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Etat-Major" informed me that Prince Napoleon's division was kept waiting for three weeks at Gallipoli for want of shoes for the troops. The Foreign Office sent out here a short time ago General Beatson and Colonel Lloyd. General Beatson has made himself a name in India by his management of some irregular horse; and he has been sent here to try and get the Turkish Government to give him the command of some unformed cavalry to lick into shape: no easy task, I fancy. At present they have given him none, but, I understand, have promised plenty. Colonel Lloyd is to go, in course of time, to Circassia and raise a corps among the natives to cooperate with the Allies; but that will be an affair of time. General Beatson is not under Lord Raglan's command, and consequently can receive no help from him. Colonel Lloyd is for the present attached to the staff.

CHAPTER II.

Varna Distribution of forces Cholera

Ge

Pravadi Shumla - Herr Walski Turkish Pasha neral Cannon Silistria- Mr. Nasmyth

· Captain Butler

- Defences of city-Omer Pasha View of Russian army Danube Interview with Omer Start for Varna Bashi-Bazouks Cossacks Deserted village — Forest

Balchick Dinner at Marshal St. Arnaud's

- Country de

Return of cavalry from the Dobrudscha Lord Raglan Sir George Brown Lord De Ros General Estcourt

tain Hyde Parker - Projected expedition to the Crimea.

THE "Caradoc" arrived in Varna Bay on the afternoon of the 21st instant, with Lord Raglan and a portion of his staff on board. He was received by Lord George Paulet and Lord William Russell (Captains of the "Bellerophon" and " Vengeance line-of-battle ships), and went on shore in the barge of the former. Lord Raglan's head-quarters, like those he had at Scutari, are of very humble appearance; they are in a small house at the back part of the town, near the gate leading to the Shumla road.

There are different houses at various parts of the town told off for the chief departments of the army. Sir George Brown has one overlooking the harbour, above one of the sea-batteries; and near it is a large house (the best in Varna), intended for Marshal St. Arnaud. Sir G. Brown's Light Division is encamped about thirteen miles from here, at Aladyn, on the Shumla road. The cavalry are at Devna, twenty miles from this, also on the road to Shumla. The Duke of Cambridge's (1st) and Sir De Lacy Evans's (2nd) divisions are just outside the lines of Varna. The French have about 11,000 men camped two or three miles north of the town near the sea; and to-day the greater portion of Prince Napoleon's division, about 7000 men, disembarked, and are stationed close by. There are also about 9000 Turks in tents quartered inside the fortifications of the town.

Varna looks well from the sea; it is prettily situated on the north side of the bay, with high wooded hills behind it. The town itself is like all the rest of the Turkish towns, with its ill-paved streets and tumbledown houses, and, as usual, VOL. I.

D

smells of every sort of abomination. It is all day swarming with troops, English, French, and Turkish. One great drawback to the town is the want of water, and what little there is is very indifferent. There is a well in the house where I am quartered, but the water comes up green!—not so bad, yet far from agreeable. The fleas are just as bad here as at Scutari, and the rats too, only, if anything, larger -great big grey fellows, that make me shudder to think of. There is a great deal of drunkenness here, I am sorry to say; unfortunately spirits are very cheap, and, I believe, of bad quality. The consequence is, that insubordination is not uncommon. The French have had to make two examples of men who refused to obey some order given them, and, when made prisoners, resisted, and struck a non-commissioned officer; they were both shot. The health of the troops at the present moment is good; but there are a great many cases of diarrhoea, and one case I heard of, a private in the 19th Regiment, died of cholera, after being ill only a few hours.

Varna, July 4th, 1854.

On the 24th of last month, late in the evening, an aide-de-camp of Omer Pasha's arrived at Lord Raglan's with the intelligence that the Russians had raised the siege of Silistria on the morning of the previous day, and that the whole of the besieging force had crossed to the north side of the Danube, and taken with them all their siege guns and material. Lord Raglan immediately sent off two of his aides-de-camp to Devna, with orders to Lord Cardigan, commanding the Light Brigade, to take three squadrons of cavalry and make a reconnaissance and patrol into the Dobrudscha, so as to ascertain, beyond a doubt, that the Russians had altogether retreated from Bulgaria into Wallachia.

Shortly afterwards, much to my joy, I received an order from Colonel Steele, the Military Secretary, that I was to go with despatches from Lord Raglan to Omer Pasha, and that I was to make the necessary arrangements for my journey. It was uncertain where Omer Pasha would be by that time, and my instructions, therefore, were to go to Shumla, and follow him wherever he might have gone. Accord