ateful acknowledgments for
services so small that I had forgotten them long, long ago--how easy
it is to reach warm hearts!--little thoughtful acts of kindness, even
from the humblest. And these touched me the most. I value the letters
received from the working men far more than the testimonials of their
officers. I had nothing to gain from the former, and can point to
their testimony fearlessly. I am strongly tempted to insert some of
these acknowledgments, but I will confine myself to one:--

"Camp, near Karani, June 16, 1856.

"My dear Mrs. Seacole,--As you are about to leave the
Crimea, I avail myself of the only opportunity which may
occur for some time, to acknowledge my gratitude to you,
and to thank you for the kindness which I, in common
with many others, received at your hands, when attacked
with cholera in the spring of 1855. But I have no
language to do it suitably.

"I am truly sensible that your kindness far exceeded my
claims upon your sympathy. It is said by some of your
friends, I hope truly, that you are going to England.
There can be none from the Crimea more welcome there,
for your kindness in the sick-tent, and your heroism in
the battle-field, have endeared you to the whole army.

"I am sure when her most gracious Majesty the Queen
shall have become acquainted with the service you have
gratuitously rendered to so many of her brave soldiers,
her generous heart will thank you. For you have been an
instrument in the hands of the Almighty to preserve many
a gallant heart to the empire, to fight and win her
battles, if ever again war may become a necessity.
Please to accept this from your most grateful humble
servant,

"W. J. Tynan."

But I had other friends in the Crimea--friends who could never thank
me. Some of them lay in their last sleep, beneath indistinguishable
mounds of earth; some in the half-filled trenches, a few beneath the
blue waters of the Euxine. I might in vain attempt to gather the wild
flowers which sprung up above many of their graves, but I knew where
some lay, and could visit their last homes on earth. And to all the
cemeteries where friends rested so calmly, sleeping well after a
life's work nobly done, I went many times, lingering long over many a
mound that bore the names of those whom I had been familiar with in
life, thinking of what they had been, and what I had know