The great plain lay around us, level and devoid of objects, like the bosom of a sea. Before us stretched the mountain, the unwieldy bulk of a colossus, a formidable barrier to the country on the south. In such an expanse the human note is overwhelmed by Nature; one hardly notices the signs of the presence of ubiquitous man. There are villages which you scarcely see until you have passed within their precincts; such were Tapa Dolak, through which we drove at a quarter before one, and Golgat, which we reached at four o'clock. Both are inhabited by Armenians; neither possesses a school or school-house, but the second owns and the first was building a church. After obtaining a view, on our right hand, of two considerable Armenian villages, we arrived at Norashen, where we were to rest the horses, at half-past four o'clock. It is an Armenian settlement with ninety-five tenements and a population of 900 souls, and it was in process of erecting a school. Let the reader picture to himself rude structures of stone and wood and earth, which, at one end, issue upon irregular little lanes, and, at the other, are buried into a slope of the ground. Through such entrances you pass to subterraneous chambers which serve as stables and as living rooms. In the midst of these sordid surroundings four stone walls are a prominent object; they belong to a little chapel, which has a roof of sods and a bare interior; the bells are hung in a wooden structure at the side. Men with tanned complexions, deep wrinkles, and bent knees issue from the tenements and slouch along the lanes. Children crowd about you, their little stomachs unduly swollen and barely covered by a single cotton shirt. Nobody can read or write; we questioned several. Such is the description which, with variations, applies to most of these villages, and is true of Norashen.