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

being in character, and we had to go home in that storm of snow on foot. On reflection, I felt that I had acted very imprudently in going at all, in the state I was then in, and that it might prove fatal to me. “After all,” said I to my friends, who, like myself, were floundering about in the snow, by that time six inches deep in some places, “I should very much regret not having been, no matter what may be the consequences. To be present at an entertainment which the Padischah for the first time had honoured with his presence, viz., a Christian ball, is far from being a common thing.” We reached our hotel door as wet as frogs, the movements of which reptile we had been for some time imitating by jumping from tombstone to tombstone in the Petit Champ des Morts, that being our nearest road home. The door was opened, after we had knocked about twenty times. Nevertheless, we had no reason to be dull or impatient, as there was defiling before us the everlasting caravan of donkeys laden with coffins for the daily consumption of the French hospital at Pera. Never, perhaps, upon any stage was there such a sudden change from the sublime to the gloomy. The door at last opened, and we were saluted with a “Very sorry, gentlemen, to keep you waiting, but we did not expect you so early.” It was only half-past six A.M. I made sure that I should be ill after such a series of events, and, wishing to be quiet, I gave special orders that no one should be permitted to disturb me, excepting the doctor, who was in the habit of calling occasionally. I had scarcely fallen asleep, when I was aroused by a knock at the door, and a letter was put into my hands apprising me that part of my stoves had arrived. I was, therefore, obliged to rise immediately and to go in person to the Admiralty, as my head man had left for Scutari the night before. The steamer