ten to _him_
proposing to go out at once to the Black Sea. As no time was to be lost,
it was clear that most of the thirty-eight nurses she was to take with
her must be women of a certain amount of training and experience. Others
might follow when they had learnt a little what nursing really meant,
but they were of no use now. So Miss Nightingale went round to some
Church of England and Roman Catholic sisterhoods and chose out the
strongest and most intelligent of those who were willing to go, the
remainder being sent her by friends whose judgment she could trust. Six
days after Sidney Herbert had written his letter, the band of nurses
started from Charing Cross.

When after a very rough passage they reached the great hospital of
Scutari, situated on a hill above the Bosphorus, they heard the news of
the fight at Balaclava and learnt that a battle was expected to take
place next day at Inkerman. The hospital was an immense building in the
form of a square, and was able to hold several thousand men. It had been
lent to us by the Turks, but was in a fearfully dirty state and most
unfit to receive the wounded men who were continually arriving in ships
from the Crimea. Often the vessels were so loaded that the few doctors
had not had time to set the broken legs and arms of the men, and many
must have died of blood poisoning from the dirt which got into their
undressed wounds. Oftener still they had little or no food, and even
with help were too weak to walk from the ship to the hospital. And as
for rats! why there seemed nearly as many rats as patients.

The first thing to be done was to unpack the stores, to boil water so
that the wounds could be washed, to put clean sheets on the beds, and
make the men as comfortable as possible. The doctors, overworked and
anxious as they were, did not give the nurses a very warm welcome. As
far as their own experience went, women in a hospital were always in the
way, and instead of helpers became hinderers. But Miss Nightingale took
no heed of ungracious words and cold looks. She did her own business
quietly and without fuss, and soon brought order out of confusion, and a
feeling of confidence where before there had been despair. If an
operation had to be performed--and at that time chloroform was so newly
invented that the doctors were almost afraid to give it, Miss
Nightingale, 'the Lady-in-Chief,' was present by the side of the wounded
man to give him courage to bear the pain and to