196 
ERIVAN. 
to give it a shorter pedigree, and to suppose from its present 
name, that it owes its dignity as a city to one of the Ar¬ 
menian kings, called Ervandus, who lived sixty-five years before 
the Christian era ; and who in all probability gave his name 
to the province, and founded the city. The country possesses 
every natural beauty which a fine assemblage of mountain, vale, 
and water can bestow ; and the town of Erivan shares all these 
advantages in an ample degree. The river Zengay, which flows 
originally from the great lake of the province, appears only a 
narrow, though rapid stream, near the city ; but after being 
augmented by several minor rivers, it occupies a more consider¬ 
able channel, and winds away in a south-east direction through 
a long rocky chasm ; whence it issues on the plain, and 
continues in a serpentine course till it joins the Araxes, nearly 
opposite to Ararat, and at about twenty miles from the town of 
Erivan. Another smaller river called the Querk-boolak, which 
also has its source in the great lake, runs thence to the north¬ 
east ; but on arriving at the city, it is soon totally lost, by being 
divided into numberless little canals, to supply the streets with 
water, to irrigate the surrounding gardens, and to fill any other 
office by which that element may be either used or wasted. 
The city of Erivan bears no exception to the other places of 
the same quality which I had visited in my way from Wlady 
Caucasus to this point; ruins mingle every where with the 
habitable parts of the town. It is of considerable extent; with 
open spaces, as well as the lost-ground of old mouldering 
buildings, within its modern circuit. Part of it covers the hill 
of Chool Mitchy, which was the particular site of the more 
ancient city; and from its commanding one of the most ex¬ 
panded views of Ararat, from that spot I made the sketch 
