“Two days later, the Turkish gendarmes and police came to our premises and demanded the girls, forty-nine in number, from the American school. These demands were persisted in and on that day, by the order of the Turkish Government, all these girls were started on the road to Sivas, a journey of six days interior from Marsovan. Two of the American teachers, Miss Willard and Miss Gage, by persistence, secured permission to follow these girls one day after they had started on their journey and overtook them just as they were entering Sivas, six days later. By working with the _vali_ of the province for days, permission was finally given to these American ladies for all these girls to return to the Girls’ School at Marsovan. “At the beginning of the deportations in 1915, Marsovan was inhabited by twelve thousand Armenians. When the deportations were finished scarcely one thousand of that nationality could be found in the city. This complete destruction of the Armenians in this city is only an example of what took place throughout the Vilayet of Sivas. “In January, 1916, the Greek deportations from the Black Sea began. These Greeks came through the city of Marsovan by thousands, walking for the most part the three days’ journey through the snow and mud and slush of the winter weather. Thousands fell by the wayside from exhaustion and others came into the city of Marsovan in groups of fifty, one hundred and five hundred, always under escort of Turkish gendarmes. Next morning these poor refugees were started on the road and destruction by this treatment was even more radical than a straight massacre such as the Armenians suffered before. “In 1917, in the dead of winter, a second deportation of Armenians from the Black Sea coast began and the same treatment was undergone by those who were obliged to flee from their homes. “On May 16, the fifteen Americans, men, women and children were obliged to undergo this hardship—to leave their homes and property—for this long overland journey. On that date the American premises were occupied by Turkish soldiers and the buildings all taken over as a base hospital. “Six weeks later four of this group returned to Marsovan by permission from Talaat Pasha, with the understanding that they would be able to occupy their homes and use the school buildings for educational purposes. The buildings, with the exception of the houses, which were obtained with great difficulty, were never returned but were in constant use by the Turkish military authorities up to the time of the Armistice, March, 1919.