This is what the minstrel has to tell as he warms his hands over the fire while the young married women serve the supper. A rush-mat is placed upon the low round board, over that the table-cloth; then a large tray is set in the middle, with the viands arranged on it in metal dishes: onion soup, salted salmon-trout from the blue Gokschai, hard-boiled eggs shelled and sliced, oil made from Kunjut seeds, which does instead of butter; pilau, a dish resembling porridge; mutton stewed with quinces, leeks, and various raw and preserved roots, cream cheese, sour milk, dried apricots, and stoned raisins, form the bill of fair. A can of golden wine is set out: there is plenty more in the goatskins should it be wanted. The provisions are completed by an item more important in Armenia than with us--bread. The flour-cake or _losh_, a yard long and thin as paper, which is placed before each guest, answers for plate, knives, forks, napkin, all of which are absent. The Whitebeard says grace and the Lord's Prayer, everyone crossing himself. The company wipe their mouths with a _losh_, and proceed to help themselves with it to anything that tempts their fancy on the middle tray. Some make a promiscuous sandwich of fish, mutton, and leeks wrapped up in a piece of _losh_; others twist the _losh_ into the shape of a spoon and ladle out the sour milk, swallowing both together. The members of the family watch the minstrel's least gesture, so as to anticipate his wishes; one after the other they claim the privilege of waiting on him. When the meal is done, a young housewife gently washes the guest's head and feet, and the whole party adjourn to the chimney-corner. The evening flies mirthfully away, listening to the minstrel's tales and ballads, these latter being mostly in Tartar, the Provencal of the eastern troubadour. Finally, the honoured visitor is conducted to his room, the "minstrel's chamber," which, in every well-ordered Armenian household, is always kept ready. Our little picture may be taken as the faithful reproduction of no very extraordinary scene. Of ballad-singers such as the one here introduced there are numbers in Armenia, where that "sixth sense," music, is the recognised vocation of the blind. Those who are proficient travel within a very wide area, and are everywhere received with the highest consideration. In the East, the ballad-singer and the story-teller are just where they were centuries ago. At Constantinople, the story-teller sits down on his mat in the public place or at the _cafe_; listeners gather round; he begins his story in a conversational tone, varying his voice according to the characters; and soon both himself and his hearers are as far away in the wondrous mazes of the "Arabian Nights" as if Europe were still trembling before the sword of the Caliph.