I never failed to wonder at these people, who, without the aid of alcohol, could reproduce the various stages of intoxication.

As I lay by and watched the moon riding serenely above these frantic men and their twisting black shadows, I reflected that they were just in the condition when one word from a holy man would suffice to send them off to wholesale murder and rapine.
It was my good fortune soon to be released from the noise and dirt of the mosque.

I had had experience with corruptible Turkish officers; and one day, when barrack conditions became unendurable, I went to the officer commanding our division--an old Arab from Latakieh who had been called from retirement at the time of the mobilization.

He lived in a little tent near the mosque, where I found him squatting on the floor, nodding drowsily over his comfortable paunch.

As he was an officer of the old regime, I entered boldly, squatted beside him and told him my troubles.