1876 British Viscount & Ambassador James Bryce - Noah's Ark Search

148 THE EXPLORERS OF ARARAT
which is perhaps hardly worth the knowing. In Eastern Russia and Siberia you acquiesce in the fact that there never
was any history; the past is a blank, and must remain so. In Asia Minor, on the other hand, you are within the circle of
Greek and Roman civilization; everybody, from Herodotus downwards, has something to tell of its cities and peoples.
But Georgia, and the regions immediately round it, have been always the frontier land of light and darkness, a
battlefield of hostile empires and religions; first of the Roman empire and the Persians, then of Christianity and fireworship,
then of Christianity and Islam, then of Persians and Turks, lastly of Russia against both the Sultan and the
Shah. One finds traces in the buildings and the art of the people of all these influences—of the Greek traders who
frequented the markets of the Euxine; of the Byzantine emperors, who held sometimes more, sometimes less of the
country, Justinian having pushed forward his garrisons as far as the Upper Kur and Heraclius as far down as Tavriz; of
the Genoese, who monopolized the Black Sea trade in the later days of Byzantine rule, and had their settlements all
round its coasts; of the Persians and Armenians, who came as conquerors or immigrants. There is a wonderful harvest
awaiting the archaeologist here, and the laborers are still few.
The Russians, as being the rulers and the most civilized, might be expected to be able to effect this, but it must be
remembered that they are not very numerous, consisting only of the upper officials, of the soldiers, who are a transitory
element in the population, and of some isolated settlements of dissenting peasants. Moreover, they are not thoroughly
civilized themselves, and cannot impart what they have not got. Civilization in Russia is like a coat of paint over
unseasoned wood; you may not at first detect the unsoundness of the material, but test it, and it fails. The Persians
hate all Turks worse than they hate Christians, and may even, to the extent of their very limited power, side with
Russia in the quarrel. The Tatars are a simple folk of shepherds, carriers, highwaymen, with no sense of the “solidarity
of the Turkish race,” and no desire to draw the sword against the infidel. The Armenian peasantry of the Araxes valley
seem to live much in the same way as their Tatar neighbors; their villages are little better, nor are they less illiterate.
But one never hears of intermarriages nor any sort of rapprochement between them. Among the Christians
themselves, the separate existence and strongly national character of the Armenian Church keeps its children apart
not only from Protestant Germans, but from those who own the Orthodox Eastern faith. And it is really only where such
a religions repulsion does not exist, as, for instance, between Russians and Georgians, that any social amalgamation
goes on. There is no unity among these races, no common national feeling to appeal to, nothing on which a national
kingdom could be based. Nothing, in fact, keeps them together but the Russian army and administration, and the
loyalty of both these to the Czar is that which keeps Russia herself together, rising as it does almost to the dignity of a
national worship.
Chapter IV
Tiflis is intolerably hot and close in summer. Add to this that the water is scarce and indifferent, and the dust truly
Oriental, and it is easy to understand that summer is not the time to enjoy the Transcaucasian capital. So in summer,
pretty nearly every one who can afford it, and can get free from his official duties, makes off to the hills. The court, that
is to say, the Grand Duke, who is the sun of this system, and his attendant planets, the adjutants, go to Borjom, a
charming spot among wooded mountains eighty miles to the west-northwest. In Tiflis, each of the principal trades has
a street or streets, or a covered arcade in the bazaar, entirely to itself: thus in one street you find the dealers in arms,
in a second the leather-sellers, in a third the jewelers, in a fourth the carpet merchants, in a fifth the furriers, on whose
walls hang the skins of Caucasian bears and Hyrcanian tigers. The value of the old silver goods is well known; it is little
use hoping for a bargain where so many Russian buyers are about, and where the sellers are mostly Armenian. The
Germans have their own schools, far better than any which Russian organization produces; they are nearly all
Protestants, with a wholesome Protestant contempt for their superstitious Georgian and Armenian neighbors. When
there meets you a keener or more restless glance, you may be sure that it comes from an Armenian eye. The
Armenians are a large and apparently an increasing element of the population, easily known by their swarthy
complexion and peculiar physiognomy. They are the most vigorous and pushing people in the country, and have got
most of its trade into their hands, not only the shop-keeping, but the larger mercantile concerns.
Tiflis, whose native name, Tiblisi, is said to be derived from a Georgian word meaning hot, and to refer to the
warm springs, is a place of some historical note. Tradition says that the first fort was erected here by a lieutenant of the
Sassanid kings of Persia in A.D. 380, and that at it, seventy-five years later, the reigning monarch of Georgia, Vaktang
Gurgaslan, founded a city, to which, in the beginning of the following century, his son Datchi transferred the seat of
government, attracted by the hot sulphurous baths. Compared, however, to the antiquity of the former capital, Mtzkhet
(twelve miles to the northwest), which was founded by a great-great-great-grandson of Noah, Tiflis appears a
settlement of yesterday.
Kajori is but a small place as yet, though with the growth of Tiflis it is likely to increase, and we visited only one
other person there, General Chodzko (Khodzko), the distinguished engineer officer who in 1850 led a surveying party
up Ararat. From him and his secretary, Mr. Scharoyan, I received a valuable suggestion for the climb, which we were
thinking of trying, viz [namely] to keep to the rocks rather than trust the snow, and many injunctions on no account to
ascend alone. In the evening we returned to Tiflis, fortified with all the recommendations that could be desired to
convey us along the road into Armenia, for which, on the next day but one, we started accordingly.