ered, "Pocket-handkerchief, mother--by
Jove! I wish I had one. I tore my last shirt into shreds a fortnight
ago, and there's not a bit of it left now."

Shortly after, a hundred dozen of these useful articles came to my
store, and I sold them all to officers and men very speedily.

For some time, and until I found the task beyond my strength, I kept
up a capital table at the British Hotel; but at last I gave up doing
so professedly, and my hungry customers had to make shift with
whatever was on the premises. Fortunately they were not over-dainty,
and had few antipathies. My duties increased so rapidly, that
sometimes it was with difficulty that I found time to eat and sleep.
Could I have obtained good servants, my daily labours would have been
lightened greatly; but my staff never consisted of more than a few
boys, two black cooks, some Turks--one of whom, Osman, had enough to
do to kill and pluck the poultry, while the others looked after the
stock and killed our goats and sheep--and as many runaway sailors or
good-for-noughts in search of employment as we could from time to time
lay our hands upon; but they never found my larder entirely empty. I
often used to roast a score or so of fowls daily, besides boiling hams
and tongues. Either these or a slice from a joint of beef or mutton
you would be pretty sure of finding at your service in the larder of
the British Hotel.

Would you like, gentle reader, to know what other things suggestive of
home and its comforts your relatives and friends in the Crimea could
obtain from the hostess of Spring Hill? I do not tell you that the
following articles were all obtainable at the commencement, but many
were. The time was indeed when, had you asked me for mock turtle and
venison, you should have had them, preserved in tins, but that was
when the Crimea was flooded with plenty--too late, alas! to save many
whom want had killed; but had you been doing your best to batter
Sebastopol about the ears of the Russians in the spring and summer of
the year before last, the firm of Seacole and Day would have been
happy to have served you with (I omit ordinary things) linen and
hosiery, saddlery, caps, boots and shoes, for the outer man; and for
the inner man, meat and soups of every variety in tins (you can
scarcely conceive how disgusted we all became at last with preserved
provisions); salmon, lobsters, and oysters, also in tins, which last
beaten up into fritters, with onions, butter,