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

176 THE EXPLORERS OF ARARAT
In the repeated invasions and devastations of their country which occupied these weary years, a great part of the
Armenian people were driven from it, and scattered over the adjoining lands, especially through Asia Minor, where
their descendants still constitute a large element, probably nearly one-fourth, of the entire population; while the void
which they left was partially, but only partially, filled up by the immigration of half nomad Mohammedan Tatars or
Turkmans, whose villages now lie scattered through Russian and Turkish Armenia. The existence of Armenia as an
independent state was at an end; and her later history, which I have neither the knowledge nor the time to describe, is
little more than a dreary record first of warfare between the Byzantine emperors and the Seljukian Turks, then of
devastations by the Mongols and the hosts of Timur, still later of a long and indecisive contest between the Ottoman
sultans and Persia for the possession of these once flourishing provinces. But the Armenian people survived. In 1827
the Czar Nicholas went to war with Persia, and wrested from here the whole upper valley of the Araxes, including
Etchmiadzin itself. War with Turkey followed in 1828: the invaders under Paskievitch penetrated as far as Erzerum,
and when they retired on the conclusion of peace in 1829, a multitude of Armenian subjects of Turkey followed them
across the border and settled in Russian territory, where, unsatisfactory as we may think their condition, they are
infinitely better off than they were under the Sultan or the Shah. I do not say that the Armenians love Russia, but
neither do they hate her. The reviving sentiment of nationality, the generally diffused belief that the Ottoman power is
sickening towards death, the spread of education, the easier intercourse with the West, the prosperity of individual
Armenians in the foreign countries where they have established themselves as merchants, have all of them stimulated
the hopes and aspirations of the more instructed classes, so that one even begins to hear of schemes for the erection
of an Armenian state.
At present Armenia is a mere geographical expression, a name which has come down to us from the ancient
world, and has been used at different times with different territorial extensions. The country, if one can call it a country,
has no political limits, for it lies mainly in the dominions of Turkey, but partly also in those of Russia and Persia. It has
no ethnographical limits, for it is inhabited by Tatars, Persians, Kurds, and the mixed race whom we call Turks or
Ottomans, as well as by the Armenians proper. It has no natural boundaries in rivers or mountain chains, lying, as it
does, in the upper valley of the Euphrates, Tigris, Aras, and Kur. Wherever they go, they retain their faith, their peculiar
physiognomy, their wonderful aptitude for trade.
In Constantinople and most parts of Asia Minor, as well as in Transcaucasia, commerce is to a great extent in
their hands; and they are usually found more than a match for either Jews or Greeks. Here, in their own country,
however, they are chiefly peaceable, stay-at-home peasants, living in low, mud-built cottages, or sometimes in
underground dwellings, tilling the soil just as their ancestors may have done thirty centuries ago, very ignorant, poor,
and unambitious, scarcely distinguishable in dress and in some of their habits, except, of course, so far as religion
comes in, from the Tatars who are interspersed among but never intermingled with them. Here, in Russian territory,
the women go about unveiled, just as in Europe. According to Baron Haxthausen, an able German who traveled here
thirty years ago, the young wife is for a year permitted to speak to no one save her husband, and to him only when
they are alone; she may then talk to her baby, and after an interval to her mother-in-law, then to her sister-in-law, next
to her sister, last of all to other women, but always in a whisper. Domestic slavery of course there was, as everywhere
under Persian and Turkish rule; but all Armenians not slaves were equal: there was neither serf on the one hand nor
any noble caste on the other. While every second Georgian you meet calls himself a prince, no Armenian seems now
to claim any title of rank.
Physically the Armenians are middle-sized, with a swarthy, yellowish complexion, less yellow, however, than that
of the Persians, who are said to be (linguistically) their nearest relatives, black, straight hair, a forehead rather wide
than high, and a large nose. The women are often handsome, with an erect carriage, regular features, and fine dark
eyes. The language they now speak differs widely from that in which their ancient literature, dating from the fourth
century, is preserved, and in which their worship is still conducted. They call it, and themselves, Haik, claiming to be
descended from an eponymous hero Haik, who was the brother of Karthlos, ancestor of the Georgians, and the son of
Thorgamos or Thogarmah, who was the son of Gomer the son of Japheth. It belongs to the Iranian group of the Indo-
European family, and is said to be copious and strong, though certainly not melodious. The earliest inscriptions found
in the country are in a cuneiform character; somewhat later, in Graeco-Roman times, the Greek alphabet was used by
the Western, the Syriac by the Eastern Armenians, until, in the beginning of the fifth century, St. Mesrop invented the
present Armenian character, and thereby, it has been thought, gave a considerable impetus to the independent
national feeling of the people. The Turkish and Mongol invasions had destroyed what little learning or wealth had been
left in the country.
Some have risen to posts of high dignity. For instance, the commander of the invading Russian army in Asia at
this moment, General Loris Melikoff, is an Armenian, as is the present governor of Daghestan. Their family, properly
Melikian (ian is a patronymic in Armenian, like Mac or Ap), is one of the oldest and most respectable in Armenia. There
are, I believe, thirty other Armenian generals in the service of the Czar.
Nothing can be more pitiable than the condition of these poor people. They are not only (like the Rayahs of
Bosnia and Bulgaria) plundered and outraged by rapacious tax gatherers and zaptiehs, they are also constantly
exposed to the robberies of the marauding Kurds, who live among them, roving over the mountains in summer, and in
winter descending to quarter themselves upon the Christian villagers, where they slay and pillage to their heart’s
content. In fact, the sheep-dogs are little better than the wolves; the burning and plunder of the bazaar at Van, last