208 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Jan. 



cannot say as much. The Jews, as in all ages, are the 

 money-getters, and live and thrive in their quarters, as in the 

 Ghetto of Rome, in a squalor and filth that would quickly 

 exterminate any other race. The Greeks are shrewd and 

 enterprising, but the characterization of the Cretans by St. 

 Paul is DO inapt description of their character; *'The 

 Cretans are always liars, evil beasts, slow bellies." Their 

 own countryman, Euripides, even before the time of the 

 apostle, wrote, " Greece never had the least spark of hon- 

 esty ; " and Lord Byron, twenty centuries after, one of the 

 most enthusiastic in their cause, exclaims, "I am of St. 

 Paul's opinion, that there is no difierence between Jews and 

 Greeks — the character of both being equally vile." 



The Armenians, on the other hand, are a purer, simpler 

 race, retaining much of that individual nationality which 

 made them formidable in the days of the Romans. But 

 contact with the outer world — with the foreigners pouring 

 into Turkey — is changing their character for the worse. 

 It need hardly be said that the farther you go from the capi- 

 tal and the large cities, the simpler and more innocent the 

 lives of the people. 



In nothing is this difierence of nationality so strikingly 

 manifested as in the cemeteries. The Turks plant theirs 

 with the cypress, and at the head of a grave where a man is 

 buried, a stone is erected crowned with a turban, or, in more 

 recent times, with the national emblem — the fez. At the 

 foot of the grave a plainer stone marks the resting-place of 

 the woman. The tuiban is absent, and in its place the top 

 of the stone is rounded or pointed, while a running vine is 

 worked around the outer edge. The inscription is very 

 simple — only the name of the family of the deceased, and 

 a recommendation of his soul to the only living and true 

 God. A beautiful custom prevails, both among the Turks 

 and the Christian population, of hollowing out two small 

 cavities in the tablet covering the grave itself, which are 

 kept filled with seeds and fresh water to attract the birds to 

 come and build their nests near by and sing their songs over 

 the graves of the departed. 



The cemeteries of the Jews are in keeping with their daily 

 life. As their object is so to live as not to attract attention 



