SOMETHING LIKE A PATRIOT.

Dunstan Times, Issue 1260, 23 April 1886, Page 3

SOMETHING LIKE A PATRIOT.

The following letter appears in th H Armenia : — l< I, the undersigned, ot the village of A , of Vain, am a working porter in this country. My grandfather was a Melik (chieftain), ray father a landlord. Armenians, Turks, Nestorians, Kurds, and Yezidis have all broken bread in our house. During the Eusso-Turkish war Turkish soldiers and Kurds made a wreck of our house and premises. They requisitioned our carts and oxen and drove us towards Bajazid. On the road they cut my father’s throat like that of a sheep. This fact is known to all men, I escaped miraculously from the hands of those murderous assassins, making, however, a holocaust of a few of them to my father’s soul. During five years I exercised the call* ing of a hamel at Constantinople. With much abstinence, hunger, and thirst 1 saved L 26. As I was returning home to comfort my poor and helpless family, a baud . of Ei’zeroum Turks robbed us at Palan Teuken. 1 entered our desolate house with sighs of despair; my wife and* children met with tears. I could scarcely remain a mouth, the soldiers and zaptiehs, the Kurds and my creditors besieged me on every side. Once more 1 set ray face towards foreign lauds. Two years have now passed. With untold exertion I have saved Ll3 from my food and other indispensable expenses. Of this sum I herewith send L2 as an offering to the proprietor of tho ‘ Armenia,’ that he may purchase piper and publish the griefs of our country, and L2toMrG. Hagopian, of London, who is working for the freedom of Ars menia. — Your humble servant, MeuKiAifiz Moushegh. Cyprus, December 29, 1885, P.S.—These words were spoken to me i y the hamel, Melikiautz Moushegh, and I took them down one by one- (the signature of the schoolmaster born at Zeitouu, in the Taurus Mountains)