“All the morning the ox-carts creaked out of the town, laden with women and children, and here and there a man who had escaped the previous deportation. The women and girls all wore the Turkish costumes, that their faces might not be exposed to the gaze of the drivers and gendarmes--a brutal lot of men brought in from other regions.... “The panic in the city was terrible.... The people were sure that the men were being killed and the women kidnapped. Many of the convicts in the prisons had been released, and the mountains around were full of bands of outlaws.... “Most of the Armenians in the district were absolutely hopeless. Many said it was worse than a massacre. No one knew what was coming, but all felt that it was the end. Even the pastors and leaders could offer no word of encouragement or hope.... Under the severe strain many individuals became demented, some of them permanently.”[170] Thousands of boys and girls of assimilable age have been torn away from the bleeding hearts of their parents, and sold and distributed among the Mohammedans, and many thousands more have perished by disease, by exhaustion, by starvation, and by cruel murder. The following description was written from Malatia: “Boys under ten and girls under fourteen are accepted here as orphans (by the Mohammedans). More than 800, practically all from Sivas province, are here.... Many have become sick, and they are dying off pretty rapidly. It is evident that many will die on the way....” Another report says that the _dervishes_, the fanatical Moslem devotees, met the caravans of the deported Armenians on their road and carried off children, shrieking with terror, to bring them up as Moslems in their savage fraternity. Here another: “Many of the boys appear to have been sent to another district, to be distributed among the farmers. The best looking of the older girls are kept in houses for the pleasure of members of the gang who seem to rule affairs here....” The Armenian journal _Horizon_, of Tiflis, reported in its issue of Aug. 22d (old style), that: “A telegram from Bukarest states that the Turks have sent from Anatolia (Asia Minor) four railway-vans full of Armenian orphans from the interior of the country, to distribute them among Moslem families.