Beyond these hills was the great Dersim—the highlands of grass and sand, with hills and mountains everywhere. For many, many miles in each direction no one lived but Dersim Kurds, some in little villages, some in roving bands. On each side of the Dersim lived the Turks. Once Armenians lived in the cities of the Turks, but now the Armenians all were gone—only Turks were left.
The inhabitants of the Dersim deserts and wastes are not the vicious type of Kurds who live in the south in the regions to which we had been deported from our homes. The Kurds in the south are nomadic tribes, harsh and cruel. The Dersim Kurds mostly are farmers, and often rebel against their Turkish overlords. They are fanatical Moslems, and have their racial hatred of all “unbelievers,” as they look upon Christians. But they do not have the lust of killing human beings common with the tribes of the south. To this I owe my life.
For more than a year I was a captive or a wanderer in the Dersim. For many days after I left my friends at the news of Old Vartabed’s fate I hid in the daytime and traveled at night, walking, walking, always walking; somewhere, and yet nowhere. When a settlement loomed up before me I turned the other way, trudging aimlessly across the wide plains, through the hills or over deserts.
My bread soon gave out, and water was hard to get,
