This country of Kurdestan is filled with wonderful ruins. On its western border is an inscription upon the face of a cliff which was written by Nebuchadnezzar when he came to conquer this country.
In the city of Farkin, only five miles from Kilise, there are most magnificent ruins of churches, castles and towers. The columns still standing in one of these ruined churches are about twelve feet high and over two feet in diameter and above the arches thus supported is another corresponding series.
This church is closely surrounded with a great many graves—thousands of them—so that the church is often spoken of as “the Church of Martyrs.”
In all probability these are some of the ruins with which Tamerlane filled the land at the beginning of the Fifteenth century, and these are the remains of the splendid Christian civilization which he so ruthlessly destroyed, and the Kurdish-Armenians are the descendants of the few Armenians who accepted of Islam to save themselves and their families from utter destruction. Compulsory conversion to Islam is still the order of the day in all the desolated districts of Turkish-Armenia.
ARMENIA IN THE MOUNTAINS.
The following tour through the heart of Armenia and part of Kurdestan is prepared that the reader may follow more easily the course of the whirlwind of death and desolation that was soon to sweep down from the upper valleys of Ararat far out upon the plains until it met the cyclone from the West and enveloped the whole land in misery, destitution and despair, filled all the air of heaven with the shrieks and agonies of the tortured and the dying martyrs for the faith once delivered to the saints.
We enter the valley at Kharput or Harpoot, which is situated in the valley of the Murad, the eastern branch of the Euphrates river. Coming into the valley from the west, we find ourselves in the midst of a well-cultivated district, and as we advance the villages become numerous. The city is situated upon rising ground, which is bounded by a long line of steep, flat-topped heights. The approach from the south presents a most striking appearance as we ascend by a steep, winding path the narrow ravine reaching up to the plateau above, where at the base of the ruined walls of a medieval castle, nestle the buildings of a part of the Armenian quarter—the rest of the city spreading out to the verge of the hill.
From this height, a thousand feet above the lower ground, there is a superb prospect over the rich plain studded with villages and bounded on the south by the Taurus range, which contains the sources of the Tigris and separates this country from the lowlands of Mesopotamia. To the east and west lie an expanse of undulating ground, stretching on the one hand towards the Murad, into which this district drains, on the other in the direction of the Euphrates. The length of this plain to the foot of the Taurus is about fifteen miles, while the Murad is about the same distance eastward. This plain is a most beautiful sight in the spring time, when the whole is one vast carpet of green. According to the natives, the number of the villages it contains is three hundred and sixty-five, and they also claim this place was the site of Eden—they even point out the place where Adam first saw the light. The houses of the missionaries of the American Board and the college buildings, all of which were laid in ruins, were built not far from the edge of the high precipitous cliff and commanded this beautiful prospect. The elevation of Kharput, or Harpoot, is about four thousand five hundred feet above sea level. From its strategic position it has been occupied by a city from very early times. It is now the leading city in the province and has about five thousand houses—five hundred Armenian, the rest Turkish, while the villages in the plains are occupied almost entirely by the Armenians. These villages were almost swept off the earth during the Harpoot massacres. The Armenian College was the finest in Eastern Turkey and the value of mission property destroyed was upwards of $80,000.
