us. Their shrewdness and aptitude for business are remarkable, and whatever exists of commercial enterprise in Eastern Asia Minor is almost altogether in their hands.”

Dr. Grace N. Kimball, after living for years in the heart of Armenia, describes the Armenians as “a race full of enterprise and the spirit of advancement, much like ourselves in characteristics, and full of possibilities of every kind.”

Lord Byron said: “It would perhaps be difficult to find in the annals of a nation less crime than in those of this people, whose virtues are those of peace, and whose vices are the result of the oppression it has undergone.”

Dr. Cyrus Hamlin, the founder of Robert College, who spent thirty-five years in Turkey teaching among them, says: “The Armenians are a noble race.”

Dr. James L. Barton, of the American Board of Foreign Missions, ex-president of Euphrates College, writes: “I know the Armenians to be, by inheritance, religious, industrious and faithful. They are not inferior in mental ability to any race on earth. I say this after eight years’ connection with Euphrates College, which has continually from 550 to 625 Armenians upon its list of students, and after superintending schools which have four thousand more of them.”

While much criticism has been passed upon the Armenians by transient tourists, we may say truly of them, with the Rev. Edwin M. Bliss, late of Constantinople, that “those who know the race most widely and most intimately esteem it the most highly.”

Armenia has been described by a European traveler as the land of unsolved riddles. It is full of most interesting problems for the antiquarian, in its ruined cities, its rock grottoes, its unexplored mounds or tumuli, its half-effaced inscriptions, and the repositories of precious manuscripts in its ancient monasteries. But all these are doomed to remain uninvestigated, as its fertile fields must remain untilled, its rich mines unworked, and the fine natural abilities of its people unimproved by education, until the present disturbed condition of the country becomes quiet. When Armenia is thus “opened up” to the peaceful investigator, the folk-lorists will profit by the opportunity, as well as other classes of scholars. Meanwhile, rich gleanings may be obtained from the educated and English-speaking Armenians in this country; and by far the largest and most interesting collection yet made of these is the present work. Both the author and the publishers are to be congratulated on this valuable contribution to the world of folk-lore.

Alice Stone Blackwell.

Dorchester, Mass.