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 a state of dreadful suffering. On investigation it was found that the bandage had been changed and that the limb was hopelessly distorted, the toes being turned inwards in such a fashion that even had the man recovered he would have been a helpless cripple for the rest of his days. The bandage was huddled on anyhow, and Moore tore it away to discover to his horror, that the brown limb below it was hideously blanched and inflamed. It turned out on inquiry that a young Turkish haakim, who had watched the operation at which the limb was first set, had taken it into his head to rearrange the dressing before the plaster case in which the limb was bound had dried, and he had improved upon the process he had witnessed, pretty much as an intelligent monkey might have done, by applying a dressing of undiluted carbolic acid. I have rarely seen a man in such a towering rage as Bond Moore when he saw the full extent of the mischief which had been done. He was fertile in curses, but when he had exhausted all he knew or could invent on the spur of the moment, he begged me to send for my interpreter who arrived in a minute or two, and drew from the sufferer a description of the man who had so mishandled him. Bond Moore sent for that man, and having made sure of him, kicked him the whole length of the corridor and finally sent him flying down a lengthy flight of stairs, where, very fortunately for himself, he fell upon a load of hay which had just been delivered for the use of the cavalry regiment which was stabled below the hospital. The indignant haakim hobbled off straightway to the military commandant of the city and lodged a complaint as to the manner in which he had been treated by his English colleague. In less than a quarter of an hour he was back again and the Pasha with him, a little, black-avised man with a beard like wire, who bore a malacca cane in very truculent fashion. He was quivering with anger, and he demanded in fluent French an explanation from Bond Moore in a manner which was peremptory in the extreme. Bond Moore knew no more of French than he did of Turkish, but my interpreter having explained the position, the Pasha turned round upon the complainant and, after a few curt and angry questions, set about him with the malacca cane until he roared: "Amaan, Eccellenza, amaan!" (which, being interpreted, is "have pity,") and finally took to his heels and ran for it with the irate little Pasha in full cry after him.
Regions Review
Recollections — Part 72
2026-11-15 06:22:44 · The Daily Ledger
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