Plenty of money has always been available from European and even Armenian sources to build railroads; syndicates and private capitalists have tried again and again to get permission to build them; but the Sultan will not grant it, for it runs counter to his fixed policy of isolating the Armenians, to make their oppression or destruction easier. Railroads would mean not only prosperity and strength for the people, but easy gathering and sending out of news to the world, easy bringing of help from the world, lighting up the dark places, and exposing the horrors of the hell now existing. When they are built, commerce will follow; Europeans will flock in, and a new era dawn. Who are the commercial class? The Armenian Christians or Europeans; not a Turk or a Kurd among them. Commerce means, then, the increase of the Christian population; wealth, greatness, security for the Armenians; finally freedom from the Ottoman power. Therefore that power forbids any improvement of the backward conditions. II. THE PEOPLE OF ARMENIA. THEIR LINEAGE. Who are the Armenians? The average American knows very little about them, while few even of the educated classes have much knowledge of the race or its history. Many people regard them as barbarians, partially Christianized. Some think them of Chinese type; most often they are considered as Turks because the chief portion of Armenia is part of the Turkish Empire; every Armenian feels justly indignant at the latter classification. The old story applies of the Irishman who refused to consider himself an American though born in America, on the ground that "being born in a stable did not make one a horse"; we know that the Scotch and English in Ireland do not consider themselves Irish; we know it would be worse than absurd to call the English children born in India Hindoos. When the missionaries of the American Board first went to Turkey, the people there supposed from the name American, that they must be Indians, and crowded to see them out of curiosity, but they were much surprised and probably somewhat disappointed when they found them very like themselves. In the same way, being born in Turkish Armenia does not make one a Turk. The Turks are one race, the Armenians a totally different one, and different in the very foundation type. The Turks are Turanian, the Armenians Aryan. The Turks belong to the Turko-Tataric stock; they are kinsmen of the Tartars.