The teachers numbered four, besides the missionaries, the principal teacher having graduated at the important American institution in Kharput. Some eighty girls, some of them boarders, were receiving instruction. Of these the residents were in most cases inhabitants of Bitlis, parents preferring that their daughters should avoid passing to and fro in the streets. The majority pay for their maintenance in kind. They impressed me as being very neat and clean. The Mission was under the direction of Messrs. G. C. Knapp, R. M. Cole, and George Knapp--all zealous, experienced, and amiable men. Their Board have constructed a large church in the quarter, the community supplying a small portion of the funds. There are about 100 professed Protestants in Bitlis, and about three times this number of attendants at service. The Protestants of the whole vilayet may be counted at 1200, including those who have made no public profession. The valley which stretches eastwards from the quarter of the missionaries is only sparsely built over. The houses belong to the Avekh ward. Fields of cabbage occupy a considerable portion of the level area, which is dotted over by poplars and other trees. At a distance of about two miles from the confluence of the stream is situated among lonely surroundings the Armenian monastery of Astvatsatsin and an adjacent church which belongs to the Jacobite community. The buildings of the cloister have fallen into ruin, and are tenanted by a single priest wearing the dress of a peasant and not distinguishable in other respects from the lowest of the peasant class. When we alighted at the entrance, a figure stepped forth to hold our horses, whose full, round face, large eyes and sturdy limbs, clad in loose trousers, impressed us as belonging to a good-looking youth. But the shirt, happening to open, displayed the bosom of a maiden. The church was so little lighted, one could scarcely discern the architecture; but one may say in general of the monastic churches on the outskirts of Bitlis that they are well-built stone structures, with four plain walls on the exterior, unbroken by any projection on the side of the apse. The interiors display features typical of Armenian architecture--the lofty dome, supported upon arches rising from detached pillars, and the stone daïs at the eastern end in front of the apse upon which the altar is reared. Their peculiarity is a partiality for Arab stalactite ornament, as seen in the capitals of the pillars and in the altar pieces. The most remarkable is Surb Joannes, belonging to the monastery of Amelort in the western valley, or Koms Mahalla. Other examples are Astvatsatsin, in the village of Koms at the head of that valley, and the church of the fortified cloister of this same name among the hills bordering the main stream upon the east. A track from Van and the Güzel Dere, leaving the village of Bor on the north, comes in over the hills at the extremity of the eastern valley.