A week or more elapsed before Mukhtar Pasha, hurrying from Mostar, could concentrate troops enough to clear the road and provision Trebinje, and then he succeeded only by the most infantile blunders on the part of the Christian forces. From that time until the spring there was a succession of isolated conflicts with no connection, the Turks attempting to provision the little fortresses in the mountains, and the insurgents to damage the Turks as much as opportunity permitted. The powers were by this time thoroughly aroused, and the Austrian intervention followed. Baron Rodich, the governor of Dalmatia, called a conference of the insurgent chiefs at Sutorina to arrange a pacification. I went to see Rodich, a shrewd, precise functionary, liberal, as far as one could well be in his position, and I saw at once that, while he was determined to obey his orders, and urge a pacification because it was in accordance with his orders, he had no faith in success, and had a great sympathy with the insurgents. He was peremptory, and had a soldier-like aversion to special correspondents; but he was very just, and might have done much had the situation admitted any other result than the fighting it out. The Turks would make no concession and admit no reverse, and the insurgents, having been victorious in three out of four combats, and having brought the Turkish forces into the most desperate demoralization (as I was able to learn by the Turkish deserters who came daily into Ragusa), were not in the least disposed to relinquish the hold on the position they had won. In the rude shelter obtainable within the Austrian territory there were thousands of women, children, and wounded men, supported by the charity of Europe, now largely excited, leaving the active insurgents free for their operations.