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ARMENIA AND THE NEAR EAST
194
swollen, had foamed down in spate, burst the banks of the
irrigation canal above the university garden, and swept
onward, flooding the upper part of the town. There had also
been a hailstorm in the country higher up which had done
a good deal of damage.
Rather odd that just when we were immersed in our plans
for helping to get water, much too much of it should come to
our very door !
After half an hour it began to sink. Then it sank more and
more quickly, and the street in front began to emerge from
the sea, first in islands, then as a whole, though water was
still swirling along the gutters. The after-effects were
deplorable—mud and dirt covered everything.
We were to have had a meeting in the afternoon with the
Government committee, but their hands were more than
full now. In the evening we went to the club for dinner.
The main street was in an awful state ; the gutters had been
broken up, and stones and gravel scattered all over the place.
Some of the paving-stones had been loosened and removed.
It had a devastated look indeed, but we heard that some of
the lower side-streets were worse still. Rumours grow apace,
and a mole-hill soon becomes a mountain, even in a small
place like Erivan. Next morning our friend the newspaper
reporter, who, by the way, was employed by the Government,
paid us a visit and told us in his best French and with an air
of deep concern the most shocking stories of the flood. The
damage done amounted to millions, and the corpses of twenty
six drowned people, mostly children, had been found near
the station. Later on I heard that only one child had been
discovered drowned in a cellar—but in the end that story
evaporated too, while the material damage, though consider
able, was reduced to quite manageable limits.
It is truly remarkable, however, that a single shower can
give the water such power. It furnishes an excellent example
of the amazing way in which the transporting capacity of
water multiplies with the increasing speed of the current.
A cloud-burst is bound to be disastrous here, where there are
no woods or vegetation to stop the water on the mountain
slopes, and no lakes to regulate the flow of the rivers. Great
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