CHAPTER XI.
Excursion to the Lake of Tortoom.—Romantic Bridge.—Gloomy Effect of the Lake.—Singular Boat.—“Evaporation” of a Pistol.—Kiamili Pasha.—Extraordinary Marksman.—Alarming Illness of the Author.—An Earthquake.—Lives lost through intense Cold.—The Author recovers.
Between the days of arrival and departure of the tatars, or couriers, to Constantinople, and the struggles to keep the peace and explain the simplest transaction with our colleagues, we found time for various expeditions to the neighboring countries on all sides. The most remarkable of these was that to the deep, unfathomable lake of Tortoom, about three days’ journey off. Our main object in going there was to fish, and we encamped for that purpose on the upper streams of the Batoum River and other places. In the valley of the castle of Tortoom the trout abounded, and were of that unsophisticated nature that, fishing one hour in the dawn and one hour before sunset with two fly-rods, we caught every day enough to feed our camp, and to send a horse-load (no small quantity) in the evening to our friends at Erzeroom. This was one day’s march, and the horses, traveling all night, brought the fish, though in the hot weather, in great perfection to the city in the cool of the morning. We were not aware, till it was too late, of the deadly nature of the malaria in these rocky valleys, where the precipice shot up clear and straight to the height, sometimes, we used to judge, of above a thousand feet. On our way through one of these romantic dells, we all rode, bag and baggage, over a bridge, to be compared only to the bridge of Al Serat, over which the souls of the judged will have to pass from the Temple of Jerusalem, over the Valley of Jehoshaphat, till they reach the other world, which bridge is as narrow as the edge of the cimeter of Mohammed. The fright I was in is not to be described when I saw the first horseman, who was at the time filling his pipe, walk his horse unconcernedly over this bridge, which was composed of two pine-trees thrown over a torrent which roared and tumbled thirty feet below. However, being afraid to show I was afraid, I rode over too, and certainly thought myself a bold fellow when I got safe to the other side. To ride safely over such a bridge, a horse ought to be brought up to practice on a tight-rope. I would not attempt to walk over such a place nowadays in England.
We passed a village in one lovely valley, in a grove of peach-trees, where we found that every soul, or rather every body, was dead; only one man survived the fever which had killed the rest.
Boat on the Lake of Tortoom.
Of all the strange and gloomy scenes that I have witnessed, none have left a deeper impression on my mind than that of the black, unfathomable lake of Tortoom. Mountains of dark rock fall sheer down in awful precipices right into these deep, still waters on each side. No fish are to be found in this Dead Sea, though perhaps they may retreat there in the winter from the mountain rills. If the lake was a strange place, the boat which we discovered on the shore was in character with the scene. It was the only vessel on its waters, and its builder probably never studied naval architecture in the dock-yards of the maritime powers. It was formed out of the trunks of two trees; but as no description would so well convey a notion of its form, I refer the curious to the accompanying sketch. The standing figure in it represents a valorous kawass, who fired his pistol in the air for the sake of the echo, and, on the smoke clearing off, he found that the entire pistol had evaporated too; nothing visible remained in his hand; it had burst all to pieces. But, fortunately, neither he nor any of the party were hurt by the fragments, which fell into the waters of the dark and silent lake.
October 1, 1843. This day I was riding on the road toward Bayazeed and Persia. Hearing some shots, I turned toward the hills lying between the town of Erzeroom and the mountains, and there I saw two or three tents pitched, and a number of officers, servants, and people attending on Kiamili Pasha, who was shooting at a mark with a pistol.
He is the most wonderful shot I ever heard of: he always fired at a distance of about 250 paces, or yards. Any one who will take the trouble to step this distance in a field or park will see how far it is to shoot with a rifle, and how entirely out of all usual calculations in pistol practice. I went into the Pasha’s tent. He received me, as usual, with great kindness, and, after pipes and coffee, I begged him to go on with his shooting. The way he set about it was this: he sat on one of the low, square rush-bottomed stools which are always found in Turkish coffee-houses, but which must have been brought from Constantinople probably by the Pasha, as those kind of stools are not usually met with in Erzeroom. He did not rest his elbow on his knee, but pressed it steadily against his side, took a deliberate but not very slow aim, and sent the ball through a brown pottery vase filled with water, about fifteen inches high, which stood on the other side of a valley, on a level with the tent, and full 250 yards off. I think the Pasha broke two while I sat with him, and made a hole which let the water out of another. His pistols were a pair of very slightly rifled dueling-pistols, about nine inches in the barrel, made by Egg, Great George Street, London. I was so much astonished at the Pasha’s shooting, that I asked him to give me one of the pieces of the vase, which I took home with me, and talked to my friends about it. I felt perfectly well when we went to dinner, when suddenly it appeared to me that what I was eating was burning hot, and had a strange, odd taste. I believe I got up and staggered across the room, but here my senses failed me, and I remained insensible for twenty-seven days. An attack of brain fever had come upon me like a blow, as sudden and overwhelming as a flash of lightning.