their religion is that of the convent or monastery on the island of St. Lazarus, near Venice.

This society, as they themselves call it, was founded by Mechitar, an Armenian, who was born at Sebaste, in Lesser Armenia, in 1676. He received holy orders from the Bishop Ananias, superior of the convent of the Holy Cross, near Sebaste. He afterwards studied in the convent of Passen, near Erzeroom, and at another on the island on Lake Van. His wish was to remain in the great monastery of Etchmiazin, to which place he travelled, but, finding no opportunities of study at the seat of the Patriarch, he proceeded to Constantinople, where he afterwards founded a small society, of a monastic kind, at Pera, in the year 1700.

In the year 1708 he established a church and monastic society at Modon in the Morea, then under the government of Venice; but the Turks having taken that place, his companions were made prisoners and sold for slaves. He with some others escaped to Venice, where he received a grant in the year 1717, from the Signory, of a small deserted island in the Lagunes, originally the property of the Benedictine order, who established an hospital for lepers there in 1180. In this island he set up a printing-press about the year 1730, for the production of Armenian religious

books; and he had the satisfaction of seeing his convent increase in comfort, wealth, and respectability before his death, which took place on the 27th of April, 1749.

So high was the character of this establishment for usefulness and good conduct, that in 1810, when other monastic establishments were suppressed at Venice, the abbot of St. Lazaro received a peculiar decree, granting him and his community all the privileges of their former independence. So high also has been the character of this society since that time, that it has been usual for the Pope to confer upon each new abbot the title and dignity of Archbishop, although he has no province or bishops under him. The service they have rendered to their countrymen is very great they have at present five printingpresses, from whence every year proceed numerous volumes of religious and historical character, as well as school-books, and a newspaper in the Armenian language. These are mostly sold at Constantinople, and among the scattered societies of their nation. The funds produced from this source enable them to establish a considerable school or college at Venice, and to send literary missionaries, as they may be called, to collect manuscripts and historical notices among the barren mountains of Armenia. Of these they make good use, compiling, from imperfect and

mutilated fragments, authentic histories of their country; printing the almost hitherto lost and unknown works of ancient Armenian authors, and distributing copies of the Holy Scriptures among their brethren in the wasted and benighted land of their fathers.

They printed the Armenian Bible in the year 1805; and, entirely by their energy, the small spark which alone glimmered in the darkness of Armenian ignorance in the East has gradually increased its light into a feeble ray, which now, seen faintly through the mist, draws every now and then the attention of some one endowed by nature with more intelligence than the rest, and incites him to inquire into those truths the rumours of whose existence had only reached him hitherto. Slowly enough, but we trust surely, the good work prospers: when curiosity and interest are awakened, the mind turns naturally to the sources from which information may be gained. The Holy Gospels, the New Testament, and in some places the whole Bible, may now be procured at a comparatively trifling expense; the leaven, once introduced, sooner or later will leaven the whole mass; truth and common sense will dissipate the clouds which ignorance and superstition have gathered over the face of the land, and the light of true religion will arise to set no

more.

CHAPTER XVI.

Modern division of Armenia - Population Manners and customs of the Christians Superiority of the Mahometans.

THE country which was called Armenia in ancient times is now divided into two portions; the smaller of the two belongs to Persia, but the larger part is contained in the Turkish province or pashalic of Erzeroom. It does not possess any communication with the sea, and is a wild and mountainous district. Although not of any high importance for mercantile productions, it has continually been an object of jealousy to the neighbouring empires of Persia and Byzantium—or, in our time, Persia and Turkey--from the high road between those empires necessarily passing through it; the power of cutting off supplies, and permitting the passage of caravans laden with the rich productions of other lands, being vested in the hands of the military governor of Erzeroom. The number of inhabitants of this pashalic is estimated at 1,000,000; there were probably more in earlier times. The principal

cities are-Erzeroom, the capital, containing about 30,000 souls. The population of Kars is considered to be about 20,000, Van 20,000, Moosh and Beyboort about 8000 each; the Turkish governor of the pashalic has generally an armed force of 25,000 regular soldiers; but it would be easy for him, with sufficient funds, to raise a more considerable force of irregular cavalry, and infantry armed with rifles, the use of which weapon is well understood by the hardy mountaineers and hunters, whose manners in some respects resemble those of the Tyrolese. The greater half of the population are Mahometan Turks, or Osmanlis, followers of Osman; the word Turk is never used in this country, and is more generally applied to the Turkomans and some of the tribes on the Persian border, who are of Calmuc or Tartar origin, and a completely different sort of people from those whom we call Turks. The Christian population consists of a small number of Greeks, Nestorians, and Roman Catholics, the greater part being descendants of the ancient possessors of the soil, and professing the Christianity of the Armenian Church, which I have attempted to describe above. Their manners and customs are the same as those of the Turks, whom they copy in dress and in their general way of living; so much is this the case,