Section. 3.—Of the Physical Character of the Armenians.
Travellers have observed no peculiarity of the Armenians
except their beauty in general terms, the fine growth and
stature of the men, and the regularity of features of both
sexes. Some late writer has fancied from this fact, and
from the situation of the race around Mount Ararat, that
the Armenians are the stock from which all other nations
originally descended, a conclusion which by no means'
follows from the premises. The Armenians form a particular
caste through all the East, devoted, like the Jews,
to commerce, and in many respects resembling that people.
The American missionaries, Dwight and Smith, whose
works contain much valuable information, assure us that
an Armenian merchant differs materialism his moral character
from a Greek. As in his natural character there is
more sense and less wit, so in-his trade there-is more:
respectability and less treachery. Not that he is an honest
man, for cheating is universal among that part of the
nation of which I am now speaking,. meaning the commercial
part. The Armenians, though less remarkable i#
other respects for good faith than the Turks,.are not
destitute of it*” In describing the emigrant Armenians
who were proceeding with the Russian army from Erzrfim
across the frontier inter Georgia, the same-writer says,' “ In
the United States we should have taken almost-IVery individual
for a beggar. They were clothed in rags. Most of
them, men, women, and children, were on foot, though the
mire of the place was deep. All had the same hardy,
sun-burnt, and coarse complexion. In none, not even the
females who were mostly unveiled, did we discover that
fair and interesting countenance which distinguishes their
countrymen at Angora and Constantinople. They were
equally inferior too in form, being lower in stature and of
a broader and coarser frame. Nearly all bear marks of a
desponding spirit, the effect of the blighting influence of
Mohammedan oppression.”
CHARTER XIV.
OF THE KARTLI, KARt’tJLIAN, OR GEORGIAN RACE.
S ection l S Name and Land of the Georgians—Tribes of
this Race.*
T h e race of people* known in Europe, by the name of
Georgians call themselves Kartli, and derive their origin,
according to their national traditions, from an ancestor,
Kartios.i The Pe^sianS-call them Giirjy, and their country
Giirjistan, probably from the r ip r Kur or Cyrus; thence
comes the name of Georgia.^ The Georgians are generally
said to be divided into a number of different tribes,. It
would b,e more correct to say, that several other nations
belong to the same race as the Georgians, or as the people
who are now generally known by that name, and who speak
the Georgian language : these nations speak dialects akin
to the Georgian though different from it. The whole race
is said to occupy an .extensive tract of country lying southward
of the great chain of Caucasus, and reaching from the
Caspian to the Euxine, and intercepted between Caucasus and
Armenia. This country consists principally of the valley
or basin of the river Phasis, which was the ancient Colchis,
and that of the Khr or Cyrus falling into the Caspian, with
* The Georgian race does not belong to the Indo-European family of nations,
but as their history is intimately connected With that of the Armenians this is
the most convenient place for entering upon it.
t Klaproth, Assia Polyglotta.
$ Klaproth.—See also Missionary Researches in Armenia, by Smith and
Dwight.