Armenian nation in the East, and infuse
into its civil and religious decay the life of
European piety and learning. He founded
at Sebaste, therefore, a religious order, of
which the seat was presently removed to
Constantinople, where the friars met with so
much persecution from Armenian heterodoxy
that it was again transferred, and fixed at
Modone in Morea. That territory falling
into the hands of the Turks, the Mechitha-
rists fled with their leader to Venice, where
the Republic bestowed upon them a waste
and desolate island, which had formerly
been used as a place of refuge for lepers;
and the monks made it the loveliest spot in
all the lagoons.

The little island has such a celebrity in
travel and romance that I feel my pen
catching in the tatters of a threadbare theme.
And yet I love the place and its people so
well that I could scarcely pass it without
mention. Every tourist who spends a week
in Venice goes to see the convent, and every
one is charmed with it and the courteous
welcome of the fathers. Its best interest is
the intrinsic interest attaching to it as a seat
of Armenian culture; but persons who relish
the cheap sentimentalism of Byron's life

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