CHAPTER XI.

THE HORRORS OF THE HOSPITAL.

Some of my Hospital Cases--A Death from Jaundice--Small-pox and Typhoid Fever--Hospital Gangrene--Waiting for the Burial Parties--Horrible Depression--I am slightly wounded--Turkish Florence Nightingales--A Ghastly Case--I am powerless for want of Stores--The Men die off like Sheep--Arrival of a Party of English Doctors--A Welcome Visit--Dr. Bond Moore and Dr. Mackellar--Dr. George Stoker Sick--Interview with Osman Pasha--His Reception of the English Doctors--Osman Pasha's Position--The English Doctors indignant--Osman Pasha justified--A Ride to the Krishin Redoubts--The English Doctors under Fire--My Reasons for leaving Plevna--A Farewell Supper--Mustapha Bey and the Whisky--The Departure of the Wounded--Good-bye to Plevna.

One very peculiar case came under my notice in the principal ward. It was that of a man who had been struck by a spent bullet over the region of the liver. The wound had not penetrated the flesh, and there was nothing but a small, sloughing sore over the liver to indicate the spot where the man had been hit. Two days afterwards he developed acute jaundice, and died in three days. I could not understand it at the time, but it struck me afterwards that the blow from the bullet had ruptured the liver.

To add to the horrors of the general situation, confluent small-pox made its appearance among the wounded; and as I had no means of isolating the patients, it quickly spread. Then several cases of typhoid fever broke out, owing to the insanitary conditions; but strangely enough the disease did not spread, and the mortality from it was small. Imagine the miseries of an unhappy man, who, while suffering from a smashed thigh which prevented him from even moving to resist the maggots that assailed him, was then smitten with small-pox or typhoid fever!

Little by little the septic troubles increased, and at last the crown of misery was reached when hospital gangrene made its appearance. Few civilian medical men now practising have ever seen hospital gangrene; but the records of the terrible mischief which it produced in the days before the discovery of the antiseptic treatment are still extant. The patients who took the hospital gangrene usually suffered considerably, while they rotted away before my eyes, and I was powerless to help them.

The men also got covered with body lice; and as I spent fourteen hours a day as a rule lifting them up, washing them, and dressing their wounds, the noxious insects attacked me too, and during the whole of my subsequent stay in Plevna I was never absolutely free from them. I had only two flannel shirts, and one of these was boiled every day by my servant; but in spite of all precautions, I could never keep free from the insect pests.

Every morning when I went to the hospital the first thing that met my eyes as I opened the little wicket-gate leading into the garden was the row of corpses of the men who had died during the previous night. They were put out there to wait for the burial parties, and the sight never failed to make a profound impression on me. As I walked past them up the path the sight of those dead faces fascinated me; and when I found among them men who were my special favourites, and who had told me the stories of their simple, uneventful lives, and of their wives and children waiting for them in distant parts of the Turkish Empire, a feeling of overpowering depression came over me. I was so utterly helpless to save them, and I was fighting such a hopeless battle, that once or twice I sat down in the hospital and cried like a child. As fast as the men died fresh ones were brought in, and often I found that twenty old faces had gone during the night and that the same number of new ones awaited me in the morning. Skirmishes were always going on between the outposts, and the intermittent bombardment claimed a daily quota of victims, a considerable proportion of whom were sent to me for treatment.

It was at this period that I was wounded for the first and last time out of all the scores of occasions that I have been under fire. It was a mere flesh wound, little more indeed than a scratch; but as I was in a very low state of health from continuous overwork and under-feeding, the flesh wound set up a local condition which still further reduced my strength, and contributed eventually to my leaving Plevna for a short rest. As I was unable to get back again, owing to the Russians closing the road, I was prevented from witnessing the last pathetic scene of all, when Osman Pasha's heroic defence was exhausted, and he had to surrender to the invader.

A chance shot from a Russian field-gun did it for me, during the desultory firing that went on languidly from day to day between the opposing redoubts. I was riding out one morning to visit Sadik Pasha, and was cantering leisurely across to the Bash Tabiya, when I heard the scream of a shell, and recognized instinctively that it was coming my way. One got so used to estimating the course of shells from constant practice that one could pretty well tell by the sound where a particular shell was likely to fall. My charger too was a perfect old war-hardened veteran, and he took no more notice of a shell exploding five yards in front of his nose than if it had been a custard-apple. When I heard the whistle of the shell, I stuck the spurs in and tried to get out of the way in time; but I did not succeed, and when it exploded a bit of the casing took me in the back of the neck with a sharp, burning shock that felt as if I had been struck with a piece of red-hot iron. When I put my hand up to the place, I drew it back covered with blood; but I quickly discovered that it was a mere surface wound, and when I got back to town and bandaged it, I found that it did not in the least interfere with the performance of my medical duties. However, an abscess formed on the place, and troubled me a good deal.

I was very much overworked. Neither food nor rest was plentiful. I never saw a compatriot, and I spent all my waking hours in the midst of horrible sufferings which I was powerless to alleviate. It was no wonder, under these circumstances, that I became despondent; and after this lapse of time I may as well confess that the thought occurred to me whether it would not be better to blow my brains out than go on in the misery any longer. But when I looked round on those magnificent men--more long-suffering, patient, and courageous men I have never seen in my life--I banished the dark thought, and went back to the work with all the spirit I could muster. Sometimes even now when I lie awake at night I see myself again dressed in a blood-stained shirt and pair of trousers, as I picked my way among the huddled forms with their ashen faces bound up in those fantastic bandages of coloured print. I see the pools of curdled blood on the floor, the staring whitewashed walls, and the little squares of blue sky through the latticed windows. I hear the stifled moans and I catch the delirious murmurs of that Anatolian Turk as in his death-throes, like Falstaff "he babbled o' green fields."

Although we had no female nurses, still I found that the Turkish women, whenever they had an opportunity, attended to the wounded with the devotion of a Florence Nightingale. There was a small outbuilding in the grounds that surrounded the hospital, and this also was filled with wounded. One day I found two Turkish women there, and learned that they were frequent visitors, bringing milk and broth to the wounded. When I saw them, they were moving silently about in their long white robes, with only the eyes showing through their thick yashmaks. One exceptionally hideous case in the outbuilding received attention from them. The man had been struck on the side of the face by a shell, which carried away the whole of his upper and lower jaws. Only his eyes remained, looking plaintively out above the mangled mass that had once been a human face. The Turkish women could just see by the roots of the tongue the position of the gullet, and they kept the unfortunate wretch alive for four days by pouring milk down his throat.

One evening, as I was leaving the hospital almost heart-broken, three men were brought in, and I went back to attend to them. One man had both his legs taken off by a shell from a heavy siege-gun, and was blanched from loss of blood; the second had been struck by a shell, which had carried away arm and shoulder together; the third was shot through the lungs by a rifle-bullet. Next morning, when I returned to the hospital, I saw the three men lying out dead on the path as soon as I opened the gate. Some idea of the hopelessness of my position may be gathered by the medical reader, when he learns that I had forty-seven compound comminuted fractures under my hands at one time, and all were suppurating, while I had no appliances of any kind for dressing them properly.

This was the state of affairs when Chefket Pasha opened up the road from Sofia again with a relief column bringing up under his escort a supply of medical stores and a party of English doctors who desired to volunteer their services. The head of the medical party was Dr. Bond Moore; and very picturesque he looked when he arrived in his Circassian dress. With him was Dr. Mackellar, who had gained a reputation in the Franco-Prussian war, and was a well known authority on gunshot wounds. Then there was Mr. David Christie Murray, who was at that time a war correspondent, but was introduced to me as a medical student, and in that capacity had an opportunity of inspecting my hospital, which he afterwards described very graphically in the _Scotsman_. A man named Smith, who was in the Indian Civil Service, and who had come up for the sake of the adventure, was another member of the party, which also included my old friend George Stoker, now a Harley Street physician. Last, but not least, there was Captain Morisot, a charming fellow, who was afterwards with me at Erzeroum.

The visitors hunted me up when they arrived, and we had a great supper at my quarters. It was an intense relief to meet some of my own countrymen at last, and I was so glad to see them that I distributed all my curios among them, presenting to these strangers the crosses in bronze and gold, the lockets, and the other trinkets that had belonged to Russian owners before they were sold in the Plevna bazaars as grim treasure-trove of the battle-field.

Dr. Mackellar was an old friend, for I had met him before the war when I was in Vienna; and I was delighted also to meet George Stoker, who was one of my fellow passengers when I came down the Danube. It is difficult for any one who has never been placed in such a position to form an idea of the delightful sensation which I experienced at meeting with English-speaking men again after a period of seventeen months spent out of the hearing of my mother tongue. Imagine the feelings of an Englishman when he first catches sight of the white cliffs of Dover after long travelling in foreign lands; or think of the sensations of an Australian returning after a couple of years in Europe when he sees the lights at Port Phillip Heads or the entrance to Sydney Harbour again. My feelings were similar when I dropped my Turkish and picked up my half-forgotten English once more in the presence of men of my own race, whose cheerful talk dispelled the gloomy thoughts which my daily struggle against the ever increasing forces of suffering and disease had engendered.

The wound on the back of my neck was very painful, and the large abscess which had formed on it had still further reduced my system. Dr. Mackellar lanced it for me the first night he was in Plevna, and this gave me great relief.

George Stoker had a bad attack of dysentery when he arrived, and he arranged to stop at my place so that I could look after him more easily. I opened up negotiations with my little fair-haired Bulgarian boy, who managed, with a good deal of trouble, to get me some milk, and thus I was enabled to provide proper diet for the invalid.

On the morning after the arrival of the English medical party, Dr. Bond Moore, with Mr. Harvey, a man of English parentage, who was born in the Levant and spoke Turkish like a Turk, together with Dr. Mackellar, waited upon Osman Pasha in his tent. Dr. Bond Moore explained to Osman Pasha through Mr. Harvey that they had been sent out by the Stafford House Committee, a large national organization in London which had collected £50,000 for the purpose of relieving the sufferings caused by the war in Turkey. They desired to undertake the care of the wounded Turks then in Plevna.

Now Osman Pasha was essentially a man of action. Though there was plenty of the _fortiter in re_ about him, there was little of the _suaviter in modo_; and Bond Moore and Mackellar, who did not know him as well as I did, jumped to the conclusion that he was intentionally discourteous in his reception of them and in his reply to their representations. He pointed out to them that of the four thousand wounded men who were then in the hospitals, more than two-thirds would be sent away to Sofia on the following day, now that the road had been opened up by Chefket Pasha. This determination on his part, he explained, was dictated by consideration for the wounded as well as for the rest of the troops in Plevna. They would receive better treatment at Sofia, they would leave more rations for the fighting men, and there would again be room in the hospitals available for the wounded men who might be expected after future engagements. Probably, continued Osman, not more than four hundred wounded men would be left in the hospitals when the ambulance train went away, and meanwhile the medical staff at his disposal was quite strong enough to cope with the work. He also had another powerful reason for sending away the wounded in the overcrowding of the hospitals, which was causing terrible devastation by septic disease; and we knew that if the congested wards were relieved, we might get the upper hand of the gangrene and pyæmia which were doing all the damage.

Naturally enough Bond Moore and Mackellar were staggered to find that, after travelling all the way from England and incurring a good many hardships on the way, they were not to be allowed to do the work for which they had been sent. They represented to Osman Pasha the danger of sending away on a long and terrible journey wounded men who were quite unfit to travel; and Bond Moore, as the spokesman, entered a vigorous protest against the "gross inhumanity" of the course proposed by the Turkish commander-in-chief. Osman Pasha, however, was inexorable; and always a brusque and stern man at the best, he became still more forbidding in his manner when the English doctors reiterated their protests. The deputation left the tent in high dudgeon at what they regarded as the discourtesy of their reception, and were thoroughly disappointed after reaching Plevna in safety to be peremptorily ordered to quit it at once.

As a further protest, Dr. Mackellar waited upon Hassib Bey, our principal medical officer, and I was present at the interview, in which the English surgeon told the old Turk that it was a disgrace to humanity to send the wounded away by carts in the condition in which they were. The conversation was carried on in French, and Dr. Mackellar spoke very strongly, declaring that it was a barbarous and brutal thing to send the wounded men away, many of whom he considered, as a surgeon of large experience, to be quite unfit to travel. I felt quite sorry for poor old Hassib Bey, especially as I myself, with a full comprehension of the whole position, was thoroughly in accord with Osman Pasha's view. It was perfectly plain to me that the wisest course was to despatch the wounded men from out the crowded hospitals into the fresh air and away to Sofia. No doubt a percentage of them would die on the road from the actual hardship of travel; but if they were left in Plevna, a far larger proportion would inevitably die of septic diseases, while the congested condition of the hospitals would be still further aggravated, and slow starvation would add shortly to the sufferings of the unfortunates. The proof of the wisdom of Osman Pasha's action was very manifest afterwards; for though he was starved out eventually, he could not have held the town nearly as long as he did if he had not seized the opportunity when the road was open to send the wounded away.

Hassib Bey listened deprecatingly to Dr. Mackellar's spirited protest; but the fiat had gone forth from headquarters, and he was powerless to accede to his visitor's request even if he had the inclination.

Dr. Bond Moore sent in a formal written protest to Osman Pasha, who vouchsafed no reply, and the Stafford House surgeons spent the rest of the day examining my hospital. In connection with this incident of the expulsion of the Stafford House doctors from Plevna, I may reproduce the report on the subject, which I afterwards sent to Mr. V. B. Kennett, the Stafford House commissioner. My report, which was published in the _Times_ of November 15, 1877, ran as follows:

"At your request I write to you a short account of the state of Plevna on the occasion of the visit of Dr. Bond Moore, Stafford House section, and the circumstances attending the evacuation of the wounded. When Drs. Bond Moore and Mackellar arrived in Plevna, we had in our hospitals there between four and five thousand wounded, probably three thousand five hundred of them having received their wounds between September 5 and October 12, the remainder being the graver cases of our former fighting which were considered too serious to send on to Sofia. We have always received orders after any heavy fighting to send off all who were not too gravely wounded to Sofia, and so we have by this means never had more than five or six hundred in our hospitals. But unfortunately, during the hard fighting in September, we were completely surrounded by the Russians, and were actually, so to speak, in a state of siege, so that we had the accumulation of nearly a month's fighting in addition to the graver cases of our earlier battles. Such was the state of affairs when Chefket Pasha relieved Plevna, and when Drs. Moore and Mackellar arrived and kindly offered to form hospitals in Plevna. On presenting themselves to Osman they were received quite courteously. He told them he was very glad to see them, but that if they were sent in the real cause of humanity, and to assist his wounded, he much preferred them leaving for Sofia and establishing themselves there; if, however, they wished to remain and see the fighting, they were perfectly welcome to do so, but if they did they would have very little work to do, as he was sending nearly all the wounded to Sofia, and for those who were remaining he had a sufficient staff of surgeons. His reasons for sending away the wounded must appear most obvious to any one knowing the circumstances of the case. I believe that it is always one of the first considerations of a general, after a battle, to send off as soon as possible all wounded who are in a state to travel, in order to make room for further fighting. In addition to this main consideration, I must state that our accommodation was very insufficient, that many of our hospitals consisted of houses without windows, and we were fearfully overcrowded, often having thirty men in a room only large enough for ten. Then, again, we had no beds, and could not procure them as there was no wood to make them of. Another great consideration was that we had not sufficient nor proper food, having only the bare necessaries of life, such as biscuits and meat. From a sanitary point of view, it was also extremely desirable to remove them as quickly as possible, thereby lessening the chances of an epidemic, which is always liable to break out when such a large population is confined in a small area. It was, I believe, in 1866 that a very serious epidemic of cholera broke out in Plevna. Of the four thousand five hundred wounded I believe that all but two hundred and fifty were sent off, the wounds of those remaining being of the very gravest character. Most of the wounds of those sent away were very slight, being flesh wounds caused by bullets, which would be perfectly healed in from twenty to thirty days. I believe in all about sixty or seventy cases of fracture were sent off; in most of them union had already occurred, and in those in which it had not I am of opinion that they stood a better chance of recovery by their removal from a hospital impregnated with septic germs into a purer atmosphere and where they could have more attention paid to them. Dr. George Stoker took with him in his ambulance to Orkhanieh forty cases, but it must be remembered that these were the very gravest. Three of them died on the way; but as they were cases out of my own hospital I can speak about them with confidence, and can say that in the most favourable circumstances recovery would have been impossible. Osman Pasha also acted with foresight from a military point of view; for had he not sent off his wounded, and had Stafford House and the Red Crescent retained them in hospitals established there, what would be their position at present now that Plevna is again surrounded by the Russians? It must be a matter of satisfaction to Osman Pasha to have sent off as many of the non-combatant population as possible, for it must be a great drain on one's commissariat to have to feed four or five thousand non-combatants in a place like Plevna where provisions are so difficult to procure. I may add that I consider I am in a position to speak with authority on such a subject, as I have been for fifteen months in the Turkish service, and for the last five have been in Plevna."

When the medical men went round my hospital, they saw the horrors among which I had been working for the previous month, and then I took them out to our operating theatre under the blue sky on the banks of the Tutchenitza. Here Dr. Mackellar performed several operations, and showed us some brilliant surgery, including four disarticulations of the shoulder joint.

Next day we all rode out to the Krishin redoubt which Skobeleff had taken, and which was soon afterwards recaptured with fearful loss. I was able to point out the exact spot where the heaviest of the fighting had taken place to Dr. Bond Moore, Dr. Mackellar, and Mr. David Christie Murray, who were naturally interested in making a personal inspection of the scene of such a great historical fight.

As the four of us rode away in a southerly direction to the Ibrahim Bey redoubt, the Russian artillerymen saw us, and in a couple of seconds the Stafford House doctors and the war correspondent had an experience which struck them with all the force of the novel and the unexpected. The Russians fired six shells at us, and it certainly was a wonder that some of us were not killed, for the artillerymen had found the range by long practice at the redoubts, and their shells fell all round us. It was no novelty for me to hear the projectiles whizzing about, but I was surprised at the courage and coolness with which the visitors behaved, and luckily all four of us came out of it without a scratch.

That evening I thought the whole position over, and determined to apply for a short leave of absence, and take a trip down to Constantinople with the intention of returning to Plevna in a couple of weeks. I should not have dreamed of leaving the position so long as I could be of any real service there; but most of the wounded men were about to be sent away, and there would be nothing left for me to do. In addition to this, I was in a very bad state of health. I had a large suppurating cavity at the back of my neck from my wound, and my system had completely run down. My mother, whom I had not seen for years, was then in Europe, and I thought that it would be a capital opportunity to run down and see her. Moreover, my agreement with the Turkish Government was for only one year, and I had already been serving for seventeen months. It was these considerations, and not, as was afterwards stated in various newspapers, the refusal of Osman Pasha to avail himself of the assistance of the Stafford House doctors, that induced me to interview Hassib Bey and apply for leave of absence. I asked him for leave of absence for two or three weeks, pointing out that nearly all the wounded would be sent away, and that there was no immediate likelihood of any more fighting before I returned. Hassib Bey said that he would give me leave with very great pleasure, and he voluntarily gave me a letter to the Seraskierat, in which he was good enough to express the very highest appreciation of my services. In fact, it was practically impossible for any man to get a higher testimonial than that which Hassib Bey gave me on the eve of my departure from Plevna. He suggested that I should ask Osman Pasha to ratify the leave of absence; and Tewfik Pasha having conducted me into Osman Pasha's presence, I repeated my application to him, assuring him that I would not think of leaving as long as there was any work for me to do. The Muchir thanked me for my services, of which he expressed high appreciation, and hoped to see me back in Plevna.

If I could have foreseen that the road would be blocked again by the Russians, and that it would be impossible for me to return once I left the town, I would have stayed by the troops at all costs. I was devoted to the Turkish army and the Turkish cause. I never spared myself in carrying out my duties, and I was bound by the strongest ties of attachment to my patients, as they were also, I felt and knew, to me. I positively loved the great, rough barbarians who bore their sufferings with such noble fortitude in my hospital, and during the whole of my time in Plevna I never had the slightest unpleasantness with a single one of them, and received always the greatest gratitude from them all. At that time there was no Turk in Plevna more Turkish in sympathies than I was. I threw my whole heart and soul and all my energies into the Turkish cause, and no one could have gone through all that I had without being impressed with a feeling of the most profound admiration for the patience, courage, and heroic patriotism of the Turkish private soldier. Intending as I did to remain away for a couple of weeks at most, I felt that the parting was only temporary; and when I went to say good-bye to the colonel of my regiment, Suleiman Bey, he wished me a cheery _au revoir_, expecting to see me soon back again. I had quite an affecting farewell with dear old Hassib Bey, and I also went round and said good-bye to all my intimate friends and the men with whom I had been brought most closely into contact. It was a great disappointment to me that I could not find the regimental barber, a little red-headed Turk, who used to shave me every Sunday, whether there was firing in progress or not, making me sit down on the ground and taking my head between his knees for the better performance of his task. Anxious as I was to make him a little present in recognition of his skill and punctuality, I was unable to find him. Like his brethren of the craft in other countries, he was a most loquacious conversationalist, and I got all the gossip of the trenches during the ten minutes that I was under his hands every Sunday.

My Circassian servant Ahmet had to go back to the ranks, much to his disgust, when I went away, and from that time forward his lot was by no means such a happy one as before. Instead of leisurely cooking my pilaf, grooming my horse, and occasionally raiding the country for hay, poultry, eggs, or anything else that he could get for his own benefit as well as mine, the poor fellow had to take his place in the wet trenches, with no bed but a hole scooped in the clay, and little to expect in the way of breakfast except a bullet.

Dr. Stoker had about twenty smooth-running ambulance waggons specially built for the conveyance of wounded men, and having loaded these up with the most dangerous cases he set out on the long journey to Sofia. Having no further use for a horse, I sold mine to Dr. Mackellar, and took my passage in one of the ambulance waggons. Then the night before I left Plevna the other fellows gave us a great send off and we had a splendid supper at the house of Dr. Robert, who, I regret to say, became hopelessly intoxicated, and insisted on yelling patriotic songs in half a dozen languages, while he thumped his piano until the yellow-faced Viennese housekeeper hauled him off in wrath and turned us all out. Poor Robert! Long before this we had eaten all his zoological specimens, his tame deer as well as his poultry; but he forgave us all. I never saw him again.

Old Mustapha Bey was quite concerned when I told him that I was going away. I had won the goodwill of this crusty old colonel of a regiment of cavalry some weeks before by the promise of a gift of some real Scotch whisky, which the old chap had read of but never tasted. He was an inveterate toper when he got the chance, being in this respect quite a rarity in the Ottoman army, and would drink raki or anything else with a fine, generous disregard of quality as long as the quantity was there. My friend Mr. Wrench, who was then the British consul in Constantinople, and who has lately died, promised to send me up a case of real Scotch whisky, and it came up in the previous train of arabas. At least the case came up all right, but of the dozen bottles only two remained for the disappointed consignee--myself. Of course we had a general jollification, and the last drop of genuine Glenlivet had vanished down the capacious gullet of an Austrian medico before I remembered with a pang of regret my promise to Mustapha Bey. Fortunately he had never tasted whisky, so there was still a possibility of keeping faith with him, at any rate in appearance. I confided my predicament to my comrades, and we brewed a special _cuvée réservée_ for the Turk. The basis, I recollect, consisted of a decoction of prunes boiled with some of the wine of the country, which was heavily loaded with kerosene or some other mineral oil, and brought to the right amber hue by the addition of a little harmless colouring matter. This salubrious beverage I filtered through a sponge, bottled in one of the empty whisky bottles, and sent to Mustapha Bey with my compliments. When I next met him, he was smacking his lips with retrospective gusto, declaring that he had never tasted anything so delicious in his life. Poor old fellow! I felt quite guilty when I went to say good-bye to him, especially when he added at the last, "Be sure when you come back to bring me up another bottle of Scotch whisky."

Next morning I went away in one of the smoothly running ambulance cars brought up by Dr. Stoker. I had a pair of horses, and drove them down to Telish, where we stayed the first night. It was a mercy that we were able to get on in front of the long line of about three hundred arabas, each drawn by two small white oxen and laden with wounded. The carts creaked along at about two miles an hour, and as we passed them the groans and cries which the excruciating agony forced from the unfortunate sufferers were most painful to hear. Some of the men had fractures which remained unset, and the torture produced by the broken ends of bone jarring together as the waggon jolted and bumped over the rough road can be left to the imagination. Most of the men, however, bore their dreadful sufferings with a grim silence that was as painful as the cries. Oh that ghastly journey of wounded men to Sofia! And here and there a cart would stop while the driver lifted out a dead man from among his still living fellow travellers, and laid him down by the side of the road, at rest at last from the fearful jolting of the araba. There was no time to dig a grave, so the body was left there to soak in the rain and bleach in the sun, along the white road that wound from Plevna to Orkhanieh. I have no means of knowing accurately what proportion of the wounded died on the road, but I should estimate it at about 7 per cent. Had they been left behind at Plevna, probably at least 50 per cent, would have been swept away by septic disease and slow starvation.

At Telish, where we spent the first night, I found Hakki Pasha in command, and was very kindly treated by him. This was the scene of a severe fight about a fortnight after we passed through.

After three days' travelling we reached Orkhanieh, our first stopping-place of any considerable size; and here a number of the wounded who could go no farther were placed in the hospital. At Orkhanieh the hospital arrangements were a welcome change from those at Plevna. I met a man named Temple Bey there, an Englishman, who had been in the Turkish service for a great number of years. There were several English surgeons, and suitable houses had been turned into hospitals. I met a man named Roy, and another named Gill, now a well known practitioner at Welshpool; a man named Pinkerton, working at the hospitals in Orkhanieh; and there I said good-bye to my friend Dr. Mackellar, who remained behind to perform some operations, and stayed there for a considerable time. When I was leaving him, he kindly gave me a letter to Baron Munday, an Austrian doctor, who was an enthusiast in the cause of philanthropy, and who afterwards showed me great kindness in Constantinople.

At Sofia I met Lady Strangford, who had a well equipped hospital, worked by three or four English doctors and several English nurses. There were fifty or sixty beds in it, and the contrast between this hospital and the dreadful place that I had left behind at Plevna was as startling as the difference between an "Inferno" and a "Paradiso." Lady Strangford gave me a letter to the Baroness von Rosen, who had another hospital at Adrianople, and I spent a couple of pleasant days with that enthusiastic lady. Going on to Ichtiman, I met there Fano Bey, who was the second military officer in charge of the hospitals at Widdin; and as he arrived late at night, I was glad of the opportunity of repaying some of his past kindnesses by giving up my room to him. Next day we went on to Tatar Bazardjik, which was the terminus of the railway from Constantinople; and there, in the company of half a dozen jolly war correspondents, I shook off the last traces of the depression engendered by the horrors of my hospital work in Plevna.