heat of day or the cold at night. The daughters and wives of some the Koords ravished, and others they took captive. They plundered shops without number; those that resisted they beat and wounded, and many they killed. The Jizirik chief men completely robbed Alabash Kaloo, the very rich and holy monastery of St. Bartimeus; they opened the grave of the saint and defiled it; they converted the monastery into a stable. In like manner the holy monastery of Derrama has been converted into a ruin and the tower and walls of the church pulled down. Also Koosaganborts monastery they plundered, of which not a vestige remains. Of which shall I speak? Of which shall I write? Armenia has become a desolation. It will be impossible for you to believe the things which have come to pass. But if the Lord prospers you so that you come hither, your eyes will be filled with tears at the sight of the desolation. In this city a Christian cannot walk about with freedom; to meet together to talk is impossible; to open the shops is wholly out of the question. Taxes grow heavy from day to day. Troubles increase daily. The wheat is ripe; to reap it is impracticable and unsafe. There are no means to hire laborers. Oxen and carts have been stolen, so that we are given up to unbearable suffering. If we go out from our houses, we take off much of our clothing, lest it be seized in the streets. The Turkish army went to Bayazid and took it from the Russians. While the fight was going on, the Koords plundered the city and surrounding villages, and killed many of the inhabitants. The beautiful women and girls they carried away to their mountain strongholds, and now the region is desolate and uninhabited. Many of the slain lie unburied. The Almighty Saviour our God deliver his people from these straits. a This massacre was not an exceptional thing. It was merely the repetition, on larger scale than usual, of outrages which have been going on in Armenia for generations past, which have driven hundreds of thousands of Armenians to emigrate to other parts of Turkey or into Russian territory, which have steadily reduced the population and wealth of the country, and which, if unchecked, must end in its total ruin. As I write, news comes that such massacres have begun afresh in more than one part of Armenia, and that the government is utterly helpless to check them. The sufferings of the Armenians have been greater than those of Bulgarians or Bosnians, and there has not been in their case even the poor justification of an attempted insurrection.† A quotation from Moses of Chorene, the ancient historian of Armenia. ↑ The reports on the state of Armenia by Consuls It is impossible to conceive a stronger case for the benevolent intervention of the European powers, and especially of England, than the circumstances of Armenia make out. For what are the declared objects of English policy? To improve the condition of the subject races, and to erect a barrier against the aggressions and influence of Russia. Are the Armenians to be forgotten while the cause of the Greeks is urged, merely because the former are Asiatics, and live further removed? They are certainly neither less deserving than the Greeks, nor less likely to repay and profit by any efforts that may be made on their behalf. How they ought to be aided is a more difficult question. They live intermingled with Mohammedans, and though their total number in Turkey is four millions, they are hardly strong enough in Armenia proper to be formed into an independent principality. But it may be suggested that the districts which lie exposed to the ravages of the Koords, corresponding generally to Turkish Armenia, require exceptional treatment since they suffer from exceptional evils. They might be formed into a new large province which would touch the Black Sea at Trebizond and Kerasun, and would therefore be open to English as well as Russian influence. Such a province might be placed under a governor, to be appointed with the consent of the European powers, who should be himself, if possible, a Frank.* To check the Koords, a strong local militia ought to be created in it, consisting largely of Christians; and a system of local self-government set on foot which should enable the Christian villages to manage their own concerns. The tribute to be paid by the province to the Porte raised be applied to local purposes. Peace should be fixed, and the rest of the taxes and security once ensured to the peasant and the artisan, the Christian population would increase rapidly, the tide of emigration would set backwards into Armenia from other parts of Turkey and from anarchic Persia, and the Armenian people might ultimately become ripe for a comlife. Of course it would be no easy matter pleter self-government and a larger political to carry out such a plan. No one can even Taylor and Zohrab at Erzeroum, and by Vice-Consul Rassam at Diarbekir, printed in the two latest bluebooks, contain details of the highest importance. Others may be found in the reports on provincial oppressions published by the Armenian patriarchate. * Mr. Grant Duff's suggestion that successful Indian administrators might be employed in Turkey is one of the most seasonable that has been made in the course of this melancholy business. affirm that it is possible. But something of the same kind has been done, with a considerable measure of success, in the Lebanon. And unless something of this kind is done in Armenia, unless, above all, the ravages of the Koords are stopped, the Armenian people, who have clung to their nationality and their faith through the wars and persecutions of sixteen centuries, will perish from the earth, and their country be at last annexed by Russia. jealous of Russia. They suspect her of desiring to absorb that venerable Church round which all their patriotic memories cling, and to extinguish the use of their ancient and cultivated tongue, a tongue which had a literature ages before Russia received its alphabet. Their national character is unlike that of the Slavs, and though they rise to distinction in the Russian service, the two races show no signs of fusing. The Armenians would thereTo avert such a catastrophe is surely a fore, if delivered from their present wretchmatter of European concern. English edness and encouraged by the sympathy Liberals ought to be quite as anxious as of England, have every motive to stand Tories to arrest the southward march of sentinels in their mountain fastnesses the czars. I venture to think that many against the further advance of the Slaof those who have espoused the anti-Turk- vonic power and the orthodox Eastern ish side in our recent controversies, have Church. Their influence, which is already too readily allowed themselves to be goad-powerful all through Asia Minor, would ed into the attitude of advocates of Rus- become an anti-Russian influence; their sia, while some few have gone so far as to contentment would destroy the pretexts call on her to annex freely, merely because for her interference. she will govern better than Turkey. Now, without thinking Russia worse than other States, one may well hold this line to be a mistaken one, not merely from a party, but also from a statesmanlike point of view. Russia's motives are no doubt mixed. Some of them are honorable enough. Some are selfish, and, like most of us, she contrives to persuade herself that the honorable ones are the only ones, thrusts the others into a dark corner of her mind, and if she can't help seeing a bit of ambition sticking out, calls it manifest destiny." We need not, like the English enragés, consider her a mere common robber, in order to feel justified in stopping this "manifest destiny," where it strikes against the general interests of the civilized world. Those interests require that no single power, and least of all an imperfectly civilized and despotic one, shall be permitted to extend her dominion over races and lands which may be capable of a different and individual civilization, and ultimately of political freedom. If, then, it is desirable to check the advance of Russia in Asia, the development of the Armenian nationality offers by far the best, perhaps the only permanent, means of doing so. In time past the Armenians have no doubt been favorably disposed to her, because she alone interfered (seldom enough) to protect them. Their sympathy has helped her in this campaign: their miseries have given, and would continue to give her, a basis for intrigue, and an excuse for war and annexation. If none of the other powers will take up their cause, they will again be forced to throw themselves upon her. But the Armenians are nevertheless This, however, is by no means the larg est result that might be hoped for from a revival of Armenian nationalty, or rather, since that nationality has revived and is already vigorous, from giving to the Armenian national feeling a hold upon practical politics, a country to hope for and work for. I return to the point from which this discussion started, to ask again what is the best chance for the future of the Asiatic provinces of Turkey, and to answer that it lies in the uprising of a progressive Christian people, which may ultimately grow into an independent Christian State. The Armenians have, alone among the races of western Asia,* the gifts that can enable them to aspire to this mission. They are keen-witted, energetic, industrious, apt to learn, and quick in assimilating Western ideas. In point of morality and social customs they compare favorably with their Greek and Russian neighbors. Their form of Christianity cannot be called an advanced one; but the priests are certainly not more ignorant, nor ths people more superstitious than those of the orthodox Church. And they have the great merit of being singularly free from fanaticism. That they have not, like most Christian bodies, persecuted other faiths, may perhaps be only because they have never had the chance. But their Church deserves the praise of being tolerant and liberal, ready to fraternize with other sects, while the people bear no hatred to their Mohammedan neighbors, and, indeed, live on because there are now comparatively so few of them in *I do not, of course, mean to include the Jews, Palestine. good terms with all except the Koords. | bility of such a result is enough to make Such a nation, which combines with a one wish that England, whose Eastern strong individuality and corporate spirit policy has too long been merely to tide great flexibility of mind, and a power of over the difficulties of the moment withadapting itself to varying conditions of out foreseeing the greater ones of the life, seems specially qualified for the func- future, should come forward to bear a tion of pervading and civilizing the foremost part in the work of reconstrucsurrounding Asiatic provinces, whose Mo- tion. Though Russia cannot decently hammedan inhabitants have lost what oppose, she will scarcely help, for she. initiative they may once have had. What would doubtless prefer to absorb the Arthe Armenians need is a centre, a land menians herself. If anything is to be which they may call their own, and which done, the suggestion, the impulse, must they may in time, as its wealth and numer- come from England, whose relations with ical strength increases, build up into a these countries give her a special title to State. To ask for independence now would interfere, and ought to give her a special be idle; for it could scarcely, even setting knowledge. Her mission in the further apart other obstacles, be reconciled with East has grown nobler in motive and the presence, in the same districts, of so larger in design with each successive genmany Moslem inhabitants. But if order eration. Is its spirit to be less provident, were once secured, prosperity would fol- less penetrating, less hopeful on the low; and when in time the progressive Euxine than it has been on the shores of element in the population had come to the Southern Ocean? And are all our outnumber, as it always ultimately does, lavish professions of a desire to improve the stagnant and ruder Mohammedans, the condition of the subject races to reindependence would not be far off. main unfulfilled, even in a region where it cannot be alleged that political reasons exist to deter us from their fulfilment? All this some one may say is visionary -matter of sentiment and fancy rather than of practical politics. To many persons any belief in moral forces seems visionary. Italian unity was a dream of poets and conspirators, German unity the crotchet of doctrinaire professors. One must not be afraid of terms of this kind. I do not deny that the interest which those who advocate the cause of the Armenian nation feel, is partly a sentimental interest. They think that its glorious history, its intellectual achievements, the tenacity with which it has clung to its faith and its national memories, infinitely strengthen the claim which its sufferings raise to the consideration of Europe. These constitute the force of the people - these are the legitimate basis of its aspirations. Still less do I seek to conceal the difficulties which any attempt to reform the Turkish government, even in one district, must encounter. The obstacles to the creation of an Armenian province, and to the revival of a semi-independent Armenian principality, may turn out insuperable; but in Turkey every part of the horizon is so dark, every path seems so blocked, that the least gleam of light ought to be marked, and any plan considered which can afford even a chance of improvement. I do not assert that the Armenians, so reduced in numbers, will prove capable of pervading and civilizing Asiatic Turkey. But their doing so is at any rate the best prospect for those countries. If they fail, no others will succeed; and even the possi JAMES BRYCE. THE VALLEY OF HUMILIATION. THE clinging damp of a rainy November evening, while it stayed outside wellfenced houses, like Lady Rivers's, crept uncomfortably through and through the ground-floor rooms of a large, scantily-furnished, ill-warmed, and ill-lighted house at the opposite end of London. It brought out a slimy perspiration on the passage walls and hung misty halos round the dim gas-burners, so that they seemed to have withdrawn themselves miles away, and to be acting as signals in a fathomless distance. Perhaps it was the uncomfortable impression of desolate space thus created, which made the two occupants of one of the largest of these ground-floor rooms, sit close together on an old-fashioned couch ranged against the wall, apparently a mile or two from the fireplace, where a black fire, built up to give out heat sometime, but not now, smouldered dully. Quite out of the way of heat and light these two persons had been sitting for at least an hour, and if they were not chilled to the bone, it | good-temper, and her daughter's sweet must have been owing to a certain soft coaxing, to listen to the young people's glow of love-light which shone from their schemes for the future (in which, to be eyes whenever in the course of a confiden- sure, there was never any mention made of tial low-toned talk they had looked at each Mr. West), and she let her thoughts take a other. Two pairs of velvety-brown eyes slight tinge of rose color from their inexthese were which thus interchanged love- perienced hopefulness, her conscience light; too exactly alike in shape and color, always smote her afterwards, and she and sweep of silken lashes to belong to reproached herself, as if her momentary lovers in the ordinary sense of that word, escape from gloom had been an act of unand having just the contrast of expression, faithfulness to her husband. Just now, lovingly trustful and lovingly anxious, however, there was no question of escape. which might be expected from the actual Mr. West might be expected home any relationship of their owners. Mother and minute (the fire was ready to be broken up daughter, the one a thin, worn, sad-looking into a blaze when his foot was heard on woman, the other a vigorous, bright girl, the scraper), and she and Emmie were whose face, full of delicate coloring and tremblingly discussing the safest way of light, spoke of an eager temperament and accomplishing a sacrifice she was contemnaturally gay spirits toned just now to plating on his behalf which must be so carseriousness by the quick sympathy that ried out, that, while he profited by it, he reflected every mood of those she loved. should never have the least idea that it had been made for him. Something very important had to be decided, something which so far as the conversation had gone at present, threatened equal pain to her mother, whichever way it was settled; and as Emmie West leaned her soft pink cheek against her mother's worn forehead, her velvety eyes (now that all the arguments she could think of had come to an end), had a sorrowful, dumb entreaty in them, which her mother felt without being able to satisfy. "My dear, I don't think I can make up my mind to-night," Mrs. West was saying. "We had better lock up the box again, and put it back on my dressing-table before your father comes in. I would not have him go up-stairs and miss it, and find out what we have been talking about for the world." "Mamma, I wonder 66 Emmie be gan hesitatingly, paused, and then hur"Do make up your mind to choose the ried on as if half afraid of what she was least painful course, and do be as little un- saying. Mamma, I wonder whether it happy as possible about it," the yearning might not be better after all to do it openeyes, hungry for a little joy, said, and sadly. Why should you have the pain of hearted Mrs. West stooped down and kissed them, not having any more satisfac tory answer to give to this appeal an appeal which she was apt to read in her children's eyes many times every day. It was not so much that she had lost the art of making the best of things, but that another influence stronger than even her children's, perpetually forced her to look on the gloomy side. Life had been hard on Mr. West, on the husband who had in her youth honored her by thrusting unexpected elevation upon her, and now that the world had turned against him, she felt it would be disloyal in her to see anything but gloom in a state of things in which he had fared so ill. Who had he to feel with him but herself? not even his children, poor, thoughtless, light-hearted things; and how could his sorrows be adequately mourned, unless her heart were always bleeding? If now and then, on rare occasions, when Mr. West was away, and not likely to return for a longer interval than usual, she was drawn on by her eldest son's gay Why parting with your treasures, and the fright "Trampled upon?" A look of almost wild horror flitted across Mrs. West's face. "Oh, Emmie, my dear, how could she have such a thought about me? You must not get it into your head, darling, or it will make me feel very wicked, as if I had terribly misrepresented things as they stand between your father and me. Trampled upon! Don't you understand, darling, that there is nothing I don't want to do for him and all of you? If letting oneself | "that would not be a good return for my be trampled upon would do any good, and keep humiliation from him and you, there would be no pain in it. It would not degrade me. The pain is that I am such a useless person, and can do so little to serve him and you all." "It seems to me that you do everything, and bear all the pain." giving myself up to you body and soul, and seeing only you in the world, would it, mother darling? I agree with Katharine Moore that women can understand and love each other best, and should stick to each other through thick and thin. Let the men fight for themselves, and help themselves, I say. I will take care of you, mother." "Well then, dearest, I ought not to think of myself as poorer than your poor Aunt Rivers, who seems to be in the way of losing all her daughters, while I am to keep mine." "That is because I talk about it like a woman, and your father is silent to everybody but me; but, oh Emmie, he suffers for us all! I read the bitter pain that cuts down to the very bottom of his soul whenever he is made aware of any fresh privation we have to bear. It hurts him and 66 And, mamma," cried Emmie eagerly, humbles him down to the ground, though" that is another reason for your making he can only show what he feels by short, up your mind to-day about the necklace. sharp words. I understand, if you young. I forgot to mention it before, but it is a er ones don't; and, darling, we will strug-reason." gle to spare him little mortifications as long as we can; when there is nothing more to be done we will sit still and bear the will of God. Perhaps when we have done all we can, the worst, if it comes, will bring a sort of peace." "Or good fortune will come at last; and mamma, you must not say that we young ones don't feel for papa. Harry does at all events. I really think he is almost as anxious to keep disagreeable things from papa's sight, and to provide against his being crossed in his fidgets, as you are. Do you know that ever since old Mary Anne refused to clean knives and shoes for lodgers, Harry has got up an hour earlier and gone down-stairs, and done all that part of the work before any one else is up? This puts Mary Anne into such good humor, that she takes pains with the breakfast again, and sends up the one rasher, and the two bits of toast, and the thick bread-and-butter, with as much ceremony as if it were a lord mayor's feast. You have not been down-stairs to see lately, but I assure you papa has looked almost satisfied, and yesterday he actually remarked that his boots were well blacked, and supposed we had got a new boy, and Sidney was so tickled at the idea, Harry had to kick him under the table to keep him from exploding. It's all Harry's doing, and I do believe he does it quite as much for papa's sake, as for yours." "My own boy!" said Mrs. West fervently; and as she spoke her worn face glowed, and a smile broke over it, obliterating for a moment its lines of care and pain, and making it almost as fair and young as Emmie's. "But you won't love him better than me," said Emmie, pretending to pout; "Your never meaning to leave me, darling?" "No, but my not having been invited to Constance's wedding. I will confess something to you, mother. I have often thought I should like to wear that necklace just once. I remember how I used to admire it when I was a little child, and you put it on to go out with papa to some grand party, and he used to come out of his dressing-room, when you were ready, and look you know how, mamma, as he never looks now proud of you, and of everything about him. I used to think then that wearing a pearl necklace meant being grown up, and beautiful, and perfectly happy. When I heard that Constance Rivers was engaged to be married, it did come into my mind that I might be asked to be one of her bridesmaids, and that perhaps Aunt Rivers would give me a dress such as would not disgrace the necklace, and that, for once, I could have looked so that the Riverses need not be ashamed of me. But the opportunity has passed, you see. I was not invited to the wedding, and I don't now believe I ever shall be asked to the Rivers's on any grand occasion; they look down upon us too much now. The necklace had better go, and not tantalize us any longer by lying idle in the jewel-box. Í should not wonder, if after paying all these bills, and buying what you want for papa, and putting aside a little fund for emergencies, we might get a new floorcloth for the front hall out of the money the sale will bring. It would be a real load off my mind if we could do that, for I am quite certain the old one can't be put down again after another spring cleaning. Imagine our feelings if Aunt Rivers or the new |