We felt at home again, though startled, too, when we stopped to think we were 8000 miles away and fifteen days by horseback to the nearest steamer that might start us on a homeward trip or that could carry a letter for us to the outside world. We had been told from the first that Harpoot was suffering more than any other part of the interior, and here we prepared to begin systematic work; Mr. Wistar taking the Char-Sanjak with Peri as a centre, the Harpoot plain, and later the Aghan villages. Mr. Wood took the Palou district with two hundred villages, and Silouan in the Vilayet of Diarbekir with one hundred and sixty villages, with the town of Palou and the city of Farkin as centers. While making these arrangements we received your telegram of May 1st: “Typhus and dysentery raging at Arabkir. Can you send doctors with medicines from Harpoot? Please investigate.” Upon inquiry we found reported one thousand sick and many dying. This naturally would be my field.
After telegraphing to the various centres for additional medical help without success, we found a native physician, educated in America, Dr. Hintlian, at Harpoot, who was ready to go. Miss Caroline Bush and Miss Seymour of the Mission, with unassumed bravery, volunteered to accompany the expedition. As only one could leave, the choice fell upon Miss Bush. When one reflects that this was a slight little body, never coming up to the majesty of a hundred pounds, with sensitive nature, delicate organization, educated and refined conditions of early life, fears might well be felt for the weight of the lot assumed; but every day’s contact convinced us that the springs were of the best of steel, tempered by the glowing fires of experience, thus teaching us how far mind may be superior to matter.
On our first night out, as is frequently the custom in this country, we slept in the stable with our horses—and smaller animals. On the second day in crossing the Euphrates at Gabin Madin, the big wooden scoop-shovel ferryboat struck a rock in the swift current mid-stream, and came very near capsizing with its load of luggage, horses and human beings. The boatmen lost their chance of making the opposite shore, and we were in the swift current fast making for the gorge and rapids below. I looked as unconcerned as I could at Miss Bush, only to see that she was as calm as if this was an every-day occurrence or that she had been from childhood accustomed to such experiences. We knew she had not, only she had lived long enough in the interior not to be frightened at anything that might happen. However, another rock was reached near the bluff and we unloaded. Each leading his horse and the pack animals following, we climbed up over the edge of a precipice, over loose stones, slippery earth and ragged rocks, back to the landing we should have made had we gone directly across.
Our next day’s travel was through a cold, pouring rain, into the ruined city of Arabkir, but notwithstanding the rain, hundreds of people stood in the streets as we passed to make their “salaams” and to say their word of welcome to those who had come to bring the gifts of another land to the suffering, the sick and needy of their own. Passing through the rain, we arrived at the native pastor’s house, which had been saved by a Turkish military officer and cleared of refugees and typhus patients for our installation.
Nearly the entire city of Arabkir was in ruins, only heaps of stones where houses had been. Out of eighteen hundred homes but few remained; the markets as well as the dwellings were destroyed, and the people, plundered and destitute, were crowded into the few remaining houses, down with the typhus. We were told that six hundred had already died of the disease, and the people’s physician, the only one in that part of the country, was in prison. Later we were told that the arrival of help changed the character of the disease the moment it was known that we had come. Miss Bush went with us directly into the sick rooms, and the presence of a woman gave cheer and strength. A hundred patients were seen daily. After the first wants of the typhus patients had been met the long neglected surgical cases were looked after, and many lives and limbs were saved. The medical and surgical efforts gave gratifying results, of which Dr. Hintlian will make a special report from his daily record.
Immediately upon our arrival the Gregorian church and school buildings, which escaped destruction, were offered for our use as a hospital. These rooms were admirably adapted for this purpose but by selecting and employing persons already in need of help as assistants and nurses we found that we could better care for the sick in their own quarters than to attempt to remove them to a hospital, where the congregation of sick would only be increased. To give employment was the one thing needed for the well, therefore we made no hospitals, but employed competent, healthy women in need, instructed and put them to care for sick families also in need, but of another kind. The piaster a woman earned for a day’s work gave food for herself and for her own family, and gave the sick family the services necessary to save their lives. The necessary beds for the patients were furnished.
SOME METHODS OF WORK.
A sheep or a goat given where there was a helpless babe or mother would give food for both, and be a permanent property that would grow by the increase of its own young. A small sum for fowls would be a gift that would furnish more than its value in eggs for food for present use. It would prove a small investment that must multiply in kind and value as chicks were hatched. While medical work was going on other forms of relief were also in progress. A supply of tools had been ordered from Harpoot, directly upon our arrival, for blacksmiths, carpenters, tinkers, masons, stone workers, etc. The blacksmiths were set to work making sickles for cutting grass and reaping grain; shovels, plows and other implements for farmers. Others were put at making spinning-wheels for the destitute women, who with these could earn their own living; others made weaving looms. Out of the twelve hundred hand looms formerly in the city it was said only forty remained. Arabkir was the chief manufacturing centre for native cotton cloth, and if a man had a loom which would cost three medjidieh (about $2.50) he could earn his own family’s living. Field and garden seeds were bought in quantity and distributed.
For the villages which had no cattle we gave oxen for plowing the fields. Sometimes with the oxen, cows were given, with instructions that in this stress of need the cows should be made to work with the oxen, even while they were giving milk for the family. Thus they would secure a double service for one outlay. Melkon Miranshahian, the druggist, kindly offered his services, and we arranged with him to take up special cases and to continue to care for them after we would no longer be able to remain on the field. Then, feeling that we might safely leave this work in the hands of Dr. Hintlian, we went to Egin to arrange for distribution in the Aghan villages, Miss Bush accompanying.