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, the leaders of which were patronised and supported by foreign consuls and diplomatists, being organised without disguise and approaching their own hearths, whereas all defensive measures on the part of their own natural leaders were discountenanced and punished. They thereupon resolved to take the matter into their own hands, and formed vigilance committees and organised local bands under the command of retired _zaptiés_ throughout the province. In such psychological conditions an explosion of popular passions was certain sooner or later to take place. The occasion for this was furnished by an incident that occurred at Salonica on the 5th May 1875. This incident was, with the Bulgarian insurrection and the Berlin Note, one of the external difficulties that confronted the Government, and placed it in a very critical position. A young Bulgarian girl had come by rail to Salonica from a neighbouring village on the evening of the 5th May, accompanied by a _hoadja_, with a view to making a declaration of conversion to Mahomedanism before the Grand Council of Salonica—a formality required by the law, as a preliminary to her being married to a young Mahomedan of her village. On her arrival at the station she was met by a mob of Greeks and Bulgarians who pulled off her _yashmak_ and _feradje_ (mantle and veil), and forcing her into a carriage, in spite of the efforts of four _zaptiés_ who came up in the middle of the disturbance, drove her at a gallop to the American Consulate, where the brother of the Vice‐Consul (a Bulgarian), who had arranged the abduction, concealed her during the night. The next day he had her removed to the house of a friend, so that all trace of the girl should be lost. But early next morning a Mussulman mob, comprising (as in such occurrences is certain to be the case) the worst and most violent sections of the population, had assembled at the Konak and loudly demanded the restoration of the girl and her appearance before the Grand Council. As their demands were not complied with, they retired to the Saatli Mosque, adjacent to the Governor’s Konak, where they reiterated their demands for the restoration of the girl. Unfortunately, by some fatality which was never satisfactorily explained, the German and French Consuls found their way into the mosque in the very midst of excited Mussulmans. Whether they went there of their own accord to remonstrate and argue with the people, or approaching the scene of the demonstration were hustled into the mosque, was never cleared up. But once they appeared there, the frenzy of the mob burst all bounds, and the most violent amongst them, pursuing the Consuls into one of the apartments of the _Muderris_ (Academy) in connection with the mosque, fell on them