At five o’clock in the afternoon of the 4th of October we set out for Edgmiatsin. It is a drive of about thirteen miles across the plain. Our luggage was consigned to a waggon of the post, and we ourselves enjoyed the luxury of a light victoria, drawn by four horses abreast. They covered the distance in an hour and forty minutes, although the road is in many places a mere track.

What a drive! It is so well within reach of Europe that it ought to be included, like the journey to Italy, in the programme of a liberal education. The railway will before long arrive at Erivan, and then the pilgrimage will be still easier to undertake. Not all the tourists in the world will disturb the harmony of this landscape; the screeching trains, the loud hotels, the Babel of tongues will be lost, like a flight of starlings, in this expanse. It is here that the spirit of Asia is most intensely present—an inner sanctuary to those outer courts through which the traveller may have wandered and never crossed the threshold of this plain. And it is a spirit and an influence which arouse deep chords within us and send them sounding through our lives.

The landscape at once combines and accentuates the salient features of the Asiatic highlands. There is the plain which was once the bed of an inland sea. It stretches west and east without visible limits; and this evening it has all the appearance of water. In the west it is mirage which produces this effect. The long north-western slope of the Ararat fabric assumes the character of a dark and narrow promontory rising on an opposite shore. From the east, beyond the train of the Little Ararat, a cold mist—may it be from the Caspian?—is slowly wafted over the steppe, and the illusion is complete. Into those liquid spaces sweep the basal vaultings of Alagöz—the boulder-strewn declivities which we keep on our right hand, and which seem to embody on a typical scale that quality of hopeless sterility which is characteristic of vast portions of the continent. But the same vague distance receives the Zanga, diffused into many channels, and lost beneath luxuriant foliage. For over a quarter of an hour after leaving Erivan we pass at a rapid trot between the walls of orchards; and in places the water gushes from the conduits across the road. Once outside this intricate zone the track wanders over the idle soil, skirting the stony slopes in the north. In the opposite direction the plain blooms with fields of cotton and rice, sustained by a small canal which pursues a westerly course before it falls into the Araxes, if indeed it flow so far.

And there are the mountains of Asia—the volcanoes with their vaulted summits, as well as those long ridges with their serrated outline which represent the operation of less impetuous forces through longer spaces of time. To this second category belongs the fine chain on the west of Ararat which gains in definition as we proceed. It stands a little back and behind the fabric of Ararat, and volcanoes too have built themselves up upon this wall. But its rugged and tumbled appearance is the feature which predominates, in striking contrast to the symmetry of the mountain of the Ark. That giant overpowers the lesser Ararat and appropriates their common base. One stands in wonder at the force which could have rent that massive pedestal and opened the yawning chasm which fronts the plain. Night creeps into those recesses, where the blaze of a Kurdish camp-fire calls attention to the extraordinary transparence of the air. The snow-fields, bare and cold above the amber of the sunset, are already free of their coronal of cloud. One full-puffed vapour still floats behind the uppermost pinnacle; another clings to the bastion on the north-west. While we admire this stately scene, made more impressive by the heavy silence, a grove of trees rises from the steppe on our point of course. Two little conical shapes just emerge above their outline, and are recognised as the domes of Edgmiatsin.

We pass through the thin plantation, sustained by runnels derived from Alagöz, and come to a halt before the doorway of a lofty mud wall with round towers at intervals. It might belong to a Persian fortress; but it is the outer wall which surrounds the cloister with the cathedral of St. Gregory. The massive gate is closed, and we thump and thump for some time in vain. The parapet with its crumbling surface betrays no sign of the life within. But there is just sufficient light to reveal the surroundings of the fortified enclosure—a straggling village of above-ground houses, outlying churches, poplars, dust.1

At last the hinges creak and the porter appears. We are ushered into a court, like that of a college at Cambridge, adjoining the great gate which is in the south wall. It is known as the pilgrims’ court (Fig. 47). Low buildings, rudely built, with a continuous wooden verandah, compose the quadrangle. The windows are all lit up behind a line of young trees of which the foliage rustles in the night air. Several figures may be discerned on the steps of a basin of water in the centre of the court. The place is all bustle and stir. Every room, so we are told, in the whole monastery is occupied by as many people as it will hold. Quarters have been reserved for us in the principal court; but we are not expected until to-morrow. Sooner than disturb the peace of evening we retire to a room in the village where we erect our camp beds. It is quite a dormitory. My immediate neighbour speaks English and is a correspondent of the Daily News. He is an Armenian gentleman who has come all the way from Tabriz, partly in the capacity of delegate of his countrymen in the Persian city, and partly as the representative of the London newspaper. He talks incessantly; his companions do the same. The great event of the coming days will form an epoch in their lives, and every incident will be indelibly imprinted upon their memories. A thrilling and detailed narrative will be despatched to London, where it will filter through the brain of the sub-editor and issue in the form of a paragraph in small type.

But the newspaper will be to blame; for it is an event, this consecration of the latest pontiff of the Armenian Church. It is an event both by reason of the personality of the new katholikos and because within recent years the fact has slowly dawned upon Europe that the politics of Western Asia must react upon the Western peoples, and that in those politics the Armenians are destined to play a part. The Church is at the present day the only native institution which has been preserved to that people. All their aspirations as human beings desirous to live as human beings are focussed by that single organisation. The broad democratic basis upon which reposes the election of the patriarch invests him with a representative character. Moreover he is not chosen by a section of his countrymen but by the nation as a whole. The Armenians of Turkey and of Persia as well as those within Russian territory contribute their suffrages. It is therefore only natural that, in the absence of secular institutions, the head of the Church should be much more than a merely spiritual ruler, and should reflect and in no small measure be expected to instruct the temporal hopes and fears of his flock.

The Russian Government have not been slow in recognising this fact; nor does the anxiety with which it is regarded in official circles date from the contemporary prominence of the Armenian Question. In the heyday of their relations with this Christian nation which hailed them as liberators, and which was placed in the very centre of the Mussulman peoples over which they were slowly establishing their sway, the Russians lavished favours upon Edgmiatsin;2 and rightly or wrongly they are now accused by their Armenian allies, become their subjects, of having excited hopes which, when they had served the ends of Russian policy, were rudely and almost brutally suppressed. It is certain that the Armenian inhabitants of the provinces which now belong to Russia favoured the Russians in their campaigns against Persia and Turkey at the risk of reprisals on the part of their Mussulman masters. They smoothed the way for the extension of the Russian Empire from the valley of the Kur to that of the Araxes. The first great step in this direction was effected at the commencement of the present century, when the kingdom of Georgia was organised into a Russian province. The acquisition of Georgia afforded the Russians a foothold upon the tableland, and brought them into direct contact with the Persians and with the Turks. Their first battle against the Persians was fought on the 20th of June 1804, and resulted in the repulse of the Shah’s forces, which were led by his son, the famous Abbas Mirza. This action took place in the immediate neighbourhood of Edgmiatsin, and on the same day upon which was celebrated the annual festival of St. Ripsime, one of the saints who are the special glory of the cloister. The Armenians did not disguise the direction of their sympathies, and attributed, the Russian victory to the intervention of their Saint.3 Ten years later, when the monastery was visited by Morier, the patriarch was wearing a high Russian order, of which the star glittered on his purple robe.4

In 1828 Edgmiatsin was annexed to Russia after the capture of Erivan from the Persians and as a result of the Treaty of Turkomanchai. Throughout the wars which ensued with Turkey the Armenians espoused the Russian cause; and one cannot doubt that their assistance was of considerable benefit both to Paskevich during the campaigns of 1828–29, and to Loris Melikoff, himself of Armenian origin, in that of 1877.5 Little by little a certain bitterness becomes appreciable in these honeymoon relations. The origin or perhaps the reflection of this new feeling may be found in the provisions of the important statute which defines the status of the Armenian Church in Russia and regulates the constitution of Edgmiatsin. This statute, which is generally known as the Polojenye, is headed by the signature of the Tsar Nicholas and bears the date of March 1836. It was translated for me by one of the monks. In some respects it deals most liberally with the national Church. Her congregations are accorded full liberty of worship, and her clergy are relieved from all civil burdens. The principle of the election of the katholikos by the whole Armenian people professing the national religion is expressly recognised. The method of his election is minutely prescribed. The national delegates assemble in the church of St. Gregory, and submit two names to the Emperor, who makes the appointment.6 On the other hand, in true Russian fashion, what is given with one hand is taken away with the other. The synod of Edgmiatsin is an ancient institution which, according to Armenian traditions, advises the katholikos, and may even resist him should he desire to effect changes in matters intimately affecting the national faith.7 The Polojenye emphasises and develops the constitutional importance of this body, and places it under the titular presidency of the Emperor. The decrees of the synod are headed “By order of the Emperor of Russia”; and they are submitted to a Russian procurator, resident at Edgmiatsin, who examines into their validity. In matters of a purely spiritual nature the katholikos takes counsel with the synod, but need not necessarily accept its recommendations. But in all the general business of the Church, as well as of the cloister, it is the synod which has jurisdiction subject to the approval of the Minister of the Interior. In the synod, which consists of eight priests resident at Edgmiatsin, the katholikos has no more than a casting vote. It is true that he might act by Bull. But such action, were it contrary to the resolutions of the synod, would, as matters now stand, be revolutionary. In this manner the katholikos is put into leading strings, of which the ends are held by the officials on the banks of the Neva, duly instructed by a professed and resident spy.

Nor are the remaining provisions of this double-faced instrument calculated to shed balm over the wounded dignity of the head of the Church. It is the Emperor who appoints the members of the synod, although the katholikos is entrusted with the important function of submitting two names for the Imperial choice. It is not legal for the pontiff to punish a member of the synod without the Imperial consent. The same authority is necessary should he desire to suspend a bishop. He may not leave the cloister for more than four months except with the sanction of the Tsar. When a bishopric falls vacant he submits names to the Emperor, with whom the appointment rests. Should the bishop desire to go abroad for more than four months, application must be made to the same high quarter. But perhaps the most serious because the most insidious weapon against the independence of the national Church is the provision which enacts that a year shall elapse between the death of a katholikos and the election of his successor. This clause was accepted with singular want of foresight at a time when travelling was even slower than it is at the present day, and when it was difficult to collect the delegates from Turkey and Persia within a lesser period. In practice it is not easy for the new katholikos to take up his duties until some time subsequent to his election; and, should further delay be of advantage to the Government, the Tsar can always defer confirming the choice of the representatives. Thus a vacancy in the Chair is always accompanied by a long interregnum, during which the Government plays off one party against the other, and succeeds in obtaining whatever concessions may have been resisted during the preceding pontificate.

An English traveller who visited Edgmiatsin the year after the conclusion of this enactment found the synod with its Russian procurator in full swing. The katholikos was at once reduced to a position of president of the synod, and the synod to one of subservience to Russian policy.8 Von Haxthausen speaks of the procurator as a Russian and quite an autocrat; this was in 1843.9 At that time the pontiff Nerses was in occupation of the Chair, and his conspicuous abilities were regarded with suspicion by the Russian authorities. His schemes for the higher education of the Armenians had come to nothing owing to Russian opposition. But the hardest blow was reserved for the year 1885, when the Katholikos Makar was appointed by the Emperor in defiance of the expressed sentiments of the delegates of the nation. It was then realised that the independence of the Church was at an end. The ukase of investiture confirmed this pessimist view. Instead of the usual wording “upon the recommendation of the Armenian people,” the appointment was based “upon the recommendation of the clergy.” Instead of the pictures from Armenian history which adorned the ukase of the pontiff George, Russian insignia and coats of arms enlivened the scroll. The constitutional phrase has been restored to the ukase confirming the present pontiff, but not the patriotic pictures!10

Still, in spite of the fetters which have been imposed upon the actions of the katholikos, as much by the manner in which the Polojenye is worked by the Russian bureaucracy as by the provisions which that statute contains, the average Armenian and especially the lower classes are immensely interested in the event of the coming days. At Batum, at Kutais, at Alexandropol, at Erivan—wherever we have been in the society of Armenians, talk has centred upon the triumphal journey and the approaching consecration of His Holiness Mekertich Khrimean. It is not only the ancient ceremony, and it is not merely the assembling of delegates from all parts of the Armenian world that appeals to the heart of the nation. It is the personality and reputation of the man. The people forgets, but it does not change. The imagination of the race still sees in the holder of the pontifical office not alone or so much an archbishop or katholikos—the keystone of the edifice of the Church—as a high priest in the old Biblical sense. Khrimean is the ideal of a high priest. He is a figure which steps straight out from the Old Testament with all the fire and all the poetry. At the ceremony of his consecration it seemed as if at the foot of Ararat the ancient spirit were still alive, and that the holy oil which descended upon that venerable head from the beak of the golden dove anointed a law-giver to the people who announced the Divine Word. This impression was in part derived from the Semitic cast of his features. The large brown eyes and aquiline nose above a long and full beard, are characteristics which we associate with the Jewish nation, but which are not uncommon among the Armenians. What is more rare among this people is the spirituality and refinement which is written in every line of this handsome face (Fig. 48). But the whole character of the man would seem to have been moulded upon a Biblical model rather than upon that of the Christian hierarchy. He is the tried statesman to whom the people look for guidance in the abeyance of the kingly office. With him religion and patriotism are almost interchangeable terms; and the strong reality which he has given to the old Armenian history may be illustrated by an act which those who lack sympathy with such a character might almost regard as childish. In the cloister of Varag near Van, over which he has presided for many years, are buried the remains of Senekerim, king of the Van country, who abdicated his kingdom in favour of the Byzantine emperor, Basil II., and retired to the town of Sivas in Asia Minor, which he received in exchange. Over his tomb a wooden canopy had been erected and decorated in a manner befitting royal rank. But such honours, paid to so unworthy a monarch, shocked the keen sense of the patriot in Khrimean; he stripped the frame of its trappings and ornaments, and the structure stands bare to this day. The simple surroundings among which his life has been passed recall the setting of a Bible story. At a later stage of our journey, when we arrived in the town of Van, I was shown the house where he had resided and which he has now devoted to a school for girls. As I alighted to visit the school a man with the appearance and dress of a peasant stepped forward to hold the reins of my horse. Yet this individual was none other than the nephew of the Katholikos, and the brother of Khoren Khrimean, who has accompanied his uncle to Edgmiatsin, and who does the honours of the patriarchal household with so much dignity and natural grace. During our stay in Van, his native province, we were afforded an instance of the magnetic influence which through a long life Mekertich Khrimean has exercised upon his countrymen, and which takes the form of superstitious veneration among the humble and the poor. As we were winding up the slopes of Mount Varag on our way to the ancient monastery where he lived so long, teaching in the school which he had founded within its walls, and often taking this very path from the cloister to preach in the little church of Hankusner, on the outskirts of the gardens of Van, our attention was called to a spot where an assassin had lain in wait for him, deputed by his enemies to kill him as he rode unaccompanied towards the town. The story is told that when the man perceived him and raised his rifle to his shoulder, a sudden fear seized his limbs, his arm shook like a wand; and he fell upon his knees before his victim, whose look he had been unable to bear. As a writer Khrimean has expressed through the vehicle of a prose which is full of poetry and emotion conceptions of Scripture and thoughts upon the troubles of his time which might have sprung from the warm imagination of the early Christians in the East. He has often suffered for the fire of his sermons, and he possesses both the style of the consummate orator and the personal charm which keeps an audience under a spell. He has for many years been in the forefront of the Armenian movement; and it was he who pleaded the Armenian cause at the Congress of Berlin. A people whose spirit has been crushed and whose manhood has been degraded gather new life from such a teacher and learn to become men. But perhaps the most striking quality in a character which is at once complex and clear as the light of day is the ever-welling kindness and open-armed sympathy with which he shares the troubles of his fellow-men. As the throng press round him, the holder of their highest office, and endeavour to kiss his hand or gain a glimpse of his face, the mind travels back to that solemn scene in which the Greek king receives his stricken and distracted people: “O my poor children, known to me, not unknown is the subject of your prayer; well am I aware that you are sore afflicted all; yet, though you suffer, there is not one among you who suffers even as I. For the grief you bear comes to each one alone—himself for himself he suffers—and to none other else; but my soul mourns for the State and for myself and you.”11

Side by side with personal relations of greater freedom than I had anticipated towards this remarkable man, there grew up at Edgmiatsin and during the course of subsequent travel a fairly intimate acquaintance with the events of his life. He was born on the 5th of April 1820; and it is therefore in his seventy-fourth year that he ascends the throne of St. Thaddeus and of St. Gregory. His father and uncle were well-to-do citizens of Van, who had come to be known under the name of Khrimean because of a trade which they had conducted with the Crimea. The young Mekertich had a single brother and no sisters; and he appears to have been educated with some care by his uncle. His youth and early manhood were devoted to secular pursuits. For five or six years he acted in the capacity of an overseer in a weaving business. But already in 1841 he had become a traveller and a thinker; in that year he made a journey in the province of Ararat and visited Edgmiatsin. At the age of twenty-five he married and in due course became a father; but his wife died after giving birth to a daughter who only lived to be six or seven years old. To a layman of intellectual tastes among the Armenians of Turkey there is scarcely any other profession open than the honourable but ill-paid calling of a teacher. Shortly after his marriage Khrimean proceeded to the capital and earned his living by private tuition. His first book appeared in 1850, and consisted of a description in poetry of his travels in Ararat. The period of his residence in Constantinople was diversified by further journeys; to Jerusalem and the Holy Land, of which he published an account; and to Cilicia, the seat of the latest Armenian dynasty, where he remained some time as a teacher in the convent of Sis. In 1854 he returned to his native city, and in the following year took orders and became a vardapet or monastic priest. It is at this date that the more conspicuous portion of his life may be said to have commenced. The pulpit gave full scope to his natural eloquence; while the qualities of the student and writer, which he had carefully cultivated, were displayed in the columns of a journal which he founded about 1856 and named the Eagle of Vaspurakan, or of the province of Van. The proceeds of the sale of this periodical, which was at first printed at Constantinople, whither he had returned in 1855, enabled him to purchase an instrument of great rareness in Turkey, which the Armenians prize with the same childish affection and reverence as the Persian highlanders value a rifle or sporting gun. Khrimean re-entered Van with the title of abbot of the famous monastery which overlooks the landscape of the city and the rock and the waters from the slopes of Mount Varag. He came the proud possessor of a printing press, with which to conquer the sloth of the faint-hearted among the laymen and edify the crass ignorance of the priests.

In the good old times in Turkey one might read or write what books one liked, and the freedom which was enjoyed by the average individual might have excited the envy of the citizens of some of the European states. When the abbot of Varag cast his stone into the stagnant waters, the report woke little echo beyond the borders of his native province and the ranks of his countrymen. But the waves which he set in motion have never yet subsided; and who can tell upon what shore of promise or disappointment they are destined to break and disappear? If ever there was a good cause, such was the cause which he championed, and no advocate could be more pure-minded than himself. His avowed object and real aim was the elevation of the Armenians and their preparation for the new era which he foresaw. That era he conceived as one of national activity in the rapid decline of the Mussulman peoples and the approach of new influences from the West. If we tax him with having resuscitated a realised and played-out ideal—that national ideal which is still the bane of our modern Europe, but which, except perhaps in the case of some paradoxical German Professors, has lost its hold upon educated minds, he might reply that it is the only talisman with which to touch the Armenians, the most obstinate nationalists which the world has ever seen. He might further point to the almost hopeless condition of the Ottoman Empire, and under his breath he might suggest that the methods of Russian despotism were not such as to excite the enthusiasm of a strongly individual people capable of assimilating Western culture at first hand. Lastly, he might dwell upon the fact that the Armenians have a long history, and that their progress, to be solid and permanent, must be based on a revival of consciousness in the dignity of their past.

But the inculcation of such doctrines in the minds of his countrymen was sure to produce a ferment among a people who have been regarded as the inferiors and almost as the slaves of the Mussulmans for upwards of eight hundred years. It was imputed to him that he was working to revive the old Armenian kingdom—a consummation which a sensible Turk should regard with equanimity, since the time necessary to attain this end would far exceed all possible limits which he might assign to his solicitude for posterity. But sensible people are a minority of the inhabitants of this globe, and they are not numerous in the governing circles of the Ottoman Empire. The great activity of the Abbot of Varag, who trained his youths in the school of the cloister to conduct unaided the redoubtable magazine, slowly aroused the suspicion of the authorities. His own party in the Church supported him with much zeal, and another monastery, still more famous, that of Surb Karapet above Mush plain, was added to his spiritual administration. No sooner was he installed than a second printing press was set up and another school founded. The Armenians of the plain of Mush were edified by a new local journal, the Little Eagle of Taron. In 1869 he was elected Patriarch of Constantinople, a dignity which he only held for four years. The Turkish Government had become alive to his great and growing popularity, and it was found expedient that he should resign. Then came the tribulations of the Russo-Turkish war, during which the new movement among the Armenians cost them several little massacres and untoward events. When the Congress met at Berlin the ex-patriarch, who had been busy with literature, undertook, in concert with an archiepiscopal colleague, a mission on behalf of his nation to the German capital. This was his first visit to the West, and he extended his journey to Italy, France and England. The result of his efforts and of those of Nerses, Patriarch of Constantinople, was the insertion of the well-known clause in the Treaty of Berlin pledging Europe to supervise the execution of reforms in the Asiatic provinces of Turkey inhabited by Armenians. Khrimean returned to his native country the object of the resentment of the Ottoman authorities; much of this portion of his life was spent in Van. But Armenian discontent was spreading; the alarm of Government was increasing; and in 1889 the eloquent preacher was sent to Jerusalem in honorary exile. In the month of May 1892 he was elected to the primacy of the Armenian Church. The Russian bureaucracy perhaps reflected that their safeguards at Edgmiatsin were quite sufficient to bridle the vigour of a septuagenarian. These shrewd diplomats therefore humoured the Armenians in the matter, and the election was allowed to stand. The Sultan raised difficulties about releasing the exiled prelate from his Ottoman nationality and oath of allegiance. When this objection had been overcome his consent was qualified by the condition that the katholikos-elect should not pass through Constantinople. A year elapsed in these parleyings. For two years the Armenian Church had been without a head. During that period it had been ruled by the Russian procurator. Now in the autumn the elect of the nation is at length presented to the delegates who have assembled from all parts of the Armenian world. And he comes from Russia, from the north, released from exile in Turkey at the pressing instance of the Tsar. One must admire the extraordinary cleverness of these Russian bureaucrats!

The sun was already high when we sallied forth from our lodging, having with great difficulty prepared our breakfast in the crowded room. We passed down the long and dusty street of the village, which is dignified by the historical name of Vagharshapat. Nothing remains of the capital of King Tiridates, which was built upon this site or in the immediate neighbourhood. You are shown the remains of an old bridge which spanned the Kasagh, or river of Vagharshapat, some little distance north-west of the present settlement. The river has changed its course since it was erected. But the character of the masonry is rather that which was prevalent in the Middle Ages—conglomerate piles, faced with carefully hewn and jointed blocks of stone. Several shops bestow a modern appearance upon the street, having windows and being disposed as in Europe. A commonplace edifice with many windows and standing in private grounds recalls an Institute in one of our provincial towns. It is the Academy or Seminary. We entered the cloister from a door on the north, through which we issued into an open space on the west of the great court. A covered way conducted us to the quadrangle, in the centre of which rises the cathedral (Fig. 49, taken from south-west).

Imagine the Old Court of Trinity College at Cambridge without the gateway, the hall and chapel, and with a church of some size placed in the centre where the fountain stands. All four sides of the figure are defined by low buildings, resembling the dwellings which constitute two sides of the Cambridge court. I had always understood that our quadrangle at Trinity was the largest in the world; although I believe some American university was building one a few inches bigger not so very long ago. But the great court of Edgmiatsin perhaps already makes the record; it has a length, from west to east, of 349 feet 6 inches, and a breadth of 335 feet 2 inches. These measurements I took myself, much to the astonishment of the crowd which assembled; they were at a loss to find a theory which might explain so strange an act. The length will be very much increased in a short while, when the condemned east side has disappeared. A fine row of stone buildings is in course of erection, which will enlarge that dimension by many yards. Our cousins across the Atlantic must bestir themselves.

The western side of the court on the south of the covered way is devoted to the residence of the Katholikos, while the block on the north of the same passage is occupied by the bishops. There is no style or pomp about the pontifical dwelling; and it would bear the same relation to the Master’s Lodge at Trinity as a four-roomed cottage to a mansion. At the back is a little garden. The north side consists of the rooms inhabited by the monks, and a terrace, raised on pointed arches, extends from end to end. The building on the east is in process of demolition, and, like its fellows on the two sides which have already been described, is composed of comparatively fragile material. I was given to understand that it had once housed the seminary and printing press; a little bakery still occupies the junction with the buildings on the south. These are constructed of stone, and, although very plain, lend an air of solidity to the entire quadrangle. Beginning on the west of this block we have first a long refectory on the ground floor. Its dimensions are a length of 155 feet, and a breadth of 16 feet 6 inches. But it is a very humble place when compared to the magnificent dining halls at Cambridge, and it is not more than 14 feet in height. The ceiling is vaulted, and like the walls is whitewashed over; the apartment is well lit and is cool in summer. Two rows of narrow tables extend down it, and on the west side is the throne and the canopy of the Katholikos, both in carved wood. Should he join the monks at dinner, his table is spread beneath the canopy. Parallel with this refectory and facing the outhouses on the south is placed a similar chamber for the servants, a part of the space upon the east being occupied by the kitchen. The storey above the refectories is tenanted by the library, while the eastern portion of the buildings is taken up by granaries and store rooms both on the ground and upper floors.

Except for the pilgrims’ court, with adjacent structures, and the garden of the Katholikos—the one on the southern, the other on the south-western side—the space between the outer wall and the great court is for the most part vacant ground. What edifices there have been raised within it are of an unsubstantial character, and may have been allowed to fall into ruin. The fine sites which are thus forthcoming are being rapidly utilised, and I have already referred to the row of buildings which will extend the great court upon the east and which at the time of our visit were approaching completion. In a line with this new block, in which red and grey stones diversify the masonry, is situated further south the house which lodges the printing press, a solid stone structure. The transformation of Edgmiatsin from a residence of ignorant monks into a seat of education, the home of cultured men, is proceeding year by year; and it is even possible that the bricks and mortar, or, to speak more correctly, the excellent masonry is in advance of the needs which it is intended to supply. Wealthy Armenians are fond of endowing the famous cloister, for which they do not need the incitement of meetings at some Devonshire House. But the form of gift dearest to them is the erection of a building, which stands there so that all may see. This preference for the concrete and visible is deeply ingrained in them, and they are able to gratify it owing to the great skill of the Armenian masons. Plans were shown me which provided a palace for the Katholikos and the rebuilding of the north side of the quadrangle. These, I believe, have already been decided upon, one of our party at the private table of the Katholikos having provided the greater part of the funds. I was also invited to look at some very elaborate drawings for the enlargement and adornment of the church. No sooner had they been handed round than one of the guests of His Holiness expressed his readiness to defray the cost. Speaking as one who came fresh to Edgmiatsin, I did my best to dissuade the acceptance of this last project. To enlarge the church would be to dwarf the fine proportions of the court; indeed the contrary course would be well-advised. One would not very much regret the abolition of the portal, while the excrescence on the east, containing the treasury and room of relics, should certainly be pulled down. His Holiness favoured the idea of erecting a new church outside the walls, to supplement the space available in the present building.

We were assigned a room in the condemned block on the east of the quadrangle, wherein we spread our rugs and erected our camp beds. It was 26 feet square, with a lofty wooden ceiling, supported by two pillars of the same material. The adjoining apartment was in process of demolition, but, although without a roof, it served admirably as a kitchen, while the flooring provided fuel for our fire. When all was in order we should not have exchanged the results of our improvisation even for the creations of the Cambridge upholsterer, mellowed in the hands of the Cambridge bedmaker; while, as for living, was it not preferable to possess the whole of our scapegrace cook than to share the services of the most virtuous of gyps? Each day as we mounted our staircase, which exactly recalled its sad Cambridge counterparts, I was struck by the resemblance of my new surroundings to those among which I had grown up in the Old Court of Trinity, with the sky and the fountain and the adjacent cloister, where the glory of the foliage and lawn and river is spread in mystery beyond the trellis screens.

Even beneath this tropical sun the mind of man has surpassed his difficulties; and just as the Cam has been converted from a melancholy ditch into a brimming waterway, threading a landscape of lawn and forest, so the Kasagh has been impressed into the service of an artificial lake, bordered by shady avenues. Extremely pleasant is the stroll round this spacious basin, which is due to the refinement of Nerses V. (1761–1857). It is situated just outside and south of the cloister; and while from one side the view discloses the dome and a cupola of the cathedral (Fig. 50), on the other it is the vault of Ararat and the pyramid of the Lesser Ararat that are outlined above the soft foreground of water and trees (Fig. 51). It was a pleasure to instance this work to General Frese and my Russian acquaintances as bearing testimony to the sense of security inspired by Russian rule. The cloister and even the bazar are surrounded by walls worthy of a fortress, a relic from the old Persian times. The Russians appear on the scene, and the imprisoned monks disport in the open, which they make to bloom with luscious groves.

On the morning following a restful day which introduced us to our new environment I was invited to visit His Holiness. He had arrived within the walls of the cloister during our sojourn on Ararat, and it appeared that he had scarcely been able to leave his apartments owing to the enthusiasm of the humbler among his admirers, who could not be restrained from pressing round him whenever he walked abroad. This enforced seclusion had developed a tendency to asthma; but with this exception I found him in excellent health. Even the garden had been invaded by the peasants, who would wait hour after hour to catch a glimpse of their Hayrik—a term of endearment, signifying little father, under which Khrimean is very generally known. Two footmen in scarlet robes with blue sashes stood upon the flight of steps or busied themselves with errands. I was ushered into a long apartment, modestly furnished in European style, where I was received by an Armenian gentleman, of the handsome aquiline type of face, who addressed me in fluent English. He had been interpreter to the delegates to the Berlin Congress, and more recently had been much in the society of the Katholikos, residing at Jaffa (Jerusalem). Baron Serapion Murad—the first name is the equivalent of Mr.—holds a position of the first importance in the counsels of His Holiness at this juncture in his career. He is the shrewd man of the world, who weighs you in the balance with a single glance of his intelligent eyes. I appear to have emerged on the right side of the scale; for his formidable scrutiny rapidly relaxed into an amiable smile. We passed from this outer room into a chamber with a daïs at the further side; and presently the Katholikos entered and mounted the daïs, begging us be seated on two chairs which were placed on the floor below, but quite close to his own arm-chair.

I do not remember having ever seen a more handsome and engaging face; and I experienced a thrill of pleasure at the mere fact of sitting beside him and seeing the smile, which was evidently habitual to those features, play around the limpid brown eyes. The voice too is one of great sweetness, and the manner a quiet dignity with strength behind. The footmen and the daïs and the antechamber were soon forgotten in this presence—forms necessary to little men and perhaps useful to their superiors, though they are always kicking them off when they are not stumbling among their folds. Happily the temperament of His Holiness is averse to all baubles; the cross of diamonds was absent from his conical cowl, and his black silk robe, upon which fell a beard which was not yet white, was unrelieved by the star of his Russian order. These ornaments are strangely out of place on such a figure, and their formulas out of keeping with this character. I was closely questioned upon all the incidents of our climb on Ararat; nor was it doubted that we had reached the summit. In the old days such a pretension would have been met with a smile. Then we passed to his sojourn in England, and I asked his opinion of Mr. Gladstone, with whom he had enjoyed some intercourse. He had been impressed, like so many others, with the theological cast of that supple mind. The face contracted when we came to speak of his life in the Turkish provinces; and he laid stress upon the terrible reality of the sufferings of the Armenian inhabitants. All the struggles and hopes and anguish of his strenuous days and sleepless nights seemed to rise in the mind and choke the voice. Then he sank back, with a sigh which seemed to regret them. “I have come,” he said, “to the land of Forgetfulness.”—And from the quadrangle came the sound of a slowly-moving Russian anthem, and the measured step of a detachment of Russian soldiers.

His Holiness invited me to take my meals in his private dining-room, and expressed his regret that he would not be present himself. It happened to be a fast day, and nothing was offered but lentils and peas. But on the day following quite a banquet was spread before us—salmon trout from Lake Sevan, delicious dolmas of minced meat and rice bound together by tender cabbage leaves, and the usual not very tasty chickens. At the head of the table sat the vicar or substitute of the Katholikos, with M. Pribil on a special mission representing the Emperor on his right hand, and General Frese on his left. One or two Armenian notables were of the party, which, however, consisted for the most part of bishops resident at Edgmiatsin. All wore their black silk cowls during the meal. As one looked down the line of clerics the aquiline type of face predominated—fine human animals they seemed, with their pronounced features and limpid eyes and the long beards which keep their colour and speak of a mind at ease. One of the monks present spoke French fluently; but he had been imported from the Crimea by the present Katholikos. His name was Khoren Stephaneh. Many a pleasant talk I had with him, but not during dinner; they have too much respect in the East for their food and cook to divert the tongue at such a time from its proper function. What little ripples of conversation diversified the natural sounds of the meal were due to that restless spirit of the West, which is always asking questions and living several hours in advance of the actually present time. I do not know that either of the high Russian functionaries were much troubled by this particular product of Western culture; but, if they were, they must have suffered from the inability of their hosts to comprehend their language. The wine of the cloister flowed freely, and was supplemented by European liqueurs. Then the restless spirit broke bounds, attacking first the taciturnity of the Governor of Erivan. The formula I had heard so often was the first to take wing; and “How long are you staying here?” came across the table in a somewhat loud voice. It was not the least unkindly meant. Next the same little sprite perched upon M. Pribil, and extracted several questions, which it let fly. When we rose from table he engaged me in a discursive conversation which ranged freely over the Armenian Question. He affirmed that the Armenians did not compose more than one-fifth of the population of the Russian provinces south of Caucasus.

The apartment was soon empty, every one retiring to their siesta; but I strolled out and made my way to the humble monastic buildings which adjoin the lonely church of Saint Gaiane. There I found a new friend whom I had learnt to value, a young monk recently ordained. Mesrop Ter-Mosesean belongs to the new school of clerics who will before long remove that stigma of crass ignorance which still attaches to the bulk of the Armenian priesthood. Men like Khrimean have long perceived that in matters of education Germany occupies the first position among the nations of the world. With greater insight than the Turks, who send their young men to Paris—the very worst school for the full-blooded Oriental—they encourage their promising scholars to study in Germany, and find the necessary funds. The monk of Gaiane had just returned from the German University, and he does credit to the solid attainments which it supplies. He is a splendid physical example of his race. Tall, with the bold features of the handsome type which I have described, with a massive forehead and teeth white as snow, he combines with these outward advantages a manner which is most winning and a simple, straightforward character. Hours I spent in his little sitting-room during my sojourn, and I was always sorry to come away. He occupies the post of librarian at Edgmiatsin, and he is now busy with the compilation of a new and comprehensive catalogue.12 On this occasion we walked across to the library, and found it full of people. It is entered from the side of the Katholikos’ garden. I was shocked by the spectacle of valuable manuscripts lying open on a long table, and being fingered by a promiscuous crowd. Such was the license of this national festival. I noticed among them a New Testament of the tenth century, bound in richly carved ivory sides. The type and pose of the Christ in the centre of the one panel recalled that of a Roman emperor.13 Beautiful manuscripts of the thirteenth century and a minutely illuminated missal of the seventeenth figured among the treasures which any hand was allowed to soil.

Evensong was at hand, and my companion and myself entered the dimly-lit church. The Katholikos was already seated in the throne with the canopy, attired in a rich white satin robe. The cross of diamonds flashed from his cowl. Bishops and monks composed two rows, extending to the daïs of the apse; they wore robes of yellow silk, embroidered with coloured garlands of flowers. The congregation was very numerous, but clustered in groups about the Katholikos; there was no order or assignment of places, as with us. They sat or knelt upon the floor. On either side of the lines of clerics were gathered the choir, in gorgeous dresses, holding large and cumbrous books of Armenian music. The priests conducting the service stood upon the pavement of the church with their backs to the daïs. Above them rose the shapes of crosses and gorgeous eikons, held aloft by their attendants. Incense was scattered at intervals. I noticed that His Holiness twice changed raiment, although I was at a loss to discover when and where the transformation had taken place. The strongly nasal chants hurt my unaccustomed ear, and I found it impossible to educate my sympathy into communion with this show.

An hour or two later symbols and eikons and tight little formulas were all blissfully asleep; and the great court flooded over with good, healthy human spirits, released from the restraints of the day. Bonfires were lit within it, from which the leaping flames shot into the shadows of the church of the Illuminator and revealed the circles of the dancers. From many a brightly-lit room, given over to the pilgrims, came the shrill sounds of the flute and the beats of the small drum. Hai-this and Hai-that—the refrain and burden of every song celebrated the glories of the sons of Hayk. In the street of Vagharshapat our friends the musicians from Alexandropol were reaping a golden harvest. Was there ever collected together a more motley crowd? They must have come great distances. There were ladies from Akhaltsykh, with the pretty fillets across the brow; there were frock-coats and uniforms. The bright calicoes of peasant women enlivened the scene; some of the men, the poorest class, wore their rough sheepskin hats, while the better-to-do had donned low caps with a peak, like that of a naval officer. Long before midnight quiet had settled upon the great quadrangle, and nothing was heard but the plash of the fountain. But sombre patches marked the spots where whole families were encamped; while the steps all around the church and every niche and doorway were black with the forms of serried human beings in every attitude of slumber.

Next morning, the 8th of October, popular excitement was at its highest, the central event which they had come to celebrate being imminent. From the earliest dawn throngs of sheepskins and peak hats and coloured calicoes had been busy reconnoitring the most suitable positions; and, when the hour approached, all the roofs which commanded a view of the portal, and a good part of the quadrangle enjoying the same advantage, were densely packed with spectators. Rows of Russian soldiers kept clear the approaches to the western or principal entrance of the church. They wore dark green uniforms with shoulder-straps of a faded pink, and peaked caps of white canvas. Wesson and I made our way with difficulty to the residence of the Katholikos, where, in the private room of Baron Murad, we set up the camera right in face of the scene of the approaching ceremony. It had been decided to perform the rite of consecration upon a daïs in front of the portal. This improvised wooden structure was covered with carpets and costly embroideries. Over the doorway of the portal were emblazoned large Armenian letters upon a ground of cloth or canvas. The inscription reminded us that we were assembled upon the actual site where Jesus Christ is believed to have descended from heaven. The name of the cloister and cathedral is said to signify “The Only-Begotten has descended”; and the text over the doorway may be translated “The Only-Begotten has descended from the Father, and the light of glorification with Him.” Upon a higher plane, from the tower of the belfry, was suspended a banner, embroidered with the device of the Katholikos and with the eagle of Vaspurakan (Van). The device consisted of a mitre, surmounting the figures of two angels, one carrying a cross and the other a pastoral staff. These emblems crossed one another, and at the intersection was placed an ornament of diamond shape peculiar to the Katholikos. The eagle with the wings outspread was purely personal to Khrimean, recalling the many links which attach him to Van. The scroll was to the following effect:—“O God, the knower of hearts, protect for long years our chief of shepherds (Hovapet) Mekertich Hayrik.” Left and right of the daïs, in niches of the façade of the portal, were exhibited two eikons, or religious pictures, richly framed, of which that on the left—a Virgin and Child—was a painting of very high merit, said to be of Byzantine origin.