Mehemet Pasha was living during the fast of Ramazan in a kiosk in one of the gardens outside the city walls. We had scarcely eaten, before he came himself to welcome us to Wan. He was the son of the last Bostandji-Bashi of Constantinople, and having been brought up from a child in the imperial palace, was a man of pleasing and dignified manners, and of considerable information. Although he had never left his native country, he was not ignorant of the habits and customs of Europe. He had long served the Sultan in difficult and responsible posts, and to his discretion and sagacity was chiefly to be attributed the subjugation of Beder-Khan Bey and the rebel Kurdish tribes. His rule was mild and conciliating, and he possessed those qualities so rare in a Turkish governor, yet so indispensable to the civilisation and well-being of the empire,—a strict honesty in the administration of the revenues of his province, and a sense of justice beyond the reach of bribes. From Christians and Kurds we had received during our journey through his pashalic, the highest testimony to his tolerance and integrity.

In the evening I returned his visit, and found him surrounded by the chiefs and elders of the city, and by the officers of his household. I sat with him till midnight, the time passing in that agreeable conversation which a well-educated Turk so well knows how to sustain.

I remained a week at Wan, chiefly engaged in copying the cuneiform inscriptions, and in examining its numerous remarkable monuments of antiquity.

The city is of very ancient date. It stands on the borders of a large and beautiful lake, a site eminently suited to a prosperous community. The lofty mountains bordering the inland sea to the east, here recede in the form of an amphitheatre, leaving a rich plain five or six miles in breadth, in the midst of which rises an isolated calcareous rock. To the summit of this natural stronghold, there is no approach, except on the western side, where a gradual but narrow ascent is defended by the walls and bastions. From the earliest ages it has consequently been the acropolis of the city, and no position could be stronger before the discovery of the engines of modern warfare. The fortifications and castle, of a comparatively recent date, are now in ruins, and are scarcely defensible, with their few rusty guns, against the attacks of the neighbouring Kurds.

According to Armenian history, the Assyrian queen Semiramis founded the city; it having fallen to decay, it is said to have been rebuilt, shortly before the invasion of Alexander the Great, by an Armenian king named Wan, after whom it was subsequently called. It appears to have been again abandoned, for we find that it was once more raised from its foundations in the second century B. C. by Vagharschag, the first king of the Arsacian dynasty of Armenia, who made it the strongest city in the kingdom. In the eleventh century it was ceded by the royal family of the Ardz-rounis to the Greek emperors, from whom it was taken by the Seljuk Turks. It fell, in 1392, into the hands of Timourlane, who, according to his custom, gave the inhabitants over to the sword. Even in his day, the great monuments of solid stone, raised by the Assyrian queen, were still shown to the stranger.

Moses of Chorene, the early historian of Armenia, has faithfully described its position and its antiquities; the isolated hill, rising in the midst of a broad plain covered with flourishing villages, and watered by innumerable streams; the chapels, chambers, treasuries, and caverns cut in the living rock, and the great inscriptions written, as it were, on the face of the precipice, as pages are written with a pen on wax.

The first traveller who, in modern times, examined the remarkable remains of antiquity at Wan was the unfortunate Schulz. He visited the place in 1827. The cuneiform inscriptions carved on the rock were known to exist long before his day, but he was the first to copy them, and from his copies they have been published by the Asiatic Society of France. Since the time of Schulz, the city has undergone many changes. It was seized by the rebel Kurdish chief, Khan Mahmoud; but after many vain attempts made to recover the place, it finally yielded two years before my journey. Under the mild rule of Mehemet Pasha it was rapidly rising to prosperity. The protection he had given to the Armenians had encouraged that enterprising and industrious people to enlarge their commerce, and to build warehouses for trade. Two handsome khans, with bazars attached, were nearly finished. Shops for the sale of European articles of clothing and of luxury had been opened; and, what was of still more importance, several native schools had already been established. These improvements were chiefly due to one SharÂn, an Armenian merchant and a man of liberal and enlightened views, who had seconded with energy and liberality the desire of the Pasha to ameliorate the social condition of the Christian population.[164]

Shortly after my arrival, the Armenian bishop called upon me. He was dressed in the peculiar costume of his order,—long black robes and a capacious black hood almost concealing his head,—and was accompanied by the priests and principal laymen of his diocese. On his breast he wore the rich diamond crescent and star of the Turkish order of merit, of which he was justly proud. Although he had been duly elected several years before to his episcopal dignity, he still wanted the formal consecration of the patriarch of his church, owing to difficulties connected with the political position of the patriarch; he was now, however, on the eve of his departure to receive that consecration which was essential to his due admission into the Armenian hierarchy.

The modern town of Wan stands at the foot, and to the south of, the isolated rock. Its streets and bazars are small, narrow, and dirty; but its houses are not ill built. It is surrounded by fruitful gardens and orchards, irrigated by artificial rivulets derived from the streams rising in the Yedi Klissia mountains. It may contain between twelve and fifteen thousand inhabitants. The whole pashalic at the time of my visit paid an annual sum of six thousand purses (about 27,000l.) to the Turkish treasury. In the town there was a garrison of a thousand foot and five hundred horse, and the commander of the troops in the district and in the adjoining province of Hakkiari was at the head of five thousand men.[165]

The old hereditary pashas of Wan, as well as the principal families, were of Turkish origin, and came, I was informed by some of their descendants, from Konia (Iconium), about three hundred years ago. The chiefs, however, of the surrounding districts are Kurds. Two families, named the Topchi-oglus and the Timour-oglus, divided the town into opposite factions, which were continually at war, and carried their bloody feuds almost daily into the streets. The Timour-oglus were the most powerful, and it was through their means that Khan Mahmoud possessed himself of the place.The inscriptions of Wan are of two distinct periods, though all of the cuneiform writing. The most ancient are in a character identical with that on the oldest monuments of Assyria. The earliest inscriptions are found on two square stones built into a wall near the western gateway of the city, and immediately beneath the only entrance to the castle. The language of these inscriptions appears to be Assyrian, whilst that of all the others is peculiar to Wan. Nevertheless the names of the kings in them can be genealogically connected with those on the other monuments.

But the most important records at Wan are carved on the southern face of the isolated rock, round the entrance to a set of excavated chambers, probably once serving as tombs. As those inscriptions record the victories and deeds of a monarch, it is highly probable that they were placed over royal sepulchres.

A flight of twenty narrow steps cut in the perpendicular face of the precipice, and partly destroyed, so as to be somewhat difficult and dangerous, leads to a narrow ledge, above which the rock has been carefully smoothed, and is still covered with inscriptions in the cuneiform character. Here an entrance, about 7 feet deep, opens into a hall, 34½ feet long, by nearly 21 wide and 12 high, leading by four doorways into as many distinct chambers. Around its walls are window-like recesses, and between them, and on each side of the doorways, are ornamental niches, with holes in the centre, which may have held metal lamps. The floor has been excavated in two places into squares a few inches deep; I cannot conjecture for what purpose.

The door to the left on entering leads into a small chamber, 11 ft. 8 in., by 9 ft. 8 in., surrounded by similar window-like recesses. In it is a second doorway opening upon a well or pit, filled to within a few feet of the mouth with stones and rubbish. There were no means of ascertaining its depth or original use without removing the contents. The three other doors in the entrance hall lead to square rooms, surrounded by niches, but without other ornament. The excavations are sometimes called by the Turks “Khorkhor Mugaralari,” the caves of Khorkhor, from a garden of that name below them.

The inscriptions on the face of the rock around the outer entrance to these chambers are contained in eight parallel columns, including in all above 300 lines and thirteen consecutive paragraphs. The letters are large and admirably carved, and the writing is divided by horizontal lines. These rock-tablets are the records of a king whose name, according to Dr. Hincks, is Arghistis. He invokes the gods of his nation, and celebrates the conquest of various peoples or tribes, whose names still require to be identified, but who probably inhabited countries to the north of Armenia; he describes the burning of their temples and palaces, and the carrying away of captives and of an immense spoil of horses, camels, cattle, and sheep, the numbers of each being given with apparent exactness. The name of the region in which these conquests were chiefly made, seems to read Mana.

The remaining inscriptions are on the northern face of the rock. They are five in number. The longest and most important contains twenty-nine lines, and is on the side wall to the left on entering an artificial vaulted recess. It has been partly destroyed by a rude cross cut by the Armenians across the tablet. The cave is called the “Khazana Kapousi,” or the treasure gate, and is held to be a sacred spot by Christians and Mussulmans.

An inscription of seventeen lines is carved at the entrance to a second artificial chamber, and on tablets cut in the rock are three more, each of nineteen lines, word for word alike, but with orthographical variations in the royal name.

Four of these inscriptions belong to the father of the king, who recorded his conquests on the southern face of the rock. His name, according to Dr. Hincks, may be read Minuas. They merely contain the royal titles and invocations to the gods. The long inscription in the vaulted recess is of the grandson of Minuas, the latest king mentioned on the monuments of Wan. It is of considerable interest as containing the name of a country, which Dr. Hincks identifies with Babylon, and as enumerating, first in detail, the amount of booty taken from three different countries, and afterwards giving the total amount of the whole. By this double account, the one checking the other, a clue was afforded to the signs representing numerals in the Assyrian inscriptions, as well as to their respective values, a discovery for which we are indebted to the sagacity of Dr. Hincks.

The Pasha had kindly placed the “Mimar Bashi,” or architect in chief of the town, an honest Armenian, named NikÒos, under my orders during my researches at Wan. The excavations, however, which were made came to no result worth mentioning.

About a mile and a half to the east of the town, near a small village in the gardens of Wan, is a recess in the rock 15 feet 8 inches high, and 6 feet 7 inches broad, containing a long cuneiform inscription. The inscription is called Meher Kapousi, which, according to the people of Wan, means the Shepherd’s Gate, from a tradition that a shepherd, having fallen asleep beneath it, was told in a dream the magic word that opened the spell-bound portal. He awoke and straightway tried the talisman. The stone doors flew apart, disclosing to his wondering eyes a vast hall filled with inexhaustible treasures; but as he entered they shut again behind him. He filled with gold the bag in which, as he tended his flocks, he carried his daily food. After repeating the magic summons, he was permitted to issue into the open air. But he had left his crook, and must return for it. The doors were once more unclosed at his bidding. He sought to retrace his steps, but had forgotten the talisman. His faithful dog waited outside until nightfall. As its master did not come back, it then took up the bag of gold and carrying it to the shepherd’s wife, led her to the gates of the cave. She could hear the cries of her husband, and they are heard to this day, but none can give him help.

The inscription of the Meher Kapousi originally consisted of ninety-five lines, comprising the same record twice repeated. Only about sixty are now legible. Near the Shepherd’s Gate the rocks are excavated into a vast number of caves. In some places long flights of steps lead nowhere, but finish abruptly in the face of the perpendicular precipice; in others the cliff is scarped to a great height without any apparent object. A singular shaft, with stairs, leading into a cavern, is called Zimzim. It is difficult to account for the use and origin of these singular excavations; their height from the plain and their inaccessible position almost preclude the idea of their having been quarries.

Several slabs of black basalt, inscribed with cuneiform characters, have been built into the interior walls of two ancient Armenian churches within the town of Wan. In the church of St. Peter and St. Paul I found parts of four legends, which are historical, containing a record of the capture of many cities, and of the amount of spoil carried away from conquered countries. In the church of Surp Sahak I was able to transcribe two inscriptions, one under the altar, the other in the vestibule beneath the level of the floor, which had to be broken up and removed before I could reach the stone. The longest consists of forty lines, the other of twenty-seven. The beginning and ending of the lines in both are wanting.

The only inscription at Wan that I could not copy was the trilingual tablet of Xerxes. It is on the most inaccessible part of the rock, about seventy or eighty feet above the plain. Not having a glass of sufficient power, I was unable to distinguish the characters from below. As it had been accurately transcribed by Schulz, and resembles those of the same king at Persepolis and Hamadan, I did not think it necessary to incur any risk or expense in reaching it by means of ropes or scaffolding.[166]

In the rock there are numerous excavated chambers, some even exceeding in dimensions those I have described; but, with the exception of a simple seat or bench of stone, about two and a half feet high on one side of them, they are perfectly plain and unornamented. They appear to have been used as tombs. Some are approached by flights of steps cut in the precipice; others are altogether inaccessible except by ropes from above.

It is yet doubtful to what family of languages the Wan inscriptions must be assigned. Some believe it to be a Tatar dialect; Dr. Hincks, on the contrary, is of opinion that it is Indo-Germanic. Two of the inscriptions, and the earliest in date, as I have already observed, are in pure Assyrian.

With regard to the date of the monuments there appears to be a clue which may enable us to fix it with some degree of certainty. In an inscription from Khorsabad, amongst the kings conquered by Sargon one is mentioned whose name corresponds with Arghistis, the fifth in the Wan dynasty. Supposing the two, therefore, to be the same, and there is no reason to doubt their being so, we may assume that the monarchs of the Wan records reigned from about the middle of the eighth century before Christ to the end of the seventh; and the evidence afforded by the forms of the characters leads to this conjecture.

At sunrise, on the 8th August, the roaring of cannon, re-echoed by the lofty rock, announced the end of Ramazan, and the beginning of the periodical festivities of the Bairam. Early in the morning the Pasha, glittering with gold and jewels, and surrounded by the members of his household, the officers of the garrison, and the gaily-dressed chiefs of the irregular troops, rode in procession through the streets of the town. As it is customary he received in the palace the visits of the cadi, mollahs, and principal Mussulman inhabitants of Wan, as well as of the bishop, clergy, and elders of the Armenian church. The population, rejoicing at their release from a fast almost intolerable in summer, decked themselves in holiday garments, and made merry in the houses and highways. The sounds of music and revelry issued from the coffee-houses and places of public resort. The children repaired to swings, merry-go-rounds, and stalls of sweetmeats, which had been raised in the open spaces within the walls. The Christians add the feast to their own festivals, already too numerous,[167] and, like their Mussulman neighbours, pay visits of compliment and ceremony. Their women, who are said to be handsome, but are even more rigidly concealed than the Mohammedan ladies, crept through the streets in their long white veils.

I called in the evening on the bishop, and next morning, at his invitation, visited the principal schools. Five have been established since the fall of the Kurdish Beys, and the enjoyment of comparative protection by the Christian population. Only one had been opened within the walls; the rest were in the gardens, which are thickly inhabited by Armenians, and form extensive suburbs to Wan. More than two hundred children of all ages were assembled. They went through their exercises and devotions at the sound of a bell with great order and precision, alternately standing and squatting on their hams on small cushions placed in rows across the hall. An outer room held basins and towels for washing, and the cloaks and shoes taken off on entering. Books were scarce. There were not more than a score in the whole school. The first class, which had made some progress, had a few elementary works on astronomy and history, published by the Armenian press at Constantinople and Smyrna, but only one copy of each. The boys, at my request, sang and chanted their prayers, and repeated their simple lessons.

Such schools, imperfect though they be, are proofs of a great and increasing improvement in the Christian communities of Turkey.[168] A change of considerable importance, and which, it is to be hoped, may lead to the most beneficial results, is now taking place in the Armenian Church. It is undoubtedly to be attributed to the judicious, earnest, and zealous exertions of the American missionaries; their establishments, scattered over nearly the whole Turkish empire, have awakened amongst the Christians, and principally amongst the Armenians, a spirit of inquiry and a desire for the reform of abuses, and for the cultivation of their minds, which must ultimately tend to raise their political, as well as their social, position in the human scale. It is scarcely fifteen years since the first institution for Christian instruction on Protestant (independent) principles was opened by those excellent men in Constantinople. By a wise selection of youths from different parts of the empire, who from their character and abilities were deemed worthy of the choice, they were shortly enabled to send into the provinces those who could sow the seeds of truth and knowledge, without incurring the suspicions attaching to strangers, and without laboring under that ignorance of the manners and languages of those amongst whom they mix, which must always prove so serious an obstacle to foreigners in their intercourse with the natives. A movement of this nature could scarcely escape persecution. The Armenian clergy, not unfavorable to the darkness and bigotry which had for centuries disgraced their Church, and exercising an uncontrolled power over an ignorant and simple people, soon raised a cry against the “Evangelists,” as they were contemptuously called. By such misrepresentations and calumnies as are always ready at hand to the enemies of progress and reform, they were able to enlist in their favor the Turkish authorities at the capital and in the provinces. Unfortunately, four sects alone, the Roman Catholic, the Armenian, the Greek, and the Copt, were recognised by the Porte amongst their Christian subjects. The reformed Armenian Church was consequently without an acknowledged head, and unable, to communicate directly with the government, to make known its tenets, or to complain of the acts of injustice and persecution to which it was exposed. Many persons fell victims to their opinions. Some were cruelly tortured in the house of the Patriarch himself, and others were imprisoned or utterly ruined in Constantinople and the provinces. Through the exertions of the English minister at Constantinople, a firman was obtained from the Sultan, placing the new Protestant community on the same footing as the other Churches of the empire, assigning to it a head, or agent, through whom it could apply directly to the ministers, and extending to it other privileges enjoyed by the Roman Catholics and Greeks. Fortunately for the cause, many men of irreproachable character, and of undoubted sincerity from the Armenian nation have been associated with it, and its success has not been endangered, like that of so many other movements of the same kind, by interested, or hasty conversions.

The influence of this spirit of inquiry, fostered by the American missions, has not been alone confined to those who have been cut off from their own community. The Armenian clergy have found it their true interest to promote reform in their own Church. Schools in opposition to the American establishments have been opened in the capital and in most of the large towns of Asia Minor; and elementary and theological works, of a far more liberal character than any hitherto published in Turkey, have been printed by Armenian printing-presses in Constantinople and Smyrna, or introduced into the country from Venice.

Whilst on this subject, and connected as I have been with the Nestorians, I must not omit a tribute of praise to the admirable establishments of the American missions amongst the ChaldÆans of Ooroomiyah in Persia, under the able direction of the Rev. Mr. Perkins.[169] It was with much regret that I was compelled to give up the plan I had formed of visiting that small colony from the New World. The Rev. Mr. Bowen, who crossed the frontiers from Wan, has in a true Christian spirit borne witness in the English Church to the enlightened and liberal spirit in which their labors are carried on. Forty or fifty schools have been opened in the town of Ooroomiyah and surrounding villages. The abuses that have crept into this primitive and highly interesting Church are being reformed, and the ignorance of its simple clergy gradually dispelled. A printing-press, for which type has been purposely cut, now publishes for general circulation the Scriptures and works of education in the dialect and character peculiar to the mountain tribes. The English language has been planted in the heart of Asia, and the benefits of knowledge are extended to a race which, a few years ago, was almost unknown even by name to Europe.

The Armenian bishop of Wan was not wanting in intelligence and in liberal feeling; but, like most of his order, he was profoundly ignorant. The convents of Wan and of the neighbourhood, he said, were once rich in ancient manuscripts, but they had been carried away by camel-loads some two hundred years before by the Persians, and were believed still to be preserved in Isfahan. With the exception of a few printed copies of the Scriptures, and some religious works for the use of the churches, there are now no books in the city. He received with pleasure from Mr. Bowen a copy of the New Testament in the vulgar Armenian tongue, remarking that it would be a great advantage to the common people to have a version of the Scriptures in a language which they could understand. He was probably not aware that the head of his church had utterly condemned its use, and had anathematised all those who received it.

My companions had been compelled, from ill health, to leave the plain, and had taken refuge in the convent of Yedi Klissia, from the sultry heats of the plain. Before joining them, I visited the village of Amikh, where, according to my Armenian guide, NikÒos, an inscription was engraved on the rocks. I left the city on the 10th of August; but the time and labor bestowed resulted only in disappointment.

From Amikh I rode across the country in a direct line to the monastery of Yedi Klissia, whose gardens on the side of the lofty mountain of Wurrak are visible from most parts of the plain. I stopped for an hour at the church of Kormawor before ascending to the convent. An aged priest, with beard white as snow, and wearing a melon-shaped cap, and long black robes, was the guardian of the place. He led me into an arcade surrounding the inner court of the building. Seeing that I was a Frank, he fancied at once that I was searching for inscriptions, and pointed to a circular stone, the base of a wooden column, which, he said, he had shown many years before to a traveller, meaning Schulz. It bears three imperfect lines of cuneiform writing, part of an inscription belonging to one of the Wan kings, whose name Dr. Hincks read Minuas. It appears to record the foundation of a temple. A second inscription on a black stone, and several fragments with the same royal name, are built into the walls.

Eight hours’ ride from Amikh brought me to the large Armenian convent of Yedi Klissia, or the seven churches, built of substantial stone masonry, and inclosing a spacious courtyard planted with trees. It has more the appearance of a caravanserai than that of a place of religious retreat, and is beautifully situated near the mouth of a wooded ravine, half-way up a bold mountain, which ends in snowy peaks. Spread beneath it is a blue lake and a smiling plain, and the city, with its bold castellated rock, and its turreted walls half hid in gardens and orchards.

The church, a substantial modern edifice, stands within the courtyard. Its walls are covered with pictures as primitive in design as in execution. There is a victorious St. George blowing out the brains of a formidable dragon with a bright brass blunderbuss, and saints, attired in the traditionary garments of Europe, performing extravagant miracles. The intelligence of the good priest at the head of the convent was pretty well on a par with his illustrated church history. He was a specimen of the Armenian clergy of Asia Minor. As he described each subject to me, he spoke of the Nestorians as heretics, because they were allowed, by the canons of their church, to marry their mothers and grandmothers; of the Protestants as freemasons or atheists; and of the great nations of Europe as the Portuguese, the Inglese, the Muscovs, and the Abbash (Abyssinians).

I found two short cuneiform inscriptions; one on a stone amongst the ruins of the old church, the other built into the walls of the new. They also belong to Minuas, and merely contain the name and titles of the king.