[Illustration: Cover: Under the Red Crescent 1877-78]
UNDER THE RED CRESCENT.
[Illustration: Charles Ryan Walker & Boutall, Ph. Sc.]
UNDER THE RED CRESCENT:
ADVENTURES OF AN ENGLISH SURGEON
WITH THE TURKISH ARMY AT
PLEVNA AND ERZEROUM,
1877-1878.
RELATED BY
CHARLES S. RYAN, M.B., C.M. EDIN.,
IN ASSOCIATION WITH HIS FRIEND
JOHN SANDES, B. A. OXON.
WITH PORTRAIT AND MAPS.
NEW YORK:
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS,
153-157, FIFTH AVENUE.
1897.
DEDICATION.
THIS RECORD
OF
THE STIRRING ADVENTURES OF MY EARLY YEARS
I DEDICATE TO MY SON
RUPERT.
C. S. R.
PREFACE.
In submitting to the popular verdict this book, which aims at being a
plain, straightforward account of the experiences of a young Australian
in the last great battles which have been fought in Europe, I feel that
a few words of explanation are necessary.
In the first place, it may be asked why I have allowed twenty years to
elapse before giving these reminiscences to the world. I must answer
that, as a hard-working surgeon leading a very busy life, I had but
little "learned leisure" at my disposal; and I must also admit that I
did not feel myself equal to the literary labour of writing a book.
Indeed it might never have been written if my friend Mr. Sandes had not
agreed to my suggestion that he should reproduce in a literary and
publishable form the language of the armchair and the fireside, and so
enable me to relate to the world at large some of the incidents which my
own immediate friends, when listening over the cigars to my
recollections, have been good enough to call interesting. So much for
the matter of the book, and also for its manner.
In the second place, military critics as well as the general public may
be inclined to wonder how it was that a young army surgeon, a mere lad
in fact, should have been allowed to play such an independent part in
the field operations at Plevna as is disclosed in the following pages,
and should have been permitted to move about the battle-field and engage
in active service, with the apparent concurrence of the general staff
and of the officers commanding the different regiments. In reply, I have
to explain that the Ottoman army was not guided by the hard-and-fast
regulations which no doubt would render it impossible for a junior
surgeon in any other European army to act on his own volition and carry
on his work as he might think best himself. Furthermore, I may mention
that through my close friendship with Prince Czetwertinski, who was the
captain of Osman Pasha's bodyguard, I was always kept in touch with the
progress of the military operations; and I am also proud to say that I
enjoyed the confidence of Osman Pasha himself, and was on terms of the
closest intimacy with that gallant and true-hearted soldier Tewfik Bey,
who won the rank of pasha for his magnificent courage when he led the
assault that drove Skobeleff from the Krishin redoubts.
These facts may explain many of the adventures narrated in this book
which would be inexplicable to critics accustomed to the rigid
discipline under which medical officers do their work in other European
armies.
It is only right to say, in conclusion, that I consider myself
singularly fortunate in my coadjutor, who, while he has brightened this
narrative of my early adventures with all the resources of the practised
writer, has nevertheless left the truth of every single incident
absolutely unimpaired. At a time when the Eastern Question looms like a
huge shadow over Europe, and when the very existence of the Turkish
Empire is once more threatened, may I hope that this story of the
military virtues of the Ottoman troops may not be found without real
interest?
CHARLES S. RYAN.
Melbourne, _July_, 1897.
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I. PAGE
FROM MELBOURNE TO SOFIA.
Autobiographical--My Wanderjahr--First Glimpse of
Servians--Rome--A Prospective Mother-in-law--Sad Result of
eating Chops--A Spanish Poet--The Chance of a Lifetime--How I
seized it--Garcia's Gold Watch--The Via del Poppo--Off to
London--Engaged by the Turkish Government--Vienna
revisited--Stamboul--Origin of the Crescent--Misserie's
Hotel--The Turkish Character--A Splendid Belvedere--View from
the Seraskierat Tower--Scutari and Florence
Nightingale--Stamboul by Day and Night--Scene in a
Bazaar--Three Sundays a Week--A Trip to Sweet Waters--Veiled
Beauties--I am gazetted to a Regiment--An Official Dinner--Off
to the Front--A Compulsory Shave--My Charger--The March to
Sofia--My First Patient--Prescription for a Malingerer--Mehemet
Ali--My Soldier Servant--Diagnosing my Cases--Bulgarians at
Home--At Sofia--MacGahan the War Correspondent--Learning
Turkish--A Dinner in Camp--Leniency to Bulgarians--A Lady
Patient--So near and yet so far--From Pirot to Nish--The
Wounded--My First Operation 1
CHAPTER II.
THE PRELIMINARIES TO THE RUSSO-TURKISH WAR.
Prince Czetwertinski--A Romantic Career--His First
Commission--A Retrospect--The History of a Noble Pole--From
Monte Carlo to Brisbane--A Prince as a Deck Hand on a
Schooner--A Bush Tutor--He returns to Europe--The Load of
Poverty--Lighter to Bear in Australia--A Big Win at
Flemington--School Teaching in Batavia--Back to New South
Wales--Death at Wagga--The Vale of Moravia--The Hot
Spring--Bulgarian Blanchisseuses--Slavonian Folk-songs--How the
Turks sing--A Bulgarian Sámadh--Foley's End--Infuriated
Scavengers--A Mysterious Disturbance--Rough-and-tumble
Fighting--A Turkish Hercules--Capturing a Prisoner--A Solitary
Ride--A Bulgarian Farrier--Back to Sofia--Christmas in the
Snow--A Maize Cob for a Christmas Dinner--Orkhanieh to Sofia--A
Doctor frozen to Death--Bitter Experiences--Salutary Effects of
a Good Dinner 32
CHAPTER III.
THE IMMINENCE OF WAR.
Off to Widdin--Strong Fortifications--Osman Pasha in
Command--The Kalafatians at Work--Dr. Black--A Discreditable
Englishman--Shooting on Sight--An Arrest and a Release--"Life
off Black"--Egyptian Troops arrive--Zara Dilber Effendi--Osman
Pasha's Ball--A Memorable Function--I get Plenty of
Partners--Military Wall-flowers--The Ladies of Widdin--The
Dance before the Fight--Three Beautiful Roumanians--An Angry
Grandfather--Lambro Redivivus--Preparing for the Campaign--Some
Forcible Dentistry--Religion of the Turks--The
Wrestlers--Visitors from Kalafat--I pay a Return Call--Across
the Danube into Kalafat--Dinner with the Roumanians--Pumping
the Guileless Stranger--A Futile Effort--Frank Power--Nicholas
Leader--Edmund O'Donovan--Wild Duck Shooting 56
CHAPTER IV.
FROM WIDDIN TO PLEVNA.
Declaration of War with Russia--An Ominous Silence--The First
Shot--An Interrupted Luncheon--Under Fire at
last--Disappearance of the Inhabitants--A Move
Underground--Running the Gauntlet--Blowing up a Gunboat--Our
Hospital shelled--Killing the Wounded--Operations under Fire--A
Terrible Coincidence--How a Turkish Mother died--Some
Marvellous Escapes--Circassians on a Raiding
Expedition--Cattle-lifting on a Grand Scale--A Long
Bombardment--Insignificant Losses--Osman Pasha in the
Batteries--Rewarding a Good Shot--Circassian
Peccadilloes--Osman Pasha's Plans--He is baffled by Red Tape--A
Fatal Delay--Good-bye to the Kyrchehir--Marching out from
Widdin--A Picturesque Bivouac--False Alarms--A Forced
March--How the Russian Army was placed--Fall of Nicopolis--A
Race to the Balkans--Sleeping in a Tomb--Pushing on to
Plevna--A Terrible Night--Lost in the Bush--Many Cases of
Sunstroke--Goose for Dinner--I flesh my Maiden Sword--A Record
March--We cross the Vid at last--Arrival at Plevna 88
CHAPTER V.
THE FIRST BATTLE OF PLEVNA.
The Town of Plevna--A Natural Stronghold--_Le Petit
Village_--The Gypsies' Warning--Dr. Robert--An Expatriated
Bacchanalian--We attend a Banquet--The First Battle of
Plevna--An Artillery Duel--Surgical Aid to the Wounded--A
Gunner's Death--The Zacuska--Arranging the
Hospitals--Disposition of the Turkish Line of
Defence--Commencement of the Battle--Fighting on the Janik
Bair--Arrival of the Wounded--Sufferings in the Arabas--Variety
in Gunshot Wounds--Some Extraordinary Recoveries--Turkish
Fortitude--Objections to Alcohol--And to Amputation--Berdan v.
Krenke Bullets--A Man shot through the Brain--Rapid Cure--An
Erratic Rifle-ball--Remarkable Example of Vitality--A Missile
in the Heart of a Living Man--My Second Hospital--A Turkish
Colonel's Wound--Insufficient Beds--Mangled Wretches lying on
the Floor--Two Russians wounded--They both die--The Shambles in
the Mosque--Our Open-air Operating Theatre--Calling the
Faithful to Prayer 114
CHAPTER VI.
THE INTERVAL BETWEEN THE FIRST AND SECOND BATTLES.
Sending away the Wounded--Osman Effendi--We perform
Operations--Amputating Fingers--A Warning to Malingerers--Trial
and Execution--Discipline in the Town--Round the Bazaars after
the Battle--Some Pathetic Souvenirs--The Punishment of
Looters--Circassian and Bulgarian--A Cold-blooded Murder--The
Work of Fortification--Out with the Burial Parties--A Walk over
the Battle-field--Fresh Reinforcements arrive--The Lovtcha
Expedition--Rifaat Pasha's Success--My Quarters near the
Hospital--I have a Flitting--Arrival of Olivier Pain--A Pretty
Bulgarian Girl--Limitations of a Vocabulary--Hospital
Routine--Soldier Nurses 142
CHAPTER VII.
THE SECOND BATTLE OF PLEVNA (JULY 30).
Talks with my Patients--A Candid Kurd--Grim Confessions--How he
killed his Enemy--Dr. Robert's Cave of Refuge--He loses his
Dinner--The Spy's Death--Canards in the Town--The Second Battle
of Plevna--I take a Hand--Turkish Women as Water-carriers--A
Woman shot in Action--My Veiled Patient--Osman Pasha's Bay
Cob--A Sign of Hot Fighting--The Attack on the Village of
Grivitza--Czetwertinski and his Cigarette--Retreat of the
Russian Infantry--A Cavalry Pursuit--Mustapha Bey waves his
Sword--I join in the Charge--An Exultant Ride--The Retreat
sounded--We retire--A sauve qui peut--Horrible Fears--The Ride
through the Maize-field--Our Infantry Panic-struck--Osman
Pasha's Method of rallying Men--A Timely Reinforcement--The Day
is ours--Tremendous Russian Losses--Russian Physique compared
with Turkish--Wounded Horses on the Battle-field--Back in the
Hospital--Many Operations--Osman Pasha decorated--The Muchir
makes a Speech--I shift my Quarters again--Bulgarian
Hospitality--A Youthful Friend--A Terrific Rainstorm--The
Tutchenitza runs a Banker--A Ghastly Find in a Gooseberry Bush
161
CHAPTER VIII.
THE FIASCOS OF PELISCHAT AND LOVTCHA.
A Circassian and a Pig--A Call on Olivier Pain--His Photographs
surprise me--A View of Sydney Harbour in Plevna--The Story of a
French Journalist--A Lonely Death in the Soudan--"The
Butter-making Prince"--Bulgarian Fleas--The Expedition to
Poradim--Going to the Front--An Ambulance at Work--Capture of
Russian Guns--A Diabolical Circassian--Attack on a Redoubt--A
General Retreat--Wounded Men left in the Redoubt--I help them
to escape--An Exciting Moment--My Horse has to carry
Double--Death takes one of the Riders--Battle of Pelischat--The
March to Lovtcha--A Scrimmage in a Wheat-field--Sleeping in a
Wheat-stook--Weinberger and I are apprehensive--A Delightful
Surprise--Drawing a Covert--Lovtcha in the Distance--A Council
of War--An Appalling Sight--Our Mutilated Comrades--The
Sergeant and his Cigarette--A Night Alarm--Ammunition Boxes
blow up--A Disastrous Explosion--Lauri and Drew Gay 189
CHAPTER IX.
THE THIRD BATTLE OF PLEVNA.
The Third Battle of Plevna--Turkish Genius for
Fortification--How the Redoubts were built--Description of an
Earthwork--Sleeping Underground--Living Men in Holes in the
Clay--The Triple Tier of Fire--Commencement of the Battle--The
"Mammoth Battery"--Lauri and the Live Shell--Radishevo on
Fire--The General Assault--Turkish Civilians join in the
Fight--Attack on the Grivitza Redoubt--The Brushwood Shelter
takes Fire--I visit the Redoubt--The Sight from the Parapet--A
Word to Sadik Pasha--I ride towards Krishin--Turkish Fugitives
from our Redoubt--A Compliment from a Civilian--Panic among
the Troops--Fall of the Grivitza Redoubt and Capture of Two
Krishin Redoubts by Skobeleff--The Counter-attacks--Parapets of
Dead Bodies--Tewfik Bey Invincible--The Krishin Redoubts
recaptured--A Glorious Victory--Delirious Excitement--Russian
Sortie from the Grivitza Redoubt--Repulsed with Terrible
Slaughter--Hospital Work heavy once more--Some Stoical
Sufferers--Russian Bravery--Osman Pasha and the
Wounded--Departure of Drew Gay to run the Gauntlet--A War
Correspondent and his News--Perilous Ride from Plevna 219
CHAPTER X.
THE INVESTMENT OF PLEVNA.
Lauri and the Sausage--A Diet of "Poiled Peans"--The Ways of a
_Parlementaire_--Politeness on the Battle-field--Indefatigable
Burrowing by the Turks--Skobeleff's Annoyance--A Visit to a
Redoubt--Russian Artillery Practice--I lose my Groom--Geese,
and how to get them--I go out reconnoitring--We have a Hot Ten
Minutes--Looking out for a New Horse--A Grand Charger lost--We
retire on Netropol--The Use of Artillery--The Russians attack
our Convoy--We lose our Medical Stores--A Humorous Russian
Prisoner--Afternoon Coffee with Sadik Pasha--A Call made under
Difficulties--The Uninvited Guest--Kronberg my Colleague--He
saves a Supposed Spy--In my Hospital again--Fearful Scenes of
Suffering--Wounds, Filth, and Disease--Heavy
Mortality--Antiseptics exhausted--Appearance of Gangrene--My
Anatolian Soldier--Pyæmia Rampant 248
CHAPTER XI.
THE HORRORS OF THE HOSPITAL.
Some of my Hospital Cases--A Death from Jaundice--Small-pox and
Typhoid Fever--Hospital Gangrene--Waiting for the Burial
Parties--Horrible Depression--I am slightly wounded--Turkish
Florence Nightingales--A Ghastly Case--I am powerless for want
of Stores--The Men die off like Sheep--Arrival of a Party of
English Doctors--A Welcome Visit--Dr. Bond Moore and Dr.
Mackellar--Dr. George Stoker Sick--Interview with Osman
Pasha--His Reception of the English Doctors--Osman Pasha's
Position--The English Doctors indignant--Osman Pasha
justified--A Ride to the Krishin Redoubts--The English Doctors
under Fire--My Reasons for leaving Plevna--A Farewell
Supper--Mustapha Bey and the Whisky--The Departure of the
Wounded--Good-bye to Plevna 277
CHAPTER XII.
FROM CONSTANTINOPLE TO ERZEROUM.
Life in Constantinople--Sir Collingwood Dickson--Visit to the
Seraskierat--Roving Englishmen--A Typical Adventurer--War
Correspondents--General Berdan--Colonel Valentine Baker--A
Picnic on the Gulf of Ismet--On Board H.M.S. _Achilles_--The
Turks as Paymasters--A Heavy Fee--Round the _Cafés
Chantants_--An Invitation to Erzeroum--Road to Plevna closed--I
join the Stafford House Ambulance--A Farewell Banquet--A Voyage
in the Black Sea--Trebizond--In the Cradle of Humanity--The
Road of Xenophon's Ten Thousand--Lazistan--Dog and Wolf--An
Ancient Mining Town--The Valley of Pear Trees--Baiburt--Cross
and Crescent in Former Days--A Mountain Road--Genoese Ruins--A
Hasty Descent--On the Kopdagh--The Garden of Eden--First
Glimpse of the Euphrates--Sir Arnold Kemball--Erzeroum at
Last--English Doctors--Mr. Zohrab--Mukhtar Pasha--Organizing
our Hospitals--Sunlight and Shadow--A Presage of Trouble 303
CHAPTER XIII.
A BELEAGUERED CITY.
The Scourge of Typhus--Pyæmia and Pneumonia--Terrible
Cold--Outposts frozen to death--Fall of Kars--The March of the
Wounded--One Hundred and Eighty Miles over the Snow--Ghastly
Effects of Frostbite--The Skeleton Hands--Overcrowding in the
Hospitals--Dr. Fetherstonhaugh falls Ill--A Strange
Delusion--"After Long Years"--Edmund O'Donovan--A Circassian
Dinner Party--Sucking-pig _à l'Irlandaise_--A Novel
Target--Departure of Mr. Zohrab--We move into the
Consulate--Exodus to Erzinghan--An Awful Sacrifice--Christmas
in a Besieged Town--A Remarkable Plum Pudding--Illness of
Pinkerton--Funerals in Erzeroum--Casting out the Dead--"The
Lean Dogs beneath the Wall"--An Army Surgeon's Death--I fall
Sick with Typhus--Heroic Devotion of James Denniston--Some of
my Nurses--How I recovered--A Scientific Experiment--The Brain
of a Comatose Person--Vachin's Discomfiture 330
CHAPTER XIV.
THE SURRENDER OF ERZEROUM.
Convalescence--_Membra Disjecta_--Mortality among the Medical
Staff--"En haut Mystère, en bas Misère"--Arrival of Dr. Stoker
and Dr. Stiven--A Desperate Journey--In the Hands of the
Russians--Free under the English Flag--I resume Duty--An
Archæological Curio--Antiques for Sale--An Armistice
declared--Appearance of the Russians--The Gates thrown
Open--Entry of the Russian Army--Our Russian _Confrères_--The
Advantage of knowing French--A Friend in need--Captain
Pizareff--An Impressive Review--Under the Russian Eagles--War
or Peace?--Interview with General Melikoff--An Unpleasant Type
of Consul--Charming Russian Visitors--I receive a
Decoration--Celebrating the Occasion--Our Russian Guests--A
Series of Dinner Parties--Duties of a Cossack Escort--A
Perilous Adventure--The Hero of Devoi Boyun--We leave the
Consulate--Fate's Irony at the Last--Death of General Heymann
358
CHAPTER XV.
THE END OF THE WAR.
Helping Sick Russians--A Squalid Scene--Work of the Russian
Doctors--Melikoff's Appreciation--Arrival of the Red Cross
Staff--A Novel Candlestick--Great Explosion--The Erzeroum Fire
Brigade--Preparations for our Departure--A Practical Joke on a
Persian--A Pleasant Interlude--The Princess at Erzeroum--Mr.
Zohrab's Library comes in Useful--Our Spanish Widow--Riding on
a Pack-saddle--A Slow March--The Widow meets with
Accidents--Restricted Sleeping Accommodation--We turn Two
Corpses out of Bed--End of a Pack-horse--My Cats from Van--The
Valley of Pear Trees--Trebizond at last 388
CHAPTER XVI.
CONCLUSION.
We fly from the Widow--Arrival at Constantinople--English
Philanthropy--The Baroness Burdett-Coutts--First Acquaintance
with a well known Actress--Osman Pasha back again--The Turkish
Skobeleff--A much perforated Paletot--Captain Morisot's
Career--A Romantic Escape--On Board the _Gamboge_--We reach
Smyrna--Mr. and Mrs. Zohrab--A Sympathetic Englishwoman--Zara
Dilber Effendi--Back in London--Patriotic Ditties--An
Incredulous Music-hall Proprietor--Non é Vero--Bowling out a
Story-teller 414
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
CHARLES S. RYAN, M.B., C.M., EDIN. _Frontispiece_
MAP OF PLEVNA AND ITS ENVIRONS _Facing p. 136_
" " TREBIZOND AND ERZEROUM " 348
UNDER THE RED CRESCENT.
CHAPTER I.
FROM MELBOURNE TO SOFIA.
Autobiographical--My Wanderjahr--First Glimpse of
Servians--Rome--A Prospective Mother-in-law--Sad Result of
eating Chops--A Spanish Poet--The Chance of a Lifetime--How I
seized it--Garcia's Gold Watch--The Via del Poppo--Off to
London--Engaged by the Turkish Government--Vienna
revisited--Stamboul--Origin of the Crescent--Misserie's
Hotel--The Turkish Character--A Splendid Belvedere--View from
the Seraskierat Tower--Scutari and Florence
Nightingale--Stamboul by Day and Night--Scene in a Bazaar--Three
Sundays a Week--A Trip to Sweet Waters--Veiled Beauties--I am
gazetted to a Regiment--An Official Dinner--Off to the Front--A
Compulsory Shave--My Charger--The March to Sofia--My First
Patient--Prescription for a Malingerer--Mehemet Ali--My Soldier
Servant--Diagnosing my Cases--Bulgarians at Home--At
Sofia--MacGahan the War Correspondent--Learning Turkish--A
Dinner in Camp--Leniency to Bulgarians--A Lady Patient--So near
and yet so far--From Pirot to Nish--The Wounded--My First
Operation.
People have often asked me how it was that I, an Australian, came to
take a part in the defence of the Ottoman Empire, and to serve as a
military surgeon under the Red Crescent, which, as every one knows, is
the Turkish equivalent of the Red Cross of the Geneva Convention. Red
Cross and Red Crescent are alike the symbols of a humanitarian spirit,
in which philosophers and students of ethics profess to see the small
beginnings of a future age of universal peace; but as for me, I have
seen how Cossacks and Circassians fight, and I cannot help regarding the
future prophesied by the philosopher as an impossible dream. When one
has seen a soldier of a civilized force sawing off the head of a wounded
but still living enemy with the edge of his sword-bayonet, it requires
an unusually optimistic nature to believe in the abolition of war and a
perpetual comity of nations.
It was as the outcome of my _Wanderjahr_--the sweet old German custom
which sends every young man roaming when he has completed the technical
training of his future avocation--that I first smelt powder and saw the
glint of the Russian bayonets. The Wanderjahr of the German seems to be
an unconscious survival of the nomadic instinct of primitive man--a
small concession, as it were, to the roving habits that took his
ancestors the Huns and Visigoths to Rome. It lets a young man escape
from the fixed atmosphere of "staying point," as our American friends
call it in one locality, into the "largior æther," the wider life of
travel. And here I must be excused for introducing a little bit of
necessary autobiography.
I must record that, after spending three years at the Melbourne
University, I went to Edinburgh to finish my medical course; and having
taken my degree there, I was launched at the age of one and twenty, as
an expressive colloquialism puts it, "on my own hook." Thus it was that
I began a period of wandering over Europe which ultimately landed me in
my ambulance at Plevna in July, 1877. I need not dwell upon those early
travels, except to say that the allowance which my father made me
enabled me to go far and to see much. Like Odysseus of old, I could say
that "many were the men whose manners I saw and whose cities I knew."
After a run round Norway and Sweden, I spent a few months in Bohemian
Paris, and then went on to Bonn, where I attended the clinic of
Professor Busch, and indulged in all sorts of romantic visions under the
shadow of the castled crag of Drachenfels and the Sieben Gebirge. Next I
made my way down to Vienna, where the sight of some Servians in their
national costume gave me my first glimpse into the romance of the proud
and chivalrous peoples of the Balkan States, and fired me with a desire
to see Constantinople itself. During those months at Vienna I knew my
"Schöne Blaue Donau" well, and often made excursions as far as Pressburg
and Buda-Pesth, looking forward to the day when I could get an
opportunity to follow the great water-way down to Rustchuk, and so into
Turkish territory. But for the time being I got no chance, and travelled
instead through Styria and Bavaria, finally turning southward, and
finishing in Rome.
It was about this time that I met a Spanish surgeon, Senhor Garcia
C----, who was connected incidentally with the events immediately
leading up to my appointment as a surgeon to the Turkish troops. He was
a delightful companion, but improvident in money matters; and I hope he
will pardon me after this lapse of years for disclosing the fact that he
made me his banker, inasmuch as it reduced me to such a low financial
ebb that, had it not been for his gold watch, I am afraid I should never
have seen the inside of the Grivitza redoubt. I remember that he and I
put up when at Rome in a very fashionable and exclusive "pension," to
which I had been introduced by a French count whom I met in Paris. I was
always regarded, perhaps on account of my name, as a good Roman
Catholic; and but for an unfortunate little contretemps I might have
married into a princely Italian family there and then, and never had to
eat dead horse on a campaign at all.
It was this way. Among the other residents in the "pension" was an old
Italian marchioness, who had brought her two daughters to Rome to
introduce them to his Holiness the Pope. She was kind enough to take a
great interest in me; and there is no knowing what might have
happened--the elder daughter was really a charming girl--if it had not
been for that unlucky incident of the mutton chops. On the second Friday
that I was there an elderly Scotch lady, who was a rigid Presbyterian,
and took no trouble to conceal the aversion with which she regarded all
Papists, ordered mutton chops in the middle of the day for her lunch.
When I came in from a visit to the Vatican I was very hungry. The chops
were brought in, and they smelt very good; so, as the Scotch lady was
late, I forgot the consideration due to age and rigid Presbyterianism, I
forgot my scruples as a supposed good Catholic, I forgot that it was
Friday--and I ate them. Next day the marchioness stuck me up in a
corner, and asked me how I could disgrace myself by eating grilled chops
on a Friday; she led me to understand that I had deceived her, and she
withdrew an invitation which she had given me to visit her and renew my
acquaintance with her charming daughter. Thus ended my first and last
chance of a dukedom.
After a few weeks in Rome, I began to get seriously embarrassed from a
financial point of view. Garcia was a charming fellow; but he was a
poet, and, like all poets, he had expensive habits. He even challenged
me to a duel once for laughing at some of his verses; but when I
threatened to kick him, he fell on my neck and embraced me. However, my
purse was not long enough to sustain the two of us, and I was sitting in
a little café one day considering the position and glancing idly over
the _Times_, when my eye fell on an advertisement announcing that the
Turkish Government had vacancies for twenty military surgeons, and
inviting applications. I read the advertisement again with delight, and
at once determined to send in an application. Here was a chance of
seeing life with a vengeance. But my spirits fell at once. I had only a
few liras in my pocket; and how on earth was I to get to the Turkish
Embassy in London? C---- was in his usual poetic condition of
impecuniosity, and I was afraid to think how much he owed me. But I
could not afford to be chivalrous, or I might lose the opportunity of a
lifetime; so I tackled him at once. He assured me with tears in his eyes
that he had not even the price of a flask of Chianti in his pockets; but
I was inexorable. I pointed out to him that he had a very fine gold
watch,--it was really a remarkably valuable timepiece, and had come down
to him as an heirloom from some haughty old Castilian grandee. I
impressed upon him that a gold watch is a most unsuitable adornment to a
penniless person, who is moreover in debt, and I indicated to him a
means by which it could be converted into currency of the realm. I think
he felt it very much, poor fellow; but it was not a time for being
over-scrupulous, and the heirloom of the Hidalgo of old Castile was duly
deposited with the Roman equivalent for "my uncle" in a small and stuffy
establishment situated in a narrow street with the suggestive name of
the Via del Poppo. In return we received twenty-five napoleons--it was
certainly an extremely handsome watch. Garcia gave me enough to take me
to Neuchâtel, where I counted on receiving fresh supplies, and I let him
keep the balance. So I left my Spaniard with a flask of wine before him
in the city of the Cæsars, and I never saw him again. Peace be to his
soul! He was intended by nature for an Irishman.
I wanted to go through to Neuchâtel; but when I got to Turin, there was
a fresh difficulty to be overcome. The Po had overflowed its banks, and
the railway was washed away, so that there was no possibility of
continuing the journey until next morning. I had not enough money to go
to a hotel, so I walked about the streets of Turin all night.
Shakespeare has something to say about people who
wallow naked in December snow
By thinking on fantastic summer's heat.
And as I wandered through the cold, dark streets of Turin, I warmed
myself by imagination in the sunbeams that played on the gilded
pinnacles of the Seraglio and the marble towers of St. Sophia in far
away Stamboul.
At Neuchâtel I found supplies awaiting me at the post office, and I
hurried across to London at once, where I sought out the late Mr. J. E.
Francis, of Melbourne, who was an old friend of my father, and asked his
advice about going to Constantinople. "Go by all means, my dear boy,"
was his cheery reply; "and I will tell your father that I advised you to
take the chance." I had excellent credentials from my professors in
Edinburgh; and armed with a letter of introduction to Dr. Forbes, who
was the doctor to the Turkish Embassy, I presented myself at the
embassy, and sought an interview with Musurus Pasha, then the Turkish
ambassador in London. The ambassador was engaged; but I had an audience
with one of his sons, and two days afterwards I was _en route_ for
Constantinople, with £25 for expenses in my pocket, and an agreement
with the Turkish Government to perform the duties of a military surgeon
at a salary of £200 a year, paid monthly in gold. They gave me a letter
to the Seraskierat, or War Office, at Constantinople, and instructed me
to report myself there for duty forthwith. Among the other nineteen
selected applicants were two whom I knew, one named Geoffrey, and a
fellow named Stephenson, who had been at Edinburgh with me. Naturally I
was in high spirits at my success; and when I reached Vienna and looked
up all my old pals, we had a great day on the Danube on the occasion of
the first regatta held there, and finished up with fireworks and other
jollifications in the evening. After a couple of days at Vienna, we went
through Buda-Pesth and Belgrade to Bazias, where we took steamer and
voyaged down the Danube to Rustchuk.
What a magnificent trip it was! I knew the Rhine pretty well while I was
at Bonn: I remembered the great stream that tumbled over the falls of
Schaffhausen beyond Mainz, swept along past St. Goar and Bingen, the
home of that soldier of the legion who lay dying in Algiers, down to
Coblenz, where Marceau fell, and Ehrenbreitstein, the great fortress
that now no longer frowns threateningly out towards France. I remembered
the castles perched high on the beetling cliffs, and how strange the
setting sun used to look when seen through their deserted windows. I
recalled the haunted spot where the Loreley used to sing, and the
towering heights of the Drachenfels, where the hills finally ceased,
leaving the river to broaden out and flow more sluggishly between the
low-lying banks down to Bonn and to Cologne, and thence away towards the
misty flats and the grey distances of Holland. But to my excited fancy,
fired as I was by the prospect of being brought under the spell and the
glamour of Islam and of serving under the Mussulman flag, the
recollection of the fairy-like beauty of the Rhine faded before the dark
grandeur of the river that was bearing me farther with every revolution
of the paddle-wheels from European associations, and nearer to strange,
new experiences among the subjects of the Shadow of God. At times we
steamed through fairly open reaches, and at times through seething
rapids, with the dark water swirling about the bows, and the still
darker cliffs rising till they almost seemed to touch over our heads.
It was a two days' voyage down to Rustchuk; and I shall never forget my
sensations when I caught my first glimpse of Turkish troops on one of
the islands in the middle of the stream. Among my fellow passengers was
a Mr. Jeune (now Sir Francis Jeune). He had been out in Australia as
counsel in the Tichborne case, and had met my father. When he heard that
I came from Australia, he took an interest in me, and I found in him a
sympathetic listener as I confided my ambitions to him. Among the others
on board with me were Captain the Honourable Randolph Stewart, a Queen's
Messenger going down with despatches to Constantinople, and several of
my professional brethren, including Dr. George Stoker, brother of Bram
Stoker, Sir Henry Irving's manager, Dr. Simon Eccles, a well known
London physician, and a Dr. Butler, an eccentric old fellow who had been
in the Crimea. There were a number of pretty Roumanian women on board
too, and altogether we had a jolly party.
At Rustchuk we took the train for Varna, the seaport on the Black Sea
which was our point of embarkation for Constantinople; and here I
remember old Dr. Butler lost his ticket, and the Queen's Messenger had
to use all his influence to prevent an angry little Turkish
station-master from "running him in." At last, however, we were all
safely on board an Austrian Lloyd's steamer for the last stage of our
journey, a short voyage of twelve hours; and I got my first insight into
polygamous Turkey by discovering an aged Turk who came on board with his
harem, a huddling little band of beauties veiled to the eyes, who were
housed in a sort of canvas tent on deck, and at whose faces I made
several unsuccessful attempts to get a peep.
Next morning we saw Stamboul rising out of the Bosphorus, and my dreams
were at last fulfilled. Fresh, as one might say, from Melbourne, which
forty years before was a camping-ground for blacks, I saw before me in
this gorgeous vision of mosques and minarets, dark green cypress groves,
towers of gleaming marble, and gilded pinnacles of the far Seraglio, a
city of unknown antiquity. The story goes that, more than three hundred
years before the Christian era, the Athenians, inspired by the burning
eloquence of Demosthenes, fought to defend it against Philip of Macedon.
One dark night, so the veracious historians of that period tell us, the
Macedonians were on the point of carrying the city by assault, when a
shining crescent appeared in the sky, disclosed the creeping forms of
the enemy, and enabled the beleaguered forces to repel the attack with
such vigour that the Macedonians raised the siege and retired. Such was
the origin of the crescent which figures on old Byzantine coins, and
when the Osmanlis captured Constantinople they adopted it as their
national device. It is a pretty story, and well--"si non é vero é ben
trovato." I saw before me a city which had already been besieged
twenty-four times since its foundation and captured six times. Among
others, Persians, Spartans, Athenians, Romans, Avars, Arabs, Russians,
Crusaders, and Greeks had besieged it before it fell at last under the
terrific assault of the forces of Mahomed II. in 1453. I landed at
Galata, the port of Pera, which is separated from Stamboul proper by the
Golden Horn, and went straight up to Misserie's Hotel, which is to
Constantinople what Shepheard's Hotel is to Cairo, one of the famous
hostelries of the world.
Next day we reported ourselves at the War Office. We were shown into a
room where four or five old pashas were sitting cross-legged on divans,
and we handed in our credentials. We presented our respects through the
medium of an interpreter, and I was told to leave my address and hold
myself in readiness for active service at once in the Servian war, which
had then been going on for about six weeks.
I was no longer a civilian. I was now commissioned as a military surgeon
in the service of the Sublime Porte, and engaged in a practice which
included some three hundred thousand patients more or less, of whose
language I was entirely ignorant, and of whose manners all previous
impressions had taught me to be suspicious. It is right to say here, at
the outset, that my experience of over two years among the Turks proved
to me that the estimate formed of their character by other reputedly
more civilized nations was entirely false and misleading. That there was
a large amount of corruption in the officialdom of Turkey at that time
was no doubt true; but the real samples of national character, the men
in the rank and file of the army, I found to be simple-minded,
courteous, honourable, and honest in time of peace, while braver men on
the battle-field than those who fought under Osman Pasha at Plevna are
not to be found in Europe. The magnificent physique and robust
constitution of the ordinary Turkish private soldiers I believe to be
due mainly to two causes. In the first place they never touch alcohol,
and in the second the traditions of Turkish social life and the rigid
guardianship exercised over Turkish women have effectually kept out the
scrofulous taint which has so appreciably affected the populations of
other European nationalities.
Having been gazetted at once as an army surgeon with the rank of
_colghassi_, or major, which entitled me, among other privileges, to
draw rations for four men, I left the luxuries of Misserie's Hotel
behind me, and installed myself in the barracks close to the War Office,
with a determination to see as much as possible of Stamboul before we
were ordered to the front.
There are few cities in the world where nightfall makes such a
difference as in Stamboul. By day the surroundings of the city as well
as the city itself make up a kind of earthly paradise. I climbed the
tower of the Seraskierat, and gazed with astonishment at the panorama
which lay before me. I saw two seas, the Black Sea and the Sea of
Marmora; two straits, the Bosphorus and the Dardanelles; two gulfs, the
Gulf of Ismet and the Gulf of Nicodema. At my feet lay twenty different
cities, the houses of which, painted with the true Oriental love of
bright colours, nestled against a background of hills clothed with
patches of dark cypress and tall, spiry pines. Before me was the spot
where two continents meet; and as my eye passed from the streets of
Stamboul in Europe to Scutari lying yonder across the mouth of the
Bosphorus in Asia, I realized how the tide of Eastern thought had swept
across the waters of this narrow strait, and left its mark indelibly
upon the strange people among whom I had come to take the chances of the
battle-field. I knew too that across there in Scutari was the
burial-ground where the bones of those English officers and men who died
in hospital after the Crimea lay buried, and I felt that with the brave
dead of my own race so near me I was in good company. The old military
hospital at Scutari has been turned into barracks now; but the room
which Miss Florence Nightingale occupied while she was performing her
mission of mercy to the wounded there is still preserved untouched,
while her name is kept in affectionate remembrance by the sons of many
whom she nursed back to life, or whose last hours she soothed with
womanly ministering. As I looked out upon the landscape, I saw it set in
the clear atmosphere of Southern Europe, so that every separate minaret
stood sharply out and the marble domes of St. Sophia glistened in the
bright sunlight.
All is warmth and colour, life and brightness, in Stamboul by day. By
night, however, the difference is appalling. The streets were never
lighted, and people were not supposed to be out after nine o'clock. If
one went out at all, one went at one's own risk, and took the chance of
attack by any of the thousands of stray dogs that prowl at will about
the city and camp undisturbed in the streets. To one who had been
accustomed to Paris and Vienna, where it is never night in this sense,
where gas and arc lamps form an admirable substitute for sunlight, and
where the patter of feet on the _trottoirs_ and the hum of human life in
the cafés are practically ceaseless, the sensation of wandering through
these dark, deserted streets among hordes of starving curs was a strange
one. By day Constantinople is modern, pulsating, alive. By night, with
those dogs about, it is like one of those deserted cities of a long
forgotten civilization, in which Briton Rivière shows us the panther and
the tiger that have taken the place of man.
During my stay in Stamboul I often walked through the bazaars, where
solemn old Turks in baggy breeches sought to swindle me with polite
decorum, and where the whole atmosphere breathed of the _Arabian
Nights_. One half expected to see Prince Camaralzaman come swaggering
down the street, with his scimitar clanking on the pavement behind him;
or Amina or Zobeide, heavily veiled, and with only her dark eyes showing
through the _yashmak's_ folds, slide past demurely with a sidelong
glance at the stranger from the West.
The population of Constantinople do not believe in overwork; and for
business purposes there are practically three Sundays in the
week--namely, the Turkish Sunday, which falls on our Friday; the Jewish
Sunday, which falls on Saturday; and the Christian Sunday. I went out
one day to the "Sweet Waters," a favourite picnic place near the head of
the Golden Horn, where the Turkish women and children enjoy their
holiday under the trees, and the real Turkey lolly-men drive a thriving
trade in sweetmeats and sherbet. It was curious to note how the veneer
of Western social routine was superimposed upon the changeless
institutions of the East. I saw the ladies from the harems of sundry
wealthy Turkish gentlemen driving out to "Sweet Waters" in the afternoon
in carriages as perfectly appointed as any that roll through Hyde Park
or the Bois de Boulogne in the height of the London or Paris season. Two
ladies from one harem generally occupied one carriage; and the gigantic
eunuch on the box, who was responsible for them while they were out
under his charge, would use his London carriage whip without hesitation
on the heads and shoulders of any young Turkish or Giaour mashers who
attempted to make eyes at the closely guarded beauties.
I spent many a pleasant hour too in the long, narrow _caïques_ that
plied for hire on the waters of the Golden Horn like the gondolas of
Venice; but I still had much to see when, after a week's stay, an
official communication was handed to me informing me that I had been
appointed regimental surgeon to the Kyrchehir Regiment, so named from
the town in Asia Minor where it had been raised. I packed my portmanteau
at once, and followed the messenger, who led me to the barracks where
the regiment was quartered, and where I was introduced to my new
colonel. He was most polite, and invited me to have supper with him; and
then it was that I had my first really Turkish meal. I cannot truthfully
say that I enjoyed it; and when my host, to mark the warmth of his
hospitality, picked up a piece of chicken off his own plate in his
fingers and placed it in my mouth, I must confess that I almost spoilt
all my chances of a distinguished military career by an instantaneous
attack of nausea. I spent the night in the barracks tossing sleeplessly
on a divan, and soon after daybreak marched down with my regiment to the
railway station.
The regiment, which was eight hundred strong, was officered by a
colonel, two majors, eight captains, sixteen lieutenants, and a
paymaster. When the process of entraining was completed, I found myself
_en route_ at six o'clock in the morning for a destination of which I
knew nothing, and in company with a regiment of troops who were as
ignorant of English as I was of Turkish. I was accommodated in a
compartment with the colonel, the two majors, and the paymaster, Mehemet
Ali, with whom I afterwards chummed up and lived on terms of the
closest friendship. It was decidedly awkward, however, at first; for as
the Turkish officers could speak neither French nor German, all
communications between us had to be by signs. The men were packed
closely together, and the train crawled slowly on towards the terminus,
stopping for one hour in every three. We were three days and two nights
on the journey towards Tatar Bazardjik, and I had plenty of time and
opportunities for forming an opinion as to the kind of men with whom my
lot was cast. I found that these men, who were all conscripts, formed
the second regiment which had been raised at Kyrchehir, and fine fellows
they were. I could have picked fifty men from among them who were as
grand specimens of physical humanity as could be found anywhere in the
world. They were all well clothed in the serviceable infantry uniform,
and were armed with the Martini-Peabody rifle.
We camped each night at a railway station, and I remember on the morning
of the second day seeing an old pasha who was organizing troops locally
come galloping down to inspect us. Our regiment was paraded, and the
pasha rode down the lines scanning the men closely. Presently he spotted
me, and, seeing at a glance that I was not a Turk, he addressed a
question to the colonel, who evidently replied that I was their new
English surgeon. The pasha trotted up to where I stood at attention, and
addressed some incoherent query to me; but as I could not even
conjecture what it was all about, I imitated the gentleman whom Tennyson
speaks of, and "smiling put the question by." I thought that the old
pasha looked hurt; but the mystery was soon cleared up by the arrival of
his own private barber with razor, soap, and brush. It seemed that "side
boards" were not allowed in the Turkish army, and the small hairy
appendages which covered my youthful cheeks, and of which, to tell the
truth, I was rather proud, had deeply offended the old pasha's trained
sense of order. So I had to submit myself to the pasha's barber, and in
a few minutes the offensive adornments were removed, and I could no
longer be distinguished from any of my Turkish colleagues.
At last we reached Tatar Bazardjik at eleven o'clock at night; and as
there was no accommodation at the railway station, camp-fires were lit,
and the regiment bivouacked for the night. Next morning at five o'clock
I was roused up, and the colonel brought up four horses, giving me to
understand by signs that I was to select one for a charger. I chose a
little grey stallion, a powerful animal, with a look of endurance about
him. He had a heavy Turkish peaked saddle on him, a most uncomfortable
thing to ride in until one gets used to it; but there was no choice in
the matter, so I had to make myself as comfortable in it as I could.
Then we started on the march for Sofia, and a very unpleasant march it
was at first.
It was then the month of June, and the weather was intensely hot; while,
to add to our discomforts, a terrific duststorm swept down on us soon
after leaving the bivouac, filling eyes, noses, and ears with fine,
impalpable powder, and getting down the men's throats so that they could
hardly breathe. The regiment marched all day, and of course I assumed
that a good many of the men would be knocked up; but at five o'clock we
halted, and pitched camp for the night, having covered about twelve
miles of the journey.
Soon after the tents were pitched I had my first patient to attend. They
brought up a man who had all the symptoms of an ordinary fit, and I had
to make up my mind at once whether it was a genuine fit or whether he
was malingering to avoid duty. It seemed to be a real fit, and then
again there was something suspicious about it. I knew that if I was
imposed upon at the outset I should have endless trouble, so I took my
resolution at once, and explained by signs to Colonel Suleiman, who was
standing by, that the man was shamming. The colonel's remedy for cases
of this kind was drastic, but very effective. He had the patient sent to
the rear, and given a round three dozen with a stick on that part of
the person which schoolmasters have found to be especially suited for
the receipt of chastisement. Of course the word was quickly passed
round, and I had no more cases of fits to attend to during the march.
I shared a tent with Mehemet Ali, the paymaster, who turned out to be a
really good fellow. He was a little man with a very fair complexion--his
mother was a Circassian--and he had twinkling steel grey eyes. He was
the strongest man I ever met. I had a horse, but I still wanted a
servant, so Mehemet Ali brought up four men for my inspection. I chose a
man named Ahmet, an Asiatic Turk and a married man with five children.
He turned out a splendid servant; but, poor fellow, he never saw his
home again, and his bones lie buried with those of many of his
countrymen on the banks of the Danube at Widdin.
Next morning I was given to understand that I should have to see a
number of patients; however, I fortified myself with two or three
Turkish phrases, and went my rounds without trepidation. My diagnosis
was in each case remarkable for simplicity, and I asked few needless
questions. My first remark was invariably, "Dilli nitchika," which
means, "Put out your tongue." If the man seemed really feverish and bad,
I remarked authoritatively, "Hoiti araba," which means, "Go to the
waggon," and I allowed him to ride in the waggon instead of
route-marching. If I had any doubts as to the genuineness of the
indisposition, I ejaculated sharply, "Hoiti balook," which means, "Go to
your company." Of course all the men who were really ill I made to take
two paces to the rear, and when my inspection was finished I prescribed
for them, and dispensed my prescriptions from the well equipped
regimental medicine chest.
It took the regiment five days altogether to march to Sofia, the
colonel, the two majors, the paymaster, an adjutant, and myself being
the only mounted officers. At first the route lay through mountainous
and very picturesque country, heavily timbered with pines, beeches,
elms, and walnuts. The walnut trees seemed to grow wild throughout the
country, and the nuts were in great profusion.
One night we stopped at the Bulgarian village of Ichtiman, and for the
first time I saw Bulgarians at close quarters and slept in a Bulgarian
house. Dirt appeared to be the national characteristic of Bulgaria, and
a cheerful disregard of all sanitary rules a leading feature in the
national disposition. For size and ferocity I have never seen the
domestic insects of Bulgaria equalled; and in the brief armistices which
occurred in the unequal combats of that horrible night, I longed for my
clean and cosy quarters in the paymaster's tent again. The Bulgarian
men are tall and fair, and the samples that came under my notice wore
huge bonnets of black sheepskin and baggy garments of a kind of coarse
yellow frieze of their own weaving. Instead of boots they wore sandals
laced to the knee in Spanish fashion, and their whole appearance was
grimy and forbidding to a degree. Most of the inhabitants of the village
disappeared into the surrounding hills on our arrival, and the few who
remained forbore to present us with an address of welcome or to erect a
triumphal arch in our honour. Sullenly and suspiciously they offered us
bowls of _yuoart_ to eat, a horrible sticky mess made of curdled milk,
of which I partook to my subsequent sorrow.
At last we came in sight of Sofia, the capital of Bulgaria. It lay at
the farther end of a great plain dotted here and there with Bulgarian
villages, well watered by a river running through it, and nicely
timbered like a great park. Against the dark background of the hills, to
use a pretty line of Tennyson's, "the city sparkled like a grain of
salt." Sofia was then a place of about twenty thousand inhabitants, and
the seat of government. At one time the famous Midhat Pasha was the
governor of this vilayet.
The regiment moved in column of route along the main road through the
plain towards the white houses glinting in the sunshine, every man
stepping jauntily as the close of the long march drew near. But Sofia
looked better at a distance than it did under our noses. At that time
there was only one hotel in the place, a filthy little _cabaret_ kept by
a Greek, whose views with regard to beds and meals were most primitive.
The railway runs right through from Stamboul to Sofia and beyond now,
and French cooking has replaced the black bread and beans which formed
the Spartan fare placed before his guests by that "base scion of a noble
stock" who took us in and "did for us" in '76.
The first English-speaking person whom I met in Sofia was MacGahan, the
war correspondent for a London newspaper, and from him I learnt at last
where I was and what was happening round us. We dined together, and he
told me how the Servians had been beaten all along the line. I found
that there were four other Turkish regiments besides my own quartered in
Sofia; and among the English surgeons attached to the troops I was glad
to find an old friend named Stiven, with whom I could exercise my tongue
at last after my enforced silence of the previous week.
However, I was already able to speak a few words of Turkish, and the
paymaster used to give me lessons regularly, pointing to the different
articles in our tent and repeating the Turkish word for each until I had
grasped it thoroughly. I conformed to Turkish customs of course in
everything, and soon accustomed myself to my new surroundings. What
strikes a new chum in Turkey very much at first is the absence of
chairs. I never saw a chair there; but I soon learned to sit down to
dinner on my own haunches on the ground with my brother officers. A
Turkish dinner was a curious meal. First my servant brought me a basin
of water, soap, and towel, and I washed my hands, preparatory to
attacking the soup with my wooden spoon. Mehemet Ali and I used to eat
out of the same bowl, dipping our wooden spoons in alternately. The
_pièce de résistance_ was invariably _pilaf_, or boiled rice, with
little bits of meat cut up in it, and sometimes scraps of chicken or
turkey when we could get hold of any. The pilaf was eaten with the
fingers; and the dexterity with which an experienced Turk would fossick
out a tender bit of the liver, wing, or a satisfying "drumstick," from
the superincumbent mass of rice reminded one strongly of a digger
unearthing nuggets in a patch of rich alluvial.
It was astonishing at Sofia to notice the humane way in which the Turks
treated the Bulgarians, who were to all intents and purposes a hostile
people, and who never lost an opportunity of showing their hostility
whenever they could do so with safety to themselves. During the whole of
the time that I was in Sofia I never saw a Bulgarian ill treated; and I
think it only right to emphasize this point, because, either from want
of knowledge or from that tendency to take _omne ignotum pro malefico_
which is so common to mankind, the other nations of Europe have
contrived to affix the stigma of barbarous cruelty to the Turks in such
a manner that it is difficult to remove or even to lessen the
impression. All I can say is that, as an unprejudiced observer with
ample opportunities, I never saw any cruelties inflicted during a state
of peace, nor any punishments dealt out to Bulgarians except in cases
where they were fully deserved. The Turk when under fire does not fight
with rose-water any more than the soldier of reputedly more civilized
nations; but if needless barbarities were committed by both Turks and
Russians when their blood was up, one has to remember the grim remark of
the great Frenchman that one cannot have an omelet without breaking a
few eggs.
It was in Sofia that I was called in to attend my first lady patient;
and the case is worth noting as an illustration of the difference
between Eastern and Western methods of diagnosis. In Turkey a
practitioner does not get much to go on in forming an opinion. A wealthy
old Turk in the town who had an extensive harem wanted advice for one of
his wives, and I was asked to call and see her. I gladly accepted the
opportunity, and followed my guides, a couple of eunuchs, and an
interpreter to a fine house, where they took me upstairs and halted
outside a thick, heavy curtain reaching from the ceiling to the floor.
Inside was the harem, an institution which I had always had a scientific
curiosity to see, and at last I felt that my ambition in this direction
was to be realized. A few low spoken words in Turkish were whispered at
the edge of the curtain by a tall black-garbed eunuch, and then I heard
the rustle of draperies approaching on the other side. A low toned
colloquy ensued between the eunuch, who seemed to be threatening, and my
interesting patient, whose accents had in them a touch of plaintive
entreaty. Presently a white and beautifully moulded arm was shyly
insinuated through the space between the wall and the edge of the
curtain, while the eunuch bade me, through the mediumship of the
interpreter, diagnose the complaint from which the fair one suffered and
prescribe a remedy. The hand was small and finely formed, and above the
wrist was a heavy bangle of beaten gold. I felt the pulse, which was
fluttering and unsteady, and clasped the white and tremulous fingers,
feeling that with such slight data to go upon any treatment that I could
prescribe would not be likely to enhance my reputation. Accordingly I
demanded to be admitted, in order that I might see and question the
patient, whom I judged to be a Circassian or a Georgian girl certainly
not more than one and twenty, and probably pretty. A long debate
ensued, in which the eunuchs, the interpreter, and myself took part; but
all my arguments beat unheeded against the rocks of their Oriental
stolidity, and the logic of the whole British Medical Society would not
have sufficed to persuade the principal eunuch to let me see that
unknown lady's tongue. With that thick curtain between us, it was a case
of Pyramus and Thisbe and the wall; so I abandoned my quest after the
unattainable, and lost the only chance that I--plausible Giaour though I
was--ever obtained of seeing the inside of a real Turkish harem.
Probably the lady was eventually treated by a _hakem bashi_, or Turkish
physician and surgeon, many of whom are very clever in their own way, or
by a _jarra bashi_, a sort of "legally qualified medical practitioner,"
who is recognized as a person entitled to prescribe, but whose abilities
do not go much further than drawing teeth or fixing up sore feet.
From Sofia our regiment pushed on to Pirot, close to the Servian border,
where we were brigaded with two other regiments of infantry and
strengthened by a battery of artillery, our mission being to defend the
road into Servia in case of a flank attack. We camped in the hills; and
as I had little work to do, I spent most of my time shooting hares with
the colonel's double-barrelled gun, and also duck, which were very
plentiful. In the evenings I learned to smoke the _narghileh_, and I
also improved my scanty knowledge of Turkish as best I could with the
aid of Mehemet Ali.
At last we got orders to leave, and at daybreak we struck camp. The last
that we saw of this pleasant resting-place was the flame of our burning
camp-stables of brushwood, to which we set fire before we started on our
new march.
After a stay at Ak Palanka, we were moved on to Nish, the headquarters
of the Turkish army; and here I met several English surgeons, who had
been despatched to the seat of war by the Red Cross Society in England.
Among them was Armand Leslie, who was afterwards killed in Egypt, in the
rout and massacre of Baker's poltroon levies while marching from
Trinkitat towards Tokar; and a couple of others, Litton Forbes and Dr.
S----, whom I got to know very well. At this time Nish formed the base
of our army, and the wounded were brought back to us from Alexinatz,
where the fighting was going on. The first sight of those poor fellows,
gashed with sabre and bayonet, torn with shell, and riddled with
rifle-bullets, made me realize the actuality of the conflict in which I
was there to assist.
Life in camp was irksome enough; but I found a difficulty in getting out
of it, for while one of our majors, Edhim Effendi, was a jolly,
good-humoured fellow, who was not above a glass of liquor when he could
get it, the other, Izzet Effendi, was a dry, fanatical Turk, who spent
most of his time at his prayers, and always looked upon me as an
infidel. Izzet Effendi refused to allow me to go into the town; but I
appealed to the colonel, and, having secured his permission, I took up
my quarters in Nish with S---- and Litton Forbes. Then I was drafted to
look after the general hospital, and I left the regiment altogether.
There were about twenty of us in all on the surgical staff, and the
hospital arrangements were excellent. It was here that I performed my
first big operation, the patient being a Turkish infantryman who was
brought in from Alexinatz with his knee shattered by a shell. He refused
to take chloroform, and I took his leg off above the knee without any
anæsthetic. He never said a word, and went on smoking a cigarette all
the time. When the captain came round with his notebook afterwards to
take down the name, age, and regiment of each wounded man, my patient
answered all the questions quietly and unconcernedly while I was
stitching up the flap of skin over the stump. It was a marvellous
exhibition of fortitude, and a striking illustration of the mettle of
the men whom I was soon to see charging with such splendid courage upon
the bayonets of the Russians.