t their proceedings.

I asked whether the Armenians had killed any Government official, or any
Turks or Kurds in Diarbekir. He replied that they had killed no one, but
that a few days after the arrival of the Vali, Reshid Bey, and the
Commandant of Gendarmerie, Rushdi Bey, prohibited arms had been found in
some Armenian houses, and also in the church. On the discovery of these
arms, the Government summoned some of the principal Armenians and flung
them into prison; the spiritual authorities made repeated
representations, asking for the release of these men, but the
Government, far from complying with the request, imprisoned the
ecclesiastics also, the number of Notables thus imprisoned amounting to
nearly seven hundred. One day the Commandant of Gendarmerie came and
informed them that an Imperial Order had been issued for their
banishment to Mosul, where they were to remain until the end of the war.
They were rejoiced at this, procured all they required in the way of
money, clothes, and furniture, and embarked on the _keleks_ (wooden
rafts resting on inflated skins, used by the inhabitants of that region
for travelling on the Euphrates and Tigris) to proceed to Mosul. After a
while it was understood that they had all been drowned in the Tigris,
and that none of them had reached Mosul. The authorities continued to
send off and kill the Armenians, family by family, men, women and
children, the first families sent from Diarbekir being those of
Kazazian, Tirpanjian, Minassian, and Kechijian, who were the wealthiest
families in the place. Among the 700 individuals was a bishop named--as
far as I recollect--Homandrias; he was the Armenian Catholic Bishop, a
venerable and learned old man of about eighty; they showed no respect to
his white beard, but drowned him in the Tigris.

Megerditch, the Bishop-delegate of Diarbekir, was also among the 700
imprisoned. When he saw what was happening to his people he could not
endure the disgrace and shame of prison, so he poured petroleum over
himself and set it on fire. A Moslem, who was imprisoned for having
written a letter to this bishop three years before the events, told me
that he was a man of great courage and learning, devoted to his people,
with no fear of death, but unable to submit to oppression and
humiliation.

Some of the imprisoned Kurds attacked the Armenians in the gaol itself,
and killed two or three of them out of greed for their money and
clothing, but nothing was