The massacre took place in the early part of September, 1894. The following letter, written at Bitlis, September 26, 1894, gives the first evidence: “The troops have been massed in the region of the large plain (of Moosh) near us. Some sickness broke out among them which took off two or three victims every few days.... I suppose that one reason for placing quarantine was to hinder the information as to what all these troops were about in that region. There seems little doubt that there has been in that region back of Moosh what took place in 1876 in Bulgaria. The sickening details are beginning to come in.” “Bitlis, October 9, 1894. “All these things (following facts) were related here and there by soldiers who took part in the horrible carnage. Some of them, weeping, claim that the Kurds did more, and declare that they only obeyed the order of others. It is said one hundred fell to each of them to dispose of. No compassion was shown to age or sex, even by the regular soldiery, not even when the victims fell suppliant at their feet. Six to ten thousand persons met such a fate as even the darkest ages of darkened Africa hardly witnessed, for there women and tender babes might at least have had a chance of a life of slavery, while here womanhood and innocency were but a mockery before the cruel lust that ended its debauch by stabbing women to death with the bayonet, while tender babes were impaled with the same weapon on their dead mother’s breast, or perhaps seized by the hair to have their heads lopped off with the sword. “In one place, three or four hundred women, after being forced to serve vile purposes by the merciless soldiery, were hacked to pieces by sword and bayonet in the valley below. In another place, some two hundred weeping and wailing women begged for compassion, falling at the commander’s feet, but the bloodthirsty wretch, after ordering their violation, directed his soldiers to dispatch them in a similar way. In another place, some sixty young brides and more attractive girls were crowded into a church, and after violation were slaughtered, and human gore was seen flowing from the church door. “At another place still, a large company under the leadership of their priest, fell down before them begging for compassion, and averring that they had nothing to do with the culprits (?). But, all to no purpose. All were called to another place, and a proposal was made to several of the more attractive women to change their faith, in which case their lives were to be spared. They said: ‘Why should we deny Christ? We are no more than these’ (pointing to the mangled form of their husbands and brothers). ‘Kill us too’; and they did so. A great effort was made to save one beauty, but three or four quarreled over her, and she sank down like her sisters.