OPERATIONS OX THE DANUBE. 217 country of the Danube L}' the sheer prowess of chap. XI II the victorious Turks. '__ It is therefore very easy to believe that this Tiie agony oi discomfiture at Giurgevo was more bitter to the Czar than any of the disasters which had hitherto tried his fortitude. People knew, or affected to know, what the troubled man uttered in torment, and the words they put in his mouth ran some- what to this effect : — ' I can understand Oltenitza — I can even
- understand that Omar Paslui should luive been
' able to hold against me his lines at KaJafat ' — I can partly account for the result of those ' fights at Citate — I can understand Silistria — ' the strongest may fail in a siege — and it ' chanced that both Paskievitch and Schilders
- were struck down and disabled by shot — but
' — but — but — that Turks — mere Turks — led on
- by a General of Sepoys and six or seven Eng-
' lish boys — that they should dare to cross the
- Danube in the face of my troops — that, daring
' to attempt this, they should do it, and hold fast ' their ground — that my troops should give way
- before them ; and that this — that this should be
- the last act of the campaign which is ending in
' the retreat of my whole army, and the abandou- ' ment of the Principalities. Heaven lays upon
- me more than I can bear !'
Many men in the Anglo - French camp were fretted by the tidings of this last Turkish victory ; for, besides that, with their natural and healthy impatience of delay, they were stung by the
