66 HORMUZD RASSAM, ESQ.^ ON BIBLICAL LANDS, THEIR 



and children, induce me to say a few words about what 1 

 think has been the main cause of the deplorable present 

 complications. I must point out first, that not only race 

 hatred was at the bottom of it, but that religious as well as 

 political animosity has played a great part in it. 



It has been known for the last twenty years that the 

 Armenians have been aspiring to lofty ideas of independence, 

 and it was no secret that agitators for that end in England 

 and elsewhere have been trying to obtain through what 

 they thought European influence, an autonomy for their 

 co-religionists in that part of Asiatic Turkey, which meant 

 that they would govern the Moslem Coords and Turcomans 

 as well as Christians of other nationalities who inhabit that 

 country. As a matter of course, the Coords, who have always 

 looked upon the Armenians, for hundreds of years, as their 

 inferiors and serfs, harboured an intense hatred for them, 

 and this bitter feeling, coupled with jealousy on account of 

 their thrift and prosperity, required only a spark to create a 

 blaze. It is also necessary to point out that the Armenians 

 have been favoured with high positions and honours by the 

 Porte above all other Christian subjects of the Sultan, 

 because they were thought to be more subservient and 

 docile ; and this favouritism, in my opinion, was the main 

 cause of the animosity which has been growing in the hearts 

 of the Moslems against them. 



There is no doubt that the beginning of the strife by the 

 Sassoon Curdish tribe was engendered by the feeling that 

 the Armenian population were rife to rebel, and the Turks, 

 Avho are not overwise in quelling a disturbance or rioting, 

 caused indiscriminate attack to be made upon the guilty as 

 Avell as on the poor innocent peasantry, by their very 

 hereditary enemies who had been enrolled some time before 

 in the ranks of the Ottoman soldiery. Had the British 

 Government in my opinion taken proper steps soon after 

 this butchery took place, by remonstrating with the Porte 

 about the evil deeds of its employes, and deputed a proper 

 agent to inquire into the cause of the massacre, and secured 

 proper protection to the poor sufterers, as they did on a 

 former and like ocoasion, I feel sure the dreadful and Avhole- 

 sale carnage would not have taken place. But the great 

 mistake was made at that time when England intervened 

 and sent a commission, in conjunction with agents of 

 other Powers, to inquire into the grave matter; suspicion 

 aroBe at once in the minds of all Mohammedans that 



