Year: 1876

us J; but we bent our ear TO hear what
she was saying, and my interpreter
said it was as follows my home,
my home, my poor home, my sweet
home : my husband, my husband, my
poor husband, my dear husband my
home, my sweet home" and so on,
repeating the same words over and
over again thousand times. In the
next house were two, engaged in the
same way-one old, the other young
repeating words nearly identical, II
had a home and now l have none |
had husband aud now l am a widow (;
l had q son and now / have none l
had five children and now Ihave one"
while rocking themselves to and fro,
beating their heads and wTinging their
hands. These We're women who had
escaped from the massacre, and had
only just returned for the first time,
having taken advantage of our visit,
or that of Mr., Barring, to do so. They
might have returned long ago, but
their terror was so great that they had
not dared without the presence and
protection Of foreigner, and now
they would go on for hours in this
way "keeing" this kind of funeral
dirge over their ruined homes. This
was the explanation of tue curious
sound we had heard when up the hill.
AS we advanced there were more and
more some sitting on the heaps of
stone that covered the floors of their
houses others walking up and down
before their doors, wringin9' their
hands and repeating the same despair
ing wall. ......r.


And now We begin to approach the
church and the school house. The
ground is covered here with skeletons,
to which are clinging articles of cloth
ing and bits of putTid flesh. The air is
heavy with faint, sickenlng order
that grows stronger aS we ADVANCE
1t is beginning to be horrible. The
school is on one side Of the road, the
church on the other. The school
house, to judge by the walls that are
in part standing, was a fine, large
building, capable OF accommodating
200 or 800 children. Beneath the
stones and rubbish that cover the floor
10 the height Of several feet are the
bones and ashes of 200 women and
childen burned alive between these
four walls. Just beside the school
house is a broad, shallow pit. Here
were buried 100 bodies two weeks after
| the massacre but the dogs uncovered
them in part. The water flowed in,
and now it lies there horrid cesspool, f,
with human remains floating about or
lying half exposed in tho mud. Near
by, on the banks of the little stream
that runs through the village, is a
saw-mill. The wheel pit beneath is
full of dead bodies floating in the wa
ter. The banks of this stream were
at one time literally covered with
corpses of men and women, young
girls and children that lay there fes-
| terIng in the sun and eaten by dogs
But the pitiful sky rained down q tor
rent upon them, and the little stream
swelled and rose up and carried the
bodies, and strewed them far down
its grassy banks, through its narrow
gorges and dark defiles, beneath the
thick underbush and the shady woods
rs far as Pestere, and even Tartar Ba-
zardjik, forty miles distant, We ell
tered the church-yard, but the odor
here become so bad that it was almost
impossible tO7proceed. We take hand
full of tobacco and hold it to our noses
while we continue our Investigations.
| The church was not very large one,
and it was surrounded by low stone
wall, enclosing a small church yard
about fifty yards wide by seventy-five



in particular, and the stencil is so great
that we scarcely care to look about us,
| but we see that the place is heaped up
with stones and rubbish to the height
| of five or six feet above the level of
the street, and upon Inspection we dis
cover that what appeared to be mass
| Of stones and rubbish is in reality an
immense heap of human bocies cover
ed over with thin layer of stones.-
| The whole of the little church-yard is
| heaped up with them to the depth of
| three or four feet, and it is from here
that the fearful odor comes. Some


weeks after the massacre orders were
sent to bury the dead. But the stencil
at that time had become 80 deadly that


il was impossible to execute the order,


Or even to remain In the neighborhood


of the village. The men sent to per-


form the work contented themselves


with buryirg few bodies, throwing a


little earth over others as they lay, and


here in the church-yard they had tried


to cover this immense heap of fester-


ing humanity by throwing in stones


and rubbish over the walls without


daring to enter. They had only par


TALLY succeeded. The dogs had been


at work there since, and now could be
beoL pIOJeCLlLB lIOln Ilo LuOuSl6I BThNS


heads, arms, legs, feet, and hands in


horrid confusion. We were told there


were three thousand people lying here


in this little church-yard alone, and


we could we'll believe it. 1t was a


fearful sight-.a sight to haunt one


through life. There were little curly


heads there In that fostering mass,


crushed down by heavy stones little


feet not as long as your finger, on


which the flesh was dried hard by tire
ardent heat before it had time to de.


compose little baby hands, stretched


out as if for help babes that had died
wondering at the bright CLEAN of sa.


bras and the red hands OF the fierce


eyed men who welded them +, chill


dren who had died shrinking with


fright and terror ! young girls who
had died weeping and sObbing and


begging for mercy mothers who died


trying to shield their little ones with
their own weak bodies, all lying there
together, fostering in one hOrrid mass
They are silent enough now. There
are no tears, nor cries, no weeping, nC
shrleks of terror, nor prayers for mer
QV