SAD SEA STORY. Terrible Tale of Violence, Suffering, and Death.

Waikato Times, Volume XVI, Issue 1346, 15 February 1881, Page 3

SAD SEA STORY. Terrible Tale of Violence, Suffering, and Death.

The case of the brig Agios Petros, a vessel sailing under British colours, with a Greek captain and crew, is exciting considerable attention at Constantinople, since its arrival from the Black Sea. The terrible tale of violence, suffering, and death as told by its crew, aggravated by the conduct of the Russian authorities at Batoum, has seldom been equalled, and is another case out of many of the aftersufferings bequeathed by the Russo-Tur-kish war to the inhabitants of the provinces in which it was waged. At the time of the capture of Souhoum Kale by the Turks, most of the Abkhasian inhabitants, whether Mussulmans or nominal Christians, looked upon the invaders as their deliverers, and made common cause with them. Later on, when the Turkish troops were obliged to abandon tho place, their fleet was employed for many weeks m carrying away to Turkish tenitory all the Abkhasians, amounting to about 40,000, who had teason to fear Russian vengeance. The 1 ,209 passengers, who crowded every available hole on boird the Agios Petros, were of these Abkhazian Russian t>ubjects, who dissatisfied with their lot in Turkey, were desirous to return to their native country. On board the Agios Petros there was barely accomodation for 400 to 500 »asseugers, and yet a crowd of 1200 persons including women and children, took forcible possession of the ship. Tha men being all armed to the teeth, it was obviously importable for the crew to offer any opposition. The Abkhazians expected, moreover that tho vessel was to accomoddte their cattle, their arabas, in fact all their belongings, and it was only when they slw the utter impossibility of such crowding, that they consented to leave their cattle behind. Soon after the departure of the ship the horrors of overcrowding began to be felt. Men and women sickened and died. The Abkhasians, having home superstitious dread of death occurring 1 on board ship, proposed to throw tho dying as well as the deiidoverboaid, and were with difficulty dissuaded from this act of cruelty by the crew of the Agios Petros. Their arrival in a Russian port brought no relief to either passengers or crew. Although tho captain at once repotted to Russian authorities the horrible state of his passengers and the terrorism exercised by them since they had come on board, no attempt was made to establish order in a mob composed ot Russian subjects. The captain was forbidden to land his passengers, and, after some delay, his ship was towed into Turkish waters under escort of a Russian man-of-war, and, having landed his turbulent mob in a spot of their own selecting, he returned to Batoum, where he aud his crew were made prisoners and their ship seized. The Russian authorities subsequently brought back the Abkhasians to Batoum, but their inhumanity in thp first instance, and the insult to tho British flag, have yet to be accounted for,