Photo by Frederick Moore 



SWEARING TO A BARGAIN 



Being unable to write, men wlio buy and sell ponies or other animals arc sworn to a bargain 

 (over which they shake hands) by a third man 



jmshed oft the cars and lay wliere they 

 fell, or rolled down the steep railway em- 

 bankment some 20 feet or more to the 

 level ground. For a fortnight or several 

 weeks practically no attention was paid 

 to the victims put into this camp. 



On my first visit to the place, in the 

 company of Mr. Hofman Philip, first 

 secretary of the American Embassy, and 

 Major Clyde S. Ford, of the United 

 States Army, there were probably eight 

 Red Crescent men standing idle among 

 the dead and dying, who lay huddled to- 

 gether in groups on the open ground, en- 

 deavoring to get, by close contact, what 

 shelter they could from the winter winds. 



We saw one man praying, whose over- 

 coat blew over his head, he was too 

 feeble to replace it, and yet the men who 

 wore the Red Crescent did not trouble to 

 help him. They did not trouble to place 

 a stone under the heads of many who 

 might have been more comfortable for 

 even so hard a pillow. 



Tlie victims lay. that first day of our 

 visit, on the hard, cold ground for the 

 most part, unsheltered even from the 

 wind. There were not more than a dozen 

 tents and they were crowded with 

 cor]:)ses and men who would soon be 

 corpses. In one tent Major Ford coimted 

 twenty-two. The Red Crescent men 

 shrugged their shoulders as we ap- 

 proached, as much as to say, "What can 

 any one do?" 



Occasionally a water cart would pass» 

 a barrel on wheels drawn by a pony or 

 donkey, and the driver would call out 

 "su !" Those who were able to rise and 

 respond to this cry of water got a little. 

 They fought and fuml)led for it, men 

 sometimes falling in the melee. Those 

 who wanted bread and could res])ond 

 when the call came of "ekmek" went like- 

 wise to the cart and got it for themselves. 



I saw one man at a deep well trying, 

 evidently, to wet the end of a long sasli 

 which he had unwound from his waist in 



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