October 22.—During our stay in Kars we had experienced the first spell of cold, bleak weather that the coming winter held in store. On the day of departure the district was visited by a storm of rain which delayed us until afternoon. At a few minutes after one o’clock we were crossing the bridge which spans the river, and taking a last view of the castle and the gorge. Above the entrance to the cleft the stream flows between humbler slopes; but they are still of rock, and the metalled road, which follows the western shore at no great distance, is without a prospect on either side. A few versts are covered among such cheerless surroundings; then the river comes towards you through a nice tract of flat pasture land which opens out upon the right bank. The meadows, brown of hue after the heats of summer, were seen to extend to the cultivated skirts of a hill range, some six miles distant, at the foot of which we were shown the village of Azat. A second settlement, Little Tikma, was nearer to us, in the same direction; and on our side of the water a group of low stone houses were aligned upon the road. We were surprised to hear the German tongue and the mournful sounds of a concertina; the dress, the hymn reminded us that the day was Sunday; and the simple people were delighted to converse with a son of Protestant England in the language of their fatherland. They told me that it was two years since they had left the colony at Tiflis, and migrated to these distant wilds. The soil was rich, and it only needed a small expense of capital to diffuse the river over the adjacent plain. But whence could they draw the money for works of this nature? They harvested their corn in the month of August, but the crops suffered from want of water. Although they possessed no school, they were not without the rudiments of learning; their frank, intelligent faces were a pleasure to see. Petrovka is the name of their settlement, which contains some forty houses. A few versts further we entered the Russian colony of Vladikars. We were crossing an open country which stretched away on either hand to the outlines of low hills. Several of these Russian villages were visible in the landscape, and the brown loam had been exposed by the plough.
Vladikars bears a strong resemblance to Gorelovka—the same white faces and little windows of the neat stone houses, ranged at intervals on either side of the road. The inhabitants, too, display a family likeness to the dwellers in the northern watershed—the men with their lank figures and dull but honest faces, the women with their broad shoulders and massive hips. The feminine members of the colony were especially conspicuous—strapping wenches, as one might call them, attired in the gayest of printed cottons and exhibiting a plainness which was almost repulsive. I entered the oblong and single-storeyed building in which they conduct their services of prayer. A wooden bench along the walls, a few wooden chairs were its only furniture; you saw no pulpit or altar or religious picture; God resided in the living objects of His love. This village as well as its neighbours are peopled by Molokans, a sect of which the doctrine, like that of the Dukhobortsy, represents an extreme and a logical form of the Protestant faith. An old man to whom I turned, and whose striking features I was able to record (Fig. [99]), spoke to me with much charm of voice and manner concerning their religious beliefs. They reverence Moses and the prophets and the Holy Gospel, but they practise their religion in their own way. Singing psalms appears to be their principal method of spiritual expression. Infants are not baptized, but are brought to this building; a passage from the New Testament is read in the child’s presence and his name is publicly declared. A similar ceremony consecrates the marriage tie.
Fig. 99. Molokan Elder at Vladikars.
A little beyond this village—in which is placed the eleventh verst stone—the road bifurcates. The well-metalled and well-maintained chaussée, which we had been following, pursues its course to the confines of the Turkish frontier at the station of Sarikamish. The other branch—which is in places a road, but more often a simple track—stretches off towards the south. Taking the latter direction, we drove for some distance over even ground, where here and there the rich, brown soil had been exposed by the plough. On our left hand rose a grassy and hummock-shaped eminence, scarcely a mile away. Hill ranges of similar appearance circled around us, their summits capped with lowering clouds and strewn with fresh snow. In such surroundings the gay houses of Novo-Michaelovka were a pleasing diversion for the eye. The elaborate fretwork of wooden gables and shutters, the lavish display of vermilion and cobalt, lent an air of festivity to the place (Fig. [100]). It was evident that the inhabitants were extremely well-to-do; yet, like all these sectaries, they neither possessed nor appeared to desire a school in which to educate their young. Near this village we had again approached the banks of the river, which had a width of some 20 yards. We now crossed to the right bank.
On our point of course, a little to our left, we held a bold and lofty hill, of which the outline assumes the appearance of two humps. It bears the name of Akh Deve or the white camel; and one can understand how appropriate would be this appellation during the winter months. Snow had not yet rested upon its grassy convexities, which still wore the ochreous hues of autumn, and were flushed in places by a detritus of red, volcanic stone. After losing all prospect for the space of some twenty minutes, during which we crossed a bleak side valley of the sluggish river, and a stream which winds along the base of rocky slopes, we again opened this landmark on the further rim of the amphitheatre, close by the village and station of Chermaly. The post house stands at a little distance from this Armenian village; our tired horses were replaced by a fresh team of four, having covered a stage of 23 versts or 15 miles.
Fig. 100. House at Novo-Michaelovka.
It was half-past four o’clock; we made our way over lofty uplands, of which the moist loam held our carriage-wheels. Or we jolted upon large boulders, embedded in the track. Away on our right rose the slopes of the Akh Deve. Magnificent eagles, with their square shoulders and long plumage, circled round us or observed us from adjacent rocks. We were not long in discovering the bait of this assemblage—the mangled remains of a horse. In three-quarters of an hour we had reached the skirts of the hill mass, whence we commanded an unbroken view towards the north. Vast tracts of idle soil extended to the horizon, except where, here and there, the yellow herbage was interrupted by little carpets of ploughed land. Hills, which appeared little better than hummocks, were set at random in the expanse. Their summits were streaked with snow; from the white linings of their satellite clouds vague lights descended upon the plain. We were standing upon the elevated but imperceptible water-parting between the Araxes and the river of Kars. A gradual descent of some 500 feet brought us to the considerable village of Kemurly, where we passed the night in the posting house. It was the first settlement which we had seen during a stage of 20 versts, or a little over 13 miles.
The latter portion of the drive from the Akh Deve to the village had been performed under the shadow of night. It was only on the following morning—which broke serene and radiant—that we were able to realise the great significance of our position in a geographical sense. The even ground over which we had travelled from the banks of the Arpa to Kars, from Kars to the southward-flowing streams, does not descend, as one might expect, to the valley of the Araxes through a series of gradual inclines. The transition is effected by an exactly opposite process; the plain continues to rise until it has almost reached the latitude of the river, then suddenly breaks away, and overhangs the valley in a long line of gigantic cliffs. These cliffs extend for miles along the left bank of the Araxes; and it has been ascertained that for a space of over 30 miles they maintain about the same elevation, namely, a height of 6400 feet above the sea, and of 2000 to 2500 feet above the river.[1] They may in fact be regarded as forming the rim of an extensive plateau, which commences at the confluence of the Arpa with the Araxes, and stretches westwards, unbroken by any considerable mountain barrier, along the narrows above Kagyzman, and along the broad depression of Pasin to the very threshold of the plain of Erzerum. Their peculiar boldness in the neighbourhood of Kagyzman may in part be attributed to the lavas which have issued in considerable volume from centres of emission along their edge. These eruptive centres, long since dormant, are seen in the shape of low convexities, stretching inwards from the brink of the cliff.