As a rule the Turks have excellent teeth; but in such a large assemblage of men there were of course many exceptions, and I had a good deal of tooth-drawing to do. Some of those Mussulman molars were dreadfully obstinate, and resisted every effort of the Giaour with fanatical determination. One man with a huge aching grinder in his upper jaw came to me three mornings in succession, for with the simple appliances at my disposal I was unable to extract it in one sitting. At last I made him sit down on the ground in front of me, and, grasping the forceps in my right hand, I braced my feet against the pit of his stomach, and put forth every effort. There was a crunching, grinding noise, a sound of breaking and rending, then a "plop" as when a recalcitrant cork comes out of a bottle of pale ale, and I was lying on my back in the trench among the arum lilies, with the forceps and the molar in my hand at last. As for the Turk, he spat the blood out of his mouth, piously remarked that Allah was very good, and went back to his company. If any of my patients were seriously ill, or showed symptoms of malarial fever or dysentery, which was very prevalent, I had them placed in arabas, and sent back to the hospital in Widdin. Then, when my work of inspection was over, which was usually the case by about nine o'clock, the rest of the day was my own, and I spent it in improving my knowledge of Turkish and consuming large quantities of coffee and cigarettes with my brother officers. Every day the camp was in a state of great activity, with never ending drills and ceaseless inspections by the commandants, who spared no pains to see that everything was ready before the expected outbreak. The discipline throughout the camp was admirable, and the men were in excellent good humour.