“In these Armenian provinces of Russia the machinery of administration is conducted by a handful of Russian officials through Armenians, who are employed even in the higher grades. The Armenian is a man of ancient culture and high national capacity; neither the instinct nor the quality would be claimed by his Russian superior.... Moreover, the Russian official gives the impression of being overwhelmed by his system, like a child to whom his lessons are new, and when you see him at work among such a people as the Armenians, you ask yourself how it has happened that a race with all the aptitudes are governed by such wooden figures.”[71] One more quotation from another Englishman, which will be an exception from the other testimonies, yet the exception proves the rule: “As a people (the Armenians) there are few who have a good word for them. They are said to be cowardly and treacherous, to be mere money grubbers, and so on _ad nauseum_. The charges vary; but all agree that the objects of them are objectionable somehow. They seem, in fact, to be a sort of ‘Dr. Fell’ of nationalities for every one dislikes them, though often enough they cannot tell the reason. Even the writer, who has not the least objection to thieves, murderers, and devil-worshipers, who has kindly feeling for a successful cheat, admits to getting on less well with Armenians than with other Orientals.”[72] Surely does the exception prove the rule. Every Armenian ought to be thankful that he is not a thief, he is not a murderer, he is not a devil-worshiper or even a successful cheat, so as to merit this Rev. Dr. Wigram’s approval. However, there are some things that man cannot deny; so this writer is compelled to say, “And yet there is much about them that anyone must admire.... In the massacres of 1895, armed men were butchering unarmed, and there was no test of anything but passive endurance. Yet how many could have saved their lives by a mere verbal acceptance (of Mohammedanism)?” But they did not. In the days of old the Armenians were also noted as merchants and traders in Western Asia. Herodotus, the great historian who lived in the fifth century before Christ, tells us that next to the marvelous city Babylon were the boats constructed in Armenia by the Armenian merchants in the following manner: “But the greatest wonder of all that I saw in the land, after the city itself, I will now proceed to mention. The boats which came down the river (Euphrates) to Babylon are circular and made of skin. The frames which are of willow, are cut in the country of the Armenians above Assyria and on these, which serve for hulls, a covering of skin is stretched outside and thus the boats are made, without either stem or stern, quite round like a shield. They are then entirely filled with straw, and their cargo is put on the board, after which they are suffered to float down the stream. Their chief freight is wine, stored in casks made of the wood of the palmtrees.