usually on the spot to prepare supper for the rest. They knew how
to look for or provide a shelter for their fire, if only a foot high;
and how to cut three or four little trenches, converging at the fire, so
as to afford a good draught which would kindle even bad fuel. They had
good stews and porridge and coffee ready when wanted. The French always
had fresh bread. They carried portable ovens and good bakers. The
British had flour, after a time, but they did not know how to make
bread; and if men volunteered for the office, day after day, it usually
turned out that they had a mind for a holiday, and knew nothing of
baking; and their bread came out of the oven too heavy, or sour, or
sticky, or burnt, to be eaten. As scurvy spread and deepened, the
doctors made eager demands on Government for lime-juice, and more
lime-juice. Government had sent plenty of lime-juice; but it was somehow
neglected among the stores for twenty-four days when it was most wanted,
as was the supply of rice for six weeks when dysentery was raging. All
the time, the truth was, as was acknowledged afterwards, that the thing
really wanted was good food. The lime-juice was a medicine, a specific;
but it could be of no real use till the frame was nourished with proper
food.

When flour, and preserved vegetables, and fresh meat were served out,
and there were coffee-mills all through the camp, the men were still
unable to benefit by the change as their allies did. They could grind
and make their coffee; but they were still without good fresh bread and
soup. They despised the preserved vegetables, not believing that those
little cakes could do them any good. When they learned at last how two
ounces of those little cakes were equal, when well cooked, to eight
ounces of fresh vegetables, and just as profitable for a stew or with
their meat, they duly prized them, and during the final healthy period
those pressed vegetables were regarded in the camp as a necessary of
life. By that time, Soyer's zeal had introduced good cookery into the
camp. Roads were made by which supplies were continually arriving. Fresh
meat abounded; and it was brought in on its own legs, so that it was
certain that beef was beef, and mutton mutton, instead of goat's flesh
being substituted, as in Bulgaria. By that time it was discovered that
the most lavish orders at home and the profusest expenditure by the
commissariat will not feed and clothe an army in a foreign country,
unless t