This list may not be entirely correct, as many towns have both Turkish and Bulga rian names, and they may be repeated in one or two instances. Some villages, too, are probably omitted. Owing to the absence of statistics, it is impossible exactly to ascertain the population of each village, and in many cases I have not been able to learn the number of houses. In general, as long as the patriarch or father of a family is alive his married sons live with him, so that there are frequently families of fifteen, twenty, and even of thirty-nine persons. The population of a village would be, therefore, larger than for the same number of houses in other countries. In the larger villages the lower stories of the houses are of stone, the roofs are tiled, the streets are paved, and there is a general air of comfort and well-being. Particular attention was given by the troops to the churches and schools, which in some cases were destroyed with petroleum and gunpowder. The altars were overturned; the pictures painted on the walls scratched and pierced, and the holy places defiled and desecrated.

Besides the villages, four monasteries were burned. Saint Teodor, near Perustitsa; the Panagia and the Brzsrabrinitsa, near Kretshma; and Saint Nicolas, near Kaloyerovo. The Turks allege that many of these villages were burned by the insurgents for the purpose of compelling the Bulgarian inhabitants to join them. I am unable to find that such was the case in more than two or three instances, and even here the proof is very weak. At Bellova the insurgents burned the railway station, in which some zaptichs had taken refuge.

It is very difficult to estimate the number of Bulgarians who were killed during the few days that the disturbances lasted, but I am inclined to put 15,000 as the lowest for the districts I have named.

The manner in which the troops did their work will be seen from a few details gathered on the spot from persons who escaped from the massacre.

Perustitsa, a town of 400 houses and between 3,000 and 4,000 inhabitants, took no active part in the insurrection. Becoming alarmed at the attitude of the Turks in the neighboring villages, the inhabitants sent a deputation to Aziz Pacha, the Mites sarif of Philippopolis, for regular troops to defend them. He returned them a written message that he had no troops to send, and that they must defend themselves. When the bashi-bazouks appeared before the town they therefore refused to surrender, en

trenched themselves in a church, retreating finally to another, and held out for five days until they saw the regular troops under Raschid Pacha, when the remainder gave themselves up. Many of the inhabitants escaped at the beginning of the struggle, but many were shot down. The church was bombarded and about 1,000 in all were killed, many of them women and children. The town was pillaged and completely burned; not a single house being now standing. Many women were violated. The floor of the church, the church-yard, and many of the gardens were dug up afterwards in search for buried treasure. The bashi-bazouks here were commanded by Ahmed Aga of Tamrysh, who was subsequently rewarded with a silver medal.

Klissura was nearly twice the size of Perustitsa and proportionately richer, as many of the inhabitants were engaged in the manufacture of attar of roses, and many were merchants traveling through the country. The insurrectionary movement began here on the 2d of May, but it was not until the 12th that the bashi-bazouks, under the command of Tussum Bey of Karlovo, attacked the place. A few shots were fired, when the villagers surrendered and fled to Koprishtitsa and to the mountains. More than 250 Bulgarians were killed, chiefly women and children. The Turks claim that 14 Mussulmans (in part gipsies) were killed before and during the fight. As soon as the bashi-bazouks entered the town they pillaged it and burned it. Among other things 450 copper stills used in making attar of roses were carried to the Turkish villages. Subsequent parties carried off all that was left, even to the nails from the doors and the tiles from the roofs. The church was desecrated and blown up. Tussum Bey for this exploit was decorated with the Mejidii.

Koprishtitsa, (Avrat-Alan,) although one of the first villages to rebel, was one of the last to be attacked. Warned by the fate of Klissura and Panagurishta the leading inhabitants themselves arrested the ringleaders of the insurrection and sent to Philippopolis for regular troops. In spite of this the bearers of submission were fired on, and one, the Priest Dantcho, was killed, the town was several times pillaged, many of the women were violated, and about 30 persons were killed. The town was not burned, and a general massacre was avoided by large presents of money paid by the leading inhabitants to the Turkish commanders. Three shots were, however, fired at the church, but did little damage. The villagers admit having killed 10 Turks and 40 gipsies, the latter being suspected of an intention to plunder the town. The Turks claim a

total loss of 71.

Panagurishta (Otluk-Kui) was attacked by a force of regular troops, together with bashi-bazouks, on the 11th of May. Apparently no message to surrender was sent. After a slight opposition on the part of the insurgents, the town was taken. Many of the inhabitants fled, but about 3,000 were massacred, the most of them being women and children. Of these, about 400 belonged to the town of Panagurishta, and the others to nine neighboring villages, the inhabitants of which had taken refuge there. Four hundred buildings, including the bazaar and the largest and best houses, were burned. Both churches were completely destroyed and almost leveled to the ground. In one an old man was violated on the altar, and afterwards burned alive. Two of the schools were burned; the third, looking like a private house, escaped. From the numerous statements made to me, hardly a woman in the town escaped violation and brutal treatment. The ruffians attacked children of eight, and old women of eighty, sparing neither age nor sex. Old men had their eyes torn out and their limbs cut off, and were then left to die, unless some more charitably disposed man gave them the final thrust. Pregnant women were ripped open and the unborn babes carried triumphantly on the points of bayonets and sabers, while little children were made to bear the dripping heads of their comrades. This scene of rapine, lust, and murder was continued for three days, when the survivors were made to bury the bodies of the dead. The perpetrators of these atrocities were chiefly regular troops commanded by Hafiz Pasha. The Turks claim and the villagers admit the death of fourteen Mussulmans, two of whom were women, who were killed with arms in their hands during a conflict with a party that refused to surrender to the insurgents.

While pillage reigned supreme at Koprishtitsa and lust at Panagurishta, at Batak the Turks seemed to have no stronger passion than the thirst for blood. This village surrendered without firing a shot, after a promise of safety to the bashi-bazonks, under the command of Ahmed-Aga, of Burutina, a chief of the rural police. Despite his promise, the few arms once surrendered, Ahmed-Aga ordered the destruction of the village and the indiscriminate slaughter of the inhabitants, about a hundred young girls being reserved to satisfy the lust of the conqueror before they too should be killed. I saw their bones, some with the flesh still clinging to them, in the hollow on the hillside, where the dogs were gnawing them. Not a house is now standing in the midst in this lovely valley. The saw-mills-for the town had a large trade in timber and sawn boards-which lined the rapid little river are all burned, and of the 8,000 inhabitants not 2,000 are known to survive. Fully 5,000 persons, a very large proportion of them women and children, perished here, and their bones whiten the ruins or their putrid bodies infect the air. The sight of Batak is enough to verify all that has been said about the acts of the Turks in repressing the Bulgarian insurrection. And yet I saw it three

months after the massacre. On every side were human bones, skulls, ribs, and even complete skeletons, heads of girls still adorned with braids of long hair, bones of children, skeletons still encased in clothing. Here was a house, the floor of which was white with the ashes and charred bones of thirty persons burnt alive there. Here was the spot where the village notable, Trandafil, was spitted on a pike and then roasted, and where he is now buried; there was a foul hole full of decomposing bodies; here a milldam filled with swollen corpses; here the school-house where two hundred women and children, who had taken refuge there, were burned alive; and here the church and church-yard where fully a thousand half-decayed forms were still to be seen, filling the inclosure in a heap several feet high, arms, feet, and heads protruding from the stones which had vainly been thrown there to hide them, and poisoning all the air.

Since my visit, by orders of the mutissarif, the kaimakam of Tatar-Bazardjik was sent to Batak, with some lime to aid in the decomposition of the bodies and to prevent a pestilence.

Ahmed-Aga, who commanded at the massacre, has been decorated and promoted to the rank of yuz-bashi.

These atrocities were clearly unnecessary for the suppression of the insurrection, for it was an insignificant rebellion at the best, and the villagers generally surrendered at the first summons. Nor can they be justified by the state of panic, which was over be fore the troops set out on the campaign. An attempt, however, has been made, and not by Turks alone, to defend and to palliate them, on the ground of the previons atrocities which, it is alleged, were committed by the Bulgarians. I have carefully investigated this point, and am unable to find that the Bulgarians committed any outrages or atrocities, or any acts which deserve that name. I have vainly tried to obtain from the Turkish officials a list of such outrages, but have heard nothing but vague statements. I was told by Kiani Pasha that the insurgents killed the wife and daughter of the mudir of Koprishtitsa; but this mudir had recently gone there, and had left his wife at Eski-Saara, where she still resides, and had no daughter. I was also told of the slaughter of the wife of the mudir of Panagurishta, but at the time mentioned that village had no mudir. I was referred'for information to Hafiz Nuri Effendi, a leading Turk of Phillippopolis. In a very careful statement made by him, he sets the number of Mussulmans (including gypsies) killed during the troubles at 155, of whom 12 are women and children-the word children taken to mean any one under twenty years of age. I have been able to obtain proof of the death of only two of these women-at Parangu rishta-who certainly were not intentionally killed. No Turkish women or children were killed in cold blood. No Mussulman women were violated. No Mussulmans were tortured. No purely Turkish village was attacked or burned. No Mussulman house was pillaged. No mosque was desecrated or destroyed. The report of the special Turkish commissioner, Edib Effendi, contains statements on this point, as on every other, which are utterly unfounded in fact, and the whole report may be char acterized as a tissue of falsehoods.

I am, sir, yours, very truly,

The Hon. HORACE MAYNARD,

EUGENE SCHUYLER.

Sc., &c., &c.

[Inclosure No. 3, with dispatch No. 106.]

Note from Mr. Schuyler to Mr. Maynard, inclosing his report.

CONSULATE-GENERAL OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Constantinople, November 20, 1876. SIR: I have the honor to inclose to you a report on the massacres and atrocities in Bulgaria last May. My account of the trials of the Bulgarians accused of insurrection, of the acts of the Turkish commissions of investigations, of the trials of those guilty of the atrocities, and of the present state of the country, I must defer to a subsequent report.

I have the honor to be, sir, with great respect, your very obedient servant. EUGENE SCHUYLER.

The Hon. HORACE MAYNARD,

Minister Resident, &c., §c., &c.

[Inclosure No. 4, with dispatch No. 106.]

LEGATION OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Constantinople, November 20, 1876.

SIR: Leaving Constantinople on the 23d day of July, I remained one day at Adrianople, and then proceeded immediately to Philippopolis, the center of the disturbed district in Bulgaria. After visiting many of the villages in the district of Philippopolis and of Tatar Bazardjik, I went to the districts of Yamboli and Slivno, then, crossing the Balkans, I visited the districts of Yirnovo, Gabrovo, and Selvi, and returned to Adrianople by the way of Shipka, Kazanlyk, Eski-Zagra, and Tchirpan, arriving at Constantinople on the 29th of August.

In going from village to village, I always had an escort of two Zaptichs, that being the smallest number which the authorities would allow me to take. They usually offered me six or ten, and would not permit me to travel without Zaptichs, on the ground that they were responsible for my safety, as well as that politeness compelled them to escort me. The Zaptichs were useful for showing the road, but they were of slight value for purposes of protection, as they would probably have run away at the first approach of danger.

While paying all proper respect to the authorities, and being careful to fulfill the necessary formalities of visits, I avoided staying in Turkish houses, as I would thus have been prevented from having free access to the Bulgarians. I also refused to allow a guard to be placed at the houses where I staid.

I had as an interpreter an educated young Bulgarian, Mr. Peter Dimitroff, who, besides his own language, understood English and Turkish perfectly. I knew sufficient Bulgarian to be able to follow the conversations and to be able to control what he translated to me. Besides this I had for the most of my journey one and sometimes two other persons who thoroughly understood Turkish and Greek-one an Armenian, the other a Greek.

There were frequently great difficulties in obtaining exact information, arising partly from the action of the authorities, partly from timidity of the Bulgarians, and partly from the nature of the facts into which I was inquiring. I have had recourse to official documents, to statements made by Turks, officials as well as non-officials; by Greeks, who are usually somewhat prejudiced against the Bulgarians; by Armenians and Jews, the most disinterested of all; by Bulgarian Catholics and orthodox Bulgarians of all classes, as also to information given to me by foreigners. Naturally much of what I shall state res's on the authority of Bulgarians, who were often the only persons able or willing to tell what had happened. I have endeavored by strict questioning, crossexamination, and comparison of statements to arrive as near as possible at the exact truth, but I am sensible that at times subsequent information may show some inaccuracies. As a general rule I have thought it needless to give the processes by which I have arrived at my facts; and as I set out with no intentions either of proving or of disproving any assertions or statement, I shall relate merely what I believe to have

occurred.

PREVIOUS MOVEMENTS AND DISAFFECTION IN BULGARIA.

The condition of the Christian subjects in Turkey so appealed to the sentiments and the ideas of justice of the great powers during the Crimean war, that in 1856 the Sultan Abdul Medjid was induced solemnly to confirm the privileges and the reforms which he and his predecessors had granted, but which had never been carried out, and to grant some new ones by the Hatti Humayoum of that year, reference to which was made in the treaty of Paris. The delays, however, in carrying out the reforms granted and confirmed by the decree, the unequal taxes and the irregularities in collecting them, the continued refusal to accept Christian evidence when offered against Mussulmans in civil courts, the maintenance of the Christian in an illegally inferior position to that of the Mussulmans, the constant vexations and exactions of government officials, and the almost daily acts of murder and violence committed by the Mussulman population, excited the feelings of the Bulgarians to such an extent that in 1862 they revolted against the authority of the Porte. This rebellion was a very feeble one, and was speedily put down. Another broke out in 1867 in the province of the Danube, which was at once suppressed by the energetic action of Midhat Pasha, then the vali of that province. Nine or ten of the rebels were executed and fifty-four were sentenced to transportation to Diarbekir or to imprisonment with hard labor. Many young men, fearing to be compromised by the revelations extorted by torture, took refuge in Bucharest, and, not disheartened by the failure of that attempt, continued in active co-operation with the Servians in preparations for a new rebellion. The assassination of Prince Michael, of Servia, on the 8th of June, 1868, disturbed their plans, but in spite of the withdrawal of Servia from the undertaking in consequence of the change of government, the young Bulgarians refused to abandon their idea, and in June, 1868, a band of one hundred and fifty well-armed and well-disciplined men, called "The Bulgarian Legion," crossed the Danube at Vardim, near Sistof. Although this

was the shortest road to the Balkans, yet it lay through a province almost entirely inhabited by Circassians and Turks. Midhat Pasha again took energetic measures; "The Legion" was obliged to take refuge in the defiles of the mountains south of Gabrovo, and was destroyed to a man. In spite of the foolhardiness and of the want of forethought that characterized this attempt, Turks, as well as Bulgarians, give honor to the bravery and the courage of "The Legion."

Meanwhile the struggle for the independence of the Bulgarian Church and for freedom from the tyranny of the Greek patriarch and bishops was going on, and the system of national education-in great measure owing to the active exertions of Americans-was making great progress.

At last, in 1871-in spite of the influence which the fanar had brought to bear at the Porte, and of the efforts of Midhat Pasha and other leading Turks, who foresaw the result, and who tried to develop a tendency to unite with the Catholics rather than to become independent-a firman was granted re-establishing an independent Bulga rian Church. The natural and inevitable consequences of religious independence, of the higher education of the people, and of the liberal ideas which those young men were receiving who were sent to study abroad in Russia, Germany, and France, as well as those educated in the American schools and the higher establishments at Constantinople, was to create a far greater national feeling than had previously existed. People who before that time had spoken Greek no longer denied their nationality, and acknowledged themselves with pride to be Bulgarians.

With the exception, however, of a slight rebellion at Sophia in 1873, which was at once suppressed, and for which one young priest was hanged, and sixty persons exiled to Diarbekir, no real agitation was carried on in the country, and no attempt was made by the Bulgarians to take up arms to secure their rights. Even in spite of the exactions of the Turkish officials, the Bulgarians, owing to their energy, industry, and intelligence, were prosperous. The Bulgarian population was growing rich while the Turks were growing poor. This was especially noticeable in those villages which contained a mixed population. The oppression, however, of the Turkish authorities did not diminish, and the daily vexations suffered from them as well as from the Mussulman population were sufficient to inflame the minds of young men of any natural spirit, or who had ever been in a country which was ruled with the slightest regard for law or humanity.

THE ESKI-ZAGRA AFFAIR.

The impossibility of obtaining redress, and, indeed, in many cases, of bringing their troubles to the notice of the central government, finally brought the young Bulgarians last year to resolve on an armed demonstration which should gain for their wrongs the attention, not only of the central government, but of the great powers of Europe. This movement was organized by the Bulgarian committee at Bucharest, where a number of exiles-some professed revolutionists-had taken refuge during preceding years, and had devoted themselves for some time to the task of stirring up discontent and fomenting insurrection in their own country. The various members of this committee secretly crossed the Danube and took charge of the rising, forming committees in all of the larger towns and villages. The headquarters of this movement were at Tirnovo. Although the revolutionary leaders succeeded thus in forming a kind of organization, the people were without arms and unaccustomed to their use. I have been assured by persons connected with this movement that there was not the slightest idea of making any real opposition to the Turks; but it was thought that if the inhabitants of the towns and villages collected in the mountains they would thus make a sufficiently formal demonstration to compel the Porte to pay some attention to their demands. These demands were, briefly :

1. That the country should be governed by Christian instead of Turkish officials. 2. That the Bulgarian language should be recognized as official, or at least that all documents in Turkish should be accompanied by a Bulgarian translation.

3. That there should be a reform in the method of taxation and of collecting the taxes, which would put an end to the abuses from which the Christian population now suffer.

4. That the Christians should be allowed to enter the military service upon the same terms as Mussulmans. Most of these demands have been included in substance in the various reforms which have so often been given to the Christian populations of Turkey, in the Hatti Sheriff of Gul-Khané, and in the Hatti Humayoum. After this movement had been organized, and the day for the execution of the plan had been fixed, the chiefs resolved to defer it. Letters were accordingly written from Tirnovo to all the subdistricts postponing for some time the intended rising. Unfortunately, the letter intended for the committee of Eski-Zagra, on which depended Tchirpan, Haskeni, and some other towns, miscarried.

Accordingly on the 29th of September, 1875, twenty-one young men from Eski-Zagra and eighty peasants from the surrounding villages, armed, some with old muskets and