circumcised. Gülpashan, the richest village in the district of Urmia, has been razed to the ground. The men were killed, the pretty girls and women carried off. The same fate befell Babaru. Hundreds of women threw themselves into the depths of the river when they saw so many of their sisters being violated in the streets in broad daylight; the same happened in Miandoab in the district of Sulduz. The soldiers who passed through from Sautchbulak carried the Russian Consul’s head on a bayonet-point into Maragha. Forty Syrians were hanged on the gallows erected in the Catholic Mission Station at Fath-Ali-Han-Göl. The nuns had run into the street and prayed for pity, but in vain. In Salmas in Khosrova their whole station has been destroyed; the nuns have fled. Maragha is destroyed. In Tabriz things are not quite so bad; 1,175 Christians were massacred in Salmas, 2,000 in the district of Urmia. Of those who had taken refuge with the missionaries 4,100 died of typhus. The whole number of the refugees, including those from Tergavar, Van, and Azerbaijan, is estimated at 300,000. In Etchmiadzin a committee was formed for the purpose of taking care of the poor people. Over 500 children were found on the roads over which the refugees had come, some only nine days old. Altogether over 3,000 orphans were collected at Etchmiadzin.
1 The italics are the Editor’s. ↑