Paris, May 17, 1891.—“The Dix-Neuvième Siècle states that commercial advices have been received at Marseilles from Trebizond to the effect that a new volcano has appeared in Armenia at the summit of Mount Minrod, in the district of Van, vomiting forth flames and lava. The villages at the base of the mountain have been destroyed, and many persons are said to have been killed or injured....”
The earliest name of Armenia appears to be Ararat; by that name it was known to the ancient Hebrews, Babylonians and Assyrians. We are told, in connection with the Deluge, that when the waters of the flood subsided “the ark rested upon the mountains of Ararat.” “The geography of Genesis starts from the north. It was on the mountains of Ararat or Armenia that the ark rested, and it was accordingly with this region of the world that our primitive chart begins.”[5]
It was generally—we might say universally—believed by all Christians, almost of all ages, before the days of the higher critics, that the Pentateuch (the first five books of the Bible) was written by Moses. It is not improbable that when he composed or compiled the book of Genesis he was in possession of oral traditions and traditional documents, handed down to his time from these sources. It is one of these older written accounts which states that the ark rested upon the mountains of Ararat. Another old tradition handed down and preserved in writing is that of another Moses. Moses of Khorene, the Armenian Herodotus, who states that this central part of Armenia was formerly called Ararat. The author of the Book of Genesis is accurate and precise in his knowledge of the fact that Ararat is the name of the country upon whose mountains the tempest-tossed vessel of the Patriarch rested. Whether his knowledge was due to Divine inspiration, or to a historical fact preserved and handed down to his time (it may be both), we cannot tell. But the accuracy of the statement, which stood the criticisms of centuries, and especially this age of criticism, had a rightful claim to acceptance by all.
Ararat is also mentioned in three other books of the Old Testament, namely, II Kings 19:37, Isaiah 37:36, and Jeremiah 51:27. The first two passages are identical in import and speak of the escape of Adrammelech and Sharezer “into the land of Ararat” after having committed the crime of patricide. In the third passage, Jeremiah summons the forces of Armenia to join the Medes to overthrow Babylon in these words: “Set ye up a standard in the land, blow the trumpet among the nations, prepare the nations against her (Babylon), call together against her the Kingdoms of Ararat, Minni and Ashchenaz.... Prepare against her the nations with the Kings of the Medes.”
The following is from an inscription of Assur-Natsir-Pal the King of Assyria, and the date of his reign is assigned by Prof. Sayce from B.C. 883 to 858. “The cities of Khatu, Khotaru, Nistun, Irbidi ... the cities of Qurkhi which in sight of the mountains, of M’su, Arua and Arardhi, mighty mountains, are situated, I captured.” Professor Sayce remarks that “Arardhi seems to be the earliest form of Urardhu (of later Assyrian inscriptions), the Biblical Ararat.”[6]
The passages from the Bible and the Assyrian inscriptions show beyond doubt that Ararat was the earliest name of Armenia, and it was not the name of a mountain; and that the ark of Noah rested upon “the mountains of” Ararat or Armenia.
The great rivers of western Asia take their origin from the highlands of Armenia. The river Acampsis of the ancients, identified by some with the Pison of the Bible, has its source southwest of Erzerum, it receives several other streams and with beautiful windings, flows into the Black Sea. About the Araxes, according to some the Gihon of the Bible, I find an interesting statement in an Armenian history: “Aramais (King of Armenia) built a city of hewn stone on a small eminence in the plain of Aragay, and near the bank of a river before mentioned, which had received the name of Gihon. The new city which afterwards became the capital of his kingdom, he called Armavir, after his name, and the name of the river he changed to Arax after his son Arast.” The river Araxes is fed and swollen by many streams, rivulets and brooks, which run from the sides of numerous glens, through picturesque ravines, and mingle with it. Its tortuous course irrigates the lands adjacent carrying great fertility, and finally joins the famous river Kur (Cyrus) and pours itself into the bosom of the Caspian Sea.
The other two great rivers of Armenia Major are the Euphrates and Tigris, whose identity with those mentioned in connection with the Garden of Eden is beyond doubt. Both of these rivers also take their origin in the highlands of Armenia. The Euphrates, whose springs are not very far from Mount Ararat (Masis of the Armenians) takes a westward course along the Taurus mountain chain on the northern side of the mountain, runs north of Kharput, then turns westward, and about forty miles west of Kharput unites with the western branch of the Euphrates; near Malateah the river turns towards the southeast and nearly approaches the sources of the Tigris. From this point onward with a southeasterly course, these rivers flow and finally they unite and pour into the Persian Gulf. The students of the ancient Babylonian and Assyrian history and civilization need not to be told what fertility these rivers carried along their course through the Mesopotamian plain, and how, with numerous canals and channels, they irrigated the land of these great empires, and became the means of commercial intercourse with the neighboring nations.
Armenia’s claim to the possession of the Garden of Eden within her bosom ought not to be disputed. Indeed no other country has attempted to contend for this honor. Her natural beauty, salubrious climate, her exuberant fertility, the fragrance of her flowers, the variety of her singing birds, above all her mountainous bosom and overflowing rivers through which mighty waters run down on her mountain sides and fill the great channels, which fertilize the subjacent countries and replenish the two adjacent seas and distant ocean in the south; all these justify her claim, and render it almost a historical fact, that Armenia was the cradle of infant humanity. “Ancient traditions place the province of Eden in this highest portion of Armenia, anciently called Ararat; and it appears to furnish all the conditions of the Mosaic narrative.[7] A distinguished writer, well-known in this country, who had the pleasure of looking from the top of Ararat over the countries around, makes the following remark: “Below and around including in this single view, seemed to lie the whole cradle of the human race, from Mesopotamia in the south to the great wall of Caucasus that covered the northern horizon, Mount Kaf, the boundary for so many ages of the civilized world. If it was indeed here that men set foot again on the unpeopled earth, one could imagine how the great dispersion went as the races spread themselves from these sacred heights along the courses of the great rivers down to the Black and Caspian Seas, and over the Assyrian plain to the shores of the Southern Ocean, whence they were wafted away to other continents and isles. No more imposing center of the earth could be imagined.”[8]
If variety makes beauty, Armenia furnishes such a variety, making her one of the most beautiful countries in the world; not only has she those gigantic mountains with their snow crowned heads, looking down upon the clouds that envelop their skirts while they mock at the air and the winds, not only has she hundreds of murmuring streams and rippling brooks, gliding along the sides of thousands of hills, which swell those kingly rivers and cause them to overflow their banks; but she has also some beautiful lakes like jewels set in their respective caskets. The Sevan, which lies between the Araxes and the Kur (Cyrus), occupies the center of a fertile plain in the northern part of Armenia and is called “Sweet Lake,” in contradistinction to the others which are salt water lakes. The Lake Sevan is about thirty miles northeast of Erivan, and is in the Russian provinces of Armenia. The Lake Urmi, or Urumia, lies in the southern and southeastern part of the country, and is now in the Persian province of Armenia. These lakes and some others are surrounded by magnificent views, but Lake of Van, surpassing them in size, in importance and splendor, will attract us to linger with her a little longer.