[47] In the winter of 1887 and the spring of 1888 every effort was made by Fikri Pasha, the Turkish Governor of this district, but a Kurd by race, to dislodge Mr. Browne from his position in the mountains. "Soldiers were continually sent to inquire into his plans; he was accused of practising without a diploma as a medical man, because he gave a few simple remedies to the natives in a country destitute of physicians, and his position became well-nigh intolerable when he found that his host, Mar Shimun, was being insulted and punished for harbouring him, and that the native Christians were being made to suffer for his residence among them. The Patriarch, however, stood firm. 'Your presence here,' said he to Mr. Browne, 'may save us from a massacre; and as for these troubles we must put up with them as best we can.' These words were verified a few months afterwards."—Mr. Athelstan Riley's Report on the Archbishop of Canterbury's Mission to the Assyrian Christians, 1888.
[48] Translation of a letter given to the author by His Excellency the Turkish Ambassador to the Court of Tihran.
"Among the honoured of English ladies is Mrs. Bishop. On this tour of travel she has a letter of recommendation from the Exalted Government of England, issued by the English Embassy in Tihran, and earnest request is made that in her passage through the Imperial Territory she be well protected. As far as zaptiehs are necessary let them be given for her safety, all necessary provision for her most comfortable travel be perfected, and all her requests from the High Government of the Osmanlis be met.
"That all courtesy and attention be shown to this distinguished lady, this letter is given from the Embassy at Tihran."
As various statements purporting to be narratives of attacks made upon me in Turkey have appeared in Russian and other papers, I take this opportunity of saying that they are devoid of any foundation. I was never robbed while in the dominion of His Majesty the Sultan: courtesy was shown me by all the Turkish officials between the Persian frontier and Erzerum, and efficient escorts of steady and respectful zaptiehs were readily supplied.
[49] I must ask my readers to believe that I crossed the Turkish frontier without any knowledge of or interest in the "Armenian Question;" that so far from having any special liking for the Armenians I had rather a prejudice against them; that I was in ignorance of the "Erzerum troubles" of June 1890, and of yet more recent complications, and that the sole object of my journey by a route seldom traversed by Europeans from Urmi to Van was to visit the Patriarch of the Nestorians and the Kochanes station of the Archbishop of Canterbury's Assyrian Church Mission, and that afterwards I travelled to Erzerum viâ Bitlis only to visit the American missionaries there. So far as I know, I entered Turkey as a perfectly neutral and impartial observer, and without any special interest in its Christian populations, and it is only the "inexorable logic of facts" which has convinced me of their wrongs and claims.
[50] In another village, a young man in speaking of their circumstances said: "We don't know much, but we love the Lord Jesus well enough to die for Him."
[51] Van may be considered the capital of that part of Kurdistan which we know as Armenia, but it must be remembered that under the present Government of Turkey Armenia is a prohibited name, and has ceased to be "a geographical expression." Cyclopædias containing articles on Armenia, and school books with any allusions to Armenian history, or to the geography of any district referred to as Armenia, are not allowed to enter Asia Minor, and no foreign maps which contain the province of Armenia are allowed to be used in the foreign schools, or even to be retained in the country. Of the four millions of the Armenian race 2,500,000 are subjects of the Sultan, and with few exceptions are distinguished for their loyalty and their devotion to peaceful pursuits.
The portion of Armenia which lies within the Turkish frontier consists for the most part of table-lands from 5000 to 6000 feet in elevation, intersected by mountain ranges and watered by several rivers, the principal of which are the Euphrates, the Tigris, and the Aras. Of its many lakes the Dead Sea of Van is the principal, its dimensions being estimated at twice the area of the Lake of Geneva, and at eighty miles in length by twenty-five in breadth. From its exquisitely beautiful shores rise the two magnificent extinct volcanoes, the Sipan Dagh, with an altitude of over 12,000 feet, and the Nimrud Dagh, with a crater five miles in diameter and 1600 feet in depth, the top of its wall being over 9000 feet in height.
The Armenians claim an antiquity exceeding that of any other nation, and profess to trace their descent from Haik, the son of Togarmah, the grandson of Japhet, who fled from the tyranny of Belus, King of Assyria, into the country which in the Armenian tongue is known by his name, as Haikh or Haizdani. It may be said of the Armenians that the splendour and misery of their national history exceed those of any other race. Their national church claims an older than an apostolic foundation, and historically dates from the third century, its actual founder, S. Gregory the Illuminator, having been consecrated at Cæsarea as Bishop of Armenia in the second year of the fourth century. In the fifteenth century a schism brought about by Jesuit missionaries resulted in a number of Armenians joining the Church of Rome, and becoming later a separate community known as the "Catholic Armenian Church." Within the last half-century, under the teaching of the American missionaries, a Reformed Church has arisen, known as the Protestant Armenian Church, but with these exceptions the race and the national church may be regarded as one. The Armenians have had no political existence since the year 1604, but form an element of stability and wealth in Turkey, Russia, and Persia, where they are principally found.