Turks of Anatolia being more or less in touch with the dead—otherwise why those mangy man-eaters (no, not tigers, but half savage dogs) which prowl about o' nights in the by-ways of Erzeroum, or scratch up in the graveyards, as they too often do, all that remains of poor humanity, which, in this part of the world, is but thinly and lightly covered with mother earth? The backs of these scavengers, raw, and sometimes bleeding, tell too plainly the nature of their calling, since they suffer from a peculiar scurvy so induced. When the commissariat is low, they go further afield, even to that cordon of corruption outside the place, where vultures, hawks, owls, and other birds of prey fight or forgather with wolves and such like four-footed adventurers, and where, though metaphorically the man-eater takes a back seat, he still picks UP some loathsome trifles—the menu is not perhaps so choice as in his own graveyards, but the supply is plentiful enough in all conscience—everything corruptible, from a dead cat to a dead camel, finding a last resting-place somewhere within that seething circle.
Hark! Do you hear the thunder of the guns in the Devé Boyun Pass yonder? Do you see the smoke mingling with the fleeting clouds in the far distance? How complete a picture this—could you see it as I do now in my mind's eye—of "war, pestilence, and famine!"
It's a far cry from Anatolia to Bulgaria, from Erzeroum to the Russian lines round about Plevna; but such a flight to pen and pencil on the plains of paperland is nothing. Thus do we now, on the wings of fancy, find ourselves at Porodim, in the Cossack camp, during Osman Pasha's stubborn resistance—where Conigsby, of The Times, and McGahan, of The Daily News, and many others, including myself, were later on sending home news or sketches, and awaiting developments.
Not unlike a sack of potatoes on legs, your average Cossack, when he has dismounted, has more the clumsiness of the clown than the cut of the crack cavalry soldier about him, while his peculiar aversion to water at once negatives any notion of personal smartness, from a European point of view. On the other hand, put him in the stirrups, mount him with all his paraphernalia on his shaggy little steed, and he will ride, if need be, "through fire, and—if quite unavoidable—water," too, if it be only the will of the Czar.
"Tit-bits at the front."
It's a beautiful, nay, touching sight to see the Cossack of the Don at the first streak of early dawn on commissariat duty. As an explorer and discoverer of dainties in obscure hen-roosts, he stands—save for Reynard himself—alone; seldom returning without bringing in trophies on his lance-head which will give a zest to the Major's breakfast—or—his own.
One morning at Porodim several correspondents and myself were making desperate efforts to break the ice with a view to something like a lame apology for the homely tub. At length, having succeeded in doing so, we commenced our ablutions, and soon found ourselves the subject of comment on the part of several burly fellows, who seemed quite entertained at our proceedings.
"Wonderful!" said a Cossack Corporal, turning to my interpreter Nicholoff. "Wonderful! Englishmen, are they? Why, they wash in the winter time!"
While on the subject of Cossacks, several odd incidents present themselves:
The Times correspondent and myself having one day secured (no matter how) a fowl, promptly proceeded to pluck, cook, cut up and—but no, I mustn't put the cart before the horse—we were interrupted in our arrangements for the mid-
