"Strong men, youths and women, and even babies in the cradles and unborn children were butchered with most awful savagery. Infants were stuck on bayonets and exposed to the agonized view of their helpless and frantic mothers. Young brides and girls were subjected to a fate far worse than death. No resistance was possible on the part of the Armenians. All the native teachers with a single exception were murdered with most cruel tortures. Baiburt became a slaughter house. Torrents of blood began to flow. The streets and bazaars were filled with dead bodies. On the following day the Turks did all in their power to conceal the bodies of those who had been pierced by bayonets. Similar scenes were enacted in all the surrounding villages. "Mourning and lamentation prevail throughout Armenia. The churches are closed; no more can the sound of worshippers be heard. The pealing of the bells is silent. We have no more teachers to teach the remnant of Armenians who still live. Rich and poor alike have perished, and the survivors are in the direst indigence. No bread, no covering for their nakedness; they are shivering in the cold. Baiburt, until lately so generous to help others, is now helpless, and in need of moral and material assistance. Unless such assistance is soon received, nobody can live. "After the massacres the government began to arrest the remaining Armenians who had escaped the slaughter. We hear that in the prisons the tortures have reached an extreme point of frightful cruelty. Thus the survivors of the massacre are now dying daily. Every moment we have the horrors of death." Turkish duplicity was fertile in its resources. Many documents were forwarded to the Grand Vizier at Constantinople from scenes of massacres, purporting to be signed by Armenian nobles, the signatures having been obtained by intimidation. One of the most remarkable was from Bitlis, and bore the signatures of thirty-one Armenian nobles. It proceeds to state that "some of our co-religionists have been deceived by instigators coming from certain parts, and have been the cause of deplorable events and have committed crimes contrary to the wishes of his Imperial Majesty, and against the government of his Imperial Majesty--a government to be whose subject had been for six hundred years a title of glory to us, and through whose benevolence we were enjoying religious liberty and a self-government, the like of which cannot be found under any administration. This being so there remains no hope for us but the mercy of our august sovereign, who deigns to accept all classes of his subjects with a benevolence worthy of the greatest of monarchs.