Armenian Catholics of Erzerum.In addition to the Sanasarean college, the Gregorian community possess no less than six ordinary schools. Of these the principal is attached to the cathedral and is named Artsenean. It is attended by about 200 day scholars, and corresponds to an Armenian school of two classes in Russia. The school for girls, called Ripsimean, appeared to be well administered; it has a roll of 350 maidens. The Armenian Catholics of Erzerum province number several thousands of souls; and the city is the seat of one of their bishops. Their school, which is conducted by four French priests, is considered one of the best in the town. It is attended by over 100 pupils, of whom nearly one-third are Gregorians. A little boy of three did the honours of his class, when I availed myself of the kind invitation of the frères. He addressed me in the following speech, delivered with the most graceful gestures:—”Monsieur! Soyez le bienvenu; que le ciel vous protège, cher Monsieur!”
American missionaries.The American missionaries have a large establishment with schools in Erzerum. Their mission was founded in 1839. It was presided over during my residence by the Rev. W. N. Chambers, a man in the prime of life with fine physique and a face of great beauty, which corresponds to the nobility and sweetness of his character. His wife and worthy companion—one of the most charming and refined of women—was perpetually busy with her girls’ school. One reflected upon the value to the womanhood of the Armenian race of such an example as hers. In taking leave of the American missions, it is pleasant to dwell upon this memory, which, indeed, illustrates the kind of benefits which they confer upon the country better than all the figures in their reports. They raise the standard of life, and diffuse an atmosphere of wholesome living. I ought to add that their missions are conducted by quite exceptional men and women—of a type and perhaps of a class far higher than one would expect. One admires in them a broad tolerance and entire absence of all cant. One says farewell from the depth of the heart.
Rushdiyeh. Idadiyeh.Education is provided for the Mussulman population by a single but well-appointed institution. It combines the courses of a Rushdiyeh, or High School, with that of an Idadiyeh or lycée. It is housed in a spacious new building in the centre of the town, and I found it occupied by 130 pupils, of whom 45 were boarders. Youths enter the school between their eleventh and fifteenth years, and stay seven years. Of this period three years are spent in the lower and four in the higher course. There are about eight teachers. The majority of the scholars were attired in a quasi-military uniform; the rest were in civil dress. All looked in excellent health. The dormitories were provided with brass bedsteads; and I noticed that the linen was scrupulously clean. Shining napkins were spread out upon the table of the dining-room, which was lined with a row of chairs and provided with crockery. Adjoining the school is a small hospital. The course comprises the same subjects as those in the curricula of the Van schools; and, although this school professes to dispense a much higher standard, it is in fact less advanced than the so-called military school at Van. This is the only Idadiyeh in Turkish Armenia; and the admirable official who acts as coadjutor to an invisible Director of Public Instruction informed me that in the year preceding my visit a Government order had been issued, to the effect that all candidates for subordinate posts in the civil service should be required to produce a diploma from an Idadiyeh. I learnt on the same authority that there existed a Rushdiyeh in each caza of the vilayet of Erzerum with the exception of the caza of Terjan.
We found Erzerum in a condition verging upon famine. During my residence several people died of inanition, and the poorer classes were only just alive. I was informed that there was no lack of grain in the place; but it was all in the hands of merchants, and they refused to sell except at famine prices. A short harvest in 1892 had been followed by insufficient sowing, owing to the consumption of the seed for food. Grain was said to be lying at Trebizond on Government account; but the officials pleaded that they were unable to obtain transport. Some of them, if not all, were no doubt confederates of the Corn Ring. The same state of things was prevalent at Van; and throughout our journey we had great difficulty in obtaining barley for our horses, even when offering exorbitant prices. One may present some conception of the acuteness of the sufferings of the townspeople by recording some particulars of prices and wages. Wheat was selling at 50 piasters a kilé, or about 2½ piasters an oke (2¾ lbs.). The price of bread was 2 piasters an oke. A healthy man requires at least three-quarters of an oke of bread a day, in addition to his ration of sheep’s tail or meat sausage, of which the working classes lay in a provision in the autumn. The wages of a carpenter or skilled labourer are in good times 8 piasters a day. But hundreds of workmen were seeking employment at 1½ piasters, and the best paid among the makers of cigarettes for the régie were receiving a daily wage of 2 piasters. Rice at Erzerum is quite a luxury, and potatoes are so little grown that they may be left out of account. How was a man to pay for his lodging, provide food for his family and himself, and obtain tezek, or cow-dung cakes, for his fire upon the current wages? I was shown the kind of bread upon which the majority were living; it looked like a thin pancake, and its staple consisted of a black grain or seed. But the principal ingredient was mud and chopped straw. The cruelty of the situation was accentuated by the fact that all kinds of comestibles were spread out upon the booths of the bazar. One regretted the absence of the glass windows of our shops. Here the temptation might be touched as well as seen. There is no poor-law, and no poor-houses. People starve in the streets. A Mussulman girl of great beauty came to our house, and begged piteously for food, showing her face. We endeavoured to obtain for her a place as servant in the residence of some Turkish ladies. But it was well known that there was many a brute in Erzerum who, like the Spectre of Hunger in the pregnant lines of Alfred de Musset, demanded kisses as the price of a piece of bread.
The economical condition of the surrounding country is woeful in the extreme. The great plains from Pasin to Lake Van were being raided by bands of Kurds. I shall describe in a future chapter how this predatory people came to be established in the agricultural centres. Erzerum was full of accounts of their open attacks upon the industrious peasantry; and even the Mussulmans, as, for instance, at Hasan Kala in Pasin, were petitioning Government for protection. It is true they did not dare to call their assailants to book as Kurds, but described them merely as brigands. It was well known that these bands were led by officers in Hamidiyeh regiments—tenekelis, or tin-plate men, as they are called by the populace, from the brass badges they wear in their caps. The frightened officials, obliged to report such occurrences, take refuge behind the amusing euphemism of such a phrase as “brigands, disguised as soldiers.” The scourge had almost exhausted the Armenian population, and was now commencing to sit heavy upon the Mussulmans. The Armenians were emigrating as fast as they could. The Russian Consul informed me that he had been obliged to issue no less than 3500 passports to Armenians during the current year. The Russians did not want them; but what were they to do? I learnt from another source that in the caza of Khinis alone 1000 Armenians had left their homes, the majority in abject poverty, and had taken refuge across the frontier.
With a famine in the provincial capital and the adjacent territory stripped by marauders, the inhabitants of any other country would have risen in revolt against the Government. But the population of Asiatic Turkey, in spite of religious differences, are the most easily governed in the world. All the talk about Mussulmans and Christians flying at each other’s throat is talk, and moreover very idle talk. During my subsequent visits to Erzerum it was admitted to me by Turkish officials that the massacres of 1898 were perpetrated in these districts by bands of imported ruffians. The still unavenged guilt of these abominable orgies does not lie upon the Mussulman population. Only on one occasion during my residence did the famished townspeople of the dominant religion come near to measures of insubordination. They sent their women—a method of petition which is neither usual nor lightly to be dismissed—in a body to Government House. Thence the petitioners proceeded to the residence of an official of the Treasury at Constantinople, who had been despatched to Erzerum to make enquiries into the scarcity. The indignant matrons assailed his ears with the pertinent question: neye geldin, whereto didst thou come? Dissatisfied with the answer they received, they smashed the windows of the functionary; but nothing came of the demonstration.
All through that anxious time the civil government was in abeyance; and nothing was set up in its place. The Vali was recently dead; his successor had not been chosen; the deputy Governor was at once a puppet and an imbecile. An honest man with a few policemen at his back could restore not only order but prosperity. There is only one essential of any importance: to reorganise the territorial boundaries of the provinces, select good governors and invest them with extensive powers. If my reader be inclined to smile at the choice of my epithet when applied to a Turkish official, I can only say that I much regret my inability to introduce him personally to the present holder of the office of Vali of Erzerum. I was privileged to make the acquaintance of Raouf Pasha on the occasion of my second visit. His career through a long life has been one of much distinction; he is honest, just, capable, humane. If such a man could only be freed from the leading-strings of the capital, he would go far towards a happy settlement of the Armenian question, and of the still more important question, the continuance of the Ottoman Empire.
The Armenian inhabitants of the provincial capital are undergoing a state of transition from their ancestral customs to the less straitened manners of the West. But these customs die a hard death, and the emancipated Armenian who has studied in Europe must feel their fetters upon his return to his native land. Let us suppose that he wishes to marry; he must have recourse to his mother, or, if she be dead, to a female relation. A bride is chosen for him, whom, as likely as not, he does not see until the marriage ceremony has been performed. If the parents of the bridegroom be still alive, the newly-married couple reside with them; and it is the custom that, while sons and daughters are permitted to speak to their parents, a similar license is not usually accorded to the sons’ wives. Thus a maiden quits a home where freedom of intercourse and speech is allowed her to enter one where she is not permitted to open her mouth. A son may not smoke in the presence of his father; and great are the agonies endured by the younger generation in this respect alone. The earnings of the sons are handed over to the father, who rules the family quite in the patriarchal style.
Fig. 169. Five Generations of an Armenian Family.