After the massacre of the Yezidi peasants in 1892 an English lady of rank, visiting Mosul, was refused permission by the Pasha to travel through the Yezidi district, lest she witness the dreadful results of the massacre.[46] The writer in _The Independent_ of January 31st, gives this explanation: “The _reason_ of the recurrence of massacres in Turkey is the fanatical intolerance of the Moslem populace and their hatred to Christianity, unrestrained and often fomented by Turkish officials. “Lord Stratford de Redcliffe, the ablest and best friend Turkey ever had, who believed that ‘England should befriend Turkey in order to reform her,’ says:[47] “‘Turkey is weak, fanatical, and misgoverned. The Eastern question is a fact, a reality of indefinite duration. Like a volcano it has intervals of rest; but its outbreaks are frequent, their occasions uncertain, and their effects destructive’ (p. 6). “‘Did not the massacres in Syria in 1860 come upon us by surprise?... Have we any substantial security against the recurrence of similar horrors, of a similar necessity, and of a similar hazard?’ (p. 79). “‘The position of the Ottoman Empire is one of natural determination toward a state of exhaustive weakness’ (p. 97). “‘Ill fares the country where neither strong hand nor willing heart is to be found’ (p. 104). “A joint Commission is now _en route_ to investigate the Sassoun massacres. Will any good come from it? Doubtful. Lord Stratford says (p. 117): “‘We know not how soon or where the kites may be again collected by a massacre or insurrection.... Such occasional meetings [of Commissions] have their portion of inconvenience and risk. Their failure is discreditable; the effect of their success, at best, transient and partial. The _evils_ they are meant to correct are themselves the offspring of one pervading evil, the source of which is in Constantinople.’” CHAPTER VIII. ISLAM AS A FACTOR OF THE PROBLEM. It is with reluctance that I approach this side of the question. It is not desirable that the subject be complicated or embittered by religious animosities. But unfortunately these animosities do exist and have always formed a primary and essential feature in all the relations of the Turks with their Christian subjects. A writer who styles himself “Diplomatist,” in a recent review article of considerable merit,[48] with a stroke of the pen, disposes of this phase of the subject by characterizing it as “pure moonshine.” But real diplomatists do not find it so easy to dispose of, nor do the great historians treat it as moonshine. The fanatical gleam that I have often caught in the eye of Turks and Kurds was never suggestive to me of the mild rays of the lunar orb, but seemed rather like a gleam from the political Crescent, whose baleful influence dominates the East.