another town mentioned as the scene of hostilities, is about fifty miles north of Kars, and was surrendered without a struggle in 1855, the Turkish force in Asia being insufficient to hold it. In the outset of the last Avar, Turkey took the offensive in Asia, with a force gathered from the wild tribes of Asia-Minor and Syria, numerically much stronger than the enemy. With vigour and honesty among the Pashas, Russian Georgia would inevitably have fallen into Ottoman hands, and the rising of the population, and aid of the restless, liberty-loving Circassians would have rendered the conquest extremely embarrassing to Russia. The early advantages, however, culminated in nothing better than Bashi-Bazook raids and plunder ing expeditions directed against peaceful villages, which excited a bitter hostility among the previously favourably-disposed population. Dr. Sanclwith, who accom panied General Williams, the British Com missioner despatched to organise the defence of Kars, gives a graphic account of the melting away of the Sultan's Asiatic army under the infamous administration of the Pashas in command. The brief extract introduced here gives but a glimpse of the shocking story : —

" The fate, of the miserable army under Ahmed Pasha is among the darkest records of war. His whole faculties were bent upon money making. He had in Hie first place to recover the sums he had already expended in bribes at Constanti nople, and he had, besides, to make his fortune, I could not exaggerate the horrors the poor men suffered under his command, lor no chief can plunder without allowing a considerable license to his subordinates, so that the poor soldier was fleeced by every officer higher than the Maior. The greater part of the army was com posed of men seized in their villages, in viola tion of the usual rules of conscription, and the depressed moral state of middle-aged men, torn from their families, was but little calculated to carry them gaily through much suffering. On the approach of cold weather, the troops were crowded into the dark, ill-ventilated hovols of Kars, mid there they crouched during a long and rigorous season, deprived of their proper food and clothing, and dying of disease and hunger. During these winter months 20,000 men were carelessly buried in shallow graves in the frozen earth outside the town, and wild dogs and wolves fed on their remains. 