THE FLIGHT TO STAMBOUL.

Globe, Volume IX, Issue 1256, 28 March 1878, Page 3

THE FLIGHT TO STAMBOUL.

The “ Times ” correspondent, ■writing from Philippopolis, thus describes some of the miseries of the flight to Stamboul in the middle of January : —lt was possible to describe the general exodus of refugees pouring out of Bulgaria and marching upon Constantinople early in last autumn by a free employment of superlatives. It is not possible by pen or pencil to convey any just or even approximate notion of what is now occurring upon the Buzardjik-Stamboul railway line. At every station two or three long trains are collected laden in a manner which, described to those who have not beheld the sight, would appear incredible and absurd. G-oods waggons, passenger carriages, and trucks are indiscriminately mixed together. All arc crammed till every available inch of standing room is occupied by the tightly packed travellers. On the roofs the snowcovered, miserj' - stricken mortals crowd, between the carriages, upon the buffers ; and across the tops of open trucks boards have been laid to provide more sp.ice for the still increasing numbers that flock to the line. Stations have become towns, and to the main thoroughfares in Adrianople, Philippopolis, and Bazardjik, Fenchurch street on a Saturday morning is as nothing. At Adrianople the sight is, perhaps, the most extraordinary. As we rolled slowly into the station the carriage steps on either side of the train brushed the piled-up masses of luggage, on and amid which the refugees were swarming. To quit the train it was necessary to walk over these impedimenta. In the darkness the extent of the scene could not bo calculated ; a vague impression of something vast was all that could be gathered ; but the following morning proved that this was only too correct, and it was vast indeed. During the night ter men had died; it might have been ten hundred without making any appreciable difference in the multitude collected there. The Turks, straining every nerve to carry on a disastrous war agiinst an overwhelming enemy, are utterly powerless to stem the tide of affliction now rolling towards their capital. At Tir-nova-Semenli yesterday a woman kill' d her three little children rather than let them live to suffer in a future which appalled her and she dared not contemplate for them. In Adrianople mothers have several times thrown their infants from carriages or trucks while laboring under a temporary derangement of reason brought about by the troubles they have undergone. Frequently men, women, and children roll from the roofs they may have crouched upon for hours, and are either killed or severely injured. Two days ago a girl and boy, as the train was crossing a bridge between Philippopolis and Adrianople, fell from it into the water below, but were both saved by one of the soldiers on guard close by without sustaining further harm than a ducking and a fright. The most pitiable sight of all, I came across at Philippopolis. Removed a few yards from the general crush near the line was a small dark heap. I was af traded to it, and for my curiosity I saw a little child, dead in the snow of a winter that could scarce be the fourth since its victim was born. The tiny feet were hidden, the small white face half covered, and the folds of the scanty clothing which had proved so insufficient a protection against the long night’s cold were filled with the flakes which had fallen in those dark, hitter hours.