[16] Ker Porter (1819), Travels, etc., vol. ii. p. 648. [↑]
[17] Wilbraham, Travels, etc., London, 1839, pp. 294, 314; Koch, Reise im pontischen Gebirge, Weimar, 1846, p. 460. [↑]
[18] I may cite Brant (1835), Hamilton (1836), Abbott (1837), Consul Taylor (1868)—the last being an unpublished report. Taylor estimates 2000 houses, of which 200 are Christian and the rest Moslem. [↑]
[19] Travels of Evliya, translated by Von Hammer, London, 1850, vol. ii. p. 182. [↑]
[20] Samuel of Ani, in Migne, Patrologiae cursus completus, series Græca, vol. xix. p. 718. “Abasus, Sembati filius, mirae magnificentiae templum excitat cathedrale in urbe Carsa.” [↑]
[21] Brosset, Ruines d’Ani, p. 8. [↑]
CHAPTER XX
ACROSS THE SPINE OF ARMENIA
The long and lofty barrier of the Ararat system affords a natural partition of the surface of the Armenian highlands, and, corresponding with the frontier between the Russian and the Turkish empires, divides Armenia into two. The fairest districts of either territory are found on their southern confines; and what the valley of the Araxes is to the Russian provinces, that is to those under Turkish rule the country of Van. Van, with her famous lake and immemorial antiquity, became the next, and not the least alluring objective of the journey which we had planned. A new world lay on the further side of the mountains towards which we now directed our course.