CEMETERY. 
613 
tion took place, leaving the city utterly deserted. Since which 
time the whole has become a mass of vacant mins ; echoing the 
hooting of the birds of night alone, or now and then the start¬ 
ling voices of a few travellers like myself, who turn aside to read 
again and again, in such mouldering monuments, the transitory 
nature of all human greatness. 
After this place had lain about a hundred years in an almost 
forgotten solitude, seven poor Armenian families wandered to¬ 
wards the spot, and peaceably established themselves amidst its 
desolated walls. Having abided there ever since, at least in 
their descendants, they have increased to thirty-five houses ; and 
being quiet and industrious, live in unmolested content. The 
father of one of the present resident families was the good man 
who acted as our guide ; and who, from the separated holy spot 
that contained the tomb of the saint, led us across the site of 
the city to beyond its western gate, where we found the great 
cemetery of the ancient inhabitants, a vast, elevated, and thickly 
marked tract of ground. It consists of three hills of considerable 
magnitude; all of which are covered as closely as they can be 
set, leaving the length of a foot between, with long upright 
stones; some as high as eight or ten feet; and scarcely any that 
are not richly, and laboriously carved with various commemo¬ 
rative devices in the forms of crosses, saints, cherubs, birds, 
beasts, &c. besides the names of the deceased. The most mag¬ 
nificent graves, instead of having a flat stone at the feet, present 
the figure of a ram rudely sculptured. Some have merely the 
plain form ; others decorate its coat with strange figures and 
ornaments in the most elaborate carving. The form of this 
animal appears to have been a favourite type in sepulture, 
throughout Armenia after the introduction of Christianity. But 
