The Sun.
London, England, 1854-02-09 00:00:00

4110discliage„ ,The method, then, of accounting for the
poeition of thei_wouncla may be fairly considered
ed ilkusory.
"Aohmet,,Pacb.s. is. about. tO be supersed in his
command "at Xalafat by Meheriaet Pacha—Musbeer
(Field-Marshal), who was formerly ambassador at the
Caart of St. James's. His character will be better
Anown to the habituls of town than to those of Widdin.
I ,si, tt will therefore be unnecessary to detail that which has
2ef,o preceded him on his journey to the seat of war. One
Yf f thing appears certain that he has never seen any service,
701. :but this in Tnrkey is no bar...whatever to a commander-
Achmet Pacha was precisely in the same pc-,
sition before his maiden essay' at .Citate. The more
Intimate a person gets with Turkey and its internal
• , economy; the more difficult it is to understand how
• matters go on at all. The Pachas sit and -
sitors the greater portion of the day, and never appear
to have anything to do. A secretary brings in a letter
occasionally, which his Excellency signs with his
seal, which he carries carefully attached to his person in
ta• a little gold net-work bag. There is no organised com-
missariat department, and yet the soldiers do not want
for food—they are better fed than soldiers in Europe.
The commander-in-chief has literally no staff about him,
except a few aides-de-camp, who act the part of couriers
and messengers, and yet troops are moved hither and
thither—they are supplied with food at the villages
• where they encamp. It is equally impossible to discover
that there is any corps of officers at the head of the ord-
... c nance department for the supply of ammunition, and
hitherto no want of that sine qua no fight has been ex-

perienced.
"Widdin, the town immediately opposite Kalafat,
doubtless ought to be described by a correspondent
writing from the seat of war. But to say anything new
about it, as compared with any other Turkish fortified
towns, is no easy task. As mentioned in a former let-
ter, it has a double enceinte of fortification of little
strength, which would require a small army to garrison
it. Between the inner and outer line. is afaubourg, in-
habited by,Bulgarians and others, not Turks. The Chris-
tians may have shops in the interior if they please but they
. are not permitted to reside there. The number of houses
in the town and faubourg is—Turkish, 1,500 ; Christian,
• 1,250 ; Jewish, 360 ; and, allowing five persons to
each 'house as an 'average, the population would amount
to 15,550. The latter class appear to be more
favoured, or trusted perhaps, than the Christians, for
many of them reside in the fortress itself. They are, like
the Jews of every other part of the globe, keen after 'the
-wilier.' It 'is curious to see the jars, &c., of an apothe
cary's shop labelled in good old Hebrew letters. The
. Hebrew, however, is not their language of conversation,
for"they all speak Spanish. Those of Smyrna, Salonica,
and otherlarge towns on the sea. coast, speak the same
language ; but hitherto it has been impossible to pro-
cure any explanation of this very curious phenomenon.
When• did they come from Spain ? and why aid they
leave that country ? are questions which, as there hap-
. penito be no circulating library at Widdin, it is not
easy to reply to."