The telegrams about affairs in the Herzegovina this week have
been absurdly contradictory, Mukhtar Pasha declaring that he has defeated the insurgents with great slaughter and revictualled Niksics, while the insurgents maintain that they are not defeated, and that Niksics has received only three weeks' provisions. The most pro- bable explanation of the conflicting accounts is that Mukhtar Pasha marched out of Gatschko in great strength and encountered the insurgents in the Duga Pass, which he was unable, after a severe struggle, to force, and returned to Gatschko. Either, however, the garrison of Niksics made a sortie, and obtained provisions, or a detachment from Mukhtar Pasha's army, convoying a quantity of provisions carried on men's shoulders, did cut its way through to the fortress, where food would certainly appear to have arrived. The news of the " victory " greatly cheered Constantinople, and had its effect even in St. Petersburg ; but it has not suppressed the insurrection or greatly disquieted the insurgents, though we note that they begin to complain that the Turks break the laws of war by using explosive bullets,—a very improbable charge. Where should the Turks get them?
