CURZON'S ARMENIA. * IN 1842, the ICoordish forays on the border
lands of Turkey and Persia, if not worse than they had been for ages, became more un- bearable to the humanity of modern diplomacy. A conference was appointed at Erzeroom between Turkish and Persian envoys, as- sisted by British and Russian commissioners. The British Com- missioner, Colonel Williams, falling sick, Mr. Curzon, then private secretary to Lord Stratford de Redcliffe, was appointed joint com- missioner. The present volume is the result of that appointment ; although neither dealing with the diplomatic business nor with the elaborate survey of the frontier, which was made after the conference closed, in 1847. The volume is a series of sketches of personal adventures and observations; with remarks on Russian policy and the present position of affairs, and with some historical notices of Armenian history.
The book is fresh, readable, varied, and informing; conveying by its minute pictures of daily life, and its sketches of the country, a much more truthful idea of Armenia than we ever met with before, and of the nature of the difficult country which as soon as the weather permits will become the seat of war in Asia. The remarks on the ambition of Russia and the necessity of curbing her at once, and not making peace except upon new regulations, are hostile enough to the Emperor ; but are the more likely to be truthful because it is evident Mr. Curzon has no particular liking for the Turks, and would himself have no objection to join in a crusade to establish Christian supremacy in the East. The expo- sition of the manner in which Russia uses the heads of religions, as the Patriarch of the Armenians, for her aggressive policy, stretching her influence quietly and covertly from Turkey in Eu- rope to India, is worth considering ; though we think Mr. Curzon exaggerates the influence of religion and the priesthood, when op- posed to worldly circumstances and reason. The historical matter is not so misplaced as it often is in books of travels ; but it is a weak portion of the book. The few sketches of sporting, and of the natural history of the province as it fell under the anther's observation, are among the most entertaining parts. Notwithstanding the freshness and even importance of much of the matter, a pleasant off-hand manner, and a lively style, the work has somewhat of a made-up air. It has been suggested by the occasion rather than by the impression the materials originally made upon the author's mind. Any one accustomed to examine the structure of compositions can see how the parts have as it were been pieced together to make up the volume. It is in fact rather a collection of episodical sketches, gathered round a brief leading narrative, than a continuous story of travels. Mr. Curzon himself has felt something of this, and has tried to impart interest by a little forced vivacity of style. Hence, with the exception of the graphic pictures of Armenia which stamp the physical charac- teristics of the country upon the mind, and the traits of the people, the interest is of an occasional kind; and that is diminished by events having already outrun the writer. Erzeroom, the head-quarters of the conference, is situate on a high table-land, and lies about mid-way between Trebisond and the seat of the Asiatic war of last autumn. It is important as com- manding the high-road to Persia, and for its strong position, which
• Armenia: a Year at Erzeroom, and on the Frontiers of Russia, Turkey, and Persia. By the Hon. Robert Curzon, Author of "Visits to the Monasteries of the Levant." Published by Murray. renders it perfectly secure if it were properly fortified and de- fended. In winter the climate is a sufficient defence, though the city is in a more Southern latitude than Naples. This was the state of things in December.
"During great part of the year, and naturally in the winter, the cold was so severe that any one standing still for even a very short time was frozen to death. Dead frozen bodies were frequently brought into the city ; and it is common in the summer, on the melting of the snow, to find numerous corpses of men, and bodies of horses, who had perished in the preceding winter. So usual an event is this, that there is a custom or law in the mountains of Armenia, that every summer the villagers go out to the more dangerous passes and bury the dead whom they are sure to find. They have a legal right to their clothes, arms, and the accoutrements of the horses, on con- dition of forwarding all bales of merchandise, letters, and parcels, to the places to which they are directed. * * * One day Colonel Williams rode out on the Persian road, to see whether it was passable for Dr. Wolf, who was then staying at Erzeroom, and who wished to continue his journey to Bokhara, when he met a number of horses, each laden with two frozen bodies of Persian travellers, one tied on each side of the pack-horse. An unfortunate Piedmontese doctor had been lost in a snow-storm a short time before, and his body was found afterwards near a small Monastery, three or four miles from Erzeroom, where he had wandered, bewildered with the falling snow ; and a whole party, with one or two ox- carts, who left a village in the morning on their way to another a short dis- tance off, never arrived there ; they were found huddled together, oxen, horse', men, and women, in a snow-drift, dead, and frozen hard and stiff, some weeks afterwards. The cold was so tremendous at this time that the mountains were impassable, and no one was able to move beyond a short dis- tance from the town."
Owing to a severe illness with which Mr. Curzon was seized, he was obliged when convalescent to make the journey from Erzeroome'to Trebisond in winter. The previous remarks are con- nected with that terrible tour. The following observations refer to a general description of the country. It is to be hoped that some attention will be given to the defence of Erzeroom as soon as pos- sible, if it has not been done already. Should the Russian army once get possession of the place, their direct expulsion would seem to be impossible. "The description of Armenia and the adjacent districts in the foregoing pages will have sufficed to give a general idea of the many difficulties to be encountered by thew whose business leads them through this inhospitable region, where they meet with impediments at every step, from the lofty mountains traversed by roads accessible only to mules and horses, the ex- treme cold of the high passes and elevated plains, the impossibility of obtain- ing provisions, and the savage character of the Koords and other wandering tribes who roam over this wild country. If a traveller' accompanied by a few followers and assisted by firmans from the Sultan, finds this journey arduous in the extreme, how much more so must it prove to the general in command of an army, with many thousand men to provide for, with artillery and heavy baggage to encumber his march, on roads inaccessible to carriages or wheeled vehicles of any kind ; and if to these is added an enemy on the alert to cut off supplies, to harass the long straggling line of march, and to attack the passing army in narrow defiles from behind rocks, and from the summits of precipices, where they are safe from molestation, it will be un- derstood that the difficulties presenting themselves to military operations in these regions are almost insuperable. It is the inaccessible nature of Cir- cassia' even more than the bravery of its inhabitants, which has enabled them to resist the overwhelming power of Russia for so many years. On the approach to Erzeroom these difficulties increase. From Georgia, Persia, and Trebizond, there is no other city or entrepot where an army could rest to lay in stores and collect supplies for a campaign, with the exception of Erze- room, which is the centre or key to all these districts. If it was strongly fortified, as it should be, or was at any rate in the occupation of an active in- telligent government, the power who possessed it would hold the fate of that part of Asia in its hands. "No caravans could pass, no mercantile speculations could be carried on, and no large bodies of troops could march, without its permission. They would in all probability perish from the rigours of the climate if they were not assisted, even without the necessity of attacking them by force of arms. At this moment the greater part of the artillery of the Turkish army is, I believe, buried under the snow in one of the ravines between Beyboort and Erzeroom, from whence it has no chance of being rescued till next summer. It was the impassable character of this country, and the treacherous habits of the robber tribes of Koordistan, which made the retreat of Xenophon and the Ten Thousand through the same regions the wonderful event which it has been always considered. While this is the nature of the elevated lands and mountains, the rallies which surround the snowy regions are absolutely pes- tiferous; in many of them no one can sleep one night without danger of fever, frequently ending in death. The port or roadstead of Batoum is so unhealthy as to be utterly uninhabitable to strangers during all the hot sea- son of the year. I wish to draw attention to these circumstances, in order to explain the almost impossibility of dispossessing any power which had already obtained a firm footing in this district; and it is in order to fix her- self firmly in this important post that Russia is now advancing in that direction, with a perfect knowledge of the advantages to be derived from this barren and unfruitful region' while she has the advantage of being able to send supplies to her forces by the Caspian Sea : for once within her grasp, Persia is no longer independent; and fettered as she is by her Russian debt, and what in private affairs would be called her heavy mortgage on her only valuable provinces on the shores of the Caspian, Geilaun and Mazende- raun, she must sink into the state of a vassal kingdom, subject to the com- mands of her superior lord the Czar."
Although by no means friendly to the Turks, and giving sad in- stances of oppression, Mr. Curzon thinks that the abuses which still prevail are owing to the inveterate habits of subordinate officers, which are stopped by their superiors when they are known. The irregular tyranny of Turkey, however, is nothing compared to the grinding despotism of Russia over her acquired provinces. "Few of these conquered or deluded nations have been able to bear the intolerable oppression of the Russian Government, arising from the insolence of the petty employes, and more particularly the dreadful scourge of the conscription, by the aid of which, at any moment, children are remorse- lessly torn for ever from their parents, whose sole support they were ; fa- milies are on a sudden divided ; one half sent off no one knows whither, never to meet again ; none of these unhappy slaves knowing whether it will be their lot to become soldiers or sailors ; but in either case they are driven off like beasts in flocks, by cruel savage tyrants, who steal, as a matter of course, the money provided by the superior Government for the food of the despairing conscripts, while they, brutal and drunken though they may be, are distinguished for their love of home and the affection and respect they
bear for their parents. • •
"In the year 1829, Kars, Bayazeed, Van, Roush, Erzeroom, and Beyboori, (which is coming very near,) were occupied by the Russians, who evacuated that portion of the Turkish empire on the conclusion of the treaty of Adrian- ople. Trusting to the protestations of a Christian Emperor, sixty-nine then- sand Christian Armenian families were beguiled into the folly of leaving the Mahometan dominions, and sitting in peace under the paternal protection of the Czar. Over their ruined houses I have ridden, and surveyed with sor- row their ancient churches in the rallies of Armenia, desecrated and injured, as far as their solid construction permitted, by the sacrilegious hands of the Russian soldiers, who tried to destroy those temples of their own religion which the Turks had spared, and under whose rule many of the more recent had been rebuilt on their old foundations. The greater part of these Arme- nians perished from want and starvation : the few who survived this sharp lesson have since been endeavouring by every means in their power to re- turn to the lesser evils of the frying-pan of Turkey, from whence they have leapt into the fire of despotic Russia."
If it were not for the fever, which sometimes depopulates whole villages even of those who may be supposed to be acclimatized, the lowlands of Armenia would be the Paradise of fowlers. The highlands are more healthy, but as dangerous in another way. Witness a dilemma, when our diplomatist was hunting the Ar- menian wild sheep, a smaller but perhaps a more active animal than that of the Himalaya.
"The method employed to hunt this sheep is to climb to the highest sum- mit of a mountain, and then, cautiously approaching the edges of the cliffs, to peep down with a telescope into the gorges and ravines below ; where, if you have luck, you may see the sheep capering about on the ledges of the precipice, jumping, standing on a stone on their hind-legs to reach a little tuft of herbage, and playing the most curious antics, for no perceptible rea- son, unless it is that they find their digestion improved by taking a consider- able deal of exercise. In these gymnastics the hunter must participate to a great extent in following the tracks of the jumpingest creatures (excepting fleas) that he can ever have to deal with. It requires much activity, and a good head for looking over a height, to attempt to come up with them ; and many a sad accident has occurred to the adventurous sportsman in this pur- suit. I myself have been in some awkward situations : once particularly, having let myself down by the roots of a kind of juniper on to the ledge of a tremendous precipice, I found there was no way further down, and, what was of more consequence, no way up again, for the roots of the stunted tree were above my reach. A hunter—a Laz, or a native of Lazistaun—was with me ; and when we had done watching the two sheep scampering off out of shot below, we looked at the place we were on, and then in each other's faces in blank dismay. We were in the some scrape as the Emperor Maxi- milian got into in the Tyrol, near . . . . ; only there being no angels about in the mountains of Lazistaun, we had no expectation of being assisted by a spirited or a spiritual goatherd, as he was. After a good deal of pantomime, which would have puzzled any bird who might be wondering at our man- ceuvres—for we did not understand each other's language—we took off our boots, all our outer clothes, and our arms and rifles, and tied them in a bundle ; then I planted myself firmly, with my face to the wall of the cliff, sticking my rifle into a crevice to give me more steadiness, and the hunter climbed carefully up my back on to my shoulders till begot hold of the roots of the tree ; the tree shook, and plenty of stones and dirt fell upon my head, while the hunter scrambled into the trunk, and he was safe. He sat down awhile to rest, and then hauled up the clothes and guns with our shawls that we had taken off from round our waists. A gentle qualm came over me at this moment, for fear he should be off with my to him very valuable spoils, and leave me in peace upon the shelf ! But he was a true man, as a hunter generally is; so, after a variety of signs and gesticulations to each other, as to how it was to be done, he lugged me up, first by the shawls, and then by hand, until I could reach the roots of the tree. Here there was only room for one ; so he climbed higher; and, after some wonderful positions, struggles, kicks, and scrambling, I got back amongst the roots, then up the trunk of the old gnarled juniper, or whatever it was, and at last upon a slope, partaking much of that character which, in the States of the free and independent slave-dealers over the water, is called slantinclicular. Here we both lay down."
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