Sentinels relocatedHEADmain

1 files changed, 5780 insertions, 0 deletions

diff --git a/58361-0.txt b/58361-0.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..f9c454b
--- /dev/null
+++ b/58361-0.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,5780 @@
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 58361 ***
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+                                ARMENIA:
+
+                          A YEAR AT ERZEROOM,
+                    AND ON THE FRONTIERS OF RUSSIA,
+                          TURKEY, AND PERSIA.
+
+
+                       BY THE HON. ROBERT CURZON,
+          AUTHOR OF "VISITS TO THE MONASTERIES OF THE LEVANT."
+
+
+                           MAP AND WOODCUTS.
+
+
+                               NEW YORK:
+                     HARPER & BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS,
+                           82 BEEKMAN STREET.
+                                 1854.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE.
+
+
+Almost from time immemorial a border warfare has been carried on
+between the Koordish tribes on the confines of Turkey and Persia, in
+the mountainous country beginning at Mount Ararat toward the north,
+and continuing southward to the low lands, where the Shat al Arab,
+the name of the mighty river formed by the junction of the Tigris
+and the Euphrates, pours those great volumes of water into the
+Persian Gulf. The consequence of the unsettled state of affairs in
+those wild districts was, that the roads were unsafe for travelers;
+merchants were afraid to trust their merchandise to the conveyance
+even of well-armed caravans, for they were constantly pillaged by the
+Koords, headed in our days by the great chieftains Beder Khan Bey,
+Noor Ullah Bey, Khan Abdall, and Khan Mahmoud. The chains of mountains
+which occupy great part of the country in question are for months every
+year covered with snow, which even in the elevated plains lies at the
+depth of many yards; the bands of robbers constantly on the watch for
+plunder of any kind prevented the mountain paths from being kept open,
+so that those who escaped from the long lances of the Koords perished
+in the avalanches and the snowdrifts by hundreds every year.
+
+To put a stop, or at least a check, to so lamentable a state of
+things, the governments of Turkey and Persia requested the assistance
+of England and Russia to draw up a treaty of peace, and to come to
+a distinct understanding as to where the line of border ran between
+the two empires; for hitherto the Koordish tribes of Turkey made it a
+virtue to plunder a Persian village, and the Persians, on their side,
+considered no action more meritorious, as well as profitable, than
+an inroad on the Turkish frontier, the forays on both sides being
+conducted on the same plan. The invading party, always on horseback,
+and with a number of trained led horses, which could travel one hundred
+miles without flagging, managed to arrive in the neighborhood of the
+devoted village one hour before sunrise. The barking of the village
+curs was the first notice to the sleeping inhabitants that the enemy
+was literally at the door. The houses were fired in every direction;
+the people awoke from sleep, and, trying in confusion to escape, were
+speared on their thresholds by their invaders; the place was plundered
+of every thing worth taking; and one hour after sunrise the invading
+bands were in full retreat, driving before them the flocks and herds
+of their victims, and the children and girls of the village bound on
+the led horses, to be sold or brought up as slaves; the rest having,
+young and old, men and women, been killed without mercy, to prevent
+their giving the alarm: their victors frequently coming down upon
+them from a distance of one hundred to three hundred miles.
+
+In hopes of remedying these misfortunes, a conference was appointed at
+Erzeroom, where a Turkish plenipotentiary, Noori Effendi; a Persian
+plenipotentiary, Merza Jaffer Khan; a Russian commissioner, Colonel
+Dainese; and an English commissioner, Colonel Williams, of the Royal
+Artillery, were to meet, each with a numerous suite, to discuss the
+position of the boundary, and to check the border incursions of the
+Koordish tribes, both by argument and by force of arms, the troops of
+both nations being ordered to assist the deliberations of the congress
+at Erzeroom by every endeavor on their part to keep the country in a
+temporary state of tranquillity. The plenipotentiaries on the part
+of Turkey and Persia, and the English and Russian commissioners,
+entered upon their arduous task at the beginning of the year
+1842. Colonel Williams, to whom the duties of the English commission
+had been intrusted, was too unwell to proceed to Erzeroom, and I was
+appointed in his stead, being at that time private secretary to Sir
+Stratford Canning, her majesty's embassador at Constantinople. Colonel
+Williams afterward recovered so much that he was able to set out, and
+we started together as joint commissioners, in company with Colonel
+(afterward General) Dainese, on the part of Russia, a gentleman of
+very considerable talents and attainments. The discussions between
+the two governments were protracted by every conceivable difficulty,
+which was thrown in the way of the commissioners principally by the
+Turks. At length, in June, 1847, a treaty was signed, in which the
+confines of the two empires were defined: these, however, being
+situated in places never surveyed, and only known by traditional
+maps, which had copied the names of places one from another since
+the invention of engraving, it was considered advisable that the
+true situations of these places should be verified in a scientific
+manner; consequently, a new commission was named in the year 1848,
+whose officers were instructed to define the actual position of the
+spots enumerated in the treaty above mentioned. These commissioners
+consisted of Dervish Pasha for Turkey, Merza Jaffer for Persia,
+Colonel Williams for England, and Colonel Ktchirikoff for Russia.
+
+This party left Bagdad in 1848, surveyed the whole of that hitherto
+unexplored region, among the Koordish and original Christian tribes,
+which extends to the east of Mesopotamia, till they finished their
+difficult and dangerous task at Mount Ararat, on the 16th of September,
+1852. The results of this expedition are, I hope, to be presented to
+the public by the pen of Colonel Williams, and will, I trust, throw
+a new and interesting light upon the manners and customs of the wild
+mountaineers of those districts, and give much information relating
+to the Chaldeans, Maronites, Nestorians, and other Christian Churches
+converted in the earliest ages by the successors of the Apostles,
+of whom we know very little, no travelers hitherto having had the
+opportunities of investigating their actual condition and their
+religious tenets which have been afforded to Colonel Williams and
+the little army under his command.
+
+Armenia, the cradle of the human family, inoffensive and worthless
+of itself, has for centuries, indeed from the beginning of time,
+been a bone of contention between conflicting powers: scarcely has
+it been made acquainted with the blessings of tranquillity and peace,
+through the mediation of Great Britain, than again it is to become the
+theatre of war, again to be overrun with bands of armed men seeking
+each other's destruction, in a climate which may afford them burial
+when dead, but which is too barren and inhospitable to provide them
+with the necessaries of life; and this to satisfy the ambition of a
+distant potentate, by whose success they gain no advantage in this
+world or in the next.
+
+It is much to be deplored that the Emperor of Russia, by his want
+of principle, has brought the Christian religion into disrepute; for
+throughout the Levant the Christians have for years been waiting an
+opportunity to rise against the oppressors of their fortunes and their
+faith. The manner in which the Czar has put himself so flagrantly in
+the wrong will be a check to the progress of Christianity. That the
+step he has now been taking has been the great object of his reign,
+as well as that of all his predecessors since the time of Peter the
+Great, will be illustrated in the following pages.
+
+The accession of a Christian emperor to the throne of Constantinople
+will be an event of greater consequence than is generally imagined;
+for the Sultan of Roum is considered by all Mohammedans in India,
+Africa, and all parts of the world, to be the vicegerent of God
+upon earth, and the Caliph or successor of Mohammed; his downfall,
+therefore, would shatter the whole fabric of the Mohammedan faith,
+for the Sultan is the pride and glory of Islam, and the pale Crescent
+of the East will wane and set when Kurie Eleison is chanted again
+under the ancient dome of St. Sofia.
+
+What an unfortunate mistake has been made in not waiting for a real
+and just occasion for pressing forward the ranks of the Cross against
+the Crescent! Then who would not have joined a righteous cause? who
+would not have given his wealth, his assistance, or his life, in the
+defense of his faith against the enemies of his religion?
+
+I feel that, in laying this little book before the public, I am
+committing a rash act, for I am perfectly aware that it has many
+imperfections. I was prevented from visiting several important places
+in Armenia by an illness so severe, brought on by the unhealthy
+climate, that I have not been able to take an active part in life
+since that time. The following pages were written in a very few days,
+at a time when other occupations prevented me from giving them that
+attention which should always be afforded to a work that is intended
+for the perusal of the public.
+
+Nevertheless, I consider that, as the countries described are so little
+known, and as it is not improbable that events of great importance may
+take place within their boundaries, I should be open to greater blame
+in withholding any information, however humble, than in presenting to
+the reader a meagre account of those wild and sterile regions, whose
+climate and manners are so different from those which are generally
+described in the works of Oriental travelers.
+
+These sketches, slight as they are, may perhaps be found useful to
+the members of any expedition which the chances of war may occasion
+to be sent into those remote countries, by giving them beforehand
+some intimation of the preparations necessary to be made for their
+journey through a district where they would encounter at every step
+difficulties which they might not have been led to expect in a latitude
+considerably to the south of the Bay of Naples.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+    The "Bad Black Sea."--Coal-field near the Bosporus.--Trebizond
+    from the Sea.--Fish and Turkeys.--The Bazaars.--Coronas.--Ancient
+    Tombs.--Church of St. Sofia.--Preservation of old Manners and
+    Ceremonies.--Toilet of a Person of Distinction.--Russian Loss in
+    1828-9.--Ancient Prayer.--Varna.--Statistics of Wallachia.--Visit
+    to Abdallah Pasha.--His outward Appearance.--His love of medical
+    Experiments.--Trade of Trebizond                            Page 17
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+    Departure from Trebizond.--A rough Road.--Turkish
+    Pack-horses.--Value of Tea.--The Pipe in the East.--Mountain
+    Riding.--Instinct of the Horse.--A Caravan overwhelmed by
+    an Avalanche.--Mountain of Hoshabounar.--A Ride down the
+    Mountain.--Arrival at Erzeroom                                   35
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+    The Consulate at Erzeroom.--Subterranean
+    Dwellings.--Snow-blindness.-- Effects of the severe Climate.--The
+    City: its Population, Defenses, and Buildings.--Our House and
+    Household.--Armenian Country-houses.--The Ox-stable              45
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+    Narrow Escape from Suffocation.--Death of Noori Effendi.--A
+    good Shot.--History of Mirza Tekee.--Persian Ideas of the
+    Principles of Government.--The "Blood-drinker."--Massacre at
+    Kerbela.--Sanctity of the Place.--History of Hossein.--Attack
+    on Kerbela, and Defeat of the Persians.--Good Effects of
+    Commissioners' Exertions                                         61
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+    The Boundary Question.--Koordish Chiefs.--Torture of
+    Artin, an American Christian.--Improved State of Society in
+    Turkey.--Execution of a Koord.--Power of Fatalism.--Gratitude of
+    Artin's Family                                              Page 81
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+    The Clock of Erzeroom.--A Pasha's Notions of Horology.--Pathology
+    of Clocks.--The Tower and Dungeon.--Ingenious Mode of Torture.
+    --The modern Prison                                              99
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+    Spring in Erzeroom.--Coffee-house Diversions.--Koordish
+    Exploits.--Summer Employment.--Preparation of Tezek.--Its
+    Varieties and Uses                                              105
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+    The Prophet of Khoi.--Climate.--Effects of great Elevation
+    above the Sea.--The Genus Homo.--African Gold-diggings.--Sale
+    of a Family.--Site of Paradise.--Tradition of Khosref
+    Purveez.--Flowers.--A Flea-antidote.--Origin of the Tulip.--A
+    Party at the Cave of Ferhad, and its Results.--Translation
+    from Hafiz                                                      110
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+    The Bear.--Ruins of a Genoese Castle.--Lynx.--Lemming.--Cara
+    Guz.--Gerboa.--Wolves.--Wild Sheep.--A hunting
+    Adventure.--Camels.--Peculiar Method of Feeding.--Degeneration
+    of domestic Animals                                             125
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+    Birds.--Great Variety and vast Numbers of Birds.--Flocks of
+    Geese.--Employment for the Sportsman.--The Captive Crane.--Wild
+    and tame Geese.--The pious and profane Ancestors.--List of Birds
+    found at Erzeroom                                               132
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+    Excursion to the Lake of Tortoom.--Romantic Bridge.--Gloomy Effect
+    of the Lake.--Singular Boat.--"Evaporation" of a Pistol.--Kiamili
+    Pasha.--Extraordinary Marksman.--Alarming Illness of the
+    Author.--An Earthquake.--Lives lost through intense Cold.--The
+    Author recovers                                            Page 145
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+    Start for Trebizond.--Personal Appearance of the Author.--Mountain
+    Pass.--Reception at Beyboort.--Misfortunes of Mustapha.--Pass of
+    Zigana Dagh.--Arrival at Trebizond                              155
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+
+    Former History of Trebizond.--Ravages of the Goths.--Their
+    Siege and Capture of the City.--Dynasties of Courtenai and
+    the Comneni.--The "Emperor" David.--Conquest of Trebizond by
+    Mehemet II.                                                     166
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+
+    Impassable Character of the Country.--Dependence of Persia
+    on the Czar.--Russian Aggrandizement.--Delays of the Western
+    Powers.--Russian Acquisitions from Turkey and Persia.--Oppression
+    of the Russian Government.--The Conscription.--Armenian
+    Emigration.--The Armenian Patriarch.--Latent Power of the
+    Pope.--Anomalous Aspect of religious Questions                  178
+
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+
+    Ecclesiastical History.--Supposed Letter of Abgarus, King
+    of Edessa, to our Savior, and the Answer.--Promulgation
+    and Establishment of Christianity.--Labors of
+    Mesrob Maschdots.--Separation of the Armenian Church
+    from that of Constantinople.--Hierarchy and religious
+    Establishments.--Superstition of the Lower Classes.--Sacerdotal
+    Vestments.--The Holy Books.--Romish Branch of the Church.--Labors
+    of Mechitar.--His Establishment near Venice.--Diffusion of the
+    Scriptures                                                      194
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI.
+
+    Modern division of Armenia.--Population.--Manners and Customs of
+    the Christians.--Superiority of the Mohammedans            Page 209
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII.
+
+    Armenian Manuscripts.--Manuscripts at Etchmiazin.--Comparative
+    Value of Manuscripts.--Uncial Writing.--Monastic
+    Libraries.--Collections in Europe.--The St. Lazaro Library      213
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII.
+
+    General History of Armenia.--Former Sovereigns.--Tiridates
+    I. receives his Crown from Nero.--Conquest of the Country by the
+    Persians and by the Arabs.--List of modern Kings.--Misfortunes
+    of Leo V.: his Death at Paris                                   218
+
+
+
+
+
+LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
+
+
+    Map of Armenia                                  To face title-page.
+    Ruined Armenian Church near Erzeroom                 In title-page.
+    General View of Erzeroom                           To face page 45
+    Erzeroom. View from the house of the British
+    Commissioners.                                     To face page 50
+    Koordish Gallows                                        In page 95
+    Fundook                                                    ,,  120
+    Ruined Tower in the Castle of Tortoom             To face page 145
+    Boat on the Lake of Tortoom                           ,,   ,,  149
+    Quarantine Harbor, Trebizond                          ,,   ,,  165
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+ARMENIA.
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+    The "Bad Black Sea."--Coal-field near the Bosporus.--Trebizond
+    from the Sea.--Fish and Turkeys.--The Bazaars.--Coronas.--Ancient
+    Tombs.--Church of St. Sofia.--Preservation of old Manners and
+    Ceremonies.--Toilet of a Person of Distinction.--Russian Loss in
+    1828-9.--Ancient Prayer.--Varna.--Statistics of Wallachia.--Visit
+    to Abdallah Pasha.--His outward Appearance.--His love of medical
+    Experiments.--Trade of Trebizond.
+
+
+Fena kara Degniz, "The Bad Black Sea." This is the character that
+stormy lake has acquired in the estimation of its neighbors at
+Constantinople. Of 1000 Turkish vessels which skim over its waters
+every year, 500 are said to be wrecked as a matter of course. The
+wind sometimes will blow from all the four quarters of heaven within
+two hours' time, agitating the waters like a boiling caldron. Dense
+fogs obscure the air during the winter, by the assistance of which
+the Turkish vessels continually mistake the entrance of a valley
+called the False Bogaz for the entrance of the Bosporus, and are
+wrecked there perpetually. I have seen dead bodies floating about in
+that part of the sea, where I first became acquainted with the fact
+that the corpse of a woman floats upon its back, while that of a man
+floats upon its face. In short, at Constantinople they say that every
+thing that is bad comes from the Black Sea: the plague, the Russians,
+the fogs, and the cold, all come from thence; and though this time we
+had a fine calm passage, I was glad enough to arrive at the end of the
+voyage at Trebizond. Before landing, however, I must give a passing
+tribute to the beauty of the scenery on the south coast, that is, on
+the north coast of Asia Minor. Rocks and hills are its usual character
+near the shore, with higher mountains inland. Between the Bosporus and
+Heraclea are boundless fields of coal, which crops out on the side of
+the hills, so that no mining would be required to get the coal; and
+besides this great facility in its production, the hills are of such
+an easy slope that a tram-road would convey the coal-wagons down to the
+ships on the sea-coast without any difficulty. No nation but the Turks
+would delay to make use of such a source of enormous wealth as this
+coal would naturally supply, when it can be had with such remarkable
+ease so near to the great maritime city of Constantinople. It seems
+to be a peculiarity in human nature that those who are too stupid to
+undertake any useful work are frequently jealous of the interference
+of others who are more able and willing than themselves, as the old
+fable of the dog in the manger exemplifies. I understand that more
+than one English company have been desirous of opening these immense
+mines of wealth, on the condition of paying a large sum or a good
+per centage to the Turkish government; but they are jealous of a
+foreigner's undertaking that which they are incapable of carrying out
+themselves. So English steamers bring English coal to Constantinople,
+which costs I don't know what by the time it arrives within a few
+miles of a spot [1] which is as well furnished with the most useful,
+if not the most ornamental, of minerals, as Newcastle-upon-Tyne itself.
+
+Beyond Sinope, where the flat alluvial land stretches down to the
+sea-shore, there are forests of such timber as we have no idea of
+in these northern regions. Here there are miles of trees so high,
+and large, and straight, that they look like minarets in flower. Wild
+boars, stags, and various kinds of game abound in these magnificent
+primeval woods, protected by the fevers and agues which arise from
+the dense jungle and unhealthy swamps inland, which prevent the
+sportsman from following the game during great part of the year. The
+inhabitants of all this part of Turkey, Circassia, &c., are good
+shots with the short, heavy rifle, which is their constant companion,
+and they sometimes kill a deer. As their religion protects the pigs,
+the wild boars roam unmolested in this, for them at least, "free and
+independent country." The stag resembles the red deer in every respect,
+only it is considerably smaller; its venison is not particularly good.
+
+Trebizond presents an imposing appearance from the sea. It stands upon
+a rocky table-land, from which peculiarity in its situation it takes
+its name--trapeza being a table in Greek, if we are to believe what
+Dr. ---- used to tell us at school. There is no harbor, not even a bay,
+and a rolling sea comes in sometimes which looks, and I should think
+must be, awfully dangerous. I have seen the whole of the keel of the
+ships at anchor, as they rolled over from one side to the other. The
+view from the sea of the curious ancient town, the mountains in the
+background, and the great chain of the Circassian Mountains on the
+left, is magnificent in the extreme. The only thing that the Black
+Sea is good for, that I know of (and that, I think, may be said
+of some other seas), is fish. The kalkan balouk, shield-fish--a
+sort of turbot, with black prickles on his back--though not quite
+worth a voyage to Trebizond, is well worth the attention of the most
+experienced gastronome when he once gets there. The red mullet, also,
+is caught in great quantities; but the oddest fish is the turkey. This
+animal is generally considered to be a bird, of the genus poultry,
+and so he is in all outward appearances; but at Trebizond the turkeys
+live entirely upon a diet of sprats and other little fish washed on
+shore by the waves, by which it comes to pass that their flesh tastes
+like very exceedingly bad fish, and abominably nasty it is; though,
+if reclaimed from these bad habits, and fed on corn and herbs, like
+other respectable birds, they become very good, and are worthy of
+being stuffed with chestnuts and roasted, and of occupying the spot
+upon the dinner-table from whence the remains of the kalkan balouk
+have been removed.
+
+On landing, the beauty of the prospect ceases, for, like many Oriental
+towns, the streets are lanes between blank walls, over which the
+branches of fig-trees, roofs of houses, and boughs of orange and lemon
+trees appear at intervals; so that, riding along the blind alleys,
+you do not know whether there are houses or gardens on each side.
+
+The bazaars are a contrast, by their life and bustle, to the narrow
+lanes through which they are approached. Here numbers of the real
+old-fashioned Turks are to be seen, with turbans as large as pumpkins,
+of all colors and forms, steadily smoking all manner of pipes.
+
+I do not know why Europeans persist in calling these places bazaars:
+charchi is the Turkish for what we call bazaar, or bezestein for
+an inclosed covered place containing various shops. The word bazaar
+means a market, which is altogether a different kind of thing.
+
+The bazaars of Trebizond contain a good deal of rubbish, both of the
+human and inanimate kind. Cheese, saddles, old, dangerous-looking arms,
+and various peddlery and provisions, were all that was to be seen. Many
+ruined buildings of Byzantine architecture tottered by the sides of
+the more open spaces, some apparently very ancient, and well worth
+examination. In the porches of two little antiquated Greek churches
+I saw some frescoes of the twelfth century, apparently in excellent
+preservation; one of portraits of Byzantine kings and princes, in their
+royal robes, caught my attention, but I had not time to do more than
+take a hasty look at it. The tomb of Solomon, the son of David, king
+of Georgia or Immeretia, standing in the court-yard of another Greek
+church, under a sort of canopy of stone, is a very curious monument;
+and in two churches there are ancient coronas, which seemed to be of
+silver gilt, eight or ten feet in diameter, most precious specimens
+of early metal-work, which I coveted and desired exceedingly. They
+were both engraved with texts from Scripture, and saints and cherubim
+of the grimmest aspect, so old, and quaint, and ugly, that they may be
+said to be really painfully curious. While on this subject I may remark
+that I am not aware where the authority is to be found for introducing
+the quantities of coronas which are now hung up in modern antique
+churches in England. I never saw one in any Latin church, except at
+Aix-la-Chapelle; there are, I presume, others, but they certainly
+never were common nor usual any where in Europe. All those I know of
+are Greek, and belong to the Greek ceremonial rite. I have never met
+with an ancient Gothic corona, and should be glad to know from whence
+those lately introduced into our parish churches have been copied.
+
+On the other side of the town from the landing-place, a mile or so
+beyond the beautiful old walls of the Byzantine citadel, is a small
+grassy plain, with some fine single trees. This plain is situated on
+a terrace, with the open sea on the right hand, on a level of fifty
+or more feet below. The view from hence on all sides is lovely. The
+glorious blue sea--for it is not black here--on the right hand; the
+walls and towers crumbling into ruin behind you, the hills to the left,
+at the foot of which, built on the level grass, are several ancient
+tombs, whether Mohammedan or Christian I do not know; they are low
+round towers, with conical roofs, like old-fashioned pigeon-houses,
+but rich in color, with old brick, and stone, and marble. Parasitical
+plants, growing from rents and crevices occasioned by time, are left
+in peace by the Turks, who, after all, are the best conservators
+of antiquity in the world, for they let things alone. There are
+no churchwardens yet in Turkey; there are no tasty architects,
+with contemptible and gross ignorance of antiquity, architecture,
+and taste, to build ridiculous failures for a confiding ministry in
+London, or a rich gentleman in the country, who does not pretend to
+know any thing about the matter, and falls into the error of believing
+that if he pays well he will be well served, and that a man who has
+been brought up to build buildings must know how to do it: and this
+knowledge is displayed in the production of the British Museum,
+the National Gallery, and other original edifices.
+
+The spleen aroused in writing these words is calmed by the recollection
+of the ruins of the fortified monastery, as it would appear to have
+been, before my eyes at the further end of this charming open plain;
+a Byzantine gate-house stands within a ditch surrounding a considerable
+space, in which some broken walls give evidence of a stately palace
+or monastery which once rose there; but there still stands towering
+to a great height the almost perfect church of St. Sofia--the Holy
+Wisdom, not the saint of that name, but the deity to whom the great
+cathedral of St. Sofia is dedicated at Constantinople. This church
+is curious and interesting in the extreme; it is most rich in many of
+the peculiarities of Byzantine architecture outside, and within there
+are very perfect remains of frescoes, in a style of art such as I have
+hardly seen equaled, never in any fresco paintings. The only ones equal
+to them are the illuminations in the one odd volume of the Mênologia
+in the Vatican Library, and some in my own. There are several half
+figures of emperors in brilliant colors, in circular compartments,
+on the under sides of some arches, and numerous other paintings,
+of which the colors are so vivid that they resemble painted glass,
+particularly where they are broken, as the sharp outlines of what is
+left betoken that they would be still as bright as jewelry where they
+have not been destroyed by the plaster, on which they are painted,
+giving way.
+
+The position, beauty, and antiquity of this Christian relic in a
+Mohammedan land, give a singular interest to the Church of St. Sofia at
+Trebizond. I longed to give this place a thorough examination. Perhaps
+a portrait of some old Comnenus would present itself to my admiring
+eyes. Many likenesses of by-gone emperors, Cæsars, and princesses born
+in the purple, might be recovered in all the splendor of their royal
+robes and almost sacred crowns and diadems, to gladden the hearts
+of antiquarians enthusiastic in the cause, and who, like myself,
+would be ten times more delighted with the possession of a portrait,
+or an incomprehensible work of art of undoubted Byzantine origin,
+than with the offer of the hand, even of the illustrious Anna Comnena
+herself. Her portrait, after the lapse of 600 years, would be most
+interesting; but I do not envy the Cæsar who obtained the honor of
+an alliance with that princess of the cærulean hose.
+
+At this point, feeling myself entangled with the reminiscences of
+Byzantine history, I must branch off into a little episode relating
+to the singular preservation of ancient manners and ceremonies still
+in use, or, at least, remaining in the year 1830 in Wallachia and
+Moldavia. The usages and the etiquette of those courts, together
+with the names and the costumes of the great officers of state,
+are all derived from those of the Christian court of Constantinople
+before the disastrous days of Mohammed the Second. Now that those
+fertile lands are overrun by the descendants of the Avars, and the
+fierce tribes of northern barbarians, who so often in the Middle Ages
+carried fire and sword, tallow and sheepskins, almost to the walls
+of the city--tên bolin· eis tên bolin--from whence comes Stamboul,
+I may be, perhaps, excused if I put in a few lines relating to another
+country, but which, I think, are interesting during the present state
+of the affairs of the Turkish empire.
+
+In the year 1838 I left Constantinople on my way to Vienna. I went to
+Varna, and from thence proceeded up the Danube in a miserable steamer,
+on board of which was a personage of high distinction belonging to
+a neighboring nation, whose manners and habits afforded me great
+amusement. He was courteous and gentlemanlike in a remarkable degree,
+but his domestic ways differed from those of our own countrymen. He
+had a numerous suite of servants, three or four of whom seemed to be
+a sort of gentlemen; these attended him every night when he went to
+bed, in the standing bed-place of the crazy steamer. First they wound
+up six or seven gold watches, and the great man took off his boots,
+his coat, and I don't know how many gold chains; then each night he
+was invested by his attendants with a different fur pelisse, which
+looked valuable and fusty to my humble eyes. Each morning the same
+gentlemen spread out all the watches, took off the fur pelisse, and
+insinuated their lord into a fashionable and somewhat tight coat,
+not the one worn yesterday; but on no occasion did I perceive any
+thing in the nature of an ablution, or any proof that such an article
+as a clean shirt formed a part of the great man's traveling wardrobe.
+
+Varna is situated on a gentle slope a short distance from the shores
+of the Black Sea, and three or four miles to the south of a range
+of hills, between which and the town the unfortunate Russian army
+was encamped during the war of the year 1829. I say unfortunate,
+and all will agree with me, if they take into consideration a fact
+which I write on undoubted authority. When the Russians invaded
+Turkey in 1828, they lost 50,000 men by sickness alone, by want of
+the necessaries of life, and neglect in the commissariat department:
+50,000 Russians died on the plains of Turkey, not one man of whom
+was killed in battle, for their advance was not resisted by the Turks.
+
+In the next year (1829) the Russians lost 60,000 men between the Pruth
+and the city of Adrianople. Some of these, however, were legitimately
+slain in battle. When they arrived at Adrianople, the troops were in
+so wretched a condition from sickness and want of food that not 7000
+men were able to bear arms: how many thousands of horses and mules
+perished in these two years is not known. The Turkish government was
+totally ignorant of this deplorable state of affairs at Adrianople
+till some time afterward, when the intelligence came too late. If
+the Turks had known what was going on, not one single Russian would
+have seen his native land again; even as it was, out of 120,000 men,
+not 6000 ever recrossed the Russian frontier alive. Since the days of
+Cain, the first murderer, among all nations, and among all religions,
+he who kills his fellow-creature without just cause is looked upon
+with horror and disgust, and is pursued by the avenging curse of God
+and man. What, then, shall be thought of that individual who, without
+reason, without the slightest show of justice, right, or justifiable
+pretense, from his own caprice, to satisfy his own feelings, and lust
+of pride, and arrogance, destroys for his amusement, in two years,
+more than 100,000 of his fellow-creatures? Shall not their blood cry
+out for vengeance? Had not each of these men a soul, immortal as their
+butcher's? Had not many of them, many thousands of them perhaps, more
+faith, more trust in God, higher talents than their destroyer? Better
+had it been for that man had he never been born!
+
+The following prayer is translated from one at the end of an ancient
+Bulgarian or Russian manuscript, written in the year 1355: "The Judge
+seated, and the apostle standing before him, and the trumpet sounding,
+and the fire burning, what wilt thou do, O my soul, when thou art
+carried to the judgment? for then all thy evils will appear, and all
+thy secret sins will be made manifest. Therefore now, beforehand,
+endeavor to pray to Jesus Christ our Lord. Oh, do not thou reject me,
+but save me."
+
+The fortifications of Varna are very flat and low, though they are
+said to be of great strength; but, as the town is built of wood, I
+should think there would be little difficulty in setting it on fire
+by the assistance of a few shells or red-hot shot, from ships at sea
+or batteries on the land. From all such fortresses I am delighted to
+escape: the bastions, ditches, and ramparts keep me in, though they
+are intended to keep others out. There is nothing picturesque in a
+modern stronghold, as there are no battlements and towers, or any
+thing pleasing to the eye; only, whichever way you turn, you are sure
+to be stopped by a green ditch with a frog in it; I therefore only
+remained long enough at Varna to see that there was nothing to be seen.
+
+The principality of Wallachia contains 1,500,000 inhabitants liable to
+taxation, 800 nobles, and 15,000 strangers, subjects of various powers.
+
+It is governed by a prince (gika), who reigns for life. The civil
+list amounts to--
+
+
+    50,000 Austrian ducats yearly.
+    All the officials are paid by the government.
+    The revenues of the principality are derived
+    from tribute, which amounts to           300,000 ducats yearly.
+    The salt-works, which yield              150,000   ,,     ,,
+    Domains of the prince                     30,000   ,,     ,,
+    The customs                               70,000   ,,     ,,
+                                             -------
+                       Total                 550,000   ,,     ,,
+
+
+The expenses are, yearly:
+
+
+                                             Ducats.
+    Civil List of the prince                 50,000
+    The Ottoman Porte for tribute            30,000
+    Salaries of officials                   150,000
+    Troops, 4000 men                        100,000
+    Ten quarantine stations on the Danube    20,000
+    Hospitals                                 5,000
+    Schools                                  12,000
+    Post                                     30,000
+    Repair of roads                           8,000
+                                            -------
+                       Total                405,000
+
+
+The capital of Wallachia is Bucharest, containing 12,000 houses and
+80,000 inhabitants, of whom 10,000 are strangers.
+
+There is one metropolitan, who lives at Bucharest, and has a revenue
+of 10,000 ducats; and three bishops, of Rimnik, Argessi, and Buzeo,
+who have 8000 each. The salary of the first minister is 3600 ducats
+yearly. There are three ranks of nobles. The highest consists of sixty
+individuals, who have the right of electing the prince; the second
+numbers 300, and the third 440. The prime minister is called the
+bano; the commander-in-chief, spathar; the minister of the interior,
+the great dvornic; the minister of justice, the great logothete. The
+greatest family is that of Brancovano, the revenue of its chief being
+12,000 ducats. The titles of the great officers of state, and the
+principal people about the court of the Hospodar, are derived from
+the institutions of the Byzantine emperors. These nobles are divided
+into three classes. The following is the order of their precedence:
+
+
+    1st Class.
+
+          1.  Bano        Marshal of the Palace.
+          2.  Dvornic     Lord Chamberlain.
+          3.  Spathar     Commander-in-Chief.
+          4.  Logothete   Chief Secretary.
+          5.  Postemic    Foreign Minister.
+          6.  Aga         Inspector of Police.
+
+
+    2d Class.
+
+          1.  Clochiar    Commissary General.
+          2.  Paharme     Cup-bearer.
+
+
+    3d Class.
+
+          1.  Serdar      Commander of 1000 men.
+          2.  Pitar       Inspector of the Ovens.
+          3.  Consepist   Registrar General.
+
+
+It is in the power of the government to raise any of these nobles
+a step after a service of three years. Before the year 1827 these
+officers were paid by contributions raised on the subjects of the
+Prince, who were then exempted from any other taxes. The Bano had
+one hundred and twenty men, the Dvornic one hundred, the Paharme
+twenty-five, and so on; from these they took as much as they could,
+one man averaging three ducats a year in value to his lord.
+
+The treaty of Adrianople contains an article insuring the independence
+of the interior administration of the country. On the 18th of May,
+1838, an order was brought from Constantinople by Baron Rukman,
+in which it was stated that the General Assembly are to insert a
+clause in the Constitution, which obliges them to have leave of the
+Russians before any alteration whatever is made in the regulation of
+the interior. The army can not be increased, or any differences made
+in the administration of the quarantine, &c., without permission
+from Russia, which is in direct contradiction to the Treaty of
+Adrianople. Sentence of death is abolished by the Constitution,
+but great offenders are sent to the mines for life.
+
+Having accomplished our little tour to Wallachia, we will recross the
+sea to Trebizond, and return to the inspection of that ancient city,
+so famous in the romance of the Middle Ages. The Pasha and Governor,
+Abdallah Pasha, resides in the citadel, a large space of ruinous
+buildings, surrounded by romantic walls and towers, in the same style
+as those of Constantinople. As in duty bound, we proceeded in great
+state to pay a visit of ceremony to the viceroy. As our long train of
+horsemen wound through the narrow streets, and passed under the long
+dark tunnel of the Byzantine gateway, we must have looked quite in
+keeping with the picturesque appearance of that ancient fortress. From
+the gloomy gate we emerged into a large, ruinous court or space of no
+particular shape, but surrounded by tumble-down houses, with wooden
+balconies festooned with vines. I was struck with the absence of
+guards and soldiers, who are usually drawn up on these occasions in
+a wavy line, to do honor or to impose upon the awe-stricken feelings
+of the Elchi Bey.
+
+We passed through another court, if I remember right, till we found a
+number of servants and officials waiting our arrival at an open door,
+and, having dismounted, with the assistance of numerous supporters
+we scrambled up a large, dark, crazy wooden stair, at the top of
+which, on a curtain being drawn aside, we were ushered into a large,
+lofty room, where we beheld the Pasha seated on the divan, under
+a range of windows, at the upper end of the selamlik, or hall of
+reception. Then commenced the regular exercise of formal civilities,
+bows, and inquiries after each other's health, carried on in a
+thorough mechanical manner, neither party even pretending to look as
+if he meant any thing he said. We smoked pipes, and drank coffee, and
+made a little bow to the Pasha afterward, in the most orthodox way,
+till we were bored and tired, and wished it was time to come away;
+but this sort of visit was a serious affair, and I don't know how
+long we sat there, with the crowd of kawasses and chiboukgis staring
+at us steadily from the lower end of the hall.
+
+What the Pasha looked like, and what manner of man he was, it was
+not easy to make out, seeing that to the outward eye he presented the
+appearance of a large green bundle, with a red fez at the top, for he
+was enveloped in a great furred cloak; he seemed to have dark eyes,
+like every body else in this country, and a long nose and a black
+beard, whereof the confines or limits were not to be ascertained, as I
+could not readily distinguish what was beard and what was fur. Every
+now and then his excellency snuffled, as if he had got a cold, but
+I think it was only a trick; however, when he lifted up his voice
+to speak, the depth and hollow sound was very remarkable. I have
+heard several Turks speak in this way, which I believe they consider
+dignified, and imagine that it is done in imitation of Sultan Mahmoud,
+who, whether it was his natural voice or not, always spoke as if his
+voice came out of his stomach instead of his mouth. Abdallah Pasha
+paid us his compliments in this awful tone, and, till I got a little
+used to it, I wondered out of what particular part of the heap of
+fur, cloth, &c., this thoroughbass proceeded. I found, to my great
+admiration, that the Pasha knew my name, and almost as much of my
+own history as I did myself; where he had gained his very important
+information I know not, but an interest so unusual in any thing
+relating to another person induced me to make inquiries about him,
+and I found he was not only a man of the highest dignity and wealth,
+possessing villages, square miles and acres innumerable, but he was a
+philosopher; if not a writer, he was a reader of books, particularly
+works on medicine. This was his great hobby. In the way of government
+he seemed to be a most patriarchal sort of king: he had no army or
+soldiers whatever; fifteen or sixteen kawasses were all the guards
+that he supported. He smoked the pipe of tranquillity on the carpet
+of prudence, and the pashalik of Trebizond slumbered on in the sun;
+the houses tumbled down occasionally, and people repaired them never;
+the Secretary of State wrote to the Porte two or three times a year, to
+say that nothing particular had happened. The only thing I wondered at
+was how the tribute was exacted, for transmitted it must be regularly
+to Constantinople. Rayahs must be squeezed: they were created, like
+oranges, for that purpose; but, somehow or other, Abdallah Pasha seems
+to have carried on the process quietly, and the multitudes under his
+rule dozed on from year to year. That was all very well for those at
+a distance, but his immediate attendants suffered occasionally from
+the philosophical inquiries of their master. He thought of nothing
+but physic, and whenever he could catch a Piedmontese doctor he would
+buy any quantity of medicine from him, and talk learnedly on medical
+subjects as long as the doctor could stand it. As nobody ever tells
+the truth in these parts, the Pasha never believed what the doctor
+told him, and usually satisfied his mind by experiments in corpore
+vili, many of which, when the accounts were related to me, made me
+cry with laughter. They were mostly too medical to be narrated in
+any unmedical assembly.
+
+Trebizond is not defensible by land or sea, nor could it be made
+so from the land side, as it is commanded by the sloping hills
+immediately behind it. From there being no bay or harbor of any kind,
+its approach is dangerous during the prevalence of north winds, which
+lash the waves against the rocks with fury. Inns are as yet unknown;
+there are no khans that I know of, of any size or importance as far as
+architecture is concerned; but large stables protect the pack-horses
+which carry the bales of goods imported from Constantinople for the
+Persian trade, the bulk of which has now passed out of the hands of
+the English into those of the Greek merchants. The steamer running
+from Constantinople is constantly laden with goods, and much more
+would be sent if additional steamers were ready to convey it.
+
+Our party was received under the hospitable roof of Mr. Stephens,
+the Vice-Consul, whose court-yard was encumbered with luggage of
+all sorts and kinds, over which katergis or muleteers continually
+wrangled in setting apart different articles in two heaps, each two
+heaps being reputed a sufficient load for one horse. This took some
+days to arrange, and our time was occupied with preparations for the
+journey through the mountains.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+    Departure from Trebizond.--A rough Road.--Turkish
+    Pack-horses.--Value of Tea.--The Pipe in the East.--Mountain
+    Riding.--Instinct of the Horse.--A Caravan overwhelmed by
+    an Avalanche.--Mountain of Hoshabounar.--A Ride down the
+    Mountain.--Arrival at Erzeroom.
+
+
+At last we were ready; the Russian commissioner traveled with us,
+and we sallied out of the town in a straggling line up the hill,
+along the only road known in this part of the world. This wonder and
+miracle of art extends one mile, to the top of a little hill. It is
+said to have cost £19,000. It ascends the mountain side in defiance of
+all obstacles, and is more convenient for rolling down than climbing
+up, as it is nearly as steep as a ladder in some places. When you
+get to the top you are safe, for there is no more road as far as
+Tabriz. A glorious view rewards the traveler for his loss of breath in
+accomplishing the ascent. From hence the road is a track, wide enough
+for one loaded horse, passing through streams and mud, over rocks,
+mountains, and precipices, such as I should hardly have imagined
+a goat could travel upon; certainly no sensible animal would ever
+try to do so, unless upon urgent business. Pleasure and amusement
+must be sought on broader ways; here danger and difficulty occur at
+every step; nevertheless, the horses are so well used to climbing,
+and hopping, and floundering along, that the obstacles are gradually
+overcome. In looking back occasionally, you wonder how in the world
+you ever got to the spot you are standing on. The sure-footedness of
+the horses was marvelous; we often galloped for half an hour along
+the dry course of a mountain torrent, for these we considered our
+best places, over round stones as big as a man's head, with larger
+ones occasionally for a change; but the riding-horses hardly ever
+fell. The baggage-horses, encumbered with their loads, tumbled in all
+directions, but these unlucky animals were always kicked up again
+by the efforts of a posse of hard-fisted, hard-hearted muleteers,
+and were soon plodding on under the burdens which it seems it was
+their lot to bear for the remainder of their lives. If this should
+meet the eye of any London cab-horse--for what may we not expect
+in these days of march of intellect and national education?--let
+him thank his lucky star that he is not a Turkish pack-horse, made
+to carry something nearly as heavy as a cab up and down rocks as
+inaccessible as those immortalized in the famous verse--
+
+
+        "Commodore Rogers was a man
+          Exceedingly brave--particular;
+        And he climb'd up very high rocks,
+          Exceedingly high--perpendicular."
+
+
+Thus saith the poet; what Commodore Rogers would have said if he had
+been of our party, I don't know. Those ladies and gentlemen who,
+leaning back in easy carriages, bowl along the great roads of the
+Simplon, may imagine what traveling there may have been over the
+Alps before the roads were made, while the nature of the ground is
+such, in two or three places, that, unless at an incredible expense
+in engineering, and a prodigious daily outlay to keep them clear
+of snow, no road ever could be made; yet this is the only line
+of communication between Constantinople and Persia. Through these
+awful chasms and precipices all the merchandise is carried which
+passes between these two great nations. The quiet Manchester stuffs,
+accustomed to the broad-wheel wagons of Europe, and the rail-ways and
+canals of England, must feel dreadfully jolted when they arrive at
+this portion of their journey. How the crockery bears it is easily
+understood by those who open the packages of this kind of ware at
+the end of the journey, when cups and saucers take the appearance of
+small geological specimens, though some do survive, notwithstanding the
+regular custom of the muleteers to set down their loads every evening
+by the summary process of untying with a jerk a certain cunning knot
+in the rope which holds the bales in their places on each side of
+the pack-horse: these immediately come down with a crash upon the
+ground, from whence they are rolled along and built up into a wall,
+on the lee side of which a fire is lit and the muleteers sleep when
+there is no khan to retire to for the night.
+
+On this journey I for the first time learned the true value of tea. One
+of the kawasses of the Russian commissioners had a curious little
+box, covered with cowskin, tied behind his saddle; about twice a day
+he galloped off like mad, his arms and stirrups, &c., making a noise
+as he started like that of upsetting all the fire-irons in a room at
+home. In about half an hour we came up with him again, discovering
+his whereabouts by seeing his panting horse led up and down by some
+small boy before a hovel, into which we immediately dived. There we
+found the kawass kneeling by a blazing fire, with the cowskin box open
+on the ground beside him, from whence he presently produced glass
+tumblers of delicious caravan tea, [2] sweetened with sugar-candy,
+and a thin slice of lemon floating on the top of each cup. This is
+the real way to drink tea, only one can not always get caravan tea,
+and, when you can, it costs a guinea a pound, more or less; but its
+refreshing, calming, and invigorating powers are truly remarkable.
+
+In former days, in many a long and weary march, I found a pipe of great
+service in quieting the tired and excited nerves; having no love for
+smoking under ordinary circumstances, these were the only occasions
+when a long chibouk did seem to be grateful and comforting. That this
+is pretty universally acknowledged I gather from the habit of all the
+solemn old Turks in Egypt and hot climates during the fast of Ramadan,
+who invariably take a good whiff from their pipes the moment that
+sunset is announced by the firing of a gun in cities, or on the
+disappearance of its rays toward the west in the country. Supper
+does not appear to be looked forward to with the same impatience as
+the first puff from the chibouk. No pipe, however, possesses the
+agreeable qualities of a cup of hot good tea made in this way; no
+other beverage or contrivance that I know of produces so soothing an
+effect, and that in so short a time. In a few minutes the glasses,
+and the little teapot, and two canisters for tea and sugar-candy,
+retired into the recesses of the cowskin box; the poor horses, who
+had had no tea, were again mounted, and on we rode over the rocks and
+stones, one after the other, in a long line, the regular tramp, tramp,
+tramp, interrupted every now and then by the crash of one of our boxes
+against a rock, and the exclamations of the katergis as its bearer
+wallowed into a hole or tumbled over some horrible place, from whence
+it seemed impossible that he should ever be got up again. However,
+he always was, and at last we hardly took notice of one of these
+little accidents, and notwithstanding which we generally got through
+the mountains at the rate of about thirty miles a day.
+
+On the second day from Trebizond we arrived at the snow; the hoods with
+which we had provided ourselves were pulled over our heads. I tied
+my bridle to the pommel of my saddle, put my hands in my pockets,
+and nevertheless galloped along--at least the horse did, and all
+the better for my not holding the bridle. In mountain traveling
+this is perhaps the most necessary of all the whole craft and art
+of horsemanship, not to touch the bridle on any occasion, except
+when you want to stop the horse; for, in difficult circumstances,
+a horse or mule goes much better if he is left to his own devices. In
+some dreadful places, I have seen a horse smell the ground, and then,
+resting on his haunches, put one foot forward as gently as if it was a
+finger, cautiously to feel the way. They have a wonderful instinct of
+self-preservation, seeming quite aware of the perils of false steps,
+and the dangers by which they are surrounded on the ledges of bleak
+mountains, and in passing bogs and torrents in the valleys below.
+
+At Beyboort we were received by the governor, a Bey, who gave us
+a famous good dinner or supper, whereof we all ate an incredible
+quantity, and almost as much more at breakfast next morning. At Gumush
+Hané, where there are silver mines, a good-natured old gentleman who
+was sitting by the roadside gave me the most delicious pear I ever
+tasted. This place is famous for its pears. Being situated in a deep
+valley, the climate is much better than most parts of the country
+on this road. Here we put up in a good house, slept like tops, and
+waddled off next morning as before. I had an enormous pair of boots
+lined with sheepskin, which were the envy and admiration of the party:
+they were amazing snug certainly, and nearly came up to my middle. If
+they had been a little bit larger, I might have crept into one at
+night, which would have been a great convenience; they were of the
+greatest service on horseback, but on foot I had much difficulty in
+getting along, and was sorry I had neglected to inquire how Jack the
+Giant-killer managed with his seven-league boots. Before arriving
+at Beyboort we passed the mountain of Zigana Dagh, by a place where
+a whole caravan accompanying the harem of the Pasha of Moush had
+been overwhelmed in an avalanche, over the icy blocks of which we
+made our way, the bodies of the unfortunate party and all the poor
+ladies lying buried far below. Beyond Gumush Hané rises the mountain
+of Hoshabounar, which is a part of the chain that bounds the great
+plain of Erzeroom. This was the worst part of the whole journey:
+we approached it by interminable plains of snow, along which the
+track appeared like a narrow black line. These plains of snow, which
+look so even to the sight, are not always really so; the hollows and
+inequalities being filled with the snow, you may fall into a hole
+and be smothered if you leave the path. This path is hardened by the
+passage of caravans, which tread down the snow into a track of ice
+just wide enough for a single file of horses; but while you think
+you are on a plain, you are, in fact, riding on the top of a wall or
+ridge, from whence, if your horse should chance to slip, you do not
+know how deep you may sink down into the soft snow on either side.
+
+At the top of the mountain we met thirty horses which the Pasha of
+Erzeroom had sent for our use. We had above thirty of our own, so now
+there were sixty horses in our train. The Russian commissioner and I
+left all these behind, and rode on together with two or three guards,
+accompanied by the chief of the village where we were to sleep. At last
+we came to the brow of the hill--we could not see to the bottom from
+the snow that was falling--it was as steep as the roof of a house,
+and the road consisted of a series of holes, about six inches deep,
+and about eighteen inches apart, the track being about sixteen inches
+wide. To my surprise, the chief of the village, a man in long scarlet
+robes, immediately dashed at a gallop down this road, or ladder, as
+they call it; the Russian commissioner followed him; and I, thinking
+that it would not do for an Englishman to be beat by a Russian or a
+Turk, threw my bridle on my horse's neck and galloped after them. Never
+did I see such a place to ride in! Down and down we went, plunging,
+sliding, scrambling in and out of the deep holes, the snow flying
+up like spray around us, to meet its brother snow that was falling
+from the sky. It was wonderful how the horses kept their feet; they
+burst out into perspiration as if it had been summer. I was as hot as
+fire with the exertion. Still down we went, headlong as it seemed,
+till at last I found myself sliding and bounding on level ground,
+and, rushing over some horses which were standing in an open space,
+I discovered that I was in a village, and was presently helped off
+my panting horse by the gentleman in the red pelisse, who showed
+the way into a cow-stable, the usual place in which we put up at
+night. Thus ended the most extraordinary piece of horsemanship I ever
+joined in. It was not wonderful, perhaps, for the rider, but how the
+horses kept their feet, and how they had strength enough to undergo
+such a wonderful series of leaps and plunges, out of one hole into
+another, appeared quite astonishing to me. The next day we proceeded to
+Erzeroom, and at a village about two hours' distance we were met by all
+the authorities of the city on horseback. Some horses with magnificent
+housings were sent by the Pasha for the principal personages, and we
+rode into the town in a sort of procession, accompanied by perhaps
+200 well-mounted cavaliers caracoling and prancing in every direction.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+    The Consulate at Erzeroom.--Subterranean
+    Dwellings.--Snow-blindness.--Effects of the severe Climate.--The
+    City: its Population, Defenses, and Buildings.--Our House and
+    Household.--Armenian Country-houses.--The Ox-stable.
+
+
+We were hospitably entertained at the British Consulate till the Pasha
+could get a house prepared for us to occupy during our stay; but, as
+Mr. Pepys says, "Lord, to see!" what a place this is at Erzeroom! I
+have never seen or heard of any thing the least like it. It is totally
+and entirely different from any thing I ever saw before. As the whole
+view, whichever way one looked, was wrapped in interminable snow, we
+had not at first any very distinct idea of the nature of the ground
+that there might be underneath; the tops of the houses being flat, the
+snow-covered city did not resemble any other town, but appeared more
+like a great rabbit-warren; many of the houses being wholly or partly
+subterranean, the doors looked like burrows. In the neighborhood of the
+consulate (very comfortable within, from the excellent arrangements of
+Mr. Brant) there were several large heaps and mounds of earth, and it
+was difficult to the uninitiated to discriminate correctly as to which
+was a house and which was a heap of soil or stones. Streets, glass
+windows, green doors with brass knockers, areas, and chimney-pots,
+were things only known from the accounts of travelers from the
+distant regions where such things are used. Very few people were
+about, the bulk of the population hybernating at this time of the
+year in their strange holes and burrows. The bright colors of the
+Oriental dresses looked to my eye strangely out of place in the cold,
+dirty snow; scarlet robes, jackets embroidered with gold, brilliant
+green and white costumes, were associated in my mind with a hot sun,
+a dry climate, and fine weather. A bright sky there was, with the
+sun shining away as if it was all right, but his rays gave no heat,
+and only put your eyes out with its glare upon the snow. This glare
+has an extraordinary effect, sometimes bringing on a blindness called
+snow-blindness, and raising blisters on the face precisely like those
+which are produced by exposure to extreme heat. Another inconvenience
+has an absurd effect: the breath, out of doors, congeals upon the
+mustaches and beard, and speedily produces icicles, which prevent the
+possibility of opening the mouth. My mustaches were converted each
+day into two sharp icicles, and if any thing came against them it
+hurt horribly; and those who wore long beards were often obliged to
+commence the series of Turkish civilities in dumb show; their faces
+being fixtures for the time, they were not able to speak till their
+beards thawed. A curious phenomenon might also be observed upon the
+door of one of the subterranean stables being opened, when, although
+the day was clear and fine without, the warm air within immediately
+congealed into a little fall of snow; this might be seen in great
+perfection every morning on the first opening of the outer door,
+when the house was warm from its having been shut up all night.
+
+Erzeroom is situated in an extensive elevated plain, about thirty
+miles long and about ten wide, lying between 7000 and 8000 feet above
+the level of the sea. It is surrounded on all sides with the tops of
+lofty mountains, many of which are covered with eternal snow. The city
+is said to contain between 30,000 and 40,000 inhabitants, but I do
+not myself think that it contains much more than 20,000; this I had
+no correct means of ascertaining. The city is said to have been, and
+probably was, more populous before the disasters of the last Russian
+war. It stands on a small hill, or several hills, at the foot of a
+mountain with a double top, called Devé Dagh, the Camel Mountain. The
+original city is nearly a square, and is surrounded by a double wall
+with peculiarly-shaped towers, a sort of pentagon, about 20 towers on
+each side, except on the south side, where a great part of the walls is
+fallen down. Within these walls, on an elevated mound, is the smaller
+square of the citadel, where there are some curious ancient buildings
+and a prison, which I must describe afterward; a ditch, where it is
+not filled up with rubbish and neglect, surrounds the walls of the
+city; and beyond this are the suburbs, where the greater part of the
+population reside. Beyond this, an immense work was accomplished as
+a defense against the Russian invaders. This is an enormous fosse, so
+large, and deep, and wide, as to resemble a ravine in many places. It
+was some time before I was aware that this was an artificial work. As
+there are no ramparts, walls, or breastworks on the inner side of
+that immense excavation, it can have been of no more use than if it
+did not exist, and did not, I believe, stop any of the Russians for
+five minutes. They probably marched down one side and up the other,
+supposing it to be a pleasing natural valley, useful as a promenade
+in fine weather, and the prodigious labor employed on such a work
+must have been entirely thrown away.
+
+The palace of the Pasha, that of the Cadi and other functionaries,
+are within the walls of the town. The doorways are the only parts of
+the houses on which any architectural ornaments are displayed; many of
+these are of carved stone, with inscriptions in Turkish beautifully
+cut above them. There are said to be seventeen baths, but none of
+them are particularly handsome, though the principal apartment is
+covered with a dome, like those in finer towns. The mosques amount,
+it is said, to forty-five: I never saw half so many myself. Many of
+them are insignificant edifices. The principal one, or cathedral,
+as it may be called, is of great size, its flat, turf-covered roof
+supported by various thick piers and pointed arches. The finest
+buildings are several ancient tombs: these are circular towers,
+from twenty to thirty feet in diameter, with conical stone roofs,
+beautifully built and ornamented. There must be twenty or thirty of
+these very singular edifices, whose dates I was unable to ascertain;
+they probably vary from the twelfth to the sixteenth century, judging
+from a comparison of their ornamental work with Saracenic buildings
+in other parts of the world.
+
+The most beautiful buildings of Erzeroom are two ancient medressés
+or colleges, or perhaps they may be considered more as a kind of
+alms-houses, built for the accommodation of a certain number of
+Mollahs, whose duty it was to pray around the tomb of the founder,
+adjoining to which they are erected. One of these stands immediately to
+the left hand on entering the principal gateway of the town; above its
+elaborately-sculptured door are two most beautiful minarets, known by
+the name of the iki chífteh. These are built of an exceedingly fine
+brick, and are fluted like Ionic columns, the edges of the flutings
+being composed of turquoise-blue bricks, which produces on the capitals
+or galleries, as well as on the shafts, the appearance of a bright
+azure pattern on a dark-colored ground. The roof of this very beautiful
+building has fallen in, but the delicacy of the arabesques, cut in many
+places in alto-relief in a very hard stone, would excite admiration in
+India, and equals the most famous works of Italy. The other medressé
+is in a still worse condition, a great cannon-foundry having been
+erected in the middle of it. The whole building is broken, smoked,
+and injured; still, what remains shows how fine it must have been.
+
+There are one or two Greek churches and two Armenian churches here,
+both very small, dark, cramped places, with immensely thick walls
+and hewn-stone roofs. They appear to be of great antiquity, but can
+boast of no other merit. Adjoining the principal one, in which is a
+famous miraculous picture of St. George, they were building a large
+and handsome church, which is now completed, in the Basilica form,
+with an arched stone roof. Cut stone being very expensive, and indeed,
+from the want of good masons, very difficult to procure, the priests
+bethought themselves of a happy expedient to secure square hewn stone
+for the corners, door-way, windows, &c., of the new cathedral. They
+told their flock that, as the ancient tomb-stones were of no use to
+the departed, it would be a meritorious act in the living to bring
+them to assist in the erection of the church. They managed this so
+well, that every one brought on his own back, or at his own expense,
+the tombstones of his ancestors, and those were grieved and offended
+who could not gain admission for the tomb-stones of their families to
+complete a window or support a wall. The work advanced rapidly during
+the summer, and any large, flat slabs of stone were reserved for the
+covering of the roof. It promised to be, and I hear now is, a handsome
+church, strong and solid enough to resist the awful climate, and the
+snow which lies there for months every year. The Armenian inscriptions
+and emblems on the stones have a singular effect; but I think, under
+the circumstances, the priests were quite right to build up with the
+tombstones of the dead a house of prayer for those about to die.
+
+In course of time a house was ready for our reception: though not
+so large as those of some of the great authorities, it was one of
+the largest class of houses in Erzeroom, and a description of its
+arrangements will convey an idea of what most of the others were. It
+was situated in a very good position on the top of a hill, close to
+the house of the Russian commissioner, and on the same side of the
+town as those of the English and Russian consuls. From its small,
+doubly-glazed windows we looked, over a narrow valley covered with
+houses, on the walls and tower of the citadel, which stood on the hill
+directly opposite. The walls and towers, and the principal gateway
+of the town, with its two graceful minarets, to the left hand, and a
+distant prospect of the great plain and the River Euphrates, and the
+mountains over which we had traveled, to the right, completed our view,
+which was, perhaps, the best enjoyed by any house in the place. Our
+house, like most of the others, was built with great solidity, of
+rough stone, with large blocks at the corners; the roof was flat,
+and covered with green turf. The windows were small, like port-holes,
+but the door was a large arch, through which we rode into the gloomy,
+sepulchral-looking hall, out of which opened the stables on the right
+hand, the kitchen, and offices, and some other rooms on the left,
+while in front a dark staircase of square stones and heavy beams
+looked as if it had tumbled through the ceiling, and gave access to
+the upper floor. There was a little garden or yard under the windows,
+where we planted vegetables, and in one part of which several English
+dogs, two Persian greyhounds, and an Armenian turnspit, walked about
+in the daytime. The railing between this and the garden part of the
+yard was a triumph of art, accomplished by a Turkish guard, who turned
+his sword into a plow-share when not wanted to look terrific. We had
+also nineteen lambs, who grazed on the top of the highest part of the
+house, where they were carried up every morning, except occasionally
+when there was such a wind that they would be in danger of being blown
+away. We had I know not how many sheep with large tails; these took
+a walk every day with a shepherd, who led out all the sheep belonging
+to the inhabitants of that part of the town. Every house having a few,
+they are marked, and all come home every evening to their respective
+houses, and go out again the next morning, and eat what they can get
+upon the mountains. Our household contained, besides ourselves and
+servants, one white Persian cat, with a spot on his back, and his tail
+painted pink with hennah (this race, with long, silky hair falling to
+the ground as it walks along, comes from Van); five pigeons, and one
+hen, the rest having fallen victims to the rapacity of mankind; and a
+lemming, [3] who lived in a brass foot-tub and ate biscuits. This last
+beast was sadly frightened by a mouse which I put into his habitation
+one day, and which made use of his back to jump out, after receiving
+a severe bite in the tail. He generally slept all day, and took a
+small walk in the tub in the evening.
+
+All the building except the hall and stable had a garden on the roof,
+that part only being two stories high. The kitchen and some of the
+other rooms were lit by a skylight, the earth at the back of them
+being on a level with their ceilings. The walls of the upper floor
+were not exactly over those below, but were supported by immense beams,
+some of which had given way, and the principal room leaned over to the
+left frightfully. Those rooms which are lit by windows have two rows
+of them one above the other, except the dining-room and ante-room,
+which had only one row, too high from the floor to look out of,
+but very convenient for looking into, from the upper garden and the
+terrace of the next house. The rooms had all white-washed walls,
+wooden flat ceilings curiously carved and painted. On the floors
+there was blue cloth instead of carpets, and divans of red cloth. A
+few chairs, and some lumbering deal tables, with covers on them,
+at which we wrote, concluded our list of furniture and "genuine
+effects." The great difficulty was the eating and drinking part of
+the arrangements. Every thing except bread and meat came on horses
+from Constantinople, and about one third of the bottles brought from
+thence were usually broken. Glass, for the windows, was a curious and
+expensive luxury, oiled paper being generally used, with a little
+bit of real glass to peep out of in each, or sometimes only in one
+window. Wood also was very dear, as there were no trees within a
+distance of thirty hours. The climate is not too cold for the growth
+of timber, I should think, for there were a few poplars in the yards
+near the houses, but the people are too improvident to plant trees,
+and, except some prodigiously large cabbages, horticulture is not
+much practiced near the town.
+
+The country houses of Armenia are constructed somewhat differently
+from those of the towns. When a man wishes--I can not call it to
+build a house, or erect a house, or set up a house, as none of these
+terms are applicable--but when a house is to be constructed, the
+following is the way in which it is set about. A space of ground is
+marked out, perhaps nearly an English acre in extent; then the whole
+space is excavated to the depth of about five feet: one part of the
+excavation is set apart for the great cow-stable; this may be fifty
+or one hundred feet long, and nearly as wide. Having got so far,
+some trees are the next requisite; these trees being cut down, the
+trunks are chopped into lengths of eight or nine feet, the general
+height of the rooms, and are placed in two or four rows, to be used
+as columns down the great stable; the larger branches, without being
+squared or shaped, are laid across from pillar to pillar as beams;
+the smaller branches are laid across these, the twigs on the top,
+till the entire trees are used up; the twigs are sometimes tied
+up in fagots, sometimes not: over this is spread some of the earth
+that was excavated from below; this is well trodden down, then more
+earth is added, and on the top of all is laid the turf which formed
+the surface of the soil before it was moved. Round the stable, in
+no particular order, smaller rooms are formed; if they are large,
+their roofs are supported by columns like the stable. In a large
+house there are often two stables. The space of ground taken up by
+a rich man's house is prodigious, the turfed roof forming a small
+field. The lesser rooms in this subterranean habitation are divided
+from the stable and from each other by rough stone walls well filled up
+with clay or mud; their ceilings are contrived by laying beams across
+each other, two along and two across, in the form of a low pyramid,
+so that the ceiling is a kind of low square dome: the smaller rooms
+form store-rooms and apartments for the women. Each room has a rough
+stone fire-place opposite the door; and in the roof, generally over
+the door, there is one window about eighteen inches square, glazed
+with a piece of oiled paper. Outside, these windows look like large
+mole-hills, with a bit of plaster on one side surrounding the oiled
+paper, or glass, which transmits the light. Inside, the window is
+perceived at the end of a funnel, widening greatly toward the room,
+and contrived so as to throw the light to the centre of the apartment,
+opposite the fire-place, where a fire of tezek, or dried cow-dung
+and chopped straw, is constantly smouldering. Over the chimney-piece
+hangs an iron lamp of simple construction, which, with the help of
+the fire, produces a dim light in the long nights of winter. There is
+a divan, usually covered with most beautiful Koordish carpets, which
+last forever, on each side of the fire-place; and large wooden pegs,
+projecting from the walls, serve to hang up guns, pistols, cloaks,
+and any thing else. Some of these rooms are rather roughly pretty
+in appearance; the floors are covered with tekkè, a thick gray felt,
+and, among smart people, Persian carpets are laid over the felt, their
+beautiful colors producing a rich and comfortable effect. About half
+way up the chimney is a wooden door or damper, which is opened and
+shut by means of a string; and when it is very cold weather, and they
+want to be snug and fusty down below, this door is shut, and the room
+becomes as hot as an oven; the chimney does not rise more than two feet
+above ground, and has a large flat stone on the top to keep the snow
+from falling in, as well as the lambs and children; the smoke escapes
+by apertures on the sides just below the coping-stone. The chimneys
+look like toadstools from the outside, rising a little above the snow
+or the grass which grows upon the roof. These subterranean habitations
+are constructed, not on the side of a hill, but on the side of a gentle
+slope; and all the earth excavated for the house is thrown back again
+upon the roof in such a manner that on three sides there is often
+no sign of any dwelling existing underneath. The entrance is on the
+lower side of the slope, and there the mound is often visible, as it
+is raised four or five feet above the level of the hill-side. There
+are no fences to keep people off the roof, which has no appearance
+different from the rest of the country. It is often only the dirt
+opposite the doors, the cattle, and people standing about, which gives
+information of a small village being present, particularly during the
+eight months of snow, and ice, and intense cold, when no one stirs
+abroad except for matters of importance. When a house is ruined and
+deserted, these holes are sometimes rather dangerous, as the horse
+you are riding may put his foot into an old chimney and break his
+leg, there being very frequently no appearance of a habitation below,
+while you are passing through the open, desolate country, of which the
+roof seems to be a part. There are stories, perhaps founded on fact,
+of hungry thieves lifting the flat stone off the top of the chimney,
+and fishing up the kettle in which the supper was stewing over the
+fire below with a hooked stick--a feat which would not be at all
+difficult if the cook was thinking of something else, as sometimes
+will happen even in the best-regulated families.
+
+The most curious and remarkable part of the house is the great
+ox-stable, which often holds some scores of cattle. Out of this
+stable they do not stir, frequently, during the whole winter season,
+and it is the breath and heat of these animals which warm the house;
+besides which, they manufacture all the fuel for the establishment:
+they are fed upon straw, bruised to small bits by the sledge which
+is driven round the threshing-floor to separate the corn from the
+husk after harvest time. In one corner of this huge, dim stable,
+near the entrance door, a wooden platform is raised three feet
+from the ground; two sides of it are bounded by the stone wall of
+the house, in one of which, opposite the door, is the fire-place;
+the other two sides of the square platform have open wooden rails
+to keep off the cows. This original contrivance is the salemlik, or
+reception-room, where the master sits, and where he entertains his
+guests, who, as they stumble into the obscure den from the glare of
+the sun shining on the snow outside, are received with a yell by all
+the dogs, who live under the platform. This place is fitted up with
+divans and carpets; arms and saddles hang against the walls; the
+horses of the chief are tethered nearest to the rails, the donkeys
+and cows further off. Among the horses there is always an immense
+fat tame sheep; this is a universal custom in every stable in Turkey,
+under or above ground. Among some of the Koordish tribes, a young wild
+boar is kept in the stable with the horses--a remarkable custom among
+Mohammedans, who consider the whole race of swine as unclean beasts;
+this is the only case in which they are tolerated. A small flock of
+other sheep are sometimes scampering about, or kept from doing so,
+among the cows; chickens peck in the litter, and several grave cats
+have their allotted places on the divans of the chief, his wife,
+and others of his family. A vacant, that is, cowless space, is left
+between the steps leading up to the platform and the entrance door
+of the house; this part answers to the entrance hall, as man and
+beast pass through it on coming in or going out, immediately before
+the eyes of the master of the house. From hence a sloping passage,
+about six feet wide, leads to the open air; it has an outer door at
+the upper end, and an inner door below: this passage may be from ten
+to twenty feet long. The outer door is a common strong wooden one,
+but the inner doors all over the house are as singular as the rest of
+the arrangements. The house-door is of the usual size for the cows and
+horses to pass through, the others are not more than five feet high;
+they are constructed in the following manner: the bare wooden valve
+is first covered with ketché or felt, and on the inside the skin of a
+sheep, with its legs and arms on, just in the shape in which it came
+off the animal when it was skinned, being dyed red, is nailed over
+the felt. On the other side of the door, down the middle, is a long
+square pipe or box, in which hangs a heavy log of wood, attached to a
+cord fixed to the upper part of the door-case, which keeps the door
+shut, as it swings to again after it has been opened, and keeps out
+the drafts, and keeps in the warm air generated by cows, fires, and
+lamps, so that the atmosphere is always temperate within, while the
+cold is such without that men are frozen to death if they stand still
+even for a short time in the rigorous climate of an Armenian winter.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+    Narrow Escape from Suffocation.--Death of Noori Effendi.--A good
+    Shot.--History of Mirza Tekee.--Persian Ideas of the Principles of
+    Government.--The "Blood-drinker."--Massacre at Kerbela.--Sanctity
+    of the Place.--History of Hossein.--Attack on Kerbela, and Defeat
+    of the Persians.--Good Effects of Commissioners' Exertions.
+
+
+The first aspect of affairs at Erzeroom was not very satisfactory
+in any way. The cold and dismal weather was enough to prevent
+all enjoyment out of doors, and in-doors we had little cause of
+rejoicing. On first taking possession of our house, my companions had
+the narrowest possible escape of death from suffocation. The grooms in
+the stable below the drawing-room had lit an immense fire of charcoal,
+not for any particular object beyond that common to all servants of
+all countries, that of wasting their master's goods, which they had
+not to pay for themselves. The fumes from the charcoal penetrated
+the ceiling, when, most fortunately, the Russian commissioner came
+in, and, finding his two English friends in a half-stupefied state,
+helped them out of the room on to the terrace, where they both fell
+down fainting on the snow, and were only recovered after some time and
+difficulty. If the Russian commissioner had not arrived so opportunely,
+they would soon have perished. I did not participate in this risk,
+because I was laid up at the Consulate with an attack of fever,
+which effectually prevented my moving to my own house.
+
+Another misfortune occurred almost at the same period. Noori Effendi,
+the Turkish plenipotentiary, died suddenly of apoplexy in his
+bath; he had been embassador in London and at Vienna. All prospect
+of getting on with our affairs was put off by this unfortunate
+circumstance. Subsequently, Enveri Effendi, formerly secretary to
+Noori, was appointed in his place, but he did not arrive for some
+time after the death of his former chief.
+
+Mirza Jaffer, an old acquaintance of mine when he was embassador
+from Persia to the Porte, was too unwell to leave Tabriz, and Mirza
+Tekee was appointed Persian plenipotentiary instead. On his arrival
+within sight of Erzeroom from Persia, all the great people, except the
+Pasha and the commissioners, went out on horseback to meet him, and
+accompany him on his entry into the town. There was a great concourse
+and a prodigious firing of guns at full gallop, which, as the guns are
+generally loaded with ball cartridge, bought ready made in the bazaar,
+though intended as an honor, is a somewhat dangerous display. Unable to
+resist so picturesque a sight, I had ridden out on the Persian road,
+though I did not join the escort, and, having returned, I was walking
+up and down on the roof of the house, watching the crowds passing
+in the valley below, and looking at the great guns of the citadel,
+which the soldiers were firing as a salute. They fired very well,
+in very good time, but I observed several petty officers and a number
+of men busily employed at one gun, the last to the left hand near the
+corner of the battery. At length this gun was loaded. A prodigious
+deal of peeping and pointing took place out of the embrasure, and,
+just as I was turning in my walk, bang went the cannon, and I was
+covered with dust from something which struck the ground in the yard
+in a line below my feet. On looking down to see what this could be,
+I saw a ball stuck in the earth: the soldiers had all disappeared from
+the ramparts of the citadel, and I found they had been taking a shot at
+the British commissioner. A very good shot it was too, exactly in the
+line, but the ball, not being heavy enough, had fallen a little short,
+so I was missed. They had manufactured a ball with a large stone,
+wound round with rope to make it fit the gun, to shoot at the Frank,
+and that was the occasion of all the peeping and crowding of the men
+round the gun which I had observed.
+
+As Mirza Tekee is now no more, and he was beyond all comparison the
+most interesting of those assembled at the congress of Erzeroom,
+I will give a short account of his history. Mirza Tekee was the son
+of the cook of Bahman Meerza, brother of Mohammed Shah, and governor
+of the province of Tabriz. The cook's little boy was brought up with
+the children of his master and educated with them; being a clever boy,
+as soon as he was old enough he was put into the office of accounts,
+under the commander-in-chief, the famous Emir Nizam, who was employed
+in drilling the Persian army in the European style. Tekee became Vizir
+ul Nizam, or adjutant general, in course of time, under the old Emir
+Nizam, and also amassed great wealth; and as the Shah did not like
+the idea of paying the expenses of his plenipotentiary--"base is the
+slave that pays"--he sent Mirza Tekee to Erzeroom with many flattering
+speeches and promises, none of which he intended to fulfill. The
+cunning old prime minister, Hadji Meerza Agassi, who was sedulously
+employed in feathering his own nest, was jealous of Mirza Tekee,
+and very glad to get him safe out of the way. The Turks and Persians,
+as every body knows, hate each other religiously, which seems always
+to be the worst sort of hatred. The Soonis and the Shiahs are, as it
+were, Protestants and Papists in the Mohammedan faith; and if these
+two countries are ever reconciled for a time, the smouldering flame
+is sure to break out again at the first convenient opportunity, and it
+will do so to the end of time. In 1845, the Turks, who disliked Mirza
+Tekee with more than common aversion, from his dignified bearing and
+stately manners, gave out various accusations against him and some
+members of his household. A fanatical mob of many thousand indignant
+Soonis surrounded all that quarter of the town, attacked the Persian
+plenipotentiary's house, which was besieged for some hours, and
+volleys after volleys of rifle-shots were fired at the windows,
+while from within Mirza Tekee only permitted his party to fire
+blank cartridges. Izzet Pasha, a drunken old gentleman of eighty,
+who had succeeded Kiamili Pasha as governor of Erzeroom through
+the intrigues of Enveri Effendi, sat on horseback and looked on,
+and took no part in the disturbance, though he had all his troops,
+amounting to several thousand men, under arms. For this conduct he
+was turned out of his government, and was succeeded by Bahri Pasha,
+who in 1847 was shot dead by one of his own servants, of the name of
+Delhi Ibrahim--accidentally or not, does not appear.
+
+Colonel Williams did every thing in his power to assist Mirza Tekee,
+and risked his life in the affray; but he received no assistance from
+the Pasha or any of the authorities, who made no attempt to quell
+the riot.
+
+The Turks swore they would have blood, and that one of the Persians
+must be given up to them as a sacrifice. A poor man, who had called
+that morning to say that he was going to Tabriz, and would be happy to
+carry any letters or messages there, was thrown out of the window and
+torn to pieces by the mob. Another Persian, a gentleman, secretary to
+Mirza Tekee, was killed by a butcher the same day, in another part of
+the town, where he was walking in ignorance of the disturbance that was
+going on. The Mirza's house was pillaged, the roof and doors broken in,
+and every thing destroyed that the mob could get hold of. He himself
+was only saved by barricading a strong room in a back part of the
+house, where he and his servants defended themselves for many hours,
+till the Turks dispersed of their own accord. The Sultan afterward
+sent him £8000 in repayment of his losses in this disgraceful outrage.
+
+In June, 1847, after he had signed the treaty of peace and commerce
+between Turkey and Persia with Enveri Effendi and the British and
+Russian Commissioners, he returned to Tabriz. On the death of the Emir
+Nizam, he succeeded to his office of commander-in-chief. During the
+last illness of Mohammed Shah, Bahman Meerza had been intriguing in
+hopes of succeeding to the throne; but being unsuccessful, and being
+also found out, he escaped to Teflis, where he still resides, and is
+protected by the Czar, who keeps him in terrorem over the present
+Shah, who may be dethroned any day, in which case Bahman Meerza is
+all ready to reign in his stead.
+
+When Mohammed Shah, who had done nothing all his life but shoot
+sparrows with a pistol, departed from this world, Mirza Tekee marched
+the Persian army to Teheran, and seated the young Prince Noor Eddin
+upon the throne. Noor Eddin Shah gave him his sister in marriage: she
+is said to have been much attached to her husband, who also succeeded
+to the immense territorial possessions of Hadji Meerza Agassi, the late
+prime minister of Persia. The Hadji had been tutor to Mohammed Shah,
+and became one of the most famous of the Grand Vizirs of that most
+blundering of dynasties. As a matter of course, when he became rich
+enough he was robbed by his master, having been himself the greatest
+extortioner on record for many years. The Shah had allowed him to
+keep an enormous treasure in gold, silver, and jewels, with which he
+retired to Kerbela, where he died in the odor of sanctity in 1850.
+
+Mirza Tekee was now seated on the highest pinnacle of the temple
+of prosperity. The extent of the possessions which the Shah had
+handed over to him from the plunder of the Hadji was so great as
+to be hardly credible, and, by a judicious squeezing, the towns,
+villages, and domains would have yielded the revenue of a petty
+king. However, all prime ministers are detested--that is, in human
+nature; first, there is the opposite party in politics, some of whom
+think differently as to the form and manner in which the taxes should
+be levied in Europe, the villages racked in Persia. All--whatever
+they may think on political subjects--feel sure they ought to be in
+place, rather than the party then in power; if to these are added all
+thieves, rogues, revolutionists, and those sorts of people, who have
+a natural antipathy to all government, law, or possession of wealth in
+the hands of any man except the one individual himself, he being more
+jealous of his friend than of any other person, a great mass of the
+population are not only opposed to the minister for the time being,
+but are in constant readiness to pull down whatever is above them,
+good, indifferent, or bad.
+
+It is said that the great enemy of Mirza Tekee at court was the Shah's
+mother, a lady who in Persia and Turkey enjoys an extraordinary degree
+of power, wealth, and dignity. In Turkey, the Sultana Validé has the
+right to build a royal mosque, and to use a caique like that of her
+son; she is above the law, and can do any thing she likes. If she likes
+to do good, she can do much good; if she likes to do evil, she can do
+much evil. Between those who were jealous of the power and who hated
+the strong government of Mirza Tekee, a powerful party was created,
+who got hold of the weak mind of the young Shah, who owed every thing
+in this world to his minister; his destruction was agreed upon, and
+he was given leave to go to Koom, where he had an estate. So secretly
+were affairs managed that his suspicions do not seem to have been
+aroused; his young wife followed him, with all her train, looking
+forward to the pleasure of living with her husband for a while in
+the quiet and retirement of a beautiful country; but when she arrived
+within sight of the town of Koom, a messenger came out to meet her,
+and the news that he brought was that Mirza Tekee had been killed by
+the order of her brother the Shah, whose emissaries had seized him
+unexpectedly in the bath. He made a desperate resistance, but he was
+overpowered; they opened his veins and held him down till the Grand
+Vizir had bled to death. No crime whatever was alleged against him:
+he was murdered foully by the Shah, who thus destroyed one of his
+best and most honest subjects at the instigation of some of the most
+infamous and worst. This happened in the year 1851.
+
+There is nothing, however, very unusual in this termination of the
+life and fortunes of the prime minister of Persia, only it is usually
+done under more extenuating circumstances. The singular ideas which
+they entertain of the principles of government are summed up in the
+notion that it is better to be in the hands of one furious ogre than
+at the mercy of a hundred tyrants. For this reason the tribes of
+the Kuzzulbash admire a truculent Shah, such as Aga Mohammed Shah,
+and they like a Grand Vizir who lets nobody rob and plunder except
+himself. When he is fat and fit for killing, the blood-drinker on
+the throne cuts off his head, or strangles him, as the case may be,
+and then takes possession of his property, throwing a sop to the mob
+occasionally by allowing them to sack the great man's house. I do not
+use the above-mentioned epithet as a term of reprehension or abuse,
+for Hunkiar is one of the recognized titles of the Sultan of Turkey
+and of other Eastern sovereigns. The treaty of Hunkiar Skellessi,
+which made so great a sensation in its day, was so called from the name
+of a place on the Asiatic shores of the Bosporus. The name means the
+"Blood-drinker's Stairs"--an appellation at this time equally suited
+to either of the "high contracting powers."
+
+The plenipotentiaries and commissioners being assembled, every thing
+was in the greatest danger of falling to pieces on the outset, by
+the very first dispatches which we received, as these related to a
+frightful massacre which had just taken place at Kerbela, where 22,000
+Persians were reported to have been killed by the Turks. Kerbela,
+in the pashalik of Bagdad, is a Turkish fortified place, containing
+the tomb of Hossein, the brother of Hassan, and son of Ali, the great
+saint of the Shiah, or Persian form of the Mohammedan religion. Not
+only do an immense number of Persians habitually reside there, but
+every one who has the power strives to retire there in his latter
+days, that he may lay his bones in the neighborhood of the golden dome
+which covers the ashes of Hossein. Those who die at a distance are
+so anxious at least to be buried at Kerbela, that the great article
+of commerce in that direction consists of the dead bodies of Persian
+men and women, which are brought by thousands every year, from all
+parts of the dominions of the Shah, by endless caravans of horses,
+mules, and camels, many hundreds of which unlucky animals pass their
+whole lives from year to year in carrying these horrid burdens,
+which infect the air in all the villages through which they pass.
+
+So great is the sanctity of Kerbela, that, in the estimation of
+the sect of Ali, it even may be said to surpass that of Mecca, for
+they, among Mohammedans, are those who "by their traditions have
+made the law of none effect." The history of the death of Hossein
+is so interesting an episode in the history of this country, that I
+am tempted to give a short account of it, for the benefit of those
+who may not be well acquainted with the history of the successors of
+Mohammed, and upon whose fortunes so much of the welfare and also the
+policy of the various nations of the East, from the seventh century to
+the present time, depends--premising that the principal cause of the
+rancorous hatred which always has existed, and still exists in full
+force, between the Sooni Turks and the Shiah Persians, is principally
+founded upon events connected with the death of the Imaum Hossein,
+and the feeling is kept up in full vigor in Persia by a sort of drama,
+representing the following history, which is enacted before the Shah,
+and in every town in Persia, every year, at the annual feast of Noo
+Rooz, which continues for ten days. In one of the acts of this most
+curious ceremony, a Frank embassador is brought before the audience,
+who intercedes for the life of Hossein and his followers with the
+general of the army of Yezid. Who he can have been there is no means
+of knowing, but he may possibly represent an embassador from the Greek
+Emperor of Constantinople, who may have been passing on his way to
+the court of the Caliph. However this may be, his presence produces
+a kindly feeling toward Europeans in the minds of the Persian populace.
+
+On the death of Ali (A.D. 661), his eldest son, Hassan, was proclaimed
+Caliph and Imaum in Irák; the former title he was forced to resign
+to Moawiyah; the latter, or spiritual dignity, his followers regarded
+as inalienable. His rival granted him a pension, and permitted him to
+retire into private life. After nine years, passed for the most part in
+devotional exercise, he was poisoned by his wife Jaadah, who was bribed
+to perpetrate this execrable crime by Yezid, the son of Moawiyah.
+
+On the death of Moawiyah (A.D. 679), his son Yezid, who succeeded,
+having provoked public indignation by his luxury, debauchery, and
+impiety, Hossein was persuaded by the discontented people of Irák
+to make an attempt for the recovery of his hereditary rights. The
+inhabitants of Cufa and Bassorah were foremost in their professions of
+zeal for the house of Ali, and sent Hossein a list of more than 124,000
+persons, who, they said, were ready to take up arms in his cause.
+
+Hossein did not take warning from the inconstancy and treachery
+which these very persons had shown in their conduct toward his father
+and brother. Assembling a small troop of his personal friends, and
+accompanied by a part of his family, he departed from Medina, the place
+of his residence, and was soon engaged in crossing the desert. But
+while he was on his journey, Yezid's governor in Irák discovered the
+meditated revolt, capitally punished the leaders of the conspiracy,
+and so terrified the rest that they were afraid to move. When Hossein
+arrived near the banks of the Euphrates, instead of finding an army
+of his devoted adherents, he discovered that his further progress was
+checked by the overwhelming forces of the enemy. Determined, however,
+to persevere, he gave permission to all who pleased to retreat while
+there was yet time; to their disgrace, many of his followers left him
+to his fate, and he continued his route to Cufa, accompanied only
+by seventy-two persons. But every step increased his difficulties,
+and he attempted to return when it was too late. At length he was
+surrounded by the troops of the Caliph in the arid plains of Kerbela,
+his followers were cut off from their supply of water, and, when
+he offered to negotiate, he was told that no terms would be made,
+but that he should surrender at discretion. Twenty-four hours were
+granted him for deliberation.
+
+Hossein's choice was soon made: he deemed death preferable to
+submission, but he counseled his friends to provide for their safety
+either by surrender or escape. All replied that they preferred dying
+with their beloved leader. The only matter now to be considered was
+how they could sell their lives most dearly; they fortified their
+little encampment with a trench, and then tranquilly awaited the event.
+
+That night Hossein slept soundly, using for a pillow the pommel of
+his sword. During his sleep he dreamed that Mohammed appeared to him,
+and predicted that they should meet the next day in Paradise. When
+morning dawned he related his dream to his sister Zeinab, who had
+accompanied him on his fatal expedition. She burst into a passion
+of tears, and exclaimed, "Alas! alas! my brother! What a destiny
+is ours! My father is dead! my mother is dead! my brother Hassan is
+dead! and the measure of our calamities is not yet full!"
+
+Hossein tried to console her. "Why should you weep?" he said; "did we
+not come on earth to die? My father was more worthy than I; my mother
+was more worthy than I; my brother was more worthy than I. They are
+all dead; why should not we be ready to follow their example?" He
+then strictly enjoined his family to make no lamentation for his
+approaching martyrdom, telling them that a patient submission to the
+divine decrees was the conduct most pleasing to God and his Prophet.
+
+When morning appeared, Hossein, having washed and perfumed himself,
+as if preparing for a banquet, mounted his steed, and addressed his
+followers in terms of endearing affection that drew tears from the
+eyes of the gallant warriors. Then, opening the Koran, he read the
+following verse: "O God, be thou my refuge in suffering, and my hope
+in affliction." But the soldiers of Yezid were reluctant to assail the
+favorite grandson of the Prophet; they demanded of their generals to
+allow him to draw water from the Euphrates, a permission which would
+not have been refused to beasts and infidels. "Let us be cautious,"
+they exclaimed, "of raising our hands against him who was carried
+in the arms of God's apostle. It would be, in fact, to fight against
+himself." So strong were their feelings, that thirty cavaliers deserted
+to Hossein, resolved to share with him the glories of martyrdom.
+
+But Yezid's generals shared not in these sentiments. They affected
+to regard Hossein as an enemy of Islám. They forced their soldiers
+forward with blows, and exclaimed, "War to those who abandon the
+true religion, and separate themselves from the council of the
+faithful!" Hossein replied, "It is you who have abandoned the true
+religion; it is you who have severed yourselves from the assembly
+of the faithful. Ah! when your souls shall be separated from your
+bodies, you will learn too late which party has incurred the penalty
+of eternal condemnation." Notwithstanding their vast superiority,
+the Caliph's forces hesitated to engage men determined on death;
+they poured in their arrows from a distance, and soon dismounted the
+little troop of Hossein's cavalry.
+
+When the hour of noon arrived, Hossein solicited a suspension of arms
+during the time appointed for the meridian prayers. This boon was
+conceded with difficulty, the generals of Yezid asking "how a wretch
+like him could venture to address the Deity;" and adding the vilest
+reproaches, to which Hossein made no reply. The Persian traditions
+relate a fabulous circumstance, designed to exalt the character of
+Hossein, though fiction itself can not increase the deep interest
+of his history. They tell us that while he was upon his knees, the
+King of the Genii appeared to him, and offered, for the sake of his
+father Ali, to disperse his enemies in a moment. "No," replied the
+generous Hossein, "what use is there in fighting any longer? I am
+but a guest of one breath in this transitory world; my relatives
+and companions are all gone, and what will it profit me to remain
+behind? I long for nothing now save my martyrdom; therefore depart
+thou, and may the Lord recompense and bless thee!" The genius was so
+deeply affected by the reply that his soul exhibited human weakness,
+and he departed weeping and lamenting.
+
+When the hour of prayer was past, the combat was renewed. One
+of Hossein's sons, and several of his nephews, lay dead around
+him; the rest of his followers were either killed or grievously
+wounded. Hitherto he had escaped unhurt, for every one dreaded to
+raise a hand against the grandson of Mohammed; at length a soldier,
+more daring than the rest, gave him a severe wound in the head. Faint
+with the loss of blood, he staggered to the door of his tent, and
+with a burst of parental affection, which at such a moment must have
+been mingled with unspeakable bitterness, took up his infant son,
+and began to caress him. While the little child was lisping out
+an inquiry as to the cause of his father's emotion, it was struck
+dead by an arrow in Hossein's arms. When the blood of the innocent,
+bubbling over his bosom, disclosed this new calamity, Hossein held
+up the body toward heaven, exclaiming, "O Lord! if thou refusest us
+thy succor, at least spare those who have not yet sinned, and turn
+thy wrath upon the heads of the guilty." Parched by a burning thirst,
+Hossein made a desperate effort to reach the banks of the Euphrates,
+but, when he stooped to drink, he was struck by an arrow in the mouth,
+and at the same moment one of his nephews, who came to embrace him for
+the last time, had his hand cut off by the blow of a sabre. Hossein,
+now the sole survivor of his party, threw himself into the midst of
+the enemy, and fell beneath a thousand weapons. The officers of Yezid
+barbarously mangled the corpse of the unfortunate prince; they cut
+off his head, and sent it to the Caliph.
+
+The escort who guarded it on its way to the court of Yezid, halting
+for the night in the city of Mosul, placed the box which contained it
+in a mosque; one of the sentinels, in the middle of the night hearing
+a noise within, looked through a chink in the door, and saw a gigantic
+figure, with a venerable white beard, take the head of Hossein out of
+its box, kiss it with reverence, and weep over it, a crowd of venerable
+personages following his example, and weeping bitterly at the same
+time. Fearing that some of his partisans had gained admittance, and
+that they would carry away the head which he was guarding, he unlocked
+the door and entered the mosque, upon which one of the figures he had
+seen approached, and, giving him a blow upon the cheek, exclaimed,
+"The prophets have come to pay obeisance to the head of the martyr:
+whither dost thou venture with such disrespect?" In the morning he
+related what had happened to his commander, the impression of the hand
+and fingers of the ancient prophet being still visible on his cheek.
+
+The head of Hossein, and that of his brother Hassan, repose under a
+mosque of the highest sanctity at Cairo: it is called the mosque of
+Hassanen. Another mosque in the same city covers with its dome the
+remains of Sitté, or the lady Zeinab, their sister, who was famous
+for her beauty: her shrine is now visited with great devotion by
+the ladies and women of her faith. The headless body of Hossein was
+buried upon the spot where he fell, while above it afterward arose
+the present place of pilgrimage, so much resorted to by the Shiah sect.
+
+The Persian fanatics of Kerbela had long declined paying the accustomed
+taxes to the Turkish government. Their insolent behavior had been
+a constant source of anger and difficulty to successive Pashas of
+Bagdad. At last the present Pasha was determined to enforce the law:
+after sending various letters to the town requesting payment of taxes
+and arrears, which were treated with ridicule and contempt, he gave
+orders to a general called Aboullabout Pasha, who appears to have
+been a Sooni of the most orthodox kind, to march an army of several
+thousand men to compel the people of Kerbela to acknowledge the rule
+of the Sultan. Aboullabout Pasha arrived accordingly, and pitched
+his camp in a grove of palms not far from the walls of the city. He
+brought four guns with him, and a number of topgis, or gunners, to
+work these instruments of destruction, if the Persians in the town did
+not choose to obey his commands. These impertinent fanatics treated
+the Turkish Pasha and his army with derision; rode out in the cool
+of the evening to look at the encampment, called the Turks grandsons
+and great grandsons of dogs, whom they would soon pack off to their
+kennels at Bagdad and Constantinople.
+
+It seems that, trusting in the sanctity of the golden dome, they
+did not imagine that the Turks would dare to advance to extremities,
+particularly as several royal princesses and members of the family of
+the Shah had taken up their abode in the vicinity of the tomb of the
+Imaum. However, the four guns and the topgis advanced to a position
+near the walls, and the Pasha sent a civil note to the insurgents
+within, to say that he would trouble them to pay his little bill;
+at the very notion of which the Persians were seized with fits of
+laughter, they were so much amused at the idea of paying away their
+money to the Turks. After several demands for their surrender, the
+town was blockaded, and the Persians made various sallies on the
+Turkish lines, in which they were always repulsed, and, all warnings
+being disregarded, the four guns at last proceeded to business. The
+walls tumbled down immediately, the Turks walked in, the Persians ran
+away, making very little effectual resistance, and fire and the sword,
+plunder and outrage of all kinds, took place in every quarter of the
+devoted city. When the Turkish troops entered the town, Aboullabout
+Pasha, who took it all in a religious point of view, had his carpet
+spread upon a bastion close above the breach, and having cursed
+Hassan and Hossein, Sitti Zeinab and Ali, offered ten shillings a
+piece for the heads of any of their followers; and then went quietly
+to prayers for the rest of the morning, without making any effort
+to stop the horrors and excesses which occur when a city has been
+taken by storm. The accounts of the shocking outrages and barbarities
+committed by the brutal soldiery are not fit to be repeated. When the
+town was pillaged, and every thing had been seized that they could lay
+their hands upon, those who had not been fortunate in lighting upon
+any treasure, or any thing worth taking away, bethought themselves
+of the manner in which profit and amusement might be combined, by
+cutting off every one's head that they could meet with, and taking
+it up to the pious old Pasha, who continued praying on his carpet on
+the bastion. When Persian heads became difficult to find, not being
+particular, a great many Turks were shot and decapitated by their
+fellow-soldiers, for the sake of their heads, the fraternal feeling
+of nationality and Sooniism not being calculated to resist the offer
+of one ducat per head. If this had been suffered to continue, it is
+probable that the state of affairs would have resembled that of the
+celebrated battle between the two Kilkenny cats, who ate each other
+up entirely with the exception of a small piece of fluff. When the
+massacre was stopped, 22,000 persons were reported to have been
+slain. This was very much exaggerated, no doubt, and it does not
+appear that a very correct account could be made out. A most curious
+and interesting report was afterward drawn up on this subject by
+Colonel Farrant, who was deputed by the British government to proceed
+to Kerbela for the purpose of pacifying the contending parties,
+and inquiring into the truth and extent of this terrible disaster.
+
+This was the first subject which the congress assembled to discuss
+measures of amity and mutual confidence between Turkey and Persia
+had brought before them--one not precisely calculated to insure that
+calmness of debate and general good-will which all wanted to establish.
+
+In course of time matters calmed down; things were what is called
+explained. We were all wonderfully civil to each other, and the Turkish
+and Persian followers of their respective plenipotentiaries did not
+express their private opinions of each other's merits till they got
+home and shut the door.
+
+Gradually they became more used to one another's ways, and the
+commissioners worked like special constables to keep the peace--and
+very hard work they had; and it is wholly and entirely owing to their
+exertions that the Koordish tribes upon the frontiers, and the wild
+spirits on both sides who were ready to back them up, were kept down
+for more than ten years, during which time commerce has been enlarged,
+the roads have been safe, and the Christian and agricultural population
+from Bussora to Mount Ararat have enjoyed a tranquillity and prosperity
+unknown in the memory of man.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+    The Boundary Question.--Koordish Chiefs.--Torture of
+    Artin, an American Christian.--Improved State of Society in
+    Turkey.--Execution of a Koord.--Power of Fatalism.--Gratitude of
+    Artin's Family.
+
+
+One of the most important of the affairs which were to be settled at
+Erzeroom was the geographical position of the boundaries between the
+two empires, for along the whole line there ran a broad belt of a kind
+of debatable land, upon which every man felt it his duty to shoot at
+every other man whom he did not get near enough to run through with
+his long spear, or knock upon the head with his mace, these ancient
+style of weapons being still in use among the Koords. For the purpose
+of gaining local information, many of the chiefs and principal persons
+of the wild districts in question were brought up to Erzeroom to be
+examined before the plenipotentiaries and commissioners. Some of these
+were most original individuals. The following extract from a letter,
+written upon the spot, will give a faint idea of two or three of
+these singular chieftains.
+
+
+Extract of a Letter.
+
+
+                                           "Erzeroom, August 11th, 1843.
+
+    "One day passes much like another at Erzeroom, and though there
+    seldom occurs any thing new to me, perhaps, as it would be all new
+    to you, you may like to hear how I pass my time, so I will give
+    you a sort of journal of the proceedings of yesterday, that you
+    may see how I occupy myself in this outlandish place. First of
+    all, I got up in the morning, ate my breakfast, and then walked
+    about the terrace on the top of the house. At eleven o'clock a
+    messenger came from Enveri Effendi, to ask us to go to his house
+    at one. So at one o'clock we went; the Russian commissioner,
+    with his suite, came also. At the door of Enveri Effendi's house
+    I saw a fine mare, with very peculiar housings. It was held by a
+    negro, and a Bedouin Arab was sitting on the ground near it. The
+    head-stall was made of a red silk garter, which went over its head,
+    and was attached to the bit by a piece of green leather strap;
+    the saddle was a common Arab saddle, but the housings, made of
+    wadded red silk, ended in two immense tassels, one on each side
+    of the horse's tail, and almost as large; the shovel-stirrups
+    were beautifully embossed and inlaid with silver, and there was
+    a heavy mace of the same workmanship under the right flap of
+    the saddle. This curious horse belonged to Sheikh Thamir, the
+    chief of the Chaab tribe, and ex-sovereign of all the land at
+    the mouths of the Euphrates. All the time that I was examining
+    the horse and talking about its accouterments, the Turkish guard
+    were presenting arms, and they looked very much relieved when I
+    turned round and went into the house.
+
+    "The staircase of this palace is like a chicken-ladder, and the
+    hall at the top, where the servants wait, like a little barn
+    or stable in England. Here, as I was kicking off my goloshes,
+    I was seized by Enveri Effendi himself, who had come up behind
+    me. This was considered as an excellent good joke by the
+    Chaoushes, servants, &c., who stood in a row to receive us;
+    so we went into the selamlik (or reception room) together, and
+    there I was introduced to three of the most picturesque people
+    I have ever seen. The first was Osman Pasha, late Governor
+    of Zohab; the second, Sheikh Thamir, whose horse I had been
+    looking at outside; the third was yclept Abdul Kader Effendi,
+    chief secretary to the government of Bussorah. These persons
+    were dressed in flowing robes of various colors; they had long
+    beards, and enormous turbans of Cashmere shawl. All three were
+    remarkably ugly, strange-looking men, and I can not describe to
+    you the peculiar way in which their clothes were put on, and the
+    wild and almost magnificent appearance they presented. There were,
+    besides these and ourselves, B---- Pasha and four other gentlemen,
+    in the modern Turkish dress. The three commissioners and their two
+    dragomans sat on the divan under the window, all, except myself,
+    with their legs sticking out, like people waiting for an operation
+    in a hospital. Enveri Effendi sat on a cushion on the floor, in the
+    right-hand corner, and the others were ranged on the two sides of
+    the room. As we were fourteen people, on a sudden fourteen servants
+    rushed into the room with pipes; then one brought coffee on a tray,
+    the brocade covering of which was thrown over his left shoulder;
+    and then came a man bringing to each of us a cup, well frothed up,
+    and in a zarf, or outer cup, of a different kind, according to
+    the rank of the person to whom it was presented. Enveri Effendi
+    and the three commissioners had cups of enameled gold, the rest
+    of the Pashas, &c., of silver. When this ceremony was concluded,
+    the door was shut, the servants disappeared, a curtain was drawn
+    across the door, and two chaoushes, with muskets, put to guard
+    it outside. Then Enveri Effendi lifted up his voice, and, after
+    swinging himself about, and grunting two or three times, he told
+    us that the gentlemen in the turbans had brought up a number of
+    old firmans, teskerès, and other papers relating to the lands
+    between Zohab and the Persian Gulf; that he had examined them,
+    and that now he begged the commissioners to put any questions
+    they chose to the worthies before them respecting the lands, &c.
+
+    "Then we all looked at each other for a little time, then they all
+    looked at me. Then I took up my parable, and desired the dragoman
+    to ask Osman Pasha who he was. 'I am Osman Pasha,' said he; 'and
+    I and my family have been sovereigns (or hereditary governors
+    rather) of Zohab for seven generations.' Having asked him a
+    great many questions, and written down his answers, which made
+    him somewhat nervous, I turned to Sheikh Thamir. 'What is your
+    fortunate name?' said I; upon which Sheikh Thamir opened his eyes,
+    then he opened his mouth, then he looked at Abdel Kader, then he
+    shut his mouth again, and said nothing. So I asked him again who
+    he had the honor to be. Upon this, Abdel Kader, who appeared to
+    be his mentor or adviser, came and sat down by him, and said,
+    'He is Sheikh Thamir.' Sheikh Thamir upon this shouted out,
+    at the top of his voice, 'Yes, I am Sheikh Thamir, the son of
+    Gashban, who was the son of Osman, who was the son of--' 'Thank
+    you,' I said, 'I only wanted to know from your own lips who you
+    were, but am not particular as to the names of all your respected
+    ancestors.' However, Sheikh Thamir was not to be stopped in this
+    way when he had once begun, so he shouted out a long string of
+    names, and when he got to the end he said he was Sheikh of the
+    Sheikhs of the great tribe of Chaab, and commander of the district
+    of Ghoban, which his ancestors had held before him for one or two
+    hundred years--or more, or less, as I pleased. In answer to other
+    questions, which Abdel Kader always accompanied with his own notes
+    and commentaries, he said, 'I have no papers; we do not understand
+    such things. What do I know? I am an old man. I am forty-five years
+    of age; let me alone.' In course of time I did let him alone,
+    and a difficult thing it was to draw out any information from
+    this wild desert chief. Every now and then somebody else put in a
+    word. At about four o'clock the meeting broke up. We returned home
+    and dined, and in the evening went out riding. Passing some tents,
+    which the Pasha has set up at the other side of the town, near
+    a tank--the only place where there are any trees near Erzeroom,
+    and they are only about a dozen poplars--I saw a number of people,
+    so I went up to the tents, and found Sabri Pasha, the commander
+    of the troops, an Egyptian Pasha, who is come to buy horses for
+    Mohammed Ali--he has bought some hundreds; Bekir Pasha, some other
+    military Pashas, Namik Effendi, &c., two little sons of Sabri
+    Pasha, dressed in a very odd way, with petticoats of different
+    colored silks in stripes; he said it was the dress of the girls in
+    Albania, but I never saw any thing like it in that country. Here
+    we stayed and chatted with the Turks. The tents are superb; the
+    principal one was 100 feet long, with an open colonnade round it,
+    and lined inside with silk; rich Persian carpets were spread on
+    the ground. I have never seen so beautiful a tent. When the moon
+    rose I went away, a man carrying a meshaleh, a thing like a beacon,
+    on the top of a pole, with old cotton dipped in pitch burning in
+    it; it is the best light there is for out-of-doors, as it never
+    blows out, and gives much more light than any torches or lanterns.
+
+    "When I got home I paid my respects to the kid, who came out to
+    meet me; and to the little cow, eighteen inches high, who sat in
+    the door and would not get out of the way; and having drank tea,
+    I went to bed."
+
+
+On another occasion certain men represented to me that a Christian
+oda bashi, or chamberlain of a khan or inn, had been unjustly seized
+and tortured by the authorities, to make him confess to a robbery that
+had taken place in his khan, which in reality had been perpetrated by
+two Turkish soldiers; but the oda bashi being a Christian, neither his
+evidence nor that of any other Christian could be taken in opposition
+to that of a Mohammedan, according to the Turkish law. The case was
+brought before me, and I took some interest in it. I had no authority
+whatever to deal with such questions as these, and it was only by
+representations to the Pasha that I was enabled to obtain justice
+for the unlucky oda bashi.
+
+Finding the case taken down at the time from the word of mouth of
+some of those who moved in it, I thought it might be interesting
+as a picture of manners in an out-of-the-way country, and I subjoin
+it without making any alterations in the language of this piece of
+justiciary business.
+
+
+Case of Artin, Oda Bashi, an Armenian.
+
+
+                                    "Erzeroom, August 2d and 12th, 1843.
+
+    "A merchant, named Mehemed, brought his merchandise to the Khan
+    Ghengé Aga Khan, where he slept. Two soldiers slept near him. In
+    the morning his goods were gone; he accused the soldiers (who were
+    the only people who had been near him) of the robbery; they denied
+    it, and were let off by the judge at the mekemmé, before whom
+    they had been taken. A Turkish woman, named Zeilha, saw the two
+    soldiers bury something, upon which she told the merchant that his
+    goods were buried at such a place by the soldiers. He went there,
+    and found half the goods; the soldiers, therefore, were again
+    taken up, when they confessed to the theft of half the goods,
+    but said that the oda bashi, an Armenian, named Artin, had taken
+    the other half. Artin was accordingly taken before the tribunal of
+    the Kiaya; the Pasha ordered him to be tortured on his declaring
+    himself ignorant of the theft. A tass (metal drinking-cup) of hot
+    brass was put about his head; afterward a cord was tied round his
+    head, two sheep's knuckle-bones were placed upon his temples, and
+    the cord tightened till his eyes nearly came out. As he would not
+    confess, his front teeth were then drawn one at a time; pieces of
+    cane were run up under his toe-nails and his finger-nails. Various
+    tortures have been inflicted on him in this way for the last twelve
+    days, and he is now hung up by the hands in the prison of the
+    Seraskier, where he will be kept and tormented till he confesses
+    or dies. This is the deposition of his wife Mariam, who begs me to
+    interpose to save her husband, who, she declares, slept at home,
+    and not in the khan, on the night when the robbery took place."
+
+
+According to the Turkish law, two witnesses of unimpeachable character
+are sufficient to convict any man of any crime, on their accusing him
+before the cadi. Only in the case of adultery four male witnesses are
+required. A woman's evidence is never taken, nor is that of a Christian
+or a foreigner held good in any case against a Mohammedan. These
+two soldiers, however, being convicted thieves, their evidence was
+not valid according to the law, and the oda bashi seems to have been
+taken up and tortured by an entirely arbitrary act of the Pasha. I
+went to the palace, and these are the words of Kiamili Pasha, the
+Governor and Viceroy of Erzeroom.
+
+"You are mistaken; the man has not been tortured; I have proof that
+he was at the khan that night; he has been found guilty by the court
+(mekemmé) on proper evidence, and sent to me to receive the punishment
+due to his offense. As I wished to recover the goods stolen for the
+benefit of their owner, the merchant Mehemed, I threatened the oda
+bashi that if he did not tell what he had done with his share of the
+property, it was in my power to inflict these tortures upon him.
+
+"After this he desired to be allowed to speak to the two soldiers
+who had possession of the other half of the goods. I consented,
+and sent him to the prison at Selim Pasha's palace, where they were
+confined. As I would not trust to the report of Selim Pasha's people,
+I sent a confidential man of my own, who was put in a place where
+he overheard all that passed. The oda bashi said to the soldiers,
+'If you will say I am innocent, I will share my portion of the stolen
+goods with you, and you will gain by this, as your share has been taken
+from you, and I shall get off freely. Do this, and nobody will know.'
+
+"The oda bashi was brought back to his prison: when I asked him what
+he had said to the soldiers, he told me quite another story. Then
+I spoke to him in his own words, whereat he was astonished, but he
+kept silence. He is still in prison, and I am thinking what to do with
+him; but he has not been tortured in any way; and as you seem to take
+an interest in his case, I will set him free, and give him to you,
+to show my friendship for you."
+
+I replied, "I am glad to hear that the man has not been tortured, for
+in England we consider torture to be an act of unnecessary cruelty;
+but your story alters the case. The man is certainly guilty, and as I
+only asked for justice in this case, and I wish in all things to see
+justice done, I will not have the man; let him be punished according
+to the law, only do not torture him.
+
+"The other day you hung a Koord opposite my windows; he was a murderer,
+and you did right: it is by acts like these that a country such as
+this can be kept in order, and that protection is assured to those
+who do well."
+
+"I am sorry," said the Pasha, "that they hung the Koord before your
+windows. I told them not to hang him before the house of the Persian
+plenipotentiary, where there is a gibbet; but to take him to any
+place where the Koords resorted, and as there are many coffee-houses
+near you, that is the reason probably why they hung him there. His
+story is a curious one: I have been looking after him for the last
+three years; he has robbed and murdered many people, though he was
+so young a man, but he had always escaped my agents. At last, a few
+days ago, he stole a horse, in a valley near here, from a man who
+was traveling, and whom he beat about the head and left for dead. He
+brought the horse to Erzeroom and offered it for sale, when the owner,
+who had recovered, saw him selling the horse, and gave him up to the
+guard. He was brought up for judgment before me, when I said to him,
+Who are you? After a silence, the man said, 'There is a fate in this,
+it can not be denied. I am * * * *, whom you have been searching for
+these three years. My fate brought me to Erzeroom, and now I am taken
+up for stealing one poor horse. I felt when I took that horse that
+I was fated to die for it. My time is come. It is fate.' And he went
+to be hung without any complaint."
+
+I said he deserved it, and hoped others would take warning by his
+death.
+
+"I hope they will," the Pasha said, "but among the Koords of this
+country there are so few who do not deserve punishment, that if you see
+two persons you may be sure that one has stolen something. You can not
+see two people together here but that at least one has been a thief."
+
+"Well," I answered, "the British commissioners are two people whom
+your excellency has often seen together, but I hope, in our case,
+when we leave the pashalik of Erzeroom, we may be convicted of having
+stolen nothing but your good opinion;" and so I took my leave.
+
+In the evening, hearing that the wife of the oda bashi was in my house,
+I said to Paolo Cadelli, my servant, that my desire to liberate the
+Armenian was changed; that he had not been tortured, but he was a
+thief. "How!" said Paolo, in a great state of excitement; "a thief
+he may be, but tortured he certainly was, for in the morning did I
+not go forth into the bazaar to get wrappers (pestimal) of Persian
+silk? I went to the Bezestein, and there did I not see the chief of
+the criers of the Bit Bazaar? he is my friend. Did I not get from
+him the embroidery, the cloth of gold which you have, which is in
+your room? And we went, did we not go together, to the court of
+the palace of the Pasha? It is opposite, is it not opposite to the
+entrance of the Bezestein? Do not the soldiers present arms to you
+there when you go in? Yes. There I went, and I saw the Armenian,
+a poor devil--quite a poor devil--sitting down like a monkey,
+altogether quite stupid with fear and martyrdom. They had martyred
+him; they had drawn his teeth; his finger-ends and toes were black,
+by reason of the canes they had run into them; his thighs had been
+torn by pincers; he was half dead. He said to the people, 'What
+can I do? I am innocent; kill me; but I can not restore goods which
+I have not got.' Ah! he is a Christian. Is he not a Christian--an
+Armenian? That is what these Turks do. They have not tortured the
+soldiers who are guilty. Certainly they have not, but this man has
+been tortured because he is an Armenian. They are Turks, my master
+(padrone); are they not Turks? They are all Turks; that is what they
+do;" and with many ejaculations Paolo went away to cool down his
+indignation in the open air.
+
+I was surprised at this account. Yesterday, August 5, * * * Pasha
+came to breakfast, and I begged him to find out the truth. In the
+afternoon I was at Enveri Effendi's house; * * * Pasha was there,
+and he said the man had not been tortured; that the account given
+me by Kiamili Pasha was correct; that the man was out of prison,
+but that the Pasha would seek for him and send him to me.
+
+I heard that, after I went to the Pasha, the Pasha sent for the
+Kiaya, and finding the oda bashi had been tortured, he found great
+fault with him, and ordered the man to be released the next day. He is
+sentenced, as he understands, to pay the half of the value of the goods
+stolen. While I was with the Pasha, the Tophenkyi Bashi was enraged
+with this poor victim for getting the assistance of the Franks, as
+he thought that we were come to the Pasha on his account, whereas our
+visit was on public business in no way connected with this affair. It
+appears that while we were sitting on the divan in the Pasha's hall
+of audience, the Tophenkyi Bashi was employed during the same time
+in inflicting additional torments on the unfortunate oda bashi; he
+snapped his pistol at his head, and informed him that the Pasha had
+given orders that he was to be hanged in the course of the day. The oda
+bashi, after we had rescued him from his various tormentors, presented
+himself before me. He was a good-looking man, about thirty-five
+years of age, with a black beard, and respectably dressed in blue,
+in the style usually adopted by the Armenian Christians. He said
+he had been tortured by the order of the Kiaya Bey; the bones were
+put to his temples, some of his teeth drawn, his nails pierced, his
+left thigh torn with pincers; he was hung up by the arms by ropes,
+but the hot cup was not placed upon his head. He showed me the marks
+of the pincers and other scars about his body--evident proofs of the
+truth of his assertion. The two soldiers who were convicted of having
+stolen the goods (the oda bashi being entirely ignorant of the whole
+transaction) were to be brought before the Council on the following
+Monday. They are now in prison, and will be sentenced to pay the
+other half of the value of the stolen goods. This information the
+oda bashi received from the merchant Mehemed, the owner of the lost
+property. He has not heard any other particulars about the soldiers.
+
+From the above account it appears that much injustice may probably
+be carried on by the inferior officers of the government which never
+gets to the ears of the Pasha, small officials being notoriously
+more tyrannical than greater men. The Pasha himself appears to be a
+kind-hearted, well-intentioned man in a general way; but, in cases
+where his own interest is not directly concerned, he does not look
+into the affairs of the pashalik with sufficient keenness to prevent
+his subordinate officers from practicing various acts of oppression
+and extortion, according to the fashion of the good old times, when
+Turkey, like the United States of America, was a land of liberty,
+where every free and independent citizen had the right to beat his own
+nigger; for, according to some doctors of the law, pashas, vizirs, &c.,
+might cut off a few heads every day for no given reason, but just for
+amusement. The Sultan had the privilege of destroying fourteen lives
+per day of his faithful subjects, who might have committed no crime;
+after that number, some reason was expected to be shown for the further
+use of the sword and bow-string on that day. Now the case is altered:
+fewer crimes are committed in Turkey than in London, and the Turkish
+pashas endeavor to stop such practices as are considered discreditable
+on the part of the inferior officers; though they have to contend with
+great difficulties in a country where it is hardly possible to get at
+the truth, and where the inferior officers have for generations been
+accustomed to plunder those below them, directly they are out of sight
+of the higher authorities; trusting to the want of communication,
+the slight knowledge of writing, and the many obstacles in the way
+which prevent the poor man's story getting to the ears of the Pasha
+or the Sultan, who, in these days at least, are anxious to remedy
+such abuses, and to distribute justice with a tolerably impartial
+hand. I had great satisfaction in hearing afterward that, owing to my
+exertions in this and other cases--the good cause being taken up warmly
+by Colonel Williams, after I was gone--all torture was authoritatively
+abolished in the pashalik of Erzeroom; and I am in hopes that, except
+in some snug little dungeon in the rocky castle of a half independent
+Koordish chief, this horrible custom is almost extinct.
+
+The Koord above mentioned was hanged in so original a manner that
+I must shortly describe it, as it took place immediately under my
+window. What we called at school a cat-gallows was erected close to a
+bridge, over the little stream which ran down the horse-market, between
+my house and the bottom of the hill of the citadel. The culprit stood
+under this; the cross-beam was not two feet above his head; a kawass,
+having tied a rope to one end of the beam, passed a slip-knot round
+the neck of the Koord, a young and very handsome man, with long black
+hair; he then drew the rope over the other end of the beam, and pulled
+away till the poor man's feet were just off the ground, when he tied
+the rope in a knot, leaving the dead body hanging, supported by two
+ropes in the form of the letter V. Hardly any one was looking on,
+and in the afternoon the body was taken down and buried.
+
+I shall always consider this case as a remarkable instance of the
+power of fatalism over the mind of an ignorant and superstitious
+man. This Koord was entirely the cause of his own execution: no
+one knew him by sight at Erzeroom, and there was not the slightest
+necessity for his declaring his name to the Pasha, and confessing
+that he had committed murders and outrages of all kinds among the
+villages of Koordistaun. His punishment for stealing a horse would not
+have been very severe, and, but for his voluntary admission that he
+was a notorious malefactor, for whom the police had long been on the
+look-out, he might have been alive to this day, to rob and murder, till
+somebody shot him, or he became too old for the exertion. Fatalism,
+in other cases, has a powerful influence over the true believers in
+the armies of Islam. The soldier goes to battle with the firm belief
+that, if his hour is not come, the cannon of the enemy can have no
+power over him; and that if his hour is arrived, the angel of death
+will call him, whether he may be seated on his divan, or walking in
+full health in his garden at home: just as readily does he bow his
+head to fate in one place as in another. By this institution of the
+Koran, the wonderful genius of Mohammed has gained many a victory by
+the hands of his trusting and believing followers for the caliphs
+and sultans of his creed. Some of the reforms of Sultan Mahmoud,
+by treating lightly many of the ancient prejudices of the Osmanlis,
+have shaken the throne under his feet. The progress of infidelity,
+which has begun at Constantinople, is the greatest temporal danger
+to the power of the Turkish empire. The Turk implicitly believes the
+tenets of his religion; he keeps its precepts and obeys its laws; he
+is proud of his faith, and prays in public when the hour of prayer
+arrives. How different, alas! is the manner in which the divine
+laws of Christianity are kept! The Christian seems ashamed of his
+religion; as for obeying the doctrines of the Gospel, they have no
+perceptible effect upon the mass of the people, among whom drunkenness,
+dishonesty, and immorality prevail almost unchecked, except by the
+fear of punishment in this world; while in Turkey not one tenth part
+of the crime exists which is annually committed in Christendom.
+
+A few days after this occurrence, as I was sitting in the summer
+chamber at the top of the house, I heard a most extraordinary shuffling
+and screeching behind the curtain which hung over the door; the curtain
+shook about, and numerous subdued voices and noises were heard, which
+sounded like cocks and hens suffering from strangulation. I shouted
+out to know what in the world was going on; after a while the kawass
+drew aside the curtain, and along the floor advanced a most strange
+and incomprehensible procession of several women and men, crawling
+on their hands and knees, each with a cock or a hen in their hands,
+whose fluttering, and screaming, and crowing now broke forth in full
+chorus; one or two got away, and flew about the room, as its owner,
+making use of her hands to walk with, was unable to hold the terrified
+fowl. This procession advanced to the divan, and, without saying a
+word, the foremost woman seized hold of one of my legs, which was
+inadvertently sticking out, and, holding on to my ankle, kissed my
+foot, and burst out into a string of exclamations in Armenian, no one
+word of which made any impression on my understanding. Being horribly
+alarmed, I kicked as well as I could, and, having escaped into the
+remotest corner of the divan, I begged to know what all this portended;
+and on the chickens being caught, and comparative silence obtained,
+I found that these were the family of the poor oda bashi, who had
+brought the chickens as a present, and came with tears to thank me
+for saving their father, brother, or husband. They were really pained,
+poor people, when I would not accept the cocks and hens, for, though
+of little value, it looked like receiving a bribe for justice; and,
+after a long explanation of my strange notions, they walked off in
+smiles upon their hind legs, the cocks crowing triumphantly on their
+way down stairs.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+    The Clock of Erzeroom.--A Pasha's Notions of Horology.--Pathology
+    of Clocks.--The Tower and Dungeon.--Ingenious Mode of Torture.--The
+    modern Prison.
+
+
+In the citadel--a place which might, with great ease, be rendered very
+strong, but which now is deserted and disused, having, I believe,
+been knocked to pieces in the Russian war--there are still two
+or three curious ancient tombs and some other incomprehensible
+old buildings. The building containing the prison, which was in
+constant use in the good old times, and the tower, from whence the
+flag of Turkey is displayed, possessed an old clock, which had been
+out of order for many years before the Russians carried it away,
+but which was the wonder and admiration of all Koords, Armenians,
+and strangers from the mountains, to whom time was "no object," and
+who considered this old clock, with its dial and hands, as some sort
+of talisman beyond the comprehension of ordinary folks. Erzeroom was
+indeed lifted up in the estimation of those unsophisticated herdsmen
+and robbers, as the only place they ever heard of where any thing in
+the nature of a clock was to be seen. It might happen that some few of
+those who not only were possessed of such an outlandish article as a
+watch, but who were in some measure initiated into the uses of that
+strange production, would expatiate learnedly in the coffee-houses
+on the wondrous properties of the great talisman in the tower of the
+citadel, which, in all probability, from its great size and exalted
+position, was considered as the father of all the little watches of
+the sheikhs and chiefs among the tribes. As for the clock not going,
+that signified but little. Talleyrand said that speech was accorded to
+man for the purpose of enabling him to conceal his sentiments. The big
+clock had doubtless his reasons for holding his tongue, and telling
+no lies; I believe his reputation was increased by his silence, as is
+the case among many other distinguished characters besides the clock
+of Erzeroom. Now it came to pass, once upon a time, that the great
+Pasha or viceroy of the wide realms of this great pashalik chanced to
+be a philosopher; he knew that clocks, though they might have been
+made to sell, besides this very primary quality, also ought to go,
+but no artificer in the land of Armenia was competent to accomplish
+this desirable end. Whenever a Frank traveler--not that there ever
+were any travelers by profession in those days--but whenever a Frank
+doctor or hakim made his appearance in those regions, he was always
+received with distinguished civility by the Pasha, who, after the
+preliminaries of coffee, Kef enis ayi--"may your powers of enjoyment
+be in good order!"--always ended with an expression of his desire
+that the Frank would immediately set about the repairs of the clock.
+
+"Sir, your excellency," said the poor man, "I am a doctor; I am not a
+watchmaker or a mechanic. I don't understand clocks; it is not in my
+power to set the clock right; it is not in my line of business. I am
+very sorry, but, O Effendim, I fear I am unable to meet your wishes
+in this point."
+
+"Dog of a Frank," quoth the Pasha, "great-grandfather's uncle to
+all dogs, more particularly those of Frangistaun, is it not thy base
+profession to meddle with the bowels of mankind? canst thou not expel
+ginns, and evil spirits, and other things, which have taken up their
+abode in the innermost recesses of the bodies of true believers, which
+thine eye can not penetrate, while, nevertheless, thou turnest their
+livers upside down, and their souls inside out; and all this by the
+accursed aid of thy wretched Frankish incantations; shooting thine
+arrows at them, or rather sending down their throats certain wicked
+and diabolical contrivances, which are known by the barbarians of thy
+benighted country by the name of pills? Dost thou pretend to see all
+that is going on in the stomach of a follower of the Prophet, and wilt
+thou tell me with the same breath that thou canst not administer to
+the disorganized constitution of a clock? Hath not a clock a pulse,
+when he is alive and in good health? Go thou, feel his pulse, and see
+whether it is fast or slow; whatever thou mayest want, thou shalt have;
+my hakim bashi shall assist you, only cure the clock. All Franks make
+clocks: I have it from authority: do not pretend that thou canst not
+set the clock going again, for surely thou canst restore it to life,
+and make it strike, and do all that it ought to do. Behold, thou
+art a Frank! Guards! take the Frank up into the tower, and make him
+mend the clock; and if the unbelieving dog will not mend the clock,
+then put him into the dungeon down below till he confesses that he
+is ready to do as he is commanded by the Pasha of the true believers."
+
+In this way every audience concluded. The unlucky Frank, having been
+exalted to the top of the tower, and exhorted to repair the rickety old
+clock, which had lost half its works, was debased into the dungeon,
+there to remain till further notice. Having often heard this story
+of the good old times, I one day proceeded to the citadel to see
+the tower where the clock had been, and to examine the dungeon,
+where I should have been sent if I had arrived at Erzeroom fifty
+or sixty years ago. This dungeon really was a dungeon: any thing so
+terrible as an abode for a human being I never saw before. The pozzi
+at Venice were rather pleasant and agreeable places of retirement,
+compared with the abode of many a poor Frank, in whose education the
+art and craft of clockology had been unfortunately omitted.
+
+At the foot of that which had been the clock-tower was a range of
+small low rooms, of which two were particularly belonging to the
+prison: the outer room of the two was larger than the other; this
+was appropriated to the guards, who kept watch and ward, and who
+fed, or did not feed, the wretched prisoners under their care. The
+inner room was small and low, and had one window, through which the
+light and air had to struggle with the opposition of heavy crossed
+and re-crossed iron bars. The window looked into the castle yard,
+but the room was so dark that I could hardly see my way.
+
+"A horrible place for the poor prisoners," said I to my guides;
+"little chance of their escape from these thick walls, and heavy bars,
+and low, strong roof; they must have been safe enough here."
+
+"Oh Effendim," said the kawasses, "this is not the prison. Here is
+the prison at your feet, down below."
+
+"Where?" said I.
+
+"Look down," they replied, "on the middle of the floor; there is the
+entrance; you can not see the dungeon itself, for it is, perhaps,
+a little dark."
+
+In the centre of the floor of this dismal cell was a heavy wrought-iron
+grating, square, made of great bars, about six inches apart, seemingly
+of enormous weight, lying on the ground, and fastened down with two or
+three huge rusty padlocks on one side, and some lumbering old hinges
+on the other. This iron grate was opened and raised up for my especial
+edification, and there appeared under it the mouth of a narrow well cut
+in the rock, perhaps two feet and a half in diameter, which sank down
+into the darkness far below. "Now," said my informants, "if you stand
+on this side, and look steadily till your eye is accustomed to the
+gloom, you will be able to distinguish something white a good way down;
+that is a square stone, like a table, in the middle of the vault, upon
+which the jailers let down the provisions for the prisoners, as they
+can see on that stone when the things arrive at the bottom." This was
+the old dungeon, the common prison not many years ago; but, I believe,
+since the reign of Hadji Kiamili Pasha, few or none had been consigned
+to this horrible abode. The shape of it below, I understood, was that
+of the inside of a bottle; it was between twenty and thirty feet deep;
+vermin, dirt and filth, and foul air, formed its only furniture; and
+into this awful hole many and many an innocent man had been let down:
+some to be brought up again to pay a ransom of all that they possessed,
+some to linger there for years, and some to die and rot unnoticed
+if no food was provided for them by government, when their bones,
+if not their flesh, gave token to the next inhabitants of what they
+were to expect, unless their interest or their wealth was greater
+than that of the poor wretch whose remains lay there before them.
+
+An ingenious and horrible species of torture was sometimes added to
+the discomforts of this dread abode: a large piece of raw flesh was
+thrown down into the dungeon; the vermin, and the effluvia which it
+produced, added to other miseries, made the existence of the wretched
+prisoner almost intolerable.
+
+The modern prison is bad enough: it consists of a number of cells
+opening on a small paved court-yard. The prisoners, being just shoved
+through the door, have to shift for themselves inside, where a kind of
+Pandemonium exists; the stronger Koords bullying and tyrannizing over
+the weaker felons, who have neither fire nor candle during the intense
+cold of a great part of the year: so I was told; but I was not there
+in the winter, and hope these unhappy wretches may be allowed a little
+tezek occasionally to keep their dirty bodies and souls together.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+    Spring in Erzeroom.--Coffee-house Diversions.--Koordish
+    Exploits.--Summer Employment.--Preparation of Tezek.--Its Varieties
+    and Uses.
+
+
+When the snows of winter have melted, and the air becomes more
+temperate, the population of Erzeroom begin to revive. The women and
+children, who, like the bears, lemmings, and marmottes, have hybernated
+all the winter, now peep with red eyes out of their subterranean
+habitations; those streets situated upon hills, as most of them are,
+become torrents of melted snow, which cut deep ravines through the
+frozen mass which is piled up many feet on each side; narrow paths
+are gradually dug out from the low doors of the Armenian man-burrows
+toward the central river of the street; the winking children creep out
+to blink their eyes at the sun, and enjoy the fresh air; fusty cows,
+who have been buried for eight months, come slowly staring out; every
+now and then a more adventurous infant is carried away by the stream,
+and its body quickly devoured by the ravenous dogs at the outskirts
+of the town; wolves, it is said, though I never saw one, prowl about,
+and eat the dog that ate the child, that came out to see the weather
+so mild, in the street by the house that (not) Jack built. Women now
+scream to each other in shrill voices, as they pitch down large wooden
+spadefuls of half-melted snow upon the heads of those who are passing
+in the street; knots of Tartars, Circassians, and Lazes, and Koords,
+in iron-heeled boots and white woolen trowsers, tell lies to each other
+at the doors of the coffee-houses, which are answered with dignified
+exclamations of Wullah! Billah! nobody believing his neighbor's lie,
+but considering straightway how he can invent a deliberate falsehood
+to lay before the other liars in his turn. Every now and then one of
+these stories is true, when a cadaverous-looking Koord, hung round
+with arms and leaning on his lance, with the black ostrich feathers at
+the top, being a practical man with very little imagination, coolly
+relates the history of the sacking of a defenseless village, where
+murder unresisted, rapine, sacrilege in the burning of the mosque,
+and spearing the children who run shrieking from the flames of their
+homes, bear with it the impress of truth, with the conviction on
+the part of any honest man (if there should be one in the party)
+that, although the rest are liars, the only truthful narrator is a
+brute of that atrocious kind, that the falsehoods of the rest are
+trifles, like chaff before the wind, in comparison with the real and
+true experiences of this infernal child of hell. Such as this are
+the Koords; their only virtue is that they are not cowards; but,
+although they subscribe to a nominal adherence to the Mohammedan
+religion, the most liberal Imaum would be ashamed to own them. The
+Yezedis, who worship the devil, are angels in comparison. Yet they
+are superstitious to a curious degree, as the foregoing anecdote of
+the Koord who was hung through giving evidence about himself testifies.
+
+At the commencement of the summer the whole city of Erzeroom is
+engaged, even to desperation, in making tezek; you hear, smell, and
+see nothing else. How are you off for tezek? Tezek katch, chok tezek,
+tezek var bourda chok, chok, evet, tezek Effendim, katch gooroosh:
+in short, no one cares for any thing except tezek, and he who has
+most tezek is the greatest man, and he who has but little tezek he is
+naught--no one cares for him, or, indeed, for any thing else except
+the one absorbing topic of tezek.
+
+The cows, and bulls, and oxen having reappeared on upper earth,
+the Augean stable is cleared out. Tezek, the only fuel of Erzeroom,
+consists of the production into which the said oxen have converted
+their food for many months; it is trodden down hard, and is dug out by
+zealous Armenians, and brought exultingly to the tops of the houses;
+it is mixed with a good deal of the chopped straw with which horses,
+and oxen, and sheep are fed while in the subterranean stables; more
+chopped straw is added, mixed with water; and, except the higher
+class of grandees, such as the Pasha, the commander-in-chief, and
+the author, all true men were employed on the tops of their houses,
+treading the chopped straw into the tezek with their naked feet, their
+full Turkish trowsers being pulled up and tied with a belt round their
+waists. With a stick to lean upon, they are there all day, trotting
+about, up to their knees in tezek, shouting to each other; Mohammed
+bringing some more water to pour upon it; Hassan staggering up the
+ladder with more tezek of the genuine unadulterated kind from the
+recesses of the stable; Bekir with a great basket of chopped straw;
+and then all set to with a will, and tread steadily for an hour or
+two, as sailors do round a capstan, for the dear life; and when they
+get very hot they wipe their brow with a tezeky sleeve, and their
+sleeve with a fold of a tezeky trowser, so that they become altogether
+tezekious before the sun sets upon their labors, and veils his nose,
+if not his eyes, under the clouds which hang over the eternal snows in
+the dreaded passes of the mountains of Hoshabounar. The tezek being
+trodden into a stiff clayey state, about six or seven inches thick,
+is left alone for a day or two to dry; amateurs, however, scrambling up
+to the top of the house to see how it is going on, to pick a bit off,
+and look at it cunningly, and smell it, to find whether it has the true
+flavor. There are Armenians who are knowing in tezek, who understand
+the thing; and over a remarkably good batch a knot of the fancy will
+sit on little stools, and smoke their pipes, and discuss the question
+scientifically; telling tales of former celebrated heaps, and of Hadji
+such a one, who was famous in that line, and of one Bokchi Bashi,
+who had an astonishing talent in the preparation of inimitable tezek.
+
+When it is all ready, it is dug out in square blocks, and carried
+down the ladders again carefully in open baskets, and piled up in
+the inner treasuries below, and stored for the fuel of the future
+winter. It is better for being old, when it resembles peat turf. It
+gets somewhat dusty in a year or so, and then rivals that sort of
+snuff called Irish blackguard in its capacity for making you sneeze,
+if you venture to move a clod of it to put upon the fire; it then
+burns clear and clean, without flame, and is very hot; but when more
+fresh--though that is not the word--more new, I may say--it produces a
+thick stifling smoke, very odoriferous, and not generally appreciated
+by those who do not love tezek for itself, or who are not at that
+time maneuvering to make you purchase an astounding bargain of the
+precious fuel of their own particular manufacture.
+
+Erzeroom is not alone in the production of this article of
+merchandise. From thence through the whole of Tartary as we call it, or
+Turkistaun as they call it, this fuel is in universal use as far as the
+Great Wall of China. Great care is taken sometimes in the production
+of it for various artistic purposes. In Thibet it is called arghol,
+and in the very remarkable travels of M. Huc, it is related that that
+which comes from sheep and goats is more valuable for the purpose
+of smelting iron and other metals, as it gives a greater heat, and,
+instead of leaving any ash, melts into a vitreous mass of a bluish
+green color. I never saw any of this myself, though it may have been
+used at Erzeroom, for this place was lately famous for the workmanship
+in iron and steel by seven brothers, whose productions are valuable
+under the name of Yedi Kartasch, as Manton added a value to those guns
+to which his name was affixed. The tezek of oxen and cows ranks next;
+that of horses and donkeys last, from the quantity of smoke produced
+by it; that of the oxen, with the slightest possible flavor of donkey,
+was certainly most fashionable at Erzeroom.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+    The Prophet of Khoi.--Climate.--Effects of great Elevation
+    above the Sea.--The Genus Homo.--African Gold-diggings.--Sale
+    of a Family.--Site of Paradise.--Tradition of Khosref
+    Purveez.--Flowers.--A Flea-antidote.--Origin of the Tulip.--A Party
+    at the Cave of Ferhad, and its Results.--Translation from Hafiz.
+
+
+The atmospheric peculiarities of this climate are such, that the
+weather, as a general rule, may be considered as on the way from bad
+to worse. Earthquakes more or less severe are often felt. A severe
+one occurred in the year 1843, and in the same year the town of
+Khoi was almost entirely destroyed by one of these awful convulsions
+of nature. A circumstance occurred on that occasion which was very
+remarkable, if true. A dervish or fakir of distinguished sanctity felt
+himself about to die, and, calling his friends and disciples around
+the couch of skins on which he lay, he prophesied that a terrible
+disaster was about to fall upon the town of Khoi; that the lives
+of many would fall into the hands of Monkir and Nakir on that day;
+but that those faithful believers who accompanied his body to the
+tomb would be permitted to escape from the sword of the avenging
+angel for his sake. The old man died, and, being held in universal
+reverence, the greater part of the inhabitants of Khoi followed his
+corpse to the burial-ground, which was situated at some distance from
+the town. While absent on this pious errand, a tremendous earthquake
+suddenly reduced the city to ruin. So complete was the destruction
+that hardly a house was left standing, and many of those who had
+remained at home perished in the fall of their habitations, while
+those who had accompanied the body of the dervish to the grave were
+saved from the disaster, as he had prophesied.
+
+This is a wonderful story; I heard it at the time, and was very much
+struck with the peculiar circumstances of the case. Its accuracy would
+be difficult either to prove or to disprove, but the history as I
+have narrated it was current at the time when the earthquake happened.
+
+Pillars of dust, like those of sand seen in the deserts of Africa
+and Arabia, are supposed to be the works of evil spirits, and
+often stalk like giants across the plain. The deep narrow valleys
+and ravines which slope down from the elevated plateau of Erzeroom,
+are unhealthy and pestilential in the extreme, while the inhabitants
+of the upper country enjoy good health enough. Here the corn returns
+about five-fold to the labor of the sower: one being retained for seed,
+four bushels is the extent of the profit of the husbandman for one
+which he had sown. The summer, though very short, is hot and parching,
+the thermometer being usually about 84, though it rises occasionally,
+I think, to nearly 90. The cold in winter is commonly 16 degrees below
+zero of Fahrenheit, and is often colder. The mercury in my thermometer,
+which was not calculated for such a climate, quietly retired into
+the ball in the autumn, and never came out again while I remained at
+Erzeroom. The great height of the town above the sea was exemplified
+in a practical manner to me on my first arrival. I was in a state
+of constant wrath about the tea: the tea was excellent, of the very
+best quality, but the decoction thereof was always a failure. In
+vain was the kettle placed upon the fire by my side; in vain did
+the semavar, the best of tea-urns, boil and steam. Double, double,
+toil and trouble! the fire burned and the caldron bubbled, but the
+tea was vapid. As for the eggs, I don't know how long it took to boil
+them till the white was fixed. The reason of all this only occurred
+to me one day when I put my finger into some almost boiling water,
+which by no means scalded me--for water boiled at 196° of Fahrenheit,
+as we were between 7000 and 8000 feet above the level of the sea;
+and, consequently, though boiling and steaming away, it was not hot
+enough to produce the effects of water boiling at the heat of 212°,
+which is the temperature at which it boils in London.
+
+Nature has provided a kettle of her own, in a hot spring at Elijé,
+near which place I was informed that there was a rock against which
+iron stuck of its own accord--a rock of loadstone; but I never had
+an opportunity of verifying this report.
+
+The natural history of the highlands of Armenia is particularly
+interesting, and rich in flowers hardly known to Europeans, and in the
+prodigious quantities of birds which breed on the plain of Erzeroom,
+and in the valleys and water-courses of the neighborhood.
+
+The quadrupeds are not numerous; the climate is too rigorous for those
+not provided with thick furs to protect them from the tremendous cold.
+
+The fish consist only of a sort of barbel, which is found in the
+high waters of the Euphrates, and of three kinds of trout, swarming
+in the lesser streams and rivulets which flow down from the snowy
+mountain-tops.
+
+To commence with the highest order of mammalia: some extraordinary
+specimens of the genus Homo are to be met with in many parts of the
+East, generally in the character of Frank doctors. Erzeroom was not
+wanting in productions of this kind. The character of these adventurers
+is in every instance precisely alike: they are all sharp and so-called
+clever men, speaking several languages correctly, with a smattering of
+general knowledge, but understanding nothing perfectly, and all wanting
+in the same two qualities--judgment and principle, the consequence of
+which want is, that not one in a hundred succeeds in life, and, after
+passing through a series of strange changes of fortune, they usually
+die unlamented, as poor as when they began their erratic career.
+
+The adventures of one old gentleman, with whom I was acquainted here,
+was so extraordinary and uncommon, that a history of them would fill a
+volume. After this man's death, it appeared that he was not himself,
+but somebody else; and his true name being the same as that of a
+person I had met, many years before, at Wadi Halfa, or at Assouan,
+high up the Nile, made me suspect that these two persons were the
+same. One half of this character certainly died in a khan at Erzeroom;
+but as I do not know whether the other half is dead, or whether the
+two were really one or not, I must forbear the strange narration of
+their lives, for fear something might meet the eyes of their friends
+or relations--if they had any--who, perhaps, may be under the pleasing
+delusion that their respected relative was an honor to their name.
+
+I must, however, relate a little anecdote of the Egyptian half
+of my acquaintance. At Assouan, below the Cataracts, I saw
+an extraordinary-looking boat, built of bits of hard wood, like
+iron-wood, each about two feet long, caulked or cemented in the
+seams with reeds and mud, precisely in the manner in which the
+ancient boats are represented in the hieroglyphics. This strange
+vessel was of large size, and was navigated by a crew of blacks,
+of a tribe with which I was not acquainted. The proprietor of the
+ship was dressed in a much worn and old-fashioned Turkish dress; his
+cabin was carpeted with lion-skins; his cushions were the skins of
+some small deer, stuffed. He was very civil, and spoke in the French
+language to me, while he gave his orders to his servants in a dialect
+which bore little resemblance to Arabic, but which belonged to some
+distant region of the interior of Africa, where he had been living
+many years. His personal servants were the handsomest negroes I had
+ever seen: though they were dressed as men, I found they were girls;
+one, who was beautiful, was his wife. He was an interesting personage,
+and appeared on friendly terms with his black attendants, who looked
+forward with great glee to the wondrous sights which they were to see
+at Cairo. After listening to some curious stories of the manners and
+customs of the black nations of the interior, unknown to Europeans,
+he showed me three or four strongly-made iron-bound chests, which,
+on being opened, proved to be full of gold, to the amount of some
+thousands of pounds; some was in nuggets, but most part of it was
+in the form of rings the size of bracelets, and others the size of
+large heavy finger-rings, all of pure gold. These rings were passed
+as money, and were of the exact form of those used for the same
+purpose by the ancient Egyptians, and of the rings found in Celtic
+and British tombs. Independent of their intrinsic value, they were
+exceedingly curious; and he said gold might be procured in great
+quantities in the mountains beyond Darfoor. Here, then, is an opening
+for some future diggings, and an object to promote discoveries in the
+centre of Africa. My informant was a European, of the same nation and
+the same name as the person whom I met at Erzeroom, but I now doubt
+whether the two were or were not the same. Some time afterward I made
+inquiries at Cairo about this singular adventurer, when I heard that
+he had sold his strange vessel, his wife, his servants, and his crew,
+to their astonishment and dismay, for they did not consider themselves
+as slaves, and he had taken his departure for Europe with his gold
+rings and the produce of the sale of his confiding family.
+
+It may not be generally known that Erzeroom is supposed to be the
+site of the terrestrial paradise. The reason of this supposition is
+deduced from the fact of so many great and famous rivers taking their
+rise in this exalted region.
+
+About three hours from Erzeroom, passing the ancient monastery of
+Kuzzul Vank, on the way to Tortoom and Kars, a rocky top of a mountain
+rises about two thousand feet above the plain, and consequently
+about ten thousand feet above the level of the sea. Standing on one
+spot upon this mountain, the traveler can see the sources, beneath
+his feet, of the Euphrates, the Araxes, and the river which falls
+into the Black Sea in the pestilential neighborhood of Batoum; one
+river falling into the Persian Gulf, one into the Caspian, and one
+into the Black Sea. The traditions of the country relate that the
+flowers of paradise bloomed in luxuriant splendor in this now barren
+region till the days of Khosref Purveez. This mighty Persian monarch,
+"the Great King," was encamped upon the banks of the Euphrates, on
+the plains of Erzeroom, when a messenger arrived from the Prophet
+Mohammed, then an insignificant pretender, offering this magnificent
+sovereign protection if he would give up the religion of his fathers
+and embrace the faith of Islam. Khosref Purveez, in derision, threw the
+letter from the prophet into the waters of the river, when Nature, in
+dismay, withered all her trees and flowers, and the bounteous stream,
+which formerly bestowed wealth and abundance to the country on its
+shores, shrank into its bed, and, refusing to fertilize the earth,
+cold, and frost, and barrenness have been ever since the consequence
+of the impiety of the Persian king: not only this, but the days of his
+ancient empire were numbered; and in the days of Yesdijird, a few years
+after this event, the blacksmith's apron, the victorious standard of
+Persia, fell into the hands of the Mohammedan general, at the great
+battle of Kudseah, where the sun of Persia set to rise no more.
+
+Among the rocks, not far from Erzeroom, is an artificial cavern, hewn
+out of the mountain side by Ferhad, the successful rival of Khosref in
+the affections of the beautiful Shireen. It was here--or others say at
+Beysittoon--that Ferhad threw himself from the precipice on hearing
+the false intelligence that Shireen was dead; and that famous beauty
+herself died on seeing the remains of the mighty Khosref, who had been
+murdered by his own son Schiroueh out of jealousy and love for her.
+
+From the tops of the mountains surrounding Erzeroom the snowy summit
+of Mount Ararat can be seen--another monument in the history of the
+cradle of the human race, and at its feet the town of Nackchevan was
+built by Noah, on his descent from the ark. This was the first city
+built by man after the Flood, according to Armenian, and I think also
+Mohammedan, tradition.
+
+Some slight remains of paradise are left, even to our days, in the
+form of the most lovely flowers, which I gathered on the very hill
+from whence the three rivers take their departure to their distant
+seas. Though one of them has a Latin scientific name, no plant of
+it has ever been in Europe, and by no manner of contrivance could
+we succeed in carrying one away. This most beautiful production
+was called in Turkish, Yedi kartash kané (Seven brothers' blood),
+in Latin, Ravanea, or Philipea coccinea, a parasite on absinthe,
+or worm-wood. This is the most beautiful flower conceivable: it is
+in the form of a lily, about nine to twelve inches long, including
+the stalk; the flower and stalk, and all parts of it, resembling
+crimson velvet; it has no leaves; it is found on the sides of the
+mountains near Erzeroom, often in company with the Morena Orientalis,
+a remarkable kind of thistle, with flowers all up the stalk, looking
+and smelling like the honeysuckle. Another beautiful flower found
+here has not been described. It grows among rocks, and has a tough
+carroty root, two feet or more in length; the leaves are long grassy
+filaments, forming a low bush, like a tussock of coarse grass; under
+the leaves appear the flowers. Each plant has twelve or twenty of them
+(like large white-heart cherries on a stalk), in the form of a bunch
+of grapes, eight or ten inches long; these flowers are merely colored
+bladders holding the seed. An iris, of a most brilliant flaming yellow,
+is found among the rocks, and it, as well as all the more remarkable
+flowers of this country, blooms in the spring soon after the melting
+of the snow--that is to say, about June.
+
+Piré otou, a herb, which is sold here in powder (Anthemis rosea,
+aut carnea), instantly kills fleas and other insects, and would be
+invaluable to travelers in warm climates. We possessed a certain
+little dog called Fundook (a nut), who held the important position of
+turnspit in our kitchen: he was a wise dog, with a look of dignity
+about him like a dog in office, and one that had something on his
+mind and knew more than he would say. He turned out his elbows and
+turned in his toes, and sat at the door in a solemn attitude when
+not employed on the business of the nation. In the pursuit of his
+vocation he became sadly vexed with fleas, and his dignity suffered
+from the necessity of scratching with his hind leg, just like a
+common, vulgar dog. Commiserating his condition, one of the grooms
+went to the expense of five paras (one farthing sterling), with
+which he purchased two good handfuls of powdered leaves of Piré otou,
+the effect of which was magical: in one minute every flea was dead,
+and Fundook swaggered into the kitchen quite a renovated dog.
+
+It may not be generally known that the tulip owes its origin to the
+blood of Ferhad, which was sprinkled on the ground when he threw
+himself from the rocks in despair, on hearing of the death of his
+glorious Shireen. In this story we see how one beautiful idea is
+copied and admired by mankind in the most distant regions, times, and
+circumstances, for this is the same tradition as that of the Anemone,
+which, in classic lore, arose from the blood of Adonis while Venus
+was weeping for his loss.
+
+Upon a day we gave a party at the cave of Ferhad; this was a rare
+function; parties were not common at Erzeroom.
+
+"When the Orient sun arose, and shed his golden beams o'er the
+snowy peaks of the mountains of the East, Apollo on that day must
+have reined in his steeds in wonder at the unwonted stir that was
+taking place at Erzeroom, as Aurora withdrew the purple veil of night
+from the features of fair mother Earth, refreshed with the slumbers
+she had enjoyed under the guardianship of Endymion. She of the rosy
+fingers doubtless started up in beautiful surprise at the bustle and
+the activity displayed beneath her gaze. Phoebus, not resisting the
+pleasure of curiosity, gazed down in all his glory on the Armenian
+plain, where horses neighed, and cattle lowed, and hasty marmitons
+laded ox-eyed oxen with bright coppers from the kitchen shelves;
+wains were there laden with wide tubs of cooling snow; cooks, in
+a perspiration, swore deep oaths; the voice official of Fundook was
+heard yelping and barking in the morning breeze, and under Sol's first
+rays a caravan set forth in long, dark outline, winding o'er the plain
+of Erzeroom." For the rest, see Homer, unpublished edition, cap. x.
+
+All the rank and fashion of the place were present; the rank rode on
+horseback, the fashion followed in a cart drawn by four oxen--this
+would sound better if it were called an araba--and therein was
+contained all the beauty of the city of Erzeroom. The distance may
+have been ten miles; some of the party got there in three quarters of
+an hour, and others arrived in an hour and three quarters. Among the
+distinguished guests were two philosophers, one of whom, having lately
+arrived in these unknown regions, was remarkable for the glorious
+colors of his waistcoat. This effulgent garment having been admired,
+the answer was returned in the following mysterious sentence, as I well
+remember, in a language unknown, as far as my knowledge is experienced,
+in any nation upon earth: "Zést mon vamme, gui ma tonné ze chilet." Our
+admiration of the chilet gave way before the announcement that the
+carriage and four was approaching the cave, and all sallied forth
+to receive the lovely damsels that it bore. Through many a quag,
+o'er many a rock, and many a jolt had those oxen drawn the araba
+for many a weary hour before they lay down in front of our cave; and
+now it was the happy lot of those who got there first to hand out of
+their carriage the admired beauties of Armenia. The carriage stopped,
+and we were in readiness, our feelings of politeness screwed up to
+the most perfect tone--
+
+
+        When the pie was opened,
+          The birds began to sing:
+        Wasn't that a dainty dish
+          To set before a king?
+
+
+But the birds did not come out--there was much to be done before
+that desired object was concluded: first, out came a cushion, then
+a feather-bed, and then a pretty girl; then another cushion, then
+another lovely damsel; then three or four more cushions, and another
+feather-bed, and then the prettiest little girl of all jumped upon
+the ground, half laughing and half smothered; for such dainty goods
+would have broken all to bits on those rough roads, if they had not
+been packed so carefully. The mother of the three graces accompanied
+them, and, the party being assembled, the great business of life
+commenced in earnest. Dolmas, and kieufté, and cabobs soon graced the
+board--not that there was any board, but it sounds well. "Viands,"
+that is, chickens, lamb stewed with quinces, and all manner of good
+things, appeared and disappeared, to the wonder of certain hungry
+Koords who happened to be passing, and who would have been run
+through with the spits, if not devoured by Fundook, our brave ally,
+if they had made a row. Corks from foreign bottles of champagne popped
+in brisk salute. Cooks and kawasses, grooms, arabagis, eiwasses,
+and heiwans followed the good example set them by their lords, and,
+"fruges consumere nati," did their best to follow the end of their
+creation. Then, and on that occasion only, did many a lantern-jawed,
+hook-nosed Koord imbibe the unknown potations of Frangistaun. Then,
+in glorious generosity, did the trusty marmiton dispense the bones
+of slaughtered lamb, drumsticks of fowl, and crust of pie, whereof
+repletion dire denied the power to partake. By staggering chiboukgis
+pipes were next produced, and fragrant coffee, served on salvers
+bright; and, on soft Persian carpets now reclined, the party enjoyed
+the scene before them, passing an agreeable afternoon in each other's
+society, accompanied, I thought, with some little flirtations between
+some of the company, which, I suspect, left pleasing recollections
+on their minds; for though I can not boast that any thing came of it
+that day, yet not long afterward two marriages were declared between
+some of those who assisted at the dinner in the cave of Ferhad; and
+the most anxious chaperon will acknowledge that that was as much as
+could be expected under the circumstances, seeing that there were
+but two unmarried ladies of the company.
+
+Afterward I found among my papers the following doleful ditty,
+purporting to be a translation of Hafiz, on the fertile Persian subject
+of Ferhad and Shireen; and as the reader is not obliged to read it
+unless he likes to do so, I subjoin it in memory of the day that I,
+for my part, passed so pleasantly with many agreeable companions
+in this unfrequented spot. The accompaniment to the air having been
+kindly undertaken by Fundook, the minstrel thus begins:
+
+
+
+    Hafiz, who pass'd his sunny hours
+      By the sweet stream of Mosellay,
+    Singing of vineyards and of flowers
+      To pass the fleeting time away,
+
+    Tells how the blood of Ferhad's wound
+      Had stain'd fair Nature's mantle green,
+    Sprinkling with ruddy spots the ground
+      Before the feet of fair Shireen.
+
+    The tulip from his blood arose
+      Beside her path in that sad hour.
+    Displaying how its leaves inclose
+      A goblet in each opening flower.
+
+    Then to the lips the goblet press,
+    Whose rim contains forgetfulness.
+
+    The vine, the glorious vine, arose,
+    Unscathed by crime, unchanged by woes,
+      Exulting in her charms;
+    Waving her tendrils in the breeze,
+    And clasping the rough, rugged trees
+      In her encircling arms.
+
+    With clustering grapes upon her brow,
+    Still as she binds each willing bough
+      Their welcome aid she gains;
+    On them she leans, but they confess
+    The power of her loveliness,
+      And glory in their chains.
+
+    Fill up the bright and sparkling bowl,
+    That cures the body, heals the soul.
+      No--be it not refused--
+    Hail to the vine! whose purple juice
+    Was sent on earth for mortals' use,
+      But not to be abused.
+
+    Still to the lips the goblet press,
+    Whose rim contains forgetfulness.
+
+    Forgetfulness, alas! 'tis this
+    That mortals hold the height of bliss
+      In this sad world of care;
+    For Memory through life retains
+    A catalogue of griefs and pains,
+      But little else is there.
+
+    Then to the lips the goblet press,
+    Whose rim contains forgetfulness.--Hafiz.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+    The Bear.--Ruins of a Genoese Castle.--Lynx.--Lemming.--Cara
+    Guz.--Gerboa.--Wolves.--Wild Sheep.--A hunting
+    Adventure.--Camels.--Peculiar Method of Feeding.--Degeneration
+    of domestic Animals.
+
+
+Of four-footed beasts, the most illustrious is the bear, of which
+there are a good many in the wooded sides of the mountains in the
+neighborhood of Kars. Near the strange, unearthly lake of Tortoom,
+I saw the fresh footprint of a real Ursa Major--a thundering old bear
+he must have been. He had only just departed, and the mark of one of
+his paws was large enough to hold more than both of mine. In another
+place I came upon the ruins of one of the string of Genoese castles
+which, in former days, reared up their lordly towers at distances of
+not more than eight or ten hours apart the whole way from Trebizond
+to Teflis. Their splendid ruins have been my admiration on many an
+imposing rock, frowning over an unknown valley. Even the names of
+most of these are lost, while we only know of the history of their
+founders that once upon a time there were such merchant princes. In
+the bottom of a broken turret a bear had taken lodgings, but he was
+not at home when I called. Others, not far off, on another hill, had
+given a small party, and had been amusing themselves by rolling about
+a piece of rock about five feet in diameter--a game of roulette, on a
+large scale, which showed their wondrous strength. The mud from their
+paws upon the stone was wet when I came up to join the party, but,
+perhaps luckily for me, they declined the honor of my acquaintance,
+and the society had broken up. Some sturdy peasants of Lazistaun,
+hearing of my partiality for strange creatures, brought me two
+young bears one day, who lived in our house for some time. They
+were very sensible, the she bear keeping her brother in remarkable
+order. They became very tame. They were, in some respects, different
+from the European bear, and of a light cinnamon color. I sent them to
+England. They were great favorites with the sailors on board ship,
+and arrived safely at the Tower Stairs, when some white paint being
+left out for the beautification of the vessel, the poor bears ate it
+all up, and not only died of the unwholesome feast, but the poison
+was so strong as to bring the fur off their skins, so that they could
+not be stuffed and immortalized in a glass case.
+
+After the bear the next animal is the lynx, the fur of whose belly is
+of the highest value in Turkey, while that of the back is worth very
+much less. These animals are not rare in Armenia, and Enveri Effendi
+prided himself on a splendid robe of this valuable fur, which he paid
+for by selling the skins of the backs of the lynxes at Constantinople
+for more than he had given for the precious under-fur at Erzeroom. The
+lynx is famed for the quickness of his sight, but Enveri Effendi had
+a sharper eye than he in all affairs relating to his own benefit.
+
+In the spring of the year, soon after the women and children, the
+lemmings come out, and sit upon their hind legs, and wipe their eyes
+with their fore-paws, and seem to wonder quietly at those who pass by,
+taking a header, or summerset, down their holes if you stop suddenly
+to look at these curious little beasts.
+
+A soft, cozy, fat little quadruped, called cara guz (black eyes), about
+the size of a young Guinea-pig, and much of the same shape--only his
+color is gray, and he has a most wonderfully soft coat--comes out,
+too, about this time. He is so fat that he can not walk very fast,
+and is easily taken, and in his captivity prefers almonds and raisins
+to any other bill of fare which I was able to put before him. This
+little fellow eats his breakfast, luncheon, dinner, and supper slowly
+and respectably, without testifying any alarm for mankind. I could
+not make out his scientific name; he is probably some kind of little
+marmotte, and he falls readily into the manners and habits of the
+society in which Providence has placed him.
+
+After cara guz, the gerboa comes out of his hole, and hops about on his
+long tail and hind legs; a miniature kangaroo, in whose acquaintance I
+have rejoiced in the burning deserts of Africa as well as in the frozen
+regions of the highlands of Erzeroom. In this country the number of
+quadrupeds is very limited; the fox is occasionally seen, as well as
+the gray beaver (kondooz), badgers, and wolves. At the melting of the
+snow the wolves come even into the towns, and devour the dogs with
+which every town is amply supplied. There are awful stories of their
+carrying off the little, peeping, blear-eyed children, who creep out
+of their holes in the beginning of spring, and who are occasionally
+washed away in the torrents of melted snow--the only washing attended
+to hereabouts. Wolves are not very unfrequently started out of the
+inside of one of the numerous dead horses, whose overworked bodies
+have been frozen into the consistency of flint during the winter,
+and which form savory banquets for the famished wolves when the snow
+and ice recede, and display these dainty morsels to their haggard eyes.
+
+The wild sheep frequent the inaccessible rocks of the lower mountains,
+where a scanty herbage may be browsed beneath the line of perpetual
+snow. No two animals can be more different, both in appearance and
+habits, than the wild and tame sheep. The wild sheep of Armenia (Ovis
+gemelli) is in size, shape, and color like the doe of the fallow-deer,
+only it has two short horns bending backward, like those of a goat. The
+strength and agility of this most nimble creature are astonishing;
+they are more difficult of approach than the chamois of the Alps. I
+have usually seen them in pairs, but was never able to get a shot. I
+brought three skins and several heads of this rare animal to Europe,
+out of which one stuffed specimen was made up in the British Museum;
+it is, I believe, the only one extant. The method employed to hunt
+this sheep is to climb to the highest summit of a mountain, and then,
+cautiously approaching the edges of the cliffs, to peep down with a
+telescope into the gorges and ravines below, where, if you have luck,
+you may see the sheep capering about on the ledges of the precipice,
+jumping, standing on a stone on their hind legs to reach a little tuft
+of herbage, and playing the most curious antics, for no perceptible
+reason, unless it is that they find their digestion improved by taking
+a considerable deal of exercise. In these gymnastics the hunter
+must participate to a great extent in following the tracks of the
+jumpingest creatures (excepting fleas) that he can ever have to deal
+with. It requires much activity, and a good head for looking over
+a height, to attempt to come up with them, and many a sad accident
+has occurred to the adventurous sportsman in this pursuit. I myself
+have been in some awkward situations: once particularly, having
+let myself down by the roots of a kind of juniper on the ledge of
+a tremendous precipice, I found there was no way further down, and,
+what was of more consequence, no way up again, for the roots of the
+stunted tree were above my reach. A hunter--a Laz, or a native of
+Lazistaun--was with me, and when we had done watching the two sheep
+scampering off out of shot below, we looked at the place we were on,
+and then in each other's faces in blank dismay. We were in the same
+scrape as the Emperor Maximilian got into in the Tyrol, near ... only
+there being no angels about in the mountains of Lazistaun, we had no
+expectation of being assisted by a spirited or a spiritual goatherd,
+as he was. After a good deal of pantomime, which would have puzzled
+any bird who might be wondering at our maneuvers--for we did not
+understand each other's language--we took off our boots, all our
+outer clothes, and our arms and rifles, and tied them in a bundle;
+then I planted myself firmly, with my face to the wall of the cliff,
+sticking my rifle into a crevice to give me more steadiness, and the
+hunter climbed carefully up my back on to my shoulders till he got
+hold of the roots of the tree; the tree shook, and plenty of stones
+and dirt fell upon my head, while the hunter scrambled into the trunk,
+and he was safe. He sat down a while to rest, and then hauled up the
+clothes and guns with our shawls that we had taken off from round our
+waists; a gentle qualm came over me at this moment, for fear he should
+be off with my, to him, very valuable spoils, and leave me in peace
+upon the shelf. But he was a true man, as a hunter generally is; so,
+after a variety of signs and gesticulations to each other as to how
+it was to be done, he lugged me up, first by the shawls, and then
+by hand, until I could reach the roots of the tree. Here there was
+only room for one, so he climbed higher, and, after some wonderful
+positions, struggles, kicks, and scrambling, I got back among the
+roots, then up the trunk of the old gnarled juniper, or whatever
+it was, and at last upon a slope, partaking much of that character
+which, in the states of the free and independent slave-dealers over
+the water, is called slantindicular. Here we both lay down. As for me,
+I was quite faint with giddiness and hard kicking, with nothing under
+me to kick at; but soon we picked up our effects, put on our boots,
+&c., scrambled, slid, and climbed about again after some more sheep;
+but, by reason of their having two pair of legs each, and each pair
+better adapted to present circumstances than our one pair each, they
+always got away, and we came down the mountain muttonless and hungry
+for that day, not sorry to find a famous good supper in the tent,
+in our encampment by the trout stream, in the Valley of Tortoom.
+
+One more quadruped nearly concludes the short catalogue of the mammalia
+of Erzeroom--the capricorn, many specimens of whose enormous horns
+are nailed up over the doors of houses in the city; but I never saw
+this last animal at Erzeroom, alive or dead.
+
+Innumerable camels accompany the caravans from hence to Persia, looking
+very much out of place in the deep snow. They are the Arabian camel
+with one hump, and I had no notion that my old acquaintance of Arabia
+could bear the tremendous cold of Erzeroom. Great quantities of corn
+and meal are brought here from the more prolific countries of the
+neighborhood. This is the staple merchandise of the city, which is
+the only place on the road between Persia and Turkey where caravans
+can recruit their thousands of jaded horses, and procure provisions
+for their journey. In this consists the political importance of an
+otherwise worthless and infertile spot. The number of camels, horses,
+mules, and beasts of burden assembled sometimes at Erzeroom is immense,
+and they have here a peculiar method of feeding the camels by opening
+their mouths with the left hand, and with the other shoving down the
+poor beast's throat a ball of dough about the size of a cricket ball.
+
+One peculiarity of the domestic animals in this fearful climate is,
+that they are dwarfed and dwindled in size to an extraordinary
+degree. A bull used to run about the lower regions of my house,
+which was barely eighteen inches high; the sheep were so small that
+grown up mutton looked like lamb. The same occurred with fruit; none
+at all grew at Erzeroom, but we had from villages some miles off,
+on the edges of the plain, plums the size of damsons, apricots the
+size of walnuts, and other fruits in proportion.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+    Birds.--Great Variety and vast Numbers of Birds.--Flocks of
+    Geese.--Employment for the Sportsman.--The Captive Crane.--Wild
+    and tame Geese.--The pious and profane Ancestors.--List of Birds
+    found at Erzeroom.
+
+
+I now enter upon a subject to which I fear I have neither time
+nor power to do justice. The number of various kinds of birds which
+breed on the great plain of Erzeroom is so prodigious as to be almost
+incredible to those who have not seen them, as I often have, covering
+the earth for miles and miles so completely that the color of the
+ground could not be seen; particularly at one period, when the whole
+country had a rosy appearance, from the countless flocks of a sort of
+red goose, which I take to be the ruddy sheldrake--a splendid bird,
+though not good to eat. It is about the size of a small goose or a
+Muscovy duck, almost entirely clothed in various shades of red. Troops
+of the two varieties of the wild gray goose form whitish spots in the
+animated landscape, their wild cries and noises sounding in every
+direction. So closely covered was the plain with this prodigious
+multitude of every kind of wild fowl, that I have galloped among them
+for some distance, the birds getting up about one hundred yards in a
+circle round my horse, and settling again behind me with loud cries,
+while the air rustled with the beating of innumerable wings of those
+birds which had been disturbed by my approach. The sportsman may
+imagine what shooting there is at Erzeroom, for when one genus has
+reared its young and flown away to far and distant lands, another
+takes its place. Quails are at one time almost as thick as flies;
+and numerous varieties of small birds, among which the horned lark
+and the red-winged finch flew in clouds. That beautiful variety, the
+rosy starling, has been often shot, as well as the merops, and so many
+other little fowls of varied plumage, that I must refer the reader to
+the accompanying list, for it would fill a book to give even a slight
+description of them all. On the banks of the river I used to shoot all
+sorts of waders, particularly spoonbills, and that most delicate of
+birds, the egret or white heron, famous for its plumes. I must own
+to being a bad shot, having been more accustomed to the rifle, but
+these white herons afforded me great practice; as they flapped along,
+I shot numbers of them, as well as many and many a quaint fellow with
+long legs, whom I brought home merely to make out who he was, and to
+write down his name. Later in the year I risked my neck by riding
+as hard as I could tear over the rocky, or rather stony, plains at
+the foot of the mountains after the great bustard. I have more than
+once knocked some of the feathers out of these glorious huge birds,
+as they ran at a terrible pace, half flying and scrambling before my
+straining horse, but I never succeeded in killing one, though I have
+constantly partaken of those which had fallen before more patient
+gunners, who stalk them as you would a deer, and knock them over with
+a rifle or swan-shot from behind a stone or bank.
+
+I had more success with the great cinereous crane, which runs much
+faster than a horse. I shot one at full gallop with a rifle, in a place
+overgrown with reeds. This was a mighty triumph, for, though my game
+was about five feet high, he was so very long in the legs and neck,
+that the body offered but a small mark to be brought down under such
+circumstances, and the pace he was going at the time, and I after
+him, was, as they say, "a caution." This is a bird with whom it is
+requisite to be wary: if he is down, and not killed outright, like
+the heron and the stork he makes a dart with his sharp, long bill at
+the eyes of his enemy, and its strength is such that it might easily,
+I should think, penetrate the brain; at any rate, the eye would be
+picked out at once, and that would suffice for that time.
+
+A man brought in a crane which he had winged, and we turned him out
+into the yard with the poultry, where he stalked up and down with a
+proud, indignant air. He soon became pretty quiet, and ate his corn
+with the rest, while he had a deep bucket of water for his own use,
+into which he used to poke his head continually. One day a stupid,
+heavy servant went into the yard, and, not knowing that the bucket
+was placed there for the stork, he took it up to carry it away, when
+the bird flew at him and pecked at his face, but, missing his eye,
+seized him tightly by the nose, and there he held him for a good
+while. The poor man halloed loud enough, but those who came to his
+assistance could not help him at first for laughing; and though he
+kept beating at the crane with the bucket, which he held in his hand,
+his long neck enabled him to keep so far off that he escaped all
+the frantic attempts of his prisoner to reach him. The man's nose was
+swelled and very sore for some time, and he never got over the ridicule
+which attached to him for his perilous adventure with the crane. It
+was touching to watch this crane: when the time for its emigration
+arrived, a flock of its magnificent companions every day used to fly
+high up in the air, in a wheeling circle, above its head. This circle
+of flying birds has a very striking effect. The cranes above called
+to their friend to join them for their distant journey to a happier
+climate, and the poor helpless crane below, stretching its long neck
+up toward the sky, answered the appeal in a singularly mournful cry.
+
+Various kinds of partridge exist, and the lesser bustard, called,
+in Turkish, Mesmeldek, is an excellent bird for the table. They have
+a curious method of catching the mesmeldek in some of the steppes in
+Southern Russia. At the commencement of winter, parties of horsemen
+gallop out upon the plains before sunrise, at which hour the wings of
+these birds are frozen to their sides, and, the hunters stretching out
+their horses in a line, the birds are driven by them into the villages,
+and secured, before the warmth of the sun releases their wings and
+restores their powers of flight. Great flocks of the lesser bustard
+have been driven in this manner occasionally into Odessa. Hawks and
+stately falcons hover over head, and prey upon their defenseless
+brethren at their ease.
+
+Storks build upon the chimneys; and among the sticks of which their
+huge nest is formed, the sparrows make their nests, stealing, when
+they can, any food, which the old birds bring for their young.
+
+Here, as in all other parts of the world, this impertinent race of
+little birds dispute possession of the house with mice and other
+intruders; but at Erzeroom they are hardly put to it sometimes for
+want of twigs to perch upon, and they sit usually, instead, upon
+the iron bars of the windows in the town. Here I have often watched
+them chirping in the cold, as they sat by the dozen on the bars of
+my window, dressing their feathers, and jabbering to each other,
+like true Koordish sparrows, about the corn that they stole from my
+chickens yesterday, and how, with case-hardened consciences, they
+intend to steal as much more as they can get to-day.
+
+This is a subject on which I could dilate to any length, but at
+present I must conclude with the following list of the various tribes
+of birds who, in thousands and millions, would reward the toil of
+the sportsman and the naturalist on the plains and mountains of the
+high lands of Armenia; merely adding to this brief notice of the
+birds of this country the following veracious anecdote, as perhaps
+hitherto naturalists may not all of them be aware of the origin of
+the separation of the wild and tame goose:
+
+In former days, two geese agreed to take a long journey together:
+the evening before they were to set out, one said to the other, "Mind
+you are ready, my friend, for, Inshallah, I will set out to-morrow
+morning!" "And so will I," replied he, "whether it pleases God or
+not!" The sun rose the next day, and the pious goose, having ate his
+breakfast, and quenched his thirst in the waters of the stream, rose
+lightly on the wing, and soared away to a distant land. The impious
+bird also prepared to follow him; but, after hopping and fluttering for
+a long while, he found himself totally unable to rise from the ground;
+and his evolutions having been observed by a fowler who happened to be
+passing that way, he was presently caught, and reduced to servitude,
+in which his race have ever since continued, while the descendants
+of the religious goose still enjoy that freedom in which they were
+originally created.
+
+
+    LIST OF BIRDS FOUND AT ERZEROOM.
+
+    Raptores (Birds of Prey).
+
+        Vultur fulvus             Fulvous vulture.
+        Aquila fulvus             Fulvous eagle.
+        Aquila                    Eagle.
+        Accipiter fringillarius   Sparrow-hawk.
+        Falco tinnunculus         Kestril.
+         ,,   osalon              Hobby.
+         ,,   subbuteo            Merlin.
+         ,,   rufipes             Orange-legged hobby.
+         ,,   peregrinus          Peregrine falcon.
+         ,,   peregrinus          Falcon.
+        Milvus ater               Common kite.
+        Buteo ater (?)            Common buzzard (?).
+         ,,   ater                Marsh buzzard.
+        Circus pallidus           White hen harrier.
+          ,,   rufus              Marsh hen harrier.
+        Noctua Indica             Small Indian owl.
+        Strix Indica              Another owl.
+
+
+    Insepores (or Perchers).
+
+    Deutirostres.
+
+        Lanius excubitor          Great strike (or butcher-bird).
+          ,,   collurio           Red-backed strike.
+        Collurio minor            Small strike.
+        Musicapa grisola          Spotted fly-catcher.
+           ,,    luctuosa         Pied fly-catcher.
+        Turdus merula             Blackbird.
+          ,,   torquatus          Ring-ouzel.
+          ,,   pilaris            Fieldfare.
+          ,,   musicus            Song-thrush.
+        Petrocinela saxatilis     Rock-thrush.
+        Cinclus aquaticus         Water-ouzel (or dipper).
+        Oriolus galbula           Golden oriole.
+        Motacilla alba            White wagtail.
+            ,,    flava           Yellow wagtail.
+        Saxicola rubicola         Stonechat.
+           ,,    rubetra          Whinchat.
+           ,,    ænanthe          Wheatear.
+        Sylvia trochilus          Willow wren.
+          ,,   hippolais          Willow wren.
+        Salicaria phragmitis      Sedge-warbler.
+            ,,    cetti(?)        Sedge-warbler(?).
+        Curruca cineria           Whitethroat.
+          ,,    atricapilla       Blackcap.
+        Phoenicura ruticilla      Redstart.
+            ,,     tilkys         Black redstart.
+            ,,     succica        Bluebreast.
+        Erythaca rubecula         Redbreast.
+        Troglodytes Europæus      Wren.
+        Rudytes melanocephala     Wren.
+        Anthus arboreus           Tree-pipit.
+          ,,   pratensis          Pipit-lark.
+          ,,   rufescens          Pipit-pipit.
+
+
+    Fissirostres.
+
+        Hirundo riparia           Saced martin.
+           ,,   rustica           Swallow.
+        Cypselus murarius         Swift.
+        Caprimulgus Europæus      Goat-sucker.
+
+
+    Conirostres.
+
+        Alanda arvensis           Skylark.
+          ,,   arborea            Woodlark.
+          ,,   calandra           Calandre.
+          ,,   brachydactila      Little lark.
+          ,,   penicillata        Horned lark.
+          ,,   rupestris          Rock lark.
+          ,,   rupestris (?)      (An Albino variety).
+          ,,   rupestris          Albino lark.
+        Parus major               Great titmouse.
+          ,,  coeruleus           Blue titmouse.
+        Emberiza citrinella       Yellow-hammer.
+           ,,    hortulana        Ortolan.
+           ,,    miliaria         Common bunting.
+           ,,    cia              Meadow bunting.
+        Fringilla coelebs         Chaffinch.
+           ,,     montefrengilla  Mountain-finch (or brambling).
+           ,,     nivalis (?)     Snow-finch (?)
+           ,,     sanguinea       Bloody-finch.
+        Pyrgita domestica         House-sparrow.
+          ,,    petronea          Stone-sparrow.
+        Carduelis communis        Goldfinch.
+        Pyrrhula communis (?)     (A variety of the bullfinch).
+        Linaria montuim           Mountain linnet (or twite).
+           ,,   cannabina         Greater redpole.
+        Coccothraustes chloris    Greenfinch.
+              ,,       vulgaris   Hawfinch.
+        Loxia curvirostra         Crossbill.
+        Sturnus vulgaris          Common starling.
+        Pastor roseus             Rosy-pastor.
+        Corvus modedula           Jackdaw.
+          ,,   frugeleus          Rook.
+          ,,   cornix             Hooded or Royston crow.
+        Pica candata              Magpie.
+        Garrulus melanocephalus   Black-headed jay.
+        Coracias garrula          Roller.
+
+
+    Tenuirostres.
+
+        Upupa epops               Hoopoe.
+        Merops apiaster           Bee-eater.
+        Alcedo ispida             Kingfisher.
+
+
+    Scansores (or Climbers).
+
+        Yuux torquilla            Wryneck.
+        Cuculus canorus           Cuckoo.
+        Cuculus (?)               Cuckoo.
+
+
+    Rasores (allinaceous Birds).
+
+        Otis tarda                Great bustard.
+         ,,  tetrax               Small bustard.
+        Pterocles arenarius       Sand-grouse.
+        Perdix saxatilis          Red or Greek partridge.
+          ,,   cineria            Gray or English partridge.
+        Coternix vulgaris         Quail.
+        Columba ænos              Stock-dove.
+          ,,    turtur (?)        Turtle-dove (?).
+
+
+    Grallæ (or Waders).
+
+        Charadrius morinelles     Dotterel.
+            ,,     minor          Small ring-plover.
+            ,,     major          Large ring-plover.
+        Ædienenuus crepitans      Stone-curlew.
+            ,,     crepitans      Stone-curlew.
+        Vanellus cristatus        Crested lapwing.
+           ,,    keptuschka       Crested lapwing.
+           ,,    keptuschka       Crested lapwing.
+        Grus cineria              Gray crane.
+        Ardea alba                White heron.
+         ,,   cineria             Gray heron (two sorts very large).
+         ,,   cineria             Night heron.
+         ,,   cineria             Black heron.
+         ,,   cineria             Black and gray heron.
+        Botaurus stellaris        Bittern.
+        Nycticorax Europæus       Night heron.
+        Ciconia alba              White stork.
+        Platolea leucorodia       White spoonbill.
+        Scolopax rusticola        Woodcock.
+           ,,    major            Double snipe.
+        Gallinago media           Common snipe.
+           ,,     minima          Jack-snipe.
+        Ibis falcinellus          Marone ibis.
+         ,,  falcinellus (?)      Marone ibis.
+        Limosa melanolensa
+        Tringa subaiquata         Curlew tringa.
+          ,,   minuta             Small tringa.
+          ,,   variabilis         Changeable tringa.
+          ,,   pugnax             Ruff and reve.
+          ,,   pugnax             Ruff and tringa.
+        Totanus hypolencos        Common sandpiper.
+          ,,    ochropus          Green sandpiper.
+          ,,    glotis            Green shankpiper.
+          ,,    calidris          Red shankpiper.
+        Himantopus melanopterus   Stilts.
+        Rallus crec               Corn-crake.
+          ,,   crec               Corn-rail.
+          ,,   crec               Corn-rail.
+        Zapornia pusilla          Corn-rail.
+        Fulica atra               Coot.
+        Gallinula chloropus       Water-hen.
+        Glareola limbata          Pratin cole.
+           ,,    torquata         Austrian cole.
+
+
+    Palmipedes (Web-footed Birds).
+
+        Podiceps cristatus        Crested grebe.
+           ,,    rubricollis      Red-necked grebe.
+           ,,    auritus          Eared grebe.
+        Larus ridibundus          Laughing gull.
+          ,,  argentatus (?)      Herring gull (?).
+        Sterna hirundo            Common tern.
+          ,,   leucoptera         Common tern.
+          ,,   nigra              Black tern.
+        Pelicanus onocrotalus     Pelican.
+        Carbo cormoranus          Cormorant.
+        Anas boschas              Wild duck.
+         ,,  boschas              Wild duck.
+        Cygnus ferus              Wild swan.
+        Anser ferus               Gray-leg goose.
+          ,,  albifrons           White-fronted goose.
+        Fuligula rufina           Red-headed pochard.
+           ,,    rufina           Common pochard.
+           ,,    cristata         Tufted duck.
+        Querquedula cinerea       Summer teal.
+        Querquedula crecca        Common teal.
+        Dafila caudacuta          Pintail duck.
+        Chaulelosmus strepera     Gadwall.
+        Rynchapsis clypeata       Black-headed shoveler.
+        Tadorna rutila            Ruddy sheldrake.
+          ,,    vulpanser         Common sheldrake.
+        Mergus albellus           Smew.
+
+
+For this list of birds I am indebted to the kindness of my friend
+Mr. Calvert, of Erzeroom, to whom I take this opportunity of expressing
+my best thanks for a communication so interesting to lovers of
+natural history.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+    Excursion to the Lake of Tortoom.--Romantic Bridge.--Gloomy Effect
+    of the Lake.--Singular Boat.--"Evaporation" of a Pistol.--Kiamili
+    Pasha.--Extraordinary Marksman.--Alarming Illness of the
+    Author.--An Earthquake.--Lives lost through intense Cold.--The
+    Author recovers.
+
+
+Between the days of arrival and departure of the tatars, or couriers,
+to Constantinople, and the struggles to keep the peace and explain
+the simplest transaction with our colleagues, we found time for
+various expeditions to the neighboring countries on all sides. The
+most remarkable of these was that to the deep, unfathomable lake of
+Tortoom, about three days' journey off. Our main object in going
+there was to fish, and we encamped for that purpose on the upper
+streams of the Batoum River and other places. In the valley of the
+castle of Tortoom the trout abounded, and were of that unsophisticated
+nature that, fishing one hour in the dawn and one hour before sunset
+with two fly-rods, we caught every day enough to feed our camp,
+and to send a horse-load (no small quantity) in the evening to
+our friends at Erzeroom. This was one day's march, and the horses,
+traveling all night, brought the fish, though in the hot weather, in
+great perfection to the city in the cool of the morning. We were not
+aware, till it was too late, of the deadly nature of the malaria in
+these rocky valleys, where the precipice shot up clear and straight
+to the height, sometimes, we used to judge, of above a thousand
+feet. On our way through one of these romantic dells, we all rode,
+bag and baggage, over a bridge, to be compared only to the bridge of
+Al Serat, over which the souls of the judged will have to pass from
+the Temple of Jerusalem, over the Valley of Jehoshaphat, till they
+reach the other world, which bridge is as narrow as the edge of the
+cimeter of Mohammed. The fright I was in is not to be described when
+I saw the first horseman, who was at the time filling his pipe, walk
+his horse unconcernedly over this bridge, which was composed of two
+pine-trees thrown over a torrent which roared and tumbled thirty feet
+below. However, being afraid to show I was afraid, I rode over too,
+and certainly thought myself a bold fellow when I got safe to the
+other side. To ride safely over such a bridge, a horse ought to be
+brought up to practice on a tight-rope. I would not attempt to walk
+over such a place nowadays in England.
+
+We passed a village in one lovely valley, in a grove of peach-trees,
+where we found that every soul, or rather every body, was dead;
+only one man survived the fever which had killed the rest.
+
+Of all the strange and gloomy scenes that I have witnessed, none
+have left a deeper impression on my mind than that of the black,
+unfathomable lake of Tortoom. Mountains of dark rock fall sheer
+down in awful precipices right into these deep, still waters on each
+side. No fish are to be found in this Dead Sea, though perhaps they
+may retreat there in the winter from the mountain rills. If the lake
+was a strange place, the boat which we discovered on the shore was
+in character with the scene. It was the only vessel on its waters,
+and its builder probably never studied naval architecture in the
+dock-yards of the maritime powers. It was formed out of the trunks of
+two trees; but as no description would so well convey a notion of its
+form, I refer the curious to the accompanying sketch. The standing
+figure in it represents a valorous kawass, who fired his pistol in
+the air for the sake of the echo, and, on the smoke clearing off,
+he found that the entire pistol had evaporated too; nothing visible
+remained in his hand; it had burst all to pieces. But, fortunately,
+neither he nor any of the party were hurt by the fragments, which
+fell into the waters of the dark and silent lake.
+
+October 1, 1843. This day I was riding on the road toward Bayazeed and
+Persia. Hearing some shots, I turned toward the hills lying between
+the town of Erzeroom and the mountains, and there I saw two or three
+tents pitched, and a number of officers, servants, and people attending
+on Kiamili Pasha, who was shooting at a mark with a pistol.
+
+He is the most wonderful shot I ever heard of: he always fired at
+a distance of about 250 paces, or yards. Any one who will take the
+trouble to step this distance in a field or park will see how far it is
+to shoot with a rifle, and how entirely out of all usual calculations
+in pistol practice. I went into the Pasha's tent. He received me,
+as usual, with great kindness, and, after pipes and coffee, I begged
+him to go on with his shooting. The way he set about it was this: he
+sat on one of the low, square rush-bottomed stools which are always
+found in Turkish coffee-houses, but which must have been brought from
+Constantinople probably by the Pasha, as those kind of stools are not
+usually met with in Erzeroom. He did not rest his elbow on his knee,
+but pressed it steadily against his side, took a deliberate but not
+very slow aim, and sent the ball through a brown pottery vase filled
+with water, about fifteen inches high, which stood on the other side
+of a valley, on a level with the tent, and full 250 yards off. I think
+the Pasha broke two while I sat with him, and made a hole which let
+the water out of another. His pistols were a pair of very slightly
+rifled dueling-pistols, about nine inches in the barrel, made by Egg,
+Great George Street, London. I was so much astonished at the Pasha's
+shooting, that I asked him to give me one of the pieces of the vase,
+which I took home with me, and talked to my friends about it. I felt
+perfectly well when we went to dinner, when suddenly it appeared to
+me that what I was eating was burning hot, and had a strange, odd
+taste. I believe I got up and staggered across the room, but here my
+senses failed me, and I remained insensible for twenty-seven days. An
+attack of brain fever had come upon me like a blow, as sudden and
+overwhelming as a flash of lightning.
+
+On the 27th of October I awoke in the morning, but, as I suppose,
+went to sleep for a while; in the afternoon I fairly came to my senses,
+and saw my servant sitting on the scarlet-cloth divan under the window
+looking at me. I felt something strange, and still, and gloomy in the
+air, and was rather bewildered with the sensation. This was soon to
+be accounted for: the servant, seeing that I was alive, came forward
+toward the bed, while a low rumbling noise made itself heard. This
+noise became louder; flakes of plaster fell from the ceiling;
+the room trembled, and was filled with a fine dust, with which I
+was nearly choked. My man exclaimed, "The earth moves--are you not
+afraid?" As he spoke, the noise which we had heard increased, and an
+immense beam, made of the trunk of a whole tree, which was immediately
+above my bed, split with a report like a cannon. The earthquake shook
+the house terribly; it creaked and trembled like a ship in a heavy
+gale of wind; the noise increased to a roar, not like thunder, but
+howling and bellowing, with a low rumbling sound, while the air was
+as still as if Nature was paralyzed with dread; every now and then
+a tremendous crash gave notice of a falling house. The one opposite
+our house, belonging to a poor widow, was entirely destroyed; and,
+in the midst of a most fearful uproar, the two rooms, one on each
+side of my bed-room, fell in, while the air was darkened altogether,
+as in an eclipse, with clouds of dust. So great was the noise of the
+earthquake all around, that neither my attendant nor I distinguished
+the particular crash when the two rooms adjoining us fell in. Some of
+the minarets, and many of the houses of the city, were demolished;
+parts of the ancient castellated walls fell down. The top of one of
+the two beautiful minarets of the old medressé, the glory of Erzeroom,
+called usually Eki Chifteh, disappeared. Those who were out, and able
+to witness the devastation, and to hear the awful roaring noise, said
+they had never seen or heard any thing more tremendous than the scene
+before their eyes. It is difficult to express in words the strange,
+awful sensation produced by the seeming impossible contradiction of
+a dead stillness in the midst of the crash of falling buildings,
+the sullen, low bellowing, which perhaps sounded from beneath the
+ground, and the tremendous uproar that arose on all sides during the
+earthquake. I have not met with an account of this strange phenomenon
+in the descriptions of other earthquakes, and do not know whether it
+is a usual accompaniment to these terrible convulsions of nature.
+
+The earthquake accomplished its mission: in the midst of terror and
+destruction, it restored one poor creature to life. I regained my
+senses and my faculties on the 27th, as suddenly as I had lost them
+on the 1st day of this month. God give me grace to make a good use
+of the life which was restored to me under such awful circumstances!
+
+On that day the doctor, who had some difficulty in getting to my
+room through the ruins of the ante-room, took the ice off my head,
+and in a few days I recovered sufficient strength to move my limbs,
+which I could not do at first.
+
+As soon as it appeared that there was any probability of my recovery,
+my kind friends agreed that the best chance of regaining my health
+lay in removing, as soon as I could bear the journey, to a better
+climate. During great part of the year, and naturally in the winter,
+the cold was so severe that any one standing still for even a very
+short time was frozen to death. Dead frozen bodies were frequently
+brought into the city; and it is common in the summer, on the melting
+of the snow, to find numerous corpses of men, and bodies of horses,
+who had perished in the preceding winter. So usual an event is this,
+that there is a custom, or law, in the mountains of Armenia, that
+every summer the villagers go out to the more dangerous passes,
+and bury the dead whom they are sure to find. They have a legal
+right to their clothes, arms, and the accouterments of the horses,
+on condition of forwarding all bales of merchandise, letters, and
+parcels to the places to which they are directed.
+
+During the whole month of December the Pasha had caused four mules
+to be exercised every day with a takterawan, or litter, which he
+provided for my conveyance to Trebizond. Two mules, led by one man,
+carried the litter; the other two followed tamely, led by another man,
+close behind, to be ready to take the places of the others if they were
+tired or disabled. From morning to night, the men and the mules, and
+the takterawan, stumped along through the snow, till they dared to face
+the storm and the immense cold, and could climb up and down the icy
+rocks like goats. As soon as I was able, I was sent out in the litter
+to try how I could bear it, and to settle various contrivances for
+keeping out the cold, and enabling me to bear the motion of the mules.
+
+One day Colonel Williams rode out on the Persian road to see whether
+it was passable for Dr. Wolf, who was then staying at Erzeroom, and
+who wished to continue his journey to Bokhara, when he met a number
+of horses, each laden with two frozen bodies of Persian travelers,
+one tied on each side of the pack-horse. An unfortunate Piedmontese
+doctor had been lost in a snow-storm a short time before, and his body
+was found afterward near a small monastery, three or four miles from
+Erzeroom, where he had wandered, bewildered with the falling snow;
+and a whole party, with one or two ox-carts, who left a village in
+the morning on their way to another a short distance off, never
+arrived there; they were found huddled together, oxen, horses,
+men, and women, in a snow-drift, dead, and frozen hard and stiff,
+some weeks afterward. The cold was so tremendous at this time that
+the mountains were impassable, and no one was able to move beyond a
+short distance from the town.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+    Start for Trebizond.--Personal Appearance of the Author.--Mountain
+    Pass.--Reception at Beyboort.--Misfortunes of Mustapha.--Pass of
+    Zigana Dagh.--Arrival at Trebizond.
+
+
+On the 27th of December, all preparations being completed, I started
+on my journey over the mountains to Trebizond. Kiamili Pasha had
+prepared an order to all and sundry, great and small, upon the road,
+to give me every assistance, and, with this and a powerful firman
+from the Sultan, I had authority to do whatever I pleased in that
+part of the world. About twenty attendants accompanied me, besides
+a certain levy from every village I passed, who were to march to
+the next village every day to clear the roads, move the snow, and
+pick us out of it when we tumbled in, &c. These villagers were all
+armed with the peculiar dagger of Circassia, called a cama, a most
+efficient tool as well as weapon, and a short, heavy rifle, generally
+beautifully made, with which they hit objects at very long distances,
+400 yards not being considered out of shot. My personal appearance
+must have been remarkable: I had a long beard, and so thin a face
+that my nose was translucent, if not transparent. I had a Persian cap
+upon my head, and over other garments a toilet of my own invention,
+which vested me with a dignity peculiar to myself: this was a large
+eider down quilt, of bright green silk, in the middle of which I had
+caused a hole to be made, through which I put my head; the two ends
+of the quilt hung down before and behind, like a chasuble or a poncho;
+round it I tied a girdle. My general appearance must have been rather
+striking to the beholder, and was probably considered by the natives
+on the road as the official costume of an Elchi Bey. I was so weak
+that when I was bundled into the takterawan I could not turn round,
+and was nearly smothered in my own feathers, till somebody turned me
+on the right side upward, when I was able to bid adieu to all the
+principal Europeans and others who had kindly assembled to see me
+off. A number of people accompanied me for some distance out of the
+town; and Colonel Williams came as far as Elijè, about three hours
+in the snow, which ended my first day's march.
+
+On the next day, December 28th, we got to Meymansoor, a village at
+the foot of the first mountain pass, called Hoshapoona, a terrible
+place at all times, but frightful in the depth of winter, and under
+the circumstances I was in. Only two or three days before it had been
+rendered practicable, by driving a thousand horses, belonging to the
+caravans which were snowed up at the foot of the pass, up and down
+the road to make a track. This road is what is called a scala; that
+is, a series of holes, each about a foot deep, sometimes two feet,
+about eighteen inches in diameter, and the same in distance from one
+another. From long practice, the horses put their feet very cleverly
+into these holes without tripping over the intervening ridges of
+hardened snow. Men on foot usually step on the ridges, which is
+like walking on the rounds of a ladder for a few hundred miles,
+the probabilities of not breaking your leg if you slip into the hole
+before or behind you being very slight. As in many places this road was
+slantindicular, going up and down at an angle of 45°, I was reclining
+in the litter alternately on my head and on my heels--mostly on my
+head going up hill. My mules were held upon their feet by as many
+men as could stand on each side, where the road was wide enough;
+most of it was a ledge on a precipice, about eighteen inches wide,
+when the men supported my equipage with ropes, a strong body hopping
+and stumbling behind and before, at the rate of about one mile an
+hour. My glass windows were smashed with the least possible delay,
+but we repaired them the next day with oiled paper. At the top of
+the pass we came upon a party of Persians, who were going the other
+way toward Erzeroom; they were seated in a row, on the ledge of the
+precipice, looking despairingly at a number of their baggage-horses
+which had tumbled over, and were wallowing in the snow many hundred
+feet below. They did not seem to be killed, as far as I could see,
+as the snow had broken their fall. The drift covered the precipitous
+rock from the bottom to within twenty or thirty feet of the top, and
+they slid down this till they popped into a deep hole in the snow,
+like a well, in the valley below. It did not appear that there was
+any probability of their getting up again. The poor Persians crammed
+themselves into nooks and little hollows on the ledge to make room for
+us to pass. I presume their horses were frozen to death before we had
+left them very long. This was an awful spot altogether. We had started
+before light in the morning, and arrived in a dreary mountain valley,
+at a hovel called Zaza Khan, in the evening. During one part of the
+day, the danger to the takterawan was so great that I was plucked out,
+and a tall, good-natured man, called Beyragdar (the standard-bearer),
+carried me like a baby in his arms, one or two others supporting him,
+across a tremendous ledge. I was light enough to carry, but was such a
+great bundle of fluff that he could not see over me, and another man
+helped him along, and showed him where to put his feet. We were very
+fortunate in a fine sunny day for our journey over this tremendous
+mountain. On the last day of the year 1843 we arrived at the town of
+Beyboort. Though I had sent two horsemen on to say that I was coming,
+no one came out of the town to meet me, and on proceeding to the
+palace or house of the Bey, the governor of the place I was refused
+admittance, though he had received orders before to pay me every
+attention. I at last was taken in by the Cadi, in whose comfortable
+house I was kindly entertained. The next day we met a tatar, a
+government courier, on the road from Trebizond. I sent letters by him
+to Erzeroom, complaining of my reception by the Bey of Beyboort; and so
+rapidly were matters conducted by my friend the Pasha, that the Bey was
+turned out of his government, and another Bey appointed to succeed him,
+before I and my party arrived at Trebizond. This was sharp practice,
+and doubtless had a good effect. The chiefs of the other villages, and
+the one town of Gumush Khannè, treated me always with great kindness
+and civility. On the 2d of January, at a hovel called Khaderach Khan,
+I met a rich Persian merchant coming from Constantinople with his
+wife and family. He had been eighteen days on the road from Trebizond,
+which is thirty-two hours of tatar-posting; from hence, at this rate,
+he would be six months on his journey to Teheran, to which place he
+was bound. He was a remarkably gentleman-like man, as most Persian
+gentlemen are. He had a great train of servants and attendants, well
+dressed and well armed, each with a silver tass, or drinking-cup,
+slung over his shoulder, and a handsome cama dangling by a narrow strap
+from the front of his girdle, and his waist squeezed till he could
+hardly shut his mouth, in true Circassian style. He had numbers of
+curious contrivances for comfort and convenience: little fire-places,
+hanging to the stirrup, for hot coals, to light the caleoons, &c. His
+son, a smart youth, spoke French, and we passed a very pleasant hour
+together, though I had turned him out of the best hole in the hovel,
+into which Beyragdar laid me down softly in the corner; and I was so
+much exhausted that I knew nothing of the confusion I had made till I
+had had a cup of blazing hot Russian tea, with a slice of lemon in it
+instead of cream, and had taken the diversion of wondering at an odd
+sort of partridge which one of my men had knocked over with a stone,
+for which act I presented him with the sum of 5 1/2d. sterling.
+
+At Kalé Khan I had given leave to one Mustapha, my kawass bashi,
+or captain of the kawasses, to go and see his family, who lived in
+a village a short distance off the road; he had not seen them for a
+long time, and went on his way rejoicing. At a place called Porda
+Bakchelari, where I was resting on the 3d, he made his appearance
+again; he was so altered in looks that I did not know him at first;
+so much so, that I asked him who he was, and what he wanted with
+me. His history, poor fellow! was as follows:
+
+When he arrived at his village, he rode up to the door of his own
+house, thinking to give a happy surprise to his wife and children,
+whose names he called out as he stopped his horse in the little
+street. No one answered, when he called again, and knocked loudly at
+the door several times. At last an old woman put her head out of the
+door of another house, and screamed to him to know what he was making
+such a noise about.
+
+"I want such a one," said he, naming his wife.
+
+"What, Eyesha?" said the old woman; "who are you? You must be a
+stranger to this place not to know that she died of the fever and
+was buried two weeks ago."
+
+"And where is Hassan?" said the poor kawass, asking for his eldest son.
+
+"Oh, he died three months ago."
+
+"And the two little ones?" he asked.
+
+"They were buried, I forget how long it is since," said the old woman;
+"the fever got into that house; the people are all dead. You had better
+not go in, stranger, for it has been locked up by the cadi, and the
+owner, Mustapha Aga, lives a long way off at Erzeroom. Inshalla! he
+will come some day, and the cadi will deliver the key to him."
+
+Mustapha kawass never dismounted from his horse in his native village;
+he turned slowly away, and rode back to the track of the mules and
+horses of my followers till he caught us up at Bakchelari Khan.
+
+"Allahkerim!" (God is merciful!) said his companions, when he had told
+us this sad history. His family was swept from the face of the earth;
+there was not a servant left, not one old well-remembered face to
+greet him in his visit to the village where he had passed his childish
+days. He had heard nothing of the fever or of the infliction which
+had fallen upon his house, and suddenly he found himself alone in the
+wide world. We were all grieved for him, but what could we do? every
+one looked grave as we plodded on again through the snow and ice,
+and smoked the pipe of reflection in silence on our weary way.
+
+On the 7th we got into a fix near a place called Madem Khanlari, in
+the pass of Zigana Dagh, a worse place than Even Hoshabounar: we had
+been all day scrambling about in rocky ledges, and crossing torrents
+and snow-drifts, each of which seemed impassable till we went at it
+with a will: a number of villagers, with axes and ropes, came with
+us, and worked valiantly in clearing the ice off the narrow shelves
+of rock, and leading the horses through the most difficult places,
+where they could hardly stand; sometimes the horses were almost lifted
+by the men. By the greatest care and exertion, none as yet fell over
+the precipices. My takterawan was surrounded by a posse of zealous,
+active mountaineers, clinging to each other, and putting the mules'
+feet into the holes which they cut for them with their axes. At
+last we got to a place where there was a sudden turn at the narrow
+edge of a gorge or cleft of rock: the length of the litter, with one
+mule before and another behind, made it impossible to turn without
+going over. Somehow, by the help of a number of men, the front mule
+was carried by main force round the corner, till we were in such a
+position that the hinder mule was being dragged over the precipice
+by the poles of the takterawan, to which it was harnessed. Without
+a drawing it is difficult to describe the position we had got into;
+but it may be partly understood by the fact that, out of whichever
+side of the takterawan I looked, there was nothing under me, for
+perhaps two hundred feet, till you arrived at a brawling torrent,
+which kept itself alive by violent exercise, in jumping, leaping,
+and tumbling over the rocks and cascades at the bottom of the ravine,
+so that it was the only thing not frozen hard and still in the dead
+landscape of thick ice, and snow, and shattered rock, and the clean,
+smooth precipice towered up from the little merry stream to hundreds
+of feet above our heads, where an edge of snow and a fringe of icicles
+shone in the bright sky upon the topmost margin of the cliffs. Some of
+the men now sat down, with their legs hanging over the precipice; they
+were supported by other men, while, in their turn, they held the legs
+of the mules, who were beginning to get frightened, or perhaps choked,
+and gave utterance to curious exclamations. My friend Beyragdar made a
+bridge of his long body, by leaning over from the inner angle of the
+road to the side of the takterawan. As for me, beyond peeping like
+an old rat out of a cage, I could not move, so I lay still till I was
+pulled out by two men over Beyragdar's back, handed like a bundle over
+the foremost mule, and stuck upon a horse a little farther on. The
+mules were, somehow or other, saved and released from the shafts of
+the takterawan, which I never saw again; they could get it no further,
+and the rest of the journey I made on horseback, supported by a man
+on each side when the road was wide enough, by one when it was too
+narrow for two, and, when there was only room for the horse alone,
+Beyragdar carried me in his arms till we got to the Strada Reale,
+good two feet wide, when I was put upon a horse again.
+
+In this way, by slow degrees, we scrambled on our way, till, on the
+10th of January, after fifteen days' journey through the intense cold
+of the mountains, I arrived, in better health and strength than when
+I started, at the edge of the table-land, from whence I saw the blue
+waters of the sea, and at 11 o'clock A.M. I was seated in my room in
+the quarantine station at Trebizond.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+
+    Former History of Trebizond.--Ravages of the Goths.--Their
+    Siege and Capture of the City.--Dynasties of Courtenai and
+    the Comneni.--The "Emperor" David.--Conquest of Trebizond by
+    Mehemet II.
+
+
+Trebizond, so famous in the Middle Ages as the residence of magicians,
+enchanters, and redoubted heroes of chivalry, is better known in
+the pages of romance than for any facts of historical importance
+which occurred there during many centuries. The only person who might
+probably have been able to throw much light upon the ancient history
+of this Byzantine city was that veracious chronicler, the Cid Hamet
+Bengenelli, who, in his account of the renowned and valorous Knight of
+the Rueful Countenance, records of Don Quixote that "the poor gentleman
+already imagined himself at least crowned Emperor of Trebizond by the
+valor of his arm; and wrapped up in these agreeable delusions, and
+hurried on by the strange pleasure he took in romances of chivalry,
+he prepared to execute what he so much desired."
+
+Two real events, however, occurred at Trebizond which I shall endeavor
+to describe--the only ones which stand out with any prominence in the
+records of the dukes, counts, and governors who held this province
+in their languid rule.
+
+In the third century the Goths, a band of desperate barbarians,
+who came originally from Prussia, were established in a curious
+out-of-the-way kingdom, situated on the Cimmerian Bosporus, the inlet
+which gives access to the Sea of Azof from the Black Sea. Trebizond,
+the capital of a Roman province, had been founded in the days of
+Xenophon by a Grecian colony, and now owed its wealth and splendor
+to the munificence of the Emperor Hadrian, who had constructed an
+artificial harbor for its shipping, while the town was defended on
+the land side by a double line of walls and towers, some part of which
+probably exist at the present time among the fortifications afterward
+erected by the Christian emperors and the Turks. In those troublous
+times the country was in disorder, and the wealthy patricians had sent
+their treasures into the town for greater security, the garrison having
+been re-enforced by an additional body of 10,000 men. A numerous fleet
+of ships was in the harbor, which, perhaps, were timidly seeking refuge
+from the pirates of the Euxine within the encircling quays of the
+harbor of Hadrian. The riches of the inhabitants, the balmy climate,
+and the soft manners of the Greeks, had enervated the spirits of the
+commanders of the troops; the fashionable triflers were sunk in luxury
+and ease; feeling secure within the impregnable walls of the imperial
+fortress, they gave themselves up to feelings of indolent disdain of
+foreign enemies; and the brilliant officers and scornful senators,
+in flowing robes, passed their days in feasting and attending upon
+the ladies, to the neglect of discipline and vigilance, trusting that
+the lofty walls and mighty towers were sufficient bulwarks to keep
+off the barbarians whom they despised.
+
+About the year 260 of our era, the Goths, who had made several roving
+expeditions on the shores of Circassia, had plundered, with various
+success, the temples and cities on the coasts of the Black Sea. These
+indomitable savages embarked on board a fleet of small flat-bottomed
+boats, each containing only a few men, who inhabited a sort of house
+with a shelving roof, built of wood, in the centre of the boat. An
+innumerable shoal of these floating houses spread over the surface of
+the waves, trusting to the winds for the course they should pursue,
+and to the ravage of the villages on shore for food. This swarm of
+rapacious pirates arrived in the course of one of their forays in the
+neighborhood of Trebizond; they landed in numbers under the walls,
+from the summits of which the fair damsels and silken warriors looked
+down with pitying scorn on the uncouth behavior, badly-made garments,
+and coarse appearance of the roving Goths, and, having satisfied their
+curiosity and expressed their contempt for the horde of barbarians who
+had arrived in the strange fleet of little boats, they retired to the
+arcades surrounding the courts of the palaces; some went to the forum
+in the centre of the town, to hear the news and laugh at the uncouth
+appearance of the Goths. The ladies and gentlemen, changing their
+morning dresses for a lighter and richer evening costume, assembled
+in the marble halls of many palaces, charmed with the excitement of
+a new subject for ridicule in the persons and dresses of the Goths,
+and a new theme for conversation in the refined assemblies of the
+polished nobles and lovely damsels of the luxurious city of Trebizond.
+
+I can imagine the conversation of a pleasant little party assembled In
+the triclinium of the prefect of the city. The gentlemen, in studied
+attitudes, reclining on the divans or couches placed against the wall,
+behind the marble tables; the ladies, in graceful robes, seated at
+their feet; while pages, with wreaths of flowers round their heads, in
+short tunics of white silk, brought up dishes of blackbirds stewed in
+wine; tarts sweetened with honey, which could be eaten with impunity
+by natives, while strangers lost their senses if they ventured on
+the dangerous condiment.
+
+"Eudocia, dearest, did you go up those horrid steps upon the wall,
+to look at those people outside? Did you ever see such creatures?"
+
+"Oh, yes, Lais, I did. Poor barbarians! why do they tie their legs
+up with leather thongs in that funny way? And what skimpy tunics they
+wear! I think they must be made of sheepskin! There was one of them--a
+great personage, no doubt, in his own nasty little country--who had
+made himself a toga of a blanket. Did not you see him, Xenophon? You
+were with us."
+
+"Well--aw--why, yes, I think I did," says Xenophon; "but what heavy
+axes they carry! what long, straight swords they wear! They say their
+hilts are gold; I dare swear they are brass. Our legionaries would
+make short work of them."
+
+"Well," says Lais, "I wish you would send those ugly people away,
+for one can not take a drive in the Hippodrome since they have been
+here these two days, and the new silver harness for my white oxen is so
+pretty. But, Eudocia, did you see the lady? I hear she is a princess--a
+princess, who travels in a punt! Dear me, a great lady she must be!"
+
+"I never heard of her," says Eudocia; "do tell me all about her. What
+is she like? Is she tall or short? pretty or ugly? or what? Let us
+have a description of your barbarian lady."
+
+"Why," answers Lais, "she is awfully tall, and she has light hair,
+plaited in two long tails like ropes, and much of the same color,
+which hang down on each side of her face in front, and reach to her
+knees. She is dressed in a long and very full gown, with innumerable
+plaits, coming high up round her throat. Her gown is confined round
+her waist by a girdle of gold and jewels, and she has a golden fillet
+round her head. This gown was light blue, and was so long I could not
+see her feet; but those of the maidens with her were of such a size,
+Eudocia, that four of our feet might walk about in their shoes,
+which were of gold stuff, coming up to the ankle, and worked with
+pearls--as heavy as lead, I should imagine."
+
+"But was the princess pretty?" again inquires Eudocia.
+
+"Xenophon says she is, but I don't believe him. She has strange-colored
+eyes, I was told--the color of her gown, and is not pale and smooth
+as marble, but with rosy cheeks and a throat as white as snow; but
+she looked very stupid, and solemn, and proud. What she can have to
+be proud of, poor creature! I can not conceive; she has not the black
+eyes and bright smile of our girls."
+
+"That is a curious wool the men wear on their caps," saith Xenophon;
+"it is curly, and of a light bluish-gray color. The barbarians seem
+to think it is very fine. I have not seen any thing like it: it is
+made of the skin of a peculiar breed of lambs, to be met with nowhere
+out of their country."
+
+"What in the world can they want so many fagots for?" asks another
+young lady. "I am sure the days are hot enough in the summer; perhaps
+they have no firewood in their own miserable regions; they have been
+doing nothing but cut bushes and make fagots of them on the hill-side
+above the citadel ever since they have been here."
+
+"Ah," says Xenophon, "except the amusement of burning a few villages,
+though that could hardly repay them the trouble, for all the goods
+worth carrying away have been brought within the walls. However, here
+comes the little cup-bearer with the Chian and Falernian wine. Never
+mind these outer barbarians; let us go to supper."
+
+So they went to supper, and, affecting classic tastes, sang verses
+on heroic themes from Homer, accompanied by music on the lyre and
+the double pipe.
+
+The Goths went to supper too outside, under the trees, and ate great
+pieces of beef cut from oxen roasted whole. The night was very dark,
+but the guards and the citizens lit up their rooms gayly within the
+city, which resounded with laughter, songs, and merriment.
+
+The night advanced, and so did the Goths; each man bore a fagot,
+which he threw into the ditch below the wall. Thousands were piled
+upon those below, others were thrown on them; the heap of fagots
+rose, the upper ones were level with the battlements. Where were the
+city guards? Where were the legionaries and the 10,000 auxiliary
+troops? They were sleeping off the fatigues of the evening feast;
+they were any where but where they should be--upon the walls.
+
+Down from the towers and the bastions poured a stream of fierce
+determined warriors; they closed the gates on that side, for fear the
+garrison should get out; but the alarm was spread; the legionaries,
+who were awakened by the cry, made off through the opposite side of
+the fortifications and escaped into the country. Those who were not
+quick enough were stabbed in the back and slain in heaps; fire and
+the sword commenced their fearful reign, blood ran in the streets,
+the massacre was horrible. The most holy temples, says the historian,
+the most splendid edifices, were involved in a common destruction. The
+booty that fell into the hands of the Goths was immense. The wealth
+of the adjacent countries, which had been deposited in Trebizond as a
+secure place of refuge, was added to the spoil. The number of captives
+was incredible; those who were left alive were gathered together
+by the Goths. Lais and Eudocia became the handmaids of the Gothic
+princess. Xenophon and 2000 able-bodied dandies were driven down to
+the port by 200 Goths, who made them chain each other to the oars
+of the galleys, on board of which the enormous plunder of Trebizond
+was embarked by the forced labor of the citizens, one or two being
+cut in half with a sweep of the long Gothic sword, to encourage the
+others if they did not hurry in their work under the burning rays of
+the sun. The Cimmerian Bosporus received the fleet of galleys laden
+with the treasures, and rowed by the slaves, of the noble city of
+Trebizond, now smouldering in a heap of smoking ruins.
+
+Thus ended the first episode in the history of Trebizond.
+
+For more than a thousand years the history of Trebizond remains
+enveloped in the mists of obscurity and insignificance; various
+dukes, princes, and counts succeeded each other in a long line of
+inglorious pride.
+
+In the thirteenth century the chivalrous house of Courtenai, by
+the assistance of the heroes of the Crusades, mounted the throne of
+Constantinople, and the ancestors of the Earl of Devon produced three
+emperors, who reigned in succession over the Oriental portion of the
+Roman empire. The ancient dynasty of the Comneni, being expelled from
+the dominions over which they had presided for centuries, fled for
+refuge into various lands. Alexius, the son of Manuel and grandson
+of Andronicus Comnenus, obtained the government of the duchy of
+Trebizond, which extended from the unfortunate Sinope to the borders
+of Circassia. He seems to have reigned in peace. The acts of his son,
+who succeeded him, are as unknown as his name, which has not even
+descended to posterity. The grandson of Alexius was David Comnenus,
+who, with an assurance and presumption which is almost ludicrous, took
+upon himself the style and title of Emperor of Trebizond. Puffed up
+with vanity and self-conceit, this feeble prince enjoyed for a short
+period the imperial dignity which he possessed only in name. The
+erection of this quaint and ridiculous Christian empire appears to
+have made a great sensation among the knights and troubadours of
+the fifteenth century. The geographical knowledge of those days was
+confined to few, and the empire of Trebizond, like that of Prester
+John, whose extent and situation were equally apocryphal, formed the
+theme of many a fabulous adventure and many a romance, which served
+to beguile the evening hours by the firesides of the castles and
+convents of England and France. Fairies and wizards, ogres and giants,
+peopled the realms of fancy in this distant empire. Lovely princesses
+were rescued from the thraldom of paynim castellans, and followers
+of Mahound and Termagaunt, by valiant Christian knights armed with
+cross-hilted swords, and lutes, and talismans, the gift of benignant
+fairies, whose existence was only to be found in the imaginations
+of the unknown but delightful authors of the romances of chivalry,
+and the poems and ballads of the trouveurs and troubadours.
+
+The truths were not so agreeable as the fictions of "the good old
+times." As it happens to be in my power to do so, I present the reader
+with a portrait of the mighty emperor, as he appeared on the occasion
+which I am about to describe. His dress consisted of a tight gown of
+scarlet silk; round his neck, down the front of his gown, and round
+the bottom of it, were bands of gold about four inches wide; these
+were edged with pearls, and ornamented with large rubies and emeralds
+in rows down the centre of each band of gold. On his arms, above the
+elbows, were golden armlets, and round his wrists gold bracelets, all
+set with colored precious stones. His girdle, of the same pattern,
+and about three inches wide, had a hanging end about two feet long,
+which the Byzantine emperors, for some undiscovered reason, seem always
+to have carried over the left arm. In his right hand he bore a golden
+sceptre, about three feet long, with a largish cross at the top,
+set with enormous pearls. On his head he wore a close golden crown,
+of which the top (that part made of velvet in the crown of England)
+was also of metal, like a helmet. From this crown a fillet set with
+pearls hung down on each side of his face to his beard, which was
+of some length. Scarlet silk hose and golden sandals completed the
+imperial costume, except that he rejoiced in two round ornaments of
+gold and jewels, each the size of a plate, which were affixed to his
+robe on the outside of the thigh.
+
+The costume of the empress was very similar, only her crown was open
+at the summit. She, contrary to female custom, wore no girdle, while
+over her shoulders hung a mantle of a dark color, embroidered all
+over with gold. The emperor wore no mantle, although this garment is
+usually considered as an essential part of the royal costume. Such
+was the appearance of David Comnenus, Emperor of Trebizond, when he
+gave audience to the embassadors from foreign powers, seated on a
+golden throne at the summit of a high flight of steep golden steps,
+surrounded by his court and his officers (conspicuous among whom
+appeared the lictors with silver axes, for, as in the third century the
+Romans affected the usages of the Greeks, in the fifteenth century
+the Greeks followed the customs of the Cæsars--so prone is human
+nature to revere the ancient ceremonies of by-gone days), puffed up
+with vanity at his own glorious position, and placed in awful majesty
+upon his golden throne in the chamber of audience, whose walls were
+painted to look like porphyry, and the ceilings colored with figures
+on a gold ground in imitation of mosaic, an ornament too expensive
+for the resources of the empire. The chamberlains and heralds with a
+loud voice announce the arrival of an envoy from the high and mighty
+lord the Soldan Mehemet II.; upon which the twelve lictors round the
+throne lifted up their voices, and cried out, "Semper bibat imperator:"
+the letter v not being found in the Greek alphabet, vivat was spelt
+with a beta, b; and being pronounced as it was spelt, the sense of
+the exclamation was a good deal compromised.
+
+The solemn envoy from the Soldan stalked into the hall, followed by a
+grisly retinue clothed from head to foot in armor, partly composed of
+steel plates inlaid with sentences from the Koran in gold letters, and
+partly completed with flexible chain mail. Their helmets had conical
+summits, almost like a low church steeple, while instead of plumes
+they displayed a rod of steel, from which fluttered a small crimson
+flag from the summits of their casques. The letter from the Soldan,
+inclosed in a bag of brocade, was handed to the important emperor,
+who, on breaking the seal, read the following words:
+
+"Wilt thou secure thy treasures and thy life by resigning thy kingdom,
+or wilt thou rather forfeit thy kingdom, thy treasures, and thy life?"
+
+But a short time before, such was the terror occasioned by the name of
+the redoubted Sultan Mehemet II., who had just planted the victorious
+crescent over the cross of St. Sofia, that Ismael Beg, the Mohammedan
+Prince of Sinope, who derived an enormous revenue from the copper-mines
+in his principality, immediately surrendered his dominions on a summons
+of a like import with the above, although at that period Sinope was
+defended with strong fortifications, 400 cannons, and 12,000 men.
+
+David Comnenus descended from his golden throne in the year 1461,
+and with his family was sent, apparently as a prisoner, to a distant
+castle, where, being accused of corresponding with the King of Persia,
+he and his whole race were massacred by the orders of his furious
+conqueror. With him ended the illustrious dynasty of the Comneni, and
+the history of the independent state of Trebizond, which has since
+those times remained a remote, and till lately an almost unexplored
+province of the Turkish empire.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+
+PRESENT CONDITION OF ARMENIA.
+
+    Impassable Character of the Country.--Dependence of Persia
+    on the Czar.--Russian Aggrandizement.--Delays of the Western
+    Powers.--Russian Acquisitions from Turkey and Persia.--Oppression
+    of the Russian Government.--The Conscription.--Armenian
+    Emigration.--The Armenian Patriarch.--Latent Power of the
+    Pope.--Anomalous Aspect of religious Questions.
+
+
+The description of Armenia and the adjacent districts in the
+foregoing pages will have sufficed to give a general idea of the many
+difficulties to be encountered by those whose business leads them
+through this inhospitable region, where they meet with impediments at
+every step, from the lofty mountains traversed by roads accessible
+only to mules and horses, the extreme cold of the high passes
+and elevated plains, the impossibility of obtaining provisions,
+and the savage character of the Koords and other wandering tribes
+who roam over this wild country. If a traveler, accompanied by a
+few followers, and assisted by firmans from the Sultan, finds this
+journey arduous in the extreme, how much more so must it prove to
+the general in command of an army, with many thousand men to provide
+for, with artillery and heavy baggage to encumber his march, on roads
+inaccessible to carriages or wheeled vehicles of any kind! and if to
+these is added an enemy on the alert to cut off supplies, to harass
+the long, straggling line of march, and to attack the passing army in
+narrow defiles from behind rocks, and from the summits of precipices,
+where they are safe from molestation, it will be understood that the
+difficulties presenting themselves to military operations in these
+regions are almost insuperable. It is the inaccessible nature of
+Circassia, even more than the bravery of its inhabitants, which has
+enabled them to resist the overwhelming power of Russia for so many
+years. On the approach to Erzeroom these difficulties increase. From
+Georgia, Persia, and Trebizond, there is no other city or entrepôt
+where an army could rest to lay in stores and collect supplies for a
+campaign, with the exception of Erzeroom, which is the centre or key
+to all these districts. If it was strongly fortified, as it should
+be, or was, at any rate, in the occupation of an active, intelligent
+government, the power who possessed it would hold the fate of that
+part of Asia in its hands.
+
+No caravans could pass, no mercantile speculations could be carried on,
+and no large bodies of troops could march without its permission. They
+would, in all probability, perish from the rigors of the climate if
+they were not assisted, even without the necessity of attacking them
+by force of arms. At this moment, the greater part of the artillery
+of the Turkish army is, I believe, buried under the snow in one
+of the ravines between Beyboort and Erzeroom, from whence it has
+no chance of being rescued till next summer. It was the impassable
+character of this country, and the treacherous habits of the robber
+tribes of Koordistan, which made the retreat of Xenophon and the
+Ten Thousand through the same regions the wonderful event which it
+has been always considered. While this is the nature of the elevated
+lands and mountains, the valleys which surround the snowy regions are
+absolutely pestiferous: in many of them no one can sleep one night
+without danger of fever, frequently ending in death. The port, or
+roadstead, of Batoum is so unhealthy as to be utterly uninhabitable
+to strangers during all the hot season of the year. I wish to draw
+attention to these circumstances, in order to explain the almost
+impossibility of dispossessing any power which had already obtained
+a firm footing in this district; and it is in order to fix herself
+firmly in this important post that Russia is now advancing in that
+direction, with a perfect knowledge of the advantages to be derived
+from this barren and unfruitful region, while she has the advantage
+of being able to send supplies to her forces by the Caspian Sea;
+for, once within her grasp, Persia is no longer independent; and,
+fettered as she is by her Russian debt, and what, in private affairs,
+would be called her heavy mortgage on her only valuable provinces on
+the shores of the Caspian--Geilaun and Mazenderaun--she must sink
+into the state of a vassal kingdom, subject to the commands of her
+superior lord the Czar.
+
+The sum she owes to Russia is said to be about two millions sterling;
+far more than she could ever raise at a short notice, while she
+would receive no assistance in war from any of the neighboring Sooni
+tribes, whose religious feelings are so much opposed to the Sheahs;
+therefore, unless supported by Great Britain, Persia is now almost
+at the mercy of Russia. Russia is altogether a military power, and,
+as in the Dark Ages, the Czar and his nobles affect to despise the
+mercantile class, and, instead of doing what they can to promote
+industry and commerce, by opening communications, making roads and
+harbors, establishing steamers on rivers, and giving facility to
+the interchange of various commodities, the productions of distant
+quarters of her own enormous empire, she throws every obstacle in the
+way of her internal trade, and by heavy import duties, exactions of
+many oppressive kinds, and the universal plunder and cheating carried
+on by all the government officials in the lower grades of employment,
+she has paralyzed both her foreign and domestic resources. The Czar
+prefers to buy his own aggrandizement with the blood of his confiding
+subjects, to the more honorable and less cruel course of enriching
+his empire by the extension of his commercial relations abroad, and
+the development of the peaceful arts, industry, science, and general
+improvement of the nations subjected to his rule. If it was not for
+this utter disregard of commerce, and the undivided attention of the
+Russian government to every thing connected with military glory, the
+navigation of the great rivers would have poured many more roubles
+into the treasury of St. Petersburgh than will be gained by any
+territorial accessions previous to the taking of Constantinople. Even
+under present circumstances, it is wonderful that a canal has not
+been made from Tzaritzin, on the Volga, to the nearest point upon the
+Don, a distance of not more than thirty miles, for by this means the
+silk of the northern provinces of Persia would be brought with the
+greatest facility into the Black Sea. In a mercantile point of view,
+Russia would gain more by the construction of that canal than by the
+conquest of Armenia, for it would enable her to develop the great
+resources of Geilaun and Mazenderaun, virtually belonging to her
+at this moment. The trade which in former times enriched the famous
+cities of Bokhara and Samarkand would be carried by caravans through
+Khiva, either now, or soon to be, the head-quarters of a Russian
+governor; from thence they would, with any encouragement, pass on
+their rich bales of merchandise to the Russian posts of Karagan, or
+Krasnovodsk, on the eastern shores of the Caspian, or to Asterabad
+on the south, and at these ports, now unknown to European navigators,
+ships might be laden which would discharge their cargoes at Liverpool,
+St. Petersburgh, or New York.
+
+I have said above that Russia has but little to gain by her territorial
+conquests in Asiatic Turkey until she takes Constantinople. I say this
+because, if things are permitted by the Western Powers to continue
+as they have done for some years, the Czar will most certainly be
+enthroned in the capital of the Byzantine emperors, principally by
+the assistance of England and France. It is a question only of time:
+for that the Patriarch of Constantinople will give his blessing to
+the Christian emperor under the dome of St. Sofia sooner or later,
+and before many years have passed, I have hardly any doubt; and when
+once fairly seated on that throne, the Powers of Europe will not
+shake him in his seat. The acquisition of the Crimea, with the strong
+naval arsenal of Sevastopol, gave the Czar the command of the Black
+Sea. The wonderful business of Navarino, where the English and French
+admirals fought his battle for him, and crippled his enemy and their
+own ancient ally for many a year, was the next important step. The
+third seems to be taking place at this moment, if indeed sufficient
+advantages have not been gained already to suffice for the present
+emergency. It matters little whether Russia does or does not retain
+the provinces of Wallachia and Moldavia, which she has several times
+occupied before; she has almost drained the treasury of her enemy, now
+straining every nerve to avert the impending evil. Turkey will hardly
+be able to support the expenses of the war for any length of time from
+her own resources. Even if a diplomatic peace is concluded, it will, in
+fact, amount only to a truce, during which the Czar will have time to
+strengthen his position, and prepare his forces for another and a more
+vigorous assault on the first convenient opportunity which occurs, from
+any dissension which may arise between the leading powers of the West;
+and the Sultan, having received nothing from his ancient allies but
+fair words, will be less able to defend himself than he is at present.
+
+The greatest of blessings in this world is peace, and every thing
+should be done to avoid the breaking out of war, with all the
+horrors and sufferings which are brought upon mankind by that dreadful
+scourge. I think it was the Duke of Wellington who said that, next to a
+defeat, the most awful of all calamities was a victory. Every endeavor
+should be made to secure the happiness of peace. To those, however,
+who have no further means of information than what they read in
+newspapers, it would seem that, while we might have put out the candle,
+we have waited till the chimney is on fire, if not the house itself,
+and then who can tell how far and wide the conflagration may extend?
+
+If England and France had shown a determined front, and informed the
+Czar that, being bound by treaty to preserve the integrity of the
+Turkish empire, they should consider the passage of the Pruth by one
+Russian armed man as a violation of that treaty and a declaration
+of war, and that they should act accordingly without delay, in
+all probability no war would have commenced, no blood would have
+been shed, no ruinous expenses would have been incurred. War having
+commenced, heavy and exhausting sums of money have been drawn from
+the treasury of the Sultan. When the ice set in upon the Baltic, what
+was to prevent the allied fleet from taking possession of the stores
+of corn, and occupying or destroying the city of Odessa? Sevastopol,
+impregnable by sea, is not--or was not two years ago, and, I believe,
+at this day is not--defensible on the land side. The Bay of Streleskaia
+offers a convenient landing-place about three miles in the rear of
+the fortifications of the arsenal, where a Turkish army might be
+brought in two days from Constantinople to try its fortunes with the
+Russian force; or, if that was not judged expedient, Sevastopol could
+have been blockaded till some advantageous terms were gained for our
+ally. Failing this, a French army, convoyed and assisted by their
+own and our fleets, would have settled the question without doubt,
+and may do so still; but, unless an indemnity for the expenses of
+the war is exacted from Russia for her most unjust and unjustifiable
+aggression, very little advantage will be gained for Turkey, a great
+step will have been accomplished by the Czar, and the possession
+of the Crimea almost insures him the possession of Constantinople
+some day, perhaps at no very distant period. The restoration of the
+Crimea to the Turkish empire would, I imagine, be the only means of
+checking the advance of Russia in that direction. This, accompanied
+by a forced treaty, releasing Persia from her usurious debt, would
+restrain the encroachments of the Czar within certain bounds for some
+years to come. The present aspect of affairs in the East becomes more
+alarming every day. If negotiations are protracted till the ice of
+the Baltic melts in the spring or early summer, things will assume a
+much more grave appearance, and it will depend on many circumstances
+over which we have no control where the conflagration then may spread
+and where the war will end.
+
+It is impossible to look back upon the history of Russia for the
+last 150 years without admiration and astonishment at the enormous
+strides which have been made by the giants of the north since that
+period. When Peter the Great acceded to the throne of Muscovy,
+there was no maritime outlet to his empire excepting in the icy
+shores of the Northern Ocean. The ground on which the metropolis of
+St. Petersburgh now stands was not in the possession of Russia till
+the year 1721. Since the year 1774 Russia has acquired, quite in the
+memory of man, a territory from Turkey equal in extent to the whole
+empire of Austria, and much larger than the present possessions of the
+Turks in Europe. The following table of the progress of the Russian
+arms in the East will show at a glance how rapidly and steadily she
+has extended her power, her grasping hand, and her outstretched arm
+in that direction; and it can not be expected that, when she has
+rested and strengthened herself, and consolidated her resources in
+her newly-acquired territories, she will be prevented by any slight
+obstacle from further aggrandizement.
+
+
+    Russian Acquisitions from Turkey.
+
+    Country to the north of the Crimea                 1774
+    The Crimea                                         1783
+    Country round Odessa                               1792
+    Country between the Sea of Azof and the Caspian,
+    at the same period as the Crimea                   1783
+    Besarabia                                          1812
+
+
+    Russian Acquisitions from Persia.
+
+    Mingrelia, on the Black Sea                        1802
+    Immeritia, the same year                           1802
+    Akalzik                                            1829
+    Georgia                                            1814
+    Ganja                                              1803
+    Karabaugh                                          1805
+    Erivan, Mount Ararat, and Etchmiazin               1828
+    Sheki                                              1805
+    Shirvan                                            1806
+    Talish, on the Caspian                             1812
+
+
+Few of these conquered or deluded nations have been able to bear the
+intolerable oppression of the Russian government, arising from the
+insolence of the petty employés, and more particularly the dreadful
+scourge of the conscription, by the aid of which, at any moment,
+children are remorselessly torn forever from their parents, whose sole
+support they were; families are on a sudden divided; one half sent
+off no one knows whither, never to meet again; none of these unhappy
+slaves knowing whether it will be their lot to become soldiers or
+sailors, but, in either case, they are driven off, like beasts, in
+flocks, by cruel, savage tyrants, who steal, as a matter of course,
+the money provided by the superior government for the food of the
+despairing conscripts, while they--brutal and drunken though they
+may be--are distinguished for their love of home, and the affection
+and respect they bear for their parents.
+
+The Nogai Tatars abandoned the Christian religion, and took refuge
+in the territories of the Khan of the Crimea, becoming Mohammedans
+in hopes of obtaining the protection of the milder rule of Turkey.
+
+In 1771 a still more extraordinary event took place. The Kalmuks,
+a people who had emigrated from the frontiers of China, unable to
+endure the insults and oppressions of the Russian tyranny, made up
+their minds to return to the dominions of the Celestial Empire, from
+whence their ancestors had originally come. They fought their way
+through all the hostile tribes intervening between them, and their
+whole nation arrived safely under the wing of the Emperor of China,
+who afforded them protection, and gave them great tracts of land for
+the pasture of their flocks and herds. The embassador of the Empress
+Catharine, who had been dispatched to desire the surrender of the
+fugitive tribe, and--as at this day in Turkey--to demand a "renewal
+of treaties" between the two countries, received the following
+answer from the court of Pekin: "Let your mistress learn to keep
+old treaties, and then it will be time to apply for new ones;" an
+answer which might have been given in our day to Prince Menschikoff,
+who was lucky in meeting with a milder reception at Constantinople
+than his predecessor received from the stout old mandarin at Pekin.
+
+In the year 1829, Kars, Bayazeed, Van, Moush, Erzeroom, and Beyboort
+(which is coming very near) were occupied by the Russians, who
+evacuated that portion of the Turkish empire on the conclusion of the
+treaty of Adrianople. Trusting to the protestations of a Christian
+emperor, sixty-nine thousand Christian Armenian families were beguiled
+into the folly of leaving Mohammedan dominions, and sitting in peace
+under the paternal protection of the Czar. Over their ruined houses I
+have ridden, and surveyed with sorrow their ancient churches in the
+valleys of Armenia, desecrated and injured, as far as their solid
+construction permitted, by the sacrilegious hands of the Russian
+soldiers, who tried to destroy those temples of their own religion
+which the Turks had spared, and under whose rule many of the more
+recent had been rebuilt on their old foundations. The greater part of
+these Armenians perished from want and starvation; the few who survived
+this sharp lesson have since been endeavoring, by every means in their
+power, to return to the lesser evils of the frying-pan of Turkey,
+from whence they had leaped into the fire of despotic Russia.
+
+By the treaty of Turkomanchai, 1828, the Czar became possessed of
+Persian Armenia, of which the capital is Erivan. In this district are
+contained the two great objects of Armenian veneration, Etchmiazin
+and Mount Ararat. This noble snowy mountain takes the place, in the
+estimation of the Armenians, that Mount Sinai and Mount Zion do among
+the followers of other Christian sects. The foolish legends which
+disgrace the purity of true religion usually relate to the object
+of local tradition which may be met with in the neighborhood of the
+monastery; consequently an attack of indigestion in an Armenian monk
+generally produces a vision of some nonsensical revelation about
+Noah's ark, which is still supposed to remain, hidden to mortal eye,
+under the clouds and snows of Mount Ararat.
+
+Etchmiazin is an ancient fortified monastery, within whose walls
+resides the Patriarch of the Armenian Church, the spiritual head of
+that body, and who is looked up to indeed as the temporal chief of
+that scattered nation whose industrious children are settled in India,
+Constantinople, and in many other parts of the world, so that those
+who live and thrive abroad are much more numerous and more wealthy than
+those who reside in Armenia itself. The possession, therefore, of the
+person and residence of the Patriarch is a fact of no small importance
+in the history of Russian advancement. To undertake a pilgrimage to
+Etchmiazin is a meritorious act among the professors of the Armenian
+faith; and the influence exercised over the Patriarch is diffused,
+through the obedient medium of bishops, priests, and deacons, through
+all parts of Turkey, and many of the cities of India, to an extent
+which would surprise those who never have troubled themselves with the
+affairs of the Armenian jeweler or silversmith in an Eastern bazaar,
+for they are almost invariably dealers in jewels and precious metals;
+or serafs, bankers, among the native population; a position which
+renders their influence of no small consequence in every city where
+they reside. By these means, among others, the political interest of
+the Czar is nourished and extended on the Persian Gulf, at Bombay,
+Bushire, Madras, and many another place, in the same manner as the
+sway and power of the Roman pontiff is upheld, and that by no weak
+and trembling hand, in Ireland, England, London, and the House of
+Commons. And yet we pretend that there is no such power as the See
+of Rome; we ignore the existence of the Pope, and sneer at the prince
+of a petty Italian state supported by French bayonets, who is in that
+rotten and decaying state that we or our children are to see his end.
+
+But my belief is, that the power of Rome is by no means in a falling
+state, nor would it be so even if the rule of some band of miscreants
+usurped for a little while the misgovernment of the Eternal City. The
+power of the Pope is now, at this moment, one of the greatest upon
+the earth; and as irreligion and dissent increase, so will the most
+wonderfully clever institution of the temporal power of the Roman
+Church increase. Its minute and marvelous organization, the perfect
+understanding and subordination of the inferior to the superior
+officer, its fixed and certain purpose, give the Pope the command
+over such a united and well-disciplined army of trained and fearless
+soldiers as never could be brought together by Cæsar, or Napoleon, or
+our own old Duke. The peace of Europe in this direction arises not from
+the slightest want of power or means on the part of the See of Rome,
+but from the jealousy of the body in whose hands the election of the
+Supreme Pontiff lies. For many years they have elected a good old monk,
+who has passed his whole life in a state of supreme ignorance of the
+world in general, and the whole art of government in particular. In
+his hands the mighty power at his command remains inert--a slumbering
+volcano. But should the ivory chair of St. Peter ever sustain the
+weight of a young and energetic man of genius, with some years of
+life before him, no one would laugh at the tottering state of Rome.
+
+As for the petty principality of a state in Italy, I have been told,
+in the Pope's own ante-room, that it is a burden to him. His extended
+sway does not depend on the doubtful loyalty of half a dozen regiments
+of Italians, or on the more honest obedience of two or three thousand
+Swiss guards, but on the hearts and hands of many millions, who
+look up to him as their spiritual superior at all times, and their
+temporal superior, whom they are bound to obey in opposition to all
+other sovereigns, when any thing occurs "ad majorem Dei gloriam,"
+and for the advancement of the Church of Rome.
+
+A power such as this, which in our trafficking and money-making
+country is thought little of--a power such as this lies dormant in
+the hands of the Grand Lama of Thibet, whose followers form almost
+half of all mankind--in those of the Patriarch of Constantinople--and
+to an inferior degree in those of the Patriarch of Etchmiazin. They
+are all paralyzed and quiescent from the same cause, namely, that the
+chiefs of these mighty institutions are old, ignorant men, whose minds
+have not the energy, or their hands the power, to work the tremendous
+engine committed to their care. That the Czar is perfectly aware of
+the uses to be made of the religious feelings of the inhabitants of
+other governments to further his own ends, we see from the numerous
+magnificent presents ostentatiously forwarded by him to churches in
+Greece and Turkey, where the monks and priests by these means are
+gained over to his interests. From his generous hand, extended to
+the borders of the Adriatic, about £5000 are annually dropped into
+the poor-box of that truculent specimen of the church militant,
+the Vladica of Montenegro. But the Czar is not an aged monk; he is
+not wanting in energy or strength; and he will not fail to pull the
+strings which hang loosely in the hands of the Armenian patriarch. If
+he pulls them evenly and well, he will advance his interests far
+and wide, even in the dominions of other princes, who may hardly be
+aware of the influence exercised in their states from a source so
+distant and unobtrusive. The danger in his case is, that he may use
+too great violence, and break the strings from too severe a tension,
+raising the storm against himself which he intended to direct against
+others. However this may be, the power of which he holds the reins
+is one which may be used for the advancement of the greatest or the
+most ignoble ends. For the most sublime and glorious actions, the most
+heroic and the most infernal deeds that have ever been accomplished
+by mankind, have been occasioned by the awakening of religious zeal,
+or by the fanaticism of religious hatred, from the earliest days,
+when the pen of history was first dipped in blood.
+
+Nothing can be more anomalous than the present aspect of religious
+questions. The Christian Emperor of Russia is at this moment exciting
+the minds of his subjects to make war upon the infidel; and his armies
+march under the impression that they undertake a new crusade. Yet
+this crusade is carried on in direct contradiction to truth, justice,
+honor, and every principle of the Christian religion, whose pure
+and sacred precepts are violated at every turn. On the other hand,
+the Mohammedan, or infidel, as he is called, displays, under the most
+difficult and insulting circumstances, the highest Christian virtues
+of integrity, moderation, and strict adherence to his word in treaties
+granted by himself or his predecessors; at the same time, the armies
+of the upright Sultan are commanded by a Christian renegade who has
+abjured his faith, and yet he fights against the Christian power in
+a righteous cause.
+
+The terrible revolution which is the cause of such awful scenes of
+bloodshed and atrocities in China is carried on under the name of our
+merciful and just Savior, whose mild religion these rebels against
+their sovereign affect to follow.
+
+The savage atrocities of the Holy Inquisition, the cruel massacres
+by the Spaniards in America, were perpetrated by men who made a cloak
+of the benevolent precepts of the Gospel for the perpetration of the
+most brutal crimes.
+
+Those times we thought were past, but human nature is the same;
+and where the light of true Christianity has penetrated, we find a
+period of wonderful intelligence and appreciation of the truths of
+the doctrines of our Lord in some places; in others, where a nominal
+Christianity alone prevails, actions are committed by men in the
+highest stations which would disgrace the records of the Dark Ages.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+
+    Ecclesiastical History.--Supposed Letter of Abgarus, King
+    of Edessa, to our Savior, and the Answer.--Promulgation
+    and Establishment of Christianity.--Labors of
+    Mesrob Maschdots.--Separation of the Armenian Church
+    from that of Constantinople.--Hierarchy and religious
+    Establishments.--Superstition of the Lower Classes.--Sacerdotal
+    Vestments.--The Holy Books.--Romish Branch of the Church.--Labors
+    of Mechitar.--His Establishment near Venice.--Diffusion of the
+    Scriptures.
+
+
+The ruins of Ani to this day attest the magnificence and antiquity
+of former dynasties which long since reigned and passed away in the
+highlands of Armenia. In the time of Cyrus, according to Moses of
+Chorene, the historian of that country in the sixteenth century,
+Greek statues of Jupiter, Artemis (Diana), Minerva, Hephæstion,
+and Venus, were brought to Ani and placed in the citadel of that
+town. Here the treasures and the sepulchres of the ancient kings
+were preserved in a fortress deemed by them impregnable. I will not
+pause to disentangle the records of Armenia before the time of our
+Savior, for even during the life of our Lord the annals of Armenia
+become remarkably interesting as connected with his holy faith, and
+the rise and progress of Christianity in the countries immediately
+adjoining the sacred soil of Palestine. Abgarus, king of Edessa, and
+sovereign of great part of Armenia, with the adjoining countries,
+is said by Eusebius, bishop of Cæsarea, the early historian of the
+Church, who flourished in the fourth century, to have written a letter
+to our Savior, requesting him to repair to his court and to cure him
+of a disease under which he labored. The following is a translation
+of the letter which Abgarus is said to have written to our Lord:
+
+"Abgarus, King of Edessa, to Jesus the good Savior, who appeareth at
+Jerusalem, greeting:
+
+"I have been informed concerning thee and thy cures, which are
+performed without the use of medicines or of herbs.
+
+"For it is reported that thou dost cause the blind to see, the lame
+to walk, that thou dost cleanse the lepers, and dost cast out unclean
+spirits and devils, and dost restore to health those who have been
+long diseased, and also that thou dost raise the dead.
+
+"All which when I heard I was persuaded of one of these two things:
+
+"Either that thou art God himself descended from heaven;
+
+"Or that thou art the Son of God.
+
+"On this account, therefore, I have written unto thee, earnestly
+desiring that thou wouldst trouble thyself to take a journey hither,
+and that thou wilt also cure me of the disease under which I suffer.
+
+"For I fear that the Jews hold thee in derision, and intend to do
+thee harm.
+
+"My city is indeed small, but it is sufficient to contain us both."
+
+In the history of Moses of Chorene, this letter begins with the words
+"Abgar, the son of Archam," but the substance of it is the same as the
+above, which is taken from the pages of Eusebius, who lived a century
+earlier than Moses of Chorene. This author ascribes the answer to
+St. Thomas the Apostle, who was deputed to write an answer to the
+above in these words:
+
+"Happy art thou, O Abgarus, forasmuch as thou hast believed in me
+whom thou hast not seen.
+
+"For it is written concerning me, that those who have seen me have not
+believed on me, that those who have not seen me might believe and live.
+
+"As to that part of thine epistle which relates to my visiting thee,
+I must inform thee that I must fulfill the ends of my mission in
+this land, and after that be received up again unto Him that sent me;
+but after my ascension I will send one of my disciples, who will cure
+thy disease, and give life unto thee and all that are with thee."
+
+These two letters are generally considered to be forgeries, although
+they are mentioned by some of the earliest historians of the Church.
+
+Some years ago I was informed, while at Alexandria, that a papyrus had
+been discovered in Upper Egypt, in an ancient tomb; it was inclosed in
+a coarse earthenware vase, and it contained the letter from Abgarus to
+our Savior, written either in Coptic or uncial Greek characters. The
+answer of St. Thomas was said not to be with it. I was told that the
+manuscript afterward came into the possession of the King of Holland,
+but I have no means at present of ascertaining the truth of the story,
+or the antiquity of the papyrus of which it forms the subject.
+
+The seeds of the Christian faith were sown in Armenia by the
+apostles St. Bartholomew and St. Thomas. According to Tertullian
+(adv. Judæos, c. 7), a Christian Church flourished there in the
+second century. St. Blaise and other bishops suffered martyrdom in
+different parts of Armenia during the persecution of Diocletian,
+about the year 310.
+
+To St. Gregory, the Illuminator, is due the honor of having established
+Christianity in this region, and he is known by the title of the
+Apostle of Armenia. Toward the middle of the third century, having
+been himself a convert from Paganism, he first preached the doctrines
+of our Lord among the mountains of his native land. He had received
+his education at Cæsarea in Cappadocia, where he was baptized. The
+zeal with which he was animated gave irresistible force to his words,
+and the people flocked to him in great multitudes, and were baptized by
+his hands. The King Tiridates, a violent persecutor of the Christians,
+touched by the piety and virtues of St. Gregory, embraced the Christian
+faith, and, with his queen and his sister, received the sacrament
+of baptism in the 16th year of his reign, A.D. 274, and became the
+first Christian King of Armenia. St. Gregory was consecrated bishop
+by St. Leontius, Bishop of Cæsarea, in Cappadocia, and continued
+his labors in propagating the faith all over Armenia, Georgia,
+and the nations living on the borders of the Caspian Sea. From this
+circumstance it became the custom for the Primate of Armenia to receive
+his consecration from the Archbishop of Cæsarea, which continued to be
+the practice for several centuries. St. Gregory died in the year 336,
+in a cave to which he had retired, desiring to end his days as an
+anchorite, according to a custom much observed in the fourth century.
+
+In those disturbed and unsettled times, the religion of our Savior
+alternately rose and prospered, or was oppressed by the persecutions
+of various governors under the Emperors of Rome. Numerous heresies
+distracted the minds of the priesthood, and confused the doctrines of
+the Armenian Church. About the year 390 rose the most celebrated man
+in the history of this country: his name was Mesrob Maschdots. This
+personage was born in the town of Hatsegatz-Avan, in the province
+of Daron: he had been secretary to the Patriarch Narses, and to the
+Prince Varastad, who was dethroned by the Romans in the year 382. In
+the year 390, in conjunction with the Armenian Patriarch Sahag,
+he occupied himself in the extinction of the idolatry which still
+prevailed, and was the first person who arranged the forms of the
+Armenian liturgy. Before this time the Armenian language had no written
+character; the inhabitants of the eastern districts used the Persian
+alphabet, while those of the west wrote in the Syriac character. Mesrob
+either restored the ancient Armenian letters according to the historian
+Moses of Chorene, who gives a long miraculous account of the event, or
+he invented an entirely new alphabet--a solitary instance, I believe,
+of such an undertaking having been accomplished by one man. The present
+Armenian letters were adopted by the commands of Bahram Schahpoor
+over the whole of that country in the year 406. The first complete
+version of the Bible was now arranged and promulgated by Mesrob,
+and written on parchment in his new characters; numerous copies of
+it were distributed to the churches and monasteries of Armenia, and
+the important circumstance of their being now able to read the Holy
+Scriptures in their own language tended to preserve their faith, and to
+unite them as a nation during the continual troubles and adversities
+which they have suffered ever since. This great benefactor to his
+country died in the year 441.
+
+The Armenian hierarchy had till now been a branch of the Greek Church,
+but, unable to read their liturgy, troubled with diversities of
+opinion, and oppressed first by one neighboring tyrant and then by
+another, this helpless nation finally settled down into the heresy
+of Eutyches, and, under the guidance of their patriarch, separated
+themselves from the Church of Constantinople. They believe that the
+body of our Savior was created, or else existed without creation,
+a divine and incorruptible substance, not subject to the infirmities
+of the flesh. This schism took place about the year 535.
+
+The Armenian era commences in the year 552, from which epoch their
+manuscripts and calendar are dated. The custom continues to the
+present day. By the council of Tibena in 554, they were confirmed in
+their persistence in the Eutychian heresy. The council of Trullo,
+692, and the council of Jerusalem, 1143, condemned the errors of
+the Armenians. In the fourteenth century, Pope John XXII. sent a
+Dominican friar, called Bartholomew the Little, into that distant
+region, with several colleagues, to preach the doctrines of the
+Church of Rome. Bartholomew was consecrated bishop (of Nakchevan?),
+and since that time the archbishop of that province has, with all his
+dependencies, continued a member of the Roman Church. The thunders of
+the Lateran have often since been directed against the perseverance
+of these distant heretics, but they have been of no avail.
+
+The Patriarch of Armenia resides at Etchmiazin. He is styled
+Catholicos, and holds under his sway forty-seven archbishops, of whom
+the greater part are titular, having no jurisdiction or dignity beyond
+their titles; many of these reside in the monastery, and form a sort
+of court around their spiritual lord the Patriarch. They seem to hold
+the same position as the Monsignores of the court of Rome. Above the
+titular and actual archbishops are three Patriarchs, whose seats are
+at Jerusalem, Constantinople, and Diarbekir. The number of bishops
+and episcopal sees is very considerable, but I have not been able
+to enumerate them. The monasteries are also very numerous, and are
+scattered all over the mountains of Armenia, the islands of Lake Van,
+and other places in Persia, Georgia, and Turkey.
+
+The ancient monasteries of their own land are of a peculiar
+construction, remarkable for the diminutive proportions of the churches
+and the small size of the monastic buildings, as well as their massive
+strength and the great squared stones of which they are built. They are
+little fortresses, and seem always to have been very poor, though some
+are larger and more wealthy, comparatively, than the generality. They
+have been erected to resist the incursions of the Saracens, Knights
+Templars, Koords, Turks, and Persians, who, from time to time, overran
+this abject principality. Their massive strength alone has saved them
+from being pulled down and utterly destroyed; the time necessary for
+such an operation could not be spared during the inroad of a chappow,
+or plundering expedition. Nothing worth stealing remains in the
+various monasteries which I have visited. A few dirty and imperfect
+church-books, some faded vestments and poor furniture for the altar,
+and the cells of three or four peasant-monks, were all the wealth that
+they displayed. Very few appear to have contained a library--none that
+I have seen. Their manuscripts were written in former days at Edessa,
+Etchmiazin (which is a more extensive fabric), Teflis, Ooroomia,
+Tabriz, and other cities, and not usually in these outposts among
+the mountains. The little monastery of Kuzzul Vank possesses one
+ancient manuscript of the Holy Scriptures, written in the year, as
+far as I can remember, 422, which, if it refers to the Armenian era,
+would be 974; it is written in uncial letters, on vellum, in a small,
+thick quarto form.
+
+Ignorance and superstition contend for the mastery among the lower
+classes of Armenia, whose religion shows that tendency to sink
+into a kind of idolatry which is common among other branches of
+the Church of Christ in warmer climates. The following anecdote
+will explain my meaning in advancing such a charge. One of my
+servants had a bad toothache; he was a Roman Catholic of Smyrna;
+he made a vow to present an offering to the shrine of St. George at
+Smyrna if his toothache was cured by the mediation of that saint,
+but the pain still continued. A friend of his at Erzeroom advised
+him to vow a silver mouth to St. George of Erzeroom; "for," he said,
+"St. George of Smyrna is a Roman saint, and, of course, he can have
+no authority here; but our St. George is an Armenian, and he will
+hear your prayer." The advice was taken: a silver mouth was vowed
+to St. George of Erzeroom, and the toothache ceased immediately, the
+servant firmly believing that he had been cured by this saint, who,
+he considered, was another person, and not the same as St. George
+of Smyrna, and that his picture here was more powerful in working
+miracles than the others. In the same manner, the pictures or images
+of Our Lady of Loretto, Guadaloupe, or del Pilar are believed to be
+endowed with peculiar powers, and are, in fact, worshiped for their
+own merits, and not for what they represent.
+
+A curious episode in the history of Armenia took place in the time
+of Shah Abbas the Great, who established a colony of the natives
+of that province at Julfa, a village near Isfahaun. He gave them
+many privileges and immunities, which a remnant of their descendants
+enjoy still. The forms and ceremonies of their worship resemble those
+of the Greek Church, from which they are derived. Their vestments
+are the same, or nearly so: and here I will remark that the sacred
+vestures of the Christian Church are the same, with very insignificant
+modifications, among every denomination of Christians in the world;
+that they have always been the same, and never were otherwise in any
+country, from the remotest times when we have any written accounts
+of them, or any mosaics, sculptures, or pictures to explain their
+forms. They are no more a Popish invention, or have any thing more
+to do with the Roman Church, than any other usage which is common
+to all denominations of Christians. They are, and always have been,
+of general and universal--that is, of catholic--use; they have never
+been used for many centuries for ornament or dress by the laity, having
+been considered as set apart to be used only by priests in the church
+during the celebration of the worship of Almighty God. These ancient
+vestures have been worn by the bishops, priests, and deacons of that,
+in common with the hierarchy of every other Church. In England they
+have fallen into disuse by neglect; King Charles I. presented some
+vestments to the Cathedral of Durham long after the Reformation,
+and they continued in use there almost in the memory of man.
+
+The parish priests of the Armenian religion are, I believe, permitted,
+if not obliged, to marry, as is the case in the Greek and Russian
+Churches; but they can not, so long as their wife survives, be
+promoted to any of the higher orders of the hierarchy. Bishops,
+archbishops, and patriarchs are elected out of the monastic bodies
+who take the vows of celibacy; their fasts are long and rigorous,
+their food simple, and their style of life severe; their time is
+almost entirely taken up with the services of religion, and, as a
+general rule, their ignorance is extreme.
+
+In their doctrine of the Holy Trinity, they believe that the Holy
+Spirit proceeds from the Father alone; that Christ descended into hell,
+from whence he reprieved the souls of sinners till the day of judgment;
+that the souls of the righteous will not be admitted to the beatific
+vision till after the resurrection, notwithstanding which they invoke
+them in their prayers. They make use of pictures in their churches,
+but not of images; they use confession to the priests, and administer
+the Eucharist in both kinds.
+
+In baptism they plunge the child three times in water, apply the
+chrism with consecrated oil prepared only by the Patriarch. They
+also touch the child's lips with the Eucharist, which consists of
+unleavened bread sopped in wine.
+
+The Holy Scriptures contain more books than those of the Western
+Churches. In the Old Testament, after the Book of Genesis, occurs
+The Testament of the Twelve Patriarchs, the Sons of Jacob; then The
+History of Joseph and of his wife Asenath; The Book of Jesus the Son
+of Sirach. After these the order of the scriptural books succeeds
+as with us. In the New Testament, after St. Paul's Second Epistle to
+the Corinthians, we find the Epistle of the Corinthians to St. Paul,
+which is followed by St. Paul's Third Epistle to the Corinthians. The
+remainder of the New Testament is the same as ours.
+
+The Testament of the Twelve Patriarchs, and the Book of Jesus the
+Son of Sirach, are well known; but I am not aware that the Book of
+Asenath has been printed in any European language. This curious book
+was translated into Italian, from an ancient Armenian manuscript of
+the Bible in my possession, by an Armenian friend, and translated
+from the Italian into English by myself: this I presume to be the
+only copy of the Book of Asenath in the English language. It is a
+work of considerable length, and is interesting, not only from the
+place it holds in the estimation of a numerous body of Christians,
+but also from the picture it presents of the manners and customs of
+Egypt, at some remote period when it was written. Several passages in
+it indicate that it must have been composed when what may be called
+the classic style of life was still in use. Whether it was included
+among the number of the sacred books collected by Mesrob I do not
+know: in that case it would date as far back as the fourth century
+after Christ, a period prolific in apocryphal books, several of which
+were forged about that time to support the authority of the various
+heresiarchs who promulgated their opinions in many countries of the
+East, and who, being unable to produce texts from the accepted books of
+the Sacred Scriptures which would prove the truth of their doctrines,
+invented others more suitable to their own purposes, and written more
+in accordance with their views.
+
+The Epistle from the Corinthians to St. Paul, and the answer from the
+great apostle, is of a higher class, and bears much resemblance to his
+other Epistles. It has been published among Lord Byron's works. He
+took a few lessons in Armenian from Father Pasquale Aucher, a monk
+of the monastery of St. Lazarus, at Venice, a man of extraordinary
+learning, who speaks most of the European languages, as well as
+Turkish, Armenian, and other Oriental tongues. He translated these
+Epistles into English, with the assistance of Lord Byron.
+
+The Roman Catholic branch of the Armenian Church has done much more
+for literature and civilization than the original body. Few Catholics
+are found in Armenia itself, excepting at Erzeroom and other cities,
+where a remnant remain, while at Constantinople a great number
+of the higher and wealthier Armenians give their adherence to that
+creed. Their minds are more enlarged, they are less Oriental in their
+ideas, being usually considered as half Franks by their more Eastern
+brethren. Their churches bear a great resemblance to those of other
+Catholics, but they retain their own language in their ritual, with
+many of the forms and ceremonies of the Oriental Church. The Armenian
+Patriarch, with his long beard, and crown instead of a mitre, is one of
+the picturesque figures to whom attention is drawn in the ceremonies of
+the Holy Week at Rome, where there is a college for the education of
+priests of their nation. They have another college at Constantinople,
+and several handsome churches; but the most important establishment
+of this branch of their religion is that of the convent or monastery
+on the island of St. Lazarus, near Venice.
+
+This society, as they themselves call it, was founded by Mechitar,
+an Armenian, who was born at Sebaste, in lesser Armenia, in 1676. He
+received holy orders from the Bishop Ananias, superior of the convent
+of the Holy Cross, near Sebaste. He afterward studied in the convent of
+Passen, near Erzeroom, and at another on the island on Lake Van. His
+wish was to remain in the great monastery of Etchmiazin, to which
+place he traveled, but, finding no opportunities of study at the seat
+of the Patriarch, he proceeded to Constantinople, where he afterward
+founded a small society, of a monastic kind, at Pera, in the year 1700.
+
+In the year 1708 he established a church and monastic society at Modon
+in the Morea, then under the government of Venice; but the Turks having
+taken that place, his companions were made prisoners and sold for
+slaves. He, with some others, escaped to Venice, where he received a
+grant, in the year 1717, from the Signory, of a small deserted island
+in the Lagunes, originally the property of the Benedictine order,
+who established a hospital for lepers there in 1180. In this island
+he set up a printing-press about the year 1730, for the production
+of Armenian religious books; and he had the satisfaction of seeing
+his convent increase in comfort, wealth, and respectability before
+his death, which took place on the 27th of April, 1749.
+
+So high was the character of this establishment for usefulness and
+good conduct, that in 1810, when other monastic establishments were
+suppressed at Venice, the abbot of St. Lazaro received a peculiar
+decree, granting him and his community all the privileges of their
+former independence. So high also has been the character of this
+society since that time, that it has been usual for the Pope to
+confer upon each new abbot the title and dignity of Archbishop,
+although he has no province or bishops under him. The service they have
+rendered to their countrymen is very great: they have at present five
+printing-presses, from whence every year proceed numerous volumes
+of religious and historical character, as well as school-books,
+and a newspaper in the Armenian language. These are mostly sold at
+Constantinople, and among the scattered societies of their nation. The
+funds produced from this source enable them to establish a considerable
+school or college at Venice, and to send literary missionaries, as they
+may be called, to collect manuscripts and historical notices among the
+barren mountains of Armenia. Of these they make good use, compiling,
+from imperfect and mutilated fragments, authentic histories of their
+country; printing the almost hitherto lost and unknown works of ancient
+Armenian authors, and distributing copies of the Holy Scriptures
+among their brethren in the wasted and benighted land of their fathers.
+
+They printed the Armenian Bible in the year 1805; and, entirely by
+their energy, the small spark which alone glimmered in the darkness
+of Armenian ignorance in the East has gradually increased its light
+into a feeble ray, which now, seen faintly through the mist, draws
+every now and then the attention of some one endowed by nature
+with more intelligence than the rest, and incites him to inquire
+into those truths the rumors of whose existence had only reached
+him hitherto. Slowly enough, but we trust surely, the good work
+prospers: when curiosity and interest are awakened, the mind turns
+naturally to the sources from which information may be gained. The
+Holy Gospels, the New Testament, and, in some places, the whole
+Bible, may now be procured at a comparatively trifling expense; the
+leaven, once introduced, sooner or later will leaven the whole mass;
+truth and common sense will dissipate the clouds which ignorance and
+superstition have gathered over the face of the land, and the light
+of true religion will arise to set no more.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI.
+
+    Modern division of Armenia.--Population.--Manners and Customs of
+    the Christians.--Superiority of the Mohammedans.
+
+
+The country which was called Armenia in ancient times is now divided
+into two portions; the smaller of the two belongs to Persia, but
+the larger part is contained in the Turkish province or pashalik of
+Erzeroom. It does not possess any communication with the sea, and is
+a wild and mountainous district. Although not of any high importance
+for mercantile productions, it has continually been an object of
+jealousy to the neighboring empires of Persia and Byzantium--or, in
+our time, Persia and Turkey--from the high road between those empires
+necessarily passing through it; the power of cutting off supplies,
+and permitting the passage of caravans laden with the rich productions
+of other lands, being vested in the hands of the military governor of
+Erzeroom. The number of inhabitants of this pashalik is estimated at
+1,000,000; there were probably more in earlier times. The principal
+cities are--Erzeroom, the capital, containing about 30,000 souls. The
+population of Kars is considered to be about 20,000, Van 20,000, Moosh
+and Beyboort about 8000 each. The Turkish governor of the pashalik
+has generally an armed force of 25,000 regular soldiers; but it would
+be easy for him, with sufficient funds, to raise a more considerable
+force of irregular cavalry, and infantry armed with rifles, the use of
+which weapon is well understood by the hardy mountaineers and hunters,
+whose manners in some respects resemble those of the Tyrolese. The
+greater half of the population are Mohammedan Turks or Osmanlis,
+followers of Osman. The word Turk is never used in this country, and is
+more generally applied to the Turkomans and some of the tribes on the
+Persian border, who are of Calmuc or Tartar origin, and a completely
+different sort of people from those whom we call Turks. The Christian
+population consists of a small number of Greeks, Nestorians, and Roman
+Catholics, the greater part being descendants of the ancient possessors
+of the soil, and professing the Christianity of the Armenian Church,
+which I have attempted to describe above. Their manners and customs are
+the same as those of the Turks, whom they copy in dress and in their
+general way of living; so much is this the case, that it is frequently
+difficult to distinguish the Turkish from the Armenian family, both
+in Armenia and at Constantinople; only the Armenian is the inferior
+in all respects; he would be called in China a second-chop Turk. He
+is more quick and restless in his motions, and wants the dignity and
+straightforward bearing of the Osmanli. More than 100,000 Armenians
+are settled at Constantinople. These are not so ignorant, and are,
+even in appearance, different from those of their original country,
+who are a heavy and loutish race, while the citizens are thin, sharp,
+active in money-making arts, and remarkable for their acuteness in
+mercantile transactions. Each Turkish village elects its cadi, a
+sort of mayor; an Armenian Christian village elects its elder, who is
+called the Ak Sakal, or White Beard; he is the responsible person in
+all transactions with government, and sometimes holds an arduous post.
+
+The women live in a harem, like the Turkish women, separate from the
+men. The mistress of the house superintends the kitchen, the making
+of preserves, and salting winter stores; they wear the yashmak,
+or Turkish veil, at Constantinople, where the Armenian ladies are
+celebrated for their beauty, and their fine eyes, and black, arched
+eyebrows. In Armenia, the women, when they go out, wrap themselves
+up in a large piece of bunting, the same kind of stuff that is
+used in Europe for flags; being of wool, it takes a fine color in
+dyeing. The ample wrappers of the women are sometimes of a bright
+scarlet, sometimes a brilliant white or blue. The effect of this veil
+is much more pleasing than those of Constantinople or Egypt. The
+Armenians are not bad cooks: some of their dishes are excellent;
+one of mutton stewed with quinces leaves a very favorable impression
+on the recollection of the hungry traveler. The country people live
+underground in the peculiar houses which I have described; they are
+an agricultural peasantry, tilling the ground, and not possessing
+large herds of sheep or cattle, like the Turkomans, Koords, or Arabs;
+they are a heavy-looking race, but are hardy and active, and inured
+from youth to exercise and endurance, but even in these respects they
+are excelled by the Mohammedan mountaineers.
+
+The superiority of the Mohammedan over the Christian can not fail to
+strike the mind of an intelligent person who has lived among these
+races, as the fact is evident throughout the Turkish empire. This
+arises partly from the oppression which the Turkish rulers in the
+provinces have exercised for centuries over their Christian subjects:
+this is probably the chief reason; but the Turk obeys the dictates
+of his religion, the Christian does not; the Turk does not drink,
+the Christian gets drunk; the Turk is honest, the Turkish peasant is a
+pattern of quiet, good-humored honesty; the Christian is a liar and a
+cheat; his religion is so overgrown with the rank weeds of superstition
+that it no longer serves to guide his mind in the right way. It would
+be a work of great difficulty to disentangle the pure faith preached
+by the Apostles from the mass of absurdities and strange notions with
+which Christianity is encumbered, in the belief of the villagers in
+out-of-the-way places, among the various sects of Christians in the
+dominions of the Sultan. This seems to have been the case for many
+centuries, and it has produced its effect in lowering the standard
+of morality, and injuring the general character of those nations who
+are subjects of Turkey and not of the Mohammedan religion. For, of
+two evils, it is better to follow the doctrines of a false religion
+than to neglect the precepts of the true faith.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII.
+
+    Armenian Manuscripts.--Manuscripts at Etchmiazin.--Comparative
+    Value of Manuscripts.--Uncial Writing.--Monastic
+    Libraries.--Collections in Europe.--The St. Lazaro Library.
+
+
+Armenian manuscripts are of extreme rarity, not only in Europe, but in
+Armenia itself, at Constantinople, or any other place. The unsettled
+state in which that distracted province has from time immemorial been
+sunk, has prevented the development of the peaceful arts, and few of
+the monastic establishments of that country had wealth, or leisure,
+or convenience to copy and illuminate their books. The few fine
+manuscripts which I have met with seem to have been written for some
+Armenian princes, and were the works of scribes supported by exalted
+personages, who wrote under the shadow of their protection in the
+metropolitan cities, or in the patriarchal monastery of Etchmiazin. I
+was prevented by illness when in the neighborhood from visiting
+Etchmiazin, but there are preserved (or rather neglected) there, I have
+been given to understand, more than 2000 ancient manuscripts. These
+are completely unknown, unless within these few years they have been
+examined by any Russian antiquarian; no other traveler has been there
+who was competent to overlook a dusty library, so as to give any idea,
+not of what there is, but even what it may be likely to contain. This,
+as my bibliographical friends are well aware, is a peculiar art or
+mystery depending more on a general knowledge of the first aspect
+of an old book than a capacity to appreciate its contents. A book
+written on vellum implies a certain antiquity immediately recognizable
+by the initiated. If it does not appear to be ancient, it is then
+more than probable that it contains the works of some author of more
+than ordinary consideration, to have made it worth while to go to
+the expense and labor of a careful scribe and a material difficult
+in those days to procure. An illuminated manuscript on vellum, if
+not a prayer-book, secures additional attention; independent of its
+value as a work of art, it must be of some consequence to have made
+it worth illuminating. A large manuscript, as a general rule, is worth
+more than a little one, for the same evident reason that its contents
+were considered at the time when it was written to have been of some
+importance, and deserving of more labor, time, and care, than if it was
+just written out cheaply by a common scribe. Uncial writing--that is, a
+book written in capital letters--is much more ancient than one written
+in a cursive hand, and the most ancient volumes were generally large
+square quartos. It is curious that this should be the case in almost
+all nations and languages surrounding the Mediterranean, though their
+customs may be so different in other respects. Manuscripts on paper,
+again, are sometimes of remarkable interest, from their containing
+the works of authors then considered trivial and inferior, but now
+of much more value than the more ponderous tomes of the Middle Ages.
+
+The majority of the volumes in an ancient monastic library are
+worn-out, imperfect church-books, which have been cast aside from
+time to time, and committed to the care of the mice and spiders, who
+alone frequent the shelves or the floor of that dusty lumber-room. It
+is uncommon to find a manuscript in more than one volume, unless it
+may be the works of St. Chrysostom, or another of the Fathers of the
+Church. In this case the volumes are hardly ever found together,
+and a complete set of three or four volumes is beyond hoping for,
+carelessness and neglect having been for centuries the librarians of
+the monastery. These and other circumstances combine to make a cursory
+examination of one of these original hoards of by-gone literature
+a task for which the learned student of some abstruse science, or
+dead or dying language, is totally incompetent. The translator of
+an almost forgotten tongue, the laborious compiler of unpublished
+history, requires that the musty chronicles, the splendid illuminated
+volumes bound in gold and velvet, the crabbed, ill-written works of
+antique lore, should be laid upon the table before him, so that,
+in the undisturbed silence of his study, surrounded with lexicons
+and modern books of reference, he may bit by bit extract the pith,
+and winnow off the chaff, from the venerable manuscripts of distant
+lands and other times. The bibliographical traveler, who is to provide
+these precious relics for his careful use, who is to drag them from
+their dark recesses, where they have been lying undisturbed 500 or
+1000 years, has an entirely different task to fulfill. The professor
+would require months to look over each book one by one, to brush
+away the cobwebs, to ascertain by difficult and uncertain passages
+what the subject of those manuscripts might be which had lost many
+pages at the beginning and end, and to satisfy himself at last that
+it was worthless--a conclusion to which another would arrive at the
+first glance. This power of immediately appreciating the value of
+ancient manuscripts in the manner above mentioned will be understood
+by those who are aware that such is the usual jealousy of the ignorant
+monks for that which they can neither use nor understand themselves,
+that it hardly ever happens that a stranger is permitted to take more
+than a general survey of the worm-eaten and dusty mass which lies in
+heaps upon the floor, or is piled in the corners of the room which
+they call their library, but which they probably have never entered
+on any other occasion.
+
+Such as I have described are the libraries at Etchmiazin, the monastery
+on Lake Van, those near Ooroomia, and the few places where more than
+the church-books are still remaining.
+
+In England, the Bodleian Library contains about twenty volumes of
+Armenian manuscripts; the British Museum not so many, I believe;
+the Royal Library at Paris has about 200, which were collected by the
+emissaries of Louis XIV. Some of these are of considerable antiquity
+and beauty. In private collections very few are to be found. In my
+library there are about a dozen, of which two are the most splendid
+that I have met with in the East, or in any country. I possess also
+a number of loose leaves of the highest antiquity, which are so far
+curious that they display the progress of the art of writing almost
+since the days of Mesrob to the present time. But, with the exception
+of the unknown treasures of Etchmiazin, the convent of St. Lazaro at
+Venice not only preserves, but makes good use of, the finest collection
+of Armenian manuscripts extant. Their number is about 1200, of which
+100 are on vellum; the rest are written partly on ancient paper made
+from cotton, and partly on paper such as we use at present. Three
+volumes on Charta Bombycina are among the most ancient that I have met
+with that are written on that material: one contains commentaries on
+the Psalms and the Epistles, by Ephraim Syrius and St. Chrysostom,
+written in the year of the Armenian era 448, Anno Domini 999; the
+second is a small book of prayer, containing the date of A. D. 1178;
+the third is the romance of Alexander the Great: this curious volume
+is illustrated with numerous drawings, richly gilt and colored;
+it was written in the thirteenth century.
+
+They have three copies of the Gospels, and one Ritual written in uncial
+letters (one of these ancient copies of the Gospels is illuminated
+with several large miniatures in a style resembling Greek art),
+as well as several others of inferior interest.
+
+The library also possesses six or seven richly illuminated copies of
+the Scriptures, some splendid books of prayer, and a great number of
+other Armenian manuscripts, containing records of the history or the
+works of authors who were natives of that country, from which have
+been printed many volumes whose pages illustrate manners and events
+which were completely forgotten before the monks of St. Lazaro rescued
+them from oblivion.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII.
+
+    General History of Armenia.--Former Sovereigns.--Tiridates
+    I. receives his Crown from Nero.--Conquest of the Country by the
+    Persians and by the Arabs.--List of modern Kings.--Misfortunes
+    of Leo V.: his Death at Paris.
+
+
+The general history of Armenia contains but little that is
+interesting. It presents the picture of a line of sovereigns who
+have seldom been able to support their own authority, and who have
+constantly abdicated, embraced monastic vows, or been driven from the
+throne by rebellions of their subjects, and invasions of neighboring
+conquerors more talented and more powerful than themselves. Many of
+the Armenian kings seem to have lived almost on the charity of other
+states; the lines of their dynasties have been so often interrupted,
+and the changes from kings to governors, dukes, and counts have
+been so frequent, that their history is most intricate; and, from
+the boundaries of the so-called kingdom of Armenia having never been
+the same for many years together, it is difficult to understand from
+the scattered notices which history has transmitted to us who should
+be considered as the head of the state, or which of the many vassal
+princes, under the great empires of the East, has the better claim
+to the title of sovereign of this ancient kingdom.
+
+At the time of our Savior, Abgarus, king of Edessa, seems to have
+exercised sovereignty over great part of Armenia, on the southern
+and western sides. Tiridates I. is the first person styling himself
+King of Armenia after this period. He conquered the country from
+Rhadamistus, by the assistance of his brother Vologeses, King of
+Parthia. The Romans, however, who did not approve of the erection
+of an independent kingdom in those regions, sent an army against
+Tiridates, commanded by Corbulo, who forced Tiridates to abdicate,
+on condition of his proceeding to Rome to receive his crown from
+the hands of the Emperor Nero. He was received with the highest
+honors by the Roman emperor, who advanced as far as Naples to meet
+him. Tiridates won his good graces by the artful manner in which he
+flattered Nero on his skill in driving a chariot. They became great
+friends: the Armenian king received large sums of money from the
+emperor, with which he returned to his own country, and repaired
+his dismantled fortresses. He changed the name of his capital from
+Artaxarte to Neronia, in compliment to his imperial protector, and
+died in the year 75 A.D., after a reign of eleven years.
+
+To him succeeded several princes who were vassals to the Roman empire,
+but whose actions do not seem to offer any thing of interest. Tiridates
+II. had received his education at Rome, and, assisted by the emperor,
+he was placed upon the throne of Armenia, by the general consent
+of the nobles of his country, in 259. He, as I have mentioned in
+the ecclesiastical sketch of this history, embraced Christianity,
+and died in the year 314. Other unimportant princes succeeded, among
+whom John Nustaron governed Armenia, under the Emperor Maurice. The
+Persians conquered the country in the reign of the Emperor Phocas,
+but it was soon retaken by Heraclius. Pasagnates revolted against
+the Emperor Constantine II., who defeated him, and placed Sabarius,
+a Persian, on the throne, who also rebelled, and was beat in the year
+658. Justinian II. concluded a treaty with the Caliph Abdolmalek,
+by which the two sovereigns divided between them the revenues of
+Armenia, Iberia, and Cyprus; and the same emperor, Justinian II.,
+placed Sablas on the Armenian throne. This prince, being established
+in this mountainous kingdom, organized an army, and, having attempted
+to extricate his country from the power of the Caliph, was defeated
+by him in 687, and the Arabs became masters of Armenia. The Emperor
+Constantine Copronymus retook this province, and established Paulus
+as viceroy. Paulus was conquered by the forces of the Caliph, but he
+afterward re-established himself upon the throne.
+
+After his reign, Armenia was governed by several dukes and counts,
+some of whom ruled over a larger, and some over a smaller, portion of
+the country. During this period constant battles and disturbances took
+place between the adherents of the caliphs and the Christian emperors
+in this distracted province. The Patriarch of Constantinople made every
+endeavor to break down the religious subjection of the Armenians to
+their heretical Patriarch. But the history of the numerous princes who
+succeeded each other, after periods of short and doubtful power, on the
+throne of parts only of Armenia, is so complicated and so doubtful,
+that I shall not attempt to speak of them, and proceed to the time
+of the first generally acknowledged king of modern times. The name
+of this monarch was
+
+Philaretes Branchance. After resisting the forces of the Emperor
+Michael Ducas, he submitted to his successor, Nicephorus Botoniates,
+by whom he was supported through the rest of his reign. He flourished
+about the year 1080.
+
+Constantine was succeeded by his brother
+
+Taphroc, or Taphnuz. Under these two sovereigns appear numerous petty
+princes, who were feudatories to the King.
+
+Leo, who was long a prisoner under the Turks, lived in 1131.
+
+Theodorus, or Thoros, after a stormy reign, died in 1170.
+
+Thomas, son of the sister of Thoros.
+
+Milo, brother of Thoros. Under this reign the power of the Knights
+Templars was formidable. They had acquired large possessions in
+Armenia; and their numerous preceptories were in fact fortified
+castles, from which they defied the power of their suzerain. Milo
+waged war with the Templars, and succeeded in banishing many of their
+followers from his dominions. He died in 1180.
+
+Rupinus was made prisoner by Bohemond, Prince of Antioch. He died
+in 1189.
+
+Leo I., or Livon, concluded a treaty, by which he freed Armenia
+from the tribute which it had paid to the Prince of Antioch, instead
+of which he voluntarily paid homage to the Pope Celestinus III. He
+lived in perpetual war with the formidable body of Knights Templars,
+with various success, and died in 1219.
+
+Isabel, daughter of Leo. In the reign of this princess the kingdom
+of Armenia became tributary to the Turkish Sultans of Iconium.
+
+Aiton, or Otho, sent embassadors to St. Louis, King of France, in the
+island of Cyprus. He made a visit to Mangou, Khan of Tartary, whom
+he converted to Christianity, and in alliance with whom, assisted
+by his brother, Houlagou Khan, he made war against the Mohammedans,
+and, having destroyed the castles of the Assassins, penetrated into
+the dominions of the Sultan of Aleppo, their further progress being
+stopped by the death of Mangou Khan, which occasioned the return of
+Houlagou to his own country. The Saracens or Mohammedans, on this
+change of affairs, in their turn overran Armenia, where they committed
+dreadful cruelties; and Aiton, having abdicated the crown in 1270,
+retired into a monastery, under the name of Macarius, where he died
+in the year 1272.
+
+Leo, the son of Aiton, mounted the throne of his father in 1270, and
+was in constant war with Bondochar, Sultan of Egypt, who massacred
+20,000 persons in Armenia. He was excommunicated for outrages committed
+upon the Patriarch of Antioch. After a reign of trouble and disaster,
+he died in 1288.
+
+Aiton, or Otho II., the son of Leo, with many of his nation, embraced
+the Roman faith, and demanded the assistance of Pope Boniface
+VIII. against the infidels who menaced his power. No effective
+assistance having been afforded him, he abdicated the throne, took
+the habit of a Capuchin friar, and, under the name of Brother John,
+died in the year 1294.
+
+Thoros, or Theodorus, despairing of success against the incursions of
+the neighboring nations, also became a Capuchin friar. He died in 1296.
+
+Sembat, or Penibald, the brother of Aiton and Thoros, usurped the
+throne in the absence of his brothers; he was dethroned by another
+brother, Constantine, and died in 1298.
+
+Constantine sent his remaining brothers to Constantinople, with a
+recommendation to the Emperor to take care of them. The year of his
+death is uncertain.
+
+Leo III. was murdered in the year 1307.
+
+Chir Ossim, with the assistance of Pope John XXII., made an
+advantageous truce or treaty with the Kings of Sicily and Cyprus,
+with whom he was at war. This was accomplished through the mediation
+of the Genoese, who at this time appear to have been the principal
+traders in Constantinople, Persia, and Armenia. He died in 1320.
+
+Leo IV. lived in continual war with the Saracens. This king sent
+embassadors to Philippe de Valois, King of France, to beg assistance
+against the incursions of the Saracens. He married first Constancia,
+daughter of Frederick, King of Sicily, and secondly the daughter of the
+Prince of Tarentum, niece to Robert, King of Naples. Having provoked
+the jealousy of his countrymen by promoting numerous Frenchmen to
+high offices of government, he was assassinated in the year 1344.
+
+After his death Guy de Lusignan was elected King of Armenia. He died
+in 1344.
+
+Constans, or Constantius, apparently his son, succeeded Guy de
+Lusignan, and was killed by the Saracens in 1351. He had dispatched
+embassadors to implore assistance against the infidels to the courts
+of the Pope, the King of England, and the King of France.
+
+Constantine, the next king, appears to have lived in continual troubles
+with his own subjects, as well as in constant alarm at the increasing
+inroads of the neighboring powers on both sides. The annals of his
+stormy reign are almost silent, and it is not known when he died. To
+such a state of misery and confusion was the kingdom of Armenia now
+reduced, that the existence of another king, who was probably his
+successor, is only known by the witness of a rare coin, which bears
+as legend DRAGO . REX . ARMEN . AGAPI. In the year 1368 the nobles
+of Armenia elected Peter I., King of Cyprus, king; but he was at Rome
+at that period, and never took possession of his precarious honor.
+
+The records of the Armenian sovereigns are now drawing to a
+close. About this period, Leo V., of the family of Lusignan,
+was seated on his trembling throne. He was famous only for his
+misfortunes. Menaced on every side, his provinces and castles,
+one by one, fell before the victorious inroads of the Turks. The
+Genoese alone, who, in pursuit of trade, had fortified many strong
+places in Armenia, held out gallantly against the common foe, and
+the Mohammedan invaders were unable to gain possession of the town
+of Curco, or Corycus, in Cilicia, which was defended by the soldiers
+of the intrepid merchants. After a constant series of disasters and
+defeats, the unhappy king escaped with his life to the island of
+Cyprus, from whence he passed to Italy, and afterward to Castile,
+where he implored in vain for assistance from those Christian princes
+to reinstate him in the kingdom of his ancestors, which had fallen into
+the power of the infidel, and which, from that period to the present
+day, has continued to form one of the great pashaliks, or provinces
+of the Turkish empire. From Castile he took refuge in France, where
+he was received with distinguished favor and hospitality by King
+Charles V., who assigned for his residence the hotel of St. Ouen,
+near St. Denis. About the year 1378 Leo passed over to England, in
+the hopes of effecting peace between King Richard II. and the King of
+France, with whom he was then at war, and inducing the two sovereigns
+to embark in a crusade against the Turks for the recovery of the
+Holy Land, and for his own restoration to his kingdom. His overtures,
+like all his other acts, were unsuccessful; but from Richard, King of
+England, he received magnificent presents, and a pension of 20,000
+marcs, which munificence was imitated by the King of France in an
+annual allowance of 6000 livres.
+
+Leo, King of Armenia, was of small stature, but of intelligent
+expression and well-formed features. He lived in great magnificence,
+being richer from the presents of the Christian monarchs than he
+had been in his own beleaguered kingdom. The last of his royal line,
+he died, leaving no successor, at Paris, in the year 1393. His body
+was carried to the tomb clothed in royal robes of white, according to
+the custom of Armenia, with an open crown upon his head and a golden
+sceptre in his hand. He lay in state upon an open bier hung with white,
+and surrounded by the officers of his household, clothed all of them
+in white robes. He was buried by the high altar of the church of the
+Celestines, where his effigy was to be seen upon a black marble tomb
+under an archway in the wall, and on the tomb was written
+
+
+    Cy gist le tres noble et tres excellent Prince, Lyon de Lusignan,
+    quint Roi Latin du Royaulme d'Armenie, qui rendit l'ame a Dieu
+    a Paris le xxix. Jour de Novembre, l'an de Grace mcccxciii.
+
+
+                                THE END.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+NOTES
+
+[1] Since this was written, the coal-field of Eraglé has been opened
+under the direction of English engineers, and the coals are sent
+to Constantinople.
+
+[2] Caravan tea is tea which is brought by caravans, over land, from
+China, through the great deserts of Tartary: it is much superior to
+the tea which comes by sea.
+
+[3] Those who take an interest in natural history should read the
+accounts of the extraordinary migrations of the lemmings, which occur
+periodically in Norway, after a fixed number of years.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Armenia, by Robert Curzon
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 58361 ***