acrossasiaminoro00chiluoft

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14 ACROSS ASIA MINOR ON FOOT
on the Bamiad Road, being cut off by a quarantine
barrier behind the pass ; steamers avoided the port
and there was no getting away, for those inhabitants
who fled to mountai?! villages were driven out by
villagers with firearms. Samstin, like other places,
these peasants said, must endure its own cholera.
In these circumstances of extremity and ruined
trade the business community of Samsun— in other
words, foreigners, Greeks, and Armenians—were
driven to fighting the disease. Christians of this
land dread cholera vastly more than do the Moslems.
But whereas the one will do what he can against
it, the other will do nothing, relying on the Will of
Allah and the sanitation of Mahomet. So the commercial
folk of Samsun obtained sanction of the
authorities and promise of armed support—that being
necessary against fanatical rioting by the populace
for any measures they might take to save the town.
They undertook also to bear the cost of their proceedings,
and subscribed a large sum for the purpose.
These preliminaries hurriedly arranged, the Committee
set to work, and fired each house in which the disease
appeared, together with the clothing and effects of
occupants. Compensation for property so destroyed
was paid from the subscribed fund.
With these and
other measures the disease was soon stamped out,
and Samsun suffered less than any town in the
affected districts. Yet this shining example was
followed by no other town. How the disease ran
in other places—with their filthy narrow alleys and
doubtful water—may be gathered from the Instance
of Chorum, a town much smaller than Samsun, and
with a population not only almost entirely Moslem,
but Moslems of the fanatical sort. When cholera
came the people received it with resignation as the
Will of Allah ; they washed their victims and laid
them out with rites, and mourned them with family
gatherings round the corpse. In a short time there
were more than a thousand dead, and the scourge
ceased only when It had exhausted itself.