an early stage of affairs was evidence that the position was being studied by Russia. With Boutakoff I was for several years in the closest sympathy, and we subsequently acted together, but never did I discover any indication of his taking an active part, or being aware that Dendrinos had taken one, in the early movement. In fact, the anxiety of the latter that I should keep secret, even from Boutakoff, his action in the matter, indicated the contrary. What Russia had done at Athens I had no opportunity to learn, but in Crete I am convinced that she then did little or nothing.

Having scoured the plains and lower hilly district west of Canea, Mustapha now organized an expedition against Sphakia, defended by the Hellenic volunteers and the bands of the Apokorona and Sphakia at Vafé. He obtained a decisive victory with heavy loss of the Egyptian contingent, but his courage failed him before Askyphó, the great natural fortress of Sphakia, and he waited a month at Prosnero in the Apokorona, negotiating to gain time, but offering no concessions. At this juncture arrived the only man who made any military mark in the war, Colonel Coroneos, a Greek veteran, and competent commander of such a force as Crete could furnish. As Zimbrakaki, who commanded the Greek volunteers, had assumed the command of the western section, while the chiefs of the eastern section, around and beyond Ida, had their own organization, Coroneos went to Retimo and established the headquarters of the district at the fortified convent of Arkadi, a building of Venetian construction and of sufficient strength to resist any attack not conducted with heavy artillery. Here he established his depot, and here the families of the Cretans took refuge when menaced by the Turkish bands. Coroneos himself kept the field and harassed the Turks everywhere in the province, and so annoyed Mustapha that after a month's indecision he suddenly marched off to the attack of Arkadi, which Coroneos, after having harassed him on the march as much as was possible, was obliged to leave to its fate, as neither his organization nor his outfit, which included no artillery, permitted him to shut himself up in the little fortress. He had provided as garrison a small body of Greek volunteers and 150 Cretan combatants, including the priests. Besides these there were about 1000 women and children, whom Coroneos had tried to induce to return to their homes, succeeding, however, owing to the opposition of the hegumenos to the departure of his own relatives, with only about 400, the rest being shut in by the sudden investment. To prepare for resistance, the great gate of the convent had been solidly walled up, and when Mustapha opened fire with his mountain artillery on the walls he made no impression on them or on the gate, and, the rifle fire from the convent being terribly hot and effective, he made the investment complete and sent to Retimo for heavy artillery. It came accompanied by nearly the entire garrison of Retimo and the Mussulman population, making his total force about 23,000 men, of whom the most zealous combatants were the Cretan Mussulmans.

By this time I had become the recognized official protector of the Cretans, although I had always done my best to discourage hostilities and persuade the Cretans to leave their wrongs to diplomatic treatment; not that I had great faith in that, but because I could see no hope for a success for the insurrection. Around me had spontaneously formed an efficient service for information, the runners of the various sections coming to me at Kalepa with the earliest information on every event of importance, and I communicated with the legations at Athens and our own minister at Constantinople. The exactness of my news was so well recognized that even the grand vizier sent regularly to our minister for information, remarking that he got nothing reliable from his own officials. Now happened one of those curious cases of mysterious transmission of news which have often been known in the East. Arkadi was at least forty miles, as the roads go, from Kalepa,—a long day's journey as travel goes there; but I received news of the fight soon after it began, and information of the progress of the combat during the day, one of my customary informants coming every few hours with the details. This service I subsequently checked by the information given me by Mustapha's Cretan secretary, who lived in the house next to mine at Kalepa, and by the accounts given by some Italian officers of the Turkish and Egyptian regulars engaged in the siege for the final struggle, and found to be correct. I believe the account which I gave the world by the next post, and which was the only complete one ever given, is as near the true history as history is ever told.

The heavy artillery soon breached the great gate, and an assault was ordered, but being met by a murderous fire from the convent walls, it was repulsed with great slaughter; and the succeeding attempts on the part of the Turkish regulars faring no better, a battalion of Egyptians was put in the front and driven in at the point of the bayonet by the Turkish troops behind them. The convent was a hollow square of solidly built buildings, the inner and outer walls alike being of a masonry which yielded only to artillery, and from the windows and doors of these a hail of bullets at close quarters met the entering crowd of regulars and swarms of bloodthirsty Cretan irregulars, all furious at the resistance and wild with fanaticism. The artillery had to be brought in to break down the divisions between the houses and cells, and the fight was one of extermination until all the buildings were taken except the refectory, the strongest of the buildings. At this juncture one of the priests fired the magazine, with an effect far greater on the outside world than on the combatants, for it did not kill over a hundred Turks. The insurgents in the refectory were then summoned to surrender, and, having exhausted their ammunition, they complied, on the solemn promise of Mustapha that their lives should be spared; but, having handed out their rifles, they were all immediately killed.

One of the Egyptian officers—an Italian colonel—told me many incidents of the fight, of a sufficiently horrible nature, but he said that he saw things which were too horrible to be repeated. Thirty-three men and sixty-one women and children were spared, mostly through personal pleas to Mustapha of ancient friendship. The secretary told me of a fanatic of Canea who had volunteered in the hope of being killed in a war with the infidel, and who had been in all the fights of the insurrection, and, escaping from Arkadi unhurt, went home and hung up his sword, saying that Kismet was against him and he was not permitted to die for the faith. He also told me that all the ravines near Arkadi were filled with the dead, while Retimo was filled with the wounded; and from the report of the hospital surgeon at Canea, I learned that four hundred and eighty were brought to our hospital, being unable to find shelter at Retimo.

Mustapha immediately returned to Canea, but having sworn not to enter the city till he had conquered the island, he camped outside. He called a council to devise some means of subduing the insurrection before the effect of the siege of Arkadi should provoke intervention, for he saw that that had been a mistake. The enthusiasm of the insurgents rose, and for the first time it seemed to me that there was a chance of the Powers taking their proper position as to Crete, and I began to hope that the bloodshed would not have been entirely wasted. But no effect was produced on the Powers by the horrible event, except that Russia made some effort to provoke intervention; England and France, who held the solution in their hands, showing the most stolid indifference, and Russia, as afterwards became clear, only looking at the occasion as creating more trouble for the Sultan. Greek influence took entire control of affairs, and the Cretan committee at Athens began to