Nothing can surpass the good-humor and patience of the Turkish soldier. Brutal and barbarous they doubtless were when their fanaticism and the rage of battle united to excite them, but in camp and in peace I have found them always models of the purely physical man. Our dinner was luxurious, and in the true Eastern manner. The Pasha, the Bey commanding the place, and his aide-de-camp made four with me, and one dish, placed in the middle of the table, served our fingers or spoons according as the viand was dressed, each one of the four scrupulously adhering to his quadrant of the copper circle. The dinner was almost interminable; it was dark and cold when the end did come. The soldiers, gathered round their camp some half a mile away, had eaten their suppers and were at ease, the shouting of their merriment coming to us occasionally above the general hum. Presently we saw them taking fir-branches, and, each lighting one at the nearest campfire, come running to us at full speed, making a long madcap procession of torch-bearers, the pitchy fir giving out an immense flame; and, making for the headquarters, followed by the battalion band playing, they threw their branches in a pile on a level space before the Pasha's tent, and then, turning to the right and left, sat down in a semicircle open towards us. A detachment was told off to keep up the fire, and a sort of glee club, accompanied by rude instruments, drums beaten by the hand, and a kind of flute and mandolin, commenced singing at the top of their voices the plaintive monotonous songs which all who have been in the East know.