CHAPTER XIV

RETURN TO ERIVAN

September 25.--We passed the morning upon the mound, in the little open summer-house, face to face with the airy snowfields which we had scaled to their topmost vaulting, with the cavernous recesses which we had penetrated to their inmost core. Such is the silence of Nature at the foot of this solemn mountain that the faintest sound reaches the ear. I was therefore startled by a clamour of voices in the direction of the cantonment, and I hurried down towards the noise. A booted figure in drab uniform, covered with dust from head to foot, was gesticulating under the influence of extreme excitement to a little group of Russian military in their white tunics, accompanied by some languid Orientals at a respectful interval. It was the officer of Cossacks who had joined our party near Takjaltu, and who had left us at Sardar Bulakh. Suiting his gestures to his words, he was narrating a thrilling story of a night encounter with the Kurds. His little eyes were bloodshot and distended with emotion; his legs were parted and his feet planted firm. His detachment had fallen in with a band of marauders, who had carried off some cattle from over beyond Akhury, and made away towards the Turkish frontier. They had fired on the Kurds, who had returned their fire; they had recovered the cattle and chased the Kurds away. I enquired what bag he had made of these human vultures, and he replied, with a sigh, that they had carried off their dead.

On the further side of the Araxes, opposite Aralykh, is situated the celebrated monastery of Khor Virap, which marks the spot where, according to Armenian tradition, Saint Gregory, the founder of Christianity in Armenia, was imprisoned for thirteen years in a deep pit. The country about and behind the cloister is extremely rich in historical and archæological interest, and I would recommend the traveller to prolong his excursion up the romantic valley of the Garni, whence he can return across the mountains to Erivan. He will examine the sites of Artaxata and Dvin, and, proceeding up the river, will reach the gorge with the basaltic columns, and the platform where once stood the temple of King Tiridates--a beautiful Greek shrine given to these solitudes, like the temple of Segesta to the lonely Sicilian hills. Hard by this platform above the river are found the relics of the city of Garni; and, near the sources of the stream, at a distance of some five miles from Garni, the caves and monastery of Surb Geghard, reputed to have been founded by St. Gregory, respond to the spirit of a landscape which for grandeur and severity is unsurpassed among these wilds. I was anxious to make the acquaintance of some at least among these antiquities; we therefore despatched our luggage with the Swiss and the cook to Erivan, and, availing ourselves of the offer of a victoria as far as Khor Virap, resolved to trust to fortune for the remainder of the way. [111]

Had we been able to procure riding-horses, we might probably have ridden from the ferry over the Araxes direct to the cloister across the plain. In a carriage we were obliged to retrace our steps as far as Kamarlu, where the road which runs parallel to the course of the river crosses the road to Erivan. The stage which we had made after nightfall between that village and Aralykh was now performed in the light of day. The alluvial flats between the Araxes and the base of Ararat are channelled by a network of irrigation runnels, which diffuse the stream of the Kara Su. From the fields and marshes rise luxuriant cotton and castor oil plants, the one with yellow single blossoms, like a wild rose, and drooping fruit, resembling flakes of snow; the other, higher than these, raising a tender, juicy stem to shining, palm-shaped leaves. Here and there, where the water fails, bushes of hardy camelthorn spring up, like weeds, upon the fallow land. The oppressive climate of Aralykh, no less than the plague of insects which infest it, are due to the sand upon the pedestal of the mountain, and to these swamps with their effluvia and mosquito swarms. Even at this season the sun beats fiercely upon the plain; and, when we reached the ferry, a herd of buffaloes and bullocks, awaiting transport, were rolling parched tongues and casting longing eyes at the river from the bank of crumbling mud.

A double pontoon, staged across with planks, received our carriage, and was swiftly impelled along the hawser by the force of the stream. From the opposite margin a dreary tract of baked alluvial soil extends to the zone of gardens and orchards which commences at Kamarlu. I have already alluded to the excellence of the road within that zone; but by day you will be loth to hasten along it, such is the charm and so great the interest of the scene. The traffic from the lower Araxes, from Persia and distant Mesopotamia, finds its way along this chaussée to Erivan. The district is inhabited by well-to-do people, who can afford the richness of their national dress. Beneath the foliage of the needle poplars, between the well-maintained mud walls--over which you look to the vineyards and to the vegetable gardens, where the tomato and the chili abound--a stream of wayfarers, some on horseback, fill the pleasant avenue, chatting and smiling under the expansive influence of ease and shade. At intervals you pass a house or cluster of houses, where groups of Armenian women in their holiday attire are gathered before the open doors. They are clad in their gayest cottons, and wear their picturesque head-dress and veils of white gauze. Some among them nurse their babes at the open bosom, the little infant cleaving to the full breasts. Tartars, with their black lambskin hats and dark blue or black garments, compose an element which a cynic would be loth to dispense with in such a scene of piping peace; yet it would be difficult to detect a trace on their clean-shaven faces of passions which have, perhaps, been blunted by time. Laden waggons pass, and numerous bullock-carts, with their heavy, creaking wheels. We were amused by the appearance of a curious pair of riders who, to judge from the deference which was bestowed upon them, were evidently of exalted rank. The man wore a flowing beard and was dressed in Oriental apparel; but he held in his hand a parasol of European pattern, and his locks were surmounted by an English billycock hat. His wife was by his side, astride of her Arab; but the graceful animal was almost invisible beneath her, his withers overtowered by the huge bulk of her stomach, and his back enveloped in the folds of her robes. It was an Assyrian bishop, journeying from Mosul.

Kamarlu is perhaps a type of these villages of the campagna, in which the population is composed of Armenians and Tartars, of lambs and lions living side by side. It can boast a Russian schoolhouse, a necessary institution in the case of the Tartars, to judge by the barbarous and hideous frescos which enliven the façade of their little mosque. The Armenians have their school, and there are two Gregorian churches in which they satisfy their spiritual needs. The houses are built of sun-baked bricks and mud; wooden stages rise to some height above the flat roofs, and provide airy sleeping-places for the inhabitants during the summer heats. After regaling ourselves with the delicious white grapes of the district, we turned aside from the road to Erivan. Crossing the outskirts of the village, we remarked the huge clay wine jars which were strewn about in the courtyards. Beyond a few fields, planted with cotton, we again entered the open desert, and pursued our way over the crumbling mud. A rude and winding track leads towards the river through patches of dusty desert shrubs. Ararat fills the landscape, and is rarely seen to greater advantage than from such tracts of naked land. On our left hand rose a buttress of the Sevan mountains which had been a landmark from the slopes of Ararat. It is composed of a sandy rock of various hues, which has weathered into fanciful shapes. In the delicate evening lights it is invested with the appearance of some castle in fairyland.

From time to time we passed strings of three or four large waggons, drawn by teams of oxen. Whole families of Armenians were gathered within them, well dressed and well-to-do. They were returning to their dwellings within the zone of gardens from a pilgrimage to Khor Virap. The men were emptying their little glasses, which they would replenish from wine-skins, and feasting on water melons.

We arrived at the mound which rises from the flats about the river and can be clearly seen from Ararat. According to Dubois, [112] it consists of a mass of dolomite, isolated on the surface of the plain. The church and cloister have been built on the side of the eminence; the monastic dwellings screened the church from our view. St. Gregory's dungeon is situated within the precincts; and it would appear that the place was famous in the saint's lifetime for a much-frequented temple of the fire-worshippers.

We were scarcely beneath the walls when the figure of a horseman springs forward from some recess into the road. Throwing his white Arab on to his haunches at a few yards before our carriage, he challenges and constrains us to pull up dead. This proceeding on his part, no less than his forbidding countenance, throws me completely off my guard. On Russian soil one is obliged to smother the irritation which is always threatening to burst forth from a British breast. I shout to him to move aside, or we will whip the horses and drive through him; to this he answers by drawing his revolver and threatening to shoot. I ask him by what right he dared to obstruct the roadway; he replies by enquiring by what credentials we presume to pass. It flashes through me that the game is in the hands of this ruffian--we had been spoilt by the attentions of the high officials, and to such an extent that we had forgotten to bring even our passports, which had gone in our despatch box to Erivan. It was useless to urge that one could not be obliged to show a passport in order to be allowed to visit a church. He paid no heed to any of our arguments, and compelled us to return with him to Kamarlu. He even added the insult of requiring us to suit our pace to his, and to follow at a walk or amble by his side. This we flatly refused to do, and, taking the reins from the trembling coachman, proceeded at a brisk trot. Simon Ter-Harutiunoff--such was the name of this ferocious person--is linked in our memory with the companion picture of Ivan the Terrible, our stern custodian during the Akhaltsykh days. Both are Armenians, and either might be taken as a model for the embodiment of the fighting instincts in man. Tartars and Cossacks are amenable creatures besides them; and of the two, we were inclined to bestow the palm upon Simon. His face was black with exposure to the sun; the eyes were yellow round the dark iris and shot with red veins. His features were large and pronounced, but of singular deformity; the massive head was placed upon broad shoulders above a frame of great bulk and iron strength. He wore two medals, won during the war with Turkey through personal bravery. His function in time of peace was to police the Persian frontier in the district of Khor Virap.

These particulars we learnt in the office of the Pristav, upon our return under such escort to Kamarlu. We claimed and were permitted to proceed to Erivan; but the chapars were instructed to prevent us from diverging, and to hand us over to the Nachalnik at the provincial capital. In this manner we were foiled in our antiquarian researches among these ancient sites. At Khor Virap we saw nothing but some slight convexities in the surface of the ground, which may be caused by buried remains. Beyond the mound we observed a natural wall of rock, rising like a gigantic ruin above the plain.

Evening had approached as we left the village, and proceeded through the gardens, and crossed to the barren zone beyond. From the rising ground we looked back over the forest of poplars to the sun setting behind the peaks of the Ararat chain. The satellite range wore the same tints of deep, opaque opaline which fretted the horizon during our outward journey. It was shadowed upon the same ground of orange and amber; and the opal hues of the land forms extended round the circle and included the huge, horizontal outline of Alagöz. But the Sevan mountains, in the opposite segment, were touched with pink and luminous yellows; the higher summits were white with fresh snow. In the south-east the landscape was dim and vaporous; nor could the eye distinguish among the gathering shadows the basal slopes of Ararat. The snow-fields of the dome shone with a cold light in the sky, above vague banks of cloud. It was after eight o'clock when we reached the pleasant town garden, and discussed our adventures with the Nachalnik over a cigar.