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This they did to their own satisfaction, until Gordon resolved to put an end to their misdeeds at all cost, for he found that not merely did they pillage the people, but that they were active abettors of the slave trade. Yet as he possessed no military force, while there were not fewer than 6000 Bashi-Bazouks scattered throughout the provinces, he had to proceed with caution.
The road being curved at the place, we came on it suddenly, and here, under the bushes, we discovered the lair of the Bashi-Bazouks.
I do not say that the Russians mean it to be so, but when Bashi-Bazouks torture their prisoners in cold blood, and show fiendish delight in the most diabolical acts of cruelty, even going the length of roasting people alive, is it strange that a brutalising effect is produced on the Russians, and that they retaliate in a somewhat similar spirit at times?
Turkey, having no champion, was in still greater danger; her conduct in condoning the irregularities of Prince Alexander was as odious to Alexander III. as the atrocities of her Bashi-bazouks ten years before had been to his more chivalrous sire. It is an open secret that during the summer of 1886 the Czar was preparing to deal a heavy blow.
From a military point of view this arrangement was bad, but it enabled each separate garrison to do a little surreptitious slave-hunting on its own account. General Gordon called in these garrisons, confined the Bashi-Bazouks to three or four places, peremptorily stopped the arrival of recruits, and gradually replaced them with trustworthy black Soudanese soldiers.
There shall be no more Bashi-Bazouks. It is now believed that he will relieve the Bahr-Gazelle garrisons without firing a shot. Since they heard that he was coming the aspect of the people has so changed that there are no longer any fears of disturbance in the town. They say that he is giving them more than even the Mahdi could give. He is sending out proclamations in all directions.
It was then found that the Daily News had, if anything, understated the case. The ruffianly Bashi-Bazouks, employed by the Sultan to keep down the Christians of European Turkey, had been let loose upon the people of certain villages in Bulgaria and Roumelia, as a pack of wolves might have been let loose upon a flock of sheep. The crimes that were committed do not admit of description.
Their hatred of the Bashi-Bazouks was well illustrated by an incident Gordon mentions, which was told him by one of the officers. "An officer declared to me," he said, "that a woman with an officer escaped with the child he had by her, and taking the child to the chief of the insurgents, asked him to kill it, as 'the child of a Turk, which the chief did."
Emulous of the deeds of Napier and Outram, Burton now thought he saw a career of military glory awaiting him. Soon after his arrival at the seat of war he was appointed chief of the staff to General Beatson, and in his "gorgeous uniform blazing with gold" he set vigorously to work to re-organize and drill his contingent of Bashi-Bazouks.
The unhappy old man would have faced a battalion of honveds or a charge of bashi-bazouks rather than remain there in the solitary house, with the delirious girl whose sobs and despairing appeals made the tears stream down the face of this soldier, whose brain was now weakened by drink, but who had once contemplated with a dry eye, whole ditches full of corpses, which some priest, dressed in mourning, blessed in one mass.
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