We are urging some now to return to their homes. Many are so afraid, and we cannot give them assurance of safety. Some Kurds have gone, but many are still about. The people come to the individual missionaries and beg for just one small room for their families, each one with his own special plea. When we tell them the greatest danger for them just now is to remain crowded in such narrow bounds, it makes little or no appeal to them. They are nine-tenths fatalists any way, and think that it all depends upon the “will of Allah.” They say: “Let us die by the hand of God and not of the Kurds.” We have been having unusually fine weather; only two bad days, and they were not cold. A Mohammedan was heard to say: “Do you see how God loves these Christians? Who ever saw such weather in the middle of winter?” Dr. Shedd is the representative of our station before the Government; he and Dr.Packard have had that end of the work, daily pleading before Persian and Osmanli authorities for the Christian population. It was told us that a prominent Moslem had said: “Dr. Shedd is the best Christian in the city! Just see how he comes every day through the deep mud to plead for those people!” _Wednesday, 20th January._ A few people from the city went to their homes, and our hopes began to rise; but yesterday and to-day others came in from the Nazlu river and from Tchargousha. Thirty-six dead were carried to the trench in Mart Maryam[47] (St. Mary) churchyard yesterday; the larger part of them were children.