Among the Celestials : vol.1 / Page 219 (Color Image)

0219	Among the Celestials : vol.1

CHAP. VII.] AS OTHERS SEE US. I81

well-spoken with the people, and cool in diffi-

culties. He was a good companion, too, and

on the long marches and in the evenings in the

tent, he used to tell me of his travels, in the

course of which he had been in Egypt, and

was in Constantinople at the time of the

Russian war. What struck him most about

the Russians was that their soldiers were

" pukka," that is, hardy. They were not so

well treated as ours in the way of food and

clothing, but they were " pukka," he kept on

repeating, and ready to go through any amount

of hardships. The trait he did not like in the

Russians was their passion for passports ; they

were always at him for his passport, so that

there was always a certain amount of difficulty

or obstruction in moving about, and this inter-

fered with his constitutional habit of roving.

He was a strict Mohammedan, and seemed to

me to be always praying, though he assured

me he only did so the regulation five times a

day. As to us, he thought we had no religion.

He had observed us going to church on Sun-

days, but that was only once a week, and he

did not know what we did for the remainder of

the seven days.

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