and moreover, the clerk finds the addition is very incorrect. You have offered him too much, sir! Instead of seven liras I shall reduce the amount to five, and one of his own countrymen would not have paid more than three. Moreover, he has laid hands on your luggage without right, for which I fine him one lira.” Much laughter and applause in court. But when I offered the amount awarded to the innkeeper, he was in such a passion that he flung the money on the floor of the court and refused to take it. This made the Kaimakam very angry.
“ What is this ? Pig of a Greek! Do you insult my judgment in this way ? I will teach you better. I fine you three liras and three days' imprisonment as well. If you come here again for such a thing, I will make you cat stick.” More laughter and applause in court, when the prisoner was removed in custody. We thanked the judge and went out in triumph. After some experience of county courts in England, I should say that Turkish justice was not so bad as it is sometimes painted, for in any other country we should have taken as many days as we took hours to get a similar matter decided, and probably a less favourable award.
The next question was how to get to Tchernavoda in time to catch the steamer which left that evening, and as my leave was nearly up I had to catch it somehow. The English manager of the railway said that he would give us a special engine for five pounds, which we agreed to pay. When we got near Tchernavoda something went wrong with the machinery and the English driver got down, and lay on his back under the engine working with a spanner. In order to test his work he ordered the Bulgarian stoker, who was on the cab, to move some lever, but by mistake he moved the starting lever enough to move the engine a foot or two. A little more, and the firebox would have crushed the driver to death. lie quite coolly crawled out, and began to correct the stoker with his fists, but the man broke away, and fled into the country, and we went on without him. There were some curious characters among the drivers and gangers who were brought out from England by the Barkley brothers to work the line at first. Though they had then been some years in the country and had learnt enough Turkish to direct the native navvies, many of whom were very tough customers, they seemed to think it was beneath their dignity to talk to them without a mixture of English words, just as British soldiers talk to the natives of India. But at the same time they were able to hold their own with the roughest of the Albanians, Kurds, Armenians, and Bulgarians who were attracted by regular pay and English honesty to the service of the company, and the Barkleys, who had made and managed the line for some years, always kept up the best relations with the people and had great influence and power in the country.
In the autumn of 1869 I retired from the Scots Guards as I found that there was little or no prospect of any real soldiering, and the extra rank which officers in the Guards then enjoyed made it impossible for me to exchange as a captain into a regiment in India as I tried to do.
