The officer commanding the garrison now entered the room, and accompanied me to my quarters. The barrack was two stories high, and in the form of a square, with a courtyard for drill in the centre of the building. The officers and men's rooms were on the first story, and below them the stables for the horses. The apartment given me was large and clean. The walls were whitewashed, the floor was covered with a Persian carpet. A large looking-glass—the first I had seen since I quitted our consul's house in Erzeroum—was suspended from the walls.
There were only half a battalion of infantry and a battery of Krupp guns at that time in Van. The remainder of the garrison, consisting of one battalion and a half, had marched the previous week to the neighbourhood of Bitlis, where some Kurds had burnt down a Turkish guard-house.
CHAPTER XXVI.
The artillery at practice—The horses—The Commandant—The military school at Constantinople—The citadel—Typhus—The swamp—The sanitary state of the city—The lake—Natron—A substitute for soap—Stone cannon-balls—Nadir Shah's attack upon Van—Greek and Assyrian coins—Salutes during Bairam—An inscription on the rock—An adventurous Englishman—The Commandant—A Kurd—Hernia—How to cure rupture—Three American Missionaries—The English and American flags—The conflagration at Van—Armenian inventions—The Commissioner—The troops.
The following morning I walked with the commandant to see the artillery at practice. The drill was fairly done. The guns were horsed with fine-looking animals from 15-3 to 16 hands high, mostly greys, and brought from European Turkey. The officer who commanded took great pride in his battery. A few hours after the drill was over, he accompanied me through the stables. The steel was bright, and the harness in thorough good order. When I remarked this to the commander, he replied:—
"Effendi, I was educated in the Military-School at Constantinople. If the rest of our officers had been there, we should have a better army. But, please God, for all that we shall give the Russians more to do than they expect."
I now went to see the citadel. It stands on a rock in the middle of the town, and is about 500 feet above the level of the lake.
Van is surrounded on three sides by a chain of hills, which are at a distance of from three to seven miles from the town. On the fourth side it is bounded by the lake which bears its name. There is a swamp towards the west, and close to the houses. This makes the place very unhealthy in the summer months—typhus and other fevers are prevalent in the district. The military surgeon, a Hungarian, who accompanied me in my ride to the citadel, observed that several complaints had been made to the authorities at Constantinople as to the sanitary state of Van, and a letter had been sent to the Medical Department recommending that the swamp should be drained. A Pacha had died of typhus only six months before; this had thoroughly aroused the new governor. It had acted upon him like the death of a director, in a railway accident, acts upon the other directors of the line. However, nothing had been done up to the present time towards carrying the governor's and doctor's suggestions into effect.
I now learnt that the lake contains natron. The townspeople have a very simple manner of obtaining this substance. In the summer months they pour water from the lake into large shallow basins; the heat of the sun evaporates the water, and carbonate of soda is deposited at the bottom of the vessels. It is afterwards sent to Erzeroum and Stamboul. The inhabitants of Van use this substance for washing purposes as a substitute for soap.
The road wound round the height on which the citadel stands. After about a fifteen minutes' climb, our horses reached the summit. Here there were several very old guns, some dating back more than 250 years. Large piles of stone balls lay behind many of the pieces, the commander, pointing at them, remarked that now-a-days they would not be of any use, although in the last century they had struck terror into the midst of a Persian host. The modern citadel, if it may be termed by that name, is merely a block-house, with accommodation for about 100 soldiers. There are many galleries cut in the solid rock, some of which were used in old days as quarters for the troops, and others as dungeons for prisoners. Some heavy chains were lying on the floors, or fastened to rings in the rock. Presently we came to an enormous cavern filled with stone cannon-balls. The commandant informed me that these had been brought there just before Nadir Shah's attack upon Van.