The Dahis, as these brigand-chiefs were called, resolved to anticipate
the approaching struggle by a massacre of the most influential
Christians. This atrocious massacre was carried out with indescribable
horrors. In the dead of the night a party of Dahis Cavasses would
surround a house, drive open gates and doors with sledge-hammers; the
awakened and affrighted inmates would rush to the windows, and seeing
the court-yard filled with armed men with dark lanterns, the shrieks
of women and children were added to the confusion; and the unhappy
father was often murdered with the half-naked females of his family
clinging to his neck, but unable to save him. The rest of the
population looked on with silent stupefaction: but Kara Georg, a
peasant, born at Topola about the year 1767, getting timely
information that his name was in the list of the doomed, fled into the
woods, and gradually organized a formidable armed force.
His efforts were everywhere successful. In the name of the Porte he
combated the Dahis, who had usurped local authority, in defiance of
the Pasha of Belgrade.
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