Helen Davenport Gibbons

“ We shall not talk of the massacres, to you or to any one, except so much as is necessary to help the Armenian Relief Fund and to show the wickedness and faithlessness of the diplomacy of the Powers in Turkey. Herbert and I have been saved, and we have our blessed baby. Our life is ahead of us—we are glad to have it ahead—and we want to spend our time and energy in meeting new duties, in solving new problems. Perhaps that is the spirit of youth. But then we are young, and what interests us is our baby's generation. ”

“ We have fresh figs stewed or raw and honeysweet, and oh, the oranges. I am guilty of one "notion." I eat quantities of these golden oranges, about fourteen a day. I may feel the limitations of life in Turkey in many ways, but until I outgrow them, I can put on my khaki riding things, swing into my Mexican saddle and at sunset ride like the wind across the Cilician Plain with the crying of jackals and the chant of the muezzins in my ears. The law of compensation is a fact, my dear, and let me tell you this—don't feel sorry for missionaries. ”

“ They try hard. But they cannot help falling into Turkish. For in this part of Turkey their mother-tongue is the language of their oppressors—the badge of servitude.
Armenians of breeding and education foster their language with all their heart and soul. There is a desperate attempt to preserve the national unity, always with the opposition of the terrible Turks! ”

“ Doughty-Wylie is a little woman full of life and spirits. She loves nursing—has been after the bubonic plague in India and followed the British army in the Boer War. Frank and outspoken, you never know what she is going to say next. She is as vehement as the Major is mild, as bubbling over as he is cool, as Scotch as he is English. They are lovely to us, and as they have taken on with travel a sense of humor, we have great sessions, sitting around a log-fire until all hours of the night. The Major is keen on the Seljuk Turks. ”

“ The educators of Armenian boys have a problem before them. Are they going to educate the boys in order to encourage them to go to America? Isn't the reason for having the schools to help these people to a better life in their own country? Why educate the bright boys at all, if it is not to equip them to spend their lives for the good of their countrymen? Yet, what can you answer to the pathetic and conclusive argument that the educated Armenian has no chance [Pg 77] for advancement, so long as Armenia is under Turkish rule? They really have no chance, the boys with a diploma. ”

“ To get candles and petroleum from the large school-building was impossible for the boys. The precious things might be taken from them in the crowd. For our compound is filling: and many of the refugees we do not know at all. I must go with the boys. I shall take Kevork and Samsun as well as Socrates. To be without Herbert at a time like this! These blessed boys of mine are splendid. They are thoughtful, devoted, courageous, and most delicate in their attention. I could not be in better hands. The best in people comes out at a crisis. ”

“ Sky red with fire. Half the horizon is in flames, the whole Armenian quarter is burning. Our native teachers and boys under the direction of Henri Imer are fighting the flames [Pg 124] valiantly. The sparks are flying toward us, driven by a heavy wind, and eternal vigilance is required to note every spark the moment it falls, to quench it in time. The blaze is so brilliant that we can read by it. A telegram came from Herbert about eleven o'clock. I signed the receipt by the light of the flames. I cannot read it. It is a mixture of Turkish and French. ”

“ Turkish ladies never go. Rarely one sees Armenian and Fellahin women buying. When the time came to get Christmas gifts for Herbert, I did the markets with one of the Seniors. It is perfectly proper for me to go to the bazaars. Foreign women are a different order of beings, absolutely beyond the comprehension of the natives. They look at me as if I had dropped from Mars. I suppose they consider me a sexless being, resembling their women only in the lack of a soul. Menfolks in Turkey, you know, have a corner on souls. Herbert and I have a great deal of fun as we walk about Tarsus. ”

“ The Young Turks are taking "strict measures" to put down "the rebellion"! Armenians who try to escape from the Adana butcher's pen are hauled before the court-martial. According to the Turkish reasoning, attempting to avoid death is proof of an Armenian's guilt.
As I write these awful things—a few weeks ago I should have called them incredible things—I see from my window the half-moon of warships a mile out to sea. They ride quietly at anchor. Launches are all the time plying to and fro between ships and shore. ”

“ If I haven't lived up to Simmons College cookery, Mother, I've made some use of Bryn Mawr. Herbert's schedule is twenty-five hours a week. What time was there left for private study? To take advantage of next year in Paris, he simply must do some groundwork on his fellowship thesis. So I have taken over ten of his hours—the two English courses: preparatory boys learning the first rudiments of our language, and—joy of joys!—his Sub-Freshman class. They know pretty well how to speak and write English, so I am giving them rhetoric—and incidentally I am getting myself more than I give. ”

“ A NEW LIFE Mersina,
May twelfth.
Grandmother dear:
I think it was old Thales (I'm nearer the Greek philosophers out here than I ever was at college) who held that the earth was nothing but certain elements in a state of constant change. Everything is changing all the time. And the inhabitants of the earth have the same chance and luck as the earth, and follow the same law. It is well expressed from the standpoint of the moment of time in which one is placed by the favorite Turkish proverb: "This also shall pass!" ”

“ So we commit the heresy of slipping out for a walk. It is a heresy, Mother, to these dear good people. The missionaries have puritanical notions of Sabbath-keeping that are different from anything Herbert and I have ever run across. Of course, we say [Pg 79] nothing to the boys. But we often wonder if they think that American life is run on missionary principles. The boys are taught that smoking is a sin. That is only one instance. On Sundays, they are not allowed to leave the college grounds except to go over to the Armenian Protestant Church for the afternoon service. Taking walks is taboo. ”

“ Train after train wound slowly along. The camels travel single file, fastened from saddle to saddle.
Until I came to Turkey, I had seen few camels outside of a Zoo. The only loose one I remember is the camel ridden in Paris by the beggar that used to haunt the Place Saint-Michel. No two camels are alike. In a hundred that pass, each is different from the one ahead, very different. Camels are just as different as people. ”

“ Some unmarried women, middle-aged ones, feel a little bitter as they look upon their married sisters' lives. That is because they are not working. Here is a woman who, by self-abnegation and glad assumption of responsibility, has the richness of life and the wide full satisfaction a mother feels in doing for her brood of children. ”

“ Just as Herbert's hair has become so white, there must be something inside of us changed, too. Time alone will tell that. Only one thing we do realize right now,—our responsibility to the Armenians. We [Pg 185] must work in Egypt, in France, in Germany, in England—and, perhaps later, in America—to let the world know how the Armenians have suffered and what their lot must always be under Turkish rule. We see too—oh, so clearly—how heartless and cynical the diplomats of Europe are. They are the cause, as much as the Turks, of the massacres. ”

“ It is only forty miles, and he can return to-morrow if we have news to telegraph him. Miss Talbot thinks it is all right, and her being here reassures him. He needs only to be gone one night. At the last minute he hesitated, but I pushed him out with the others.
As we said good-by, Herbert stood below me in the school grounds, and I was on the steps a few feet above, leaning over and talking to him. Just for fun, I took his fez off—a black velvet fez. My giggle and smile died away as I idly twirled that fez around my finger. Sometimes in the sunshine one sees the shadow of Islam. ”

“ The other day we made a second trip to the sea, this time in a carriage. Socrates was on the box, and Herbert was gallant enough to forego his mount and ride with me.
Halfway we stopped at a tchiflik (farm-house) to water the horses and try to buy eggs. Every farmer has half a dozen dogs—ugly fellows that give low growls. They hate you the way their Mohammedan masters hate you. After the tenant of the farm-house had driven back his dogs, he surprised us by showing unusual friendliness. ”

“ We had Socrates ask him in Turkish what the matter was. He [Pg 28] responded that he had a fever and was too ill to go on. Herbert told Socrates to set the boy on his donkey. He went several miles with us, groaning all the way. We encouraged him, and fortunately soon met some people from his village. The Turks are absolutely indifferent to human suffering, and would have let him die there like a dog. Outside of large centers of population, they have no physicians, no hospitals, no medicines—it is only through the missionaries that such things are known at all. ”

“ Modern Adana, on the other hand, is much larger than the ancient city, and Roman stone gave out long ago. You never hear of the Turks going to the trouble of stone-cutting. Where they are not able to utilize the labor of past ages, they build for the day. Consequently, Adana is a city of wood, totally unlike Tarsus. This, with the hill, and the big river right in the town, makes [Pg 41] Adana more picturesque. The background of mountains and rich plain is the same, however. Turkish wooden houses are built haphazard, with no idea of architecture, and they are never repaired. ”

“ This morning there was quite a crowd of Armenians in the school dining-room. They look to us for protection and [Pg 106] food and shelter. They are terror-stricken, and have reason to be. How would you like to live in a country where you knew your Government not only would not protect you, but would periodically incite your neighbors to rob and kill you with the help of the army?
Socrates asked to be allowed to go to the station again to see if Herbert came by the morning train. Off he trotted, leaving me to my sewing. He came back in the greatest excitement. At the station all was confusion. ”

“ Adana's murders are in the thousands. The killing of Miner brings the tragedy right into our mission family. Mary is supernaturally calm and brave. Not only does she do everything for her baby, but she is in the midst of all the relief work.
While Herbert was in Mersina, Mrs. Dodds of the Covenanter Mission urged him to take me there so as to get me away from the danger of contracting some disease. She also urged that the discomfort of our now crowded quarters at Tarsus was not good for me. We have nearly five thousand refugees on the college grounds. ”

“ There is no Consul at Mersina. No protection from my own Government. Did you ever wonder which end of your life you are living? Kevork was right a bit ago about the future looking five minutes long. My religion has suddenly become like a solid rock, and I have planted my back right against it. Religion is simple, and it works.
Tell Herbert I have not cried once, that I am not afraid. Tell him possessions mean nothing. What good can things do? There are hundreds of gold liras in the safe. ”

“ At the station, soldiers are turning back the Armenians who have managed to slip into trains at Adana and Tarsus. From a long distance one can see, when riding in the train, the warships in the harbor, flying the flags of the "protecting" Powers, whose obligation to make secure life and liberty for Armenians was solemnly entered into by the Treaty of Berlin. One does not expect much of Russia: the treaty was imposed upon her. But England, France, Germany, Austria, Italy—they all have warships at Mersina. ”

“ The few who have reached Mersina are like the messengers that came to Job. Adana is still hell. The soldiers set fire to the French Mission buildings, and are going each night after other foreign property. The American Girls' Boarding School was evacuated. The teachers and some girls who were saved arrived yesterday, and are with us. One of our American teachers has typhoid, and reached us on a stretcher.
Herbert brought me here from Tarsus to get away from the contagion that might come from the crowding of refugees in our compound. It is now worse here than it was in Tarsus. ”

“ My college education never destroyed the woman's instinct to have hands constantly occupied. Only, I sometimes forget and go ahead at my knitting mechanically. The first baby-band I made in faculty meeting was big enough to go around Herbert. So I called it a cholera belt and gave it to him. Orientals love to talk and talk and talk and talk. So do Occidentals. And in faculty meetings I have discovered that men are not a bit less garrulous than women. ”

“ In England, in Germany and in France, people do not care—because these horrible things are done so far away. They are indifferent to their own solemn treaty obligations. They are ignorant of the cruelty and wickedness of the selfish policy pursued by the men to whom they entrust their foreign affairs. ”