and Asiatic variety."

"Beautiful for situation; commanding in position; the great central city and key of the East, which, in the hand of a Christian nation, would unlock the treasures of the world's commerce, and bid them flow to her feet on the bosom of the seas between which she lifts up her stately head.

'Queen-like, from her terraces and gardens,
She looks down along the waters blue,

On those turrets twain, her ancient wardens,—
Guardians of the old world and the new."

CHAPTER V.

HASSKEUY.

HY sons shall come from far, and thy daughters shall be nursed at thy side: That they might be

called trees of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, that He might be glorified: And they shall build the old wastes, they shall raise up the former desolations, and they shall repair waste cities, the desolations of many generations."

High up the hillside of Hasskeuy-" noble village”—on one of the stony streets that slope down to the Golden Horn, stands a dingy old wooden house. The high stone walls which surround it, the great "door of the gate," with its massive beam—to draw over the inner fastenings at night (Gaza-like)-and the iron-barred lower windows, make onethink of the grim castle of "Giant Despair."

The grounds are narrow, and without shade trees. The court in front is small, and paved with stone. From the spacious entrance-hall, we wander, up stairs and down, but soon become bewildered amid the many abrupt turnings, narrow corridors, dusky corners, closets, and suites of rooms opening from huge halls, in what seems to be two or three houses thrown into one!

It is almost a "Sabbath day's journey" from parlor to

kitchen! This great laboratory for the wants of the inner man," is on the ground floor, opening upon a lower street. It is a dismal den; black with the smoke of half-a-century, and dimly lighted by windows eight feet from the floor. The only chimney in the house occupies most of one side, with places for burning charcoal, and a great arch for heating water,―requiring wood for fuel. In the centre of the roughly-paved floor, is a well of water; and wooden troughs for washing are ranged near by.

The capacious magazines beneath the main building, contain heaps of ancient deposits, in "confusion worse confounded!"-a variety of indescribable rubbish, among which we find an old wine-press, and scores of narrownecked earthen "cupes," or jars, of all sizes, for holding wheat, rice, oil, wine, or water; undoubtedly the very kind used for similar purposes in Scripture times. The covers to these primitive vessels were simply flat stones.

Passing up a flight of stairs, we come upon what was once a fine bath, with marble floor, and dressing-room, now fallen to decay. Every part of the old building tells the same story of long-continued carelessness and neglect. The upper rooms are profusely decorated with gay frescoes; here a painted Jezebel looks out of the upper window of a modern dwelling; there a chair stands forth conspicuously, as an object of curiosity; and gaudy flowers figure largely on the Russian canvas ceiling; great chandeliers, festooned with cobwebs, and dim with dust, are suspended in the wide halls; marble slabs support the ends of the divans, and fill the niches in the walls.* But the original color of the paint is scarcely

Marble is freely used in Constantinople, being found in great abundance on the shores of the sea which bears its name-the Marmora.

apparent on much of the wood-work, so thickly is it encrusted with the accumulations of years. And up and down some

of the gaily-painted walls, are dark lines of travel, revealing the presence of the "old inhabitants of the land" who, like the Canaanites, "will not be driven out!" Around the numerous rents in the miserable matting which covers the floors, the dust and dirt of many years has thickly clustered and congealed; and beneath, are harbored an innumerable company of living nuisances, which we denominate "F. sharps," in contradistinction from their predatory neighbors, the "B. flats."* One of the smaller corner-rooms, on the first floor, was evidently appropriated as the special sanctum of the young men of the former household. It is perhaps twelve by sixteen feet in size, with six windows, and a divan frame at one side. The apartment is thoroughly impregnated with the fumes of tobacco. The Turkish

* "F. sharps," fleas; and "B. flats," bed-bugs, or "board-bugs," as they are termed by the people of the East. We have seen wide cracks, extending up and down the sides of doors and windows in a Greek house, newly rented by a missionary at the capital, that were black with these disgusting creatures. A touch made one recoil with a shudder from the moving mass. These cracks were painted over, but that only destroyed a part of the "standing army.” And the missionary mother kept up a skirmish with the assailants, night after night; visiting the couches of her children and "picking off the enemy," who had literally made the faces of the innocent sleepers dark with their presence. This is a small, albeit not a very dainty, bit of the real romance of missionary life. For the benefit of those who may hereafter suffer likewise, it may be well to state that on a similar occasion, when every known remedy had been tried, in vain, I hit, in my desperation, upon an expedient which proved effectual, viz., closing the doors and windows, and burning brimstone in the room, in an open brazier of coal, day and night, for a week at a time. This permeated every crevice, and destroyed them, root and branch."

crescent and star forms a part of the centre - piece on the ceiling, and a spread eagle appears at each angle. Over the alcove, at one end of the room, is a fresco, representing the six sons of the family kneeling in a row by the sea-side; a boat is waiting near by, but their eyes are directed to a swarm of bees overhead, as if reading the Armenian inscription: "The business of bees is to make honey." To crown the scene, a great Eye is looking down upon them, and a dove is hovering near; emblems of the omniscient God, and the Holy Spirit.

In another room, evil spirits seem to have possession, if one may judge from the hobgoblins flying through the air, and the thunderbolts aimed at a church depicted upon the walls. There is ample scope for the imagination, as one wanders from room to room of the old house.

In its palmiest days, a retinue of twenty servants came and went at the bidding of its proud and wealthy Armenian master. Now, fallen into poverty and decay, the remnant of the household are reluctantly forced to part with a portion of their family mansion, that they may secure the wherewithal to live. And the great grandmother and her posterity occupy the other half of the spacious dwelling, entirely secluded from this, and containing nearly as many apart

ments.

After many weeks and months of fruitless search for a suitable building, of sufficient size, this house was secured as a home for the Mission Training-school for Armenian girls. But how gladly would we exchange the great, rambling, prison-like "palace," (as it was once termed by a traveler who had no faith in missionary operations), for a plain, neat, convenient, and home-like dwelling! However, as