Part 1 (2/2)
The city of Erzeroom is rapidly declining in importance, and is almost solely supported by the Persian transit trade. It would be nearly deserted if that traffic were to be thrown into a new channel by the construction of the direct road from Batoun to the Persian frontiers. It contains no buildings of any interest, with the exception of a few ruins of monuments of early Mussulman domination; and the modern Turkish edifices, dignified with the names of palaces and barracks, are meeting the fate of neglected mud.
The districts of Armenia and Kurdistan, through which lay our road from Erzeroom to Mosul, are sufficiently unknown and interesting to merit more than a casual mention. Our route by the lake of Wan, Bitlis, and Jezirah was nearly a direct one. It had been but recently opened to caravans. The haunts of the last of the Kurdish rebels were on the sh.o.r.es of this lake.
After the fall of the most powerful of their chiefs, Beder Khan Bey, they had one by one been subdued and carried away into captivity. Only a few months had, however, elapsed since the Beys of Bitlis, who had longest resisted the Turkish arms, had been captured. With them rebellion was extinguished for the time in Kurdistan.
Our caravan consisted of my own party, with the addition of a muleteer and his two a.s.sistants, natives of Bitlis, who furnished me with seventeen horses and mules from Erzeroom to Mosul. The first day's ride, as is customary in the East, where friends accompany the traveller far beyond the city gates, and where the preparations for a journey are so numerous that everything cannot well be remembered, scarcely exceeded nine miles.
We rested for the night in the village of Guli, whose owner, one Shahan Bey, had been apprised of my intended visit. He had rendered his newly-built house as comfortable as his means would permit for our accommodation, and, after providing us with an excellent supper, pa.s.sed the evening with me. Descended from an ancient family of Dereh-Beys, he had inherited the hospitality and polished manners of a cla.s.s now almost extinct, in consequence of the policy pursued by the Turkish sultans, Mahmoud and Abdul-Medjid, to break down the great families and men of middle rank, who were more or less independent, and to consolidate and centralize the vast Ottoman empire.
It is customary to regard these old Turkish lords as inexorable tyrants--robber chiefs, who lived on the plunder of travellers and of their subjects. That there were many who answered to this description cannot be denied; but they were, I believe, exceptions. Amongst them were some rich in virtues and high and n.o.ble feeling. It has been frequently my lot to find a representative of this nearly extinct cla.s.s in some remote and almost unknown spot in Asia Minor or Albania. I have been received with affectionate warmth at the end of a day's journey by a venerable Bey or Agha in his s.p.a.cious mansion, now fast crumbling to ruin, but still bright with the remains of rich, yet tasteful, oriental decoration; his long beard, white as snow, falling low on his breast; his many-folded turban shadowing his benevolent yet manly countenance, and his limbs enveloped in the n.o.ble garments rejected by the new generation; his hall open to all comers, the guest neither asked from whence he came or whither he was going, dipping his hands with him in the same dish; his servants, standing with reverence before him, rather his children than his servants; his revenues spent in raising fountains[1] on the wayside for the weary traveller, or in building caravanserais on the dreary plain; not only professing, but practising all the duties and virtues enjoined by the Koran, which are Christian duties and virtues too; in his manners, his appearance, his hospitality, and his faithfulness, a perfect model for a Christian gentleman. The race is fast pa.s.sing away, and I feel grateful in being able to testify, with a few others, to its existence once, against prejudice, intolerance, and so-called reform.
Our host at Guli, Shahan Bey, although not an old man, was a very favorable specimen of the cla.s.s I have described. He was truly, in the n.o.ble and expressive phraseology of the East, an ”Ojiak Zadeh,” ”a child of the hearth,” a gentleman born. His family had originally migrated from Daghistan, and his father, a pasha, had distinguished himself in the wars with Russia. He entertained me with animated accounts of feuds between his ancestors and the neighbouring chiefs; and steadily refused to allow any recompense to himself or his servants for his hospitality.
From Guli we crossed a high range of mountains, running nearly east and west, by a pa.s.s called Ali-Baba, or Ala-Baba, enjoying from the summit an extensive view of the plain of Pasvin, once one of the most thickly peopled and best cultivated districts in Armenia. The Christian inhabitants were partly induced by promises of land and protection, and partly compelled by force, to accompany the Russian army into Georgia after the end of the last war with Turkey. By similar means, that part of the Pashalic of Erzeroom adjoining the Russian territories was almost stripped of its most industrious Armenian population. To the south of us rose the snow-capped mountains of the Bin-Ghiul, or the ”Thousand Lakes,”
in which the Araxes and several confluents of the Euphrates have their source. We descended from the pa.s.s into undulating and barren downs. The villages, thinly scattered over the low hills, were deserted by their inhabitants, who, at this season of the year, pitch their tents and seek pasture for their flocks in the uplands.
Next day we continued our journey amongst undulating hills, abounding in flocks of the great and lesser bustard. Innumerable sheep-walks branched from the beaten path, a sign that villages were near; but, like those we had pa.s.sed the day before, they had been deserted for the _yilaks_, or summer pastures. These villages are still such as they were when Xenophon traversed Armenia. ”Their houses,” says he, ”were under ground; the mouth resembling that of a well, but s.p.a.cious below: there was an entrance dug for the cattle, but the inhabitants descended by ladders. In these houses were goats, sheep, cows, and fowls, with their young.”[2] The low hovels, mere holes in the hill-side, and the common refuge of man, poultry, and cattle, cannot be seen from any distance, and they are purposely built away from the road, to escape the unwelcome visits of travelling government officers and marching troops. It is not uncommon for a traveller to receive the first intimation of his approach to a village by finding his horse's fore feet down a chimney, and himself taking his place unexpectedly in the family circle through the roof. Numerous small streams wind among the valleys, marking by meandering lines of perpetual green their course to the Arras, or Araxes. We crossed that river about mid-day by a ford not more than three feet deep, but the bed of the stream is wide, and after rains, and during the spring, is completely filled by an impa.s.sable torrent.
During the afternoon we crossed the western spur of the Tiektab Mountains, a high and bold range with three well defined peaks, which had been visible from the summit of the Ala-Baba pa.s.s. From the crest we had the first view of Subhan, or Sipan, Dagh, a magnificent conical peak, covered with eternal snow, and rising abruptly from the plain to the north of Lake Wan. It is a conspicuous and beautiful object from every part of the surrounding country. We descended into the wide and fertile plain of Hinnis. The town was just visible in the distance, but we left it to the right, and halted for the night in the large Armenian village of Kosli, after a ride of more than nine hours. I was received at the guesthouse (a house reserved for travellers, and supported by joint contributions), with great hospitality by one Misrab Agha, a Turk, to whom the village formerly belonged as Spahilik or military tenure, and who, deprived of his hereditary rights, had now farmed its revenues. He hurried with a long stick among the low houses, and heaps of dry dung, piled up in every open s.p.a.ce for winter fuel, collecting fowls, curds, bread, and barley, abusing at the same time the _tanzimat_, which compelled such exalted travellers as ourselves, he said, ”to pay for the provisions we condescended to accept.” The inhabitants were not, however, backward in furnis.h.i.+ng us with all we wanted, and the flourish of Misrab Agha's stick was only the remains of an old habit. I invited him to supper with me, an invitation he gladly accepted, having himself contributed a tender lamb roasted whole towards our entertainment.
The inhabitants of Kosli could scarcely be distinguished either by their dress or by their general appearance from the Kurds. They seemed prosperous and were on the best terms with the Mussulman farmer of their t.i.thes. The village stands at the foot of the hills forming the southern boundary of the plain of Hinnis, through which flows a branch of the Murad Su, or Lower Euphrates. We forded this river near the ruins of a bridge at Kara Kupri. The plain is generally well cultivated, the princ.i.p.al produce being corn and hemp. The villages, which are thickly scattered over it, have the appearance of extreme wretchedness, and, with their low houses and heaps of dried manure piled upon the roofs and in the open s.p.a.ces around, look more like gigantic dunghills than human habitations. The Kurds and Armenian Christians, both hardy and industrious races, are pretty equally divided in numbers, and live sociably in the same filth and misery.
We left the plain of Hinnis by a pa.s.s through the mountain range of Zernak. On reaching the top of the pa.s.s we had an interrupted view of the Subhan Dagh. From the village of Karagol, where we halted for the night, it rose abruptly before us. This magnificent peak, with the rugged mountains of Kurdistan, the river Euphrates winding through the plain, the peasants driving the oxen over the corn on the thres.h.i.+ng-floor, and the groups of Kurdish hors.e.m.e.n with their long spears and flowing garments, formed one of those scenes of Eastern travel which leave an indelible impression on the imagination, and bring back in after years indescribable feelings of pleasure and repose.
We crossed the princ.i.p.al branch of the Euphrates soon after leaving Karagol. Although the river is fordable at this time of year, during the spring it is nearly a mile in breadth, overflowing its banks, and converting the entire plain into one great marsh. We had now to pick our way through a swamp, scaring, as we advanced, myriads of wild-fowl. I have rarely seen game in such abundance and such variety in one spot; the water swarmed with geese, duck, and teal, the marshy ground with herons and snipe, and the stubble with bustards and cranes. After the rains the lower road is impa.s.sable, and caravans are obliged to make a considerable circuit along the foot of the hills.
We were not sorry to escape the fever-breeding swamp and mud of the plain, and to enter a line of low hills, separating us from the lake of Gula Shailu. I stopped for a few minutes at an Armenian monastery, situated on a small platform overlooking the plain. The bishop was at his breakfast, his fare frugal and episcopal enough, consisting of nothing more than boiled beans and sour milk. He insisted that I should partake of his repast, and I did so, in a small room scarcely large enough to admit the round tray containing the dishes, into which I dipped my hand with him and his chaplain. I found him profoundly ignorant, like the rest of his cla.s.s, grumbling about taxes, and abusing the Turkish government.
After a pleasant ride of five hours we reached a deep clear lake, embedded in the mountains, two or three pelicans, ”swan and shadow double,” and myriads of waterfowl, lazily floating on its blue waters. Piron, the village where we halted for the night, stands at the further end of the Gula Shailu, and is inhabited by Kurds of the tribe of Hasananlu, and by Armenians, all living in good fellows.h.i.+p amidst the dirt and wretchedness of their eternal dung-heaps. Ophthalmia had made sad havoc amongst them, and the doctor was soon surrounded by a crowd of the blind and diseased clamoring for relief. The villagers said that a Persian, professing to be a Hakim, had pa.s.sed through the place some time before, and had offered to cure all bad eyes on payment of a certain sum in advance. These terms being agreed to, he gave his patients a powder which left the sore eyes as they were, and destroyed the good ones. He then went his way: ”And with the money in his pocket too,” added a ferocious-looking Kurd, whose appearance certainly threw considerable doubt on the a.s.sertion; ”but what can one do in these days of accursed Tanzimat (reform)?”
The lake of Shailu is separated from the larger lake of n.a.z.ik, by a range of low hills about six miles in breadth. We reached the small village of Khers, built on its western extremity, in about two hours and a half, and found the chief, surrounded by the princ.i.p.al inhabitants, seated on a raised platform near a well-built stone house. He a.s.sured me, stroking a beard of spotless white to confirm his words, that he was above ninety years of age, and had never seen an European before the day of my visit.
Half blind, he peered at me through his blear eyes until he had fully satisfied his curiosity; then spoke contemptuously of the Franks, and abused the Tanzimat. The old gentleman, notwithstanding his rough exterior, was hospitable after his fas.h.i.+on, and would not suffer us to depart until we had eaten of every delicacy the village could afford.
Leaving the n.a.z.ik Gul, we entered an undulating country traversed by very deep ravines, mere channels cut into the sandstone by mountain torrents.
The villages are built at the bottom of these gulleys, amidst fruit-trees and gardens, sheltered by perpendicular rocks and watered by running streams. They are undiscovered until the traveller reaches the very edge of the precipice, when a pleasant and cheerful scene opens suddenly beneath his feet. He would have believed the upper country a mere desert had he not spied here and there in the distance a peasant slowly driving his plough through the rich soil. The inhabitants of this district are more industrious and ingenious than their neighbours. They carry the produce of their harvest not on the backs of animals, as in most parts of Asia Minor, but in carts entirely made of wood, no iron being used even in the wheels, which are ingeniously built of walnut, oak, and kara agatch (literally, black tree--? thorn), the stronger woods being used for rough spokes let into the nave. The plough also differs from that in general use in Asia. To the share are attached two parallel boards, about four feet long and a foot broad, which separate the soil and leave a deep and well defined furrow.
We rode for two or three hours on these uplands, until, suddenly reaching the edge of a ravine, a beautiful prospect of a lake, woodland, and mountain opened before us.
CHAPTER II.
THE LAKE OF WAN.--AKHLAT.-TATAR TOMBS.--ANCIENT REMAINS.--A DERVISH.--A FRIEND.--THE MUDIR.--ARMENIAN REMAINS.--AN ARMENIAN CONVENT AND BISHOP.--JOURNEY TO BITLIS.--NIMROUD DAGH.--BITLIS.--JOURNEY TO KHERZAN.--YEZIDI VILLAGE.
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