Shepard 
 
 
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 • HARPOOT 
 
 38^ 
 
 ■40' 
 
V 
 
 F 
 
 THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 \ 
 
 GIFT OF 
 
 FUNDA9AO 
 CALOUSTE GULBENKIAN 
 
DR. FRED DOUGLAS SHEPARD 
 
 " SHEPARD OF AINTAB " 
 
SHEPARD OF AINTAB 
 
 BY 
 
 ALICE SHEPARD RIGGS 
 
 INTERCHURCH PRESS 
 NEW YORK 
 
COPTRIOHT, 1920, BY 
 
 INTBRCHUKCH WORLD MOVEMENT 
 OP NORTH AMERICA 
 
 ^n^lo 
 

 i 
 
 LORRIN ANDREWS SHEPARD 
 
 WHO HAS TAKEN UP THE 
 NOBLE TASK WHERE HIS 
 FATHER LAID IT DOWN 
 
 <c«coo 
 

 CONTENTS 
 
 
 PAOB 
 
 Preface 
 
 » • • 
 
 • 
 
 1 
 
 Prelude 
 
 • • 
 
 IX 
 
 CHAPTBR 
 
 
 
 
 I. 
 
 Boyhood and Youth 
 
 » • • 
 
 1 
 
 II. 
 
 The Spring of Healing . 
 
 t • • 
 
 21 
 
 III. 
 
 Miracles of the Surgeoi 
 
 si's Knife 
 
 43 
 
 IV. 
 
 The Hospital . 
 
 » • • 
 
 63 
 
 V. 
 
 Horses and Bandits 
 
 > • • 
 
 81 
 
 VI. 
 
 Facing the Mob 
 
 » • • 
 
 105 
 
 VII. 
 
 Summer Outings and 
 
 Hunting 
 
 
 
 Trips 
 
 » • • 
 
 127 
 
 VIII. 
 
 A Friend to All 
 
 I • • 
 
 149 
 
 IX. 
 
 All Things to All Men . 
 
 » • • 
 
 165 
 
 X. 
 
 Tragedies of the War . 
 
 » • • 
 
 183 
 
 Postlude 
 
 9 • • 
 
 199 
 
ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 Fred Douglas Shepard, M.D. . . Frontispiece 
 
 FACING 
 
 The Examination 36 
 
 Writing the Prescription .... 36 
 
 The Black Walls of Diarbekir ... 52 
 
 A Glimpse of Aintab, Central Turkey 
 
 College 52 
 
 Dr. Caroline Hamilton and an Armful of 
 
 Patients 68 
 
 Dr. Shepard at the Home-Made Operating- 
 Table 68 
 
 Dr. Shepard and a Favorite Horse . . 84 
 
 A Horse Is Useful in Fording a River . . 84 
 
 Waiting for Soup at the Hospital Soup- 
 
 KlTCHEN 116 
 
 Dr. Shepard Climbing a Mountain of Asi- 
 atic Turkey 132 
 
 Kurdish Patients 156 
 
 A. Kurdish Home 156 
 
PREFACE 
 
 There is nothing which so stirs the blood and 
 inspires one with the desire to live a life that 
 shall count for something as reading the life of 
 a man who so lived. The new glimpses of my 
 father's life, coming to me from one and another 
 of those whose lives he touched, have brought new 
 inspiration as I have woven them, together with 
 my own memories, into the story told in this 
 volume. 
 
 It would be impossible in a short preface to 
 acknowledge my indebtness to all who have helped 
 in the preparation of this book. Much of the 
 material has been taken from the briefer sketch 
 bearing the same title, issued by the American 
 Board, and written by Mr. Fred B. Goodsell, one 
 of Dr. Shepard's younger associates. Other asso- 
 ciates who have furnished many facts and inci- 
 dents are Dr. Caroline F. Hamilton, Mrs. Isabel 
 Trowbridge Merrill, Miss Isabel Blake, and Mrs. 
 Alice Bewer Daghlian. The stories told in the 
 words of an Armenian friend were furnished 
 
 • 
 IX 
 
X PREFACE 
 
 by Mr. Arslanian, a graduate of Central Turkey 
 College. 
 
 The tales told of the real boy and the heroic 
 struggle of the young man for an education have 
 been made possible by the early memories of Dr. 
 Shepard's younger sister, Mrs. Alice Shepard 
 Fuller, supplemented by the later memories of 
 my mother. Indeed, my mother has not only fur- 
 nished many facts which could have been secured 
 in no other way, but has patiently listened to a 
 reading of the whole manuscript, correcting and 
 enriching it throughout. 
 
 The out-of-door stories of hunting and camp- 
 ing have been furnished by my brother, Dr. Lorrin 
 Shepard, who was his father's companion in these 
 recreations and who listened to the inimitable 
 yams told by him of his own boyhood days. 
 
 Much of the material of the book has been taken 
 from the doctor's own words in letters, hospital 
 reports, and other accounts of his work. The 
 ^^Postlude" is quoted from the Missionary 
 Herald, 
 
 But the truest and most lasting record of the 
 life of ^^ Shepard of Aintab" is written in the 
 hearts of the people of Asia Minor, with whom 
 the name ^^Shippet," as they pronounced it, is 
 
PREFACE xi 
 
 revered alike by all races and creeds. To those 
 ■vfho knew him, any attempt to picture a life so 
 vividly alive must seem futile ; but if this simple 
 story of a consecrated life shall inspire others 
 to undertake similar great tasks abroad for the 
 King, the purpose of the book will have been 
 attained. 
 
 Alice Shepaed Biggs. 
 
 Newton Centbe, Mass. 
 March 23, 1920. 
 
PRELUDE 
 
 IT was to be the biggest affair of the kind that 
 the city of Aintab had ever seen, and the city 
 of Aintab was given to affairs of the kind. 
 Protestants, Gregorians, Catholics, and Moslems 
 for once had all joined forces to make the affair 
 a success. Twenty-five years before, on October 
 10, 1882, Dr. Shepard had ridden into Aintab with 
 his bride. There was to be a big celebration in 
 the church, with a private dinner afterward in 
 the fine new dispensary building. Rngs, pictures, 
 and flowers, brought from the missionaries' 
 homes, decorated the halls and rooms, which had 
 been thrown open to make one huge salon. The 
 missionaries, the college faculty and their wives, 
 the pastors, and several doctors were the invited 
 guests. There would be after-dinner speeches, 
 and the toastmaster had a surprise up his sleeve, 
 for he intended to propose raising a fund for the 
 new wing of the main hospital building, and to 
 start a subscription then and there. The people 
 of the city were busy raising an anniversary 
 
 • • • 
 XIU 
 
xiv PRELUDE 
 
 fund to go toward an endowed bed in the hospital, 
 and the Moslems were trying to get a decoration 
 from the Sultan to be presented to the man for 
 whom these various honors were planned. 
 
 Finally, the preparations were completed and 
 the city fairly caught its breath, waiting for the 
 glorious morrow. But that evening came a tele- 
 gram for Dr. Shepard, calling him to a Moslem 
 patient in Aleppo. **That man's life is worth 
 more than all this celebration," said the doctor, 
 as he mounted his good horse and was off. The 
 celebration waited. 
 
 One week later, on October 17, 1907, the doors 
 of the largest Protestant church in the city were 
 thrown open. Crowds of all races and creeds, 
 who had been waiting outside for hours, surged 
 in, packing themselves like sardines on the car- 
 peted floor, — the men on one side of the railing 
 down the center of the church, the women on the 
 other. Those on one side of the gallery at the 
 back looked down on a sea of red fezes; those 
 on the other, on a sea of black silk charchafs or 
 street veils. Up and down the center of the 
 sea of red fezes walked the ushers, keeping open 
 an aisle for the dignitaries who should arrive 
 later and occupy the upholstered seats in front. 
 
PRELUDE XV 
 
 And now they began to come in, — Protestant, 
 Catholic, Gregorian, Jew, and Moslem. Many of 
 the last-named had never before crossed the 
 threshold of a church. There were wealthy mer- 
 chants, in their broadcloth coats or richly em- 
 broidered jackets ; there were young professional 
 men, in their tailored suits of European cut ; there 
 was the Turkish Hodja, with his huge white tur- 
 ban and green girdle ; the Dervish Sheikh, in his 
 tall camePs-hair cap and brown camePs-hair robe, 
 and the Gregorian bishop, in his purple cassock 
 and black silk go^vn ; there were the city beys and 
 effendis, some gorgeously arrayed in old-time 
 Turkish style, some in natty European suits ; and 
 there were two seats filled with military officers, 
 looking very Frenchy with their high, military 
 collars and their curled mustaches ; finally, sitting 
 complacently in the center, his three hundred 
 pounds surrounded by a broad red girdle, was 
 old Hadji Husein Agha, who had saved the hos- 
 pital from the mob, on that memorable day of 
 massacre. 
 
 The ushers' task had not been an easy one, 
 for each official was on the keen lookout for his 
 dignity, and would be mortally offended should 
 a man of lesser rank or wealth be shown to a 
 
xvi PRELUDE 
 
 chair with more upholstery or placed in a better 
 position for observing the ceremonies. 
 
 Seated on the platform were those who were 
 to take part in the program ; the pastor, the senior 
 college professor, the most prominent city physi- 
 cian, the Armenian bishop, the Catholic merchant, 
 and the assistant physician at the hospital. The 
 doctor, wearing a black suit and stiff shirt (the 
 latter he would tolerate only on state occasions), 
 sat beside his wife in the audience well toward 
 the front. 
 
 As the men on the platform looked out over 
 that proud audience, and then at the Big Little 
 Doctor, sitting so modestly in their midst, their 
 minds traveled back over the twenty-five years 
 he had lived among them. The city physician 
 thought of those first years, when there were no 
 educated native doctors in the land, and when 
 Dr. Shepard had made that brave effort which 
 gave him and his fellow-students their medical 
 training; of the fight against death that he and 
 his chief had made, shoulder to shoulder, in epi- 
 demics of cholera or typhoid ; of the doctor *s dar- 
 ing horseback trips over perilous roads, to 
 save life in some distant city; of his gentle pa- 
 tience with the village folk who pressed upon 
 
PRELUDE xvii 
 
 him at every stopping-place, not giving him time 
 to eat; of those glorious days in camp, and the 
 nights when they sat about the camp-fire, while 
 the doctor talked with the village hunters about 
 the Great Friend who had lived among the fisher- 
 folk of Galilee. 
 
 The younger physician, who had stood yester- 
 day beside him at the operating table, thought 
 of those many miracles of the surgeon ^s knife 
 that had broken down the walls of prejudice and 
 opened the doors for the doctor in remote and 
 obscure villages; of the hospital where, because 
 of the doctor's touch of love, all hatreds between 
 patients of every creed died away; and of the 
 stream of healing for body and soul that went 
 forth to thousands of afflicted ones from those 
 hospital doors. 
 
 To the memory of the college professor came 
 that day when the doctor sent him a hurry call 
 in the laboratory to generate oxygen which saved 
 the life of a dying student. 
 
 The Catholic merchant saw, in his mind, the 
 bed on which he had lain dying of the disease 
 brought on him by his own drunkenness ; and the 
 little shrine where his devout mother kept an 
 oil dip constantly burning before the Virgin, in 
 
xviii PRELUDE 
 
 token of gratitude for the operation which had 
 saved him for a better life. 
 
 In the pastor's mind rose the picture of the 
 village churches and schools, built by the doc- 
 tor 's brotherly help ; and the scene of the preacher 
 rescued from a wild mob by a rough Turk who 
 had been cured by the doctor's skill. 
 
 The Armenian bishop heard again the piteous 
 cry of the women and children dying of starva- 
 tion, and saw those same ragged women and chil- 
 dren clothed, fed, and housed by the devoted 
 efforts of the doctor and his wife. 
 
 The little cabinet organ swelled its tone in the 
 opening march. There was scripture reading and 
 prayer, and then these men stood up, in turn, to 
 tell what the doctor's work, during twenty-five 
 years, had meant to them and to their country. 
 When the bishop spoke, he stepped to the doctor 
 and presented a silver pitcher from the com- 
 munity, promising a golden one if the doctor 
 would let them celebrate his jubilee, twenty-five 
 years from that time. 
 
 As the martial strains of the Hamidieh March 
 died away, and the doctor stepped to the plat- 
 form for his reply, a thunder of applause greeted 
 him from that mixed throng. Looking out over 
 
PRELUDE xix 
 
 the audience, unlike any ever before gathered 
 in a Christian church, the Big Little Doctor seized 
 the opportunity to speak a few earnest words for 
 his Master, and said : 
 
 ^*If one who did not know me had listened to 
 what has been said about me during the last two 
 hours, he would think that Dr. Shepard must be 
 some great man; but you and I know that it is 
 not so. A farmer's son, I grew up as an orphan. 
 I finished school with great difficulty; I have not 
 marked intellectual ability. Yet this great gath- 
 ering, on a busy week-day afternoon, must have 
 a reason. I know that this reason is not I, myself. 
 It is one greater than I am — God and His love. 
 For one who knows how God loves men, and how 
 Jesus has saved us, not to tell others about that 
 love is impossible. Because I have understood a 
 little of that love, I try to let others know about 
 it. This is the purpose of my life. I did not 
 come to this country to make money or to win 
 a reputation. I came to bear witness to this, that 
 God is Love. And if, by my work or life, I have 
 been able to show this to you, I have had my 
 reward, and for it I thank God. The reason why 
 the world has not yet been set free from its ills 
 and diseases is not that the necessary medicines 
 
XX PRELUDE 
 
 have not yet been found; it is that men do not 
 love each other, and that the rich are not willing 
 to use their money for the needs of the poor. I 
 beg and counsel you to know that God is Love, 
 and to love each other, in deed and in truth. *^ 
 
BOYHOOD AND YOUTH 
 
 HE was obviously the kind of a boy who needs 
 at least three guardian angels. The instinct 
 of fear seemed to have been left out of his make- 
 up. Perhaps this was because, from the very 
 first, he was so much a child of nature. One of 
 his earliest memories was of waking in the night, 
 during a terrific thunder-storm that shook the 
 little house in Ellenburg like an earthquake, and 
 after lying quiet a while, listening to the rumble 
 and crash, lisping to his grandmother, *^Nice 
 f under ; like it. ' ' 
 
 What a treat it was to adventuresome little 
 Fred when one day his father took him to see 
 the busy lumber mill where he made his living, 
 — the great, humming mill, with its big belts and 
 buzz-saws in full motion, its huge water-wheels 
 and piles of sawdust. In the floor was a great 
 hole through which the sawdust and ^^ edgings" 
 were dropped between the water-Avheels to the 
 river below. Fascinated in watching a buzz-saw, 
 
 1 
 
2 SHEPARD OF AINTAB 
 
 Fred took a step or two backward and suddenly 
 disappeared through this hole. 
 
 *'Shut off the power!" shouted the horrified 
 father, at the same moment starting on the run 
 for the river below. 
 
 **Fred!" he called, sick with dread at the sight 
 that might meet him, the little body mangled 
 between the whirling wheels. ' ' Oh, Fred ! ' ^ 
 
 Back came a cheerful shout from down-stream 
 where, on a sunny rock, sat the small boy, wet 
 but unperturbed. 
 
 Fred's daring spirit and love of the wild were 
 all the more remarkable because he was not physi- 
 cally robust; and often, after eating some of his 
 aunt's best buckwheat cakes, he would regretfully 
 renounce all meals for many hours. But the 
 dauntless courage of his spirit, and his readiness 
 to attempt any task, developed wonderful strength 
 and agility. When he was but ten years old, and 
 living with an uncle on the banks of the Chateau- 
 guay Kiver, he had a pet brood of ten ducklings, 
 hatched by an old white hen. Every day one of 
 his ducklings disappeared from the pool in the 
 river, where they went to swim. Fred decided 
 to find out what became of those ducklings, and 
 set himself on the bank to watch. 
 
BOYHOOD AND YOUTH 3 
 
 Presently, splash! A duckling disappeared. 
 
 *^ There's a big pickerel there, 111 bet, and I'll 
 get him, too, ' ' thought Fred. 
 
 Off he went for pole and line, and then he 
 baited the hook with a fine little green frog. 
 Hardly had the wriggling form plunged into the 
 duck-pool, when there came a terrific pull, and 
 Fred found himself over his depth in the river. 
 
 ^* Uncle Douglas!'' he yelled. ^'Oh, Uncle 
 Douglas!" and his uncle came running to the 
 rescue, in time to haul in the boy and also a fif- 
 teen-pound pickerel. 
 
 ^^Well," he drawled, as he weighed the big fish, 
 **I guess you're a chip of the old block!" 
 
 A ^^chip of the old block" he was, by good 
 rights. Around the great fire in the fireplace of 
 the old farmhouse, Grandnia Shepard told Fred, 
 and the other little Shepards, tales that sent de- 
 lightful thrills up and down, their spines; tales 
 of pioneer days when, following the blazed trail 
 from New Hampshire, they came to Clinton 
 County. Here they found the forest so full of 
 Indians that the men kept their guns cocked 
 ready at their side, while they chopped down 
 trees for the log cabins; while she herself, 
 crouching in some thicket with her baby, cooked 
 
4 SHEPARD OF AINTAB 
 
 their food by a hollow stump. Beside that same 
 fireplace Grandma Douglas, who had come over 
 from the Scotch Highlands, would recite, hour 
 after hour, the stirring verses of Marmion or 
 The Lady of the Lake, until young imaginations 
 were fired with desire to do noble deeds and brave. 
 
 From the ^^old block,'' too, the ^^chip'' derived 
 an irresistible sense of humor, a keen sense of 
 justice, a Yankee genius which could cope with 
 any emergency, and a resolute will. 
 
 The ^^old block,'' in the person of Grandfather 
 Shepard, had been a smoker all his life. 
 
 **How much do you s'pose you've spent during 
 your life for tobacco. Dad!" asked his sons one 
 day when he was more than eighty years old. 
 
 *^0h, not much, I guess," replied the old man. 
 
 '^Well, Father," they said, after putting their 
 heads together over some figuring, ^* you've spent 
 enough to buy a good big farm." 
 
 ^^Give me that paper!" he said; and after a 
 little study — ' ' Well, have I been such an old fool 
 as that! I'll never smoke another pipe!" And 
 he never did. 
 
 Much in the same way, ^^the chip," in the per- 
 son of Fred, gave up swearing in a day. 
 
 Back of his uncle's house in Madrid, a little vil- 
 
BOYHOOD AND YOUTH 6 
 
 lage of northern New York, flowed a canal witli 
 a sluice-gate feeding the grist-mill below. It was 
 great sport to dive under and swim through the 
 open gate toward the mill. One day, as Fred 
 was swimming through, one of the boys, by way 
 of a joke, released the gate which closed down, 
 catching Fred's ankle. Of course the water began 
 to rise and Fred shouted lustily for help ; but the 
 boys thought his outcries were all in fun. Then 
 in a rage he began to swear, until finally a man, 
 hearing the uproar, came and opened the gate just 
 as the water closed over Fred's head. 
 
 ^^Who was doing that terrible swearing on the 
 hill?" asked Aunt Hannah, when Fred appeared 
 a little later. He made no reply but, realizing 
 how near he had come to dying, with those words 
 on his lips, he determined that never again should 
 a profane word be spoken by him. 
 
 Active in mind as in body, when four years old, 
 Fred decided he would learn to read. By dint 
 of much teasing of his elders, he succeeded in 
 getting enough help from them at odd moments to 
 be able, before long, to read from the big family 
 Bible. Every day after that he read a chapter 
 to his grandmother. From that time, books be- 
 came his constant companions. 
 
8 SHEPARD OF AINTAB 
 
 Fred's father had meant mucli to him during 
 his early childhood, but he died when Fred was 
 entering his teens. His mother was for many 
 years a constant invalid, so Fred was thrown 
 much on his own resourcs. Living on the farm 
 at Madrid with his uncle, he went to school dur- 
 ing the winter. In the chill of early da^VTi, with 
 the thermometer below zero, Fred would get up 
 at four o'clock every morning to help with the 
 milking and other chores before he started for 
 school, with skates slung over his shoulder for 
 the hockey game at recess. All this time there 
 were being developed in the boy a keenness of 
 mind and strength of muscle which stood the man 
 in such good stead. 
 
 Vacation found him in an Adirondack camp 
 with his uncle, living in a birch-bark shack sur- 
 rounded by deep snow, hunting deer, and trap- 
 ping fox and mink. This was the life he loved 
 best, and here he was initiated into the use of 
 shot-gun and rifle. And what days those were 
 when they went out into the sugar-camp and Fred 
 helped the ^'French Canucks'' in gathering and 
 boiling down the sweet sap ! One day, when walk- 
 ing over the huge white drifts, bearing two heavy 
 pails of sap, Fred caught his snowshoe on a stump 
 
BOYHOOD AND YOUTH 7 
 
 and was thrown headfirst into a ten-foot drift, 
 while the icy sap ran down his neck. '^I had to 
 twist myself aronnd until I could get hold of one 
 leg and then climb up it to get out,'* he used to 
 say with a chuckle, when telling of the escapade. 
 
 The spirit of self-reliance which had been de- 
 veloped so early in Fred is shown in the follow- 
 ing incident, which occurred when he was twelve 
 years old. There was an ugly-tempered dog in 
 town, with whom the boy was not on speaking 
 terms. After one or two unpleasant meetings 
 with the creature, Fred decided to get rid of him. 
 He secretly procured a pistol and, putting it in 
 his pocket, sauntered toward the bridge where the 
 meetings between boy and dog had taken place. 
 It was a very natural thing, though very thought- 
 less, for the boy to keep one hand in his pocket, 
 fingering the trigger. It was also a very natural 
 thing for the trigger to snap back suddenly and 
 discharge the bullet through Fred's leg! 
 
 Now Fred had a wholesome fear of his uncle's 
 whip, with which he had come in contact once 
 or twice. So, instead of going home, he turned 
 toward the little cottage where his younger sister 
 was caring for his sick mother. 
 
 *^ Hello, Mother," he said cheerily, as he ran 
 
8 SHEPARD OF AINTAB 
 
 through her room to the kitchen, with a sign to 
 his sister to follow. 
 
 *^Say, Alice,'' he whispered, **get me some 
 warm water and two clean linen handkerchiefs, 
 and be quiet about it, will youl'' 
 
 *^But, Fred, what has happened? You're 
 dreadfully hurt!" she cried, as shp saw the blood 
 oozing through his trousers. 
 
 ^^Sh," he whispered cautiously, ^^ don't let 
 Mother hear, it will only worry her. We can fix 
 it up, all right." 
 
 '' But what will Uncle Clinton say! " 
 
 *^He doesn't need to know, if you don't * peach' 
 on me." 
 
 *'But you ought to go to the doctor and get it 
 'tended to." 
 
 ^^I guess we can 'tend to it, all right." 
 
 With her help, he washed and bandaged the 
 wound. Alice did not ^^ peach," but a boy who 
 had been with him when the accident happened 
 did '^ peach," and so — Fred went to see the 
 doctor ! 
 
 After three years at Madrid, Fred was ready 
 to enter Franklin Academy and, with his mother 
 and sisters, he moved to town. With all his en- 
 ergies he threw himself into the life of the school. 
 
BOYHOOD AND YOUTH 9 
 
 *^He was always at his books, for he was a great 
 student,'^ one of his classmates wrote. Yet he 
 was a veritable baseball fiend; he lost several of 
 his teeth by being hit in the month with a stone 
 used in playing hockey ; and, with his short, thick- 
 set figure, his long arms, and his cat-like agility, 
 he could down a much more powerful opponent 
 in boxing or wrestling. Fair play and the 
 ^* square deal'^ he always insisted on. If there 
 was the least indication of foul play, he would 
 drop out of the game at once. 
 
 The day before vacation, Fred would come 
 home and say to his sister, ** Alice, we're off for 
 ten days in the Adirondacks, Tom and I. Will 
 you put us up some grubT' Then off in the 
 early morning, with canoe, fishing tackle and gun. 
 One year a larger group of chums went together, 
 agreeing that one should be cook until some other 
 member of the party made an adverse criticism 
 on his cooking, when the ^'kicker'' should be 
 obliged to take his turn at it. Turns came and 
 went in quick succession until Fred, in an un- 
 guarded moment, made the unlucky complaint. 
 Days passed, and flapjacks, baked potatoes, fish, 
 and hoe-cake were so satisfactory that no com- 
 plaint was heard. Finally, Fred got sick of the 
 
10 SHEPARD OF AINTAB 
 
 job of chief cook and decided be would make one 
 desperate attempt to get out of it. A bandful 
 of salt went into tbe next batcb of biscuit. The 
 biscuits looked light and flaky as they came out 
 of the mud oven, and Steve sank his teeth deep 
 into a luscious morsel; then — *^Well, if this isn't 
 the saltiest biscuit I ever — ^but it's good, it's good, 
 its good!" The compliment came too late, and 
 Steve had to pay the penalty. 
 
 Fred's first experience as an instructor came 
 when he was asked to substitute, in Malone, for 
 one of the teachers who was ill. It was at this 
 time, when his preparatory education was fin- 
 ished and he was facing the question, ^^What next 
 in life?" that he attended some revival meetings 
 which were being held in the Baptist church. 
 Young Shepard became deeply interested, and 
 finally, under the influence of the ardent young 
 preacher, he accepted Christ as his personal 
 Savior. The next morning, when the substitute 
 teacher read the Scripture lesson, the boys and 
 girls noted a new ring to his voice and caught 
 a new meaning from the lesson. As whole- 
 heartedly and unreservedly as the boy had thrown 
 himself into his studies, his escapades, and his 
 sports, so fully did the young man now consecrate 
 
BOYHOOD AND YOUTH 11 
 
 himself to the service of his new-found Master, 
 seeking the place where he might serve him best. 
 Meanwhile, to earn money for additional edu- 
 cation, he undertook teaching a district school. 
 According to the good old traditions of the district 
 school, when the new teacher was heralded, the 
 bullies of the school clubbed together to ''run him 
 out." When they saw the ''little boy" who had 
 come to "boss" them, they thought they had an 
 easy task before them. But the gloveless boxing 
 and wrestling match which followed the first show 
 of rebellion was very short and very conclusive, 
 and the bullies, who were bigger and older than 
 the new teacher, found themselves utterly routed. 
 From that day those troublesome pupils had a 
 warm admiration for him, and, while he was a 
 good pal in all their outdoor sports, there was 
 no question as to who was in control in the school- 
 room. 
 
 His genius for friendship and sympathy 
 reached beyond school hours and, night after 
 night, the young teacher, who was soon to become 
 the great doctor, found expression for his new 
 ideals of Christian service in nursing a pupil at 
 whose home he boarded, through a long and pain- 
 ful siege of inflammatory rheumatism. The husky 
 
12 SHEPARD OF AINTAB 
 
 young athlete who had punished the bully had 
 the tender heart and the skilful touch of a woman ; 
 for the natural instinct of a nurse, which so many 
 great doctors lack, had been trained and devel- 
 oped in him by his thoughtful ministrations to 
 the invalid mother at home. 
 
 But all the time young Shepard was looking 
 forward to preparing himself for a greater ser- 
 vice. Through a friend, he was able to borrow 
 enough money to enter Cornell University in the 
 fall of 1877. From his father, he had inherited 
 a taste for civil engineering, and Cornell offered 
 the best opportunities to him in that line. To 
 make the borrowed money go as far as possible, 
 Shepard, with several chums, clubbed together 
 to keep bachelors' hall, and of course the efficient 
 camp-cook had to take charge of the commissary. 
 Cereals, baked beans, apples and flapjacks, with 
 mush and molasses, were the chief articles on 
 the menu. They were finely spiced with young- 
 hunger sauce, and served up by the amateur cook 
 with garnishings of fish tales and hunting yarns. 
 
 The pennies saved for the sake of an educa- 
 tion that should lead to a great service for the 
 King, were not the only pennies earned. Every 
 opportunity that offered for making even a small 
 
BOYHOOD AND YOUTH 13 
 
 sum was eagerly seized. One summer Shepard 
 went to a farmer of his acquaintance and asked 
 him for employment. The farmer looked him 
 over critically and shook his head. **I don't want 
 a boy, sonny/' he said. ^'The only job I have 
 is a man's job." 
 
 <<Try me out for a week," replied Shepard, 
 ^*and if I don't do as much as any one of your 
 men, you needn't pay me any wages for my time." 
 
 After the week, the farmer was more than glad 
 to keep him on for the season. At a starch fac- 
 tory where he worked for a time, there was a 
 huge bag of starch to be moved across the floor, 
 but no one was able to lift it. *'Let me try," 
 said the boy who had not yet reached his full 
 growth of five feet four; and lifting the bag, he 
 carried it across the floor with ease. Many a 
 time later, as he lifted a two-hundred-pound man 
 from the operating table to the bed, did he think 
 of that bag of starch. Many a time, in planning 
 a new building for hospital or college, did he think 
 of the hours he spent, one summer, in laying 
 floors mth the village carpenter. Quite as valua- 
 ble for his future work as his regular studies 
 was the training of eye and muscle and brain 
 which he acquired in these varied activities, and 
 
14 SHEPARD OF AINTAB 
 
 not a single side issue but bore its fruit in later 
 years when meeting emergencies in an undevel- 
 oped country. 
 
 College athletics could not but make a strong 
 appeal to the ^^ baseball fiend ^' of Academy days 
 who thought little of walking seventeen miles from 
 camp to take part in a ball match. On entering 
 college, Shepard applied to the crew-master to 
 be tried out for the crew. The crew-master looked 
 down on the short, stocky fellow and said, 
 
 ** Little boy, you'll have to grow some before 
 you can get on the crew. You aren't big enough 
 to pull the stroke with the other fellows." 
 
 **But look at the length of my arms," said 
 Shepard. ''Give me a try-out and you'll see." 
 
 The try-out proved that he could pull a longer 
 stroke than any other man on the crew. 
 
 Two years at Cornell, and a more careful con- 
 sideration of how he could best serve the King 
 to whom he had dedicated himself so definitely, 
 convinced young Shepard that he should take up 
 the study of medicine, and he decided to enter 
 Michigan University. With his keen mind, his 
 painstaking habits as a student, and his devotion 
 to his purpose, the young medical student suc- 
 ceeded in finishing the three years' course at the 
 
BOYHOOD AND YOUTH 15 
 
 University in two. It was not ^^all work and no 
 play/' either; for he and some of his classmates 
 played various pranks with their electric appa- 
 ratus. One day they induced an unsuspecting 
 lower-classman to take hold of certain levers and 
 turned on just enough current to keep him danc- 
 ing about, unable to let go. On an April Fool's 
 Day, an electric wire was attached to a penny 
 placed on the sidewalk, so that each person who 
 tried to pick it up received an electric shock. 
 His unusual facility in the use of the English lan- 
 guage, and his ability as a student, won him the 
 place of editor on the monthly paper of the med- 
 ical department. As president of the Christian 
 Association of the depaitment, he had a chance 
 to get near to the fellows and influence them for 
 Christ; while, outside of the student body, he 
 took part in services for patients in the hospitals 
 and for prisoners in the jails. His genius for 
 nursing was further developed by the night nurs- 
 ing to which he was assigned in the hospitals, as 
 a means of earning money for his course. One 
 night, while on duty as night nurse in the men's 
 ward, Miss Andrews, whom he had come to ad- 
 mire as one of the most brilliant and charming 
 of the young women students, the daughter of a 
 
16 SHEPARD OF AINTAB 
 
 pioneer missionary in the Hawaiian Islands, came 
 gliding throngh the corridor, with the soft light 
 gleaming on her heavy coils of golden hair. ' ' Oh, 
 Dr. Shepard,'' she whispered, *^I don't know what 
 to do with a woman in Ward Two. She is suf- 
 fering so terribly and I have no orders to give 
 her any morphine." 
 
 **I'll be there in a moment," was the reply and, 
 entering the ward, he took the responsibility of 
 administering morphine. This was but the first 
 of many responsibilities which the blue-eyed girl 
 and the young doctor shared through the future 
 years ; for when she graduated, a year later than 
 he, she promised to go with him across the seas, 
 to bring life and light to those who sat in dark- 
 ness. 
 
 Final examinations found Shepard with a high 
 fever from an attack of tonsilitis, but small ob- 
 stacles in the way of his aims had never daunted 
 him, and he went to the classroom as if nothing 
 were the matter. As fever always had the effect 
 of exciting his brain to double activity, the ex- 
 aminations were passed with unusual brilliancy; 
 and, on the day of graduation, Dr. Shepard stood 
 second in his class of more than a hundred, in 
 spite of having completed the three years ' course 
 
BOYHOOD AND YOUTH 17 
 
 in two. This, or any other, honor was never 
 alluded to by him, for modesty was one of the 
 foundation stones of his character. 
 
 The year after graduation Dr. Shepard spent 
 in New York City. Working with the famous 
 Dr. Knapp, he acquired great skill in eye opera- 
 tions, after practising on dozens of pigs' eyes 
 before he undertook the delicate work on the 
 human eye. Then, as clinical assistant in the 
 New York Ophthalmic and Aural Institute, he 
 gained much valuable experience. As he knew 
 that the missionary doctor must be *'all things 
 to all men," he added to his equipment by a short 
 course in practical dentistry. With his natural 
 bent for mechanics, he took to this new line of 
 work ^'like a duck to water.'' How successful 
 he was in it, is plain from a letter written by him. 
 
 **Last week," he wrote, '^I made an artificial 
 soft palate for a child with congenital cleft of 
 palate, who in consequence had not learned to talk, 
 and the appliance worked beautifully, enabling 
 her to drink naturally and to articulate well. ' ' 
 
 Many were the missionary associates, as well 
 as the natives, who in years to come blessed the 
 doctor for his foresight in taking this extra train- 
 ing. 
 
18 SHEPARD OF AINTAB 
 
 In the metropolis, too, his passion for winning 
 men to Christ had a chance to express itself in a 
 larger way. Sunday afternoons found him visit- 
 ing the institutions on BlackwelPs Island, bring- 
 ing a word of cheer here, or a hearty laugh 
 there, and always a sense of the presence of the 
 Great Physician. Many an evening found him 
 in Dr. Schaufler's mission, bringing new hope 
 into the lives of men who were ^'down and out." 
 
 In speaking of this year in New York, he said, 
 *^I feel that this year has been one of soul-prepa- 
 ration to me as well as mind-fitting for the work 
 of the Master. My joy in being permitted a part 
 in the glorious battle of winning the world for 
 Christ rises as the time draws near for taking 
 my place in the ranks. I realize my weakness 
 and insufficiency more keenly than ever, but my 
 faith in *Him who worketh all things after the 
 counsel of His will ; to the end that we should be 
 unto the praise of His glory,' has been greatly 
 strengthened and I am longing to begin my life 
 work. ' ' 
 
 On July 5, 1882, the Hawaiian missionary's 
 daughter, Miss Andrews, and Dr. Shepard en- 
 tered into the life partnership which was to bring 
 new courage and hope to so many sick and needy 
 
BOYHOOD AND YOUTH 19 
 
 persons in a distant land. Equipped with the 
 best training he could secure, powerful in phy- 
 sique, alert in mind, buoyant in spirit, imbued 
 with the love of the Master, with face turned 
 hopefully and eagerly toward the East, the young 
 recruit waited the summons to the front. 
 
II 
 
 THE SPRING OF HEALING 
 
 JUST where the coast of Asia Minor makes a 
 sharp turn southward, toward Syria and 
 Palestine, lies the beautiful gulf of Alexandretta ; 
 back of it stretches the Plain of Issus ; while tow- 
 ering above all are the rugged mountains of the 
 Amanus, with its famous pass known as the Syr- 
 ian Gates, through which Alexander marched his 
 conquering army. The morning sun had just 
 softened the bald peaks above the timber-line with 
 its golden touch, as over the blue waves of the 
 gulf glided a little Mediterranean steamer, trail- 
 ing its cloud of smoke through the sky. The pas- 
 sengers were already on deck, eagerly taking in 
 the glory of the sunrise on mountain and sea. 
 With what eagerness did the young doctor and 
 his wife look across the gnilf to the little town 
 of Alexandretta, from which they would make 
 the journey of one hundred miles overland to the 
 
 21 
 
22 SHEPARD OF AINTAB 
 
 city of Aintab, where they were to begin their 
 work for the King. 
 
 Some ten weeks before, on August 5, 1882, a 
 month after their marriage, they had waved 
 good-by to friends on the pier in New York as the 
 City of Rome slowly moved out toward the wide 
 ocean. On board was a jolly, enthusiastic group 
 of young missionaries, and the long voyage was 
 enlivened by games on deck and chess tourna- 
 ments in the saloon. 
 
 A week in London, a record-breaking storm in 
 the English Channel, when, for nine hours, the 
 boat *' stood on end,'' and when even the crew 
 showed symptoms of sympathy with the land- 
 lubbers; then a glorious week of sightseeing in 
 Paris, Cologne, Mainz, and Vienna; and finally, 
 by train and boat, to Constantinople. 
 
 The young recruits arrived in the city just as 
 the fiftieth anniversary of the arrival of the vet- 
 eran missionary. Dr. Elias Riggs, was being cele- 
 brated, and a large group of missionaries had 
 gathered from far and near. 
 
 **The new doctor for Aintab can do dental 
 work,'' was the word that went around the mis- 
 sionary circle; and for the next two weeks, while 
 waiting for his Turkish diploma permitting him 
 
THE SPRING OF HEALING 23 
 
 to practise in the empire, Dr. Shepard was kept 
 busy with dentistry for the missionaries. 
 
 The examinations for the diploma had to be 
 taken in Turkish, through an interpreter. 
 
 *^The KJianum [lady] would like to take the 
 examinations and receive a diploma, too,*^ said 
 Dr. Shepard to the Turkish official in charge. 
 ^^She finished the same course I did in the same 
 university in America.'' 
 
 *' Grant a permit to a woman!" exclaimed the 
 Turk in amazement. ^^Such a thing was never 
 heard of! It is against the law of our country. 
 Olmas, Olmaz/' [Impossible.] *'But why do you 
 go on to Aintab! We need doctors badly in Con- 
 stantinople and, ' ' he added naively, * ' the Khanum 
 could get much money, attending the women in 
 the harems.'' 
 
 One of the missionaries attending the confer- 
 ence in Constantinople was Dr. Trowbridge, pres- 
 ident of Central Turkey College at Aintab, 
 through whom the invitation had come to Dr. 
 Shepard to take the professorship in the newly- 
 opened medical department of the college. With 
 his family he was now returning to Aintab, bring- 
 ing the long-coveted recruits with him. 
 
 *^I have an important piece of news for you," 
 
24 SHEPARD OF AINTAB 
 
 he aimoiiiiced with a long face, the day before they 
 sighted Alexandretta. ^'I have to inform you 
 that there is an army of twenty-five thousand 
 fleas on the march to meet you at the village of 
 Beilan, in the mountain pass. I warn you to be 
 prepared.'' 
 
 ^'Oh, they are old Hawaiian friends of mine,'' 
 answered Mrs. Shepard; but the doctor, believing 
 in preparedness, made up a solution of quassia 
 with which to fight the foe. 
 
 What a contrast to the glory of the country 
 seen at a distance, through the misty morning 
 glow, was the little town in which the party 
 landed. The dusty, ill-smelling streets were full 
 of yelping dogs and ragged children, and buzzing 
 with flies and mosquitoes which carried the germs 
 of malaria and sore eyes. What a relief when, 
 with a backsheesh [tip] here, and a prescription 
 for the customs officials there, all the baggage was 
 landed. Meanwhile, a long caravan of horses and 
 mules came jangling through the streets to meet 
 them, each animal clanging the heavy bell hung 
 about his neck by a necklace of beads, blue in 
 color, to keep off the **evil eye." 
 
 With much yelling and parleying and grunting, 
 the muleteers, in white, baggy trousers, striped 
 
THE SPRING OF HEALING 25 
 
 gowns, and red fezes, finally tied the load onto 
 the pack-saddles. The children were seated in 
 canopied boxes, slung on either side of a mule; 
 the other passengers mounted their saddles and 
 the party was off, headed for the mountain range 
 above, with its little village of Beilan, with little 
 houses, one above another, at the pass. 
 
 ^^Masliallali, [Praise be to God] the Khanum 
 can ride, ' ' said one of the drivers, the next instant 
 turning to a stumbling mule to shout ^^Son of a 
 pig!^' mth a cut of the whip. *'Most new 
 Khanums have never been on a horse before." 
 
 Up, up, up the winding path to the village, 
 which clung like an eagle's nest to the steep moun- 
 tain at the pass, the roof of each house forming 
 the front yard of the house above. As the clang- 
 ing caravan scrambled up the low cobble-stone 
 steps which formed the steep streets, dogs barked 
 and black-eyed, brightly-dressed children called 
 excitedly, ''Gel^ gel, hah, Shaphalular!^' [Come, 
 come, see the hatted ones!] The mothers, draw- 
 ing their head-veils over all but one eye, ambled 
 through the collection of chickens, lambs, calves, 
 dogs, and children, to the edge of the flat roofs, 
 just as eager as children themselves to see the 
 unusual sight. 
 
26 SHEPARD OF AINTAB 
 
 The five days' trip, often such a terror to new- 
 comers, was but a holiday lark to Dr. Shepard, 
 so fond of outdoor sports, and to his wife, who 
 had spent many a day of her girlhood on horse- 
 back jaunts in the Hawaiian Islands. At night 
 they slept on army cots, in tents they carried 
 with them. Eising in the early dawn, they had 
 a breakfast of eggs and coffee, cooked over a 
 brazier of charcoal, followed by morning prayers 
 in Turkish with the muleteers. From the wayside 
 vineyards, they plucked grapes in clusters so large 
 and sweet that one person could not finish a single 
 bunch. At one point on their journey, the Ar- 
 menian servant disappeared into a near-by field, 
 presently to return with his ample robes stuffed 
 out with juicy watermelons. The ever varying 
 landscape, with its vivid colors of earth and sky, 
 delighted the newcomers. 
 
 Even before reaching his appointed task. Dr. 
 Shepard realized why he had been called to train 
 new doctors for these poor people. Among the 
 crowds of villagers who came to view the strange 
 sight and to ask innumerable questions, stood 
 little children scarcely able to see out of swollen 
 eyes, covered with a black rim of flies. This con- 
 dition seemed inevitable to the people. 
 
THE SPRING OF HEALING 27 
 
 **Wliy don't you ^slioo' them off?'* asked Mrs. 
 Shepard. 
 
 *'0h, that would never do, it would bring on a 
 sickness," was the reply. 
 
 In its mother's arms was a little skinny baby 
 chewing on a big green cucumber. ^ * Why do you 
 give the child that cucumber? See, already it 
 looks sick." 
 
 *'What could I do?" answered the mother with 
 a shrug. '^He cried for it." 
 
 Many of the children wore decorations of blue 
 beads, or shells, or little triangular bundles of 
 cloth. ^^ Those are all to keep off the evil eye," 
 explained Dr. Trowbridge. ^^The triangle has a 
 verse from the Koran sewed up inside. You must 
 be careful not to praise any child, or you may 
 bring the evil eye on him. If you should forget 
 and do so, you must always add the word, ^Ma- 
 shallali,' " 
 
 Frequently, at the top of some little hill, they 
 would come across the tomb of a descendant of 
 the prophet Mohammed. Fluttering from every 
 branch and twig of the sacred tree near-by, were 
 hundreds of little rags of every color, torn from 
 their owners ' garments and tied there in the hope 
 of getting rid of some disease. Sometimes an 
 
28 SHEPARD OF AINTAB 
 
 old priest, living near the shrine to guard it, 
 would come out with his begging-bowl, asking for 
 a gift of food or money. 
 
 The last half-day of the journey lay along a 
 high plateau, covered, as far as the eye could 
 reach across the golden hills, with vineyards 
 laden with luscious grapes. In each vineyard was 
 built a high booth of leaves, set on poles like a 
 bird^s nest, where a watchman could keep a sharp 
 lookout for thieves. As the travelers passed by, 
 groups of men, women, and children would look 
 up, with hands full of juicy clusters, make a sa- 
 laam to the travelers, and run out to offer them 
 grapes or invite them to come and sit in the 
 shade of their booth. 
 
 * ^ They are people from Aintab, ' ' explained Dr. 
 Trowbridge. * ^ Each family, no matter how poor, 
 owns a vineyard, small or big, and at this season 
 they come and camp out in the vineyards to *milk 
 the vines,' as they say. Some time you will be 
 invited to spend a day here and will see them 
 treading out the juice in great stone vats with 
 their bare feet, then boiling it down into molasses, 
 and finally beating the molasses with twigs until 
 it is the color of taffy and the consistency of 
 
THE SPRING OF HEALING 29 
 
 butter. Aintab is famous for this grape butter. 
 You will soon be getting presents, too, of all sorts 
 of delicious sweetmeats made from the grape 
 juice. ' ^ 
 
 At last, from the top of a little hill, Dr. Shepard 
 and his wife caught sight of the city where they 
 were to live and work for the Master for so many 
 years to come. Surrounded on all sides by bare 
 brown rolling hills, it lay, a mass of low-roofed 
 houses, with a minaret standing out here and 
 there, the ancient castle towering up at one side, 
 a huge city of the dead lifting its black stones 
 at the other side, while in the foreground stood 
 Central Turkey College. 
 
 ** Aintab, the Spring of Healing, ^^ said Dr. 
 Trowbridge. ^ ^ Could there be a more appropriate 
 place for founding a hospital and a medical col- 
 leger' 
 
 At first sight of the college buildings, the big, 
 white horse, Selim, on which Mrs. Shepard was 
 riding, made a sudden plunge and started on a 
 dead run for home. This disturbed the natives far 
 more than it did its intrepid rider. 
 
 ' ' Stop him ! Stop him ! ' ' shouted the muleteers, 
 expecting to see Mrs. Shepard thrown at any mo- 
 ment; but her girlhood days in the saddle stood 
 
r 
 
 30 SHEPARD OF AINTAB 
 
 her in good stead, and with graceful ease she 
 allowed her spirited horse to enjoy his gallop 
 home. 
 
 A warm welcome from the little group of mis- 
 sionaries awaited the newcomers. Within a few 
 days they had begun classes with the five Ar- 
 menian students enrolled in the Medical Depart- 
 ment, and soon they were hard at work learning 
 the Turkish language. Even before they could 
 speak the language, however, they began to see 
 patients who came thronging to the dispensary, 
 talking to them through an interpreter. Then it 
 was that the doctor understood why he had been 
 asked to train these men as physicians. These 
 poor people had no one to care for them or to, 
 teach them how to care for themselves. A few 
 barbers, bone-setters and herb-women they already 
 had among them, and they prescribed strange rem- 
 edies. When a man had rheumatism, the usual 
 treatment for it was to open a sore somewhere 
 on his arm or leg, and keep it open and infected, 
 so that the pains might run out. For fever, a 
 red string around the wrist was urged. If a child 
 broke his arm, he must be taken to the chekeji 
 [the puller] and have it pulled in place, and some- 
 times the arm was bound so tightly to the body 
 
THE SPRING OF HEALING 31 
 
 that the child would die of gangrene. If he were 
 bitten by a dog, a hair from the same dog must 
 be put into a cup of water and he must drink it 
 down. If a girl had a sudden fright, she must 
 either swallow some sizzling hot fat, or have a 
 red-hot meat skewer pressed against her neck. A 
 headache must be cured by taking a dose of raki 
 [whisky], and for almost any ailment leeches 
 might be put on the part affected. 
 
 What a motley crowd it was that the doctor 
 found in the waiting-room on that first day! 
 There were people like those he had seen in the 
 villages on his way from the coast, — tall, gaunt, 
 rough men, with their great goat^s-hair cloaks 
 thrown over their shoulders. These were Kurds 
 who lived in mountain villages, in rude, dark little 
 houses, sharing the same room with their goats 
 and sheep. Sometimes they did not even have 
 houses, but lived in their black, goat's-hair tents, 
 moving their flocks about from place to place on 
 the fertile plain, like Abraham of old. Wild and 
 ignorant and simple, like big children as they 
 were, the doctor, in days to come, grew to know 
 and love many of them as personal friends. 
 Though they thought nothing of killing a man for 
 his horse or purse, their doors were always open 
 
32 SHEPARD OF AINTAB 
 
 for a guest, the best they had was his, and they 
 would defend him with their lives. Though rec- 
 ognized as Moslems, they would often deny this 
 faith, and many of them had strange religious 
 ideas which seemed a queer mixture of Moham- 
 medanism, Christianity, and Paganism. Then 
 there were the people from the city, — the Turk 
 with his red fez; with white turban if he were a 
 teacher; or green, if he were a descendant of 
 the prophet; or just a small striped one, if he 
 were an ordinary butcher or tanner or shopkeeper. 
 White bloomers, with a long gown belted in by a 
 handsome white girdle, and pointed red slippers 
 completed his costume. He was a Moslem; and 
 every day, ^ve times, when the muezzin called 
 from the minaret, ^^God is great, God is great/' he 
 would wash his hands and face and feet and say 
 his prayers. He was the fellow at the top, be- 
 cause he had conquered the land, and it was his 
 Sultan who sat on the throne ; and so, though his 
 Christian neighbor was more industrious and skil- 
 ful and educated and prosperous, yet he must re- 
 main the inferior. The Turk^s religion taught 
 him to call a Christian *^a dog'' or **a pig'' and 
 to treat him accordingly. 
 
 The Christian neighbors were the Armenians 
 
THE SPRING OF HEALING 33 
 
 wlio, many years before, had been conquered by 
 the Turks. Centuries before any missionaries 
 had come from America, they were followers of 
 Christ; but their Bible was in a language they 
 could not understand, and they had but few 
 schools in which to learn, so that many of their 
 priests could scarcely read. Though they were 
 willing to die for their religion, too often it did 
 not help them to live better lives. In spite of 
 their skill and industry, they were so oppressed 
 and so restrained in many ways by their Turkish 
 rulers and neighbors that they had little chance 
 to prove their skill or worth. 
 
 Dr. Shepard began to realize that these people 
 needed something more than the healing of their 
 dreadful diseases. They needed to learn that 
 they were all children of the same loving Father 
 and therefore brothers. He saw that only by 
 treating every one with the same loving care, just 
 as Jesus did, going about and doing good to all 
 alike, could he hope to teach them this great 
 lesson. 
 
 By the end of the first year, the new doctor 
 and his wife had learned enough Turkish to say 
 ^'Dilini geoster/' [Show your tongue] " Aghru 
 neredef [Where is the pain?] and all the other 
 
34 SHEPARD OF AINTAB 
 
 phrases needed in the clinic, so that they could 
 get on without an interpreter. To the clinic and 
 dispensary was added a ward for men, with ten 
 beds, where those who had undergone serious 
 operations could be cared for. A Scotch nurse, 
 Miss Arnott, was sent to take charge of the nurs- 
 ing in this embryo hospital. There was no 
 women's ward for, though the Khanum found 
 much work to do among the women in the Turkish 
 harems, and more in the Armenian homes, in those 
 qarly days no one would think of allowing a 
 'Voman to go to a hospital. The Moslem woman 
 was called by her husband, * ' the child, ' ' ' ^ the ash 
 dumper,'' or ''the lacking one." She was not 
 worth bothering much about. When a villager 
 was urged to bring his wife to Aintab for treat- 
 ment, he only shrugged his shoulders and declared 
 it would cost less and be less bother to get a 
 new one. 
 
 A man named Manoog [Little Child], a great 
 burly Armenian, with a broad face that showed 
 a row of fine white teeth when he smiled, was 
 placed at the door of the hospital to keep in order 
 the ever-growing throngs of people who wished 
 to enter. When the doctors and medical students 
 were ready to begin work, he would open the 
 
THE SPRING OF HEALING 35 
 
 doors between their office and the waiting-room, 
 and call out, "Eshi geoder/' [Old eyes] where- 
 upon all those who had previously had their eyes 
 examined would come in. Then would come, 
 ^^Yeni geozler," [New eyes] or the new cases; 
 and woe betide any person who tried to get to the 
 doctor before his turn. Manoog had a strong 
 right arm. To keep the *' turns" straight, each 
 patient was given a card with a number on one 
 side and a Bible verse on the other. 
 
 ^^Am I to pound this text up and swallow it!" 
 asked a woman when she received hers, **or am 
 I to dissolve it in water and drink it?" 
 
 Manoog lost one of his fine front teeth one day, 
 and ever after his smile had a hole in it, which 
 he regarded proudly, quite as a soldier would 
 regard an honorable service stripe. 
 
 It happened in this wise. Dr. Shepard's 
 younger brother had come to assist him in the 
 hospital. He was taken seriously ill, and the doc- 
 tor was camping out with him, in a tent pitched 
 on a hill above the city. Manoog had been told 
 to bring the doctor his fine Arab horse Benito. 
 Swift, gentle, and intelligent, this horse had been 
 the doctor's devoted companion on many a trip. 
 As Manoog reached the valley at the foot of the 
 
36 SHEPARD OF AINTAB 
 
 hill, he was attacked by a Kurdish brigand who 
 thought the doctor's horse too fine to lose. 
 
 ^^Dr. Effendi, Dr. Etfendi/' shouted Manoog, 
 using the Turkish title of respect, at the same 
 instant receiving a blow from the butt of the 
 robber's gun. The blow knocked out a tooth and 
 silenced Manoog. Hearing the shout, the doctor's 
 sick brother raised himself on his elbow. 
 
 *^Get your gun, get your gun!" he called. 
 
 The doctor, who heard nothing, thought he was 
 wandering in his mind. 
 
 ^^ There's trouble, Fred, get your gun," he re- 
 peated. 
 
 By the time the doctor had run out with his 
 gun, however, the thief was off with the horse. 
 The Kurdish brigand was afterward caught and 
 imprisoned, but Benito had been sold, and the 
 doctor never again saw the beautiful horse in 
 which he had taken such pride. 
 
 The medical school, which had begun with five 
 students, thrived and grew, until, in the next few 
 years, the number increased to eighteen. In spite 
 of baffling deficiencies in the way of equipment, 
 and the loss, one after another, from various 
 causes, of the American professors and nurses, 
 several young Armenian doctors were graduated. 
 
> 
 
 I. THE DOCTOK MAKES AN EXAMINATION 
 
 II. WRITING A PRESCRIPTION UNDER DIFFICULTIES 
 
THE SPRING OF HEALING 37 
 
 Here is the description of a typical day's work 
 for Dr. Shepard at this time, in his own words : 
 
 *'I was called down to the office to see a patient 
 before prayers. (We have our morning prayers 
 before breakfast.) After breakfast, I found a 
 girl and her mother waiting to see me about the 
 former going to the Girls' College in Marash next 
 year. Spent the next two hours in study, inter- 
 rupted by five patients. Got onto my horse and 
 visited three patients in the city (two of them 
 charity patients, about the usual proportion,) and 
 back in time for my classes with whom the next 
 two hours were spent. Lunched at one. Filled my 
 pockets with instruments and chloroform bottle 
 and back into the city again to perform a sur- 
 gical operation at the house of a patient. Back 
 to the hospital where a crowd of patients awaited 
 me. Between that time and dinner I performed 
 eight more important surgical operations. After 
 dinner, rode to the college to see Mr. Trowbridge 
 on business. Back again, and wanted to go to 
 bed, but had to make my hospital rounds for the 
 day, as there were fourteen poor sufferers in the 
 wards anxiously awaiting me. 
 
 *^ To-day at clinic I counted the patients, both 
 old and new, which fell to my lot, and they num- 
 bered just eighty-six, and the clinic not quite so 
 large as usual in the number of new names written. 
 Well! I guess I have said enough to show you 
 
38 SHEPARD OF AINTAB 
 
 that we have work for another man to do, if we 
 can get him." 
 
 All other difficulties might be overcome by in- 
 genuity and tireless effort, such as is shown in 
 this letter; but *' money makes the mare go/' 
 even in missionary effort. In 1886, the college 
 was in such dire need of funds that Dr. Shepard 
 decided he must go with his senior class to Aleppo 
 and give them practical instruction there, while 
 he earned fees from wealthy Turks, Jews, and 
 Armenians of that city; for, according to the 
 Turkish saying, 
 
 ''Famous is Aleppo for wealth, 
 Kills for dirt, 
 Marash for water, 
 Aintab for lies.'' 
 
 The doctor almost lost his life in this first of 
 many efforts to support both college and hospital. 
 After forty days of successful work, which kept 
 him and his students more than busy, he was sud- 
 denly taken ill with the cholera nostra, which was 
 prevalent in that city of heat, flies, dust, and foul 
 drinking water. In twenty-four hours he lost 
 twenty-five pounds and was fast sinking into that 
 
THE SPRING OF HEALING 39 
 
 stage of collapse from which few can be revived; 
 but before he lost consciousness, there came to 
 him, in a flash, almost as if by a special revela- 
 tion, the memory of a new and untried remedy. 
 Immediately he acted on the suggestion. It 
 worked and his life was saved. He had to give 
 up further effort for that summer, however, and 
 retire to a summer camp with his wife and two 
 little daughters, to regain his strength for the 
 work of the coming fall. 
 
 Mrs. Shepard, who had been doing her share 
 in keeping up the school by teaching medical bot- 
 any and other subjects in addition to her large 
 clinics, city practise, and the care of her household, 
 joined him for a much needed rest. Mrs. Shepard 
 had been a botanist, ever since her girlhood days, 
 spent in the fern-clad mountains of the Hawaiian 
 Islands. Many an excursion did she and the doc- 
 tor take together, to some mountain peak or deep 
 valley, to return laden with rare plants. On one 
 such trip, seeing a rare flower which Mrs. Shepard 
 wished for her collection, near the top of an in- 
 accessible cliff, the doctor took his revolver and 
 shot the stem in two, then picked up the flower 
 and handed it to his w^fe with a bow. 
 
 The struggle to keep up the medical school 
 
40 SHEPARD OF AINTAB 
 
 proved to be a losing struggle. The people of 
 Aintab and its surrounding villages, already poor, 
 were further impoverished by the terrible famine 
 which came upon them through drought. Fees 
 which came in from students and patients were 
 not enough to cover costs. Again Dr. Shepard 
 went to Aleppo, to try to save the situation, taking 
 his little family with him into the terrible heat of 
 that city. By this time, the new doctor had 
 gained such a reputation that the wealthy were 
 eager to pay any fee he might ask, and he was 
 working, now, for fees for his medical school. 
 One day, when he made a call in a distant part 
 of the city, the patient offered him only a 
 mejidieh [a silver coin worth eighty cents]. 
 "With a true instinct of how to meet the Oriental, 
 the doctor tossed it back across the room to him 
 with the single word ^^ Ayih!'' [Shame.] Needless 
 to say, he received the proper fee. 
 
 When, in 1888, the health of Dr. Trowbridge 
 gave way, the struggling little medical school, be- 
 gun with high hopes and carried on under diffi- 
 culties and with such great sacrifice, was finally 
 given up. Twenty-one young Armenians, how- 
 ever, had been graduated. Many of them became 
 eminent physicians, both in Turkey and in Amer- 
 
THE SPRING OF HEALING 41 
 
 ica. Of these men, Dr. Altounyan, one of those 
 seniors who had assisted in the first trip to 
 Aleppo, became the most eminent physician and 
 surgeon of that great city, eventually building 
 and equipping there, by his own efforts, a beauti- 
 ful, modern hospital. Such wonderful influence 
 did he have through his work there, among rich 
 and poor alike, that, although an Armenian, he 
 was allowed by Djemal Pasha to keep his hospital 
 open and carry on his full work, through the 
 whole period of the late war. 
 
 Another of the original four students became 
 the most eminent native physician of Aintab. For 
 many years he was associated with his friend 
 and teacher in the hospital there and spent many 
 a vacation with him in camp. Dr. Habib was a 
 great influence for everything that was best in 
 his own community, and did much to win the 
 friendship of the bigoted and prejudiced Turks, 
 finally giving his life in the service of the army 
 during the war. A third student. Dr. Bezjein, still 
 stands at his post as first assistant at the hos- 
 pital in Aintab. After many years of service 
 with his beloved friend and teacher, he stood by 
 him during the tragedies of the war, attended 
 him during his last illness, and in time welcomed 
 
42 SHEPARD OF AINTAB 
 
 to Aintab the doctor's son, on whose young shoul- 
 ders the father's mantle has fallen. Each of 
 these men has been giving out, throughout his 
 life, that influence of the Master which came to 
 him from the teacher who lived and served among 
 them as *^He that serveth." 
 
ni 
 
 MIEACLES OF THE SUEGEON'S KNIFE 
 
 TEN days' journey by caravan from Aintab, 
 on the banks of the Tigris River, lies the 
 black city of Diarbekir. An ancient wall of mas- 
 sive black lava rock surrounds the city, defying 
 the outside world, with its forty black turrets. 
 Black houses line the black-paved streets, and 
 black minarets tower above black-domed mosques. 
 Many, too, were the black thoughts in the minds 
 of the dwellers in the black city, and many were 
 the black deeds done within those massive walls. 
 On the flat roofs of the houses surrounding a mar- 
 ble-paved court, in the center of this city, stood a 
 throng of gaily-dressed men, women, and chil- 
 dren, dangerously jostling and pushing in order 
 to look down into the court below, where a crowd 
 of sick people waited their turn to be examined 
 by Shippet (for so they called Dr. Shepard), the 
 wonder-worker from Aintab. There he sat at 
 one side, with pen and prescription-pad in hand, 
 
 43 
 
44 SHEPARD OF AINTAB 
 
 a short, broad-shouldered man, with a quick turn 
 of the head, a twinkle in his eye, and a gentle 
 touch and tone which spoke of power and sym- 
 pathy. 
 
 ^'They say he can open the eyes of the blind, 
 and take stones out of people, and make new arms 
 and legs, and new noses, ^* the awed whisper went 
 about. ^'Even when a person is dead, they say 
 he can bring him back to life.'' 
 
 With almost incredible swiftness and ease, the 
 doctor had discovered what the trouble was with 
 one patient; had written his prescription, given 
 instructions about his medicine, or told him he 
 must have an operation; and then he had turned 
 to another. 
 
 There was a sudden commotion in the crowd. 
 A great tall man, gasping for breath and sur- 
 rounded by several women in a high state of ex- 
 citement, came into the court. 
 
 ''Give way, give way,'' begged the women. 
 **The doctor must see him quick! He has swal- 
 lowed a turkey-bone and is choking to death." 
 
 With a quick motion, the doctor was beside him 
 before the man had come halfway across the 
 court. One glance, one touch, and then swift in- 
 structions to his assistant to boil certain instru- 
 
MIRACLES OF THE SURGEON'S KNIFE 45 
 
 ments and make ready for the operation. Then 
 Dr. Shepard turned quietly to the next patient. 
 In a few moments there was a sudden scream 
 from a woman, followed by the wailing for the 
 dead. Those on the roof almost fell off in their 
 eagerness to see what was happening. The man 
 had suddenly collapsed and was lying — breath- 
 less, purple, motionless — on the marble pavement. 
 
 *' Quick — the knife!'* cried the doctor, spring- 
 ing to the window. In one instant the instrument 
 was in his hand, in the next it was plunged into 
 the windpipe of the apparently dead man. There 
 was a sucking gasp, the man took a full breath, 
 the purple faded from his face, and within the 
 hour he rose and walked home. The women lin- 
 gered to kiss the doctor's feet again and again, 
 and the throngs on the roof chattered excitedly; 
 while each carried home a bigger tale than his 
 neighbor of the miracle of the great surgeon's 
 knife. 
 
 It was not all in a day that Dr. Shepard had 
 gained his reputation in this far-otf city of the 
 interior. In those early pioneer days, men had 
 been afraid of the foreign doctor. One day, when 
 Dr. Shepard first came to Aintab, he stopped be- 
 side a near-by village fountain, where later he 
 
46   SHEPARD OF AINTAB 
 
 could not snatch a moment's rest for the crowds 
 of patients that thronged about him. Near the 
 fountain stood a man with eyes red and swollen. 
 ''Let me look at your eyes, my father/' said the 
 doctor ; ' ' perhaps I can cure them for you. ' ' But 
 he was suspicious of the foreigner and would not 
 let the doctor touch his eyes. Then, as one after 
 another came, half in fear, to the hospital and 
 went back not only with his eyes opened, his 
 tumor removed, or his leg straightened, but with 
 tales of the wonderful way in which he had been 
 cared for — of the doctor's sympathy and the 
 nurse's tender ministrations — others, too, wanted 
 to ''come and see," until farther and farther 
 spread the fame of the wonder-worker, and 
 Shippet became a name to conjure with. 
 
 From beside the orange groves of the Mediter- 
 ranean coast, a blind man heard and came and 
 received his sight. Going back home, he told the 
 wondrous story. Ten other blind men, each with 
 staff in hand, started to walk the weary one hun- 
 dred miles to the Spring of Healing. But alas, 
 when they reached the wonder-worker, he could 
 but tell them that he was powerless to help. 
 
 It was the hardest task the skilful doctor had 
 to face, — to tell poor, trusting ones like these 
 
MIRACLES OF THE SURGEON'S KNIFE 47 
 
 that he could do nothing to help them; for his 
 great heart was tender as a child's and he could- 
 never even read aloud a tale of pathos without 
 a telltale choking in his voice. Yet his patients 
 used to say he had a way of telling them there 
 was no hope which, in itself, brought hope and 
 courage ; and often, when he had done his utmost, 
 he would tell of the Great Physician who alone 
 had power to save. Here is the story of such a 
 case, as one of the American nurses tells it: 
 
 *'One night he came home, after a long day's 
 work, so unusually tired and depressed that I was 
 much disturbed, and tried to find out the cause 
 of it. This is what he told me. A Kurd had 
 brought his precious boy on a many days' journey 
 from the mountains to see Shippet; the lad was 
 placed on a ladder padded with a mattress and 
 laid across an animal. Everything else had 
 failed; there was one hope left and that was 
 Shippet. Didn't he cure everybody who ever 
 came to him? Of course Shippet could help his 
 boy, and he was always ready to do everything 
 he could for anybody. With this hope in his 
 heart, the poor father had comforted himself as 
 he was making the tedious journey of many days 
 with the sick boy. With the first glance. Dr. 
 
48 SHEPARD OF AINTAB 
 
 Shepard saw that the patient was in the last 
 stages of tuberculosis. Shippet could not help 
 him. It was never his method to withhold a 
 truth that must be told, but the telling of it had 
 utterly used up his strength. Later, I heard an 
 account of this, as told by a young man who was 
 present. The father was so dazed by the sad 
 news that he could not take it in, so he remained 
 sitting there in the office for over an hour; and 
 every little while he would say, ^Dr. Effendi 
 [Sir Doctor], what do you sayT and then, with 
 the same infinite patience and kindness, he would 
 reply, ^Father, there is no hope, except in God,' 
 and then he would try to help him to find that 
 help and comfort.'' 
 
 One of Dr. Shepard 's operations, which the peo- 
 ple appreciated greatly, was the making of a nose 
 from the *'ring finger" of the patient's left hand. 
 The sore kno\\Ti as the ^^ Aleppo Button" often left 
 a disfiguring scar on the nose. Of course, a girl 
 with such a scar was at a disadvantage, when it 
 came to getting married. 
 
 ^^Hush!" said the nurse in the hospital to a 
 tiny girl who had had an operation to remove 
 a scar from her nose and was then undergoing 
 the painful dressing. ^^You will be a handsome 
 
MIRACLES OF THE SURGEON'S KNIFE 49 
 
 little bride some day. Think of that and don't 
 cry/' And the little bride-to-be bravely choked 
 back the tears. 
 
 Dr. Shepard always endeavored to keep abreast 
 with the times in medicine and surgery. After a 
 heavy day of work, a long evening was often spent 
 in reading the latest and best medical journals. 
 Often he would find a method described which 
 he himself had already discovered and put in 
 practise. A notable example of the doctor's de- 
 votion to his profession, and of his keeping pace 
 with its advance, was his wide and successful use 
 of spinal anesthesia, before he had ever seen it 
 performed, in the cases of such as could not take 
 the usual anesthetic. 
 
 The great secret of the doctor's success, how- 
 ever, in breaking down prejudice and winning the 
 friendship and confidence of all people, was that 
 he treated rich and poor, Turk, Kurd, Armenian, 
 Christian, Jew or Moslem, all alike. Everyone 
 who came in contact with him, no matter how 
 rough or ignorant or wicked he might be, felt 
 the Christlike spirit of brotherly kindness and 
 self-forgetful, humble service that characterized 
 the work of the skilled physician. 
 
 Not only for the doctor to enter, with his mes- 
 
50 SHEPARD OF AINTAB 
 
 sage of love, were hearts and doors opened, but 
 for others who were carrying the same message. 
 One of the early operations which Dr. Shepard 
 performed was on the son of a rough and wicked 
 Turk who lived in a village four days' journey 
 from Aintab. Years afterward, the Protestant 
 preacher of the village was being stoned to death, 
 for preaching the gospel which the people did 
 not want to hear. He fled to the house of this 
 Turk for protection. 
 
 *^Who are you,'' asked the Turk, ^'and why do 
 you come to me?" 
 
 ^^I am the Protestant preacher from Aintab," 
 replied the man. 
 
 ^^Ha, come in," said the Turk, and shut his 
 doors against the mob. 
 
 Then the mob appealed to the governor, who 
 sent a policeman to the Turk with orders that 
 he should give the preacher over to his perse- 
 <jutors. 
 
 *'The man is a guest of mine," he replied; ^*a 
 friend of my friend Dr. Shepard. I have ten 
 sons and serving men, all well armed. If you 
 think you can take my guest, come and try. ' ' 
 
 In many ways did the people express their grat- 
 itude and appreciation. A poor Kurdish woman 
 
MIRACLES OF THE SURGEON'S KNIFE 51 
 
 from some distant village would tramp long miles 
 to bring to the doctor her humble gift of curds or 
 cheese or butter churned in a hairy goatskin bag. 
 The man with the vineyard or orchard would 
 send in a basket of fruit or of grapes. The doctor 
 often had quite a menagerie in his little walled-in 
 garden; for all kinds of animals, from the graceful 
 gazelle and domestic goat and sheep to the laugh- 
 ing hyena and the Arab horse, were brought in 
 as thank-offerings. But the doctor made his pa- 
 tients feel that his all-controlling desire was to 
 minister to them, and in doing this, his effort 
 was always to point them to the Great Physician 
 as the one to whom praise was due. 
 
 From a four days* journey beyond the Eu- 
 phrates River, near the city of Oorfa, a man had 
 brought his blind daughter to the hospital. 
 Though nothing but a girl, she was the only one 
 left of the many children in the family, and there- 
 fore she was unusually precious. 
 
 *^I can operate on her,'' said the doctor, after 
 examining the eyes, ^^but her sight will come 
 back very slowly. You should wait here a long 
 time.'* 
 
 But the father would not consent. Surely, the 
 operation was all that was necessary. Had he 
 
52 SHEPARD OF AINTAB 
 
 not talked with people whose eyes had been op- 
 erated on and who could use them in a few weeks ? 
 So, in spite of what the doctor told him, he took 
 her back to her home as soon as she could travel. 
 *'But she can hardly see at all,^' said friends when 
 they reached home. ^^All that trouble and ex- 
 pense so that she can tell night from day!" And 
 the father had to acknowledge his disappoint- 
 ment. 
 
 About a year later, Dr. Shepard was called by 
 telegram to the city of Oorfa, to an urgent case. 
 Eiding day and night, with but an hour's stop 
 now and then to feed his horse or snatch a nap, 
 he reached the city in less than half the usual 
 time. As he came into the market-place, he found 
 it crowded with people at the baker's booth wait- 
 ing for bread, men and boys with great trays of 
 food on their heads calling their wares, and little 
 children and dogs running about. Although stiff 
 and travel-stained, he was obliged to dismount 
 and lead his horse, whose feet slid on the slippery 
 paving-stones as they threaded their way through 
 the jostling crowd. Suddenly, out of the throng, 
 darted a man, and falling at the doctor's muddy 
 feet, embraced and kissed them, calling blessings 
 unnumbered on his head. 
 

 I. THE WALLS OF THE " BLACK CITY " OF DL\RBEKIB 
 
 II. VIEW OF CENTRAL TURKEY COLLEGE, AIXTAB 
 
MIRACLES OF THE SURGEON'S KNIFE 53 
 
 '^Wlio are you, brother? '' asked the doctor. 
 
 **Why, don't you know!'' replied the man. **I 
 am the father of Sara who was blind. AVhen I 
 took her home, she could hardly see, but now she 
 can do everything, even to working at her em- 
 broidery frame. God bless you!" 
 
 *^Do not praise me, praise God through whom 
 the cure has come, my brother. It is through his 
 power alone that I can bring sight to the blind,'' 
 he added, looking around on the crowd who had 
 gathered to witness the scene. 
 
 One summer, when the doctor was away at his 
 mountain camp, a messenger came hot-footed from 
 Aintab, begging him to return and see a wealthy 
 Catholic who was sick unto death. When Dr. 
 Shepard reached the man's home, he found the 
 patient needed an operation for abscess of the 
 liver, caused by hard drinking. The operation 
 was successful; the man got well and gave up 
 drink. Some years later, when Mrs. Shepard 
 was visiting in his home, she saw a little shrine, 
 with an olive-oil wick, burning before a picture 
 of the Virgin Mary. 
 
 ^'It has never gone out since the operation on 
 my son, ' ' said the old mother. * * This is the only 
 way I have of showing my gratitude to God, 
 
S4 SHEPARD OF AINTAB 
 
 Wlien the doctor himself was so ill with typhoid," 
 she went on to say, *^and they were saying all 
 over the city that he was dying, I knew that he 
 would not die. He is the father of the poor; and 
 I was praying, and many others were praying, so 
 he could not die." 
 
 In more senses than one was Dr. Shepard truly 
 the ''father of the poor." Five years after he 
 reached Aintab, a terrible famine came upon the 
 land. During this trying time, the doctor made 
 a tour of some of the villages on the Adana plain. 
 
 **It was a sad sight," he wrote, ''this great 
 fertile plain as desolate as Sahara. Village after 
 village was completely deserted or had a single 
 family left to guard it. Very little grain had been 
 sown or planted and what had been sown was 
 dried up from the root. Cotton sowed in the black 
 soil was withered as by fire." 
 
 Many of the people sold their beds and clothing 
 and were eating leaves of wild mustard, turnip^ 
 and other plants, while the plains were strewci 
 with dead sheep and Angora goats. The last cow 
 or sheep, and in some cases the last measure of 
 wheat, had been seized for taxes by a pitiless gov- 
 ernment. "The doctor's purse has a hole in the 
 bottom," the people used to say, and many a 
 
MIRACLES OF THE SURGEON'S KNIFE 65 
 
 coin found its way through that hole into the 
 hands of some starving child or woman. 
 
 Many women came every day, begging the 
 Khanum to give them some work that they might 
 feed their children. Beginning with the coarse 
 but beautiful lace and embroidery they knew how 
 to make, she taught them to use fine materials 
 in forms which could be sold in America. From 
 this humble beginning, grew a large industry 
 which spread all over the empire and gave em- 
 ployment to thousands of wom.en who, before that 
 time, could do nothing but spin cotton or weave 
 cloth and earn but a few cents a day. Giving them 
 this new work, with better wages, raised the 
 standard of wages for women in many other 
 cities besides Aintab. In this city, the work was 
 always known as *^The Hospital Work.^^ 
 
 ** Theirs is the religion of kindness, the true 
 religion,'' the people said, **else why should they, 
 away out there in America, care how many of 
 us die of starvation.'' 
 
 More than miracles of the surgeon's knife, more 
 than medicine, more than relief for the poor, the 
 doctor found the people needed to learn how to 
 live in order to keep well. Called to a case of 
 smallpox in the city, he found a group of friends 
 
56 SHEPARD OF AINTAB 
 
 and relatives sitting around on the floor where 
 the patient's mattress was spread. When he 
 urged them to stay away, ^ ' Oh, we should not dare 
 to stay away," they would say; ^^the sick per- 
 son's feelings would be dreadfully hurt/' Some- 
 times, as Jesus did in the house of Jairus, the 
 doctor was obliged to send away people who were 
 crowding about a very sick patient, waiting for 
 her to die, so that they might take part immedi- 
 ately in the wail of mourning. 
 
 When a person was taken sick, especially if 
 he had a skin disease, he was urged to go to the 
 Turkish bath. Here, after undressing in a cool, 
 outside room, he wrapped himself in a large 
 gaily-colored square of cloth, put on some wooden 
 clogs, and stepped into a steaming inner room. 
 This was a hug-e room, paved with stones that 
 were heated from beneath. Volumes of steam 
 poured into it from the large, arched window of 
 the huge, hot-water caldron. Hot and cold water 
 flowed from faucets into little stone basins, and 
 the whole place was echoing with the shouts of 
 men trying to make themselves heard while jos- 
 tling each other to get at the water first. What 
 a perfect incubator for germs ! But these people 
 had never heard of germs. 
 
MIRACLES OF THE SURGEON'S KNIFE 67 
 
 The doctor, and especially the foreign doctor, 
 in those early days was always the last resort. 
 Called in winter to see a patient in a poor home, 
 Dr. Shepard rode down the narrow, paved street 
 between high stone walls. Entering one of the 
 gates in the wall, and passing through the little 
 courtyard to the one single room which served 
 as bed-room, dining-room, and living-room for the 
 whole family, he found the poor sufferer lying on 
 his mattress on the floor, with a fever and cough 
 which told of the last stages of tuberculosis. The 
 cracks in the windows were pasted up with strips 
 of paper and the room was unheated, except for 
 a small brazier of hot ashes placed under a stool 
 with a quilt thrown over it. The thinly-clad chil- 
 dren were huddled on the floor around this stool, 
 sticking their hands and feet under the quilt to 
 keep them warm. At night, other mattresses and 
 quilts were spread to form the bedroom, and the 
 quilts were drawn tightly over the faces of the 
 sleepers, to keep out what little fresh air might 
 be in the room. At meal-time a tray was brought 
 in, with a dish of food from which the whole 
 family ate, dipping out morsels with bits broken 
 from big, thin sheets of bread. Was it surpris- 
 ing that whole families were wiped out by the 
 
58 SHEPARD OF AINTAB 
 
 dread disease which had, at first, attacked but 
 one? The doctor put up a stiff fight against the 
 ** White Plague'' which carried off so many vic- 
 tims, and tried to teach the people the value of 
 fresh air and cleanliness. There was but one 
 tuberculosis sanitarium in the whole Turkish Em- 
 pire. One of the doctor's fondest dreams was to 
 establish another in Aintab. But it was the same 
 story as before. There was no one in America 
 to catch the vision and furnish the needed funds. 
 There was no new recruit to offer himself for 
 such a service. 
 
 All the rubbish and garbage from the houses 
 in Aintab were thrown out into the street, and the 
 'dogs were the only ones expected to take care of 
 it. The waste water of the city was carried off 
 by a foul-smelling, open gutter down the center 
 of the street. Aintab, the Spring of Healing, was 
 named after the magnificent, gushing spring, some 
 miles distant, from which the water supply was 
 brought to the city through an old Eoman aque- 
 duct. The water could not have been purer at 
 its source, but as the watercourse ran under every 
 street of the town, ^ each house had its well-shaft 
 through which the bucket was dropped to dip 
 up water from the common supply. Cholera, 
 
MIRACLES OF THE SURGEON'S KNIFE 59 
 
 typhoid, and dysentery germs might, and often 
 did, go down with the bucket; and the spring of 
 healing became the spring of death. 
 
 In the summer of 1891, a terrible epidemic of 
 cholera broke out in the city. A traveler came 
 into Aintab, sick unto death with cholera. Find- 
 ing a refuge in the yard of the mosque, he died 
 there, and there he was bathed and prepared for 
 the funeral. The water ran into the watercourse 
 near its head, and germs were distributed all over 
 the city. 
 
 *' Flowing water cannot be contaminated,'' said 
 the priest at the mosque. ^ *It purifies itself within 
 a few feet." 
 
 But the deaths increased and a hurry call was 
 sent to Dr. Shepard, in his distant mountain camp. 
 Within a few hours the Big Little Doctor had 
 taken command. He marshaled all the doctors 
 and druggists in the city, and organized them 
 into *^day" and '^ night" corps, to fight the dread 
 disease. In all the churches and mosques they 
 gave public lectures, telling the people that they 
 must cook all solid food and boil everything they 
 drank. **Must we drink the water boiling hot?" 
 inquired one of the hearers. 
 
 The Christians obeyed, and fewer and fewer 
 
60 SHEPARD OF AINTAB 
 
 were taken sick. But tlie Moslems said, ' ^ Of what 
 use? If it is written on our foreheads that we 
 shall die, we die; if it is written that we shall 
 live, we live. Of what use is it to cook our food 
 and boil the water we drink!" And many died. 
 The doctor's brave fight, however, had saved 
 many lives, and the new graves in Aintab were 
 fewer by far than in the neighboring towns. 
 
 After it was all over, and the doctor was re- 
 turning to his camp, he stopped for lunch at the 
 spring of a little Turkish village. The usual 
 throng of patients gathered about him, under the 
 shadow of a great sycamore tree. 
 
 *^Did the cholera come to your villager* in- 
 quired the doctor. 
 
 **Yes," was the reply. 
 
 **And did many of your people dieT' 
 
 *' Oh, no, Allah be praised! No one in our vil- 
 lage died. There were, indeed, fifteen or twenty 
 women and such, who died, but, praise God, no 
 person died.'' 
 
 ^'And that is the Turkish villager's idea of the 
 fair sex," the doctor said, as he was telling the 
 tale. 
 
 Eleven years after Dr. and Mrs. Shepard ar- 
 rived in Turkey, they turned their faces back to 
 
MIRACLES OF THE SURGEON'S KNIFE 61 
 
 the homeland, for a year of rest and study. They 
 went back richer than they had left, for two little 
 daughters and a son went with them, eager to 
 see the country about which their parents had 
 told them such wonderful tales. Richer, too, they 
 were in the love of the people whom they had 
 saved from disease, famine, and pestilence. As 
 they were about to leave, a beautiful silver filigree- 
 work coifee-set was presented to them, by the 
 people of the city. When, a year later, the be- 
 loved physician and his family returned to Aintab, 
 while the party was still several hours out from 
 the city, people began to greet and welcome them 
 back. A committee of men representing the gov- 
 ernment rode far, on their prancing horses, to 
 welcome them, and with them rode a large num- 
 ber of prominent citizens. As they drew nearer 
 to the city, throngs of humbler folk, on donkeys 
 or on foot, kept adding themselves to the com- 
 pany, until a huge cavalcade of one thousand 
 persons escorted the doctor and his family back 
 to the ^ ' Spring of Healing. ' ' 
 
IV 
 
 THE HOSPITAL 
 
 IT is time in the hospital for the doctor's morn- 
 ing rounds. Down the long row of beds, on 
 either side of the men's ward, eager faces look 
 expectantly toward the door. Close beside the 
 door is Mousa, the pale Jewish boy, and next to 
 him the twelve-year-old Circassian, with face so 
 swollen he can hardly see out of his little slits 
 of eyes, but issuing commands right and left, and 
 storming at the nurse who tries to give him med- 
 icine. Then comes the tall, gaunt Arab, whose 
 jaw has been shattered by gunshot, and who can- 
 not be satisfied with soft foods, but is rocking 
 back and forth crying, *^Karnum doymade, Kar- 
 num doymadeJ' [I'm still empty, I'm still 
 empty.] 
 
 Kunning merrily about the ward is little Ahmed 
 who, some weeks before, had fallen and broken 
 his arm. The native bone-setter bound the arm 
 so tightly that it died and dropped off. Finally, 
 
 63 
 
64 SHEPARD OF AINTAB 
 
 his mother came with the poor little fellow to the 
 hospital, bringing the arm along, that Shippet, the 
 wonder-worker, might put it on again. Now he is 
 chattering happily to the patients, as he fills their 
 drinking-cups from the pitcher held in his left 
 hand. 
 
 Over in one corner are six little lame boys, 
 some on crutches, some in bed, one sitting in the 
 wheel chair, all talking excitedly over the lesson 
 they are to learn that day in their little reading 
 class. 
 
 In the other corner lies the dignified, white- 
 bearded, Gregorian priest, and hard by a Turkish 
 Hodja, or Moslem religious leader, who, from 
 his village minaret, was wont to give the five- 
 times-daily call to prayer. 
 
 Another Moslem religious leader, a very holy 
 man who yesterday had a cataract operation and 
 had been told he must be quiet for three days, 
 has risen on his knees in bed and is facing the 
 east ; he is trying to go through the genuflections 
 of his prayers across the narrow bed. ' ' But Baha, 
 Baba/^ [Father, Father] cries the horrified nurse, 
 catching sight of him. *^Lie down, you will hurt 
 your eye. What will the doctor say, when he 
 comes in!" A young Armenian teacher from a 
 
THE HOSPITAL 65 
 
 Catholic school in a village near-by lays aside his 
 prayer-book as the doctor's voice is heard in the 
 corridor outside. 
 
 Near the door lies a tall, powerful Kurd who 
 never before has seen aught beyond his tiny vil- 
 lage. The American nurse has just put the ther- 
 mometer into his mouth. He thinks it is a new 
 kind of pill and, to her dismay, starts to swallow 
 it. At that moment the doctor appears in the 
 doorway. ^*0h, doctor,'' she cries, pointing to 
 the patient, ^' he's swallowing the thermometer!" 
 With one swift leap, the doctor is at the bedside. 
 He seizes the man by the back of the neck and 
 tips him, head first, out of bed, shouting to him to 
 **spit it out." Out flies the precious thermometer 
 onto the floor — unbroken! 
 
 After this little diversion, the doctor goes on 
 his way down the rows of cots, — a joke here, a 
 sympathetic word there, a nod, — and the Big Lit- 
 tle Doctor has passed on, leaving a sense of warm 
 interest and friendliness, of courage and good 
 cheer, among patients and nurses alike. Into the 
 small private room he steps, where the walls are 
 decorated with guns, cartridge-belts, powder- 
 horns, pistols, swords, and daggers. These be- 
 long to the wounded Kurdish robber-chief who is 
 
66 SHEPARD OF AINTAB 
 
 required for justice as soon as his wound shall 
 have healed. Ten fierce-looking attendants from 
 his own band he keeps with him to do his bidding, 
 sending them dashing off, in hot haste, here and 
 there, and woe to the one who may be caught nap- 
 ping ! 
 
 **How now," says the doctor sternly; ^*you 
 have been tampering with this bandage again; 
 your wound will never heal if you keep reinfect- 
 ing it." 
 
 ^^What can I do," replies the man, with a 
 shrug, ^^you know when I am well, it is prison 
 for me." 
 
 In the women's ward, the same eager expecta- 
 tion of the doctor's visit is felt. Morning prayers, 
 conducted by the American nurse, are over; the 
 beds have been smoothed out, the patients made 
 comfortable. Near the door lies a little Jewish 
 girl with spinal caries; she has been so shy and 
 quiet that no one has been able to get a word 
 from her. Leaning over her bed, with the smile 
 and the twinkle of the eyes that are so irresistible, 
 the doctor makes some funny remark, and sud- 
 denly such a peal of merry, rollicking laughter 
 rings out from the silent little girl that everyone 
 in the ward chimes in. 
 
THE HOSPITAL 67 
 
 **What is this, my sister T' the doctor asks one 
 of the poor women who has come in a few days 
 before with some ngiy gnnshot wounds inflicted 
 by her husband, half dead from the long journey, 
 bound to a rough board as a stretcher. 
 
 ^ ' Oh, that is my Bible, ' ' she replies weakly. * ' I 
 cannot read it, but when I have it there, under 
 my pillow, I am not so much afraid.'' There is 
 a suspicious brightness about the doctor's eyes as 
 he turns away. 
 
 And these patients, gathered together from 
 among so many different races and creeds, some- 
 how get the feeling that they are brothers and sis- 
 ters, after all, for has not the great doctor treated 
 them all as such? 
 
 As Dr. Shepard passes out of the building, 
 throngs of people from the city await him. 
 *^Aman Doctor Effendi/' one and another begs; 
 a woman throws herself at his feet, pleading for 
 a visit to her sick child; a man lays hold on the 
 bridle of his horse, as he mounts to answer an 
 urgent call. Patiently the doctor replies to each 
 one '*Yes, sister, in an hour, — yes, father, in the 
 evening, — ^yes, brother, I will come to your house 
 first." '^Shippet is going by, Shippet is going 
 by," shout the street urchins, as he guides his 
 
68 SHEPARD OF AINTAB 
 
 horse over the slippery pavement of the narrow 
 streets. 
 
 Arrived at the home of the patient, a miserable 
 room with no sunshine and no heat, the doctor 
 slips off his shoes at the threshold, according to 
 Oriental custom, and sits right down on the floor, 
 or on the patient ^s low mattress, never for a mo- 
 ment seeming to fear contamination. 
 
 ^' Where is the pain, my child f he asks, with 
 a gentle hand laid on the pulse; and even before 
 the prescription is written, his very presence 
 seems to bring healing. 
 
 The afternoon finds Dr. Shepard at the operat- 
 ing table, an ordinary wooden table covered with 
 zinc, on which he has performed successfully hun- 
 dreds of difficult operations. The doctor, for 
 many years, has heroically faced handicaps which 
 baffled others before him. Since the day when, a 
 year after his arrival, the little hospital of ten 
 beds was formally opened, he and his associates 
 have, by care and ingenuity, made up for the lack 
 of well-nigh indispensable equipment. 
 
 The story of the hospital and its growth through 
 those years, in the face of almost insurmountable 
 difficulties, is a thrilling one. 
 
 After the first missionary who tried to make an 
 
,0 "l-l-''''' 
 
 I. DR. CAROLINE F. HAMILTON WITH AN ARMFUL OF TINY PATIENTS 
 
 II. DR. SHEPARD AND HIS ASSISTANTS AT THE HOME-MADE 
 
 OPERATING-TABLE 
 
THE HOSPITAL 69 
 
 entrance into the city had been stoned out of the 
 streets, Dr. Azariah Smith made a second attempt. 
 He was received nowhere except at a Turkish inn, 
 and from there he was about to be driven away, 
 when the inn-keeper's wife fell sick, and because 
 of his ministrations to her, the closed door was 
 opened. 
 
 On Dr. Smith's death, a memorial fund was 
 raised with which was begun the hospital that 
 bears his name. When the medical department of 
 the college of which the hospital was a part had 
 to be given up. Dr. Shepard turned all his at- 
 tention to the work of building up the hospital and 
 its practise. But what a struggle it was ! From 
 the first, his own earnings formed a large pro- 
 portion of the support of the hospital, and many 
 a time did he make a perilous journey to some 
 distant town to earn a big fee which he could apply 
 to his loved work. Many a vacation was given 
 up in order to earn enough to keep the hospital 
 free from debt. His reputation had become such 
 that, at any time, he could have gained in private 
 practise many times the amount of his salary. 
 But every ounce of his strength and skill were 
 devoted to the service of his Master, and with 
 brave heart he went ahead. 
 
70 SHEPARD OF AINTAB 
 
 If only there might be enough doctors and 
 nurses to keep the hospital open through the 
 summer as well as the winter ! One summer they 
 tried it, and 6144 patients were treated, many of 
 whom might otherwise have perished, but all the 
 staff were so worn out that they never dared to 
 make another attempt. For twenty years, Dr. 
 Shepard, doing the work of three ordinary men, 
 called again and again for some young man to 
 come over and help him, but no one saw the 
 vision. 
 
 ^*Is it possible, six hundred operations and only 
 fifteen deaths?'^ one would ask who entered the 
 operating-room and saw the meager equipment. 
 
 For many years there was no sterilizer. All the 
 instruments had to be boiled in an ordinary kettle. 
 Then a tiny sterilizer was secured, finally, a 
 larger one, a crude affair, manufactured in a dis- 
 tant city and brought, with great difficulty, to 
 Aintab. When the operations lasted until dark, 
 which often happened with from six to ten serious 
 cases in an afternoon, kerosene lamps, held by 
 the nurses, were the only means of furnishing 
 light. 
 
 For twenty-five years, practically no new in- 
 struments could be secured. With the almost 
 
THE HOSPITAL 71 
 
 incredible number of eye-cases, there was no dark 
 room for eye examinations. With the thousands 
 of diagnoses made in the clinics every year, there 
 was no X-ray apparatus or cystoscope; and the 
 bacteriological laboratory was a tiny room hardly 
 larger than a closet. There was no heating-plant, 
 no dry-room for clothes in winter, no separate 
 building for contagious cases, no ward for the 
 many suffering from tuberculosis. Apparatus for 
 extension of broken limbs, incubators for babies, 
 — all such contrivances had to be devised by the 
 doctor himself. With the growth of the work, 
 the growth of the hospital was imperative. Be- 
 fore 1890 a new wing had been built, making pos- 
 sible an addition of twenty beds in the wards. The 
 early work of Mrs. Shepard, in seeing women pa- 
 tients in clinics and in their homes, had borne 
 fruit; and it was now possible to take women as 
 well as men into the hospital. The work which she 
 had given up to devote herself to the lace in- 
 dustry, and to other missionary acti^dties, was 
 taken up, in 1893, by Dr. Caroline Hamilton who, 
 with the same spirit of devotion and heroism as 
 Dr. Shepard, shared with him the difficulties and 
 the successes in the hospital. 
 As the name and fame of Shippet spread far- 
 
72 SHEPARD OF AINTAB 
 
 ther and farther, patients came from an ever 
 widening circle. As the number of native physi- 
 cians increased, and hospitals were established at 
 one center and another, the operative cases became 
 more and more difficult. March and April were 
 the months when medicine was supposed to be 
 most effective and operations most successful. 
 So, in the spring, as the roads became warmer 
 and drier, a steady stream of patients poured in 
 from distant places. Many of these had to wait 
 for weeks before they could be taken in and 
 treated. 
 
 Many might have received treatment outside, if 
 they but had a place to stay. Through the gen- 
 erosity of some friends, in 1907, just back of the 
 hospital was erected a little hostel of four rooms, 
 for such cases. 
 
 This new building gave space for the opening 
 of a soup kitchen for those who needed proper 
 food more than medicine and were too poor to 
 buy it. In 1910-11, terrible winter storms, such as 
 had not been known for sixty years, followed one 
 upon another. Eoads were blocked. Camel cara- 
 vans came in without their drivers, who were later 
 found frozen to death. Fuel could not be found, 
 and people were burning even the doors and furni- 
 
THE HOSPITAL 73 
 
 ture from their houses. One family, utterly with- 
 out fuel, took the donkey into the house that they 
 might be warmed by its heat. What a boon it 
 was then, and in later years of stress, for the sick 
 to receive soup and milk and bread and even char- 
 coal from the soup kitchen. 
 
 *^ Blessings are showered upon me every day,'' 
 wrote the doctor, '^ by Turk and Christian alike, 
 for the help thus afforded. I found one day, in a 
 dark room, a bed-ridden Turkish woman with 
 three children, her husband gone to the war and 
 nothing to eat except what was sent in by her 
 neighbors. She was much more grateful for the 
 soup and bread than for the medicine which cost 
 four times as much.'' During one season, no less 
 than 12,750 meals were served from the kitchen 
 to 280 persons. 
 
 Can a hospital be carried on without nurses? 
 There was always one devoted American nurse 
 working with the doctors, and sometimes there 
 were two. But with only one nurse for so many 
 patients, and especially for so many operations, 
 when everything had to be sterilized in an ordi- 
 nary kettle, the problem became serious. Yet in 
 the early days it w^as impossible to find any but 
 native women, ail untrained, who were willing to 
 
74 SHEPARD OF AINTAB 
 
 care for the patients, and two of these had tuber- 
 culosis. As in most Oriental countries, caring for 
 the sick was considered a demeaning occupation. 
 [Women were afraid of contagion, and young girls 
 were kept closely at home, in the early days not 
 even being allowed to go to school. What pa- 
 tience, what sympathy, what alertness, were nec- 
 essary on the part of the American doctors and 
 nurses to watch and train the ignorant women and 
 girls who were willing to come in to help. The 
 need for trained nurses grew more and more im- 
 perative. By the year 1912, several Armenian 
 girls, some of whom had been educated in the 
 mission schools, were willing to adopt nursing as 
 a profession, and a nurses' training-school was 
 opened. It was a proud day when three of these 
 student-nurses actually received their diplomas, 
 and a fourth was given a special certificate for 
 proficiency and efficiency, after ten years of ser- 
 vice. These nurses were in great demand for ser- 
 vice in the military hospitals during the war. One 
 of them was put in charge of the Eed Crescent 
 hospital in Aintab. The conditions she found in 
 the hospital were unspeakable. Many of the beds 
 had no sheets, all kinds of contagious diseases 
 were crowded together in the same room, there 
 
THE HOSPITAL 75 
 
 were no sanitary arrangements, and no bathing 
 facilities except the cold-water pump in the yard, 
 while the filth and stench in some of the rooms 
 were so unbearable that the Turkish doctors would 
 not enter to see the patients. With marvelous 
 tact, dignity, and patience, this Christian nurse, 
 who was "nothing but a girl,'' succeeded in get- 
 ting what she demanded from the Turkish officials 
 and wrought such a transformation in that pest- 
 house that six other hospitals were placed under 
 her supervision. The nurses' training-school had 
 proved its worth. 
 
 There was no corner drug-store where the thou- 
 sands of prescriptions, given out in clinics and 
 homes, could be filled. All drugs had to be or- 
 dered by the doctor himself, from England and 
 America. In the original drug-room that the doc- 
 tor had found on his arrival, the faithful Armenian 
 druggist put up thousands of prescriptions, year 
 after year. The doctor, always quick to note and 
 appreciate fine qualities in his associates, paid the 
 following tribute to this faithful member of his 
 staff: 
 
 ''The way in which our dispenser handles the 
 enormous work of his department is noteworthy. 
 To put up more than 20,000 prescriptions a year 
 
76 SHEPARD OF AINTAB 
 
 with unfailing accuracy, and to meet the 20,000 
 people and their friends with whom he has to 
 deal, with unvarying urbanity and courtesy, is a 
 great achievement.'' 
 
 It was a happy day for the doctor when a gift 
 from a friend in England, Miss Anna Marsten, 
 made it possible to put up a new dispensary build- 
 ing, with a large drug-room and waiting-room, and 
 also with smaller dressing-rooms and consulta- 
 tion-rooms. 
 
 The permit for the building was applied for, 
 the stone was quarried and brought in, the lumber 
 was gathered together; but with characteristic 
 Turkish deliberation, where everything has to be 
 done after much coffee drinking, the permit was 
 delayed. The doctor soon hatched a scheme by 
 which the building need not be delayed. He put 
 up a wall about the site, which was on American 
 property and so not under Turkish rule, made a 
 camp within the walls, and engaged the stone- 
 masons and carpenters to come there to live; so 
 the work went merrily on. If a man stepped out, 
 he was promptly arrested; whereupon the doctor 
 would make a friendly call on the governor, pay 
 the man's fine to release him from prison, and 
 promptly get him back to work. 
 
THE HOSPITAL 77 
 
 The final hospital building, a memorial fund 
 for which had been started at the doctor's twenty- 
 fifth anniversary celebration, was planned and 
 begun by the doctor, but only half finished when 
 the war put an end to all building activities. 
 
 It is a week-day evening at the hospital. The 
 American nurse steps into the large ward for men, 
 and in one corner marshals her ^^ crutch brigade'' 
 — a class which includes all who can walk or 
 hobble about on crutches. 
 
 ** Which hymn would you like to-night, 
 Ahmed I" she asks; and Ahmed, though a Mos- 
 lem, is ready with his choice 
 
 *'I'm a pilgrim and I'm a stranger." 
 
 The hymn, always a favorite, is not yet finished, 
 when there is heard a little noise at the door 
 opening at the top of the stairs from the floor 
 below. It is Sulieman who, lame in both feet, 
 has heard the singing and has dragged him- 
 self upstairs ; now he is sitting on the floor, push- 
 ing himself along, to reach the Crutch Brigade. 
 A wild young Arab, taken into the hospital a few 
 days before, with bullet wounds in shoulder and 
 back, comes stalking in and sits down on a bench 
 in the center of the circle. After the reading, the 
 
78 SHEPARD OF AINTAB 
 
 prayer, and the singing are all over, with a broad 
 smile, he brings out the one word, 
 
 "Taih/' [Good.] 
 
 At a Sunday evening meeting in the same ward, 
 after the chaplain has given a little talk, he turns 
 to Mousa, the young Jewish lad, and asks, **What 
 would you say to Jesus if he should come to 
 you?^' 
 
 ''1 would thank him," comes the prompt reply. 
 
 ' ^ Thank him ; what for ? ' ' 
 
 *^ Because he has saved me." 
 
 As a result of what he has heard and learned 
 in one of these meetings, Khachadour, the poor 
 stable-boy and wagon drivers ' lad, takes with him 
 gospel tracts to scatter on his way, and through 
 this humble lad's faith, others come to know the 
 Father God. 
 
 A Moslem patient, who has a particularly 
 loathsome disease which needs a dressing every 
 day, receives the personal care of the doctor him- 
 self. His friends, sitting in the corner, look on 
 with wonder. 
 
 ^*We call ourselves Muslim" [the devoted one] 
 they say, ^^but the truly devoted are these Chris- 
 tian doctors and nurses who are willing to do 
 even this foul work." 
 
THE HOSPITAL 79 
 
 Patients, returning to their far-off villages, 
 spoke of the hospital as Jesus Hospital, and even 
 Moslems said it was Jesus who cured them there, 
 while others averred that it was the doctor's faith 
 which cured them. 
 
HOESES AND BANDITS 
 
 IT was the doctor's first Christmas in Turkey. 
 A big snow-storm had covered hill and plain 
 and blotted ont the narrow trail of sixty miles 
 between Aintab and Marash. Plowing through 
 the swirling desert of snow appeared a long- 
 legged horse and its rider, a short, thick-set man 
 wearing a big fur coat, cap drawn down over his 
 forehead, and carrying a gun slung over his shoul- 
 der. A few weeks before, the doctor had made the 
 two days' journey to Marash in one, in order to 
 do some dentistry for several missionaries. After 
 finishing a good round job of fifty fillings, he was 
 now hastening home to spend Christmas with his 
 wife. 
 
 ** Come, Selim,'' he said to his horse, impatient 
 of the delay, ^^ let's take this short cut and see 
 if we can't make a little better time." 
 
 But the short cut soon led into a trackless waste 
 of drifts which seemed to appear and disappear 
 
 81 
 
82 SHEPARD OF AINTAB 
 
 in the swirling snow. The doctor, who had been 
 only two months in the country, and had not then 
 learned every inch of that way as he had in later 
 years, lost both road and direction. 
 
 **Well, Selim, old boy, I guess you will have 
 to guide us home to-night. Let^s see what you 
 can do,'' he said, laying the reins loose on the 
 horse's neck. 
 
 As if waiting for the chance, Selim turned and 
 picked his way through the drifts in the gathering 
 darkness, and presently brought his master safely 
 home. With beard all hanging with icicles and 
 the snow frozen to his coat, like a veritable Santa 
 Claus, the doctor burst into the house with a 
 hearty ^^ Merry Christmas." 
 
 Many were the devoted horse friends the doc- 
 tor had. Some of them he himself raised and 
 trained. He understood them and they under- 
 stood him. One day, w^ien he was riding in com- 
 pany with a number of ladies on a narrow rocky 
 path, one of the horses suddenly cut some danger- 
 ous caper. He shouted to it, and the horse, rec- 
 ognizing the voice, because it had been trained 
 by Dr. Shepard, immediately became quiet. The 
 doctor turned around with a smile and said, ^*A 
 nervous colt cares a good deal more about a fly 
 
HORSES AND BANDITS 83 
 
 buzzing around the end of his nose than he does 
 about jumping off a precipice.'' 
 
 Benito, the horse that was stolen from Manoog, 
 was almost human in his intelligence. Though 
 he had done his master many a good turn, yet 
 once the faithful horse played a joke on him which 
 the doctor loved to tell. It was on the return 
 trip of a journey to Marash. The doctor had 
 reached the hill from which he could see Aintab, 
 still some two hours' ride across the muddy plain. 
 In spite of his heavy fur coat, he was chilled to 
 the bone and he dismounted to walk, dropping the 
 reins on Benito's neck, as he had done many a 
 time before. When he was warm again, he called 
 to the horse, w^alking a little distance ahead, to 
 stop that he might mount. Always before Benito 
 had obeyed that call; but to-night he was tired 
 and he only turned around and looked at his mas- 
 ter, then walked quietly on again. Again and 
 again his master called, but each time Benito only 
 stopped, looked around, and walked ahead, oblig- 
 ing the doctor, wearing his heavy fur coat, to 
 tramp those two long hours through sticky mire, 
 all the way to Aintab. 
 
 The strength and agility Dr. Shepard had de- 
 veloped as a boy stood him in good stead on his 
 
84 SHEPARD OF AINTAB 
 
 horseback trips, for he often had to calculate in 
 a flash what was best to do in an emergency and 
 to act on the instant. One day his horse suddenly 
 stepped into a narrow ditch that had been dug 
 over night and was thrown forward. As the doc- 
 tor went flying over the horse's head, he looked 
 back over his shoulder and saw the horse coming 
 on top of him. The instant he touched ground, 
 he made a quick handspring, landing on his feet 
 some distance away. **I am something like a 
 cat, ' ' he remarked with a twinkle in his eyes. ^ ' I 
 usually land on my hands and feet. ' ' 
 
 On another occasion, when Dr. Shepard was 
 escorting some ladies to Marash, he tried a short 
 cut over the muddy Bazarjuk Plain, which was 
 crisscrossed by irrigating ditches. Coming across 
 a narrow ditch, the doctor urged his horse in, 
 to discover its depth before the others of the 
 party should try the ford. The ditch proved 
 very deep and muddy. The doctor realized that, 
 in another instant, his horse would be mired in 
 the quicksand. With one spring he was on his 
 feet in the saddle, with another he stood on the 
 opposite bank, giving the reins such a terrific pull 
 that he dragged the horse to safety with him. 
 The others profited by his experience. 
 
,W^ipiWft l j Bl jM;.|»ag» »yi(;-: 
 
 I. DR. SHEPARD AND ONE OF HIS FAVORITE HORSES 
 
 U. WHEN FORDING A RIVER, THE HORSE BECOMES A REAL FRIEND 
 
HORSES AND BANDITS 85 
 
 The people of the country said Dr. Shepard 
 needed a war horse ; for when called to an urgent 
 case in a distant city, he spared neither himself 
 nor his horse, although he knew how to conserve 
 every moment of time and every ounce of strength. 
 A man once brought him a horse which he said 
 he knew was the kind the doctor needed. *^No,'' 
 said the doctor, looking the animal over, **he is 
 not what I want." 
 
 *^He is yours, '^ insisted the man, ^'keep him and 
 use him. If you can tire him by your hardest trip, 
 then give him back again. *' So the doctor kept 
 him and named him Dervish. 
 
 Not long after this, in the dead of winter, when 
 the roads were at their worst, came a telegram 
 from the black city of Diarbekir, begging the 
 doctor to come to a wealthy Turkish patient who 
 lay dangerously ill. It might be a hopeless case. 
 On the other hand, the young Armenian doctor 
 who had the case might get in trouble if this 
 prominent Turk should die without a consultation, 
 and Dr. Shepard was always ready to do his ut- 
 most for his native associates. Then, too, there 
 would be a big fee for the hospital, for Dr. 
 Shepard charged by the distance, ''ay ok ieri'^ 
 [foot sweat] the people called the fee, one gold 
 
86 SHEPARD OF AINTAB 
 
 lira for every hour of caravan time, and Diarbekir 
 was ten days' journey away. 
 
 Within an hour, his saddle-bags packed with 
 hard tack, doughnuts, and instruments, the doe- 
 tor was off. Every four hours he would stop to 
 get a new gendarme with a fresh horse ; but there 
 was no stop for Dervish, nor any fresh mount 
 for the doctor, — only a bag of barley for the horse 
 and an hour of rest for his rider. The first day's 
 ride took him to the banks of the Euphrates. That 
 night, as he left the picturesque village of Birejik, 
 with its old castle on the river, at one o'clock in 
 the cold moonlight, he looked back for his guard 
 and saw, to his dismay, a little shriveled-up old 
 Negro on a rackabones of a horse that looked as 
 if it had been tied together and might fall to 
 pieces at any moment. ^'We shan't make much 
 time on this leg of the journey," thought the 
 doctor, as he led off at a sharp trot. Before long 
 the guard was riding close beside him. 
 
 **Shan't we try a little gallop, Doctor Effendi?'^ 
 asked the Negro in a cracked little voice. 
 
 The doctor needed no second invitation; but 
 it was all he could do to keep within sight of the 
 tail of the old gray rackabones all the way to the 
 next stop. There was no stop for Dervish that 
 
HORSES AND BANDITS 87. 
 
 morning, however, after the night 's work, — only a 
 bag of barley and an hour's rest, and on again, 
 over icy mountain and muddy plain, through snowy 
 valley and swollen stream. On the fourth day, 
 when gendarme after gendarme had been dropped 
 behind, the doctor and Dervish saw the black tur- 
 rets in the distance and knew that they had won 
 through. The horse had proved his mettle. He 
 was indeed, as his master had said, a horse the 
 doctor could not tire. 
 
 The government required that every foreigner 
 should travel with a guard, disclaiming all re- 
 sponsibility for one who traveled alone. Almost 
 always on these trips the doctor's gun was slung 
 over his shoulder, for when the gendarme dropped 
 behind on a perilous road, he might have to face 
 a highwayman alone. 
 
 ^'Too bad," he used to say, ^Hhat when a man 
 goes on an errand of mercy, he should have to go 
 armed like a brigand." 
 
 On several occasions, however, his gun stood 
 him in good stead. 
 
 There was a certain fountain, backed by a high 
 hill near the city of Marash, which at one time 
 had a bad reputation, so many highway robberies 
 had occurred there. Once, when passing this place 
 
88 SHEPARD OF AINTAB 
 
 alone, he noticed a man sitting by the roadside, 
 and somehow he did not like his looks. He did 
 not fear one nnmonnted man, but he knew the way 
 of robbers. They would first experiment with a 
 traveler, and try to size him up, as to courage and 
 importance, before attacking him. They would 
 ride by a man and look him over, then dash up 
 and attack from the rear. Dr. Shepard knew that 
 this man might have companions within call, and 
 that the most dangerous thing that he himself 
 could do was to show the white feather. So, as 
 soon as he saw the man, he quietly swung his 
 gun around, pointing across his knee. The man 
 approached, took his horse by the bridle, and asked 
 the doctor the time of day. Suddenly cocking his 
 gun, Dr. Shepard replied, 
 
 ^' About time for you to be getting out of here !'' 
 The man took to his heels! 
 
 Once he was traveling the road to Hadjin, in 
 the Taurus Mountains. His servant, a devoted 
 and level-headed Armenian, was with him. It 
 was late afternoon. The road, a comparatively 
 broad and well-built one, was very steep and 
 wound among forests. Happening to look back, 
 he saw two Circassians on good mounts coming 
 behind them from the ravine they had just left. 
 
HORSES AND BANDITS 89 
 
 Now, the Circassians are the boldest and cruelest 
 robbers in Turkey. They have no fear of the 
 Turkish government, because the Turkish govern- 
 ment is really afraid of them. Dr. Shepard used 
 to say that they were the only highwaymen in 
 the country who would unhesitatingly kill or in- 
 jure those whom they robbed, and that he had 
 seen so much of their work that he considered 
 them utterly inhuman. There was once a patient 
 in the hospital whose tongue had been pulled out 
 by such robbers ; perhaps, as the doctor suggested, 
 because he was a little saucy. 
 
 On this afternoon, therefore, it was not reassur- 
 ing to see these horsemen approaching, but he 
 knew that the worst thing he could do would be 
 to show fear. They wore the usual black, Persian 
 lamb caps and tight-skirted coats, with a perfect 
 arsenal of cartridges, and carried daggers at 
 their sides. Each had, beside, a revolver and 
 a gun. Their intensely black eyes looked out 
 under beetling brows, in striking contrast to their 
 rather pale skins. They addressed Dr. Shepard 
 roughly. 
 
 **You ought not to be out on the road alone.'' 
 Dr. Shepard recognized this as a test question, 
 and replied shortly, ^'I'm not alone.'' 
 
90 SHEPARD OF AINTAB 
 
 *^ There are only two of you. It's not enough." 
 
 *^And there are only two of you." 
 
 ^*Ah-h-h, but we're Circassians!'' 
 
 ^^ And who am If 
 
 At this the men rode on, and he saw no more 
 of them. Evidently they had decided that he was 
 a person whom it would not be well to molest. 
 
 Dr. Shepard used to say that, when robbers 
 attacked a caravan, it was generally quite sufficient 
 to ride at them, crack your whip and bellow. 
 Once, however, the doctor actually was robbed. 
 It was after the massacre of 1909, when he was 
 in charge of the reconstruction work in the burned 
 villages of the Amanus Mountains. Back and 
 forth he went, over the rocky, difficult trails, 
 carrying with him saddle-bags full of gold, for 
 the work of relief and rebuilding. 
 
 **Now is my chance," thought the bold Kurdish 
 outlaw Abtino. Many a caravan had he robbed 
 and many a man had he killed for his money. 
 
 On a certain Saturday afternoon the doctor was 
 riding through a narrow defile in one of the lone- 
 liest parts of the mountain. His trusty servant, 
 Heokkesh, rode behind him, carrying his gun. 
 The doctor was unarmed. Suddenly, from behind 
 some bushes at the top of the ravine, dashed 
 
HORSES AND BANDITS 91 
 
 down six burly Kurds. Instantly the servant took 
 aim at the leader of the robber band. 
 
 ^' Don't shoot," cried the doctor, knowing the 
 game would be up with them should they begin 
 the fight. At the same moment, his long arm 
 shot out and knocked the gun out of his ser- 
 vant's hand. While Dr. Shepard was thus sav- 
 ing Abtino from his servant's bullet, one of the 
 outlaw band from behind dealt the doctor a das- 
 tardly blow on the back of his head which felled 
 him to the ground. Then the robbers gleefully 
 tied the hands of the doctor and his servant and 
 made them sit down behind a clump of bushes, 
 while they ransacked the saddle-bags. They found 
 doughnuts, hard tack, raisins, a change of clothing, 
 a stethoscope, and a medicine case — nothing more. 
 
 *^ Where is all the gold they say you have been 
 carrying?" demanded the outlaw. 
 
 The doctor, with his keen sense of humor, was 
 beginning to enjoy the joke. 
 
 *^If you had known Dr. Shepard better," he 
 replied, ^'you would have kno^\Ti that you could 
 not find any money about him." 
 
 '^You lie!" cried the robber, and started to go 
 through the pockets of the prisoners. They found 
 a gold watch, a pocket-knife, and a few mejidieh 
 
92 SHEPARD OF AINTAB 
 
 [silver coin worth about eighty cents] — nothing 
 more. 
 
 *^Now, by Allah!'* swore Abtino, ^'I ought by 
 good rights to kill you for this. From the mean- 
 est traveler I get more than this, and from you 
 I expected to get at least two hundred liras!'' [A 
 lira, in Turkey, is a gold piece worth about $4.40.]' 
 
 ** You'd better kill him, anyway," advised All 
 Geozuk, one of the robber gang. **They say no 
 one who has touched Dr. Shepard ever gets off 
 without his dues." 
 
 '^Fool," replied the outlaw, ** would you have 
 me run my own head into a noose ? We will keep 
 them until sundown, and then let them go." 
 
 Until sundown, therefore, from behind bushes, 
 the doctor had a chance to watch how the outlaws 
 went about their work, as every passing horse- 
 man or caravan was held up and robbed. He thus 
 completes the story in his own words: 
 
 *^I was so relieved, because I had no relief 
 funds with me, that the whole thing rather took, 
 in my mind, the aspect of a good joke on the 
 robbers. A week before, I traveled the same road 
 with over seven hundred pounds in money in my 
 saddle-bags, but that time I was armed (when 
 robbed I was wholly unarmed), and should have 
 
HORSES AND BANDITS 93 
 
 put up a lively figlit — very likely I should have 
 lost my life and the gold to boot; in any case, I 
 should have killed several Kurds, a thing I had 
 no wish to do. The whole thing seems to have 
 been providential. The robbers have been cap- 
 tured near Diarbekir, and Abtino will doubtless 
 be hung. He had previously killed about a score 
 of men, and since robbing me he has killed three 
 more." Later, the doctor was called as a witness 
 at the trial of Abtino by court-martial and he de- 
 scribes it thus: 
 
 ^'He still sticks to the tale he told the Vali 
 [governor], that Dr. Shepard treated him for six- 
 teen days in the hospital at Aintab, for which 
 service he owes the doctor fifty liras, and because 
 he failed to pay the same, the doctor brings this 
 false charge against him — a tale which amused 
 the court-martial but did not redound to Abtino 's 
 advantage. The fellow was brought in, chained 
 to a young Kurd whom I had never seen before. 
 I was sorry for the rascal; he acted like a fox I 
 once caught in a steel trap.'* 
 
 Abtino was convicted and hung. His brother 
 and Ali Geozuk swore vengeance on the doctor 
 and threatened to kill him on sight, but four years 
 later, Ali Geozuk was shot by a company of 
 
94 SHEPARD OF AINTAB 
 
 gendarmes sent after him by the government, and 
 Abtino 's brother fled the country. 
 
 There was one occasion, however, when the 
 fearless doctor was really afraid, and it was the 
 gun which he carried for protection that gave 
 him the fright. He was returning with his wife 
 and children from the summer camp, where they 
 had spent a glorious six weeks. The grateful 
 darkness had fallen, after the long, hot ride of 
 the day. Mrs. Shepard, weary of riding in the 
 saddle, asked if she might not change to the load, 
 for a rest. The doctor dismounted, and, holding 
 his gun in one hand, was helping her off with 
 the other. Meanwhile, the stallion he had been 
 riding began to paw at Mrs. Shepard *s horse 
 and struck the hammer of the doctor's gun. There 
 was a loud report. At the same instant Mrs. 
 Shepard slid from her saddle to the ground. For 
 a moment the bullet's work was uncertain. 
 
 **Did it hit you, dear?" came the words in 
 terror and anguish. 
 
 **No, no," came the quick, reassuring reply. 
 
 Dr. Shepard, however, was exceedingly careful 
 about his firearms. He always unloaded his gun 
 when through Tvdth it. A revolver he distrusted 
 and he seldom carried one. **It is a tricky 
 
HORSES A2JD BANDITS 95 
 
 [Weapon/' he used to say/* it is so short, you never 
 know where it is pointing." 
 
 When Abtino's brother and Ali Geozuk were 
 seeking his life, however, the doctor yielded to 
 the pleas of his friends and borrowed a revolver 
 to take with him on a trip through the mountain 
 region where the outlaws were said to be lying 
 in wait. After a time, getting tired of so much 
 paraphernalia, the doctor put the little *^ auto- 
 matic'' into the side-pocket of his coat. In some 
 of his curvetings, his horse banged the shotgun, 
 slung as usual over the doctor's shoulder, against 
 the revolver in his pocket, and exploded it, sending 
 the bullet through the doctor's leg. Fortunately, 
 he had some iodine with him, and his companion, 
 an Armenian doctor, had some gauze; so they 
 bandaged the wound and w^ent on their way, glad 
 that the accident was no worse. 
 
 Thirty-one years after that first Christmas, 
 when Dr. Shepard and his good horse had made 
 their way home through drifting snow, again on 
 a Christmas Day, he was battling over the same 
 road. This time he rode in a carriage of the 
 prairie-schooner style. Thirty-one years see eome 
 changes even in Turkey, and a carriage road (so 
 called by courtesy) had been built between Aintab 
 
96 SHEPARD OF AINTAB 
 
 and Marash. The doctor still preferred his horse, 
 but on this occasion it had not been *^fit,'' and 
 his patient had furnished the carriage. The doc- 
 tor now knew the road and strapped his saddle 
 on the back of the carriage, so that if the vehicle 
 should get stuck in mud or snow, he might mount 
 one of the horses and push on. The return trip 
 proved the doctor 's wisdom. In his own words he 
 tells the story of that trip : 
 
 I left Marash Tuesday morning, at about nine 
 o'clock, in a carriage and with rather threatening 
 weather; but we got along nicely, although there 
 was a little snow falling, until we were about half- 
 way up the mountain this side of the Bazarjuk 
 Plain, when a regular blizzard struck us, and from 
 there on, for about an hour, it was a question 
 whether we could win through or not. The driver 
 would have perished, I think, had I not had an 
 extra greatcoat to give him. Several times I 
 thought we would surely be blown oif the moun- 
 tain, but at last the well-blown horses pulled me 
 into the inn yard, although even there the air was 
 so full of whirling snow that one could scarcely 
 distinguish their heads from their tails, and while 
 I was helping the half-frozen driver to take them 
 from the wagon, my hat w^as so suddenly blown 
 from my head that I never saw where it went. 
 There was but one unoccupied room in the inn, and 
 
HORSES AND BANDITS 97 
 
 noi long after I had gotten settled in that, with a 
 young Turkish soldier on his way to join his 
 regiment in Marash, four more soldiers came in, 
 half perished from the storm, and of course I had 
 to make them as welcome as might be in my room. 
 With six of us and two braziers of charcoal 
 in the small room, it was soon warm enough to 
 be bearable, and I slept as well as my rheumatic 
 joints would permit. 
 
 When the belated morning light finally ap- 
 peared, it was still blowing great guns, and it was 
 obviously out of the question for the carriage to 
 go on. So I mounted the best of the three horses, 
 and pushed out into the swirling whiteness. Many 
 stretches of road were blo^vn clear of snow, and 
 on these I made good time, nor did I find any very 
 deep drifts until I reached the end of the made 
 road, up on top of the plateau. Here the snow 
 was deeper, and the wind, having a freer sweep, 
 had piled it in deeper drifts ; and in many places 
 these were so deep that my little horse could not 
 flounder through wdth me on his back, so I fre- 
 quently had to dismount and break a track, 
 through which he could wallow along behind me. 
 But by dint of taking to the fields and hillsides, 
 where the snow was shallowest, keeping along the 
 windward side of walls and hedges, and after 
 again coming to the half-built road, by riding 
 along on top of the cracked stone piled beside the 
 road-bed, I managed to make some progress. I 
 met the post — three laden horses and three 
 
98 SHEPARD OF AINTAB 
 
 mounted men — at about noon, and soon afterward 
 a small caravan, and so had a broken track the 
 rest of the way, and finally, as I got within three 
 hours of Aintab, a well-beaten one ; whereupon my 
 little horse plucked up courage and paddled in the 
 rest of the way, as if nothing had happened to 
 him. It seemed very good to be home again, and 
 to find every one so glad to see me. Your mother 
 soon had a warm meal for me, which, as I had 
 eaten nothing since the evening before, tasted very 
 good indeed. 
 
 Although the doctor was ready at any moment 
 to brave the perils of the road to save a life, 
 whether of Christian, Kurd, or Turk, yet there 
 was a special pull on his heartstrings when the call 
 came from some missionary associate in a distant 
 place. At four in the afternoon of an early 
 spring day, while at the operating-table, a tel- 
 egram was handed to the doctor. ^^ Carrie ill — 
 come at once." Two days' journey far across the 
 mountain ranges and across the plain full of 
 swollen streams and sloughs, the anxious parents 
 were waiting. *^"When would the telegram reach 
 the doctor 1 ' ' Like everything else in Turkey, tel- 
 egrams were slow, and often Dr. Shepard would 
 reach a place in time to receive his own telegram 
 announcing his coming. 
 
HORSES AND BANDITS 99 
 
 ^^How long would it take him to reach, them 
 over those difficult roads ?^' At five o'clock the 
 doctor was on his way. At dark the mountain 
 range was crossed, and he pulled up at the door 
 of the house of his Kurdish friend, Mahmoud 
 Agha. While the horse had his bag of barley, 
 the members of his friend's household vied with 
 one another to do honor to the loved guest. They 
 brought him a ewer and basin to bathe his feet, and 
 a dish of hot soup, with bread and curds and 
 cheese for his evening meal. 
 
 '^Can I get across the ford at the Ak Suf'^ 
 [White Water] asked the doctor anxiously. 
 
 **I fear not, Effendi; there has been much snow 
 and rain, and the water runs by like a sea." 
 
 *^But the bridge is two hours' down-stream, and 
 that will lose me four hours' time. It is a child 
 that needs me and I cannot delay." 
 
 ^^Inshallah [God willing], the Doctor E/fendi 
 can pass the ford. You have no guard; I will 
 come with you to the water. ' ' 
 
 Mounting his old gray mare, the Kurd rode be- 
 side the doctor, guiding him, in the darkness, 
 around the sloughs to the river, which rolled in 
 a turbulent torrent down the plain. 
 
 *^ Entrusted to Allah," he shouted as the doctor 
 
100 SHEPARD OF AINTAB 
 
 rode into the swollen and turbulent stream and 
 then disappeared in the darkness. 
 
 Carefully the horse picked his way over the 
 mud bottom, while the cold, swirling water rose 
 first to his belly, then to his shoulders. 
 
 '^Steady, there, boy, I'm with you.'* 
 
 As the horse lost bottom and began to swim, 
 the doctor loosened his coat and, sliding off into 
 the water, held on to the pommel of his saddle 
 with one hand, while he pulled a strong stroke 
 with the other. After a sharp fight with the cur- 
 rent, drenched and shivering, horse and rider 
 scrambled up onto the farther bank and groped 
 their way back to the road up-stream; for the 
 current had carried them far down as they swam. 
 But the four hours had been saved, and morning 
 found the doctor at the home of his little patient. 
 
 So well had the doctor come to know the roads 
 of the country, and how to manage everything on 
 a journey by horse or carriage, that he was asked, 
 time and time again, to escort a party of recently- 
 arrived missionaries over the road from Alexan- 
 dretta to Aintab or to other cities farther in the 
 interior. Many were the tales he would tell them 
 to while away the time, as they rode over the 
 long miles ; how, at a certain point one day, over- 
 
HORSES AND BANDITS 101 
 
 come with sleep, he had lain down for a nap, and 
 his faithful horse, Abdullah, had licked his face 
 to wake him when a caravan of camels passed by; 
 how, when one of the women missionaries was 
 riding his splendid horse through the market-place 
 in Oorfa, he had heard one Turk say to another, 
 '^ Isn't it a shame to have a fine horse like that 
 ridden by a woman !'* And how, as he was escort- 
 ing a party of ladies riding in two carriages 
 through the streets of Kills, a fat old Turk, stand- 
 ing beside the village fountain, turned to another 
 man and remarked, ''The Doctor Effendi, it 
 seems, has increased his harem!'' He told how, 
 stopping at a certain khan one day, he boasted of 
 his camp omelet to the lady he was escorting; 
 how he placed the eggs in readiness on a stool and 
 then, forgetting them, almost sat down on them, 
 when a scream from the lady saved the eggs — 
 and his trousers. There was a twinkle of the 
 eye which came before each story and a chuckle 
 which followed. Another device the doctor used 
 to shorten a tedious journey was his pocket chess- 
 board. The tiny, folding box which held the chess- 
 men opened out into a miniature board. The 
 men stood firmly on pegs fitted into little round 
 holes in the squares, so that the board could be 
 
102 SHEPARD OF AINTAB 
 
 passed back and forth, from one horseback rider 
 to another ; and many a hard-fought game did the 
 doctor win from some companion as they covered 
 the dusty miles. 
 
 In 1911, when the doctor was returning from a 
 year's visit to his native land, some new mission- 
 aries for Harpoot, a city farther inland than 
 Aintab, traveled with him. One of them thus tells 
 of their journey together: 
 
 It was the overland journey from Alexandretta 
 to Aintab that revealed to us the love which Dr. 
 Shepard had won in the hearts of the people of 
 Turkey. As I saw him minister to the multitudes, 
 I could only think of our Savior and what they 
 said of him. **And he had compassion on them, 
 because they were as sheep not having a shep- 
 herd." At Hamam, where we spent the day in 
 misery fighting flies and fleas, the doctor minis- 
 tered to a great crowd of people. It was noised 
 abroad that he was there (though he hoped to get 
 through without having it known) and the people 
 began to come to him at seven o 'clock in the morn- 
 ing, and kept coming until evening. 
 
 The rest of us did not care to spend another 
 night in the khan, and so Dr. Shepard persuaded 
 the wagon-drivers to travel at night, as it was 
 moonlight. This they consented to do. At nine 
 o'clock we were packed up and ready to go. We 
 
HORSES AND BANDITS 103 
 
 had got fairly well started on our night's ride, 
 when some one came galloping after us on horse- 
 back. Another patient had been brought in from 
 a village to see the doctor. He went back to give 
 the desired help and we waited. 
 
 The next day we reached Kills. There he was 
 received with open arms by the Protestant pastor 
 and the Gregorian priest who both kissed him on 
 both cheeks and hugged him violently. The news 
 soon spread that he was there, and again the 
 sick were brought to him. A room in a house was 
 given him, and all day he ministered to the sick, 
 even until nine o'clock in the evening, when we 
 started on our journey again. The words of an 
 Aintab Seminary schoolgirl, who lived in that vil- 
 lage and who called on us, expressed the feeling 
 we all had concerning him. As we sat watching 
 from the window old and young, sick and in- 
 firm, deaf and blind, some brought in ox-carts, 
 some on the backs of mothers or husbands, some 
 walking, but all in distress, waiting to see the 
 doctor, this girl said, ^'He is just like Jesus, isn't 
 he? That is the way He did." And we all an- 
 swered, ^'Yes." 
 
VI 
 FACING THE MOB 
 
 WHILE Dr. Shepard, by his life of devoted 
 service to men of all races and religions 
 alike, was preaching the gospel of the fatherhood 
 of God and the brotherhood of man, Abdul Hamid, 
 upon his throne, was plotting how he might fan 
 into flame dissensions and hatreds among his sub- 
 jects. Wily old fox that he was, he made many 
 promises to England, signed and sealed, to re- 
 form his government and take better care of his 
 Christian subjects; but within his empire his spies 
 were busily at work. Every book or paper that 
 came into the country was strictly censored. Mag- 
 azines were delivered from the post-office with 
 holes cut in their pages, or with whole leaves gone, 
 where some objectionable phrase or article had 
 been found. 
 
 A life of Dwight L. Moody, sent from Amer- 
 ica to Mrs. Shepard, was held by the censor. 
 When she requested that, if it could not come into 
 
 105 
 
106 SHEPARD OF AINTAB 
 
 Turkey, it might be sent back, she received the 
 reply that the book was not fit to be read in any 
 country and should be destroyed. An Armenian 
 preacher was imprisoned on the charge of using 
 the phrase ^^ Kingdom of God'' in a sermon copied 
 thirty years before, and taken from the sermons 
 of an American missionary. This phrase surely 
 showed a revolutionary spirit! Other preachers 
 were thrown into a loathsome Turkish prison, to 
 be kept there for months without charge or trial, 
 while their papers were ransacked. If the word 
 **star" were found in one of these sermons, that 
 was enough to convict its writer; for was not 
 Yildiz, [Star] the name of the Sultan's palace? 
 He must surely be plotting against his Majesty. 
 
 No Christian subject was allowed to flee the 
 country, and no Christian, native or foreign, could 
 travel in the empire without a permit. 
 
 Telephones were a **pet aversion'' of the Sul- 
 tan. The doctor put one up between his house 
 and the hospital, for emergency calls. It was no 
 sooner ready to use than the order came to take 
 it down again. All appeals to higher authority 
 were in vain, and the Moslem carpenter who had 
 put up the poles and strung the wires had to undo 
 ihis work, muttering curses the while on such a 
 
FACING THE MOB 107 
 
 government. Exorbitant taxes were exacted from 
 the poor, and often a man^s pots and kettles were 
 seized and sold for taxes which he could not pay 
 or perhaps had already paid. 
 
 Meanwhile, the Kurds and Arabs were encour- 
 aged to prey on and plunder their Armenian 
 neighbors. The poor Christian Armenians looked 
 to the Christian nations for help against their 
 oppressors, but when they found that they looked 
 in vain, some tried to help themselves. Just north 
 of Marash, the city to which the doctor had taken 
 so many emergency trips, in a deep mountain val- 
 ley, lies the little village of Zeitoun. Rough and 
 bold as the mountains which surround them, these 
 Armenian villagers lived as an independent little 
 state. Among them was a band of rebel outlaws. 
 When the Sultan's oppression and the threats of 
 their Moslem neighbors became unbearable, in 
 October, 1895, this fearless band rose in rebellion, 
 captured the garrison of five hundred Turkish sol- 
 diers that had been stationed there to keep them 
 quiet, and attacked the surrounding Moslem vil- 
 lages. 
 
 This was just the kind of an excuse for which 
 his Majesty had been waiting. In glaring head- 
 lines, the Turkish newspapers printed exagger- 
 
108 SHEPARD OF AINTAB 
 
 ated tales of the terrible things these Christian 
 outlaws were doing to their poor Moslem neigh- 
 bors. And everywhere, all over the empire, the 
 Moslems were roused against the Giaours, or un- 
 believers. Did not their sacred book tell them it 
 was a merit to kill a Christian dog? And was 
 not this the best chance in the world to take 
 houses and lands and goods and money from these 
 people who had grown so prosperous and were 
 always getting ahead of them! The Turks and 
 Kurds were only too eager to wreak vengeance 
 all over the country for this lawless act of the 
 Armenians in the little village of Zeitoun. And 
 Abdul Hamid, in his palace, decided that no one 
 would blame him for what a mob might do; so 
 his secret emissaries went through the land, rous- 
 ing the mob to do its work when the signal should 
 be given. 
 
 It was Saturday morning, November 16, 1895. 
 Dr. Shepard was seated at breakfast with his fam- 
 ily in the little home on the college campus, half 
 a mile from the city. Suddenly the maid burst 
 into the room, **0h, Doctor Effendi/' she cried, 
 her voice hoarse with terror, ^4t is gone, the city 
 is gone!'' Springing from their seats, all rushed 
 to the front door. The air was filled with a horrid 
 
FACING THE MOB 109 
 
 clamor, — the shrieks of woraen, the crack of guns, 
 the shouts of men, the crash of breaking doors 
 and windows, the shrill battle-cry of the Moslem 
 women cheering their men on in the awful work 
 of killing and plunder. 
 
 The doctor's horse stood saddled at the door. 
 His first thought was for the hospital and the 
 girls' boarding school, at the edge of the city, 
 where the ladies were alone. Jumping into the 
 saddle, he was off on a run. As he entered the 
 city, he passed through a crowd of Kurds armed 
 with guns, axes, clubs, and butcher knives, swarm- 
 ing out of their quarters to attack their Armenian 
 neighbors. At the school, the American teacher 
 had gathered the white-faced, terrified girls about 
 her in prayer, while across the street, at the hos- 
 pital. Dr. Hamilton and the American nurse. Miss 
 Trowbridge, were quietly going about their work 
 in the wards. 
 
 The mob had gathered in numbers and came 
 surging up the street, vowing that they would 
 hang the doctor on his own gate-post. As, with 
 loud cries, they attacked the hospital gate, the 
 doctor threw it open to meet the mob and reason 
 with them. There, in the gateway, with his three 
 hundred pounds of weight surrounded by a broad 
 
110 SHEPARD OF AINTAB 
 
 girdle, stood the portly and valiant Hadji Husein^ 
 holding the mob at bay. Had not the doctor held 
 death at bay for his brother some years before? 
 '^If any man passes through this gate,'^ he 
 shouted, ^'he passes over my dead bodyP' Just 
 then a band of soldiers arrived and scattered the 
 mob. 
 
 Later, leaving the touring missionary, Mr. 
 Sanders, with the ladies at the school, the doctor 
 returned to his family. Meanwhile, a cordon of 
 soldiers had been placed between the city and the 
 college. When, the next morning, he tried to go 
 back to his hospital, the captain in command of 
 the cordon would not let him pass, and when 
 he insisted, put him in charge of a squadron of 
 soldiers with fixed bayonets and sent him back 
 home. That was one of the longest days the doc- 
 tor ever spent. To know that many of his friends 
 were lying wounded, others in terror and despair 
 and mourning for their dead, and he not able to 
 reach them! On Sunday morning, from the top 
 of the college tower, the doctor could see, through 
 his field-glasses, a gathering crowd of thousands 
 of armed Kurdish and Turkish villagers. Just at 
 noon, with blood-curdling yells, the mob broke 
 through the cordon of soldiers and surged into 
 
FACING THE MOB 111 
 
 the Armenian quarter of the city below the hos- 
 pital. In a few minutes appeared a Turkish offi- 
 cer on a white horse, who, with sword and pis- 
 tol, drove the mob pell-mell out of the city and a 
 long way into the fields. 
 
 Meanwhile, as they saw the renewed attack from 
 a window. Dr. Hamilton and Miss Trowbridge 
 went to the wards to be with their patients when 
 the end should come. After a time there came 
 a great knocking on the street gate. ^'It is the 
 mob,'' they thought, and the patients began to 
 tremble and scream. But when they looked out, 
 there at the gate stood big, kindly Hadji Husein, 
 the man who had saved them the day before. The 
 tears were streaming down his fat face onto his 
 broad girdle, and with him was a company of 
 women and children, terribly hacked and hewed. 
 He, with a few intrepid followers, had helped 
 to chase the mob away, and had gathered up 
 the victims left by the cruel onslaught. With 
 wonderful heroism, Dr. Hamilton set to work on 
 the poor, mangled creatures. Among them was 
 an old man with the back of his head laid open 
 by an ax, so that the skull gaped an inch or 
 more, showing the throbbing brain. ''Lay him 
 down there," said Dr. Hamilton after a glance, 
 
112 SHEPARD QF AINTAB 
 
 ^'his is a hopeless case.'' "When the others were 
 all gone, she examined him, and finding him still 
 alive, drew the wound together with a bandage; 
 then, putting on an antiseptic dressing, gave him 
 a bed. The old man's wound healed rapidly, and 
 he was the first of the unfortunate victims to leave 
 the hospital. 
 
 Monday morning the doctor again mounted his 
 horse and started for the city. Again he was 
 stopped by an officer and told to go back home. 
 
 ''I will not go back," replied the doctor. *^I 
 do not recognize your authority. I will go to 
 your superior officer, if you choose to send me, 
 but I will not go back. ' ' 
 
 The doctor's bold answer won out, and with 
 three soldiers he was sent to the commanding offi- 
 cer from whom he received permission to care 
 for the wounded and to bury the dead. By night 
 fifty-four wounded persons were brought in and 
 cared for, and soon after, beds had to be spread 
 on the floor, while the basement of the hospital, 
 and even the stable, were occupied by the unfor- 
 tunate sufferers, until one hundred and fifty had 
 been taken in. 
 
 Meanwhile, in the village of Zeitoun, the so- 
 called *^war" was still going on. Five hundred 
 
FACING THE MOB 113 
 
 half-clad, half-armed Armenian outlaws, in their 
 snow-bound mountain fastness, were fighting back 
 the thirty-four regiments of Turkish soldiers that 
 besieged them. When their ammunition gave out, 
 they made bullets of the enemy's shells, many of 
 which had fallen without bursting. Then the Eu- 
 ropean powers interfered and half a dozen consuls 
 were sent to the little town to arrange a truce. 
 
 *^Sick with typhus; come to me,'* came a tele- 
 gram to Dr. Shepard from a former pupil in 
 Marash who was one of the two doctors in that 
 city. 
 
 ^^ Cannot leave Aintab," wired back Dr. Shep- 
 ard. 
 
 ' ^ Sick with typhus ; come to me, ' ' read another 
 telegram from the other doctor in Marash, who 
 was also a former pupil. 
 
 And the doctor went. 
 
 Just as he was leaving home, a third telegram 
 was handed to him from the British Consul in 
 Zeitoun. *^ Epidemic of typhus, fifty deaths a 
 day; can Dr. Shepard come at once!" 
 
 ^'En route to Marash,'' replied the doctor; 
 ** write me there." 
 
 When Dr. Shepard reached Zeitoun, he found 
 21,000 refugees crowded together in the little 
 
114 SHEPARD OF AINTAB 
 
 town. After the long siege, when even the dead 
 could not be carried out to be buried, the people 
 were in a starving condition. With the crowding 
 and filth, the ''cooties'' were hard at work, carry- 
 ing typhus germs from one sick person to another. 
 The people seemed to fear nothing so much as a 
 breath of outside air; but, in spite of the fears 
 of the patients and the protests of the old women, 
 the doctor had them all carried out on the broad 
 verandahs of the houses. It worked like a charm. 
 In less than a week, instead of forty-five to fifty 
 people dying in one day, only four or ^ve died. 
 The doctor then had a mountain stream turned 
 into the streets at the upper end of the town, 
 and with a gang of men with hoes and brooms, 
 to help things along, the place got such a scrub- 
 bing as it never had experienced before. 
 
 One day, as Dr. Shepard was holding a clinic for 
 the sick, he heard a great commotion at the gate. 
 Stepping out to see what the matter was, he found 
 a big burly outlaw pushing his way past the 
 gate-keeper, whose duty it was to see that the 
 patients entered in turn. 
 
 "What do you want, my brother?" asked the 
 doctor. 
 
 "I want to see the doctor,'' blustered the man. 
 
FACING THE MOB 115 
 
 **But it is not your turn,'' replied the busy 
 doctor. ^^We have to have system here. This is 
 no way to do." 
 
 '^Well, this is the way we do in Zeitoun," swag- 
 gered the man. 
 
 *^Have it the Zeitoun way, if you must," replied 
 the doctor ; and seizing the big bully by the ' ' scruif 
 of the neck," he threw him out into the street. 
 
 As soon as a Red Cross relief expedition, which 
 Dr. Shepard had called for, arrived in Zeitoun, 
 he returned to Aintab. There, too, the suffering 
 had been great. Fear still held the people in its 
 clutch. Prominent Christians were imprisoned, 
 shops could not be opened, and no work was to 
 be had. It was then that the orphanage was 
 started for fatherless waifs, and Mrs. Shepard 
 increased her industries for the poor widows. 
 Many a coin found its way from the doctor's own 
 pocket — never too ^^well lined" — into the hand 
 of some starving patient. 
 
 One day a woman brought her little baby for 
 the doctor to examine. As he looked pitifully at 
 its little pinched face, his hand went to his pocket. 
 **It is milk the child needs, not medicine," he 
 said; ^^buy it milk," and he handed the woman a 
 coin. Stooping to kiss his feet, the woman hur- 
 
116 SHEPARD OF AINTAB 
 
 ried away, calling down blessings on his head. 
 In a few days she was back again. 
 
 ^^Well, what is it, my daughter!" asked the 
 doctor, expecting another plea for help. 
 
 To his surprise, she held out the coin he had 
 given her a few days before. ^*When I got 
 home,'' she said, ^'I learned that my husband 
 had found a job. He had earned a few metaliks 
 [cents] and we bought the milk, so I brought this 
 back; take it and give it to some one who needs 
 it more than I. ' ' 
 
 Abdul Hamid on his throne might fan the 
 hatreds of his subjects into flame, but in the hos- 
 pital at Aintab the doctor and his associates still 
 treated all alike, and the patients caught their 
 spirit. The little Armenian girl, wounded by Mos- 
 lem persecutors, was caring tenderly for the lone- 
 some little Moslem child beside her. When the 
 bandage was removed from the eyes of an old 
 Turk, after a successful operation for cataract, a 
 chorus of congratulations rang out from the Chris- 
 tian patients in the ward. In the city itself many 
 Moslems protected their Armenian friends from 
 death, so that the number of victims in Aintab 
 was much smaller than in many other places. 
 
 What a glad day it was for the Armenians when, 
 
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FACING THE MOB 117 
 
 in 1908, their persecutor, the wily old Abdul 
 Hamid, was forced to accept the constitutional 
 government which the *^ Young Turk" party de- 
 clared. Processions marched through the streets 
 carrying gay banners, flaunting bold words which 
 no one dared to whisper before. ''Liberty, Fra- 
 ternity, Equality." In the province of Adana, 
 however, where the Armenians had escaped the 
 massacre of 1895 and had grown prosperous, the 
 old Turks hated them more than ever, and only 
 waited for a chance to plunder them of their 
 riches. 
 
 * ' What ! Equality with the Christian dogs 1 We 
 will see about that, some fine day!" they thought. 
 When the news came from Constantinople that 
 Abdul Hamid had again seized the reins and was 
 in full power, they made the best of their brief 
 chance. 
 
 Some days before, many of Dr. Shepard's 
 friends from Aintab, pastors, college professors, 
 and teachers, had started for Adana to attend a 
 conference of Christian workers. Eumors of 
 trouble in that city began to float in, and then 
 came a telegram from Adana: *' Rogers and 
 Maurer murdered, all other Americans safe." 
 
 These two young Americans had been shot by 
 
118 SHEPARD OF AINTAB 
 
 Turks in Adana, while they were making a heroic 
 fight against the fire which had been kindled by 
 the mob near their school. Two days later, a 
 muleteer who had gone with the delegates to the 
 conference came back, bringing the news that they 
 all had been murdered on the road. Refugees be- 
 gan to flock in, telling of terrible massacres in 
 their mountain homes. Dr. Shepard was eager 
 as ever to be on the front lines of service ; but a 
 massacre might occur at any moment in Aintab 
 itself, and the people felt that the very presence 
 of the doctor was a safeguard to them, for were 
 not the Moslems of the city his personal friends ? 
 When news came, however, that the old Sultan 
 had finally been deposed, he lost no time in mount- 
 ing his horse and hurrying toward the burned 
 villages. The next day found him a guest at the 
 home of his friend Hadji Chaoush, in the village 
 of Islahie. Many persons fleeing from other 
 towns had found a refuge there, and there the 
 mob had come to find and finish them. The white- 
 turbaned Moslem judge had stood in the market- 
 place and read the fetvah [the ecclesiastical order] 
 for the killing of the Giaours ; and he had prayed 
 for the success of the arms of the faithful. 
 Threatening the Kaimakam [governor of the 
 
FACING THE MOB 119 
 
 place] until he was cowed, the judge led the mob 
 toward the buildings where the refugees were 
 crowded. Then it was that old Hadji Chaoush, 
 rifle in hand, stepped out and faced the mad 
 throng. A torrent of scathing words poured from 
 his lips. 
 
 *^Who is there among you, a friend of mine 
 and a friend of right, who will stand by me?" 
 he shouted. 
 
 Out stepped his son, three or four trusty ser- 
 vants, and finally the trembling governor, and 
 took their places at his side. 
 
 *'You off-scourings who call yourselves Mos- 
 lems, but who neither respect the law nor fear 
 God," he cried, ^^do you clamor for blood? You 
 shall have it! We will fire upon you as soon as 
 we can load our guns!" 
 
 He threw a cartridge into his rifle, and know- 
 ing him of old, they scattered like a covey of par- 
 tridges. Fifteen days later, he was still protect- 
 ing eighty women and children in his home, and 
 one of the girls there had been rescued from a 
 Circassian by the son of Hadji Chaoush. 
 
 After spending the night with this valiant 
 friend, the doctor set out for Baghje, the seat of 
 government. Here there was no Hadji Chaoush to 
 
120 SHEPARD OF AINTAB 
 
 stop the fiendish work of the wild mob, and the 
 religious leader, or Mufti, who had treacherously 
 promised the Christians protection, had pushed 
 the horrible work to a finish. He had ordered 
 two of the leading men, from whom he had re- 
 ceived large bribes to protect them, taken out 
 of the mosque where they had fled for refuge, 
 and had them killed before him, in the public 
 square, while he danced a wild dance of joy and 
 thanked Allah that he had been permitted to see 
 that day. Even the German engineers working 
 on the railroad had heartlessly delivered up those 
 who fled to them for protection. Now the few 
 survivors were crowded into the mosque, which 
 the wicked Mufti was planning to burn as soon as 
 other victims should be brought in. In the Prot- 
 estant church and schoolhouse were huddled the 
 women and children from Hassan Beyli, a beauti- 
 ful village of the Amanus Mountains, where the 
 doctor had made many a visit and had many 
 friends. For one whole day, the 2000 Armenians 
 of this place had fought back the mob, but when 
 night fell, and their houses were fired, they fled 
 to the mountains. The women begged their men 
 to flee for refuge to other cities, while they, with 
 their children, were sent to Baghje. There they 
 
FACING THE MOB 121 
 
 had been crowded into the church so close that 
 they could not lie down. They had almost 
 nothing to eat. Their only drinking water was 
 from the gutter in the street. They dared not 
 step outside of the door, but on the fifteenth day, 
 the widow of the pastor who had been killed in 
 the raid on the village, mustered courage enough 
 to go out and look down the street; and there, 
 riding toward her on his horse, was the well- 
 known figure of the beloved physician. *^It was 
 as if the Savior himself were coming to our res- 
 cue,'^ she said, as she told of it afterward. 
 
 As always, the doctor's first care was for the 
 sick and wounded ; his second, to secure food and 
 protection for these people. In a few days, the 
 refugees from Hassan Beyli were sent back to 
 their village, where every house had been burned, 
 but where they could at least have pure air, fresh 
 water, and fruit from their trees. 
 
 ^^It was a most pitiful sight," wrote the doctor, 
 '*a squadron of twenty-five soldiers in front, then 
 the poor things, mostly barefooted and in rags, 
 with little bundles of wheat or old clothes, old 
 kerosene tins for cooking pots, and here and there 
 one with a bit of board on which to roll out their 
 *thin bread.' 
 
122 SHEPARD OF AINTAB 
 
 ^^You see the problem before me. Some 5000 
 people to be fed by the Turkish government, if 
 possible; if not, by other means/' 
 
 The people had neither money nor credit, tools 
 nor implements; not even a cup or a spoon, not 
 a cooking pot or a pan, not a bed or a blanket, 
 not an extra undergarment. The first thing the 
 doctor did to meet this problem was to send an 
 appeal to the Christian people of Aintab, and 
 nobly did they respond. *^The first caravan of 
 twenty-two loads from Aintab,'* wrote the doc- 
 tor, ^'contained one bale of over a thousand 
 wooden spoons, beds and bedding for the sick, 
 some tools, and a blacksmith's outfit with which 
 we could make more. These caravans of goods, 
 contributed by the poor Armenians of Aintab, 
 kept coming in every three to five days, until two 
 hundred loads had reached us. We soon had two 
 blacksmiths busy making sickles for the approach- 
 ing harvest, carpenters making threshing ma- 
 chines, etc. We bought wool and cotton, and Mrs. 
 Shepard soon had many of the women employed 
 in washing, carding, and spinning; then looms 
 were set up and cloth, blankets, and sacks began 
 to add their comforts to the re-bom civilization.'* 
 
 Meanwhile, because of Dr. Shepard's reports 
 
FACING THE MOB 123 
 
 and urgent appeals to the government, funds were 
 appropriated for feeding these poor people and 
 for rebuilding their burned houses. 
 
 Djemal Pasha, who figured so largely in the re- 
 cent war as Governor of Syria and Minister of 
 Marine, was appointed Governor General of 
 Adana. On his arrival, he formed a Committee 
 of Belief and Kebuilding, of which he appointed 
 Dr. Shepard chairman. During the next ten 
 months the doctor supervised the building of 900 
 houses and gave out $100,000 worth of relief funds. 
 The money was often carried by him in his saddle- 
 bags, and riding back and forth over the rocky 
 mountain paths, he covered 3000 miles on his good 
 horse during those ten months. He usually car- 
 ried a gun; but one day, as he was riding un- 
 armed, he met two Turks on the road. 
 
 **Who is this Giaour," asked one of the other, 
 *^who dares to ride about these mountains without 
 firearms?" 
 
 *^God protect the man," replied the other, * Vho 
 dares do aught to that Giaour!" 
 
 Meanwhile, Mrs. Shepard was called by the 
 Commission in Adana to establish industries for 
 the women there and in surrounding places, and 
 she spent several months in association with 
 
124 SHEPARD OF AINTAB 
 
 Djemal Pasha and his wife in carrying on this 
 beneficent work. 
 
 For the special service rendered by the doctor 
 in this reconstruction work, he was awarded a 
 decoration by the Sultan. The following congrat- 
 ulatory letter is from Djemal Pasha. 
 
 Adaita, 1st February, 1911. 
 Dr. F. D. Shepard, 
 
 Orange, N. J., U. S. A. 
 
 Dear Sir : — 
 
 Your most honored favor, dated October 29, 
 1910, on hand. It was a great pleasure to me to 
 hear from one of our sincere friends. The Young 
 Turks, who are struggling for the welfare of their 
 beloved country, know well how to appreciate the 
 services even of those generous persons though 
 of foreign birth. The decoration bestowed upon 
 you by our Ottoman government is nothing com- 
 pared with your most admiring sympathy shown 
 to the suffering humanity. 
 
 America is happy in having given birth to de- 
 voted sons like you, whose motto is to serve man- 
 kind. It was my humble duty to reach to the help 
 of my wretched country; and I thank you for the 
 sentiment which you will arouse toward the Otto- 
 man Empire in America. 
 
 We are grateful to our most true and humani- 
 tarian friends, who sympathize with us at such 
 
FACING THE MOB 125 
 
 a critical time as this. I wish to see you deco- 
 rated with higher honors than this, and will feel 
 myself always happy to hear from yon and of 
 your good health. 
 
 Thanking you again for your prayers and 
 favors, I remain, as ever, 
 
 Your sincere friend, 
 Governor General of Adana, 
 
 Djemal Pasha. 
 
 For the same service, the Eed Cross conferred 
 on Dr. Shepard its medal of merit with the fol- 
 lowing letter. ^ 
 
 Washington, D. C, December 23, 1909. 
 Dear Sir: — 
 
 At a meeting of the Board of Incorporators of 
 the American National Red Cross, which was held 
 in this city on December 7th, 1909, it was unani- 
 mously voted that, in recognition of your valuable 
 services, voluntarily rendered, in relief of the 
 suifering caused by the massacres in Eastern Tur- 
 key, during the early part of the current year, the 
 Eed Cross medal be awarded to you. 
 
 I have the pleasure of sending to you herewith, 
 as a souvenir of the services rendered, the Eed 
 Cross medal of merit. 
 
 Yours very sincerely, 
 
 William H. Taft, President. 
 
 Dr. F. D. Shepard. 
 
126 SHEPARD OF AINTAB 
 
 Though he was deeply touched by the apprecia- 
 tion which these honors betokened, Dr. Shepard 
 could never be persuaded to wear the gilded cres- 
 cent from the Sultan or the beautiful red cross, 
 
 ^*But deep in his soul the sign he wore, 
 The badge of the suffering and the poor. 
 
 >> 
 
vn 
 
 SUMMER OUTINGS AND HUNTING TRIPS 
 
 COLLEGE commencement was over. The ses- 
 sions of the annual meeting of missionaries 
 and Christian workers were closed. The last op- 
 eration of the season at the hospital had been per- 
 formed, the last clinic held, the last city visit 
 made. It would take a volume to tell of the doc- 
 tor's work during that week, and he was tired. 
 Now the caravan stood waiting to start for the 
 mountain camp. Two days of travel it would take, 
 and then up the mountain to the spot which the 
 whole family loved more than any other in the 
 land. 
 
 The doctor was busy with the last preparations 
 for the journey. The heavy pine chests of books, 
 photographic supplies, and clothing were strapped 
 on the stoutest mule. The big bales of bedding 
 were slung on either side of the gentle old horse. 
 A mattress was thrown on top, to make a soft, 
 wide seat for the oldest daughter. The two 
 
 127 
 
128 SHEPARD OF AINTAB 
 
 younger children, with great glee, climbed into the 
 maafas, or canopied boxes, hung on either side 
 the pack-saddle, across which they conld play 
 peek-a-boo, as they swung along the road. Tents, 
 camp-beds, and the camp-kitchen outfit made up 
 several more loads, with cook and horse-boy 
 seated high on top. Finally, the doctor helped 
 Mrs. Shepard into her saddle and swung into his. 
 With a shouted good-by and the cling-clang of 
 big bells, the long caravan w^as under way. 
 
 What a glorious trip that was for the children t 
 There was the stop at noon, under the walnut 
 (tree beside the village spring, where a villager 
 brought them sweet apricots to ''top off their 
 lunch. To be sure, it was not very pleasant to 
 have so many persons staring and asking stupid 
 questions even while they ate. But their father 
 seemed not to mind it at all and spent every 
 minute, until they resumed the journey, in look- 
 ing over the dirty, ragged people and telling them 
 what they must do to get well. By night, they 
 were so tired they could hardly wait until the 
 camp-beds were unloaded and put up on the sward 
 near the spring, to tumble in and drop off to 
 sleep, while the little bells tinkled as the horses 
 munched the barley in their nose-bags. What a 
 
SUMMER OUTINGS AND HUNTING TRIPS 129 
 
 delightful, creepy, shivery feeling when they were 
 wakened in the dim dawn, even before the red 
 glow had crept into the sky, to have their hot 
 bread and milk and climb into their swinging 
 boxes again, to drowse off for another nap. 
 What a thrill of excitement when they crossed a 
 river ! Their muleteer had to wade in deep, lead- 
 ing their pack-horse across the ford ; and the mule 
 with the heavy chests suddenly slipped and went 
 down under water and had to be hauled out, with 
 many shouts. Then, at the next noon stop, the 
 whole load had to be unpacked and dried out 
 and packed up again. 
 
 Best of all, was the stop in the village of Eybez, 
 After crossing the great hot plain, up, up, up, they 
 climbed, past the oleanders by a stream, into the 
 little village that looked like a birds' nest, lying 
 in a hollow of great mountains towering into the 
 sky. How the little children in the streets scam- 
 pered about, crying, ^^Shippet has come, Shippet 
 has come!'* Then, through the great gateway, 
 they entered the courtyard belonging to the lead- 
 ing man of the village, their father's special 
 friend. They did not mind the crowds this time, 
 for they were all old friends, and from the Agha 
 [head man] himself down to the tiniest nephew 
 
130 SHEPARD OF AINTAB 
 
 in the tribe, they were all running about, trying 
 to make the travelers comfortable. How good 
 the cool water felt as it was poured on their hot 
 hands and feet ! An array of good things to eat 
 was set out on the tray for supper, and then the 
 children crawled into beds, spread out in a row 
 on the flat roof under winking stars, while the 
 barking of village dogs, the bleating of lambs, 
 the crowing of roosters, and the crying of babies 
 on the roofs across the way grew fainter and 
 fainter, until the sounds were lost in sleep. 
 
 Up the steep mountain trail they climbed the 
 next morning, up and up the pine-covered slopes 
 until they reached the pass and could look oif 
 on the other side. There, from between two great 
 peaks, they could see the Gulf of Alexandretta, 
 sparkling like a great silver tray, in the morning 
 sun. 
 
 On they wound, across ridge after ridge of the 
 steep mountain, through the green forest of 
 young beech and oak and pine, until they reached 
 the camping spot, 5000 feet above sea-level. No 
 sooner were the children off their animals than 
 they started a race for the spring, hidden by fern 
 and smilax, in the valley hard by. 
 
 Meanwhile, the grown-ups were all busy setting 
 
SUMMER OUTINGS AND HUNTING TRIPS 131 
 
 up the camp; tents for sleeping, a shelter of 
 houghs for the kitchen, two walls of poles and 
 boughs for the dining-room, with a canvas top and 
 a curtain on the windward side, a little booth of 
 poles and branches for the cook, and another for 
 the horse-boy. In short order the camp was set- 
 tled for the summer. 
 
 A number of American and Armenian friends 
 usually joined the doctor's family in their moun- 
 tain camp. Never could they forget the evenings 
 spent about the huge bonfire built against the old 
 pine stump. While the flames crackled among the 
 great logs piled together, song and story passed 
 about the merry group, and right royally did the 
 doctor do his share in entertaining the company. 
 
 One evening, when there was a special celebra- 
 tion, stunts were proposed, and the doctor was 
 asked to make a stump speech. When he refused, 
 saying that speaking was not in his line, two 
 of the young huskies decided they would set him 
 on the stump, whether or no. But they had not 
 counted on the doctor's tremendous strength. 
 The struggle which followed proved him to be 
 more than a match for them both. 
 
 Sunday morning the family would start out for 
 some favorite spot which commanded a magnifi- 
 
132 SHEPARD OF AINTAB 
 
 cent view. Here they would settle themselves, 
 with books and lunch, for the long, delightful day 
 of rest and comradeship. First came the little 
 service, led by the doctor, and then the Sunday 
 reading, while the children whittled or made little 
 camps on the ground. 
 
 ** All about us,'' wrote the doctor, *4s the eternal 
 Sabbath of the hills. I get nowhere else the over- 
 whelming sense of God's presence, the ineffable 
 peace that comes to me in the mountains." Those 
 who knew liim best felt that he had drawn into 
 his life something of the strength and beauty of 
 the mountains he so loved. 
 
 Often, on a week day, the whole day was spent 
 in a picnic beside a lovely mountain stream or 
 near the bold top of the mountain, to enjoy the 
 distant view. Below a dashing waterfall, in one 
 of the mountain streams, there was often a deep 
 swimming-pool ; and, before lunch, those who were 
 not afraid of the icy cold water went in for a dip, 
 while the potatoes were baking in the hot ashes 
 of the fire the doctor had built. To go with the 
 potatoes and butter, there were squares of venison 
 or wild boar, shot by the doctor and cooked by 
 him to a turn, on sharp green twigs, over the fire. 
 One day, when the doctor felt in his pocket for 
 
4, *•: 
 
 
 
 
 "«V*i*-**.I 
 
 
 
 
 DR. SHEPARD CLIMBING A MOUNTAIN IN ASIATIC TURKEY 
 
SUMMER OUTINGS AND HUNTING TRIPS 133 
 
 matches to light the fire, he found, to his disgust, 
 that the matches had been left behind. ISfo one else 
 in the party could produce one, and it began to 
 look as if there would be no lunch that day but 
 bread and nuts and raisins. The doctor, however, 
 was equal to the emergency. He built a little pile 
 of brushwood, then aimed his shotgun and pulled 
 the trigger. There was a loud report, and inune- 
 diately the little pile was ablaze. After lunch the 
 party stretched themselves out on the ground, in 
 the shade of the thick oak forest, while the doctor 
 read a chapter from Dickens or Stevenson or 
 George Macdonald, and Mrs. Shepard arranged 
 rare ferns and flowers between drying papers, to 
 press them for her botany class. 
 
 How the children loved to hear their father 
 read, with the rising and falling inflections that 
 made it all so real, and the little catch that came 
 in his voice when he read some touching passage 
 that made a lump rise in their own throats. 
 
 On a cold evening, when it was raining too hard 
 for a bonfire, they would crawl under the warm 
 blankets of the cot-beds in the tent and listen to 
 *^ Little Dorrit" or *'Sir Gibbie," while the pat- 
 tering rain made music on the tent roof above. 
 
 Often, in the early gray of the dawn, before the 
 
134 SHEPARD OF AINTAB 
 
 children were awake, when the twigs and leaves 
 were still wet with the night mist, the doctor 
 slipped on his old green hunting-suit and cap 
 and high moccasins and glided out into the silent 
 woods to stalk a deer he had spied in the woods 
 the day before. Several times a season he would 
 come struggling back to camp with a big deer 
 slung over his shoulders. After dinner came the 
 story of the hunt, which was enjoyed quite as 
 much as the broiled venison. 
 
 Often, on a still, moonlight night, the doctor 
 would lie for hours beside a pig-wallow, waiting 
 for Mr. Pig to arrive. The wild boar hunted in 
 droves over the mountain, rooting up the leaf- 
 mold with their snouts, searching for bulbs or 
 for acorns. They were great travelers and would 
 run all the way down the mountain or across the 
 plains to the rice-fields to feed and then back to 
 their mountain brush again, all in a night. Some 
 particular boar would choose a mud-hole in w^hich 
 to wallow and then scratch his back against a 
 near-by tree. Lying silent beside the wallow, the 
 doctor occasionally shot a boar when it appeared 
 to take its mud bath. A keen sense of smell 
 helped the doctor in these still hunts. One moon- 
 light night, catching the scent of wild boar, he 
 
SUMMER OUTINGS AND HUNTING TRIPS 135 
 
 followed it up the wind for half an hour without' 
 hearing or seeing anything. Then he suddenly 
 came out on the edge of a clearing covered with 
 bracken fern growing hip-high. Charging across 
 the open space was his wild boar. 
 
 **He has got wind of me,'' thought the doctor, 
 **and I shall lose him." But the pig had only 
 caught the scent of the wild apples under a tree 
 at the edge of the clearing. 
 
 As the boar stopped to munch the juicy fruit, 
 the doctor could just catch sight of his back above 
 the bracken in the moonlight. He leveled his gun 
 and fired. Then he stopped to listen. The boar 
 had disappeared and not a sound was to be heard. 
 Walking cautiously to the place, he found that 
 the pig had dropped on the spot where he was 
 feeding when the bullet struck him. It was a 
 little yearling, and it made the finest eating in 
 the world. 
 
 Several times while hunting in the woods the 
 doctor ran across a bear. Once, as he was fol- 
 lowing a trail near a little spring on the edge of 
 the timber-line, he saw two bear cubs feeding on 
 blackberries and sat down to watch them. Soon 
 the mother bear appeared. Some noise in the 
 opposite direction had disturbed her, and she 
 
136 SHEPARD OF AINTAB 
 
 started to "shoo'' the cubs before her toward the 
 doctor, then stood straight up on her hind legs 
 to listen, then drove them ahead again. A bear 
 with her cubs is not a pleasant creature to meet^ 
 and when this particular bear came within thirty 
 yards and again stood up straight, the doctor took 
 careful aim at her heart and fired. 
 
 The bullet reached its mark. With one leap into 
 the air, she fell dead, while the cubs scampered 
 off into the woods. It took a good two hours to 
 strip off her beautiful skin. He brought it in to 
 camp and spread it out on the ground to dry. 
 Waking from his nap, the doctor's little three- 
 year-old boy Lorrin rubbed his eyes in wonder at 
 the great skin, and then said, in Turkish, "The 
 bear too, it seems, wears moccasins." 
 
 Wlien Lorrin was twelve years old, Dr. Shepard 
 gave him a small shotgun, and from that time the 
 boy became his father's companion on these hunt- 
 ing-trips. Several rules went with the present 
 of the gun. "Never point at any one, even when 
 the gun is not loaded; never shoot at anything 
 before you are sure what it is; never turn the 
 point toward yourself ; ' ' these were the rules laid 
 down. 
 
 One of the first trips Lorrin took with his father 
 
SUMMER OUTINGS AND HUNTING TRIPS 13T 
 
 was among the great cliffs on the landward side 
 of the mountain where the ibex roamed. The 
 cliffs consisted of a series of tilted strata of gran- 
 ite, the broken ends of which formed a series of 
 huge steps down to the plain below. The ledges 
 across the face of the main cliffs formed the 
 runways of the ibex, or wild mountain goats. 
 Several times the doctor had shot a doe or a 
 young ibex, having to climb back to camp up the 
 2000 or 3000 feet of cliff, with the animal on 
 his shoulders ; but he had never succeeded in get- 
 ting a buck. On this day, he set Lorrin, with his 
 new gun, at one of the runways, while he went 
 down among the cliffs to scare up the game. The 
 boy waited. No ibex came his way ; but, to his hor- 
 ror, he saw, leisurely ambling toward him, a huge 
 brown bear. He had heard enough of his father ^s 
 adventures to know how dangerous it was to 
 wound a bear without killing him; so he gave a 
 terrified shout for his father, and then, with a 
 sure instinct, shot his gun into the air. Startled 
 by the shot, the bear quickened his pace and dis- 
 appeared around the ridge. 
 
 Another bear which the doctor shot had just 
 killed a wild boar, and, after eating a part of 
 it for his breakfast, had hidden it away. The 
 
138 SHEPARD OF AINTAB 
 
 doctor caught the scent and, finding the freshly- 
 killed boar, dressed it and hnng it in a tree, cov- 
 ering it with leaves to protect it from flies, while 
 he returned to camp to get a donkey to carry the 
 game home. Thus bruin unwittingly furnished 
 the campers with wild boar for many a day there- 
 after. 
 
 Though the doctor often went on these still 
 hunts alone, at other times he organized a hunt- 
 ing party with some of the villagers. Jutting 
 from the side of the mountain was a huge, purple 
 rock, forming a cavelike shelter beneath. Gath- 
 ered under this rock at night, the hunters would 
 sit about the camp-fire and tell stirring tales of 
 their adventures. The famous hunter Bedros 
 [Peter] told how, up on the bald top of the 
 mountain, purely by accident, he had killed two 
 wild boars with one shot. Then Artin followed, 
 with the story of the three leopards he had shot 
 at different times, and showed the scars where 
 one of them had chewed his arm and shoulder. 
 Before they wrapped themselves in their great 
 coats, to lie down for the night beside the fire, the 
 doctor spoke with them about his great Friend 
 and Master; and though there were both Chris- 
 tian and Moslem among them, he somehow made 
 
SUMMER OUTINGS AND HUNTING TRIPS 139 
 
 them feel that one God was their Father and 
 that they all were brethren. 
 
 Once a w^eek, Dr. Shepard mounted his horse 
 in the early morning and went down to the vil- 
 lage at the foot of the mountain, to hold a clinic. 
 From far and near the patients thronged in, and 
 often he would see more than a hundred in a day. 
 He made it a rule never to see any one in his 
 camp, for if one were treated there, others would 
 hear of it and come, and there would be no more 
 rest for the doctor, weary with his year's work. 
 So he kept no instruments or supplies in camp, 
 except those for ^' first aid.'' One day, however, 
 a poor villager came with a terrible toothache 
 and begged the doctor to take out the tooth. '^1 
 have no forceps. Uncle," said Dr. Shepard. But 
 the man still begged. Suddenly a bright idea 
 struck the doctor. There was a wire-cutter at 
 hand. It might do the business. It did ; and the 
 man went off, praising Allah. 
 
 The summer's outing was not enough to keep 
 Dr. Shepard in good trim for his taxing work 
 through all the year. After a hard week of work, 
 in clinic and operating room, he would need to 
 get out into the open. He kept a pair of fine 
 hunting-dogs, and often, on a Saturday afternoon, 
 
140 SHEPARD OF AINTAB 
 
 he would gallop off, with the dogs at his heels, 
 to a lava-bed some distance away, to hunt for 
 game-birds and hare. Here is his description of 
 one such trip, written in a letter to his son: 
 
 Your mother and Florence are busy with prep- 
 arations for Thanksgiving, it being our turn to 
 furnish the entertainment for the Station this 
 year. That I might have a little share in it, I 
 took my gun and dog and started out to get some 
 partridges, on Saturday. I told your mother as I 
 started out that I was going to bring home a dozen 
 partridges and two hares. There are but two 
 small coveys of partridges in all the Karatash, 
 but I had discovered some good cover, with three 
 or four large coveys, two hours to the east of us. 
 There are some extensive cliffs, a lava-flow, vine- 
 yards and fig-orchards around; good feeding- 
 ground and good cover, albeit a little too far away. 
 It was a beautiful clear day, and as I cantered 
 over the hills, old Noor Hakk, [Light of Truth] 
 with his new winter suit of white on, looked as 
 if one could reach him in a two or three hours' 
 ride, although nearly a hundred miles away as 
 the crow flies. A fine breeze blew straight from 
 his snow-capped peaks, and made my old Circas- 
 sian coat very welcome, but by the time I had 
 put up the first covey of partridges. Uncle Sol 
 had warmed things up so that I was glad enough 
 to discard said coat. Leetie found the partridges 
 
SUMMER OUTINGS AND HUNTING TRIPS 141 
 
 in a fig'-orchard, and they flew into the near-by 
 lava-flow, where she was soon nosing them out 
 in fine style. I missed more shots than I some- 
 times do, but still did fairly well, and at noon 
 had eight partridges and a hare in the saddlebags. 
 The hare got up under our feet, with Leetie so 
 close behind him that I had to give him about 
 50 yards leeway before I dared to shoot, for fear 
 of hitting the dog. Then a charge of No. 5 shot 
 keeled him over very neatly. We ate lunch in the 
 lea of an old cistern, which furnished us shelter 
 and drink. Yaghlu Kiahke with raisins, walnuts, 
 and cheese tasted very good, after my four hours' 
 of brisk work, but seemed to have a deleterious 
 effect upon my shooting, for from 1:30 to 4:30, 
 although Leetie put up plenty of birds, I got only 
 two more, and went home one hare and two par- 
 tridges short of my morning's boast. 
 
 Fritz and Leetie, the two pointers, were trained 
 as puppies by the doctor himself. This is how 
 Fritz got punished one day for his disobedience, 
 as his master told the tale : 
 
 On a trip with your mother, the other day, 
 we ran across a little kid that had been left be- 
 hind by the flock. Fritz took after it and, de- 
 spite my shouted commands, pulled it down and 
 proceeded to throttle it. He was about a hundred 
 yards away, down a steep slope. I fired a charge 
 
142 SHEPARD OF AINTAB 
 
 of B. B. shot at him, and he left the kid and came 
 to me in trepidation, bleeding freely from a shot- 
 hole in the muscles of his back. Another shot 
 had struck him in the ham, but did not bleed much. 
 I scolded and beat him a bit, and he crawled into 
 a bush and lay there, while we went on. When 
 we got home he was at camp and very shame- 
 faced indeed. I ridiculed him a bit, and he slunk 
 off to his bed and refused to eat any supper. 
 The next morning he came around and begged 
 to be forgiven, as plainly as a dog could, and, 
 after being assured of my good-will, he became 
 as cheerful as ever. 
 
 In midwinter, when he was worn with his fall 
 work, and when the surgical cases at the hospital 
 were fewer than at other seasons, with a friend or 
 two, Dr. Shepard would take a two weeks' trip to 
 some lakes at the foot of the Taurus Mountains. 
 Here there were thirty kinds of ducks and geese 
 and other game-fowl. Reeds and rushes grew 
 thickly in the lake, and just in the center was a 
 strange village built of reeds upon a floating 
 island. A mud fireplace in the center furnished 
 the only heat for these reed huts, and the smoke 
 had to escape through the thatched roof. The 
 villagers said they were the remnants of some 
 ancient peoples who had been driven from their 
 
SUMMER OUTINGS AND HUNTING TRIPS 143 
 
 mountain homes by enemies and had taken refuge 
 on this island. They were vassals of a feudal 
 lord, or AgJia, in the city of Marash. Half of all 
 the fish and fowl which they caught had to be 
 sent to him, while the poor villagers had nothing 
 to live on but the half left to them. 
 
 Pitching his tent on the frozen banks of this 
 lake, and hiring a pine dug-out from the natives, 
 the doctor spent his days in hunting the water- 
 fowl. Morning and evening came the flight called 
 far-far, from the sound made by thousands of 
 birds on the wing. It was then that the hunter, 
 hidden in his boat among the reeds, got in his 
 best work. After a two days' stay, the doctor 
 was able to send back thirty brace of birds, to 
 be distributed among his friends in Aintab. 
 
 Adventures of various kinds befell the campers 
 by the lake. The following is the story of one 
 such adventure, as told by the doctor himself: 
 
 One stormy day my boatman and I heard cries 
 of distress and hastened toward them. They 
 seemed very near, but were coming directly down 
 the wind, and in reality came from fully two miles 
 away. When we finally got out of the marsh, 
 to the edge of the lake, we could make out two 
 black dots a half mile away that we knew must be 
 
144 SHEPARD OF AINTAB 
 
 the heads of the poor fellows in the lake. They 
 were two Kurds who had tried to cross the lake 
 in a water-logged old dugout, with a load of 
 wood, while there was quite a little sea running. 
 Their craft had filled from the lapping waves and 
 had gone down under them. They were clinging 
 to some slender reeds, giving just enough support 
 to keep their mouths above water. Making them 
 cling one to each side of the canoe, we towed them 
 to a near-by floating island. One of them was able 
 to climb out, but the other had not strength 
 enough. We helped them into our canoe (which 
 was meant to carry only two), and making them 
 sit back to back in the middle, I covered them 
 from the cold wind with my raincoat, and we 
 paddled off as fast as possible for the houses of 
 the lake-dwellers on the island in the middle of 
 the lake, and soon had them before a hot fire 
 and got some hot soup down them. None too 
 soon, either, as the weaker one was pulseless when 
 we got there. 
 
 After the day's shooting was over, one and 
 another of these crude village folk would drop 
 in to share the doctor's brazier of charcoal with 
 him in his tent. Then the Servant of the King 
 would draw Ms Turkish Testament from his 
 pocket and read them stories of his Master and 
 tell them of the wondrous life lived by the shores 
 
SUMMER OUTINGS AND HUNTING TRIPS 145 
 
 of that other lake, among the humble fisher-folk. 
 
 But even in this wild spot, the doctor could not 
 get away from the throngs who besieged him. 
 All day Sunday, and indeed nearly every day, 
 crowds of patients from surrounding villages 
 came to the tent by the lake. Sometimes when 
 the doctor was out until dark, hunting, the wait- 
 ing patients built great bonfires and stayed all 
 night, even though the ice froze an inch thick on 
 the lake. 
 
 A missionary friend, who was visiting the doc- 
 tor in his tent, tells of the following conversation 
 which he overheard among the Kurdish patients 
 gathered about them. 
 
 **Why did the doctor come to Turkey?" asked 
 one. * ' Aren 't there any sick people in America ? ' ' 
 
 No one answered for a moment when one of the 
 older men heaved a sigh and said, ^'Praise be to 
 God, no one is ever sick in America." 
 
 ^^Do you think that America has so much better 
 climate and water than you have here in Turkey, 
 that no one ever gets sick there?" asked the mis- 
 sionary friend, knowing how proud the people 
 were of their country. 
 
 This set the group of patients to guessing again. 
 
 *^ Don't you see how rich these Americans are?" 
 
146 SHEPARD OF AINTAB 
 
 said one. ^^They don't come here because they 
 can't find anything to do in America. They come 
 here because they can get bigger salaries. Just 
 look at the doctor's fine horses and saddles. Go 
 to Aintab and see the American houses. God have 
 mercy on them, they even sleep in separate rooms 
 and change their underclothes every few days." 
 
 "Mashallah/' [praise to God] added an old 
 graybeard, nodding his head slowly, '^have you 
 seen how clean and well dressed their children 
 are?" 
 
 But the Mullah [religious leader] of the group 
 began to scold them for this idea. Besides, he 
 had an idea of his own to advance. 
 
 ^ ' You don 't understand religion, ' ' he said. * ' Of 
 course the Americans are richer than we are. 
 They work harder than we do. If Dr. Shepard 
 stayed in America and worked as hard as he does 
 here, he could g^i ten times as much money. No, 
 it isn't the money he wants; he's trying to save 
 his soul." 
 
 '^Oh, I see," came a voice from the doorway, 
 *^we are doing him a great favor in allowing him 
 to treat us. But how about those other Americans 
 — those who conduct schools. How can they ex- 
 pect to save their souls?" 
 
SUMMER OUTINGS AND HUNTING TRIPS 147 
 
 '^Well/' said the Mullah, ''God is gracious and 
 all- wise; perhaps he will forgive them.'' 
 
 At that moment the young man whose wound 
 the doctor had just examined broke in rather im- 
 petuously, 
 
 ''You fellows don't know what you are talking 
 about. None of you have had the experience I 
 have had." 
 
 Then he went on to tell how his wife had been 
 treated for three weeks at the hospital and 
 the things he had heard there; and of the Injeel 
 [Gospel] that had been given him. "I couldn't 
 read it," he said, "but I found a lame boy who 
 could. We spent hours together with that InjeeL 
 If you want to know the real reason why Dr. 
 Shepard and these other Americans came to Tur- 
 key, you just read that book ! ' ' 
 
vin 
 
 A FRIEND TO ALL 
 
 THUS it was that Shepard of Aintab came to 
 be known and loved in the most obscure vil- 
 lages of the land. Any one who wore a hat and 
 traveled through the mountain villages was called 
 Sliippet. As two of the ladies were traveling from 
 the coast to Aintab, a suspicious police officer 
 stopped them in a certain village and took them 
 to the chief. 
 
 *^ Where are you going T' asked the man. 
 
 **To Aintab/' was the response. 
 
 *'0h,'' he beamed, '^then you are Shippets!^^ 
 and turning angrily to the police officer he 
 stormed, '^You fool, don't you know enough not 
 to molest the Shippet Khanums on their way!" 
 
 The following tale of the power of Dr. Shep- 
 ard 's name is told by one of the graduates of the 
 college in Aintab : 
 
 Mr. Stephen Trowbridge and I wanted to visit 
 Hassan Beyli and other Armenian villages in 
 
 149 
 
150 SHEPARD OF AINTAB 
 
 Giaour Daghia and, as neither of us knew the 
 roads, we went to Dr. Shepard for instructions. 
 He drew up for us a free-hand map of the roads, 
 and equipping us with his guns, warned us to look 
 out for Turkish highwaymen. 
 
 The journey was two days on horseback, and 
 at the end of the first day we found that we had 
 lost our way in the thick forest on a steep moun- 
 tainside. The sun was goiag down fast, and there 
 was no sign of life around. We dismounted and 
 walked, our horses following closely, when, about 
 two hundred yards ahead, I noticed a highway- 
 man waiting for us, partly concealed in the thick 
 bushes. We were glad to see a human being, 
 even though he were a bandit, and, at the point 
 of a gun, we forced him to lead us to the nearest 
 village. 
 
 He led us to a Turkish village, and we spent 
 the night at the house of the Agha [chief]. In the 
 morning, after tipping the Agha well, we asked 
 him to give us a guide to Hassan Beyli. He was 
 only too glad to give us, for a guide, a famous 
 highwayman who had been terrorizing that sec- 
 tion of the country for thirty years. 
 
 After an hour or so, we found ourselves in a 
 very thick forest, and I noticed that the man was 
 preparing for a charge. I tried to be more friendly 
 with him, and he thought he could win me to his 
 side. He told me that he was plotting on Mr. 
 Trowbridge's life. Seeing that it was useless to 
 try on that line, I changed the topic of con- 
 
A FRIEND TO ALL 161 
 
 versation and asked him if he knew Dr. 
 Shepard. 
 
 He said that he knew Dr. Shepard very well 
 and admired him very much, as he came to that 
 part of the country every year to hunt wild pigs, 
 and that he was the most daring man he ever 
 knew. Then I said that Mr. Trowbridge was 
 Dr. Shepard 's most intimate friend and that the 
 gun on his shoulder was Dr. Shepard 's gun. That 
 fact changed matters considerably in the robber's 
 mind, and when, in a short time, we were out of 
 the woods and on the right road again, this man 
 would run ahead of us into the village we were 
 approaching and announce that Dr. Shepard 's 
 friend was coming, and we would find mothers 
 with their sick children waiting for us. 
 
 We reached Hassan Beyli safely, thanks to the 
 doctor's gun! 
 
 It was not only the doctor's skill as a physician 
 which won him so many friends, but his own 
 genial personality. He never made any one feel 
 that he considered himself in any way above them, 
 and he entered as simply and heartily into the 
 life of the crude villager as of the cultured college 
 professor. He was equally friendly and at ease 
 in the official's fine mansion and in the peasant's 
 goat's-hair tent. 
 
 Mahmoud Agha was the chief of his tribe — 
 
162 SHEPARD OF AINTAB 
 
 rough, hospitable, and simple-hearted. Many 
 lands he had, but with little knowledge or energy 
 to cultivate them, quite content with his great 
 flocks of sheep and the horses he loved to raise. 
 Four stalwart sons he had, and many serving 
 men, besides daughters — whom no one ever 
 counts! On every trip back and forth from 
 Marash, the doctor always spent at least an hour 
 or two with his friend, and sometimes, with Mrs. 
 Shepard or his son Lorrin, he spent a night in 
 their hospitable home, — a black goats '-hair tent 
 in summer, a rude mud-hut in winter. The best 
 in the Agha's little village was theirs, and he, 
 with all his household, served them like royal 
 guests. When the Agha came to Aintab, he would 
 stop at the doctor's house, and the crude peasant, 
 who ate with his fingers out of the one dish in 
 his black, goat's-hair tent, sat up at the table in 
 western style, a commanding and striking figure 
 in his long, blue, broadcloth coat, and ate with a 
 knife and fork. One day he suddenly expressed 
 himself in the following words : 
 
 ** I'm very glad the Khanum scolded me on my 
 last visit here. She told me I was lazy and not 
 working my farm as it should be, and asked why 
 I didn't get seed from America, and till the 
 
A FRIEND TO ALL 153 
 
 ground, and get a harvest that was worth while. 
 I got to thinking about it, and I decided she was 
 right — and I determined to get to work. Mashal- 
 lahy this year my crops were wonderful ! ' ' 
 
 Later, the doctor wrote of a visit to his old 
 friend's home and he was convinced that the 
 *^ bracing up" was permanent, for there were 
 many indications of added prosperity. 
 
 *^As I approached the river ErkeneJc Chai/' 
 Dr. Shepard wrote, '^a horseman rose out of the 
 sunken river-bed and proved to be my Kurdish 
 friend Mahmoud Agha. He had heard of my pass- 
 ing to Marash and had started out to find me. So 
 I had the pleasure of his company back to his 
 tents, pitched just to the west of his village. 
 Mahmoud is becoming quite a farmer. With four 
 yoke of big, strong oxen and four plows, his sons 
 and a hired man were breaking up the old sod 
 of the centuries. He raised wheat enough this 
 year to pay off all his debts. His eldest son, Ali 
 Eiza, is married and has a very pretty little girl 
 of two years' or so. Hassan is to marry this fall. 
 Mahmoud is building a home for him. After a 
 hearty meal of thin bread, rice pilav, fried eggs, 
 yoghourt and grapes, I rode along. Ali Eiza 
 mounted the long-legged white mare, a foal from 
 
154 SHEPARD OF AINTAB 
 
 my old Prince, and guided me through the swamp 
 to the foot of the mountain/' 
 
 When the doctor was on his furlough in Amer- 
 ica, in 1911, Mahmoud Agha heard that he had 
 been killed in a railroad accident. In great dis- 
 tress, he went to Mr. Goodsell, one of the mission- 
 aries in Marash, and asked if this was true. How 
 his face beamed when he was assured that it was 
 a false report. 
 
 '^Dr. Shepard is our dearest friend and great- 
 est benefactor, '^ he said. *^ Write and tell him we 
 are anxious for him to come back. May Allah 
 give long life to him and to all Americans. ' ' Here 
 is the letter to the doctor which he dictated to 
 Mr. Groodsell; 
 
 In the winter we heard, much to our sorrow, 
 that something serious had befallen you, even that 
 you had died, and we were very much troubled. 
 The winter was so severe that we could not get 
 to Aintab to find out whether this really were 
 true, but finally we learned that you were in good 
 health again. I felt sure that God would reveal 
 to me directly any such terrible thing, and, since 
 I had had no such revelation, I could not believe it. 
 
 I send you many greetings. I and my house- 
 hold, Hassan, Ali Riza, Kiamil, Bektash, Kul- 
 deoken, and all the children whom you know well. 
 
A FRIEND TO ALL 155 
 
 I send my greetings also to your daughters and 
 son and to Mrs. Shepard. We shall all be very 
 glad to see you when you return. 
 
 Hassan, Ali Eiza, Kiamil and Bektash were his 
 sons. Kuldeohen (which means ash dumper, the 
 common term for a Moslem woman) was his wife, 
 and *^all the children*' were daughters. 
 
 Quite a contrast to this rough, simple-hearted 
 Kurd was the doctor's Turkish friend who was 
 lord of a village in the Euphrates Valley, near the 
 ruins of the ancient city of Carchemish. Up-to- 
 date in every way, this progressive Turk would 
 appear, now and then, at the hospital in his natty 
 white flannel outing-suit, to introduce some patient 
 from his village, always showing courtesy and 
 respect to the hospital nurses. In the winter of 
 1913, Mrs. Shepard was called to Oorfa to reor- 
 ganize industries for the w^omen there. On her 
 return in the spring, the doctor met her at Car- 
 chemish. After visiting the ruins, where the Eng- 
 lish were making excavations, they spent a few 
 days at the Turkish friend's manor. He met 
 them at the station (on the Bagdad railroad) with 
 an up-to-date little phaeton. His fine house was 
 surrounded by a great garden containing fruit 
 trees, vegetables, and flowers. A conservatory, 
 
156 SHEPARD OF AINTAB 
 
 with a pond and goldfish and a flock of doves, 
 added a modern touch. 
 
 One of his two wives had set the table for dinner 
 in Western style and then called Mrs. Shepard 
 aside to ask if it were set quite right. During 
 their stay, the older wife went into the kitchen 
 to direct the servants, and Mrs. Shepard taught 
 her how to make doughnuts, pancakes, and brown 
 bread; while she, in turn, had a lesson in the 
 finest Turkish cooking. Meanwhile, the doctor 
 and the Agha went off with their dogs to hunt 
 partridges in the hills. Many of the vassals in 
 the village of this lord had never before even seen 
 a foreigner. But the Agha was trying to edu- 
 cate these ignorant peasants and had secured a 
 Hodja [teacher] from Aleppo and started a vil- 
 lage school. When his guests were ready to leave 
 for Aintab, he loaned the Khanum his pacing 
 mare, with her easy gait, in order to make the 
 journey more comfortable. 
 
 Dr. and Mrs. Shepard were keenly interested 
 in the life of the people in every detail. They 
 were always encouraging them to make the best 
 use of the resources of their country. Finding 
 traces of a coal deposit in one of the mountains 
 in the Kurd Eange, the doctor pointed it out to 
 
I. DR. SHEPARD WRITING A PRESCRIPTION FOR KURDISH PATIENTS 
 
 II. A KURDISH FAMILY AND THEIR HOME 
 
'i^ 
 
A FRIEND TO ALL 157 
 
 a villager and asked him why, when heat was so 
 often needed, they did not mine it. 
 
 ^^ If Allah had meant us to use it," replied the 
 man with a shrug, *^he would have put it on the 
 surface, so we could get it easily." 
 
 A good example of the way in which the doctor 
 and his wife were able to help a whole com- 
 munity in their upward struggle was the little 
 village of Eybez, at the foot of the Giaour Dagh 
 [Mountain of the Infidels] where they had their 
 mountain camp. Here Dr. Shepard was indeed a 
 friend to all. Not only did he help the people 
 as a doctor, in the weekly clinics he held there 
 through the summer, but he took a lively interest 
 in their farming, in their business, in their schools 
 and churches, in the friendly relations between 
 Moslem, and Christian, and in their dealings with 
 the government. In the next valley beyond the 
 village stood a French Trappist monastery. Here, 
 too. Dr. Shepard made many warm friends, and 
 it was through them that he got the lumber for 
 his new hospital-building. After an absence of 
 some time from this village, which the doctor had 
 in a sense adopted as his own, he made a little 
 visit there and wrote back to his wife of its 
 material and educational progress: 
 
158 SHEPARD OF AINTAB 
 
 I found the Eybez friends all well and de- 
 lighted to see me. I was the guest of Havounj 
 Oghloo [Son of the Carrot] tribe, as usual. 
 Eybez has grown a good bit since you saw it last, 
 with perhaps fifty shops in its little market. The 
 former good feeling existing between the Moslem 
 and Christian part of the population continues. 
 The Protestant community has built a neat and 
 commodious parsonage and enclosed the premises 
 in a good stone wall. They have three teachers 
 in their school and have purchased a plot of land 
 for their new school-building. They have two 
 evangelists in the field and three boys in college 
 at Aintab, this year, and are progressing finely 
 in all ways. 
 
 During his thirty-three years of service in the 
 Turkish Empire, Dr. Shepard had much to do 
 with Turkish officials. He was a keen judge of 
 men, and, while he always saw the best in a man, 
 he was never hoodwinked by the smooth talk of 
 officials. Not only as a physician did he come 
 in touch with them, but in many other ways, as 
 in obtaining government permits for travel, for 
 building, for sanitary measures in the city, or 
 for distribution of relief. Often he would go to 
 some man in power whom he had won to a per- 
 sonal friendship and use his influence to secure 
 
A FRIEND TO ALL 159 
 
 the release from prison of some Christian friend 
 or servant unjustly arrested. Several times he 
 secured the punislmient of some notorious evil- 
 doer, and once or twice, when a massacre of Chris- 
 tians threatened the city, an appeal from the 
 doctor to the governor of the province saved the 
 day. 
 
 From his busy life Dr. Shepard snatched time 
 to cultivate these friendships. On Bairam, the 
 great Moslem feast day, when the cannon was 
 fired, announcing that the NamaZj or morning 
 prayers, were over and that the governor was 
 ready to receive, the doctor would start out on his 
 round of calls on the city officials. 
 
 At the time of the ^'Bloodless Kevolution, ' ' in 
 1908, when representatives of the Young Turk 
 party were *^ stumping the country '^ for their 
 cause, they were given a dinner in Aintab. The 
 doctor thus described the occasion : 
 
 Last Tuesday evening, I was one of one hun- 
 dred and sixty people, three quarters of them 
 Moslems and one-fourth Christians, to sit together 
 at a banquet given by the mayor of the city to 
 a member of the Committee of Union and Prog- 
 ress, as the Executive Committee of the Young 
 Turk party is called. The governor, the mili- 
 
160 SHEPARD OF AINTAB 
 
 tary commander, the beys, and all the most prom- 
 inent men of the city were present. After dinner 
 there were speeches by the guest of the evening, 
 by Profssor Bezjian, Dr. Shepard, Michael An- 
 taki, the Armenian Catholic Vartabed, and by a 
 Young Turk of the city. The utmost freedom of 
 speech was used, and the spirit of tolerance, yes, 
 even of brotherhood, prevailed. 
 
 It was the doctor's constant endeavor to get 
 representatives of the different nationalities and 
 communities to cooperate in some enterprise for 
 relief or civic betterment. The Christians were 
 ready to do their part, but it was diiBScult to in- 
 duce the Moslems to take an active interest. Sev- 
 eral times, however, they gave substantial dona- 
 tions for the work of the hospital. Once a Swiss 
 philanthropist sent a special fund for the relief 
 of poor Moslems. The Turks were so touched 
 by this gift from a foreigner that they made a 
 large addition to the fund. The Christians, too, 
 had raised a fund for similar purposes, and a co- 
 operative committee was formed of both creeds, 
 to distribute to the poor of all alike. 
 
 So it was that, as the doctor gained many 
 friends among the Moslems, more and more, as the 
 years went on, he tried to win them, by word and 
 
A FRIEND TO ALL 161 
 
 deed, to a knowledge of the Master he served. He 
 himself took every chance that offered, — in the 
 hospital ward, in a social call, or even about the 
 campfire, — to tell of the Great Physician. But, 
 more than this, he brought his Christian friends 
 to realize that they too must do the same. Trav- 
 eling one day through the Kurdish Mountains 
 with an Armenian friend, he rode by a beautiful 
 little Turkish village, with its green gardens set 
 like an emerald in the hollow of a hill. 
 
 ^' Isn't it a shame,'' said the young man, ^'that 
 God should have given over this beautiful country 
 to these Moslem dogs !" 
 
 ^' Don't you think," replied the doctor gently, 
 *'that when God has been so good to them, we 
 should show them a little more consideration?" 
 
 The doctor's great longing was that he might 
 have a young associate from America to help in 
 the hospital work, so that he might be free to go 
 out among his thousands of Moslem friends in 
 the villages of the region and set before them, by 
 life and word, the good news of Jesus. Miss 
 Trowbridge, who, as nurse in the hospital for 
 many years, had gained the good will of hundreds 
 of patients from surrounding places, gave much 
 time in later years to visiting them in their village 
 
162 SHEPARD OF AINTAB 
 
 homes! Sometimes Dr. Hamilton accompanied 
 her and always they were received with open 
 hearts. In 1914 Dr. Shepard planned with the 
 Protestant churches of the city to start a reading- 
 room and social center for Moslem young men, 
 but the outbreak of the war put an end to this 
 project. 
 
 It took all the doctor 's tact and faith and cour- 
 age to carry on this work, for it meant death for 
 a Moslem to become a Christian. There were, 
 nevertheless, two men in the city who longed to 
 know the truth, and came to the doctor and his 
 missionary friends. Then others felt the same 
 desire and, night after night, a meeting was held 
 to read the Injeel [gospel] in the house of some 
 member of these seekers after truth. Often on a 
 Sunday afternoon (the only time the doctor was 
 at home) they would call to talk about the subject 
 they had grown to love best. The following story 
 is told by one of Dr. Shepard 's Armenian friends. 
 
 Once, when a Moslem Hodja [teacher] was 
 talking to a large audience about Christianity, 
 and criticizing unjustly both the religion and its 
 believers, a Moslem Kurd, coming forward from 
 the audience, told the Hodja that he did not agree 
 with him on the subject. The Hodja became furl- 
 
A FRIEND TO ALL 163 
 
 ously angry and said to the Kurd, **Who are you, 
 anyway? What is your religion T' 
 
 After a few minutes' meditation, the Kurd asked 
 him if he knew Dr. Shepard of the Aintab City 
 Hospital, and the Hodja answered, ^^Yes, I know 
 him very well. What about itf 
 
 The Kurd replied, ^'Whatever it is, Dr. Shep- 
 ard 's religion is my religion.'' 
 
IX 
 
 ALL THINGS TO ALL MEN 
 
 **T THINK I can honestly say, with old Dr. 
 ^ Post of Beirut, that the two things that I 
 love best in this life are a surgical operation and 
 a prayer-meeting.'' 
 
 Thus wrote Dr. Shepard in a letter to a friend. 
 The doctor was not only a great physician, he 
 was more — he was a missionary in the true sense 
 of the word. There was no part of the work, 
 whether of education in the college, of preaching 
 in the churches, of social uplift in the Young 
 Men's Christian Association, or of relief in the 
 orphanage, in which the doctor did not have an 
 active share. 
 
 The first summons to the young recruit had 
 come as a call to a professorship in the medical 
 department of the college. Although that enter- 
 prise had to be given up, still the relation was 
 never severed. The doctor took as active an in- 
 terest in the growth of the college as in that of 
 
 165 
 
166 SHEPAKD OF AINTAB 
 
 the hospital. He was always a member of its 
 Board of Managers. When the college ran into 
 debt, it was the doctor's hard-won earnings which 
 helped to pay off that debt. When the college 
 was without a president, it was the doctor who 
 stepped in and filled the gap. When the college 
 needed a new library-building, it was the doctor's 
 sister-in-law, Miss Andrews, who furnished the 
 funds, and it was the doctor who helped to plan 
 the building. When the college needed a new 
 water supply, the doctor worked with Mr. San- 
 ders, the touring missionary, to dig an artesian 
 well. This was just before the massacres of 1895, 
 when all kinds of suspicions and rumors were 
 abroad. 
 
 *^What were those Americans digging a deep 
 hole for? Surely they were planning to dig it 
 through to America and then march troops in to 
 help the Armenians!'^ 
 
 No one could beat the Aintahli [resident of 
 Aintab] when it came to making up such stories. 
 The people themselves said that Aintab was fa- 
 mous for its grape-sweets and its lies. A na- 
 tive tradition accounts for this extra share of 
 lies. The devil, it is declared, was wandering 
 over the face of the earth with his big bag of 
 
ALL THINGS TO ALL MEN 167 
 
 lies upon his back, distributing them as evenly 
 as he could. Presently, he stubbed his toe and fell 
 down, spilling the bagful out upon the ground. 
 In great haste he scrambled the lies into the bag 
 again, but many escaped him. The spot he tum- 
 bled on was the city of Aintab! It might be 
 added, from the Occidental point of view, that 
 a goodly share was still left in the bag for other 
 parts of the Turkish Empire. 
 
 The artesian well had to be dug by horse-power. 
 After the drills were down several hundred feet, 
 they stuck in the limestone. Horse-power was not 
 enough to pull them out again, and to this day 
 the well still awaits a steam-engine for its com- 
 pletion. 
 
 The doctor showed a lively interest in college 
 athletics, sometimes taking a hand in basket-ball, 
 tennis, or other sports. Though he learned to 
 play tennis after he was forty years old, he kept 
 many a spry young fellow hustling to hold his 
 own ; the length of his arms and his agility made 
 up for what he lacked in height, and the boys 
 would gather about the court to watch the springs 
 and back-somersaults which sometimes helped to 
 win a lively game. 
 
 Often the doctor was called upon to give the 
 
168 SHEPARD OF AINTAB 
 
 scientific lecture on some program, to lead a meet- 
 ing of ttie Young Men's Christian Association, 
 or to give a toast at some college celebration ; for 
 the boys enjoyed his wit and humor as much as 
 did his American friends. 
 
 Just as, with his devotion to his profession, the 
 doctor was constantly and steadily growing with 
 its growth, so, with his devotion to his Master, 
 the missionary was growing in his own spirit- 
 ual life and in his power to reach others. More 
 and more, as the years went by, was he drawn 
 into distinctly missionary activities. As truly as 
 the students enjoyed his wit, humor, and genial 
 fellowship, just so truly did they appreciate the 
 religious talks he gave them, for they were rich 
 in inspiration and suggestion. 
 
 The following is his own outline of one such 
 talk, called ^^ First Things First.'' It is taken 
 from the texts, Matthew VI. 25-33 and Romans 
 XIV, 17-18. 
 
 Dr. Shepard began with the illustration of a 
 poor lunatic whom the students had all seen wan- 
 dering about the streets of Aintab, playing with 
 bits of wood held in his fingers. With his whole 
 attention constantly focused on these chips, this 
 
ALL THINGS TO ALL MEN 169 
 
 man was to all an object of pity and contempt. 
 Then the doctor went on to say, 
 
 '*I imagine God looks with something of the 
 same pity and contempt upon that man who is so 
 engrossed in the pursuit of wealth, or honor, or 
 pleasure, that he has forgotten God. 
 
 ^*Mark Hopkins' definition of religion is, ^A 
 mode of life based upon man's relation to God.' 
 Not a mode of belief, or of thought, or of worship, 
 but a mode of life. Is your mode of life based on 
 your relation to God! What is your relation to 
 God? Are you a loving son, seeking to do his 
 will? Are you an unwilling slave, serving him 
 through fear! Are you a rebel, refusing your 
 lawful duty? Youth often makes the mistake of 
 living in the future, forgetting that we live only 
 in the present, and that the future is conditioned 
 on the past. To-day ! This hour ! It is the only 
 time that is really ours. Are we living for right- 
 eousness? Are we putting first things first?" 
 
 Dr. Shepard was always the college physician, 
 and often he would hold a little clinic of the 
 students before breakfast, at his home on the 
 college campus, or make a visit to the dormitory 
 before he jumped on his horse to be off for the 
 day's work at the hospital and in the city. 
 
170 SHEPARD OF AINTAB 
 
 One day, as lie was about to start for his after- 
 noon's work, an excited group of boys rushed 
 down to his house. 
 
 ^*0h, Doctor Effendi/' gasped the one who 
 reached him first, ^'Vartan has taken poison and 
 is dying. Do come quick!'' 
 
 Hastening to the dormitory, the doctor found 
 the boy had taken a huge dose of opium. Nothing 
 that he could do had any effect, and he knew the 
 boy was sinking fast. It would be only a matter 
 of minutes, now, before he would be beyond help. 
 
 **It is oxygen he needs," the doctor said, *4f 
 we only had some oxygen! Go quickly and get 
 Professor Bezjian," he ordered, turning to one 
 of the anxious boys. In a few moments the pro- 
 fessor of physics appeared. ' ^ I need some oxygen, 
 Professor," said the doctor; ^^can you generate 
 some for me in short order?" 
 
 ^^I'll do my best," was the reply. Before many 
 more minutes the boy was taking the oxygen, and 
 the ebbing life came flowing back. 
 
 In the years to come. Professor Bezjian became 
 one of Dr. Shepard's closest friends. A graduate 
 of Yale University, an eager scientist, a keen 
 thinker, a delightful humorist, he was a leader in 
 his community in all things intellectual. Broad- 
 
ALL THINGS TO ALL MEN 171 
 
 minded and tolerant in his religious ideals, he 
 did much to draw Christian communities of differ- 
 ent creeds into closer fellowship. 
 
 Another close friend among the college profes- 
 sors was Professor Levonian, one of the Chris- 
 tian martyrs of the Adana massacre. With his 
 deeply spiritual nature and Christlike spirit, this 
 friend worked with the doctor for the deeper 
 spiritual life of the students and churches, and 
 planned with him for the winning of the Moslems 
 to a knowledge of their common Lord and Master. 
 
 From the first, Dr. and Mrs. Shepard took an 
 active part in the work of the evangelical churches 
 of Aintab. Before the missionaries ever came to 
 Turkey, the Armenians had a Christian church 
 of their own called the Gregorian church from the 
 name of its founder, St. Gregory ; but the services 
 of the church were in Ancient Armenian. This is, 
 to Modem Armenian, what the Anglo-Saxon of 
 Chaucer is to our own English. The people could 
 not understand it. Though they were so loyal 
 to their faith as to be willing to die for it, yet 
 too often it meant very little to them in their 
 lives. 
 
 They had no Sunday-school and no prayer 
 meetings, and few could read or understand the 
 
172 SHEPARD OF AINTAB 
 
 Bible. When some of these people began to learn 
 from the missionaries, the priests excommunicated 
 them from the church. Thus they were forced 
 to found a new church of their own and they 
 called it the Evangelical Church. As, in the 
 course of years, the number of these converts 
 grew, they built three Evangelical Churches in 
 the city of Aintab. Dr. and Mrs. Shepard joined 
 one of these churches by letter from their own 
 church in America. 
 
 Mrs. Shepard was particularly interested in 
 Sunday-school work. Not only did she help in the 
 church Sunday-schools, she formed classes for 
 street urchins in different parts of the city. A 
 college student who had consented to teach one 
 of these classes walked through the streets, carry- 
 ing a Sunday-school picture-roll. The children, 
 many of whom had never seen a picture in their 
 lives, crowded about to catch a glimpse of the new 
 wonder. Then the teacher lead them into a room, 
 and, hanging the picture on the wall, he told 
 them its story. Pictures were such an attraction 
 that they were given out as rewards of merit, and 
 Mrs. Shepard distributed small Sunday-school pic- 
 ture-cards, sent from America, to thirty village 
 Sunday-schools. 
 
ALL THINGS TO ALL MEN 173 
 
 Mrs. Shepard did much, also, to bring about 
 a better feeling between the old church (which 
 was called the Mother Church) and the new. She 
 often attended the services of the Gregorian 
 Church and made friends with its priests and its 
 people. One of her most successful Sunday- 
 schools was started in this church after the mas- 
 sacres of 1895, when all Christians were drawn 
 together by their common calamity. Getting some 
 of the young people interested as teachers, she 
 issued a call for the children to come to the old 
 church on a certain Sunday. She did not expect 
 more than a few to respond, but when she reached 
 the church, there were the children — children in 
 the church ; children in the gallery ; children about 
 the doors and in the yard ; children on the flat roof, 
 peering down through the windows of the dome. 
 Fifteen hundred strong they were, and new teach- 
 ers had to be found to take charge of the large 
 classes. 
 
 As the doctor's own religious life grew richer 
 and deeper, year by year, more and more did the 
 '4ife more abundant'' become in him a well of 
 water flowing out to others. Though Sunday 
 afternoon was the only time he had a few hours 
 to himself, he always attended church service with 
 
174 SHEPARD OF AINTAB 
 
 his family. One evening of the busy week was 
 given to church prayer-meeting, and often, after 
 a heavy day's work, he would meet, far into the 
 night, with the church committee, in order to plan 
 for a building fund, a new evangelist, or some 
 form of relief. He believed in putting responsi- 
 bility on the natives and always worked shoulder 
 to shoulder with these *^ Armenian brethren, '^ as 
 he always called them. 
 
 So many sudden professional calls came, that 
 his stethoscope always decorated the pocket of 
 even his Sunday suit, and while, as deacon in 
 the church, he was ministering to the spiritual 
 needs of his Christian brethren in the sacrament 
 of the Lord's Supper, the sign of his constant 
 ministry to their physical needs protruded from 
 his pocket. The Armenian pastor of the church 
 gave expression to this touching fact of his two- 
 fold service in the following words : 
 
 The hands which skilfully exercised the sur- 
 geon's knife in the operating-room of the hos- 
 pital, lovingly offered the sacred elements of the 
 Holy Supper to hundreds, and the church was 
 spiritually richer by reason of his influence. 
 
 In writing of one of the church meetings, the 
 doctor said: 
 
ALL THINGS TO ALL MEN 175 
 
 Last Sunday, Pastor Topalian gave a report 
 of the missionary activity of the Second Church 
 for the past year, and set forth the need of the 
 pastor-less churches and communities in this 
 region. After church, the missionary committee 
 met and decided to send out at once two Bible 
 women and two evangelists, on salary, and also 
 arranged for voluntary evangelists to go out by 
 twos, at their own expense, on tours to various 
 needy regions. They went down into their pockets 
 and subscribed for the next six months one third 
 more than they gave last year, and they gave 
 liberally last year, and this notwithstanding the 
 crying need here at home. What church in Amer- 
 ica, with one fourth its whole membership on the 
 relief-roll, would support five paid evangelists 
 and send out a score of voluntary ones besides? 
 
 Besides the evangelists sent out into their own 
 districts, the members of this church, one fourth 
 of whom had to be given relief, undertook the 
 support of a native evangelist in China. During 
 the thirty years of Dr. Shepard's connection with 
 these native churches, three revivals took place, 
 and the results were evident by the addition of 
 many new members. 
 
 *^What kind of Christians do the Armenians 
 makeT^ the doctor was once asked, when he was 
 on furlough in America. 
 
176 SHEPARD OF AINTAB 
 
 ^'A little better, on the whole, than the ones 
 in America,^' was the quick reply. 
 
 Perhaps no one loved the doctor more than the 
 little boys and girls in the orphanage. They were 
 almost glad when one of their number was sick, 
 so that they might see the doctor come riding 
 up the hill on his fine horse, and catch his hearty 
 laugh as he entered the yard, with some merry 
 joke for the youngsters who ran to open the gate. 
 And the little patients felt better as soon as they 
 felt the doctor's tender touch and heard his gentle 
 voice. Many a little prayer went up in the chil- 
 dren's evening service for the dear doctor and his. 
 hospital. One of the things the orphans were 
 taught was the making of Turkish rugs. When 
 they had finished a very large and beautiful one 
 they had been working on a long time, they begged 
 that they might give it to their dear doctor. 
 
 ^ ' I thank you for the gift, with the love that 
 lies behind it,'' said the doctor, **but don't you 
 think it would be nice for me to send it to London 
 to be sold, and then use the money for a children's 
 ward in the hospital?" 
 
 What jolly times the doctor's own children had 
 with him during the few hours he was at home. 
 When they were small, there were delightful 
 
ALL THINGS TO ALL MEN 177 
 
 evenings when they rode on the back of papa- 
 bear or papa-elephant in the jungle of chairs and 
 tables ; then came a rough-and-tumble romp until 
 they were sent scampering off to bed. There 
 were stories before the open fire in the Franklin 
 stove and the fifteen-minute game of tiddle-de- 
 winks. As they grew older, there was a half hour 
 of reading from some favorite book, or an experi- 
 ment in physics with apparatus borrowed from 
 the college laboratory. 
 
 And then the rare holidays. Often, on Thanks- 
 giving or Christmas, papa was away on some wild 
 winter ride to a patient, but when he was at home, 
 there was the big dinner with all the American 
 grown-ups. 
 
 But first came the prayer-meeting in the parlor, 
 where everybody told what they were thankful 
 for; then, when one just couldn't wait a minute 
 longer, the last hymn was sung and they went 
 down to the long, white table, decorated with 
 red and brown grape-leaves, and covered w^ith 
 American goodies, even to yellow butter and real 
 mince-pie. Papa's end of the table was always 
 the jolliest ; and afterwards, when they all played 
 stage-coach, he it was who always told the live- 
 liest yarn. Best of all were those glorious days 
 
178 SHEPARD OF AINTAB 
 
 in camp in the Amanus Mountains. When, one 
 by one, the children had to go to school in Amer- 
 ica, there were wonderful letters that told of dear, 
 familiar things in the distant home. 
 
 Perhaps the separation from his sixteen-year- 
 old son, in 1906, was the hardest thing the brave 
 doctor had ever faced. Lorrin had become his 
 close companion in all his outdoor sports and in 
 all his hours at home. With what keen hopes 
 did the doctor watch the development of the lad 
 who already bore the stamp of his father's per- 
 sonality, and who had decided to follow in his 
 steps. Two years after his son left home to be 
 educated in the United States, the doctor wrote 
 him a New Year's letter. After outlining the 
 course of study his son would need to take in 
 preparation for his chosen work, the father went 
 on to say: 
 
 You will then be twenty-seven years of age, 
 the age I was when I went to Turkey, but you will 
 have had a much better training than I had, and 
 will, by the grace of God, be a larger and better 
 man in every way than your father. In looking 
 forward eagerly to the future, do not forget that 
 to-day is just as important as any day in the fu- 
 ture is likely to be. Make the most of each day 
 
ALL THINGS TO ALL MEN 179 
 
 as it comes. Do the very best that is in you each 
 day, be it at work or play, and the future will take 
 care of itself. He who wins to-day's battle need 
 not fear for that of to-morrow. And that word 
 ^^fear.'^ Cast it out! Give it no place in your 
 scheme of things. Fear nothing but God, and 
 fear not him with any slavish fear. He is your 
 loving Father. Hate sin and shun it, but fear it 
 not, for the Lord Jesus has overcome it for you, 
 and is able to keep you from sin. Believe that 
 whatever man has done, you too can do. Expect 
 great things, attempt great things, and, by the 
 grace of God, you will do great things^. 
 
 How I should love to be a boy again! To 
 again experience the pleasure and the pain of the 
 struggle into manhood. God be with you and 
 bless you and strengthen you in it all. My powers 
 are waning and the best of my life-work is done, 
 but it is a great pleasure to me to see my children 
 growing up, with a good prospect of carrying on 
 the work to a higher plane of usefulness. 
 
 A few weeks after Lorrin graduated from High 
 School, Dr. and Mrs. Shepard came to America 
 for their third furlough. There was a glorious 
 family reunion that summer, on the shores of 
 Lake George. There was a wedding, too, for the 
 younger daughter, who had just finished college, 
 married the Rev. Ernest W. Riggs, the newly-ap- 
 
180 SHEPARD OF AINTAB 
 
 pointed President of Euphrates College in Har- 
 poot, not far from the black city of Diarbekir. 
 Later, she sailed with him to a new home in Tur- 
 key. In the fall, Lorrin entered Yale University, 
 and after the parents' furlough, the older daugh- 
 ter, Florence, went back with them to their home 
 in Aintab. 
 
 Like a big family, too, was the little group of 
 Americans among whom Dr. Shepard was now 
 the senior missionary. More and more, as his 
 experience added new weight to his naturally 
 sound judgment, they turned to him for advice 
 in every line of work. Yet, with all the added 
 responsibility this brought upon him, he was al- 
 ways ready to join in the frolics of the young 
 folk, where he was the life of the party, whether 
 it were in chess, tennis, horseback rides, or pic- 
 nics. 
 
 The doctor always called his missionary asso- 
 ciates ** brother.'' Once a week the little group 
 of missionaries gathered for station prayer-meet- 
 ing. At the first meeting which one of the young 
 recruits, a recent arrival in Aintab, attended, Dr. 
 Shepard turned to him and said, ** Brother F., 
 will you lead us in prayer?" The young fellow 
 was so overcome by having the senior member 
 
ALL THINGS TO ALL MEN 181 
 
 of the mission address Mm as *' brother '^ that he 
 had difficulty in responding to the request. 
 
 It was in these little gatherings that the doc- 
 tor's missionary associates came to know his 
 heart-life best. When it was his turn to lead, 
 he seldom could get beyond the seventeenth chap- 
 ter of St. John. As he spoke of that wonderful 
 prayer of his Master that they all should be one, 
 **even as we are,'' these friends learned the true 
 secret of the doctor's life of tact and sympathy 
 and love. 
 
TEAGEDIES OF THE WAR 
 
 ONE of the most significant events in the Turk- 
 ish Empire, during the thirty-three years of 
 Dr. Shepard's service among its peoples, was the 
 visit of the German Kaiser, William II., to Con- 
 stantinople and Palestine. This visit cemented 
 that friendship between the Sultan of Turkey and 
 the Emperor of Germany, which bore such bitter 
 fruit sixteen years later. Wherever the Kaiser 
 stepped, on that memorable tour of triumph, he 
 left the imprint of Kaiserdom. In one of the pal- 
 ace gardens of Constantinople, a gaudy fountain 
 was erected in memory of that visit. In Abdul 
 Hamid's palace, a photograph of the German im- 
 perial family stood in a golden frame set with 
 brilliants, as a token of sealed friendship. In 
 Palestine, one hundred and twenty miles of new 
 macadamized roads were built for the Kaiser's 
 convenience. The breach in the Jerusalem wall 
 torn down for his triumphal entry ; the portrait in 
 
 183 
 
184 SHEPARD OF AINTAB 
 
 one of the Jerusalem cliiirehes showing that entry, 
 with the Kaiser decked out as a crusader, while 
 the eager throng welcomed him ; the faded wreath 
 of flowers placed by him at Saladin's tomb, where 
 he made his famous declaration of frieiDdship to- 
 ward the Moslem world, **Tell the 300,000,000 
 Moslems of the world that I am their friend,'' — all 
 these bore witness to the purpose of his visit. At 
 the famous ruins of Baalbec, in the ancient Tem- 
 ple of the Sun, he placed an inscription in German 
 and Turkish, testifying to his unchangeable 
 friendship and high regard for Abdul Hamid and 
 his pleasure in visiting the ruins. 
 
 From the time of this visit, German propaganda 
 spread rapidly. The Kaiser was henceforth 
 known as Hadji Wilhelm, a term applied only to 
 pilgrims to Mecca or Jerusalem. Portraits of his 
 Majesty were sold everywhere, and pamphlets 
 were distributed, showing that the Germans were 
 descendants of Mohammed. In the mosques of 
 Syria, Friday prayers were ended with an invo- 
 cation for the welfare of the Sultan and Hadji 
 Willielm. 
 
 Most significant of all, however, was the con- 
 cession granted to Germany for the Koniah-Bag- 
 dad railroad. Thirteen years of German activity 
 
TRAGEDIES OF THE WAR 185 
 
 had passed since this memorable visit when Dr. 
 Shepard wrote concerning this railroad; 
 
 The Germans are finally pushing the Bagdad 
 Railroad, and it gives employment, at hitherto 
 unheard-of rates of wages, to a great many peo- 
 ple ; but closer contact with the real German does 
 not increase the love of the people for him. The 
 Germans are arrogant and selfish, and many of 
 them are living on a low moral plane, in every 
 respect. It is questionable whether their coming 
 will work more good or evil to the empire. But 
 one thing is certain, the Orient can no longer 
 maintain its age-long quiescence, however rude 
 the awakening. 
 
 The awakening for Turkey was indeed a rude 
 one. Sold to Germany by her unscrupulous lead- 
 ers, she was drawn into the fatal struggle. Long 
 before war was declared, a sealed call to arms 
 had been sent throughout the length and breadth 
 of the land. By a mistake of the local officials, 
 one of the government centers was placarded with 
 these posters as soon as they arrived from Con- 
 stantinople. When the mistake was discovered, 
 police were sent out in hot haste to tear them all 
 down again. 
 
 War, which meant fear and deprivation in all 
 
186 SHEPARD OF AINTAB 
 
 lands, meant even more in Turkey; it spelled 
 atrocities, starvation, utter ruin. In terse, vivid 
 terms the first effects of the war felt in Aintab 
 were set forth thus in a bulletin issued from Cen- 
 tral Turkey College in the summer of 1914: 
 
 The new college year is ready to begin, and 
 there were 51 new applications before the old 
 year closed, but what changes a few weeks may 
 bring forth. Almost like a thunder clap out of 
 a clear sky comes a telegram, calling for the 
 mobilization of all men between the ages of 18 
 and 45. All horses and wagons are seized for 
 the army. Martial law is declared. The bank 
 refuses to pay out its deposits. The stocks of 
 merchants are depleted by the military; if pro- 
 test is made, a larger demand results. If stores 
 are closed to escape depredations, the govern- 
 ment puts its seal on the door, confiscating every- 
 thing. Supplies of wheat, gathered for winter 
 sustenance, are seized in, whole or in part for the 
 army. Villagers will not come to the city with 
 supplies, for fear their camels or donkeys will 
 be seized. Tourists are stranded. Missionaries 
 away on vacation cannot get back to their homes. 
 Mails are cut off. Telegrams are not delivered, 
 except at three times the usual price, and even 
 then are greatly delayed. The wildest statements 
 as to the European conflict are spread broadcast, 
 only to be contradicted the next day. Conscrip- 
 
TRAGEDIES OF THE WAR 187 
 
 tion continues. Men are brought into military 
 camps and must provide their own subsistence. 
 There are no uniforms, no guns, and very little 
 food and water. Eight men of an Oorfa regiment 
 die under the hardship of the march. Horses 
 are tethered all day long under a broiling sun, 
 with only one small feed to sustain life. Bullock- 
 carts become baggage-wagons. After repeated 
 delays, orders come to march ; but why, and where, 
 nobody seems to know. There is sorrow in the 
 city. The breadwinners are gone and the army 
 has taken the bread as well. If women and chil- 
 dren are hungry now, in the full harvest time, 
 what will it be when winter comes! And if we, 
 on the outer edge of the conflict, see such distress, 
 what must it be on the line of battle. 
 
 Although the college and hospital continued 
 work throughout that first year, it was under the 
 most trying circumstances. Nearly all the native 
 physicians had been drafted into the army so 
 that, although fewer patients came in from a dis- 
 tance, the work in the city fell to the hospital staif 
 and they had more than they could do. 
 
 ^*You cannot realize,'' the doctor wrote, **the 
 grief and the nervous strain w^hich comes to the 
 physician obliged to refuse, day after day and 
 almost hour after hour, the piteous pleading of 
 mothers for their sick children, wives for hus- 
 
188 SHEPARD OF AINTAB 
 
 bands, etc. You know the Orient, — how the poor 
 things grovel on the ground, kissing your feet 
 and begging for God's sake, Christ's sake, your 
 children's sake. The number of operations has 
 been considerably less than usual, but the number 
 of patients seen at the clinic and in their homes is 
 much larger; over 6000 in the clinic, nearly 2000 
 in their homes, and about 800 pay patients, mak- 
 ing in the neighborhood of 9000 patients for the 
 year." 
 
 The hospital supplies and medicines were fast 
 being used up and no new shipments could come 
 in, because of the lack of transportation. Thirty 
 cases of medicines on their way were requisitioned 
 by the government in Alexandretta, and a large 
 shipment could not get beyond Egypt. 
 
 Because of the war conditions described in the 
 bulletin, famine stared the people in the face. 
 Again the hospital soup-kitchen came to the rescue 
 of hundreds of poor sick people ; and, through a 
 special gift from Mrs. Shepard's sister. Miss An- 
 drews, and contributions from other friends, 
 12,000 meals of milk and biscuit, or soup and 
 bread, were served during the winter. 
 
 Though the doctor's heart was sore with the 
 suffering of the people, it was yet more bur- 
 
TRAGEDIES OF THE WAR 189 
 
 dened with the deeper tragedy of the war. ^ ' The 
 awful failure of Christianity in Europe, *' he 
 wrote, ^* fills my heart with sadness. The fact that 
 so large a proportion of the ^Christian world' can 
 find in its conscience a sanction for war, some- 
 how makes upon my mind a sadder and darker 
 shadow than even the picture of all the untold, 
 unspeakable distress of innocent women and chil- 
 dren, all bereaved fathers and mothers, all the 
 terrible waste of slowly-accumulated capital, all 
 the set-backs of scientific and social progress. 
 Will the so-called * Christian world' ever come to 
 believe that Christ meant what he said about lov- 
 ing one's neighbor as one's self? Will it ever 
 accept, without a heavy discount, that wonderful 
 chapter, I Cor., XIII." 
 
 Meanwhile, the storm clouds were gathering 
 more thickly in the north. When a representative 
 council of Armenians, in the city of Erzerum, re- 
 fused to join the Turks in their fight against the 
 Allies, the Germans and Turks united in a cam- 
 paign of frightfulness against innocent Arme- 
 nians generally. It included imprisonment, tor- 
 ture, and cold-blooded murder of the men, de- 
 portation of the women and children, sent out 
 at an hour's notice from their homes, to wander 
 
190 SHEPARD OF AINTAB 
 
 over desert paths, robbed of food and clothing, 
 until those who were not actually butchered died 
 of thirst, starvation, and disease. Never was a 
 more tragic page of history written in the blood 
 of the innocent. Not even the horrors of the 
 Spanish Inquisition or the brutalities of Nero can 
 compare with what these Christian people suf- 
 fered at the instigation of a '^Christian people.'^ 
 Never was death more steadfastly met than by 
 the martyrs of this martyr nation; never were 
 known more thrilling deeds of heroism than those 
 by which the few survivors saved their lives; 
 never was there a race who could face the future 
 with so brave a front after so crushing a calamity. 
 
 * * Give the Armenian twenty years after a mas- 
 sacre,'' was the common saying among the Turks, 
 ^^and he is ready for another,'' so quickly did he 
 recover, through thrift and industry, his lost pros- 
 perity. 
 
 When the wave of deportation had reached, and 
 swept over, the neighboring towns and was threat- 
 ening Aintab, Dr. Shepard made a strong appeal 
 to the Vali [Governor General] of the province 
 of Aleppo, and this official, who was a righteous 
 man, firmly prevented the action being carried out. 
 
 Another righteous man of another town re- 
 
TRAGEDIES OF THE WAR 191 
 
 fused to send out the innocent people of his city, 
 saying, ^'You may deport me and my family, if 
 you will, but I will not carry out these orders/' 
 He was soon removed from his post. The right- 
 eous Vali of Aleppo, too, was sent away, and the 
 fiendish work ordered by the ^'Christian nation'' 
 still went on. 
 
 At first, only the members of the old Gregorian 
 church, which was recognized as the Armenian 
 National Church, were sent away; then the Prot- 
 estant community was attacked. In this commun- 
 ity were many of Dr. Shepard's closest friends, 
 professors and teachers, pastors and church mem- 
 bers, with whom he had worked many a year, 
 shoulder to shoulder, for their common Master. 
 Having failed in his efforts to save all, and broken- 
 hearted at the thought of this final tragedy. Dr. 
 Shepard started for Aleppo to make one last ap- 
 peal. Nothing could be accomplished there. 
 ''The orders were from higher up.'' So the doc- 
 tor decided to take his appeal higher, and set 
 out on the long journey to Constantinople. Five 
 days later he wrote that the Imperial Government 
 had graciously granted immunity from deporta- 
 tion to the Protestant and Catholic Armenians. 
 While in Constantinople, he yielded to the plea 
 
192 SHEPARD OF AINTAB 
 
 for his assistance in the Eed Cross hospital of 
 Tash Kushla, which was full of wounded Turkish 
 soldiers; for the Gallipoli campaign was at its 
 height. For the next two months, with heavy 
 heart but brave, in the spirit of his Master, he 
 threw himself into the work of caring for the 
 soldiers of the nation that was persecuting the 
 Christian friends whom he could not save. 
 
 The doctor thus briefly described his work in 
 the Tash Kushla hospital: 
 
 I begin my rounds of the wards at 8:30 a.m. 
 I visit the 200-225 patients in my wards, writing 
 on the chart of each whether his wound is to be 
 dressed, what diet he is to have, his medicine, 
 if any, etc. Then I go to the dressing-room where 
 my assistants (one young doctor and four nurses) 
 have saved up any cases needing my advice, and 
 any new cases for diagnosis ; and we are generally 
 through with them all by half past twelve, and 
 go to lunch at the French hospital, a five minutes' 
 walk away. Then in the afternoon we do any 
 operations needed. 
 
 Of the Turkish soldiers, the doctor wrote, 
 '^They make the best of patients, having fine 
 courage and endurance. They are patient and 
 grateful fellows, for the most part.'' 
 
TRAGEDIES OF THE WAR 193 
 
 While Dr. Shepard was caring for the wounded 
 soldiers in Constantinople, things were moving 
 fast toward the final tragedy in Aintab. One day, 
 late in August, word came to Dr. Hamilton at the 
 hospital, which was closed as usual for the sum- 
 mer, that 1200 Armenian exiles, from a town nine 
 days* journey to the north, had just been brought 
 to the deportation camp outside the city, and that 
 they needed the services of a doctor. Dr. Ham- 
 ilton immediately asked permission to go with 
 her nurses to the camp to care for these poor 
 people. Three months they had been kept walk- 
 ing, over mountain and valley and plain, to cover 
 what was really a nine days* journey. Just be- 
 fore starting out, they had paid a heavy blackmail 
 to their Turkish guards to protect them, on their 
 journey, from the wild Kurds. When they 
 reached the mountains, part of this money was 
 basely used by the guards to hire the wild Kurds 
 to attack those who had paid them so heavily 
 for protection. The work they had done was 
 ghastly, and twenty-five of the victims were in 
 such shape that Dr. Hamilton felt obliged to open 
 the hospital and take them in. The hospital, 
 however, had been promised for Eed Cross service 
 in the fall, so two weeks later these poor exiles 
 
194 SHEPARD OF AINTAB 
 
 had to be moved to the hostel, while the wards 
 were filled with Turkish soldiers. The worst eases 
 were sent to the American hospital. The soldiers 
 were grateful beyond measure for the care they 
 received. The American hospital, with its clean- 
 liness and order, was a paradise to them, after 
 the unspeakable filth of their own barracks and 
 hospitals. 
 
 In October, Dr. Shepard returned from Con- 
 stantinople to take charge of his own hospital, 
 now under the auspices of the American Eed 
 CrQss, bringing with him eight bales of supplies 
 and medicines to replenish the depleted stock. On 
 his arrival in Aintab, he found, to his grief, that 
 the immunity from deportation, which the Imperial 
 Government had so graciously granted to Protes- 
 tant and Catholic Armenians, was but a camou- 
 flage immunity. Several of the college professors 
 and their families had already been deported, 
 the young men had been scattered and killed, and 
 no hope was left of re-opening the college that 
 fall. 
 
 A few days later, word came from Oorfa of 
 the death of the only American missionary in 
 that city, and Dr. Shepard mounted his good 
 horse and started over the road he had so often 
 
TRAGEDIES OF THE WAR 195 
 
 traveled in brighter days at some urgent call. 
 When he arrived there, he found the Armenian 
 quarter of the city in ruins. When the order 
 came for the deportation of Armenians in Oorfa, 
 knowing what had befallen other exiles, they had 
 refused to leave their homes, saying they pre- 
 ferred death there to the slow torture and horrors 
 of the road. For several days they had bravely 
 defended themselves, until the Turks had placed 
 field-guns on the opposite hill and had blo^vn the 
 place to pieces. Out of five thousand houses, 
 only forty were left untouched. 
 
 Then it was that the brave spirit, who had so 
 often risked his own life to save one of these 
 thousands who were being done to death, cried 
 out in anguish, '*My heart is broken, I can bear 
 the burdens of Turkey no longer." 
 
 How different was the Thanksgiving Day in 
 Aintab that year from the happy festivals of the 
 years that had gone before. There was a little 
 gathering at the college for the few students who 
 still found refuge there. After the simple meal, 
 when the doctor was called upon to speak, he could 
 not find it in his heart to say aught but words 
 befitting the tragedies of the hour. 
 
 **Our hearts are burdened with all we have 
 
196 SHEPARD OF AINTAB 
 
 seen/' lie concluded. ^'I shall be very glad if 
 the Lord shall see fit to call me home. ' ' 
 
 "Within a few weeks the **call home'' came, 
 while the brave doctor was still serving the peo- 
 ple, the sight of whose sufferings, with no power 
 to save, had broken that great, tender, compas- 
 sionate heart. 
 
 In some half-built houses beyond the college 
 campus were herded hundreds of miserable exiles, 
 with no bedding and no food, all of them alive 
 with ^ * cooties ' ' and infected with typhus. Every 
 other day, Dr. Hamilton went among these suf- 
 ferers, giving what help she could, until she fell 
 ill. After his return from Oorfa, Dr. Shepard 
 took up the heart-rending task, and in spite of 
 every precaution, he, too, fell a victim to the dread 
 disease. When first he began to feel ill, he, as 
 always, sought relief in a trip after partridges 
 in the hunting-ground where he had so often re- 
 gained vigor for another term of work. Then, 
 as he realized what the disease was, with brave 
 heart he said, '*If the Lord spare me, I shall be 
 immune to fight the epidemic which is sure to 
 follow in the winter.'' On the fourth day he 
 mounted his horse and rode to the hospital to see 
 Dr. Hamilton, who lay near death's door with 
 
TRAGEDIES OF THE WAR 19T 
 
 the same disease. **Well, ^Richard's himself 
 again ^ when he gets on his horse,'' he smiled as 
 he swung into the saddle. On his return from 
 the hospital, Dr. Shepard went to see the college 
 students who were sick with typhus in the dor- 
 mitory. This was the last service rendered by 
 the great-hearted man. 
 
 Nine days later, the Beloved Physician entered 
 into rest. After he became unconscious, a cordon 
 of soldiers was placed between the college and 
 the city, and the final deportations of all the 
 Armenians began. The great tragedy had come ; 
 but the broken heart had passed beyond the veil 
 and was at rest. A beautiful smile passed over 
 his face at the last moment and lingered there. 
 
 ^^I have never seen Jesus,'' said a poor Arme- 
 nian, "but I have seen Dr. Shepard." 
 
 And one of his missionary associates wrote, "I 
 instinctively think of the Master when I think 
 of Dr. Shepard." 
 
 There was a simple little service at the cemetery 
 in one corner of the college campus, where sev- 
 eral of the doctor's missionary friends had been 
 laid to rest. The college students begged the 
 privilege of bearing the casket. So troubled were 
 the times that only a small group of representa- 
 
198 SHEPARD OF AINTAB 
 
 tive men were sent by the government to pay 
 tribute to the life that had been poured out for 
 their country, and but a few of the hospital work- 
 ers and other Armenian friends could come, by 
 special permit, to offer their last token of love 
 to the Beloved Physician. 
 
 *^I cannot think of him as sympathizing with 
 us as we mourn the loss of his earthly presence," 
 wrote a missionary friend, ^^ because he was of 
 heroic mold and would have us always do as he 
 himself always sought to do, — meet the day's 
 experiences with stout hearts and firm faith in the 
 loving providences of God." 
 
 One day, some weeks after, Mahmoud Agha, the 
 Kurdish friend, appeared at the college gate, rid- 
 ing his old white mare. Leaving her there, he 
 walked alone to the little cemetery and, standing 
 with folded arms, gazed long at the mound be- 
 neath which his friend lay, while great sighs 
 shook his frame. Then silently he turned away. 
 
POSTLUDE 
 
 THE chapel was full. Almost every seat was 
 taken. Many of the people had never be- 
 fore seen a missionary starting ont on his jour- 
 ney. There were special circumstances on this 
 occasion. The young man and his wife were go- 
 ing to take the place of the father who fell at his 
 post, of the disease he had been fighting. His 
 mother was present at the service, just arrived, 
 after four years of horror, including massacre, 
 deportation, and disease in Turkey. What must 
 have been her thoughts as her son stepped for- 
 ward to take the place of the father who had 
 fallen in action! 
 
 The surpliced choir sang an anthem of tri- 
 umph. The sermon of the evening dwelt on the 
 glory of a life invested where it brings great 
 returns. Contrast was drawn between the first 
 efforts of a hundred years ago and the present. 
 
 The beautiful words of personal greeting were 
 spoken by the pastor, and then the two young 
 missionaries made reply in words of simplicity, 
 
 199 
 
200 SHEPARD OF AINTAB 
 
 of deep spiritual truth, and of heroism. The 
 wife said: *^Our hearts are full to-night, too full 
 for expression. We go to represent all of you, 
 and we can. only promise you that we will do our 
 best.'' 
 
 The doctor-husband added thoughts like these : 
 **We are glad to be starting for Turkey. It is 
 not a great thing to do. The rich life of my 
 father is one to beckon, not to dete^. Suppose 
 that one does lay down a life in such service in 
 the future, distant or near, what of it? It is the 
 spirit of the hour. Any man unwilling to die 
 for the Cause he fights for is unfitted to live for 
 any Cause, Thousands of men have died for our 
 country and for the world. Surely, we all must 
 be more than willing to die, if need be, for this 
 cause of righteousness, this multiplying of Christ 
 throughout the earth. Should we count it hard 
 or seek to avoid so plain and clear an issue? 
 Spiritual investment of life awaits us out there, 
 and we shall count upon this church to back us 
 up, while we go to prove the promises and the 
 power of Christ." 
 
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