In the beginning of September 1897 I was taking a “rest cure” at Marienbad when I received a telegram from the proprietor of the New York Herald asking me to join him on his yacht Namouma at Venice. On my arrival he informed me that he had been to Constantinople and had an interview with the Sultan. In the course of it he had suggested to His Majesty that he should send an expedition into Armenia to verify the facts connected with the disturbances of the last two years, and allow the New York Herald to be represented on the occasion.

The Sultan was favourably disposed to the idea, and proposed that I should be the person selected to accompany the expedition. To this Mr. Bennett had, as he told me, demurred; not that he had any reason to doubt my reliability, but the fact remained that it was already known in America that I had had personal relations with the Sultan. This in itself would make it desirable that somebody else should report on this particular subject. It was finally agreed with the Sultan that a member of the New York staff of the paper, the late Dr. George H. Hepworth, should be the correspondent, the Sultan making his final consent dependent upon my accompanying the expedition as well.

Mr. Bennett continued that he had long desired to place his readers in a position to judge things for themselves from information gathered on the spot, and that this matter was one of exceptional interest to the American public, owing to the fact that the Sultan had hitherto declined to allow any newspaper correspondent whatsoever to traverse Armenia, let alone to offer facilities for so doing.

“You will render the Herald a great service in accompanying the expedition,” he added, “for unless you go it will not start.”

It is not often that any man has an opportunity of visiting an unknown country and at one and the same time of obliging an autocratic ruler and a great newspaper proprietor. I therefore accepted Mr. Bennett’s suggestion, it being distinctly understood that I was to hold what in legal language is termed a “watching brief” on behalf of the Turks, and that I should not be called upon to write at all unless a controversy arose. In such a case, Mr. Bennett said that Dr. Hepworth and I could fight it out in the columns of the Herald, which would act as impartial bottle-holder. Fortunately the necessity did not arise to submit to such an ordeal. The last words Mr. Bennett said to me on leaving were: “In this matter you can look upon yourself as the Sultan’s man.” And here I may add that, being firmly convinced injustice had been done to the Turks, at least as regards the imputing to them of religious persecution, I willingly undertook the task offered me of seeing “fair play” given to them.

Some weeks elapsed before Dr. Hepworth came from New York and reached Paris, from whence we started together for Constantinople. On our way we broke our journey at Vienna. In travelling on to Belgrade we gave up our sleeping berths to the King of Servia and his father, ex-King Milan, who both travelled by our train, the Orient express. On our arrival at the Servian capital early next morning we witnessed their official reception at the station by the authorities, who looked very much like a gathering of peasants at a country fair. King Alexander did not present a sympathetic appearance; but there was a touch of human nature in the expression of poor Milan which enlisted our sympathy.

We arrived in Constantinople about the middle of October, and encountered at the outset the dilatory tactics which marked the execution of every project emanating directly from his temporizing Majesty. This seemed to depress Dr. Hepworth very much; but as I had known cases of Turkish Ambassadors being kept dawdling about Constantinople for months after they had been appointed to their post, the delay did not surprise me. When, however, one week succeeded another without any decisive step being taken, or any date being appointed for our departure from Constantinople, we were driven to the conclusion that there must be some special cause for the delay. This proved to be the case. Information had reached the Sultan that Dr. Hepworth was really an American clergyman with a strong bias in favour of the missionary element, that he had contributed articles to the Herald fiercely condemning the Turkish Government for its treatment of the Armenians, and that he had written editorial sermons for that paper regularly every Sunday for many years past. Under these circumstances the Sultan hesitated to place it within his power to enter Armenia. Such was the information vouchsafed to me by a secretary of the Sultan, accompanied by a request that I should come up to the Palace and have an interview with His Majesty.

Munir Pasha, the Grand Master of Ceremonies, was present as interpreter on the occasion, and in the course of the audience confirmed what I have just stated. I could not deny that Dr. Hepworth, though a journalist by profession, had in early years been a clergyman, and that he still wrote short sermons in the form of editorials in the Sunday number of the New York Herald. For all this, I assured the Sultan that, though Dr. Hepworth’s sympathies were undoubtedly with the Armenians, this did not necessarily imply unfairness of mind; whereas, if the information to be obtained in Anatolia should turn out to be of a nature to exculpate the Turkish authorities from complicity in what had taken place, Dr. Hepworth, as an honest man, would report accordingly. The very fact of his known sympathy with the Armenians would then double the weight of his testimony. I succeeded in convincing the Sultan; he even agreed that our route should take any direction Dr. Hepworth might decide upon. Nothing was to be hidden or disguised from us, and in case of any difficulty arising I was always to be at liberty to telegraph directly to His Majesty without let or hindrance on the part of the officials accompanying the expedition. The Sultan concluded: “You have already given me substantial proof of your impartiality. Render me this service, and I will grant you any favour you like to ask of me.”

To this I impulsively replied, somewhat quixotically as it strikes me to-day, that he might rely on me doing my best in the interests of truth and justice without any consideration of reward entering into the matter on my part. As a matter of fact, I neither solicited nor subsequently received the slightest remuneration from the Sultan or anybody else for a task the arduous and perilous nature of which I was far from realizing at the time, and the outcome of which was a journalistic triumph for the New York Herald.

The impression I gained from this interview was that the Sultan was sincere in his wish to get to know the true state of affairs. He believed that the revolutionary activity of the Armenians, connived at by Russia, had been the primary cause of the massacres in Asia Minor as in Constantinople, and that the governors of the different provinces had done their best to protect the innocent and punish the guilty. Abdul Hamid is not the only autocrat who has found it an impossible task to get at the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. For it goes without saying that His Majesty’s estimate of what had taken place was based on partial and incomplete information. On the other hand, our journey furnished us with abundant evidence that the Sultan’s views were not without some justification, and that, as a rule, the governors of the different provinces we traversed were men of tried capacity and integrity. Viewed from this distance of time, there can be no doubt that the policy of the Sultan in excluding foreign journalists from Armenia was a mistaken one. It resulted in a one-sided version of the events becoming generally accepted—the lie with twenty-four hours’ start, according to Napoleon, is immortal—and it gave opportunities for “writing up” atrocities without any of the extenuating features which provoked them obtaining publicity.

It is not my purpose to render an exact account of our journey, for such would fill a volume. This was done at the time by the late Dr. Hepworth,^[4] who did not very long survive the fatigues of the journey, which at his time of life, he being then over sixty years of age, was a most arduous undertaking. My aim will be to give some incidents of our journey, the impressions which have remained in my mind as illustrative of the aspect of the country we passed through as we saw it, and the conversations we had with the people we came in contact with.

The ostensible object of the expedition was to report upon the schools in the different provinces to be traversed, but behind this was obviously the intention of obtaining information outside the usual official channels with regard to the disturbances which had taken place in the year 1895 in that mysterious country which Europeans are in the habit of calling Armenia, although the number of Armenians distributed over an area about as large as France and Germany combined, making every allowance for the unreliability of statistics, can scarcely exceed a million and a half, whereas in the Russian provinces bordering on Asiatic Turkey there are probably even more, of whom, however, the world never hears anything. The route of our journey, as drawn up with the Sultan’s approval, would take us through Anatolia, Kurdistan, Mesopotamia, and Syria. We were to proceed by sea to Trebizond, and starting from thence to reach Erzeroum; from there to push on to Van, thence to Bitlis, to Diarbekir, and to Biredschik on the Euphrates; thence to Aintab in Syria, and on to Alexandretta, where we would take ship back to Constantinople. By this route we would traverse four out of the five so-called Armenian vilayets;^[5] Erzeroum, Van, Bitlis, and Diarbekir, leaving Mamuret Ül Aziz out of our itinerary. This plan was carried out with the exception that we omitted Van owing to the severity of the weather and the uncertainty of being able to keep within the projected time limit. Little did we realize what hardships we were to experience, although we had been warned at Constantinople that such a journey—never an easy one, and usually undertaken in the spring, summer, or autumn—involved very serious risks in the depth of winter, when snowstorms or floods might possibly keep us for weeks together in remote places. The chance of being attacked by Kurdish tribes, of catching some disease owing to the lack of all hygienic conditions in the country, the primitive nature of the accommodation, sleeping on the bare floor side by side with camels, buffaloes, oxen, horses, and dogs all in a state far removed from cleanliness, lastly the unaccustomed food: these were all matters for consideration.

On a black windy November morning we started in the Austrian Lloyd steamer Daphne, and steamed through the Bosphorus, on our way to the Black Sea, our destination being Trebizond. Our little party was quite representative in its character. His Excellency Sirry Bey, one of the secrÉtaires traducteurs of the Palace, was in charge of the expedition. Halid Bey, his secretary, a fat, good-natured, harmless young Turk, was always busy taking notes. Two colonels of cavalry, aides-de-camp of the Sultan, were attached to the expedition, and six sergeants of cavalry (Suwarie Tschaoush) formed a military escort in case of unforeseen contingencies. One of these officers, Colonel Tewfik Bey, was an easy-going, lymphatic cavalryman, whose big travelling portmanteau was a horse’s entire load by itself, although all the other members of the expedition restricted themselves to small hand-bags in consideration of the difficulties of transport. The other officer, Colonel Rushti Bey, was the most interesting personality of our party, as a specimen of the aristocratic, carefully brought up Turk. A young fair-headed, handsome man, he was indefatigable—the first up and on horseback in the morning and never seeming to tire. He did not smoke or touch any wine or spirits. His bearing was chivalrous, and though not given to expansiveness, he was a man of the kindliest disposition. We had a Doctor Wallisch, a Hungarian in the Turkish service, on board, who was on his way to an appointment in Van. Fortunately for the party we managed to persuade him to accompany us on the whole of our journey. Our interpreter, Hermann Chary, an excitable little Roumanian Jew, who spoke eight or ten languages, was the same man I had picked up in Salonica in the spring of the year.

We encountered very rough weather in the Black Sea, which interfered with our enjoyment of the fine scenery on the shore of Asia with its forest-clad hills, some of them already covered with snow. This journey in the company of staunch Moslems who would spread their little rugs on the deck at sunrise and sunset, and pray silently with their faces turned towards Mecca, was a new sensation to Dr. Hepworth and myself. An awkward incident took place one day during the voyage. The cooking on board as well as the bill of fare was “Frank” (i.e. European), and on one occasion roast pork formed an item of the menu. So cunningly was it prepared that none of us was able to detect it except Dr. Hepworth, whose partiality for pork was so strong that his first request on entering a restaurant in Paris, Vienna, or Constantinople was for a pork chop, and when he had made it disappear, for another pork chop. In the ecstasy of a delighted palate he proclaimed aloud that we were partaking of his favourite dish, “roast pork”! Never shall I forget the dismay that spread over the faces of the Turks present when this disclosure was made. In order to save the situation I tried to make out that Dr. Hepworth was mistaken, but finally we all lapsed into silence as the best way out of the difficulty, since the defilement was beyond question.

The weather continued so rough that we were a long time in doubt whether we should be able to stop on our way, as nowhere along the coast was there a sheltered harbour. Only with great difficulty did we disembark for a few hours at Kerasoun and at Samsoun, the seat of large tobacco factories. At Samsoun we reviewed the school-children and saw for the first time a primitive type of plough, and carts with solid wooden wheels drawn by oxen—varying probably little from those in use in the time of Abraham.

Trebizond is picturesquely situated on the shore of the Black Sea at the mouth of the River Moutschka, at the base of a chain of mountains rising gradually to an altitude of 1600 metres, culminating in the thickly wooded Kotal Dagh, 3410 metres high. Even here there is no harbour, and in stress of weather ships have to seek refuge at Platana, two hours and a half distant by steam. The city forms the starting-point of the caravans to Persia; but these have now strong competitors in the Russian railway from Batoum and the caravans from the Persian Gulf. In consequence of these developments the traffic of the interior is declining. Yet Trebizond remains, next to Smyrna, the most important city of Asiatic Turkey, and previous to the Armenian disturbances of the years 1895–96 contained a population of 35,000 inhabitants. At that time, however, a large migration to Russia and Constantinople began, and this was still in progress when we arrived there. More than half of the population consisted of Moslems, with 8000 Greeks and 6000 Armenians, the lower classes being the so-called Lazis, an unruly tribe, from whom the Turks draw their best sailors. Trebizond has an Armenian Archbishop and twenty Christian churches, as well as an American missionary station. All the Turkish mosques were once Christian places of worship.

We were sitting in the dining-room of the HÔtel d’Italie looking out upon the dark waters of the Black Sea rolling menacingly far away to the horizon, when a dark-bearded, slimly built man with a low forehead and ferret-like eyes approached us. He was a Russian Armenian, a doctor of medicine, who had come to Trebizond to set up in practice. He did not care a fig for politics and was silent. He was absorbed in his own profession—that of getting on in the world.

Prominent in his quaint costume and mannerism was a young professor of philology from a university of Northern Europe. He was about twenty-five years of age and believed he knew everything worth knowing in geography, philology, and politics. His sympathies were all with the Christian “brothers.” He had come over from Russia, where, in the pursuit of his philological calling, he had rummaged over the worm-eaten parchments of sundry Christian monasteries, and had caught from these the current term of “brothers”—meaning that the lowliest Christian is a “brother,” and the Moslem Turk at best an infidel stranger. He laid down the law without hesitation. “I never condemn a whole people,” he exclaimed; “I say that the vices of a people are always the fault of an autocratic Government.” Here was a specimen of the learned European, caught young in Turkey, returning home with all the kudos which a few months—or even years—added to a smattering familiarity with Oriental languages, can confer, to be looked upon by his friends as an authority on the Eastern question, and possibly, later on, to champion the claims of the suffering “brothers” in the East in the legislative Chamber of his native land!

The sun had sunk in the west. It was twilight and we were sitting alone, when there entered an American missionary. A few preliminaries revealed the fact that we had to deal with a worthy, excellent man, past middle age—a teacher of the Gospel whose range of interests did not necessarily exclude politics.

“Yes, sir, it is a hard, laborious life, but we keep pegging away,” he said in the course of conversation. “No newspapers, railways, or telegraphs: no means of communication with one’s friends. It is like living in another world. And what a cesspool it is—fifty feet deep, and, do what we may, we can only disinfect the surface. Formerly, when I first came here, thirty years ago, it was very different. We were encouraged to work, and enjoyed every liberty; also we largely increased the number of our flock; but now,” he added despondently, “it is all reaction.”

“No wonder,” I rejoined, “the past has bred revolution.”

“Yes, I admit there has been a revolutionary movement, but not fostered by us. We have always inculcated obedience to the authorities.”

“But do I understand you rightly that a well-known revolutionist was one of your pupils?”

“Yes, and I always refused to believe that he had anything to do with the revolutionists.”

“Do you refuse to believe so now?”

“No, I am grieved to say.”

“Now tell me,” I continued, “how are things over in Russia—a Christian country?”

“Far worse than here,” he answered in excited tones. “The Russians are much more intolerant—much more reactionary than the Turks. Why, if the Russians ever come here, they will turn us missionaries neck and crop out of the country.”

Thereupon we parted, and I left the hotel in search of a breath of fresh air and came upon an Israelite.

“Why, sir,” he began, “those Armenians are an accursed race. To think of the position which they once held in Turkey, after having managed, in the course of generations, to get nearly all the wealth of the country into their hands, and to fill some of the best paid appointments! If they had ventured to play their revolutionary game in Russia, the Russians would not have left a man of them alive. I tell you they are accursed. In our Jewish hooks it is written—written three thousand years ago—that they shall not prosper, that their seed shall be wasted.”

Among the men who were credited with a large share in the cruel measures of repression said to have been carried out by different Turkish high officials against the Armenians, the name of Marshal Chakir Pasha, Imperial Commissioner for the introduction of reforms in Anatolia, stood foremost. The story that the Marshal, who was at Erzeroum in the month of October 1895, at the time of the Armenian rising, had, like a human bloodhound, stood, watch in hand, when asked for orders, and decided that the work of knocking the Armenians on the head was to continue for another hour and a half—some versions say two hours—went almost the round of the world. It was told to me in Constantinople by a person of distinction and impartiality, and although this did not amount to proof positive, I could hardly resist the conviction that there must be something in the tale, bearing in mind the exceptional source of my information. I had also heard that more than one of the diplomatic representatives of the Great Powers at Constantinople, notably Sir Philip Currie, had repeatedly but vainly urged the Sultan to recall the Marshal. I was therefore in a somewhat expectant frame of mind when I learnt that the redoubtable pasha was staying in Trebizond with his whole staff. Its principal members consisted of Hassib Effendi, formerly Turkish Consul-General at Tiflis in the Caucasus, and since in like capacity at Teheran; Danish Bey, formerly First Secretary of the Turkish Embassy at St. Petersburg; and Demeter Mavrocordato Effendi.

Marshal Chakir Pasha had had a distinguished career. Educated at the military school of Pancaldi, at Constantinople, he was afterwards attached to the Turkish État-major. Quitting that post after a time, he entered the Administrative Department, and became within a short space of time Governor in succession of Bosnia, Bulgaria, and Bagdad. Subsequently he rejoined the army, and held a command in Montenegro during the war, and later on was present at the memorable Shipka Pass battles. After the Russo-Turkish war Chakir returned to Constantinople, and was sent as Turkish Ambassador to St. Petersburg, where he remained for twelve years, and where, so the Russian Consul-General at Erzeroum assured me, he saw the Marshal, the doyen of the Diplomatic Corps, leading the polonaise with the Empress Dagmar as a partner.

Since then Chakir Pasha had been civil and military governor of Crete, and previous to his latest appointment he had been nominated member of the High Military Commission of Inspection, which sat under the presidency of the Sultan at the Palace of Yildiz.

I felt somewhat abashed at the thought of asking such a man a series of questions closely affecting his personal honour. But Chakir himself made my task easy by his well-bred urbanity. He was a short, stout, full-bearded, distinguished-looking man of about sixty years of age, with massive features and bright keen eyes, denoting intelligence and capacity for hard work. I called on him at his official residence with Mavrocordato Effendi, and found him in a small, sparsely furnished apartment, sitting at a plain writing-table, the other members of his staff being also present and seated round the table.

After coffee and a few preliminary remarks, I told the Marshal frankly that I had heard the story of the watch, and that I hoped he would kindly excuse my asking him the true facts of the case. He took my question in very good part, and said in reply that he was perfectly cognizant of the tale, but that he had never considered it incumbent upon himself to take official notice of it—any other notice being, of course, in his position, out of the question. However, he could assure me, he added with a smile, that when the story first reached Erzeroum people who knew the facts of the case smiled at the idea. He could only advise me not to take his assurance one way or the other, but, as I was going to Erzeroum, to make my own inquiries.

Encouraged by the Marshal’s manner, I then asked him: “I have been told that a large amount of the trouble in Kurdistan was owing to the Kurds having been armed by the Turkish Government, and that it was your Excellency with whom this measure originated.”

“As a matter of fact,” he replied, “the Kurds have always been more or less armed, and have often used their arms against the Turkish Government, as you are doubtless aware. The idea of arming the Kurds in a homogeneous military fashion, which has led to the formation of the HamadiÈ cavalry regiments (about 40,000 to 50,000 strong), belongs to Marshal Zeki Pasha, the Commander of Erzingian. The Sultan approved of the idea, which was intended to furnish a counterpoise to the Russian Cossack regiments, and asked me to work out the plan, which I did at Constantinople, in my capacity of member of the military commission at Yildiz. I even candidly admit that my sympathies are with these regiments—after all, they are my own countrymen.” The Marshal repeated this in a quiet tone of almost apologetic modesty, which had something quaintly touching in its simplicity, and set me thinking how very few men in a similar high position in other countries would have condescended to enter thus into details. I could not help feeling drawn towards the old soldier.

Chakir Pasha was not a man of many words, and several of those present now joined in the conversation, which became general. Only once did the Marshal interpose in a quiet but decisive manner. Danish Bey was in the midst of relating some incident, and suddenly stopped short, for some reason or other, whereupon the Marshal said: “Continue, tell him everything—il n’y a rien À cacher.”

As I was personally acquainted with many well-known Turkish officers and diplomatists, our conversation had plenty of points of mutual interest. However, in what follows I only give a rÉsumÉ of what may interest the outside world. Part of what I have to relate was told in the Marshal’s presence, he now and then putting in a word or making some verbal correction, whilst some of the details were given me later in the evening at the hotel by the members of his staff and by other persons later at Erzeroum. I give the facts exactly as they were stated to me by individuals who one and all held responsible positions, and who, in our personal intercourse, which lasted several days, made the impression upon me of being honourable, cultivated men of the world. According to my informants, the original troubles at Trebizond had begun two years previously as a consequence of members of the Armenian revolutionary committee firing in broad daylight on Hamid Pasha, the commander of the garrison, and Bahri Pasha, Governor-General of Van, who happened to be at Trebizond at the time, and was walking with Razi Khan, the Persian Consul-General. Both pashas were wounded.

“With regard to the interior, signs of coming trouble were apparent a long time back. In some districts, where the Kurdish chiefs had been accustomed for centuries past to do all their business with the Armenian merchants and bankers in the towns, their mutual relations were of the most cordial character. The Kurds were even in the habit of staying in the houses of their Armenian friends when they came to town. Gradually a change came over the scene. The Kurds met strange faces in the towns, and the manner of the Armenian merchants visibly changed. Russian Armenian journalists from Tiflis became regular visitors, and the assumption is that they influenced the Armenian element in the direction of discontent and revolt. That they were able to do so is the more unaccountable as the Armenian language and the Armenian schools have always been entirely free, and in Turkey the Armenians are exempted from military service—a most distasteful profession to them—on paying a nominal sum. Moreover, the Armenians have been able, in the course of centuries, to gather into their hands the greater part of the wealth of the country. The Armenian ‘bakal,’ or village grocer, holds a great number of the Turkish peasantry in the perpetual bondage of usury. In Russia, on the other hand, the Armenians are rigorously drafted into the army, and are generally sent to serve their time in districts far away from their homes, while their schools and their language are interfered with by a severe censorship.

“When the insurrectionary movement was ripe, the men who appeared on the scene gave themselves the name of ‘FedaÏs,’ or the ‘Sacrificed for the country.’ This is the sobriquet which the notorious Armenian revolutionist, Daniel Tschoueh, applied to himself. Under the pretext of saving his country he roamed through the vilayet of Sivas, where he committed acts of brigandage. And yet this very man was so deficient in physical courage that he died of fear the very day he was brought before the gendarmerie of Sivas. He was originally employed in the mines of Kara Hissar Charki, in the district of the vilayet of Sivas. Among other atrocities which he committed was the murder of the representative of the Procureur-GÉnÉral of Kara Hissar Charki, as well as his wife and children, on the road to Sivas.

“With regard to the reforms which have since been introduced, it is as well the world should know that the Armenians are only willing to accept such as conform easiest with their idiosyncrasies. But when it is a question of their undertaking obligations which involve certain hardships, such as the post of gendarme, they simply refuse to serve the Imperial Government. It is extremely difficult to find Armenians to serve as gendarmes, and this notwithstanding that the Imperial Government offers them all sorts of inducements. For not only are they well paid, but they are held to be doing military service in acting as gendarmes and are thus freed from the tax for exemption from military service. Instead of serving in the above capacity they prefer posts which offer chances of making money without hard work. Thus they are very eager to be appointed adjunct (muavin) to the kaimakan or to other more or less lucrative official posts.”

Chakir Pasha’s mission had been to travel all through Kurdistan for the last two years, and the following interesting statements were made sporadically in the further course of my conversations with his suite:

“One of the most remarkable features of this Armenian rebellion was the marvellous rapidity with which news spread among Mussulmans and Armenians alike. Thus, hardly had Sir Philip Currie in the autumn of 1895 telegraphed to Erzeroum to the locum tenens of the British Consul that the Sultan had accepted the proposals of the Powers than the gentleman in charge asked for the telegram and interpreted it as portending Armenian autonomy. A newspaper correspondent telegraphed from London to Givon Schismanian, the Archbishop of Erzeroum, ‘Victoire complÈte’ (Armenian: ‘Mouzaferiat berke mal’), and the news spread to the farthest limits of Kurdistan. In some places the Kurds decided to make a clean sweep of the Armenians. Chakir Pasha started immediately for Khinis, on the road between Erzeroum and Bitlis, and persuaded the Kurdish beys to remain quiet. Twenty-four hours later it might have been too late.” In fact, according to statements of Chakir Pasha’s suite, both here and elsewhere he saved many hundred lives by his prompt measures.

The Armenians on their side, so I was assured, fÊted the correspondent who had championed their cause in a London newspaper as a national hero, “Le Sauveur de l’ArmÉnie.” The Armenians of Erzeroum presented him with a pen set in brilliants; the Armenians of Tiflis gave him whole cases full of presentation plate. The following was subsequently told me by one of Chakir Pasha’s staff:

“We were staying at the government house in Van with Chakir Pasha at the end of September ’96, when we were unexpectedly informed that the hiding-place of the Armenian insurgents had been discovered. They had entrenched themselves in the gardens of the Armenian quarter of the town, and it would have been extremely difficult to get at them without artillery. Chakir, fearing that the Mussulman population might get beyond control if fighting was at once commenced, told off a large body of troops to cut off the Armenian quarter from the other part of the town. After this was done the Armenian revolutionists were driven out of the town, losing a number of killed and wounded. In the meantime the representative of the Armenian Bishop of Van called upon Chakir Pasha and showed him a telegram which he proposed to send at once to Monsignor Khrimyan, the Armenian Catholikos of Etchmiadzin (in Russia), in which he said that, while the Armenians had for six hundred years been contented under the dominion of the Turks, people from abroad were now coming to trouble their tranquillity, and he begged Monsignor Khrimyan to use his influence to prevent such people from coming into the country, as they could only do the Armenians harm. To this Chakir Pasha replied that the telegram in itself was excellent, but it ought to have been sent long ago, and not at the very moment when the insurgents had been discovered by the authorities; that it was a matter of public notoriety that these people had been in Van for two months past, and that the Armenian community had been well aware of the fact, and ought to have apprised the authorities, so that they might distinguish between their friends and their enemies.”

Of the members of the suite of Chakir Pasha with whom I had opportunities of talking the most interesting was Mavrocordato Effendi, an Orthodox Catholic, and related to the Greek princely family of the same name. He had previously been Turkish Consul-General at Liverpool and at Barcelona, Secretary of the Turkish Embassy at Paris, etc., and was a cultured European. He spoke English almost like an Englishman. Community of meals for several days following in stormy, depressing weather brought about mutual confidence and expansion of ideas.

Mavrocordato had not been able to see his young wife and child for fifteen months, as he had accompanied Chakir Pasha in his mission right through Anatolia, or Kurdistan—a country many Europeans will persist in calling “Armenia.” He was a hard-working and zealous Turkish official, with the breadth of view of a cultured man of the world.

“Yes,” he said in conversation, “the reforms desired by the Powers are now introduced throughout Asiatic Turkey and in full working order. But I do not think much of their practical value. Their spirit is already contained in Turkish law, which is excellently adapted to the needs of this part of the world. Of course we have had abuses: what country, particularly what Eastern country, has not? But we are on the road to improvement. The principal thing we want is a body of honest and capable administrators and minor functionaries, and on your journey through the country you will be able to convince yourself that among Turkish officials in Anatolia the majority, especially among the new appointments, are good men—a great improvement on the old order of things.”

“But how about the rumours I hear of appointments depending on the bribery of officials at the Palace in Constantinople?” I asked.

“Do I look like a man who has bribed his way through Palace officials?” he replied. “There may be instances of bribery and peculation, but hardly in connexion with these matters. What Asiatic Turkey is most pressingly in need of are good roads and railways. At the present moment the Mussulman population, which is far worse off than the Christian, is very poor; and the richer the harvest, the poorer they are. For where there is plenty prices decline, as there are no adequate means of transport and no markets. But another difficulty which the Government has to contend with in all its attempts at reform is the conservatism which seems ingrained in everything and everybody Asiatic. It is this that the diplomatists of Europe lose sight of when they, Penelope-like, elaborate one plan of reform after another for the Turkish Empire over a green baize table in some kiosk on the Bosphorus. A little incident will illustrate this. The Sultan sends a capable official to some distant province as kaimakan, or prefect. He has been educated at Constantinople, at the École Civile. He is scrupulously honest, in touch with modern ideas, enthusiastically devoted to his work, and anxious to benefit the people under his care. He endeavours to introduce reforms, beginning with the improvement of the roads of the town where he officially resides. He calls upon the inhabitants to contribute towards this good work. Result: the Mohammedans and the Armenian population join hands and petition the Government to have the kaimakan removed. He is a modern man: they prefer the old-fashioned do-nothing type of official.”

Such was the information my companion and I gathered on the eve of our plunge into the Asiatic domains of the Sultan from some of the men who had been responsible there for the maintenance of order. The time had come for departure. We had spent several days at Trebizond inspecting the bazaar and making some purchases of stores, Dr. Hepworth and myself ordering each a warm sheepskin fur—such as are worn by the peasants and camel-drivers—and after having engaged some tumble-down vehicles and horses, we started on the long journey through the interior of the country to Erzeroum—a matter of eight to ten days’ travelling. We took leave of every comfort associated with civilization, such as beds, washing-basins, even tables and chairs, which we only came upon again at the end of our journey at Alexandretta.