"On account of the Russians," said the Pacha, "but why do you ask me these questions?"
"Because if God wills it, the Russians will not come here, and if He has decreed that Kars is to fall, nothing that you can do will prevent that event taking place."
"Then you think that armies are useless?" said the Pacha.
"No, but you would seem to hold that opinion, for you do not take the trouble to have the streets cleared, and say, if God wills it so, that there will be no epidemic."
"Allah is all-powerful. He knows everything that has happened and that will happen," said the governor devoutly. "We are all dust in His sight. If we have the cholera in Kars, it will be the military Pacha's fault."
Shortly afterwards my visitor left the room.
"I am very glad you spoke to him as you did," said the doctor. "Our hospitals are full of men suffering from typhoid fever; more than 10 per cent. of the poor fellows do not recover. This is a case in which the European powers ought to interfere," continued the speaker. "I am a quarantine officer, and am paid by the International Commission. It is my duty to prevent the cholera or any other infectious disease being brought from the East, but these Turks are doing their best to breed a plague in the heart of their principal fortification. Kars is only thirty miles from Gumri," he added, "if this place were to fall, the whole of Asia Minor would follow."
"Do the Armenians in this town like the Russians?" I now inquired.
"Not at all," said the doctor. "Only seven months ago the Grand Duke Michael visited Gumri, the Russian frontier fortress. When he was there he inspected the Armenian schools, and made a speech to the girls in one of these institutions. After a few remarks about the progress they were making, the Grand Duke concluded his discourse by addressing their mothers in these words, 'Rappelez-vous bien que le lait avec lequel vous nourrissez vos enfants doit être le lait Russe.' The Armenians are immensely vain of their nationality. This speech of the Grand Duke incensed them very much against him. The Russian prince made himself still more unpopular a few days later," continued the doctor. "In the course of a visit to the master of one of the Armenian schools, he observed some pictures in the schoolroom. 'What pictures are these?' he inquired. 'They are likenesses of some of the former kings of Armenia,' replied the schoolmaster. 'You have no right to have any portraits here save those of the Tzar and of the members of the Imperial family,' said the Grand Duke, 'you shall go to prison.'"
An Armenian gentleman entered the room; he corroborated everything that the doctor had said, and presently remarked that many years ago the Emperor Nicholas had given the Patriarch Mateos a document in which the Tzar granted full religious liberty to all Armenians in Russia. "Our Patriarch kept this deed always on his person," continued the speaker. One day he died very suddenly, and under rather suspicious circumstances. His successor searched everywhere for the document, but could not find it. At length he discovered a copy: he then wrote to the authorities in Tiflis, and asked for a fresh paper. His request was refused, and at the same time he was informed that no such religious liberty had ever been granted to the Armenians."