PROCREDINGS OF TBI- COTTI-SWOLD CLUI5 159 



We must not forget that the Israehtes were transplanted 

 bv Shalmanezer, the Assyrian king, close to the borders 

 of the Caucasus ; that is, " to the cities of the Medes." 

 That Media at one time included the valley of the Kurus, 

 or Kur, on which Tiflis stands, is shewn by " Cyrus the 

 Mede " having been named from this river. This re- 

 moval of the ten tribes was more than a century earlier 

 than the Babylonian Captivity of the tribes of Judah and 

 Benjamin. (See II Kings, 17, 6.) 



My own impression is strong that the Armenians who 

 still inhabit the Armenian Plain, and the north-west of 

 Media — the present Persian Province of Adcrbijan — as 

 well as the Caucasus, are the descendants of these people. 

 It is impossible to travel among them without being 

 struck with many little things in their daily life that re- 

 call manners and customs touched upon in the Bible.* 

 I have many photographs of Armenian types of feature — 

 very suggestive of a Hebrew origin — one of which, a group 

 of school-girls, especially, shews several strongly Jewish 

 faces. Add to this the similarity of the Armenian chant- 

 music to that of the Synagogue, the abstinence of the 

 Armenians from eating pork, and the presence of Hebrew 

 words in the speech of Aderbijan,j" and the evidence of 

 this origin seems to me clear. 



It was late on the afternoon of the second day of our 

 journey over the mountain before we emerged on the 



* Dr Baedeker, who has returned from the Caucasus since our journey in it, tells 

 me he had been ascending a mountain-side near Shemaka one night during last summer, 

 when just as the dawn was breaking his guide and himself were hailed by an Armenian 

 shepherd. The man was followed by a flock of 60 or 70 sheep, and carried a lamb in 

 his arms. Suddenly he stood still and bent his head in a listening attitude for some 

 moments, as some distant sound fell on his ear. Then gently laying the lamb on the 

 ground, he summoned the dog, and gave the flock into his charge to keep it together 

 'till his return ; and started ofl' among the rocks. Dr B. waited to see the upshot. 

 In .about an hour the shepherd came back, bringing with him, lame and halting, the 

 lost sheep whose bleating he had heard from the wilderness. 



t Most of the Armenians of North Persia speak two languages : their own, and 

 " Aderbijansky " (Tartar, or Turkisli). 



K2 



