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TO ARPA-CHAI AND LENINAKAN 175
a lot of cloth all the way home. But I was touched by their
generosity, and expressed my gratitude as well as I could.
In the end I got these excellent materials safely back to
Norway, where they are in daily use in my house.
After this wc motored out into the country to Arpa-chai.
On a level stretch of ground east of the river in the wide
valley there was a large summer camp belonging to the Near
East Relief, to which the boys were sent for a couple of weeks
at a time. Here they lived in tents and led a thoroughly
healthy life, bathing in the river and håving various gymnastics
and games. The camp looked very trim and attractive ; there
were thirty-two children in each tent. The commandant was
a splendid-looking Armenian, formerly an officer on the
Russian general staff, who was instilling a military sense of
order into the boys. Wc arrived just as they were going to
have " afternoon tea." The boys came marching along in
columns from their playground, and sat down at long tables
in the open air. They all seemed strong and healthy, and
looked very smart as they marched past in their white blouses
and shorts. Each was given a bowl of soup and a piece of
bread. Wc were invited to join them at the long tables,
where everybody was very cheery, with much joking and
laughter. But it was getting late in the afternoon, so wc had
to take leave of the hospitable commandant and the ladies
who were helping to run the camp, and started back over the
plains, foliowed by the cheers of the boys.
This completed our two days’ adventures. Wc had now
seen all the different institutions of the Near East Relief at
Leninakan. These included hornes and schools for 11,000
orphans, probably the largest number to be found assembled
anywhere. Wc were deeply impressed by the magnificent
work which had been done, and was still being done, to bring
these children up to be efficient members of society. Especi
ally as many thousands of these healthy, happy, and elever
children had actually been reclaimed from death. Moreover,
wc had seen a colony at Sardarabad, where a thousand young
men educated in these hornes were cultivating new land. A
truly great achievement this, in healing the wounds of war.
In a valley up in the north of the country there was an
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