“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.  When a bullet killed one of their companions, they only observed, scarcely taking the pipes from their mouths, ’Our hour is not yet come:  it is not the will of Mahomet that we should fall.’

“I own that this rash security appeared to me, at first, surprising, but it soon ceased to strike me with wonder, and it even tended to confirm my favourite opinion, that some were born to good and some to evil fortune.  I became almost as careless as my companions, from following the same course of reasoning.  ‘It is not,’ thought I, ’in the power of human prudence to avert the stroke of destiny.  I shall perhaps die to-morrow; let me therefore enjoy to-day.’

“I now made it my study every day to procure as much amusement as possible.  My poverty, as you will imagine, restricted me from indulgence and excess, but I soon found means to spend what did not actually belong to me.  There were certain Jews who were followers of the camp, and who, calculating on the probability of victory for our troops, advanced money to the soldiers, for which they engaged to pay these usurers exorbitant interest.  The Jew to whom I applied traded with me also, upon the belief that my brother Saladin, with whose character and circumstances he was acquainted, would pay my debts if I should fall.  With the money I raised from the Jew I continually bought coffee and opium, of which I grew immoderately fond.  In the delirium it created I forgot all my misfortunes, all fear of the future.

“One day, when I had raised my spirits by an unusual quantity of opium, I was strolling through the camp, sometimes singing, sometimes dancing, like a madman, and repeating that I was not now Murad the Unlucky.  Whilst these words were on my lips, a friendly spectator, who was in possession of his sober senses, caught me by the arm, and attempted to drag me from the place where I was exposing myself.  ‘Do you not see,’ said he, ’those soldiers, who are firing at a mark?  I saw one