Whilst seated under the tree, vowing vengeance on the Aga of Alwar, (having dispatched a man to the Governor of Arz-roum to state our case), we were visited by a respectable, yet sly-looking Turk, who came quietly and settled himself on our carpet. He begun by telling us that he was a yoljee (a traveller) like ourselves; and inquired what made us so angry. We broke out into every species of invective against the Aga of the village, who had obliged us to remain like our horses and mules, under a tree, refusing us the most common offices of hospitality; and added, that we had in consequence sent a messenger to the Governor of Arz-roum to complain of the affront, hoping at the same time that the inhospitable Aga would either lose his head, or at least get a severe bastinado. We had some suspicion that the personage to whom we were talking was the very Aga himself, and were therefore less scrupulous in our abuse. This suspicion proved true: our visitor begun by taking the Aga’s part, saying that the country was in a great state of alarm, and that the people feared to receive into their towns so many strangers, and particularly Persians, and finished in his own person by intreating us not to write to the Governor of Arz-roum. He went away accordingly in some fright, and allowed us to get provisions from his village, a permission which he had not granted before.
We spent the night, however, in the open air, and in the fear of rain: much, indeed, was falling on all sides of us with thunder and lightning.
CHAP. XVII.
ARZ-ROUM TO AMASIA.
ARZ-ROUM: DESCRIPTION OF THE CITY; ANCIENT STATE: POPULATION: CLIMATE: VISIT TO THE GOVERNOR; ENTERTAINMENT; TURKISH DISHES—DEPARTURE—BATHS OF ILIJA: THE DELHIS—THE EUPHRATES—BUILDINGS AT MAMAKHATOUN—TRADITION OF THEIR ERECTION—CHIFLIK: CULTIVATION—TARTARS ON THE ROAD FROM CONSTANTINOPLE—CARAJA: DINNER—PERSIAN FROM PARIS—STORM—GRANDEUR OF THE APPROACH TO CARA-HISSAR—DELAY IN THE TOWN—THE RIVER KELKI IRMAC, THE ANCIENT LYCUS—KULEY-HISSAR—DIFFERENCE OF PROPERTY IN TURKEY AND IN PERSIA—EXCAVATED ROCK—HISTORY OF A BOSNIAN STRANGER—COUNTRY ROUND NIKSAR, THE ANCIENT NEOCÆSAREA—ENTRANCE INTO TOCAT: DESCRIPTION; TRADE—TURKHAL—STATION OF GUARDS—APPROACHES TO AMASIA.
1809, June 15th. We arrived at Arz-roum, after riding fifteen miles on a bearing of W. over a chalky road. The city presents itself in a very picturesque manner; its old minarets and decayed turrets, rising abruptly to the view. Our baggage was carried to the Custom-house, notwithstanding all our remonstrances and claims of privilege. The caution of the Turks, though in this instance unnecessary, was not unjustifiable, for a former Persian Embassador had concealed merchants in his suite, who, under his name, passed large quantities of fine goods.
Arz-roum is built on a rising ground: on the highest part is the castle, surrounded by a double wall of stone, which is chequered at the top by embrasures, and strengthened here and there by projections in the fashion of bastions, with openings fit for the reception of cannon. It has four gates, which are covered with plates of iron. The whole is well-built, and to me does not appear the work of Mussulmans. A ditch runs by it to the S. W.; near it is a tannery; and further on is a row of blacksmiths’ forges, which seemed in good employ. In this direction (N. E. of the town) is the Custom-house, a spacious building. The Pacha’s residence has a large gate opening into a court-yard. The houses are in general built of stone, with rafters of wood, and terraced. Grass grows on their tops, and sheep and calves feed there; so that, when seen from an eminence, the roofs of the houses can hardly be distinguished from the plain at their foundation. I walked through most of the bazars; few are domed, the rest are terraced, like the dwellings, but affording a common road for foot-passengers, who ascend by a public flight of steps. Wherever a street intervenes, a bridge is thrown over, and the line continues uninterrupted. The shops in the bazars are well stocked, and the place exhibits an appearance of much industry. The streets are mostly paved; but, as in Turkey, in that manner which is more calculated to break the passenger’s neck than to ease his feet. There are sixteen baths, and one hundred mosques; several of the latter are creditable buildings, the domes of which are covered with lead, and ornamented with gilt balls and crescents.
This is the present state of Arz-roum; its remains prove that it must have been still more considerable. Every thing attests the antiquity of the place; the inhabitants indeed date the foundation from the time of Noah, and very zealously swear, that some of their present structures were contemporary with the Patriarch: with less hazard of truth, or rather with much appearance of probability, they aver that others were the work of the Giaours, or Infidels. One in particular is attributed to the latter origin; it consists of an arched gateway, curiously worked all in strong stone, situated N. W. in the castle, and close to a decayed minaret of ancient structure. Yet many of the older fabrics appear by the true Moresque arch, to be certainly of Saracenic origin; and many of the remains of mosques resemble those buildings in Persia, with curious bricks, and lacquered tiles, which were raised in the first ages of Mahomedanism. In all those at Arz-roum, I observed a round tower, with a very shelving roof, covered all over with bricks. There are still erect several minarets, obviously works of the early Mussulmans. Near the Eastern gate of the castle are two of brick and tile, and a gate (with a Saracenic arch and a Cufic inscription) and many strong stone buildings around, the remains of the fine portico of a mosque. To the East of the town is an old tower of brick, the highest building in Arz-roum, which is used as a look-out-house, and serves as the tower of the Janizaries at Constantinople, or that of Galata. There is a clock at the summit, which strikes the hours with sufficient regularity.
In Arz-roum there are from four to five thousand families of the Armenian, and about one hundred of the Greek persuasion: the former have two churches, the latter one. There are perhaps one thousand Persians who live in a Caravanserai, and manage by caravans the trade of their own country. Trebisond is the port on the Black Sea, to which the commerce of Constantinople is conveyed. The Turkish inhabitants of Arz-roum are fifty thousand families. This amount of the population I give from the authority of a well-informed Armenian; but as all such details in a country so ill-regulated are exceedingly suspicious, I have already taken the liberty to deduct more than one-third from the number of Turkish families in the original estimate. But the reduced statement still leaves in Arz-roum, at the rate of five persons in a family, a total of two hundred and fifty thousand persons, besides Armenians.
The climate of Arz-roum is very changeable, and must in winter be piercingly cold. It rained throughout the whole of the 19th, but the clouds dispersed on the morrow, and discovered the adjacent hills overspread with snow. The high lands which arise from the plain around, attract constant thunder-storms; the elevation, indeed, of the whole region from the base of the sea is itself very considerable, and is sufficient to account for the cold.