We looked in vain for pretty women, and the reader may be assured that some of our researches were of the most elaborate description. Not a trace of the boasted Grecian beauty was to be found in those oddly-dressed females, whose costume seemed a mere oval bale of clothing (the feridjee), surmounted by a white linen veil, and ending in boots of yellow leather, as they flitted like fat ghosts about the public wells, or the gates of the great bazaar. All were, indeed, plain even to ugliness, save in one instance--pretty little Magdhalini, the daughter of the miller, Steriopoli. I remember a charming vivandiere, who belonged to the 2nd Zouaves, for I saw her frequently under circumstances that could never be forgotten--in fact, under fire, at the head of the regiment. She was a smart little Parisienne, possessed of great beauty, with eyes that sparkled like the diamonds in her ears. She wore a pretty blue Zouave jacket, braided with red, over a pretty chemisette, and had her black hair smoothly braided under a scarlet kepi, which bore the regimental number. The first time I saw Sophie she was simply maintaining a flirtation with one of the corps, to whom she gave a mouthful of brandy from her barrel, as he stood on sentry under my window, and their banter rather interfered with the composition of a letter which I was writing to my cousin Cora.
"Ah, Mademoiselle Sophie," said the Zouave, in his most dulcet tone, "you--_mon Dieu_--you look so lovely that----"
"That what--what--Jules?"
"Well, so lovely this morning that I am quite afraid----"
"To kiss me--is it not so, Monsieur Jolicoeur?"
"Yes."
"_Tres bien_. Take courage, _mon camarade_."
"Mademoiselle Sophie, you quiz me!"
"A Zouave, and afraid," exclaimed the vivandiere; and then followed a little sound there was no mistaking.
"You are indeed beautiful, Sophie. There is not a vivandiere in the whole French army like you."
"Yet I may die an old maid," said she demurely.
"May?"
"Yes, Jules."
"Then it will be your own fault, _ma belle coquette_, and not the fault of others."
"_Parbleu_! I sha'n't marry a Zouave, at all events."
"Don't speak so cruelly, Sophie. When I look on your charming face, I always think of glorious Paris. Paris! Ah, _mon Dieu!_ shall we ever see it again?"
"Why did you leave it, Jules, and your studies at the Ecole de Medecin, to fight and starve here?"
"Why?" exclaimed the student.
"Yes, _mon ami_."
"The old girl at the wheel, Madame Fortune, proved false to me. I lost my last money, fifty Napoleons, at the rouge-et-noir table in the Palais Royal. I was ruined, Sophie; and as I had no wish to jump into the Seine, and then to figure next morning on the leaden tables of the Morgue, like a salmon at the fishmonger's, I joined the 2nd Zouaves in the snapping of a flint, and so--am here."
"You will return with your epaulettes and the cross, Jules."
"I don't think so. Kiss me, at all events, _ma belle_."
"Well, camarade, if it will console you----"
Here I tried to close the window, on which Jules "carried arms," and looked very unconscious; while the pretty vivandiere gave me a military salute, and tripped laughingly away, singing--
Vivandiere du regiment, C'est Catin qu'on me nomme, &c.
Daily more troops arrived from Britain and France; daily the camps extended in size, and, notwithstanding the season, we suffered much from cold, while, so bad were the commissariat arrangements, that, in some instances, officers and soldiers were alike without beds or bedding, few having more than a single blanket; so, for warmth, they reversed the usual order, by dressing in all their spare clothes to go to bed.
Gallipoli became so crowded at last that some of the troops were despatched towards Constantinople and Scutari. There the Highland regiments, beyond all others, excited astonishment and admiration, not unmixed with fear, their costume seemed so remarkable to Oriental eyes; and many may yet remember the anecdote current in camp concerning them.
An old Turkish pasha, who had brought the ladies of his harem in a _caique_, closely veiled in their _yashmacs_, to see our troops land, was intensely horrified by the bare brawny legs of the 93rd foot; but after surveying them, he said, with a sigh, to an English officer--"Ah! if the Sultan had such fine soldiers as these, we should not need your aid against the Russians."
"Well, _effendi_," observed the Englishman, who was quizzing, "would it not be advisable to propagate the species in this country?"
"_Inshallah!_ (please God!) it will be done, whether we advise it or not," said the old Turk, sighing again, as he ordered his boatload of _Odalisques_ to shove off for Istamboul with all despatch.
Amid the novelty of our new life at Gallipoli, a week or two passed rapidly away, ere rumours were heard of our probable advance to Varna; but, as I do not mean to repeat the well-known details of so recent a war, rather confining myself to my own adventures, and those of my regiment, I shall close this chapter by relating an episode which will serve to illustrate the brutal and lawless character of the Turk, and the slavery to which ages of conquest and degradation have reduced the wretched Greek. I have said that Jack Studhome and I were quartered in the house of a Greek miller, named Demetrius Steriopoli. His chief worldly possessions were a melon-garden, and two ricketty old windmills, which whirled their brown and tattered sails on the breezes that came from the Hellespont. In the basement of these edifices, and in the walls of his dwelling-house, were--and I have no doubt still are--built many exquisitely-carved fragments of some old Grecian temple; for there triglyphs, sculptured metopae, the honeysuckle, and so forth, with portions of statues, all of white marble, were used pell mell among the rough rubble masonry.
These edifices--to wit, the house and mills--stood on an eminence a little way beyond the ruins of the old wall of Gallipoli, on the side of the road that leads across the isthmus towards the Gulf of Saros.
His dwelling was picturesque, and that which is better, it was clean and airy; thus, while Beverley and others of ours were nightly devoured by gnats and other entomological torments, we slept each in a separate kiosk, or bedroom, as comfortably as if quartered in the best hotel of Dover or Southampton--so much for the housewifery of the little Magdhalini. Steriopoli was by birth a Cypriote Greek--a handsome and fine-looking man, about eight-and-thirty, and when armed with sabre, pistol, and yataghan, had rather more the aspect of a marauder than a peaceful miller, especially as his attire usually consisted of a scarlet fez, a large loose jacket of green cloth, a silk sash round his waist, a capacious pair of blue breeches, his legs being further encased in sheepskin hose, and his feet in sandals of hide. When the merciless Turkish troops massacred twenty-five thousand persons in Cyprus, destroying seventy-four once happy and industrious villages, with all their monasteries and churches, seizing the young women as slaves, and casting the male children into the sea, it was his fate, when disposed of in the latter fashion, to be picked up by the boat's crew of a British man-of-war. Torn from the arms of his shrieking mother, he had been tossed into the harbour of Larneca, which was filled with the corpses of poor little infants. On board the British ship he had been kept for a time as a species of pet among the sailors. Hence his regard for us was great; and his open trust in us was only equalled by his secret abhorrence of the Turks. He was a widower, and his family consisted only of his daughter and a few servants, male and female--the latter being his assistants at the mills.
After the plain-looking women of Gallipoli, the beauty of the little Greek maid, Magdhalini, proved an agreeable surprise for us; and within doors she always laid aside the hideous _yashmac_ which concealed her features when abroad. She was not much over fifteen, but already fully developed; she was lively in manner, and graceful in deportment; and her picturesque costume--a crimson jacket, with short, wide sleeves, open at the throat, and embroidered at the bosom, her skirt of various colours, and her hair ornamented with gold coins, all added to the piquancy of her beauty. Her features were remarkably regular; her forehead low and broad; her rich, thick hair was of a bright auburn hue; but her eyes were of the deepest black. In the latter, when contrasted with the pale purity of her complexion, the form of their delicate lids and curled lashes, I saw--or fancied so--a resemblance to Louisa, which gave the girl a deeper interest to me; and her appearance frequently recalled to me Byron's description of Haidee:--
"Her hair, I said, was auburn; but her eyes Were black as death; their lashes the same hue, Of downcast length, in whose silk shadow lies Deepest attraction; for when to the view Forth from its raven fringe the full glance flies, Ne'er with such force the swiftest arrow flew. * * * * * Her brow was white and low; her cheek's pure dye Like twilight rosy still with the set sun; Short upper lips--sweet lips! that make us sigh Ever to have seen such."