omical managers of food
of any of the parties engaged in the war. Their campaigns in Algeria had
taught them how to help themselves; and they could obtain a decent meal
where an Englishman would have eaten nothing, or something utterly
unwholesome. The Sardinians came next, and it was edifying to see how
they could build a fire-place and obtain a fire in a few minutes to boil
their pot. In other ways both French and Sardinians suffered miserably
when the British had surmounted their misfortunes. The mortality from
cholera and dysentery in the French force, during the last year, was
uncalculated and unreported. It was so excessive as, in fact, to close
the war too soon. The Sardinians were ravaged by disease from their huts
being made partly under ground. But, so far as the preparation of their
food went, both had the advantage of the British, in a way which will
never happen again. I believe the Americans and the English are bad
cooks in about the same degree; and the warning afforded by the one may
be accepted by the other.

At the end of a day, in Bulgaria or the Crimea, what happened was this.

The soldiers who did not understand cooking or messing had to satisfy
their hunger any way they could. They were so exhausted that they were
sure to drink up their allowance of grog the first moment they could lay
hands on it. Then there was hard biscuit, a lump of very salt pork or
beef, as hard as a board, and some coffee, raw. Those who had no touch
of scurvy (and they were few) munched their biscuit while they poked
about everywhere with a knife, digging up roots or cutting green wood to
make a fire. Each made a hole in the ground, unless there was a bank
or great stone at hand, and there he tried, for one half-hour after
another, to kindle a fire. When he got up a flame, there was his salt
meat to cook: it ought to have been soaked and stewed for hours; but he
could not wait; and he pulled it to pieces, and gnawed what he could of
it, when it was barely warm. Then he had to roast his coffee, which he
did in the lid of his camp-kettle, burning it black, and breaking it as
small as he could, with stones or anyhow. Such coffee as it would make
could hardly be worth the trouble. It was called by one of the doctors
charcoal and water. Such a supper could not fit a man for outpost duty
for the night, nor give him good sleep after the toils of the day.

The Sardinians, meantime, united in companies, some members of which
were