No. 15.
B..., Jan. 25, 1895.
Eight to ten thousand breaths gone out is about enough, but the form beggars description. Some impaled, some buried alive, some burned in houses with the help of kerosene, pregnant women ripped up, children seized by the hair to have the head lopped off as if it were a worthless bud, hundreds of women turned over to the vile soldiery with sequence of terrible slaughter.
No. 16.
[The last letter was written in this country by one who has spent years in the very heart of the afflicted region.]
New York, Jan. 25, 1895.
Up to May, 1894, when I left Van, the whole Christian population of that region was simply paralyzed by fear, and there was no manifestation of any revolutionary thought or intention by the Armenians. Certainly, if such a revolution were contemplated, you would expect to find it in the Van and Bitlis vilayets [provinces], where the provocation is the greatest.
[Many other letters have been received which contain no new evidence, but which in every particular confirm what is here reported. It would add nothing to the evidence to give further extracts here.
Many who have given no reports, but knowing that some others have done so, say: “You can safely believe all, and more, for the sickening details that come in are becoming worse and worse.” “No report can be exaggerated as to the horrible event,” etc., etc.
All the sixteen preceding extracts, and the original letters from which they are taken, are endorsed by the twenty names which are reproduced in facsimile on pages [2] and [4]. The following additional letters, which have arrived too late to be submitted with the above, have come through the same channels and are of equal weight.]