We spoke of the Kurds and of the redoubtable Hamidiyeh regiments, of which, he assured me, no less than twenty had been instituted in his vilayet, including the mountainous region of Hakkiari. He stated that their horses had already been branded, and that the prescribed strength of each regiment was from 600 to 700 men. Passing from this magnificent topic to the sphere of prose and of reality, he lamented the want of communications in the country, ascribing most of the troubles of the time to this cause. But when I enquired whether it would be permissible to organise a service of transport on the lake, bringing out a steamer or two and the necessary craft, he replied, as I expected, that one must apply at Constantinople, and that he had no authority to sanction the possession even of a pleasure launch. He had himself embarked upon the enterprise of constructing a road to Bitlis along the southern shore of the lake. But it did not appear to have yet got further than the village of Artemid, less than a half day’s stage. The Vali called my attention to the peculiar hardness of the walls in Van, although built of nothing better than mud. They remain intact for years and years. He also sang the praises of a coal mine, a short way distant, which he hoped would be exploited some day.
Commerce and industry find in the Armenian population of Van a soil in which they would flourish to imposing proportions under better circumstances. The city is not situated upon any artery of through traffic, and a trade with the Russian provinces can scarcely be said to exist. The imports from abroad are carried in bullock carts or on the backs of pack horses by stages of almost endless number. Perhaps the bulk of them are derived from the port of Trebizond, travelling through Erzerum. From that provincial capital there are two main tracks, the one, which is used in summer, by way of Tekman or the plain of Pasin, passing through Kulli and Melazkert; the other, frequented in winter, making the detour along the plain of Alashkert and crossing the Murad at Tutakh. The journey from that township is not without danger as far as Akantz on Lake Van. The caravans are accompanied by armed men, and are constantly on the alert against attack by bands of Kurds. Communications with Persia are conducted principally through the town of Kotur, and, more rarely, through Bashkala. On the south the territory of Van is separated by almost impenetrable mountains from the lowlands of Mesopotamia. But some cotton goods find their way up from the Mediterranean and through Aleppo and Diarbekr along the passage of Bitlis and the southern shore of the lake. I was informed of a more direct route which, after leaving Bashkala, passes by way of Gever, Shemzinar (Shemdinan?) and Rowanduz to Erbil and so to Baghdad. But it was represented as encountering considerable natural difficulties between Shemzinar and Rowanduz.
Native industries, such as the production of various kinds of textiles, as well as a number of small handicrafts, are necessarily confined within very humble limits, owing to the poverty of the country. Wages are low, and the price of bread is apt to become high under a system of commercial rings which involves the Government officials in the artificial production of a famine. At the time of my visit wheat stood at an almost prohibitive figure; yet large quantities of the cereal were reputed to be stored, and no additional supplies were encouraged to come in. Many of my readers will be familiar with the circular wafers, resembling pancakes, which take the place of our loaves of bread throughout the East. Never very palatable, as I think, they are really unwholesome, besides being nasty, in the paradise of Van. They appeared to be compounded of a gritty mud with an admixture of dough. We endeavoured in vain to procure some white bread; the bakeries were said to be forbidden to supply such a luxury to any but the Vali’s table. The wretched bakers are a class subject to constant persecution; the officials have the right and even the duty of inspection; and this is tantamount to asserting that the bread is sure to be bad and its producers at their wits’ end to squeeze from the staple the necessary bribes.
Corruption has wormed its way into every department of the administration. I enquired of a prominent citizen, who impressed me as a man of parts, and to whose house I was obliged to wade through mud which lay ankle deep upon the central avenue of the garden town, whether a municipality were an institution unknown to Van. He replied that, on the contrary, they possessed an elaborate machinery for the regulation of municipal affairs. Were Christians excluded from the body?—By no manner of means.—Then what prevented him and those of equal calibre with him from attending to such important affairs? The answer came that those Armenians who served upon the Board were mere robbers or abettors of robbery. No honest man with a reputation to lose could consent to co-operate; should he make the endeavour he would rapidly be edged out. Such is the manner in which the paper reforms which tickle Europe are in practice transferred to the category of grave abuses.
There must exist a trace of light in every gloomy picture; and at Van the ray falls upon a little band of artisans and craftsmen as well as upon a few of the tradesmen and merchants. These elect are without exception Armenians. Our money matters were adjusted with a promptitude and a spirit of honesty which revealed capacities that came as a surprise after our experiences in Russian territory. Yet there is here no bank in the proper sense of the term. We were in want of warm overcoats, and gave a light cape as a model; it was repeated in a thick cloth imported from European Turkey with a skill which would not disgrace a West-End tailor. My Van coat has since that day been my constant companion; no wet has ever penetrated the coarse but cunning texture, and not a stitch has given way. Work in metal is produced with a sleight of hand and sureness of eye which are nothing less than extraordinary. The jewellers bring you objects which, although fanciful rather than artistic, are little wonders in their way. And from the background of such brighter memories shine the eyes of the great Van cats—as large as terriers, with magnificent tails and long fur, with the gait and fearlessness of dogs.
If you could only forget the shadows or wipe them away like a picture-restorer, there would not be absent other elements of light and hope. But a very long vision would be necessary for their discernment, and senses in other respects keen. For one thing—in spite of the spies, and all the miserable stories of Armenian brides carried off by Kurds who go scot-free—a larger atmosphere seems to surround the immediate political environment, disclosing vistas into freedom. There is none of that feeling of quite irremovable pressure, which in the Russian provinces is already sealing the springs of human activity as a noxious climate sits upon the lungs. Freaks there are, and wicked freaks on the part of Government; nor does there exist any security for life and property. Officials and public bodies are woefully ignorant and hopelessly corrupt. In spite of these real miseries I should not hesitate to consent to endure them, were the alternative the lot of an Armenian in Russia. But this is, perhaps, a purely personal impression which I need not expect my readers to share.
Some acquaintance with the outside world is derived by the citizens as a result of the immemorial custom among the male Armenian inhabitants of migrating for a number of years to Constantinople and returning home when they have amassed a certain competence. Married men leave their families behind. Visits from Europeans are naturally few and far between; but two or three political consuls are generally in residence, and there is a fairly numerous American Mission. The Americans are under the protection of the British Consul; and it is pleasant to recognise these two elements working silently and unseen together in the van of humanity and civilisation. The British Consul deserves a special measure of esteem and sympathy. He fights the same battles as the devoted missionaries; but he has no public, however much limited, to applaud his efforts and stimulate him with their enthusiasm upon his return home. He corresponds with an Ambassador entirely ignorant of the local conditions; his reports moulder in the pigeon-holes of an impalpable Foreign Office; and the least show of zeal is often rewarded by one of those snubs which your British official, and especially the younger diplomatists, have a natural talent for inflicting. The quality lacking to the average Englishman of a heart permeating manners is possessed in a marked degree by the Americans. Their Mission on the extreme eastern outskirts of the garden town is an oasis of human kindliness and light and love. It was presided over by Mr. Greene, assisted by Mr. Allen and by Dr. Raynolds, who was on leave of absence at the time of our visit. The lady workers included Dr. Grace Kimball, with a large medical practice, and Miss Fraser, a young and charming Canadian lady, who was at the head of a staff of Armenian teachers in the school for girls attached to the institution. In their society it was my privilege to spend several pleasant and profitable evenings, making drafts upon the varied experiences of Dr. Kimball, and realising what a blank is presented by social life in Mussulman countries, where freedom of intercourse with women would be regarded as a crime and where cultured women in the true sense are almost unknown.
I received abundant testimony to the morality of Armenian women, even under circumstances which may be regarded as distinctly unfair. Although husbands leave their brides behind when they migrate to Constantinople, infidelity is uncommon. Were it otherwise, the fact could scarcely escape the observation of a lady practitioner. It often happens that a widow, about to marry again, will bring her young child to the feet of the missionaries, beseeching them to bring it up and educate it in her place, as their monument—for so she puts it—before God. But it never occurs that they are offered illegitimate offspring. For this reason, if for no other, they are disinclined to believe the aspersions which are usually cast by the authorities upon the character of Armenian women abducted by the Kurds. A less bright side of the Armenian character was, they said, their inveterate treachery towards members of their own race. In this respect, as well as in the domain of personal chastity, there appears to exist a rough analogy between the Armenians and the Celtic population of Ireland. But one must be careful not to press the resemblance too closely, the two peoples being fundamentally unlike.
The gruesome stories, which we find it difficult to credit in Europe, of the miseries endured by the inmates of Turkish prisons were abundantly confirmed upon unimpeachable evidence. The most ordinary sanitary precautions are neglected, until the cells attain an unspeakable condition. Mussulmans are often able to obtain certain relaxations in the rigidity of their confinement. They plead that it is impossible for them to worship Allah upon floors which are in this state. Perhaps they will be accorded permission to emerge for a time into the open air. Christians are seldom favoured with similar indulgences; and it often happens that an unhappy youth, immured upon mere suspicion, will be sent home in a dying condition, suffering from poisoning of the blood.
The American Mission at Van is only one of the many establishments which have been spread over the face of Asiatic Turkey by the pious enterprise of the Protestant inhabitants of the New World. It is an established etiquette between the various Societies of the same faith, although not necessarily of the same nation, to avoid overlapping into one another’s spheres; and from an early date in the present century the Americans entered this field and made it their own, working their way into Asia Minor and thence into Mesopotamia. Their Society is supported by the Congregational Church of America; and this particular Mission was founded as late as 1871. Their activities are practically confined to the Armenian population professing the Gregorian religion. But I understand that the making of proselytes is no special or paramount object of the teaching which they dispense. If, perchance, these lines should reach an American public, I would venture to entreat the supporters of the Mission to emphasise rather than to check this wholesome spirit of abnegation among the devoted men and women who serve their interests so well. The Church is at the present day the only stable institution which the Armenian people possess. No Armenian of education—whether priest or layman—doubts that it is in need of reform. Reform will come from within as the result of the growing enlightenment which the Church herself is engaged in propagating under extraordinary difficulties among her scattered communities. To wean her children from her, while she is still in the stress of a noble purpose, would be to promote that cruel spirit which lurks in all religions when they are assailed in their instincts of maternity from without. Such an endeavour would be at once in a high degree impolitic, and alien to the highest principles of Christianity—mutual tolerance, humility, love.