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The first is a grim enough colony, for thither are the male lunatics of Venice deported; but the second, with a graceful eastern campanile or minaret, a cool garden and warm red buildings, is alluring and serene, being no other than the island of S. Lazzaro, on which is situated the monastery of the Armenian Mechitarists, a little company of scholarly monks who collect old MSS, translate, edit and print their learned lucubrations, and instruct the young in religion and theology.
All the Mechitarists, it seems, have black beards and cassocks and wide-brimmed beavers; and the young seminarists, whom one meets now and then in little bunches in Venice, are broad-brimmed, black-coated, and give promise of being hairy too.
Wherever they have settled, in Amsterdam, Leghorn, Venice, Constantinople, and Calcutta, they have established printing presses and published valuable books. Of their colonies or monasteries, the most interesting and fruitful in literary works is that of Venice, which was founded in the eighteenth century by Mechitar, an Armenian, and from him its monks are called Mechitarists.
The walks are long and shady and the lagoon is lovely from every point; and Venice is at once within a few minutes and 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.
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