Although in official communications the atrocities were denied by the Turkish government, the statements issued by the Porte were nowhere credited. Denials of the massacres of Trebizond and Erzeroum were circulated, despite the statements of American and European Consular officials, missionaries, and Armenian survivors, supplemented by the photographs of the piles of dead in the streets and cemeteries. A number of Armenian citizens were arrested by the authorities after the Trebizond massacre, on the pretext that they caused the riot, and six of them were condemned to death. In January, 1896, the Mesopotamian Christians of Mardin were suddenly attacked by a large body of Kurds, the town being surrounded. News had already been received of the burning of many villages and the massacre of thousands of peaceful peasants, but the Mardin attack came like a thunderbolt. Many hundreds were butchered in a few hours. A number of native ministers of the Gospel were slain. The town was a scene of terror and desolation; groups of weeping mothers and crying children sheltered themselves in the houses, while all around, and even upon the floors were the telltale pools of blood that showed where the martyrs fell under the Kurdish swords. Dead bodies, clotted with blood that had flowed from great gaping wounds, lay everywhere in sight. There were other horrors that added to the terror--the attacks on the native women and girls, who were subjected to nameless abuse. The massacres at Mardin and Gemerek resulted in leaving the survivors in those once populous villages in a condition that threatened to exterminate them by starvation. The help which was cabled to them from the relief fund was welcomed with a gratitude that can hardly be expressed in words. With the horror of their recent woes still unrelieved, the aid seemed as if heaven-sent. Erzeroum was still full of wounded, and rows upon rows of blackened ruins alone showed where its homes once stood. There were many hundreds homeless. Harpoot, too, had a large number exposed to hunger and cold. At Diarbekir the destitution was probably worst of all, for both in the city and villages, the slaughter was relentless, and the survivors had nothing to expect but death by slow degrees--their little ones perishing of hunger and cold beside them. At Erzinjian, where many martyrs fell, the remaining Christians were scattered around, hiding where they could, like hunted wild beasts. After these massacres most piteous appeals were received in this country from relatives in the stricken towns and villages. A letter sent by a poor mother from Gurun to a relative here, said: