CONDITION OF BULGARIA.

Auckland Star, Volume VIII, Issue 2403, 1 December 1877, Page 6

CONDITION OF BULGARIA.

The war waged in Bulgaria is by common, consent spoken of as the most bloody and cruel of the present centurj. Its battles are massacres, its trophies burned villages and thousands of starving women and children. The scenes of horror it has disclosed are beyond all description. The Turkish Minister for Foreign Affairs complains in a published dispatch that at Loytcha the Russian troops attacked the bodies of the Ottomans. Graat numbers of Turkish dead were seen with their bared breasts pierced by several bayonet wounds, and some even had their brains blown out by guns, the muzzles of which were placed against their heads. The question is raised whether there were wounded men killed on the field, or dead men slain over again in relentless savagery. On the other hand, the .Roumanian Prime Minister, who is at the front, reports that Major Nicholas Joan and Captain Nastasie were wounded before Plevna, and were afterwards cut to pieces with hatchets by Bashi Bazouks, who follow the Turkish troops, and like so many butchers kill all who come in their way. One man, caught mutilating a Russian corpse, was sentenced to eight years' hard labour; tut the Turkish Government is too weak to stop the outrages effectually. The clouds of Circassians and Bashi Bazouks that swarm where any spoil lies thickest have become unmanageable, and are a source of dread to all respectable people, of whatever political creed. The seizure of the passes of the Balkans was an act of military forethought, but the rash advance of General Gourka without orders into the valleys beyond was a mistake culpable in the highest degree, and that could not be expiated by a temporary return to St. Petersburg. The natural results have followed in the devastation of the whole region. Letters from Bulgaria overflow with painful details. There is evidence that the Russian soldiers at Kesanlik and elsewhere ; were guilty of atrocities. The Bulgarians, | whom they incited to rebellion, copied too nearly the example of their late masters, and seemed disposed to avenge the horrors of last year by like deeds ; but when the Russian forces withdrew, and Sulieman Pasha approached, the direst chastisement was inflicted* of which the Circassians and Bashi Bazouks were the natural executioners. The sternest measures of repression might be expected according to the ordinary rules of war, but in the hands of these wretches there has been no distinction. The character that belongs to them is illustrated by a lighter incident, told in the " Times" from a co-respondent who had journeyedtheotherday from Constantinople to Adrianople in the same train with Lady Strangford and some other English ladles all the way :—" Some unruly Circassians kept worrying the guard by firing out or the windows. Anything just in sight, troro a Bulgarian girl in a red petticoat, to a buffalo, served as marks for these playm creatures, and bang succeeded bang, to tne annoyance, but no great alarm of the steadier passengers. Vexation however, gave way to something like panic, when it was discovered that, tired of the .open widows, our rollicking fellow-passengers had Jam to firing through the carriages.' If tins db the playful mood, we cannot wonder at tne deeds done under the excitement of passion.