when we
had arrived outside the walls of Diarbekir and were beginning to shoot
down the Armenians, a Kurd came up to me, kissed my hand, and begged me
to give him a girl of about ten years old. I stopped the firing and sent
a gendarme to bring the girl to me. When she came I pointed out a spot
to her and said, 'Sit there. I have given you to this man, and you will
be saved from death.' After a while, I saw that she had thrown herself
amongst the dead Armenians, so I ordered the gendarmes to cease firing
and bring her up. I said to her, 'I have had pity on you and brought you
out from among the others to spare your life. Why do you throw yourself
with them? Go with this man and he will bring you up like a daughter.'
She said: 'I am the daughter of an Armenian; my parents and kinsfolk are
killed among these; I will have no others in their place, and I do not
wish to live any longer without them.' Then she cried and lamented; I
tried hard to persuade her, but she would not listen, so I let her go
her way. She left me joyfully, put herself between her father and
mother, who were at the last gasp, and she was killed there." And he
added: "If such was the behaviour of the children, what was that of
their elders?"

PRICE OF ARMENIAN WOMEN.--A reliable informant from Deir-el-Zur told me
that one of the officials of that place had bought from the gendarmes
three girls for a quarter of a medjidie dollar each. Another man told me
that he had bought a very beautiful girl for one lira, and I heard that
among the tribes Armenian women were sold like pieces of old furniture,
at low prices, varying from one to ten liras, or from one to five
sheep.[F] ...

[Footnote F: An unimportant anecdote omitted.--TRANSLATOR.]

THE MUTESARRIF AND THE ARMENIAN GIRL.--On the arrival of a batch of
Armenians at Deir-el-Zur from Ras-el-Ain, the Mutesarrif desired to
choose a servant-girl from amongst the women. His eye fell on a handsome
girl, and he went up to her, but on his approach she turned white and
was about to fall. He told her not to be afraid, and ordered his servant
to take her to his house. On returning thither he asked the reason for
her terror of him, and she told him that she and her mother had been
sent from Ras-el-Ain in charge of a Circassian gendarme, many other
Armenian women being with them. On the way, the gendarme called her
mother, and told her to give him her money, or he would kill her; she
said she had none, so he tortured