Great Falls daily tribune., 1919-12-07

Erivan, Capital Armenian Republic
Oct. 2O.-(By a staff correspondent OF
the Associated Press. THE attack on
and detention overnight of the Harbord
mission to Aremnia by bands of kurds,
Tartars and Turks is illustrative of the
lawless conditions existing throughout
the Black sea countries.
While fraught with extreme danger.
the members Of the party were neither
robbed, stripped of their clothes and
turned adrift to make the best Of their
way to some friendly city, nor even
killed, as happens to other caravans,
because Of the magic name of America.
1t was the mind Of Shamil Beg, chief
tan of the nomad band entrenched
against the Armenians at the village of
kulp, which saved the lesser members Of
the mission from the customary fate Of
captured caravans.
Cross Turkish Frontier
Shamil Beg came to the knowledge of
the mission members after this fashion.
For three weeks they had been travelling
from Constantinople, intent on really
seeing the lands Of Asia Minor as these
lands have probably not vet been seen
by outsiders. They had come up from
dusty Aleppo by train across the north
strip of the shimmering Mesopotamlan
desert, until reaching Mardin. the mag
nificent stone city set upon mountain
There the.sev automobiles of the party
had been taken off the flat cars of the
Ragdad railway and after countless ad-
ventures with impossible roads. bridg-
ing the unbridged Fuphrates and the
Tgris, climbing and descending the Tau
rus range of mountains, which gradually
climb thrice their height to the plateaus
Of Ararat, the party crossed the Turkish
frontier into Russian Asia Minor, or Ar
menia as is now called parts Of the
country.
A few miles ont Of Kagizman, in the
almost dry bed of the Araxes, General
Harhord's car was stopped by a humble
patriarch offering melons carried by his
son, and the latter's strangely beautiful
little girl, dressed in bundle of rags
Then the missions forward machines
met wild old man on horseback. who
talked volubly, possibly to disguise his
spy character.
Shots Are Heard.
Following the lonely valley. while
Billy Poland of the commission for
Belgian relief dscoursed on it's mineral
richness, next the mission rolled around
a gigantic bend of the road to behold
the river bottom covered with cattle and
tents of some nomad tribe. Then Major
II. W. Clark of Boston declared he heard
shots from the mountain side to the
right. At the same time General Har-
bord's car was seen to stop, and the
truck in the rear began to hasten its
speed.
The Harbord car had been stopped BY
q much alarmed rifleman dropping to his
knees and starting to fire pointbank.
The rifleman's gun was showed aside BY
a grey-beard chieftan when he saw the
American flag borne by the car. Di-
rectIy the whole bottom was swarmIng
with motley throng Of tribesmen:
dressed in sheepskin turbans, ragged
white shirts overmantled by short jack
cts of dark cloth, armed with long squir-
rel rifles and curiously carved knives or
short swords. In the background stood
their women, all in group.
Lets Them Pass.
General Harbord left his machine and
walked over TO the chieftan, an old man
Of scrawny beard, who proudly give his
name as Abdi Beg. When he learned
the party was composed Of Americans
he told a story of having been driven,
together with his band, from their noun
tain homes by the Armenians, saying that
now they knew not what.to do; that WIN
ter was coming on and he feared they
would starve He had appealed in vain,
he said. to the British and the Turks
and If he thought the Americans would
come to establish peace he would sacrl-
flee the sheep of his tribe in a grand
feast Of rejoicing. He gladly offered to