The Consuls and two newspaper correspondents cordoned at the storm centre received comprehensive and accurate reports of what was happening in the surrounding country through a secret emissary of the revolutionary committee. This envoy extraordinary, pleading his cause before the foreign representatives at a hostile capital, was a man of nerve, resource, and careful judgment, as well he had to be. Besides his other accomplishments, he had a knowledge of three European languages, French, German, and Italian, and was therefore able to translate the official insurgent reports from the original Bulgarian into languages understood of the Consuls. The contents of these periodical papers were a record of recent activities on the part of both insurgents and Turks. Combats and massacres were located, and where possible the numbers of killed and wounded were given. The final report was a summary of the summer’s work. It announced the razing, partial or entire, of 120 villages, and stated that 60,000 peasants in the vilayet of Monastir were homeless. Illustrating the report was a map which had been drafted by a skilled hand and manifolded by machine; a key in the corner explained the meanings of the different intensities of colour in which the villages were marked, from white, indicating total escape, to black, total effacement. The dissemination of such information during the ‘general rising’ defeated the designs of the lawful administration, and, of course, the Turkish police were hard on the trail of the enemy in their midst. Hitherto it had been the practice of the Governor-General (who, like us, had left Uskub for more active fields) to inform foreign consuls only of such serious disorders as he could not hope to keep from them. Until now the number of casualties on the Turkish side in any single combat had been limited to ‘three killed and two wounded,’ and the Imperial Ottoman reports invariably defeated the ‘brigands.’ Now the limit of losses had to be raised, because of consular scepticism as to their accuracy, but still no record of defeat at the hands of the insurgents was ever permitted. Insurgent bands seldom numbered more than a hundred; nevertheless, his Excellency Hilmi Pasha would occasionally announce a loss to them of several hundreds. Invariably such a ‘destruction of brigands’ proved on unofficial information to be a massacre of non-combatants. It annoyed the chief officer of reforms exceedingly that foreign consuls and correspondents should give credence to the reports of the insurgents in preference to those of his office. His worry, however, was only on the score of effect in Europe; the tacit implication as to his veracity disturbed his excellency indeed very little.