“The Armenians are still found in goodly numbers, aggregating nearly
one-third of some eighteen thousand inhabitants in the city (Moosh),
constituting more than half in the region, if we include the 155
villages of this large plain. But so lamentably have they been subdued
by the _long oppression_ and _misrule_, that none of their old-time
spirit remains.
“We might point to a village of more than 300 houses and 2,000
inhabitants, who live in constant terror from a little Kurdish village
of desperadoes not one-tenth as large!”
It is no wonder that these poor and oppressed Armenians “live in
constant terror.” The Turkish government, the author of all injustice
and cruelty in Armenia, had decreed even the mere possession of arms
a serious crime in the case of Christians, while the Kurds, the worst
enemies of law and order were well equipped with all sorts of modern
weapons, and were enlisted into His Majesty the Sultan’s army. They
were, therefore, authorized to rob, steal, and kill the Armenians.