to such rapid success. He replied that it could not be more difficult
than Montenegro, and he had conquered that, etc., and I left him
greatly relieved as to the probability of success in his operations.

He employed two weeks in his preparations, and then set out for the
conquest of Sphakia, moving in two columns, with a total force of
15,000 men, his own division taking the pass of Kallikrati, giving
access to Sphakia from the east, and held by Coroneos, and that of
Mehmet Pasha moving against Krapi, the pass on the north held by
Zimbrakaki and the Greek bands. Both divisions were driven back to
the plains. The savage excesses which followed this double defeat far
surpassed anything we had known. Villages which had long been at peace
and within the Turkish lines were put to sack, and the last outrages
of war inflicted on the unfortunate inhabitants. The cruelties which,
under Mustapha, were the occasional deeds of subordinate commanders or
the consequence of partial defeats, became, under Omar, the rule by
order to all the detachments, and Omar himself took his share of the
booty and the pick of the captive girls for his own harem.

As I had the testimony of European officers in the Turkish service
given me freely, in disgust at the proceedings of the sirdar, I did
not depend on insurgent reports of these things. While the Egyptian
troops remained I had constant and detailed information from their
European officers. A German officer, by the name of Geissler,--Omar's
chief of artillery,--died of dysentery at Canea during the campaign,
and, his effects being sent in to the consulate of France for
transmission to his family, I had the chance to see his diary, in
which were noted the incidents of the campaign. One entry which I
copied was this: "O. Pasha ordered the division to ravage and rape,"
the village being one where the inhabitants had never taken part in