the Great may
resent German superintendence.[1]

[Footnote 1: See note at end of this chapter.]

But in addition to his ludicrous side, there is in him a refined
hypocrisy and a subtle cruelty worthy of Abdul Hamid. One instance will
suffice.

There had been some talk that at certain of these concentration camps
there was no water supply, and he gave orders, did Jemal the Great and
the Merciful, that water should be sent. A train consisting of trucks
of water accordingly was despatched to one of those camps, situated in
the desert, with no supply nearer than six miles, and an eye-witness
describes its arrival. The mob of Armenians, mad with thirst, surrounded
it, and, since everything must be done in an orderly and seemly manner,
were beaten back by the Turkish guards, and made to stand at a due
distance for the distribution. And when those ranks, with their parched
throats and sun-cracked lips, were all ready, the Turkish guards opened
the taps of the reservoirs, and allowed the whole of their contents to
run away into the sand. Whether Jemal the Great planned that, or whether
it was but a humorous freak on the part of the officials, I cannot say.
But as a refinement of cruelty I have, outside the page of Poe's tales,
only once come across anything to equal it, and that in a letter from
the _Times'_ correspondent at Berne on April 11, 1917. He describes the
treatment of English prisoners in Germany: 'An equally common
entertainment with those women (German Red Cross nurses) was to offer a
wounded man a glass, perhaps, of water, then, standing just outside his
reach, to pour it slowly on the ground.' Could those sisters of mercy
have read the account of Jemal's clemency, or is it merely an instance
of the parallelism of similar minds?

So the empty train returned, and Jemal the Great caused it to be known
in Berlin that he was active in securing a proper water supply for the
famous agricultural settlements in the desert, and loud were the
encomiums in the press of the Central Powers over the colonisation of
Syria by the Armenians, the progress and enlightenment of the Turks, and
the skilful and humane organisation of Jemal the Great.

There is no difficulty in estimating to-day the number of Armenian men
who survive in the Turkish Empire. All appeals to the Prussian
overlords, such as were made by Dr. Niepage, and the belated
remonstrance of the Prussians themselves when they foresaw a dearth of
labour for the hu