ant after the barren country through which we had
passed. Just above the spot where the men bivouacked was a lofty mound
surmounted by a turret, from which an armed sentry of a regiment of
redif (or militia) kept watch over the surrounding country. While taking
a bird's-eye view from this point, I heard myself accosted, to my no
small astonishment, in very fair English by a Turkish officer. My new
acquaintance proved to be one Hakki Bey, a Major of Engineers, employed
on the staff of Osman Pacha. He told me that, after having passed ten
years at the Turkish Military College, he had been sent to England for
five years to complete his education. What can the world say of Turkish
education after this stupendous example? He was an officer of much
intelligence, and soon worked himself into Omer Pacha's good graces. On
the following morning I met Osman Pacha at breakfast in the
Generalissimo's tent. He answers fully to the latter's description of
him, as being a man of much feeling, and very much the reverse of what
he is represented by Mr. Oliphant. That gentleman, in his narrative of
the Trans-Caucasian campaign, calls him 'a thorough Moslem, and a hater
of all Feringhees.' Now I am at a loss to conceive on what grounds he
can base that assertion; for, excepting that he speaks no language but
his own--a very common circumstance with English gentlemen of a certain
age--he is thoroughly European in his ideas and tendencies. Of his
kindness to myself under circumstances of difficulty and danger I shall
ever entertain the most lively recollection.

While peering about in the single street of Tchernitza, I observed a
crowd collected in one corner. The centre of attraction proved to be a
man with a big head. The unfortunate creature seemed to experience very
much the same treatment as he would have met with had he been turned
loose in the streets of London. Everybody stared, most people laughed,
and some jeered at his terrible affliction. He may have numbered some
five-and-forty years, stood about five feet four inches high, with a
head of about twice the natural size. The idiotic appearance produced by
this deformity was increased by the dimensions of his tongue, which
protruded from his mouth, and hung down at the side in the most
woe-begone manner. The poor wretch accepted the banter of the spectators
with that good-humoured indifference which leads one to hope that the
victims of such freaks of nature are insensible to the ful