Again the hills opened after our passage of the river, and, nearing Ashkala, composed a plain. We reached our destination at a quarter to seven, beneath the shadows of night. It is a Mohammedan village of some size, with a few Armenian houses; the houses are above ground. The valley must have in places a width of six or seven miles. Its character became apparent as we rose above it on the following morning, after crossing an affluent to the Frat, called the Kara Hasan Su, which was almost concealed by a crust of ice. Like the plain of Erzerum, it has probably been covered with a sheet of water during no very remote geological period. The floor of the valley presents, in fact, an almost level surface; but a special feature in this second lake-like extension of the Euphrates basin is a bold mass of rock which protrudes in the neighbourhood of the village, isolated from the heights upon the north. The close resemblance of this hill to some of the spurs from those heights suggested the conception of a remote age when this valley was in its infancy, and the mountains which now rise on its opposite margins were integral parts of a single block of elevated land. The further we advanced towards the west, the more the plain narrowed; we were pursuing a diagonal course along the lower slopes of the northern barrier, and we could see the river at some distance, partly ice-encrusted, and partly threading the snow in several tiny channels.[3]
Fig. 170.
February 7.—We had left Ashkala (5520 feet) at half-past eight, with the promise of a perfect day; for the vapours had become collected into shining masses, and the sun was mounting into a clear, blue sky. Just before losing the landscape of the plain, I stopped to take a photograph of the summit-formation of a spur from the northern range ([Fig. 170]). I was struck by the resemblance of the flat edge of this eminence to the outworks of the Bingöl plateau. A little later we entered a side valley through which flowed a small and partially ice-bound stream. Proceeding up it a short distance on a northerly course, we arrived at eleven o’clock in the pretty alpine village of Pirnakapan. Beyond this Mussulman hamlet, which is graced by a grove of willow trees, the valley becomes a gorge. So steep are the crags which overhang it that in many places they were free from snow. We were now at a level of about 6000 feet, and, as it were, about to take the ascent. The rocks of this region are highly folded, and consist of serpentines and limestones weathered to various hues. Two partridges were seated fearlessly on one of the ledges a few yards from where we rode. The actual climb begins a little further on, where the scene opens and you stand at the bottom of the towering wall. There is situated among the snows the Southern Kop Khan, from which the start is made. You see the chaussée winding in a long series of spirals to a lofty gallery of the range. It covers a distance between Pirnakapan and the pass of about 7½ miles.
To that gallery, which is nearly as elevated as the pass, we proceeded to follow a much shorter track. In half-an-hour we had gained the position after a valiant escalade, and the camera was at once brought to bear. But our enemy was, alas! the sun, an inexpugnable adversary, shedding his rays from just the quarter which we wished to embrace. Regretting the absence of the resourceful Wesson, I was obliged to turn the instrument towards the east-south-east. In that direction we commanded the upper valley of the Euphrates ([Fig. 171]); but we were robbed of a picture of the important landscape in the south.
Fig. 171. Looking East-South-East from near the Kop Pass.
It was a little after noon; the mountains streamed with light, and only above the deeply-seated river valley a heavy mass of vapour hung. All the summits which are seen on this side of that vapour belong to the block of mountain on the north. The conical peak on the left of the illustration is the beautiful Jejen Dagh. Beyond the mist, the distant heights are those of the southern border in the neighbourhood of Erzerum.
In another half-hour we had reached about the highest point upon the undulating snow-fields of the summit region. The Kop itself, the mountain which gives its name to the pass, is a flat-topped mass, rising with steep slopes on the right of the road. The pass has an elevation of 8048 feet. So brilliant was the sun that we were enabled to linger, and to attempt to realise the panorama of the south.
The traveller who should approach Armenia by this well-beaten avenue might fail to discover the characteristics of a great tableland in the configuration of that extensive portion of her area which is outspread from this pass. It is true that the range he crosses resembles a large block of hard material rather than a chain of mountains in the more usual sense. But the outline of this mass is broken into peaks of every shape; and the opposite ranges display the same features, the whole combining to produce the impression of a troubled sea. How different was this landscape from that which I had overlooked from the pass of Zikar on the north! Yet the explanation of this diversity does not, I think, belie the conception which a wide experience had inculcated in my mind—the conception, namely, of a vast mass of elevated country of which a prevailing characteristic is the flatness of its surface. For in this landscape the levelling influence of the lavas are almost absent, while, on the other hand, the operation of the various processes of denudation have been conducted on a colossal scale and with conspicuous results. The ancient sedimentary deposits have been worn by their action into peaks of considerable relative height, while the plains with their lake-like beds have, as it were, usurped the character of the mountains by which they are overhung. Reserving for further study the country between Frat and Murad on the west of Erzerum and Mush, I need only remark that its present aspect from the standpoint of this pass was somewhat foreign from the idea of prevailing flatness which similar prospects had invited me to form.