Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 65, No. 403, May, 1849

"When I undertook, in the year 1843, a journey to Russian Armenia, Mount Ararat was the object I had particularly in view. Various circumstances then compelled me to content myself with a visit to the north side of that mountain. But in the following year, during my journey to Turkish Armenia and Persia, it was vouchsafed me to explore the previously entirely unknown south side of the Ararat group, and to abide upon Turkish and Persian territory, in the vicinity of the mighty boundary-stone of three great empires. The striking position of Ararat, almost equidistant from China and from the Iberian peninsula, from the ice-bound Lena in the high northern latitudes of Siberia, and from the slimy current of the Ganges in Southern Hindostan, has at all periods attracted the attention of geographers. For years I had harboured the ardent wish to visit the mysterious mountain. Towering in the centre of the Old Continent, an image of the fire whose mighty remains extend to the regions of eternal ice, Ararat is indicated by Jewish and Armenian tradition as the peak of refuge, round which the deluge roared, unable to overflow it. From the summit of the gigantic cone descended the pairs of all creatures, whose descendants people the earth."

On Ararat, as in many other places, tradition and science disagree. Diluvial traces are sought there in vain. On the other hand, evidences of volcanic devastation on every side abound; and a wish to investigate this, and to ascertain the details of the subterranean commotion that had destroyed Arguri three years previously, was one of the principal motives of Dr Wagner's visit to Armenia. Towards the middle of May he started from Tefflis, the most important town of the Russian trans-Caucasian provinces, accompanied by Abowian, a well-educated Armenian and accomplished linguist, and attended by Ivan, the doctor's Cossack, a sharp fellow, and a faithful servant after his kind, but, like all his countrymen, an inveterate thief. Their vehicle was a Russian telega, or posting carriage, springless, and a perfect bone-setter on the indifferent roads of Armenia. They travelled in company with that well-known original and indefatigable traveller, General Baron Von Hallberg,22 of whose appearance, and of the sensation it excited in the streets of Erivan, Dr Wagner gives an amusing account: —

"Amongst the travellers was a strange figure, around which the inquisitive mob assembled, with expressions of the utmost wonderment. It was that of an old man, hard upon eighty, but who, nevertheless, sprang into the carriage, and took his seat beside a young Russian lady, with an air of juvenile vigour. From his chin and furrowed cheeks fell a venerable gray beard, half concealing the diamond-studded order of St Anna, which hung round his neck, whilst upon his left breast four or five other stars and crosses glittered from under the black Russian caftan, and his bald head was covered by a red Turkish fez, to the front of which a leathern peak was sewn. 'Who can he be?' murmured the curious Armenians and Tartars, who could not reconcile the old gentleman's brilliant decorations with his coachman's caftan and Turkish cap. 'Certainly a general, or perhaps a great lord from the emperor's court – a man of the first tschin!' – 'Or mayhap a foreign ambassador!' quoth others. 'Since he wears the fez, he must come from Stamboul.' A Munich gamin would have enlightened the good folks of Erivan. The interesting stranger, as some of my readers may already have conjectured, was no other than Baron Von Hallberg of Munich, (known also as the Hermit of Gauting,) my much-respected countryman. I made the acquaintance of this remarkable man, and great traveller, in 1836, at Algiers, where we passed many a cheerful day together, in the society of some jovial fellow-countrymen. After a lapse of seven years, I again met him at Tefflis, and we travelled together to Armenia. Since our parting at the foot of Atlas, he had visited the pyramids of Egypt, and the ruined temples of Heliopolis, and now the unwearied traveller thirsted after a sight of the capital of Persia's kings. He had come down the Wolga, and over the Caucasus, and was about to cross the Persian frontier."

At Pipis, the chief town of a circle, and residence of its captain, Dr Wagner was struck by the appearance of a handsome modern building; and soon he learned, to his astonishment, that it was a district-school erected by the former governor, General Von Rosen. A school in this wild district, scantily peopled with rude Tartars and Armenians, seemed as much out of place as a circulating library in an Ojibbeway village. He proceeded forthwith to visit the seminary, whose folding-doors stood invitingly open. The spacious halls were unfurnished and untenanted; over the mouldy walls spiders spread their webs with impunity; the air was damp, the windows were broken, and a great lizard scuttled out of sight upon the traveller's intrusion. There were neither benches nor desks, teachers nor pupils. Nor had there ever been any of these, said a Cossack lieutenant, whose horses were feeding in the court-yard. The school-house was a mere impromptu in honour of the Russian emperor. In many countries, when the sovereign travels, his progress is celebrated by triumphal arches, garlands, and illuminations. In Russia it is different. Nicholas is known to prefer use to ornament, and when he visits the remote provinces of his vast dominions, his lieutenants and governors strain their ingenuity to make him credit the advance of civilisation and the prosperity of his subjects. The property-men are set to work, and edifices spring up, more solid, but, at present, scarcely more useful than the pasteboard mansions on a theatrical stage. On his approach to Tefflis, the school was run up in all haste, and plans and schemes were shown for the education of Tartar and Armenian. Languages and every branch of knowledge were to be taught, and money was to be given to the people to induce them to send their children to the hall of learning. "The project was splendid," said the Cossack officer to Dr Wagner, "but there the matter rested. No sooner had the Emperor seen the school-house, and expressed his satisfaction, than the hands of masons and carpenters seemed suddenly crippled. Not another ruble reached Pipis for the prosecution of the philanthropical work, the architect took himself off, and we took possession of the empty house. The court-yard is convenient for our horses, and in the hot summer days my Cossacks find pleasant lying in the large cool halls." Not all the acuteness, foresight, and far-sightedness, and many kingly qualities, which combine to render Nicholas the most remarkable of existing monarchs, can protect from such impositions as this the sovereign of so extensive a country as Russia. In vain may the czar, indefatigable upon the road, visit the remotest corners of his dominions; unless he do so incognito, after the fashion of Haroun Alraschid, he will still be cheated. The governing part of the population, the civil and military officials, conspire to deceive him; and the governed dare not reveal the truth, for their masters have abundant means at their disposal to punish an indiscretion. "Life is delightful in this country," said Mr Ivanoff, a Russian district overseer in Armenia, as he reclined upon his divan, wrapped in a silken caftan, sipping coffee and smoking a cigar; "how absurd of people in Russia to look upon Caucasus as a murder-hole, and to pity those who have to cross it, as if they were going straight to purgatory! I reckon one vegetates here very endurably, and he who complains is either an ass, a rascal, or a liar. You see, my house is tolerably comfortable, my table not bad: I have four-and-twenty saddle-horses in my stable, superb beasts, fit for a prince's stud, and to crown all, I am loved and honoured by the twenty thousand human beings over whom I rule as the sardar's representative." Ivanoff's frank avowal of his satisfaction contrasted with the hypocritical complaints of many of his colleagues, who, whilst filling their pockets and consuming the fat of the land, affect to consider residence in trans-Caucasus the most cruel of inflictions. "Truly," says Dr Wagner, "nothing was wanting to the comfort of life in Mr Ivanoff's dwelling: convenient furniture, a capital kitchen, wine from France, cigars from the Havannah, horses of the best breeds of Arabia, Persia, and Turkistan – all these things have their value, and yet, to procure them, Mr Ivanoff had a salary of only six hundred paper rubles, (about six-and-twenty pounds sterling!) He had a tolerably pretty wife, on whom he doated, and to whom he brought all manner of presents whenever he returned from the Erivan bazaar, which he visited generally once a-week. Trinkets and silken stuffs and rich carpets – whatever, in short, the little woman fancied – she at once got, and if not to be had at Erivan, it was written for to Tefflis… When Ivanoff rode forth in his official capacity, it was with a following of twenty horsemen, all belonging to his household, and with a banner waving before him. What a life! comfort, riches, oriental pomp, and despotic power! Who would not be chief of a Russian district in Armenia?" All this upon ten shillings a-week! It was more astounding even than the school-house at Pipis. Abowian, as yet inexperienced in Russian ways, regarded the riddle as unsolvable. Ivanoff confessed he had nothing beside his salary. How then did he maintain this princely existence? He assured the travellers he was beloved by his people, and the Armenian peasants confirmed the assurance. Extortion and violent plunder could not therefore be the means employed. It was not till some days later, and in another district, that Dr Wagner elucidated the mystery. He saw a long procession of Armenian and Tartar peasants proceeding to the house of Ivanoff's official brother. They were gift-laden; one led a horse, another a sheep, a third dragged a stately goat by the horns, and forced the bearded mountaineer to kneel before the Russian's corpulent wife, who received the animals, the eggs, milk, cakes, and other offerings, as well in coin as in kind, quite as matter of course. Nay, she even looked sour and sulky, as though the tribute were scanty; and Dr Wagner, who was an unobserved witness of the scene, heard her say to the leader of the deputation, (probably the mayor of some Armenian village:) "Think yourselves lucky to get off so cheaply, for if it were known that the tschuma is amongst you!.." The shrewd doctor caught at this menacing phrase, as a possible key to what had so greatly puzzled him. The meaning of the Russian word tschuma, which, upon the man to whom it was addressed, seemed to have the effect of a thunderbolt, being unknown to him, he inquired it of his companion. Tschuma means the PLAGUE. This frightful disease the governor of the trans-Caucasian provinces, stimulated by stringent orders from St Petersburg, makes it his constant effort to extirpate at any price from the territory under his rule. Let a district-overseer report a village infected, and forthwith it is placed in the most rigid quarantine by means of a circle of Cossack pickets; for months the unlucky inhabitants are deprived of communication with the surrounding country; their agriculture is suspended, their crops rot in the ground, and they lack the necessaries of life. All their clothes, bedding, blankets, everything capable of conveying infection, are burned without reserve, and the compensation allowed does not repay a tithe of the loss. Hence the terrible power of the district overseer: a word suffices; he will declare the village infected! The first death from fever, or any other endemic, furnishes him with a pretext. At the least threat of this nature, the peasants, apprehending ruin, hasten to sacrifice part of their substance, and to avert the evil by gifts to the great man, who is maintained in opulence and luxury by these illegitimate imposts. Here was the secret of Ivanoff's five-and-twenty horses and other little comforts. Nevertheless he was liked in the country, for he did not over-drive the willing brute he lived upon, neither did he hoard like his colleagues, but spent his money freely and generously. And the poor peasants brought him their contributions unasked and almost gladly, eager to keep him in good humour, and fearful of changing him for a severer task-master. Suppose Czar Nicholas on a visit to his Armenian provinces, and how can it be expected that the poor ignorant wretches who offer up their sheep and chickens as ransom from the plague-spot, will dare carry to his august feet a complaint against their tyrants? They may have heard of his justice, and feel confidence in it – for it is well known that the emperor is prompt and terrible in his chastisement of oppressive and unjust officials, when he can detect them – and yet they will hesitate to risk greater evils by trying to get rid of those that already afflict them. The esprit-de-corps of Russian employés is notorious, and a disgraced governor or overseer may generally reckon pretty confidently on his successor for vengeance upon those who denounced him. The corruption, according to Dr Wagner, extends to the very highest; and men of rank and birth, princes and general officers, are no more exempt from it than the understrapper with a few hundred rubles per annum. "One crow does not pick out another's eyes," says the German proverb. But in spite of his officers' cunning and caution, the emperor can hardly visit his distant provinces without detecting abuses and getting rid of illusions. One of these was dispelled when he, for the first time, beheld, upon his journey to Russian Armenia in 1837, the much-vaunted fortifications of Erivan's citadel. Count Paskewitch's pompous bulletins had led him to expect something very different from the feeble walls, composed of volcanic stones, loosely cemented with mud and straw, upon whose conqueror a proud title had been bestowed. The result of all the emperor's observations at that time had great influence – so says Dr Wagner – upon his subsequent policy. His love of peace, and his moderation with respect to Asiatic conquest, were confirmed by the impression he then received. Of this the doctor was assured by many well-informed and trustworthy persons in the trans-Caucasus. "This country needs much improvement," said Nicholas to a high official who accompanied him through the monotonous, thinly-peopled, and scantily-tilled wildernesses, and through the indigent towns and villages of Armenia. His desire for conquest was cooled, and his wish to consolidate and improve what he already possessed was strengthened tenfold. Everywhere upon the south-eastern frontier of Russia Dr Wagner traced evidence of this latter feeling. But he also beheld forts on a scale and of a construction hinting offensive as well as defensive projects on the part of their builder. One of them was in process of erection at Erivan, to replace the crazy edifice already referred to. In 1843, the progress of the works was slow, for another expensive citadel was building on the Turkish frontier, and it was desirable to limit the annual outlay for this item. And a hostile demonstration against Russia, from Persians beyond the river Araxes, was the last thing to be apprehended.

"The great new fortress is far less intended for a defence than for a storehouse and place of muster for a Russian army of operations against the Persian frontier provinces, whose conquest the Emperor Nicholas undoubtedly bequeaths to his successors. The formidable constructions at Sevastopol, Nicolajeff, and Gumri, are to answer the same end against Turkey as that of Erivan against Persia. These frontier forts are the sword of Damocles, which the emperor – not greedy of conquest himself, but far-calculating for the future – suspends over the heads of his Moslem neighbours, to be drawn from its scabbard under more favourable circumstances by a warlike son or grandson."

The appearance of the forts in question gives a show of reason to Dr Wagner's prognostications. Gumri – or Alexandropol, as the Russians have re-baptised the contiguous town – is built on a rocky eminence, whose crags serve it in some measure for walls. It contains barracks, case-mates, storehouses, and hospitals, all as strong as they are spacious, and which could be defended as detached citadels, supposing an enemy to have mastered the walls and rocky out-works. It is adapted for an army of sixty thousand men, and is so roomy, that in case of a sudden inroad of the Pasha of Kars – who, if war broke out, could probably bring an army to the river Arpatschai before the Russians could assemble one at Tefflis, and march to the frontier – not only the whole population of Alexandropol, (in 1843 about 6000 souls,) but the entire peasantry of the surrounding country would find shelter within its walls. Its natural and artificial strength is so great, that a small garrison might laugh at the attacks of Turks and Persians.

"'From these turrets,' said the mustached Russian major who showed me all that was worth seeing in the fortress of Gumri, 'our eagle will one day wing its victorious flight.' If the Russians ever conquer Asiatic Turkey, the first step will undoubtedly be taken from this spot, and therefore has the sagacious emperor commanded no expense to be spared in the perfection of the works. 'The power of Russia is patient as time, vast as space,' once exclaimed a renowned orator in the tribune of the French Chamber. Persons who assert that Nicholas has no ambition, that all thirst of conquest is foreign to his character, are perhaps right; but greatly do those err who believe that he contents him with playing the part of the first Tory in Europe, and thinks only of closing the Russian frontier to liberal ideas, of drilling his guards and passing brilliant reviews. The works done, doing, and planned, at Nicolajeff, Sevastopol, Gumri, Erivan, prove the potent monarch to have ulterior views. For himself, he may be content not to enlarge the enormous territory within whose limits his voice is law. So long as he lives, perhaps, no ukase will silence the Hatti-scherif of the padishad beyond the Arpatschai. But under the shadow of this much-vaunted moderation and love of peace, the prudent emperor forgets not to clear the road of conquest into Asia, and to leave it broad, smooth, and convenient for some succeeding Romanoff."

Such speculations as these, proceeding from a man who has travelled, with slow step and observant eye, every inch of the ground to which he refers, and to whom a clear head, reflective habits, and much communion with the people of the country, have given peculiar facilities for the formation of a sound judgment, are of high interest and value. Dr Wagner is no dogmatist, but a close and candid reasoner, abounding in facts to support what he advances, and having at his fingers' ends all that has been written not only in his own country, but in England and elsewhere, on the subject of Russia and her emperor, of her policy and her eastern neighbours. And it is to the credit of his impartiality that his writings afford no clue to his own political predilections. He stigmatises abuses wherever he meets them, and from whatever cause proceeding; but whilst showing due sympathy with the gallant Circassians and long-suffering Armenians, he wholly eschews the insane propagandism so rife in the writings of many of his countrymen. He is evidently not of opinion that autocrat and oppressor are always synonymous, and that absolutism is essentially the worst tyranny.

A preferable site having been found for the new fort of Erivan, the old one was still standing at the period of Dr Wagner's visit. He gives an amusing account of its interior, and especially of the apartments of the ex-sardar, Hussein Khan, whose walls were painted in fresco, an art still quite in its infancy amongst the Persians. The pictures, as might be expected, were rather grotesque than graceful in their execution.

"The subject of one of them is the history of Jussuf (Joseph) in Egypt, based upon the Arabian tradition. Zuleikha, the wife of Potiphar – so runs the Moslem legend – had become the laughing-stock of the ladies of Pharaoh's court, by the failure of her attempt to seduce the beautiful Joseph. To revenge herself, she invited all those court-dames to visit her, and commanded Joseph to hand them fruit and sherbet. But when the women beheld him, they were so bewitched by his beauty, that they bit their fingers instead of the pomegranates. This is the moment selected by the Persian artist. One of the ladies is seen to swoon from surprise, and Zuleikha triumphs at this incident, and at the confusion of the scoffers."

There was considerable license in the subjects of some of the other pictures, one of which was intended to turn the Armenian Christians into ridicule, by representing their priests and bishops in profane society and riotous revel. Amongst the portraits, one of the last sardar of Erivan represented him with a gloomy and forbidding countenance – an expression which, if true to life, was by no means in conformity with his character.

"Hussein Khan was esteemed, even by the Armenians, as an able ruler. He was a brave warrior, a great protector of the fine arts, and tolerably moderate and just in his actions. In the struggle with the Russians he exhibited the utmost personal gallantry, but his example had no effect upon his cowardly soldiery. Without his knowledge his brother had attempted to have the Russian general murdered. When, after the surrender of the citadel, they both fell into the hands of the Russians, Count Paskewitch was inclined to take his revenge, by excluding the sardar's brother, as an assassin, from the benefits of the capitulation. But the firm bearing and cold resignation of the Persian, when brought before his conqueror, moved the latter to mercy. 'Every nation,' said the prisoner to Count Paskewitch, (the words were repeated to Dr Wagner by an eye-witness of the interview,) 'has its own way of making war. With us Persians, all means are held good and praiseworthy by which we can injure our foe. Thy death would have profited us, by spreading confusion and alarm amongst thy troops, and we should have availed ourselves of the circumstance for an attack. And if I sought to kill thee, it was solely in the interest of my sovereign's cause. If you desire revenge, you are free to take it. I am in your power, and shall know how to meet my fate.' This calm courage made a great impression upon the staff of general Paskewitch, (although the Persian noble was a man of very bad reputation,) and the Russian commander generously gave his enemy his life, and ultimately his freedom."

The sardar's harem has less decoration than the state apartments. Formerly its walls were covered with frescos, mosaic work, and porcelain ornaments of many colours; but since the Russians took possession all these have disappeared, leaving the walls bare and white. During the czar's short stay at Erivan, he inhabited one of these rooms, and wrote, with his own hand, in firm, well-formed characters, his name upon the wall. The signature is now framed and glazed. In many houses where the emperor passed a night, when upon his travels, he left a similar memento of his presence, sometimes adding a few friendly words for his host.

From Erivan Dr Wagner started for the far-famed Armenian convent of Eshmiadzini; his journey enlivened, or at least saved from complete monotony, by the eccentricities of his Cossack attendant. Ivan, warmed by a glass of wodha, and no way affected by the jolting, which to his master was martyrdom, basked in the morning sun, and chanted a ditty of the Don, from time to time turning round his mustached physiognomy, and looking at the doctor as for applause. An active, cunning fellow, with a marvellous facility for making himself understood, even by people of whose language he knew not a syllable, Dr Wagner was, upon the whole, well contented with him, although utterly unable to break him of stealing. He never left his night's quarters without booty of some kind, although his master always warned the host to keep a sharp eye upon his fingers. But when anything was to be pilfered, the Don-Cossack's sleight of hand threw into the shade that of the renowned Houdin himself. Even from the wretched Jesides, who have scarcely anything to call their own, he carried off a pot of buttermilk rather than depart empty-handed.

"Carefully as I locked away from him my little stock of travelling money, he nevertheless found some inexplicable means of getting at it. At last I adopted the plan of counting it every evening before his eyes, and making him answerable for all deficiencies. Still, from time to time, something was missing, and Ivan employed his utmost eloquence to convince me of the culpability of the Armenian drivers whom I occasionally had in my service. I never could catch him in the fact; but one evening I examined his clothes, and found a packet of silver rubles in a secret pocket. Whereupon the Cossack, with a devout grimace, which sat comically enough upon his sly features, held up his ten fingers in the air, and swore, by all the saints of the Russian calendar, that he had economised the sum out of his wages, and had hidden it for fear of an attack by robbers."