of money, numerous hostages, and all their arms; even the little knives with which they cut their bread had been taken from them. “At this moment, on Easter Day, 1822, the Capitan-Pasha anchored in the harbor, with seven ships and eight frigates. Inasmuch as many of the people, frightened by the sight of this fleet, had fled to the mountains, they were made to come down by promises of safety, and by sending to them some consuls, who were simple enough to lend themselves in good faith to this ignoble fraud. The Turkish admiral brought his executioners with him; _bashi-bazouks_ from Roumelia, Zeibeks and Yuruks from Asia Minor, the most ferocious and cowardly to be found in the empire. The adventurers had come in great numbers, eager for their prey, attracted by this country, so rich in harvests, in gold coins, and in women. On the day fixed for this surprise all this rabble was crowded into boats, with pistols and knives, and the carnage began. Whole regiments courageously besieged villages containing three hundred souls. For many of them, this slaughter was a great joke, a gigantic _bakshish_. They slashed and burned all day; in the evening they reckoned up the price of the slaves, the sheep, the goats, all huddled together pell-mell in the profaned churches. The children and the women escaped death; their youth and beauty saved them from the massacre, to deliver them over at once to outrageous assaults or to reserve them for the shameful fate of the harem. They were led off in long troops; they were put on the market and sold in the bazaars of Smyrna, Constantinople, and Brussa. Whatever resisted was killed without mercy. At Mesta, a young girl cried and struggled against an Arnaut; the madman seized her loosened hair, turned back the collar, and with a cut of his sabre severed the pretty head. The person who described this scene to me saw it with his own eyes.”[40] In regard to the massacre of Nestorians in 1850, Layard states that after 9000 had been massacred, “1000 men, women, and children concealed themselves in a mountain fastness. Beder Khan Beg, an officer of rank in the employment of the Sultan, unable to get at them, surrounded the place, and waited until they should be compelled to yield by thirst and hunger. Then he offered to spare their lives on the surrender of their arms and property, terms ratified by an oath on the Koran. The Kurds were then admitted to the platform. After they had disarmed their prisoners they commenced an indiscriminate slaughter, until, weary of using their weapons, they hurled the few survivors from the rocks into the river Zab below. Out of nearly 1000 only one escaped.”[41] In regard to the massacre of Maronites and Syrians in 1860, the anonymous authority in _The Independent_ goes on to say: