It was whispered in fear and terror by the poor Armenians. I visited their bishop, and found him in a state of blank despair. He was afraid to receive me, and sent me excuses--which, however, I refused to accept. After some parley with intermediaries he made his appearance--a stout figure, a thick-lipped, common face. He refused to listen to the simple questions which I addressed to him, and burst out into abuse. Europe, and especially England, had played the part of swindlers towards his miserable race. Their hopes had been incited by delusive professions, which had only served to alarm the Sultan and let loose the Kurds. Nor could they look to Russia, the arch-offender, fanning the agitation for ends of her own. The poor man continued in this strain until he was nearly beside himself; I was obliged to leave him to his rage. His diocese embraces the districts between Zeidikan and Bayazid, and extends southwards to the borders of the vilayet, or Government, of Van. His church at Karakilisa is little better than four stone walls. An ignorant priest imparts instruction in a wretched little building which can scarcely be dignified by the name of school. One afternoon we made an excursion to the point where the Murad changes direction, and flows through the gap towards the south. Between the barracks in which we were lodged, on the extreme outskirts of Karakilisa, and the river, flowing placidly over the plain, there extends a considerable tract of marshy ground and low covert, the home of plover and innumerable water-birds. We crossed a stream which, coming from Aghri Dagh, passes just beneath the barracks to join the Murad a little further west (Kör Su), and made across the marsh in the direction of a little Armenian village which stands on the left bank of the principal body of water, almost due south of the town. Just below this settlement, called Küp Keran, we forded the Murad, which was winding at the foot of a gentle eminence of the southern border through a pebbly and many-channelled bed. Either shore was quite a museum of living wildfowl; in especial we admired a beautiful species of golden duck of which the wings were flaked with white bands. Avoiding the swamp on the opposite margin, we followed this bank for some distance: and a little later crossed back to the northern side. About a mile and a half below Küp Keran the river describes a beautiful curve, and enters the spacious passage of the hills. It is pushed southwards by rising ground at the base of the Kilich Gedik barrier; but the higher outlines of that range, as well as those of the snowy Ala Dagh in the east, are several miles removed from its shores. It flows towards grassy hills, among which you lose the silver thread which the eye has followed as far as a village, named Dombat. The breadth of the Murad at the bend, where its errant waters had issued from the marsh, did not appear to us to exceed thirty yards. The intense stillness of the scene was in