October 14.—We left the cloister at half-past eight, our little party of five persons including the Armenian cook. We had hired in the district ten miserable ponies, of which five carried our effects. The most direct way to Ani crosses the basal slopes of Alagöz, from the southern to the most westerly extremities of the shield-shaped mass. You proceed from Edgmiatsin in a north-westerly direction, the ground rising at every step of your advance. On the point of course, beyond oases of verdure in the foreground, lie the stony and arid declivities of the mountain—contours of immense length and low vaulting, joining the plain to the horizontal outline in the sky. The belt of verdure consists of fields of the cotton and the castor-oil plants, of patches of orchard and vineyard, and sparse groves of poplar, rising from the dusty and boulder-strewn waste. It is sustained by runnels which exhaust the waters of the Kasagh or Abaran Su, the stream which collects the scanty drainage of the volcano upon its eastern flank. The boulders are worn by water and have been dispersed by the swollen river, during the season of spring floods. Where we crossed the Kasagh itself, or principal channel, it was a languid and soil-charged body of water, threading these stony tracts. We passed several villages within the irrigated area, some inhabited by Armenians, others by Tartars, and a few by both races alike. Hiznavuz, or Kiznaus, an Armenian settlement, containing the State-school of the district, was the last of these hamlets of the fertile zone. We stayed a few minutes before the open windows of the schoolhouse, listening to a lesson given in Russian to Armenian boys. Behind the village, a sterile eminence leads over into the barren highlands which compose the pedestal of Alagöz.
The moderate elevation of these highlands above the plain of the Araxes and their long extension from east to west are conditions favourable to the full appreciation of the landscape, and of each new feature in the slowly-changing scene. Their free position contributes to invest them with the character of a natural gallery, which commands unbroken prospects over some of the grandest works of Nature in her most inspired moods. The European, whose conception of mountain scenery is founded upon the arbitrary peaks and scattered valleys characteristic of his Alps, who has looked with emotion upon the doubtful features of his lowlands from the summit of some famous pass, can scarcely fail to be deeply impressed by the attributes of a panorama in which reliefs and depressions of stupendous scale are disposed as members of a great design, and are seen in the pure atmosphere of an Eastern climate with all the clearness of a model in clay. At his feet lies a plain which is level as water, which in no very remote geological period was covered by an inland sea. It is a distance of some thirty miles to its opposite confines; yet the towns and the plantations are pencilled upon its surface as though they had been traced by a draughtsman’s pen. The plain is bordered by the volcanic range which we have come to know as the Ararat system—a chain of which the jagged and fantastic outline is already familiar from many a rich sunset effect. The summits rise to nearly 8000 feet above the campagna; but how humble they appear behind the train of the fabric of Ararat, gathering immediately from the floor of the plain! The bold snow bastions of the north-western slope are seen in face from these highlands; and it is difficult to realise that the pronounced lineaments which compose that airy figure are removed by a space of nearly forty miles. We had not yet lost sight of the line of poplars which screens the cloister when the distinctive features of this magnificent landscape were unfolded to our view. The several ranges and mountain masses were disposed in the form of an amphitheatre, of which we seemed to occupy one of the middle tiers. In the east, along the Araxes, the crinkled buttresses of the northern border were still visible, projecting in a southerly direction beyond the cock-combed hill of Karniarch. In the west, at an interval of sixty miles from those eminences, the level ground extended to a double-peaked mountain which juts out into the valley from the Ararat system, and is known under the name of Takjaltu. Face to face with one another stood Alagöz and Ararat. In the plain we could discern an isolated hummock, north of the Araxes and bearing about south-west. It marks the site of Armavir.
That this scene—in itself a world, and a world which fills the mind with wonder—has of necessity been the theatre of momentous events in the life of humanity, the traveller realises at a single glance. His pious predecessors were surely justified in accepting the ancient belief of the Armenians, that our first father and mother loved and suffered in this plain.[1] If we are to seek the site of Paradise within the limits of Armenia, neither the Euphrates nor the Tigris crosses a country equally appropriate to have been the earliest and fairest home of man. It looks the land of hope which Noah tilled and planted with vineyards, the second nursery of the human race. The Armenians, whose mythical history connects them closely with Babylonia and Assyria, who from the earliest times have been accustomed to receive Jewish immigrants and to see Jewish colonies established in their midst, must at a remote date have localised the events of the Biblical narrative in this the most favoured of all their valleys and at the foot of the loftiest of their mountains.[2] If the Jewish writings which they inherited were believed to have reference to their native surroundings, it was only natural that they should identify with the same districts the primeval setting of the later creations of the Jewish mind; the whole countryside became hallowed by religious tradition; nor need we feel surprise when we read that a tree in the neighbourhood of Karakala on the Araxes was believed to have sheltered Job and his three friends.[3] When the horizon narrows and embraces the particular history of the Armenians, we find that some of the first beginnings of their history are placed within this fertile and spacious plain; it was the chosen seat of Armenak, the son or grandson of their progenitor, Hayk, to which he descended from the mountains about the head waters of the Euphrates, accompanied by his whole race. Here were situated their most ancient cities, of some of which the relics still stand above ground and invite discussion of which city they denote the site. Armavir, the contemporary of Nineveh, with the grove of plane trees which worked the magic of the oaks of Dodona, has been identified with the ruins that are found on the little hillock which we distinguish from the detail of the landscape at our feet.[4] Further west, on the southern bank of the river, where it is enclosed by rocky cliffs of basaltic lava, due to the passage of a lava stream, modern travellers have discovered considerable remains of ancient masonry, which have been utilised to build the castle of Karakala, and which are still, I believe, in want of their older name.[5] Traces of the fortress of Ervandakert, and of Ervandashat, its companion city, which were built in the first century of our era by an Armenian monarch of Arsakid descent, have been remarked on either bank of the Arpa river, the ancient Akhurean, where it issues from the elevated country on the north of the Araxes and effects its confluence at the head of this plain.[6] In the days when those cities flourished, the haughty Araxes was spanned by bridges of which, here and there, a pier or a buttress still survives.[7] Below the lofty rock of Takjaltu lie the famous salt mines of Kulpi, which have been exploited from immemorial times.
After leaving the Armenian village we continued in the same direction over the barren highlands, in possession of the landscape which I have endeavoured to describe. We were riding at walking pace; our immediate surroundings were indifferent to us; nor for the space of three hours did we meet a single settlement, except here and there a group of Kurdish tents. When at midday the clouds cleared above the summit of Alagöz, we remarked that the fangs of its rocky core were invisible behind the bulging contours of the outer sheath. Above us, upon those slopes, we could discern some small green patches, which mark the site of hamlets, peopled by Tartars and Armenians who eke out a scanty subsistence on the mountain side. When we had reached a point some thirteen miles in direct distance from Edgmiatsin, we crossed a close succession of deep ravines. The first of these was the most considerable of the three, and contained the broad bed of a dry watercourse, which descends from the central mountain mass. On the further side of the last among them we came upon the remains of a large church, of great simplicity but of much beauty of form. It was built of hewn stone, in the style of the best Armenian architecture; and the ancient frescos still stained the walls of the apse. But the lofty dome had fallen in, leaving nothing but a yawning circle, with fragments of cloud crossing the blue above our heads. An inscription in the interior bears the date 876 (Armenian era), which corresponds to the year A.D. 1426. Just beyond this ruin is situated the little Armenian village of Talysh, on the southern confines of which we visited the remains of some towers which are probably of the same period as the church, and which overlook the ravine upon the west. Both the starshina and the priest of Talysh were absent from the settlement; the inhabitants professed complete ignorance of the history of their antiquities, which, since they could neither read nor write, was perhaps not feigned. The afternoon was well advanced when we left this pleasant site; a mist arose, and developed into rain. In less than two hours we were glad to find shelter in the Tartar village of Akhja Kala, a refreshing oasis of green willows on these sterile slopes.
The essential majesty of the Armenian landscapes derives enhanced value from the presence at all seasons of clouds. In this respect Armenia is more favoured than Persia, where month after month you long for a cloud to temper the glare. To the radiance of her pellucid atmosphere is added the charm of effects of vapour; but the vapour has already been tamed in the passage of the border ranges, and floats in quiet masses over the central regions of the tableland. We awoke on the following morning to a scene which is characteristic of the season and of this plain. The whole valley of the Araxes was covered by a sheet of white mist, and had the appearance of a vast sea. From invisible limits in the west to the foot of the Ararat fabric the deceptive substance followed the base of the mountains, as though we had suddenly been introduced to that geological period when the waters washed these rocky shores. In the east several islands rose above the shining surface, eminences of the plain. The high ground upon which we stood was bathed in pure sunlight, and all Nature was intensely still.
As the morning advanced the vapours lifted or were dissolved; films of white cloud were wafted across the blue. We continued our march over highlands of the same stony character as those which we had traversed during the preceding day. But beyond the village the land had been cleared in places, and wheat planted, which was showing green above the ground. It is protected by the snows which cover these slopes during winter, and it is reaped in spring or early summer. The rocky heart of Alagöz was still concealed behind the declivities which swept towards us, on our right hand. In the great plain, which still lay beneath us, we missed the stretches of pleasant verdure which in that direction had become familiar to our eyes; desert tracts, seared by gullies, had taken the place of the gardens; while further west the valley was broken into hummock waves. A ground of ochre, washed in places with rose madder—such were the colours which clothed this naked expanse; the delicate tints were continued up the sides of the mountains which border the plain upon the south. These lower slopes of the Ararat system receive the light at sunrise; and, being composed of a marly substance, which is modelled into soft convexities, display a variety of tender hues. Bold peaks, of which the summits had been strewn with snow during the night, rise along the spine of the range; but they are dwarfed, even at this distance, by the fabric of Ararat. We could discern on the west of the mountain the pass which leads to Bayazid, and we had not yet lost sight of the mound of Armavir. But it was evident that the even ground in the valley of the Araxes was coming to an end. The western limits of the level plain may be placed in the neighbourhood of Karakala; and, according to Dubois, the last canal which derives from the Araxes waters the fields on the west of the village of Shagriar.[8]
Villages became less rare as we rounded the mass of the mountain and opened a view over the country in the direction of the Arpa Chai. An hour from Akhja Kala our attention was attracted by a still distant eminence, rising above the shelving land upon that side. It was the crag of Bugutu, which is probably due to a later eruption on the flank of Alagöz. We passed two Tartar settlements, and crossed a couple of ravines, the first of which must have had a depth of nearly a hundred feet. It contained a pleasant growth of lofty poplars and other trees, and it was threaded by a babbling brook. When the prospect extended to the upper slopes of the mountain, we observed that they were sprinkled with fresh snow. A stage of two and a half hours brought us to the village of Talin, a prosperous and picturesque little township at the foot of Bugutu (Fig. [61]).
Fig. 61. Village of Talin, with Mount Bugutu.
Both the Pristav and the priest were quickly forthcoming; we were by them conducted to a house which contained two storeys, and which was the residence of the priest. While food was being prepared, we were accompanied by our hosts in a walk round the place. We were informed that it contained some thousand inhabitants, all of whom were Armenians. It possesses a church, but is still without a school. The old prejudices survive, and it was impossible to persuade the young women to submit to the camera. But Talin is distinguished by the close proximity of a piece of architecture which appears to date from the golden period of the Bagratid dynasty and which ranks among the most charming examples of the Armenian style. It is a church—they call it cloister (vank), and it perhaps belonged to a monastery—which, although in ruins, is fairly well preserved. The roof has fallen in; the walls display wide breaches; but the masonry is still sharp and fresh, as when first put together, and the traceries might just have undergone the finishing touch. With its bold windows—no mere apertures—and bands of elegant sculpture, I thought it the most beautiful building I had yet seen in Armenia. I reproduce some of these chiselled mouldings of the exterior. The first, a vine pattern (Fig. [62]), belongs to the southern transept; and the second (Fig. [63]), representing a pear or apple, is taken from that upon the north. On the south side of the ruin we observed a sun-dial, carved in stone; and we were shown a square block, which had been found among the débris, and upon which was sculptured a relief, representing the Virgin and Child, attended by two angels. A graveyard surrounds the building; some of the old crosses have been built into the walls of the village church. A little on the east we noticed the remains of a small chapel. The ground was strewn with fallen stones, some red, others grey—the two colours which are so skilfully blended or placed in contrast by Armenian architects upon the broad, undecorated spaces of their walls. We enquired the history of the ruin, and were referred to a partially defaced inscription on one of the piers which once supported the dome. It mentions the name of King Sembat, a member of the Bagratid dynasty, which reigned from the ninth to the eleventh century.[9] The grandfather of the priest informed us that both the monastery and the church had been maintained up to a comparatively recent period. He said that the priests had fled during the campaign of Paskevich, since which date the buildings had been allowed to fall into decay.