acrossasiaminoro00chiluoft

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56 ACROSS ASIA MINOR ON FOOT
a footing among Armenian students of the College ;
and these lads and young men, none out of their teens,
served the cause with a boldness and secrecy of which
they might have been thought incapable. There are
stories of their doings, in times not many years ago,
that sound like wild detective tales. A foreign colleo^e,
never viewed with favour bv the Government,
had to go warily in those days, and exact the most
correct behaviour from its students. Yet Armenian
revolutionaries, desperate men long hunted by the
police, reached Marsovan and disappeared there,
secreted and fed in the College by student compatriots,
their presence not even suspected by others.
They were discovered only by accident, and then
succeeded in escaping into the town. The same day
the quarter in which they were known to have taken
refuge was surrounded by zaptiehs, and after a fight
the fugitives were shot.
A printing press is not, one would suppose, an
object easy to hide or easy to work in secrecy, yet
at one time the College was charged with harbouring
a revolutionary press. In the best good faith the
Mission repudiated the charge. They searched, but
could find no sign of a press,—it was impossible, they
said, for one to exist unknown in the Mission precincts.
But the Turkish Governor reiterated his charge ; a
revolutionary printing press, he said, was issuing
sheets and pamphlets from the Mission compound,
of that he had proof definite and conclusive, in his
judgment. He was invited to make his own search ;
his officials were helped, every nook and corner and
likely place were examined, and still no press could be
found. And yet long afterwards it came out that a
press had existed within the compound, and been busy
throwing off revolutionary matter ; but was so cunningly
hidden, and its operators so loyally screened, that
the closest search failed to reveal its whereabouts.
At Anatolia College Greek students are more
numerous than those of any other race ; and like
all Greeks, whether of Europe or Asia, have a quality