SCENES AT THE SEAT OF WAR.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XIII, Issue 12, 14 February 1878, Page 4

SCENES AT THE SEAT OF WAR.

The amount of distress discovered by the distributors of the British Relief Funds is truly appalling. By way of illustration, we shall select two paragraphs from a long letter Bent to the Times from one of me relief camps : — " Ttie desolation of desolations was reached at Sopot. lam used to the phrases' razed to the ground,' ' utterly destroyed,' 'savagery,'' utter Vandalism,' but what is there left to give the reader a faint idea of what foss happened to Sopot ? I remember the feeling of iodigoatioo with which I stepped over the burning embera of Bazeilles, and I am old enough to remember every street in Sebaßiopol; but I declare wishout exaggeration that, compared with ihe complete destruction of Sopot, both these modern instaucee of gutting were, after their so-called deatrucliou, well preserved and uniujurad. How meu, uuhelped by the devil, could have done the mere mechanical part of the woik ia a ajyg'pry. Every houße in a town oi 50UO or 6000 eouls, seams without excepiioD, to have been well built, with pleasant, well kept gardens around if, and, with ecurcely an exception that we could make out, every Bulgarian home has .been reduced to a heap of stoves, forickft, and lile*. We bad to i&uve our ihofaes and scramble over the mounds ■on foot. Corpses have been buried Justinitiia way Orientate do everything, that is to Buy, by halves. The air ia simply poiaoaad. lv one garden into which Mr Fdvv.ceU and I went wuile (he relief was doled out, we had no difficulty in making ouf w&y straight

to a freshly turned-up part, where two long, fair plaits of a woman's hair were protruding through the soil. In another part of the same garden a human skull l»y in the grass, as cleanly picked by the dogs, as if the busy brain within, instead of being at work six short weeks ago, bad rested for a generation. We went into no more gardens, but into several in which we looked the dreadful dogs were busy. We found 930 starving Bulgarian women and children, and about half were relieved with the ten araba loads we had 1 sent, and the rest are being attended to today It was a moving sight to see the weeping gratitude and listen to the blessings of those hundreds of poor creatures. With womanly instinct moat of them brought, their children in their arms, or led them by the hand, and if those who say the Bulgarians have no gratitude, had witnessed what we did, I am sure they would not say so any more."

The second picture of distress is even a move touchiug one than the scene at Sopot :— *' Perhaps the moat distressing case which came to our notice was that of some members of a nunnery and church destroyed. There were sixty of them, and they were reputed to have been a wealthy community and good to the poor. We found these in an advanced state of destitution, their poor old fratneß but skin and bone; forty fled to the hill-bides, and the survivors of those are now skulking among the cives and the rocks wiih the rebt of the people who have left Corlova and Sopot. They were making a thin soup oftoroHtoee and water when we arrived, and declare'! they had not tasted breai for Qve weeks. The church h«d evidently been a substantial and beautiful building, but it is now three walls, and one of these is tottering. The expressions of gratitude from most of the poor women whose necessities we were able to relieve at Sopot were very touching .. ' As you have done to us so God will do to you. God has sent you here; we thank you, and will always pray for you, governors and saviours. Our children shall always call you English people blessed ; ' and so on."