"And what do you think yourself?" he added. "Should not you like to cut the throats of all the Russians?"
This was rather a strong way of dealing with the question. However, if I had been a Turkoman, and my own sisters had been treated by the Russians in the way the Turkoman women have been, I should have looked upon the matter from a Turkoman point of view.
"They are not all equally guilty," I replied.
"Equally guilty! Yes they are. From the Tzar upon his throne to the soldiers who do his bidding they are a nation of assassins! What is the best way to get rid of a wasp's nest?" he now inquired.
"Smoke it, and destroy the young ones," I replied.
"Well, that," said the Turkoman, "is what we must do with the Russians. We must kill them all. And Allah will be with us; for He knows who began the butchery."
"Have many men gone from this village to the army?" I asked.
"Every able-bodied man is serving, and we are now, all of us, going to the front; greybeards as well as boys. We feel that it is a war of extermination. If we do not defend our homesteads, woe betide us!"
On leaving Daili the track was firm and good for the first three hours; it then became very precipitous, and led down steep declivities, and over a succession of boulders. At last we came to a large circular plain; it was surrounded by hills; on one side of this vast natural basin, and on a slope, lay Yuzgat.
As we were nearing the walls a cavalcade of horsemen appeared in sight. One of them advancing saluted us by touching his fez, and then addressed me in excellent French. He was a Pole, Vankovitch by name, and was employed as chief engineer in the district. He had received a telegram from the Italian doctor, M. Gasparini, of Angora, to say that I was on the road, and had ridden out with some Armenian gentlemen to welcome us to the town.