Charles Chapin Tracy, missionary, philanthropist, educator, first ...

CHARLES CHAPIN TRACY 35
cecded. The Americans were accused of issuing
placards; two Armenian Professors were imprisoned,
and the Girls' School was burned down." A condition
of great unrest continued. England, France and Russia
kept up their pressure on the angered Turks to ameliorate
the condition of the Armenians; the Armenians
in their turn were restive; in the course of a few months
seventeen men were assassinated within a radius of
thirty miles from Marsovan. American missionaries
were repeatedly threatened. There was some fighting
in the city, and the condition bordered on insurrection
and civil war.
Finally, in October, 1895, an electric thrill ran through
the country as word was passed about that the Sublime
Porte had accepted the reform scheme pressed by Great
Britain, France and Russia, — and in a month came the
massacre. In Marsovan the storm broke on Friday,
November 15th, at the hour of the noon call to Moslem
prayer. For four hours the city was turned over to
the Turkish mob for the massacre of Armenians, and
the looting of their property. About 125 men were
killed, and most of the Armenian shops were picked as
clean as a bone. The first rush of the mob was for the
American premises. But we were mercifully spared
such invasion. Crowds of frightened refugees flocked
into our houses, and some bullets struck the Girls'
School. About four o'clock the government, which
as it were had been hibernating, resumed activity,
and the governor visited our compound with a guard
of some forty swarthy soldiers which he left to protect
us, though many were more afraid of the guard than
of the mob. It was a black winter that followed that