"There was actually a great deal of difficulty in introducing the potato plant," remarked another gentleman; "this will give you an idea of the nature of the people with whom we have to deal. Some foreigners brought over the seeds and planted them. They came up very well; the soil is admirably suited for their growth. But the natives would not eat the potatoes. It was not until the military authorities, who were short of provisions, supplied them to the soldiers in lieu of other edibles that the soldiers would partake of this vegetable. They soon acquired a taste for it, and potato culture is gradually spreading throughout the district." "I tell you what it is," said another missionary, "the Turks about here are just the inside-out-sidest and the outside-insidest, the bottom-side-upwardest and the top-side-downwardest, the back-side-forwardest and the forward-side-backwardest people I have ever seen. Why, they call a compass, which points to the north, 'Quebleh,' south, just for the sake of contradiction, and they have to change their watches every twenty-four hours, because they count their time from after sunset, instead of reckoning up the day like Christians." The peculiarity of this gentleman's expressions rather struck me at the time. It was clear that he had not formed a favourable opinion of the Sultan's Mohammedan subjects; but when I changed the conversation to the Armenians, I found that the company looked upon them as being quite as ignorant as the Turks, and much more deceitful. The good missionaries found the conversion of these superstitious and ignorant Christians of the East a very difficult and uphill task. Indeed I subsequently heard from some Armenian Roman Catholics, who might have been prejudiced in making the statement, that most of the converts to Protestantism were from amongst the Armenian shop-keepers who supplied the mission with goods. "Supposing the Russians were to conquer Anatolia, what would be the position of the Protestant mission?" I inquired of my hosts. "We should be immediately turned out of the country to make way for the Russian priests," was the answer. "The Tzar's Government does not tolerate any religion save its own." This remark struck me, coming, as it did, not from an English Protestant, but from an American, and from an inhabitant of that country which, in spite of its Republican institutions, has always been thought to have a great sympathy with Russia. So the Government of this last-mentioned Empire would not brook any foreign mission in its territory, and the Emperor would not be likely to allow American missionaries to impart to the Russian idolaters a knowledge of the Protestant faith.