378 The Hunting Grounds 



pretty often, it soon began to show its effects, ren- 

 dering him extremely loquacious, and he recounted 

 several very amusing incidents of his early service, 

 besides expatiating, in the strongest of Turkish Bil- 

 lingsgate, against the Sirdar Ekrem Omer Pacha, 

 whom he denounced as an arch-humbug, who has 

 usurped the credit of other men's acts, and gained the 

 position he held by cringing servility, base intrigue, 

 and despicable chicanery being totally destitute of 

 all those qualities which he ought to possess, not only 

 as a general, but a man. He was said never to have 

 been under fire except on one occasion when he could 

 not help himself (at Eupatoria) ; and the small scar 

 he has on his wrist, which he often brags about, and 

 shows to strangers as a wound, was thus accounted 

 for: During one of the outbreaks of the "Ryahs" 

 or Christian subjects of the Porte, in Southern 

 Turkey, he was sent in command of a body of troops 

 against a walled village not very far from Monastir, 

 which was vigorously defended by the inhabitants, 

 armed only with matchlocks and ataghans. A long- 

 continued drought had dried up most of the wells in 

 the enceinte of the place, and the besieged had to 

 obtain their supply from a spring in the ditch outside 

 the walls, which task was generally undertaken by 

 the women and children after nightfall. This fact 

 was communicated to Omer Pacha by some of his 

 sycophants, and he ordered the small brass rifled 



