The right sort of chaps are they,
Comboyned one and all,
And ready for the fray,
We’ll conquer or die,
And may we all live to see
The Rushins to fly,
Beat both on land and sea.’
On arriving at Gallipoli, we received orders to proceed on to Constantinople. A boat was upset close to our steamer, and one of the Turks took refuge in the paddle-wheel! Most fortunately, he was not killed. When he came on board, we gave him dry clothes, and, as it was the men’s dinner hour, they offered him some pork. His face would have made a good picture. I mention this as the first mistake made by our soldiers in their dealings with Mohammedans.
We anchored near Scutari, between the Sultan’s seraglio and the opposite shore, and in the afternoon we disembarked, and marched into Scutari Barracks, a fine building capable of containing six thousand men. My company, numbering over one hundred, were all in one room. The quarters told off for two subalterns and myself consisted of one large room, lighted by three windows, in front of which was an ottoman with pillows. Cleanliness was not the order of the day, so there were many inhabitants besides ourselves. Our view was not enlivening, as we looked out on the Scutari burying ground, where tall, sombre cypress-trees waved sadly over the tombs of thousands of Mahomet’s followers. In the evening we went for a walk, and, seeing a crowd, we made towards it and found two Turks stripped to the skin, their only garment being a kind of bathing drawers. They were smeared with oil and were engaged wrestling. The wrestlers were not a very pleasing sight, but the entourage was most amusing. Here was a Connaught Ranger in his neat red coat and white belt, without any weapon at all; there a wild warrior of some eastern tribe, armed to the teeth with formidable pistols and curved scimitar. There were women covered up to the eyes, but the eyes were soft and bright, Greeks with long pipes, Turks in green turbans, and Turks in white—a strange and animated scene.
A good story was told of a gallant colonel commanding a most distinguished regiment. He had been given quarters in the Sultan’s wing in Scutari Barracks. A pasha came to pay him an official visit, and, I suppose, approached with reverence the apartments sacred in his estimation. He took off his slippers at the door and entered the room, when, horror of horrors! what did he see?—the said colonel occupied frying pork in a dispatcher on the Sultan’s table.