d flinging myself from my horse,
dragged him into the shelter of a coppice. We held a council of war
there, and it was finally decided that we should ride straight into
the village and trust to what might happen. I had been compelled by the
military authorities to travel with an escort, and I had with me
four mounted Zaptiehs, a sergeant, my interpreter, and a
fellow-correspondent. We all remounted and made a rush at the village,
which was not more than three hundred yards away. We tore along at the
charge, and what with the speed and the risk and the uncertainty, it
was certainly all very thrilling, and even in a sense enjoyable. When
we clattered into the cobbled street, we found a solitary Bashi-Bazouk
armed with a Winchester repeating rifle. Him, the sergeant of my escort
questioned. "Had he fired a shot lately?" "Evvet," said the insolent
ruffian, with a grin, answering in the affirmative. "What had he fired
at?" asked the sergeant. "A small bird," was the answer. "Had he fired
in the direction of the highway?" the sergeant asked him again. "Evvet,"
once more. "And had he seen a party coming along the highway?" the
sergeant asked. "Oh, Evvet!" The sergeant rode towards a dilapidated
wattled fence and wrenched from it a thick stake with which he
administered such a hiding to that Bashi-Bazouk as I never saw one man
bestow upon another before or since.

Good old Father Stick seemed to play a very large part in the Turkish
administration. On the march to Plevna, for example, I saw two high
military dignitaries chastised in the presence of their fellow-officers.
What they had done or failed to do I did not know, but I arrived upon
the scene just in time to see each man step out in turn, fold his arms
and with bent head submit himself to half a dozen resounding blows
across the shoulders. It was no perfunctory ceremony, but the two took
it quite quietly and went back to their separate posts of duty looking
as if nothing at all had happened. A third example of the kind took
place at the military hospital at Adrianople. Dr Bond Moore had charge
there and one day I was with him when one of the irregular troops
was brought in with a broken leg. The doctor dressed the limb with a
dilution of carbolic acid and fixed it in a plaster bandage. He left
the man fairly comfortable, and, through his interpreter, promised him
a speedy recovery. But two days later, in the course of our rounds, we
came upon the patient and found him in