The regiment, which was eight hundred strong, was officered by a colonel, two majors, eight captains, sixteen lieutenants, and a paymaster. When the process of entraining was completed, I found myself _en route_ at six o'clock in the morning for a destination of which I knew nothing, and in company with a regiment of troops who were as ignorant of English as I was of Turkish. I was accommodated in a compartment with the colonel, the two majors, and the paymaster, Mehemet Ali, with whom I afterwards chummed up and lived on terms of the closest friendship. It was decidedly awkward, however, at first; for as the Turkish officers could speak neither French nor German, all communications between us had to be by signs. The men were packed closely together, and the train crawled slowly on towards the terminus, stopping for one hour in every three. We were three days and two nights on the journey towards Tatar Bazardjik, and I had plenty of time and opportunities for forming an opinion as to the kind of men with whom my lot was cast. I found that these men, who were all conscripts, formed the second regiment which had been raised at Kyrchehir, and fine fellows they were. I could have picked fifty men from among them who were as grand specimens of physical humanity as could be found anywhere in the world. They were all well clothed in the serviceable infantry uniform, and were armed with the Martini-Peabody rifle. We camped each night at a railway station, and I remember on the morning of the second day seeing an old pasha who was organizing troops locally come galloping down to inspect us. Our regiment was paraded, and the pasha rode down the lines scanning the men closely. Presently he spotted me, and, seeing at a glance that I was not a Turk, he addressed a question to the colonel, who evidently replied that I was their new English surgeon. The pasha trotted up to where I stood at attention, and addressed some incoherent query to me; but as I could not even conjecture what it was all about, I imitated the gentleman whom Tennyson speaks of, and "smiling put the question by." I thought that the old pasha looked hurt; but the mystery was soon cleared up by the arrival of his own private barber with razor, soap, and brush. It seemed that "side boards" were not allowed in the Turkish army, and the small hairy appendages which covered my youthful cheeks, and of which, to tell the truth, I was rather proud, had deeply offended the old pasha's trained sense of order. So I had to submit myself to the pasha's barber, and in a few minutes the offensive adornments were removed, and I could no longer be distinguished from any of my Turkish colleagues.