PRESSED INTO THE SERVICE There was no question as to my eligibility for service.

I was young and strong and healthy--and even if I had not been, the physical examination of Turkish recruits is a farce.

The enlisting officers have a theory of their own that no man is really unfit for the army--a theory which has been fostered by the ingenious devices of the Arabs to avoid conscription.

To these wild people the protracted discipline of military training is simply a purgatory, and for weeks before the recruiting officers are due, they dose themselves with powerful herbs and physics and fast, and nurse sores into being, until they are in a really deplorable condition.

Some of them go so far as to cut off a finger or two.