"Black Arrow" departed New York for Constantinople and other ports on 25 September, returning via Smyrna 28 December, in the process becoming the first ship to return to the United States from Constantinople since the outbreak of World War I. The ship returned with 103 passengers including American relief workers who had been stationed in Anatolia, some of whom were willing to speak of their experiences in the region, in particular, the plight of Armenians still living there who had survived the recent genocide. One of the relief workers, a chaplain in the U.S. Army Reserve, described how the relief commission had set up a marriage bureau in Broussa to assist Armenian girls, rescued from harems since the wars end, to find husbands willing to take them; according to the chaplain, the bureau was proving quite successful. Another of "Black Arrow"s passengers was an Armenian woman of letters who, after surviving many horrors, had been spared the harem experience by a compassionate Ottoman official who found her a position as a servant in his household. "Black Arrow"s cargoes on this voyage included a gift of a bronze book "from the people of Bulgaria" to Mrs. Andrew Carnegie in appreciation of her late husbands philanthropy.