WAITING FOR THE END.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXIII, Issue 5319, 13 April 1878, Page 2 (Supplement)

WAITING FOR THE END.

(From the Home Hews.)

While the Turkish negotiators, half paralysed by the frosts of Kezanlik and the icy coldness of Russian diplomacy, were painfully deliberating over the conditions, and vainly seeking, by the instrumentality of a circuitous telegraph, over which they had no control, the guidance or instructions of the Porte; while the Russian generals were using up carefully every moment of the precious time which Russian diplomatists had obtained for them; while Gallipoli was being made safe against the English; while the European side of the Sea of Marmora was being taken from the Turks; while, by an advance to Enos and Dihle Agaton, the retreat of Sulieman Pasha was cut off; while the whole course of • events pointed to a speedy occupation of Constantinople by the Russians, history was repeating itself at Constantinople in a manner at once harrowing and instructive. If our readers could refer to the old histories of the last siege of Constantinople, which took place just 425 year's ago, they would find that the great churches of the Byzantine capital were filled during the last days of the siege with vast crowds of fugitives, wailing,beseeching, imploring, and waiting for the end. Just so it is with to-day. In the mosques which once were churches; in those which were built during the heyday of Ottoman power: in the churches which have been suffered to retain their original character during the possession of Constantinople by' the Turks ; and'in- those which ■ have been reared by the piety of later generations, there 1 is once more a vast crowd of refugees, wailing, beseeching imploring, and waiting for the end. These refugees are for the most part women and children. The male refugees do not form more than 10 per cent, of the whole number, and are for the most part old and infirm. War and its exigencies have swallowed up the rest. These wretched creatures have dragged themselves to the city from great distances, in a winter more inclement than any which they have had of late years. From Sofia, from the villages of the Balkans, from all the outlying parts of Ebumelia, they have dragged themselves through the driving snow to the various stations on the inadequately provided line of the Roumelian railway. Everywhere along the line of march the road has been strewn with the arabas which have broken down under the difficulties of the transit ; with the dead bodies of the bullocks by which the arabas wer. drawn; with the shattered furniture and chattels of the refugees; and with little groups of worn-out pilgrims, whose strength had failed them, and who had sat down by the roadside to wait for death. .When a bank of refugees has reached a railway station it has camped out round the station to wait, no matter for how long, for the train which was to afford to its members their last chance of salvation. The waiting of these poor wretches for the train can be compared to nothing but the waiting of those other poor wretches of old for the Angel, who came down periodically to “ trouble the waters” of the pool. The other day as a train was proceeding from Philip- ■ oppolis to Adrianople a vast crowd of people placed themselves across the line, and made signals that the train must stop. The train’ was travelling very slowly, and the driver was able to stop it. Then the poor frenzied wretches clambered on to the roofs of the already overcrowded carriages, whilst those who could not find room clung to the wheels, and pro-; tested, with piteous weeping and wild shrieks, that the train should not depart without them. When it did at length move off, there arose from those who were left behind a cry so wild ■and terrible—a cry as if of the lost—that the English surgeons who heard it—men who have been familiar with every variety of human agony—declare that it will ring in their ears while life shall lost.