acrossasiaminoro00chiluoft

RESTLESS ZEITl^NLIS 393
hospitals were unknown or at least unseen. You
could not imagine the capacity of this Marash hospital
being stretched to the point of crowding outhouses
with patients ; nor picture its staflP for ever on the
run as at Marsovan, nor the swift succession of
operations done by American surgeons there. But
its doctor and sisters gave the conviction that in
their hands and in this hospital the patient would
receive the last advantag'es of skill and science and
punctilious care. That if rule and formula and utmost
precise skill and science could avail, the patient
would be saved ; but that if outside the scope of
these exact powers he would go to ground with considerable
certainty. Noticing these characteristics,
and propounding myself as a patient in extremely
evil case, I thought I should incline rather to a
bed of straw at Marsovan than a rubber water-bed
at Marash.
Leo the Isaurian is claimed as native of Marash,
though some hold that the great Byzantine Emperor
of Armenian blood came from the mountains a little
farther back. It is a curious fact that Armenians
of this highland district show martial qualities and
a capacity for agreement and unity higher than any
other section of the race, and seem to have done so
always. It was from this region of Zeitun and
Hajin that Armenian adventurers went forth who
founded the kingdom of Lesser Armenia. Zeitun,
however, is the district in which that spirit survives
most strongly at the present time. It is a small
town forty miles north of Marash, capital of a district
whose only approaches are mountain - tracks
through some of the most savage country in Asia
Minor. Zeitunlis have ever given trouble to their
Moslem rulers. At this time they were said to be
restless again, raiding Turkish flocks and harbouring
Armenian deserters from the army who had fled
thither in hundreds, and the Turkish authorities were
assembling troops at Marash in fear of an outbreak.
Fiery Zeitunlis were also said to have sent messaeces of