Watertown republican. [volume] (Watertown, Wis.) 1860-1906, 1876-09-20


hands, in horrid confusion. We were
1old there were 5000 people lying here
IN THIS little churchyard alone, and we
could we'll believe it. 1t was a fearful
sight-a sight to haunt one through
lie. There were little curly heads in
That fostering mass, crushed down by
heavy stones; little feet not so long as
your finger, On which the flesh was dried
hard by the ardent heat before it had
time to decompose; little baby hands,
stretched out as if for help; babes had
died wondering at the bright gleam of
sabres and the red hands of the fierce
eyed men who welded them; children
who had died shrinking with fright and
terror; young girls who had died weep
ing and sobbing and begging for mercy;
mothers who tried to shield their little
ones with their own weak bodies, all "
ing there together, fostering in one hor-
| rid mass. They are silent enough now.
There are no tears nor cries, no Weep
ing, no shrieks of terror, nor prayers
for mercy.
The harvests are rotting in the fields
and the reapers are rotting here in the
churchyard. We looked into the
church which had been blackened by
the burning of the woodwork, but not
| destroyed, nor even much injured. It
was low building, with a low roof,
supported by heavy, irregular arches,
that as we looked in seemed scarcely
high enough for a tall man to stand I'M
der. What we saw there was too
| fr1ghtful for more than a hasty glance.
An immense number of bodies had
been partially burnt there, and the
charred and blackened remains that
seemed to ELL it half way up to the low,
dark arches and make them lower and
darker still, were lying in state of
putrefaction too frightful to look upon.
had never imagined any thing SO hor-
rlble- We all turned away sick and
faint and staggered out of the fearful
| pest house glad to get in the street
again. We walked about the place and
saw the same things repeated over a
hundred times. Skeletons of men with
the clothing and flesh still hanging end
rotting together; skulls of women with
the hair dragging in the dust, bones Of
| children and of infants everywhere.
Here they show us house where twen-
ty people were burned alive; there an
other where dozen girls had taken
refuge and been slaughtered to the last
one as their bones amply testi fed.
Everywhere horrors upon horrors.
There were no dogs in the place, as
they had all been driven away when
the inhabitants began to return, and
only hung round the outskirts of the
village; but saw one or two cats, fat
and sleek, that sat complacently upon
the walls and watched us with sleepy
eyes. 1t may be asked why the peo-
pie who are In the village now do not
bury these skeletons and these bones,
instead of allowing them to be gnawed
by the dogs and cats. Some of
those who have been able to identify
the bones Of friends have made weak
attempts at burying them. But they
have no spades to dig graves With, and
they are weak and starving Besides,
many Of the survivors are women and
have made fruitless efforts to keep the
bodies of loved ones covered with a
little earth. We had ample proof thai
were tenderly cared for. We saw
many wellkept graves decorated with
flowers. We saw others that had been
uncovered by the rain or the dogs,
leaving parts of the skeleton exposed,
that were still decorated with flowers.
We even saw skulls lying on the
ground within doorway of a garden
wall, with a bouquet of flowers lying
upon them, as though some one was
caring for them, and was yet loath to
bury them away out of sight. [ saw
one, half buried, with the face upward,
and its hollow eyes gazing reproach-
fully up at the sunny sky, with a bou.
quet carefully placed in its mouth; but
most Of these skeletons and bones have
nobody to lock after them. Of the
5000 or 5000 who made up the popu-
lation there are only 1,200 or 1,500
left, and they have neither tools to
dig graves with nor strength to use
spades if they had them.
We asked about the skulls and bones
we had seen up on the hill upon first
arriving in the village where the dogs
had barked at us. These we were told
were the bones of about 200 young girls,
who had first been captured and partic
ularly reserved for a worse fate than
death. They had been kept till the
last; they had been in the hands of
their captors for several days-for the
burning and the pillaging mad not all
been accomplished in a single day
and during this time they had sun cred
all it was possible that roor, weak,
trembling girls could suffer at the hands
of the brutal savages. Then, when the
town had been pillaged and burned,
when all their friends had been slaugh-
tered, these poor young things, whose
very wrongs should have insured them
safety, whose very outrages should have
insured them protection, were taken,
in the broad light of day, beneath the
smiling canopy of heaven, coolly be-
headed, then thrown in a heap there
and left to rot.
Mr.. Disraei was right when he wit
tily remarked that the Turks usually
terminated their connection with peo-
pie who fell into their hands in more
expeditions manner than by imprison-
ing them. AID SO they do. Mr. Dis
raeli was right. At the time he made
that very witty remark these vo,,no