The Saracens soon reëstablished their power; the governors being appointed from Damascus. To punish the Armenians for what they termed their rebellion, many of the nobility were decoyed into churches which were then set on fire and the poor Armenians were burnt alive. Their property was then confiscated, their families siezed and put to death with fiendish cruelty on account of their religious faith. This reads like a chapter of living horrors: for the photographs of to-day are only those of yesterday retouched with human blood. The governors everywhere oppressed the Armenians with little intermission, levying heavy taxes and inflicting extortionate fines for their own private use. When the Saracens began the building of Bagdad, the tribute was mercilessly increased. The greatest distress prevailed, the evil became intolerable, a dreadful dearth occurred in their harvests because of the furious hailstorms that swept over wide regions of country. Clouds of locusts devoured what the hail had spared and famine and misery untold desolated the land. BOGHA THE TYRANT. It was in the year 850 that the most awful calamities fell upon this devoted race. Bogha the Tyrant, marched with a vast army to the utter ruin of Armenia. Everywhere terror and consternation prevailed as at their first entrance into the upper valleys, they cut off utterly every living soul they found. The Armenians who inhabited the summits of the mountains, beholding the awful massacres, rushed down in great numbers to attack their enemies, but the Saracens taking possession of all the passes cut off their retreat. A great many were killed, and many more were taken alive. These were bound with ropes and dragged into the presence of the governor. Bogha selected the finest looking men and put them in confinement, intending to force them to renounce their religion; the remainder he ordered slain before his eyes. This horrible carnage was repeated in several provinces. One of the most famous chiefs sought to make his peace with costly gifts, but was seized with his wife and children and sent in chains to Bagdad. Then Bogha marched his army into the province of Vasburagan with orders to seize and bind all who were able to carry arms. Separating the finest men again for confinement and torture, the others were inexorably consigned to death. The slaughter was immense, as the records state, human blood fertilized the land, and the valleys were choked up with the bodies of former inhabitants. Those whom he had spared resolutely refusing to deny their faith were tortured with fiendish ingenuity until death relieved them of their sufferings.