[69] Moses of Khorene, ii. 8. [↑]
[71] Faustus of Byzantium, iv. 55. [↑]
[72] Vol. I. Ch. XVIII. pp. 357, 359. [↑]
[73] Merchant in Persia (Italian Travels in Persia, Hakluyt Society, 1873, pp. 179 seq.). The Kurd is called Zidibec. [↑]
[74] Von Hammer, Geschichte des Osm. Reiches, iii. 145. [↑]
[75] Ritter, Erdkunde, ix. 980. But the date he gives, viz. 1636, will not suit the chronology. [↑]
[76] Brant in Journal of R. Geog. Soc. 1841, vol. x. [↑]
[77] Taylor in archives of the British Consulate at Erzerum. Report of March 18, 1869. The estimates of Jaubert in 1805 (Voyage en Arménie, etc. p. 138), and of Layard in 1850 (Nineveh and Babylon, p. 392), appear to have reference to the walled town only. The former counts 15,000 to 20,000 souls, the majority Armenian. The latter says that Van may contain from 12,000 to 15,000 inhabitants. Shiel’s figure for the population, including the suburbs, in 1836, of 12,000 people, “of whom 2000 are Armenians,” is plainly in error (J.R.G.S. 1838, vol. x.). Vital Cuinet (La Turquie d’Asie, Paris, 1892, vol. ii. pp. 654, 691), whose statistics I have seldom found reliable, includes 500 Jews in the population of Van—the remnant of the colony transported thither by the Arsakid Tigranes. My enquiries in several quarters elicited replies that no Jews were known to inhabit either the town or the caza, but that there were 25 families at Bashkala.
With regard to any special elements in the population of the town and caza of Van I was informed as follows:—There may be some few score Circassians; but there is no regular Circassian settlement here. The Armenians are practically all Gregorians. Of Chaldæan Christians, whether adherents of their old faith or converts to Roman Catholicism, only a few stray individuals would be found in the town of Van. But I was informed of a settlement of them—Nestorians—about the shores of Lake Archag, north-east of Van. [↑]