The Vancouver independent. (Vancouver, W.T. [Wash.]) 1875-1910, 1877-08-23
The Russians in Asia.

The Russians are attacking the Turks.
not only on the Danube, where they can
most readily approach Constantinople,
but on the Asiatic side, where the Rus
sian territory of Transcancasia lies beside
the Armenian frontiers of the Sultan's
dominons. We have seen that the Rus
slams have had many difficulties to con-
tend with on this Asatic side. The
many ranges of high hills and mountains,
for the most part bleak and bare of vege-
tation, the very bad roads, the cold in
the higher regions and the heat in the
lower, have been SO many obstacles in
the way of the invading army.
Armenia, indeed, is one of the most
dreary countries in the world. A large
part of its population consists Of the
wandering Kurds, who, like the Arabs,
go from place to place, and pitch their
tents wherever they find it convenient.
Villages are few and far between, and
when you reach one, you find it composed
of wretched huts, which we should hardly
think fit habitations for our domestic
animals.
While the upper part of Armenia, ex-
tending from the Black Sea to Bayazid,
is thus dreary, mountainous and lonely.
the lower portion of it consists of plains,
some of which are smiling and fertile,
and are graced with luxuriant vegetation,
while other plains are but vast sandy
wastes, reminding the traveller Of the
Arabian Desert. Horses, cattle and
sheep are raised on these plains, md
iron and copper are also found in some
of them.
The principal towns of Armenia, for
military purposes, are Kars, Trebizond,
and Erzeroum. Kars is situated on q
height in the midst of valleys, beyond
which rise high mountains. Trebizond
is the principal Asiatic Turkish seaport
on the Black Sea.
Erzeroum stands on height, as docs
Kars. Some,o one who saw this important
fortress recently, says of it that in the
distance sit looks like large snip
thrown ashore under the mountain-side,
and its mainmast distinguishable great
way off, is tower Of the Tepsi minaret."
Above the town rise the citadel and for
tress. Erzeroum is not a cheerful place.
1t has poor, unpaved, Struggling streets,
| little tumble down mud-houses, and Is
very dirty and slipshod. But it has al
most all the curious features of an ORR
entail town. There are markets and ba-
zaars, baths and fountains, mosques, with
their bulb-like domes, and more modest
churches for the few Christians who
dwell there.
In military point of view, Erzeroum
is the most important of all the fOrtres ses
in Armenia; and its capture by the Rus
SLAMS will give them military control Of Il
country full of places OF sacred and his
torical fame. 1t is the last defense of
the Turks in that part of Asia. IT Ere
roum fails, the invaders will find little
difficulty of obtaining command of the
Euphrates Valley, and may hope to APP
proach Constantinople from that side
with little danger of very formidable op-
position.
A glance at the map will show what
famous places would fall into the hands
of Russia should she succeed in depriv-
ing the Sultan of his dominions in Asia
Palestine and the holy places, with
Jerusalem, and Bethlehem, and Mount
Sinai, and the banks of the Jordan,
would be restored to Christian rule, aud
the ambition of the Crusaders of the
Middle Ages would at last be fulfilled.
Damascus, Smyrna and Aleppo, famous
cities of the biblical times, and of periods
still more remote, would become Russian.
The lovely and romantic island Of Cy-
prus, and the renowned plain and site of
ancient Troy, would be rescued from the
Moslem. Bagdad, which no reader OF
the ARABIAN Nights" can forget, for it
was the home of the good Caliph Alrashid,
and the ruins of the once proud and
mighty Babylon, and of the not less
mighty Nineveh, would become the pos
sessions Of the Gar.
The military and commercial advan-
tages of such conquest would be very
great. The Russians would not only get
footing on the Mediterranean, through
out the long line of coast from the Oar
danelles to Suez, but would also have
access to the Euphrates Valley, to the
Persian Gulf, and by Arabia Petra@ to
the Red Sea, and thence to the Indian
Ocean.