The Armenian church—The devotees—The ladies—The priest—His
toilet—Little boys—A song for the Queen of England—These
Armenians are very dirty—A hymn sung in English—The
inhabitants of Egin—Turkish doctors—A _post mortem_
examination—Price of meat—Russian agents—The massacres in
Bulgaria—The Hasta Dagh mountain—The descent of the glacier—I
never thought as how a horse could skate, sir, before!
I now went to the Armenian church. It was carpeted with thick Persian
rugs like a mosque. Several pictures in gaudy frames were hung against
the wall. The building was crowded with devotees; the galleries
being filled with women; their faces were invisible, owing to the
lattice-work. However, some bright eyes peering inquisitively through
the holes in the screen were quite sufficient to turn a man's thoughts
in their direction.
The priest put on his robes—several little boys assisting him in his
toilette; a heavy, yellow silk garment, with a cross emblazoned in gold
upon the back, was drawn on over his every-day apparel. Some more little
boys bustled about with long candles, and seemed to do their best to
get into each other's way, then the service began.
Two songs were sung by the choir—first one for the Queen of England, as
a sort of compliment to the nationality of the foreign visitor; and then
another for the Sultan. The old priest next addressed the congregation,
and said that they must do everything in their power to help the Sultan
in this war against Russia, who was a mortal enemy to the Armenian
religion.
The Caimacan was standing by me in the church, and seemed pleased at
the discourse.
"It is good! very good!" he said. "I wonder if the priest means it."
The worthy Turk's meditations were suddenly interrupted. Some insect
had bitten him.
"These Armenians are very dirty, they do not wash," he added. "Let us
go."
Everybody bowed as he walked down the nave, and we then proceeded to
the Protestant church.
This was nothing but a large room in the clergyman's house. On our
entry, some boys sang a hymn in English. They pronounced the words
tolerably well, though they were ignorant of their meaning, the
clergyman who spoke our language having taught his pupils merely to read
the Roman characters. There were no pictures or images of any kind in
the room. A simple baptismal font was its sole ornament. After the hymn
had concluded, the clergyman, without putting on any extra vestments,
addressed his congregation in a few straightforward and practical
sentences, saying that as it was the duty of the Jews to pay tribute
to Cæsar, it was equally proper for all true Christians to respect the
Turkish authorities; that the Turks were on the eve of a great struggle
with a power which oppressed all religions but its own, and consequently
it was the duty of all Armenian Protestants to aid the Government in
the forthcoming struggle, and shed the last drop of their blood for the
Padishah.
The inhabitants of the town are not a trading community, most of them
live by agriculture. There was a considerable amount of grumbling to be
heard about the bankrupt state of the country; I learnt that many of
the farmers had invested their savings in Turkish bonds, and had lost
their capital. A Greek doctor who gave me this information had been
established for many years in Egin.
"What do you think of the Turkish doctors?" I inquired.
"They are very ignorant," he replied; "but what can you expect in a
country where it is not permitted to study anatomy, &c., in a practical
way?"
"What, do they not allow dissection?" I asked.
"No. And even if you were convinced that a patient had died of poison,
it would be very difficult to obtain permission to make a _post mortem_
examination of his body. The result is that poisoners go unpunished.
The Turkish surgeons are so ignorant that they cannot even tie up an
artery, much less perform an average operation."
The Caimacan now joined in our conversation, which was in Italian, and
began to find fault with the old school of Turks, which is an enemy to
education, and bigoted about religious matters.
"I make no difference between a Christian or a Mussulman," said the
governor. "All religions are good, provided that the man who practises
them is honest."
"What we require are schools for the elder Turks," he continued;
"something to force them to advance with the age, and to make them
forget that old maxim, 'What was good for my father, is it not
good enough for me?' Until they forget this, there will not be much
improvement in Turkey. A company once offered to make a railway from
Diarbekir to Constantinople, and, if Sultan Abdul Aziz had not spent
all the money he borrowed from you English people in palaces and his
harem, the railway might have been made. Meat is here only one penny a
pound; at our seaports you have to pay fourpence for the same quantity.
We have mines, too, but no means of transporting the mineral if we
worked them. I have been at Egin six months," he continued. "I may be
dismissed at any moment. What inducement is there for a man to try and
improve the condition of the people, when all his work may be upset
by his successor? We Caimacans are underpaid," he added. "We have not
enough to live upon. If we received a better salary, and our positions
were more stable, there would be less bribery throughout the Turkish
empire."
"Do you believe that there are many Russian agents in the
neighbourhood?" I inquired.
"Undoubtedly; particularly at Erzeroum, and there they intrigue with
the Armenian clergy. In the other towns the Armenians will not have
much to say to them. The Russians are more unpopular near the frontier
of the two empires than elsewhere. We are spoken of very harshly in
Europe," continued the Caimacan. "The massacres in Bulgaria were very
horrible, but they were the work of a few fanatics, and brought about
by Russian instigation. It is hard upon us for people to judge of the
entire Turkish nation by the misdeeds of a few Circassians."
My host insisted upon seeing me off, and the following morning we walked
down to the narrow wooden bridge which spans the Euphrates—here about
forty yards wide.
After crossing the river, our course lay across the Hasta Dagh
(mountain). Presently we came to a glacier. The frozen surface extended
for at least one hundred yards. The incline was steeper than the roof
of an average English house.
How was this to be passed? Radford looked at Mohammed. The latter gave
a grunt.
"What do you think of it, Mohammed?" I asked.
"Effendi, we shall go down very fast. If the Lord wills it, we shall
not break our bones."
"If we do not take this route," said the guide, "we must make a détour
for at least two hours. I think the horses can manage it, Effendi."
"Very well," I said, "you can try."
The guide rode his horse to the glacier. The poor animal trembled when
he reached the brink.
"_Haide_, get on!" cried Mohammed from behind, and, striking the
quadruped on his flanks, the animal stretched his fore-legs over the
declivity, almost touching the slippery surface with his girth.
Another crack with the whip, away went the guide and horse down the
glacier. For the first fifty yards the man succeeded in keeping his
steed's head straight. A slight inequality in the ice gave the animal's
hoof a twist in another direction; horse, and rider went round in mazy
circles; they had nearly obtained the velocity of an express train, when
they were suddenly brought up by a snow-drift. There was not much damage
done, and now I prepared to make the descent. It was not an agreeable
sensation. I was on the edge of the precipice. The yelling Mohammed was
castigating my animal from behind. I felt very much like Mr. Winkle, as
described in the "Pickwick Papers," the first time he was on skates. I
would have gladly given Mohammed five shillings or a new coat to desist
from the flagellating process. However, the die was cast. My followers
were looking on. What the guide had done it was very clear that an
Englishman ought to do. I committed myself to Providence. Away we went.
The steam roundabouts in the Champs Elysées in Paris revolve at a great
pace; a slide down the artificial ice-hills in St. Petersburg will
sometimes try a man's nerves; but the sensations experienced in these
manners of locomotion are nothing to what I felt when sliding down that
glacier. Was I on my horse or was I not? Now we were waltzing madly down
the slippery surface, and then my boots were touching the ice itself,
owing to my animal's position. One moment we ricochetted from a rough
piece of the hard substance, and were flying in the air, as if jumping
the Whissendine brook; a second later we were buried, as the guide had
been, in six feet of snow.
Next came the turn of my followers. Their descent was a fearful thing
to witness, but, fortunately, not half so dangerous as it appeared.
With the exception of some damage to the luggage and saddlery, there
was little harm done.
"I never thought as how a horse could skate, sir, before!" remarked my
English servant, as he slowly extricated himself from the snow-drift.
"It was more than sliding, that it was—a cutting of figures of eight
all down the roof of a house! And then I was buried alive in snow, to
finish up with! Mohammed will have something to pray about, if he has
to go down any more of these hills, for nothing but Providence can save
a man's neck in these here parts."