All this verdure is mainly due to the river Zanga, the Hrazdan of the Armenians, which collects the drainage of a section of the southern slopes of the border range, and which is fed by the waters of Lake Sevan, called also Gökcheh, from its sky-blue colour, and by Armenian writers the Lake of Gegham. This beautiful alpine sea is surrounded by lofty mountains and has an area 2 1/2 times as large as that of Geneva. It produces salmon trout of delicious flavour which are seldom absent from the bill of fare in the provincial capital. It finds an outlet through the Zanga into the Araxes at a difference in the level of 3600 feet. The brawling Zanga, already weakened by the canals which diffuse its waters, pursues a devious course at the foot of high and rocky banks on the western outskirts of the town. Further eastwards the irrigation is supplied by the Kirk Bulakh, a stream of which the name signifies forty springs, and which has its sources at no great distance from Erivan. Such abundance of running water should secure to this growing city a large measure of prosperity under settled government. As the centre of the most populous of the Armenian provinces of the Russian Empire, to which it gives its name, it is already a place of some pretensions. But the inhabitants do not at present number more than 15,000, of whom half are Tartars and half Armenians. This total also comprises about 300 Russians, whose most conspicuous units are the drivers of the carriages on hire, belonging, I believe, exclusively to the Molokan sect. [113]