Ten years on the Euphrates: primitive missionary policy illustrated.(Excerpt)

1868

BEFORE SPEAKING OF THE FIELD and work by which special attention will be paid, let us take a hasty view of the country at large and its inhabitants. In the southern part of the territory of the Mission to Eastern Turkey are the eastern portion of Mesopotamia and Ancient Assyria, the proper limits of which seem to have extended as far north as the Taurus Mountains, though, in their frequent contests with the Armenians on the north, the Assyrian monarchs not infrequently passed over that barrier and overran Armenia, which is the northern division. On the eastern bank of the Tigris, to the north of Diarbekir, the Armenians still show the plain which they say was the battle-field of their fathers against the invading Assyrians. When the invaders were able to pass the mountain range running south of the city, Haine, the Armenians regarded their cause as lost until they should be able to muster new forces to expel the enemy. A few miles to the north-east from Haine, where one branch of the Tigris rushes in its power from the base of a mountain, can still be read, cut deep upon the rocky face, the inscription, "This is the third time that I, Belshazzar, king of Assyria, have conquered this territory;" to which, perhaps, we may add, "We too are now making the third conquest for Christ;" since Armenian history declares that the nation has previously been converted twice to Christianity. A national legend says that Abgar, one of their kings, who lived in the days when Christ was upon earth, having heard of his miracles, and being sick, sent messages praying him to come and heal him; and that Jesus returned to the king his likeness imprinted upon a handkerchief, saying, "This will heal him." Unluckily, the story loses the handkerchief on the way, in consequence of the messenger being attacked by robbers and throwing it into a well; but the result was that the king and his court and people were baptized by the apostle Thaddeus. Their second conversion, after relapsing into idolatry, was about A.D. 319, when Gregory, the "Illuminator," an Armenian of royal descent, having himself embraced the Christian faith, induced the king and his people to do the same.

The limits of Armenia, like those of Assyria, have differed at different times, as the nations were able to overrun and annex adjacent territory, or were themselves overcome; and it is from this fact that different writers give conflicting accounts of its area, which may be somewhat loosely defined as embracing the territory extending from 38[degrees] to 41[degrees] north latitude. The country is bounded on the north by the Black Sea and Georgia, on the east by the Caspian Sea, and Persia, on the south by Mesopotamia and ancient Assyria, and on the west by Asia Minor. Within the one hundred and seventy thousand square miles embraced in the Mission to Eastern Turkey is found every variety of national scenery, surface, soil, climate and productions. Lofty ranges of sterile mountains, some of whose peaks are upwards of 13,000 feet in height, and others of less imposing grandeur, are interspersed with fertile vales, extended plains, and rolling prairies. In many places peaks which are covered with snow during half the year look down upon warm and fertile vales blooming with the verdure of early spring. The loftier of the two peaks of Ararat, in the north-east, where the territories of Persia, Russia, and Turkey touch its base upon the three sides, rises 17,323 feet above the sea, with a summit covered by perpetual ice and snow, lifted in naked grandeur 14,320 feet above the plain at its base. The valleys and plains are usually extremely fertile. The region has a great diversity of climate, from the intense heat of Mosul, where the mercury in summer frequently reaches 115[degrees] and even 120[degrees], to that of Erzroom, which has a climate resembling that of central Maine. Metals are supposed to abound in the mountains, and copper and silver are mined in limited quantities. Grains of various kinds, chiefly wheat and barley, are raised, with vegetables, the potato having been introduced in some parts by the missionaries. Cotton, tobacco, and many varieties of fruits are produced in some sections, including in the vicinity of Harpoot, as well as some other parts, the greatest abundance of the most delicious grapes, which, by their low price, often not more than half a cent a pound in summer, furnish not only cheap eating and drinking, but cheap drunkenness too. Theorizers to the contrary notwithstanding, the wine-drinkers of that country sometimes get very drunk, though it must be confessed that their drunkenness is less delirious, desperate, and murderous than that of their defenders and imitators on this side of the water.

The population of the country is, if possible, even more diversified than the natural scenery, each outcropping stratum of the blended mass of race, language, and religion--which are sometimes thrown together in inexplicable confusion--point back to some political upheaving of a past age, or telling of some barbarian avalanche from the East, whence so many conquering hordes have swept over this region toward the West, each one in its turn leaving some fragmentary memorial to increase and still more confuse the already existing accumulation.

To speak at length of this confused mass of population, thus made of the debris of successive centuries, from the days of Nimrod, the "mighty hunter" and conqueror, laying the foundations of Nineveh, down to the time when the Turks conquered the country and fixed the population in substantially its present condition, would fill volumes instead of pages. A glance at the principal races must therefore suffice.

The plains of the south are chiefly in possession of the Arabs, who, with their "hand against every man, and every man's hand against them," still vindicate their claim to be descendants of Ishmael. No traveler can safely pass through their territory unprotected by a hired guard from one of their tribes; and even from the sultan himself they levy blackmail for the right of way.

In different sections of the southern district, chiefly in the valley of the Tigris, are found the Yezidees, worshipers of the devil, an image whom they are said to reverence in the form of a peacock. The logic by which they justify their choice of a divinity is substantially that the latter are generally less consistent than they. "God is good," they say; "he will not harm us, and therefore we need not trouble ourselves about him;--but that other spirit," whose name they are careful never to profane by uttering it--"needs to be propitiated." So they forget God, and yield themselves up to the control of their own hearts' lusts, as do thousands in Christian lands under another name and pretense, real Yezidees all.