The Armenian Church of Broussa is very elegant. The altar, which extends along its whole width, is of white marble, highly polished, and divided into three compartments, merely separated from the aisles by a simple railing, and is arranged with considerable taste; the sacerdotal plate being interspersed with vases of white lilies. The roof is supported by ten fine columns, and the floor covered, like that of a mosque, with rich carpets. The Saints, whose portraits adorn the walls, (which are covered with Dutch tiles to the height of the latticed gallery,) have been most cruelly treated. I never beheld “the human face divine” so caricatured! A tale is somewhere told of a susceptible young Italian, who became enamoured of the Madonna that adorned his oratory; he might kneel before the whole saintly community of the Armenian Church of Broussa, without a quickening pulse—they would haunt the dreams of an artist like the nightmare! At the base of the pictures, crosses of white marble are incrusted in the masonry, curiously inlaid with coloured stones; and a portable altar, whose plate was enriched with fine turquoises, stood in the centre of the aisle, surmounted by a hideous St. Joseph, glaring out in his ugliness from beneath a drapery of silver muslin. The church is surrounded on three sides by a noble covered cloister, lined with marble, partially carpeted, and furnished with an altar at each extremity. That on the right hand is the burial place of the Bishops, who lie beneath slabs of marble, elaborately carved; the left hand cloister, into which flows a noble fountain, serves as a sacristy; and the third, situated at the extreme end of the church, is decorated with a dingy Virgin, and a congregation of Saints in very tattered condition, to whom their votaries offer the tribute of lighted tapers, whose numerous remains were scattered about in their immediate vicinity. The women’s gallery is handsome and spacious, and is partially overlooked by the windows of the Bishop’s Palace; a fine building erected a year ago at an immense expence. From the church we passed into the public school, where three hundred boys were conning their tasks under the superintendence of a single master. Though we were perfectly unexpected, we did not hear a whisper; every boy was in his place; and the venerable Dominie, with a beard as white as snow, and a head which would have been a study for a painter, rose as we entered, and courteously invited us to take our seats upon the comfortable sofa that occupied the upper end of the hall. The most beautiful cleanliness pervaded the whole establishment; and the boarded floor was rubbed as bright by the constant friction of six hundred little naked feet, as though it had been waxed.