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CHAPTERS IN THE HISTORY OF ARMENIA 267
Kurdish nomads with their cattle, and settled them in several
places around Lake Van, south of Ararat, and near Erzerum.
The tribesmen were Moslems, but hostile to the Persians ;
they and their khans became and long remained the real
masters of the country, developing into what were virtually
robber bands, which exacted self-imposed taxes, and fleeced
or carried off as they pleased the unfortunate Christians, who
were not allowed even to carry arms.
After the war between Persia and the Turkish empire had
gone on for sotne time without any definite result, the two
Powers made an agreement in 1639 which involved a fresh
partition of Armenia. The Arax country with Echmiadzin,
the seat of the Katholikate, and the country in the north,
corresponding more or less to the present Armenian republic,
was assigned to Persia, while the rest of old Armenia fell
to the share of the Turks. This demarcation of the frontiers
remained unaltered for nearly two hundred years, although
the country was again devastated in wars between the Turks
and the Persians.
Under the Turks.—In the Armenian people’s long tale of
woe the most woeful chapters are concerned with the time
when the Armenians were under Turkish rule. To their
Muhammedan " masters " the Christians were slaves and
chattels, whom Allah had given to the faithful, and who were
quite outside the pale ofthe law. The evidence of an infidel—
i.e. a Christian—against a Moslem was invalid in the law
courts ; nor could he defend himself against violence and
robbery, because no Christian was allowed to carry arms. This,
of course, gave the Kurds and other marauders a pretty free
hand. As Christians could not do war-service for Allah,
every male between the ages of eight and sixty had to pay a
specially heavy tax in addition to all the other taxes and dues.
Furthermore, there was the " boy tax " which the sultan
exacted from the infidels ; this consisted in taking every year
thousands of boys, aged between four and eight. from
Christian families, in order that they might be circumcised
and brought up as Moslems to form the standing anny of
Janissaries which for long was Turkey’s most formidable
weapon against the Christians.
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