PREFACE
This book contains the account of two separate journeys in Armenia, the first extending from August 1893 to March 1894, and the second from May to September 1898. Before embarking upon them, I was already familiar with the contiguous countries, having spent a considerable portion of the years 1889 and 1890 in Mesopotamia and Persia. The routes shown in my map from Aleppo to Diarbekr and down the Tigris, and from Batum across Georgia and the Caspian to Resht, were taken during the course of these earlier wanderings, and they contribute no part of the ensuing narrative.
What attracted me to Armenia? I had no interests public or private in a country which has long been regarded even by Asiatic travellers as a land of passage along prescribed routes. One inducement was curiosity: what lay beyond those mountains, drawn in a wide half-circle along the margin of the Mesopotamian plains? The sources of the great rivers which carried me southwards, a lake with the dimensions of an inland sea, the mountain of the Ark, the fabled seat of Paradise.
With each step forward in my knowledge of the countries west of India came a corresponding increase of my original emotion. Sentimental were reinforced by purely practical considerations; and I seemed to see that the knot of politics tightening year by year around these countries was likely to be resolved in Armenia. I became impatient to set foot upon Armenian soil.
When my wish was realised, my first experiences of the country and of the Armenians in the Russian provinces exceeded my expectations—fringed with doubt as these were by disappointment with much I had seen in the East. So I passed over the Russian frontier, struck across to the lake of Van, and spent the winter in Erzerum.
When I came to setting down on the map my routes in Turkish Armenia, the scantiness of existing knowledge was painfully plain. I soon realised that it would be necessary to undertake a second journey for the purpose of acquiring the necessary framework upon which to hang the routes. Meanwhile the events occurred with which we are all familiar—the Armenian massacres, and the comedy of the concert of Europe.
It was with difficulty that I was at length enabled to return to the country. These later travels were almost exclusively occupied with the natural features, our tents spread upon the great mountain masses, whence plain and lake and winding river were unfolded before us like a map.
Primitive methods were rendered necessary for transferring these features to paper. One is not allowed in Turkey the use of elaborate or obvious instruments, and miles of ground had to be crossed in full view of Turkish officials before reaching the field of our work. But I was able to transport to Erzerum a standard mercurial barometer, which was duly set up in that centre and read several times a day during our absence. We carried two aneroids, a boiling-point apparatus, a four-inch prismatic compass, used upon a tripod and carefully tested at Kew; lastly, a rather troublesome but very satisfactory little instrument called a telemeter, and made by Steward. The measurements were checked by cross-readings with the compass, and we found that they could be relied upon. Once we were upon the mountains our operations were not impeded, and, indeed, were assisted by the authorities.