THE DESTRUCTION OF ESKISAGHRA-TERRIBLE SCENES.

Samoa Times and South Sea Gazette, Issue 8, 24 November 1877, Page 3

THE DESTRUCTION OF ESKI-SAGHRA-TERRIBLE SCENES.

N:;\v Ydbk, September 1. The " Tribunes" Constantinople correspondent, describing the destruction of the city of Eski-Saghra, says :—As the Turkish troops approached the city the Moslem inhabitants began to issue forth from their hiding places, and before the troojß had fairly entered the place the Moslem citizens began to break in the doors of all Bulgarian houses. It took hardly t. n minutes to pillage 500 houses. There was continuous ami rapid lire all

over the city. At the same time, the Turks sav, the Bulgarians filed from the houses ;iiel ehureho-s on the troops. There nr Bulgarians left to give their side of the story. All Bulgarian men s.:em to have been killed at sight, ns if by an arrangement. Women and children were spared as a genera) thing, but the hideous pillage, and firing, and shrieks and shouts continued all night, and great districts of the city were burning as if all other horrors were not enough. At daylight, Snlienmn Pasha ordered all Moslems and Jews, whom the Turks protect as it' they wire their own people, to leave the place, since his contemplated operations did not include any such thing as the (I.'fence of Eski-Saghra, so the Turks loaded up their loot, and their women and children in waggons and went to the nearest railway station, follower] by what seemed an endless train of Bulgarian women and children who had lost all. There could be seen in the Turkish waggons the goods stolen from their houses, but they might not, dare not ask for them. Eski-Saghra was left to the Barnes, and in its streets, and in the surrounding villages the rattle of rifles was constant for three or four days. There seemed to be a purpose to kill every Bulgarian male over ten years of age. The fair city set on the hill used to look out over a plain which teemed with busy peasantry in fertile fields. Now from a seared and blistered hill you look over the plain, and its 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. Seven thousand women and children of its Christian population are dependent on charity in Adrianople to-day. These people believe all of their relatives have been killed. The city of Eski-Saghra is entirely wiped out of existence. Two American missionaries, Rev. Messrs. Bond and Marsh, with their wives and five small children, were in Eski-Saghra during the sacking of the place. They sheltered some poor wretches who were in danger at the hands of the Bulgarian mob, and fed some of their Moslem neighbors, In consequence of this and other kindnesses, their Moslem neighbors rallied around them during the destruction of the city and saved their lives. At one time the Circassians drew their swords and came at the missionaries to kill them, but the Turks withstood them, and between entreaties and resistance kept the ruffians away, although in one case the missionaries had to pay a Circassian 800 in gold as a ransom. The Turks then got word to the Governor of the city, who at once came to see the missionaries, and provided thorn with a guard of regular soldiers, which kept off all marauders, and thirty or mom Bulgarians were saved from death in their houses. The missionaries lost everything thev posscased, escaping to the railroad with only the clothes they had on, and on the road sleeping for litres uighti on the bare ground, and living on raw wheat.