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

giving the aspect of a universal deluge, by the union of earth to heaven. We could perceive nothing excepting now and then a glimpse of two white spots: one was the Sardinian funeral monument, dedicated to their defunct heroes; the other, the white marble Nightingale Cross, which, as I have before mentioned, had just been erected by that lady to the memory of departed heroes, and the deceased Sisters of Charity and Mercy. So rough a day had not visited us since that eventful one on which Sebastopol had fallen. It was getting dark, and a misty rain kept falling, which made any but joyful reminiscences of our final departure from the theatre of war and the arid soil of the Crimea. The sable veil of night soon fell over our colossal steamer, the _Argo_, as she pitched and rolled in the hollow of the sea, having on board three hundred horses--a rather awkward cargo,--besides having been only recently patched up from some serious damage she had received in consequence of a collision with a French man-of-war. It had made a large hole in her, and carried away her figure-head. She had been for some time in the greatest danger in consequence of this, and though not materially so on the night of our departure, the remembrance of the accident was disagreeable enough to make all uncomfortable and spoil our appetites. A few extras had been added to the bill of fare in anticipation of the visit of our Russian friends; but I beg to inform my readers that I and a few of my _compagnons de voyage_ saw no more of the banquet than did our much-disappointed guests on shore, who may probably think the invitation was a joke played off upon them by the captain, and that he was aware of the time of his departure.[29] At about eleven, most of the passengers retired to their fully-inhabited cabin. The captain passed the night upon deck; so did I partly, as Morpheus often refuses to visit me when I am upon the mighty ocean, in either rough or smooth