Chapter XIII Dervish's Mission

And again, 15th June: > "The past career of Dervish Pasha is filled with incidents which sustain the impression of vigour he has laid down at Cairo. He is at once the most vigorous and unscrupulous of all the Generals of the Ottoman army. Although he is now seventy years old, his age has not weakened his energy or impaired his faculties. His will is still as iron as it was of old, and he is quite as capable of ordering a massacre of the Mamelukes as was Mehemet Ali himself.... > > His early military experience was acquired fighting the Montenegrins, who always regarded him as the most dangerous Commander whom they had had to meet. In one of the last acute fits of hostility (about 1856) between the Porte and Montenegro, Dervish penetrated to Grakovo, the northernmost canton of the Vladikate, as it then was; and the Voivode of the district, cut off from retreat to the South, took refuge in a cave, the habitual hiding-place of the people against sudden raids, it being so situated that the usual expedient of attack, smoking out by fires kindled at the mouth, was inapplicable. The attempts of the Turks to force a passage were easily repulsed, and Dervish entered into negotiations, the result of which was a surrender on condition of the lives, liberty and property of the besieged being respected. The Turkish engagements were kept by the extermination of the entire family of the Voivode. The prisoners were marched off to Trebinji and thrown into the dungeon of the fortress, tied back to back, one of each couplet being killed and the survivor not released for a moment from the burden of