Kamarlu is perhaps a type of these villages of the campagna, in which the population is composed of Armenians and Tartars, of lambs and lions living side by side. It can boast a Russian schoolhouse, a necessary institution in the case of the Tartars, to judge by the barbarous and hideous frescos which enliven the façade of their little mosque. The Armenians have their school, and there are two Gregorian churches in which they satisfy their spiritual needs. The houses are built of sun-baked bricks and mud; wooden stages rise to some height above the flat roofs, and provide airy sleeping-places for the inhabitants during the summer heats. After regaling ourselves with the delicious white grapes of the district, we turned aside from the road to Erivan. Crossing the outskirts of the village, we remarked the huge clay wine jars which were strewn about in the courtyards. Beyond a few fields, planted with cotton, we again entered the open desert, and pursued our way over the crumbling mud. A rude and winding track leads towards the river through patches of dusty desert shrubs. Ararat fills the landscape, and is rarely seen to greater advantage than from such tracts of naked land. On our left hand rose a buttress of the Sevan mountains which had been a landmark from the slopes of Ararat. It is composed of a sandy rock of various hues, which has weathered into fanciful shapes. In the delicate evening lights it is invested with the appearance of some castle in fairyland.
From time to time we passed strings of three or four large waggons, drawn by teams of oxen. Whole families of Armenians were gathered within them, well dressed and well-to-do. They were returning to their dwellings within the zone of gardens from a pilgrimage to Khor Virap. The men were emptying their little glasses, which they would replenish from wine-skins, and feasting on water melons.
We arrived at the mound which rises from the flats about the river and can be clearly seen from Ararat. According to Dubois,[2] it consists of a mass of dolomite, isolated on the surface of the plain. The church and cloister have been built on the side of the eminence; the monastic dwellings screened the church from our view. St. Gregory’s dungeon is situated within the precincts; and it would appear that the place was famous in the saint’s lifetime for a much-frequented temple of the fire-worshippers.
We were scarcely beneath the walls when the figure of a horseman springs forward from some recess into the road. Throwing his white Arab on to his haunches at a few yards before our carriage, he challenges and constrains us to pull up dead. This proceeding on his part, no less than his forbidding countenance, throws me completely off my guard. On Russian soil one is obliged to smother the irritation which is always threatening to burst forth from a British breast. I shout to him to move aside, or we will whip the horses and drive through him; to this he answers by drawing his revolver and threatening to shoot. I ask him by what right he dared to obstruct the roadway; he replies by enquiring by what credentials we presume to pass. It flashes through me that the game is in the hands of this ruffian—we had been spoilt by the attentions of the high officials, and to such an extent that we had forgotten to bring even our passports, which had gone in our despatch box to Erivan. It was useless to urge that one could not be obliged to show a passport in order to be allowed to visit a church. He paid no heed to any of our arguments, and compelled us to return with him to Kamarlu. He even added the insult of requiring us to suit our pace to his, and to follow at a walk or amble by his side. This we flatly refused to do, and, taking the reins from the trembling coachman, proceeded at a brisk trot. Simon Ter-Harutiunoff—such was the name of this ferocious person—is linked in our memory with the companion picture of Ivan the Terrible, our stern custodian during the Akhaltsykh days. Both are Armenians, and either might be taken as a model for the embodiment of the fighting instincts in man. Tartars and Cossacks are amenable creatures besides them; and of the two, we were inclined to bestow the palm upon Simon. His face was black with exposure to the sun; the eyes were yellow round the dark iris and shot with red veins. His features were large and pronounced, but of singular deformity; the massive head was placed upon broad shoulders above a frame of great bulk and iron strength. He wore two medals, won during the war with Turkey through personal bravery. His function in time of peace was to police the Persian frontier in the district of Khor Virap.
These particulars we learnt in the office of the Pristav, upon our return under such escort to Kamarlu. We claimed and were permitted to proceed to Erivan; but the chapars were instructed to prevent us from diverging, and to hand us over to the Nachalnik at the provincial capital. In this manner we were foiled in our antiquarian researches among these ancient sites. At Khor Virap we saw nothing but some slight convexities in the surface of the ground, which may be caused by buried remains. Beyond the mound we observed a natural wall of rock, rising like a gigantic ruin above the plain.
Evening had approached as we left the village, and proceeded through the gardens, and crossed to the barren zone beyond. From the rising ground we looked back over the forest of poplars to the sun setting behind the peaks of the Ararat chain. The satellite range wore the same tints of deep, opaque opaline which fretted the horizon during our outward journey. It was shadowed upon the same ground of orange and amber; and the opal hues of the land forms extended round the circle and included the huge, horizontal outline of Alagöz. But the Sevan mountains, in the opposite segment, were touched with pink and luminous yellows; the higher summits were white with fresh snow. In the south-east the landscape was dim and vaporous; nor could the eye distinguish among the gathering shadows the basal slopes of Ararat. The snow-fields of the dome shone with a cold light in the sky, above vague banks of cloud. It was after eight o’clock when we reached the pleasant town garden, and discussed our adventures with the Nachalnik over a cigar.
[1] For Artaxata, Dvin, Khor Virap, etc., see Ker Porter’s Travels (vol. ii. pp. 619 seq.); Morier (Second Journey, p. 316 and pp. 339 seq.); Dubois (op. cit. vol. iii. pp. 382 seq.); Smith and Dwight (op. cit. pp. 273 seq.). Dubois mentions, but was unable to visit, the grottoes of Okhtchapert on the direct road between Erivan and Garni, p. 402. They are mentioned by Telfer (Crimea and Transcaucasia, vol. i. p. 210), who passed by them on his way to Garni from Erivan. Telfer’s book should be consulted by English readers for an account of these various antiquities. I would also recommend to the archæologist who is desirous of investigating the question of the site of Artaxata a reference to Dubois (vol. iii. p. 449). [↑]