Mavroyeni Bey to Mr. Olney.
Washington , May 25, 1896 .
Mr. Secretary of State: I have the honor to confirm my note of the 15th of last January, No. 7, and to furnish your excellency with the following copy of a dispatch which I have just received from His [Page 883] Excellency Tevfik Pasha, in answer to No. 66 which you were pleased to write me under date 14th January, 1896:
I have received with its inclosures the report which you were pleased te send me the 16th of last January, relating to the disturbances which occurred at Harpoot.
My colleague of the interior, to whom I had communicated these documents, answers from information furnished by the governor-general of the Vilayet of Mamuret-ul-Aziz, that the conflagration which had broken out in the said city had lasted several hours on account of scarcity of water, and that without the efforts of the Imperial authorities to fight it it would certainly have occasioned very much greater ravages, in view of the fact that the houses of the town which number some 3,000, are very near together, and that the fire had broken out at the time of the troubles.
I beg you to answer in the above sense to Mr. Secretary of State.
Please accept, etc.,