The Russian Government has published an account of recent events
in Samarcand which we noticed some weeks since. It appears that the small garrison left in the citadel was attacked on 15th June by the Tartars and inha- bitants of the town. The garrison numbered only 754 men, while the assailants are estimated at 25,000, but they defended themselves with splendid energy for five days, hoping for the return of General Kaufmann, who had marched upon Bokhara. Three officers and forty-six men were slain, one gate was burnt and only defended by a new mound of earth ; but still the Russians held on, till on the 20th General Kaufmann returned, and, after a tremendous slaughter in the streets, where the dead lay piled in heaps, burnt Samarcand to the ground. These last facts do not appear in the accounts from St. Petersburg, but are mentioned in the private letters to the Moscow Gazette. General Kaufmann could not furnish troops sufficient to hold the place, and for that reason, and to punish the treachery of the inhabitants, destroyed it.
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