and enjoy themselves all night, but it's a dose for those who are obliged to work. The out-door labourer, the street plyer, boatmen, and all that kidney, are nearly done up at the end of the thirty days, and many die away. You don't know what a blazing sun is, out here in Turkey, and to toil under it for fifteen hours, without bit or drop, would go far to do any man up. The poor keep this fast strictly, but the rich have the character for shirking it, on the sly. It retrogrades eleven days every year, so that sometimes it falls in winter, when the starving hours are not so many.

I think they are cracked, these Turks, by the way in which they usher in the Fast. They post a Tartar-fellow on horseback on one of the highest hills of the Asiatic shore, staring at the sky in the west; and when daylight fades, so that the thin streak of the new moon can shine out, and the Tartar can see its crescent plainly, off he tears into Scutari, faster than our fire-engines go to a London fire. On the sea-shore stands another man, beside a loaded cannon, with a ready match in hand: the Tartar gallops up to him, gives the signal, the match is applied, and off thunders the gun, sounding as if a hundred were being fired, through the echoes that resound all along the shores of the Bosphorus. It is the signal that the sun has set, and the Fast begun. Then the people pass the hours till morning, eating, drinking, laughing, talking, and praying -such meals as they do put away in these nights! All the streets are illuminated, the houses covered with sparkling jets of light, and the mosques look a blaze of flame; while the temple-domes are covered with brilliant devices, which nonplussed us Christians to make out, but they denote praise to Allah. Crowds sit in the streets enjoying their coffee and their sherbet, and gossip away the cool night hours, till near sunrise, when they proceed to stuff in another substantial meal, and whiff away very fast at their pipes. Then the gun, announcing sunrise, booms over Constantinople, and they go to bed, to sleep and fast till sunset again. Some, who are very devout, pass half the night praying; you can see them at it in the streets. When the month's fast is over they have a three days' feast, during which they eat and drink and never leave off at all, so Lieutenant Jones assures me, and he has some friends living here. All the rest of the year, Constantinople by night is a barbarous place. Nobody ventures into the dark streets, save the night-watchmen, with their ponderous clubs, who are all the human traversers; but they are not all the animal. Shoals of wild, savage dogs dash about, fighting over the offal they find, tearing each other to pieces, often to death, and howling horribly. No stranger can sleep through the noise, till he gets used to it. I should like to have a go at shooting them, from some high window, with plenty of powder and ball; I know I'd stop some of the howling. The Mussulmen daren't lay a finger on them, but I do wonder that some of the Giaours don't put a supply of poison in the street

corners.

At last we were ordered up to Varna-and, indeed, what we had waited for, and what we had done at Constantinople, I don't know-and away we started, up the Bosphorus. The scenery on the Bosphorus is as lovely as anything you can imagine, and if you wanted to give Aunt Priscilla a treat, you could not do better than bring her out to see it. But, when we neared the Euxine, all the beauty was gone, and we found ourselves in a nasty, damp, foggy, cold climate, just as if we had gone

into another world. It was night when we made it, and nobody could see their hand before them, nothing but a raw, drizzling mist, that obscured everything. It was no better the next day, and they say it seldom is, so I'm precious thankful I've not got to cruise on it. How ever the masters piloted the vessels I don't know, for, whether the shore was on the right or left, or aft or forrard, was beyond any seaman's comprehension to tell. A regular old stinger of a place it is, that Black Sea-you may note it down in your hand-book.

We anchored off Varna in the evening, and went ashore at once to the British camp. It was pitched about twenty minutes' walk from the town, on a great plain, dotted over with scrub and shrubs, some of which smelt like sweetbriar, and close to a fresh-water lake, which we can't drink, for it's full of leeches and other reptiles; so the men have to toil into Varna, with their tins, and get water there. We are not so much better off than at Gallipoli, after all; I think not so well. Sometimes we don't get fresh meat, and sometimes we do (lean stuff, as hard as boards, boiled dry, and eaten with bread, nothing to season it, no pepper, or salt, or mustard), and the bread's dreadfully brown and sour, and some days there's nothing else but bread for breakfast (eaten dry, and no butter), with water to wash it down, for the supplies of tea and coffee don't hold out, nor the sugar either, and we get no ale and porter, only promises of it. As to the cattle they kill for us, they are as lean as French pigs; and everybody knows that you can't tell a French pig from a greyhound. Our officers talk of sending one of these cattle over to Prince Albert, that he may put it in Smithfield show next Christmas, by side of his prize ox, and admire the difference. We are not all encamped at Varna, but some of us are about eighteen miles further on, near a village called Devno, and some are encamped half-way between the two, at Aladyn. We can't get any vegetables to speak of, and the fleet, lying off near us in Baltschik Bay, are worse off and get none, so the seamen have got the scurvy instead. One day, before I came up, the fleet sent the Spitfire to a coast-town some way off, and she got five-and-twenty tons of onions and some cattle for the consumption of the ships; but there was a to-do made about it (it was said our land-commissariat got jealous), and the Turkish authorities forbid it for the future. The French fare famously, like they did at Gallipoli, but the English can't contrive it, whether by sea or land. Our men murmur at the commissariat, and the commissariat grumble at the bad management at home, and we join in both. The greatest shame is, that we have no field hospitals. When a fellow falls sick, if he's very bad or in danger, he has to be sent to Varna: so they hoist him into a bullock-cart, a jolting machine without springs, and he's bumped along, often all the way from Aladyn, or even Devno, with the fiery sun blazing slap down on his head. Of course, by the time he gets to Varna hospital, he is not in a state to give long trouble to the surgeons.

There's an incessant scuffle to get carts for our provisions: the French are provided with their own, but with us it's all happy-go-lucky. Sometimes our men are starving hungry, and there's no rations, so out go some of us to see about it, and find that the commissariat are not at fault for rations, but for carts to transport them to camp. We have to depend upon what we can hire. A poverty-stricken Bulgarian owns a lumbering thing, half-waggon, half-truck, drawn by lazy buffaloes that

don't go two miles in an hour, all the property he possesses in the world, and he comes to the commissariat, and hires himself and his cart to them at so much per day: but the supply's not half enough, and the commissariat are nearly driven off their heads, and there's a world of bother. These Bulgarians, when they have worked, perhaps three or four days, run away wholesale, carts and all; and sometimes, on service, the buffaloes fall down, and if there's no water near to souse over them, there they lie floundering, and the march is at a stand-still. You should see these poor wretches of Bulgarians, heads, faces, necks, all are covered with hair; they look like so many wild Indians. They live upon garlic and grease (Gill smelt it, and says it's tallow), with a slice of black bread

now and then.

The landscape is very fine a few miles out of Varna, verdant meadows, ranging, luxuriant hills, and plenty of fine timber: just round the place, our camp has ploughed up the ground till it's nothing now but a sandy plain, and a rare dusty one too. Eagles, storks, kites, buzzards, &c., are here in plenty, soaring over our heads. I saw a serpent one day, at a distance or else it was the felled trunk of a tree. Gill, who was with me, insisted that it was only that, but I'm sure it was a serpent, and as we had not our swords with us to cut it in pieces, we both made off. It was a long, sprawling, green thing, twelve feet if it was an inch, I know, for we could not see its head or its tail. We have not fallen across any jackals yet, but we keep a sharp look out, for we should not like to come within range of those gentlemen unawares. I go out shooting with Gill, though sometimes we can't get any ammunition, for powder's short in the camp, in which case we only take the guns for show: we shot a dove once, and had him for supper. There's plenty of fish in the lake, but so few of us possess fishing-tackle, that we don't get much. Devno, though they call it a village, is a miserable collection of mud huts, whose inhabitants were frightened to death at the first view of us, and flew away howling, and have never come back. Plenty of hills are to be seen, and here and there a field of barley, some brushwood, with patches of bright coloured field-flowers, and dwarf acacia trees.

Sir George Brown is at Devno, and the Duke of Cambridge, commanding the first division, has changed his quarters from Varna to Aladyn. That is at the present moment of my writing, but my letter extends over some time, writing a bit one day and a bit another, so, before its conclusion, they may be somewhere else. Lord Cardigan has pushed on higher up, towards the Danube, with his detachments of light cavalry: a report came in to-day that they are sixty miles in advance of us, and that his lordship can't find food for his men or forage for his horses. Lady Errol is here, with her husband, and their tents pitched at Devno, close to the camp. When the Duke of Cambridge, with his men, got to Aladyn, the fellows toiling in, dead beat, between the sun and their clothing, there were no rations to be had. Orders had been sent on to get cattle killed, ready for the men, but the beasts were alive, eating grass themselves, and the commissariat could not be found. A fellow came out to Devno and told us this, but I know it's true.

About 8000 Turco-Egyptian troops are encamped on the plain below us, ragged little bow-legged devils, out at the toe and heel. They run in crowds to have a sight of us, and grin and chatter like so many monkeys. They get the interpreters to ask if all our army is composed

of such giants, and the bearskins are a continued source of wonder. When they first saw them, they thought they were live animals. They are but a race of pigmies themselves, so may well deem us giants. Some of their commanders are Nubian Eunuchs.

We are nearly sick of this inert life. The heat is awful, and we are frizzled to mummies. We are tired of speculating upon what's to come next, or whether we are to set up our tents here for life: so we sit outside, dozing, all topics for conversation being long ago exhausted. A little excitement is got up now and then, when fresh rumours reach us about the contemplated changes in our dress. They are so contradictory as just to keep us alive. Sometimes news will arrive that the coats are to be changed into frocks, and the pants to yard-wide breeches; now we are to have no buttons and no epaulets and no lace, and again the white ducks and the pipeclayed belts are to come off. Brigadier Cuff got a letter from his tailor, which says our coats are to be made in future without backs and with wider collars (but he thinks the writer may have unintentionally substituted one word for the other), that the padding's to come out, and the breasts made loose and easy. We learn that large supplies of white cotton nightcaps, with stumpy tassels, are on the road here, from Nottingham, to supersede the bearskins, and the various other tiles in present use. The officers are in a fearful rage about the nightcaps, and protest they won't wear them at home, for any Horse Guard order, whatever they may have to do out here. Fancy, they exclaim, the objects we shall present, in attendance on her Majesty, on a drawingroom day! Sir George has gone up with us fifty per cent. since this news, for he says he shall set his face dead against the nightcaps. We are inclined to forgive him now about the moustache business.

One day we had such a surprise at Devno. News came in that Omar Pasha was close to the camp, coming from Silistria. So the men had orders to beautify themselves, and out they all turned. He was not long coming up-two carriages full, and a horse escort. He halted at Devno, mounted, and rode up to view the British camp, all our staff accompanying him. He is not nice-looking, but stern, his features coarse, and his whiskers white, of middle height, and a thin, restless figure. Didn't he praise our men!-saying they could conquer the world. He next reviewed the Turks below us, and then left for Varna. A day or two afterwards he was expected back again, and by eleven o'clock our men were drawn out, all in readiness, chiefly the dragoons and artillery. Well, there they waited and waited and had full benefit of the sun, but Omar Pasha never came, and they were allowed to dismount. By-and-by there was an alarm and a scuffle, and every man rushed to his post, and prepared to cheer the cloud of sand, advancing from the distance. A horseman, Omar Pasha, as we all believed, was dashing up at full speed, with some more horsemen behind him, and we had just got our mouths open, beginning to shout forth, when, if you'll believe me, it was nothing but Lord Raglan in a nightcap! And the Pasha never came till the afternoon, for he had stopped at Aladyn (some spell it Alladeen) with the Duke of Cambridge.

Oh my stars! isn't there a commotion in the camp! We don't want matter for talk now. Three newspapers came in this morning, sent express, and there's all about a Court-Martial in them upon a Lieutenant Perry, at Windsor. Some of our officers are going mad over it, for he

has brought forward such awful things about the private affairs of officers in general, and the Times has actually gone and reprinted the evidence in full, and has got a leading article upon it besides! Many of us would have given our commissions rather than such scandals should have been promulgated, and we think shooting's too good for Lieutenant Perry. Of course, if there were a shadow of foundation for what he says, Greer and Garrett and the rest of them might dig a hole in the ground and put their heads in, like ostriches, and never come out again; but you, dear sir, and the rest of England, have too much common sense to credit any accusation so monstrous, when brought against officers and gentlemen.

Lord Cardigan is back, but nothing has transpired, and none of us can give a guess at what will be our next move. When I have any news worth sending, I'll drop you another letter: but it's too bad that the writing should be all on one side. Please take the hint, and believe me, dear sir, yours very dutifully,

THOMAS PEPPER.

Turkish Desert, Region of Varna, July, 1854. FRIEND GUS,-A joke's a joke, but a bargain's a bargain, and when you bargained at parting to send me news of everybody, I didn't think you were going to be off it like this. I wrote you a letter of six sides, and enclosed it, with some more, to Aunt Pris, so I know you got it, and I reckon you might have answered it. Aunt Pris is as bad, and worse, for she was to have sent me a hamper, and it's never come, unless it's stopping in that beastly Gallipoli. I asked her for some tin too, and that has not come; in short, nothing comes: and if I thought that ugly Straithorn had anything to do with it, through his canting old counsels, I'd slice his tongue out when I got back.

I went down to Constantinople soon after my last. Gum and Jones and a few others were ordered down-the deuce knows what for, for they never let it out to me-and they took me with them. Gill was all cocka-hoop, thinking he was going, and when he found out his mistake, he went raving. We had a jovial time of it there, and it was a shame we didn't stay longer. Plenty of delicacies in the eating line, and tuns of wine and spirits, and a nice drink they call sherbet, and prime smoking, and dice and cards, and bets and billiards, and anything else you may think of, all to be had for money. There's a regular London "hell" just beyond Scutari barracks, as hot as blazes inside, but I couldn't do much, through Aunt Pris never sending the corks I asked her for.

The Turks are such a rum lot: they lie in bed all day, and play up old bogy all night. The first day we got there we were in such a fever for dark to come, for we heard that the town was illuminated till it was lighter than the sun, that feasts were set out all along the streets, and everybody went out in their night-clothes, and there was a fine if you put on anything else. Well, night came, and of course I went out in mine, fearing the fine, and not to be different from others. I wish you had been there, and Gill: it was stunning. Thousands of paper lanterns dangling about, and thousands of lamps on the high buildings overhead, and little tables set out with feasts, and sherbet and wine and lemonade, and lots of pipes and cigars, and social parties enjoying themselves over it, and bothering hot waiters pushing about. But when I had got a Sept.-VOL. CII. NO. CCCCV.

E