“They are managed by two men, who stand upright in them, each plying an oar, one pulling and the other pushing. The boats are of various sizes, some larger, some smaller; the biggest reach as high as five thousand talents burthen. Each vessel has a live ass on board; those of larger size have more than one. When they reach Babylon the cargo is landed and offered for sale, after which the men break up their boats, sell the straw and frames, and, loading their asses with the skins, set off on their way back to Armenia. The current is too strong to allow a boat to return upstream, for which reason they make their boats of skin rather than wood. On their return to Armenia they build fresh boats for the next voyage.”[73] The prophet Ezekiel, more than a hundred and fifty years before the time of Herodotus, in his enumeration of the ancient merchant nations who were engaged in mercantile pursuits with the Phœnicians in the markets of Tyre, speaks of the Armenians under the popular appellation of “the house of Togarmah.” “They of the house of Togarmah traded in thy fairs with horses and horsemen and mules.”[74] The descendants of Togarmah, on account of their ingenuity and intelligence, have accumulated great wealth, and demanded, by fitness, from the indolent Turk, many high trusts in the government and its affairs, but by the jealousy, cruelty, and cupidity of the latter many of them have been precipitated from their elevated state and prosperity into terrible misery, often ending in execution. “The most remarkable circumstance is that these Armenians who have undergone execution have the modes of their death commemorated on their sepulchres by the effigies of men being hung, strangled or beheaded. In explanation it is stated that having become wealthy by their industry, they suffered as victims to the cupidity of former governments, not as criminals; and hence their ignominious death was really honorable to them and worthy of a memorial. An inscription on one of the tombs of this class is as follows: “You see my place of burial here in this verdant field, I give my goods to the robber, My soul to the regions of death; The world I leave to God, And my blood I shed in the Holy Spirit. You who meet my tomb, Say for me ‘Lord, I have sinned.’ 1197.”[75] Sultan Mohammed II after he made Constantinople his capital appointed Bishop Onaghim, of Brousa, patriarch over the Armenians in his dominions in 1461, as the head of his people with certain privileges. This custom of appointing the patriarchs by the Sultans continued for a long time. But it did not prove to be the popular way, on account of abuses of procuring the offices, and unqualified persons often obtaining the appointment by the influence of their friends. The nation, therefore, obtained the right from the Porte to choose her own patriarch by suffrage. The appointment, however, had to be ratified by the Sultan of Turkey.