[5] But one of them has already been drawn by Layard (Nineveh and Babylon, p. 7); and I here reproduce a photograph taken during our second journey, which shows some interesting examples of old Armenian tombstones with rams’ heads in the cemetery of Varzahan ([Fig. 173]). [↑]
[6] For the stages see Ch. XI. p. 240. The route is shown on my map. [↑]
[7] Not that all the people one meets of distinctively Greek type are Christians. Especially in the valleys most remote from the coast, as in that of the Kharshut, the inhabitants of Greek race have largely been converted to Mohammedanism, or have become Mohammedan for prudential or worldly motives. So complete has been the transformation in some places, that, when I asked my host at Besh Kilisa—a man whose physiognomy showed him to be a typical Greek—to what nationality he belonged, he replied “Osmanli.” A section of the inhabitants of Hamsi Keui—a village south of the Zigana—represent a transitional stage. Their children are baptized, but a mollah recites prayers over them. They bear a Mohammedan and a Christian name, as, for instance, that of Ahmed Apostolos. When they die the papa and the mollah dispute the corpse. They have neither church nor mosque. When they meet a Greek they bid him kallispera, and, when a Mohammedan, merhaba. [↑]
CHAPTER XI
REVISIT ARMENIA
Four years had elapsed since the close of my last journey. Armenia had in the meanwhile been the scene of tragedies which had touched the conscience of the West. Petty disturbances among the mountaineers in the wild fastnesses of Sasun, south of Mush, were magnified by the provincial authorities into the appearance of a revolution, and were suppressed with savage cruelty. The example of a single massacre was not sufficient to overawe the Armenians; the Palace had tasted blood, and their special agents throughout the provinces were eager for the work and its rewards. Against the counsels of their best officials and the entreaties of Turkey’s truest friends, the Palace organised a series of butcheries on a great scale. The events in Sasun were followed by similar atrocities not only in the towns and villages inhabited by Armenians but also in the capital itself. Europe, deeply pledged to secure good government among the Armenians, was unwilling to embark on a policy of decisive action, paralysed by the mutual jealousies of the principal Powers. During those dark times the country had been closed to travellers; and it was only with the greatest difficulty that I was at length enabled to complete the studies which had been interrupted on the former occasion by the rigour of winter.
June 7, 1898.—On a day of early summer, when the air was fresh and the sun warm, my friend Oswald and myself set out from Trebizond, to perform the journey which forms the subject of the last chapter in the reverse sense. I have already described the stages from Erzerum to the Vavuk Pass; but it may be desirable to notice briefly the intermediate section between the sea and that natural threshold of the Armenian tableland. For a distance of over a mile the chaussée follows the coast beneath the shadow of that table-topped mass of dark porphyritic lava which is known as Boz Tepe. The view ranges over the considerable delta of the Pyxitis—a strip of sand and pebbles projecting far into the sea, which is discoloured for some distance by the suspended sediment. But the large prospects are at once lost as you enter the river valley and proceed at right angles to your former course. The stream is swirling along, divided into several channels, and overhung at a respectable interval by tall cliffs. In places the outlines open and disclose a country of rolling hills, as where the large and white-faced monastery of Aiana is seen high-seated in a charming landscape on the right bank. It is indeed an admirable approach to the recesses of the Pontic chain, this valley of Deïrmen. It leads with much of the straightness and space of a church’s nave through the lofty and intricate outworks of the range almost to its spine at the Zigana Pass.
Before we had completed ten miles the wooded heights on either hand were dotted with the dark forms of the first spruce firs. The valley narrows; the walls grow steeper, and tower to a greater altitude; but you never lose the expanse of sky. If the scene recalls Tyrol you are not conscious of confinement; there is none of the chill and darkness of an Alpine glen. The character of the landscape is influenced by the alternation of tuffs with lavas; the latter become much darker and more compact. To the tuffs are largely due the softer spaces of field and garden; while the lava, which has cooled into a roughly columnar structure, produces parapets of immense height and precipitous crags. A little below the town of Jevizlik we stood in wonder at the foot of a cliff composed of a rock of this description. It fills the angle between the main stream and a tributary to the left bank, and it must be at least 1500 feet high. The columns of lava suggested the appearance of an organ of colossal proportions. And what a romantic feature, the bold perspective of the side valley, the cultivation carried upwards by almost impossible gradients, the vivid green of the young corn contrasting with patches of fallow land, coloured a light purplish-brown! Along the summits of the wide amphitheatre of ridges the forest rises against the field of the sky.
Jevizlik, the first station, is reached at about the twentieth mile; it is situated just below the confluence of a considerable stream which comes in on the right bank. A rough road diverges from the chaussée at this point, and follows the course of the tributary. It leads to the famous monastery of Sumelas, a ride or sharp walk of three and a half hours. We passed bands of pilgrims on their way to this resort—whole families, an entire village packed up and piled upon horses, the women astride with their babes beside them, the men on foot. The monastery is built on a ledge of an almost perpendicular wall of mountain, at a height of 4450 feet above sea-level, and of 800 feet above the torrent which hisses at the base of the rock. It is placed almost at the head of the beautiful valley of Meiriman—a valley which, indeed, is narrower than that of the Pyxitis, but which combines in its various stages all the features of this fair land. Orchards and stretches of forest trees clothe the easier gradients at the mouth of the opening—a large circle of heights soaring up into the heaven above purple slopes, where the soil is exposed by the plough. Clusters of wooden châlets overlook the winding river, and each bolder eminence is crowned by a white, stone chapel. As the valley becomes a glen—the term is ill adapted to express the scale upon which Nature has worked—the vegetation increases in luxuriance and changes in character, until the scene assumes that strange and almost supernatural appearance which has found such just expression in the weirdness of the Kolchian myths. The foliage, which almost obscures the light of the brightest day, is composed of alder, lime, walnut and elm, of beech and Spanish chestnut, of ash and, on the higher slopes, of tall firs. Trees of holly, of azalea and of rhododendron supply an undergrowth which at this season is ablaze with bloom. In the autumn the pink, poisonous crocus (colchicum) springs from the rocks, of double the length and size of the ordinary flower. Fungus with crimson stools start from the silver lichen, which diffuses an unearthly light. Long streamers of grey-green lichen float on the lower branches, from which a profusion of creepers are festooned. Here and there the thicket opens to an expanse of lawn. The forest is fed by the clouds collected in this caldron of Nature; and from the month of May to that of October the windows of the monastery are seldom greeted by the rays of the sun ([Fig. 175]).