RETURN TO THE BORDER RANGES--THALATTA, THALATTA!
From Erzerum to the Black Sea, at the nearest point, near Rizeh, is a
distance as the crow flies of 88 miles, or, measured to Trebizond,
of 114 miles. Yet the distance by the main road to the ancient
capital of the Grand-Comneni is little less than 200 miles. [212]
This large discrepancy is due to the great height of the block of
mountain on the north of the plain of Erzerum, and, more especially,
to the essential character of the sea of troughs and ridges, interposed
between the town of Baiburt and the coast. The Turkish Government have
built a magnificent chaussée across this country, constructed in the
seventies by French engineers. But whatever its value in time of war,
it has failed to revolutionise the methods of transport in vogue from
immemorial time. Vehicular traffic is conducted between the termini
in summer, and in winter the journey is feasible on a sledge. But the
camel, the mule, and the packhorse are still the principal means of
carriage, and the caravan has not yet fallen into disuse. With horses
which were short of work after their long rest in Erzerum we reached
Trebizond during the height of winter in six days.
At this season of the year the traveller is warned to beware of the
blizzards which render formidable the crossing of the Kop Pass. The
name of that pass is pronounced with a certain degree of terror in the
bazars and coffee-houses of Erzerum. Each winter brings its catalogue
of disasters to man and beast, buried in the driving snow on those
bleak heights. Nor is it easy to perform the passage in a single day
from Erzerum, waiting in the city for a favourable occasion. The Kop
is situated about forty miles west of the provincial capital; and the
barrier upon which it is placed--the wall on the north of Erzerum--can
scarcely be surmounted at a more adjacent point while it is covered
by the snows. For it is only the continual plying of caravans across
a pass which, in this latitude and at so great an elevation above the
sea, renders it practicable all the year round. Caravans have chosen
the Kop, and there is nothing left to the traveller but to acquiesce
in their choice. It was therefore decided to make our first day's
stage at the village of Ashkala, on the banks of the Euphrates,
a stage of over thirty miles, and thence, on the following day,
should the weather be favourable, to take the ascent of the range.
We set out at eleven o'clock on the morning of the 6th of February--a
dim winter's day, when the sun was struggling with the grey mists
spread over the face of land and sky. The thermometer registered
no less than 20° of frost (Fahrenheit); plain and mountain were
completely covered with deep snow. Even the road scarcely revealed
a patch of brown soil, and was distinguishable only by the parallel
dints of the ditches in the foreground of the white expanse. But the
city was conspicuous on the lowest slope of the southern barrier,
where the vaulted summits and bold convexities of that lofty wall
of mountain sweep into the lake-like plain. There it lay, a sombre
mass, from which projected into the murky atmosphere the outline
of a tower, the needle forms of minarets. On its either flank, in a
wide half-circle, the chain of heights advanced into the open, more
elevated and less contracted towards the north-east, declining but
more adjacent on the west. In both directions, the opposite horns
of this bay of snow-clad eminences appeared to touch the answering
parapet in the north--west and east in a long, straight line, fretted
by the shapes of cones and humps, stretched the barrier of that still
distant range. The point of apparent intersection between the two
outlines are, in fact, the open doors of the plain. In the north-east
it is the inlet which leads towards Olti, known as the Gurgi Boghaz:
in the west the valley which receives the Kara Su.
Our course was directed towards Ilija, a village of above-ground houses
at the foot of the western promontory, near some hot springs. The
summer road to Erzinjan diverges towards the west shortly after you
have left Erzerum. It is taken across the horn of heights, up a partial
opening, which, however, was barely visible. The view across the
plain and along the summits of the northern barrier extends from the
Deveh Boyun and the distant heights of Kargabazar to the Kop mountain
in the west. Several individual heights may be distinguished from
their fellows: Sheikhjik, a beautiful cone, north-west of Erzerum;
then Akhbaba, a cockscombed outline, and next Jejen, a symmetrical
peak. The flat-topped, broad-shouldered mass, which closes the series,
is the Kop, beneath whose shadow lies the pass.
In the village of Gez--a cluster of houses, partly Mohammedan
and partly Armenian--we made a stay of twenty minutes, and said
farewell to some of our friends, who had driven out to meet us in
a sledge. Sleighing is much in favour during the winter, both among
rich and poor. Little black specks come gliding over the snow-field in
the neighbourhood of the town. Taking shape, they are seen to consist
sometimes of a lean hack drawing a couple of longitudinal logs, placed
upon skates; or a graceful car, drawn by a pair of high-stepping
horses, brushes past you at a rapid trot. Near Ilija we crossed a
stream of warm water, which proceeded to follow us on our right hand;
and at three o'clock we had reached the spot near the extremity of the
promontory where the Kara Su might be expected to enter the narrows.
But the river was quite invisible, buried beneath the canopy which
stretched to the opposite mountains without a break. After doubling
the horn, which was low, and was succeeded by gentle eminences, we made
our way down the valley, between these hills and the northern barrier,
through a dreary landscape upon which the mist hung. A fine fox with
a sweeping brush made off across the snow, and found it difficult to
escape from sight. I viewed him away with a shout which surprised
our followers, giving vent to a whole season's abstinence. At four
o'clock we passed the lonely station of Yeni Khan; and, an hour later,
a road branched off across the hills, leading to Erzinjan. In another
half-hour we crossed the mouth of a large side valley through which
was hissing a considerable stream. It comes from the mountains on the
north, and is called the Serchemeh Chai; the combined waters below
the junction with the Kara Su are generally known as the Frat or
Euphrates. [213] We were surprised to observe the manner in which the
connection was effected between this ice-free torrent and the buried
Kara Su. Descending to the trough of the valley, the rapid current
was introduced into the same bed in which the companion river slept;
nor did it dip beneath the canopy, but hurried along by the side of its
partner, fretting the edge of the ice. When we crossed, a little later,
by a substantial bridge to the right bank, the united ice and flowing
water had a width of fifty paces. The valley had narrowed and become
almost Alpine in appearance since the bifurcation of the roads. In
such surroundings is situated the picturesque village of Kagdarich,
just above the bridge, on the right bank.
Again the hills opened after our passage of the river, and, nearing
Ashkala, composed a plain. We reached our destination at a quarter
to seven, beneath the shadows of night. It is a Mohammedan village of
some size, with a few Armenian houses; the houses are above ground. The
valley must have in places a width of six or seven miles. Its character
became apparent as we rose above it on the following morning, after
crossing an affluent to the Frat, called the Kara Hasan Su, which
was almost concealed by a crust of ice. Like the plain of Erzerum,
it has probably been covered with a sheet of water during no very
remote geological period. The floor of the valley presents, in fact,
an almost level surface; but a special feature in this second lake-like
extension of the Euphrates basin is a bold mass of rock which protrudes
in the neighbourhood of the village, isolated from the heights upon
the north. The close resemblance of this hill to some of the spurs
from those heights suggested the conception of a remote age when this
valley was in its infancy, and the mountains which now rise on its
opposite margins were integral parts of a single block of elevated
land. The further we advanced towards the west, the more the plain
narrowed; we were pursuing a diagonal course along the lower slopes
of the northern barrier, and we could see the river at some distance,
partly ice-encrusted, and partly threading the snow in several tiny
channels. [214]
February 7.--We had left Ashkala (5520 feet) at half-past eight, with
the promise of a perfect day; for the vapours had become collected
into shining masses, and the sun was mounting into a clear, blue
sky. Just before losing the landscape of the plain, I stopped to take
a photograph of the summit-formation of a spur from the northern range
(Fig. 170). I was struck by the resemblance of the flat edge of this
eminence to the outworks of the Bingöl plateau. A little later we
entered a side valley through which flowed a small and partially
ice-bound stream. Proceeding up it a short distance on a northerly
course, we arrived at eleven o'clock in the pretty alpine village of
Pirnakapan. Beyond this Mussulman hamlet, which is graced by a grove
of willow trees, the valley becomes a gorge. So steep are the crags
which overhang it that in many places they were free from snow. We
were now at a level of about 6000 feet, and, as it were, about to take
the ascent. The rocks of this region are highly folded, and consist of
serpentines and limestones weathered to various hues. Two partridges
were seated fearlessly on one of the ledges a few yards from where we
rode. The actual climb begins a little further on, where the scene
opens and you stand at the bottom of the towering wall. There is
situated among the snows the Southern Kop Khan, from which the start
is made. You see the chaussée winding in a long series of spirals to
a lofty gallery of the range. It covers a distance between Pirnakapan
and the pass of about 7 1/2 miles.
To that gallery, which is nearly as elevated as the pass, we proceeded
to follow a much shorter track. In half-an-hour we had gained
the position after a valiant escalade, and the camera was at once
brought to bear. But our enemy was, alas! the sun, an inexpugnable
adversary, shedding his rays from just the quarter which we wished
to embrace. Regretting the absence of the resourceful Wesson, I was
obliged to turn the instrument towards the east-south-east. In that
direction we commanded the upper valley of the Euphrates (Fig. 171);
but we were robbed of a picture of the important landscape in the
south.
It was a little after noon; the mountains streamed with light, and
only above the deeply-seated river valley a heavy mass of vapour
hung. All the summits which are seen on this side of that vapour
belong to the block of mountain on the north. The conical peak on
the left of the illustration is the beautiful Jejen Dagh. Beyond the
mist, the distant heights are those of the southern border in the
neighbourhood of Erzerum.
In another half-hour we had reached about the highest point upon the
undulating snow-fields of the summit region. The Kop itself, the
mountain which gives its name to the pass, is a flat-topped mass,
rising with steep slopes on the right of the road. The pass has an
elevation of 8048 feet. So brilliant was the sun that we were enabled
to linger, and to attempt to realise the panorama of the south.
The traveller who should approach Armenia by this well-beaten avenue
might fail to discover the characteristics of a great tableland in the
configuration of that extensive portion of her area which is outspread
from this pass. It is true that the range he crosses resembles a
large block of hard material rather than a chain of mountains in the
more usual sense. But the outline of this mass is broken into peaks
of every shape; and the opposite ranges display the same features,
the whole combining to produce the impression of a troubled sea. How
different was this landscape from that which I had overlooked from
the pass of Zikar on the north! Yet the explanation of this diversity
does not, I think, belie the conception which a wide experience had
inculcated in my mind--the conception, namely, of a vast mass of
elevated country of which a prevailing characteristic is the flatness
of its surface. For in this landscape the levelling influence of the
lavas are almost absent, while, on the other hand, the operation of the
various processes of denudation have been conducted on a colossal scale
and with conspicuous results. The ancient sedimentary deposits have
been worn by their action into peaks of considerable relative height,
while the plains with their lake-like beds have, as it were, usurped
the character of the mountains by which they are overhung. Reserving
for further study the country between Frat and Murad on the west of
Erzerum and Mush, I need only remark that its present aspect from
the standpoint of this pass was somewhat foreign from the idea of
prevailing flatness which similar prospects had invited me to form.
Two, and only two, distinct chains of heights were visible in the
south. The first, which was apparently the lower, was that on the
south of Erzerum, the Palandöken and the continuing eminences toward
the west. Behind this outline rose a second and also horizontal
series, which were identified by my informant, a zaptieh who lives
on the mountain, as the range on the north of the Murad or Eastern
Euphrates, known to him under the same name as that of the district
of Terjan. Between these two chains lay a mass of vapour, suspended
above the river which joins the Western Euphrates below the town of
Mamakhatun. A third and further range, that of the Kurdish Mountains,
beyond the Murad, was not, and, according to the same authority,
could not be descried from this pass. [215]
Proceeding on our northward journey at ten minutes before two, we
entered, a little later, a break in the mass. In the hollow flowed a
torrent, partially encrusted with ice, the first of the streams which
find their way to the Black Sea. As we advanced, this shallow opening
became a deep gorge, leading, almost directly, towards the north. The
road was taken by easy gradients down this convenient valley, and,
after a course of over five miles from the culminating point of
the pass, reached the shelter known as the Northern Kop Khan. Here
we rested for an hour and a half, continuing our ride at half-past
four o'clock. We kept the torrent on our left, still adhering to
the gorge, which displayed a fine view backward to the top of the
mountain mass. A wall of stupendous height crowned its uppermost end,
and displayed the familiar flat edge. The strata, of a marmorised
limestone, which overhung the glen were much contorted, like the
grain of a knot in a tree. After crossing a stream, in part icebound,
which we recognised as the Chorokh, we arrived at a quarter-past six
at the little settlement of Maden Khan (5455 feet) near Halwa Maden,
distant some 6 1/2 miles from our last halting-place, or about 29
miles by the road from Ashkala.
I do not propose to follow in detail the further stages of our journey
to the coast of the Black Sea. But I have not yet taken my reader to
the extreme geographical limits of the country which in the present
work I am endeavouring to describe. From Maden Khan it was still a
ride of one and a half days to the pass where you bid farewell to
the Armenian plains. This northerly extension of the highlands of
Armenia is watered by the Upper Chorokh.
February 8.--Leaving the cluster of wayside hospices in which we
had passed the night, our course was directed westwards down the
stream. On either bank rose hills of marble with no great relative
elevation, covered, like the valley, with deep snow. The current
sometimes flowed in an open channel, and as often plunged beneath
a continuous crust of ice. Not a single tree, nor even a bush, was
visible in the landscape. A little further down the hills opened,
and gave place to a stretch of plain (Fig. 172). At the western end of
this expanse they again circled inwards, and the valley took an abrupt
turn towards the east. At the mouth of this passage is situated the
castle and town of Baiburt, barring the approach to these uppermost
reaches of the Chorokh.
But on the west of this picturesque and ruinous fortress the heights
which deflect the river to its long course toward the east command
the stronghold and detract from its value in modern war. Indeed they
constitute an undulating upland or plateau, framed by the convex
shapes of distant hills. At about its highest point this plateau has
an elevation of some 5620 feet. Leaving the town, we made our way
across this upland in a direction of west to west-north-west; and,
in a little over an hour, overlooked one of the flat depressions
which have already been so often described. Upon its snow-clad
surface was placed an Armenian village with three fine buildings,
now in ruins, a relic of the old times. What an eloquent memorial
those shapely forms and that finished masonry still preserved to a
cultured and beneficent race! Varzahan was the name of the village;
but we had again been placed under surveillance, and it was impossible
to perpetuate the image of these decaying remains. [216]
The ova or plain of Varzahan, to which we descended, is, in some sense,
a westerly extension of that portion of the valley of the Chorokh
which lies below the town of Baiburt. Yet it was separated by a range
of hills from the trough in the surrounding outlines through which
we knew that the river must flow. These hills circle southwards from
the latitudinal chain of distant heights which confine this ova and
the Chorokh valley alike. A passage is no doubt found by the streams
which collect in the plain and find their way to the Chorokh. We were
reminded by its appearance of the plain of Erzerum, of which many of
the features were reproduced on a smaller scale. It seemed to strike
the last note of the distinctive theme to which we had been listening
for so many long months. The plain has an elevation of about 5300 feet,
and it is possible to scale the heights on its northern border and,
in summer, to pursue the journey to Trebizond. [217] But in winter
you are taken up an opening at its westerly extremity which we may
call, after a considerable village which lies within it, the valley
of Balakhor. This valley conducts you in a westerly direction, to the
ridge or ridges which form the water-parting on the south of the Lycus,
and on the west and east of the Kharshut and Chorokh.
It was towards those dividing heights that we set out on the 9th
of February from the lonely station of Khadrak in the valley of
Balakhor. The stream which waters this valley and finds its way
to the plain of Varzahan was buried beneath a continuous canopy of
snow. The heights on either side were of insignificant elevation,
relative to the general level of the ground. In half an hour a way
diverged, well beaten by traffic, leading to Kelkid and Erzinjan. It
branched off on the left hand; we were at the head of the valley,
surrounded by an amphitheatre of hills. Our course was directed to
the wall upon our right; and in another ten minutes we had gained
the eminence. We were standing not exactly on a ridge, but on the
face of an upland, over which the winds sweep in stormy weather with
considerable force. Yet another half-hour brought us to an elevation
of 6468 feet, the saddle of the Vavuk Pass. We had arrived upon the
boundary line between two vilayets, of Erzerum and of Trebizond.
I was informed that quite recently a Tartar horseman had met his
death while carrying the post across this pass. He was overtaken and
overwhelmed by a tipe or blizzard before he could reach the shelter
of the valleys on either side. Indeed the loss of life to beasts of
burden is considerable along this road. No more eloquent evidence
could be furnished of the want of humanity in the natives than the
callous indifference to the sufferings of dumb animals which day by
day is displayed upon these passes. Such a habit of cruelty at once
argues a lapse into barbarism, and explains the perpetration of the
nameless horrors which so often shock the conscience of the West. We
kept passing strings of heavily-laden quadrupeds, which with their
dull eyes, drooping heads, and fleshless bodies, covered with sores,
had lost the distinctive qualities of the horse. None of them had any
thighs to enable them to breast the ascents, and most were incurably
lame. Their hocks were bent with curbs or swollen by spavins; one poor
beast was dragging his hind legs behind him, and another had one of his
forelegs bent almost double. Neither--it could not be doubted--were
destined to reach Trebizond. So they crawl over the ground, from
year's end to year's end, until they close their miserable existence
by sinking exhausted on a pass. Even at the moment of liberation they
are doomed to a prolonged agony; and, having been martyred all their
life by the barbarity of the human animal, they become victims of
his perverse humanity in their death. You will see them prone upon
the road, where their drivers have abandoned them to kick out their
life in the snow. Religious scruples prevent these misguided monsters
from giving them the despatch. We were sickened on one occasion by
the spectacle of a wretched horse which, with glazed eyes, continued
to paw in a convulsive manner a space of ground which in his agony
he had cleared of ice. At the end of my revolver I compelled one of
the drivers to sever his jugular vein.
From such scenes the traveller turns to the contemplation of Nature,
not only with a sense of relief, but under an added consciousness of
her sublimity, the high exponent of the harmony of things. The pass
of Vavuk divides two landscapes of exactly opposite nature, and leads
over into a new climate and a new world. The opposite wall of rock is
dotted with low fir trees, which, as you proceed, increase in height
and shade. The opposite valley to which you descend is already warm by
comparison with the bleak highlands from which you have come. By the
time the river is approached, the winding reaches of the Kharshut,
free, even at this season, of ice, great rolling masses of cloud
are sailing over the mountains, distilling into mingled snow and
rain. Even at this distance the senses recognise the sea. All the
characteristics of the border ranges, aligned in a deep belt upon the
coast, are displayed during the successive stages of a ride of two
and a half days. If the forests are less luxuriant than on the side of
the Rion, the view in places recalls, even during this season, those
tree-clad parapets. Valleys of immense depth are overtowered by rocky
precipices; it is essentially a land of crest and trough. And just
as the scene contrasts with the Armenian landscapes, so the people
and the types are new. The familiar features of the Greek take the
place of the Armenians, and the ear is greeted by the language of the
Greeks. [218] Yet another pass must be traversed, the wintry pass of
Zigana (6640 feet), and from its further slopes expands a vista of
the distant sea. The thermometer has risen to 62° by the time the
seaboard is reached. And there, at Trebizond, the roses blossom in
the gardens while the Armenian rivers are buried beneath the ice.