"Ah, you'll find it when you have been a month or so under canvas at Gallipoli. And now, Colonel Beverley, I need not suggest to so experienced a cavalry officer how the horses are to be got on shore, but for the time shall take my leave. Some of the cavalry divisional staff have established a kind of clubhouse in a deserted khan, opposite the old palace of the Bashaw, or Capudan Pacha, where we shall be glad to see you, till we can make other arrangements; and so adieu. Should you look us up, ask for Captain Bolton, of the 1st Dragoon Guards."
In another minute the officer—a purpose-like fellow, in a well-worn blue surtout, his steel scabbard and spurs already rusted—was down the ship's side, and being rowed ashore by eight marines in a man-of-war boat.
We experienced some difficulties in getting our horses slung up and landed, as, to plunge them into the sea, after being so long in the close and confined atmosphere of the hold, was not advisable; and after they were all disembarked (with the assistance of some merry and singing Zouaves of the 2nd Regiment, while a horde of lazy Turks of the Hadjee Mehmet's corps looked idly on), we had to give them a cooling regimen and gentle exercise, as the best means of restoring them to their wonted vigour, and preparing them for the strife and service that were to come. The vessel that was reported as being in sight, proved really to be the Ganges. We were at last on foreign soil, and Studhome, by a word and a glance, reminded me that he had not forgotten what was to take place between me and Berkeley; but immediately after landing, that personage was reported on the doctor's list, so we had to let the matter lie over for a time. Troop after troop of ours arrived; and gradually Colonel Beverley had again the whole regiment under his kindly and skilful command.
Studhome and I, who had frequently chummed together, when in India, had the good luck to be quartered in the quiet and snug house of Demetrius Steriopoli, the well-known and industrious miller, at a short distance from the town. Eighteen thousand British troops were now in Gallipoli, which, from being a quiet little den of Oriental dirt and Oriental indolence, Moslem filth and fatuity, became instinct with European life and bustle, by the presence of the soldiers of the allied armies. Those who landed with no other ideas of the Orient than such as were inspired by the "Arabian Nights," and Byron's poetry, were somewhat disappointed on beholding the dingy rows of queer and quaint wooden, rickety and dilapidated booths which composed the streets of this ancient Greek episcopal city of Gallipoli.
Narrow, dirty, and tortuous, they were scattered without order on the slope of a round stony hill; the thoroughfares were made of large round pebbles, from which the foot slipped ever and anon into the mud, or those stagnant pools whence the hordes of lean and houseless dogs—houseless, because declared unclean by the Prophet—slaked their thirst in the sunshine. Over these brown, discoloured hovels rose the tall white minarets of a few crumbling mosques, with cone-shaped roofs and open galleries, where the muezzin's shrill voice summons the faithful to prayer. A leaden-covered dome of the great bazaar, and the old square fortress of Badjazet I., with a number of windmills on every available eminence, were the most prominent features of the view, which could never have been enchanting, even in its most palmy days—even when the vaults of Justinian were teeming with wine and oil; for the Emperor John Palæologus consoled himself for the capture of Gallipoli by the Turks with saying, "I have only lost a jar of wine and a nasty sty for hogs."
But now its muddy streets of hovels were swarming with redcoats: the Scottish bagpipe, the long Zouave trumpet, and the British bugle-horn, rang there for parade and drill at every hour—even those when the followers of the Prophet bent their swarthy foreheads on the mosaic pavement of their mosques; and daily we, the light troops of the cavalry division, were exercised by squadrons, regiments, and brigades, near those green and grassy tumuli which lie on the southern side of the city, and cover the remains of the ancient kings of Thrace. Now the waters of the Hellespont were literally alive with war vessels and transports, belonging to all the allied powers. They were of every size, under sail or steam; and amid them, with white pinions outspread, the swift Greek polaccas sped up or down the strait, which always presented a lively and stirring scene, with the hills of Asia Minor, toned down by distance, seeming faint and blue, and far away. Parade over, it often amused me to watch the varied groups which gathered about the doors of the bazaar, the wine and coffee-houses. There were the grave Armenian of Turcomania, with his black fur cap, and long, flowing robe; the black-eyed Greek, in scarlet tarboosh and ample blue breeches; the dirty, hawk-visaged Jew, attired like a stage Shylock, waiting for his pound of flesh; the kilted Highlander, in the "garb of old Gaul;" the smart Irish rifleman; the well-fed English guardsman, blasé, sleek, and fresh from London; the half savage-like Zouave, in his short bluejacket and scarlet knickerbockers; the bronzed Chasseur d'Afrique; the rollicking British man-o'-war's man, in his guernsey shirt and wide blue collar; the half-naked Nubian slave; the pretty French vivandière, in her short skirt and clocked stockings, looking like Jenny Lind in "The Daughter of the Regiment," only twice as piquante and saucy; even a Sister of Charity, sombre, pale, and placid, would appear at times, crossing herself as she passed a howling dervish, when seeking milk or wine for the sick; and amid all these varied costumes and nationalities were to be seen such heedless fellows as young Rakeleigh, Jocelyn, Scarlett, Wilford, and Berkeley, of ours, in wideawake hats, all-round collars, with Tweed shooting suits and flyaway whiskers, hands in pockets, and cheroot in mouth, as they quizzed and "chaffed" the great solemn Turk of the old school, with his vast green turban and silver beard, which steel had never profaned, or drank pale ale with his son of the new school, in the military fez and frogged surtout, with varnished boots and shaven chin, who, in his double capacity of a true believer and a mulazim (or subaltern of Hadjee Mehmet's regiment), deemed himself at full liberty to use his whip without mercy among the camel-drivers and lazy galiondjis (or boatmen), eliciting shrieks, yells, and curses, which Berkeley, in his languid drawl, considered to be "aw—doocid good fun."
Many of those smart youths of ours, and other fast Oxford men, had their constitutional and national conceit somewhat taken out of them before the war was ended.
"There is nothing more disgusting," says a distinguished writer, with pardonable severity, "or more intolerable, than a young Englishman sallying forth into the world, full of his own ignorance and John-Bullism, judging of mankind by his own petty, provincial, and narrow notions of fitness and propriety—a mighty observer of effects and disregarder of causes, and traversing continent and ocean, at once blinded and shackled by the bigotry and prejudices of a limited and imbecile intellect."
Much of this was the secret spring of our Indian mutiny, and is the cause that we are hated and shunned on the Continent. There are, of course, exceptions, for in the East I have seen local prejudices so far respected that we formed an escort when the British colours of the Sepoy infantry were marched into the Ganges, to consecrate them in the eyes of the Bengalese—the same pampered ruffians who slaughtered our women and children at Cawnpore and Delhi.
We looked in vain for pretty women, and the reader may be assured that some of our researches were of the most elaborate description. Not a trace of the boasted Grecian beauty was to be found in those oddly-dressed females, whose costume seemed a mere oval bale of clothing (the feridjee), surmounted by a white linen veil, and ending in boots of yellow leather, as they flitted like fat ghosts about the public wells, or the gates of the great bazaar. All were, indeed, plain even to ugliness, save in one instance—pretty little Magdhalini, the daughter of the miller, Steriopoli. I remember a charming vivandière, who belonged to the 2nd Zouaves, for I saw her frequently under circumstances that could never be forgotten—in fact, under fire, at the head of the regiment. She was a smart little Parisienne, possessed of great beauty, with eyes that sparkled like the diamonds in her ears. She wore a pretty blue Zouave jacket, braided with red, over a pretty chemisette, and had her black hair smoothly braided under a scarlet kepi, which bore the regimental number. The first time I saw Sophie she was simply maintaining a flirtation with one of the corps, to whom she gave a mouthful of brandy from her barrel, as he stood on sentry under my window, and their banter rather interfered with the composition of a letter which I was writing to my cousin Cora.