Cavalier County farmers press. (Langdon, N.D.) 1920-1921, 1920-09-23
"America! America!!!p' the Millions Crv
In Sad Armenia, Land of Stalking Death
Melville Chatter, Home From Near
East, Tells Narrowing Story of
Human Misery There-Bee-
ties and Straw for Food.

~ AIN
"Croucning by herself in a orner
a little seven-year-old girl was crack
ing something between two stones"
says Melville Chatter in an article,
'"The Land of Stalking Death" in the
National Geographic Magazine, de-
scribing conditions in Armenia. 81
looked closer and found the child was
eating the marrow from a bone"
"Where did she get it," l asked the
interpreter who accompanied me.
"Yonder in the grave yard" he re-
piled, after questioning the girl.
This child, according to Mr.. Chatter,
was subsisting solely on a small dole
of rice furnished daily by the Near
East Relief representatives in her ma
tive city, Igdir. There was not suffi-
cient food in the town to even give
one meal a day to all of the children
and shortly after they had received
this bare pittance of food all were
searching for any bit on which they
might chew to appease their hunger.
They picked up beetles, straws, and
n a piece Of a horses hoof, says Mr..
Chatter.
Root and Grass Diet.
Conditions at Igdir are horrible al
most beyond relief. People live chief
ly on roots and grass, but occasionally
the diet is varied by the killing of a
dog or a cat. Workers sent out by
Near East Relief, the former Commit
tee for Armenian and Syrian Relief,
who are furnishing the only susten-
ance to. these people, told Mr.. Chatter
that it was impossible to remov at
once the bodies of those who had died
from starvation, and when they were
taken out for burial, an arm or a leg
Of the body had been eaten by the
famished survivors.
Mr.. Chatter tells of a visit to the
torn open and bodies eNhumed by the
famished inhabitants. 1--WE had taken
a short cut he says, toward where
u car waited and by chance we
were skirting the cemetery. Our guide
pointed thither and said:
> w q PHEASANT SlSlll. Lou
must understand that the Turks left
this country so bare that there were
not ven spades. Graves must be
dug With any available thing, even
with human bones. If the dead has a
relative strong enough to carry a
weight-big stones are placed on the
grave; but if not he shrugged sig
nificantly.
Il asked, hardly knowing how to
frame my question, Exactly what
exactly whom do YOU mean?'
Men Stalk Dogs.
81 mean,' he answered. the pariah
dogs by day and under cover of night
well, come and see for yourselves
81 will never forget that terrible
acre of carth-the Observation-Disclosures
mounds, and those others. the unpro-
tected graves. now revealed as empty,
scooped-out holes whose Drinks were
streWn about With remnants of torn
OIL garments, among which lay black
ened Semblances of humanity. AS we
turned away the apparition Of a great,
yellow pariah dog, paving among the
graves, drew from us Il volIey of
stones. Then as he SUNK off, a skele-
ton-llke man sprang up from behind
the wall (under cover of which he
had been stalking his prey) and, brain
Ing the beast with a club, disappeared,
CARRYING its carcass with him.
Our farewelh and thanks to- he
American Committees manager seem
ed an endless proceeding and upon
reaching our car we found it blocked
by a host Of humanity, who, having