Produced by Jeroen Hellingman and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.) ARMENIA: A YEAR AT ERZEROOM, AND ON THE FRONTIERS OF RUSSIA, TURKEY, AND PERSIA. BY THE HON. ROBERT CURZON, AUTHOR OF "VISITS TO THE MONASTERIES OF THE LEVANT." MAP AND WOODCUTS. NEW YORK: HARPER & BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS, 82 BEEKMAN STREET. 1854. PREFACE. Almost from time immemorial a border warfare has been carried on between the Koordish tribes on the confines of Turkey and Persia, in the mountainous country beginning at Mount Ararat toward the north, and continuing southward to the low lands, where the Shat al Arab, the name of the mighty river formed by the junction of the Tigris and the Euphrates, pours those great volumes of water into the Persian Gulf. The consequence of the unsettled state of affairs in those wild districts was, that the roads were unsafe for travelers; merchants were afraid to trust their merchandise to the conveyance even of well-armed caravans, for they were constantly pillaged by the Koords, headed in our days by the great chieftains Beder Khan Bey, Noor Ullah Bey, Khan Abdall, and Khan Mahmoud. The chains of mountains which occupy great part of the country in question are for months every year covered with snow, which even in the elevated plains lies at the depth of many yards; the bands of robbers constantly on the watch for plunder of any kind prevented the mountain paths from being kept open, so that those who escaped from the long lances of the Koords perished in the avalanches and the snowdrifts by hundreds every year.