It is a picturesque little settlement of some 120 tenements, grouped around a stately church. I have referred to it under the name which I received from the priest and the Pristav, but which more properly belongs to the neighbouring monastery. It is called Kizilkilisa (red church) on the Russian maps. It was our intention to sleep in Ani, after fording the river at this village; and we were surprised to learn that the ruins were four hours distant, and that it would be almost impossible to reach them that night. Since the baggage was behind us, we listened to the counsel of our informants, who conducted us to a stone house, containing a single room—the only decent building in the whole place. Although without a school, the inhabitants are no dullards; they seemed extremely ready to make a little money, and pleased to be able to exchange ideas. In fact we discovered on the following day that they had deceived us about Ani, with the express purpose of retaining us for the night. We waited some time in vain for the luggage to overtake us, and then composed ourselves to sleep.
When morning came our effects had not yet arrived; we reflected that we had given the rendezvous at Ani, and, although we felt sure that the laggards would cross the river at our village, decided to push on. The Arpa flows between high banks, a deeply eroded and sinuous bed, hidden by precipitous cliffs of black rock. You form the conception of a trough or fissure in the surface of the tableland, which undulates away into the distance on every side. After fording the stream, we proceeded along the right bank, and, at no great distance, opened out a romantic valley on our left hand, similar in character to that which adjoins the site of the Armenian village. In both places the river describes a complete S, and is lost in the gloom of overhanging walls. The disposition of these rocky sides assumes the appearance of a glen, in which are situated the remains of an extensive monastery, bearing the name of Khosha Vank. Just beyond this standpoint we gained the high land above the river; and there before us, on the plain, lay the ruins which we had been seeking, at the distance of an hour’s canter from the cloister, or of a couple of hours’ ride from Kizilkilisa.
Descrying horses in the direction of Ani, we galloped forward and overtook them; they proved to be our missing cavalcade. They had passed the river at a place lower down than where we had crossed it, and were pursuing their way in a most leisurely manner. After opening one of the cases in order to replenish the slides of the camera, we returned to the glen, and again forded the stream. We spent a considerable time at the cloister and in its neighbourhood; it was certainly the most remarkable building which we had yet seen. Reserving a description of its ancient church and halls of audience, I shall only refer to a couple of illustrations in this place. The one (Fig. 93, p. 386) shows the ensemble of the monastery; but, having been taken from the east, where the ground is open and the landscape tame, misses the peculiar characteristics of the site. The other (Fig. 94, p. 387) may convey some conception of the appearance of the glen, when seen from the river-bed below the cloister. From the flat and water-worn bottom rises a little tongue of higher land, upon which stand the remains of two little chapels. On the cliff above the ravine you see the pier of a ruined gateway, outlined against the sky. The track to Ani leads up the cliffside and passes that ruin, which stands on the plain in which the still-distant city lies.
It was late afternoon when we reached the walls of the ancient capital (Fig. 70, p. 369), and passed within the great gateway. No massive doors creaked upon their hinges; we rode through empty archways into a deserted town. From among the débris of the public and private buildings rose the well-preserved remains of a number of handsome edifices—here an elegant church, there a polygonal chapel. An old priest with a few attendants were the sole inhabitants—they and the owls. We had only to follow the track to be brought to the humble tenement in which the priest lived. He stepped forth to meet us, a grey head, a feeble figure; he walked with difficulty, and with the demeanour of a man who is awaiting death. He told us that he had dwelt here since 1880, the only custodian of these priceless architectural treasures, and the only exponent of the topography of the site. He had been attacked in his house by a band of Kurds in 1886; they had inflicted knife wounds, and stripped him of everything he possessed. We remained two whole days within the walls of Ani, examining the creations of a vanished civilisation, and collecting material with which I propose to deal in a separate chapter. At nine o’clock on the morning of the 19th of October we took leave of our aged host; and, leaving the city by the same gate through which we had entered it, pursued a track which leads in the direction of Kars.
Clouds were clinging to the hill slopes upon our point of course and concealing the shield-shaped mass of Alagöz. Lost fragments of opaline vapour lay on the surface of the grassy plain. Here and there we perceived the ruins of little chapels and other buildings, or the scattered débris of masonry. From these suburbs we looked back upon the bold line of the city walls, with their double girdle and towers at regular intervals. It seemed as though the stream of life had wandered off into other channels, leaving behind this eloquent evidence of its former course. We could not descry the form of man or of animal in the landscape; even the sky was without a wing. We rode in silence and at ease along a beaten path, where the burnt herbage had been worn away from the rich brown soil. West of Ani, at a distance which leaves the site of the city open, rises a hill of irregular shape and moderate elevation, known as the Alaja Dagh. It is due to volcanic action, and covers a respectable area; its sides and summits are overgrown with grass. It is placed across the direct line between Kars and the ancient capital, and compels you to deviate a little to the north. As we rose along the north-eastern slopes of the mass, we were lifted at a convenient altitude above the plains.
Outspread before us lay a vast extent of undulating ground, on the south, on the east, towards the north. After we had passed the small Armenian village of Jala, we could just discern in the lap of the expanse the city of Alexandropol, at a distance of over twenty miles. We had again opened out the northern slopes of Alagöz; and we could even see the meridional range which intersects it upon the east, and the gap through which we had journeyed to Erivan. When one reflects upon the significance of this panorama, it must be recognised that our standpoint on the skirts of the Alaja deserves a high rank among those apposite and commanding positions which Armenia appears to lavish upon her admirers, and which imprint her features indelibly upon the mind.
We might be said to have been standing on the dividing line between two landscapes and even of two climates. On the north lay the immense plains around Kars and Alexandropol, vague and grey in spite of the clear atmosphere, and with their distant limits shrouded in haze. These pass over, along the course of the deeply-bedded Arpa, into the ever-widening valley of the Araxes, bathed at all seasons in sun. Had it not been for the projecting spurs of the hill which we were skirting, the prospect would have embraced the peaks of the Ararat system, bounding the expanse upon the south. Snow had fallen upon the upper slopes of the mountains—Alagöz, no longer a shield but a towering parapet; the Chaldir system, the border range in the far east.
Fig. 69. Greek Girl of Subotan.
As we proceeded towards the west, the instructive lesson was developed—no ridge to cross, but continuous tracts of level land. The plain rises with gentle gradation from the right bank of the Arpa to the labyrinth of hills on the west of Kars. Its surface is slightly vaulted, and the configuration of the ground is such that you lose the outlook towards the east. We passed through Subotan, a prosperous village of Turks and Greeks. The gay dresses of the Greek girls formed a brilliant patch of colour, and their trinkets sparkled in the sun, which was already high (Fig. [69]). Education is provided in a little schoolhouse, built and maintained at the charges of the Christian inhabitants, but supplied with a teacher by the State. A little further on we entered a second and smaller settlement, and again found ourselves among Greeks. I am under the impression that these scattered colonies date from the campaigns of Paskevich, when Christians in considerable numbers accompanied his armies across the frontier after their evacuation of Turkish territory.