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

this time I had fully surveyed my visitor. He was a tall, stout, rather handsome-looking man, aged about fifty years. He wore a drab-coloured “wide-awake” wrapped round with a red scarf, and a white blouse, heavily braided about the sleeves. His hair had been black, now rapidly changing into grey; and his whiskers, moustache, and beard (the latter primly cut), were of the same “Oxford mixture.” Observing that the walk up the hill had slightly affected his breathing, I invited him to take a seat on one of my bullock-trunks, the only “ottoman” of which my Turkish tent could boast. (It is no slight exertion to get up to my tent, as I have pitched it almost at the top of a hill, in order, if possible, to evade the rats, which swarm in the Crimea; indeed, I scarcely know whether rats, flies, or fleas are the greatest nuisance.) In a few moments we got into conversation. “I am going to Balaklava shortly,” said the stranger; “I am going on board ship. I have been out here some few months; my health has been gone ever since I came. They tell me I am older ten years this last five months. I am going to England.” “And I am only waiting till this Crimean drama is over to follow your example,” said I. “I must see the Russians finally driven out, and then I go home too. As to campaigning, the curiosity which brought me here is gratified; as to the moving accidents of war, I have supped full of horrors!--But here comes Phillipo with the dinner.” The Maltese entered, and placed upon the table a piece of beef baked in an iron pot, also some boiled potatoes. I observed that my visitor eyed the dinner curiously, and I was almost angry to observe the instantaneous elevation of his eyebrows, when with great difficulty I succeeded in whittling off with a sharp carving-knife a slice of the outside. “Nice beef, but not done quite enough,” said my visitor. He might well say so; it was almost raw. I stuck a