the campaign against the Russians. For this Haidar Pasha asked one thousand liras cash—about $5,000—and another thousand liras when mother and the others had safely reached their homes and had received permission from their home authorities to remain. This permission the Pasha promised to arrange also.
My uncle had to comply. The four girls had no homes or relatives in the north, but they had to go, too, or be deported and seized by Turks. Mother agreed to take them to her home in Tchemesh-Gedzak—if they should really reach there alive.
At Moush an army corps was assembling. The Turks had retired before the first advance of the Russians through the Caucasus, and Dejevdet Bey, Vali of Van, was rallying his armies here for a dash at the Russian flanks, which already had reached Van. Soldiers occupied all the houses in Moush, from which the Armenians had been ejected, and the hamidieh officers believed it would be best for us to be quartered outside the city while arrangements were made for the rest of our journey. Mother depended upon the papers given her by Haidar Pasha to secure for us an escort from Moush to Tchemesh-Gedzak—and Ibrahim Agha had said Haidar would telegraph the authorities at Moush to guarantee our safety.
We stopped at Kurdmeidan, a village a few miles outside of Moush, at the foot of Mount Antok. There
