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.
In Constantinople I put up again at Misserie's Hotel. During the fifteen
months that had elapsed since I last saw that comfortable hostelry I had
lived a whole lifetime, and coming back to it again, a war-worn veteran
of twenty-three, the French cooking and the soft beds after many a
dinner of raw maize cobs and many a sleep on the bare earth appealed to
my feelings in the most convincing manner possible.
At this time the eyes of the world were turned towards Plevna, and I
found, somewhat to my astonishment, that my name was already fairly well
known in Stamboul. Every one was anxious to hear something of the famous
victories that had just been won from an eye-witness, and I had to fight
my battles over again in the club and the café, the bureau and the
boudoir, for the benefit of hundreds of patriotic inquirers all eager
for the latest news. Among others I met General Sir Collingwood Dickson,
an old Crimea man, who was intensely interested in the operations
against the enemy, whose grey coats he had seen in front of him some
three and twenty years before at Alma and at Inkermann. It was wonderful
to see the warrior's eyes flashing with the battle-light again, as I
told him the story of the Krishin redoubts--how Skobeleff took them and
held them for one desperate day and night, and how, after many repulses,
the Ottoman troops at five o'clock on the following afternoon poured
over the parapets in a mighty, irresistible wave and swept the Russians
back to the Green Hills once more.
Taking Osman Pasha's letter with me, I paid a visit to the Seraskierat,
and, having presented my introduction, was welcomed most warmly by the
officers of the War Office, who thanked me on behalf of the Turkish
Government for my services. Up to this time the Ottoman troops had been
making a very good fight of it on the whole, in spite of the losses at
the Shipka Pass and on the Lom; and the brilliant victories which Osman
Pasha had been winning encouraged the officers of the Seraskierat to
hope for further successes. It is perhaps outside my purpose here to
criticise in detail the conduct of the operations by the Turkish
Government; but I cannot help referring to the opinion which was very
generally expressed outside that the mismanagement and divided control
at headquarters were entirely responsible for the headway which the
enemy had made up to the present, and that if the brilliant qualities of
the Turkish forces in the field had been supported by a more rational
and consistent policy at Constantinople the peaked caps of the Russians
would never have been seen before Stamboul.
My mother, whom I was very anxious to see, was in England at this time,
and I had written to her upon my arrival in Constantinople. While I
waited to get a reply from her, I had plenty of time to look about me
and see the change which had taken place in the daily life of the
Turkish capital since my previous visit. Upon the outbreak of a war the
adventurers of all nations seem to emerge from their hiding-places, and
flock to the scene of action for the profit, the pleasure, or the
excitement that they can pick up. The carcase, in fact, was there, and
one could see the eagles gathering together from every quarter. I met a
good many Englishmen of the roving, dare-devil class that has done so
much to build up our own empire, and here in default of an outlet among
Christian nations they were trying all they knew to get into the Turkish
army. Many of them had a special axe to grind of some sort. They had
inventions, new weapons, or improved clothing, or equipment which they
desired to sell to the Turkish Government. For instance, there was a man
called Harris, who had a scheme for blowing up the bridge across the
Danube at Sistova with torpedoes, and was very anxious that I should
join him in his absurd scheme. His idea was to send down the river a
small fleet of torpedoes which would destroy the bridge as soon as they
came into contact with it. How the destruction of the bridge could
hinder the advance of the Russians or alter the course of the campaign
he loftily declined to explain, and my stupidity was such that I missed
this unique opportunity of securing fame and fortune at a blow. Another
man whom I met belonged to a species which is fairly well
distributed--more's the pity--over the outlying portions especially of
the British Empire. He was gentlemanly, well dressed, and by no means
presuming. He talked well, and evidently knew the world. One would take
him to be about thirty-five years of age, though the lines in his
forehead and round the mouth and the streaks of grey in his hair showed
that he had lived all the time. He took a tremendous interest in the
fighting round Plevna, and he invited me to dinner with him one evening.
Let us call him Smith, although that was not his name. Well, I had a
very excellent dinner; and when it was over I had to pay for it myself,
as also for Mr. Smith's own well selected repast and bottle of Château
Léoville. Over the cigars afterwards he casually asked me to lend him
five pounds; but I found, to my regret, that I had not got the money on
me.
If there were plenty of adventurers in Constantinople just then, there
were also plenty of sterling, good fellows always ready to do one a good
turn without any ulterior object. I made a delightful acquaintance, for
instance, when I met Charles Austin, a Fellow of St. John's, Oxford, who
had gone out to Constantinople to act as special correspondent for the
_Times_. Another capital fellow was Frank Ives Scudamore, whom every one
in Constantinople knew. He was the head of the British post-office
there; and when I told him that I had spent twenty pounds of my own
money in telegraphing to the _Standard_ from Widdin when their own
correspondent went away, Scudamore paid me the money out of his own
pocket, telling me that he would get it from the paper. His son was
acting as the correspondent for some London paper too, and I saw a good
deal of him. The names of the Englishmen whom I met in the town at that
exciting time would fill many pages; but I can mention a few of them.
There was Colonel Valentine Baker, for instance (Baker Pasha), who was
accounted one of the finest cavalry officers in Europe, and was engaged
in reorganizing the _gendarmerie_. He had picked out a lot of retired
English officers for positions, and among them I met Colonel Swire,
Colonel Norton, Colonel Alix, and a fire-eating, devil-may-care Irishman
named Briscoe, who had been in the Guards, and who was the life and soul
of the club. An exceptionally interesting old chap was General Berdan,
the inventor of the Russian rifle that bore his name. I looked at the
harmless, gentle old chap with considerable awe when I recollected the
awful scenes in my hospital and the deadly evidences of the hard-hitting
Berdan bullets. There were several fellows who had failed in
examinations at Sandhurst or Woolwich, and were now hunting for glory
where they fancied that a good seat on horseback would be more
serviceable than trigonometry and a fair shot with the revolver would be
more valuable than the most intimate acquaintance with the differential
calculus. A Sir Peter Something-or-other, who was trying to sell
uniforms to the Turkish Government, completes the list of my personal
club acquaintances.
During the few days that I was at Constantinople, Valentine Baker
organized a delightful picnic to the Gulf of Ismet, where the British
fleet were lying, and he invited me to join the party. We went up the
Gulf of Ismet in a small steamer, and at Prinkapo we took on board an
addition to our party including several ladies.
After a few hours' steaming, we came in sight of the ships of the
British squadron riding at anchor on the blue waters of the gulf; and
fighting though I had been under the Turkish flag, I felt a thrill of
pride as our little launch passed under the stern of the mighty
_Téméraire_ and I saw the dear old ensign flying over me again. Those
were stirring times in international politics, for word had been passed
round in high diplomatic circles as well as on the stages of the London
music-halls that "the Russians shall not have Constantinople," and the
presence of the _Achilles_, the _Alexandra_, the _Téméraire_, and the
other ships of Admiral Hornby's squadron almost within shell fire of
Stamboul showed that Great Britain had made up her mind definitely upon
this point.
We lunched with Commodore Hewitt on board the _Achilles_, and after
lunch we had plenty of time to examine the equipment of that splendid
fighting machine. As I watched the ladies in their white dresses
tripping along the snowy decks and peering down the sights of the great,
silent, burnished guns that pointed out towards Stamboul, I thought of
those other guns that I had left behind at Plevna, grim,
powder-blackened, blood-bespattered veterans, that continued their
deadly work until, broken and dismounted, with their gun crews lying
round them, they were silenced at last in the Krishin redoubts.
We had a delightful day with the squadron, and in the evening we steamed
back to the city of many minarets, upon which the eyes of Europe were
day by day directed. At Prinkapo I met a man called Pearse, a brother
Australian. He was the first graduate in law from the Adelaide
University. He had a big practice at the bar in the English court at
Constantinople, and we had much to tell each other of our adventures
since we crossed the line.
My friend Mr. Wrench, the British consul at Constantinople, was
extremely kind to me, and I ventured to approach him upon a somewhat
delicate question. Much as I admired the character of the Turkish troops
and their soldierly qualities in the field, I could not be blind to one
conspicuous defect in Turkish official nature. It was plain from the
first that the executive had a rooted dislike to paying over a single
piastre to any one for services rendered. The pay of the troops was
months in arrear, and my own little bill was mounting up to a quite
portentous figure. Perhaps it occurred to the paymaster of the forces
that it would be folly to hand over good money to a man who might have
his pockets carried away together with his legs by a convenient shell at
any moment. At any rate the fact remained that I was owed about £70 by
the Turkish Government at this time; and as I had no hopes of recovering
my medical fees by my own unaided efforts, I laid the matter before Mr.
Wrench.
Mr. Wrench had lived long in Constantinople, and was intimately
acquainted with all the devious approaches to the ear of officialdom. I
do not know how many cups of coffee he was obliged to drink, nor how
many artfully worded compliments he paid to solemn old pashas sitting
cross-legged on their divans; but I do know that in a remarkably short
time, considering the length and tortuosity of the negotiations which he
must have gone through, he was able to announce to me that the arrears
of my salary of £200 a year would be paid on application. When I put in
my claim for £70, they brought me the whole amount in silver coin, and I
had to get a small hand-cart to remove my money, which consisted of
about half a hundredweight of Turkish medjidies. It was certainly the
heaviest fee that I have ever received for professional services.
In order to be more in the swim, so that I could hear prompt news of all
that was going on at the seat of war, I left Misserie's Hotel, and took
up my quarters at the club in the Grande Rue de Pera. This was a very
comfortable and very cosmopolitan caravanserai, and the members included
the leading section of the foreign element in Constantinople. Here I met
again many of my old acquaintances, among them being the Hon. Randolph
Stewart, the Queen's Messenger, who had come down the Danube with me
when I first entered Turkish territory. I found plenty of congenial
spirits in the club, and devoted a day or two to well deserved
relaxation, which was readily obtainable in Constantinople. In the
evenings we used to go the round of the _cafés chantants_, and always
found lots of fun there. One night a French girl came forward on the
stage, and sang a song about Plevna, which was rapturously applauded.
While the song was going on somebody spotted me in the audience, and I
was accorded a demonstration which, although it was highly flattering,
was nevertheless decidedly embarrassing.
While I was amusing myself with these frivolities, the most momentous
events were occurring at the theatre of war. In Asiatic Turkey the
Russians were making rapid headway, and I learned from Mr. Barrington
Kennett, the head of the Stafford House Relief Committee, who was then
in Constantinople, that the condition of the Turkish garrison of
Erzeroum was deplorable. Medical aid was urgently required there, and
Mr. Barrington Kennett offered me an engagement at once to take charge
of the ambulance work at Erzeroum for the Stafford House Committee. I
was offered far better terms than I was getting from the Turks, and a
free hand to do what I liked at Erzeroum; but I determined not to desert
my old friends at Plevna, and made up my mind to get back there as soon
as I had seen my mother. Mr. Barrington Kennett asked me to reserve my
final decision, and when I left him the offer was still open.
On the very same day something occurred which compelled me to change my
plans. Sir Collingwood Dickson sent me a telegram asking me to call upon
him at once in the summer residence of the British Embassy at Therapia,
and in an interview which I had with him there he told me that news had
just been received of terrible fighting at Gorny Dübnik and Telish. The
Russian Guards had been brought up, and after a desperate battle at
Telish in which the Russians lost four thousand men the Turkish forces
sustained a complete defeat. As a result of this victory the Russians
were in possession of all the approaches to Plevna, and communication
with Osman Pasha's army was absolutely cut off. I listened to this news
with dismay, for it was clear now that I could not get back to Plevna;
and that night as I lay in bed at the club I made up my mind to accept
the offer of the Stafford House Committee and go to Erzeroum.
Before I was up in the morning Mr. Barrington Kennett came into my room
and told me that he had received a telegram from Erzeroum giving the
news of a sanguinary battle close to that place. Mukhtar Pasha had
suffered a terrible defeat, and the condition in Erzeroum was desperate.
The town was full of wounded men, and supplies of all kinds were
urgently needed. Mr. Kennett asked me to start that day at twelve
o'clock as there was a steamer going, and he offered to give me any one
I liked to go with me, suggesting that I should take a dragoman and
Captain Morisot, whom I had already met at Plevna, as a companion. Mr.
Stoney, who also belonged to the Stafford House Committee, and who had
treated me with the greatest kindness, also urged me to accept the
offer; and the upshot of it all was that I told Mr. Kennett that I would
be ready to start by the steamer at twelve o'clock.
Steamers, however, suffer from unpunctuality in Turkey as well as
elsewhere, and at the last moment we found that the boat would not start
until next morning. Baron Munday heard of this, and gave a grand
farewell dinner to me at the club that night, when about a dozen of us
sat down to a regular banquet, and drank each other's healths in bumpers
of champagne. In those old fighting days a farewell dinner to any one
was a thing to wonder at; for it was always a shade of odds that a fever
or a rifle-bullet would claim a good many of the guests before they
could meet again, and the more risky the prospects of the future the
more lively was the certain pleasure of the present. Late that night, or
rather early next morning, they saw me down to the quay where the
Messageries boat was lying, and I went on board, lugging with me a bag
containing three hundred English sovereigns--perhaps the only coins on
earth that will fetch their face value anywhere. With me there went Dr.
Woods, an adventurous spark from the north of Ireland, who was deputed
to act with me, Captain Morisot, and Mr. Harvey.
A fine old Frenchman commanded the little Messageries steamer, and by
his manner and language he seemed a regular old aristocrat, who had not
always been running a small "tramp" boat on the Black Sea. Although far
from Paris, he had not forgotten the principles of gastronomy, and the
cuisine on board that perambulating little tub was simply perfect. I had
never lived so well in my life. We had a delightful passage up the Black
Sea, calling in at the different ports on the north side, Sinope,
Samsoun, and finally Trebizond, where we disembarked for the overland
journey to Erzeroum.
Trebizond is a beautiful town built on a table-land at the top of high
cliffs looking down over the Black Sea. There was a very good Greek
hotel there, and we put up for the night in it. As soon as possible we
called on Mr. Biliotti,[4] the English consul at Trebizond, and he gave
us a message to push on to Erzeroum as quickly as possible, as Mukhtar
Pasha was in urgent need of medical officers and stores.
With Mr. Biliotti we met Captain McCalmont, who was on the staff of Sir
Arnold Kemball, the British military attaché in Asiatic Turkey. All the
preliminaries for our journey had been settled by the indefatigable Mr.
Biliotti; and as we had two dragomen, I left one of them, a man named
Williams, behind us to bring on the heavy packages, the bandages, drugs,
stimulants, and other medical stores, while we pushed forward with the
other.
When we left Trebizond, our party consisted of Dr. Woods, Captain
Morisot, Harvey, and myself. We started early in the morning for our
long ride to Erzeroum through the wild and picturesque country which
ethnologists and philologists have alike decided upon as the cradle of
the human race, and where biblical legend, agreeing with the conclusions
of science, has placed the primitive Garden of Eden. The road that we
travelled was a splendid one, macadamized nearly all the way, and built
in that solid and enduring form that men gave to their highways before
the railways came to compete with them. It was this road that Xenophon
travelled with his legions over two thousand years ago when they made
their famous return march to Greece. Readers of that dead-and-gone Greek
captain's diary will remember his explicit description of the journey,
and his continually recurring remark that they came after a stage of so
many "parasangs" to "a populous town, well watered, and situated on a
river." Since Xenophon's day most of those populous towns have
disappeared, and nothing is left but the beetling cliffs that frowned
down upon the homeward marching Greeks, and the sea that ripples as
fresh and blue to-day as when the hoplites and the bowmen saw it
gleaming at last before them and ran forward with the glad, exulting
cry, "Thalassa, Thalassa!"
The road is still divided into posts or stages, and we travelled from
stage to stage with fresh post-horses. It was tiring work riding these
rough and badly broken brutes, and Dr. Woods, who was an indifferent
horseman, suffered very severely; but the excitement of the journey and
the wildness of the scenery kept us up.
Our first day's journey was very picturesque, for the road wound along
the side of a deep ravine for many miles, and then curled along the
flanks of the hills that rose above us beautifully clad with hazel
trees. We passed through a part of the district of Lazistan, and were
much struck by the magnificent type of men that we saw there, tall,
straight, muscular fellows, lithe and hardy as the mountain ash. Perhaps
it is true that this country is the real cradle of the human race, and
that from there the tide of migration flowed westward over Europe,
sending one tributary stream down into Greece, and another down into
Italy, and passing onwards in ever increasing volume, until it spread
population, not only through Western Europe, but away, as industrious
archæologists have whispered, conning their strange finds among the
Incas of Peru and Mexico, to the great Western continent that lay beyond
the fabled inland of Atlantis. At any rate those who hold to this theory
might find support for it in the magnificent physique of the present
population of this primeval country. At times, when a sick man is sent
back to breathe the air of his native place after a lifetime spent in
some distant city, he gathers new health and strength in some mysterious
way. So tired humanity, sick and undersized in Western Europe, regains
its pristine vigour and development among the mountains and ravines
where it first saw the light.
Not only were these men of Lazistan very fine fellows themselves, but we
saw that they possessed some magnificent dogs, powerfully built, shaggy
coated animals, with enormous muscular strength. These dogs were greatly
prized by their owners; and though I tried hard to secure one by
purchase, I failed. They are used to guard the flocks of their masters,
and many a fierce duel has been fought at night between a grey old wolf,
impelled by hunger to attack the sheep, and the grim custodian of the
flock. In the winter all the mountains in Lazistan are covered with snow
for months, and the white covering of those lonely grassy slopes is
often stained by the traces of these battles _à outrance_.
After completing our first day's journey, we came in the evening to a
small village, where we put up at a filthy little khan, and made
ourselves as comfortable as we could. We had brought plenty of food with
us, and our principal discomfort was as usual occasioned by the fleas,
which were as pertinacious as those which Thackeray has depicted as
pulling the Kickleburys out of bed during their famous excursion up the
Rhine.
On the second day we were able to push on a good deal faster as the road
was more level, and in the evening we came to the small township of
Ghumish Khané, which was chiefly known to fame owing to the existence of
some very old silver mines in the neighbourhood. To an Australian like
myself it did not look at all like a mining township. Where were the
familiar poppet heads, the heaps of mullock, and the diligently
fossicked alluvial? There was no roar of stampers, no monotonous gurgle
of pumps, and there was not one decent bush shanty in the place. We had
seen enough of the comforts of a khan on the previous night, so like
wise men we went straight to the _hammam_, or Turkish bath, with which
even the smallest Turkish township is always provided. Here we enjoyed
the refreshing luxury of being well steamed; and backsheesh, in the
shape of a few piastres to the man in charge, procured for us permission
to sleep on the divans provided for patrons of the establishment. We had
supper and spent the night in the hammam.
Leaving Ghumish Khané next morning, we rode on through a narrow valley
between two ranges of hills covered with hazel trees and other light
scrub. In this valley, which was about seven miles long by half a mile
wide, we found magnificent groves of pear trees fringing the road on
either side. When we passed through in the middle of autumn, the fruit
was just ripe, and the great juicy pears almost knocked against our
faces as we rode on under the trees with the branches interlacing
overhead. We telegraphed to the kaimakan at Baiburt, our next
stopping-place, before leaving Ghumish Khané, in order that
accommodation might be prepared for us; and when we reached Baiburt in
the evening, we were agreeably surprised to find it an extremely
beautiful town. Baiburt, like all the towns in that country, is a place
of grey antiquity. It sleeps on in the present, dreaming of the past
and of all the wars that have raged about it since the first men of
Baiburt built themselves defences against the robbers of the hills
hundreds, if not thousands, of years ago. It was taken by the Russians
in 1828, after the massacres in the Ægean Sea had roused England,
France, and Russia to take joint action against the Turks, and had
whetted the thirst for blood once more by precipitating Navarino.
Looking at the majestic ruins of this town of Baiburt and at the traces
of their presence, left there by the Russian cannoneers, one thought of
the causes that had brought about these ruins; one thought of the Greek
struggle for independence, and of the massacres at Chios and the
adjacent islands; one thought of Byron singing of "The Isles of Greece,"
with his passionate appeal against "Turkish force and Latin fraud," and
of Béranger stirring all Europe with the lament of the heroic
Ipsariotes, "Les rois chrétiens ne nous vengeront pas."
After leaving Baiburt we got among the mountains again, and rode along a
track hewn out of the side of the hills that almost overhung us, a road
that reminded one in places of the magnificent solitudes of the Julier
Pass in Switzerland, and at times brought back the softer beauties of
the track from Hobart to the Huon River in Tasmania.
On either side of the road grew groves of giant rhododendrons, making
splashes of rich colour amid the green; and here and there the ruined
castles, built by Genoese merchant princes to protect their commerce
from the robbers of the hills, loomed in lonely state above us. Along
this road in the Middle Ages came the greater part of the trade from
Persia; and as the long caravan, laden with silks and spices, with
fabrics from the Persian looms and precious stones from the Persian
mines, made its way slowly towards the markets of Europe, it was no
wonder that the brigands descended from their native fastnesses and
risked a fight with the well armed escort that rode beside the
treasures.
Inspired by a desire to get a nearer look at these romantic old ruins, I
climbed up to the ridge upon which one of these castles was poised like
an eagle's nest between earth and heaven; but I regretted my curiosity
very quickly, for it was only with the utmost difficulty and most
frantic clutching at convenient shrubs that I reached the road again
with a wild glissade in which everything was forgotten except the
instinctive desire to keep myself right side uppermost.
Towards evening we passed through a gloomy gorge where the cliffs rose
perpendicularly on each side; and the air, never warmed by the sun's
rays, was bitterly cold. Soon after emerging from this we came to a
village whose name I have forgotten, and rode at once to the konak, or
townhall, where we had a rest and a meal. Here I learnt that Sir Arnold
Kemball was at Purnekapan, at the end of the next stage, and that he had
with him Lieutenant Dugald of the royal navy as an attaché.
Having sent a telegram to Lieutenant Dugald notifying our approach, we
resumed our journey, travelling over a pass which rose to a height of
between six and seven thousand feet; and at the summit we halted for an
hour at a place called the Kopdagh, from which there was a superb view
over hills and valleys and distant mountain-peaks. Far away in front of
us was the silver line of a river, the very name of which sent a thrill
through our hearts. It was "that great river, the river Euphrates"; and
as we looked down over the plain we realized, almost with a gasp of
astonishment, that we were gazing at the legendary site of the Garden of
Eden.
At Purnekapan I called on Sir Arnold Kemball, whom I had met previously
at Nish during the Servian war. Sir Arnold Kemball had stirring news for
us. He had just received a telegram from Erzeroum announcing that the
Russians had delivered a terrific assault, and that the town had fallen
into their hands.
Next morning we pushed on as fast as we could, crossed the Euphrates at
midday, and at five o'clock in the afternoon we reached Erzeroum. As we
entered the town we naturally expected to find the Russians in
possession of the town; but we could see no trace of the well known
uniforms, and gradually it dawned upon us that Sir Arnold Kemball had
been misinformed when he told us that the long expected Russian assault
had already been delivered.
We went straight to the British Consulate, and called upon Mr. Zohrab,
our consul, who gave us a most cordial reception, and informed us of the
position in the town, which was certainly serious. About a week before
our arrival a desperate attack had been made by the Russians, who had
taken one of the forts, and the Turks lost two thousand men in killed
and wounded. Consequently the hospital resources were taxed to the
utmost, although in addition to the Turkish medical staff there were
several English doctors in Erzeroum before we got there. Lord Blantyre
had sent up a number of English doctors at his own expense; but the
total strength of the medical staff had been depleted by various
accidents. Dr. Casson and Dr. Buckle, for instance, had been taken
prisoners, and were then in the hands of the Russians; Dr. Guppy had
died of typhoid fever about a week before we got there; and the
available surgeons were Charles Fetherstonhaugh, James Denniston, whom I
had known before in Edinburgh, and John Pinkerton. We took up our
quarters with these three, in the great bare house where they lived
without any furniture except a table and a couple of benches. There
were no beds, so we slept on the floor; and our by no means luxurious
meals were cooked for us by an Armenian named David whose son Siropé,
commonly called Jonathan, acted as waiter and general factotum.
As soon as we were installed we had time to look round, and my first
impression of Erzeroum was a very favourable one. I found that we had
come to a very picturesque town, lying under the lee of a range of
mountains which rose to a height of six thousand feet, the town itself
being about four thousand feet above the sea level. A remarkable feature
about the place was the entire absence of timber, which I noticed at
once with the apprehension of an old campaigner who knew the value of a
supply of fuel and the horrible discomfort of being without it. I found
that the nearest timber was seventy miles away, where the great forest
of Soghanli Dagh was situated. There were very few trees in the town,
and the mountains were great masses of bare rock, without a trace of
vegetation to hide their cold nakedness. Under these circumstances the
inhabitants relied for fuel principally on dried camel's dung, which was
a most precarious source of supply.
Erzeroum was surrounded by a great wall, strengthened by forts at
intervals, and also by a moat and drawbridge. It was a very important
town, because nearly all the trade from Teheran went through it; and it
had a population of forty thousand inhabitants, most of whom were
Armenians. The houses were strongly built of stone, with flat roofs,
which were used by the inmates as promenades during the warm evenings;
and the bright colours affected by the Turkish women in their dress lent
colour and animation to the scene. The town contained several handsome
Armenian churches, the inner walls of which were decorated with
beautiful blue tiles; and the konak, or townhall, was a very handsome
structure. The water supply was chiefly drawn from wells, and there was
besides a small stream that came down from the mountains, while the
Euphrates was only four miles away.
Mr. Zohrab, who was to all intents and purposes an Englishman, and had
an English wife and two sons, introduced all of us newcomers to Mukhtar
Pasha, the commander-in-chief, who welcomed us most kindly, and thanked
us for coming. We found that Fetherstonhaugh, Denniston, and Pinkerton
were in charge of a large hospital, which was known as Lord Blantyre's
Hospital; and I arranged to take over from the Turks a large hospital
which had been organized in the Yeni Khan. Pinkerton agreed to come over
to me, as the other two could get through all the work at Lord
Blantyre's Hospital; so Pinkerton, Woods, and myself, with Harvey and
Captain Morisot as assistants, were installed in the Yeni Khan, and
took over all the staff of assistants, servants, and jarra bashis that
had been employed under the Turks. There were two of these jarra bashis;
and one of them, a Turkish sergeant, who had been trained as a dresser,
was one of the hardest and most conscientious workers as well as one of
the best fellows that I met in Turkey. I agreed to pay all those whom I
took over wages at the rate of half what they received from the Turkish
Government in addition to their ordinary pay; and as they could never
look forward with any degree of certainty to receiving their money from
the Turks, they had an additional incentive to faithful service, and I
was enabled to secure a direct control over them by holding the power of
the purse. I also took on a Hungarian surgeon, named Schmidt, to assist
us. He was given a room in the hospital, and was made the house surgeon;
so that in cases of hæmorrhage there was always a competent person ready
to arrest it until one of us could come up.
We soon had everything ship-shape in the old khan, which was converted
into a well equipped hospital, containing at the outset three hundred
beds. It was very different from the awful building that I had left
behind in Plevna. The main ward of our Stafford House Hospital was a
hundred feet long, with a width of sixty-five feet and a height of
thirty feet. It was ventilated and lighted by means of large glass
skylights, and warmed by two large stoves. This ward contained
ninety-eight beds, and there was another large one containing sixty-two
beds, while smaller rooms, opening off these large ones, provided
accommodation for six or eight patients each, the total number of
patients when I took over control being three hundred. We had an
operating-room, a storeroom, and all the necessary offices. In the main
wards the scene was almost picturesque, if any hospital ever could be
picturesque; for the place was scrupulously clean, and the beds were
dressed with Persian quilts, bright with the most gorgeous colours. As
the midday sunbeams poured in through the skylights overhead, they lit
up the scarlets and the greens, the cobalt blues and lemon yellows, the
deep crimson of the rose, the pink of the geranium, and the purple of
the violet, until the whole place looked like an immense garden full of
flowers. But against this background of brilliant colours the white,
drawn faces of the wounded soldiers stood out in pitiful contrast, and
the gay hues only threw into still stronger relief the ghastly
sufferings.
At first we had no cases of sickness, and none but wounded men to treat.
Our death-rate was low--in the first week we only had six deaths out of
three hundred patients, and we sent thirty men out cured to rejoin their
regiments. After the hideous experiences in Plevna, this state of things
was a blessed relief, and we became quite light-hearted. But before I
left Erzeroum I had seen sufferings and horrors before which the
sufferings and horrors of the Plevna hospital paled into insignificance.
The first sign of coming trouble was the discovery one morning of a case
of genuine typhus and several cases of typhoid. These we sent away at
once to the medical central hospital, as we took over our hospital with
the stipulation that we were to treat only wounded cases. But that
solitary case of typhus worried me a good deal, and it seemed to presage
with dreadful certainty the mischief that was to come.