The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1855-09-25 00:00:00

AN ORIENTAL HELEN.

IN the year 1841, one of the beautiful Rayah
peasant girls, so frequently found in these pro-
vinces, attracted the attention of the nephew,
and adopted son, of Mustapha, Pacha of Nissa.
After many ineffectual endeavours, through means
of his agents, to seduce the poor girl, with the
assistance of his guards he surprised her at a Colo,
in the midst of her friends, while dancing with
her betrothed. The peasants, infuriated with
raki and the excitement of the dance, rushed for-
ward to rescue the screaming girl from the hands
of the ravisher, but they were unarmed, and in
spite of all their efforts saw the innocent victim
carried away in triumph ; during the contest
several of the peasants were severely wounded--
and one noble fellow, who displayed great strength
and determination, was shot dead.
The wretched lover, inconsolable at the loss of
his Agapia, for such was the name of the girl,
flew to the mountains, and laid his griefs before an
assembly of the Haiducs. The recital of the
atrocious deed excited the indignation it deserved ;
better would it have been had the Paella's son
rode rough-shod over the land, and squeezed the

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SUPPL.

last para from the unresisting Rayah, than to have
so publicly dishonoured a maiden of their race.
* * * The contest was not confined to the
defile or mountain, it raged with all the bitter-
ness of intense hatred alike in the towns and
-villages. The Haiducs, having made themselves
masters of all the passes leading to Constanti-
nople, for a time intercepted every communication
with the government.
Meanwhile, a Haiduc, one of the comrades of
Tzerni George, known by the name of Milo, and
a fanatic Papa of Leskovatz, in Upper Moesia,
tarried everything before them. Success gained
them recruits, and in a few days Pacha Mustapha
found himself beseiged in his fortress at Nissa
by an infuriated horde of Rayahs, amounting, it
is said, to upwards of fifteen thousand. When it
was too late the Pacha restored the Helena of the
Sclavonians to her people ; the details of the
miseries she had suffered, her dishonour, her
forcible recantation of the creed of her fathers,
only tended the more to exasperate the insurgents,
who now massacred every Mahometan that fell
into their hands. The Pacha, as a last resource,
solicited the mediation of the high dignitaries of
the Greek Church, whom he won over to his
interests by the sacrifice of a large portion of his
ill-gotten treasures. He also sent. rich presents
and an embassy in the person of the Greek
Bishop of Nissa to Michaeli, the son of Prince
Milosh, who at this time governed Servia, request-
ing him to intercede with the infuriated people.
Relying on the promises made by the Pacha to
the clergy of the Greek Church assembled at
INissa, that their grievances should be redressed,
threatened with excommunication, dreading the
invasion of their country by Prince Michaeli,
who declared he would unite his army with that
of Turkey, the greater number of the insurgent
peasants sullenly and reluctantly returned to
their homes.
The Mahometan is ever treacherous in his
dealings with the Rayah ; and the perfidious
Mustapha of Nissa having united his forces with
those of Hussein, the Pacha of Widin, commenced
those barbarous butcheries, from the details of
which the soul of every man possessing a spark
of humanity sickens with horror. It is recorded,
that during this razzia the whole country leading
from Nissa to Sofia was laid waste, and more than
a hundred villages burned to the ground. At the
same time the ravages of Jacoub Pacha, at the
head of a vast horde of Mussulman-Bosnians and
Arnouts, almost surpass belief ; their depredations
were confined to Upper Moesia, extending from
Nissa to the plains of Macedonia. The towns
of Vrania and Lescovatz were sacked, and every
valuable belonging to the Christians carried off;
the churches were burnt, the clergy shot or dis-
persed, and the unhappy woman who was unable
to fly for protection to the Haiduc of the mountain
was treated with the most revolting barbarity ;
and, as if fate had willed that there should be no
refuge for the Rayah but the fastnesses of the
Haiduc, the heartless Prince of Servia closed his
frontiers against the fugitives, who were shot
if they attempted to pass into Servia. A
little conciliation on the part of these bar-
barous Pachas might have allayed the irritation
of the people, exhorted as they were to obedience
by the high dignitaries of the Greek Church,
and dreading excommunication ; at the same
time, the Sultan and his government would
have been saved much humiliation and danger.
The predatory hordes of Bosnia and Albania, in-
toxicated with success, and, now that the valleys
and defiles leading to their respective countries
were deserted, having nothing to fear from the
Rayah insurgents, prepared to carry off on pack-
horses to their own homes the immense booty