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

the order of the day. The rations were the only provisions which graced the last day’s bill of fare. Still, the salt pork, beef, and the fresh meat were very good, and highly relished by a Crimean appetite: added to which, the remains of a good English cheese, a salad _à la Zouave_, and good English draught ale, completed the sumptuous gala. While freely partaking of the gallant colonel’s hospitality, a number of officers joined us; amongst whom I recognised the scion of a celebrated epicure, who sat next me, and commenced manipulating in his plate a most relishing sauce. Upon tasting this, I could not resist exclaiming-- “Oh! Sefton, Sefton! may your noble ashes repose in peace in your tomb! The glory of your name has not faded: your grandson, the youthful Lord Sefton, is an epicure!” Some of my stoves remained in use in the Crimea till the day of the departure of the First Division. I was in duty bound to watch over and rescue them from the hands of the marauding Tartars, who seemed to claim as their own everything left behind by each regiment, even previous to the surrender of the Crimea by the Allied Governments. All that remained of the British army consisted of the 20th with two Scotch regiments at Kamara, and a body of the Land Transport Corps at Cathcart’s Hill, (the Land Transport Corps were even at that time raising their bonfires); and the 56th Regiment at head-quarters, as Sir William Codrington’s body-guard. So few troops being left upon such a vast space, made it not only very dull, but also very unsafe, compelling us to keep loaded guns and revolvers at the head of our beds. The precaution was most necessary, for, with all our care, we were daily and nightly robbed by the Tartar Jews who infested the camp. Tents actually disappeared, and several huts were fired in the English camp; and no one could detect the authors of these outrages. The Fourth Division retained its name and the ground, but that was all. The chief of that colossal