nd as remote as a star.

In the garden is an enclosure for cows and poultry, and the little
burial-ground where the good Mechitarists are laid to rest when their
placid life is done. Among them is the famous poet of the community, the
Reverend Father Gonidas Pakraduni, who translated into Armenian both the
_Iliad_ and _Paradise Lost_, as well as writing epics of his own. The
_Paradise Lost_ is dedicated to Queen Victoria. Some of the brothers
have lived to a very great age, and Mr. Howells in his delightful
account of a visit to this island tells of one, George Karabagiak, who
survived until he was 108 and died in September, 1863. Life, it seems,
can be too long; for having an illness in the preceding August, from
which he recovered, the centenarian remarked sadly to one of his
friends, "I fear that God has abandoned me and I shall live." Being
asked how he was, when his end was really imminent, he replied "Well,"
and died.

As we came away we saw over the wall of the playground the heads of a
few black-haired boys, embryo priests; but they wore an air of gravity
beyond their years. The future perhaps bears on them not lightly. They
were not romping or shouting, nor were any in the water; and just below,
at the edge of the sea, well within view and stone range, I noticed an
empty bottle on its end, glistening in the sun. Think of so alluring a
target disregarded and unbroken by an English school!

The returning gondola passes under the walls of the male madhouse. Just
before reaching this melancholy island there is a spot at which it is
possible still to realize what Venice was like when S. Mark's campanile
fell, for one has the S. Giorgio campanile and this other so completely
in line that S. Georgio's alone is visible.

Some of the Armenian proverbs are very shrewd and all have a flavour of
their own. Here are a few:--

"What can the rose do in the sea, and the violet before the fire?"

"The mother who has a daughter always has a hand in her purse."

"Every one places wood under his own pot."

"The day can dawn without the cock's crowing."

"If you cannot become rich, become the neighbour of a rich man."

"Our dog is so good that the fox has pupped in our poultry house."

"One day the ass began to bray. They said to him: 'What a beautiful
voice!' Since then he always brays."

"Whether I eat or not I shall have the fever, so better eat and have the
fever."

"The sermon of a poor priest is not heard."