The reader will smile at all this as the patriotic boastfulness of an Armenian, and say perhaps that he can make as fabulous declarations for his own land, wherever he may be; but such claims cannot be substantiated by records and personal observations as these for Armenia can. Take the Bible; some of the Patriarchs lived to be 700, 800, one even to 969, if indeed he ever died a natural death; some were taken up to heaven without knowing death; and all these long lives, as will be shown, were lived in Armenia. God's judgment was good. He did not create man in America, Europe, or India, or anywhere but in Armenia. He came down there from Heaven, planted the Garden of Eden there, and from the dust of that land created the first man. When the race had become sinful and only Noah's family were preserved, the ark was not brought to rest on the Rockies, the Alps, or the Himalayas, but on Ararat in Armenia. Where was the Garden of Eden? In my belief, around Lake Van, the highest lake, the largest lake, and the most picturesque lake in the Bible lands; its surrounding country, mountains, plains, flower gardens, and orchards, make it a most charming spot, and quite worthy to have been the seat of Paradise on earth. As the wickedest cities, Sodom and Gomorrah, were on the lowest, ugliest, and nastiest lake, the Dead Sea, it is natural that Paradise should be on the highest and loveliest one. A certain very learned Gospel minister, who desired to change my views respecting the Garden of Eden, declared that when the North Pole was discovered the Garden of Eden would be. Some think it was in India, and there are about as many opinions as there are countries on the earth. The Bible, however, seems to be pretty clear about it and settles the question to the Armenian mind; we feel, therefore, that we cannot be far from the Scriptural descriptions. TRAVEL AND TRANSPORTATION. Both are as hard in Armenia as they can be, short of impossibility. In the Russian section the roads are as good as in any part of Russia, and there are railroads; but in Persian and Turkish Armenia there are none of the latter, and the roads are very poor bridle-paths. A few years ago the government levied an extra tax to build "Shosse Yolou" or macadamized roads for carriages; but most of the money was spent as usual, in a good time for the Turkish officials; the roads built were wretched, and riding over them in the springless carriages of the country is weariness and torture. Most of the traveling is done on horseback or muleback, while the transportation of goods is almost entirely by camels and donkeys.