The following day I rode to an Armenian monastery, which is known by the name of the Monastery of Nishan or of the Cross. It stands on a rising slope, about two miles from Sivas. Its Gothic towers, more than 500 years old, look down upon the town and neighbouring villages, and can be seen for many miles around.
A large garden, over thirty acres in extent, enclosed by a high wall made of dried clay, supplies the monks with fruit and vegetables. It bounds the monastery upon one side; on the other there are several farms, which furnish cattle, sheep, and such other live stock as may be required.
A long low passage with damp walls led the way, with many a winding turn, to the apartment which had been reserved for my use.
Here I found the bishop and several other priests belonging to the community. The ceiling of the room was of handsomely-carved oak, and divans, as in the Turkish houses, supplied the place of chairs. Some Armenian merchants now arrived, and shortly afterwards dinner was announced.
It was a fast day. The bishop himself could not partake of the dishes. However, he gave permission to the other guests to break the fast, and a turkey stuffed with apples—the pièce de résistance—was nothing to the hungry visitors; the dinner being in the Turkish style, made up of a series of surprises to our stomachs.
According to one of the Armenians, the Turkish finance was in an utterly hopeless condition.
"Our Government," he remarked, "first said that it would only issue paper money to the amount of 3,000,000 liras, and we have caime to the value of 11,000,000 liras in circulation!"
"Yes," said another merchant, "the lira is now at 160 piastres, but if there is a war it will rise to 500."
"The Government will be the loser in the long run," he continued, "every one is speculating for the fall, and we are buying up all the gold we can."
I now learnt that the Armenian merchants in Sivas employed the telegraph very freely in their monetary speculations. The inhabitants in general only knew of the rise or fall in the value of their paper money by the post, which arrived once every fortnight. The value of caime in proportion to gold was reckoned according to the date of the post's delivery. But, as the Turkish bank-notes were becoming more and more depreciated every day, the Armenian merchants who employed the telegraph were able to make large sums by buying up all the gold in the district, and pocketing the difference between the actual exchange and that which passed current at Sivas.