d the number of deaths from the
four contagious diseases at one hundred a day. This would be quite
probable when it is considered that ten thousand were smitten with the
prevailing diseases, and that added to this were the crowded condition
of the patients, the thousands of homeless refugees who had flocked from
their forsaken villages, the lack of all comforts, of air, cleanliness,
and a state of prolonged starvation.

Dr. Harris's first report to me was that he was obliged to set the soup
kettles boiling and feed his patients before medicine could be retained.
My reply was a draft for two hundred liras (something over eight hundred
dollars) with the added dispatch: "Keep the pot boiling; let us know
your wants." The further reports show from this time an astonishingly
small number of deaths. The utmost care was taken by all our expeditions
to prevent the spread of the contagion and there is no record of its
ever having been carried out of the cities, where it was found, either
at Zeitoun, Marash, or Arabkir. Lacking this precaution, it might well
have spread throughout all Asia Minor, as was greatly feared by the
anxious people.

On the twenty-fourth of May, Dr. Harris reported the disease as
overcome. His stay being no longer needed, he returned to his great
charge in Tripoli, with the record of a medical work and success behind
him never surpassed if ever equaled. The lives he had saved were enough
to gain Heaven's choicest diadem. Never has America cause to be more
justly proud and grateful than when its sons and daughters in foreign
lands perform deeds of worth like that.

The closing of the medical fields threw our entire force into the
general relief of the vilayet of Harpoot, which the relieving
missionaries had well named their "bottomless pit."

The apathy to which the state of utter nothingness, together with their
grief and fear, had reduced the inhabitants, was by no means the
smallest difficulty to be overcome. Here was realized the great danger
felt by all--that of continued alms-giving, lest they settle down into a
condition of pauperism, and thus finally starve, from the inability of
the world at large to feed them. The presence of a strange body of
friendly working people, coming thousands of miles to help them,
awakened a hope and stimulated the desire to help themselves.

It was a new experience that these strangers _dared_ to come to them.
Although the aforetime home lay a heap of stone and sa