The Sun.
London, England, 1846-11-06 00:00:00

RUSSIAN ARMENIA,

There are provinces of the Russian empire almost as
unknown to the rest of Europe, at the present day, as
the interior of Africa. Of these, Russian Armenia, con-
sidering its proximity to the Levant, is one of the most
unknown. When Ritter prepared the first edition of
his " Erdkunde," no European traveller had yet visited
even the two great lakes of Van and Urmia, at the foot
of the highlands of Armenia, and that learned geo-
grapher could collect but a few scanty notices from
oriental writers on these regions, so interesting from the
ancient traditions of the history of Upper Asia. These
mountain lakes have since then become better known
from the communications of good observers, such as
Ker Porter, Wilbraham, Fraser, Kinneir, Monteith,
Shiel, and Brant ; Hamilton, and especially that ad-
mirable writer Ainsworth, have issued full and au-
thentic accounts of travels in hitherto unknown
parts of Upper Armenia. All these writers are
Englishmen, who have done more for the geogra-
phical knowledge of Asia than the learned travel-
lers of all the other nations of Europe together. Of
German travellers the unfortunate archeologist, Schulz,
seems to be the only one who, from the writings he has
left, has, to any extent, increased the geography of
Central Armenia. Ori the other hand, that part of the
northern border of Upper Armenia, near the Caucasus,
has been made to us more through French and German
inquirers, as, for instance, Tavernier, Chardin, Tourne-
fourt, Dubois, Parrot, and Behagel. Meanwhile there
are many parts even of Russian Armenia on which
printed communications are almost wholly wanting, such
as the Alaghes mountains and the shores of the great
mountain lake of Goktschai, which, after the lakes Van
and Urmia, is the largest reservoir of fresh water in
Upper Asia, and exceeds both these great mountain
lakes in depth, in the beauty of the surrounding moun-
tain scenery, and in the magnificence of its Alpine vege-
tation. When, in 1843, I undertook a journey to Rns-
sian Armenia, I indicated to myself the lake of Gokts-
chai, Ararat, and the mountain group of the Alagha, as
promising the best results in both a geographical and a
natural history point of view, and as more worthy a
longer visit than any other district of this part of Ar-
menia. _

I left Tiflis early in May, accompanied by Herr
Abowian, a scientific and well educated Armenian of
Erivan, who, during a residence of six years in Dorpat,
had made himself acquainted with the German language
and manners, and to whom I owe many valuable com-
munications on his native land and on the customs and
mode of life of his countrymen. General Neidhard, the
then commander Sin-chief in the Caucasus, had appointed
Herr Abowian to accompany me in this excursion as
guide and interpreter. Ivan, a Cossack, was my second
fellow-traveller, and took his place beside the Russian
postillion, in front of the carriage, often amusing me by
his ready wit arid shrewd answers. My second Cossack
I had left behind at Tiflis, with my Hungarian servant,
to continue the zoological and botanical collections
already commenced in that part of the country, while I
likewise hoped to return with a good booty, in both
plants and animals, from the higher mountain land in
the south. After several days' journey I reached the
station at Pipis, where I made a halt of one day) in order
to reconnoitre the surrounding country with hammer,
botanising-box, and insect-net.
Pipis lies in a valley enclosed by rather high moun-
tains. We here enter on the volcanic territory of Ar-
menia ; the highest peaks, however, scarcely reach the
proper Alpine Zone. The volcanic nature of the rocks
may be perceived by the conical form of the hills in the
distance. It is a hard porphyritic trachyte, which here
breaks out of the strata of a light-coloured, close, and
very hard limestone, and of a sandstone pervaded by
oxide of iron, at every point of the edge of the valley,
and forms the pointed summits of the hills. From the
plain, which spreads itself beneath Pipis, rises an
isolated trachyte cone, everywhere steep and of an ex-
tremely curious shape, somewhat similar to the tra-
chyte cones in the Auvergne. A steep path is said to
lead to a cave near the top, where a famous robber-
captain of the neighbourhood once held himself con-
cealed. On another conical hill, near Pipis, stands the
Armenian convent of Subsarkiss. The Tschoshass, a
small impetuous mountain torrent of clear, cool, pleasant-
tasting water, rushes through the valley. When Ire-
turned from my first mountain excursion, beneath a hot
sun, I enjoyed this refreshment, of which during my stay
in Georgia I had long been deprived, and drank frequent
draughts of the fresh mountain water, without sustain-
ing the least inconvenience. I was, however, not a
little surprised immediately after at meeting a Russian
officer, who earnestly warned me against tasting the
water of this spring. " The Tschoschass," he said, "is
a true poison spring. All our men who drank of it were
seized with dysentery or intermitting fever, and every
Russian soldier is therefore forbidden, on pain of fifty
lashes, to quench his thirst at this stream." The poor
fellows are therefore obliged to drink the water of
another stream, which was thick and insipid. Whether
the opinion of the officer as to the pernicious quality of
the Tschoschass was well founded or not, I could not of
course positively ascertain during so short a stay; but
the quality of the extremely clear and almost tasteless
water itself in no wise maintained such an assertion.
The next day, too, my Cossack, who had found some
comrades from the Don, and talked away the whole
night with them, told me that the soldiers of Pipis drank
secretly the good water of the valley, in spite of the
threatened stick, and yet found themselves well enough.
The station of Pipis, the residence of a district cap-
tain, presents nothing remarkable beyond a handsome,
modern, building, which stands, as it were, at the en-
trance of the place, and by its considerable extent,
attracts the attention of travellers. To my inquiry us to
the destination of such a party-coloured house, the post-
master informed me, to my astonishment, that it was a
district school, of which the erection had been ordered
by a former governor-general, Baron Von Rosen. A
district school in these solitudes, among rough Tartars
and Armenians ! I immediately hastened to visit this
wonder. The folding-doors of the building storl open,
the interior was empty ; large desolate routes, without
furniture, mouldy walls on which the spider wove un-
disturbed her wide-spread nets, broken windows, a
large lizard which scampered through an opening in the
wall on my entrance, damp air, and other evident tokens
of the ruin that had already began in this only
half-finished building, were all that presented
themselves to the disappointed curiosity. But
what had become of the teachers and their
pupils, of the forms and desks which must have
once been in this school-house ? " None of them ever
came in," said the cossack lieutenant, whom I found
feeding his horse in the parlour, " when the Emperor
visited his provinces beyond the Caucasus, they every-
where wished to make him believe that European civi-
lisation had begun to take root amongst these wild
people, and those attempts at education were Warmly
encouraged and urged on by our chief officer at Tiflis.
This fine house was erected in all haste, and shown to
the Emperor as a proof of the extensive plan of the fu-
ture institution. Teachers were to come from Tiflis for
all departments of knowledge, and for every language ;
the Armenians and Tatars of all the surrounding
country were to be enticed by presents of money to send
their children here to learn European school wisdom.
This child was to
;thfeorKaosransobony tahse mthoellaEhms
p;
etrhore plan
was
had
bbuet
theretaughwt
atisiesoßmiebtlheinbgy
in it
eivmnetiocefhool-house, and expressed his satis-
faction, the hands of the masons and carpenters were
suddenly paralysed. Not a ruble more found
its way to Pipis for this humane object, and the architect
disappeared before his work was finished ; so now we
have shared the empty rooms between us. The yard
was a convenient place for our stables. My Cossacks
laid themselves in the cool halls, in the summer time,
when the heat out of doors was unbearable, and instead
of the Tartar youths learning to decline matj (mother),
and repeat the multiplication table as announced by the
plan, the rooms echo nothing but Don songs and Cos-
sack wit." " This sort of trick is played upon our good
Czar everywhere," said another Cossack. " When it was
understood that the Emperor was about to visit the
shores of the Goktschai, a sailing boat was hastily put
together with banks of oars and sails, such as these blue
waters had never borne before, lest the Emperor should
be angry that so great a lake with so large a population
on its shores, should be deprived of the advantages of
water communication. On his arrival this was pointed
out to him as only the commencement of a Goktschai
fleet ; no sooner, however, had he departed from Ar-
menia, than all thoughts of using the boat for navigation
were lost sight of, and probably by this time it has rotted
away." This is not an inapt illustration of the system of
appearances common throughout Russia.—Augsburg
Gazette.

PROGRESS OF AMERICA.
THE TOWN OF CINCINNATI.
_A visitor to Cincinnati gives the following description
of the extension of the iron and other trades in this
flourishing town:—
" The iron founderies here are numerous, and some of
them immense establishments. The work turned out is
as good as in the east, and almost as various in kinds.
The steam printing power-press is one of the articles re-
cently turned out, and the manufacture of locomotives has
just been commenced, The framing of models for new
work is already a large business, and every new invention
from Europe or the east is aimed at with a skill and per-
severance that is sure to master every difficulty in the
way of invention or imitation. Every kind of iron
handicraft is wrought, from the colossal wheel to the
screw, and from a complete engine to the finest wire.
The rolling mills deal with iron as a carpenter would
with pine boards, or a cabinet-maker with the furniture
of a parlour. Iron, indeed, is made by machinery to
assume all the shapes and forms which the wit of man
can devise, and is now as easily worked as wood,
and almost with the same expedition. The rapidity
of reducing the melted ore to the finest wire will
amaze all those who have not seen the process of
redaction. Locks, catches, bolts, bars, coffee-mills,
kettles of every kind, shovels and tongs, stoves,
lamps, large and small engines, sugar-machinery,
all the paraphernalia of a private kitchen, or a
hard-ware store, are manufactured in quantities suffi-
cient to supply the west, and with means equal to the
wants of the country, it it were necessary. Uncle Sam
may soon be supplied with muskets for the western di-
vision from this quarter, if he desire them, and as for
hinges notwithstanding every
hinge passes throughtwenty-seven hands, enough can be made in a single
manufactory here, to hang all the doors in Christendom.
Of wire, too, I have seen enough made here, if their
were workmen enough for the task, to put a girdle round
the earth in forty minutes.' The::e Mammoth
workshops are more valuable than so many mines
of gold and silver to the city—they convert
the rudest substances into the most useful in-
ventions. They are, indeed, great utilitarian store-
houses whence come many of the means of civilisation, the
plough and all the implements of husbandry—the wheel
and its endless revolutions— the screw and its super-
human power, the complete machine that cheapens all
the comforts and luxuries of life—the many utensils of
one's household, and without which what is now easy ,

labour would be the severest servitude—Cincinnati is
now the scene, I believe, of every sort of iron manufac-
ture, and in seeing what is done here in iron alone every
day of the week, I have only learned more to be amazed
at the enterprise of so young a city, and at the same
time more and more to appreciate the goodness of Pro-
vidence in covering the earth, not only with the fairest
fruits and flowers, but in burying beneath its surface
what seems to be almost as necessary to one's happy ex-
istence.

" With such a start no city in the west can overtake
this, even where there are no local advantages. What
is true of iron is true of many other branches of business.
Everything is upon the go-ahead principle. If I should
write a chapter upon the world of porkdom, and do
justice to my subject, you would be more amazed, and
hardly credit what one might say of the extent of this
and other branches of the provision business here. The
uses to which a hog might be put I never dreamed of
till I came to Cincinnati. Literally from his tail to his
snout, from his hoofs to his bristles, from his blood to
his bones, and from his fat to his lean, the hog is a most
useful animal. Not so much as a paw or a hair is
wasted, and the reforms in this particular are equal to
the reforms in any branch of business of this improving
and utilitarian world.

AUSTRALIAN INTERESTS.
(From the South Australian Register, June 6.1
It is a coincidence somewhat out of the ordinary course
of events, that all the Australias—Eastern, Western, and
Southern—should hare experienced a change in the
person of their respective rulers within a few months of
each other. Governor Robe has recently succeeded
Governor Grey in South Australia ; Governor Clarke
has just followed Governor Hutt at Swan River ; and
Governor Fitzroy is on his passage to take the place of
our own Governor Gipps. Whether these new brooms,
one or all, will be distinguished by that clean sweeping
for which new brooms are usually valued, time alone
can determine. The three colonies, so similar in soil,
climate, and pursuits, and so identical in national habi-
tude and predilections, have so far a community of
interests as to require that the same general prin-
ciples of Government, legislative and executive,
should be applied to the whole. And, notwithstanding
the clamours of some of our owu colonists for political
dismemberment, or, as they are pleased to call it," sepa-
ration," we are inclined to believe, as we have said on
former occasions, that if some system of federal govern•
ment could be established, which, leaving each colony to
manage its own peculiar affairs, should exercise a com-
prehensive supervision over the whole Australian terri•
tory, and legislate for what may be deemed national
as distinguished from sectional interests, the result
would be highly beneficial. There are at least two
great interests in which the Australias have a common
stake, and with reference to which it is desirable that
their administration should be uniform, and their efforts
in self-defence harmonised and combined. The first is
immigration. As with the heart of one man, they desire,
and, therefore, as with the voice of one man they should
call for, and as with the energy of one man seek to pro-
cure a continuous influx of capitalists and labourers. They
alike require this as the ess entialboth to the maintenance
of their present well-doing, and to the development of
their still dormant resources. Put a stop to immigra-
tion, and the wheels of the Australian chariot must
stand still, or drag on at a dull and sluggish. pace ; give
to immigration an impetus, not violent, but adequately
brisk, and the progress of Australian prosperity will be
rapid and triumphant. With a territory nearly as large
as Europe, and larger than the United States of Ame •
rica ; with a climate including all the varieties of the
tropics and of the temperate zone : and with a seaboard
commanding ready access to the treasures of the Pacific
and Indian Oceans, and to the teeming islands of the
Eastern Archipelago, all we want, to give us fair play
in laying the foundations of new empires, is, that
England should send to us all the capital
for which she has no domestic investment,
and all the population for which she has no
domestic employment. That capital and that popula-
tion would here germinate, and grow, and expand, and
fructify, so as to become an ornament on the face of the
earth, and a blessing to the human race. The other
great interest common to the Australias, and upon
which, indeed, immigration itself mainly depends, is the
land system. Of what avail is it that we are surrounded
by these spacious regions, fit for all the purposes of
civilised man, if a rapacious Government step in, and
what with its extravagant dema ads for the freehold, and
its despotic restrictions upon leasehold, places them be-
yond the reach of capitalists, whether as purchasers
or temporary occupants ? Let the waste lands be
offered for sale at prices which men of capital can
afford to pay, or for lease upon terms and condition
with which it would be prudent and advantageous to
comply, and men and money will flow in abundance. But
let a contrary policy be pursued--as, alas ! it has been,
and is pursued—and men and money will wisely stay at
home, as we have bitterly experied for years past. This
train of thought has been suggested by the perusal of an
article in the Perth (Western Australia) Inquirer, in
which is given an extract of a letter written by C. Prin-
seps, Esq., of Calcutta. This gentleman, after congratu-
lating the colonies upon the prospects open to them by
the Mauritius market, says—" Believe me, however,
nothing will give you an effectual start till you have
shaken off the 1/. minimum price, which bars all emigra-
tion to your colony. The Procrustean bed which the
two last Colonial Ministers have subjected all Australia
to must of course operate to the total exclusion of all
absentee capital, and must be got rid of coute qu coute."
Upon this extract the editor of the Inquirer has
the following excellent remarks, which, so far as they
apply to Colonel Clarke, we would sincerely apply
to Sir Charles Fitzroy:—" The above is in per-
fect accordance not only with the popular feeling
throughout Australia, but with public opinion in
all parts, which is now most decidedly in favour of a low
Government price for land. For ourselves we are really
unaware of the existence of a single _newspaper, pe-
riodical, book, or other print (witti the:exception of
the reports of the Land and Emigraticnitrommissiorters,
and the dispatches of Sir George Gi443'"ialirch now
advocates a contrary opinion. All thee' igenictrivellers
in New South Wales (including Hoek ;u 'Murray, the
latest writers of whom we have any account)," have ex-
pressed o:A
themselves warmly opposed t° system of a
high uniform price throughout Australia, and have ex-
posed the evils arising out of it ; nay,rwe obserte by a
late edition of " M'Culloch's Dictionary," that ne, too,
has become a convert, and exclaims against the folly of
expecting that people will give 11. per acre for land in
Australia, when they can buy it in the valley of the Mis-
sissippi for a dollar."

THE BRITISH AT ADEN.
COLONEL MILNER.
(From the Maidstone Journal.)
The following copy of a letter from a corporal in the
94th Foot, to one of the servants at Preston Hall, Kent,
is so creditable to the writer, and bears such undeniable
testimony to the amiable character of our kind-hearted
neighbour, Colonel Milner, and to the love which is de-
servedly felt for him in the regiment, that we have much
pleasure in publishing it, as a just and pleasing testi-
mony to his character. The letter, too, is in itself highly
interesting, and highly characteristic of the feelings
which animate our gallant defenders against whatever
odds they may have to contend.
" Aden, August 18, 1846.
" Your letter I received here on the 21st of June, and
nothing gives me more pleasure than to hear that all in
Preston Hall are well. Now, before Igo any further, I
must not keep you long without knowing that before No-
vember next you will have the pleasure of seeing the
Colonel once more in Preston Hall, as he expects to leave
this some time in October next. He has had very bad
health here lately, and is fully determined to proceed
home—and another reason is, we are on the eve of leav-
ing this place to proceed to Calcutta, and as he will be
in England in about twenty days from the time he
leaves this place, he considers this a very fitting oppor-
tunity to get two years' leave ; but as he is going to re-
main some time in Gibraltar, he may not, perhaps, be
able to get home, as I before said, until about November,
and I sincerely hope he may arrive there all right and
well. He has already made application to the Com-
mander-in-Chief of India, for leave of absence for the
above period.
" We are now engaged with the enemy ; we are up
night and day watching for them. They are a very
savage race of people—Arabs as they are ; and the
force now against us is considered upwards of 6,000
men, commanded by one of their chiefs, who says
he is determined on taking this place. The batteries are
manned, and our out-lying pickets on the alert in case of
a sudden attack on their side. Every man of ours is
under arms from sunset until six the following morning.
They attacked our out-lying picket the night before last,
in large numbers, but our gallant fellows soon made them
retire in double-quick time, with a parting farewell, let-
ting fly after them nine field-pieces,. and a volley from
right to left. Our heavy guns continued their fire for
upwards of an hour, :fire-balls thrown, and tar-bar-
rels burning—and you might plainly see the enemy
take their dead up as they were cut down by
OUT musketry and artillery, and continued their
retreat. This morning a party of horse went -outside
the wall, and discovered only two of the enemy—
one dead and the other wounded mortally. He is now
in the hospital, and seems to say that we will in a short
time be attacked by upwards of 15,000, and they are
commanded by a religious enthusiast. They make sure
of destroying every man of us. They are well armed,
but if they were a hundred times better, Britons stand
before them—and I only hope, as the Colonel is on the
eve of going, that he may have an opportunity, as he
commands the whole force here, of showing a specimen
of his military talents, as I know full well nothing is
giving him more pleasure at this moment than our ex-
pectations of an hourly engagement—and, foamy part,
I only hope it Inay be a general one. lam one, these
last two nights, that is in charge of the colours, which
is counted a very high post. I must not forget letting
you know that I am now full corporal, and have been
for some time. I am, for my own sake, very sorry in-
deed to say that the Colonel is going, of which I need
hardly tell you all—but again, when I consider, in all
probability, the benefit he will derive from it, it cer-
tainly gratifies me a good deal, and, as he himself re-
marked, he will come out seven years younger--rthat
time will be looked for by all now in our regiment with .
the greatest anxiety.
" I must not forget letting you all know that he was
kind enough to make me a present of his own watch—
that he has had in his possession for a number of years;
it came from Maidstone, and for his sake will I always
keep it as long as I live ; and may I always hear from
him during his time in England, let it be short or long.
I am sure he will not forget writing to me as usual,
wherever he is. You must not forget letting me know
how he gets on with you when he arrives in England.
Give my respects to John D., Mr. G., father and sisters
—often the Colonel speaks of the old man. Remember
me to all friends. I will conclude—God bless you all,
and send your true friend safe home, with a happy and
prosperous passage when he does proceed.
" Believe me to remain for ever, yours all sineerely,
J. S., Corporal H. M. S. 94th Regt.,
' Aden, Arabia Felix."