We enter a new world as we come up from the south to the land which is never called Armenia officially, but where the Armenians dwell. The great plain of Mesopotamia, the wild gorges of the range of Taurus, are left behind; and the traveller emerges on to a lofty plateau, averaging 6000 feet above the sea, and dotted with the cones of one of the great volcanic fields of the world. Sipan and Ararat are both magnificent peaks, though the crater of the latter has been weathered away. Nimrud Dagh offers the student of eruptive phenomena such a field for his study as can hardly be matched in the world; and the lava flows from Mount Etna, which are out and away the most magnificent in Europe, are not to be compared for a moment with the twenty miles square of "black glacier" that have streamed from the fissures of Tendurek Dagh. These mountains, as already related, are grouped around the site which tradition has assigned to the Garden of Eden; and it is on the peaks of Niphates, the Hakkiari mountains to the southward, that Milton has pictured Satan alighting to wreak his vengeance on God's new creation Man.
One of these great lava flows, that of Nimrud Dagh, forms the dam that holds up the large salt lake of Van; a body of water of about the size of the lake of Geneva, but carrying almost as much mineral matter in suspension as does the companion lake of Urmi. In this case, however, the mineral is not ordinary salt, but borax (bi-borate of sodium, to be accurate); so that the water is pleasanter to swim in, and not so absolutely fatal to animal life.
At certain seasons of the year the mouths of the rivers that enter the lake swarm with fish--a variety of bleak. They run up into fresh water to spawn, and in the process are scooped out by the basket-load. Certain types of water-snake also haunt the rocky shores.
These are about four feet long, and creamy white in colour (or appear so, when seen through some depth of water); and they have the characteristic wedge-shaped head that one generally associates with poison.
Given better means of transport, and better government, one may yet see Lake Van become a health resort and a _bad_; for its waters are certainly curative in certain types of skin disease. The writer has known an obstinate case of soriasis cured by a summer spent in camp on the lake, with regular bathing as part of the day's programme. The effect on human hair is also very peculiar; for an English lad with ordinary light-brown hair developed, under similar treatment, an aureole of the purest gold ever seen on human head. The change seemed permanent too, at least as regarded all that was above scalp-level at the time. Later growth was unfortunately of the original hue!