I was no longer a civilian. I was now commissioned as a military surgeon in the service of the Sublime Porte, and engaged in a practice which included some three hundred thousand patients more or less, of whose language I was entirely ignorant, and of whose manners all previous impressions had taught me to be suspicious. It is right to say here, at the outset, that my experience of over two years among the Turks proved to me that the estimate formed of their character by other reputedly more civilized nations was entirely false and misleading. That there was a large amount of corruption in the officialdom of Turkey at that time was no doubt true; but the real samples of national character, the men in the rank and file of the army, I found to be simple-minded, courteous, honourable, and honest in time of peace, while braver men on the battle-field than those who fought under Osman Pasha at Plevna are not to be found in Europe. The magnificent physique and robust constitution of the ordinary Turkish private soldiers I believe to be due mainly to two causes. In the first place they never touch alcohol, and in the second the traditions of Turkish social life and the rigid guardianship exercised over Turkish women have effectually kept out the scrofulous taint which has so appreciably affected the populations of other European nationalities. Having been gazetted at once as an army surgeon with the rank of _colghassi_, or major, which entitled me, among other privileges, to draw rations for four men, I left the luxuries of Misserie's Hotel behind me, and installed myself in the barracks close to the War Office, with a determination to see as much as possible of Stamboul before we were ordered to the front.