Volume Ii Part 23 (1/2)
_To face p. 338, vol. II._]
The town, which is walled, is not particularly attractive, but there is one very handsome mosque, and a very interesting Armenian church, eleven centuries old, dedicated to St. Peter and St. Paul. The houses are mean-looking, but their otherwise shabby uniformity is broken up by lattice windows. The bazars are poorly built, but are clean, well supplied, and busy, though the trade of Van is suffering from the general insecurity of the country and the impoverishment of the peasantry. It is very pleasant that in the Van bazars ladies can walk about freely, encountering neither the hoots of boys nor the petrifying Islamic scowl.
[Ill.u.s.tration: KURDS OF VAN.]
Fifty years ago Venetian beads were the only articles imported from Europe. Now, owing to the increasing enterprise of the Armenians, every European necessary of life can be obtained, as well as many luxuries. Peek and Frean's biscuits, Moir's and Crosse and Blackwell's tinned meats and jams, English patent medicines, Coats' sewing cotton, Belfast linens, Berlin wools, Jaeger's vests, and all sorts of materials, both cotton and woollen, abound. I did not see such a choice and abundance of European goods in any bazar in Persia, and in the city of Semiramis, and beneath the tablet of Xerxes, there is a bazar devoted to Armenian tailors, and to the clatter of American sewing machines st.i.tching Yorks.h.i.+re cloth! One of these tailors has made a heavy cloth ulster for me, which the American ladies p.r.o.nounce perfect in fit and ”style!”
The Armenians, with their usual industry and thrift, are always enlarging their commerce and introducing new imports. Better than this, they are paying great attention to education, and several of their merchants seem to be actuated by a liberal and enlightened spirit. It is, however, to usury not less than to trade that they owe their prosperity. The presence of Europeans in Van, in the persons of the missionaries and vice-consuls, in addition to the admirable influence exerted by the former, has undoubtedly a growing tendency towards ameliorating the condition of the Christian population.
In the _vilayet_ of Van it is estimated by Colonel Severs Bell that the Christians outnumber the Moslems by 80,000, the entire population being estimated at 340,000. In the city of Van, with a population estimated by him at 32,000, the Christians are believed to be as 3 to 1.[53]
The formalities required for Turkish travelling are many and increasing, and from ignorance of one of them Johannes has been arrested, and Mirza marched to the Consulate by the police. I have been obliged to part with the former and send him back to Hamadan, as it would not be safe to take the risky journey to Erzerum with such an inexperienced and untrustworthy servant. Through Mr. Devey's kindness I have obtained an interpreter and servant in Murphy O'Rourke, a British subject, but a native of Turkey, and equally at home in English, Turkish, and Armenian, though totally illiterate.
I. L. B.
FOOTNOTES:
[51] Van may be considered the capital of that part of Kurdistan which we know as Armenia, but it must be remembered that under the present Government of Turkey Armenia is a prohibited name, and has ceased to be ”a geographical expression.” Cyclopaedias containing articles on Armenia, and school books with any allusions to Armenian history, or to the geography of any district referred to as Armenia, are not allowed to enter Asia Minor, and no foreign maps which contain the province of Armenia are allowed to be used in the foreign schools, or even to be retained in the country. Of the four millions of the Armenian race 2,500,000 are subjects of the Sultan, and with few exceptions are distinguished for their loyalty and their devotion to peaceful pursuits.
The portion of Armenia which lies within the Turkish frontier consists for the most part of table-lands from 5000 to 6000 feet in elevation, intersected by mountain ranges and watered by several rivers, the princ.i.p.al of which are the Euphrates, the Tigris, and the Aras. Of its many lakes the Dead Sea of Van is the princ.i.p.al, its dimensions being estimated at twice the area of the Lake of Geneva, and at eighty miles in length by twenty-five in breadth. From its exquisitely beautiful sh.o.r.es rise the two magnificent extinct volcanoes, the Sipan Dagh, with an alt.i.tude of over 12,000 feet, and the Nimrud Dagh, with a crater five miles in diameter and 1600 feet in depth, the top of its wall being over 9000 feet in height.
The Armenians claim an antiquity exceeding that of any other nation, and profess to trace their descent from Haik, the son of Togarmah, the grandson of j.a.phet, who fled from the tyranny of Belus, King of a.s.syria, into the country which in the Armenian tongue is known by his name, as _Haikh_ or _Haizdani_. It may be said of the Armenians that the splendour and misery of their national history exceed those of any other race. Their national church claims an older than an apostolic foundation, and historically dates from the third century, its actual founder, S. Gregory the Illuminator, having been consecrated at Caesarea as Bishop of Armenia in the second year of the fourth century.
In the fifteenth century a schism brought about by Jesuit missionaries resulted in a number of Armenians joining the Church of Rome, and becoming later a separate community known as the ”Catholic Armenian Church.” Within the last half-century, under the teaching of the American missionaries, a Reformed Church has arisen, known as the Protestant Armenian Church, but with these exceptions the race and the national church may be regarded as one. The Armenians have had no political existence since the year 1604, but form an element of stability and wealth in Turkey, Russia, and Persia, where they are princ.i.p.ally found.
Their language is regarded by scholars as an off-shoot of the Iranian branch of the Indo-Germanic group of languages. Their existing literature dates from the fourth century, and all that is not exclusively Christian has perished. Translations of the Old and New Testaments dating from the fifth century are among its oldest monuments, and the dialect in which they are written, and in which they are still read in the churches, known as Old Armenian, is not now understood by the people. During the last century there has been a great revival of letters among the Armenians, chiefly due to the _Mekhitarists_ of Venice, and a literature in modern Armenian is rapidly developing alongside of the study and publication of the works of the ancient writers.
[52] It has, however, received due attention both from scholars and antiquaries, and among the popularly-written accounts of it are very interesting chapters in Sir A. H. Layard's _Nineveh and Babylon_, and in a charming volume by the Rev. H. F. Tozer, _Turkish Armenia and Eastern Asia Minor_.
[53] An estimate by Mr. Devey, Her Britannic Majesty's Vice-Consul at Van, gives a population of only 250,000 for the whole _vilayet_.
LETTER x.x.xII
BITLIS, _Nov. 10_.
I arrived here two days ago, having ridden the ninety miles from Van in three and a half days. Dr. Reynolds accompanied me, and as we had a couple of _zaptiehs_ on good horses we deserted the caravan, and came along at as good a pace as the mountainous nature of the road would allow. The early winter weather is absolutely perfect for travelling.
All along I am quite impressed with the resemblance which the southern sh.o.r.es of Lake Van bear to some of the most beautiful parts of the Italian Riviera--Italian beauty seen under an Italian sky. Travellers lose a great deal by taking the easier route round the north sh.o.r.e of the lake.
The first day's half march ended at Angugh, an Armenian village on the river Hashal, on the plain of Haizdar or Haigatsor, where the people complained of some Armenian women having been despoiled of their jewels by some Kurds during the afternoon. The views are magnificent _en route_, especially of the Christian village of Artemid, on a spur on a height, with a Moslem village in gardens below, with green natural lawns sloping to the lake. At Angugh I was well accommodated in a granary on a roof, and as there was no room for my bed, found a comfortable subst.i.tute in a blanket spread upon the wheat. The next day's march was through exquisitely beautiful scenery, partly skirting deep bays on paths cut in the rock above them, among oaks and ferns, and partly crossing high steep promontories which jut out into the lake. A few villages, where strips of level ground and water for irrigation can be obtained, are pa.s.sed, and among them the village of Vastan, the ”Seat of Government” for the district, and a Turkish telegraph station, but in the eleventh century the residence of the Armenian royal family of Ardzrauni.
Art aids nature, and there are grand old monasteries on promontories, and Kurdish castles on heights, and flas.h.i.+ng streams and booming torrents are bridged by picturesque pointed arches. There are 150 monasteries in this region, and the towers of St. George at the mountain village of Narek, high on a rocky spur above one of the most beautiful of the many wooded valleys which descend upon the lake of Van, lend an air of medieval romance to a scene as fair as nature can make it. Nearly all the romantic valleys opening on the lake are adorned with one or more villages, with houses tier above tier in their rocky clefts, and terrace below terrace of exquisite cultivation below, of the vivid velvety green of winter wheat. These terraces often ”hang” above green sward and n.o.ble walnut trees. Occasionally the villages are built at the feet of the mountains, on small plateaux above steep-sided bays, and are embosomed in trees glowing with colour, from canary-yellow to crimson and madder-red, and mountains, snow-crested and forest-skirted tower over all. Lake Van, bluer than the blue heavens, with its huge volcanic heights--Sipan Dagh, Nimrud Dagh, and Varak Dagh, and their outlying ranges--its deep green bays and quiet wooded inlets; its islets, some like the Ba.s.s Rock, others monastery-covered; its pure green shadows and violet depths; its heavy boats with their V-shaped sails; and its auburn oak-covered slopes, adds its own enchantment, and all is as fair as fair can be.
Though the state of things among the Christians is not nearly so bad as in some of the Syrian valleys, the shadow of the Kurd is over this paradise. The Armenians complain of robbery with violence as being of constant occurrence, and that they have been plundered till they are unable to pay the taxes, and it is obvious that travellers, unless in large companies, are not safe without a Government escort. In each village the common sheepfold is guarded from sunset to sunrise by a number of men--a heavy burden on villagers whose taxation should ensure them sufficient protection from marauders.
In one of the fairest bays on this south side of the lake is the island rock of Akhtamar, crowned with a church and monastery built of red sandstone. The convent boat, which plies daily to the mainland for supplies, is available for travellers. Eleven monks with their pupils inhabit the rock. It is a very ancient foundation, dating from A.D.
633, and the church is attributed to the Armenian King Kakhik, who reigned in the tenth century. It is a cruciform building, with a hexagonal tower and a conical terminal at the intersection of the cross. The simple interior is decorated with some very rude pictures, and a gilded throne for the Patriarch stands at the east end. This Patriarchate of Akhtamar, the occupant of which has at times claimed the t.i.tle of _Catholicos_, was founded in 1113 by an archbishop of Akhtamar who declared himself independent of the _Catholicos_ of the Armenian Church who resides in Echmiadzin, but at the present time he has only a few adherents in the immediate neighbourhood of Van, and has the reputation of extreme ignorance, and of being more of a farmer than an ecclesiastic. He was at Haikavank, at the fine farm on the mainland possessed by the convent, but we had not time to call.
Plain as is the interior of the Church of Akhtamar, the exterior is most elaborately ornamented with bas-reliefs, very much undercut.
Three of the roofs rest on friezes on which birds and beasts in singularly vigorous action are portrayed, and there are besides two rows of heads in high relief, and a number of scripture subjects very boldly treated, in addition to some elaborate scroll-work, and bands of rich foliage. On this remarkable rock Dr. Reynolds and his family took refuge a few years ago, when it was apprehended that Van would be sacked by the Kurds.