Part 17 (1/2)

An inscription of seventeen lines is carved at the entrance to a second artificial chamber, and on tablets cut in the rock are three more, each of nineteen lines, word for word alike, but with orthographical variations in the royal na to the father of the king, who recorded his conquests on the southern face of the rock His na to Dr

Hincks, may be read Minuas They merely contain the royal titles and invocations to the Gods The long inscription in the vaulted recess is of the grandson of Minuas, the latest king mentioned on the monuments of Wan

It is of considerable interest as containing the name of a country, which Dr Hincks identifies with Babylon, and as enu, first in detail, the amount of booty taken fro the total a the other, a clue was afforded to the signs representing numerals in the assyrian inscriptions, as well as to their respective values, a discovery for which we are indebted to the sagacity of Dr Hincks

The Pasha had kindly placed the ”Mimar Bashi+,” or architect in chief of the town, an honest Ar my researches at Wan The excavations, however, which were

About a e in the gardens of Wan, is a recess in the rock 15 feet 8 inches high, and 6 feet 7 inches broad, containing a long cuneiform inscription The inscription is called Meher Kapousi, which, according to the people of Wan, means the Shepherd's Gate, fro fallen asleep beneath it, was told in a dreaic word that opened the spell-bound portal He awoke and straightway tried the talis eyes a vast hall filled with inexhaustible treasures; but as he entered they shut again behind hi in which, as he tended his flocks, he carried his daily food After repeating the ic summons, he was permitted to issue into the open air But he had left his crook, and must return for it The doors were once ht to retrace his steps, but had forgotten the talishtfall As its old and carrying it to the shepherd's wife, led her to the gates of the cave She could hear the cries of her husband, and they are heard to this day, but none can give hiinally consisted of ninety-five lines, co the saible Near the Shepherd's Gate the rocks are excavated into a vast nuhts of steps lead nowhere, but finish abruptly in the face of the perpendicular precipice; in others the cliff is scarped to a great height without any apparent object A singular shaft, with stairs, leading into a cavern, is called Ziin of these singular excavations; their height from the plain and their inaccessible position al been quarries

Several slabs of black basalt, inscribed with cuneiform characters, have been built into the interior walls of two ancient Armenian churches within the town of Wan In the church of St Peter and St Paul I found parts of four legends, which are historical, containing a record of the capture of many cities, and of the amount of spoil carried away from conquered countries In the church of Surp Sahak I was able to transcribe two inscriptions, one under the altar, the other in the vestibule beneath the level of the floor, which had to be broken up and reest consists of forty lines, the other of twenty-seven The beginning and ending of the lines in both are wanting

The only inscription at Wan that I could not copy was the trilingual tablet of Xerxes It is on the hty feet above the plain Not having a glass of sufficient power, I was unable to distinguish the characters from below As it had been accurately transcribed by Schulz, and rese at Persepolis and Hamadan, I did not think it necessary to incur any risk or expense in reaching it by [166]

In the rock there are nu in dimensions those I have described; but, with the exception of a sih on one side of them, they are perfectly plain and unornamented They appear to have been used as tohts of steps cut in the precipice; others are altogether inaccessible except by ropes froes the Wan inscriptions ned Some believe it to be a Tatar dialect; Dr Hincks, on the contrary, is of opinion that it is Indo-Germanic Two of the inscriptions, and the earliest in date, as I have already observed, are in pure assyrian

With regard to the date of the monuments there appears to be a clue which ree of certainty In an inscription froon one is histis, the fifth in the Wan dynasty

Supposing the two, therefore, to be the sa so, we ned frohth century before Christ to the end of the seventh; and the evidence afforded by the forms of the characters leads to this conjecture

At sunrise, on the 8th August, the roaring of cannon, re-echoed by the lofty rock, announced the end of Ra of the periodical festivities of the Bairaold and jewels, and surrounded by the arrison, and the gaily-dressed chiefs of the irregular troops, rode in procession through the streets of the town

As it is customary he received in the palace the visits of the cadi, mollahs, and principal Mussuly, and elders of the Ar at their release from a fast alarhways The sounds of music and revelry issued from the coffee-houses and places of public resort The children repaired to swings, o-rounds, and stalls of sweetmeats, which had been raised in the open spaces within the walls The Christians add the feast to their own festivals, already too nuhbours, pay visits of compliment and ceremony Their woidly concealed than the Moha white veils

I called in the evening on the bishop, and next , at his invitation, visited the principal schools Five have been established since the fall of the Kurdish Beys, and the enjoyment of comparative protection by the Christian population Only one had been opened within the walls; the rest were in the gardens, which are thickly inhabited by Armenians, and form extensive suburbs to Wan More than two hundred children of all ages were asseh their exercises and devotions at the sound of a bell with great order and precision, alternately standing and squatting on their hams on small cushi+ons placed in rows across the hall An outer roo, and the cloaks and shoes taken off on entering Books were scarce There were not more than a score in the whole school The first class, which had ress, had a few elementary works on astronomy and history, published by the Armenian press at Constantinople and Smyrna, but only one copy of each The boys, atand chanted their prayers, and repeated their sih they be, are proofs of a great and increasing improvee of considerable importance, and which, it is to be hoped,place in the Armenian Church It is undoubtedly to be attributed to the judicious, earnest, and zealous exertions of the American missionaries; their establishments, scattered over nearly the whole Turkish est the Christians, and principally ast the Armenians, a spirit of inquiry and a desire for the reform of abuses, and for the cultivation of their minds, which must ultimately tend to raise their political, as well as their social, position in the human scale It is scarcely fifteen years since the first institution for Christian instruction on Protestant (independent) principles was opened by those excellent men in Constantinople By a wise selection of youths from different parts of the empire, who from their character and abilities were deemed worthy of the choice, they were shortly enabled to send into the provinces those who could sow the seeds of truth and knowledge, without incurring the suspicions attaching to strangers, and without laboring under that ignorance of the st whom they ners in their intercourse with the natives A movement of this nature could scarcely escape persecution The Arotry which had for centuries disgraced their Church, and exercising an uncontrolled power over an ignorant and sielists,” as they were contemptuously called By such misrepresentations and caluress and reform, they were able to enlist in their favor the Turkish authorities at the capital and in the provinces

Unfortunately, four sects alone, the Roman Catholic, the Arnised by the Porte ast their Christian subjects The refored head, and unable, to coovernment, to make known its tenets, or to complain of the acts of injustice and persecution to which it was exposed Many persons fell victims to their opinions Some were cruelly tortured in the house of the Patriarch himself, and others were imprisoned or utterly ruined in Constantinople and the provinces Through the exertions of the English minister at Constantinople, a fir the new Protestant co as the other Churches of the eh who to it other privileges enjoyed by the Roman Catholics and Greeks Fortunately for the cause, many men of irreproachable character, and of undoubted sincerity from the Armenian nation have been associated with it, and its success has not been endangered, like that of so many other movements of the same kind, by interested, or hasty conversions

The influence of this spirit of inquiry, fostered by the American missions, has not been alone confined to those who have been cut off froy have found it their true interest to promote reform in their own Church Schools in opposition to the American establishe towns of Asia Minor; and eleical works, of a far more liberal character than any hitherto published in Turkey, have been printed by Ar-presses in Constantinople and Smyrna, or introduced into the country from Venice

Whilst on this subject, and connected as I have been with the Nestorians, I must not omit a tribute of praise to the adst the Chaldaeans of Ooroomiyah in Persia, under the able direction of the Rev Mr Perkins[169] It ith ive up the plan I had for that small colony from the New World The Rev Mr Boho crossed the frontiers frolish Church to the enlightened and liberal spirit in which their labors are carried on Forty or fifty schools have been opened in the town of Oorooes The abuses that have crept into this pri reforradually dispelled A printing-press, for which type has been purposely cut, now publishes for general circulation the Scriptures and works of education in the dialect and character peculiar to the e has been planted in the heart of Asia, and the benefits of knowledge are extended to a race which, a few years ago, was almost unknown even by na in intelligence and in liberal feeling; but, like norant The convents of Wan and of the neighbourhood, he said, were once rich in ancient manuscripts, but they had been carried away by camel-loads some two hundred years before by the Persians, and were believed still to be preserved in Isfahan With the exception of a few printed copies of the Scriptures, and soious works for the use of the churches, there are now no books in the city He received with pleasure froar Are to the coe which they could understand He was probably not aware that the head of his church had utterly condemned its use, and had anathematised all those who received it

My companions had been compelled, froe in the convent of Yedi Klissia, fro the to raved on the rocks I left the city on the 10th of August; but the time and labor bestowed resulted only in disappointment

From Amikh I rode across the country in a direct line to the ardens on the side of the lofty mountain of Wurrak are visible from most parts of the plain I stopped for an hour at the church of Kored priest, with beard white as snow, and wearing a uardian of the place He ledSeeing that I was a Frank, he fancied at once that I was searching for inscriptions, and pointed to a circular stone, the base of a wooden column, which, he said, he had shownSchulz It bears three i, part of an inscription belonging to one of the Wan kings, whose name Dr Hincks read Minuas It appears to record the foundation of a tements with the saht hours' ride froe Armenian convent of Yedi Klissia, or the seven churches, built of substantial stonea spacious courtyard planted with trees It has more the appearance of a caravanserai than that of a place of religious retreat, and is beautifully situated near the mouth of a wooded ravine, half-way up a bold mountain, which ends in snowy peaks Spread beneath it is a blue lake and a s plain, and the city, with its bold castellated rock, and its turreted walls half hid in gardens and orchards

The church, a substantial modern edifice, stands within the courtyard Its walls are covered with pictures as prin as in execution

There is a victorious St George blowing out the brains of a forht brass blunderbuss, and saints, attired in the traditionary garence of the good priest at the head of the convent was pretty well on a par with his illustrated church history He was a speciy of Asia Minor As he described each subject to me, he spoke of the Nestorians as heretics, because they were allowed, by the canons of their church, to randmothers; of the Protestants as freereat nations of Europe as the Portuguese, the Inglese, the Muscovs, and the Abbash (Abyssinians)

I found two short cuneiforst the ruins of the old church, the other built into the walls of the new They also belong to Minuas, and

CHAPTER XIX