Soyer's Culinary Campaign: Being Historical Reminiscences of the Late War.: With The Plain Art of Cookery for Military and Civil Institutions

windows were left open, branches of cherry and mulberry trees, loaded with ripe fruit, hung above one’s head as one lay in bed. The strong morning sea-breeze made the house rock like a cradle, and in shaking the trees which were planted close to the house, forced the branches in. Such was, in a few words, Soyer’s House, in Cambridge-street, Scutari, so much envied by almost all, except the man himself. Five of my people had kept possession in spite of several attempts to take it by storm during my absence. It appeared that lodgings were so scarce, they wanted to take it from them. One evening, after supper, my man Jullien, who possessed a first-rate tenor voice, was delighting us with the modulations of it, when suddenly the house began to shake most awfully, and the branches of the trees outside the windows entered very abruptly, and much farther than usual, sweeping off all the goblets and bottles from the table, to our great astonishment, nearly upsetting us; when our friend P. M. exclaimed, “Who is shaking the house?” Jullien, who had travelled much, replied, “Don’t be alarmed--it is only an earthquake.” “Only an earthquake, eh!” said P. M., bolting. In rushing to the street he upset my Greek servant, who was entering with a bowl of blazing punch, which gave both house and man the appearance of being on fire. We saw no more of P. M. till the next day, as he said he preferred being gulped up by mother earth at one nibble to being smothered beneath the ponderous timbers of my castle. The same day the Barrack Hospital shook so much, that the patients were actually seen in a state of nudity in the barrack-yard. Several jumped through the windows; one man was killed, and the others all more or less severely injured. Each day I devoted to various hospitals, all went well, excepting the Palace Hospital, where there were not less than forty or fifty sick officers, who were much annoyed by the indifference and neglect of their steward. When I called there, they