GATHERING HOSTS

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XLV, Issue XLVIII, 18 December 1914, Page 8

GATHERING HOSTS

THE BASHI-BAZOUKS IN POLAND. ("Express" Special.) WARSAW. The gathering of the Russian hosts has poured a stream of picturesque soldiers through Poland to the frontiers of Germany and Austria. , There are Cossacks from tho Don, wearing their caps on. one sido and flaunting bushy love-locks over their temples, like the cherished "horns" of the Arab warrior; Georgians; narrowwaisted, dandified Circassians; Littlo Russians; flat-faced, withered looking Siberian troops; men from the Altai and the Urals; and. most picturesque of all, wild-eved. bewildered Mohammedans from the Kirghiz steppes of Turkestan. Of all that have passed through Warsaw, none made so strange'a show as these untamed Bashi-Bazouks. They came clattering into the town on shaggy ponies that squealed and snapped at one another and wanted to fight with tramcars and motors and the' sober steeds that are harnessed to the droshkas. And the men were as wild as the horses they bestrode. Perched on their high-framed, uncomfortable-looking saddles ,they stared about them in ferocious wonder, swearing strange guttural Moslem oaths : "Mashallah!" and "Wullah!" and "Bilahi!" They wore striped wide trousers of mixed silk and cotton and turned-up embroidered riding-boots of red leather. Broad knives and knobbybutted pistols were stuck into their sashes, and their rifles clinked and dangled at- their backs.

AS IN 1814. Their great-grandfathers fought Napoleon clad in mail, and the Parisians of 1814 crowded to see them in their camp under the Platoff in the Champs Elysees, and wondered at their yataghans and painted bows and arrows. Save that the ji in has superseded bow and arrow, thev are much the same in 1914 as their ancestors of a century ago At sight of Warsaw, they believed already that thev had reached Berlin, and spurred forward. knives between their teeth and guns held ready. It was with the greatest' difficulty that they were halted for a while on the outskirts of the town while a regiment of moitj sophisticated troops were turned out to escort them through the streets. Finally thev were marched through between a double line of soldiery, by sido streets and bywavs, to the racecourse on the further side of tho town; and there they bivouacked. The eager sightseers who would fain have flocked to the place were discouraged after the Russian method; but a privileged few were permitted. It was of little avail, however, to question them, for hardly anyone could nnderstand their outlandish dialect. My Polish friend, M. S— —, striving hard to make himself understood by one hairy, muscular' horseman (whose bridle was tastefully decorated with sequins, and whose saddle-bags' were gloriously striped and fringed in Oriental style), seemed to me to make less headway than a Tyneside collier would make in conversation with a Devon or Cornish fisherman.

THE EMPTY BAGS. Tho dialogue became a thing of frowns -and head shakings and pantomimic, .gesture. The Bashi-Bazouk, n. seemed, had questions to ask, too, and urgently desired answers. By dint of patience and distinct articulation an understanding, was achieved at last. . "Is it "true," the wild man wanted to know, "that the Germans cany gold watches; or have they only silver ones?" I fancy that S——, to keep h : jji in a good temper, declared that every German is born with a magnificent gold watch in his waistcoat pocket. If that is so, judging bv the gleam of joyful resolution that forthwith illuminated the hairy gentleman's countenance, I foresee a painful experience in store for the first Teuton who fails to disgorge a gold watch.on demand. . ■' j - The hairy individual had five saddlebags on his crupper;- but only two of them appeared to "contain anything. S - "asked the reason of these five bags. The explanation was simple. One, it seemed, w-as to carry hay for the shacgy pony; another contained oats, intended for the consumption of that same intelligent if ill-tempered', animal—except in time of need, when the rider might be obliged to make porridge of them for .himself. ..'.'.■ ; - As for the three empty sacks - —-— : "I daresay I shall find something toput in them ' before the war is over," said the owner hopefully. Stories of the individual prowess of the Cossacks, hopelessly incredibl'e stories, many of them, are*the order of the day in Warsaw'. '

CAPTOR CAPTURED. have revelled in the valour of the young Don possack who slew eleven Germans with his own hand, and came out of the encounter with no fewer than sixteen sword and bullet wounds. His photograph, that of a wildly heroically handsome lad, has been in all the newspapers for days; and his unpronounceable'name is heard everywhere. Doubtless it has even'travelled as far as England bv now. There is the story of the Cossack who was captured, horse and all, by an Austrian scouting party; yet contrived to escape and bring an Austrian officer back to camp as his prisoner. He was. tripped in the half-light of early morning by a rope across the*road, and lay stunned for a time, as ihd story goes. When he recovered his senses he was disarmed and a captive. . The Austrian officer commanding his captors mounted the Cossack's pony, but the pony would not move. It remained indifferent to beatings with the flat of a cabre and preds from the point of it; for there is a special method of stimulating Cossack mounts to activity, and the Austrian officer knew it not. The Cossuck prisoner said that, he could make the horse go; and finally he was ordered to mount behind the officer and do so. Whereupon he clasped the Austrian tightly above the elbows and dug his heels into the animal. "Hik !" said the Cossack ; and the horse flew like the wind. This is a perfectly true story. At least —well, anyhow, I didn't invent it.