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

BULGARIA.

The following is from a n interesting letter of the
special correspondent of the Times, dated Rust-
chuk, Jan. 5 :
" In my last I gave some account of the old and new
fortifications of this place. I now devote some attention
to the not less important subject of the resources which
Bulgaria offers for the convenient provisioning of the
army assembled here, for the supply of materials for the
operations of war, and for ttiose auxiliary departments
which, if scanty or neglectea, paralyse the ablest field
command and render nugatory the bravery of the best
troops. For this object Ruastchuk, the political capital
of this large pashalic, and the chief Danubian port of
Bulgaria, offers favourable o pportunities. In order not
to let myself be dragged into generalities beyond my
personal observation, I have. specially in view the gar-
rison of Rustchuk, which conasists of seven battalions of
Redif, or militia, each 800 .strong, 1,000 Arnaut rifle
men, 1,200 artillerymen, and :32.5 bashi hozouks, or irre-
gular cavalry ; in all, with unenumerated fractions of
other arms, somewhat under 10,000 men. There is no
Nizam or infantry of the line here, but these militia-
men, instead of being hallf-drilled troops, are fully,
trained soldiers, having alread y completed five years in
the line, and serving the second term of seven years in
the Redif, which prudent provision for a rainy day is
quite a modern feature in the organisation of the Otto-
man army, and has proved th e chief lever of the respect-
able force that Turkey has evroked from the plough and
the workshop for this great ernergency.
" Bulgaria has neither the rich pastures of Bosnia nor
the sterile soil of Albania and Montenegro, where a small
army is beaten and a large one dies of hunger, but it is
altogether one of the best provinces of Turkey for
general productiveness—in corn as well as in other raw
materials of food. The soil on the rivers is good, and
fitted for heavy wheat crops. That of the Dobroudja.
or tongue of land between the Danube and the Black
Sea, is generally light, but h.a.s much rich land in the
neighbourhood of the forests t hat keep up the humidity.
It is also a pastoral district, .and thousands of Transyl-
vanian shepherds in peace time bring down their flocks
in winter to the warmer and r nore humid environs of the
Black Sea. Altogether the products of Bulgaria re-
semble those of the Principala ties and Southern Russia.
Rustchuk exports grain largely to Matchin, opposite
Braila, for transshipment to England and Constanti-
nople. a

;`There ia, therefore, a great abundance of the two
first wants of a commissariat—bread and flesh. Of the

former, the soldiers receive .300 drachms per day,—
that is to say, three-fourths ,of an oke of 400 drachms,
or 21 lb., which is even more than many men can con.
sume ; but the allowance of thus staff of life is abundant,
as, in campaign, other supplies are not so portable, or
so certainly to be procured. One sees no white bread
in the barracks ; it is a good nourishing brown bread,
crisp, and pleasant to the taseic. Of butchers' meat the
soldier receives 80 drachms :per day. The mutton is
excellent, and is the princip cad delivery. The soldiers
have a great dislike to beef even when it is good, but
still more so when it is pool', bony, gristlycattle, not
foddered for the market. T k ie beef of this country is
fit only for soup. Said Mimi% Pasha, being the pro-
prietor of extensive estates in the Dot roudja, has done
a great deal in the introducti (in of Spanish and other
varieties of sheep, both with a view to the flesh and the
fleece ; but the fattening of CEi ttle for the butcher is, as
yet, unknown in Bulgaria. •
"Next in importance to l read and flesh is rice, of
which the soldier receives 13 drachms daily, except on
Sundays and Thursdays, when he receives 80, drachms
for a pilaff. It is all brought from PhiliPPP o uli in ox-
waggons over the Balkan,- a d, althoughnot equal to
the reddish Egyptian rice °
is tof average quality. On
pilaff days the soldier is allowed an
extra supply of
butter, and has besides daily vegetables, such as may be
procured ; at present the us' a al vegetables are onions
and lentils ; succulent green vegetables, cultivated in
gardens, are very scarce, even in summer, notwithstand-
ing the good soil and abundaTt ce of water. The other
allowances of soup, oil, candles, wood, and charcoal are
individually small, but amply sPufficient when clubbed to-
gether by the messes.
"I am happy, therefore, to be able to state that the
force here is well provisioned, a tnd the same may be said
of all the army of 130.000 la nder Omar Pasha. from
Widdin to Varna and the Suli ria, mouth of the Danube.
From all that I hear, the 'Fur kish troops are far better
fed than the Russians across ed.e river, and this physical
support, added to the more i mpetuous bravery of the
Turk, renders the private Ottoman soldier decidedly
superior to the Russian. A t Oltenitza the Russian
officers were ahead of the infantry, sabre in hand,
tugging on the not overwilling. troops. On the contrary,
the Turkish tioidier was like .tlio willing horse that re-
quired neither whip nor spud.. It is in the excellent
superior and staff officers, itz the admirable cavalry
horses, and in the native intqlligence of the Cossacks,

-- -
that the real strength of the Russian army lies, cer
tainly not in either the moral or physical vigour of the
common soldier.

"But the Turkish soldier is as much worse dressed
and equipped than the Russian as he is better fed. The
coat and the two vests which he receives once a-year are
both of bad cloth and badly fitted. Instead of being
done by open contract, they come out of the Govern-
inent establishments at Constantinople, and Slivno, in
Bulgaria. The soldier also receives one fez and two
shirts a-year, which are of fair quality; but the fez is
certainly a most unsuitable head dress—cold in winter,
and exposing the eyes to the glare of both sun and snow.
The want of a cravat is also a great defect. The allow-
ance of shoes is apparently liberal, being three pairs
a-year ; but there is no soling, and they are often worn
out in six weeks. In order to prevent the soldier from
wearing his shoe down at the heel, the heels are hard,
and consequently rub out the stocking in a day's time.
The great *oat and hood, furnished once in three years,
are t e best part of the costume ; but altogether one
may say respectfully to the Minister of War, Reform
your tailors' hills.'

" The saddlery is, upon the whole, suited to the
purposes wanted ; but the old Turkish bit, which is
retained, is too sharp, and there is a want of
that steady support which the English bit gives
to the trot. The consequence is, that there is nothing
between a high stepping walk and a gallop—a great de-
fect, for it is the steady trot in line, before breaking into
gallop, that gives full power to the shock of cavalry in
a charge. The cavalry sabres are much too short and
ineff'ecti've. The muskets of the infantry are fair ; the
2.000 Minie rifles excellent. The powder was rather
weak, not from want of a proper prescription, but from
some little peculation in saltpetre at Constantinople ;
but Moussa Pacha, the practical Master-General of the
Ordnance, a first-rate officer, has latterly stopped this,
and the powder is now manufactured of the proper
strength.

" The arsenal of Rutschuk I found in full activity, the
forge being under the direction of the Demirzi Bushi
Emir Aga, of the army of Roumelia, a skilful working
engineer and smith, and all the different departments of
handicraft were characteristic of that segregation of na-
tionality and religion in Turkey which is still so decidedly
visible, and so unsusceptible of fusion. All the heavy
smith work was done by Bulgarians in their black sheep-
skin caps, the light iron work by gipseys, the carpenters
were all Turks, the sawyers Bulgarians, while the tinmen
for the grape canisters were all Jews. I found the greatest
activity in gun carriages, which were all of oak and un-
commonly solid ; the first essays in autumn were very
uneven, but through the exertions of the Marangos
Bushi Hulil Aga, of the army of Roumelia, they are now
as good as those at Constantinople. This man informed
me that eight workmen had made eight new carriages
and 70 new wheels in three weeks. No cannons are
,ast here, the supply being abundant from Constantino-
ple ; the grape shot (14- calibres for howitzers) is oast at
Sumakow, and fitted with canister here. To judge from
Russian grape balls picked up at Oltenitza, and shown
me they are more globular and freer from seams than the
Turkish. But, by all accounts, the Russian shrapnel
are complete failures, from some miscalculation or neg-
ligence in the manufacture.

—" The behaviour of the garrison is exemplary, every
excess being strictly forbidden, and the presence of a
Turkish array is no longer a terrible scourge to a Turkish
population, as it was in the days chronicled by the in-
comparable Von Hammer."