ASCENT TO ARMENIA
It had never been our intention to enter Armenia by the well-beaten
avenue of Trebizond and Erzerum. The season was advanced; our first
objective was Ararat; and it appeared doubtful whether, even with
the utmost possible expedition, we should be able to accomplish
the ascent of the mountain before the commencement of the winter
snows. The attack is no doubt feasible from the side of Turkey; at
least on two occasions it has been successful; but the journey is long
from Erzerum to Bayazid, and the stages must be covered by your own
horses; there is no posting system to furnish you with relays. Nor
is it likely that you will find the same facilities at Bayazid that
are offered in Russian territory, through the courtesy of the Russian
Government, by the detachment of Cossacks which is stationed on the
northern slopes. These considerations were decisive in determining
us upon the approach from Georgia; but I was also anxious on other
grounds to become acquainted with the Russian provinces of Armenia
before investigating the condition of those under Turkish rule. With
these purposes we rejoined our steamer on the night of the 16th of
August and continued the voyage to Batum.
August 17.--From Trebizond to the Russian port is a run of a hundred
miles; the early morning saw us skirting the redoubts that line
the shore and doubling the little promontory on which the lighthouse
stands. In the bight or tiny inlet that recedes from that low headland
a depth of water of some thirty fathoms may be found; yet the bay as
a whole is shallow and full of silt, and it is only on this western
side, close in upon the land, that such soundings are obtained. The
largest vessels may be seen brought up so near to the beach that their
lofty sterns almost overhang its shelving slopes. But the space is not
extensive in this favoured quarter, and if this natural harbour is
protected on the east by the wall of the coast range, it is exposed
towards the north. The Russians have endeavoured to overcome these
disadvantages by constructing a long breakwater of solid masonry,
which projects from the side of the mountains into the bay; for years
they have been engaged in dredging operations, but they have been
hampered by the continual tendency of the anchorage to fill with
sandy deposit along the eastern shore.
I should not trouble or divert my reader with a humble incident
of travel, were it not that I am anxious to dispel the prevailing
prejudices which attribute an unusual degree of severity to the service
of the customs at this port. Some years ago, when returning from Persia
to Europe, I had been summoned to the fearful presence of the presiding
officers and had been amiably dismissed; but on that occasion I was
invested with the more innocent character of an export, whereas now
it was with the savoury attributes of imports from Great Britain that
we were walking into the lion's mouth. Stories were abroad of ladies
who had arrived in silken dresses and who had been seen to issue from
the portals of this redoubtable Custom-House in whatever garments may
have escaped the confiscation from their persons of the more valuable
products of European looms. It was therefore with some apprehension
and not without anxiety that we awaited the arrival of the inspector
and his men. Their white caps and white tunics are soon in evidence on
the ship's ladder; they step on deck, appear uncertain and desirous of
information; then, after a cast or two, we see them settling to the
line. In a remote corner of the deck, almost covered by the gigantic
frame of Rudolph, lies a pile of miscellaneous but extremely creditable
luggage, of which the hapless owners are ourselves. When the Swiss
is interrogated he smiles blandly; the salute on their side is not
less gracious and more effusive; then they leave the steamer and we
are free. What is the incident? If you measure it by the paradoxical
nature of the occurrence, it was more than an incident, it was an
event. For the rest we were not slow to discover the explanation;
there is not in Russia a more courteous official or kinder personality
than the Director of Customs at Batum. M. de Klupffell is a veteran
sportsman, and, as such, a friend of Englishmen; in my cousin he found
an ardent votary of his own science and a companion in its pursuit;
and we were linked together by a number of pleasant memories before
the day of departure hurried us apart.
Five valuable days, of which not a minute was vacant, were consumed
in completing the preparations for our journey and in procuring a
supplementary supply of letters of introduction to those in authority
at the centres through which we should pass. We were about to enter a
country which, both for strategical and political reasons, is hedged
in with scarcely visible but extremely palpable restrictions, and for
the unprepared and ill-recommended traveller is almost of the nature
of forbidden ground. There are wide districts in which our consul at
Batum is not permitted to travel; I am sure he would not venture to
cross the threshold of Kars. To make certain of being allowed to move
about without hindrance and to enjoy the luxury of the confidence
that your presence will be tolerated and that you will not suddenly
be summarily expelled, it is necessary to supply yourself with a
special authorisation from the proper Minister at St. Petersburg. But
our ambassador at the Russian capital refuses to put forward the
application; he has made a rule which nothing will induce him to
break through. At Constantinople our embassy is of course completely
helpless; there remains the doubtful method of private approach. The
days were swelling into weeks while we lingered on the Bosphorus;
it was useless to proceed without some form of pass in our pockets,
but the precious months of summer were gliding away. At length we
were sufficiently provided with recommendations to be warranted in
trusting fortune to do the rest; we owed much to the kindness of our
Russian acquaintances at Constantinople, and we were able to realise
a fact of which we subsequently received such abundant evidence,
that the highest Russian officials are as a rule enlightened men of
the world as well as the kindest and most hospitable of hosts.
On the side of Georgia there are two principal approaches to Armenia,
and the traveller who desires to consult his comfort may be advised to
restrict his choice to these two roads. The more westerly ascends the
valley of the Kur river and reaches the highlands about Akhaltsykh by
the romantic gorge and passage of Borjom; the other, further east,
leaves the railway between the Black Sea and the Caspian at the
station of Akstafa, some fifty miles below Tiflis, and, mounting from
the trough of the Kur along the course of the Akstafa, issues upon
the open country on the west of Lake Sevan, near the posting-stage
of Delijan. [8] A bifurcation at that point leads by one branch to
Alexandropol and by the other to Erivan. You may ride in a victoria
and with relays of post-horses on either of these roads. Both conduct
you from the steppes at the southern foot of Caucasus and from levels
that are comparatively low across or aslant the grain of the peripheral
ranges to the edge of the Armenian tableland. Those ranges are the
continuation upon the east of the mountains which we have followed
from the Bosphorus to Batum; they stand up like a wall from the
flats of the Rion and from the plains which border the lower course
of the Kur, with much the same appearance as we saw them rise with
ever-increasing proportions along the floor of the Black Sea. Beyond
those lowlands a mighty neighbour, the parallel chain of Caucasus,
faces them on the north. Only at one point do these two great systems
join hands together, in the belt of mountainous country which separates
the watershed of the Kur from that of the Rion and which the railway
crosses by the pass of Suram (about 3000 feet). This linking chain
is known to geographers under the name of the Meschic or Moschic;
geologists are inclined to connect it with the structure of Caucasus;
our senses might invest it with a separate existence, a transverse
barrier as it were, thrown from range to range across the hollow
which extends from sea to sea.
I was disinclined for several reasons to traverse this barrier, so
that we might avail ourselves of either of the main roads. Erivan
was our destination, the railway and the valley of the Akstafa our
readiest means of access; but I was already familiar with the trough
of the Kur between Tiflis and the Caspian, and I had read so many
accounts of this approach to Armenia that the natural features of
the several stages between the Georgian river and Lake Sevan seemed
imprinted upon my mind. I was also anxious to gain some knowledge of
the western portion of the tableland, of which I had only succeeded in
obtaining from the literature of travel a wholly insufficient idea. To
these districts the route by Borjom is at once the best-known avenue
and that which combines with a lavish display of magnificent scenery
the comforts of a beaten track. But to worm myself up the valley of
the Kur to the Armenian highlands was, I thought, to miss an occasion
which might not subsequently be offered of realising at the outset of
our long journey the essential features and characteristics of the
country we had come to see. In Asia so vast is the scale upon which
Nature has operated, so much system has she bestowed upon her works,
you may follow for hundreds of miles the same manifestations, till
from some favourable point of vantage you may discover unfolded before
you the clue and the abiding principles of her extensive and majestic
plan. What approach was better calculated to offer large views over
Nature and to instruct us in her designs than one which scaled the
walls of the girdle ranges where they tower highest above land and
sea? From Batum it might be possible to penetrate the mountains of
Ajara, and debouch upon some of the most elevated regions of the
plateau from which the upper waters and earliest affluents of the
Kur decline; but the lower reaches of the Chorokh and its alpine
tributaries intersect a most intricate and savage country, where the
process of elevation has resulted in dislocation of the range, and
has produced convulsions which, while they afford a most interesting
field to the geologist and to the student of mountain-structure,
have placed obstacles in the way of human communications which the
traveller is not required to overcome. By following the bend of
the chain up the coast and along the Rion until it again assumes a
normal course, he may avoid this knot of ridges and maze of valleys
and at the same time obtain a clearer and more definite conception of
the geography of these lands. We learnt that there was a road from
the plain of the Rion up the side and to the summit of the range;
we soon decided upon the superior attractions which it promised,
and took our tickets for the capital of the country on the west of
the Meschic barrier, the ancient city of Kutais.
August 22.--Rain was falling as we slowly steamed away from the
station; it is almost always raining at Batum. The clouds cannot leap
the gigantic bulwark of the mountains at this south-eastern angle of
the sea; they cling to the fir-clad slopes or put out hands and scale
the escarpments until they become exhausted and dissolve. The town was
soon behind us as we wound along the foot of the range on the narrow
respite of the shore--Batum, with her grim defiance of the written law
of Europe, with her peaceful situation at the gate of the oil industry,
of which she receives the products by the railway from the Caspian
to distribute them over all the world; a creation of modern Russia
on the familiar official pattern of spreading boulevards with fine
shops and large hotels. Here is the starting-point of the first train
which skirts the coast of the Euxine--and even this remote example
of the species turns aside from the mysterious seaboard to the cities
of the interior after a brief space of some twenty miles. Yet within
such limits we are carried through the wildest piece of country that
may be found between the mouth of the river Rion and the entrance to
the Black Sea, a district endowed with extraordinary fertility, which
still remains unexploited and unreclaimed. It is inhabited here and
there by a few straggling settlements, which contrast to the splendour
of his natural surroundings the squalor of uncivilised man. We have
outreached the furthest extension of the fringe of Greek elements;
Georgian peoples live in the valleys of the interior and are thinly
scattered upon the malarious coast; while further east, where the
chain has left the sea and is aligned upon the plains, lowlands as
well as mountains, the skirts of the range and its innermost recesses
are the home of a population of Georgian race. Between Trebizond and
the Russian fortress first the Lazis and then the Ajars may perhaps
be regarded as transitional factors to the new order which commences
after you have left Batum. I should not venture to pronounce upon the
racial connections of the Lazis; they may represent the aboriginal
occupants of their country, the wild tribes who harassed the army of
Xenophon and were the settled plague of the Byzantine governors and
of the emperors of the Comnenian line. The Ajars would appear to be of
mixed parentage; like the Lazis they profess the Mohammedan faith. The
Georgian districts which we are now entering still retain the names of
the several independent principalities to which they formerly belonged,
and except in the case of Abkhasia, up in the north at the foot of
Caucasus, the Christian religion almost exclusively prevails. First
comes Guria along the shore and the bend of the mountains; Imeritia
extends on either bank of the Rion and as far as the pass of Suram;
Mingrelia is the name of the country on the north of the Kolchian
river, and it is bounded by Imeritia in the east.
For a distance of some fifteen miles the landscape was monotonous;
on the one hand the almost vertical bulwark of the mountains, on the
other the little grey waves breaking on the stony shore. But just
before we arrived at the station of Kobulety the oppressive proximity
of the range was relaxed, the country opened, and between low forest
and maize-grown clearings the soil-charged waters of a river wound
their way down towards the sea. It was the commencement of the
scenery which is characteristic of Guria, a tract of virgin woodland
which clothes the spurs of the receding chain and the alluvial flats
and marshes of the coast. Rolling hills take the place of the abrupt
wall of rock; they are covered with a jungle of bush and little trees,
which is broken here and there by irregular patches planted with Indian
corn. Dark streams heavy with loam descend between high banks. Not
a village could we see, nor any human habitation; distant prospects
were obscured by a veil of mist. Yet the day was fairly fine, and, if
the clouds were deeply banked on the horizon, the zenith often burst
to pure blue. As we proceeded, the forest increased both in grandeur
and in luxuriance; clusters of magnificent trees rose from the bush
and above the brushwood, until the features of hill and spur became
lost beneath the lofty overgrowth and transformed to masses or ledges
of tall stems and spreading branches outlined against the sky. The
withered forks of lifeless trunks stood out in grim relief from this
ground of shadow, or were projected in weird tracery upon the field
of light--an eloquent proof that no human hand had yet disturbed the
natural order of these primeval woods. The sea was lost behind leafy
brakes festooned with luscious creepers, which flourish with almost
tropical development in this warm climate and upon this soaking
soil. Not a single road did we see; the stations are mere stages,
and the only sign of the presence of man was one of the long-legged
dappled pigs so common in Imeritia, which was trespassing on the line.
Such are the characteristics which broadly prevail between Kobulety
and Lanchkhuty, a space of some twenty-four miles. But we had not yet
reached the latter station, which is situated due north of the capital
of Guria, Ozurgeti, when new features were discovered in the scene. On
the left hand the view opened across an even country where the sappy
stems and reed-like forms and flowers of the maize-plants alternated
with stretches of unreclaimed bush; and in the distance a bold hill,
only partially wooded, projected into the plain from a long, vague
line of mountains which closed the horizon on the north. We felt that
these must surely be the spurs of Caucasus, and that the Phasis would
shortly be disclosed.
You cross that fabled river--the modern Rion--by the commonplace
method of a railway bridge; it flows between high banks through
the wide expanse of these surroundings on the southern margin of the
plain. Some distance east of these lower reaches the impetuous current
that has pierced the Caucasus, from which it issues at Kutais, has
been deflected by the mountains of the southern border, which turn
it towards the west. You do not follow its tortuous course, which
skirts the outworks of these mountains as they stretch inwards from
the coast; the ground is flat, the railroad points more directly for
the capital at the foot of the great chain on the north.
Mile upon mile the plain of the Rion was unfolded about us, a fertile
province which might be made the granary of Georgia, but which would
now appear to produce little else but the lowest of the cereals,
an endless succession of plantations of Indian corn. The land is
ill-reclaimed; little labour has been expended, and the bush starts
up among the canes. At the stations we remarked groups of women and
young girls clad in loose cotton dresses with cotton kerchiefs on
their heads. Geese strutted along the line or paddled in the shallow
streams, and we became familiar with the strange appearance of the
Imeritian pigs. But still no village! At rare intervals a wooden hut
with a large verandah, and here and there among the maize one of the
rude wooden stages erected to command a prospect over the fields.
As we advanced, the dim and misty boundary of the Caucasus took shape
and colour about the lower slopes. The soft hues of vegetation,
the brighter flashes of naked strata were distinguished from the
uncertain background of rock and cloud; bold ridges with fantastic
outlines stood up on the horizon; but here and there the white
vapour was still clinging to their highest parapets and spreading
fanwise to the brief circle of clear sky. Above them lay a world
of half-lights and banked cloud-masses, the veiled presence of the
main chain. Behind us rose the wooded ridges of the southern range,
till they vanished in the folds of the murky canopy which they hold
so firmly and love so well; but the marshes had disappeared and the
lowest spurs which met the plain were almost devoid of trees. On our
point of course the two great ranges appeared to mingle together and
arrest our even progress towards the east.
For a second time we were overlooking the stream of the Rion to regain
the left bank. It was flowing with a rapid current in a direct line
from the Caucasus, channelling the beached-up shingle of an extensive
bed. In places the waters spread in shallow lakes and deposit a thick
sediment of soil. This upper portion of the plain is barren and stony;
it is partially covered with a low jungle of bush. It is confined on
either side by the meeting flanks of the mountains; and as we made
our way due north with the river serpenting beneath us, all prospect
on our right hand was shut out by rising ground clothed with a forest
of low oak trees.
On the opposite slopes, among the deepening tints of wood and
clearing, beneath the growing distinction of light and shade, we
could discern the white faces of a few scattered houses and then the
gardens among which they stood. Two larger buildings were apparent,
crowned with conical cupolas, of which the roofing was coloured a
soft green. Such are the outskirts of Kutais; the town is hidden
from the plain. Towering above the scene and almost infinitely high,
we might feel vaguely but could scarcely see the gigantic framework
of Caucasus, except where here and there a dazzling light among the
clouds revealed the presence of a snowfield in the sky.
We were tempted to linger in the capital of Imeritia, and I can
confidently recommend to the more leisurely traveller a protracted
stay in this fascinating place. You will never tire of the beauty
of site and grandeur of surroundings, while few street scenes are
more picturesque than those which are disclosed during an afternoon
ramble in the Jewish quarter of Kutais. It is a convenient centre
for excursions into the recesses of Caucasus, and you have only
to follow the windings of the valley of the Rion to be introduced
to the inmost sanctuaries of the chain. In the ruins of the noble
cathedral beyond the outskirts of the town, in the neighbouring and
well-preserved monastery of Gelat, with its enchanting prospect from
the slopes of Caucasus over the open landscape of the south, both the
archæologist and the student of architecture will discover an abundant
source of interest; while, if the study of Nature herself be among
the objects of your journey, what richer field could be offered to
the geologist or the naturalist than these mountains and untouched
forests and flowery hills? But we ourselves were hurried away by the
exigencies of travel after a short sojourn of two and a half days,
and my present purpose must be confined to the elucidation of those
natural features which accompanied the early stages of our ascent to
Armenia, and which were unfolded to our view in an extensive panorama
from the declivities about Kutais.
I shall therefore take my reader to some convenient standpoint in
the environs, let us say to the cliffs on the right bank of the Rion
and the hill upon which the massive ruins of the cathedral rise on
the sky-line above the leafy brakes (Fig. 6, a). I can show you the
position from the opposite bank of the river in a picture which was
taken over a mile above the town from the road which ascends the
valley and which we followed on our way to Gelat (Fig. 6). The Rion
is flowing from you into the middle distance coming from the north;
Kutais itself is hidden by a wooded promontory (Fig. 6, d); but you
see the group of buildings which compose the Armenian and the Catholic
churches, and which crown the extreme northerly projection of the site
(Fig. 6, b). Three bridges span the Rion where it sweeps past the town
confined between lofty banks, and lead from the busy streets to the
peaceful heights which overlook them and command all the landscape
of the plain. I cannot imagine a more charming walk than by the hill
church of St. George (Fig. 6, c) to the pleasant eminence which I
have already described.
We reach our point, and there before us expands the open landscape of
which the second photograph embraces a considerable part (Fig. 7). We
are standing on the southern slopes of Caucasus, with a wide belt of
hill and ridge behind us, and, beyond and far above such familiar
natural features, the white serrations and air-borne snowfields of
the inmost chain. The atmosphere is fresh and crisp even at this
season and with this temperature; [9] and banks of white cloud float
in the sky. At our feet lies Kutais, with head upon the hillside and
foot upon the margin of the plain; the eye follows the winding river
which has just escaped from Caucasus and is flowing outwards towards
the opposite range; the horizon is closed by that wall of mountain,
emerging solid from a tender veil of mist. The plain itself is flat as
water; it is coloured with the golden hues of the ripening maize-fields
and featured by a labyrinth of vague detail. On the left hand, outside
the photograph, a little north of east, you just discern high on the
slopes beyond the left bank of the Rion the site of the monastery of
Gelat; and the other day we thought we could descry from its lofty
terrace, at the base of a distant promontory of Caucasus the shimmer
of the sea in the west.
Let us realise for a moment the meaning of the landscape, and allow the
mind to assist the eye. The opposite mountains belong to the girdle of
ranges which buttress the Armenian tableland, the same which we have
followed along the coast of the Black Sea, and which we left at our
entrance upon the plain of the Rion stretching eastwards away from the
shore. Here they constitute the barrier which separates the lowlands
of Imeritia from the highlands about Akhaltsykh in the south; and,
if you wish to examine the structure of this barrier more closely,
you will find that the back or spine of the system consists of a
ridge which extends in an easterly direction to about the longitude
of Tiflis. The Caucasus, with an axis inclining south-eastwards, steps
up to this latitudinal chain, and just east of Kutais the two systems
join hands in the belt of picturesque hill scenery which divides
the watershed of the Kur from that of the Rion, and which we already
know under the name of the Meschic linking range. East of Tiflis the
axis of the Armenian border ranges is turned towards south-east, and
follows a direction parallel with that of Caucasus along the trough of
the Kur towards the Caspian Sea. Like the Caucasus here in the north,
its opposite neighbour, that southern bulwark extends from sea to sea;
and some geographers have applied to it the name of Little Caucasus,
a misleading and, if we attach importance to the phenomena of Nature, a
most inappropriate name. For while the northern range may be described
as an isolated and independent structure--independent in appearance
at least--which rises on the one side from about the same levels as
those to which on the other side it declines, that on the south is in
reality nothing more than a succession of steps or buttresses which
lead up to and flank the Armenian highlands. The first stages of our
journey will conduct us up the slopes of those mountains, from a plain
which does not much exceed the sea-level, across a ridge of which
the pass has an altitude of about 7000 feet, to plains which range
between a height of 7000 and not less than 3000 feet above the sea.
August 25.--From Kutais to where the southern range perceptibly
commences to gather, about the village of Bagdad, is a direct distance
of close on fifteen miles. So even is the plain that the road makes
little deviation and covers the space in seventeen miles. At half-past
eight on the morning of the 25th of August our victoria, drawn by
four horses abreast, made its start from the little hotel in which we
had lodged; it was followed by the cart which we had engaged for the
luggage and to which was harnessed a similar team. We had hired both
conveyances for the whole of the journey to Abastuman on the further
slopes of the southern range; the regular avenue of communication with
that summer watering-place is by the valley of the Kur and Borjom,
and it is necessary to make your own arrangements if you desire to
take the Imeritian road. We spent five hours upon the first stage of
only seventeen miles; our coachman was obliged to harbour the strength
of his horses for the long ascent to the summit of the chain, and we
were always halting to take photographs and to realise the interest
of the magnificent scenery which forms the distant setting of these
lowlands. We were crossing the uppermost portion of the plain of the
Rion, where it rises to the belt of hill and mountain which links
the northern with the southern range; long stretches of woodland
with an undergrowth of wild rhododendron had taken the place of the
expanse of golden maize-fields, broken by little trees and intervals
of bush. To emerge from the shady avenue upon a tract of open country
was to feast our eyes upon a landscape of no ordinary character. On
the one hand the airy pinnacles and gleaming snowfields of Caucasus,
on the other the forest-clad walls of the Armenian border chain;
in the west the varied detail that covers the floor of the plain as
with a carpet, and behind us the spurs meeting in the east.
We were impressed by the hush of life over the plain and in the
woodlands, by the sparseness of human habitations, and by the absence
of traffic along the road. Such are the certain signs in the East of
economical stagnation, when man is idle and the earth sleeps. It was
therefore with pleasure that about one o'clock we came upon a tiny
village and lingered beneath a spreading tree. Not very far from this
little settlement we crossed a stream at the base of the mountains,
and at half-past one we came to a halt in the street of the village of
Bagdad, after a short but perceptible rise. We noticed some vineyards
during the course of our upward progress; the elevation of Bagdad,
according to the single reading of my barometer, is 922 feet. [10]
It is at Bagdad that you begin the ascent of the mountains of the
southern border. So broad is the range, the pass so lofty and the
road so tortuous, that it would be no easy matter to cross them in
a single day. The direct distance measured on a map from the village
to the pass is no less than seventeen miles, and along the road you
cover some thirty-one miles. There is a hut at about half-way which
is a convenient night's quarter, and we resolved to make it the goal
of our second stage.
We left Bagdad at three o'clock, with the valleys still open about us,
with the wooded slopes rising on every side. After we had passed to the
right branch of the stream which we had crossed below the village, the
gradients commenced to make themselves felt, and here and there among
the foliage the first fir trees started, the delicate blue firs. We
followed the course of the running water up the spacious valley,
through the forest which clothes the range from foot to summit and
stands up along the ridges against the sky.
The saturated atmosphere and warm climate of the seaboard were
still with us; the one feeds, the other stimulates this luxuriant
growth. Even on this fine day the clouds still lingered in the
uppermost hollows, and when at four o'clock we opened up a beautiful
side valley, all the landscape of wooded fork and winding torrent
reflected the silvery hues of a crown of captive vapour clinging to
the recesses at the head of the glen.
Verst after verst we might count our progress on the white milestones,
but we rarely observed a sign of the presence of man. A Georgian
wayfarer, staff in hand, a peasant's cottage with its wide verandah,
were the infrequent incidents in a scene which still belonged to
Nature, and with which such figures and such objects harmonised. At
last at the side of the road where the forest was thickest we came
upon a solitary little cabin, a neat wooden structure, which we at
once recognised as our shelter for the night. It was a quarter-past
seven o'clock and we had reached an altitude of 1900 feet. [11]
During the space of some fourteen miles from our mid-day station,
the valley to which we had throughout been faithful had narrowed to a
deep trough; and an hour before our arrival at the hut of Zikari the
read was taken for a short space along the left bank of the stream,
in order to avoid a projecting buttress of its eastern wall.
August 26.--Some distance below the hut the stream which we had
followed is joined by a tributary coming from the east; the two
branches of the fork collect a number of smaller affluents which have
their sources near the summit of the chain. In continuing our course
next morning up the more westerly of these branches, we were rapidly
transported to the more open landscapes of the higher slopes, and made
our way almost in a direct line for the pass, circling the outworks
of the principal ridge. Filmy white clouds were suspended from the
pine woods above us, when at a quarter-past seven we again took to
the road; but for five hours the forest trees remained with us and
increased rather than diminished in size. In one place it was a lime
of unusual proportions rearing a maze of branches from a quadruple
trunk; at another we stood in wonder before a gigantic beech which
measured 17 feet 6 inches round the base. The undergrowth was supplied
by laurel and holly, and cascades leapt from the rocks. The reader
may see our road as it wound through this sylvan scenery (Fig. 8),
but he must allow his imagination to supply the inherent deficiencies
of photographic methods. The rare inhabitants of these solitudes are
of Georgian race and wear the dress of Georgia (Fig. 9), but their
straggling tenements are few and far between.
Above the forest the groves of fir, higher still the grassy slopes
and naked crags--such is the familiar order of mountain scenery as
you slowly rise to the spine of a range. The two last features became
apparent at the sixty-sixth verst-stone, or some twelve and a half
miles from the hut. A profusion of wild raspberries were growing on
the mossy banks and provided us with a delicious meal. We remarked the
sharpness of the summits of the ridge above us and read the number of
the seventy-second verst. The pass is just above this lofty standpoint,
and we left the carriage to reach it by a short cut. We arrived there
after a brief climb to find a fresh breeze blowing and all the wide
belt of mountain at our feet.
I doubt whether there exists in the nearer Asia a standpoint which
commands a prospect at once so grand and so instructive as that which
is unfolded from the summit of the Zikar Pass (Zikarski Perival;
altitude by my Hicks mountain aneroid, 7164 feet; Russian survey,
7104 feet). With its double front towards north and south and the
contrasting features of the dual landscape, it may be said to overlook
two worlds. On the north the view ranges across the broad belt of
wooded mountains, which culminate in this ridge, to the gigantic
barrier of the Caucasus of which the peaks are distant some ninety to
a hundred miles (Fig. 10). Invisible in the hollow lies the plain of
the Rion; the crests before you, boldly vaulted and clad with forest
to the very summits, sweep away to a dim horizon of grey mist; above
that uncertain background the snows and glaciers of Caucasus appear
suspended in the air among the clouds. Dense vapour shrouds the scene,
and above the flashes of the snow a long bank of white cloud spreads
fanwise up the sky.
But turn to the south--the forms and texture of the earth's surface,
the lights and shadows falling through a rarer atmosphere from lightly
floating filaments of cloud, are those of a new world (Fig. 11). The
pine wood still struggles down the hillside, and gathers from the
blighted trunks around you to clothe the first valleys of the southern
watershed. But the view will no longer close with successive walls of
mountain; the road ceases winding up the slopes of successive outworks;
every vertical line, each deep vaulting relaxes and disappears. The
highest plains of the tableland attain about the same elevation as
the pass upon which you stand; all the outlines in the distance are
horizontal, all the shapes shallow-vaulted and convex. If you follow
the long-drawn profiles of the loftier masses, it is the form of a cone
that breaks the sky-line, and never that of a peak. The colours are
lightly washed ochres and madders; the surface of the volcanic soil
is bare of all vegetation; the shadows lie transparent and thin. Such
was our first view of Armenia and such the impression which our later
travel confirmed.