Almost from time immemorial a border warfare has been carried on between the Koordish tribes on the confines of Turkey and Persia, in the mountainous country beginning at Mount Ararat toward the north, and continuing southward to the low lands, where the Shat al Arab, the name of the mighty river formed by the junction of the Tigris and the Euphrates, pours those great volumes of water into the Persian Gulf. The consequence of the unsettled state of affairs in those wild districts was, that the roads were unsafe for travelers; merchants were afraid to trust their merchandise to the conveyance even of well-armed caravans, for they were constantly pillaged by the Koords, headed in our days by the great chieftains Beder Khan Bey, Noor Ullah Bey, Khan Abdall, and Khan Mahmoud. The chains of mountains which occupy great part of the country in question are for months every year covered with snow, which even in the elevated plains lies at the depth of many yards; the bands of robbers constantly on the watch for plunder of any kind prevented the mountain paths from being kept open, so that those who escaped from the long lances of the Koords perished in the avalanches and the snowdrifts by hundreds every year.

To put a stop, or at least a check, to so lamentable a state of things, the governments of Turkey and Persia requested the assistance of England and Russia to draw up a treaty of peace, and to come to a distinct understanding as to where the line of border ran between the two empires; for hitherto the Koordish tribes of Turkey made it a virtue to plunder a Persian village, and the Persians, on their side, considered no action more meritorious, as well as profitable, than an inroad on the Turkish frontier, the forays on both sides being conducted on the same plan. The invading party, always on horseback, and with a number of trained led horses, which could travel one hundred miles without flagging, managed to arrive in the neighborhood of the devoted village one hour before sunrise. The barking of the village curs was the first notice to the sleeping inhabitants that the enemy was literally at the door. The houses were fired in every direction; the people awoke from sleep, and, trying in confusion to escape, were speared on their thresholds by their invaders; the place was plundered of every thing worth taking; and one hour after sunrise the invading bands were in full retreat, driving before them the flocks and herds of their victims, and the children and girls of the village bound on the led horses, to be sold or brought up as slaves; the rest having, young and old, men and women, been killed without mercy, to prevent their giving the alarm: their victors frequently coming down upon them from a distance of one hundred to three hundred miles.

In hopes of remedying these misfortunes, a conference was appointed at Erzeroom, where a Turkish plenipotentiary, Noori Effendi; a Persian plenipotentiary, Merza Jaffer Khan; a Russian commissioner, Colonel Dainese; and an English commissioner, Colonel Williams, of the Royal Artillery, were to meet, each with a numerous suite, to discuss the position of the boundary, and to check the border incursions of the Koordish tribes, both by argument and by force of arms, the troops of both nations being ordered to assist the deliberations of the congress at Erzeroom by every endeavor on their part to keep the country in a temporary state of tranquillity. The plenipotentiaries on the part of Turkey and Persia, and the English and Russian commissioners, entered upon their arduous task at the beginning of the year 1842. Colonel Williams, to whom the duties of the English commission had been intrusted, was too unwell to proceed to Erzeroom, and I was appointed in his stead, being at that time private secretary to Sir Stratford Canning, her majesty’s embassador at Constantinople. Colonel Williams afterward recovered so much that he was able to set out, and we started together as joint commissioners, in company with Colonel (afterward General) Dainese, on the part of Russia, a gentleman of very considerable talents and attainments. The discussions between the two governments were protracted by every conceivable difficulty, which was thrown in the way of the commissioners principally by the Turks. At length, in June, 1847, a treaty was signed, in which the confines of the two empires were defined: these, however, being situated in places never surveyed, and only known by traditional maps, which had copied the names of places one from another since the invention of engraving, it was considered advisable that the true situations of these places should be verified in a scientific manner; consequently, a new commission was named in the year 1848, whose officers were instructed to define the actual position of the spots enumerated in the treaty above mentioned. These commissioners consisted of Dervish Pasha for Turkey, Merza Jaffer for Persia, Colonel Williams for England, and Colonel Ktchirikoff for Russia.

This party left Bagdad in 1848, surveyed the whole of that hitherto unexplored region, among the Koordish and original Christian tribes, which extends to the east of Mesopotamia, till they finished their difficult and dangerous task at Mount Ararat, on the 16th of September, 1852. The results of this expedition are, I hope, to be presented to the public by the pen of Colonel Williams, and will, I trust, throw a new and interesting light upon the manners and customs of the wild mountaineers of those districts, and give much information relating to the Chaldeans, Maronites, Nestorians, and other Christian Churches converted in the earliest ages by the successors of the Apostles, of whom we know very little, no travelers hitherto having had the opportunities of investigating their actual condition and their religious tenets which have been afforded to Colonel Williams and the little army under his command.

Armenia, the cradle of the human family, inoffensive and worthless of itself, has for centuries, indeed from the beginning of time, been a bone of contention between conflicting powers: scarcely has it been made acquainted with the blessings of tranquillity and peace, through the mediation of Great Britain, than again it is to become the theatre of war, again to be overrun with bands of armed men seeking each other’s destruction, in a climate which may afford them burial when dead, but which is too barren and inhospitable to provide them with the necessaries of life; and this to satisfy the ambition of a distant potentate, by whose success they gain no advantage in this world or in the next.

It is much to be deplored that the Emperor of Russia, by his want of principle, has brought the Christian religion into disrepute; for throughout the Levant the Christians have for years been waiting an opportunity to rise against the oppressors of their fortunes and their faith. The manner in which the Czar has put himself so flagrantly in the wrong will be a check to the progress of Christianity. That the step he has now been taking has been the great object of his reign, as well as that of all his predecessors since the time of Peter the Great, will be illustrated in the following pages.

The accession of a Christian emperor to the throne of Constantinople will be an event of greater consequence than is generally imagined; for the Sultan of Roum is considered by all Mohammedans in India, Africa, and all parts of the world, to be the vicegerent of God upon earth, and the Caliph or successor of Mohammed; his downfall, therefore, would shatter the whole fabric of the Mohammedan faith, for the Sultan is the pride and glory of Islam, and the pale Crescent of the East will wane and set when Kurie Eleison is chanted again under the ancient dome of St. Sofia.

What an unfortunate mistake has been made in not waiting for a real and just occasion for pressing forward the ranks of the Cross against the Crescent! Then who would not have joined a righteous cause? who would not have given his wealth, his assistance, or his life, in the defense of his faith against the enemies of his religion?

I feel that, in laying this little book before the public, I am committing a rash act, for I am perfectly aware that it has many imperfections. I was prevented from visiting several important places in Armenia by an illness so severe, brought on by the unhealthy climate, that I have not been able to take an active part in life since that time. The following pages were written in a very few days, at a time when other occupations prevented me from giving them that attention which should always be afforded to a work that is intended for the perusal of the public.

Nevertheless, I consider that, as the countries described are so little known, and as it is not improbable that events of great importance may take place within their boundaries, I should be open to greater blame in withholding any information, however humble, than in presenting to the reader a meagre account of those wild and sterile regions, whose climate and manners are so different from those which are generally described in the works of Oriental travelers.

These sketches, slight as they are, may perhaps be found useful to the members of any expedition which the chances of war may occasion to be sent into those remote countries, by giving them beforehand some intimation of the preparations necessary to be made for their journey through a district where they would encounter at every step difficulties which they might not have been led to expect in a latitude considerably to the south of the Bay of Naples.