THE LAND OF THE STALKING DEATH 



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Photograph by Me 

 REFUGEE RURTAE GROUND OUTSIDE F/TCHMIADZIN 



The name of this town means "The only begotten Son is descended," and the 



le Chater 



Armenian 



legend has it that here Christ appeared to Gregory the Illuminator in the year 303. Today 

 the whole Erivan plain has become one vast burial ground, whose sanctity is not respected by 

 the hnnger-crazed people. 



the mud- walled, turf-roofed huts which 

 fringe its verge, and by the laden camels 

 which stalk past, with their haughty and 

 fatuous glance. Here it is that the dying 

 come to sell the goods of their dead. 



Penetrate the tattered throng that re- 

 volves unceasingly in its quest of pur- 

 chasers and you recognize the husband 

 selling- his wife's head-dress, the wife 



selling her husband's coat, the 



son 



his 



sister's earring. TTere a man displays 

 the cheap lamp that (nice lit those of his 

 household who arc now gone down into 

 darkness. There a woman carries the 

 quilt upon which her baby died. Yonder 

 a tottering gravbeard holds in his one 

 hand a woman's woven belt and in the 

 other a man's watch. 



Thus, laden with mementoes o\ broken 

 homes and of dear dead ones, these ema- 



