Edward Money - Twelve months with the Bashi-Bazouks

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Text originally published in 1857 under the same title.

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TWELVE MONTHS WITH THE BASHI-BAZOUKS

BY

EDWARD MONEY,

LIEUT.-COLONEL IMPERIAL OTTOMAN ARMY, AND LATE CAPTAIN BASHI-BAZOUKS

Contents

I DONT like a preface to a book. In the first place, if a work of fiction, the fact of impressing on the readers mind that what follows never did occur, and is merely the result of the authors fertile brain; is, to say the least of it, not the best way to create an interest. Secondly, if, as in this case, it is not fiction but facts to be related, let them speak for themselves, and the book stand or fall by its own merits: no preface ever made a bad work popular; a good one never failed for the want of it. As therefore I feel sure no object will be answered by writing one, I shall not attempt it.

In the month of July 1855, I left England with two of my brothers, to go and see the fall of Sebastopol, which we felt quite sure must occur shortly, and would perhaps kindly await our arrival to do so. I was in that frame of mind when any change of scene, excitement, or even privation is acceptablea state brought on either by the ennui and satiety a life devoted to pleasure produces, or by great mental grief; the latter was my case, and I flew to the scenes of the war, hoping that, if I could not find employment, I should at least find distraction.

I met my brothers in Paris, en route for Marseilles, where we embarked in that splendid French screw steamer, Le Jourdain, and made a quick passage to the Dardanelles.

The society on board was most agreeable; a pleasant mixture of English and French. An English lady was amongst the number, who was leaving the comforts of home to be near her son in the Crimea, where I afterwards met her and where she stopped a long time. The devotedness of the act struck me as very characteristic of English mothers. We touched at Messina and at the Pirus on our way; we landed at both places, and, of course, from the latter we visited Athens. I will spare the reader a description: I saw nothing that bears on the war, the customs of Turkey, or the Bashi-Bazouks; and as for information regarding the places themselves and their inhabitants, is it not all written, and with much more information than I could bring to bear on the subject, in Murrays Handbook of Europe?

On the evening of the day we entered the Straits of the Dardanelles, I overheard a gentleman, Captain J, a Queens messenger, with whom I had become well acquainted on the passage, asking the commander of the steamer to stop at the Dardanelles, as he had despatches to deliver to General Beatson, commanding the Irregular Cavalry at that place. The Captain refused, as it was not one of the ports at which he regularly stopped. He told Captain J that he must either take his papers to Constantinople and send them back by post, or else land them at Gallipoli and forward them from thence. It seems these despatcheswhatever they were, for I never knewwere important, and Captain J was much grieved that a delay of two or three days must occur in their delivery, as he knew no one at Gallipoli to whom to entrust them.

Though I had come out as an amateur, I was anxious to be something more; and having been in the East India Companys army a few years, I did not think it impossible that, with the want of men then felt in the East, I might get service. I had applied in England for employment in the Turkish Contingent, but was refused, because I had retired from the East India service. I could not see the force of the conclusion; for I was told that, had I retired with a pension, whether from ill-health or other cause, I should be eligible; that is to say, in other words, because I was not obliged by a failing constitution to leave India, and was as strong and well as if I had never seen those burning shores, ergo, I was not thought competent for service, where, of all things, health and energy were required!

I bowed, however, to the decree, and, as I have said above, came out to seeand to act if I could. On hearing Captain Js lamentations about his despatches,

I proposed to him to take them myself direct from Gallipoli to General Beatson. I did this in the hope I should get a commission in the force; besides, I had heard so much, and such contradictory reports, of the said Bashi-Bazouks, that I was anxious to see them.

Captain J jumped at the offer; and as he had known

General Beatson slightly in Spain, he wrote him a note with the despatches, saying who I was, &c., &c.; and it was agreed between my two brothers and myself, that I should rejoin them two days later at Constantinople.

Daylight saw us all landed at Gallipoli, the first Turkish shore I touched,; and after we had imbibed some coffee and smoked some early pipes at one of the Turkish restaurants, I jumped into a boat for the Dardanelles, and as the Jourdain became small by degrees and beautifully less on the horizon of the Sea of Marmora, I, with a spanking breeze from the quarter E.N.E., whence it blows thirty out of every thirty-one days in these straits, ran back the course we had just come. My boatman and I could not converse; so, after staring at me for some time, he lighted his pipe, and, leaning luxuriously back in the stern sheets, attended to the helm and sail, which was easy work enough, for every now and then he fell asleep. I knew nothing of this till I saw our bow pointed back to Gallipoli, and turning round, behold, my helmsman was in the land of dreams! I pushed him with my foot, when he started and fell forward, forcing the green glass mouthpiece of his pipe down his throat. He recovered himself, coughing much; altered our course mechanically; filled his pipe, and smoked vehemently, as if to keep himself awake. Thinking all was right, I went and lay down in the shade of the sail and began to read. I was startled at hearing a most unmistakeable snore; I looked, and he was asleep again. I was annoyed, for once more we were going all wrong. To hold out any hope of increased reward or fear of punishment was impossible, my knowledge of Turkish being confined to the one solitary word Yok, no, which striking me as strange, when compared to the similarity of the negatives of European languages, I had already learnt. I pushed him once more with my foot, exactly the same results followed; again the green glass disappeared down his throat, again a perfect paroxysm of coughing, again an alteration of the course, another replenishment of the pipe, and, a few minutes after, the same sleep again!