"AiVken will tke American skips and soldiers come to protect us? Tkatwas tke ap- 
 pealing cry from tke lips of almost every surviving Armenian in tke kligkted country of tke 
 massacres — tke inquiry tkat Mr. Creelman kad to parry kefore keing permitted to proceed 
 witk kis questionings. Tke kumanity of tke great American nation kas kecome world- 
 famed. Tke spirit of practical pkilantkropy and Ckristianity witk wkick we kave responded 
 to tke misfortunes of otker nations kas penetrated tke mmds or even tke ignorant masses 
 of unenligktened countries. We undertook wkat we feared migkt ke a great foreign war to 
 free tke Cukans from oppression. We took tke lead m sending a comkmed army of tke sev- 
 eral ckief war nations into Ckma to put an end to tke Boxer disorders. But kere are forty 
 tkousand Ckristian people slam and many more tkousands akused and despoiled just 
 because tkey are Cknstians — and not even an official puklic protest!— EDITOR. 
 
 HE most appealing figure 
 I saw in all the scene 
 of death and destruction 
 that stretched over the 
 Cilician Plain for a hun- 
 dred miles was a bent, 
 white-haired Armenian 
 of seventy years who 
 stood among blackened ruins of his Christian 
 village, with a skull in his wrinkled hands and 
 a pile of bones at his feet. 
 
 " He was my son-in-law," said the old man. 
 "The Moslems surrounded Giaour Kur [the 
 village], calling on their prophet's name and 
 
 Copyright, iQog, by the Pearson Publish 
 
 screaming to us that they had orders not to 
 leave a Christian alive in the whole country. 
 We defended ourselves in our houses for three 
 days, but our ammunition became exhausted. 
 Some swam the river at night and escaped. 
 Some got into the fields and hid in the wheat, 
 but the Turks hunted them out with dogs and 
 killed them all. The rest started for the city 
 of Adana, but were hacked to pieces on the 
 road. Our pretty girls were carried away as 
 prisoners. Then every house, in the village 
 was plundered and burned. It is the same 
 everywhere on this plain — there is not a single 
 Christian house left standing." 
 
 ing Company. All rights reserved 283 
 
284 
 
 PEARSON'S MAGAZINE 
 
 "This was my son-in-law" 
 
 His face was blackened by the fierce sun, 
 seamed and puckered by age and hard work ; 
 his quaint blue and red jacket was rent, and 
 his sturdy legs were wrapped in loose white 
 cotton; a faded black cap covered his head, 
 and his feet were in cowhide moccasins. He 
 spoke in a dreary monotone, now and then 
 glancing nervously at the Turkish soldiers 
 who accompanied me. 
 
 "They had no pity in their hearts," he 
 said. " They killed every Christian 
 they found, everywhere, every- 
 where" — extending his arms and 
 shaking his white head. 
 
 The venerable survivor of the 
 ghastliest massacre in history strode 
 a few steps and stopped beside 
 some charred bones. 
 
 "Here they burned a Christian 
 alive," he said. "A poor fellow 
 who had done them no harm." 
 
 Again he walked through the flower-car- 
 peted field, starting up the singing larks as he 
 went, and halted beside another blackened 
 spot. 
 
 "Here they burned another Christian 
 alive," he said. "They used wood and 
 kerosene." 
 
 Trudging on slowly, he brought me to the 
 foot of a tree where skulls and bones were 
 scattered about, and beside them blood- 
 stained clubs. 
 
 "These ran to climb the tree, but were 
 caught; the dogs have eaten their flesh — 
 Christian flesh," he explained. 
 
 It seemed unreal. The wide, sunlit land- 
 scape; the glow and perfume of flowers; the 
 never-ceasing warbling of larks and skim- 
 ming of swallows; the green stretches of 
 young cotton and sesame ; the yellow surge of 
 ripe wheat — and silent Moslems, in red fezes 
 or dirty white turbans, cheerfully gathering in 
 the crops of the Christians they had murdered, 
 while a group of slattern Turkish soldiers 
 smoked cigarettes among the ruins of the si- 
 lent and empty Christian village, which only 
 a few weeks before had sheltered three hun- 
 dred contented Armenians. 
 
 The old man studied my face eagerly. 
 
 " When will the American ships and soldiers 
 come to protect us ? " he asked. 
 
 I shook my head. 
 
 "What!" he pleaded, his lips trembling 
 and his breast heaving. " The Christian na- 
 tions will not abandon us? The Americans 
 will come to save us ? We are helpless. The 
 Turks will kill us all. They have no 
 mercy." 
 
 I left him standing beside the bones of 
 his slain neighbors with bowed head and 
 clasped hands, still hoping and dreaming 
 that help would come from far-away Amer- 
 ica. 
 
 It is this amazing belief in the power and 
 swift humanity of the American people that 
 stirs the soul of an American who goes out 
 over the blood-stained soil of the Cilician 
 
 Typical scene in a Christian wheat field. This is the body of a Greek who 
 was trailed to his hiding-place by dogs 
 
Gregorian school at Adana in which two thousand Christians were crowded when the mob burned it and slaughtered 
 
 the inmates as they tried to escape 
 
 Plain, or moves among the thin, white-faced 
 refugees crowded in the cities. 
 
 For more than half a century American 
 missionaries have been working among the 
 descendants of the Armenian kingdom which 
 was established in the high lands about Mount 
 Ararat five hundred years before Christ, the 
 first kingdom in the world to accept Chris- 
 tianity. The Armenian people were slaugh- 
 tered and robbed by Persians, Macedonians, 
 Romans and Byzantines. Then the Arabs, 
 
 A part of the great refugee camp at Adana. In the city alone 
 less and hungry persons, mostly women and children, had to 
 of after the massacre 
 
 be 
 
 Kurds and Seljuk Turks alternately attacked 
 them. In the eleventh century the Byzan- 
 tines again swept into their country and ex- 
 tinguished their kingdom, when the unhappy 
 people fled to the Cilician Plain, where they 
 founded another kingdom and maintained it 
 for three hundred years, but were finally con- 
 quered by the Egyptians. 
 
 Never since the apostle Thaddeus went 
 from Christ to the Armenians have they 
 abandoned Christianity, and through war 
 after war, massacre after massacre, they have 
 proclaimed their religion openly. 
 
 Hundreds of American lives and millions of 
 American money have been sacri- 
 ficed in the attempt to raise the 
 Armenians out of the dead ritual- 
 ism of their ancient church into 
 the active spiritual and moral life 
 of modern Christianity, and to-day 
 more than a half million dollars a 
 year are spent through the Amer- 
 ican missions. 
 
 It makes one's blood leap to see 
 the glorious work that has been 
 done by brave American men and 
 women in the heart of Asia Minor, 
 a work of education, of compas- 
 sion, of active rescue from poverty 
 and despair. 
 
 The scene of this last great mas- 
 sacre — more terrifying and un- 
 
 285 
 
 000 home- 
 taken care 
 
286 
 
 PEARSON'S MAGAZINE 
 
 The first King of Armenia 
 
 The last King of Armenia 
 
 The Turks insist that it was the display of pictures lil<e these that 
 confirmed the IVlosIem population's suspicion of an Armenian 
 
 revolution 
 
 speakable even than the bloody sweep of 
 Tamerlane and his Asiatic horde — is filled 
 with monuments of American courage and 
 devotion — missions at Mersina, Tarsus, 
 Adana, Hadjin, Talas, Kassab, Antioch, 
 Marash, Aintab and Lattakia, and more 
 than a hundred native Christian churches 
 scattered about the towns and villages of 
 the great plain over which the armies of 
 Xerxes, Cyrus, Mithridates, Alexander, 
 Caesar, Pompey, Harun-al-Rashid, Sal- 
 adin and Ibrahim Pasha moved through 
 centuries of conquest. 
 
 It was here the Moslem Arabs barred the 
 way of Christian pilgrims to the sepulchre 
 of Christ at Jerusalem and drew from 
 Europe the mail-clad crusaders under God- 
 frey de Bouillon, who camped on the very 
 soil where whole Christian populations 
 have been ruthlessly destroyed this year. 
 
 Nowhere in the world is there such a 
 confusion of races and religions to be found 
 as in this ancient battle-field where 
 Europe and Asia have contended for thou- 
 sands of years. 
 
 I have seen American missionaries feed- 
 ing and comforting the refugees of five 
 different religious sects in Tarsus, the 
 birthplace of St. Paul, beside the little hill 
 where Marc Antony received Cleopatra 
 when the Egyptian queen, disguised as 
 Venus, sailed up the Cydnus, whose waters 
 were, only a few weeks ago, filled with 
 mutilated Christian corpses. 
 
 And out of this dreadful country, where 
 I have traveled for fifty miles without see- 
 ing a single Christian house standing, and 
 where I have seen dogs eating the bodies 
 of murdered Christians, there rises a cry 
 of appeal to America from widows and 
 orphans and from men who starve and 
 hide while the murderous Turks gather 
 their crops and make worse than slaves 
 of their wives and daughters. 
 
 It is easy for American statesmanship to 
 ask, "Am I my brother's keeper?" But 
 that was the answer of Cain to God. 
 
 Come with me to old Tarsus, whose 
 buried magnificence lies beneath the 
 grounds of an American mission founded 
 by a New Yorker, and, in the sight of 
 whole streets of burned Christian homes, 
 stand beside me and listen to the gentle 
 voice of a young Armenian widow of 
 twenty-four years, Paka Sarajian, of the 
 near-by mountain village Kozolook. 
 
 She is slim and as graceful as a deer as 
 
Among the Christian ruins at Tarsus 
 
 she leans against a crumbling wall, clad in a 
 red jacket and loose blue native trousers, her 
 small oval face tanned by the sun, her great 
 brown eyes shining with devotion and her 
 pretty little childish mouth trembling as she 
 talks. A white cloth is wound around her 
 shapely head to conceal the fact that her hair 
 was burned off. Her left arm is in a sling. 
 She holds her ragged little son by the hand. 
 
 As she talks, a squad of dirty Turkish sol- 
 diers leer at her and groups of hungry and 
 ragged Christians, who only a few days before 
 were living in good houses, pass and repass 
 between the American mission and 
 the Turkish court-martial. 
 
 "There were eighty Christian 
 families in the village of Kozolook." 
 she says, "and I lived there with 
 my husband who was a carpenter, 
 and my four children, one a baby." 
 
 Her face twitches, and a big tear 
 rolls down her face. 
 
 " On Friday, in the week of the 
 massacres, the Turks from the sur- 
 rounding villages came and per- 
 suaded all the men of our village to 
 give up their arms, promising that 
 they would protect them. 
 
 "Then they took us in different 
 parties to their villages, telling us 
 all the time that Christians would 
 be safer with them. There were 
 
 thirty-six persons in my party, and they took 
 us to the village of Chavooshlu, about a mile 
 away. I trembled all the time, because I 
 learned that they had murdered my husband. 
 They shot him nine times before he died." 
 
 The forlorn little peasant beauty shivers 
 and touches her son on the head with inex- 
 pressible tenderness. 
 
 "When we reached Chavooshlu we were 
 shut up in a Turk's house until Sunday. 
 Then a crowd of Turkish villagers, people 
 who had always been our neighbors, came and 
 said that they had orders from the govern- 
 
 Four Christian orphans of Adana. One was picked up on the road 
 with a wound on its head 
 
 287 
 
All that was left of a large Christian village. It will be observed that there are only three men alive 
 
 ment to kill us 
 all. They had 
 guns and swords 
 and clubs. We 
 begged for our 
 lives. We kissed 
 their feet. But 
 they said we 
 must die. It 
 was the order of 
 the government 
 — all Christians 
 must die. We 
 had done noth- 
 ing, nothing at 
 all. It was be- 
 cause we were 
 Christians. 
 
 "They took 
 us to a field to 
 kill us, and when 
 I saw that there 
 was no escape I 
 threw my little 
 baby in a moun- 
 tain river and 
 saw it drown." 
 
 Tears gush 
 from the brown 
 eyes, and a sob 
 shakes the hght, 
 graceful figure. 
 
 "In the field 
 
 288 
 
 Armenian survivors of the massacre at Missis appealing to the American 
 consul at Mersina for food. The old woman had fourteen members of her 
 family murdered. The young woman, her daughter, saw the Moslems kill 
 her husband and two of her children. The little group shown in this snap- 
 shot is without a living male relative 
 
 they told us to 
 lie down in a 
 line from east to 
 west, and made 
 their swords 
 ready. We got 
 on our knees 
 and put our 
 faces in the dirt. 
 We crawled be- 
 fore them and 
 kissed their feet. 
 We begged them 
 for the sake of 
 God to let us die 
 some other 
 death. We asked 
 them to shoot us 
 in the head so 
 that we might 
 die at o n ce , 
 They answered 
 that cartridges 
 cost money and 
 they did not pro- 
 pose to waste 
 money on Chris- 
 tians. The gov- 
 ernment had 
 ordered them to 
 kill us, and it 
 was cheaper to 
 use swords than 
 
WILL CHRISTENDOM REMAIN SILENT? 289 
 
 guns — they would 
 cut our throats; it 
 was a good way for 
 Christians to die." 
 
 She writhes, bites 
 her lips and coddles 
 her son. Her voice 
 sinks to a whisper. 
 Her eyes roll upward. 
 
 "Then we all 
 stretched ourselves 
 on the ground, I and 
 my three little chil- 
 dren, too — oh, my 
 God, all I had left! 
 — and the Turks 
 raised their swords 
 and hacked at the 
 necks — oh! oh!" — 
 she covered her eyes 
 and bent her head 
 — " and I heard my 
 little ones cry out to 
 me. They chopped 
 the arms of one of 
 my boys. They 
 chopped the neck of 
 another. How I es- 
 caped death I can- 
 not tell. But I kept 
 
 one boy by my side. Then they made a pile 
 of wood and hay and put all the bodies on 
 it, some of them still living, and set fire to the 
 
 Mouchegh, the young Aniiciiijn b 
 menians to arm themselves helped 
 
 pile; and I heard my 
 two dying children 
 calling to me in the 
 flames. But I held 
 my other boy and 
 kept still, pretending 
 to be dead. Even 
 when my little ones 
 were burning to 
 death I did not dare 
 to move. They threw 
 hay over me and set 
 fire to it and my 
 hair was burned off, 
 yet I did not move 
 or speak. Then a 
 Turk helped me and 
 my boy to get away 
 and — " she hung her 
 head. 
 
 Poor little Chris- 
 tian woman! She 
 was in her rescuer's 
 hands for three days 
 before she reached 
 Dr. Christie and his 
 wife at the Amer- 
 ican mission of St. 
 Paul's Institute in 
 Tarsus. 
 
 "Am I my brother's keeper?" Is that to 
 be the reply of Christian America to the 
 widows and orphans of the thirty thousand 
 
 ishup, wnose appeals to the Ar- 
 to bring on the great massacre 
 
 All that are left of a large band of Christians near Tarsus 
 
290 
 
 PEARSON'S MAGAZINE 
 
 Kefugees in Adana gathering; firewood from the wreck of their homes 
 
 The heart of the Armenian business quarter in Adana 
 
 Two hundred and fifty orphans of Christians murdered at Adana 
 
 Christians murdered in Asia 
 Minor? All, all look across the 
 contending European nations to 
 America for some sign. That is 
 the tremendous fact of the situa- 
 tion. Priests, bishops, merchants, 
 peasants, old men, women, the 
 starving, the wounded, the home- 
 less and the hunted have all asked 
 me what America is going to do 
 now for Christ's people. 
 
 There is no doubt that Abdul 
 Hamid secretly ordered the mas- 
 sacre of Armenians in Asia Minor 
 from his palace in Constantinople. 
 That fully explains the indifference 
 or complicity of the public author- 
 ities of Adana. The fact that mas- 
 sacres began in Adana, Hamidieh, 
 and Osmanieh simultaneously on 
 the very day that the garrison of 
 Constantinople murdered its offi- 
 cers and seized the parliament 
 building, shows an exact concert 
 between the despot and his agents 
 in Asia Minor. 
 
 But the command of the guilty 
 Sultan does not account for the 
 indescribable barbarity of the 
 mobs on the Cilician Plain, where 
 men were burned alive in the pres- 
 ence of their wives and daughters, 
 where not one Christian house was 
 spared, and where Christian fugi- 
 tives in the fields were for days 
 hunted with dogs by men who 
 had been their neighbors and had 
 worked for years side by side with 
 them. One Turkish farmer near 
 Adana killed in cold blood Ar- 
 menian laborers who had been in 
 his service for twenty-five years. 
 
 No words can describe the hor- 
 ror of what occurred. The details 
 are unprintable. I have heard 
 stories from the few survivors on 
 the spot that actually sickened me. 
 There is nothing in the history of 
 the most savage Indian tribes of 
 America comparable to this out- 
 burst of cruelty and lust in which 
 the Christian population of a 
 widespread, fertile country was 
 almost totally annihilated. 
 
fll 
 
 Armenian refugees in the compound of the American school at Tarsus 
 
 The Turkish government may protest that 
 the figures have been exaggerated, but I have 
 seen enough with my own eyes to know that 
 the consular estimates of thirty thousand 
 deaths are moderate. In the country dis- 
 tricts the massacre was not confined to Ar- 
 menians, but Greeks, Chaldeans, Syrians, 
 Mesopotamians; and other Christians were 
 slain without distinction and their houses 
 looted and burned. 
 
 In my journey among the destroyed villages 
 I asked many Turks to explain how it came 
 
 that in a single day the people of a prosper- 
 ous farming country could change into wild 
 beasts. The answer invariably was that the 
 Armenians intended to rise in arms and es- 
 tablish an independent kingdom, and that it 
 was only fair that loyal Turks should de- 
 fend themselves. Here and there a Mos- 
 lem spoke of photographs representing Ar- 
 menians dressed as kings, princes or armed 
 warriors. 
 
 It is undoubtedly true that a few Arme- 
 nians prepared the way for the great massacre. 
 
 First fruits of the court-martial at Adana. The two men hanging on the right side are Armenians. The three others are 
 Turks. There were six Armenians and nine Turlts hanged on the same day 
 
 291 
 
Devastation of Christian homes on the ancient Cydmus River, near Tarsus 
 
 When the Turkish Constitution was pro- 
 claimed last year and it was announced that 
 Christians and Moslems were equal, the 
 meaning of the new order of things was mis- 
 understood by both sides in Asia Minor. 
 The Armenians, availing themselves of their 
 rights, began to arm. In Mersina and 
 Adana baskets of revolvers were peddled in 
 the streets. Shop windows were filled with 
 arms and cartridges. In all the villages and 
 on the farms the Armenians bought revolvers 
 or guns. 
 
 To appreciate the effect of this upon the 
 Moslems it must be understood that in Asia 
 Minor they look upon Christians as infidels 
 and inferiors, and that the mere thought of 
 an Armenian being the equal of a true be- 
 liever is almost intolerable. Moslem suprem- 
 acy is the unalterable law of their life. The 
 follower of Mohammed is willing to live on 
 terms of peace with the follower of Christ so 
 long as Moslem authority and Moslem superi- 
 ority are not called into question. In a sense, 
 the attitude of the Moslem towards the Chris- 
 
 Homeless Christian women and children at Tarsus. Their natural protectors were murdered 
 
 292 
 
I 
 
 WILL CHRISTENDOM REMAIN SILENT? 
 
 293 
 
 tian is the attitude of the white men of the 
 Southern States towards the negro. The 
 more intelhgent recognize in the abstract a 
 limited legal equality of all Ottoman subjects, 
 without regard to race or religion; but they 
 expect the Christian, and particularly the 
 Armenian, to claim his rights humbly. There 
 is no color line in the country. One sees 
 negro officers in the army, negro officials in 
 the government and negro guests in the best 
 houses. But the Christian white man dare 
 not aspire to the status of a negro Moslem. 
 The Armenians, who were for generations 
 reduced almost to serfdom by the fierce 
 Kurds in their mountain fastnesses, are es- 
 pecial objects of hatred and contempt. 
 
 Not only did the Armenians arm them- 
 selves and openly display their weapons — a 
 privilege never before assumed by Christians 
 — but the two Armenian patriotic societies, 
 the Hunchag and the Droschag, became very 
 active. Meetings were held, and orators ex- 
 horted the Armenians to remember their 
 glorious past, when the country was ruled by 
 Armenian kings. Rude portraits of the old 
 Armenian kings were sold in the streets of 
 Mersina, Tarsus, Adana and other places, and 
 the Armenians adorned their walls with them. 
 
 Meanwhile Abdul Hamid, eager to upset 
 the Constitutional government and regain his 
 old power, had caused the Mohammedan 
 League to be organized, and, under the in- 
 spiration of his secret emissaries, the atten- 
 tion of the ignorant masses of Asia Minor was 
 skillfully directed to the new activity of the 
 Christians. 
 
 Gradually the fierce and unlettered Turks, 
 Kurds, Arabs, Circassians, and all the strange 
 peoples that make up the Moslem power in 
 Asia Minor, got into their minds that the 
 Armenians were preparing to overthrow the 
 Ottoman power and set up an independent 
 Christian kingdom. The imperial assassin 
 at Constantinople employed all his evil genius 
 to spread this idea. The leading Moslem 
 merchants and land-owners in the province of 
 Adana, jealous of the progress and prosperity 
 of the Armenians, who owned the best shops 
 and farms, lived better, dressed better, and, 
 with the Christian Greeks, controlled the 
 business of the country, helped to fan the 
 flame of Moslem hate and suspicion. Kurds, 
 Turks and Arabs, accustomed of old to 
 plunder Christian houses and capture Chris- 
 tian women, looked forward with delight to 
 the prospect of an armed struggle with the 
 presumptuous infidels. 
 
 It is only fair to say that the great mass of 
 the x\rmenians were innocent of any revolu- 
 tionary design. They were peaceable, in- 
 dustrious and as loyal as any oppressed sub- 
 jects could be expected to be. The evidence 
 on this point is overwhelming. 
 
 Within the two Armenian {patriotic socie- 
 ties was a secret military organization of about 
 two hundred young men, known as the Fay- 
 dayee. These warriors were sworn to sur- 
 render their lives absolutely to the Armenian 
 cause. They were thoroughly armed and 
 drilled and they practised with rifles almost 
 daily in the vineyards, even in the presence of 
 Moslems. Their chief was a young Arme- 
 nian named Bezdikian; but their most re- 
 doubtable captain was Garabet Letchihan, a 
 pale, slender youth, with long blond hair 
 falling about his thin shoulders. Their oath 
 bound them to obey their officers' orders until 
 death. 
 
 Another trouble-maker was a young, black- 
 bearded Armenian bishop, Mouschegh 
 [Moses], who went about in his black robe 
 making fiery speeches. He was a rollicking, 
 wine-drinking, carousing fellow, who boasted 
 that while other priests might show the way 
 to heaven, his business was to lead the way 
 to political progress and liberty. Again and 
 again he publicly urged the Armenians to arm 
 themselves. He declared that it was the duty 
 of a true Armenian to sell the clothes from his 
 back and buy arms, to eat less and buy arms, 
 to stint his wife and children and buy arms, 
 to sacrifice his home and buy arms. 
 
 Poor, helpless dreamers! While they made 
 speeches, bought arms and hung pictures of 
 Armenian kings in their houses, the Moslem 
 millions about them sharpened kinves and 
 swords, prepared heavy clubs, and got in new 
 stores of ammunition for their rifles and re- 
 volvers. 
 
 Six weeks before the first massacre — if the 
 first fight may be called a massacre — there 
 was a powerful reactionary agitation among 
 the Moslem masses all over the country. 
 The Constitution was bitterly criticized. The 
 Christians were getting too pretentious. The 
 Armenians were organizing a revolution. 
 Islam was in danger. So the story ran from 
 city to city, village to village, and farm to 
 farm. Turk, Arab and Circassian looked 
 with deadly, greedy eyes upon his Christian 
 neighbors. The subtle mind and matchless 
 methods of the Armenian-hating monster in 
 the Yildiz palace was at work everywhere. 
 The Mohammedan League spread exagger- 
 
294 
 
 PEARSON'S MAGAZINE 
 
 ated accounts of what the Christians were 
 doing and intended to do. The air was full 
 of suspicion and hatred. 
 
 Meanwhile the oath-bound Fedayee, under 
 their leader and blond-haired fighting cap- 
 tain, continued to practise with their rifles in 
 the vineyards; the Hunchag and Droschag 
 societies continued to hold patriotic meetings 
 in various parts of the city of Adana; the 
 young Armenian bishop continued to go 
 about exhorting his people to buy arms at any 
 sacrifice, and the Armenians, generally ignor- 
 ant of the deep passion of the Moslem hordes, 
 continued to display pictures of old Armen- 
 ian kings in their houses. 
 
 Armenian exiles returned from Europe and 
 America and helped to work up the excite- 
 ment. They harangued the people night and 
 day. Why should Armenia not have the 
 same rights as Bulgaria? The country was 
 an Armenian kingdom before the Turks 
 came. It was Armenian soil. 
 
 To add to the intensity of the situation the 
 Armenians gave a theatrical performance in 
 Adana, in which a young woman in a black 
 robe, with bound hands, and wearing a crown 
 of thorns, represented Armenia. An angel 
 appeared and announced that the cause of 
 Armenia's troubles was the failure of Ar- 
 menians to unite. Thereupon the black- 
 robed figure had a vision in which the Arme- 
 nian nation abandoned its dissensions and 
 joined hands for the sake of liberty. Then 
 the angel reappeared, unbound Armenia's 
 hands, put a resplendent robe on her and re- 
 placed the crown of thorns with a golden 
 crown. 
 
 So guiltless of any intentional threat was 
 this allegory that when the performance was 
 repeated in Mersina, the Armenian priest in 
 charge invited a number of Turkish officers 
 to attend. 
 
 Once more the Mohammedan League 
 scattered far and wide the news that Arme- 
 nians were actually dressing themselves up as 
 royal princes and that the day of battle was 
 drawing near. 
 
 Early in April there was a brawl in the city 
 of Adana between an Armenian and some 
 Turks over a disreputable woman. The Ar- 
 menian wounded three Turks, and one of 
 them died. His funeral was made the excuse 
 for a great demonstration against the Arme- 
 nians, and threatening speeches were made by 
 excited Turks. There was a great Turkish 
 
 mass-meeting on the night of Tuesday, April 
 13th, near the Konak, or government build- 
 ing, under the direction of the Mohammedan 
 League. An Armenian who ventured near 
 the scene was caught by the crowd and 
 clubbed to death. His friends carried the 
 news about the Armenian quarter of the city, 
 and the two hundred oath-bound Armenian 
 riflemen, the Fedayee ; got themselves in 
 readiness. 
 
 The whole city was in a thrill of excitement 
 on Wednesday morning. All Moslems ap- 
 peared in white turbans — a dreadful signal 
 that Christians have learned to understand — 
 a Turkish mob gathered in the streets near 
 the Armenian shops, armed with knives and 
 clubs, which they tried to hide under their 
 coats. The Armenians began to close theii.' 
 shops. The Turks put marks on their own 
 shutters to distinguish them from the property 
 of Christians — another fearful sign. 
 
 There was a meeting of American mission- 
 aries in Adana that morning, and Dr. William 
 N. Chambers, head of the Adana mission; ac- 
 companied by his nephew, Lawson P. Cham- 
 bers, called at the government building to beg 
 the Governor to take steps to restore order 
 and confidence. There they found the 
 heads of the Gregorian, Armenian Catholic 
 and Armenian Protestant communities. The 
 Governor, a meek, cowardly little man, and 
 a favorite of Abdul Hamid, joined with sev- 
 eral of the prominent Turks of the city in as- 
 surances that peace would be maintained. 
 
 Soon the narrow streets of Adana were 
 filled with screaming, armed mobs, all moving 
 towards the Armenian bazaars, the finest 
 shops in the city. All wore white turbans 
 and all were armed. The rush of their feet 
 and the angry roar of their voices could be 
 heard for a great distance. They brandished 
 daggers, pistols and clubs. The crush of 
 their bodies almost filled the streets from wall 
 to wall. One mob was led by a mullah, or 
 Moslem priest, in a huge green turban. An- 
 other followed a mullah who shook a green 
 banner and cursed all Christians. Butchers 
 waved sharp cleavers, carpenters held aloft 
 their axes and knives. Some chanted verses 
 from the Koran, some shrieked for ven- 
 geance, others called for the looting of the 
 shops. Soon the street of the Armenian 
 bazaars was packed with a raving, furious 
 multitude of Turks, Arabs, Circassians, 
 Afghans, the most ignorant, fanatical and 
 blood-thirsty mob that the world could fur- 
 nish, faces contorted with rage, eyes blaz- 
 
WILL CHRISTENDOM REMAIN SILENT? 295 
 
 ing and voices swelling shriller every mo- 
 ment. 
 
 Ordinary Armenians withdrew from that 
 spectacle. The oath-bound secret soldiers of 
 the Fedayee gathered in the middle of the 
 market-place. Their young, boyish captain, 
 with his long blond hair streaming from 
 under a red-topped cap, stood among them, 
 white-faced but resolute. He called upon 
 them to show themselves to be true Arme- 
 nians and true Christians. 
 
 The Moslem mob pressed closer and closer. 
 It howled and leaped in the air. 
 
 Suddenly a few Armenian shops were at- 
 tacked, the crashing of shutters was heard, 
 and the mob began the w^ork of looting. 
 
 Instantly the Fedayee began firing their 
 revolvers in the air. At this the mob surged 
 forward and began a general pillage of the 
 Armenian shops. 
 
 Under the direction of their leader, the 
 members of the Fedayee and their friends now 
 fought a regular battle in defence of the Ar- 
 menian quarter. They posted marksmen in 
 the windows commanding strategic points. 
 They threw up barricades in the streets. 
 They poured volleys from the roofs. Scores 
 of Moslems fell under this steady and careful 
 fire. The mob wrecked many of the shops, 
 but it could not penetrate into the Armenian 
 residential quarter. As the young Arme- 
 nians picked off their enemies the streets 
 were red with Moslem blood. 
 
 At the beginning of the shooting the Ferik 
 Pasha, or Turkish military commander — a 
 cowardly brute who was largely responsible 
 for a former Armenian massacre — came to 
 the market with a few soldiers, followed by a 
 frenzied mob; but at the first sound of firing 
 he fled to the government building and did 
 not show himself again till the tragedy was all 
 over. 
 
 While the battle went on, a part of the mob 
 rushed to the government building and called 
 on the governor to give them arms to defend 
 themselves against the Armenians. At this 
 time the Moslems had gotten the worst of the 
 fight and the trained Armenian marksmen 
 were in command of the situation. The gov- 
 ernor was in a white funk. His eyes rolled, 
 his hands trembled. A body of Turkish sol- 
 diers posted on the bridge over the ancient 
 Sarus River, the very bridge that witnessed 
 one of the most thrilling battles of history, had 
 for a time kept the maddened Turks of the 
 outside villages from entering the city, but 
 the crowd had forced its way over the bridge 
 
 and joined its cries to those of the Adana mob. 
 The governor allowed two Armenians to be 
 hacked to death in his presence. 
 
 There was no government left; the city was 
 given up to anarchy, save where the conse- 
 crated Fedayee kept the Armenian quarter 
 from invasion and slew Moslems without 
 ceasing. Men claiming to be reservist sol- 
 diers received military rifles from the arsenal 
 and at once joined the mob. The attack on 
 the Armenians now became more terrible as 
 the government rifles were brought into play, 
 but they stood their ground; and in the midst 
 of the battle squads of the Fedayee were sent 
 even into the Turkish quarter to conduct 
 Christian women and children to places of 
 safety in the churches and schools. 
 
 A few Armenian shops and residences were 
 set on fire, and as the inmates ran into the 
 streets or jumped from the low roofs they 
 were stabbed and slashed pitilessly, with cries 
 of, " There is your liberty! " " There is your 
 equality!" "There is your new Constitu- 
 tion!" 
 
 The battle went on, night and day, for two 
 days and a half. Thousands of Armenians, 
 mostly women and children, took refuge in 
 the American mission school, in the house 
 of Dr. Chambers, in the house and factory 
 of the British dragoman, in a German fac- 
 tory, and in the schools of the French Jesuits 
 and nuns. 
 
 In time the Moslems mounted roof-tops and 
 climbed into the minarets of the mosques. 
 They also took possession of a clock tower. 
 From these high points they were able to kill 
 the Armenians w-ith ease. The tide of battle 
 seemed to be changing. 
 
 Then the long-haired captain of the Feda- 
 yee and a band of his most trusted comrades 
 disguised themselves as Moslems by winding 
 white turbans about their heads. They made 
 their way to the nearest mosque, killed its 
 keepers and, mounting the minaret, opened 
 fire on the men in the other minarets and in 
 the clock tower. For hours the battle in the 
 air went on and roars of anger went up from 
 the mob as it saw Moslem after Moslem fall 
 in the minarets. When his ammunition was 
 exhausted, the Armenian captain withdrew 
 his men from the minaret, rejoined his com- 
 rades, took the turban from his head and, 
 with his fair hair tangled about his face, re- 
 sumed the battle in the streets. 
 
 It is said that this one x\rmenian fighter 
 killed thirty-seven Turks with his own hands 
 in a single place on the second day of the 
 
296 
 
 PEARSON'S MAGAZINE 
 
 struggle and that at times his white, pinched 
 face and blue eyes would light up as though 
 he were inspired. Yet he was but a boy of 
 twenty years who had closed his shoemaker's 
 shop to teach Christian children- in the Gre- 
 gorian school, and then had abandoned his 
 books and scholars to strike for liberty. 
 
 The whole world has heard the story of 
 how Major Doughty- Wylie, the gallant sol- 
 dier, who was serving as British Vice-Consul 
 at Mersina, went to Adana on the first day of 
 the fighting, forced the trembling Turkish 
 Governor to give him a small body of soldiers, 
 posted guards at the American mission and 
 school, furnished protection to imperilled 
 foreigners, and rode about the crazed city, 
 entreating, threatening and persuading the 
 Moslem mob, until a bullet broke his arm on 
 the second day. The world also knows how 
 the two American missionaries, Mr. Rogers 
 and Mr. Maurer, were murdered in cold blood 
 while trying to save a widow's burning house 
 that threatened the American school with de- 
 struction — murdered by Moslems who were 
 plundering a Christian house and who had 
 promised not to harm them. 
 
 On Friday, the third day, the ammunition 
 of the Armenians was becoming exhausted, 
 yet the Moslem fire was kept up, particularly 
 from the roof-tops. Dr. Chambers, the tall, 
 thin, gray-bearded head of the American mis- 
 sion, stood on the roof of his house and, wav- 
 ing a white flag, shouted in Turkish re- 
 peatedly, "Cease firing!" Turkish riflemen 
 on another roof answered, "Let the Arme- 
 nians surrender." The missionary waved his 
 white flag again and cried, "They are ready 
 to surrender to the government. Cease fir- 
 ing!" Then he shouted to the Armenians 
 everywhere to put up white flags. Mean- 
 while one of the Jesuit priests at the French 
 school asked a Turkish bugler to go to the 
 roof of his building and sound, " Cease fir- 
 ing! " The bugler refused to move. Seizing 
 the man by the throat, the priest actually 
 forced him to the roof and compelled him to 
 blow the signal. Then the firing slackened 
 and a sort of truce was established. 
 
 Before night Dr. Chambers and a Jesuit 
 priest signed a petition to the governor asking 
 for protection. 
 
 The mob, which had burned several build- 
 ings, was threatening the American school 
 and attempting to set fire to it. An Arme- 
 nian preacher had been murdered in Dr. 
 Chambers' arms. The Moslems were in- 
 sisting that the Armenian refugees in the 
 
 American Mission should be surrendered to 
 them for slaughter. 
 
 The gray missionary, haggard with anxiety 
 and grief, had gone out into the mob and 
 argued with it. 
 
 " You have spilled enough blood," he cried. 
 "Be satisfied." 
 
 Until one old Moslem, moved by the cour- 
 age of the Christian, had put his back against 
 the wall of the American school and shouted, 
 "My life for this building! " 
 
 The petition w^s taken to the governor by 
 a friendly Turk, a body of troops appeared, 
 the mob was dispersed and order was restored. 
 
 It was found that about six or seven hun- 
 dred Moslems had been killed by the Arme- 
 nians, whose own losses amounted to some- 
 thing like a thousand. 
 
 Then the members of the Fedayee and 
 their blond-haired captain promptly fled 
 from Asia Minor. It was the absence of this 
 trained body that made the Armenians so 
 helpless in the great massacre which followed. 
 The general leader, Bezdikian, and one of his 
 associates, were sheltered by the wounded 
 British vice-consul in the house of his drago- 
 man, but, search as they might, the Turks 
 could find no trace of the little army that had 
 defended the Armenian quarter so bravely. 
 
 It was a drawn battle in Adana, and the 
 fury of the Moslems grew as they counted 
 their losses and reahzed that the heroes of the 
 Fedayee had escaped. 
 
 But in Osmanieh and Hamedieh practi- 
 cally all the Armenians had been slain and 
 their houses robbed and burned. The muti- 
 lation of the dying and dead, the outrages on 
 women and children, and the treatment of 
 captives cannot be described. 
 
 While the fight in Adana was drawing to a 
 close on Friday, about two hundred Moslem 
 ruffians seized a railway train and went to 
 Tarsus. They killed two unarmed Arme- 
 nians at the railway station and, rushing into 
 the town with shrieks and curses, were joined 
 by native Turks and Afghans, when a general 
 massacre and pillage of the Armenian quarter 
 began. The mob first went to the govern- 
 ment armory, where it was supplied with 
 hundreds of rifles and plenty of ammuni- 
 tion. 
 
 Here the Armenians made no attempt to 
 resist, but, such as were caught in the streets 
 or houses, died like sheep. Three thousand 
 
WILL CHRISTENDOM REMAIN SILENT? 
 
 297 
 
 fled for refuge to the American school, which 
 had a guard of four soldiers. 
 
 More than three hundred Christians were 
 murdered in Tarsus and its surrounding 
 fields and farms. But for the shelter of the 
 American school the massacre would have 
 been many times greater. At the time of the 
 attack there were seven ladies there, includ- 
 ing Mrs. Christie, Mrs. Gibbons and Mrs. 
 Rogers, whose missionary husbands were ab- 
 sent in Adana, and two sisters of Justice 
 Brewer, of the Supreme Court of the United 
 States. 
 
 Cut off from communication with Adana 
 or Mersina, with three thousand wailing men, 
 women and children huddling about them; 
 with the flame and smoke of the doomed Ar- 
 menian quarter rolling towards them ; sparks 
 constantly starting smaU blazes in their build- 
 ings; men and women shot, stabbed or 
 clubbed by the mob, being carried to them for 
 help; these ladies saw the Moslems plunder 
 the splendid stone houses of their victims, 
 systematically pour kerosene on the floors and 
 then burn them. 
 
 It is said that many of the most prominent 
 Moslems in Tarsus assisted the mob in its 
 work of destruction. The Armenians who 
 survive say that among the murderers and 
 incendiaries they identified nine soldiers and 
 gendarmes, seven government guards, twenty 
 mullahs or hejas [religious leaders], three 
 sheiks and eleven civilian officials. 
 
 All day long in Tarsus the stabbing and 
 shooting went on, the violation of women, the 
 wrecking and burning of homes. The gov- 
 ernment did nothing to stay the mob. Men 
 who knelt and begged for mercy were literally 
 cut into pieces. Children were dashed to 
 death against stones. Fourteen victims were 
 tied and thrown into the river alive. 
 
 The massacre spread to the fields and 
 farms and to the village of Kozolook in the 
 mountains. Five victims were bound and 
 burned alive. Nineteen young Christians 
 were circumcised by force and had turbans 
 put on their heads, while their torturers feasted 
 and mocked them as converts to Islam; after 
 which they were murdered in cold blood, lest 
 they should repent. Even one of the students 
 of the American school was compelled to sub- 
 mit to circumcision and wear a turban, but 
 when he escaped to the school he tore the 
 white wrapping from his head and declared 
 himself a Christian. One old woman of Koz- 
 olook described to me how her husband and 
 two sons were deliberately beaten to death 
 
 before her eyes, and, when a hundred and 
 thirty-eight of the villagers had been killed, 
 she was told that, as aU the Christian men 
 were dead, she had better give her two daugh- 
 ters-in-law to Moslem husbands. 
 
 I have walked among the ruins of Arme- 
 nian houses in Tarsus, splendid, solid stone 
 buildings, street after street filled with wreck- 
 age, and it seemed almost impossible that 
 human hands could have wrought such de- 
 struction in one day. The jumble of shat- 
 tered masonry and tumult of overturned walls 
 suggested an earthquake. In the Armenian 
 church, about which Christian women and 
 children of good families were living in tents 
 or crouching in corners, the savagery of the 
 Moslems was shown in the broken marble 
 altar raiUng, the slashed pictures of Christ 
 and the Madonna, the charred wood of the 
 altar and the torn Bibles. 
 
 At the American school, where Dr. Chris- 
 tie, one of the snowy-headed veterans of Shi- 
 loh, and his wife had been working day and 
 night among the refugees, comforting widows 
 and orphans, feeding the hungry, clothing the 
 naked, nursing the sick and dying, the sur- 
 vivors of the massacre told me stories of 
 atrocities almost unbelievable. Here, too, 
 the appeal was always for protection from 
 America, the country that had done so much 
 for oppressed Christians. 
 
 News of the battle in Adana, the resistance 
 of the Armenians and the killing of hundreds 
 of Moslems, ran everywhere on the Cilician 
 Plain, where the story of a proposed Arme- 
 nian kingdom had been talked over for weeks. 
 The whole country seemed to go mad. 
 
 On the very day that peace was restored in 
 Adana the Moslems sacked and burned every 
 Christian house on the plain, murdering the 
 men and carrying off the women and children. 
 It was a wholesale orgy of blood and fire. I 
 have travelled over a part of the district, and 
 nowhere did I find a Christian house un- 
 burned or a Moslem house disturbed. Noth- 
 ing in the annals even of that land of war and 
 rapine is more appalling. The villagers tore 
 their Christian victims like wild beasts, 
 shouting the name of the Prophet and cursing 
 all infidels. 
 
 More than two hundred villages were at- 
 tacked. At Missis only a hundred and sixty- 
 seven women and four men were saved out of 
 a large Christian population. At Hamedieh 
 
298 
 
 PEARSON'S MAGAZINE 
 
 twelve were saved out of a male population of 
 six hundred. At Osmanieh, out of a hun- 
 dred and fifty families not more than twelve 
 heads of families survived. At Baghche the 
 whole male population was exterminated ; not 
 a Christian man escaped. At Kharmi, too, 
 all Christian males perished. At Ayas sixty- 
 five Christians were slain and two were saved, 
 one by becoming a Moslem, and the other by 
 hiding behind a rock. At Saigetche seventy- 
 eight Christians were killed. 
 
 It was at Saigetche that a party of Arme- 
 nian Protestant pastors, on their way to the 
 American missionary conference at Adana, 
 were stopped on the road and butchered. A 
 beautiful and cultivated Armenian woman, 
 whose son was a student at the American 
 school in Tarsus, was dishonored by eighteen 
 Moslems and then murdered. 
 
 While this dreadful tragedy was enacted, 
 the wife of the mudvi, or head man, of the 
 village sat on a balcony laughing and clap]^ing 
 her hands. 
 
 A Moslem mob besieged Hadjin, where 
 Miss Lambert had charge of an American 
 orphan asylum containing three hundred 
 children. Here the Christians opened fire 
 on their assailants, and beat them off for days. 
 Miss Lambert telegraphed for help. One of 
 her messengers were killed. , Another was 
 shot at. But, at last, through the efforts of 
 the American vice-consul at Mersina, troops 
 were sent from Missis under a reliable officer 
 and Hadjin was saved, although the Chris- 
 tians of Missis were slaughtered as soon as 
 the garrison of the village left. 
 
 So it was throughout the great plain. For 
 a hundred miles the flame and smoke of 
 burning villages and farm-houses could be 
 seen in all directions. Rough troops of 
 horsemen swept from place to ])lace, fol- 
 lowed by hordes of running field hands, 
 with rifles, pistols, swords, scythes, daggers 
 and clubs. 
 
 They shot the Christians in their houses, 
 hacked them with their swords and scythes, 
 beat their brains out, burned them alive. 
 They trailed them through the wheat and 
 barley fields with dogs, and for days the hunt- 
 ing of men became a regular sport. 
 
 When all the Christian houses were looted 
 and destroyed, mighty herds of Christian 
 cattle, sheep and goats, were driven eastward 
 to the mountains, and camel trains of plunder 
 passed over the plain with a multitude of cap- 
 tured Christian women. 
 
 This in the twentieth century! And not a 
 
 word of serious protest from the great Chris- 
 tian nations! 
 
 There was peace in the city of Adana for 
 ten days, a horrible peace, with thousands of 
 Armenian? hiding in schools, churches and 
 foreign factories. 
 
 But the more the Moslems counted their 
 dead, the deeper was their desire for full ven- 
 geance on the Armenians who had so stoutly 
 defended their homes. The heroic work of 
 the young Fedayee, under their long-haired 
 captain, was an unbearable challenge to Mos- 
 lem pride. Elsewhere the damned infidels 
 had been trodden under foot and their homes 
 destroyed. In Adana alone had the Chris- 
 tians defeated the plan of extermination. 
 
 What right had the Christian missionaries 
 to shelter Armenians while the Fedayee shot 
 down true believers? What right had the 
 British vice-consul to interfere in the affairs 
 of the people and to shelter rebels? What 
 right had a foreigner and infidel to station 
 guards at the Gregorian school to keep the 
 people from their Christian prey? 
 
 Christian and Moslem leaders showed 
 themselves in the crooked, winding streets as 
 a sign of peace; turbaned muezzins chanted 
 the "La ilaha il Allah!" in the gray minarets 
 of the mosques from which death had been 
 showered upon Christian and Moslem; the 
 teachers of Islam stalked about with their 
 rosaries, counting the "Beautiful names of 
 God"; the "Peace be with thee," and "On 
 thee be peace," were murmured as usual in 
 the market places; the sound of workmen's 
 hammers rang out again; the cries of the 
 lemonade peddlers rose from the lazy, many- 
 colored throngs ; and stately, dirty camel pro- 
 cessions, briUiant with rugs draped over the 
 wheat-bags, moved in from Caesarea, Konia, 
 Eregli, and other ancient cities beyond the 
 Cflician Gates. 
 
 But, although the wrecked Armenian shops 
 and the burned Armenian houses gave a cer- 
 tain sense of satisfaction to the city multitude, 
 and it was reported that Christian corpses 
 had been found in the sea thirty miles away, 
 nay, even as far as Cyprus — while every slain 
 Moslem had been laid in a good grave — the 
 stories of carnage and annihilation that came 
 in from the plain; the thrifling word-pictures 
 of whole villages drenched with Christian blood 
 and then obliterated by fire ; of farming pop- 
 ulations completely wiped out; of Christian 
 women and girls dishonored and caged in 
 
WILL CHRISTENDOM REMAIN SILENT? 
 
 Moslem harems; of a vast country dotted 
 vyith smoking ruins and cluttered with Chris- 
 tian corpses; and of triumphant Moslems, 
 weary with the shedding of Christian blood, 
 the destruction of Christian homes and 
 churches, and the gathering of Christian loot, 
 in tranquil possession of the rich Christian 
 crops and herds — these tales of plunder and 
 sated lust and hate roused a spirit of hell in 
 Adana. 
 
 Away with this smirking peace! The 
 warships of Christian nations smoked on the 
 seacoast. Foreign officers and consuls were 
 staring a,nd shaking their heads at the Arme- 
 nian ruins, and foreign missionaries were 
 feeding the Armenian refugees or helping 
 them to escape to other countries. Curses on 
 them! It was foreign education and foreign 
 sympathy that inspired the Armenians to 
 plan a Christian kingdom and nerved their 
 oath-bound riflemen to kill hundreds of Mos- 
 lems. Let the word go forth secretly to 
 all true believers. This time no Armenian 
 would boast that he had not surrendered. 
 This time the interfering Christians would 
 see what kind of stuff the city was made of. 
 
 But no time was to be lost. Troops were 
 on their way from the Macedonian army that 
 had restablished the Constitution, proclaimed 
 equality between all races and religions and 
 made a prisoner of Abdul Hamid. What- 
 ever was to be done for the sake of vengeance 
 and the vindication of Moslem superiority, 
 must be done at once. 
 
 No act was committed by the Armenians or 
 their friends to provoke the second outburst 
 in Adana. It was a massacre pure and sim- 
 ple, inspired by hatred, revenge, and the de- 
 sire for plunder. The Fedayee had van- 
 ished, the pictures of the Armenian kings were 
 hidden away, the Hunchag and Droschag 
 societies abandoned their meetings. 
 
 When the blatherskite young Armenian 
 bishop, whose speeches advising his people to 
 arm themselves had helped to bring on the 
 first fight, left Egypt at this time and returned 
 to Mersina, he was prevented from landing. 
 He stormed and threatened, but a British 
 captain compelled him to return to his ship. 
 It was an order from a British man-of-war 
 that kept the episcopal agitator from increas- 
 ing the danger of the situation in Adana by 
 his presence there. The steps taken to keep 
 him out of the country were heartily approved 
 by the Armenians generally, who were anxious 
 to avoid further trouble. 
 
 This was the situation when, on the morn- 
 
 ing of Sunday, April 25th, the new troops ar- 
 rived in Adana and went into camp. That 
 Kiay many Greeks and other favored Chris- 
 tians were secretly advised by Moslems to 
 hoist Turkish flags on their houses. Some- 
 thing was to happen, but it would happen 
 only to Armenians. In the days of the first 
 fight many Greeks and other Christians were 
 spared on condition that they should pay 
 large sums for the purchase of arms to be used 
 against the Armenians. The brother of the 
 American consular dragoman at Adana actu- 
 ally paid $528 to save his life, although three 
 hundred Christian employees were killed on 
 the two farms owned by his family, all the 
 buildings burned, and more than a thousand 
 animals carried away. But there was no 
 blackmail in the second attack, which seemed 
 to be directed against Armenians only. 
 
 On Sunday afternoon a few shots were 
 heard in the city. Turkish soldiers claimed 
 that Armenians fired on them while they 
 were peaceably eating their supper. The Ar- 
 menians insist that the soldiers began the 
 trouble. 
 
 Then an unparalleled scene of horror fol- 
 lowed. The Gregorian school, in which 
 about two thousand Armenian men, women 
 and children, including many invalids, were 
 crowded, was set on fire and, as the refugees 
 attempted to escape from the burning build- 
 ing, they were shot down like dogs by soldiers 
 and the mob. As the flames wrapped the 
 structure and ate their way into the interior, 
 the cries of the terrified multitude within rose 
 above the roar of the conflagration. The 
 Moslem mob shouted for joy as they heard 
 the screams and groans of the trapped Ar- 
 menians and saw white-faced men, and 
 women holding children in their arms, trying 
 to reach liberty, only to be killed by the vol- 
 leys which squads of soldiers fired steadily. 
 To reach the street, the victims had to run 
 along an outside gallery and down a stairway. 
 In their determination to drive their victims 
 back into the flames, the Moslems shot at 
 them as they dashed along the gallery. 
 
 At the foot of the stairs stood a soldier who 
 drove his fixed bayonet into breast after 
 breast. Those who escaped the rifle fire 
 died on his steel. He stood in a great pool of 
 blood, with dead and dying Christians piled 
 about him, his hands dripping and his face 
 spattered with blood. Dying men and 
 women clutched -his legs as they sank to the 
 ground. Behind him the mob roared deliri- 
 ously, and a hail of bullets swept the build- 
 
300 
 
 PEARSON'S MAGAZINE 
 
 ing. It is said that the murderer's arms be- 
 came so tired that he had to be relieved and 
 another man put in his place. 
 
 A brave Jesuit priest managed to get sev- 
 eral hundred of the Armenians out of the 
 burning school, and led them to a place of 
 safety. But it is probable that more than a 
 thousand of the refugees were killed by the 
 soldiers and mob, or burned alive. Up to the 
 time the roof fell in and the heavy stone walls 
 toppled down, the fire of the Moslem rifle was 
 unceasing. 
 
 Hardly had the Gregorian school been at- 
 tacked when the lower Armenian church, also 
 filled with Armenian refugees, many of them 
 sick, was set on fire and, as its frightened in- 
 mates rushed out, they were driven back by a 
 continuous shower of bullets or slaughtered 
 as they reached the streets. 
 
 Flames showed in the Protestant church, 
 the Catholic Armenian church and schools 
 and the Jesuit church and schools. As the 
 darkness came on great columns of fire and 
 smoke towered up. 
 
 Here, there, everywhere new fires appeared. 
 The mob, assisted by soldiers and policemen, 
 was systematically looting the Armenian 
 quarter — the handsome, stone-built and pros- 
 perous part of the city — and deliberately de- 
 stroying it by fire. The glare of hundreds 
 and hundreds of blazing buildings lit the nar- 
 row streets, through which Armenians were 
 hunted and killed without mercy. 
 
 Troops of Turks, Arabs and Circassians 
 wrecked the Armenian houses, completely 
 emptying them of their contents. The floors 
 were torn up and every nook and cranny 
 searched, so that no Armenian might be left 
 alive and no treasure be overlooked. Then 
 kerosene was poured out and the torch ap- 
 plied. 
 
 Several weeks afterwards I walked through 
 the wrecked district, and it seemed as if some 
 mighty convulsion of nature had occurred. 
 That portion of Adana was utterly destroyed, 
 and the stench of Christian corpses still buried 
 under the mountains of broken masonry was 
 eloquent of the as yet uncounted dead, while 
 every few yards I saw an iron safe, torn open 
 and empty. 
 
 All night, all day and all the next night the 
 great fire continued to burn. The Jesuit 
 school was swept away. Not a shot had been 
 fired, not a blow struck by an Armenian, even 
 in self-defence, throughout the massacre. 
 The streets were filled with dead bodies. It 
 is estimated that three thousand Christians 
 
 were murdered in the city after the Gregorian 
 school was set on fire, including those who 
 perished in the flames. The governor and 
 the military commander even refused to allow 
 the French and English naval officers to bring 
 fire engines from their ships at Mersina to 
 check the conflagration. Nor did they at- 
 tempt to prevent their troops from joining in 
 the work of murder and incendiarism. One 
 officer openly admitted that he ordered his sol- 
 diers to fire on the Armenians on the ground 
 that it was better military policy to have his 
 men shoot under control than to have them 
 take things into their own hands. 
 
 Whatever may be said about the provoca- 
 tion offered by a few hare-brained Armenians 
 before the original outbreak in Adana, it is 
 beyond question that the piteous massacre 
 and pillage, which began with the attack 
 on the defenceless Armenian school, was 
 deliberate barbarism in which the Turk- 
 ish provincial government was directly in- 
 volved. 
 
 When I talked to the new governor of 
 Adana about the tragedy in which not less 
 than thirty thousand Christians were slain 
 and as many more starving and homeless 
 survivors thrown into refugee camps and asy- 
 lums, to be fed, clothed and cared for by 
 aliens, to say nothing of the wounded, he set 
 his red fez on the back of his head, sprawled 
 comfortably in his chair, seized the tube of nis 
 nargileh [Turkish pipe] by its blue velvet 
 stem, thrust its fat amber mouthpiece be- 
 tween his big, flat teeth, crossed his slippered 
 feet and puffed the tobacco slowly. 
 
 " It is a quarrel among ourselves," he said. 
 "Both sides misunderstood the meaning of 
 the Constitution. There was much foolish 
 talk about liberty and equality. Speeches 
 were made and feelings were hurt. The 
 whole thing has been greatly exaggerated. It 
 does not concern outside countries." 
 
 He rubbed his stomach, threw his head 
 back, and laughed noiselessly. 
 
 "The American missionaries? Oh, they 
 do much good in enlightening a part of the 
 population. I recognize that, of course. But 
 their teachers are altogether Christian. That 
 is bad. No Turk will send his children to 
 them, for they would be taught to make the 
 sign of the cross. The teachers in the Ameri- 
 can schools should be half Moslem and half 
 Christian. That would be a good arrange- 
 ment, a very good arrangement. Then the 
 benefits would not be confined to the Arme- 
 nians." 
 
WILL CHRISTENDOM REMAIN SILENT? 
 
 301 
 
 Again he showed his teeth and laughed 
 silently, rolling around in his chair. 
 
 "Things are not half so serious as they 
 have been represented," he said. "See!" — 
 spreading out a large sheet of paper covered 
 with Turkish characters — "there were only 
 five thousand, five hundred and thirty-eight 
 killed in all. That is not so very bad, is it ? " 
 
 Even the polite little Turkish official inter- 
 preter, who had been eyeing the gaudy chan- 
 delier overhead and struggling to keep a 
 straight face, moved his eyes stealthily side- 
 wise to watch me, and gave himself up to the 
 luxury of a catlike smile. 
 
 It was only when I drove out over the Cili- 
 cian plain, escorted by two mounted Turkish 
 soldiers and accompanied by the American 
 consul, Mr. Nathan, with his official guard 
 and interpreter, that the full horror of the 
 devastation wrought by the Moslem hordes 
 could be felt. 
 
 In the American missions at Mersina, Tar- 
 sus and Adana, in the desecrated churches, the 
 fire-swept ruins, the emergency hospitals and 
 the tented refugee camps, I had seen thou- 
 sands of homeless women and children, many 
 of them without a nan of their blood left to 
 protect them. 
 
 But in the country there was an unspeak- 
 able sense of desolation and death. All day 
 long we drove past blackened, deserted farm- 
 houses and burned villages. Hour after 
 hour, mile after mile — -new-made graves, un- 
 buried Christian bodies stripped of their flesh 
 by the dogs, but not one Christian home 
 spared. 
 
 It is a land of great beauty and extraordi- 
 nary fertility. The rich black loam plain 
 extends from the towering, snow-covered 
 Taurus Mountains to the sea, and reaches 
 for more than a hundred miles, with only one 
 break of hills. 
 
 As far as the eye could see, fields of wheat, 
 cotton, barley, sesame and oats covered the 
 landscape, with here and there smiling green 
 vineyards, groves of mulberry, almond and 
 apricot trees, meadows brilliant with poppies, 
 daisies and wild parsley, and thousands of 
 larks singing endlessly. 
 
 The most prosperous farmers and land- 
 owners, as well as the most successful, indus- 
 trious and intelligent peasants of the plain, 
 were the Armenians. They made the soil 
 blossom. Their farm-houses were massive 
 
 stone structures and their villages were sub- 
 stantial, trim and dignified compared to those 
 of Moslem population. While traveling over 
 the country, there were times when the broad 
 harvests and fiat prospect suggested well- 
 cultivated American prairie-farms. 
 
 All day long we passed abandoned crops. 
 Tjie owners were dead. The over-ripe wheat 
 was dropping to the ground. The young 
 cotton was choked by weeds. Here and 
 there bands of Turks were gathering in Chris- 
 tian grain. In some cases the ^Moslem reap- 
 ers had agreed to give half of the crop to such 
 as were left of the Christian proprietors. No 
 Christian dared to show himself in the fields, 
 where decaying human bodies were still lying. 
 
 When we got to the stone village of Giaour 
 Kur, or Christian village, we found it a mere 
 heap of jumbled stones, with now and then a 
 fire-scorched wall. Of its three hundred 
 Christian inhabitants only twenty-five were 
 saved. 
 
 The survivors said that when all the Chris- 
 tian ammunition was exhausted and some of 
 the villagers tried to escape by night, a few 
 women crept in among the reeds by the river 
 in the hope that the mob would pass them by. 
 As the poor mothers crouched in J;he darkness 
 at the edge of the water they could hear the 
 Moslems howling and searching for fresh vic- 
 tims. Nearer and nearer they came. The 
 women threw themselves flat. When the 
 babies began to cry the frantic mothers, mad- 
 dened by the fear of discovery, ilung them 
 one by one into the river to silence them. 
 
 On two neighboring farms I saw many 
 bodies of Greeks still lying in the fields. Dogs 
 had torn them. The skulls showed sword 
 cuts. The great farm-houses had been de- 
 stroyed and the herds driven away. 
 
 The thriving village of Ingerly was a waste. 
 Its strong masonry was broken and scattered. 
 So complete was the wreck that it might have 
 been destroyed a century before. There 
 were a few scowling Moslems lounging about 
 the streets, which were so heaped with the 
 remains of burned houses that we could 
 hardly pass through them; but not one Chris- 
 tian could I find to tell the story of Moslem 
 fury. 
 
 In the middle of the village was a large 
 compound, and there we found several Turks 
 smilingly camped on the roof of a small out- 
 house. They were very amiable, made us 
 sit cross-legged and drink coffee, and then, 
 looking over the frightful waste that had once 
 been the homes of more than five hundred 
 
302 
 
 PEARSON'S MAGAZINE 
 
 Christians — not to speak of several hundred 
 laborers from outside — they admitted that 
 some bad men from a great distance, mostly 
 Circassians, had attacked Ingerly and had, 
 they feared, killed thirty-one persons. The 
 truth is that more than six hundred Christians 
 were murdered in the village by their own 
 neighbors. 
 
 Soon afterwards we reached Akarja, where 
 a trembling group of survivors, Greeks, Syr- 
 ians and Chaldeans, told us of the massacre 
 of all the Christians in the place. A well 
 ninety feet deep was filled to the top with 
 bodies. Three thousand acres of growing 
 cotton surrounding x^karja were abandoned to 
 the weeds. So determined were the Moslems 
 to destroy the place that they worked every 
 day for a week, burning the buildings and 
 overturning the stone walls. 
 
 Wherever we looked as we moved along the 
 road it was the same. Every Christian house 
 was destroyed. The only inhabitable houses 
 belonged to Moslems. Language can hardly 
 express the sense of desolation suggested by 
 so many miles of lonely ruins in a sunlit coun- 
 try filled with fields of grain, each deserted 
 house or village the scene of a massacre. 
 
 Occasionally a camel train paddled slowly 
 along the road. 
 
 The fezzed and turbaned groups here and 
 there, in red and blue and dirty white cos- 
 tumes, which gathered in fragments of the 
 crops in a lazy oriental way, took on a new 
 and horrible aspect. These were the slayers 
 of their Christian neighbors, innocent of wine, 
 but capable of committing deliberate murder 
 after a diet of cold cucumbers and lettuce. 
 It is hard to understand how sober men, under 
 any provocation, can kill women and chil- 
 dren; and these Turks, Arabs, Kurds and 
 Circassians are strong, manly-looking fellows, 
 free from dissipation and accustomed to a 
 simple out-of-doors life. 
 
 From the evidence of the few who escaped 
 from the villages during the massacre, all 
 agreeing that the Moslems continually called 
 upon the name of the Prophet and cursed 
 Christianity while slaying their victims; from 
 the fact that in many places Moslem teachers 
 or priests led the mobs with green banners in 
 ' their hands and that the murderers invariably 
 put on white turbans before beginning their 
 deadly work ; and from the earnest repetition, 
 by Turks with whom I talked, of the story of a 
 Christian kingdom to be established by the 
 Armenians, I am convinced that the great 
 massacre was the result of a deliberate plan 
 
 carefully worked out by the Mohammedan 
 League under the sanction of Abdul Hamid. 
 After seeing and talking with the country 
 Moslems and looking upon the results of an 
 insane fury that swept them into a savagery 
 almost below the level of wild beasts, I cannot 
 believe that either natural religious prejudice, 
 or inherited and developed predatory in- 
 stincts, or both, can account for what hap- 
 pened. Religion was a mere pretext for 
 rousing the passions of the people; religion, 
 racial dishke and jealousy served as the means 
 through which the old Sultan worked out his 
 scheme of political vengeance through the 
 Mohammedan League. 
 
 In the village of Abdoglou, within sight of 
 the historic Pyramus River, a solitary surviv- 
 ing Armenian, with a rosary in his trembling 
 hands, guided us through an appalling wreck 
 of burned houses, among which many bodies 
 and bones were scattered and in the corner of 
 one house, with the torn corpse of a murdered 
 friend at his feet, he told us in awed whispers 
 of what had happened. 
 
 Abdoglou was one of the most prosperous 
 villages of the Cilician Plain, and at the time 
 of the massacre it contained more than five 
 hundred Christian inhabitants, in addition to 
 which there were about five hundred outside 
 Christian laborers drawn to the place for 
 work in the crop season. 
 
 On the day of the first peace in Adana, 
 when the whole country was thrilling with the 
 Moslem plan for a general extermination of 
 Christians, the leading Turks of the village 
 sent to the military commander at Missis and 
 induced him to give them rifles with which to 
 defend the Armenians of Abdoglou against 
 any invading mob. Through this trick the 
 Moslems secured a large supply of arms and 
 ammunition. Then they persuaded the 
 Christian villagers to give up most of their 
 weapons, solemnly promising to protect 
 them. This was a common Moslem device 
 employed all over the plain. 
 
 After disarming the Christians, the Mos- 
 lems then began to pillage and burn their 
 houses, and that night a swarm of armed 
 horsemen from the surrounding district 
 poured into the streets, shouting the Prophet's 
 name and calling for the slaughter of all in- 
 fidels. The victims shut themselves up in 
 the four strongest houses of the village and 
 for two days they kept their enemies out. 
 But in time the houses were fired, the doors 
 were beaten in with axes, and all who were 
 not burned alive were shot or stabbed to 
 
WILL CHRISTENDOM REMAIN SILENT? 303 
 
 death, and their wives and daughters carried 
 off. Seven carts were employed for a whole 
 day in carrying the corpses to the banks of the 
 Pyramus. 
 
 Up to that time there had not been the 
 slightest sign of ill-feeling between the Mos- 
 lems and Christians of Abdoglou. 
 
 In the journey of nearly fifty miles \\ hich I 
 made the story was nearly always the same, 
 and there was little variation in the experi- 
 ence of those who visited other parts of the 
 destroyed country. 
 
 In Adana I asked one of the leading Mos- 
 lem teachers, a mullah of great intelligence 
 and influence, to explain the massacre. He 
 was an old man, thin, white-haired, sharp- 
 featured, a veteran who had given strong 
 proof of his opposition to crime and his friend- 
 ship for Christians. Pulling his turban down 
 over his eyes and running his rosary through 
 his wrinkled fingers, he expressed his admira- 
 tion of the work done by the Christian mis- 
 sionaries and declared that, if he had dared to, 
 he would have willingly sent his own daugh- 
 ters to Dr. Chambers' American school. He 
 said that the thing .which lay at the bottom 
 of the massacre was the inability of Moslems 
 to tolerate any challenge to the principle of 
 Moslem supremacy. 
 
 " No constitution, no proclamation of equal- 
 ity between races and religions, can change 
 the situation," he said. "The government 
 cannot do what the Prophet himself could not 
 do if he were here." 
 
 "Yet the Sheik-ul-lslam and many great 
 doctors of the sacred law have told me that it 
 ivas the religious duty of a Moslem to protect 
 his Christian countryman," I said. 
 
 " Yes, yes, it is true. Nevertheless, things 
 are as I tell you. The Moslems of this coun- 
 try — I speak of the ignorant millions and 
 their leaders — will never accept the principle 
 of Christian equality." 
 
 "But is it possible that the teachers of the 
 Moslem religion cannot reach and influence 
 the members of their faith ?" 
 
 "The Sheik-ul-Islam himself, if he came 
 here, could do nothing." 
 
 Then folding his arms and swaying from 
 side to side, he told this fable: 
 
 " Once there was a lion who went hunting 
 with a hyena and a fox. They captured a 
 sheep, a goat and a hare. 'How shall we 
 divide the spoil?' demanded the lion. The 
 
 hyena spoke first. ' You will eat the sheep, 
 I will eat the goat and the fox will eat the 
 hare,' he said. Thereupon the lion bit the 
 hyena's head off. Then the lion turned to 
 the fox. 'How shall we divide the spoil?' 
 he asked. 'Well,' said the fox, 'you will eat 
 the sheep for breakfast, then you will eat the 
 goat for dinner, and at night the hare will do 
 very well for your supper.' 'What put that 
 in your mind ? ' asked the lion. ' The hyena's 
 head,' answered the fox. 
 
 " And that illustrates the situation of Mos- 
 lem and Christian in Asia Minor," added the 
 wise old mullah. 
 
 It was the American government, under the 
 leadership of John Hay, that saved China 
 from dismemberment and brought the drift- 
 ing diplomacy of Europe into line for a new 
 and intelligent policy in Asia. The voice of 
 the American people to-day can compel an 
 initiative behind which the chivalry and hu- 
 manity of the masses of Christian Europe 
 would unite in a demonstration majestic 
 enough to inspire fear, if not respect, even in 
 the Moslem of Asia Minor. 
 
 After the slaughter of thirty thousand men, 
 women and children, the execution of a few 
 minor criminals, while hundreds of fully identi- 
 fied murderers and the men who set them on 
 are allowed to go about gloating over their 
 work, is a challenge to Christendom. If the 
 Turkish government is not strong enough to 
 prevent or punish widespread barbarism in 
 Asia ISIinor, the great nations should take the 
 work in hand, and America, free from any 
 suspicion of political intrigue or conquest, 
 should be the first to speak. The systematic 
 extermination of Christians is as well worth 
 international protest and international inter- 
 ference as the old questions of piracy and the 
 slave trade, and although it may be true, as 
 the Sheik-ul-Islam and the Grand Vizier as- 
 sured me in Constantinople, that there is 
 nothing in the true policy of Islam to justify or 
 suggest attacks upon Christians, my investi- 
 gations on the field of the last massacre have 
 convinced me that unless the great Christian 
 nations speak now, and speak in unmistak- 
 able language, and with a solemn pledge to 
 back their words by deeds, the immense 
 Christian population of Asiatic Turkey must 
 continue to live in daily fear of their merciless 
 Moslem oppressors. 
 
 Will America remain silent? Will Chris- 
 tendom abandon its plain duty ?