For fifteen hundred years they have lived there in Armenia. a little island of Christians surrounded by backward peoples of hostile religion and hostile race. Their long existence has been one unending martyrdom. The territory which they inhabit forms the connecting link between Europe and Asia. and all the Asiatic invasionsSaraens. Tartars. Mongols. Kurds. and Turkshave passed over their peaceful country. For centuries they have thus been the Belgium of the east. Through all this period the Armenians have regarded themselves not as Asiatic but as Europeans. They speak an IndoEuropean language. their racial origin is believed by scholars to be Aryan. and the fact that their religion is the religion of Europe has always made them turn their eyes westward. And out of that western country. they have always hoped. would some day come the deliverance that would rescue them from their nmurderous masters.