H. F. B. Lynch

“ The clouds no longer float in tranquil, feathery beds, but sail across the sky, grazing the peaks. The rivers hiss in the gorges and are white with foam instead of winding with sluggish current over the flats. The glare of the open and treeless landscape is succeeded by the gloom of overhanging parapets; and, while the margin of the streams will be overgrown by willows and poplars, the forest trees, among which the walnut and the elm are conspicuous, flourish upon each oasis of deeper soil. Even the Kurdish shepherds have failed to destroy a vegetation favoured by moisture and shade. ”

“ Draughts of freshness from the groves and gardens keep the air sweet and cool. Such a straggling lane or two, between low walls of mud and stone, took us past an old mulberry tree studded with red fruit, and a fountain gushing forth by the side of the way. So we came to a little valley, opening out towards the lake, and harbouring a swift and shallow rivulet, black with the shadows of an avenue of willows. A mass of foliage, on either side of the adjacent meadows, screened the pleasant place from fortress and suburb, except for a glimpse of the citadel in the west. ”

“ Abundance of delicious water flows down from the heights on the north; and under happier circumstances the slopes and the plain outside the city would be dotted with dwellings embowered in trees. At the present day, when once you have passed outside the enceinte, you feel like a ship which has taken to the open sea. Not a hedgerow, no oasis of foliage diversifies and softens the naked and vast expanse. You steer your course whither you will. For at least five months in the year the ground is covered with snow—an unbroken sheet spread over mountain and plain. ”

“ July 6.—What a landscape to wake up to! The side of our tent towards the plain had been left open during the night. We overlooked such an immense expanse of earth—nude, or veiled in transparent mists, and quite unconscious of the presence of man! Even we, who were already accustomed to such visions, had never yet seen the like. Reach upon reach, in large surroundings, we traced the course of the Murad, flowing towards us from Tutakh; loop upon loop, we followed its waters into the dimness of the west, flowing away through the plain. ”

“ Not a remnant of the azalea enlivens the landscape; the vegetation adheres to the margin of the water—fruit trees and willows, the large mauve flowers of the field-iris, hawthorn in bloom, the yellow blossoms of the barberry. There is a certain air of comfort in the pretty wooden houses with their gables and wooden roofs, shining white. But this note is often and quickly lost in the sounding discords of a chaotic Nature—the shales and limestones compressed into almost impossible contortions and baked and uplifted by huge bosses of igneous rock. ”

“ As spring develops into summer and the yellow drought creeps higher and higher up the slopes of the mountain-sides, they ascend from one to another step, from a lower to a higher chain, and arrive, perhaps at the approach of autumn, on the fringe of the tableland. When at length the season is verging upon winter the migration southwards begins. A continuous throng of sheep and goats and horses and weather-worn people of either sex and every age flows slowly down the blighted country, filing by tortuous tracks between the boulders or pausing about the noonday hour by the bed of a shaded stream. ”

“ At Van for the first time we become sensible of a different impression, derived, not indeed from the peoples who now inhabit the country, but from the monuments of a remote civilisation which abound in the neighbourhood, and of which the spirit is wafted towards us across the ages. Here the massive substructures of an aqueduct, there the Cyclopean masonry of the fragment of a wall tell the tale of man’s mastery over Nature, and insensibly conjure the vision of the plains crossed by great roads, the rivers spanned by bridges, the fertilising waters brought from afar. ”

“ It is from here that you commence the first portion of the climb to the Zigana Dagh, through forest glades in which the spruce firs alternate with the beech woods, and which are carpeted with an undergrowth of rhododendron and azalea and tall palm-leaved bracken. As we rose on the following morning above our surroundings we [242] looked in vain for the vista of sea, the horizon being veiled in mist. Our ears were greeted by the song of nightingales, and by the clear call-notes of the cuckoo; while the plashing of innumerable streamlets and waterfalls mingled to a background of tremulous sound. ”

“ Here at Van they grow much as they please. Melons and cucumbers find just the conditions under which they thrive. All this pulsing and exuberance extends unchecked through the long summer; and when the autumn is at length at hand, towards the end of October, the change is only marked by the gradual passing over of shades of green into shades of gold. The leaves remain on their branches until the withered stalks can hold no longer; but of violence there is rarely a trace. The sky becomes black and rumbles; some showers fall, and Sipan is clothed in white to his lower slopes. ”

“ Ararat soars into space, a magnificent object, both peaks of the greater mountain, although almost merged by the perspective, being distinguishable by the naked eye. The bold snow bastion on the west is seen to the fullest advantage. But the Little Ararat is almost hidden by nearer outlines; and only the summit of that graceful cone is exposed. If the mountain of the Ark be without equal, or even rival, in a landscape which in all directions is sublime, it possesses at least a neighbour with many attributes in common—the Kuseh Dagh, beyond the plain of Alashkert. ”

“ It is indeed an admirable approach to the recesses of the Pontic chain, this valley of Deïrmen. It leads with much of the straightness and space of a church’s nave through the lofty and intricate outworks of the range almost to its spine at the Zigana Pass.
Before we had completed ten miles the wooded heights on either hand were dotted with the dark forms of the first spruce firs. The valley narrows; the walls grow steeper, and tower to a greater altitude; but you never lose the expanse of sky. ”

“ The site of Erzerum is already familiar to my reader; he sees her towers and minarets on the southern margin of a lake-like plain, and raised on the daïs of a fan of detritus from the southern line of heights. He knows the large surroundings of that city of inspiring prospects: the long and regular line of the block of mountains in the north, with their Sheikhjik, their Akhbaba, Jejen and Kop; the vague and gloomy passage of the Gurgi Boghaz through those mountains; and in the east the transverse parapet which interrupts the issue eastwards, that freak of Nature, the Deveh Boyun. ”

“ It would be a very different thing if we were to suffer any encroachment on the part of Russia upon the zone of mountains supporting on the south the tablelands of Armenia and Persia, and drawn like a long succession of chevaux de frise around the lowlands of Mesopotamia. Her occupation of any part of that zone of mountains would necessarily entail sooner or later the occupation of the whole. The lowlands themselves, the field of our trade, and appointed by Nature as a granary for India with her teeming millions and uncertain harvests, would be at her mercy without striking a blow. ”

“ At home widespread prosperity, a long start in the industrial race and the complexity of our world-wide transactions have grown like weeds and flowers around the margin of a salubrious well, screening the view and almost the sound of the life-giving waters. We forget the commercial basis of all our wealth and power; and few among us are sensible of a thrill if some vast province of the Chinese Empire be walled round against our trade. ”

“ We saw no villages; what there are must be hidden in laps of the ground; and Nature, a kind and bountiful Nature, is allowed to revolve her seasons almost in vain. Bright streams come bubbling down from the distant framework of mountains, and wind on a south-easterly course to the far Murad. We passed no less than three of these tributaries to the river of Khinis. The first was flowing between high banks of volcanic rock, and sheltered a beautiful church in the old Armenian style, called Kilisa Deresi, or the church in the valley. ”

“ In one direction it was Bingöl; in another Khamur; while Sipan stood so high that he could be seen from the river valley, always a ghostly presence in the sky. We pitched our tents a little distance west of the village, and looked across its stacks of tezek and wreathing smoke to the dim white form of Sipan. It is characteristic of Kurds that they never approach one another if they have anything to communicate. They remain at a distance and shout. Such clamour is at its height towards evening, when the flocks and herds are brought in from the pastures. ”

“ From a bush at our side a young cormorant takes wing, and falls clumsily into the lake below. Reversing our direction, we ride up the principal valley, at first over the soft sand. Again commence the orchards, and again the air is scented by the flowering olive trees. The valley becomes a glen, and the bed of powdery silt gives place to slabs of rock. The stream cascades beside us, from one ledge to another, beneath the shade of walnuts, willows, and poplars. Some little children are bathing in the deeply-shadowed water ”

“ The setting sun sheds a mellow light upon the great volcano, robed in snow, upon the white summits of the Kurdish range, upon the dim outline of Varag. Around the field of pale water are shed a thousand delicate hues, over peak and dome, and buried garden and arable. We can still see the lonely tomb upon the headland. [301] On the opposite coast we see Surb, fairest of little bays; the steep cliffs behind Garzik; the arms of the Sheikh Ora crater, almost encircling the lake admitted to its inmost core. ”

“ From these heights, across the long sheet of azure water to dazzling snow in the heaven above our heads, the fabric of Sipan mounted slowly to the flat rim of the central crater, and, sweeping past us, declined, with equal majesty of outline, to low ground in the west. The great volcano composes one whole side of the lake, and faces full south. ”

“ From the further extremity of the bay we again saw the isle of Akhtamar, and, behind it, dimly perceived, the rock of Van.
It cost us little effort to ascend from our track on the hillside to the summit of the ridge which forms a headland on the west. The view from that eminence in a westerly direction recalled none of the landscapes through which we had passed. At our feet lay a plain of perfectly level surface, enclosed on all sides by hills. On the side of the lake a line of heights shut out this plain from the shore, resembling a huge dam. ”

“ The country streams with light, and the pavements of ubiquitous lava burn like an oven beneath the untempered rays of the sun. In winter the glare is blinding; for the ground is covered with snow, though not generally to any great depth. ”

“ The landscape of sea and mountain is overtaken by complete stillness. The lake becomes the colour of an iridescent opal, green, blue, and pearly white. The mountains are lightly tinged with delicate yellows and warm greys, faintly shaded in the recesses of the chain of peaks. ”

“ We are above and among large patches of snow. But the going is very easy, the ground being covered with turf and flowers. It is quite a little garden of forget-me-nots and pink daisies and buttercups and campanulas. These raise their heads above an undergrowth of pearl-wort. There is no juniper or yellow immortelle to be seen. Soon after four o’clock this flowery slope gives way, and we enter the summit region, with the westerly eminence on our left hand. Before us lies a deep and irregular basin filled up with masses of snow. ”

“ There are the same sharp peaks, precipitous slopes, narrow valleys and swift streams and rivers, composing a landscape which, except for the greater scale of the phenomena, is essentially and constantly alpine in character. Unlike our Alps but like the barrier on the side of the Black Sea, one valley is ever higher than the trough which lies behind it, each crest more lofty than the last, as you journey towards the edge of the tableland whether from the coast of the northern waters or from the alluvial flats which extend to the Persian Gulf. ”

“ All blue has passed from the sky and from the face of the sea, except here and there, under a lingering breath of wind. A dull golden tint is spread over the waters, cloaking the underlying green. In the distance, towards Van, great shadows of indigo lie on the lake, and envelop Varag to half height. From these emerges the crested ridge, a pink madder. Varag rests against a background of vague clouds, purplish-blue, the only touch of redness in the landscape.... Such effects are no doubt enhanced by the sublimity of the surroundings—the wide sea, the Kurdish mountains, Sipan, Nimrud ”