possible by the people for the impending struggle.... The movements of the insurgents are regulated by a fixed programme.” We have seen (p. 43) during Midhat Pasha’s Governorship of Bulgaria, how a raid over the frontier, following the usual tactics of exasperation, had endeavoured to excite a rising, which was promptly suppressed by the energy of the Vali. In the beginning of 1874 unrest began to show itself again in the districts of Trianova, Kezanlic, and Zagra, but, warned by the effects of neglect in a recent instance, the authorities had all the leaders of the movement arrested. Thereupon General Ignatieff made such energetic representations to the Porte, that orders arrived, not only for the release of the imprisoned, malcontents, but for the dismissal of all functionaries concerned in their arrest. The effect of this novel and original mode of dealing with an insurrection was soon apparent in the effervescence and excitement it caused among the Mussulman population throughout the Province. They saw rebel bands organising without disguise, and approaching their own hearths, the leaders of which were patronised by foreign consuls and supported by foreign embassies, whereas defensive measures on the part of their own natural leaders were discountenanced and punished. It was in this frame of mind of the Mussulman population of the Empire, that the troubles both at Salonica and in Bulgaria occurred. In October 1875, a local rising took place in the village of Eski Zagra. Mr Vice‐Consul Brophy writes to Sir H. Elliot:—“In October 1875 everything was settled for a rising in Bulgaria, in eight or ten places simultaneously. Something occurred which made it advisable that the rising should be put off, and messengers were sent to all the centres, but the “put off” for Eski Zagra arrived twenty‐four hours late, and that town rose in the full conviction that it was being seconded by all the force of the insurgents. In fact, the _émeute_, revolt, rebellion, revolution, or whatever it was, of May last (1876) was to have come off in October 1875, but did not.”[87] The Committees were not ready. But the unrest continued, and when the Provincial Governors begged the Porte to send regular troops into the district, General Ignatieff dissuaded Mahmoud Nedim, the Grand Vizier, from doing so, on the ground that “the presence of regular troops would have the effect of still further increasing the excitement.”