m time to time I visited the men who had
been in my company during the journey, but after my release the director
of the prison would not permit me to go to them. I used, therefore, to
ask for one of them and talk with him outside the prison in which the
Armenians were confined. After a while I enquired for them and was told
that they had been sent to execution, like others before them, and at
this I cried out in dismay. One day I saw a gendarme who had been
imprisoned with us for a short time on the charge of having stolen
articles from the effects of dead Armenians, and as he knew my
companions I asked him about them. He said that he had killed the
priest Isaac with his own hand, and that the gendarmes had laid wagers
in firing at his clerical headdress. "I made the best shooting, hit the
hat and knocked it off his head, finishing him with a second ball." My
answer was silence. The man firmly believed that these murders were
necessary, the Sultan having so ordered.

THE SALE OF LETTERS.--When the Government first commenced the
deportation of the 700 men, the officials were instructed to prepare
letters, signed with the names of the former, and to send them to the
families of the banished individuals in order to mislead them, as it was
feared that the Armenians might take some action which would defeat the
plan and divulge the secret to the other Armenians, thus rendering their
extermination impracticable. The unhappy families gave large sums to
those who brought them letters from their Head. The Government appointed
a Kurd, a noted brigand, as officer of the Militia, ordering him to
slaughter the Armenians and deliver the letters at their destination.
When the Government was secure as to the Armenians, a man was despatched
to kill the Kurd, whose name was Aami Hassi, or Hassi Aami.

SLAUGHTER OF THE PROTESTANT, CHALDEAN, AND SYRIAC COMMUNITIES.--The
slaughter was general throughout these communities, not a single
protestant remaining in Diarbekir. Eighty families of the Syriac
Community were exterminated, with a part of the Chaldeans, in Diarbekir,
and in its dependencies, none escaped save those in Madiat and Mardin.
When latterly orders were given that only Armenians were to be killed,
and that those belonging to other communities should not be touched,
the Government held their hand from the destruction of the latter.

THE SYRIACS.--But the Syriacs in the province of Madiat were brave men,
braver than all the oth