LADY STRANGFORD'S MISSION IN BULOARAIA.

Clutha Leader, Volume III, Issue 135, 9 February 1877, Page 6

LADY STRANGFORD'S MISSION IN BULOARAIA.

FEARFUL SCENES OF DISTRESS.

From a letter -addressed by the above lady to the Lord Mayor of London,and dated Philippopolis, November 3, we make the following- extracts as showing the distressed condition of the Bulgarians after the late atrocities:—- .'

. . . ''The present misery is so appalling that it may well' absorb me. It will be many years before the Bulgarian villages can be restored to the state they were in last April ; rich and poor villages are alike utterly destroyed, , and nothing scarcely is to be seen but thousands of wretched, half-starved, shivering women and children huddling under- a few loose boards on the damp earth, among the blackened heaps of fallen walls. £300,000 might rebuild these houses in the course of next year, and restore the property in them ; this, however, may stand, ovei, for, I grieve to say, ii will require £100,000 (while we have not £20,0u0 between us all) to carry the wretched people through the winter by affording temporary shelter, .blankets (their only bedding — a. couple of blankets for each family), clothing, and food. These figures 1 can now say I have myself more or less ascertained, having gone into the cost of most of the items—- viz., timber, tools, blankets, &c, and into 'Le extent and evil of the destruction. All the clothing and blankets were carried off and burned ; while the "crops have since, in most cases, been spoiled or were left ungathered. In many cases the people sank into a • sort of apathetic lethargy, from which they are now awakening, with winter upon them, to find themselves without the means of cutting or carrying wood, or tools to work up anything they may get. The women have often sat wailino- and unemployed, for there was no wool to spin or needles to sew with. The villages are silent ; there is neither stir nor voice to be heard amongst them ; and. I can truly say I have not seen, a s nile on a single face— no, not even on a child. . . . We stopped an route. at a wretched villlage, Radlovo, where Mr Clarke, the ' American missionary, gave away some blankets. It was good to see how, the peoplo clung to him and the priest worked with him. This priest had been imprisoned, and while all- others around him were cowed and Weeping and afraid, he alone, Mr Mac--1 Gahantold me, bore his fate with calm, fortitude, comforting and helping the others. The people of Radlovo seemed nothing but skin and bone ; their faces werepinched and emaciated, .they tottering'along with trembling eagerness for the few blankets we had to give away making room for each other without quarrelling. and jealousy — only weeping quietly and kissing my hand at each gift. Pool* things"! they had but little bread, yet they pressed grapes and walnuts upon us, and would not be refused. After this we rode six hours in torrents of rain up the mountain gorge to Batak. The place, cleared now of human remains, is yet a dreadful sight; nothing but heaps of blackened, buimt stones. The people are living* m huts of a few of loose boards laid together, or in shanties' of straw, through which the wind and rain pass freely. Mr Clarke had got up at the cost of £250 a wooden building for refuge and hospital, in which we slept, with.biankets hung up to keep out the rain,' which dripped through the unfinished roofj ahd the wind ' from the unglaz'ed windows. We slept on sacks of straw. As I lay there, sleepless' and -shiverin a* with cold, I yet felt ashamed of the comparative comfort and warmth we were enjoying. The Government is also building some temporary shelter here which will, preserve a good many, but it will be several weeks , yet before all are housed ; and the poor/people are dying rapidly, chiefly .of, dysentry, although Mr Clarke has been- doing his best to 1 keep them' alive with a daily distribution of rice soup. ; If is no good, 'now to -repeat | tlie horrid details; of the .ay^ful things 'that happened Wre : ;■■ they' do but unfit , one', for the .work ;;

buAyhile I live I cspi never forget ,the two: days , I. spent at Batak, and vyhat L saw aiid heard there. w|ra^*it w.as'Acpmparatively cleansed^ ipd^ set ifP.orderA Heaven knows I feelior.the privations of my own countrymen at home, and have seen something of sufferirm- in England ; but if the poorest and worstoff English. peasant could see for himself the state of the ' best-pft'7 here in these, villages, I think we should soon have funds enough and to spare. . For myself, I am ashamed of the clothes I wear, of the blankets I sleep under,, and the food I eat chokes me when. I think of what I have seen around me. There are six long - , weary : months to be got through somehow, with the snow and the ice, and' tlie rain, and lack of food,, before we may hope for a ray of sunshine and warmth.