ster,
they told him that Lord Raglan had recently received forty sheep from
Asia, all of which had disappeared in the same manner. The geese,
turkeys, and fowls vanished by scores. We found out afterwards that
the watchman paid to guard the sheep, used to kill a few occasionally.
As he represented them to have died a natural death during the night,
he got permission to bury them, instead of which he sold them. King
Frost claimed his share of our stock too, and on one December night,
of the winter of 1855, killed no less than forty sheep. It is all very
well to smile at these things now, but at the time they were
heartrending enough, and helped, if they did not cause, the ruin which
eventually overtook the firm of Seacole and Day. The determination and
zeal which besiegers and besieged showed with respect to a poor pig,
which was quietly and unconsciously fattening in its sty, are worthy
of record.

Fresh pork, in the spring of 1855, was certainly one of those luxuries
not easily obtainable in that part of the Crimea to which the British
army was confined, and when it became known that Mother Seacole had
purchased a promising young porker from one of the ships in Balaclava,
and that, brave woman! she had formed the courageous resolution of
fattening it for her favourites, the excitement among the frequenters
of Spring Hill was very great. I could laugh heartily now, when I
think of the amount of persuasion and courting I stood out for before
I bound myself how its four legs were to be disposed of. I learnt more
at that time of the trials and privileges of authority than I am ever
likely to experience again. Upon my word, I think if the poor thing
had possessed as many legs as my editor tells me somebody called the
Hydra (with whom my readers are perhaps more familiar than I am) had
heads, I should have found candidates for them. As it was, the contest
for those I had to bestow was very keen, and the lucky individuals who
were favoured by me looked after their interests most carefully. One
of them, to render mistake or misunderstanding impossible, entered my
promise in my day-book. The reader will perhaps smile at the following
important memorandum in the gallant officer's writing:--

"Memorandum that Mrs. Seacole did this day, in the
presence of Major A---- and Lieutenant W----, promise
Captain H----, R.A., a leg of _the_ pig."

Now it was well known that many greedy eyes and fingers were directed
towards th