THE ASSYRIANS OF ARMENIA.

Oamaru Mail, Volume XLIV, Issue 14007, 11 March 1920, Page 2

THE ASSYRIANS OF ARMENIA.

The Lady Surma, an Assyrian who looks like a portrait from the sculpr tures of ruined Nineveh or Babylon, is now visiting France and England, and is to go to America in an effort to interest the Americans in the remnant of lifer homeless people, who have taken refuge in Persia. For three or four centuries her ancestors have been spiritual and temporal rulers' of a Christian tribe ."dwelling near Van, among the mountains of Armenia. When Turkey cntere'd ' the war, the Vali of Van sent for the Lady Surma's brother, Mir Shimun, who was a patriarch, and promised him much if he would support the Sultan. After two months' discussion the Assyrians replied : "You have called a jehad—a war against all Christians. There is only one thing for us to do. We throw ■in our lot with the Entente!" They had arms of a & sort, and warfare was waged against the Turks and Kurds, but a. few months, later their ammunition 'gave out, and they were driven from their-villages up into the mountains, "where they had little food and less salt,", as Lady Surma tells it. Mir Shimun, the patriarch, taking two servants, made jiis way at night through the Turkish lines to the commander of a Russian force, to bee: for help, but in vain. Then the Turks sent him a message saying: "Your brother is in our hands in Constantinople. Surrender and save him.','

* "My brother is one man," replied the patriarch. "My people are my children. I cannot do it."

Finally the refugees,, in scattered bands, fled into Persia, where many of them died of typhus and cholera, despite help from the American Red Cross.

Then came the Russian revolution, and the, Muscovite, troops, who had kept some sort of order amid the anarchy of northern Persia, went home, leaving the tribesmen to their fate. Mir Shimun tried to parley lor peace with a Kurdish chief whose followershad harried the Assyrians, but lie was; shot down at the chief's door. Seeing no prospect of help, the refugees resolved to defend their lives- to the last, when one day an airplane Hew over their encampment. Thinking it an enemy, they fired at it, but as it circled lower and lower they saw the British colors, and when the young uilot, landed, they rushed to him and kissed his ■hands. Ho told them where the British forces were—three -week's journey away at Hamad an— and a new trek began '. The Assyrians are still in Persia, at Bakubah, but they are anxious to return to their own valleys "once more, and the Lady Surma is pleading their cause.