it two or three times. Thursday, by noontime, the monastery was full of villagers. At noon there was a blow on the door of the monastery. Ravenous Turks, Zazes, and others were besieging the building. Until evening they beat at the iron door to break it; fifteen persons were at it, but it was impossible for them to open it. Within, the shrieks and the cries of the people reached up to heaven. Men, in order to save their lives, dressed themselves in women's clothes, and covered their heads. Your brother wrapped his moustaches so thickly that he should not be known, as the Turks were after him by name. About 3 p. m., when the Turks saw that it was not possible for them to open the gate of the monastery, they broke in one of the stones in the wall, and the plunderers entered.... I cannot describe here the sufferings of the people.... Within one hour they robbed and violated a population of 1,500 people, five times each woman, married or maiden, and then left the monastery. The villagers, every one to save her or his life, left everything, property, cattle, merchandise, and provisions, and fled, the man leaving his wife, the wife her child, the son his mother, the brother his sister, and they dispersed in the adjoining mountains, plains, valleys, and hills, with only their under-garments on, as the Turks and Kurds had stripped them of everything else. Friday morning the number of the killed had reached about fifty. Your father was shot on the plain of Sacrat, but the wound was not dangerous. For three days the people gathered in Sacrat, hungry and thirsty; from Sacrat they were given over to the Zazes, to take them to the city.... I can not write down here all the things we endured at the hands of the Zazes.... Finally, after we had suffered unmentionable cruelties, being twice plundered in the city and violated, three brides and maidens were carried away as slaves by the Kurds, more than one hundred persons were martyred, among whom were two priests, and the rest were forced to accept Mohammedanism, and after that the massacre ceased. For twenty days we remained in the city, naked, hungry, and thirsty, also hopeless. The city was rescued from the massacre after having suffered the loss of six hundred houses, together with all the property of the shops and stores, and the total sum of the martyred being 2,000. Our village was given over to be burned for twenty days successively. Out of two hundred houses, there are hardly thirty left sound; the rest are all razed to the ground.... The rest of this story will follow by next mail. I wanted to tell you a little about our hard situation. Saved with only our undergarments, hungry and thirsty, our whole family came back from the city, among the ruins. I, your mother, had to go begging wholly naked and barefoot to the