Singularly enough, the American who achieved more with his pen than any one else in his generation is almost unknown to the majority of his countrymen and countrywomen, although our government paid an unusual tribute to his memory by bringing his remains back to his native land in a man-of-war. The man of whom I write was simply a reporter employed by the _New York Herald_ to chronicle contemporaneous European history. It was he who told the civilized world the truth about the atrocities committed by the Turkish invaders of Bulgaria in a series of letters to the _London Daily News_--letters which became, in the hands of Mr. Gladstone, a weapon with which he aroused the popular feeling until the Beaconsfield ministry was swept from power and the Jingo spirit held in check while Russia carried on her “holy war” against the Porte. There is not a statesman or sovereign in Europe who does not know of the important rôle which this American reporter played in continental affairs at the time of the Russo-Turkish war. If you ask a Bulgarian or Montenegrin if he ever heard of J. A. MacGahan he will very likely say to you what one of them said to me: “Did you, an American, ever hear of George Washington? Well, MacGahan was our Washington, and there is not a peasant in all my country who is not familiar with his name.” This countryman of ours, in whose achievements I have such a sturdy pride, died literally in the harness in 1879, and every year on the 9th of June, throughout all the land of which he was the acknowledged savior, the solemn prayers of the church are offered for the repose of his soul. It may be that he has won a higher fame than he would if he had lived to make himself known to the American public through the medium of the lecture platform, but nevertheless I often wish that his renown in the land of his birth were nearer in accord with his deserts than it is.