Full resolution (JPEG) - On this page / på denna sida - V. To Erivan. The physical features of Armenia
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TO ERIVAN 109
was there to meet us. The people’s commissar for Armenian
agriculture, Mr. Ersingian, welcomed us to the country in the
nåme of the Government. He was a tall, spare, stately
looking man, a typical Armenian, with prominent intellectual
features, something between a better-looking Abraham
Lincoln and an amiable Mephistopheles. His high, short
skulled head, remarkable for its height from the ears to the
crown, his long, narrow face, lofty domed forehead, sharply
chiselled, slightly turned-down nose, and thin-lipped, deter
mined mouth, impressed one at once as thoroughbred. He
was to accompany us to Erivan. Later on wc constantly
worked together.
There was also a deputation from the town, headed by its
chief man, to invite us to be present, as guests of honour, at
the opening of a new irrigation canal on the following Sunday.
Mr. Beach, the American head of the Near East Relief
orphanages near the town, further asked us to stay a few days
at this big institution after the ceremonies in connection with
the opening of the canal were over. Wc accepted both
invitations with pleasure. The inauguration of this canal
would give us an admirable opportunity to study the
latest irrigation works, which would be useful for our
own undertaking ; and at the big Armenian institution wc
should have an opportunity of seeing what was being done
there to accommodate and educate thousands of Armenian
children.
Here wc parted from our pleasant acquaintance the American
journalist with the appropriate nåme of Mr. America, who had
travelled with us from Constantinople, and was going to
write an account of the work of the Near East Relief. Our
tram went on.
It was the same bare landscape, an undulating, dun-coloured
steppe without any noticeable vegetation. Wc were past the
watershed by now, and ought to be able to go ahead again,
but for all that the panting engine found some of the gradients
so steep that it went no faster than one could walk alongside ;
at last it stopped altogether, and the railway-men began to
run along the line, shouting and screaming a lot of things
that wc could not understand, and turning all the bråkes.
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