jumble of Jewish and Armenian merchants that had taken refuge within. Some
of them had left Ana on their way to Aleppo before the news of the fall of
Khan Baghdadi had reached the town. Others had been despatched by the
Turks when the news of our advance arrived. All had been to a greater or
lesser degree plundered by the Arabs. Most of the baggage animals had been
run off, and the merchants were powerless to move. The women were weeping
and imploring help, and the children tumbled about among the confused
heaps of merchandise. Some of the Armenians had relations in Baghdad about
whom I was able to give them bits of information. All begged permission to
go back to Ana and thence to the capital. We, of course, had no means of
supplying them with transportation, and any attempt to recapture their
lost property was out of the question.

A few miles on we made out a troop of Arabs hurrying inland, a mile or so
away from us, across a couple of ravines. They had some of the stolen
camels and were laden down with plunder. Two of our cars made a fruitless
attempt to come to terms with them, but only succeeded in placing a few
well-aimed bursts from their machine-guns among them.

We now began to come up with bands of Turks. We ran across a number of
isolated stragglers who had been stripped by the Arabs. A few had been
killed. They as a rule surrendered without any hesitation. We disarmed
them and told them to walk back toward Ana. Several times we had short
engagements with Turkish cavalry. As a general thing the ground was so
very broken up that it was impossible to manoeuvre. I was riding a good
deal of the time in the Ford tender that we had brought along with a few
supplies, and when one of the tires blew out I waited behind to replace
it. The armored cars had quite a start and we raced along to catch them.
In my hurry I failed to notice that they had left the road in pursuit of a
troop of cavalry, so when we sighted a large square building of the sort