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

sit down. At the same time I offered them something to drink. The liquid material--viz., two quarts of wine and one of rum--with tin cups, was brought, and the French and Jamaica nectar was poured out, with a certain elegance and graceful smile, by the Crimean Bacchante, to these reckless children of Mars. In a short time many of them had fallen in the dreadful struggle. They were _enfans perdus_, and were all singing different tunes and dancing different steps. The cantinière was elegantly dressed in her Zouave uniform, ready for starting to the trenches: she wore a red gown, and trousers of the same material, a jacket like that worn by the men, and a red fez cap with a long tassel. She carried a stoup full of spirits, a large basket of provisions, and followed her companions like a trooper. The Zouaves gave me a pressing invitation to go and see them perform, which I promised to do that day week. They were perfectly satisfied, though I was not at all, with my Zouave, Bornet. As he was not fit to follow me, I gave him up, and, after seeing his horse right and him wrong, I left him, and started alone for Balaklava, returning in solemn solitude to my nautical home--the _Ottawa_. At six the next morning he was on board, busily engaged preparing for our departure, so soon as a spot could be selected in the camp for us to pitch our tents. The horses were landed, and my military pupils sent to different quarters, and set to work cooking. I retained three with me for the opening of my field-kitchens. As I approached my deserter, the Zouave, in order to reprimand him for his conduct the preceding day, he remarked, by way of apology, “I know, mon cher governor, what you are going to say--that is, if I play you any more such tricks, you will not keep me, as we agreed when you engaged me.” “Certainly not,” said I. “We will begin fresh to-day; but yesterday, you see, governor, the temptation was too strong