his dream and
turn off sharply northwards, into the valley of Armenian villages.
He reached the road -- if the rough cart-track could be called one --
which linked the seven to one another, just as the long spring dusk
was gathering.
Yoghonoluk was nearly in the center. Therefore he had to ride through
the southern villages, Wakef, Kheder Beg, Hadji Habibli, to reach home,
which would scarcely be possible before darkness. But he was in no hurry.
In these hours the village streets round Musa Dagh were crowded. People
all stood out in front of their doors. The gentleness of a Sunday evening
brought them together. Bodies, eyes, voices, sought one another, to enhance,
with family gossip and general complaints about the times, the pleasure
of being alive. Sex and degrees of age made separate groups. Matrons stood
eyeing each other askance, the young wives joyous in their Sunday best,
the girls full of laughter. Their coin-ornaments tinkled. They displayed
their magnificent teeth. Gabriel was struck by the numbers of able-bodied
young men, fit for the army, but not yet called up. They joked and laughed
as though no Enver Pasha existed for them. From vineyards and orchards
came the nasal twangings of the tar, the Armenian guitar. A few
over-industrious men were preparing their handiwork. The Turkish day
ends with dusk, and so the Sabbath rest ends also. Settled, industrious
men felt the urge to fuss over odd jobs before going to bed.
Instead of calling them by their Turkish names, it would have been
possible to christen the villages by the handicraft which distinguished
each. All planted grapes and fruit. Scarcely any, grain. But their fame
was for skill in handicraft. Here was Hadji Habibli, the wood-workers'
village. Its men not only cut the best hardwood and bone combs, pipes,
cigarette holders, and such like objects for daily use, but could carve
ivory crucifixes, madonnas, statues of the saints, which were sent as
far as Aleppo, Damascus, Jerusalem. These carvings had their own style,
achieved only in the shadow of Musa Dagh; they were not mere rough
peasant handiwork. Wakef was the lace village. The delicate kerchiefs
and coverlets of its women found buyers even in Egypt, without the
artists knowing that this was so, since their wares were sent only to
the markets in Antioch, and that not more than twice a year. Of Azir and
its silkworms we have spoken. The silk was spun in Kheder Beg. In the
two largest villages, Bitias and Yoghonoluk, all these various crafts
worked side by side. But Kebussiye, the most northern, isolated village,
kept bees. The honey of Kebussiye, or so at least Bagradian considered,
had not its equal anywhere on earth. The bees sucked from the innermost
essence of Musa Dagh, from its magic dower of beauty, which set it apart
from all the other melancholy peaks in the land. Why should it have been
Musa Dagh which gushed forth such innumerable springs, most of whose
waters fell, in long, cascading veils, to the sea? Why Musa Dagh, and
not Turkish mountains, like Naulu Dagh and Jebel Akra? Truly it seemed
as though, miraculously, the divine quality in water, offended in some
unknown previous time by Moslems, the sons of the desert, had withdrawn
from off these arid, imploring heights to enrich with superabundance a
Christian mountain. The flower-strewn meadows of its eastern slopes, the
fat pasturage of its many-folded flanks, its lithe orchards of apricot,
vine, and orange around its feet; its quiet, as of protecting seraphim --
all this seemed scarcely touched by the fall of man, under which, in rocky
melancholy, the rest of Asia Minor mourns. It was as though, through some
small negligence in the setting up of the divine order of the world --
the good-natured indulgence of an archangel open to persuasion, and who
loved his home -- an afterglow, a reminiscent flavor of Paradise, had been
allowed to linger on forever in the lands
turn off sharply northwards, into the valley of Armenian villages.
He reached the road -- if the rough cart-track could be called one --
which linked the seven to one another, just as the long spring dusk
was gathering.
Yoghonoluk was nearly in the center. Therefore he had to ride through
the southern villages, Wakef, Kheder Beg, Hadji Habibli, to reach home,
which would scarcely be possible before darkness. But he was in no hurry.
In these hours the village streets round Musa Dagh were crowded. People
all stood out in front of their doors. The gentleness of a Sunday evening
brought them together. Bodies, eyes, voices, sought one another, to enhance,
with family gossip and general complaints about the times, the pleasure
of being alive. Sex and degrees of age made separate groups. Matrons stood
eyeing each other askance, the young wives joyous in their Sunday best,
the girls full of laughter. Their coin-ornaments tinkled. They displayed
their magnificent teeth. Gabriel was struck by the numbers of able-bodied
young men, fit for the army, but not yet called up. They joked and laughed
as though no Enver Pasha existed for them. From vineyards and orchards
came the nasal twangings of the tar, the Armenian guitar. A few
over-industrious men were preparing their handiwork. The Turkish day
ends with dusk, and so the Sabbath rest ends also. Settled, industrious
men felt the urge to fuss over odd jobs before going to bed.
Instead of calling them by their Turkish names, it would have been
possible to christen the villages by the handicraft which distinguished
each. All planted grapes and fruit. Scarcely any, grain. But their fame
was for skill in handicraft. Here was Hadji Habibli, the wood-workers'
village. Its men not only cut the best hardwood and bone combs, pipes,
cigarette holders, and such like objects for daily use, but could carve
ivory crucifixes, madonnas, statues of the saints, which were sent as
far as Aleppo, Damascus, Jerusalem. These carvings had their own style,
achieved only in the shadow of Musa Dagh; they were not mere rough
peasant handiwork. Wakef was the lace village. The delicate kerchiefs
and coverlets of its women found buyers even in Egypt, without the
artists knowing that this was so, since their wares were sent only to
the markets in Antioch, and that not more than twice a year. Of Azir and
its silkworms we have spoken. The silk was spun in Kheder Beg. In the
two largest villages, Bitias and Yoghonoluk, all these various crafts
worked side by side. But Kebussiye, the most northern, isolated village,
kept bees. The honey of Kebussiye, or so at least Bagradian considered,
had not its equal anywhere on earth. The bees sucked from the innermost
essence of Musa Dagh, from its magic dower of beauty, which set it apart
from all the other melancholy peaks in the land. Why should it have been
Musa Dagh which gushed forth such innumerable springs, most of whose
waters fell, in long, cascading veils, to the sea? Why Musa Dagh, and
not Turkish mountains, like Naulu Dagh and Jebel Akra? Truly it seemed
as though, miraculously, the divine quality in water, offended in some
unknown previous time by Moslems, the sons of the desert, had withdrawn
from off these arid, imploring heights to enrich with superabundance a
Christian mountain. The flower-strewn meadows of its eastern slopes, the
fat pasturage of its many-folded flanks, its lithe orchards of apricot,
vine, and orange around its feet; its quiet, as of protecting seraphim --
all this seemed scarcely touched by the fall of man, under which, in rocky
melancholy, the rest of Asia Minor mourns. It was as though, through some
small negligence in the setting up of the divine order of the world --
the good-natured indulgence of an archangel open to persuasion, and who
loved his home -- an afterglow, a reminiscent flavor of Paradise, had been
allowed to linger on forever in the lands
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