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THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE 



larger than Germany and France 



At the height of its power and at its 

 greatest extent the ancient Kingdom of 

 Armenia consisted of 500,000 square 

 miles of fertile tableland, extending from 

 the Black Sea and the Caucasus Moun- 

 tains to Persia and Syria. It rises until 

 it reaches 8,000 feet above the sea, then 

 it ascends abruptly to the snow-capped 

 peak of Mount Ararat, which is 1,000 

 feet higher than Mount Blanc. The 

 land is fertile, rugged, and beautiful. A 

 native of the country writes of it with 

 pardonable enthusiasm thus : 



"Armenia is the motherland, the cradle 

 of humanity, and all other lands are her 

 daughters ; but she is fairer than any 

 other. Even her mountain tops of per- 

 petual snow are a crown of glory; the 

 sun kisses her brow with the smile of 

 morning, and she supplies the beautiful 

 rivers Euphrates, Tigris, Pison, Araxes, 

 and many others from the jewels of her 

 crown. These rivers penetrate to every 

 corner of the land, traverse many hun- 

 dreds of miles to give life to the fields, 

 the vineyards, and the orchards, to turn 

 the mills, and finally close their course in 

 the Caspian Sea, the Black Sea, and the 

 Gulf of Persia, carrying the bounty and 

 good-will messages of the motherland to 

 her children in remote parts. — to Persia, 

 India, and Russia. From the same inex- 

 haustible reservoirs she feeds her noblest 

 lakes — Sevan, Urumiah, Van, and the 

 rest." 



TWO MELONS A CAMEL'S LOAD 



This country of Asia Minor is a fine 

 grazing land and an excellent agricultural 

 region. It is so fertile that two melons 

 are said to be a camel's load, and it pro- 

 duces grapes, wheat, Indian corn, barley, 

 oats, cotton, rice, tobacco, and sugar; all 

 the vegetables that we know in America, 

 quinces, apricots, nectarines, peaches, 

 apples, pears, and plums. The Armenians 

 export silk and cotton, hides and leather, 

 wine, dried fruits, raisins, tobacco, drugs, 

 and dyestuffs. 



In minerals, too, the country is rich. 

 Coal, silver, copper, iron, and other min- 

 erals lie beneath the surface, but the 

 Turkish government has not allowed 

 them to be exploited. 



James Bryce thus speaks of the land: 

 "Here is a country blest with every 

 gift of Nature ; a fertile soil, possessing 

 every variety of exposure and situation; 

 a mild and equable climate; mines of 

 iron, copper, silver, and coal in the moun- 

 tains ; a land of exquisite beauty, which 

 was once studded with flourishing cities 

 and filled by an industrious population. 

 "But now from the Euphrates to the 

 Bosphorus all is silence, poverty, despair. 

 There is hardly a sail on the sea, hardly 

 a village on the shores, hardly a road by 

 which commerce can pass into the in- 

 terior. You ask the cause and receive 

 from every one the same answer — mis- 

 government, or rather no government; 

 the existence of a power which does noth- 

 ing for its subjects, but stands in the way 

 when there is a chance of their doing 

 something for themselves. The mines, 

 for instance, cannot be worked without 

 a concession from Constantinople." 



NO BRIEF CIVILIZATION 



Into the soil of this beautiful and his- 

 toric/ land the Armenians have thrust 

 deep roots. No brief civilization is theirs 

 dating back to Mayflower or even Nor- 

 man Conquest, but one that is almost 

 coterminous with recorded history; and 

 every Armenian feels behind him this 

 vast antiquity, giving him personal dig- 

 nity and great national pride. They be- 

 gin their history with the Garden of 

 Eden, which they claim was in Armenia, 

 basing the claim on the naive statement 

 that the land is beautiful enough to have 

 included Paradise, and also laughingly 

 asserting that the apples of Armenia 

 were worthy to tempt a most Epicurean 

 Eve. Their first recorded ancestors they 

 find in the book of Genesis. 



Russian Armenia consists of the prov- 

 inces of the Caucasus, and further 

 south the sun-baked plains leading to the 

 base of Mount Ararat, where, in the 

 midst of fields, vineyards, and cultivated 

 fields, lies Etchmiadzin. 



A taste for the arid red plains of Asia 

 Minor, with their occasional beautiful 

 tree or still rarer blue lake, is, I think, an 

 acquired one, although I confess to shar- 

 ing the love of the native for this brilliant 

 land, where the soil is so red and the sky 



