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196 ARMENIA AND THE NEAR EAST
The Kirr Regions.
At eight o’clock in the morning (Saturday, June 27th) we
started in two cars, accompanied by the two chief engineers,
up the same road by which we had come from Lake Sevan.
To-day the view from the height above the town was even
more beautiful. Misty clouds hovered high up above the
plain along the slopes of Ararat, but its snow-white summit
was visible, shining in the sun well above the clouds.
We first motored to the village of Kanakirr, past the
deserted military station we had seen before. From this
place we had a view of the arid country lying to the west—
nothing but brown slopes and plains as far as the eye could
reach. But all this land could be transformed into rich
gardens and green fields as soon as water was brought to it
from the Zanga.
We drove down to the foot of the slope and walked a little
way out into the plain. Of vegetation there were only a few
vestiges here and there on the parched stony ground ; but
perhaps it was a little better than what we had seen in the
desert of Sardarabad. We were chiefly struck by a little
wild rose with charming pale pink flowers which crept along
the ground among the stones in a few places. Evidently the
soil was not entirely without moisture. But it looked dry
and dun-coloured now ; and it was exactly the same all the
way westward to the Zanga gorge, and still farther west on
the other side. We were more than ever struck by the
amazing contrast, the sharp line of demarcation, between
the waste and the cultivated land ; here was this dun, stony
plain—and then only a hundred yards away, on the slope up
to the road, the most luxuriant gardens ! Yet the soil was
the same, the only difference being that, in the latter case, it
was irrigated by a little river from the mountains to the east.
Given water, all this waste land would look like that.
After motoring up again to Kanakirr we exchanged our
cars for horse-drawn vehicles in order to drive through the
orchards to the deep, narrow valley of the Zanga farther to
the north. We drove to a point from which we could look
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