He was a pleasant individual, quite young, extremely ignorant and without ambition to learn. He was called the monk Peter, or Petros vardapet. Eight monks were on the foundation of the cloister; of these only four were in residence on the island. We found them each in his cell, sharing the group of little buildings which cluster at the foot of the church. All appeared to be without work or occupation of any kind. They seemed to have passed their lives upon the cushions of their couches, looking across the tremulous shade of the almond trees to the Italian sea and the soaring fabric of Sipan. It was half-past twelve when we put off; the wind had dropped, and scarcely enabled us to forge ahead. For several hours we lay becalmed on the bosom of the lake, here at its widest, in full face of the murky chain on the horizon, which was reflected in hues of burnished steel. Banks of mist shrouded the landscape, especially in the west, where the mass of Nimrud seemed encircled by the sea. A pest of little midges covered our clothes and blackened our papers; then a shower fell, and yet another, and they disappeared. About four o'clock a nice breeze freshened, coming from the shore of low hills upon our left. It brought with it rain; but a little later the sun triumphed, and burst the canopy of clouds in the south and west. A double rainbow of great brilliancy rose from that near shore, revealing the site of a little village. Our head was pointed to the rock of Van, which, at this distance, shows like an island, even without the assistance of mirage. The long barrier of the Kurdish range declines in that direction, and gives way to a less steep and less gloomy ridge; but that outline again rises on the further side of the city, to culminate in a lofty parapet of saw-shaped edge. Varag--such is the name of this mass--commands the bay in which Van lies from behind a spacious interval of garden and field. In the landscape it strikes the last note of the tumultuous theme which is suggested by the mountains in the south--a final trumpet blast by which the procession marches onwards to the Persian plains.