

Photo by Stephen Van R. Trowbridge 

 HAJI AGHA, A KINDLY NEIGHBOR AND A MOST TOYAL FRIEND TO THE AMERICAN 



HOSPITAE IN AINTAB 



In the massacre of 1895 he posted himself at the hospital entrance and prevented the 

 mob from entering. He represents the better type of Moslem, who are not responsible for 

 the Armenian massacres. 



coast cities, where they won respect and 

 envy. They have always been loyal citi- 

 zens of Turkey, but they have not be- 

 come converts to Islam, nor have they 

 voluntarily intermarried with the Turks. 

 One curious instance of their separate- 

 ness from their political masters is in 

 their use of the Turkish tongue. Al- 

 though the Armenians have lived centu- 

 ries among the Turks, and many have 

 been brought up in the Turkish rather 

 than the Armenian language, they sel- 

 dom speak Turkish without a very strong 

 accent, amounting to a mispronunciation. 

 It is one of the ways in which they have 

 preserved their national individuality. 

 There is little, if any, racial antagonism 



between Armenians and Turks. Had re- 

 ligion and politics never come to antago- 

 nize them, they could live together in 

 essential harmony. 



Armenia's goeden age 



The Armenians boast a Golden Age in 

 literature, when for a brief cycle of fifty 

 years their writers burst into poetry and 

 song, leaving a precious heritage of liter- 

 ature to their descendants. This period 

 was ushered in by Saint Mesrob, himself 

 a scholar in Greek, Syrian, and Persian, 

 who took the limited Armenian alphabet 

 and perfected it to express the Armenian 

 language. It had thirty-six letters, but 

 two have since been added. 



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