"shy at the Rooshians." He is very glad
to meet me, and tells me his history very socially, and takes me to
the bedsides of some comrades, who had also known me at Up-Park Camp.
My poor fellows! how their eyes glisten when they light upon an old
friend's face in these Turkish barracks--put to so sad a use, three
thousand miles from home. Here is one of them--"hurt in the trenches,"
says the Sergeant, with shaven bandaged head, and bright, restless,
Irish eyes, who hallooes out, "Mother Seacole! Mother Seacole!" in
such an excited tone of voice; and when he has shaken hands a score of
times, falls back upon his pillow very wearily. But I sit by his side,
and try to cheer him with talk about the future, when he shall grow
well, and see home, and hear them all thank him for what he has been
helping to do, so that he grows all right in a few minutes; but,
hearing that I am on the way to the front, gets excited again; for,
you see, illness and weakness make these strong men as children, not
least in the patient unmurmuring resignation with which they suffer. I
think my Irish friend had an indistinct idea of a "muddle" somewhere,
which had kept him for weeks on salt meat and biscuit, until it gave
him the "scurvy," for he is very anxious that I should take over
plenty of vegetables, of every sort. "And, oh! mother!"--and it is
strange to hear his almost plaintive tone as he urges this--"take them
plenty of eggs, mother; we never saw eggs over there."

At some slight risk of giving offence, I cannot resist the temptation
of lending a helping hand here and there--replacing a slipped
bandage, or easing a stiff one. But I do not think any one was
offended; and one doctor, who had with some surprise and, at first,
alarm on his face, watched me replace a bandage, which was giving
pain, said, very kindly, when I had finished, "Thank you, ma'am."

One thought never left my mind as I walked through the fearful miles
of suffering in that great hospital. If it is so here, what must it
not be at the scene of war--on the spot where the poor fellows are
stricken down by pestilence or Russian bullets, and days and nights of
agony must be passed before a woman's hand can dress their wounds. And
I felt happy in the conviction that _I must_ be useful three or four
days nearer to their pressing wants than this.

It was growing late before I felt tired, or thought of leaving
Scutari, and Dr. S----, another Jamaica friend, who had kindly borne