useful
to my own "sons," suffering for a cause it was so glorious to fight
and bleed for! I never stayed to discuss probabilities, or enter into
conjectures as to my chances of reaching the scene of action. I made
up my mind that if the army wanted nurses, they would be glad of me,
and with all the ardour of my nature, which ever carried me where
inclination prompted, I decided that I _would_ go to the Crimea; and
go I did, as all the world knows.

Of course, had it not been for my old strong-mindedness (which has
nothing to do with obstinacy, and is in no way related to it--the best
term I can think of to express it being "judicious decisiveness"), I
should have given up the scheme a score of times in as many days; so
regularly did each successive day give birth to a fresh set of rebuffs
and disappointments. I shall make no excuse to my readers for giving
them a pretty full history of my struggles to become a Crimean
_heroine_!

My first idea (and knowing that I was well fitted for the work, and
would be the right woman in the right place, the reader can fancy my
audacity) was to apply to the War Office for the post of hospital
nurse. Among the diseases which I understood were most prevalent in
the Crimea were cholera, diarrhoea, and dysentery, all of them more
or less known in tropical climates; and with which, as the reader will
remember, my Panama experience had made me tolerably familiar. Now, no
one will accuse me of presumption, if I say that I thought (and so it
afterwards proved) that my knowledge of these human ills would not
only render my services as a nurse more valuable, but would enable me
to be of use to the overworked doctors. That others thought so too, I
took with me ample testimony. I cannot resist the temptation of
giving my readers one of the testimonials I had, it seems so eminently
practical and to the point:--

"I became acquainted with Mrs. Seacole through the
instrumentality of T. B. Cowan, Esq., H. B. M. Consul at
Colon, on the Isthmus of Panama, and have had many
opportunities of witnessing her professional zeal and
ability in the treatment of aggravated forms of tropical
diseases.

"I am myself personally much indebted for her
indefatigable kindness and skill at a time when I am apt
to believe the advice of a practitioner qualified in the
North would have little availed.

"Her peculiar fitness, in a constitutional point of
view, for