Rensselaer Gazette, Volume 3, Number 10, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 29 June 1859 — The Turcos. [ARTICLE]

The Turcos.

A cor-esnondent of the Constituiionel thus d scribes the above mentioned Turcos on ! their arrival at Novara on the 3d: “By the side of the soldiers of the Imperial Guard is to be seen the Turcos, whose - ferocious aspect almost alarms the Novarese. I They are a race entirely apart— Africans by [ birth, French by adoption; they accept with : the best grace in the world the exigences of discipline. I yesterday visited their encamp ments; there is nothing at the same time more serious and more grotesque than their manners. The Arabians and negroes have their tents, but they sleep outside them, discipline not exacting from th'in any abnegation of the open air. When the hour calls ’ them to dinner, they fell an ox and distribute the meet reeking hot; the Kabyle does not even wait till his rations has been thrown I into the soup pot, but eats it raw—it saves time. Whe)i the enemy is mentioned in their presence, they grin, show their white 1 teeth and flash fire from their eyes. ‘I perceive,’ said I to an officer, ‘j’ou have good ' confidence in thentf’ ‘Yes,’ was his reply, ‘I tear only one thing for them— i. e. cavalry; as for infantry or artillery, they will walk straight to the cannon’s mouth; but a man on horseback scares them out of their senses.’ On their arival at Novara they made a regular onset on tiie barbers’ shop, and the tonsors of Piedmont could not execute their calling half fast enough for them. “An account, written after the battle of Magenta, of these Numidians, who for the first time since the expedition of Hannibal have found themselves on the other side of the Alps, says: “‘lt is declared that the conduct of the Turcos at Magenta was a pendant to the Zouaves’ attack at Mon’ebello and Palestro.* "An eye witness assures me that their attack presented a spectacle at once curious and terrible. They did not run, but some crawled, like the .savages described by Cooper, and seized their enemy ere they had time to stir; others bounded into the plain,uttering yells, and fell upon the astonished Austrians, hitting about on all sides with their bayonets without pity or quarter. A horrible melee was seen. Tne thunder of cannon was overwhelmed by the cries of a wild harmony which was neither the song of victory nor the lament of the wound'd or dying. All that tiie language of Mihomed contains in the way o! curses and imprecations issued from tiieir throats Ly volleys al a time, and one Turco did not hesitate to attack three or four Austrians. To the cries of the officers resounded the trumpet and drum, and every instant c ou s of the enemy were seen despoiling themselves of their gunsand throwing themselves into ditches or ravines to escape pursuit. ‘•VV hen the struggle was over tiie spectacle was hardly Jess strange. The frantic conquerors rolled themselves on the earth, as though seme African music sweeping across the Mediterranean had su denly met their ears, they executed frenzied dances and broke out into bursts of laughter which real.y terrified their companions in arms Some had compelled their prisoners to sit near them, and. like ihe lion which fascinates his prey, they contemplated, with an. eye full of fire, the unhappy defenseless soldiers at their feet. Ail savage as the Turco is, he fights loyally, nobly; seldom does be strike his adversary behind, he flies rather in his lace, at his head; he bounds, be cries, he galls, he confounds his < nemy, but never cowardly attacks him by surprise. He makes a prisoner of his disarmed foe—but never attempts to injure him.”