THE ADANA MASSACRES.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXVII, Issue 2603, 10 September 1909, Page 7

THE ADANA MASSACRES.

THE WAY OF THE TURK. During the reactionary coup in April, which coincided with the massacres in Asia Minor, there was a mutiny of soldiers at Erzeroum, who acclaimed the Sultan and threatened the Constitutional party. The following story of the Adana massacres in told by an Armenian doctor belonging to Adana, who lost all his property in the disorders. The story was written by him in Constantinople. After the first massacres at Adana there was a quietness for about ten days. As a part of the city was saved, and as some Armenian houses were not burnt- and plundered, people had begun to take care of each other and treat the wounded. April 25. though sunny, was the darkest day that ever blotted the pages of history. A service was being hold in the Protestant Church. —Gunshots in the Streets.—

D uring the prayer meeting which followed the sermon, gunshots were heard in 'the streets. Men, women, and children, the sick, old and wounded, all began to run for dear life; but wherever they went they met the same fate. Hundreds wore shot down before they could run into the other street. Soon the flames and smoke began to go up in huge columns, the great Armenian school was being burnt. There were 700 wounded in this building ; all of them were burnt alive, and those who could move and come out were shot down before the door. The flames began from three different places in the Armenian quarters.

The great old Armenian Church was full of people, and the flames took possession of it also. The soldiers were more cruel than the flames, for as the crowd ran out to save their lives those who came first served to_ prepare a pavement with their bodies for those who came next. Those who could get awav by chance ran to the Jesuit building, and were packed as close as nossihle; but soon this building also was seized by flames, with its French flag and all. • —A Human Shambles. — At this time an order was issued that the people be allowed to go to the Government centre; and thousands of women, children, men, sick, old, and wounded, were carried in rows between the •soldiers, who searched them one by one, and took everything of value that they had with them. The soldiers did not wait to take off the gold bracelets from the hands of women; that was too long an affair; they simply cut off the hands from the wrists and took the bracelets. le was a scene of a flock whose .shepherd was killed—weeping, crying, wailing, some calling the names of their dear ones, others searching for their fathers and children ; some, having lost all, walked as though dazed, some praying to God for mercy—the rich and the poor, young and old—all equal. I take this story front one who is by me now, who came yesterday from Adana, having lost brothers, house, furniture, clothes, and all. \Yc dressed her, and she cries and cries, and tells the story which is to bo told from generation to generation. When those thousands were carried to a garden near the Government place, they were left there in the open air on the ground for two days and nights, hungry and naked. There were young ladies and girls who belonged to families of great wealth. They had only stockings oT their feet, wliic-h got so dirty and wet that they were obliged to throw them away. Meanwhile, she says: “We seemed to be witnessing the burning of Rome." After two days the people were allowed to go home, after cheering the Sultan (Hamid IT.) and shouting “Padishahm chote Yasha” (Long live my Sultan), and passing under the sword of the great conquerors, tho Islams. BuS what home! Where? To the field of ashes. All the market, all the Armenian houses, wore burnt down; not a corner, not a rag, not a piece of bread. “I walked over dead and mutilated bodies, and recognised many as those of our friends and neighbors. I saw women without arms, without legs. I saw smashed heads ; walked over uiem. We ran towards the station, and were taken into the cotton factories of Mr. Tripani, the dragoman of the English Consul. There were at least 10-12,000 people. The children wanted to lie down, from weakness, fear, and hunger, but there was no place. Pieces of bread were thrown to us, and all rushed to snatch up some pieces. The wounded wailed for a drop of water in vain.” —Butchery in the Mountains. — In an account of the slaughter at Kozolook, an Armenian village in the mountains of tho north of Tarsus, the ■ mg sentences occur:— Scenes of murder and outrage were enacted such as the history of the world has seldom if ever recorded. Kozolook was plundered, then reduced to ashes. The fate that befell the

young girls must be left untold. A bride of two months besought her young husband to kill her. which he did, and was almost immediately slain bv the savages. ~ Der Sahak, the good priest of the village, with bis son, a junior in the college (home for the Easter holidays), with° forty-seven other men and women, were killed by the sword at one spot, and their bodies one woman, wounded and burned, managed to escape, and is now here with us. After weeks of effort on the part of Dr. Christie, nearly all the survivors have at last been brought in from their hiding places in the Turkish villages. There are about two hundred of these refugees, and they look more like ghosts than men and women. ‘•'lt must he recorded for the honor of human nature that a- few of the Turks in the villages did all they could to protect the Christians; indeed, if this had not been the case, not a survivor would have reached us. I give here the result of my effort for some weeks to get the statistics of the massacre at Kozolook. Eighty-one men were killed, nineteen woman, and fhirtv-eight children, a total of 138; fifty-five were burned after being killed or wounded. Four women and five children wore brought in to us wounded ; they will recover. There are thir-ty-one widows. 102 orphans (50 boys. 52 girls). Sixty-eight houses, two churches, and two schools wore pillaged and burned.”