rse I was not perplexed in regard to the Turks. Their religion is
not Christian. Moreover, it was propagated by the sword, and teaches
coercion in religious matters; but I could not help feeling that the
Russians were too ready to forsake diplomacy and take to war.

"My dear fellow," said Nicholas, rousing himself, when I stated my
difficulty, "don't you see that the vacillating policy of England has
driven us to war in spite of ourselves? She would not join the rest of
Europe in compelling Turkey to effect reforms which she--Turkey--had
promised to make, so that nothing else was left for us but to go to
war."

"My dear fellow," I retorted, somewhat hotly, "that Turkey has behaved
brutally towards its own subjects is a well-known fact. That she has
treated the representatives of all the great powers of Europe with
extreme insolence is another well-known fact, but it is yet to be proved
that the efforts of diplomacy were exhausted, and even if they were, it
remained for Europe, not for Russia, to constitute herself the champion
of the oppressed."

"Jeff, my boy," returned Nicholas, with a smile, "I'm too sleepy to
discuss that subject just now, further than to say that I don't agree
with you."

He did indeed look sleepy, and as we had been riding many hours I
forbore to trouble him further.

By daybreak that morning we drew near to the town of Giurgevo, on the
Roumanian--or, I may say, the Russian--side of the Danube, and soon
afterwards entered it.

Considerable excitement was visible among its inhabitants, who, even at
that early hour, were moving hurriedly about the streets. Having parted
from our escort, Nicholas and I refreshed ourselves at the Hotel de
l'Europe, and then went to an hospital, where my companion wished to
visit a wounded friend--"one," he said, "who had lately taken part in a
dashing though unsuccessful expedition."

This visit to Giurgevo was my first introduction to some of the actual
miseries of war. The hospital was a clean, well-ventilated building.
Rows of low beds were ranged neatly and methodically along the
whitewashed walls. These were tenanted by young men in every stage of
suffering and exhaustion. With bandaged heads or limbs they sat or
reclined or lay, some but slightly wounded and still ruddy with the hue
of health on their young cheeks; some cut and marred in visage and
limbs, with pale cheeks and blue lips, that told of the life-blood
almost drained. Others were ly