3-053-668 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

The Nations of Western Asia: Armenian fruitseller, 1873. Engraving from a photograph by Mr. Levites. 'The eastern shores of the Caspian, as we have remarked, though reckoned to lie in Europe, have the aspect of borderlands, from the Ural river across the Volga to Circassia and Daghestan; while Georgia, separated from these by the Caucasus range of mountains, and also Armenia, the adjacent province of the Sultan's Empire, partake in like manner of both the European and the Asiatic characters, though these are not easily defined. The traveller who should pass through Roumania, down the Lower Danube, and thence across Turkey, or who should take the Crimea in his way to Tiflis or to Astrakhan, would find himself gradually conducted from European customs, scenes, and figures, to those of Asiatic nations. Our Illustrations - those on the front page of this week's paper, representing several types of Armenian, Tartar, and Kurdish races, will suggest to the observant reader, without needing a particular description, some confirmation of this general remark'. From "Illustrated London News", 1873.