acrossasiaminoro00chiluoft

ON THE ROAD TO BAGHCHE 373
tunity to go one better than the people of Hamidieh.
A number of Armenians were on their way to Adana,
among them many pastors of the Armenian Protestant
Church attending a convention in that town. Including
men, women, and children, they exceeded
two hundred in all, and, being so numerous, their
Osmanieh friends housed them for the night in the
local church. Early the next morning the Moslems
set out to make sure of this party. An Armenian
who had got wind of the plot ran to warn his compatriots,
but a rifle-shot dropped him in the street
before he had gone far, and the mob arrived while
the Armenians were preparing breakfast. The few
who endeavoured to leave the building were shot or
knocked on the head ; the others barricaded the doors,
and sat down, their backs to the outer walls, to await
the end. The mob fired the building, and all within
perished ; but they left against the fire-scorched walls
the sharp silhouette of their seated figures, even of
a woman with a child in arms, for men to see and
wonder at lono^ afterwards.
From Osmanieh to Baghche was another long stage,
but one altogether pleasant ; for during a great part
of the way the road went up the valley of the Baghche
river, climbing steadily among broken, wooded mountains
whose summits carried snow. Like the Cilician
defile through the Taurus, this pass traversed what
had been a border-land and the scene of much fighting
between Arab and Christian. One castle especially
conveyed the very spirit of wild days. It showed
no signs of ruin, and was built on a mass of grey rock
rising from waving woods which spread around it for
miles. Report said that it had been the stronghold
of a dere-hey, or valley-lord, within the last seventy
years. For some little distance hereabouts we
travelled on a Roman way, still in better general
condition and with a much better surface than any
other portion of the road to Baghche.
It was nearly eight o'clock before we reached the
khan at Baghche, another that had been turned into