Both are as hard in Armenia as they can be, short of impossibility. In
the Russian section the roads are as good as in any part of Russia,
and there are railroads; but in Persian and Turkish Armenia there are
none of the latter, and the roads are very poor bridle-paths. A few
years ago the government levied an extra tax to build "Shosse Yolou"
or macadamized roads for carriages; but most of the money was spent
as usual, in a good time for the Turkish officials; the roads built
were wretched, and riding over them in the springless carriages of
the country is weariness and torture. Most of the traveling is done
on horseback or muleback, while the transportation of goods is almost
entirely by camels and donkeys.
An hour's journey in America in distance is a two days' journey
in Armenia, and it must be accomplished on horseback, muleback, or
foot; or perhaps in a wagon without springs. Almost all the horse and
mule keepers are Turks, Kurds or Circassians, all Mohammedans and of
the lowest types,--which does not increase either the comfort or the
security of a journey. The tenders and drivers of animals are never of
a very high order of men in any country; in Armenia they are specially
vulgar, dirty, and sometimes dangerous brutes. If you wish to travel
with your family, you must arrange with the horse-keeper several days
or even weeks beforehand; if he is ready when the time comes, he calls
at your house and tells you. If animals are used and the family large,
baskets will be needed to put the children in; they are put on the
animals like panniers, one on each side with the mother between. This
is attended with more or less danger from accidents of various kinds,
liable to occur on the unkept paths, which, rough in some places and
horribly muddy in others, are used for roads. As in the case of the
writer, who, when an infant, nearly lost his life before he could be
pulled out of the mud into which he had fallen from his mother's arms,
she being thrown from the stumbling horse she was riding.
A more modern way of travel is in springless carriages; which on the
rough roads means racking your body horribly, bones, nerves, and all,
into outright and often severe suffering, a pain and fatigue which the
traveler feels for a long time. At evening all travelers must go to a
caravanserai or khan; often they are all huddled into a single room,
men, women, and children, and the room is invariably filthy, and full
of every kind of vermin. Such getting about is constant torment.
There is no safety in traveling; Kurdish, Circassian, or Georgian
brigands may meet you on the roads anywhere, and plunder, torture,
or perhaps kill you. A few years ago, when traveling in Armenia with
a company of about forty persons of both sexes, we came to a forested
pass between two mountains. Suddenly three men leaped out in front
of us; they were Georgian brigands (Mohammedans), armed from top
to toe. They stopped the caravan, picked out the rich persons and
the Christians, and robbed them of all their valuables. They did not
search the writer, probably supposing that as a minister he was too
poor to be worth troubling. The women were dreadfully frightened, for
the robbers declared that if they did not give up their earrings their
ears would be cut off, and if they did not give up their bracelets
their hands would be cut off. It can easily be imagined that they made
haste to relinquish all their valuables. Such robberies take place
every day in Armenia, for there is no protection or redress whatever;
it is a matter of indifference at best, and probably of satisfaction,
to the Sultan and his governors.
The brigands are not the only robbers. Bear in mind that before any one
in Armenia can travel at all, the government officials plunder him. He
must get a passport first; I do not mean when he goes to foreign
countries, for an Armenian is forbidden to go there at all,--all who
are in other lands reached there by bribing the police and running
away,--but when he goes to another place or town in Armenia itself,
even if it is not over fifteen or twenty miles off. This passport will
cost him from two to five dollars in bribes to the officials to let
him have it. When he reaches his destination, the officials of the
latter place must examine his passport, and they force him to pay for
the examination, else they will not let him enter the town. So the
Armenians are robbed at every step whether they travel or stay at home.
Transportation of goods is even harder. Nearly all goods are carried
on camels or donkeys which never go more than ten miles a day, and
of course much less in bad spots; it takes months and even a year to
get goods if they have to come very far, or may never be received. If
an Armenian merchant orders goods from Constantinople, say 500 miles
away, it takes five or six months at best from the time of sending the
order to the time of receiving the goods, even if he ever gets them,
no matter what condition they are in.
The difficulties of transportation prevent the export, to any extent,
of Armenian products to foreign countries, and even between neighboring
cities exchange of supplies is well-nigh impossible. As all through
the East, there is often famine in one part of Armenia, while there
is plenty in other parts; one city may be hungry while another is
feasting; one willing to pay any price but unable to buy, another
eager to sell but with no one to sell to; because there is no way
to transport the grain or produce. Yet good highways are not built
because the officials embezzle the funds, railroads are not built
because it would hinder the Sultan from crushing the people.
It may be asked, Are there no railroads in Turkey? and will not the
Sultan permit them, and are there not Armenians in the places along
their route? Yes, there are a few short lines; one from Constantinople
to Adrianople, one from Constantinople to Angora, one from Smyrna to
Aiden, one from Mersina to Adana, one from Joppa to Jerusalem. I think
there is also one lately built from Beirout to Damascus. The length
of the whole system is not over 1,000 miles, one of them is in Europe,
part of them are tourist lines, along routes that streams of Europeans
would traverse anyway. Some of them were built before the time of
the present Sultan; some of them are near the seashore, where there
are some Armenian emigrants; but none of these roads are in Armenia.
Plenty of money has always been available from European and even
Armenian sources to build railroads; syndicates and private capitalists
have tried again and again to get permission to build them; but the
Sultan will not grant it, for it runs counter to his fixed policy
of isolating the Armenians, to make their oppression or destruction
easier. Railroads would mean not only prosperity and strength for
the people, but easy gathering and sending out of news to the world,
easy bringing of help from the world, lighting up the dark places,
and exposing the horrors of the hell now existing. When they are built,
commerce will follow; Europeans will flock in, and a new era dawn. Who
are the commercial class? The Armenian Christians or Europeans; not a
Turk or a Kurd among them. Commerce means, then, the increase of the
Christian population; wealth, greatness, security for the Armenians;
finally freedom from the Ottoman power. Therefore that power forbids
any improvement of the backward conditions.