We came back to X. and for four days worked to get more satisfactory travelling papers, but were finally obliged to start off with only a note from the police saying that no papers were needed for travelling within the bounds of the same vilayet, except in the case of suspects. In Y. our papers were again refused, but we had written to the Mutessarif the nicest note we could get translated into Turkish, asking his help in securing an opportunity for us to visit the Vali in Z. Twenty-four hours went by, and then we heard that a town meeting had been called and a negative decision made to our request. We decided that that word must never officially reach us. We started for the Pasha’s office, but he had gone to his harem. Here we followed him. We found his wife a real woman, with great sympathy for our desire to save our girls from the terrors of deportation, and the Pasha in his home was a transformed man. He promised to get us to the Vali if possible, and in due time this promise was made good. The police succeeded in putting enough obstacles in our way to keep us in the city another night, and so our people were six days ahead of us when we started from Y. The last annoyance was a peremptory command to sleep in a certain han. This we refused to do because of its inconvenience, and so we stayed in a han in the heart of the city, only a short distance from the recently burned district. We do not know why we were not wanted there, but the sickening odour that came into our windows till late into the night, the words which dropped from groups of men passing under our windows, and the five slowly fading fresh fire-spots on the ruins of the buildings, said to have been set on fire by the “turned” Armenians of the city, make me morally certain that a ghastly revenge had been taken that night.
Our guard was ready betimes in the morning. Our wagoner—a great Turkish thug—was on our side and ready to make time. The Pasha’s paper assured the greatest courtesy at every police station, and with rising hope we started off. But hope fades in the face of the great sight of these deported people, and we soon felt that in all human reason our request must be fruitless. We passed that first day two great processions of the exiles, all villagers from the mountains of BU. A few were riding in ox-carts, but the great majority were on foot. The dust was suffocating, and the poor things all carried great burdens—sometimes little children, often cradles with babies in them, always sacks of supplies. All we could do was to hold out a little money to them. We tried most often to give to the old or to young girls. They were often too much frightened or dazed to come to our carriage and take it, but our great husky driver would shout out: “Do not fear, these will help you.” Then they would come, but their fear only too plainly told of their experience. I must, however, witness to the fact that we did not see any sign of anything but patience and even kindness on the part of the gendarmes walking with these crowds. The general impression gotten everywhere is that orders are carried out, only orders, and that even the cruelties are well organised. Very few men were in the parties, but there were some. These people had been on the road more than three weeks.
We reached a lonely unfinished han three hours beyond AY. Here we found our first company of “turned” Armenians. They were from the town of L., and were going they knew not where. We met many after this; they are a little more comfortable than the Christians, and their men are with them, but they have been robbed like the others, and are full of uncertain fear of what may be coming to them, and also of remorse because their denial of what is really precious to them has brought them so little. We only stopped in AX. to send telegrams and get the story of that city. The men here, as everywhere else, had been rounded up first and sent off bound in fours, in gangs of from forty to fifty, in various directions from the city—to death, as all believe. In every city the citizens all believe this to be the fate of all men; all the gendarmes and arabadjis say it is, but all the officers deny it, saying that they send the men in this way because they have no gendarmes to handle the situation in any other way. They take all money and weapons (even razors) from them for the same reason. In AX. the women were also imprisoned and sent out without any preparation for the journey. The AX. people say that the AZ. Pass is the place where all the worst things happen, and we can well believe it. At BA. it looked ugly, and although it was quiet enough except for the coarse voices of the terrible-looking officers that were sitting about, you felt that things were wrong. A little bride and a slim young girl sidled up to our wagon to talk. In reply to our talk they told us that they were “busy taking care of the babies.” We asked what babies, and they said: “O, those the effendis stop here; the mothers nurse them and then go.” We asked if there were many, and were told that every house was full. We were watched too closely to make calls possible. Afterwards we found an officer ready to talk, who said: “We take them off after a while and kill them. What can we do? The mothers cannot take them, and the Government cannot take care of them for ever.” That night we stopped in another lonely place with a lot of new Turks in it. We were glad to help the sick, both among them and in the Circassian village near by, though I have no doubt the Circassians belonged to the bands who rob the exiles so frequently on this mountain. In the early morning, as we climbed the AZ. Pass, we passed a great camp of exiles. We decided that we needed to save the horses, so we walked up the steep ascent. We knew that our own girls were not far ahead, and wondered if our professors were here. They were not, but the company proved to be from BC., and the pastor and people were there. As we walked by, we saw ahead of us the girl teacher who has so self-sacrificingly worked there these many years. We had prepared packages of money to give away, and as she threw her arms about us with a brave quiver of her chin and a look of agony never to be forgotten, we hid upon her person a bag of money and told her to use it for all. There was no opportunity for talk except to learn that the men were still with the party. At the top of the mountain, when we changed our guard, I went into the kitchen to buy milk and talk. It was evident that we had not been allowed to come up the night before, although we had pleaded for it. Forty prisoners had been there, and they had been taken off to the tents just the other side of the mountain in the night and disposed of in some way. We wondered if it could have been our own professors and workers. We learned later that they (our people) had been separated from their wives at W. a few days before, and that the women had been robbed on this mountain only forty-eight hours before.
We reached AW.-han about nine that morning—only the second morning from Y.—and went immediately into the town for news, though we were apparently only interested in the famous rug-industry of the place. While I was discussing this interesting industry with a man, a woman told Miss A. to hurry to the deserted factory—that our girls were there and in danger. My man had already proposed to take us there. We found no rugs and no girls. The former had been confiscated by the Government, and the latter had gone only two hours before toward Z., five hours away. A friend turned up in the street, who told us that the girls had had a hard time here and that we had better go directly to the Kaimakam. This we did. He told us a made-up story, but said that the girls would lunch at BD.-han and that we could overtake them if we would hurry. We hurried! When we rounded the last turn of the road we saw the most beautiful sight I ever expect to see—every window full of dark heads and waving handkerchiefs. The Kaimakam had telephoned that they might wait for their teachers. He was the man who had tried so hard to get a girl, and to whom our small maiden had made her confession of faith! (When you are in the Government it is just as well not to let your left hand know what your right doeth.) After a few words with the girls, we hastened on to the city, reaching there about two hours before the girls. Just as we reached the city, we said to the gendarme with us: “Why should not these girls stay with us at the American School while we wait for the Vali’s decision?” He gave rather a non-committal reply, but we were scarcely settled with our friends when this man turned up, saying: “There has been a mistake; I got the permission for the girls to come here, but they have been taken to a Turkish boarding school.” A visit to the Turkish school soon straightened this out, though for a while we feared our misunderstanding would be a fatal one for our cause. The Vali’s sister is greatly interested in this school, which has been established for Armenian girls left in villages whose adult inhabitants had been sent on “sefkyat.” The authorities thought our girls a new relay, and were a little disgusted that it was not so. One of the humorous experiences of the journey occurred before the girls were allowed to leave. In the dim light they were lined up to meet the commissioner of education, who wished to say a few words to them. They dressed like Turkish girls on the journey in white sheets, and were a weird sight in the long hall; but when the commissioner told them that they had no need to leave that fine place and go with foreigners, and asked them if they would not rather change their names and stay there, there came so emphatic a “Khyar, Effendim” from the long line, that they were immediately proved to be very lively ghosts. The Vali was away from the city attending to a Kurdish revolution in the villages, and this affair gave a very providential opportunity for a call on his sister, to apologise for the seeming lack of appreciation of her hospitality on the part of our students. She was stiff and angry, but we ended the best of friends, I saying that I wished she and all the world were Christian, and she avowing that she wished me a Mohammedan, and each of us declaring that we were going to use our best efforts to bring about our desires.
As soon as the Vali returned, we called, and after a very pleasant talk on every subject but the one in hand, we handed him our formal petition for the return of the girls. He immediately granted it, inviting us not to hurry away, but to enjoy the hospitality of his city as long as possible. We concluded that it was better not to hasten, for we wanted an opportunity to present another petition for our professors, and to talk to him about relief for the suffering in his country. The second call was not so pleasant as the first, for the idea of his country needing any help from foreign nations under any circumstances was an absurdity. We told him that no country could live to itself in this age of reciprocity, and that in time of great trouble, whether caused by nature or by war, friendship was shown as much by accepting help as by giving it; that our country could only in these sad days offer to help the warring nations, and that it was doing it indiscriminately. He warmed a little, but said that at present there was no need and that he had not such matters in charge.
We only left our petition for the return of our other friends, and took leave after he had assured us that our journey should be facilitated in every way. This was done. He himself was on the telephone at the AZ. Pass to hear from our own lips the assurance that we were passing that dangerous place in comfort. We came in comfort, and this fact only emphasised the suffering of those we met always going in the other direction. Our driver one day voiced the thought of our hearts: “Who will give the Arzu Hal for these?” The road all along the way was marked by dead and decaying animals, and though we did not personally see human bodies, we were told of their presence under bridges and in ravines, and frequent groups of vultures gave silent witness. There were many feeble and dying in the processions we met, for the weather was very hot. In Y. we called on the Pasha and his family and the gendarmerie chief, and were very politely received and earnestly congratulated. But in the early morning, when Miss A. and I went up town to get some necessary supplies for the journey, six men hung on gallows in the streets and one old man was saying: “Why, that is my son!” So near are joy and agony in the world, and especially in this land. They were deserters from the Army.
Our findings, in regard to what we have witnessed, are as follows:—
I. The Armenians have been deported practically universally from these six vilayets. Many of them have been killed by order of the Government and many have died by the way, but many also are enduring months of travel, and are approaching the borders of the great Arabian desert, where help must be gotten to them. A large plan of relief is absolutely necessary. It must emanate from the capital and there receive authority.
II. Orders given from Constantinople are often made void by other private orders; so anything that is promised must be written, and put in the hands of the people authorised to carry it out in co-operation with the Government. Only official seals will be recognised.
III. The orders about Protestants are only partially acknowledged by a few authorities, and in most cases all Protestants have either gone into exile or have been terrorized into becoming Mohammedans. Some order providing for relief for them, either where they are this winter or after they return to their plundered homes, is necessary if any real help is to be given them.