SOME few weeks since, in a lead

ing article adverting to this force, the Times informed us that there was something so irresistibly ludicrous in everything connected with the Bashi-Bazouks,'-nay, in the very name itself—that it seemed impossible to treat the subject with gravity, as seen from any point of view.' We quote from memory, and cannot therefore take upon ourselves to answer for the exact words, but such was the substance of a sentence calculated, we submit, to throw more than their fair share of ridicule upon the Irregular Horse.

That this description of cavalry is not entirely to be depended upon when unsupported by regular troops, and opposed to an enemy thoroughly disciplined and versed in the real science of war, we willingly concede; but that irregulars, from their very constitution, must be utterly useless and incapable, we as unhesitatingly deny; and yet we have heard many sensible men and thoroughly good officers stoutly uphold the latter proposition. To such we would merely mention 'Tait's Horse,' a force that, under the command of that judicious and distinguished leader, did as efficient service during our Indian campaign as any Queen's regiment of Light Cavalry, or indeed any regiment of any service in the world, and were as notorious for their discipline and good conduct on the march, as for their steadiness and gallantry in the field. greater compliment could have been paid their commander than the offer made him by the British Government, to go out and raise a force of Irregular Cavalry in Turkey, upon the same system as that which he had found to answer so admirably in India, an offer that Colonel Tait, for reasons of his own, decided upon refusing; nor are we inclined to believe that he has ever yet had cause to regret his decision.

VOL. LIV. NO. CCCXXII.

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It will be recollected that our sad deficiency in cavalry at the Alma, where we counted scarcely 900 sabres, almost neutralized the effects of that heroic victory-a deed-ofarms unrivalled perhaps in history, save by the bloody repulse of Inkermann. Commissions and Reports have also kept alive in men's minds the sufferings of our troopers, men and horses, during the melancholy winter of 1854; and when spring once more shed her smiles upon the camp of the besiegers, their cavalry was indeed reduced to a pitiable state. We have heard more than one distinguished officer complain that the Cossacks so hemmed in and harassed our people, that it was hardly practicable to get ground enough for a foot-race,' when the men were inclined to forget the hardships and miseries of the siege in those sports which reminded them of home. This, of course, was a mere façon de parler; but at the same time there is no doubt that the outposts and videttes of that wary, shifting foe were constantly venturing unpleasantly near, and that our soldiers felt keenly the want of some corresponding force which might become, so to speak, the eyes, ears, and feelers' of the army. A bright thought suddenly sprung up at the War Office, where such exotics are indeed rare, and seldom reach maturity till too late. 'Why should we, too, not have Cossacks of our own?' reflected the noble Lord at the head of the War department. department. Many good officers are out of employment; why not raise a force that shall give them ample pay, much labour, and a fair chance of distinction ? Catherans are best opposed to catherans; if the Czar moves a pawn, why must we sacrifice a knight? gin a body meet a body comin' to the camp,' it is best that the bodies' should be equally worthless. The Russians

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have their Cossacks; I, too, will have my Bashi-Bazouks.' So Springgardens was ere long besieged by aspiring warriors, bearded and grim, in lacquered boots, whose sole desire was 'blood' and extremely liberal pay and allowances. All who were in debt, all who were in hot water, all who were in difficulties, grasped at the opportunity thus offered. The corps was officered ere it was yet manned; and if you met your friend walking down Pall Mall, somewhat fiercer than usual, with a redundancy of hair, you naturally accosted him with the salutation, Why, you look as if you belonged to the Bashi-Bazouks!"

Then came the inquiry from the mouths of a discerning public, 'What are the Bashi-Bazouks ?' and Punch answered, as he always does, ludicrously to the purpose: 'A Bashi-Bazouk,' quoth the jester, is one who wears a 'shocking bad hat; so the public laughed, and took Punch's word for it, without turning to their Turkish vocabularies to ascertain how literally he had translated the term.

The language spoken by the Johnnies' is so little known to John Bull himself, is so difficult of acquirement,* and so crabbed in its construction, that we need hardly apologize to our readers for explaining how the word Bash, literally interpreted, signifies head,' and is used constantly with the same meaning as our own word captain. Thus in the Turkish army an 'on-bashi,' or head of ten, answers to our corporal; a yuz-bashi,' or head of a hundred, to our captain; and a' binbashi,' or head of a thousand, to the French chef de bataillon, or what was originally our own lieutenantcolonel. The bash' is therefore the chief or commandant of any assemblage. 'Bazouk' means uneven,' ' abnormal,'' irregular;' so that the

two words taken together signify that which has no established head or is under no regular command From the innate corruption of language, Bashi-Bazouk has come to mean, not only a member of a desultory mob, but even a private individual; this, however, only in contradistinction to a soldier, as we ourselves might use the term 'civilian;' and it is no uncommon thing to hear a Turk relate that he has met a certain number of 'BashiBazouks,' without in the slightest degree meaning to cast an aspersion on the character of such wayfarers, or even to infer that they were less respectable members of society than himself.

Since the war, however, the term has by consent been restricted to that band of irregulars who entered the service of the Sultan without choosing to enlist in his regular

army,-a determination which those who know how sumptuously that regular army is fed, and how honestly and munificently paid, are not surprised at any sensible Mussulman adopting. A handful of rice, a pinch of tobacco, and four piastres (about 10d. sterling) per month-the food being adulterated, the pay always in arrear-is hardly a fair recompence for the purchase of an able-bodied man, limbs and life and all; added to which, the clothing is never issued at the stated intervals, and many a march has been made by the Sultan's army literally barefooted and with scarcely a rag to cover them.

And here let me put in a word for the Turkish soldier. Of all philosophers in the world, he is the most admirable. Patient of toil, hunger, privation, misery of every description, he never grumbles, and he never mutinies. He may not be smart on sentry,- and truly, a Turkish sentinel lounging on his

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post, his firelock resting against the wall, himself perhaps smoking a cigarette, is a ludicrous and unmilitary spectacle enough,-but yet that same idler is all eyes and ears before an enemy. He may not be well'set up,' for his robust roundshouldered frame and strong bowed legs can never be drilled to look like the square, symmetrical Englishman, or the dapper, brisk soldat de la France. He may have confused ideas about time, and be little intelligent as to occurrences which do not come within the scope of his daily duty; but for all that he is a thorough soldier at heart. He will make extraordinary marches, and never complain of fatigue; on arrival at his bivouac, his officer will show him where he must lie down, perhaps in a pool of wet, with the remains of a threadbare coat only to cover him. Nothing has come up but the powder, and even his miserable ration of rice he must go without; and he says 'peki' (very well) with an expression of respectful resignation that is truly touching. We ourselves witnessed a regiment of Egyptians at Schoumla, who had not received clothing for two years, and were eighteen months in arrears of pay, and yet they were doing their duty with an alacrity and obedience beyond all praise. So much for the infantry soldier; the cavalry man is perhaps even superior in his department. All Turks are naturally good horsemen, and what is more, good horse-masters; and the Eastern origin peeps out even amongst the lowest of the natives. We were riding one moonlight night on the shores of the Bosphorus, with a common groom from Constantinople as our guide. We entered into conversation with him as to his tastes and predilections. What did he like best in the world? A horse. What next? A rose! And after those two, a woman. Ask the first post-boy, omnibus-driver, or corresponding cad that you meet with in England the same question, and see if he gives you so simple and so poetical an answer.

But whatever the Turkish trooper may think of roses and women, his affection for his horse is of the tenderest and most careful description. On dismounting, he will lead him

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about for hours, and never leave him under any temptation till he is perfectly dry and comfortable, and has been fed and laid down. His habit also of unsaddling but once in the twenty-four hours, and that only for an hour or two, guards him against the dreaded injury of sore back,' that curse of all mounted men ; and his little charger lies down with his saddle on, and sleeps as contentedly and as composedly as a dog. Hence it is that Turkish cavalry can perform such extraordinary marches, and bring such numerical force into the field. Is locomotion the forte of our English Dragoon, splendid as he is? Let those who accompanied the reconnaissance of that dashing officer, Lord Cardigan, into the Dobrudscha, answer the question.

Doubtless the Turks are a warlike race. If we consult their history, we shall find that they have always been soldiers, and nothing but soldiers. They have never had arts, they have never had manufactures, they have never so much as translated the word 'progress;' and yet, despite the mailed chivalry of Hungary, they were once at the very gates of Vienna. Their temperance and simplicity of habits make them essentially a military nation. When soldiers are forbidden by their religion to drink anything stronger than water, and adhere conscientiously to the prohibition, one of the greatest enemies to discipline with which officers have to contend is at once done away with; and a force in which no man ever gets drunk, is a force in which there is seldom a punishment. It is not the sword that will sweep Turkey from the face of the earth: that she is predestined to fall, we believe to be the opinion of most far-seeing statesmen; but if fighting alone would keep her head above water, the crimson flag might wave for many a long year at the Golden Horn. No; the less we say of Turkish officers the better; but the Turkish soldier is a rare specimen of his class. Led by those in whom he has confidence, what will he not attempt?-what will he not endure? Witness the bloody campaigns on the Danube-witness the dogged, matchless defence of Kars.

But to return to the Bashi-Bazouks. There are three phases in which we may contemplate this much-talked-of, much-maligned, and also much-overrated force-the picturesque, the ludicrous, and the utilitarian. Let us take them first in their picturesque light.

It is a beautiful evening in spring, and the plains of Bulgaria are blushing in one of those orange sunsets so peculiar to Turkey. We are at the close of our second day's journey, and have had nearly enough of endless plains and Turkish post-horses; nor are we by any means sorry to find ourselves ap. proaching that curious basin in which is situated the well-fortified town of Schoumla,-by the way, one of the strongest places in Europe. The sun is very near the horizon, and in less than an hour we hope to reach our billets. Save our own party, not a figure have we seen for hours, since we left Yenibazaar, our last posting station, and a village remarkable only for having once been Lord Cardigan's headquarters. Suddenly, right in front of us, as though he had started out of the earth, appears a mounted warrior, his flowing garments and the symmetrical form of his steed defining themselves clearly against the evening sky. For an instant he stands motionless as a statue, then suddenly wheeling, and brandishing aloft a long lance, around the head of which waves a plume of feathers, he disappears. Scarcely is he gone before another figure, apparently identical with his comrade, is seen on our right; then a third on our left; presently half-a-dozen together; and as we surmount the slope that intervenes between us and Schoumla, we are surrounded by some two hundred of these irregulars, galloping, shrieking, wheeling like hawks upon the wing, and giving us welcome in their own fashion, which, however respectfully it may be intended, is somewhat undisciplined and alarming. The greatest compliment a Bashi-Bazouk can pay you, is to gallop up as hard as ever he can lay legs to the ground, till within an inch of your nose, when he either pulls up dead short, or shaves close by you without touching, though the current of air, like

the wind of a shot, completely scatters your ideas, wheeling his horse with a dexterity which is admirable in the equestrian, but, we cannot help thinking, most prejudicial to the soundness of the animal he rides.

Like all other Orientals, he uses a frightfully severe bit, with an extremely high port, and an iron ring passing round the lower jaw in lieu of a curb. With such an instrument, the touch of a finger is sufficient to produce intense pain; and the consequence is, that every horse so ridden acquires a habit of going in a confined position, with an unnatural strain upon his hind-legs and quarters, which, in nine cases out of ten, produces unsoundness. When we purchase an English horse, we look at his fore-legs; when a Turkish, we examine his hind ones. Without this command of his horse, it would be impossible for the Turkish cavalier to indulge in those feats of horsemanship on which he so prides himself, and which consist in galloping furiously at score, stopping dead short from extreme speed, wheeling and turning in the smallest possible space, and otherwise executing such manœuvres as would thoroughly break down any beast but his own in the first ten minutes, more especially on hard ground, for which he shows the most supreme contempt; and the consequence of this tuition is, that every Eastern horse goes with his head up, has no natural pace but a gallop-for his walk is a sort of fidgetty, fractious ambleand requires to be ridden with the lightest possible hand and the most implicit confidence, of which we are bound to admit he proves himself deserving. When ridden in an English bridle, and by a quiet horseman, he becomes in a short time as tractable and pleasant as any animal in the world.

So the Bashi-Bazouks plunge and snort and shout all round us, and we have time to examine the dress and accoutrements of these fine specimens of their class; for they have not sent out their worst men and horses to welcome and give us a first impression of the force.

Let us take that handsome swarthy fellow who has just reduced his steed

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from the pace of a race-horse to the stillness of a statue. He is a YuzBashi, or captain of a troop in an Arab regiment; and indeed there is a wild smack of the desert in the whole bearing and appearance of the man. True to our instincts, we turn our attention first towards his horse-a long, low, magnificent chesnut stallion, with all the marks of his noble blood in his lean characteristic head, his short quivering ears, and game wild eye; whilst his large thighs and joints, his full marble neck and deep ribs, betoken enormous strength and endurance in the smallest possible compass. Such an animal will travel a hundred miles a day in the desert for four or five consecutive days, and bear the extremes of heat and cold, the hardships of hunger and thirst, with a patience and power of resistance which is unknown to the meaner brethren of his kind. But then he can count quarterings with any German baron of the Empire; nay, his pedigree is as well authenticated and as carefully preserved as his master's own, who, a true Bedouin, esteems his blood the purest in the world. See how richly he has decorated his favourite-the bridle is adorned all over with chains and tassels, and the head-piece radiant with bosses of brass; a plume of horse-hair dyed scarlet descends from his throatlash, and reaches to the horse's knees; he tosses it about as though he too were proud of his finery: the saddle is covered with crimson cloth, and the housings embroidered with gold, and sown with seedpearls. Think of that, fair ladies! who have read of the Bashi-Bazouks and shuddered,-pearls for a horse, and those, too, scattered with no niggard hand. But he has not spent all his worldly wealth entirely on the chesnut, though you may depend upon it he has left none at home. He could march from hence to the end of the world without going back to pack up his things; for he carries not only his wardrobe, but his whole personal property, on his own and his horse's back. His costume consists of a close-fitting scarlet jerkin, embroidered with gold; an over-jacket, fastened at the neck, but otherwise streaming loose behind him, sleeves and all, like a

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Hussar's pelisse, also of scarlet, richly embroidered with the costly metal; a pair of voluminous 'shulwars,' or trousers, of a green hue-because, forsooth, our dandy counts kin with the Prophettucked into a pair of light yellow boots; the whole surmounted by a gaudy silk handkerchief twisted round his head, with long ends flapping over his cheeks and shoulders, so as to protect from the sun all but his eyes, nose, and beard the latter scanty and thin, but trimmed with peculiar care: a tiger's tail encircles his brows like a coronet, and is supposed to denote the fierce and warlike character of the wearer; whilst further to enhance his terrors, he has wound round his body a magnificent shawl, in which he carries a knife, a yataghan, a scimetar, and two, if not three, brace of splendidly-mounted but somewhat uncertain pistols. At his back hangs a murderous-looking carbine, and in his hand he brandishes a long light lance. Ere we have half inspected him, he is off again at score, jousting and imitating the game of the jereed with his fellows; and it is not till we have nearly reached the gates of Schoumla that the men, who have by this time breathed their horses and got rid of some of their own exuberant spirits, form into something like order, and march in to the sound of their tum-tums,' an instrument which, with the class of performers who practise upon it, seems peculiar to the BashiBazouks.

The tum-tum is a small sheepskin drum, carried at the saddle-bow, and capable of producing but two melancholy and monotonous notes, which continue without intermission, and appear to afford intense gratification to these wild Eastern horsemen. There are two of these to every regiment, and they are under the charge of two half-witted individuals, who, like the jesters of the middle ages, often conceal a vast amount of fun and shrewdness under the mask of folly, and whose grotesque dress and constant buffooneries afford much amusement to their comrades. The gravity for which the Turkish character is so conspicuous is, after all, but skin