Armenia, Travels and Studies (Volume 2 of 2) / The Turkish Provinces

by H. F. B. Lynch

That insignificant creature lives in squalor amid scenes of desolation which are due to himself alone. The soil is rich and loamy; but it is little cultivated, and lies idle beneath a covering of rough grass. The climate is more propitious than that of the corresponding highlands in the more northerly, or Russian portion of the land. The rainfall is probably less; but this disadvantage may be balanced by the earlier maturing of the crops. We rode for an hour without seeing a village, with the heights of the Ala Dagh following our course away on the left. The first settlement which we passed was Milan, inhabited by Kurds, which we were careful to avoid. Those of their number whom we met were armed with numerous knives, and had rifles slung across their shoulders. A little further I called a halt on the requisition of the zaptieh; he was very anxious that the plan of the journey should be changed. It was half-past three o’clock; we could not reach Patnotz before nightfall; if I persisted it was almost certain we should be attacked. In crossing from the territory of the Sipkanli tribe to that of the Haideranli, we should be obliged to run the gauntlet of the armed parties which scoured the frontier between these two hostile tribes. He pointed to a dot on the grassy plain about us which he identified with the village of Köshk. He said that it was the residence of the chief of the Sipkanli, who from his official relations with the Turkish Government would be obliged to shelter us. His counsel was no doubt sound if one could only trust his estimate of our distance from Patnotz. For some time we had been passing between two opposite hill ranges, one on our left front, the other on our right. On our point of course, in the middle distance, these outlines approached one another, leaving between them a wide gap. The ridge on the left, a spur of Ala Dagh, was said to bear the name of Gelarash Dagh; that on the right was called Kartevin Dagh. It would be no short ride to the passage between the two; and this gave access, according to the zaptieh, to the plain in which, upon its further confines, was situated Patnotz. Satisfied by his explanations, I deferred to his judgment, and directed our steps a few points off our true course, towards the village which he had indicated. A shower of soft rain was falling as we entered Köshk at four o’clock.

Fig. 114. Yusuf Bey of Köshk.

I have already introduced my reader to a Kurdish village; the description of one may be applied to all. But Köshk is distinguished by a single house in the proper sense, a two-storeyed building of stone. It is the abode of Yusuf Bey, chieftain of the Sipkanli, whose portrait I was allowed to take ([Fig. 114]). His followers gathered round us, a throng of Kurdish warriors, prepared at any moment for a fight. Besides knives, each man carried a rifle; a band of cartridges was fastened across the breast. I examined several weapons; all bore the Russian marks and letters. They told me that they were procured from the Russian soldiers, probably Cossacks, in the frontier districts of Kagyzman and Erivan. When a little later I questioned the chief about this traffic, he expressed surprise that the soldiers should be able to obtain firearms for the purpose of selling them. After some palaver we were ushered into his presence; he happened to be engaged in prayer. A broad divan followed the bare walls of a spacious apartment, and rugs were spread upon the divan. Several tall, lank figures stood on these bright carpets, with stockings on their feet. They faced the window and the light; at the head of one of the two lines was placed an individual whom we easily recognised as the mollah from his humbler stature, stouter person and ampler robes. Their backs were turned towards us as we entered; we advanced a little, but not a muscle of the faces moved. Then the silence was broken by a deep, gurgling sound, which developed into the expression of a series of labials, half a chant, half a spoken prayer. At certain passages the figures bowed to the ground, or dropped to a seated posture, and were still. To us it seemed an ideal rendering of the solemn relation between man and the universe.

Fig. 115. Kurd of Köshk in Gala Dress.

The litany completed, our hosts at once turned towards us, with a sudden change of countenance which took us by surprise. Yusuf Bey extended to us his massive but almost fleshless hand; his cavernous cheeks were lit by a smile. He and his brother are men of more than ordinary proportions, and both are true types of the Kurd. He told me that they were in daily expectation of attack from Hoseyn Pasha of Patnotz. This miscreant, although under the ban of justice, had been given the title of Pasha by the Turkish Government, partly in order to recruit their new irregulars among his tribe, and partly as a recompense for his bribes. He had quite recently burnt some villages of the Sipkanli, and had reduced the clan to poverty. Judging from the finery which was displayed by the inhabitants of Köshk ([Fig. 115]), I could only accept the latter part of this statement in a very relative sense. The seats of the Sipkanli extend to the territory of Bayazid; they supply three regiments to the Hamidiyeh. After partaking of supper, we composed ourselves to sleep in the same apartment into which we had been introduced. The night was disturbed by the weird cries which were exchanged at frequent intervals between the patrols in the outskirts and the guard in the village.

Among the forty tenements which constituted this particular settlement we were astonished to find that six were inhabited by Armenians. Imagine the condition of these poor people, in the very jaws of their enemy, who just allows them to exist and no more! The Turkish authorities, a long way distant, would be quite powerless to assist them, even if they had the desire. A poor stableman told us beneath his breath that their lot was desperate, and that some of his countrymen had contrived to escape to Russia.

The rawness of the climate in the plain of Alashkert had disappeared when we reached Köshk.[3] The weather became mild, and the sun shone freely from a sky almost devoid of cloud. When next morning we were again in the saddle at twenty minutes after seven, the mown pastures looked green and fresh after the rain of the preceding evening, and it was a delight to breathe the crisp air. We could still see the distant dome of the Kuseh Dagh; the ridge on our left hid the lower slopes of Sipan. We rode towards the still remote promontory of that grassy ridge, and the gap between the outlines in the hills. At a little after eight we had reached the passage; it appeared to have a width of about a mile. It leads from the undulating plains about Köshk to the level plain of Patnotz. The ground falls away by a succession of inequalities to a spacious area of flat alluvial land. Beyond that lake-like surface rises the fabric of a single mountain, the broad base, the vaulted slopes, the massive crown. Sipan was at last exposed from foot to summit, recalling by many a characteristic the majestic Ararat.[4] There was the same length of sweep, the same symmetry of structure, the same rounded central form. And if we missed the gardens and the immense expanse of the campagna of Erivan, this open plain seemed to repeat the surroundings of Ararat on a scale exactly suited to Sipan.

Near the opening we passed the tiny village of Burnu Bulakh, inhabited by Kurds. We doubled the long promontory; it was evident it had been pushing us away from our true course. Once rounded, we pursued a south-easterly direction, keeping to the base of the hills to which it belongs. In these solitudes a human figure is an unfamiliar object; great was our surprise to perceive several men running towards us from a recess in the range. Stranger still was the discovery that they did not bear arms; we collected together, and awaited their approach. When they had reached speaking distance, they unfolded their story, and begged for protection at our hands. They were Turks from the province of Kars who had deserted their lands and homes, taking with them all their portable wealth. They said that the Russian Government treated them very badly, favouring the Molokans, and annoying the members of their religion and race. They had resolved to seek new seats beneath the sceptre of the Sultan, and had crossed the frontier in pursuit of this end. Their journey had until yesterday been uneventful; but last evening, as they were approaching the territory of the Haideranli, they had been savagely attacked. The Kurds had despoiled them of all their possessions, and had been induced with difficulty to leave them the clothes in which they stood. Poor fellows! honest, sturdy peasants, returning to their old allegiance and to the stronghold of Islam, only to find the one insulted by robbers and the other a gaping ruin. All we could do was to take them to the prince of the bandits, in the hope that he would be more prudent than his wild bands. Inasmuch as they were without horses it was impossible that they should accompany us to the town of Akantz.