This is not to deny that the insurrection was aided and abetted by Sclavonic agitators from beyond the border. The solidarity between the various members of the South-Sclavonic race has, as we heard from the most well-informed sources, reached a pitch which demands an attention that it has not received from the statesmen of this country. It was inevitable that the Sclaves beyond the Turkish border should sympathize with their oppressed brothers in their struggle for liberty, and should aid them with supplies and recruits. Thus there are many representatives of all the South-Sclavonic peoples from Bohemia to Montenegro fighting in the insurgent ranks,[292] and one of their principal leaders, Ljubibratić,[293] comes from Free Serbia. But that the insurrection was brought about by foreign agitators is strongly disproved by the fact that the outbreak took the Serbian Revolutionary Society—the _Omladina_ itself—by surprise. But, it will be asked, have the Sclavonic committees and societies, partly literary partly political, established for years at different towns along the Dalmatian and Croatian frontiers, effected nothing? It stands to reason that they have played their part in preparing the rayah for the present outbreak. To their influence, no doubt, is due the fact that among the Christians of several parts of the Herzegovina, including the districts where the revolt first broke out, a defence organization had already been set on foot. The rayahs of every village, who in case of extreme oppression were ready to take arms, had divided themselves into groups of twenty or thirty called _Čotas_, under a leader whose title was _Načenik_. When, however, we come to enquire what induced the rayahs to put a halter round their necks by listening to the advice of their free brothers beyond the border, and organizing such measures of protection; when we come to enquire what at last induced them to take up arms—then there is only one ever-recurring answer—it was simply and solely the tyranny of the agents of the Turkish government and the Mahometan landlords.