Where was the Garden of Eden? In my belief, around Lake Van, the highest lake, the largest lake, and the most picturesque lake in the Bible lands; its surrounding country, mountains, plains, flower gardens, and orchards, make it a most charming spot, and quite worthy to have been the seat of Paradise on earth. As the wickedest cities, Sodom and Gomorrah, were on the lowest, ugliest, and nastiest lake, the Dead Sea, it is natural that Paradise should be on the highest and loveliest one. A certain very learned Gospel minister, who desired to change my views respecting the Garden of Eden, declared that when the North Pole was discovered the Garden of Eden would be. Some think it was in India, and there are about as many opinions as there are countries on the earth. The Bible, however, seems to be pretty clear about it and settles the question to the Armenian mind; we feel, therefore, that we cannot be far from the Scriptural descriptions.
TRAVEL AND TRANSPORTATION.
Both are as hard in Armenia as they can be, short of impossibility. In the Russian section the roads are as good as in any part of Russia, and there are railroads; but in Persian and Turkish Armenia there are none of the latter, and the roads are very poor bridle-paths. A few years ago the government levied an extra tax to build “Shosse Yolou” or macadamized roads for carriages; but most of the money was spent as usual, in a good time for the Turkish officials; the roads built were wretched, and riding over them in the springless carriages of the country is weariness and torture. Most of the traveling is done on horseback or muleback, while the transportation of goods is almost entirely by camels and donkeys.
An hour’s journey in America in distance is a two days’ journey in Armenia, and it must be accomplished on horseback, muleback, or foot; or perhaps in a wagon without springs. Almost all the horse and mule keepers are Turks, Kurds or Circassians, all Mohammedans and of the lowest types,—which does not increase either the comfort or the security of a journey. The tenders and drivers of animals are never of a very high order of men in any country; in Armenia they are specially vulgar, dirty, and sometimes dangerous brutes. If you wish to travel with your family, you must arrange with the horse-keeper several days or even weeks beforehand; if he is ready when the time comes, he calls at your house and tells you. If animals are used and the family large, baskets will be needed to put the children in; they are put on the animals like panniers, one on each side with the mother between. This is attended with more or less danger from accidents of various kinds, liable to occur on the unkept paths, which, rough in some places and horribly muddy in others, are used for roads. As in the case of the writer, who, when an infant, nearly lost his life before he could be pulled out of the mud into which he had fallen from his mother’s arms, she being thrown from the stumbling horse she was riding.
KURDISH BANDITS.
ORIENTAL THRESHING FLOOR.
A more modern way of travel is in springless carriages; which on the rough roads means racking your body horribly, bones, nerves, and all, into outright and often severe suffering, a pain and fatigue which the traveler feels for a long time. At evening all travelers must go to a caravanserai or khan; often they are all huddled into a single room, men, women, and children, and the room is invariably filthy, and full of every kind of vermin. Such getting about is constant torment.