Catalogue description Monastir

Very delighted to receive your letter but puzzled over the handwriting for some time. I thought it came from Miss I's at first. I was so sorry to hear of poor old Mr I's death. It was very odd your never accepting any of his many invitations. If I was you I would think about setting my cap at the present Bart. as you despised the old one, tho' I must confess he is rather a muff and cannot act the knight in armour very well. I am sure you must have had good fun at Dover, and that tour abroad was charming. Dover Castle can give you a very small idea of what Sebastopol is like. In Sebastopol there are twelve hundred guns which can all be brought to bear on one little focus at once. That sounds very dreadful does it not? and will require lots of pluck, all the same we are going to try what we can do, and if it had not been for the Cholera, which has caused more deaths than any Sebastopol would, I have no doubt I should have been dining in the principal hotel at this present time. We have just heard that the Russians have accepted the Austrian note and have evacuated the Principalities, perhaps that will stop us after all and we may have no fighting this year as I fancy we are bound to treat now. We have been digging great works here for practice and have entrenched ourselves. Yesterday a lot of men were set to work to open one of the mounds that I mentioned where the Russians were supposed to have buried their dead. After going about 2 feet, inside was a grinning body with its head apparently cut off and a great hole in the skull. The head was laid on the body. We have taken him very carefully and put him together and the Bulgarians came and spit on the remains of the dead Russian. I think now our curiosity is gratified it will be better to fill up the hole again in case they should dig up the plague or some other horrid disease which there may be buried there. We are always finding all sorts of things, old coins and skeletons. At Varna they were digging a grave and came upon a Russian officer in full dress with gold epaulettes and two medals on his breast, evidently a swell. The clothes were not much decomposed. You will hardly believe it possible when I tell you that these wretches of Bulgarians, whom we have come to save, when we leave a place actually dig up the dead bodies of our men who have died of cholera for the sake of the blankets they are buried in, can you fancy such wretches. Woe be to the man that is caught. The men would tear him to pieces, there is nothing they look upon with such horror as desecrating their comrades graves." Cholera still prevalent in the Army and the Fleet - "campaigning in an unhealthy country is no child's play "even without the enemy". Recounts leisure time activities with fellow officers, picking nuts" of which there are thousands ... then we set the bush on fire and try to do as much damage as we can. We have great fun making a fire that can be seen from an immense distance, when we are quite tired we sit down on the ground and smoke cheroots watching the progress of the flames". Winter approaching and days getting shorter - fears they will" either have to go to bed at 7 o'clock, or sit in the dark for there is not a candle or a drop of oil in the country." The army marching to Varna to embark for Sebastopol - slow going - "I believe it took the Guards 3 days to do 7 miles, I suppose we shall be a week - poor fellows, I believe they miss their London Parties very much and their lounges in Regent Street. They are not fond of a rough life." Food supply somewhat improved now the local inhabitants are not so reluctant to come into camp - sheep's milk in plenty "but not good and sometimes I can hardly swallow it." Geese we have eaen till we are quite sick of them. We look forward with the greatest delight to a ration of salt pork which we get sometimes instead of fresh meat ... "My moustache you will be glad to hear is getting on famously and is already becoming seriously in the way when I eat soup ... The next few days may be productive of great events. I may have bit the dust by that time who knows and be dug up a skellington like the Russian officer, in future years by the next invading army."