IV. Permission for the recantation of the recently “turned” Protestants would be of the greatest help to the country, for their condition is most pitiable. They are neither one thing nor the other, and are afraid to engage in any real business, for all they possessed is soon required of them in bribes by different officers.
V. Bribe-taking has been enormous in some places, notably in X.; many have paid 2,000 liras to save their lives and then been sent into exile practically without a para.
VI. Forcible Mohammedanizing has been universal, in the assurance that death on the road is the only available alternative. Many, for the sake of trying to save wife and children a little while, have so changed their faith. The best of the Turks, however, only emphasise the national side of this change and not the religious.
VII. The Turkish houses are full of Christian children, girls and women. They are usually early registered Mohammedans and an Imam comes and teaches them some of the prayers. After a while their “nufus” teskeriés are called for and a Turkish one given in their place, and so their nationality is lost.
VIII.—Omitted by the Editor.
IX. What has become of the men is a profound mystery, but I am increasingly certain that the large majority of them have been killed. The soldiers are still most of them alive, I believe, though all say that in the end they will also be killed. I talked with one who had managed to crawl to the Z. hospital wounded. He was one of ten men who had escaped, when all the rest of their company of 200 had been shot by the gendarmes in a defile of the mountains.
90. X.: REPORT FROM MR. AL., A FOREIGN RESIDENT AT L., IN ASIATIC TURKEY, DATED 26th AUGUST, 1915; COMMUNICATED BY THE AMERICAN COMMITTEE FOR ARMENIAN AND SYRIAN RELIEF.
On the 14th instant I started again for X., and I returned from there on the 24th.
On the 10th instant, that is, immediately after my departure, the Turkish Government carried away, in 31 ox-carts, part of the Armenians of the College and the Hospital.
These gentlemen had been instructed by me not to allow these people to start voluntarily, and as you will see stated in the Principal’s letter, they were taken by force. Besides, 63 persons were taken from the Girls’ School.