Sir H. Elliot, writing on 6th July, says: “The excesses committed in the suppression of the insurrection have unquestionably been very great, as was inevitable from the nature of the force which the Porte was, in the first emergency, obliged to employ, but it is equally certain that the details which have been given, coming almost exclusively from Russian and Bulgarian sources, are so _monstrously exaggerated_ as to deprive them of much claim to much attention. Cases of revolting cruelty have been mentioned to me in such a circumstantial manner as to make it almost impossible to doubt this truth, but which proved, on investigation, to be entirely fictitious.... Turkish ministers deny that the cruelties have been on a scale at all approaching to what they are represented; they point out that the horrors committed on Turkish women and children are passed over in silence, and they plead that they had no alternative _but_ to use the irregular force at their disposal to put down an unprovoked insurrection fomented from abroad, the authors of which are responsible for the sufferings which have been entailed upon both Christians and Mahometans.”[104] Some of the fictions invented were quite picturesque and dramatic. These fictions and legends were not confined to Bulgaria, and Canon Liddon and a Rev. Mr MacColl carried off the palm for ingenious credulity. On the 2nd October 1876, Sir H. Elliot telegraphs to Her Majesty’s Consul at Bosnia Serai: “Canon Liddon and a friend, who went to Servia by the Bosnian frontier, state that they saw examples of revolting cruelties practised by Turkish officers of the regular army, who have _impaled_, at all military stations along the frontier, men and women. Report as to truth of these statements.” On the 5th inst. the startled Consul sends the following reply: “Everything known here would make statement in your telegram of 2nd inst. perfectly incredible, _but_ for the name of your Excellency’s informant. I will write of this by next post.”[105] The statement of the distinguished ecclesiastic created a great sensation. It turned out, however, that he had obtained his information from passengers in a steam vessel on the Save, and that they had not travelled along the frontier at all, as Sir A. Buchanan, who first reported to Sir H. Elliot, had been led to believe. “The whole story, therefore,” adds Sir A. Buchanan, “probably resolves itself, as suggested by Mr Holmes, to heads or even bodies having been exposed on poles, as I have myself seen hanging in chains during the British Protectorate of Corfu.”[106] Mr Holmes, in his report, after demonstrating the absurdity of the story, politely adds: “Now, if Canon Liddon states that he saw what he describes, of course I can say nothing to the contrary; but if he has only been assured of these atrocities, it is most certain that he has been grossly deceived, with a view to