this establishment; religious instruction is imparted to the members of either communion by teachers of their own persuasion in separate classes. We were told that the yearly income amounted to 14,000 roubles (£1400), exclusive of what was received from the girls; and that this sum included the receipts of the theatre which is attached to this enterprising school. The Russian institution boasts of 300 scholars, of whom 75 per cent are Armenians; it does not possess a branch for girls. On the other hand, it indulges in the modern fashion of technical instruction, a side which does not appear to be cultivated in the Armenian school. Its staff consists of fifteen teachers; a fee of twelve roubles (£1:4s.) a year is levied, but many poor pupils are admitted free. A few boarders are received, whose parents live at a distance; and I may here remark that, except in cases which I shall endeavour to specify, all the schools of which I shall make mention in the following pages are practically day-schools. We were taken to see the churches--commonplace edifices--of which the Armenians, with so many examples of noble architecture about them, ought really to be ashamed. The largest of them is called the cathedral, and belongs to the Gregorians; there is also, not far from it, an Armenian Catholic church. West of the cathedral on the hillside--it appears in my illustration--we were shown a second church belonging to the Gregorian community; but I do not remember its name. It was at Akhaltsykh that we were first impressed by the custom of the Armenians to kiss the ground when they face the altar in prayer. Such abject prostration in the dust we had never before witnessed in any Christian church. It was Oriental; it was pathetic--the gesture of a poor raya at the feet of his savage lord.... Last of all we were shown the Court of Justice, where a resident magistrate and visiting judges from Tiflis dispense the law behind a barrier of baize-covered tables beneath a life-size portrait of the Tsar. And that is what we saw of the modern town of Akhaltsykh; I doubt whether there is much more to be seen.