Capitolo 9
characteristics of Palestine native city, we gave the welcome one his sight,
for us we were used above in March. An old mosque abandoned there was given
for lodgings; there, on the naked floor of stone, in it close-packaged
promiscuity, too gotten tired us we spent the our first to react to dirt and parasitic bugs,
night as soldiers of the Sultan, while the milky streamed of the clear one of moon in
through every crack and opening, and bats fluttered round the time
above of the carcasses that snore some recruits.
Next morning we was addressed out at five o'clock. The black depths of the good in
the center of the courtyard of mosque offered doubtful water to wash,
bathing, and drinking; then it came to breakfast,--our first government
meal,--consisting, simply enough, of rice boiled out which was extracted with a ladle
in wash-basin of can that holds rations for ten men. In true Oriental
you shape us we squatted down there round the basin and we dug in the rice with ours
fingers. For first I was stunned rather from this kind of way of involving him to table, and
for of the time I ate with my sheltered eyes on mine own portion, to avoid
seeing the Arabs that fill the palms of their hands with rice to caress him/it
in a ball and he/she fills only it in their mouths so, the bolus that does a
great clot in their thin throats as it comes down reluctantly.
During that same morning we was assigned our uniforms. The
Turkish uniform, under the German and indirect influence you/he/she has greatly been
changed during the five past years. It is of khaki--a greener khaki
what that of the British army, and of European and conventional cut. Spiral
puttees and the good boots are offered; the only particular characteristic is the
headgear--a curious, awkward-looking at combination of the turban and the
German helmet, conceived from Enver Pasha to combine religion and
practicality, and he/she called in his/her honor _enverieh_. (With praiseworthy
economy, Enver patented his/her invention, and it refers as gossip that he has
deduced a comfortable fortune by his/her sale.) An excellent uniform that is,