Four years had elapsed since the close of my last journey. Armenia had in the meanwhile been the scene of tragedies which had touched the conscience of the West. Petty disturbances among the mountaineers in the wild fastnesses of Sasun, south of Mush, were magnified by the provincial authorities into the appearance of a revolution, and were suppressed with savage cruelty. The example of a single massacre was not sufficient to overawe the Armenians; the Palace had tasted blood, and their special agents throughout the provinces were eager for the work and its rewards. Against the counsels of their best officials and the entreaties of Turkey’s truest friends, the Palace organised a series of butcheries on a great scale. The events in Sasun were followed by similar atrocities not only in the towns and villages inhabited by Armenians but also in the capital itself. Europe, deeply pledged to secure good government among the Armenians, was unwilling to embark on a policy of decisive action, paralysed by the mutual jealousies of the principal Powers. During those dark times the country had been closed to travellers; and it was only with the greatest difficulty that I was at length enabled to complete the studies which had been interrupted on the former occasion by the rigour of winter.

June 7, 1898.—On a day of early summer, when the air was fresh and the sun warm, my friend Oswald and myself set out from Trebizond, to perform the journey which forms the subject of the last chapter in the reverse sense. I have already described the stages from Erzerum to the Vavuk Pass; but it may be desirable to notice briefly the intermediate section between the sea and that natural threshold of the Armenian tableland. For a distance of over a mile the chaussÉe follows the coast beneath the shadow of that table-topped mass of dark porphyritic lava which is known as Boz Tepe. The view ranges over the considerable delta of the Pyxitis—a strip of sand and pebbles projecting far into the sea, which is discoloured for some distance by the suspended sediment. But the large prospects are at once lost as you enter the river valley and proceed at right angles to your former course. The stream is swirling along, divided into several channels, and overhung at a respectable interval by tall cliffs. In places the outlines open and disclose a country of rolling hills, as where the large and white-faced monastery of Aiana is seen high-seated in a charming landscape on the right bank. It is indeed an admirable approach to the recesses of the Pontic chain, this valley of DeÏrmen. It leads with much of the straightness and space of a church’s nave through the lofty and intricate outworks of the range almost to its spine at the Zigana Pass.

Before we had completed ten miles the wooded heights on either hand were dotted with the dark forms of the first spruce firs. The valley narrows; the walls grow steeper, and tower to a greater altitude; but you never lose the expanse of sky. If the scene recalls Tyrol you are not conscious of confinement; there is none of the chill and darkness of an Alpine glen. The character of the landscape is influenced by the alternation of tuffs with lavas; the latter become much darker and more compact. To the tuffs are largely due the softer spaces of field and garden; while the lava, which has cooled into a roughly columnar structure, produces parapets of immense height and precipitous crags. A little below the town of Jevizlik we stood in wonder at the foot of a cliff composed of a rock of this description. It fills the angle between the main stream and a tributary to the left bank, and it must be at least 1500 feet high. The columns of lava suggested the appearance of an organ of colossal proportions. And what a romantic feature, the bold perspective of the side valley, the cultivation carried upwards by almost impossible gradients, the vivid green of the young corn contrasting with patches of fallow land, coloured a light purplish-brown! Along the summits of the wide amphitheatre of ridges the forest rises against the field of the sky.

Jevizlik, the first station, is reached at about the twentieth mile; it is situated just below the confluence of a considerable stream which comes in on the right bank. A rough road diverges from the chaussÉe at this point, and follows the course of the tributary. It leads to the famous monastery of Sumelas, a ride or sharp walk of three and a half hours. We passed bands of pilgrims on their way to this resort—whole families, an entire village packed up and piled upon horses, the women astride with their babes beside them, the men on foot. The monastery is built on a ledge of an almost perpendicular wall of mountain, at a height of 4450 feet above sea-level, and of 800 feet above the torrent which hisses at the base of the rock. It is placed almost at the head of the beautiful valley of Meiriman—a valley which, indeed, is narrower than that of the Pyxitis, but which combines in its various stages all the features of this fair land. Orchards and stretches of forest trees clothe the easier gradients at the mouth of the opening—a large circle of heights soaring up into the heaven above purple slopes, where the soil is exposed by the plough. Clusters of wooden chÂlets overlook the winding river, and each bolder eminence is crowned by a white, stone chapel. As the valley becomes a glen—the term is ill adapted to express the scale upon which Nature has worked—the vegetation increases in luxuriance and changes in character, until the scene assumes that strange and almost supernatural appearance which has found such just expression in the weirdness of the Kolchian myths. The foliage, which almost obscures the light of the brightest day, is composed of alder, lime, walnut and elm, of beech and Spanish chestnut, of ash and, on the higher slopes, of tall firs. Trees of holly, of azalea and of rhododendron supply an undergrowth which at this season is ablaze with bloom. In the autumn the pink, poisonous crocus (colchicum) springs from the rocks, of double the length and size of the ordinary flower. Fungus with crimson stools start from the silver lichen, which diffuses an unearthly light. Long streamers of grey-green lichen float on the lower branches, from which a profusion of creepers are festooned. Here and there the thicket opens to an expanse of lawn. The forest is fed by the clouds collected in this caldron of Nature; and from the month of May to that of October the windows of the monastery are seldom greeted by the rays of the sun (Fig. 175).

The traveller to Erzerum who is in search of romantic scenery could not do better than follow this valley of Meiriman. It is the route which I selected upon our return from this second journey; but it is not practicable during the winter months. A steep ascent from the head of the glen leads to a country of grassy uplands, rising gradually to the pass of the Kazikly Dagh. This pass is the more easterly counterpart of the Zigana, but exceeds it in height by more than 1000 feet (8290 as against 6640 feet). The barrier on the north of the plain of Baiburt is crossed at the Kitowa Dagh by a pass of 8040 feet (as against the 6470 feet of the Vavuk Pass). Beyond the Kazikly Dagh there is a fair track which is used by caravans in summer; but between that point and Trebizond they pursue a shorter route. This approach to the plains of Armenia is almost in a direct line, avoiding the long detour by GÜmÜshkhaneh. The journey from the cloister of Sumelas to Baiburt may be performed in two days.1

On the present occasion we were constrained by perverse orders from Constantinople to follow the chaussÉe. The tributary, which we crossed at Jevizlik by a bridge of several arches, appeared to bring almost an equal volume of water as the river which it feeds. The upper stages of the main valley are picturesque in character, with none of the gloom and savagery of the vale of Meiriman. The slopes on either side terrace upwards into the haze of the sky; and for some miles above Jevizlik they are alive with settlements. At mid-height you admire the frequent clusters of the villages; the churches are built on projecting pinnacles of rock, and consist of a group of gables surmounted by a dome and approached through a belfry with two storeys of open arches. A white-faced monastery is seen high up on the opposite or left bank of the river; it fills a niche or natural recess in a vertical wall of rock, and its roofs are overhung by the roof of the cave. The stream is spanned at frequent intervals by little stone bridges with single arches, the arches highly curved and the roadway rising to the centre of the bridge. In one place the way which led up the cliff-side to a village was flanked at its upper end by a strong tower from which the inmates could resist attack from below. Above this inhabited zone, at the foot of the firs, near the crests of the ridges, sparse hamlets or isolated chÂlets are just discerned in the vague detail of the uppermost slopes. A report of guns, sounding distant, comes from one of those eyries where they are celebrating a marriage feast. In the fields, with their strange gradients, men and women are at work, the men lithe of limb, the women square-set, with skirts to below the knee and thick stockings on their legs. It is a dreamy southern scene, in one hand beauty, in the other squalor; and it repeats on a large scale the characteristics of those transverse cuttings which extend from the coast to the highlands of Asia Minor and are inhabited by a population of Greek race.

The chaussÉe follows the right bank, at some height above the stream, in full possession of the views on either hand. The valley maintains its width; but the nature of the landscape changes; cultivation ceases, and the forest descends to the road. Thickets of rhododendron are seen for the first time—the tree-like bushes with which we are familiar in England and the large flowers. The brakes were a mass of bloom; a little higher we met the azaleas; the yellow azalea and the pale mauve petals of the rhododendron were in the splendour of their latest blossoming. In the lush forest we noticed the beech tree, the walnut, and the maple, the hazel, the oak and the elm; the elders were in full flower, and the cherry trees were conspicuous for their number and size. The more open spaces were covered with masses of forget-me-nots; calices of hellebore, withered yellow, rested on the rank grass; and yellow mullein, filling the air with its subtle perfume, rose from among the rocks. Little waterfalls leapt through the deep shade of narrow clearings; we were nearing the head of the valley. A bed of sandstone, holding the moisture like a sponge, interrupts the lava beds. The ridges circle inwards; the valley becomes an amphitheatre, and its stately character is preserved to the last.

Upon a terrace of this amphitheatre the little settlement of Lower Hamsi Keui commands the long perspective towards the north. It is distant some fourteen miles from Jevizlik and thirty-four from Trebizond. We made our stage at the Upper Hamsi Keui, over a mile beyond the Lower, by a continuous ascent. It is situated above one of the two larger side valleys which converge towards the hamlet first named. It is from here that you commence the first portion of the climb to the Zigana Dagh, through forest glades in which the spruce firs alternate with the beech woods, and which are carpeted with an undergrowth of rhododendron and azalea and tall palm-leaved bracken. As we rose on the following morning above our surroundings we looked in vain for the vista of sea, the horizon being veiled in mist. Our ears were greeted by the song of nightingales, and by the clear call-notes of the cuckoo; while the plashing of innumerable streamlets and waterfalls mingled to a background of tremulous sound. Flocks of sheep were passed on their way to their summer pastures, and we could hear their liquid bells from afar. They were accompanied by shepherds with dogs not much smaller than mastiffs, which had long white hair and tails like a fox’s brush. The side valley is left behind, and then a second and still smaller valley; until the forest ceases and you enter the region of dreary heights. But the azalea still continues, mounting the ridge like our English gorse and not less riotous of flower. Patches of snow remain unmelted even at this season. At the saddle of the pass we had covered about 10 miles and risen nearly 2600 feet (Upper Hamsi Keui, 4060 feet; Zigana Pass, 6640 feet).

The slopes are inclined at an angle of about 30° and the rock is much decomposed. Time was wanting for a careful examination; but Oswald favoured the conclusion that it is hard and holocrystalline, similar in character to that of the Kitowa Dagh further east. The descent is long and gradual from the pass to the valley of the Kharshut, which eats its way through wild mountains to the Black Sea. The road is carried along the heights, on the east of a basin of ridges, by a succession of terraces. In winter, when the snow spreads a carpet at the foot of the fir trees, the view is at once inspiring and superb. But in summer the long stretches of barren yellow talus—a trachyte, decomposed and weathered a staring yellow, fatigue the eye and repel the sense. There is a certain contrast in the vegetation of the southern slopes. The luscious forest has disappeared, and so have the rhododendra; but the azalea and the spruce firs still clothe the walls facing the Pontic winds. On the other hand, the Scotch fir takes the place of its slenderer rival on the parapets which are less exposed to the moisture. At the foot of the main descent are placed at intervals three hamlets with numerous caravanserais. The first is Maden; the other two are known respectively as the Upper and the Lower Zigana (4330 feet). The distance from the pass to the Lower Zigana may be about 4½ to 5 miles. Thence it is another 7½ miles to the bridge over the Kharshut (3100 feet). The landscape, of immense extent and of the most savage character, is framed in the south by the serrated outline of the Giaour Dagh, veined with snow and capped by cloud. Between the pass and the hamlets we noticed huge volcanic dikes seaming the hillsides with bold causeways of finely crystalline rock.

The little town of Ardasa on the banks of the Kharshut affords shelter for the night. It is placed at a distance of about 2 miles above the bridge, and of about 24½ miles from the Upper Hamsi Keui. The straggling settlement is overtowered by a cliff some thousand feet in height, perhaps a limestone and coloured a rusty brown. On the summit are seen the fragments of a mediÆval castle. Between Ardasa and the pass of Vavuk we followed next day the winding river, tracking it up almost to its source. The valley is fairly open, with a number of side valleys; but the scene is desolate and bare. Not a remnant of the azalea enlivens the landscape; the vegetation adheres to the margin of the water—fruit trees and willows, the large mauve flowers of the field-iris, hawthorn in bloom, the yellow blossoms of the barberry. There is a certain air of comfort in the pretty wooden houses with their gables and wooden roofs, shining white. But this note is often and quickly lost in the sounding discords of a chaotic Nature—the shales and limestones compressed into almost impossible contortions and baked and uplifted by huge bosses of igneous rock. Beyond such a devil’s gorge, which is overhung by a robber’s eyrie, is situated the considerable town of GÜmÜshkhaneh, famous for its silver mines, now no longer worked. You leave it on your right and pass through a lower suburb, at a distance from Ardasa of about 16½ miles.

Another 10 miles brings you to the large village of Tekke; and about 2 miles further a bridge crosses the Kharshut. It takes a road which here diverges to follow a tributary to the left bank, and which leads across the Giaour Dagh to Erzinjan. We slept at Murad Khan, a comfortable shelter, having made a stage of about 33 miles (alt. 4430 feet). On the morning of the 10th of June we again pursued the river, now become shallow, and were soon passing beneath the castled crag of Kalajik, one of the wonders of the journey to Erzerum (Ch. X., Fig. 174, taken in winter). The size of the ruin and the scale of the outworks, which defend each ledge of the limestone precipice, far surpass the similar fastnesses in this wild valley. At 7 miles we left the stream to ascend by easy gradients the gentle slopes of the Vavuk Pass (6468 feet). At the saddle we had covered a distance of rather over 10 miles.

We stood on the threshold of the Armenian tableland, beneath a new climate and in face of a new scene. The contrast impressed Oswald, who saw it for the first time, and who at once seized the special features of this new world. We had crossed the zone of sparse fir trees; the summit is completely barren; the plain before us, as well as the rounded outlines of the opposite hills, devoid of vegetation of any kind. Only by the margin of a slowly-flowing river beneath us beds of buttercups marked out in patches its idle course. Limestones and shales are the material of this and the further eminences; it is a country of soft, swelling downs on a large scale. The clouds stand arrested on the higher summits of this barrier; the sky beyond is pellucid, the air bracing, the tints warm. As we made our way beneath the night to our distant goal beyond Baiburt the evening star was shining with the brilliance of a beacon, and my friend mistook the milky way for a luminous cloud. When we arrived in Erzerum (6168 feet) on the 14th of June the lilac filled the gardens with its heavy scent. It was commencing to blossom in our native country before we left its shores behind.