Some, indeed, varied their wit by calling me Murad with the purse of pebbles.
"All that I had yet suffered is nothing compared to my succeeding misfortunes.
"It was the custom at this time, in the Turkish camp, for the soldiers to amuse themselves with firing at a mark.

The superior officers remonstrated against this dangerous practice, but ineffectually.
Sometimes a party of soldiers would stop firing for a few minutes, after a message was brought them from their commanders, and then they would begin again, in defiance of all orders.

Such was the want of discipline in our army, that this disobedience went unpunished.

In the meantime, the frequency of the danger made most men totally regardless of it.

I have seen tents pierced with bullets, in which parties were quietly seated smoking their pipes, whilst those without were preparing to take fresh aim at the red flag on the top.
"This apathy proceeded, in some, from unconquerable indolence of body; in others, from the intoxication produced by the fumes of tobacco and of opium; but in most of my brother Turks it arose from the confidence which the belief in predestination inspired.