Horrors Of Plevna

The dispatoh of MacGahan to the Londen Daily News, giving an account of the frightful scenps witnessed in Plevna on the entry of the Russian, avery brief extract of wbieh was telegraphed by cable, is given in full below. It was written before the great Bnow-storm, which must-, have aggravated, in a great degree, the cufferings of the wounded and famishing men : Plevna is full of horrors, and after the turmoil of the past few months the complete silence now seems strange and oppreBsive. As I rode into the town along the Lovtcha road the other evening, just after sunset, not a sound broke the dead quiet, and the only living thing I met was here and there a stray dog, which slunk away to his horrible mea! among the shallow graves in front of the redoubts on the hïlls. With all the vivid reccllections of the various incidents of the siege, the most active imagination could not picture the thousandth part of the frightful suffering, the awfnl misery and wretchedness, that are found within the narrow limite of the town, nor draw the faintest outline of the sickening spectacle, the panorama of ghastly horrors, that is almost unparalleled since the terrible plagues of past centnries. Human beings lying like sheep in the streets ; houses filled with deal ; hundreds stretching their hands heavenward for a morscl of bread or a drop of water, and no help that could be commanded to alleviate their suffering or save the wretched creatures froni their painful death. Even in the midst of these scènes, which the pen of Dante alone could render, with all the terrible rhythm of the poem attracting every ear with its irresistable force - even after days of constant contact with human suffering in every form, with death in every aspect, I can scarcely bring myself to repeat the story of wliat has passed in Plevna since the isurrendér. I have become in a measure callous now to what I see every liour in the day, yet the horrors of the first few monientary impressions is still so vividly impressed upon me that I cannot refer to it without pain. "When the Turks made the sortie they left the sick and wonnded, of wnom there were thousands, entirely without atiéndante. There was never a regular hospital in Plevna, the siok being transported to Sophia, and the small ambulance corps was at all times insufficient to care for the wounded, even before the town was surrounded. Of couree the attendants at the hospitals thought only of their own safety when the sortie was made, and they joined their lot with those who trie'd to break through the Eussian lines. The day and night of the battle passed, and the sufferers received no food or water, and their festering wounds were undressed The following morning the Russians entered and took pospession, and made the day one of rejoicing with the visit of the Czar and the imperial staff; but this colebration of the event, however short it may have seemed to the victors, was a long season of horrible suffering for the wretched, helpless captives, who stretched their skeleton hands in vain toward heaven, praying for a bit of bread or a drop of water. Neither friend nor foe was there to alleviate their sufferings, or to give the trifle needed to save them from a painful death, and they died by hundreds; and before the morning of the third day the dead erowded the living in every one of those dirty, dimly-lighted rooms which served to shelter the wounded from the cold and wet, but confined them in a foul and fetid atmosphereof disease and death. It was only on the morning of the third day after these wretched, torturen creatures had been left to their fate that the Russians found opportunity and means to begin, first, the separation of the living from the dead, and then the care of the former. The mosques, the largest houses, and many of the small dwellings had been filled with siok and wounded. Overcrowded in every senso, and, as I have before said, from the first without proper attention, these tempovary hospitals were, at the best, most filtliy and pestilential, and the air was tainted with the stench of undressed ! wounds, and the corpses that layunburied in the court-j ards. The first room entered in one of these charnel-housea contained ninety-odd Turks. Of these thirty-seven were dead, and many others ín the pomt of death. Piteous groans came from between rigid lips, and painful cries for water, and some made feeble signa' for food. One or two of the strongest raised themselves, and fixed their hideous, sunkeii eyes with such a beseeching stare on those who had come to free them trom the company of the dead, that it would have softened the hardest heart. The small room, dimly lighted by a high window with one pane of giass, was erowded with theforms of thirty or forty raggod, filthy human beings. Many of these forms were motionless, and scarcely audible groans were heard from one or two who raised with difliculty their bonv hands to their lips, to signify their need of food. Tnere were faint wbispers of " Some water !" " Some water !" piteous to hcar. The dim light was concentrated on the iialf-naked body of an old man stretched across the entrance, whither he had dragged himself in the last hours of his agony in hope of succor, or at least of a breath of fresh air; for in the unventilated room the air was thick with putrid odors, wbieh burst out when the door was opened, overpowering stroi:g men, and causing them to turn sick and fakit. The old man's hands were clutched in the rigor of painful death ou his nude and menger breast, and his head lay against the very crack of the door, so that it opened only by rude force. Living and dead were lying together uudistinguishable aloug the walls behind the door and unuer the window. This room is one of fifty where a sirilar speetacle is presentad. The pavement of the mosques iscovered with crouohing t' irms, some moving at intervals, others motionless and silent. Here and there the faces of the dead come out in ghastly relief, with a fixed expression of great agony. Three open oxen-carts began the removal of the dead at once, and ss I write the work still goes on. The hospitais daily supj-ly more freight of this kind than the elow-moving teams can carry away to the ditches outside. The disiufeetion of the hospitals was promptly effected. As fast as postible with the. email force of men at hand the rooms were emptied one after another. After a day or two some of the Bulgfirianswere eompelled to serve in place of the sodiers, and they set themselvs about the hnted task ■with a brutality terrible to witness. They urng the bodies down tho stairs by tlie legi., the heads bumping from step to step with tiekeaiijg thiuls, then out iato tbo oourt tbraugh the filthy mud. where tliey pIíüí; tbm into the cart with the heads or legs hanging over the side, and bo continue to pilo up the load with a ecore of halfnaked corpses. It is horrible to hear the conversation of the men who do this work. They perhaps bring out a body still warm, the heart etill beating, and the flnsh of Jife on the cheek. One saya, " He is still alive," and proposes to leave him without stopping to decido the question. The others cry, " Devil take him! He will die before to-morrow, any way. In with him." And so the living goes in with the dead, anc? is tumbled into the grave. I have Keen this myself, and the man who hns charge of the diHinfeotion of the hospitals and burial of the dead told me that he doubted not that such cases occnrred several times daily. When tho tb ree carts are f uil they start away through the streets toward the ditches outside the town. The horrible load jolts and shakos, and now and then a body falls out into the mud and is dragged into the cart agaiu, and thrown down and jammed in solidly to prevent a recurrence of tho accident. This heartless proceeding goes on in the public streets, crowded with the men, women and children of the place, the soldiers, the wounded and the sick ; and, after bo many days of the same spocticlo, no one any ïonger pays any attention to the transport of the dead. Over a thousand have been already carted away, and from tlie hoppitals come about 100 daily. I have given but a slight outline of the eer nes that have passed before my eyes since I carne here. A long defcaüed account alon: could give anytiiing like an idea. Along the streets are frequently seen one or two wounded who have crawled out from the hospital and are dying in the mud. Out on the plain ncar the bridge over the Vid are bivouacked 15.000 or 20,000 prisoners, fighting for bread, miserable beyond desoription, in the cold, with hundreds of unburied dead covering the ground near the spot where t!ie flrst attempt was made to break tlirough. The story of the hospitals, of the prisoners, and of the Russian disasters, all hang on one thread. But the horrors of Plevna are not all in the town. Some are in the valley of the Vid. In the redoubts which the Russians stormed, hundreds on hundreds of still-unburied bodies lie; the wholeridgeof the wooded mountain, the valley beyond and the hill further on, where stand the two redoubts overlooking the town taken with terrible loss by Gen. Skobeleff on Sept. 30, are strewn thickly with the corpses of the Russians who feil on those days. Some of these bodies have been partly covered with four spadefufs of dirt, but most of tbem lie as they feil. Not all as they feil, for the dogs have torn away the limbs of many, and the birds of prey have pecked at' the skulls. In the pools af water lie corpses half decayed; pale, withcred hands and feet stick out of the sou on all sides, and horrible dead, mnmmified faces stare at oue from every little hollow in the ground, and from imong every clump of bushes. Some of these bodies have been put in graves within a day or two, but still the whole región is strewn thickly with these Ireadful mementoes of the flght there aearly three moritus igo. Around the redoubts the ground is Eurrowed and dug with thousands of ihells, and tons of pieces covr the ?.arth. It is iutere&ticg to observe how Eew shells went iuto ihe redoubts, or struck the edge of the redoubts. The majority plunged into the ground just in front. The Turks built great transyerses across the redoubts, and, under these, dug deep bomb-proof shelters, where they were ás safe from harm from the shells as in Coustautinople; buf. the whole surface of tho bilis is literally i'iddled with holes large enough to bury liorees in, and all about lie great unexploded shells. Üvcn away back in the cavines vfhere the soldiers' huts are, bullets, fragments of clothes and equipments cover the ground; and one frequently finds, in the most unexpected spots, unburied bodies, or, sodden in the path, one sees the limbs of human beings who feil and were left there until many ieet passing trod hard the thin layer of eartli over them. Plevna is one vast chamel-house, surpassing in horror anything that can be imagined.