It was, therefore, with a sense of relief that, at one o’clock, on the 12th of September, we set out from the city in the direction of Alagöz. We were to make for the passage between the volcano and the border mountains, and to rest in that valley for the night. The road is a mere track, yet we were able to engage a private carriage to take us to Erivan. One is astounded in the East at the performances of a victoria, should the necessities of a European or the ostentation of an Oriental have summoned such an object of luxury to their wilds. Our luggage accompanied us in a springless waggon, which, like the carriage, was privately horsed. The post road to Erivan makes the long deviation down the valleys of the border ranges to the junction with the road from Tiflis at the station of Delijan.
The great plain lay around us, level and devoid of objects, like the bosom of a sea. Before us stretched the mountain, the unwieldy bulk of a colossus, a formidable barrier to the country on the south. In such an expanse the human note is overwhelmed by Nature; one hardly notices the signs of the presence of ubiquitous man. There are villages which you scarcely see until you have passed within their precincts; such were Tapa Dolak, through which we drove at a quarter before one, and Golgat, which we reached at four o’clock. Both are inhabited by Armenians; neither possesses a school or school-house, but the second owns and the first was building a church. After obtaining a view, on our right hand, of two considerable Armenian villages, we arrived at Norashen, where we were to rest the horses, at half-past four o’clock. It is an Armenian settlement with ninety-five tenements and a population of 900 souls, and it was in process of erecting a school. Let the reader picture to himself rude structures of stone and wood and earth, which, at one end, issue upon irregular little lanes, and, at the other, are buried into a slope of the ground. Through such entrances you pass to subterraneous chambers which serve as stables and as living rooms. In the midst of these sordid surroundings four stone walls are a prominent object; they belong to a little chapel, which has a roof of sods and a bare interior; the bells are hung in a wooden structure at the side. Men with tanned complexions, deep wrinkles, and bent knees issue from the tenements and slouch along the lanes. Children crowd about you, their little stomachs unduly swollen and barely covered by a single cotton shirt. Nobody can read or write; we questioned several. Such is the description which, with variations, applies to most of these villages, and is true of Norashen.
With what emotion one turned to the contemplation of the magnificent landscape which was outspread at our feet! The squalor of man, the grandeur of his natural environment—the reflection recurs and recurs in the East. We were standing on the lower slopes of the mountain, some 1500 feet above the floor of the plain. A gentle incline, of which the surface was checkered with alternate patches of fallow and stubble, stretched away from a foreground of loose stones and garnered corn-land to the dim lights and opaline mists of a vast amphitheatre, where the expanse of level land was confined and choked by a wide girdle of mountains—long volcanic outlines and fantastic shapes of cone and peak mingling with the gloom of the distance and the gloom of the sky. But the zenith was intensely blue, and we breathed a strong, yet sunlit air. Behind us, in the opposite segment of the heaven, white, luminous clouds touched and concealed the snowy region where Alagöz sits enthroned; yet we were able to observe that the snow lies in drifts within that region, for many of the flatter places were free of snow. A prominent feature, to which I have already alluded, is the manner in which the heart, or central rock mass of the volcano, is seen to rise beyond the edge of a rounded bank of softer texture, which follows the inner ridge at a respectful interval, and appears to be separated from it by a deep ravine. One cannot fail to observe the contrast between the roundness and softness of the outwork and the steep sides and black rocks of the inner ridge.
In fact, as you skirt the slopes of the volcano, you never touch the sides which mount immediately to the snows. You follow along the direction of gently vaulted banks of soil, parallel to the upstanding core of the mass. Their surface is patched with cultivation to a height which has been estimated at 8300 feet.[1] The herbage is sweet and produces excellent crops of hay; the earth is black and rich. Soon after leaving Norashen—we started at about six—you turn the flank of the range which meets the volcano at right angles, and then recedes in a hollow, concave to the shield-shaped pile. You enter the passage between Alagöz and the border mountains, and you arrive at the head waters of the southward-flowing streams. In this region are situated Güzeldere and Kerwanserai, the first an Armenian village, the second a Kurdish settlement. In the latter we found a station-house maintained by Armenians, who provided us with a guide and a Chinese lantern to take us to the guest-house, distant about two versts, which stands above the village of Haji Khalil. It occupied us some little time, groping our way through the thick darkness, and we did not arrive until eight o’clock.
The little guest-house proved a dreary and comfortless shelter; we sighed for the comparative luxury of a Persian chapar-khaneh or the cleanliness of a Swiss hut. A fetid odour exuded from the peeling walls and cracked flooring, and legions of active fleas rose from beneath the boards. We slept, as we might, on the wooden takht or daïs, until, at half-past one, the door thundered with heavy knocks. After some parley the intruders were admitted to our chamber—was it a dream, or whence issued these strange shapes? One awaited the wild staccato, followed by the flowing iambic:—
ἄστρων κάτοιδα νυκτέρων ὁμήγυριν
καὶ τοὺς φέροντας χεῖμα καὶ θέρος βροτοῖς
λαμπροὺς δυνάστας ἐμπρέποντας ἄιθερι[2]
Yet the floor, the walls, the companions were all real—everything, except those figures at the door. The flicker of a lamp was reflected upon their bearded faces and bare necks, upon the heavy folds of the brown draperies hanging about their shoulders, upon the blunt ends of their wooden staves. Did they proclaim the line of bonfires?—Watchmen, stationed by an unseen hand to guard us, and come to announce the break of day. The break of day? It cost us a pang to convince them of their error; we were loth to commence fresh contests with the fleas. Poor watchmen, who had forestalled the stars with longing for the morning! How many times was Troy taken in watchmen’s dreams?
