We were already on friendly terms with all our entertainers except the Armenian lady, the wife of Mr. A----, whom we now met for the first time. She was still a young woman, tall, with a very comely face and laughing black eyes, but hugely fat, as Armenians are apt to become very early. She was dressed in bright colors and in the latest Parisian style, including the bonnet and parasol. A jolly, wholesome, honest look and manner prepossessed us in her favor, but, unfortunately, she did not speak a word of either English or French. Her husband, tall and fat too, was a good fellow, and, unlike his wife (who possessed only Turkish, Greek and Armenian), spoke in addition French, Italian and English with great ease and fluency. Indeed, the Armenians are the best of the different nationalities of Asia Minor and Syria: diligent in business, moderately honest, good linguists and accountants, they have more dignified manners and stability than the Fanariot Greeks, and more brains than the Turks. They retain their physical type as distinctly as do the Parsees in India, and are equally ready to turn an honest penny, _en gros_ and _en detail_. We rattled along the excellent railway in a style calculated to make the "limited express" look to its laurels, and in less than two hours drew up at the station of Aiasulouk. Here the western chain of hills which we had skirted ceases, and the great marshy plain of Ephesus opens out, the river Cayster meandering through it. The insignificant station-house and platform, with a small coffee-house and some dwellings, reminded me of a prairie station in our Western country. But the eye was at once attracted by something we should not find in the Western World--to wit, some ruins, large, roofless, but with solid walls, two domes, some pinnacles and a graceful minaret. These are the ruins of the mosque of Sultan Selim, called by the Greeks the church of St. John, though it was certainly not the church under which the saint was buried. There are the remains of a Christian church behind those of the mosque, and below a ruined Turkish castle with a Roman gateway which crowns the hill still farther north. The apse of this ruined church, also called St. John by the native Greeks, is still visited and venerated by them.