The journey from Van to Bitlis may be performed in four days; it is a ride of about a hundred miles. But no traveller will desire to omit a visit to the isle of Akhtamar, which will occupy another day. Nor is it well to press in haste through a country of such manifold interest, and along a coast which for beauty of feature and grandeur of surroundings can scarcely have an equal in the world. It was at Van that, for the first time since setting foot upon Armenian soil, we had been introduced to a civilisation in any sense comparable to the scale and dignity of the landscapes through which we passed; and, although the monuments of that vanished culture belong to a remote antiquity, they are well calculated to divert our minds from the contemplation of the works of Nature, or at least to recall us to a sense of the power of man. The spirit of that race of iron which held in check the Assyrians still lingers over the scene of their exploits. You leave the ancient city with an added element of interest in a country which was the home of so great a people, and which still retains the memorial of their sway. But that country was also the centre of a mediæval kingdom, the contemporary and sometimes the rival of the dynasty which has left us Ani as an example of their craft and taste; and, such is the concern of the modern Armenian in the history of his nation, that long before you will reach Van you will be familiar with the name and arms of the kingdom of Vaspurakan. [114] It was therefore with curiosity that we set out upon our journey, and with regret that we were obliged by the season to narrow the sphere of our wanderings to the regular stages of our prescribed route to Erzerum. [115]