near the south-eastern angle, a perfect hail of petroleum shells was thrown on the dense mass of kibitkas packed into the Tekke enclosure. Fearful must have been the sufferings of the 7000 women and children who had sought refuge there. Every part of the works was searched by the fragments of shell and streams of unextinguishable flame. The traveller who visits the scene of this battle of the giants is filled with wonder that an undisciplined mob should have held out for three weeks with defences so paltry. Their stubbornness inspired respect in Skobeleff himself, who was as ready as all really brave men are to render justice to a gallant foe. In a proclamation addressed to his troops on the eve of the final assault, he told them that they were face to face with a people “full of courage and honour.”[627] But the end was drawing near. Not only was the breach reported to be practicable on the 23rd, but a mine had been driven under the eastern face about one hundred yards from the angle, which was charged with dynamite by a party of volunteers after nightfall. At seven on the morning of the 24th of January 1881 four columns formed for the assault, commanded respectively by General Skobeleff in person, and by Colonels Kozelkoff, Kurapatkine, and Gaidaroff. The signal was given by a vast column of smoke attended by a dull roar which rose from the eastern front. It proclaimed the explosion of the mine, which levelled 300 feet of the rampart, and overwhelmed several hundreds of the defenders. Instantly the force under Gaidaroff sprang forward and escaladed the parapet on the south-western angle. This was intended to be a feigned attack, but it soon developed into a serious one. Pushing northwards, Gaidaroff captured the mound which commanded the camp, and thus convinced the defenders of the impossibility of further resistance. In the meantime the other columns had swarmed through the breaches caused by the mine and the artillery fire, and climbed the parapet on the southern side between the two. The hand-to-hand encounter was brief, for the position was clearly untenable. O’Donovan, who watched the attack from a spur of the Kopet Dāgh twelve miles off, saw a cloud of horsemen issuing in disorder from the northern side, followed by a confused mass of fugitives.[628] The Russian flag waved on the mound which gave Dangil Teppe its name. It was planted at a cost to the assailants of 1200 men[629] killed and wounded, out of a total engaged of 8000. That undergone by the garrison will never be accurately known. Four thousand bodies were found in the enclosure, and Skobeleff admitted that a flying column pursued and hacked the fugitives for ten miles.[630] General Kurapatkine estimates that the enemy lost 9000 out of a total of 30,000. He strenuously denies the oft-repeated allegation that Tekke women and children were intentionally slaughtered. The Russians, he states, did not wilfully kill a single non-combatant, though, of course, many must