Its boundaries varied at different times. According to the native historians, the country reached its greatest extent under the reigns of the Kings Aram and Tigranes II. The former is mentioned by the Assyrian kings, the latter was well-known in the first century B.C. “It (Armenia) varied in extent at different epochs, but it may be regarded as lying between lat. 36° 50´ and 41° 41´ N., and lon. 36° 20´ and 48° 40´ E.” It must have been between six and seven hundred miles from east to west and from two hundred and fifty to three hundred miles from north to south.
The country of Armenia was divided into two main divisions, namely, Armenia Major and Armenia Minor, or the Greater and Less Armenia. Greater Armenia which comprised the larger part of the country extended from the eastern boundary to the Euphrates river, and Armenia Minor extended from the Euphrates to Asia Minor. This ancient river thus made a dividing line between the two main divisions of the country. Armenia Major was again divided into fifteen provinces.
Armenia is a highland from 4000 to 7000 feet above the level of the sea. Its surface is undulated with beautiful dells and hills, with fertile valleys and forest covered mountains, with richly productive and extensive plains and pasture lands, and lofty snow capped mountains with glittering snowy peaks, piercing the clear blue sky.
The highest mountain of western Asia is situated at the center of Armenia. It is the Mount Masis of the natives, and Mount Ararat of the Europeans, and is of unsurpassed beauty, magnificence and grandeur. No traveler has ever yet seen it and not spoken of it with admiration. “The impression made by Ararat upon the mind of every one who has any sensibility of the stupendous works of the Creator, is wonderful and overpowering, and many a traveler of genius and taste has employed both the power of the pen and of the pencil in attempting to portray this impression, but the consciousness that no description, no representation can reach the sublimity of the object thus attempted to be depicted, must prove to the candid mind that whether we address the ear or eye, it is difficult to avoid the poetic in expression and exaggeration in form, and confine ourselves strictly within the bound of consistency and truth.
“Nothing can be more beautiful than its shape, more awful than its height. All the surrounding mountains sink into insignificance when compared to it. It is perfect in all its parts; no hard rugged features, no unnatural prominence; everything is in harmony, and all combined to render it one of the sublimest objects in nature.
“The fabric of Ararat composes an elliptic figure with an axis from northwest to southeast. The base plan measures about twenty-eight miles in length, and about twenty-three miles in width. The fabric is built up by two mountains. Greater Ararat (16,916 feet above the sea) and Little Ararat (12,840 feet above the sea). Their bases are contiguous at a level of 8800 feet, and their summits are seven miles apart. Both are due to eruptive volcanic action; but no eruption of Ararat is known to have occurred during the historical period, and the summit of the greater mountain presents all the appearance of a very ancient and much worndown volcano with a central chimney or vent, long since filled in.”[2]
From this central plateau, the highest mountain in Armenia, the land slopes down in all directions. On the south it inclines toward the Lake of Van and the plains of Mush; on the east toward the lower valley of Araxes, on the north to the middle valley of Araxes, and on the northeast and east toward the plains of Kars and Erzerum. “Along the line of the fortieth degree of latitude a succession of plains extend across the tableland, varying in their depression below the higher levels, watered by the Araxes and by the upper course of the western Euphrates, and each giving access to the other by natural passages. The first is the valley of the Araxes, with its narrower continuation westwards through the district between Kagyzman and Khorasan; the second is the plain of Pasin; the third the plain of Erzerum. Yet while the plains of Pasin and Erzerum are situated respectively at an altitude of fifty-five hundred feet and fifty-seven hundred and fifty feet, the valley of the Araxes in the neighborhood of Erivan is only twenty-eight hundred feet above the sea. Both on the north and south of this considerable depression, even the plainer levels of the tableland attain the imposing altitude of seven thousand feet, while its surface has been uplifted by volcanic action into long and irregular convexities of mountain and hill and hummock.”[3]
Instances of earthquake are not uncommon but fortunately not very frequent. In the early part of the eleventh century of the Christian era, King John was frightened by an earthquake and an eclipse of the moon as forebodings of coming calamity upon his kingdom and capital Ani. It is believed by some that the isolation of the rock of Van itself might have been due to some violent earthquake in the remote past causing its present separation, from the heights adjacent on the east. “Several visitations (earthquake) of considerable severity have probably occurred during the historical period, thus we learn that in the year 1648 of the Christian era, one-half of the wall of the fortified city, as well as churches, mosques, and private houses were shattered by successive shocks, and fell to the ground.”[4]
In the beginning of the year of our Lord, 1840, there stood the ancient village of Aicori (vineyards), happy and apparently sheltered in the shadow of the Armenian giant. Not far from the village at the foot of Mount Ararat were situated the old Monastery of St. James and its numerous buildings. But on the twentieth of June, a terrible earthquake shook the mighty mountain from its foundations. The avalanche, of rocks, earth, ice and snow from the mountain sides, rushed swiftly down upon the village and the monastery, the houses and buildings already tottering, crushed them and buried the inhabitants alive—about one thousand in number. The cities Nakhejevan and Erivan did not escape the calamity. In both of these cities also hundreds of houses were thrown down and thousands of lives were lost.
The following despatch will show that not only the sword and incendiary fire of the Turk has been pursuing the poor Armenian but even the elements of nature seem to militate against his mundane existence. May the good Lord save him from suffering in the hereafter!