine region are but the succession of terraces which rise to
-the margin of a lofty platform. A difference in level of several
-thousands of feet is productive of marked features in the habits and
-character of the inhabitants; while the alps themselves must
-necessarily determine the mode of life of the dwellers within them,
-constraining them to follow the vocation of shepherds rather than that
-of agriculturists. Thus along the section between Diarbekr and the
-Armenian highlands three strongly-contrasted types of people will be
-met. The nomad Arabs or Arabic-speaking cultivators of the lowlands are
-succeeded by the pastoral Kurds with their tribal organisation, and
-these again by the Armenian tillers of the soil.</p>
-<p class="par">I have already indicated the intimate connection of
-these peripheral mountains with the structural system of the Asiatic
-continent. The northerly belt belongs to the inner series of arcs, and
-that on the south to the outer series. The compression of these
-arcs&mdash;a phenomenon which has engaged our attention&mdash;has been
-effected in the greatest degree within the section of <span class=
-"pagenum">[<a id="pb430" href="#pb430" name=
-"pb430">430</a>]</span>country between Diarbekr and Trebizond. You see
-the two opposite arcs, one bent to the south and the other to the
-north, endeavouring to meet under the stress of contending pressures;
-while on either side of the section the curves diminish in intensity
-and the spines of the ranges have been allowed to expand like the
-spokes of a wheel. The northern boundary of Armenia is constituted by
-the mountains of the northern peripheral region, which enter the
-country on the west in the Gumbet Dagh. The line may be followed on the
-map on the north of Shabin Karahisar through the Giaour Dagh and the
-Kuseh Dagh to the pass over the Vavuk Dagh, lying to the north-west of
-the town of Baiburt. From the Vavuk pass the spine of the chain
-confines the valley of the Chorokh by a well-defined and regular
-parapet; until just east of the town of Ispir it commences to lose this
-singleness of feature, and to favour a tendency towards bifurcation and
-branching out. The ridges stretch across the valley in an
-east-north-easterly direction, the direction which the spine has so
-long pursued; and their course may be traced through the mountainous
-country on the north of Olti until they become buried beneath the
-volcanic accumulations of the plateau country in the districts of
-G&ouml;leh and Ardahan. It is most interesting to trace their probable
-emergence from this canopy on the further side of the tableland, and to
-recognise in the elevations of Shishtapa (north of Alexandropol) and of
-Madatapa ridges that have survived the splitting and fracture of the
-Pontic chain. But this is a feature of greater interest to the
-geologist than to the geographer; and the latter will follow the Black
-Sea range through the heights of the Khachkar and Parkhal mountains to
-the Kukurt Dagh on the west of Artvin. The ridge which stretches thence
-in a north-north-easterly direction towards the seaboard, giving
-passage to the Chorokh and determining the Russian frontier, has been
-deflected by the mass of the Karchkhal mountains, the radial system to
-the north-east of Artvin. It crosses the river close to the coast
-behind Batum, and may be traced through the peaks of Taginaura,
-Gotimeria and Nepiszkaro along the plains of Imeritia to the passage of
-the Kur through the gorge of Borjom. These last-named peaks belong to
-the Akhaltsykh-Imeritian border range, which my reader has crossed with
-me by the pass of Zikar, and of which the direction is almost due east
-and west.</p>
-<p class="par">It is impossible to delimit the northern frontier of
-Armenia <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb431" href="#pb431" name=
-"pb431">431</a>]</span>by a slavish insistence upon the boundary of the
-Black Sea range. That system is the natural boundary for a distance of
-very many miles, as it extends along the course first of the Kelkid Su,
-the ancient Lycus, and then along that of the Chorokh. But the fracture
-of the arc which has taken place in the country watered by the
-uppermost branches of the Kur and Arpa Chai, and the eating back of the
-more easterly affluents of the Chorokh, which have carved out the
-intricate country in the neighbourhood of Olti, have resulted in the
-interruption of the normal sequence until it is again resumed in the
-Akhaltsykh-Imeritian range. It is consonant with the natural conditions
-to take the frontier across the valley of the Chorokh in the vicinity
-of Ispir, and to lead it by the heights which contain the sources of
-the Chorokh and the Serchemeh Chai to the D&uuml;ml&uuml; Dagh, the
-parent mountain of the Western Euphrates. It will then follow, first in
-an easterly and then in a north-easterly direction, the elevated
-water-parting between the basins of the Araxes and the Black Sea; and,
-after effecting a union through the Chamar Dagh with the volcanoes of
-the Soghanlu Dagh, will be protracted along the meridional and volcanic
-elevation which confines the highlands of G&ouml;leh and Ardahan on the
-west. The junction of these vaulted heights with the
-Akhaltsykh-Imeritian range may be traced through the ridge of the
-Sakulaperdi Dagh to the peak of Gotimeria. All the rivers on the
-northern slopes of this section of the Armenian frontier drain into the
-Black Sea.</p>
-<p class="par">The passes across this zone are of considerable
-elevation, though a good number are open all the year round. I have
-been unable to ascertain the height of the pass over the Gumbet Dagh
-between Karahisar and Kerasun. But the valleys of the Upper Kelkid and
-the Upper Chorokh may be reached from Trebizond without encountering a
-greater altitude than something less than <span class="measure" title=
-"2134 meter">7000 feet</span>. To this figure must be added another
-<span class="measure" title="183">600</span> to <span class="measure"
-title="305 meter">1000 feet</span> before the traveller will have
-crossed the block of elevated tableland interposed between those
-valleys and the great Armenian cities, Erzinjan and Erzerum. East of
-Baiburt the spine of the Pontic range becomes more lofty: and the track
-which leads from Rizeh to Ispir in the Chorokh valley surmounts it at a
-height which has been estimated at <span class="measure" title=
-"2743 meter">9000 feet</span> above the sea. Where the frontier has
-become coterminous with the northern border heights of Erzerum and
-Pasin the roads are taken by passes of over <span class="measure"
-title="2134 meter">7000 feet</span> (Erzerum-Bar-Olti) and <span class=
-"measure" title="2591 meter">8500 feet</span> <span class=
-"pagenum">[<a id="pb432" href="#pb432" name=
-"pb432">432</a>]</span>(Hasan Kala-Olti) into the basin of the Black
-Sea; while during its protraction northwards through the Soghanlu Dagh
-to the Sakulaperdi Dagh it may be traversed by well-beaten paths or
-tolerable roads at elevations which range between <span class="measure"
-title="1855 meter">6085 feet</span> (Eshak-Meidan Pass) and about
-<span class="measure" title="2134 meter">7000 feet</span>. The
-principal avenues of communication across the mountainous region are
-those of Erzinjan-G&uuml;m&uuml;shkhaneh,
-Baiburt-G&uuml;m&uuml;shkhaneh, Erzerum-Olti, Kars-Olti, Ardahan-Olti
-and Ardahan-Ardanuch. A road has been constructed from Kutais to
-Abastuman, and is gaining traffic every year.</p>
-<p class="par">Copious rainfall and abundant vegetation are
-characteristic of the northern peripheral mountains. In some of the
-valleys the clouds settle for several months in the year, seldom
-lifting to disclose a view of the sun. It may often happen that during
-several weeks or even months crests and depressions alike will be
-shrouded in mist. In summer there is produced the likeness of a
-succession of forcing houses, the slopes and hollows being covered with
-a bewildering tangle of trees and creepers and scarcely passable
-undergrowth. From the branches are festooned the lichens, grey-white
-streamers like human hair; the crimson stools of a fungus shine out
-from the gloomy brakes, and the pointed pink petals of the Kolchian
-crocus clothe each respite of open ground. Such conditions are most
-prevalent in the narrow valleys near the Pontic coast, while the slopes
-which face the Rion and the opposite Caucasus are distinguished by
-magnificent forests. Several peoples, distributed over fairly distinct
-zones, inhabit these fastnesses. On the west we have the Greeks,
-inclined to commerce and close to a seaboard; they may be found
-struggling upwards to the spine of the range and even in a sporadic
-manner upon its southern slopes. Further east dwell the Lazis, a wild
-people; and their neighbours, the Ajars, in the mountains behind Batum.
-These are succeeded by a population of Georgian shepherds and small
-cultivators, whose picturesque chalets are surrounded with Indian
-corn.</p>
-<p class="par">It remains to follow the extension of the mountains of
-the northern border during their progress eastwards from the Borjom
-gorge. The comparative narrowness of the belt in the neighbourhood of
-that great cleft is explained by the fracture of the arc to the south
-of this region and the covering up of its more southerly members by
-volcanic emissions. But this decrease in width is to some extent
-balanced by the propinquity of the Caucasus. It is <span class=
-"pagenum">[<a id="pb433" href="#pb433" name="pb433">433</a>]</span>in
-this neighbourhood that the single link connecting the belt with
-Caucasus stretches across the Georgian depression, dividing the Rion
-from the Kur; it may be known as the Meschic linking chain. East of
-this barrier the vegetation diminishes in luxuriance. The
-Akhaltsykh-Imeritian range is continued beyond the gorge by the
-latitudinal Trialethian chain&mdash;a system of which the backbone is
-formed by the Arjevan ridge, and which is bounded on three sides by the
-course of the Kur. A branch of this system is seen to continue the
-direction of the Pontic range, inclining off at a sharp angle from the
-principal elevation to form the valley of the Gujaretis. It culminates
-in the peaks of the Sanislo group at an extreme height of <span class=
-"measure" title="2850 meter">9350 feet</span>, and sinks beneath the
-lavas of the plateau region. The Trialethian mountains have undergone a
-process of uptilt, which has caused them to fall away abruptly towards
-the north and to form terraces of plateau-like character on the
-south.</p>
-<p class="par">Just as on the west we were constrained to draw the
-natural frontier inwards from the spine of the Pontic range, so on the
-east the next successors of the Trialethian ridges lie outside the
-proper boundary of the Armenian plains. A glance at the map will show
-that a dislocation of the natural features has taken place in this
-region. The inner arc, so clearly defined on the one side by the Pontic
-chain and on the other by the Shah Dagh, overlooking Lake G&ouml;kcheh,
-has snapped during the process of bending over; and the survivors of
-the catastrophe, the ridges which obstruct the Khram and the Somketian
-mountains, are constrained to play a subordinate part. The
-water-parting and principal elevation is composed of volcanoes, reared
-in a meridional direction. What an impressive analogy to the phenomena
-on the side of the Black Sea! These volcanoes pursue two lines, one
-line close behind the other, and the outer or more easterly far the
-longer of the two. It is the outer series, known as the Gori Mokri, or
-wet mountains, that constitute the border of the Armenian highlands on
-this side. The traveller who journeys westwards from the plateau of
-Zalka (<span class="measure" title="1524 meter">5000 feet</span>) up
-the elevated valley of the river Kzia to the little upland plain of the
-same name (<span class="measure" title="2134 meter">7000
-feet</span>)<a class="noteref" id="xd21e10876src" href="#xd21e10876"
-name="xd21e10876src">5</a> will be treading on the dividing line
-between the folded mountains of the Trialethian system and the
-meridional volcanic series. On his left hand he will admire the shapely
-cone of Tawkoteli (<span class="measure" title="2808 meter">9211
-feet</span>), which <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb434" href="#pb434"
-name="pb434">434</a>]</span>constitutes the most northerly of these
-volcanic elevations. The barrier is continued southwards through the
-Samsar Dagh (<span class="measure" title="3283 meter">10,770
-feet</span>) to the Daly Dagh; and thence along the eastern shore of
-the lonely lake of Toporovan (<span class="measure" title=
-"2096 meter">6875 feet</span>) to the dual crown of Agrikar
-(<span class="measure" title="2976 meter">9765 feet</span>) and to the
-conical summit of the Emlekli Dagh (<span class="measure" title=
-"3053 meter">10,016 feet</span>). The sequence ends in the heights of
-Karakach (over <span class="measure" title="3048 meter">10,000
-feet</span>), of which the southerly extension is interrupted by the
-latitudinal ridges of Aglagan and Shishtapa. But the border is
-protracted along the parting of the waters into the westerly
-extremities of the Pambak chain.</p>
-<p class="par">We may, perhaps, regard this chain as the most southerly
-of the latitudinal ridges which begin on the north with the
-Akhaltsykh-Imeritian and Trialethian systems. It extends the area of
-the highlands for some distance towards the east, when, after
-commencing to incline in an east-south-easterly direction, it effects a
-junction with the Shah Dagh. This last-named ridge takes the frontier
-along the eastern shore of Lake G&ouml;kcheh to the confines of
-Karabagh; and the elevation may be traced through the spine of the
-northern Karabagh mountains across the Kur to the range which faces the
-Caspian Sea. But Karabagh may be regarded as a separate geographical
-unit, combining in miniature many of the characteristics of the
-Armenian highlands&mdash;an inner plateau region flanked by peripheral
-ranges. The immemorial home of Armenian inhabitants, the seat of Tartar
-immigrants and the happy hunting-ground of nomad Kurds, it constitutes
-a solid outer buttress to Armenia on the side of the Caspian.<a class=
-"noteref" id="xd21e10902src" href="#xd21e10902" name=
-"xd21e10902src">6</a> The true boundary must be taken southwards from
-the Ginal Dagh (over <span class="measure" title="3353 meter">11,000
-feet</span>) to the Kety Dagh, where it forms a loop towards the west;
-and, after almost encircling an upland sheet of water, called the Ala
-G&ouml;l, is protracted through the heights of Sir-er-syrchaly
-(<span class="measure" title="3444 meter">11,298 feet</span>) and
-Salvarty (<span class="measure" title="3177 meter">10,422 feet</span>)
-to the valley of the Araxes at Migry just east of Ordubad. The Karadagh
-mountains on the southern bank of the river continue the ridges of
-Karabagh; and the natural frontier is pushed westwards up the course of
-the Araxes as far as the village of Julfa. From this point you have the
-choice of two methods of demarcation, both of which repose on
-<span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb435" href="#pb435" name=
-"pb435">435</a>]</span>geographical facts. The line may be taken
-south-eastwards along the marginal ridge of the Karadagh to the
-water-parting between the basin of the Araxes on the one side and that
-of Lake Urmi on the other. This parting is of little orographical
-relief, but it would conduct the frontier almost in a straight line to
-the serried ridges of the southern peripheral zone on the south of Lake
-Van.<a class="noteref" id="xd21e10932src" href="#xd21e10932" name=
-"xd21e10932src">7</a> Or the more pronounced bulwark between the Lake
-Van and Lower Araxes basins may seem to constitute the true boundary of
-the Armenian country. In this case an arbitrary line must be drawn from
-behind Bayazid, leading from the crest of these mountains, which at
-present constitute the Turko-Persian frontier to our original
-starting-point, Julfa. My reader will observe that we have left the
-barrier of the northern peripheral mountains, to explore the less
-certain limits on the side of Persia.</p>
-<p class="par">We have now pursued the northern border of the Armenian
-highlands from the coast of the Black Sea to that of the Caspian, where
-the belt passes over into the mountains framing Persia upon the north
-to be protracted into the Hindu Kush. The corresponding southern zone
-is much more simple of feature; but it lies outside the province of the
-present chapter, being included, throughout its entire extension along
-these highlands, within Turkish territory. Between the northern and
-southern zones of peripheral mountains several distinct but minor
-members of the orographical system we have been examining furrow the
-surface of the tableland. These will receive their proper attention in
-the companion chapter of the second volume, situated as they are for
-the most part beyond the limits of our present survey. But one of them
-may be traced to the commanding elevation which determines the valley
-of the Araxes during its passage through Chaldiran to the confluence of
-the Arpa Chai; and it is this range&mdash;for it deserves to be
-described as a range&mdash;that not only constitutes the present
-frontier between the Russian and Turkish Empires, but in fact divides
-the area of Armenia into two parts. You must either cross the spine of
-this chain, <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb436" href="#pb436" name=
-"pb436">436</a>]</span>which describes a symmetrical curve, or follow
-along the plains at its northern or southern flanks, should you desire
-to pass from the plateau region on the north and east to the
-corresponding districts on the south and west. In the preceding chapter
-we have become familiar with some of its interesting features; and we
-have been introduced to it under the general name of the Ararat system
-or Aghri Dagh. Shatin Dagh is another name under which its westerly
-portion is designated by some writers, and which is scarcely less well
-qualified to express its ruggedness. This range carries the natural
-frontier between the two divisions from the Kuseh Dagh (<span class=
-"measure" title="3433 meter">11,262 feet</span>) in the west to Little
-Ararat (<span class="measure" title="3914 meter">12,840 feet</span>) in
-the east.</p>
-<p class="par">It will thus be seen that the present area of Russian
-Armenia corresponds in a remarkable manner with the limits assigned by
-Nature to the more north-easterly of the two extensive regions into
-which she has parcelled Armenian soil. The Russian frontier is drawn
-from the coast of the Black Sea along the water-parting of the
-tributaries to the western bank of the Lower Chorokh through the
-peripheral region, and west of the town of Olti, to the Armenian border
-at the Chakhar Dagh. Thence it is taken across the Araxes to the spine
-of the Aghri or Shatin Dagh just north-west of the dome of Kuseh Dagh.
-It follows the spine of the range to the neighbourhood of Great Ararat,
-whose hallowed summit it embraces within the dominions of the Tsar.
-From the crest of the Little Ararat, whose south-eastern slopes are
-left to Persia, it reaches across the plain to the right bank of the
-Araxes a little below the famous monastery of Khor Virap. The Araxes
-forms the boundary between the Russian and Persian Empires from this
-point to near its confluence with the Kur.</p>
-<p class="par">It is a misleading, nay, a false conception of natural
-features to distribute the surface of the plateau region into a number
-of distinct geographical units. That is a method which is favoured by
-Russian sciolists with political connections in their endeavour to
-confuse the essential unity of a country which Russia has not yet fully
-absorbed. Enter this region where you will and with the eyes of any
-qualified traveller, the same or similar impressive characteristics
-will at once appeal to the mind. The German scientist Koch has well
-described these idiosyncrasies as they may be observed from the
-marginal districts on the west. After a long and laborious climb from
-the valley of Ardanuch (1800 <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb437" href=
-"#pb437" name="pb437">437</a>]</span>feet) to the summit of the pass
-which leads to Ardahan (at least <span class="measure" title=
-"2134 meter">7000 feet</span>), he was astonished to observe that
-instead of a rounded ridge, descending with more or less abruptness to
-lower levels on the further side, the elevation upon which he stood was
-continued towards the east by the gentle slope of a lofty plateau.
-&ldquo;Here was the commencement,&rdquo; he says, &ldquo;of the plateau
-which slopes away from the pass, and which is usually called the
-Armenian plateau.&rdquo; The same traveller journeyed back into the
-Chorokh region from the highlands of G&ouml;leh on the south of
-Ardahan. On this occasion he crossed the water-parting at the Kanly
-Dagh between Ardahan and Olti. He tells us that it consists of a narrow
-ridge with red, porphyritic rocks. He describes the double prospect
-from the summit, with its contrast of forms and impressions. On the one
-side, towards the Kur, a scarcely perceptible incline, forming upland
-valleys after a descent of only some <span class="measure" title=
-"457 meter">1500 feet</span>, and leading over to vague and vaulted
-heights. On the other, in the direction of Olti, rent mountains, gaping
-ravines&mdash;nowhere a gentle, convex shape. Where he was placed the
-climate was raw, even in early September, and scarcely tempered by a
-southern sun. Deep down, and far away, they could see the river of
-Olti, winding like a snake through a maze of sheltered
-valleys.<a class="noteref" id="xd21e10963src" href="#xd21e10963" name=
-"xd21e10963src">8</a> The language in which Herrmann Abich describes
-his impressions, coming from the side of Georgia up the valley of the
-Akstafa, and reaching the pass (<span class="measure" title=
-"2242 meter">7355 feet</span>) over the eastern marginal heights
-between the village of Bekant and the town of Alexandropol, is not
-dissimilar to that of Koch. He speaks of the strong contrast between
-the physical characteristics of the plateau region before him and those
-of the peripheral mountains he was leaving behind. He describes the
-prevailing horizontality of the land-forms which he overlooked,
-extending to the limits of sight. In another place he alludes to the
-lofty, rim-like elevation with which &ldquo;the Armenian plateau breaks
-away to the valleys of Ajara.&rdquo;<a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e10973src" href="#xd21e10973" name="xd21e10973src">9</a> I might
-multiply the instances in which the most competent observers have at
-the same time recognised the unity of the plateau region and its sharp
-distinction from the peripheral mountains.</p>
-<p class="par">My reader has journeyed with me from the Zikar Pass to
-Akhaltsykh and Akhalkalaki; from the ca&ntilde;on of the Toporovan
-<span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb438" href="#pb438" name=
-"pb438">438</a>]</span>river and the basin of the Kur to the streams
-which constitute the most northerly sources of the Araxes. We have
-crossed the country from Alexandropol to Erivan, from Erivan to Kars,
-from Kars to Kagyzman. What an impressive unity underlies the pleasing
-diversity of the landscapes, which melt into one another as you pass!
-The partings of the waters are formed by slopes which you perceive with
-difficulty, so gradual has been the rise and the decline. The
-territories of Akhaltsykh, Akhalkalaki, Alexandropol, Kars and Ardahan
-are all bound up together in the distribution of the space, and share
-features in common to a much greater extent than they are distinguished
-by local idiosyncrasies. The mountains, of which the outlines are never
-absent from the landscape&mdash;soft, long-drawn, convex
-shapes&mdash;stand on the floor of the tableland, like pieces upon a
-chessboard, which one may move from square to square. Such are the
-radial mass of Dochus Punar near Akhaltsykh (over <span class="measure"
-title="2896 meter">9500 feet</span>), the two considerable elevations
-which enclose Lake Chaldir (Akhbaba Dagh, <span class="measure" title=
-"3040 meter">9973 feet</span>; Kisir Dagh, <span class="measure" title=
-"3192 meter">10,472 feet</span>), and even the colossal Alag&ouml;z
-(<span class="measure" title="4095 meter">13,436 feet</span>). All are
-due to volcanic action, quite recent in geological time; and a similar
-origin belongs to the minor shapes which stud the country like bubbles
-upon a cooling body. Mountains of this character perform the function
-of boundary columns between the various districts, great and small.
-They determine but do not separate. How different in form and function
-from the folded ridges of the peripheral region, among which a single
-example of such recent volcanic fabrics could seldom be observed.</p>
-<p class="par">If we desire for convenience to partition the plateau
-region which is Russian Armenia, it falls most naturally into two
-spheres. The one will comprise a rectangular area, of which the limits
-on the west and east are the meridional volcanic water-partings from
-the Soghanlu Dagh to the heights of Sakulaperdi on one side and from
-the Karakach Dagh to Tawkoteli on the other. The southern boundary of
-this area will be the ca&ntilde;on of the Araxes from its entrance into
-Russian territory to below the confluence of the Arpa Chai. Towards the
-north it includes the districts as far as the Sanislo extension of the
-Trialethian mountains and the Akhaltsykh-Imeritian border chain. The
-vast circumference of Alag&ouml;z is placed on its south-eastern
-confines, sending out long feelers towards the left bank of the Arpa
-Chai, pushing back the mountains of the eastern border and, as it were,
-propping up the <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb439" href="#pb439"
-name="pb439">439</a>]</span>highlands on the north-west. This volcano
-may be said to lead over to the second sphere, which is for a great
-part an area of considerable depression, and, as compared with the
-longitudinal axis and symmetrical shape of its companion, is of
-irregular form with the greatest length from north-west to south-east.
-These two spheres are distinguished by features which are sufficiently
-contrasted to suggest a double image to the mind.</p>
-<p class="par">I. I have invited attention to the characteristics which
-Armenia shares in common with her neighbours in the series of the
-Asiatic tablelands, Persia on the east and Asia Minor on the west. In
-the brief survey to which I proceed of the plateau region within the
-Russian frontier it is necessary at the outset to remark upon some of
-the idiosyncrasies which distinguish Armenia as a whole from the other
-members of the series. There is in the first place the far greater
-elevation, investing her territory with the attributes of a roof to the
-adjacent countries, from which the waters gather to be precipitated in
-different directions, and to find their way not only to the Black Sea
-and the Caspian but also by almost endless stages to the Persian Gulf.
-The prominent part which has been played by recent volcanic action is
-another and not less impressive phenomenon. Which of her neighbours
-could compete with her in this respect? Where could one meet with an
-Ararat, a Sipan and a Nimrud, to say nothing of an Alag&ouml;z and a
-Bing&ouml;l? Both these manifestations are exemplified in a striking
-manner by the surface features of the rectangular area of the more
-northerly sphere.</p>
-<p class="par">The higher levels of this region are situated at an
-altitude of some <span class="measure" title="2134 meter">7000
-feet</span> above the sea. I am speaking not of the mountains but of
-the plains. The uplands which give rise to the Kur in the district of
-G&ouml;leh must come very near to this level. The parting of the waters
-of the Kur and Araxes near the village of Shishtapa, in an open
-landscape which may be compared to rolling downs, lies at about
-<span class="measure" title="2134 meter">7000 feet</span>. Lake Chaldir
-has an elevation of <span class="measure" title="1988 meter">6522
-feet</span>; while of the smaller sheets of water Lake Toporovan, with
-<span class="measure" title="2096 meter">6876 feet</span>, and the Arpa
-G&ouml;l, with <span class="measure" title="2044 meter">6706
-feet</span>, slightly better this already considerable figure. Where
-the plateau falls away to the abysmal ca&ntilde;on of the Araxes its
-edge is nearly <span class="measure" title="1981 meter">6500
-feet</span> high. The town of Ardahan stands at a level of <span class=
-"measure" title="1780 meter">5840 feet</span> and Kars of <span class=
-"measure" title="1737 meter">5700 feet</span>. Alexandropol, the
-principal city, occupies the hollow of a vast basin-like plain; yet it
-is over <span class="measure" title="1524 meter">5000 feet</span> above
-the sea. These elevations are much greater than <span class=
-"pagenum">[<a id="pb440" href="#pb440" name="pb440">440</a>]</span>the
-average even in Persia, though they are to a certain extent maintained
-in the frontier province of Azerbaijan and along the edge of the
-southern peripheral mountains (Tabriz, <span class="measure" title=
-"1417 meter">4650 feet</span>; but Tehran, <span class="measure" title=
-"1158 meter">3800 feet</span>; Ispahan, <span class="measure" title=
-"1545 meter">5070 feet</span>).</p>
-<p class="par">The process of gradual uplift of the region by earth
-movements has been attended by eruptive action, flooding the country
-with volcanic matter, levelling inequalities of the ground and adding
-to the height. It has been estimated that the volcanic deposits laid
-bare in the ravines of the streams which descend from the radial Dochus
-Punar attain a depth of hundreds of yards.<a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e11045src" href="#xd21e11045" name="xd21e11045src">10</a> A
-similar phenomenon is made manifest in the ca&ntilde;on of the
-Araxes&mdash;a cleft which in the neighbourhood of the village of
-Armutli, west of Kagyzman, has a depth of about <span class="measure"
-title="610 meter">2000 feet</span> and a width on top of at least a
-mile.<a class="noteref" id="xd21e11054src" href="#xd21e11054" name=
-"xd21e11054src">11</a> There the Miocene sedimentary deposits are
-overlaid with tuffs and lavas in a belt over <span class="measure"
-title="274 meter">300 yards</span> deep.<a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e11062src" href="#xd21e11062" name="xd21e11062src">12</a> The
-points of emission of volcanic matter are in some cases true volcanoes,
-in others mere pustules or fissures of varying extent. One or other of
-these features is never absent from the landscape. But the fires are
-extinct; the viscous seas have long been solid; not a breath of smoke
-rises from the stark summits which erewhile were wreathed with vapours
-reflecting the glow of the flames beneath.</p>
-<p class="par">The distribution of such shapes due to volcanic agency
-may often appear arbitrary to an unpractised traveller. Here a group of
-stately forms resembling the giants of a forest, there a number of
-insignificant eminences representing the small fry. All will be found
-to be subject to definite and ascertainable principles, the nature of
-which becomes clearer at each step forward of scientific research.
-Perhaps the most interesting principle which we see operative in this
-region is the outcrop of volcanoes along meridional lines. Such groups
-pursue a course at right angles to the strike of the rocks within the
-area of the peripheral mountains. In this connection we may recall the
-fact that the plateau region with which we are dealing occupies the
-apex of the bend over of the inner arc. Lines of fracture have been
-thrown out at right angles to the folding, and eruptive agency has
-fastened upon these weakened zones of the earth&rsquo;s crust. Not only
-may these lines be traced on the west and east of the plateau, of
-which, indeed, they have largely determined the shape, but also well
-<span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb441" href="#pb441" name=
-"pb441">441</a>]</span>inside of the marginal districts. In the west we
-have the Soghanlu group stretching north to Allah Akbar (<span class=
-"measure" title="3114 meter">10,218 feet</span>), whence the direction
-is continued through the Ueurli Dagh (<span class="measure" title=
-"2760 meter">9055 feet</span>) and the Arzian Dagh to the
-Chibukh-Naryn-Bashi Dagh. There the volcanic water-parting effects a
-junction with the Akhaltsykh-Imeritian chain in the ridge of the
-Sakulaperdi Dagh. In the east we have already followed the row of
-marginal volcanoes from Tawkoteli to Karakach. Inside these series we
-recognise this same north-south direction in the Abul-Samsar system, in
-the mountains on either side of Lake Chaldir, and, lastly, in the
-connection which we can scarcely err in assuming between the Kisir
-Dagh, overlooking the westerly shore of this lake, and its neighbour on
-the north, the Dochus Punar.</p>
-<p class="par">Compared with Alag&ouml;z and Ararat even the absolute
-height of these mountains may be termed insignificant. The lofty level
-of the plains from which their slopes gather robs them of several
-thousand feet. Great Abul, with an altitude of nearly <span class=
-"measure" title="3353 meter">11,000 feet</span>, rises from a plain
-which itself lies at an elevation of <span class="measure" title=
-"1676 meter">5500 feet</span>. The dome-shaped vaultings of the
-Soghanlu Dagh near some of the sources of the Kars river are almost
-entirely shorn of their considerable stature by the height of the
-adjacent downs. In such surroundings the mountains appear to the eye as
-little more than hills.</p>
-<p class="par">The rivers as a rule flow in deep ca&ntilde;ons which
-they have eroded in the volcanic soil. Their head waters meander over
-grassy downs. Temperately they thread their way over the uplands or in
-the ca&ntilde;ons, except where blocks of lava may have tumbled into
-the trough, causing the stream to wreathe and hiss. You pass from
-district to district either along such natural avenues, with the
-towering cliffs, for the most part bare, on either hand; or, emerging
-from the weird scene within the hollow, over the surface of almost
-limitless plains. Not a tree in the landscape, and only patches of
-fallow and stubble, without a boundary, with rarely a village
-discernible from afar.</p>
-<p class="par">From time to time you may obtain a glimpse of the
-peripheral mountains&mdash;serrated summits, bush-grown slopes. These
-contrast to the soft convexities of the forms about you and the
-vaultings of the volcanic eminences. The surface of the friable soil is
-devoid of wood and almost of vegetation; and the volcanic matter of
-which it is composed produces tints of pink <span class=
-"pagenum">[<a id="pb442" href="#pb442" name="pb442">442</a>]</span>and
-ochre upon which the shadows lie transparent and thin. The rarefied
-atmosphere of these high regions braces the faculties and sharpens the
-senses; and whatever clouds may have climbed the barrier of the
-peripheral ranges are suspended high in the heaven, seldom obscuring
-the brilliant sun. During winter the land is covered with snow.</p>
-<p class="par">It is a country admirably adapted to grow cereals. The
-plains through which the Arpa Chai (grain river) eats its way to the
-Araxes constituted one of the granaries of Armenia in historical
-times.<a class="noteref" id="xd21e11094src" href="#xd21e11094" name=
-"xd21e11094src">13</a> At the present day they have not recovered from
-the devastations of the Mussulman peoples, and the Russians are jealous
-of allowing the Armenians a free hand. Extraordinary fertility is
-induced by the intermixture of the lavas with alluvial or lacustrine
-deposits. The black earth of the plains about Akhalkalaki is
-famous<a class="noteref" id="xd21e11097src" href="#xd21e11097" name=
-"xd21e11097src">14</a>; and the soil in the neighbourhood of
-Alexandropol derives its richness from the incidence of a peculiar kind
-of lava side by side with the sediment of a former lake. The southerly
-extension of these vanished waters is marked by the belt of high ground
-extending from Alag&ouml;z across the plains to the Arpa Chai. The
-river has forced its way through this elevation between Ani and
-Magaspert.<a class="noteref" id="xd21e11103src" href="#xd21e11103"
-name="xd21e11103src">15</a></p>
-<p class="par">Other effects of the violent disturbance to which the
-region has been subjected are manifest on a large scale. Thus all the
-way from the Soghanlu Dagh on the south to the neighbourhood of the
-mountains of the Ajars on the north the ground has fallen away to the
-labyrinth of valleys which feed the Chorokh by what geologists would
-call an extensive fault. The edge of the plateau region stands up
-boldly upon that side from the levels adjacent on the west. A still
-more recent earth movement may be represented by the uptilt towards the
-north-east of a considerable block of country lying between Kars and
-the junction of the Arpa with the Araxes. This phenomenon, which
-recalls a similar occurrence in the Trialethian district, has
-occasioned the curious course of the stream of Kars, which, rising in
-close vicinity to the flood of the same river to which ultimately it
-becomes tributary, pursues a course almost at right angles to that of
-the Araxes for a distance of thirty miles. To the same cause is in part
-due the extraordinary elevation of the levels along the <span class=
-"pagenum">[<a id="pb443" href="#pb443" name="pb443">443</a>]</span>left
-bank of the Araxes between Armutli and the confluence of the Arpa
-Chai.</p>
-<p class="par">Besides the last-named stream this lofty stage of the
-Armenian tableland gives birth to one of the great rivers of western
-Asia. The Kur rises from the highlands on the south of Ardahan, between
-the wall of mountain which overlooks Lake Chaldir on the west and the
-rim of the plateau region. In Turkish times this district constituted a
-separate fief, and was governed by a hereditary prince of Georgian
-origin who resided at Urut. The name of the district, G&ouml;leh, still
-figures on the Russian maps. It is subject to a rigorous climate, the
-snow lying during eight months in some years. Only the hardiest of the
-cereals come to maturity; yet the olive and the pomegranate flourish in
-the valley of Artvin, but thirty miles distant, and even at this
-altitude and during winter the rays of a southern sun temper the cold.
-One of the principal arms of the river comes from the south-west, and
-is named the river of Ardahan; it is joined by four considerable
-tributaries, of which the most easterly is said by Koch to have been
-known to the inhabitants under the name of Ky&uuml;rr.<a class=
-"noteref" id="xd21e11115src" href="#xd21e11115" name=
-"xd21e11115src">16</a> Even at the present day the Kur is called the
-river of Ardahan until its entry into the passage of Borjom. The basin
-from within which these various branches gather has a length which may
-be computed at eight hours&rsquo; journey on horseback and a breadth
-equivalent to about six hours. It abounds in springs, and marshes cover
-its floor. Below Ardahan, where it skirts the base of the Dochus Punar
-system, the Kur threads a narrow valley, deeply buried in the volcanic
-soil. So it flows past the grottoes of Vardzia and the Devil&rsquo;s
-City at Zeda Tmogvi, augmented by small affluents of which the largest
-is the Karri Chai. At Khertvis it is joined by the Toporovan river,
-bringing the drainage of the districts on the east, and swirling into
-the channel with foam-shot waves. The united volume dwells for a short
-space in wider landscapes, until it pierces the extreme base of the
-Sanislo branch of the Trialethian mountains, and is again confined in a
-narrow valley. Thence it issues upon the plains about Akhaltsykh,
-receives assembled tributaries from the northern border range, and
-disappears into the gorge of Borjom.</p>
-<p class="par">II. A traveller coming from Alexandropol down the stream
-of the Arpa or along the valley of the Abaran, further east, can
-<span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb444" href="#pb444" name=
-"pb444">444</a>]</span>scarcely fail to become sensible of an
-appreciable change in climate and scenery by the time he shall have
-rounded the colossal pile of Alag&ouml;z. It is not, indeed, a new
-country or a new clime. The shapes which rise on the skyline are due to
-the same volcanic agency which has imprinted its character upon the
-northern landscapes. The shelving away of the ground to the basin-like
-depression which receives the Araxes recalls similar surface features
-in the northern districts. The rays of the sun fall from a heaven which
-remains blue. Clouds are still floating upon the azure, or are
-suspended upon the higher outlines. What has changed is the scale and
-intensity of the phenomena. The hills have given place to great
-mountains, the down-like expanses to one vast area of sloping ground.
-Into those dreamy spaces sweep the forms of the landscape, circled
-round them for a visible distance of some sixty miles.</p>
-<p class="par">The valley of the Araxes from the neighbourhood of
-Sardarabad to that of Julfa&mdash;a space of over a hundred
-miles&mdash;composes nearly one-half of the more southerly sphere of
-north-eastern Armenia. We are already so familiar with its overpowering
-individuality that it would be turning finished ground to describe it
-anew. For many a mile it is only confined at an immense interval by the
-fabric of Ararat and the pile of Alag&ouml;z. But, even when the
-river&mdash;a ribbon in the expanse&mdash;has already distanced the
-Little Ararat, the folds of the landscape are ample into which it
-descends. Volcanoes on such a huge scale as these two Armenian giants
-could scarcely be expected to rise save on the margins of a great
-depression, whether subsidence may have been the cause or the effect.
-To the <span class="measure" title="2134 meter">7000 feet</span> of the
-plateau region on the north this basin-like plain opposes a maximum
-elevation of <span class="measure" title="914 meter">3000 feet</span>
-and a minimum of something over <span class="measure" title=
-"610 meter">2000 feet</span>.</p>
-<p class="par">The vine flourishes and is cultivated in these plains of
-the Araxes, and fields of castor-oil plant grace the ground. Such oases
-with thriving villages soften the lap of the landscape, and diversify
-the wide stretches of rich but idle soil which the network of trenches
-with their fertilising waters have not yet reached. Irrigation rather
-than rainfall is here the productive agency; and, indeed, this valley,
-with a yearly rainfall of only about six inches, is probably the driest
-throughout Russian Transcaucasia. The storms of the Pontic region spend
-themselves before reaching this haven; but they beat against the
-volcanoes <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb445" href="#pb445" name=
-"pb445">445</a>]</span>of the meridional water-parting on the easterly
-margin of the more northerly sphere. Even at Alexandropol the yearly
-rainfall is almost three times as great as in the neighbourhood of
-Ararat. And while the climate of the city on the Arpa may compare with
-St. Lawrence in North America, that of Erivan resembles Palermo or
-Barcelona.<a class="noteref" id="xd21e11143src" href="#xd21e11143"
-name="xd21e11143src">17</a></p>
-<p class="par">On the north of this most extensive depression of the
-surface of Armenia lies the plateau region supporting Lake
-G&ouml;kcheh. The axis or greatest length of that expanse of sweet
-water lies about parallel to the course of the Araxes, to which it
-sends a tributary varying in volume with the season of the year through
-a trench-like passage at its south-westerly extremity.<a class=
-"noteref" id="xd21e11151src" href="#xd21e11151" name=
-"xd21e11151src">18</a> On the north the lake is confined by a long
-ridge of the peripheral mountains, and its lofty level (<span class=
-"measure" title="1932 meter">6340 feet</span>) is held up by the
-volcanic plateau of Akhmangan, acting as a dam on the side of the
-low-lying plains. The Akhmangan region consists of a gently vaulted
-platform, interrupted by a series of volcanic eminences extending over
-a distance of nearly thirty miles. Several of their cone-shaped summits
-attain a height of nearly <span class="measure" title=
-"3353 meter">11,000 feet</span>, and one, the Akh Dagh, of close upon
-<span class="measure" title="3658 meter">12,000 feet</span> above
-sea-level. An absence of springs, due to the nature of the volcanic
-rock, is characteristic not only of this region but also of that part
-of the neighbouring Karabagh country which lies within the embrace of
-the two mountainous zones.<a class="noteref" id="xd21e11163src" href=
-"#xd21e11163" name="xd21e11163src">19</a> In this respect it contrasts
-to the well-watered and wooded retreats of the district of Darachichak
-to the west of the lake. The wealthier citizens of Erivan take refuge
-in those pleasant upland valleys when the plain of the Araxes has
-become a furnace under the rays of a midsummer sun.</p>
-<p class="par">The area of the country comprised within the two spheres
-of which I have been speaking is about 20,587 square miles. With the
-exception of a narrow strip on the right bank of the Araxes, measuring
-1518 square miles, the entire territory&mdash;more than commensurate
-with that of Servia&mdash;lies within the dominions of the Tsar.
-<span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb446" href="#pb446" name=
-"pb446">446</a>]</span></p>
-</div>
-<div class="footnotes">
-<hr class="fnsep">
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e10755" href="#xd21e10755src" name="xd21e10755">1</a></span> Suess
-makes the outer Iranian arc commence at Tank, near Dereh Ismail Khan on
-the Indus (<i lang="de">Das Antlitz der Erde</i>, Leipzic, 1885, vol.
-ii. p. 552).&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href=
-"#xd21e10755src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e10772" href="#xd21e10772src" name="xd21e10772">2</a></span> Such
-is the view of Suess.&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href=
-"#xd21e10772src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e10779" href="#xd21e10779src" name="xd21e10779">3</a></span>
-Besides the great work of Suess already cited, I may refer my reader to
-Dr. Edmund Naumann&rsquo;s admirable study: <i lang="de">Die
-Grundlinien Anatoliens und Centralasiens</i>, in Heltner&rsquo;s
-<i lang="de">Geographische Zeitschrift</i>, <span lang="de">ii.
-Jahrgang</span>, 1896, pp. 7&ndash;25, with two maps. Also to a paper
-by the same author in the <i>Report of the Sixth Int. Geog.
-Congress</i>, London, 1895, pp. (661)&ndash;(670).&nbsp;<a class=
-"fnarrow" href="#xd21e10779src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e10803" href="#xd21e10803src" name="xd21e10803">4</a></span> For a
-comprehensive account of the salt deserts of Persia, extending over
-<span class="measure" title="805 kilometer">500 miles</span> of
-country, I may refer my reader to Lord Curzon&rsquo;s <i>Persia</i>,
-London, 1892, vol. ii. pp. 246 <i>seq.</i>&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow"
-href="#xd21e10803src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e10876" href="#xd21e10876src" name="xd21e10876">5</a></span> This
-must be a most interesting approach to Armenia from the side of Tiflis,
-and is worth suggesting to the lover of unbeaten tracks.&nbsp;<a class=
-"fnarrow" href="#xd21e10876src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e10902" href="#xd21e10902src" name="xd21e10902">6</a></span>
-Karabagh is portrayed to us from various points of view by Smith and
-Dwight, <i>Missionary Researches in Armenia</i>, London, 1834, letters
-ix.&ndash;xiii.; Radde, G., <i>Karabagh</i> in <i lang=
-"de">Petermann&rsquo;s Mitt.</i>, Erg&auml;nzungsheft No. 100, Gotha,
-1890; Abich, H., <i>op. infra cit.</i>, part iii. p. 4; Madame B.
-Chantre, <i lang="fr">&Agrave; travers l&rsquo;Arm&eacute;nie
-Russe</i>, Paris, 1893, chs. iv.&ndash;viii.&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow"
-href="#xd21e10902src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e10932" href="#xd21e10932src" name="xd21e10932">7</a></span> This
-demarcation has been adopted by Herrmann Abich, who, however, would
-include the Karadagh. He speaks of the elevation which may be traced
-from the neighbourhood of Ardabil in Persia through the volcano of
-Savalan all the way to the mountains south of Lake Van as the
-&ldquo;natural physical frontier between Armenia and Azerbaijan&rdquo;
-and as the &ldquo;southern border <i>chain</i> of Great Armenia.&rdquo;
-But he is pressing the word chain a little unduly. See <i lang=
-"de">Geologische Forschungen in den kauk. L&auml;ndern</i>, Vienna,
-1882, part ii., introduction, pp. 10 and 11.&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow"
-href="#xd21e10932src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e10963" href="#xd21e10963src" name="xd21e10963">8</a></span> Karl
-Koch, <i lang="de">Reise im pontischen Gebirge und t&uuml;rkischen
-Armenien</i>, Weimar, 1846, pp. 203&ndash;4.&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow"
-href="#xd21e10963src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e10973" href="#xd21e10973src" name="xd21e10973">9</a></span>
-Herrmann Abich, <i lang="de">Geologische Forschungen in den kauk.
-L&auml;ndern</i>, Vienna, 1882 and 1887, part ii. pp. 20&ndash;21, part
-iii. p. 81.&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href=
-"#xd21e10973src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e11045" href="#xd21e11045src" name="xd21e11045">10</a></span>
-Abich, <i>op. cit.</i> part iii. p. 18.&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href=
-"#xd21e11045src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e11054" href="#xd21e11054src" name="xd21e11054">11</a></span>
-<i>Ibid.</i> part ii. p. 138.&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href=
-"#xd21e11054src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e11062" href="#xd21e11062src" name="xd21e11062">12</a></span>
-<i>Ibid.</i> part ii. p. 139.&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href=
-"#xd21e11062src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e11094" href="#xd21e11094src" name="xd21e11094">13</a></span> The
-old Armenian province of Shirak.&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href=
-"#xd21e11094src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e11097" href="#xd21e11097src" name="xd21e11097">14</a></span> An
-analysis of this earth is given by Abich (<i>op. cit.</i> part iii. p.
-49).&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href="#xd21e11097src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e11103" href="#xd21e11103src" name="xd21e11103">15</a></span>
-Abich, <i>op. cit.</i> part ii. pp. 35&ndash;46.&nbsp;<a class=
-"fnarrow" href="#xd21e11103src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e11115" href="#xd21e11115src" name="xd21e11115">16</a></span> Karl
-Koch, <i>op. cit.</i> pp. 223 <i>seq.</i> He regards the south-western
-branch as the most considerable.&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href=
-"#xd21e11115src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e11143" href="#xd21e11143src" name="xd21e11143">17</a></span>
-Abich, <i>op. cit.</i> part ii. p. 23.&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href=
-"#xd21e11143src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e11151" href="#xd21e11151src" name="xd21e11151">18</a></span> See
-Vol. II. of the present work, Ch. IV. p. 44.&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow"
-href="#xd21e11151src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e11163" href="#xd21e11163src" name="xd21e11163">19</a></span>
-Abich, <i>op. cit.</i> part ii. pp. 9 and 38.&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow"
-href="#xd21e11163src">&uarr;</a></p>
-</div>
-</div>
-<div id="ch22" class="div1 chapter"><span class="pagenum">[<a href=
-"#xd21e500">Contents</a>]</span>
-<div class="divHead">
-<h2 class="label">CHAPTER XXII</h2>
-<h2 class="main">STATISTICAL AND POLITICAL</h2>
-</div>
-<div class="divBody">
-<p class="par first">The solid block of territory over which Russia now
-rules on the tableland of Armenia is neither a new acquisition nor the
-fruit of a single conquest. At the commencement of the last century she
-gained a foothold upon it by the voluntary accession of the Georgian
-kingdom and its constitution into a Russian province in 1802. This
-event, the outcome of the folly of the Mussulman powers, who had driven
-the Christians to despair, was followed by the rapid expansion of the
-northern empire in these countries as the result of successful war.
-Karabagh was taken from Persia in 1813, and the important khanate of
-Erivan in 1828; from Turkey, the district of Akhaltsykh in 1829, and
-the fortress and province of Kars in 1878. Appearing as a deliverer of
-the Christian peoples and profiting by their aid, Russia has succeeded
-in advancing her border beyond the Araxes and to the threshold of
-Erzerum, and in establishing herself behind a well-rounded frontier
-which comprises the venerated mountain of Armenia as well as the seat
-of the supreme spiritual government to which the Armenians bow.</p>
-<p class="par">The Armenian provinces constitute a part of the great
-administrative system of the Caucasus, which is presided over by a
-single Governor-General. Formerly it was usual to appoint a Grand Duke
-to this important post, who exercised, not without advantage to the
-country, a very large measure of personal initiative. At the present
-day it is occupied by a nobleman of high rank; but his administration
-has become much more intimately connected with the bureaucratic machine
-which is worked from St. Petersburg. He remains, however, the principal
-civil and military authority in the Caucasus, which consists of no less
-then twelve Governments, and is divided into North Caucasus and
-Transcaucasia. <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb447" href="#pb447" name=
-"pb447">447</a>]</span>North Caucasus is composed of the Governments of
-Kuban, Terek and Stavropol; while the Governments of Chernomorsk (a
-narrow strip of coast at the foot of the Caucasus range between
-Novorossiysk on the Black Sea and a point a little north of Pitsunda),
-Kutais, Tiflis, Zakataly, Daghestan, Baku, Elizabetpol, Erivan and Kars
-are embraced under the title of Transcaucasia. Five of the Governments,
-namely Kuban, Terek, Daghestan, Zakataly and Kars, are still in the
-military stage of administration. The territories of North Caucasus lie
-quite outside the scope of the present work; and the Government of
-Daghestan ought more properly to be classed with the Northern
-Governments, lying as it does to the north of the main ridge of the
-Caucasus range. To the same category belong certain districts of the
-Government of Baku; but for statistical purposes it is advisable to
-retain them under Transcaucasia, in order to preserve the unity of the
-Government. On the other hand, the little Government of Chernomorsk may
-either be left out of account, or be included under North Caucasus.
-Transcaucasia will thus consist of seven Governments, of which the
-names and population, according to the two last censuses of 1886 and of
-1897, are exhibited in the following table. I must explain that the
-figures of 1897 have not yet been split up into the different racial
-elements of which the populations of the various Governments are
-composed.</p>
-<p class="par">TABLE I.&mdash;<span class="sc">Population of Russian
-Transcaucasia</span><br>
-(including Russian Armenia)</p>
-<div class="table">
-<table class="verticalBorderInside xd21e11191">
-<thead>
-<tr class="label">
-<td class="xd21e11199 cellHeadLeft cellHeadTop cellHeadBottom">
-Government</td>
-<td class="xd21e11199 xd21e11193 cellHeadTop cellHeadBottom">Pop.
-1886.</td>
-<td class="xd21e11199 xd21e11193 cellHeadTop cellHeadBottom">Armenian
-Pop. 1886.</td>
-<td class="xd21e11199 xd21e11193 cellHeadTop cellHeadBottom">Pop.
-1897.</td>
-<td class="xd21e11199 xd21e11193 cellHeadTop cellHeadBottom">Square
-Mileage.</td>
-<td class="xd21e11199 xd21e11193 cellHeadTop cellHeadBottom">Pop. per
-sq. mile 1886.</td>
-<td class=
-"xd21e11199 xd21e11193 cellHeadRight cellHeadTop cellHeadBottom">Pop.
-per sq. mile 1897.</td>
-</tr>
-</thead>
-<tbody>
-<tr>
-<td class="cellLeft">Tiflis<a class="noteref" id="xd21e11217src" href=
-"#xd21e11217" name="xd21e11217src">1</a></td>
-<td class="xd21e11193">875,429</td>
-<td class="xd21e11193">211,743</td>
-<td class="xd21e11193">958,775</td>
-<td class="xd21e11193">15,305.4</td>
-<td class="xd21e11193">57.2</td>
-<td class="xd21e11193 cellRight">62.643</td>
-</tr>
-<tr>
-<td class="cellLeft">Erivan</td>
-<td class="xd21e11193">670,405</td>
-<td class="xd21e11193">375,700</td>
-<td class="xd21e11193">804,757</td>
-<td class="xd21e11193">10,074.75</td>
-<td class="xd21e11193">66.54</td>
-<td class="xd21e11193 cellRight">79.878</td>
-</tr>
-<tr>
-<td class="cellLeft">Kars<a class="noteref" id="xd21e11250src" href=
-"#xd21e11250" name="xd21e11250src">2</a></td>
-<td class="xd21e11193">200,868</td>
-<td class="xd21e11193">44,280</td>
-<td class="xd21e11193">292,498</td>
-<td class="xd21e11193">7,307.29</td>
-<td class="xd21e11193">27.489</td>
-<td class="xd21e11193 cellRight">40.028</td>
-</tr>
-<tr>
-<td class="cellLeft">Kutais</td>
-<td class="xd21e11193">923,306</td>
-<td class="xd21e11193">16,399</td>
-<td class="xd21e11193">1,075,861</td>
-<td class="xd21e11193">13,967.5</td>
-<td class="xd21e11193">66.1</td>
-<td class="xd21e11193 cellRight">77.026</td>
-</tr>
-<tr>
-<td class="cellLeft">Elizabetpol</td>
-<td class="xd21e11193">728,943</td>
-<td class="xd21e11193">258,324</td>
-<td class="xd21e11193">871,557</td>
-<td class="xd21e11193">16,720.5</td>
-<td class="xd21e11193">43.6</td>
-<td class="xd21e11193 cellRight">52.125</td>
-</tr>
-<tr>
-<td class="cellLeft">Baku</td>
-<td class="xd21e11193">712,703</td>
-<td class="xd21e11193">55,459</td>
-<td class="xd21e11193">789,659</td>
-<td class="xd21e11193">15,094.59</td>
-<td class="xd21e11193">47.216</td>
-<td class="xd21e11193 cellRight">52.314</td>
-</tr>
-<tr>
-<td class="cellLeft">Zakatal</td>
-<td class="xd21e11193">74,449</td>
-<td class="xd21e11193">521</td>
-<td class="xd21e11193">82,168</td>
-<td class="xd21e11193">1,542.04</td>
-<td class="xd21e11193">48.28</td>
-<td class="xd21e11193 cellRight">53.285</td>
-</tr>
-<tr>
-<td class="cellLeft cellBottom">Total</td>
-<td class="xd21e11193 cellBottom"><span class=
-"sum">4,186,103</span></td>
-<td class="xd21e11193 cellBottom"><span class="sum">962,426</span></td>
-<td class="xd21e11193 cellBottom"><span class=
-"sum">4,875,275</span></td>
-<td class="xd21e11193 cellBottom"><span class=
-"sum">80,012.07</span></td>
-<td class="xd21e11193 cellBottom"><span class="sum">52.318</span></td>
-<td class="xd21e11193 cellRight cellBottom"><span class=
-"sum">60.931</span></td>
-</tr>
-</tbody>
-</table>
-</div>
-<p class="par"><span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb448" href="#pb448" name=
-"pb448">448</a>]</span></p>
-<p class="par">The admirable volume of statistics for Transcaucasia
-which we owe to the labours of M. de Seidlitz, and which was published
-at Tiflis by order of the civil government in 1893, supplies us with
-the most detailed information concerning these Russian
-provinces&mdash;the numbers of the different races and of the votaries
-of the various religious sects, and how the inhabitants may be classed
-and labelled as nobles or clergy, as tradesmen or as tillers of the
-soil. The figures are derived from the census of 1886, and we are thus
-presented with a fascinating statistical picture of the country towards
-the close of the nineteenth century. I do not propose to spoil the
-effect of his ingenious combinations by transferring them to my own
-pages in a mangled form; or to forestall the pleasure which the perusal
-of his serried columns is sure to bring to every well-regulated mind.
-But their aid will be useful, and indeed indispensable, in fixing upon
-a surer foundation those more general conceptions and conclusions which
-are suggested by the experience of travel. The country immediately on
-the north of the Armenian tableland&mdash;the plain of the Rion on the
-north-west, and the wide trough of the Kur on the north&mdash;is
-inhabited by various branches of the Georgian family and by settlers of
-Tartar race; while the Caucasus itself, the northern boundary of the
-whole geographical system, contains within its countless recesses an
-Homeric catalogue of nations whose names it is difficult to pronounce
-and whose languages are as mysterious as their names. Of a total
-population in Transcaucasia of 4,186,000, the Armenians numbered
-upwards of 962,000 souls in 1886, or a proportion of nearly one
-quarter. But the importance of the Armenian element must be measured
-not so much by its numerical strength as by the solidarity of the
-Armenian people when compared to the peoples among whom they live. The
-Armenians are little divided by religious differences; the Roman
-Catholics are a mere handful among the solid ranks of the Gregorians;
-and the Gregorian Church is not only the symbol of national existence,
-but the stronghold of national hopes. Two other races in Transcaucasia
-slightly exceed the Armenians in number; the Tartars with 1,139,000,
-including Daghestan, and the different divisions of the Georgian family
-who number over a million souls. But the bitter religious antipathies
-of Sunni and Shiah divide the Tartars, and the Georgians are in a
-period of transition from their old feudal system to a new and more
-settled social order, while the union of their Church with the Orthodox
-Church of <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb449" href="#pb449" name=
-"pb449">449</a>]</span>Russia has deprived them of the natural rallying
-point for that community of sentiment which is based on a consciousness
-of race pride. Should the Russians become possessed of the Armenian
-provinces of the Turkish Empire, the most numerous as well as the most
-solid of the elements of population in Transcaucasia will be furnished
-by the Armenian race.</p>
-<p class="par">The distribution of the Armenians within the present
-limits of Russian Transcaucasia, but outside the area of the Armenian
-tableland, may be presented in a concise manner as follows:&mdash;In
-the Government of Elizabetpol, which includes Karabagh, they number
-258,000; but only in the Governmental divisions of Shusha and Zangezur,
-that is to say in the tract of country between the Araxes on the east
-and the south-eastern shore of Lake Sevan on the west, do they
-constitute the numerically preponderating race; while in the other
-divisions and in the whole Government they are largely outnumbered by
-the Tartars. The Government of Tiflis contains nearly 212,000
-Armenians, of whom I shall include 99,000 in my estimate for the
-tableland itself; the remainder are distributed over the other
-divisions of the Government, and in the town of Tiflis, where they
-attain the imposing number of 55,000 among a total population for the
-nineties of 145,000 souls. In the Government of Baku, out of a total
-Armenian population of 55,000 there are over 24,000 in the town of Baku
-itself, where they are engaged in commerce and in the oil works; they
-are also numerous in the town and district of Shemakha, which lies to
-the west of Baku. In the Government of Kutais they only number 16,000,
-and most of these reside in the towns.</p>
-<p class="par">The Armenians, being a commercial and industrial as well
-as an agricultural people, have spread themselves outside the natural
-limits of their country, attracted to the growing centres of industry
-upon its confines. They contribute a valuable and increasing element to
-the urban populations. But it is only when we have crossed the
-mountains which separate their highlands from the rest of Transcaucasia
-that we become conscious of treading upon Armenian soil. Throughout its
-extension from Akhalkalaki and Alexandropol on the north-east to Egin
-and Kharput on the south-west, that elevated stage of the Asiatic
-tablelands which we may still call Armenia bears the imprint of the
-individuality of the Armenian people to a greater degree than of any
-other race. In the immense expanse of these <span class=
-"pagenum">[<a id="pb450" href="#pb450" name=
-"pb450">450</a>]</span>Armenian landscapes&mdash;where blue lakes lie
-lapped in treeless plains, swelling with ochreous surface from hummock
-to hill, from hill to some long descending mountain outline that sweeps
-from the summit of a snow-crowned cone&mdash;the note which is uttered
-by man is lost. Yet there is scarcely a remote valley or lonely island
-which does not attract a band of pilgrims to worship in the beautiful
-monasteries which date from the times of the kings of Armenia and keep
-alive the story of the past. The fertile ground is for the most part
-tilled by an Armenian peasantry, whose burrows, resembling large
-ant-hills, are scarcely perceptible in the scene. All the machinery of
-whatever civilisation the land may possess is furnished by Armenians.
-The language which you most often hear is the somewhat harsh Armenian
-tongue; the legends and historical memories which attach to the great
-works of Nature have for the most part an Armenian origin. Over the
-area of the Armenian tableland, as it is delimited in the present work,
-these people are found in nearly double the numbers of any other race.
-In the preceding chapter I have established the natural frontiers of
-the country within Russian territory; and in the companion chapter of
-the second volume I shall hope to perform the same task in respect of
-the Turkish area. Our present concern is with the population of the
-Russian provinces of the tableland, which I have endeavoured to exhibit
-according to its various racial elements in the following tabular
-statement.</p>
-<p class="par">The little map, with which I accompany this table, will
-make plain to my reader the statistical area with which we are dealing.
-He will observe that it agrees in a general manner with the area
-enclosed by the natural frontier. It would not be possible to adapt
-exactly the statistical information at our disposal, based as it is
-upon Governmental units, to the geographical boundaries represented by
-the natural frontier; but those boundaries are so strongly marked that
-they correspond pretty closely with those of the administrative
-divisions. Only in two cases does the statistical area, as shown in the
-map within Russian territory, diverge in a marked degree from the
-geographical; and in both these cases it would have been easy to have
-made them approximately coincide. The one occurs about south of Tiflis,
-where I have preferred to include the ouezde of Borchali within the
-statistical area. It comprises a transitional region between the
-natural frontier and the valley of the Kur, presenting many of
-<span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb453" href="#pb453" name=
-"pb453">453</a>]</span>the characteristics of the tableland, and
-inhabited in considerable numbers by Armenians. The other is furnished
-by the administrative division of Olti, belonging to the Government of
-Kars. My reason for retaining it is principally because it corresponds
-on the east to the eastern limits of the Turkish vilayet of Erzerum on
-the west. Both these Governments, of Kars and of Erzerum, overlap into
-the Chorokh region; and in the case of Erzerum I have not been able to
-determine the exact boundaries of the overlapping administrative units.
-With these exceptions the natural area of the Armenian provinces in
-Russia corresponds fairly closely with the area comprised by the
-Governments of Erivan and Kars together with the ouezdes of Akhaltsykh,
-Akhalkalaki and Borchali, belonging to the Government of Tiflis.
-Karabagh I have excluded both from the geographical and from the
-statistical area, representing as it does an Armenia in miniature on
-the side of the Caspian Sea. <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb451" href=
-"#pb451" name="pb451">451</a>]</span></p>
-<p class="par">TABLE II.&mdash;<span class="sc">Population of the
-Armenian Tableland in Russia</span></p>
-<p class="par">(Census of 1886 and figures of 1891 for Kars)</p>
-<div class="table">
-<table class="verticalBorderInside xd21e11191">
-<thead>
-<tr class="label">
-<td class="xd21e11199 cellHeadLeft cellHeadTop cellHeadBottom">
-Nationality.</td>
-<td class="xd21e11199 xd21e11367 cellHeadTop cellHeadBottom">Govt. of
-Tiflis; ouezdes of Akhalkalaki, Akhaltsykh and Borchali.</td>
-<td class="xd21e11199 xd21e11367 cellHeadTop cellHeadBottom">Sq.
-Miles.</td>
-<td class="xd21e11199 xd21e11367 cellHeadTop cellHeadBottom">Govt. of
-Erivan.</td>
-<td class="xd21e11199 xd21e11367 cellHeadTop cellHeadBottom">Sq.
-Miles.</td>
-<td class="xd21e11199 xd21e11367 cellHeadTop cellHeadBottom">Govt. of
-Kars.</td>
-<td class="xd21e11199 xd21e11367 cellHeadTop cellHeadBottom">Sq.
-Miles.</td>
-<td class="xd21e11199 xd21e11367 cellHeadTop cellHeadBottom">
-Totals.</td>
-<td class="xd21e11199 xd21e11367 cellHeadTop cellHeadBottom">Total
-Square Miles.</td>
-<td class=
-"xd21e11199 xd21e11367 cellHeadRight cellHeadTop cellHeadBottom">Pop.
-per Sq. Mile.</td>
-</tr>
-</thead>
-<tbody>
-<tr>
-<td class="cellLeft">Armenians</td>
-<td class="xd21e11367">99,258</td>
-<td class="xd21e11367"></td>
-<td class="xd21e11367">375,700</td>
-<td class="xd21e11367"></td>
-<td class="xd21e11367">44,280</td>
-<td class="xd21e11367"></td>
-<td class="xd21e11367">519,238</td>
-<td class="xd21e11367"></td>
-<td class="xd21e11367 cellRight"></td>
-</tr>
-<tr>
-<td class="cellLeft">Tartars</td>
-<td class="xd21e11367">55,253</td>
-<td class="xd21e11367"></td>
-<td class="xd21e11367">251,057</td>
-<td class="xd21e11367"></td>
-<td class="xd21e11367">...</td>
-<td class="xd21e11367"></td>
-<td class="xd21e11367">306,310</td>
-<td class="xd21e11367"></td>
-<td class="xd21e11367 cellRight"></td>
-</tr>
-<tr>
-<td class="cellLeft">Kurds</td>
-<td class="xd21e11367">2,127</td>
-<td class="xd21e11367"></td>
-<td class="xd21e11367">36,478</td>
-<td class="xd21e11367"></td>
-<td class="xd21e11367">30,259</td>
-<td class="xd21e11367"></td>
-<td class="xd21e11367">68,864</td>
-<td class="xd21e11367"></td>
-<td class="xd21e11367 cellRight"></td>
-</tr>
-<tr>
-<td class="cellLeft">Greeks</td>
-<td class="xd21e11367">19,170</td>
-<td class="xd21e11367"></td>
-<td class="xd21e11367">1,026</td>
-<td class="xd21e11367"></td>
-<td class="xd21e11367">27,567</td>
-<td class="xd21e11367"></td>
-<td class="xd21e11367">47,763</td>
-<td class="xd21e11367"></td>
-<td class="xd21e11367 cellRight"></td>
-</tr>
-<tr>
-<td class="cellLeft">Turks</td>
-<td class="xd21e11367">31</td>
-<td class="xd21e11367"></td>
-<td class="xd21e11367">...</td>
-<td class="xd21e11367"></td>
-<td class="xd21e11367">46,954</td>
-<td class="xd21e11367"></td>
-<td class="xd21e11367">46,985</td>
-<td class="xd21e11367"></td>
-<td class="xd21e11367 cellRight"></td>
-</tr>
-<tr>
-<td class="cellLeft">Georgians</td>
-<td class="xd21e11367">31,069</td>
-<td class="xd21e11367"></td>
-<td class="xd21e11367">33</td>
-<td class="xd21e11367"></td>
-<td class="xd21e11367">...</td>
-<td class="xd21e11367"></td>
-<td class="xd21e11367">31,102</td>
-<td class="xd21e11367"></td>
-<td class="xd21e11367 cellRight"></td>
-</tr>
-<tr>
-<td class="cellLeft">Russians</td>
-<td class="xd21e11367">12,879</td>
-<td class="xd21e11367"></td>
-<td class="xd21e11367">4,152</td>
-<td class="xd21e11367"></td>
-<td class="xd21e11367">11,813</td>
-<td class="xd21e11367"></td>
-<td class="xd21e11367">28,844</td>
-<td class="xd21e11367"></td>
-<td class="xd21e11367 cellRight"></td>
-</tr>
-<tr>
-<td class="cellLeft">Karapapakhs</td>
-<td class="xd21e11367">...</td>
-<td class="xd21e11367"></td>
-<td class="xd21e11367">...</td>
-<td class="xd21e11367"></td>
-<td class="xd21e11367">27,247</td>
-<td class="xd21e11367"></td>
-<td class="xd21e11367">27,247</td>
-<td class="xd21e11367"></td>
-<td class="xd21e11367 cellRight"></td>
-</tr>
-<tr>
-<td class="cellLeft">Turkomans</td>
-<td class="xd21e11367">...</td>
-<td class="xd21e11367"></td>
-<td class="xd21e11367">...</td>
-<td class="xd21e11367"></td>
-<td class="xd21e11367">10,174</td>
-<td class="xd21e11367"></td>
-<td class="xd21e11367">10,174</td>
-<td class="xd21e11367"></td>
-<td class="xd21e11367 cellRight"></td>
-</tr>
-<tr>
-<td class="cellLeft">Others</td>
-<td class="xd21e11367">4,650</td>
-<td class="xd21e11367"></td>
-<td class="xd21e11367">1,959</td>
-<td class="xd21e11367"></td>
-<td class="xd21e11367">2,574</td>
-<td class="xd21e11367"></td>
-<td class="xd21e11367">9,183<a class="noteref" id="xd21e11604src" href=
-"#xd21e11604" name="xd21e11604src">3</a></td>
-<td class="xd21e11367"></td>
-<td class="xd21e11367 cellRight"></td>
-</tr>
-<tr>
-<td class="cellLeft cellBottom">Total</td>
-<td class="xd21e11367 cellBottom"><span class="sum">224,437</span></td>
-<td class="xd21e11367 cellBottom"><span class=
-"sum">4,585.85</span></td>
-<td class="xd21e11367 cellBottom"><span class="sum">670,405</span></td>
-<td class="xd21e11367 cellBottom"><span class=
-"sum">10,074.75</span></td>
-<td class="xd21e11367 cellBottom"><span class="sum">200,868</span></td>
-<td class="xd21e11367 cellBottom"><span class=
-"sum">7,307.29</span></td>
-<td class="xd21e11367 cellBottom"><span class="sum">1,095,710<a class=
-"noteref" id="xd21e11628src" href="#xd21e11628" name=
-"xd21e11628src">4</a></span></td>
-<td class="xd21e11367 cellBottom"><span class="sum">21,967.89<a class=
-"noteref" id="xd21e11633src" href="#xd21e11633" name=
-"xd21e11633src">5</a></span></td>
-<td class="xd21e11367 cellRight cellBottom"><span class=
-"sum">49.877</span></td>
-</tr>
-</tbody>
-</table>
-</div>
-<p class="par"><span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb452" href="#pb452" name=
-"pb452">452</a>]</span></p>
-<p class="par"></p>
-<div class="figure xd21e11642width" id="map08"><a href=
-"images/map08-h.png"><img src="images/map08.png" alt=
-"THE ARMENIAN PLATEAU" width="720" height="407"></a>
-<p class="figureHead">THE ARMENIAN PLATEAU</p>
-<p class="par first">W Shame, FRGS</p>
-</div>
-<p class="par"></p>
-<p class="par">Further analysis of the figures which have just been
-presented would show that the stronghold of the Armenians, the locality
-in which they are most numerous, is the rich country through which the
-Arpa Chai flows on its way to join the middle course of the Araxes.
-There is situated the fortress and modern town of Alexandropol, which
-is inhabited almost exclusively by Armenians; and there are placed, a
-little further south, the remains of the ancient city of Ani, of which
-the deserted site still testifies to the state and splendour of their
-kings. The upland plains about Akhalkalaki on the north are dotted with
-Armenian villages; while the valley of the Araxes on the south, from
-Kagyzman to Erivan, and especially in the district of Edgmiatsin,
-contains a considerable Armenian population. The town and district of
-Novo-Bayazet, on the western shore of Lake Sevan, is for the greater
-part Armenian. On the other hand, the eastern portion of the Araxes
-valley, commencing from the town of Ordubad, is held in large numbers
-by the Tartars, who run the Armenians close in the extensive and
-important area which is covered by the Government of Erivan. It must be
-remembered, in reference to the Armenian population of the Russian
-provinces, that their numbers have been considerably augmented by
-emigration from Turkey and Persia. It is computed that not less than
-10,000 families from the district of Erzerum followed the Russian army
-out of Turkey in 1829; and numbers of their countrymen&mdash;it is said
-not less than 40,000&mdash;had already accompanied the <span class=
-"pagenum">[<a id="pb454" href="#pb454" name="pb454">454</a>]</span>same
-force from the frontier districts of Persia when it retired from Tabriz
-at the Peace of Turkomanchai.</p>
-<p class="par">Next to the Armenians, the most numerous element in the
-population are the Tartars, who extend from the Persian frontier up the
-valley of the Araxes, and cover with their settlements the eastern
-districts of the plateau region and the whole of Karabagh. The Tartars
-of Transcaucasia represent a section of those warriors of Turkish race
-who, from the time of the appearance of the Seljuks down to the end of
-the eighteenth century, were driven to this country by political
-conditions from the northern provinces of Persia&mdash;that is, from
-Azerbaijan, and from the eastern shores of the Caspian Sea. Their
-language is still the <i>lingua franca</i> of the districts between
-Caucasus and the Armenian plateau. Within the area with which we are
-now dealing they belong almost entirely to the Shiah sect, and, besides
-sharing the religion of Persia, contain an admixture of Persian blood.
-It is not so long ago that their seats in Armenia formed a Persian
-khanate, and were administered by Persian sirdars; and the wealthy
-families who flourished during that period are still the owners of
-extensive gardens, and live on the proceeds of their land. In the
-humbler walks of life they are distinguished by their skill in all
-those methods of working mud which are practised in the East; they are
-plasterers, wall-makers, skilled men in the construction of works of
-irrigation; while most of the little tradesmen, the hucksters and
-fruit-sellers are Tartars, and many of the gardeners and drivers of
-carts. In the country they have passed from the nomadic stage, and are
-prosperous settlers upon the land. In the town of Erivan, where their
-numbers equal those of the Armenians, many of the largest gardens are
-owned by Tartar families, and many of the most prosperous houses of
-business are in Tartar hands. The degree of religious tolerance which
-they have achieved in that town was a matter of extreme astonishment to
-me, when I remembered how often I had in vain resented the bigotry of
-the Shiahs while travelling within the dominions of the Shah. The
-Persians are unable to enforce reciprocity in their country, and to
-repay us for the pleasure and the profit which they may derive in
-inspecting the great religious buildings of Europe by suppressing and
-impounding the vicious fanatics who drive us from the doors of their
-mosques. It is a pleasure to offer a well-deserved tribute to that
-sense of respect for themselves and for their religion of which the
-Shiahs of <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb455" href="#pb455" name=
-"pb455">455</a>]</span>Erivan give so striking a proof by admitting the
-stranger, whatever his creed, into the innermost courts of their
-spacious and beautiful mosque; and it is not imprudent to hope and to
-expect that the narrow path which they are still treading may widen as
-the years increase. On the other hand, it is not without disappointment
-that we may note the small progress they have hitherto made in availing
-themselves of the opportunities of education which the Russian
-Government have placed within their reach. I have drawn attention to
-this circumstance in my notice of the schools of Erivan; and it is safe
-to prophesy that, unless a radical change be soon effected, the Tartars
-will be edged out by the Armenians and will diminish in numbers year by
-year.</p>
-<p class="par">The remaining peoples native to the country upon whom it
-is necessary to bestow a passing glance are the Kurds, the Greeks, the
-Turks, the Georgians and the Karapapakhs. The Kurds within Russian
-territory have not yet abandoned their nomadic habits; they are found
-as far north as the country about Batum, but their principal
-pasture-grounds are on the Turkish frontier and in Karabagh. The Kurds
-in the neighbourhood of Ararat pursue two main directions during their
-summer wanderings; one body proceeds towards the north, through the
-districts of Edgmiatsin and Alexandropol, and stations itself upon the
-highlands about Akhaltsykh and Akhalkalaki; the other takes an easterly
-course and enters the Government of Elizabetpol. The total number of
-Kurds in Transcaucasia is given as 100,000, of whom the larger part
-inhabit within the area with which we are concerned; the rest are found
-in greatest number in Karabagh. The Greeks have several villages,
-principally in the Government of Kars; those which I saw were
-prosperous, and the gay dresses and trinkets of the women betokened a
-somewhat higher stage of comfort than that which is usual in the
-country as a whole. These Greeks speak Turkish and are learning
-Russian; their versatile genius enables them to change nationality as
-we take a change of air. They are excellent miners and road engineers;
-the fine <i lang="fr">chauss&eacute;e</i> which has recently been
-completed up the valley of the Toporovan river to Akhalkalaki was
-constructed by the skilled labour of Greek workmen. The small number of
-Georgians who are included in our area are found, as would be expected,
-in the valley of the Kur. In many places the race has received such a
-large admixture of Turkish blood that the inhabitants, <span class=
-"pagenum">[<a id="pb456" href="#pb456" name=
-"pb456">456</a>]</span>although classed as Georgians, would call
-themselves Turks, and are in religion Mussulman. In such villages I
-found much discontent with the existing order, and the evident outward
-signs of breaking up and decay. The Turks are found almost exclusively
-in the Government of Kars, which is also the seat of a hybrid tribe
-called Karapapakhs, or &ldquo;Black Caps,&rdquo; from the black
-lambskin caps which they wear. The origin of the German and of the
-Russian settlers has already been described in the course of this work
-(see Ch. VII.); the latter belong almost exclusively to the Dukhobortsy
-and Molokan sects, expelled by the Russian Church-State from the home
-provinces of the Russian Empire. The Dukhobortsy must have diminished
-in numbers to an appreciable extent since the date of these statistics,
-owing to the recent emigration of large numbers into the bosom of the
-British Empire (p. 116).</p>
-<p class="par">When one reflects upon the social condition of the
-country, no circumstance is perhaps more striking than the complete
-separation of one race from another. Although living side by side,
-there is an entire absence of natural fusion of the different elements
-upon a common plane. Cases exist both in the Russian and in the Turkish
-provinces of Armenia where, from a sense of advantage or by compulsion,
-the people of a particular district have adopted the Mussulman religion
-during periods of Mussulman persecution, and have become, by
-intermarriage and closer intercourse, absorbed into the dominant race.
-I may instance in Russian Armenia the Georgian inhabitants of the
-valley of the Upper Kur, and across the Turkish frontier the Armenians
-of the Tortum district and the Greeks of many of the valleys of the
-peripheral region. But such examples have only aggravated the
-differences to which separation is due. They have converted the
-existing prejudices into animosities, and have retarded rather than
-advanced any tendency towards fusion. When Russia appeared on the
-scene, it might have been expected that at least in the case of
-Christians of various professions and nationalities a disposition to
-draw together might have made itself felt. As a matter of fact the
-reverse has been the case. To the old religious breaches has been added
-a new barrier&mdash;the hungry Russian Orthodox Church. Certainly in
-the case of a marriage between a Russian sectary and an
-Armenian&mdash;and I believe also in that of the other professions,
-should, for instance, an Armenian of the Gregorian persuasion wed a
-Protestant of the <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb457" href="#pb457"
-name="pb457">457</a>]</span>same nation&mdash;the children of such a
-mixed union are required by Russian law to be brought up in the Russian
-Orthodox faith. It makes no difference that neither of the parents
-professes that faith. The result has, therefore, been that the old
-heterogeneous collection have been increased by two more species of the
-Christian happy family&mdash;the Molokans and Dukhobortsy. And upon
-both is riveted isolation from their neighbours&mdash;or in the
-alternative the necessity of educating their children in a creed and
-religious system which they abhor.</p>
-<p class="par">In such circumstances very little has been effected by
-the Russian settlers towards raising the standards already prevailing
-in their adopted country. Inasmuch as these sectaries belong to the
-flower of the peasantry in Russia, one should, perhaps, regret the
-presence of any artificial barriers. It is true that they do not stand
-as high in the scale of peoples as their Armenian neighbours with their
-ancient but deeply corroded culture and their natural
-aptitudes&mdash;these, happily, unimpaired. But in moral force the
-Russians are easily superior; and their methods of agriculture, if they
-were generally followed in the country, would produce an economical
-revolution. Up to the present time their example has been thrown away.
-Their neat stone houses, spacious carts, ploughs and field implements
-have not inspired the Armenians to forsake their ancestral
-habits&mdash;to improve the means of cultivation, and to emerge from
-their unhealthy burrows into the light and comfort of glass windows and
-solid walls of stone. This barrenness of result is, no doubt, in part
-due to the manner in which the Russian immigration took place. Expelled
-from their native country, the peasants came in whole villages, with
-their women and their children and their household goods. Their new
-settlements were grouped together and rendered self-sufficient; and
-neither the necessities nor the inducements of social intercourse drew
-them away from their own circles. To the traveller as well as to the
-native they are a piece of Russia laid down in Armenia; the curious
-stare and pass on. As an outpost of the northern empire they can be of
-little value owing to the religious opinions which they profess. It is
-well known in the country that the Government are reserving vast tracts
-of land in the hope that some day Russian colonists, these, it is
-expected, of the Orthodox faith, may be attracted to these salubrious
-uplands. The climate would suit them well. Should the Germans realise
-their scheme of colonising Asia Minor, an ethnical redistribution would
-be <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb458" href="#pb458" name=
-"pb458">458</a>]</span>accomplished on a large scale. But the
-population of the country is at present so scanty and its resources so
-vast, that the Armenians have little to fear from such a
-development.</p>
-<p class="par">Let us now proceed to the political side of our subject,
-and endeavour to measure the system of government under which these
-various peoples live. It will be interesting to keep in view both their
-dispositions towards it and the results, material and moral, which it
-may be considered to have brought about.</p>
-<p class="par">The administration by Russia of the north-eastern half
-of Armenia has been occupied with races whose more recent political
-history consists in their passage from one domination to another; and
-the presence of discontent in certain quarters may be regarded as the
-inevitable outcome of the change. The Mussulman adherents of the old
-Turkish dominion share with their neighbours of Turkish origin the
-humiliation of a fallen state; and their Turkish sympathies and
-connections, while they excite the suspicions of the Russian
-Government, dispose them to yield to the lightest pressure, and to
-cross the border into Turkish soil.<a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e11678src" href="#xd21e11678" name="xd21e11678src">6</a> The
-Armenians, who have been a mainstay to Russia both in her Persian and
-in her Turkish wars, whose lands were swept by the tide of battle, and
-who can recall the memory of conflicts which extended even to the walls
-of their sanctuary, the cloister of Edgmiatsin, are inclined to temper
-their sentiments of gratitude with the consciousness of the services
-which they rendered&mdash;services which many among them may be
-disposed to consider have only resulted in the imposition of a fresh
-and more burdensome yoke. North of the tableland the Georgian races,
-whose kingdom, harassed by Mohammedan peoples, was driven to seek
-assistance outside, have not yet forgotten the disappointment of the
-hope which many among them had cherished, that Russian intervention
-might assume the form of a protectorate rather than of a complete
-absorption of the Georgian element into the Russian State. But such
-regrets and disillusionments are but the familiar sequel to the
-constitution of empire upon a new soil; and human nature under such
-circumstances is more prone to count the loss than to recognise the
-gain. Over twenty years have now elapsed since Russia completed her
-subjugation of the Caucasus, whose peoples, untamed for so long a
-period, menaced the base of her advance; order and peace have been
-given to the country, and life and property are safe. Georgian children
-are no longer sold into <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb459" href=
-"#pb459" name="pb459">459</a>]</span>slavery, and a middle class is
-forming amongst that people, whose traditional relation to one another
-was that of noble and serf. An experienced traveller, who visited the
-Armenian provinces in 1868, and passed through the more fertile regions
-of the country between Kars and Kagyzman, has left on record a striking
-picture of the misery of those Mussulman times. He was crossing the
-district of Shuragel, the ancient Shirak of the Armenians; and he
-speaks of deserted towns and villages, of Armenian peasants who clung
-to their ruined homes with a pertinacity of affection which neither
-poverty nor oppression could subdue, of the dispossession of the
-Christians by the Turkish Beys, and of the exactions and forays of the
-Kurds, which had curtailed agriculture and stifled industry, and had
-reduced both to the extreme limit on which human life is able to
-subsist.<a class="noteref" id="xd21e11683src" href="#xd21e11683" name=
-"xd21e11683src">7</a> If, at the present time, the Armenian peasant
-gathers for himself the crops which he has sown, and the restless Kurd
-consults his safety by a sober respect for the law, it is to Russia
-that the people owe this deliverance from the license and anarchy of
-former years.</p>
-<p class="par">Had the Russian Government confined its energies to the
-amiable and disinterested task of establishing and maintaining public
-order as the guardian of a distracted country and the knight-errant who
-clears the land of thieves, it would have received the ungrudging
-gratitude of the Armenians, until in the maturity of time they had
-learnt to walk unaided and to cope alone with those lawless elements
-which might still resist the yoke of law. When that happy state had
-been accomplished it might only be natural to suppose that the
-progressive tendencies of the Armenian would lead him to take counsel
-with his neighbours and friends, to thank his protectors for past
-benefits, and to submit that the continuance of foreign tutelage was no
-longer necessary or desirable in the interests of a country to whose
-welfare they had contributed so much. To the Russians such a possible,
-but I think improbable, outcome of all their efforts was scarcely
-calculated to present so rosy an appearance as their ingenuous wards
-might have expected or hoped, and, if the advantages offered by the
-Russian Empire were not sufficiently apparent by themselves, it was
-necessary to reform and to educate a perversity which sooner or later
-would yield. The Russians are not a commercial people, and would be
-content to see the Armenians <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb460" href=
-"#pb460" name="pb460">460</a>]</span>conduct the commerce of their
-native country and develop its vast resources, could they but collect
-the means; but only on one condition were they prepared to encourage
-such activity: that their subjects should become Russians, and that the
-province should be joined to the Russian Empire not only by the slender
-thread of annexation, but by the abiding tie of a common patriotism
-founded on a community of sentiment with themselves. But just at this
-point the real difficulties of empire arise. Races who stand on a low
-scale in Nature have become absorbed into the Russian system by the
-exertion of little further energy than was required to ingrain in them
-that wholesome respect for their northern conqueror which the first
-sharp conflict had inspired; and the <i>broad, expansive Russian
-character</i> has been able to assimilate them to itself. It is
-different when, whatever the degree of degradation to which they may
-have been reduced by Mussulman oppression, a people is conscious of
-elements of vitality impelling them to higher ideals and standards than
-those which guide the powerful protectors under whom they have
-commenced to breathe. An empire which is confronted with such a
-situation has few alternatives among which to choose. If it cannot
-attract the subject people towards it&mdash;if it cannot accomplish
-that task of self-change which is more difficult than any problem which
-the exercise of empire may present&mdash;it will sooner or later be
-driven to adopt the expedients of coercion and repression, and to lower
-the plane of civilised life by arresting the race for progress in which
-it was itself unfitted to compete.</p>
-<p class="par">Such a political situation can best be gauged and
-appreciated if we approach it from several different points of
-view&mdash;the nature of the Russian system, the attitude of Armenians
-in particular towards it, the true significance of such struggles in
-the larger issues of the outside world.... The kindness and hospitality
-of the Russian people, the amiable disposition which, in spite of
-official exigencies, makes them wish the traveller well, the real
-desire which a large and increasing number among them cherish for
-social progress at home&mdash;are features in the Russian character
-which the shortest acquaintance will recognise with respect, and which
-make for the true advance of Russia as a civilised nation among her
-peers. But the moment that the elements of progress in Russia have
-asserted their right to rule, the Russian system, as we know it, will
-die and disappear, and the laws which govern its existence will be
-subject to new conditions, which may make <span class="pagenum">[<a id=
-"pb461" href="#pb461" name="pb461">461</a>]</span>for closer national
-concentration rather than for expansion abroad. Such reflections,
-although not new, are pertinent in this place. The element of finality,
-always relative, may justly appear in the eyes of many Armenians to be
-wanting to the political system and to the Government under which they
-live; and the abhorrence which that system inspires tempts them to
-convert the thought into a wish. The ultimate outcome of any revolution
-in the affairs of Russia is too uncertain, and the present evils of her
-Government are too substantial and apparent to induce them willingly to
-cast in their lot with the Russian people, and to abandon their hope of
-fulfilling their destiny in their own manner and, if possible, by
-themselves.</p>
-<p class="par">A people whose commercial activity has brought them into
-contact with the most progressive races of Europe, and whose natural
-instinct renders them eager to assimilate Western thought, can scarcely
-be blamed if they chafe under a system which assumes to establish the
-opinions they shall hold and to select the books which they shall read,
-and which subjects every action of their daily life to an inquisitorial
-control. Such methods are only the manifestations of a settled and
-uniform plan. The Armenian must sink his individuality and resign his
-initiative into Russian hands. He must imbue himself with the ideas
-which his rulers have prepared for him, and which may be opposed to the
-tendencies and the capacities with which he has been endowed. In such a
-prospect he recognises nothing to admire and much to fear. He sees the
-more capable races either driven from the Russian Empire or made the
-object of a constant jealousy and antipathy rather than of increasing
-respect. He feels the grip of an organisation which is founded on
-European methods, and commands all the resources which those methods
-provide; but he distrusts the hands which wield these weapons, and he
-is indifferent to the objects to which they are turned. Even the
-material results of such a system leave him little to hope beyond what
-he has attained. The resources of the country still lie dormant, and
-the Government seems to lack the means or else the will to turn them to
-account. He sees the rich forests of the peripheral region, which might
-yield a considerable revenue in return for an outlay which would be
-comparatively small, left unexploited and neglected, while shiploads of
-wood are entering the ports to supply the requirements of the oil
-industry. That industry itself he sees promoted by foreign capital in
-Russian <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb462" href="#pb462" name=
-"pb462">462</a>]</span>guise, while the jealousy of all foreign capital
-has closed the door to its beneficent action in the provinces of his
-home. Only a single military railway traverses the tableland, and there
-is scarcely a road upon it except such as are rendered necessary by the
-exigencies of the military arm. A few examples of the economical
-condition of these provinces may emphasise and explain such statements
-of a general kind. The two principal towns are Alexandropol and Erivan;
-yet the road which joins them makes the colossal circuit by the
-northern shore of Lake Sevan, where it meets the main avenue of traffic
-between Tiflis and Erivan. From a point further west on this roundabout
-line of communication a road has been cut with the laudable object of
-shortening the distance; but the same contempt for the smaller and more
-irksome duties of life to which we become accustomed in purely Eastern
-countries has allowed it to fall into ruin by neglect, and we are met
-by the sight, so familiar to the traveller in the East, of yawning
-culverts and broken bridges and parallel tracks which have diverged and
-avoided the perilous surface of the metalled way. In Erivan itself, the
-chief town of a district where capital might be turned to the greatest
-advantage, it is impossible or difficult to find a foreign newspaper,
-while the industrial skill of the advanced races of Europe is not
-represented by a single foreign enterprise, or, so far as I know, by a
-single foreign man of business or industrial employee. Persons who know
-the country well have told me that from the point of view of
-irrigation, so important a requirement in a land which suffers from
-want of rain, it has gone back since the times of the Persians, who are
-experts in such arts. As a consequence of this economical stagnation,
-the spectacle is often presented in a country which enjoys security and
-repose of miserable villages, pinched by the scantiest resources and in
-appearance not more prosperous than those on Turkish soil. I cannot
-help thinking that many of these evils are due to excessive
-centralisation in the Russian capital. When the Governor of the
-Transcaucasian provinces was a Grand Duke residing at Tiflis, he was
-able to gratify his personal interest in their welfare by the exercise
-of a large measure of independent initiative and control; at the
-present day the smallest projects are referred to St. Petersburg, and
-are made subservient to the general economic policy which governs the
-Empire as a whole. But such an explanation serves only to display and
-emphasise the character of the Russian <span class="pagenum">[<a id=
-"pb463" href="#pb463" name="pb463">463</a>]</span>system itself: how
-small are the prospects which it offers in return for the leaden yoke
-which it brings.</p>
-<p class="par">Little by little, as all danger on the side of the
-Mussulman states has gradually disappeared, the Russian Government have
-considered it opportune to apply more drastic methods, and to impose
-upon the newest of their adopted children a fuller measure of the
-disciplinary r&eacute;gime. With what instruments they have worked, and
-how first the Church and next the schools have been the objects of
-their relentless embrace, has been already told in the foregoing
-chapters, notably those on Erivan and Edgmiatsin. On their side the
-Armenians have shown no disposition to adopt Russian ways of thought.
-The greater has grown the pressure, the more they have writhed and
-twisted; at the present moment they are lying still with broken wings.
-The situation is cruel in the extreme. From the Turkish provinces they
-are beaten up towards the Russian frontier by bands of long-beaked,
-predatory Kurds. Should they reach their asylum, they are caught in the
-meshes of a quite impervious network; they are sorted and sifted about
-by a swarm of active little officials&mdash;the police of the
-districts, the police of the towns, the political police. Camps are
-instituted where the great majority will be detained at pleasure, to be
-returned on the first opportunity to their rifled homes. The repetition
-of this process is causing the decimation of the Armenian people in a
-surer and much more efficacious manner than any massacres. It is true
-that the amelioration if not the removal of such conditions lies to
-some extent in their own hands. &ldquo;Accept our system, follow the
-Georgians, and seek spiritual and political salvation within the bosom
-of the Russian Church-State.&rdquo; One cannot doubt that in that event
-the whole weight of the great Russian Empire would be thrown into the
-scale for the Armenians. What a tempting prospect for a people so
-sorely tried! Will they not before very long subscribe this obvious
-solution, for which there is so much to be said? I have put the
-question to all the Armenians with whom I have enjoyed opportunities of
-intercourse, and I have put it to those one or two European Consuls who
-have been in Armenia and know the Armenians well. The answer has
-invariably been in a negative sense. Many Armenians go so far as to
-openly profess their preference for the Turkish Government. They state
-the matter neatly in the form of an antithesis. It is a choice between
-two Oppressions, one physical <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb464"
-href="#pb464" name="pb464">464</a>]</span>and spasmodic, the other
-moral and systematic. It is not the first time in history that they
-have been offered the alternative of slavery in body or slavery in
-mind. A remnant may be absorbed; but the majority will follow their
-destiny, will wander out, and, perhaps, disappear.</p>
-<p class="par">Such is the conclusion, so full of pathos, with such a
-vein of unconscious satire, throwing curious side lights upon the
-gilded figures of <i>Christianity</i> and <i>Empire</i> marching down
-purple steps with arms entwined.... My reader who may know the
-Armenians from his sad experience of an Armenian dragoman picked up in
-the Levant, will not, perhaps, be disposed to view the ruin of that
-people with feelings of keen regret. For myself, coming to the subject
-free from any prepossessions, but with the lessons of extensive travel
-in the countries west of India fresh imprinted on my mind, I must
-freely confess to exactly contrary sentiments. We are living in a time
-of startling changes in Asia; we are witnesses of one of those great
-waves from Europe upon Asia of which the tide-marks have all but
-vanished from the sands of the Present after many centuries of repose
-and stagnation. Some diversion of the current, it is true, has taken
-place towards Africa; but the reservoirs of Europe are being filled in
-a much greater measure than they are depleted by issues in that
-direction. A new and, to all appearances, a permanent factor of immense
-potentiality in its reflex influence upon the economy and diplomacy of
-Europe has arisen in the shape of the United States of America.
-American competition is already obliging the industrial states of
-Europe to compose those ancient quarrels which have so often exhausted
-their great resources, and which have been so long exploited with
-success by Oriental rulers. Day by day new inventions are annihilating
-the old-world obstacles of distance and of time. Asia is brought to our
-doors; and, when we lift the veil in which she has so long slumbered,
-there is nothing beneath but her fair frame and the flimsiest web of
-human littleness, yielding to the first and most clumsy attempt to
-brush it aside.</p>
-<p class="par"><i>Nepioi!</i>&mdash;We are surely simpletons if through
-motives of adventure and cupidity we fondly cherish the vision of this
-long-lost continent parcelled out like virgin ground among ourselves.
-The Asiatic, with all his debility, is not the African; he is our
-father, from whose lips we received our first lessons, and his old age,
-become almost child-like, contains the germs of rejuvenescence,
-<span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb465" href="#pb465" name=
-"pb465">465</a>]</span>like the gods of ancient Greece. Tenderly and
-with affection should we approach these old races whom Providence has
-conducted to our threshold. They will repay us for our forbearance and
-solicitude. They worship strength; but the display of power in a brutal
-and ruthless spirit betrays in their eyes, who have seen the passage of
-so many despotisms, underlying elements of present weakness and certain
-failure. In some condition, one cannot help feeling, they are likely to
-survive us, the richer or the poorer for the example and imprint which
-we may have bestowed.</p>
-<p class="par">In the Armenians we have a people who are peculiarly
-adapted to be the intermediaries of the new dispensation. They profess
-our religion, are familiar with some of our best ideals, and assimilate
-each new product of European culture with an avidity and thoroughness
-which no other race between India and the Mediterranean has given any
-evidence of being able to rival. These capacities they have made
-manifest under the greatest of disadvantages&mdash;as a subject race
-ministering to the needs of Mussulman masters. They know well that with
-every advance of true civilisation they are sure to rise, as they will
-certainly fall at each relapse.</p>
-<p class="par">For nearly a thousand years they have been held in
-subjection; and it would be folly to expect that they should not have
-suffered in character by the menial pursuits which they have been
-constrained to follow. They have been <i>rayas</i>, exploited by races
-most often their inferiors in intellect; and I need not enlarge upon
-the results which have followed from such a condition. One should
-rather wonder that their defects are not more pronounced.</p>
-<p class="par">On the other hand, they are possessed of virtues with
-which they are seldom credited. The fact that in Turkey they are
-rigorously precluded from bearing arms has disposed superficial
-observers to regard them as cowards. A different judgment might be
-meted out were they placed on an equality in this respect with their
-enemies the Kurds. At all events, when given the chance, they have not
-been slow to display martial qualities both in the domain of the
-highest strategy and in that of personal prowess. The victorious
-commander-in-chief for Russia in her Asiatic campaign of 1877 was an
-Armenian from the district of Lori&mdash;Loris Melikoff. In the same
-campaign the most brilliant general of division in the Russian army was
-an Armenian&mdash;<span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb466" href="#pb466"
-name="pb466">466</a>]</span>Tergukasoff.<a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e11733src" href="#xd21e11733" name="xd21e11733src">8</a> The
-gallant young staff-officer, Tarnaieff, who planned and led the
-hair-brained attack on the Azizi fort in front of Erzerum, was an
-Armenian, and paid for his daring with his life. At the present day the
-frontier police, engaged in controlling the Kurds of the border, are
-recruited from among Armenians. These examples may be sufficient to
-nail to the counter an inveterate lie, from which the Armenians have
-suffered, at least in British estimation, more, perhaps, than from any
-other supposed defect.</p>
-<p class="par">If I were asked what characteristics distinguish the
-Armenians from other Orientals, I should be disposed to lay most stress
-on a quality known in popular speech as <i>grit</i>. It is this quality
-to which they owe their preservation as a people, and they are not
-surpassed in this respect by any European nation. Their intellectual
-capacities are supported by a solid foundation of character, and,
-unlike the Greeks, but like the Germans, their nature is averse to
-superficial methods; they become absorbed in their tasks and plumb them
-deep. There is no race in the Nearer East more quick of learning than
-the Persians; yet should you be visited by a Persian gentleman
-accompanied by his Armenian man of business, take a book down from your
-shelves, better one with illustrations, and, the conversation turning
-upon some subject treated by its author, hand it to them after a
-passing reference. The Persian will look at the pictures, which he may
-praise. The Armenian will devour the book, and at each pause in the
-conversation you will see him poring over it with knitted brows. These
-tendencies are naturally accompanied by forethought and balance; and
-they have given the Armenian his pre-eminence in commercial affairs. He
-is not less clever than the Greek; but he sees further, and, although
-ingrained with the petty vices of all Oriental traders, the Armenian
-merchant is quick to appreciate the advantages of fair dealing when
-they are suggested by the conditions <span class="pagenum">[<a id=
-"pb467" href="#pb467" name="pb467">467</a>]</span>under which his
-vocation is pursued. A friend with a large experience of the Balkans,
-with their heterogeneous urban populations, has told me, as an
-interesting fact, that in the statistics of bankruptcy for those
-countries the proportion of Armenians implicated is comparatively low.
-Inasmuch as such bankruptcies are usually more or less of a fraudulent
-nature, the fact indicates not, perhaps, so much the greater integrity
-of Armenians, as their power to resist an immediate temptation and
-their promptitude in recognising the monetary value of commercial
-stability.</p>
-<p class="par">But in order to estimate this people at anything like
-their true worth, one should study them not in the Levant, with its
-widespread corruption, but in the Russian provinces of Armenia. Here
-they have most successfully utilised the interval between the period
-when the sword of Russia was the sword of the deliverer and that
-present-day period when the principles which inspire her rulers are
-those of Pan-orthodoxy and Panslavism. I was so much surprised by the
-results achieved, and by the contrast which was offered between the
-sterling progress of this newly-emancipated population and the
-stagnation and progressive relapse of their neighbours of different
-nationality, spread over the whole wide area of the Nearer Asia, that,
-without any certain previous purpose, I resolved to pursue the study
-further and to protract the journey into Turkish territory. For what
-was it that I saw? In every trade and in every profession, in business
-and in the Government services the Armenian was without a rival and in
-full possession of the field. He equips the postal service by which you
-travel, and if you are so fortunate as to find an inn the landlord will
-be an Armenian. Most of the villages in which you sojourn are inhabited
-by a brawny Armenian peasantry. In the towns, if the local governor
-attaches to your service the head of the local police, it will be a
-stalwart Armenian in Russian uniform who will find you either a lodging
-or a shady garden in which to erect your tents. If you remark on the
-way some well-built edifice which aspires to architectural design, it
-will be the work of an Armenian builder from Alexandropol. In that city
-itself, where the Armenians are most numerous, the love of building,
-which was so marked a characteristic of their forefathers, has
-blossomed again among kinder circumstances; a spacious cathedral and
-several large churches stand among new stone houses fronted with
-ambitious fa&ccedil;ades. In Erivan each richer merchant has lodged
-himself in an agreeable villa, of which the Italian architecture
-<span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb468" href="#pb468" name=
-"pb468">468</a>]</span>rises from the shade of poplars and willows and
-fruit trees laden with fruit. The excellent wine which is found in
-Erivan is made according to the newest methods by an Armenian who has
-studied for two years in Germany the most modern appliances of the
-industry in Europe. The monetary transactions of the country are in the
-hands of Armenian bankers. The skilled workmen&mdash;jewellers,
-watchmakers, carpenters&mdash;are Armenians. Even the ill-miened
-officer of mounted frontier police, whose long association with the
-wilder elements&mdash;Kurds and robbers of small and large
-degree&mdash;has lent him the appearance of a chief of brigands, will
-bear, not much to its honour, an Armenian name. The large majority of
-the people do not speak Russian, or speak it very imperfectly. Indeed,
-were it not for the fact that the governors and chief police officials
-of large districts are Russians, and that Cossacks and Russian regular
-soldiers may here and there be seen, the traveller would not suspect
-that he was in a Russian province, and would go the way he listed with
-the most serene composure until he was rudely awakened by some abrupt
-collision with the Russian system and brought to his proper mind. As it
-is, the Armenian has edged out the Russian, and, if Peace were allowed
-her conquests unhindered, he would ultimately rule in the land.</p>
-<p class="par">Such a situation is suggestive; nor can we feel surprise
-if the Armenian has exercised his Oriental imagination upon it in a
-manner less prudent than may be calculated to appeal to the slower
-veined races of the West. The idea of a modern Armenian kingdom has set
-the spark to that national enthusiasm which the perusal of his
-historical records has fed. The example of Eastern Europe has seemed to
-justify his speculations. When I come to deal with the Turkish
-provinces, I shall endeavour to show the falseness of such premisses;
-but I do not believe that any such details have influenced his somewhat
-more general conceptions, and they are not pertinent here. The vision
-of an independent Armenian state, could it be realised in a remote
-future, will not appeal to all minds alike. Many will see a real danger
-to human progress in the creation of these small states. The national
-sentiment they would place among those realised ideals upon which, as
-our civilisation widens, it is necessary to build anew. The magnitude
-of the conflict, should any of the greater nations enter the arena of
-war, acts as a wholesome preventive to ambitions which the small state
-is prone to indulge on the least <span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb469"
-href="#pb469" name="pb469">469</a>]</span>pretence. The gratification
-of such ambitions causes bad administration and ends in bankruptcy,
-while few of the advantages which are offered by a great empire can the
-people of a little country enjoy. Such considerations have great
-weight, and it would probably be well if, whenever it were practicable,
-our political actions were founded upon them; yet they scarcely
-indicate a solution in the present case. The Armenian, who is a convert
-to such views, might justly ask in what quarter he should look. The
-Turkish Empire will not even protect him, and massacres its Armenian
-subjects; while, should he turn his eyes to Russia, he sees no
-prospects of material advantage which would enable him to rise above
-the economic stage to which he has already attained, and surrender to
-Russian ideals could only be effected in his opinion at the price of
-moral and intellectual annihilation. Confronted with such an outlook,
-he seeks refuge within himself; and, should he consult his more sober
-perceptions, he will labour in silence and without ostentation to
-supply the requirements which his race still needs; to raise the
-peasant from his present degradation, to purify the Church, to promote
-the interest of his richer neighbours in work for the common good.
-These are the more legitimate ambitions which, however tedious, are
-certain of success, and which will establish, whatever be the
-revolution of politics, his right to influence the history of his
-country as one of the only stable native elements of progress in the
-Nearer East.</p>
-<p class="par">If, before concluding these reflections, we turn to the
-broader issues upon which such questions bear, and, having examined the
-comparative failure of Russia in Armenia, consider its significance to
-the larger world, we may find that the very strength of the Russian
-system as a powerful factor in international life derives from the
-self-same character which has denied her victory here. Had Russia
-through a natural process of attraction been able to draw towards her
-the higher races who stood on her path, she would have been a greater
-nation, but perhaps a less formidable force. Round her she groups the
-less cultivated peoples&mdash;the nomads of Asia, the wanderers of the
-steppe&mdash;and arms them with the might of a European organisation
-which the intellect of Europe, impressed into her service, perfects as
-a weapon for her use. The dangers which such results threaten can only
-imperil the improvident and those whose nervous powers are unstrung;
-but the world has not yet advanced sufficiently to render those dangers
-<span class="pagenum">[<a id="pb470" href="#pb470" name=
-"pb470">470</a>]</span>unreal. The indolence of mind which shrinks from
-facing difficulties and leaves them to solve themselves is not the
-least element of weakness in her European neighbours by which Russia
-profits and through which she grows; but the victory will now as always
-be given to those states which unite with a higher civilisation a
-spirit of enterprise still healthy and powers still unimpaired.</p>
-<p class="trailer xd21e11761">END OF VOL. I</p>
-</div>
-<div class="footnotes">
-<hr class="fnsep">
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e11217" href="#xd21e11217src" name="xd21e11217">1</a></span> The
-Statistics of 1886 underestimate the population of Tiflis town. I have
-corrected them on the assumption that the population of the city in
-1886 was 145,731. See the Caucasus Calendar for 1893, p.
-20.&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href="#xd21e11217src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e11250" href="#xd21e11250src" name="xd21e11250">2</a></span> I
-have substituted the figures of 1891 for those of 1886. The former are
-given in the Caucasus Calendar for 1893, p. 43.&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow"
-href="#xd21e11250src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e11604" href="#xd21e11604src" name="xd21e11604">3</a></span>
-Including 2743 Jews, 2150 Assyrians, and 1665 Germans and
-Swedes.&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href="#xd21e11604src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e11628" href="#xd21e11628src" name="xd21e11628">4</a></span> 8 per
-cent must be added to these figures if it be assumed that the number of
-females is at least equal to that of the males.&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow"
-href="#xd21e11628src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e11633" href="#xd21e11633src" name="xd21e11633">5</a></span> This
-is the official figure. I make approximately the same area measure
-about 23,000 square miles, allowing for curvature of the
-earth.&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href="#xd21e11633src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e11678" href="#xd21e11678src" name="xd21e11678">6</a></span> See
-especially Ch. III. p. 68 and Ch. IV. pp. 75, 77.&nbsp;<a class=
-"fnarrow" href="#xd21e11678src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e11683" href="#xd21e11683src" name="xd21e11683">7</a></span>
-Consul Taylor, an unpublished Report.&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href=
-"#xd21e11683src">&uarr;</a></p>
-<p class="par footnote"><span class="label"><a class="noteref" id=
-"xd21e11733" href="#xd21e11733src" name="xd21e11733">8</a></span>
-&ldquo;The manner in which he (Tergukasoff) handled his men at Taghir
-on the 16th of June, when, with eight battalions, he thoroughly
-defeated the twelve which Mahomed Pasha opposed to him; the stubborn
-resistance with which he checked Mukhtar Pasha&rsquo;s onslaught on the
-21st at Eshek Khaliass; the gallant retreat which his half division
-effected in front of Ahmed Pasha&rsquo;s twenty-three battalions; and,
-finally, his dashing flank march from Igdyr to Bayazid, and the relief
-of that place in front of two Turkish corps, both superior to him in
-numbers, stamp him a general of division of the first class. Had the
-Czar many more like him, this war would have been completed a month
-ago.&rdquo; C. B. Norman (<i>Times</i> war correspondent), <i>Armenia
-and the Campaign of 1877</i>, London, n.d. p. 247. In most cases when
-Armenians enter the Russian service they Russianise their names by
-turning the Armenian termination -ean into the Russian -off, as
-Melikean into Melikoff.&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href=
-"#xd21e11733src">&uarr;</a></p>
-</div>
-</div>
-</div>
-<div class="back">
-<div class="transcribernote">
-<h2 class="main">Colophon</h2>
-<h3 class="main">Availability</h3>
-<p class="par first">This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no
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-<p class="par">Scans for this work are available from the Internet
-Archive (Vol I., copy <a class="seclink xd21e43" title="External link"
-href="https://archive.org/details/armeniatravelsst01lync">1</a>; Vol
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-<p>Related Library of Congress catalog page: <a class="catlink" href=
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-href="https://openlibrary.org/books/OL23278843M">OL23278843M</a>.</p>
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-href="https://openlibrary.org/works/OL3796844W">OL3796844W</a>.</p>
-<p>Related WorldCat catalog page: <a class="catlink" href=
-"https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/744928">744928</a>.</p>
-<p>Related LibraryThing page: <a class="catlink" href=
-"https://www.librarything.com/work/1124834">1124834</a>.</p>
-<h3 class="main">Encoding</h3>
-<p class="par first"></p>
-<h3 class="main">Revision History</h3>
-<ul>
-<li>2016-03-02 Started.</li>
-</ul>
-<h3 class="main">External References</h3>
-<p>This Project Gutenberg eBook contains external references. These
-links may not work for you.</p>
-<h3 class="main">Corrections</h3>
-<p>The following corrections have been applied to the text:</p>
-<table class="correctiontable" summary=
-"Overview of corrections applied to the text.">
-<tr>
-<th>Page</th>
-<th>Source</th>
-<th>Correction</th>
-</tr>
-<tr>
-<td class="width20"><a class="pageref" href="#xd21e1897">29</a></td>
-<td class="width40 bottom">sprung</td>
-<td class="width40 bottom">sprang</td>
-</tr>
-<tr>
-<td class="width20"><a class="pageref" href="#xd21e1983">31</a></td>
-<td class="width40 bottom">grottos</td>
-<td class="width40 bottom">grottoes</td>
-</tr>
-<tr>
-<td class="width20"><a class="pageref" href="#xd21e2454">61</a></td>
-<td class="width40 bottom">tde</td>
-<td class="width40 bottom">the</td>
-</tr>
-<tr>
-<td class="width20"><a class="pageref" href="#xd21e2598">N.A.</a></td>
-<td class="width40 bottom">Russians</td>
-<td class="width40 bottom">Russian</td>
-</tr>
-<tr>
-<td class="width20"><a class="pageref" href="#xd21e2617">66</a></td>
-<td class="width40 bottom">(</td>
-<td class="width40 bottom">[<i>Deleted</i>]</td>
-</tr>
-<tr>
-<td class="width20"><a class="pageref" href="#xd21e4301">165</a>,
-<a class="pageref" href="#xd21e9563">380</a>, <a class="pageref" href=
-"#xd21e10669">418</a></td>
-<td class="width40 bottom">[<i>Not in source</i>]</td>
-<td class="width40 bottom">.</td>
-</tr>
-<tr>
-<td class="width20"><a class="pageref" href="#xd21e5488">212</a></td>
-<td class="width40 bottom">1363</td>
-<td class="width40 bottom">1632</td>
-</tr>
-<tr>
-<td class="width20"><a class="pageref" href="#xd21e5663">223</a>,
-<a class="pageref" href="#xd21e5669">223</a></td>
-<td class="width40 bottom">[<i>Not in source</i>]</td>
-<td class="width40 bottom">&ldquo;</td>
-</tr>
-<tr>
-<td class="width20"><a class="pageref" href="#xd21e5666">223</a></td>
-<td class="width40 bottom">[<i>Not in source</i>]</td>
-<td class="width40 bottom">&rdquo;</td>
-</tr>
-<tr>
-<td class="width20"><a class="pageref" href="#xd21e5792">N.A.</a></td>
-<td class="width40 bottom">si&eacute;ge</td>
-<td class="width40 bottom">si&egrave;ge</td>
-</tr>
-<tr>
-<td class="width20"><a class="pageref" href="#xd21e6428">264</a></td>
-<td class="width40 bottom">[<i>Not in source</i>]</td>
-<td class="width40 bottom">)</td>
-</tr>
-<tr>
-<td class="width20"><a class="pageref" href="#xd21e10626">N.A.</a></td>
-<td class="width40 bottom">expences</td>
-<td class="width40 bottom">expenses</td>
-</tr>
-<tr>
-<td class="width20"><a class="pageref" href="#xd21e10794">426</a></td>
-<td class="width40 bottom">[<i>Not in source</i>]</td>
-<td class="width40 bottom">,</td>
-</tr>
-</table>
-</div>
-</div>
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-<pre>
-
-
-
-
-
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