At the next village the zaptiehs decided they would have to have more help if they were to enjoy the license customary among them along the road. At this village they stopped us and held a long conversation with the Mudir, or village chief. Soon after the Mudir approached, followed by twenty or thirty of the most evil looking Turks I ever saw. Each one of them carried a gun and wore on his sleeve a strip of red woolen cloth, the badge of police authority.
When we went on these Turks were distributed among us by the zaptiehs as additional guards.
During the second day upon the road we met a party of mounted Turkish soldiers, escorting a group of very comfortable looking covered arabas, such as are used by the wealthy for traveling in the interior of Turkey. In these arabas there were forty hanums, or Turkish wives, who were on their way with the soldier escort to Erzeroum, to join their husbands, who were high military officers with the army in the great military fortress there. They had come from Damascus, Beirut and Aleppo.
When our party approached, the arabas of the hanums halted, and the soldiers ordered our guards to halt us also. Then we saw that several of the arabas were occupied by young Armenian girls, from eight to twelve years old, all very sweet and gentle looking, as if they were the daughters of wealthy families. Some of them waved their little hands from under the curtains, and that is how we discovered them. From six to ten were crowded in each of their arabas, and each of the hanum’s arabas hid others.
The little girls told us they were from Ourfa and Aleppo. Their parents and relatives all had been killed, and they had been given to the hanums, who, they understood, intended to put a part of them in Moslem schools at Erzeroum, so they could have them for sale when they were a little older. The others the hanums would keep as servants or to sell at once to friends among rich Turks.
The hanums descended from their arabas and asked our zaptiehs if there were any very pretty girl children among us. The zaptiehs did not approve of losing girl children to these Turkish wives, who, they thought, would take them without paying for them. So they said there were none. But one of the hanums saw a little girl holding onto her mother, and insisted upon having her brought to her. When she looked at the little girl closely she saw she was pretty, and commanded one of the soldiers to take her into her carriage.
The child’s mother held onto it desperately, and when the hanum, with her soldier near, put her hands on the little girl to pull it away the mother lost her reason and struck at her.
The soldier immediately caught hold of the woman and asked of the hanum, “What shall I do with her?” The hanum said, “Have we any oil to burn her?” The soldier said, “I do not think so.” Then the hanum held out her hand and the soldier gave her his pistol. The Turkish woman went up to the mother and shot her with her own hands. She then caught the little girl’s hand and led her to the arabas. The little one wanted to kiss her mother, but the hanum jerked her away.
With our party was the wife of Abouhayatian Agha, the great scholar, of Van, who had escaped, when the massacres began, to Diyarbekir. Her husband had been a friend of Djevdet Bey. When the soldiers were turned loose upon the Armenians at Van, so Mrs. Abouhayatian told me, her husband went to Djevdet Bey and remonstrated with him. His reply, now famous all over Turkey, was: