The return of the boxes to Constantinople with all the pomp and ceremony attendant upon the transport of treasure was not without an object. It was necessary to keep the fact that the ransom had been handed over a complete secret until the captives were released, in order that the Turks should not get on the track of the brigands. A promise that every effort should be made to throw the Turks off the trail was demanded by the brigands, as was an injunction of absolute secrecy concerning also the place and manner in which the money was paid.
But the time is past when the secret need be kept, and the brigands, now off duty between revolutions, are spinning this yarn, along with accounts of other adventures, to admiring friends in Sofia.
The money which the revolutionary organisation secured by this capture went a long way, I am told, in preparing the uprising of 1903. The insurgents say that they expected the Government of the United States to exact from the Sultan the price of this ransom, thereby making the Padisha pay for the arms used against himself. But this has not been done.
We went to prayer meeting at Samakov at the invitation of the American missionaries, and took with us several officers of the garrison. The missionaries prayed fervently and at length that the Macedonian insurgents might be turned from their wicked ways. The prayer annoyed one of the officers, and, to my embarrassment, he rose and stalked out of the chapel. The others agreed with the missionaries—to a very limited extent—that the measures of the committajis were ‘often too drastic.’
The entire Bulgarian army is in sympathy with the work of the insurgents, and not the least enthusiastic with ‘the cause’ is the little mountain battery at Samakov. It is proud of the short cannon, carried in three parts on the backs of pack-ponies, and it is proud of its proficiency at handling them. The entire battery got out one morning and took us up into the mountains to show us how the guns worked. The Bulgarian army has been preparing for many years to fight the Turks.
BULGARIAN INFANTRY.