ld Milosch Obrenovitch,
the ejected Servian Prince, and the sympathy felt for Kossuth and
Dembinski, who had taken refuge at Widdin. This rising, however, which
was at first directed only against the Turkish Spahis or landowners,
soon acquired more important dimensions, and on January 8, 1850, the
three Nahias of Widdin, Belgradchitch, and Verkovats, were under arms.
Having failed in an attack upon the fortress of Belgradchitch, they
retired and entrenched themselves at different spots in the adjacent
country. Better armed and provisioned, and of greater physical courage,
the Spahis soon succeeded in overcoming these disorganised masses, and
bloody was the vengeance which they took.

'Victors in every encounter,' says Cyprien Robert, 'the Mussulman Spahis
began to visit on horseback the villages, more than two hundred in
number, which had taken part in the insurrection. The devastation that
ensued was worthy of the most barbarous time. Neither age nor sex was
spared. All the young were carried off to the vulture-nests of the
Spahis of the Balkan. In vain did Redschid Pacha enjoin milder measures;
neither he nor the Sultan could check these bloodthirsty tigers. There
needed to that end the unexpected arrival of Omer Pacha at Nish. He fell
among them like a thunderbolt, and all was silence. The Bulgarians
ceased to flee, the Spahis to pursue, and, what was more, the Russian
army of Wallachia halted at the moment it was about to cross the Danube.
That terrible Omer, the queller of so many revolts, had at Bucharest an
opportunity of making his qualities felt by the Russian Generals, and
they were completely disconcerted by his sudden arrival at Nish, when
they thought he was hemmed in by the insurgent Serba in the gorges of
Bosnia, without the means of making his way through them. The Russian
troops paused, awaiting fresh orders from St. Petersburg: orders came,
and the whole scheme was quashed. Cleverly as the Russian plot had been
laid, it was completely baffled by the rapidity of Omer Pacha's
movement.' Once again order was re-established. Serayevo was again made
the seat of the provincial government, and numerous reforms were brought
into force, all of which tended to ameliorate the condition of the
Christian population.

Such of the chieftains as refused to make their submission were pursued
without mercy, until the province became too hot to hold them. A few,
too proud or too obstinate to yield, took refuge in the He