OUTRAGES IN ARMENIA IN 1877.

The writer is C. B. Norman, special correspondent of The London Times, who says in his preface:

“In my correspondence to the Times I made it a rule to report nothing but what came under my own personal observation, or facts confirmed by European evidence.

A HIGHWAY IN ARMENIA.

“A complete list it is impossible for me to obtain, but from all sides—from Turk and Armenian alike—I hear piteous tales of the desolation that reigns throughout Kurdistan—villages deserted, towns abandoned, trade at a standstill, harvest ready for the sickle, but none to gather it in, husbands mourning their dishonored wives, parents their murdered children; and this is not the work of a power whose policy of selfish aggression no man can defend, but the ghastly acts of Turkey’s irregular soldiery on Turkey’s most peaceable inhabitants,—acts the perpetrators of which are well known, and yet are allowed to go unpunished....

“A bare recital of the horrors committed by these demons is sufficient to call for their condign punishment. The subject is too painful to need any coloring, were my feeble pen enabled to give it.”

A few, out of many cases reported by Mr. Norman are given:

“This gang also attacked the village of Kordjotz, violating the women, and sending off all the virgins to their hills; entering the church they burned the Bible and sacred pictures; placing the communion-cup on the altar, they in turn defiled it, and divided the church plate amongst themselves....

“Sheik Obaidulah’s men rivalled their comrades under the flag of Jelaludeen; these latter operated between Van and Faik Pasha’s camp. They attacked and robbed the villages of Shakbabgi and Adnagantz, carrying off all boys and virgins. At Kushartz they did the same, and killing 500 sheep, left them to rot in the streets, and then fired the place. Khosp, Jarashin, and Asdvadsadsan, Boghatz, and Aregh suffered in like manner; the churches were despoiled and desecrated, graves dug up, young of both sexes carried off, what grain they could not transport was destroyed, and the inhabitants driven naked into the fields, to gaze with horror on their burning homesteads.”[[44]]