TCD MS 3416 page 60
[June 1916]
their rations are bad, and everything is ‘kutcha.” He then commented on the financial condition of the country. “There lira notes are useless – the people are afraid of them. In Baghdad our Sinkar’s notes were more valuable. The Sinkar’s name is great; we are prisoners but that is fate – in the end we shall win – Salaam Sahib” and I left him. He had spoken with emphasis and disgust of the massacres of Christians women and children by his co-religionists, proceedings which are not in accordance with the teaching of Mohamet in India. I can count on my fingers the number of times that I have seen Turks by the way-side saying their prayers thrice a day, before the multitude or wherever they may have been at the appointed time, as is the custom in India. The Turk has a lot to learn from his Indian co-religionists, amongst other things – charity and morality.
The pessimists were wrong, for, our baggage turned up an hour before our departure that night. The Generals left us here, bound for Broussa near Constantinople
Note: kutcha = rotten, bad. Sinkar = (British) Government.