des, a
sun-clock, and the like.

The soldiers mostly wear their medals, and naturally have a large number
of them. Each has a war-history which all might envy to possess and none
envy to go through. Questioned individually, one found them loyal to
their chief, but complaining bitterly of their rations. Not many were
preparing for Brazil or for a return to Russia. Their future presented
itself as a strange and difficult problem--both collectively and
individually.

Of the people in the married quarters one did not obtain such a
favourable impression. Rooms were divided into three parts by hanging
army blankets, and a family was in each part. Windows were lacking,
insects very plentiful, and dirt unavoidable. Here were a number of
typhus hospitals in charge of the Red Cross, a children's feeding-station
and nursery, a lying-in hospital. Two mosques were used as hospitals and
presented a remarkable picture, the patients lying in a circular group
amid columns covered with Arabic inscriptions. Russian doctors were at
work, and disease had been well stemmed. Mortality was very low. Only
when the hot weather comes--if the army is still here--one fears for the
ravages of dysentery and fever.

Of course there were discontented spirits in the army, and some who
talked of marching on Constantinople should rations cease, but there were
only a few rifles and little ammunition left in the men's hands. By
sheer weight of numbers they might achieve something, but Constantinople
is a hundred miles away, and that is a great distance for famished men to
go.

Two nights lying on the deck of one of Wrangel's transports brought me
back to Constantinople. This vessel was controlled by French officers,
but captained by one-eyed Admiral Tsaref, of what was once the imperial
Fleet of Russia. She did five knots an hour when the weather was fine;
the railings at the stern had been carried away, and many parts of the
ship were tied together with rope. The five French officers on board
each had a cabin to himself; Russian officers, American Red Cross, and
myself, slept where we could. The French also had their meals served to
them separately. Nevertheless, we were a jolly company on board, and
played an absurd wild game of solitaire each night, and the only tedium
was the slow way we splashed like a lame duck up the narrow seas.

In the harbour in Constantinople in the morning a bright sun shone on
four hulks packed from stem