The Express.
London, England, 1860-07-17 00:00:00

THE MASSACRES IN SYRIA.

(mos oua own sromnarr.)
11EYROL7, Jet! 1.
Until last evening I bad hopes that this mail
would take home more cheering news respecting
this unhappy province. Unfortunately our prespecti
get darker every day, for each hour brings either
news of fresh atrocities committed by the Druses,
or more decided proof that the acts of the latter
are connived at by the Turkish government. It is
now ascertained, and a nominal list of them has
been made that up to last night the Drusea have
burnt and pillaged no less than one hundred and
fifty-one Christian villages since the 29th of May
last, while no leas than from seventy-five to eighty
thousand Christian inhabitants of Lebanon—many
of WllOlll were a wealth ego wealthy men, others in
quite easy circumstances, and all strangers to
anything like poverty or want—are homeless
beggars, depending on actual charity for their
daily bread. Over awl above the number of
Christian's shut iu actual warfare, between seven
and eight thousand have been butchered—hacked
to death would be the fitter term—as no butcher
ever used iu his calling half the cruelty of
these bloodthirsty miscreants—in cold blood by
the Drums. And, besides this, more than five
thousand widows—mho until this Drum mini-
pelf' were happy wives and mothers—have lost
their husbands, brothers, fathers, and all male
relatives, even to the nude infants at the breast ;
awl sixteen hundred children are now orphans.
All these figures have been very carefully compared
with others, and weighed in the balance of English
Omni) opinion, before being given as facts. And
after converging, comparing, and digesting all I
hear, after bringing my own four years' experience
in Syria to beer upon the subject, I am bound to
say that I have considerably understated the case.
Moreover, fifty millions sterling would not pay for
the name, villages, hamlets", and silk-factories
destroyed throughout the mountaiu—all the pro-
perty of the Christians. There is besides a fear-
fully long list of convents, churches, and nunneries
belonging to the same people, all of which have been
plundered and then destroyed by the Drums. In
short, what commenced as 4 a civil war between the
two sects can no longer be called by that name.
For the last twenty days it has been nothing lees
than a wholesale massacre of Christians by the
Drums, and a wanton destruction of all property
belonging to the former by the latter.
To give you some ides what these Drums are, I
will enumerate a few instances of their frightful
barbarity, all of which I have heard from the un-
fortunate sufferers themselves, now refugees from
Lebanon.

One poor woman—l knew both her husband and
herself well at Deir-el-Kantar, where they were
wealthy people—told me that when the Druses
attacked the town the second time (I should men-
tion that it had surrendered, and all the inhabi-
tants had given up their anns some twenty-four
days previously to the Drums, and Lad been pro-
mised protection by their sheiks) her husband was
hacked to pieces before her eyes by the large knives
of the DrWheli, who then declared they intuit kill all
male children iu the Lome. Thu mother tried to
hide her two sons, one fifteen the other nine
years old. The Drums, however, found them out
and as she begged and prayed fur their lives, and
endeavoured to cover them in a corner with her
person, but the Drusea hacked at the lads over Ler
shoulder, and gashed them until they both dropped

down apparently lifeless. The Drums then made
off, and the woman, thinking her two boys dead,
remained in a sort of stupor for two hours—ea far
as she can calculate. At last she was roused by
hearing the eldest lad call her in a faint voice,
trying to assure her that he was not yet dead. On
this she felt the body of the youngest boy, and
found his heart beating. She got some water, and
after giving it to both her children—so far as she
could get them to drink it—started into the town
to see whether she could procure assistanee to get
her and her boys away. She got as far as the
seralio, or government house, but there she found
that some 500 Christians, who had taken refuge,
were being cut to pieces by the Druses, who had
been invited to enter the precincts of the building
by the Turkish soldiers of the garrison, these latter
helping in the butchery, and being so far worse
than the Druses that they abused in the most
infamous manner all the women. Seeing no
help could be obtained here, the poor woman
turned to fly, when she came acmes an old Druse
who had formerly been a farm servant of her
husband's. After a great deal of entreaty on her
part the man consented to protect her and her
children down to the seacoast, about four hours'
journey, on condition of receiving an order on her
brother, a wealthy man in Beyrout, for 10,000
piastres. To this she agreed, and they returned
together to her house. She had not been absent
more than an hour, but she found her two children
cut into pieces, joiut by joint, " limb and trunk se-
vered" (to use her words) "as butchers cut up sheep"
—heads legs, arms, and bodies being hacked up into
* shapeless mass of bloody flesh and reeking bones.
Some other poor women then joined her, and
together they made their way to a mulberry planta-
tion outside the town, where they passed the night.
At daybreak they were discovered by a party of
Druses, who, after stripping them to find whether
they had any money on their persons, and taking
away what little they possessed, told them they
might go where they liked. Four of the
poor creatures had babies, all under a year
old. Of these infants two were girls and two boys;
the former they did not touch, but the latter they
said might grow up to be men and bear anus against
the Druses ; they therefore took the poor little
creatures and before their mothers' eyes tore them
up the meddle and limb by limb—" exactly," to use
the poor woman's own expression, "as you tear up
a fowl that is to be cooked with pillar." Re-
member,oll this was done not in the heat of fighting,
but deliberately, in cold blood. And I have heard
of eleven other exactly similar cases of child de.
struction by the Druses, in nine of which I um .
plicitly believe, having every reason to do so.
Deir-el-Kamar contained, a month ago, a popula-
tion of 8,000 souls, of which about 4,000 were men
and lads, 3,500 women and girls, and 500 chil-
dren under ten years old. Of the men not
more than 150 have escaped ; of the wo.
meu and girls about 2,000 have reached
Beyrout ; and of the young children leas than two
hundred are alive. Don't forget, too, that this
fiendish massacre was perpetrated upon a popula-
tbm which twenty-four days previously had stir-
; rendered to the Druses, had been promised proton-
, tion by them, and were disarmed previously to their
murder.

For many days past a conviction, which I he-
sitate) almost to write, has been forcing itself on
the minds of all men here. I have been one of the
hot to adopt it, and have delayed, until I could do
so no longer, to ventilate the subjoct. But as
with others no with me, facts and proofs—evidence
both direct and circumstantial—force me to adopt
this creed, which every one in Beyrout—English,
French, Russian, American, or Syrian—at first
faintly whispered, and now boldly speak out. It is
this : That from the commencement the D 1118135
have been carrying on this bloody war
of extermination, with the connivance, if
not by the express secret orders of the
Turkish government, or, at any rate, of
the Turkish local authorities, and that all they have
done hitherto is but part of a grand Turkish
scheme to exterminate altogether the Christian
element in Syria. I am not prepared to go so far
as most do, and to say that this hellish scheme has
been hatched iu Constantinople, and that the cen-
tral government is cognisant as to what hands pull
the strings here. But I speak advisedly when I say.
that Koorchid Pacha (the Governor of Beyrout, of
Lebanon, of Sidon, Tyre, and so forth), or " Cursed
Pasha," as he is now called, has all along been
esiguisant of all the Drums were about to do ; that
he has—almost avowedly—helped them with food,
ammunition, and arms ; that none of his troops
nor any of the local authorities have at any time
rah' ccd a hand against the Druses, although
from the first they have been the aggnessors ;
that from the first lie might have stopped the
bloodshed and carnage, but has never done so ; that
on the contrary, has manifestly helped it by leav-
ing the Christians on all occasions to their fate ;
I that ho hies been in constant, direct, and friendly
communication with the Druse chiefs, almost any
one of whom he might at any moment have seised
and kept as a hostage ; that all along he has given
out openly, and the Druses have said, that he bad
only to speak iu order to be obeyed by them ; that
the Drusea never would have dared to go the fear-
ful lengths they have, had they not known that be-
hind them was a greater power than themselves
who would support thew in any difficulty when the
day of reckoning with the C'hristiau powers of
Europe came; that unless they wen/ convinced
they would be supported, they would have been
only too glad to embrace the opportunity
offered thew, four days ago, of making
peace ; and lastly, that the Druses themselves,
when sated with bloodshed, rapine, plunder, mur-
der, and devaatation, give out that they are only
doing the will of a higher power than their own
nation ; all this and more is undeuiable ; whether
Koorchid Pacha is acting by himself or
from higher instructions, which time alone
will reveal. He is a fanatic of that new
school whose doctrines have spread so wonder-
fully amongst all the Osmanlis during the last four
years, but of whom so nothing—is
known iu Europe. Their doctrine is that the Tur-
kish Empire is fast comingto an end, and that their
entire nation will either have to remain and bow
the head to a Christian power, or betake
themselves towards Mecca, there to fumnd a
new empire. They believe that as this is inevit-
able the sooner it takes place the better, but that
before they go blows must be struck at Christians
and Christianity how, and where, and when they
can—the oftener and the more deadly the greater
will be the glory to the true faith. Nor is Koorchid
Pacha the only Turkish official in Syria who is a
follower of this new and fashionable fanaticism.
But of this subject more in a future letter. The
question now is, has Kuorchid supported the Druses
iu their blood-shedding career of his own free will,
or by orders from Constantinople 1 This is a
question which the Christian powers of Europe will
have to ask, and to which they will require an
answer.

As I close my letter, a Greek catholic priest,
living in my neighbourhood, has brought me a letter
which he received yesterday from Damascus, iu
which it is stated that a large party of Druses and
Moslems entered a Christian village called Medan,
iu Anti-Lebanon, and at the sword's point forced
the priests awl the nude villagers to undergo cir-
cumcision, and profess the Moslem faith.
A great number of the native Christians are
sending away their families from Beyrout, the men
who are merchants merely waiting to wind up their
affairs and follow their mothers, wivut, and
daughters, to Alexandria, Malta, Algiers, Corfu—
anywhere, to be away from Turkish rule.

R RAT SOLAR ECLIPAR. —Aw the Astronomer
Royal and the sarante of this country are actively engaged
in making preparations for viewing the forthcoming total
eclipse of the sun iu those parts of Spain over which the
ceutral shadow-lice will puss, Dr. Bachhoff iier, with his
usual promptitude, is doing good service at home by fami-
liarisiug the minds of his numerous arittors et the Colos-
seum with the causes and effects attending this iotercsting
plisuornenou. The simple and unaffected conversational
manner so characteristic of Dr. Bailhoffnei's style of lec-
turing tells with admirable effect in his illustratious of this
somewhat abstruse subject. As • great solar eclipse iscom-
partitively a rare occurrence, we advise our younger readers
to go and hear the doctor's discourse, ilkstiatid os it is by
numerous &Kamm, and so become Lizoil:ar with the phe-
munens to Le seam in Loudon on the i'th of the present
mouth.