Mr. Parsons had received frequent complaints from the brethren of Nicomedia, that their girls had not been properly cared for by the teacher, and from the teacher that the brethren were intermeddling. He answered by withdrawing all aid until they could agree among themselves. The effect was immediate. They began to pay a tuition fee, and made special efforts to render the school attractive. The number of pupils was increased to seventy-eight, and the school ceased any longer to need aid. A fire destroyed the mission premises at Tocat in 1859. The flames were so rapid as not only to consume the buildings, but the clothing and bedding of the pupils, the books and apparatus of the school, a portion of the furniture of Messrs. Pettibone and Winchester, who had been recently placed at the head of the school, and all the effects of Mr. Van Lennep, including a large and valuable library, and a manuscript Armenian translation of a commentary on the Bible, made, and to have been printed, at the expense of the Prince of Schoenberg. In view of this calamity, it was deemed expedient to close the training-school. A similar one was opened in the fall of the same year, at Harpoot. Mr. Clark returning to the United States, Dr. Hamlin renewed his connection with the Bebek Seminary. Mr. Dunmore, after describing a tour he had made of twelve hundred miles from Erzroom to Oroomiah in Persia, and from thence, on his return, through Russian Armenia, gives the following summary of his missionary travels: "I have travelled on horseback over six thousand miles in Turkey, and one thousand in Persia and Russia, between two and three hundred on goat skins upon the Tigris, and over fifteen hundred by steamer, without sickness by the way, without accident, or the loss of an article of value. And I have never taken a guard when travelling alone, for protection from robbers. Surely we may safely trust Him who says: 'Believe in God, believe also in me.'"[1] [1] _Missionary Herald_ for 1859, pp. 306-313.