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Kirdjali, with his banditry, brought terror to the whole of Moldavia. To give some idea of him, I will recount one of his exploits. One night he and the Arnaut^*1 Mikhailaki raided a Bulgarian village together. They set fire to it from both ends and started going from hut to hut. Kirdjali wielded the knife and Mikhailaki carried the booty. They both shouted “Kirdjali! Kirdjali!” The whole village took to its heels.

When Alexander Ypsilanti proclaimed the insurrection1 and began to recruit his army, Kirdjali brought him several of his old comrades. The real goal of the Hetairists was scarcely known to them, but the war provided an occasion for getting rich at the expense of the Turks, and maybe also of the Moldavians—and that they found clear enough.

Alexander Ypsilanti was personally courageous, but he did not possess the qualities necessary for the role he had assumed so ardently and so imprudently. He was unable to get along with the men he had to lead. They neither respected nor trusted him. After the unfortunate battle in which the flower of Greek youth perished, Iordaki Olymbioti advised him to retire and took his place himself. Ypsilanti galloped off to the Austrian border and from there sent his curses upon the men, whom he called rebels, cowards, and blackguards. Most of these cowards and blackguards perished within the walls of the Seku monastery or on the banks of the Prut, desperately defending themselves against a ten times stronger adversary.

Kirdjali was in the detachment of Georgi Kantakuzin,2 of whom the same thing might be repeated as was said of Ypsilanti. On the eve of the battle of Skulyani, Kantakuzin asked the Russian authorities for permission to join our border post. The detachment remained without a leader; but Kirdjali, Saphianos, Kantagoni, and the others found no need for a leader.

It seems that no one has described the battle of Skulyani in all its touching truth. Picture to yourself seven hundred men—Arnauts, Albanians, Greeks, Bulgarians, and all sorts of riffraff—with no notion of the art of war, retreating in the face of fifteen thousand Turkish cavalry. This detachment huddled against the bank of the Prut and set up two small cannon found in the gospodar’s^*2 courtyard in Jassy, used for firing salutes during birthday parties. The Turks would have been glad to use grapeshot, but did not dare to without permission from the Russian authorities: the shot was bound to fly over to our bank. The commander of the border post (by now deceased), who had been in military service for forty years, had never in his life heard the whistle of bullets, but this time God granted him the chance. A few whizzed past his ears. The dear old fellow got very angry and sharply scolded the major of the Okhotsky infantry regiment attached to the post. The major, not knowing what to do, went running to the river and shook his finger at the delibash,^*3 who were prancing on the opposite bank. The delibash, seeing that, turned and galloped off, and the whole Turkish detachment followed them. The major who shook his finger was called Khorchevsky. I do not know what became of him.

The next day, however, the Turks attacked the Hetairists. Not daring to use either grapeshot or cannonballs, they ventured, contrary to their custom, to use cold steel. It was a stiff battle. They wielded yatagans.^*4 Lances were noticed for the first time on the Turkish side; these lances were Russian: Nekrasovists3 were fighting in their ranks. The Hetairists were permitted by our sovereign to cross the Prut and take refuge in our border post. They began to cross. Kantagoni and Saphianos were the last ones left on the Turkish side. Kirdjali, wounded the day before, already lay in the border post. Saphianos was killed. Kantagoni, a very fat man, was wounded in the belly by a lance. He raised his saber with one hand, took hold of the enemy’s lance with the other, drove it deeper into himself, and was thus able to reach his killer with the saber and fall together with him.

It was all over. The Turks came out victorious. Moldavia was cleared. Some six hundred Arnauts scattered over Bessarabia; they had no idea how to feed themselves, but were still grateful to Russia for her protection. The life they led was idle, but not dissipated. They were always to be seen in the coffeehouses of half-Turkish Bessarabia, with long chibouks in their mouths, sipping coffee grounds from little cups. Their embroidered jackets and pointed red slippers had already begun to wear out, but they still wore their tasseled caps cocked, and yatagans and pistols still stuck from behind their wide belts. No one complained of them. It was impossible to imagine that these poor, peaceable fellows were the notorious Klephtes4 of Moldavia, comrades of the terrible Kirdjali, and that he himself was among them.

The pasha in command of Jassy learned of it and, on the basis of peace treaties, demanded that the Russian authorities turn the bandit over.