DESTRUCTION OF ESKI SAGHRA.

Manawatu Times, Volume II, Issue 104, 17 October 1877, Page 3

DESTRUCTION OF ESKI SAGHRA.

(From the "N. Z. Times? " Correspondent.) The; York Tribune's " Constaiitinojile correspondent, describing

the destruction of the city of Eski Saghra, jcaptured by Sulieman Pasha, says:— As. the Turkish troops approached the city the Moslem inhabitants began . to issue forth from their ; hidingplaces, and beforethe troops had fairly entered the place the Moslem citizens began to break m the doors of the Bulgarian houses. It took hardly ten minutes, to pillage 500 houses. There was a continuous and rapid fire all over the city. At the same time the Turks* say the Bulgarians fired from the houses and churches onthe troops. There are no Bulgarians left to give their version of the story. All the Bulgarian"" men seemed to have been killed as if by pre-arrangement. The women and children .; were spared as a general thing, but a hideous pillage, accompanied by- firing and shrieks and shouts, continued all night. The great .districts. of the city were burning; as if all other horrors were not enough. At daylight Sulieman Pasha ordered all the Moslems and Jews, whom the Turks protect as if they were their .own people, to leave the place, since his contemplated operations did not include the defence of Eski Saghra. So the Turks loaded up their loot and women and children m waggons, and went, to the nearest railway station, followed by what seemed an endless •train of Bulgarian women and children, who had lost all. These poor creatures could seein tho Turkish waggons goods stolen from-their houses, but they dare not ask for them. Eski Saghra was left to the _ames, and m its streets and surrounding villages the rattle of rifles was constant for three or four days. It seemed to be the purpose of the Turks to kill every Bulgarian -male over ten years of age. The fair city set on a hill used once to look over the plain which teemed with, a busy peasantry at work m fertile fields. Now, from a scared and blistered bill, you look over the plain, arid it's forty villages are blackened ash heaps, foul from the hand of death. ; No one will ever know the exact loss of life at Eski Saghra. Seveh thousand women and children of its Christian population are dependant on charity m Adrianople, and to-day these people believe that all their relatives . are killed. Eski Saghra is entirely wiped out of existence. Two American missionaries, the Revs. Bond and Marsh, with their wives and five small children, were m Eski Saghra during the previous taking of the place by the Russians, ahd sheltered some •poor wretches who were m danger at the hands of the Bulgarian mob. The missionaries also fed some of their Moslem* neighbors. Lln-.consequence of this, and other kindness^ their Moslem^ neighbors riUied around them during the destruction of the city, and saved their lives. At one time the Circassians drew their swords arid came at the ' : mis'Bioharies^/li^' , theni, but the Turks withstood them> and. between entreaties and resistance kept the ruffians away, although in' one i case the missionaries had to pay" the. Circassiah: 60 dollars m gold as ransom. The Turks then got word to the Grovernbr of the city,- who at once came to see. the missionaries and provided them* with a guard of regular . soldiers, which kept off all marauders ; and thirty or more Bulgarians were saved fr6m death m their houses; These missionaries lost everything; they ; possessed, escaping to the railway with only the clothes they had ■on, and on the road sleeping for three nights on the bare ground and living on raw wheat. "A