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v
TO ERIVAN. THE PHYSICAL FEATURES OF
ARMENIA
At seven in the evening of June i6th our tram left Tiflis
for Armenia. The station was packed, and people had to
fight for their lives to get into the tram. It looked quite
hopeless for the crowds of men and women, with huge
trunks and boxes and baskets, who swarmed in front of every
carriage, pushing and struggling forward in serried ranks,
amid a pandemonium of shrieks and curses. But it is wonder
ful what one of these carriages can digest, and little by little
the passengers squeezed in. How they were bestowed,
goodness knows ; but the tram rolled out of the station at
last without leaving anybody behind on the platform.
After crossing the Kura, a little south of Tiflis, and traversing
a plain with a small salt lake near Kodi, the ascent began, at
about 500 metres above sea-level, up narrow valleys and wild
gorges along the River Debeda-chai or Borchalinka ; but the
darkness closed in and prevented us from seeing the beautiful
mountain scenery.
Towards daybreak wc crossed the watershed between the
valleys of the Kura and the Arax at a height of 1,952 metres
above the sea. When I drew up the blind I saw the Armenian
plateau, and in the distance the immense volcanic bulk of
Mount Alagoz, with its white summit glittering in the morn
ing sunshine. The country was bare and treeless ; nothing
green in sight, and no wooded slopes. Was this parched,
dun-coloured land to be cultivated for the refugees ? It did
not look very promising from the window.
Wc were drawing near to Alexandropol, in early times
called Gumri, and now renamed Leninakan. But there was
little to show that wc were in the neighbourhood of a large
town. W7e steamed into the station at 7.30 (Wednesday,
June i7th). In spite of the early hour quite a large gathering
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