rothers and a nephew, all members of the seminary, was attacked in
the night by a party of ruffian Koords, also incited by the
Patriarch, who beat all the company with clubs, and called to each
other to "kill them." Friendly Koords came to their rescue, but not
until they had been stripped of nearly all their clothing and
suffered cruelly from the hands of the barbarians.

In the year 1848, Bader Khan Bey, failing in one of his favorite
night attacks on the Turkish army, was taken prisoner in his own
castle of Dergooleh, and placed, as such, on one of the islands of
the Grecian Archipelago.

Nurullah Bey, also, some time in 1849, was driven from his
stronghold at Julamerk, and fled from castle to castle, till he also
was taken captive by the Turks, whom he had aided to destroy the
Nestorians, and went into captivity, far from the scenes of his
former power. Suleiman Bey, as already stated, was taken captive
while cruelly persecuting deacon Tamo, and died at Erzroom, while on
his way to Constantinople.1

1 _Missionary Herald_, 1850, p. 96.

CHAPTER XX.

THE NESTORIANS.

1848-1852.

The health of Mr. Stoddard became so prostrated, early in the summer
of 1848, as to leave no hope of his recovery without a change of
climate. At Trebizond, on his way home, he and his family were
subjected to a quarantine of eight days. His wife and children were
then in good health, and they had no reason to apprehend cholera
there, as it passed beyond that place westward. But it returned, and
Mrs. Stoddard was one of its victims. The death of this excellent
woman was a grievous loss, not only to her husband and infant
children, but to the mission. The nurse also sickened of the same
disease, while on the voyage to Constantinople, and died soon after
her arrival; and it was a remarkable Providence that spared the
enfeebled and overtasked husband and father. But he lived to serve
Christ in his native land, and afterwards again among the
Nestorians. The Rev. George W. Coan and wife joined the mission in
the autumn of 1849.

Mr. Cochran succeeded Mr. Stoddard in charge of the male seminary.
Twelve had gone from the institution, and most of them were exerting
a good Christian influence. The new scholars, as a consequence of
these village schools, were older and more advanced than their
predecessors had been. The thirty-two schools contained five hundred
and ninety-eight pupils, of whom one hundred and twenty-five were
gi