The first English-speaking person whom I met in Sofia was MacGahan, the war correspondent for a London newspaper, and from him I learnt at last where I was and what was happening round us. We dined together, and he told me how the Servians had been beaten all along the line. I found that there were four other Turkish regiments besides my own quartered in Sofia; and among the English surgeons attached to the troops I was glad to find an old friend named Stiven, with whom I could exercise my tongue at last after my enforced silence of the previous week.
However, I was already able to speak a few words of Turkish, and the paymaster used to give me lessons regularly, pointing to the different articles in our tent and repeating the Turkish word for each until I had grasped it thoroughly. I conformed to Turkish customs of course in everything, and soon accustomed myself to my new surroundings. What strikes a new chum in Turkey very much at first is the absence of chairs. I never saw a chair there; but I soon learned to sit down to dinner on my own haunches on the ground with my brother officers. A Turkish dinner was a curious meal. First my servant brought me a basin of water, soap, and towel, and I washed my hands, preparatory to attacking the soup with my wooden spoon. Mehemet Ali and I used to eat out of the same bowl, dipping our wooden spoons in alternately. The _pièce de résistance_ was invariably _pilaf_, or boiled rice, with little bits of meat cut up in it, and sometimes scraps of chicken or turkey when we could get hold of any. The pilaf was eaten with the fingers; and the dexterity with which an experienced Turk would fossick out a tender bit of the liver, wing, or a satisfying "drumstick," from the superincumbent mass of rice reminded one strongly of a digger unearthing nuggets in a patch of rich alluvial.
It was astonishing at Sofia to notice the humane way in which the Turks treated the Bulgarians, who were to all intents and purposes a hostile people, and who never lost an opportunity of showing their hostility whenever they could do so with safety to themselves. During the whole of the time that I was in Sofia I never saw a Bulgarian ill treated; and I think it only right to emphasize this point, because, either from want of knowledge or from that tendency to take _omne ignotum pro malefico_ which is so common to mankind, the other nations of Europe have contrived to affix the stigma of barbarous cruelty to the Turks in such a manner that it is difficult to remove or even to lessen the impression. All I can say is that, as an unprejudiced observer with ample opportunities, I never saw any cruelties inflicted during a state of peace, nor any punishments dealt out to Bulgarians except in cases where they were fully deserved. The Turk when under fire does not fight with rose-water any more than the soldier of reputedly more civilized nations; but if needless barbarities were committed by both Turks and Russians when their blood was up, one has to remember the grim remark of the great Frenchman that one cannot have an omelet without breaking a few eggs.