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Show - v ..',.' iuii"',..l."H',"!,;ff' 't'J1! THE FATALISTIC TURK. llnw lie Bravet Vexth nt the Holy fclty or Ilia I'alrh. The accounts given by the pilgrims of the way In which cholera attacked them nre terrible In their grim fatalism, fatal-ism, says the London Spectator. June at, two days beforo tho Cpnrban Dalrnm, upward of one hundred thousand thou-sand Mussulmans, Arabs, Turks and Indians had gathered on the sacred mount to henr the solemn address which Is delivered to those who wish to become had J I. Many of these people peo-ple wcro In tho most, wretched condition, con-dition, and some had not even a loaf of bread. It was hero that the dlscasa appears to have struck them, llko the blast ot poisoned wind. When next day tho onward movement to the holy city began be-gan It was 'found that the ground was strewn like a battlefield with tho dead and dying, nnd so terribly vlrnlcnt was the typo of Infcotlon thus engendered that It was, says tho nccount, impossible impos-sible for any living creature to approach ap-proach tho place. Tho authorities seem, however, to havo realized that something must be done, and that the bodies could not bo left to rot. Accordingly, a Turkish regiment wns sent to perform the work of burial and to remove any ot the pilgrims pil-grims who still lived. Never did troops In tho heat ot battle receive a command com-mand moro fraught with peril. The risk, ns it proved, was literally grsatcr than thnt of facing machine guns, and the moral effect was far more terrible. Thcro are ten men who will face death to one who will face death by cholera. Yet theso Turkish soldiers, sol-diers, with tho fatalistic courage of their race, obeyed as they obeyed at I'lovna. Tho battalion, when It reached tho mount, was seven hundred strong. After tho work had been dono two hundred men only remained to go back to tho coast. Flvo hundred of tho soldiers sol-diers had died of cholera. That Is, nearly three-quarters of tho regiment perished In the work of burial. No doubt English troops would havo bcon upheld by many considerations by ro-llglous ro-llglous feeling and by tho Instinct of mercy, nnd they would, moreover, hnvo been well fed. Tho' Turkish troops probably felt the sense of pity very little, and their officers offi-cers wcro almost cortalnly men with anything but a high senso of conduct They noted merely from the niQSt naked senso of tho duty Of not flinching flinch-ing nt n command. It was an order given from afar and from nbovo, and that and faith ara to them all one. |