A SCENE ON THE BATTLE FIELD.

Akaroa Mail and Banks Peninsula Advertiser, Volume I, Issue 63, 23 February 1877, Page 3

A SCENE ON THE BATTLE FIELD.

A correspondent of the London Standard writes from Nissa, as follows : — "We come upon a number of Servian corpses, most of them in that early stage of decomposition when the bodies swell to an unnatural size. Some, however, could only have been dead a short time, for their bodies were still warm and unstiffened. We had not dreamed what fearful havoc our two batteries and the cavalry attack had made. The defeat of the Servians must have been much more severe than we imagined, as the enemy had left his dead and wounded behind, close to the river's bank. The poor wounded! What terrible torment they must have endured lying among corpses and deprived of all consolation, all help. How many groans and sighs must have passed the quivering lips and been lost in the empty air. Near an adjutant lay two photographs, which must have slipped from his dying hand; one represented the dead man, but in the uniform of a Russian Major or Colonel, and the other a young woman with fair tresses, a prominent nose, and light-colored eyes. The photographs had been taken in Moscow ; on the back of the man's stood in pencil ' Nicolay Komoff.' I know not in what relation the woman stood to the officer; but whether wife, sister, or betrothed, it is certain his last thoughts were of her. Not far from him lay the body of an officer, his right hand pressed on his breast, where the splinter of a shell had struck him, and grasping a piece of paper. A strong man, he appeared to have struggled long with death, his face, which had the unmistakeable Russian type, being distorted from pain. It was with difficulty that the paper was removed from his hand. It was a letter, without any date, cyrline writing, and evidently from a child's hand. Colonel Mehmed, who was once iii the Russian service (he is a Circassian from Daghesban, subjected by Russia more than fifty j-ears ago) and understands Russian, translated the letter into Turkish, and then one of the Cossacks, a Pole, who had been brought up in France, gave me the contents in French, as follows:—' Dearest Father, —Be good enough, dearest father, to come back from the war. Since you have been away mother weeps continually, and she dreams every night that thou best dead under a tree. Come to us, dear father, for mother has been so pale, and is always crying. lam very good, so that she may not cry still more, and when thou comest back will remain good, and never be naughty again. But thou must come soon, father, and must kiss mother, that she may become red again, and also kiss thy little Minka."