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DR. ,FRED DOUGLAS SHEPARD 

" SHEPARD OF AINTAB " 



SHEPARD OF AINTAB 



BY 

ALICE SHEPARD RIGGS 








INTERCHURCH PRESS 

NEW YORK 



UUtAftY 

KNOX coueoi 

TORONTO 



816041 



COPYRIGHT, 1820, BY 



INTERCHURCH WORLD MOVEMENT 
OP NORTH AMERICA. 



Co 

LORRIN ANDREWS SHEPARD 
WHO HAS TAKEN UP THE 
NOBLE TASK WHERE HIS 
FATHER LAID IT DOWN 



CONTENTS 



PREFACE 


PAGE 
1 


PRELUDE . 


JL 

ix 


CHAPTER 




I. BOYHOOD AND YOUTH 


1 


II. THE SPRING OF HEALING . 


21 


III. MIRACLES OF THE SURGEON 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 


149 


IX. ALL THINGS TO ALL MEN . 


165 


X. TRAGEDIES OF THE WAR . 


183 


POSTLUDE . . . . . 


199 



ILLUSTRATIONS 

FRED DOUGLAS SHEPARD, M.D. . . Frontispiece 

FACINQ 

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 EIVER . . 84 
WAITING FOR SOUP AT THE HOSPITAL SOUP- 
KITCHEN . . . . . . . . 116 

DR. SHEPARD CLIMBING A MOUNTAIN OF ASI 
ATIC TURKEY . . . . . 132 

KURDISH PATIENTS * . . . . . 156 

A. KURDISH HOME 156 



PEEFACE 

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 
yarns 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 "Snippet," as they pronounced it, is 



PREFACE xi 

revered alike by all races and creeds. To those 
who 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 RIGGS. 

NEWTON CENTBE, MASS. 
March 23, 1920. 



PRELUDE 

T T 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. Bugs, 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 

xiii 



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 camel s-hair cap and brown camel s-hair robe, 
and the Gregorian bishop, in his purple cassock 
and black silk gown ; 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 



xv i 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 5 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 t 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 1 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 



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 

E 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. 7 

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-wheels to the 
river below. Fascinated in watching a buzz-saw, 

l 



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 Eiver, 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, I ll 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, Grandma 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. 

"Oh, 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 5 

lage of northern New York, flowed a canal with 
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. 



6 SHEPARD OF AINTAB 

Fred s father had meant much 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 dawn, 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 around 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 SEEPARD 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 you?" 

"But, Fred, what has happened? You re 
dreadfully hurt!" she cried, as she 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 ! 

v 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 mouth 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 grub?" 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 lie would make one 
desperate attempt to get out of it. A handful 
of salt went into the next batch 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 Ms 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 with 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 department, 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 through the corridor, with the soft light 
gleaming on her heavy coils of golden hair. < i 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 Blackwell s 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. 



j 



II 

THE SPRING OF HEALING 

UST 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 gulf to the little town 
of Alexandretta, from which they would make 
the journey of one hundred miles overland to the 

21 



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 Khanum [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. 
Olmaz, Olmaz." [Impossible.] "But why do you 
go on to Aintab 1 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 

lie announced 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. 

"Mashallah, [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!" with 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, bak, Shapkalular 1 " [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. Kising 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 

"Why don t you <shoo> them off I " asked Mrs. 
Shepard. 

"Oh, 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- 
shallah. " 

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 



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 goafs-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, goafs-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, five 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 

Who, many years before, had been conquered by 
the Turks. Centuries before any missionaries 1 
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 
"Dttini geoster," [Show your tongue] " Aghru 
nerede?" [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 
woman 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, "Eski geozler," [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 7 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. Eifendi, Dr. Effendi," 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 DOCTOR 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 7 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. Lurched 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, 
Kilis 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 wife 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 "Ayib!" [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 SURGEON S KNIFE 



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 I" 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-off 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 SMppet; 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 say? and then, with 
the same infinite patience and kindness, he would 
reply, i 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 known 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 
cutors. 

"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 f 
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. 
Biding 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 



I. THE WALLS OF THE " BLACK CITY " OF DIABBEKIB 
II. VIEW OF CENTBAL TURKEY COLLEGE, AINTAB 



MIRACLES OF THE SURGEON S KNIFE 53 

"Who are you, brother ?" asked the doctor. 

"Why, don t you know?" replied the man. "I 
am the father of Sara who was blind. When 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, 



64 SHEPARD OF AINTAB 

When 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, 7 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 strewnj 
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 55 

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 women 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, l 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 huge 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 57 

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 



68 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 Koman 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 the 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 village !" in 
quired the doctor. 

"Yes," was the reply. 

"And did many of your people die!" 

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 an d 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 coffee-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- 
mtrn doymade. 9 [I m still empty, I m still 
empty.] 

Running 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 tjaeir 
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- 
beardedj 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 Baba, 
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. "Oh, 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 Ms 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?" the doctor asks one 
of the poor women who has come in a few days 
before with some ugly gunshot wounds inflicted 
by her husband, half dead from the long journey, 
bound to a rough board as a stretcher. 

U 0h, 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. 
"Amcm 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." "SUppet is going by, SUppet 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!" 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 




I. DK. 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. 

1 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 activities, 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 was impossible to find any but 
native women, all 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 Red 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 l crutch brigade 
> a class which includes all who can walk or 
hobble about on crutches. 

" Which hymn would you like to-night, 
Ahmed?" 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, 

"Taib." [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?" 

"I 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. 



I 



HORSES AND BANDITS 

T was the doctor s first Christmas in Turkey. 

A big snow-storm had covered hill and plain 
and blotted out 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 
Glaus, 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, when 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, walking 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. 



I Tt m 





I. DR. SHEPAKD AND ONE OF HIS FAVORITE HORSES 
II. 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 ten" 
[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 doc 
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, "that 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 unmounted 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 I" 
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/ 7 



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 known 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 Ali 
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 fight 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 Mm 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. 

1 1 No, no, came the quick, reassuring reply. 

Dr. Shepard, however, was exceedingly careful 
about his firearms. He always unloaded his gun 
when through with it. A revolver he distrusted 
and he seldom carried one. "It is a tricky 



HORSES AND 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 went 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 some 
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 off 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 was 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 

not 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 blown 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 with 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 ?" 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 Su?" 
[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." 

"InshaXldh [God willing], the Doctor Effendi 
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 Kilis, 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 Kilis. 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 
his 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. Kough 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, "Oh, Doctor Effendi," she cried, 
her voice hoarse with terror, "it 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 women, 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, u he passes over my dead body!" 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 OF 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 five 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 "scruff 
of the neck," he threw him out into the street. 

As soon as a Bed 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- 



H6 SHEPARD OF AINTAB 

ried away, calling down blessings on his head. 
In a few days she was back again. 

4 * 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, 



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? 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. Eefugees 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-born 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 Eelief and Eebuilding, 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, "who 
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. 

ADANA, 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 you 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 Red 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 
suffering caused by the massacres in Eastern Tur 
key, during the early part of the current year, the 
Red Cross medal be awarded to you. 

I have the pleasure of sending to you herewith, 
as a souvenir of the services rendered, the Red 
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." 



(T 



vn 

SUMMEE OUTINGS AND HUNTING TRIPS 



OLLEGE 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 could 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 was under way. 

What a glorious trip that was for the children! 
There was the stop at noon, under the walnut 
ftree 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 off 
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 
boughs 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, "is 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 him 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 





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. No 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 3oud report, and imme 
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 SHEPAKD OF AINTAB 

children were awake, when the twigs and leaves 
wBre 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 which 
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." 

When 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 137 

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 hung 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 tfreir 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 week, 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. "I 
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 

lie 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 ^f rom 
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 KiaJike 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 AIXTAB 

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 Aglia, 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 his 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. l Aren t there any sick people in America f 

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 get 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 
Shippet. 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?" asked the man. 

"To Aintab, " was the response. 

"Oh," 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 going 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 151 

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 
goafs-hair tent. 

Mahmoud Agha was the chief of his tribe 



152 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- 
lah, 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 Erkenek 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 3ggs, 
yoghourt and grapes, I rode along. Ali Riza 
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. Goodsell: 

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 Biza, 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, All Riza, Kiamil and Bektash were his 
sons. Kuldeoken (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 an9 
respect to the hospital nurses. In the winter of 
1913, Mrs. Shepard was called to Oorfa to reor 
ganize industries for the women 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 
Eodja [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 



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 Havoimj 
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 
c 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 150 

the release from prison of some Christian friend 
or servant unjustly arrested. Several times lie 
secured the punishment 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 Namaz, 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 Revolution, " 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 difficult 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. 

11 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, 
hut 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 In j eel [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 furi- 



A FRIEND TO ALL 163 

ously angry and said to the Kurd, "Who are you, 
anyway? What is your religion ?" 

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 it?" 

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 SHEPARD 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 Aintabli [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 the 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 
bifs 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. 

"Oh, 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, "if 
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 1 

" I 11 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; hut the services 
of the church were in Ancient Armenian. This is, 
to Modern 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 
"life 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 
make?" 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 
tabtes ; 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 with 
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 



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 

I 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 wiU 
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. Biggs, 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 P., 
will you lead us in prayer V 9 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. 



TRAGEDIES 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 churches 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 friendship 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 
WilJielm. 

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 staff 
and they had more than they could do. 

"You cannot realize," the doctor wrote, "the 
grief and the nervous strain which 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. i 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, ior- 
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 Vail [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 Bed 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, 
l 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 Bed 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 cases 
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 
Cross, 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 blown 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," he 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 197 

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 out 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 deter. 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. " 



CAVEH LIBRARY 

KNOX COLLEGf 

TORONTO