"I don't think so. Kiss me, at all events, ma belle."
"Well, camarade, if it will console you——"
Here I tried to close the window, on which Jules "carried arms," and looked very unconscious; while the pretty vivandière gave me a military salute, and tripped laughingly away, singing—
Vivandière du régiment,
C'est Catin qu'on me nomme, &c.
Daily more troops arrived from Britain and France; daily the camps extended in size, and, notwithstanding the season, we suffered much from cold, while, so bad were the commissariat arrangements, that, in some instances, officers and soldiers were alike without beds or bedding, few having more than a single blanket; so, for warmth, they reversed the usual order, by dressing in all their spare clothes to go to bed.
Gallipoli became so crowded at last that some of the troops were despatched towards Constantinople and Scutari. There the Highland regiments, beyond all others, excited astonishment and admiration, not unmixed with fear, their costume seemed so remarkable to Oriental eyes; and many may yet remember the anecdote current in camp concerning them.
An old Turkish pasha, who had brought the ladies of his harem in a caïque, closely veiled in their yashmacs, to see our troops land, was intensely horrified by the bare brawny legs of the 93rd foot; but after surveying them, he said, with a sigh, to an English officer—"Ah! if the Sultan had such fine soldiers as these, we should not need your aid against the Russians."
"Well, effendi," observed the Englishman, who was quizzing, "would it not be advisable to propagate the species in this country?"
"Inshallah! (please God!) it will be done, whether we advise it or not," said the old Turk, sighing again, as he ordered his boatload of Odalisques to shove off for Istamboul with all despatch.
Amid the novelty of our new life at Gallipoli, a week or two passed rapidly away, ere rumours were heard of our probable advance to Varna; but, as I do not mean to repeat the well-known details of so recent a war, rather confining myself to my own adventures, and those of my regiment, I shall close this chapter by relating an episode which will serve to illustrate the brutal and lawless character of the Turk, and the slavery to which ages of conquest and degradation have reduced the wretched Greek. I have said that Jack Studhome and I were quartered in the house of a Greek miller, named Demetrius Steriopoli. His chief worldly possessions were a melon-garden, and two ricketty old windmills, which whirled their brown and tattered sails on the breezes that came from the Hellespont. In the basement of these edifices, and in the walls of his dwelling-house, were—and I have no doubt still are—built many exquisitely-carved fragments of some old Grecian temple; for there triglyphs, sculptured metopæ, the honeysuckle, and so forth, with portions of statues, all of white marble, were used pell mell among the rough rubble masonry.