Miss Barton at once despatched one caravan with goods to Marash and followed it with another including eight physicians and apothecaries with medical supplies. At Marash, the destitution and misery were past human imagination. Cold, famine, smallpox and typhoid fever had carried off four thousand people and twelve thousand refugees were in need of food, clothing and bedding. There was not a yard of cotton cloth in the place and no doctors. At Aintab, Oorfa, Harpoot and Zeitoun the needs were almost as great, and to each of these points, goods and medical supplies were despatched and distributed by trustworthy American residents and Miss Barton's Red Cross agents. Upwards of $70,000 were sent by cable from America to the missionaries in Armenia, through the American Board of Foreign Missions. Not one dollar of this amount was lost or failed to reach its proper field. In many instances the money was given out in the form of bread and clothing to the starving refugees in Asia, within forty-eight hours of the time of cabling it from New York. This fact should go far towards disarming the severe criticisms sometimes heard regarding the business management of missionary enterprises. CHAPTER XVI. THE CURSE OF ISLAM. Dr. M. S. Gabriel. In Europe and America there is very little, if any, exact knowledge of what Mohammedanism means and who the Turks are. The Christian subjects of Turkey alone have the unfortunate opportunity of knowing well both the Turk and his religion. And of all the Christian subjects of the Porte the Armenians have the profoundest understanding in this matter. In the case of the Roman Catholic and the Orthodox Christian, Turkish oppression has more or less been alleviated by the sympathy and protection of some one or the other of European Powers, while the Armenians, related to none of the great nations by close ties of either church or race, are absolutely friendless and have known the virulence of Moslem hatred in its utmost intensity. This remark, I hope, will caution those of my readers who, having heard of the "tolerant spirit" of Islam and "the benign rule" of the Sultan, might think my description of them to be rather exaggerated. Of "the benign rule" of the Ottomans and the spirit of Islam I can speak from personal and intimate acquaintance. There can be no curse for a Christian nation as great as that of bearing the yoke of Moslem tyranny. Armenia has many times during her long national life seen foreign rule or supremacy, that, for instance, of the Romans, but not without some consoling advantage. The British, called the true Romans of modern times, carry some blessing to the countries they conquer or rule, although they conquer or rule in the commercial interests of their own. They are like butterflies which fly from flower to flower in order to suck the honey, but, in so doing, they transfer to them the fertilizing pollen attached to their wings.