THE ARMENIANS 



261 



enables him to adapt himself readily to the manners and habits of the people among whom 

 he may happen to be living. This intellectual suppleness makes him especially qualified for 

 trading. Timid and taciturn, he displays at least an outward obedience to his rulers. 



Their history past and present surrounds the Armenians with a halo of romance. For 

 centuries they have had no separate existence as a nation. Formerly independent, and at 

 times even powerful, they passed under the influence of Persia, which, with Turkey and in 

 more recent years Russia, divides the sovereignty over them. In this state of subjection their 

 position has been little better than that of slaves. Yet it is among the Armenians, whose 

 country extends into Asia Minor, that some of the best traditions and most prevailing religion* 

 have started out to influence the world. 



f In classic times Armenia included the whole of the Van district southward to the 38" 

 parallel. Their land has been the arena on which the peoples of the East and West have struggled 

 for the dominion of Asia. Assyrians, Medes, and Persians have passed through it. The great 

 generals of antiquity, Darius, Xerxes, and Alexander the Great, have led their armies into it. 

 The Roman Empire was constantly visiting it with her legions. Arabs, Mongols, and Tartars 

 in more recent times overran it with their devastating hordes. In many respects the history 

 of the Armenians is analogous to that of the Jews. Fated to be driven from their own 

 homes, and the victims of every conceivable form of political mischance, they have proved 

 their Semitic ancestry by their remarkable power of persistence as a people. Their family 

 and tribal sentiment, the depth of their consciousness of nationality, and their religion have 

 been preserved by them for generations without the least apparent diminution. It is to 

 these elements of national character that they owe their survival. Even at the present time 

 tin- Armenians in Turkey are subject to the harassing incursions of nomad Kurds, who quarter 

 themselves in Armenian villages and compel their hosts to feed them and their cattle, without 

 the slightest payment in return except in the form of insults and blows. It is not more than 

 a few \ cars ago that Europe was startled and shocked by the dreadful massacres which the 

 Sultan's unruly subjects perpetrated wholesale in Armenia. 



''"., :* b'lf't stmt, /-,. <'. 



ARMENIAN ORPHANS RESCUED FROM THE MASSACRES. 



