WONDERFUL

ADVENTURES OF MRS. SEACOLE

IN MANY LANDS

EDITED BY W. J. S.

WITH AN INTRODUCTORY PREFACE

BY

W. H. RUSSELL, ESQ.,

THE “TIMES” CORRESPONDENT IN THE CRIMEA.

LONDON:
JAMES BLACKWOOD, PATERNOSTER ROW.
1857.

MRS. SEACOLE’S HOTEL IN THE CRIMEA.

LONDON:
THOMAS HARRILD, PRINTER, 11, SALISBURY SQUARE,
FLEET STREET.

DEDICATED, BY PERMISSION,

TO

MAJOR-GENERAL LORD ROKEBY, K.C.B.,

BY HIS LORDSHIP’S

HUMBLE AND MOST GRATEFUL SERVANT,

MARY SEACOLE.

[Pg vii]

TO THE READER.

I should have thought that no preface would have
been required to introduce Mrs. Seacole to the British
public, or to recommend a book which must, from
the circumstances in which the subject of it was
placed, be unique in literature.

If singleness of heart, true charity, and Christian
works; if trials and sufferings, dangers and perils,
encountered boldly by a helpless woman on her
errand of mercy in the camp and in the battle-field,
can excite sympathy or move curiosity, Mary Seacole
will have many friends and many readers.

She is no Anna Comnena, who presents us with
a verbose history, but a plain truth-speaking woman,
who has lived an adventurous life amid scenes which
have never yet found a historian among the actors
on the stage where they passed.

[Pg viii]
I have witnessed her devotion and her courage;
I have already borne testimony to her services to all
who needed them. She is the first who has redeemed
the name of “sutler” from the suspicion of worthlessness,
mercenary baseness, and plunder; and I
trust that England will not forget one who nursed
her sick, who sought out her wounded to aid and
succour them, and who performed the last offices for
some of her illustrious dead.

W. H. RUSSELL.

[Pg ix]

CONTENTS.

[Pg 1]

ADVENTURES OF MRS. SEACOLE

IN MANY LANDS.

CHAPTER I.

I was born in the town of Kingston, in the island of
Jamaica, some time in the present century. As a female,
and a widow, I may be well excused giving the precise
date of this important event. But I do not mind confessing
that the century and myself were both young together,
and that we have grown side by side into age and consequence.
I am a Creole, and have good Scotch blood
coursing in my veins. My father was a soldier, of an old
Scotch family; and to him I often trace my affection for a
camp-life, and my sympathy with what I have heard my
friends call “the pomp, pride, and circumstance of glorious
war.” Many people have also traced to my Scotch blood
that energy and activity which are not always found in
the Creole race, and which have carried me to so many
[Pg 2]
varied scenes: and perhaps they are right. I have often
heard the term “lazy Creole” applied to my country people;
but I am sure I do not know what it is to be indolent. All
my life long I have followed the impulse which led me to
be up and doing; and so far from resting idle anywhere, I
have never wanted inclination to rove, nor will powerful
enough to find a way to carry out my wishes. That these
qualities have led me into many countries, and brought me
into some strange and amusing adventures, the reader, if
he or she has the patience to get through this book, will
see. Some people, indeed, have called me quite a female
Ulysses. I believe that they intended it as a compliment;
but from my experience of the Greeks, I do not consider it
a very flattering one.

It is not my intention to dwell at any length upon the
recollections of my childhood. My mother kept a boarding-house
in Kingston, and was, like very many of the Creole
women, an admirable doctress; in high repute with the
officers of both services, and their wives, who were from
time to time stationed at Kingston. It was very natural
that I should inherit her tastes; and so I had from early
youth a yearning for medical knowledge and practice which
has never deserted me. When I was a very young child I
was taken by an old lady, who brought me up in her
household among her own grandchildren, and who could
scarcely have shown me more kindness had I been one of
them; indeed, I was so spoiled by my kind patroness that,
but for being frequently with my mother, I might very
likely have grown up idle and useless. But I saw so much
of her, and of her patients, that the ambition to become a
doctress early took firm root in my mind; and I was very
[Pg 3]
young when I began to make use of the little knowledge
I had acquired from watching my mother, upon a great
sufferer—my doll. I have noticed always what actors
children are. If you leave one alone in a room, how soon
it clears a little stage; and, making an audience out of a
few chairs and stools, proceeds to act its childish griefs and
blandishments upon its doll. So I also made good use of
my dumb companion and confidante; and whatever disease
was most prevalent in Kingston, be sure my poor doll soon
contracted it. I have had many medical triumphs in later
days, and saved some valuable lives; but I really think
that few have given me more real gratification than the
rewarding glow of health which my fancy used to picture
stealing over my patient’s waxen face after long and precarious
illness.

Before long it was very natural that I should seek to
extend my practice; and so I found other patients in the
dogs and cats around me. Many luckless brutes were
made to simulate diseases which were raging among their
owners, and had forced down their reluctant throats the
remedies which I deemed most likely to suit their supposed
complaints. And after a time I rose still higher in my
ambition; and despairing of finding another human patient,
I proceeded to try my simples and essences upon—myself.

When I was about twelve years old I was more frequently
at my mother’s house, and used to assist her in her
duties; very often sharing with her the task of attending
upon invalid officers or their wives, who came to her house
from the adjacent camp at Up-Park, or the military station
at Newcastle.

[Pg 4]
As I grew into womanhood, I began to indulge that
longing to travel which will never leave me while I have
health and vigour. I was never weary of tracing upon an
old map the route to England; and never followed with my
gaze the stately ships homeward bound without longing to
be in them, and see the blue hills of Jamaica fade into the
distance. At that time it seemed most improbable that
these girlish wishes should be gratified; but circumstances,
which I need not explain, enabled me to accompany some
relatives to England while I was yet a very young woman.

I shall never forget my first impressions of London.
Of course, I am not going to bore the reader with them;
but they are as vivid now as though the year 18— (I had
very nearly let my age slip then) had not been long ago
numbered with the past. Strangely enough, some of the
most vivid of my recollections are the efforts of the London
street-boys to poke fun at my and my companion’s complexion.
I am only a little brown—a few shades duskier
than the brunettes whom you all admire so much; but my
companion was very dark, and a fair (if I can apply the
term to her) subject for their rude wit. She was hot-tempered,
poor thing! and as there were no policemen to
awe the boys and turn our servants’ heads in those days,
our progress through the London streets was sometimes a
rather chequered one.

I remained in England, upon the occasion of my first
visit, about a year; and then returned to Kingston. Before
long I again started for London, bringing with me this
time a large stock of West Indian preserves and pickles for
sale. After remaining two years here, I again started
home; and on the way my life and adventures were very
[Pg 5]
nearly brought to a premature conclusion. Christmas-day
had been kept very merrily on board our ship the “Velusia;”
and on the following day a fire broke out in the hold. I
dare say it would have resisted all the crew’s efforts to put
it out, had not another ship appeared in sight; upon which
the fire quietly allowed itself to be extinguished. Although
considerably alarmed, I did not lose my senses; but during
the time when the contest between fire and water was
doubtful, I entered into an amicable arrangement with the
ship’s cook, whereby, in consideration of two pounds—which
I was not, however, to pay until the crisis arrived—he
agreed to lash me on to a large hen-coop.

Before I had been long in Jamaica I started upon other
trips, many of them undertaken with a view to gain. Thus
I spent some time in New Providence, bringing home with
me a large collection of handsome shells and rare shell-work,
which created quite a sensation in Kingston, and
had a rapid sale; I visited also Hayti and Cuba. But I
hasten onward in my narrative.

Returned to Kingston, I nursed my old indulgent patroness
in her last long illness. After she died, in my
arms, I went to my mother’s house, where I stayed, making
myself useful in a variety of ways, and learning a
great deal of Creole medicinal art, until I couldn’t find
courage to say “no” to a certain arrangement timidly proposed
by Mr. Seacole, but married him, and took him
down to Black River, where we established a store. Poor
man! he was very delicate; and before I undertook the
charge of him, several doctors had expressed most unfavourable
opinions of his health. I kept him alive by kind
nursing and attention as long as I could; but at last he
[Pg 6]
grew so ill that we left Black River, and returned to my
mother’s house at Kingston. Within a month of our arrival
there he died. This was my first great trouble, and I felt
it bitterly. For days I never stirred—lost to all that passed
around me in a dull stupor of despair. If you had told me
that the time would soon come when I should remember
this sorrow calmly, I should not have believed it possible:
and yet it was so. I do not think that we hot-blooded
Creoles sorrow less for showing it so impetuously; but I
do think that the sharp edge of our grief wears down
sooner than theirs who preserve an outward demeanour of
calmness, and nurse their woe secretly in their hearts.

CHAPTER II.

I had one other great grief to master—the loss of my
mother, and then I was left alone to battle with the world
as best I might. The struggles which it cost me to succeed
in life were sometimes very trying; nor have they
ended yet. But I have always turned a bold front to fortune,
and taken, and shall continue to take, as my brave
friends in the army and navy have shown me how, “my
hurts before.” Although it was no easy thing for a
widow to make ends meet, I never allowed myself to know
[Pg 7]
what repining or depression was, and so succeeded in gaining
not only my daily bread, but many comforts besides
from the beginning. Indeed, my experience of the world—it
is not finished yet, but I do not think it will give me
reason to change my opinion—leads me to the conclusion
that it is by no means the hard bad world which some
selfish people would have us believe it. It may be as my
editor says—

hinting at the same time, politely, that the rule may apply
to me personally. And perhaps he is right, for although
I was always a hearty, strong woman—plain-spoken people
might say stout—I think my heart is soft enough.

How slowly and gradually I succeeded in life, need
not be told at length. My fortunes underwent the variations
which befall all. Sometimes I was rich one day,
and poor the next. I never thought too exclusively of
money, believing rather that we were born to be happy,
and that the surest way to be wretched is to prize it overmuch.
Had I done so, I should have mourned over many
a promising speculation proving a failure, over many a
pan of preserves or guava jelly burnt in the making; and
perhaps lost my mind when the great fire of 1843, which
devastated Kingston, burnt down my poor home. As it
was, I very nearly lost my life, for I would not leave my
house until every chance of saving it had gone, and it was
wrapped in flames. But, of course, I set to work again in
a humbler way, and rebuilt my house by degrees, and
restocked it, succeeding better than before; for I had gained
a reputation as a skilful nurse and doctress, and my house
[Pg 8]
was always full of invalid officers and their wives from
Newcastle, or the adjacent Up-Park Camp. Sometimes I
had a naval or military surgeon under my roof, from whom
I never failed to glean instruction, given, when they learned
my love for their profession, with a readiness and kindness
I am never likely to forget. Many of these kind
friends are alive now. I met with some when my adventures
had carried me to the battle-fields of the Crimea; and
to those whose eyes may rest upon these pages I again
offer my acknowledgments for their past kindness, which
helped me to be useful to my kind in many lands.

And here I may take the opportunity of explaining
that it was from a confidence in my own powers, and not
at all from necessity, that I remained an unprotected female.
Indeed, I do not mind confessing to my reader, in a friendly
confidential way, that one of the hardest struggles of my
life in Kingston was to resist the pressing candidates for
the late Mr. Seacole’s shoes.

Officers of high rank sometimes took up their abode in
my house. Others of inferior rank were familiar with me,
long before their bravery, and, alas! too often death, in
the Crimea, made them world famous. There were few
officers of the 97th to whom Mother Seacole was not well
known, before she joined them in front of Sebastopol; and
among the best known was good-hearted, loveable, noble
H—— V——, whose death shocked me so terribly, and
with whose useful heroic life the English public have become
so familiar. I can hear the ring of his boyish laughter
even now.

In the year 1850, the cholera swept over the island of
Jamaica with terrible force. Our idea—perhaps an
[Pg 9]
unfounded one—was, that a steamer from New Orleans was
the means of introducing it into the island. Anyhow,
they sent some clothes on shore to be washed, and poor
Dolly Johnson, the washerwoman, whom we all knew,
sickened and died of the terrible disease. While the cholera
raged, I had but too many opportunities of watching its
nature, and from a Dr. B——, who was then lodging in
my house, received many hints as to its treatment which
I afterwards found invaluable.

Early in the same year my brother had left Kingston for
the Isthmus of Panama, then the great high-road to and from
golden California, where he had established a considerable
store and hotel. Ever since he had done so, I had found
some difficulty in checking my reviving disposition to roam,
and at last persuading myself that I might be of use to
him (he was far from strong), I resigned my house into
the hands of a cousin, and made arrangements to journey
to Chagres. Having come to this conclusion, I allowed no
grass to grow beneath my feet, but set to work busily, for
I was not going to him empty-handed. My house was
full for weeks, of tailors, making up rough coats, trousers,
etc., and sempstresses cutting out and making shirts. In
addition to these, my kitchen was filled with busy people,
manufacturing preserves, guava jelly, and other delicacies,
while a considerable sum was invested in the purchase of
preserved meats, vegetables, and eggs. It will be as well,
perhaps, if I explain, in as few words as possible, the then
condition of the Isthmus of Panama.

All my readers must know—a glance at the map will show
it to those who do not—that between North America and the
envied shores of California stretches a little neck of land,
[Pg 10]
insignificant-looking enough on the map, dividing the Atlantic
from the Pacific. By crossing this, the travellers from
America avoided a long, weary, and dangerous sea voyage
round Cape Horn, or an almost impossible journey by land.

But that journey across the Isthmus, insignificant in
distance as it was, was by no means an easy one. It seemed
as if nature had determined to throw every conceivable
obstacle in the way of those who should seek to join the
two great oceans of the world. I have read and heard
many accounts of old endeavours to effect this important
and gigantic work, and how miserably they failed. It was
reserved for the men of our age to accomplish what so many
had died in attempting, and iron and steam, twin giants, subdued
to man’s will, have put a girdle over rocks and rivers, so
that travellers can glide as smoothly, if not as inexpensively,
over the once terrible Isthmus of Darien, as they can from
London to Brighton. Not yet, however, does civilization,
rule at Panama. The weak sway of the New Granada
Republic, despised by lawless men, and respected by none,
is powerless to control the refuse of every nation which
meet together upon its soil. Whenever they feel inclined
now they overpower the law easily; but seven years ago,
when I visited the Isthmus of Panama, things were much
worse, and a licence existed, compared to which the present
lawless state of affairs is enviable.

When, after passing Chagres, an old-world, tumble-down
town, for about seven miles, the steamer reached
Navy Bay, I thought I had never seen a more luckless,
dreary spot. Three sides of the place were a mere swamp,
and the town itself stood upon a sand-reef, the houses
being built upon piles, which some one told me rotted
[Pg 11]
regularly every three years. The railway, which now
connects the bay with Panama, was then building, and
ran, as far as we could see, on piles, connected with the
town by a wooden jetty. It seemed as capital a nursery
for ague and fever as Death could hit upon anywhere, and
those on board the steamer who knew it confirmed my
opinion. As we arrived a steady down-pour of rain was
falling from an inky sky; the white men who met us on
the wharf appeared ghostly and wraith-like, and the very
negroes seemed pale and wan. The news which met us
did not tempt me to lose any time in getting up the
country to my brother. According to all accounts, fever
and ague, with some minor diseases, especially dropsy,
were having it all their own way at Navy Bay, and,
although I only stayed one night in the place, my medicine
chest was called into requisition. But the sufferers wanted
remedies which I could not give them—warmth, nourishment,
and fresh air. Beneath leaky tents, damp huts, and
even under broken railway waggons, I saw men dying
from sheer exhaustion. Indeed, I was very glad when,
with the morning, the crowd, as the Yankees called the
bands of pilgrims to and from California, made ready to
ascend to Panama.

The first stage of our journey was by railway to Gatun,
about twelve miles distant. For the greater portion of
that distance the lines ran on piles, over as unhealthy and
wretched a country as the eye could well grow weary of;
but, at last, the country improved, and you caught glimpses
of distant hills and English-like scenery. Every mile of
that fatal railway cost the world thousands of lives. I
was assured that its site was marked thickly by graves,
[Pg 12]
and that so great was the mortality among the labourers
that three times the survivors struck in a body, and their
places had to be supplied by fresh victims from America,
tempted by unheard-of rates of wages. It is a gigantic
undertaking, and shows what the energy and enterprise of
man can accomplish. Everything requisite for its construction,
even the timber, had to be prepared in, and
brought from, America.

The railway then ran no further than Gatun, and here
we were to take water and ascend the River Chagres to
Gorgona, the next stage on the way to Cruces, where my
brother was. The cars landed us at the bottom of a somewhat
steep cutting through a reddish clay, and deposited
me and my suite, consisting of a black servant, named
“Mac,” and a little girl, in safety in the midst of my many
packages, not altogether satisfied with my prospects; for
the rain was falling heavily and steadily, and the Gatun
porters were possessing themselves of my luggage with
that same avidity which distinguishes their brethren on
the pier of Calais or the quays of Pera. There are two
species of individuals whom I have found alike wherever
my travels have carried me—the reader can guess their
professions—porters and lawyers.

It was as much as I could do to gather my packages
together, sit in the midst with a determined look to awe
the hungry crowd around me, and send “Mac” up the steep
slippery bank to report progress. After a little while he
returned to say that the river-side was not far off, where
boats could be hired for the upward journey. The word
given, the porters threw themselves upon my packages; a
pitched battle ensued, out of which issued the strongest
[Pg 13]
Spanish Indians, with their hardly earned prizes, and we
commenced the ascent of the clayey bank. Now, although
the surveyors of the Darien highways had considerately
cut steps up the steep incline, they had become worse than
useless, so I floundered about terribly, more than once
losing my footing altogether. And as with that due
regard to personal appearance, which I have always
deemed a duty as well as a pleasure to study, I had, before
leaving Navy Bay, attired myself in a delicate light blue
dress, a white bonnet prettily trimmed, and an equally
chaste shawl, the reader can sympathise with my distress.
However, I gained the summit, and after an arduous
descent, of a few minutes duration, reached the river-side;
in a most piteous plight, however, for my pretty dress,
from its contact with the Gatun clay, looked as red as if,
in the pursuit of science, I had passed it through a strong
solution of muriatic acid.

By the water-side I found my travelling companions
arguing angrily with the shrewd boatmen, and bating down
their fares. Upon collecting my luggage, I found, as I
had expected, that the porters had not neglected the
glorious opportunity of robbing a woman, and that several
articles were missing. Complaints, I knew, would not
avail me, and stronger measures seemed hazardous and
barely advisable in a lawless out-of-the-way spot, where

seemed universally practised, and would very likely have
been defended by its practitioners upon principle.

It was not so easy to hire a boat as I had been led to
[Pg 14]
expect. The large crowd had made the boatmen somewhat exorbitant
in their demands, and there were several reasons why I
should engage one for my own exclusive use, instead of
sharing one with some of my travelling companions. In the
first place, my luggage was somewhat bulky; and, in the
second place, my experience of travel had not failed to teach
me that Americans (even from the Northern States) are
always uncomfortable in the company of coloured people,
and very often show this feeling in stronger ways than by
sour looks and rude words. I think, if I have a little
prejudice against our cousins across the Atlantic—and I
do confess to a little—it is not unreasonable. I have a few
shades of deeper brown upon my skin which shows me
related—and I am proud of the relationship—to those poor
mortals whom you once held enslaved, and whose bodies
America still owns. And having this bond, and knowing
what slavery is; having seen with my eyes and heard
with my ears proof positive enough of its horrors—let
others affect to doubt them if they will—is it surprising
that I should be somewhat impatient of the airs of
superiority which many Americans have endeavoured to
assume over me? Mind, I am not speaking of all. I have
met with some delightful exceptions.

At length I succeeded in hiring a boat for the modest
consideration of ten pounds, to carry me and my fortunes
to Cruces. My boat was far from uncomfortable. Large
and flat-bottomed, with an awning, dirty it must be confessed,
beneath which swung a hammock, of which I took
immediate possession. By the way, the Central Americans
should adopt the hammock as their national badge; but for
sheer necessity they would never leave it. The master of
[Pg 15]
the boat, the padrone, was a fine tall negro, his crew were
four common enough specimens of humanity, with a
marked disregard of the prejudices of society with respect
to clothing. A dirty handkerchief rolled over the head,
and a wisp of something, which might have been linen,
bound round the loins, formed their attire. Perhaps,
however, the thick coating of dirt which covered them
kept them warmer than more civilized clothing, besides
being indisputably more economical.

The boat was generally propelled by paddles, but when
the river was shallow, poles were used to punt us along, as
on English rivers; the black padrone, whose superior position
was indicated by the use of decent clothing, standing
at the helm, gesticulating wildly, and swearing Spanish
oaths with a vehemence that would have put Corporal
Trim’s comrades in Flanders to the blush. Very much
shocked, of course, but finding it perfectly useless to remonstrate
with him, I swung myself in my hammock and
leisurely watched the river scene.

The river Chagres lolled with considerable force, now
between low marshy shores, now narrowing, between steep,
thickly wooded banks. It was liable, as are all rivers in
hilly districts, to sudden and heavy floods; and although
the padrone, on leaving Gatun, had pledged his soul to land
me at Cruces that night, I had not been long afloat before
I saw that he would forfeit his worthless pledge; for the
wind rose to a gale, ruffling the river here and there into
a little sea; the rain came down in torrents, while the
river rose rapidly, bearing down on its swollen stream
trunks of trees, and similar waifs and strays, which it
tossed about like a giant in sport, threatening to snag us
[Pg 16]
with its playthings every moment. And when we came to
a sheltered reach, and found that the little fleet of boats
which had preceded us had laid to there, I came to the conclusion
that, stiff, tired, and hungry, I should have to pass a
night upon the river Chagres. All I could get to eat was
some guavas, which grew wild upon the banks, and then I
watched the padrone curl his long body up among my luggage,
and listened to the crew, who had rolled together at the
bottom of the boat, snore as peacefully as if they slept between
fair linen sheets, in the purest of calico night-gear,
and the most unexceptionable of nightcaps, until somehow
I fell into a troubled, dreamy sleep.

At daybreak we were enabled to pursue our journey,
and in a short time reached Gorgona. I was glad enough
to go on shore, as you may imagine. Gorgona was a mere
temporary town of bamboo and wood houses, hastily erected
to serve as a station for the crowd. In the present rainy
season, when the river was navigable up to Cruces, the
chief part of the population migrated thither, so that Gorgona
was almost deserted, and looked indescribably damp,
dirty, and dull. With some difficulty I found a bakery and
a butcher’s shop. The meat was not very tempting, for
the Gorgona butchers did not trouble themselves about
joints, but cut the flesh into strips about three inches wide,
and of various lengths. These were hung upon rails, so
that you bought your meat by the yard, and were spared
any difficulty in the choice of joint. I cannot say that I
was favourably impressed with this novel and simple way
of avoiding trouble, but I was far too hungry to be particular,
and buying a strip for a quarter of a real, carried
it off to Mac to cook.

[Pg 17]
Late that afternoon, the padrone and his crew landed
me, tired, wretched, and out of temper, upon the miserable
wharf of Cruces.

CHAPTER III.

The sympathising reader, who very likely has been laughing
heartily at my late troubles, can fancy that I was
looking forward with no little pleasurable anticipation to
reaching my brother’s cheerful home at Cruces. After the
long night spent on board the wretched boat in my stiff,
clayey dress, and the hours of fasting, the warmth and good
cheer of the Independent Hotel could not fail to be acceptable.
My brother met me on the rickety wharf with
the kindest welcome in his face, although he did not
attempt to conceal a smile at my forlorn appearance, and
giving the necessary instructions about my luggage, led the
way at once to his house, which was situated at the upper
end of the street. A capital site, he said, when the rest of
the town was under water—which agreeable variety occurred
twice or thrice a year unexpectedly. On our way, he
rather damped my hopes by expressing his fears that he
should be unable to provide his sister with the accommodation
he could wish. For you see, he said, the crowd from
Panama has just come in, meeting your crowd from Navy
Bay; and I shouldn’t be at all surprised if very many of
[Pg 18]
them have no better bed than the store floors. But, despite
this warning, I was miserably unprepared for the reception
that awaited me. To be sure, I found Cruces as like Gorgona,
in its dampness, dirt, and confusion, as it well could
be; but the crowd from the gold-fields of California had
just arrived, having made the journey from Panama on
mules, and the street was filled with motley groups in picturesque
variety of attire. The hotels were also full of
them, while many lounged in the verandahs after their
day’s journey. Rude, coarse gold-diggers, in gay-coloured
shirts, and long, serviceable boots, elbowed, in perfect
equality, keen Yankee speculators, as close shaven, neat,
and clean on the Isthmus of Panama as in the streets of
New York or New Orleans. The women alone kept aloof
from each other, and well they might; for, while a very
few seemed not ashamed of their sex, it was somewhat
difficult to distinguish the majority from their male companions,
save by their bolder and more reckless voice and
manner. I must say, however, that many of them adopted
male attire for the journey across the Isthmus only, as it
spared them many compliments which their husbands were
often disposed to resent, however flattering they might be
to their choice.

Through all these I pressed on, stiff, cold, and hungry,
to the Independent Hotel, eagerly anticipating the comforts
which awaited me there. At length we reached it. But,
rest! warmth! comfort!—miserable delusions! Picture to
yourself, sympathising reader, a long, low hut, built of
rough, unhewn, unplaned logs, filled up with mud and
split bamboo; a long, sloping roof and a large verandah,
already full of visitors. And the interior: a long room,
[Pg 19]
gaily hung with dirty calico, in stripes of red and white;
above it another room, in which the guests slept, having
the benefit of sharing in any orgies which might be going
on below them, through the broad chinks between the
rough, irregular planks which formed its floor. At the
further end, a small corner, partitioned roughly off, formed
a bar, and around it were shelves laden with stores for the
travellers, while behind it was a little room used by
my brother as his private apartment; but three female
travellers had hired it for their own especial use for the
night, paying the enormous sum of £10 for so exclusive a
luxury. At the entrance sat a black man, taking toll of
the comers-in, giving them in exchange for coin or gold-dust
(he had a rusty pair of scales to weigh the latter) a
dirty ticket, which guaranteed them supper, a night’s lodging,
and breakfast. I saw all this very quickly, and turned
round upon my brother in angry despair.

“What am I to do? Why did you ever bring me to
this place? See what a state I am in—cold, hungry, and
wretched. I want to wash, to change my clothes, to eat,
to——”

But poor Edward could only shrug his shoulders and
shake his head, in answer to my indignant remonstrances.
At last he made room for me in a corner of the crowded
bar, set before me some food, and left me to watch the
strange life I had come to; and before long I soon forgot
my troubles in the novelty of my position.

The difference between the passengers to and from
California was very distinguishable. Those bound for the
gold country were to a certain extent fresh from civilization,
and had scarcely thrown off its control; whereas the
[Pg 20]
homeward bound revelled in disgusting excess of licence.
Although many of the women on their way to California
showed clearly enough that the life of licence they sought
would not be altogether unfamiliar to them, they still retained
some appearance of decency in their attire and
manner; but in many cases (as I have before said) the
female companions of the successful gold-diggers appeared
in no hurry to resume the dress or obligations of their sex.
Many were clothed as the men were, in flannel shirt and
boots; rode their mules in unfeminine fashion, but with
much ease and courage; and in their conversation successfully
rivalled the coarseness of their lords. I think, on the
whole, that those French lady writers who desire to enjoy
the privileges of man, with the irresponsibility of the other
sex, would have been delighted with the disciples who
were carrying their principles into practice in the streets
of Cruces.

The chief object of all the travellers seemed to be
dinner or supper; I do not know what term they gave it.
Down the entire length of the Independent Hotel ran a table
covered with a green oilskin cloth, and at proper intervals
were placed knives and forks, plates, and cups and saucers
turned down; and when a new-comer received his ticket,
and wished to secure his place for the coming repast, he
would turn his plate, cup, and saucer up; which mode of
reserving seats seemed respected by the rest. And as the
evening wore on, the shouting and quarrelling at the doorway
in Yankee twang increased momentarily; while some
seated themselves at the table, and hammering upon it with
the handles of their knives, hallooed out to the excited
nigger cooks to make haste with the slapjack. Amidst all
[Pg 21]
this confusion, my brother was quietly selling shirts, boots,
trousers, etc., to the travellers; while above all the din
could be heard the screaming voices of his touters without,
drawing attention to the good cheer of the Independent
Hotel. Over and over again, while I cowered in my snug
corner, wishing to avoid the notice of all, did I wish myself
safe back in my pleasant home in Kingston; but it was too
late to find out my mistake now.

At last the table was nearly filled with a motley assemblage
of men and women, and the slapjack, hot and steaming,
was carried in by the black cooks. The hungry diners
welcomed its advent with a shout of delight; and yet it
did not seem particularly tempting. But beyond all doubt
it was a capital pièce de résistance for great eaters; and
before the dinner was over, I saw ample reasons to induce
any hotel-keeper to give it his patronage. In truth, it was
a thick substantial pancake of flour, salt, and water—eggs
were far too expensive to be used in its composition;
and by the time the supply had disappeared, I thought the
largest appetites must have been stayed. But it was followed
by pork, strips of beef stewed with hard dumplings,
hams, great dishes of rice, jugs of molasses and treacle for
sauce; the whole being washed down with an abundance
of tea and coffee. Chickens and eggs were provided for
those who were prepared to pay for these luxuries of Panama
life. But, so scarce and expensive were they, that, as
I afterwards discovered, those hotel-keepers whose larders
were so stocked would hang out a chicken upon their signposts,
as a sure attraction for the richer and more reckless
diggers; while the touter’s cry of “Eggs and chickens
here” was a very telling one. Wine and spirits were also
[Pg 22]
obtainable, but were seldom taken by the Americans, who
are abstemious abroad as well as at home.

After dinner the store soon cleared. Gambling was a
great attraction; but my brother, dreading its consequences
with these hot-brained armed men, allowed none to take
place in his hotel. So some lounged away to the faro and
monte tables, which were doing a busy trade; others
loitered in the verandah, smoking, and looking at the
native women, who sang and danced fandangos before
them. The whole of the dirty, woe-begone place, which
had looked so wretched by the light of day, was brilliantly
illuminated now. Night would bring no rest to Cruces,
while the crowds were there to be fed, cheated, or amused.
Daybreak would find the faro-tables, with their piles of
silver and little heaps of gold-dust, still surrounded by
haggard gamblers; daybreak would gleam sickly upon the
tawdry finery of the poor Spanish singers and dancers,
whose weary night’s work would enable them to live upon
the travellers’ bounty for the next week or so. These few
hours of gaiety and excitement were to provide the Cruces
people with food and clothing for as many days; and while
their transitory sun shone, I will do them the justice to say
they gathered in their hay busily. In the exciting race
for gold, we need not be surprised at the strange groups
which line the race-course. All that I wondered at was,
that I had not foreseen what I found, or that my rage for
change and novelty had closed my ears against the warning
voices of those who knew somewhat of the high-road to
California; but I was too tired to moralise long, and begged
my brother to find me a bed somewhere. He failed to do
so completely, and in despair I took the matter in my own
[Pg 23]
hands; and stripping the green oilskin cloth from the rough
table—it would not be wanted again until to-morrow’s
breakfast—pinned up some curtains round the table’s legs,
and turned in with my little servant beneath it. It was
some comfort to know that my brother, his servants, and
Mac brought their mattresses, and slept upon it above us.
It was a novel bed, and required some slight stretch of the
imagination to fancy it a four-poster; but I was too tired
to be particular, and slept soundly.

We were up right early on the following morning; and
refreshed with my night’s sleep, I entered heartily into the
preparations for breakfast. That meal over, the homeward-bound
passengers took boats en route for Gorgona, while
those bound for California hired mules for the land journey
to Panama. So after awhile all cleared away, and Cruces
was left to its unhealthy solitude.

CHAPTER IV.

I do not think I have ever known what it is to despair, or
even to despond (if such were my inclination, I have had
some opportunities recently), and it was not long before
I began to find out the bright side of Cruces life, and enter
into schemes for staying there. But it would be a week
or so before the advent of another crowd would wake
[Pg 24]
Cruces to life and activity again; and in the meanwhile,
and until I could find a convenient hut for my intended
hotel, I remained my brother’s guest.

But it was destined that I should not be long in Cruces
before my medicinal skill and knowledge were put to the
test. Before the passengers for Panama had been many
days gone, it was found that they had left one of their
number behind them, and that one—the cholera. I believe
that the faculty have not yet come to the conclusion that
the cholera is contagious, and I am not presumptuous
enough to forestall them; but my people have always considered
it to be so, and the poor Cruces folks did not
hesitate to say that this new and terrible plague had been a
fellow-traveller with the Americans from New Orleans or
some other of its favoured haunts. I had the first intimation
of its unwelcome presence in the following abrupt and
unpleasant manner:—

A Spaniard, an old and intimate friend of my brother,
had supped with him one evening, and upon returning
home had been taken ill, and after a short period of intense
suffering had died. So sudden and so mysterious a death
gave rise to the rumour that he had been poisoned, and
suspicion rested for a time, perhaps not unnaturally, upon
my brother, in whose company the dead man had last been.
Anxious for many reasons—the chief one, perhaps, the
position of my brother—I went down to see the corpse. A
single glance at the poor fellow showed me the terrible
truth. The distressed face, sunken eyes, cramped limbs, and
discoloured shrivelled skin were all symptoms which I had
been familiar with very recently; and at once I pronounced
the cause of death to be cholera. The Cruces people were
[Pg 25]
mightily angry with me for expressing such an opinion;
even my brother, although it relieved him of the odium of
a great crime, was as annoyed as the rest. But by twelve
o’clock that morning one of the Spaniard’s friends was
attacked similarly, and the very people who had been most
angry with me a few hours previously, came to me now
eager for advice. There was no doctor in Cruces; the
nearest approach to one was a little timid dentist, who was
there by accident, and who refused to prescribe for the
sufferer, and I was obliged to do my best. Selecting from
my medicine chest—I never travel anywhere without it—what
I deemed necessary, I went hastily to the patient,
and at once adopted the remedies I considered fit. It was
a very obstinate case, but by dint of mustard emetics,
warm fomentations, mustard plasters on the stomach and
the back, and calomel, at first in large then in gradually
smaller doses, I succeeded in saving my first cholera
patient in Cruces.

For a few days the terrible disease made such slow
progress amongst us that we almost hoped it had passed on
its way and spared us; but all at once it spread rapidly,
and affrighted faces and cries of woe soon showed how
fatally the destroyer was at work. And in so great request
were my services, that for days and nights together I
scarcely knew what it was to enjoy two successive hours’
rest.

And here I must pause to set myself right with my
kind reader. He or she will not, I hope, think that, in
narrating these incidents, I am exalting my poor part in
them unduly. I do not deny (it is the only thing indeed
that I have to be proud of) that I am pleased and gratified
[Pg 26]
when I look back upon my past life, and see times now
and then, and places here and there, when and where I
have been enabled to benefit my fellow-creatures suffering
from ills my skill could often remedy. Nor do I think
that the kind reader will consider this feeling an unworthy
one. If it be so, and if, in the following pages, the
account of what Providence has given me strength to do
on larger fields of action be considered vain or egotistical,
still I cannot help narrating them, for my share in them
appears to be the one and only claim I have to interest
the public ear. Moreover I shall be sadly disappointed, if
those years of life which may be still in store for me are
not permitted by Providence to be devoted to similar
usefulness. I am not ashamed to confess—for the gratification
is, after all, a selfish one—that I love to be of
service to those who need a woman’s help. And wherever
the need arises—on whatever distant shore—I ask no
greater or higher privilege than to minister to it. After
this explanation, I resume more freely the account of my
labours in Cruces.

It was scarcely surprising that the cholera should
spread rapidly, for fear is its powerful auxiliary, and the
Cruces people bowed down before the plague in slavish
despair. The Americans and other foreigners in the place
showed a brave front, but the natives, constitutionally
cowardly, made not the feeblest show of resistance.
Beyond filling the poor church, and making the priests
bring out into the streets figures of tawdry dirty saints,
supposed to possess some miraculous influence which they
never exerted, before which they prostrated themselves,
invoking their aid with passionate prayers and cries, they
[Pg 27]
did nothing. Very likely the saints would have got the
credit of helping them if they had helped themselves; but
the poor cowards never stirred a finger to clean out their
close, reeking huts, or rid the damp streets of the rotting
accumulation of months. I think their chief reliance was
on “the yellow woman from Jamaica with the cholera
medicine.” Nor was this surprising; for the Spanish
doctor, who was sent for from Panama, became nervous
and frightened at the horrors around him, and the people
soon saw that he was not familiar with the terrible disease
he was called upon to do battle with, and preferred trusting
to one who was.

It must be understood that many of those who could
afford to pay for my services did so handsomely, but the
great majority of my patients had nothing better to give
their doctress than thanks. The best part of my practice
lay amongst the American store and hotel keepers, the
worst among the native boatmen and muleteers. These
latter died by scores, and among them I saw some scenes
of horror I would fain forget, if it were possible. One
terrible night, passed with some of them, has often
haunted me. I will endeavour to narrate it, and should
the reader be supposed to think it highly coloured and
doubtful, I will only tell him that, terrible as it seems, I
saw almost as fearful scenes on the Crimean peninsula
among British men, a few thousand miles only from comfort
and plenty.

It was late in the evening when the largest mule-owner
in Cruces came to me and implored me to accompany him
to his kraal, a short distance from the town, where he said
some of his men were dying. One in particular, his head
[Pg 28]
muleteer, a very valuable servant, he was most selfishly
anxious for, and, on the way thither, promised me a large
remuneration if I should succeed in saving him. Our
journey was not a long one, but it rained hard, and the
fields were flooded, so that it took us some time to reach
the long, low hut which he called his home. I would
rather not see such another scene as the interior of that
hut presented. Its roof scarcely sheltered its wretched inmates
from the searching rain; its floor was the damp, rank
turf, trodden by the mules’ hoofs and the muleteers’ feet
into thick mud. Around, in dirty hammocks, and on the
damp floor, were the inmates of this wretched place, male
and female, the strong and the sick together, breathing air
that nearly choked me, accustomed as I had grown to live
in impure atmosphere; for beneath the same roof the mules,
more valuable to their master than his human servants,
were stabled, their fore-feet locked, and beside them were
heaps of saddles, packs, and harness. The groans of the
sufferers and the anxiety and fear of their comrades were
so painful to hear and witness, that for a few minutes I felt
an almost uncontrollable impulse to run out into the stormy
night, and flee from this plague-spot. But the weak feeling
vanished, and I set about my duty. The mule-owner was
so frightened that he did not hesitate to obey orders, and,
by my directions, doors and shutters were thrown open,
fires were lighted, and every effort made to ventilate the
place; and then, with the aid of the frightened women, I
applied myself to my poor patients. Two were beyond my
skill. Death alone could give them relief. The others I
could help. But no words of mine could induce them to
bear their terrible sufferings like men. They screamed and
[Pg 29]
groaned, not like women, for few would have been so
craven-hearted, but like children; calling, in the intervals
of violent pain, upon Jesu, the Madonna, and all the
saints of heaven whom their lives had scandalised. I
stayed with them until midnight, and then got away for
a little time. But I had not long been quiet, before
the mule-master was after me again. The men were
worse; would I return with him. The rain was drifting
heavily on the thatched roof, as it only does in tropical climates,
and I was tired to death; but I could not resist his
appeal. He had brought with him a pair of tall, thick boots,
in which I was to wade through the flooded fields; and with
some difficulty I again reached the kraal. I found the worst
cases sinking fast, one of the others had relapsed, while fear
had paralysed the efforts of the rest. At last I restored some
order; and, with the help of the bravest of the women,
fixed up rude screens around the dying men. But no
screens could shut out from the others their awful groans
and cries for the aid that no mortal power could give them.
So the long night passed away; first a deathlike stillness
behind one screen, and then a sudden silence behind the
other, showing that the fierce battle with death was over,
and who had been the victor. And, meanwhile, I sat
before the flickering fire, with my last patient in my lap—a
poor, little, brown-faced orphan infant, scarce a year old,
was dying in my arms, and I was powerless to save it. It
may seem strange, but it is a fact, that I thought more
of that little child than I did of the men who were
struggling for their lives, and prayed very earnestly and
solemnly to God to spare it. But it did not please Him to
grant my prayer, and towards morning the wee spirit left
[Pg 30]
this sinful world for the home above it had so lately left,
and what was mortal of the little infant lay dead in my
arms. Then it was that I began to think—how the idea
first arose in my mind I can hardly say—that, if it were possible
to take this little child and examine it, I should learn
more of the terrible disease which was sparing neither young
nor old, and should know better how to do battle with it.
I was not afraid to use my baby patient thus. I knew its
fled spirit would not reproach me, for I had done all I could
for it in life—had shed tears over it, and prayed for it.

It was cold grey dawn, and the rain had ceased, when
I followed the man who had taken the dead child away to
bury it, and bribed him to carry it by an unfrequented
path down to the river-side, and accompany me to the thick
retired bush on the opposite bank. Having persuaded him
thus much, it was not difficult, with the help of silver arguments
to convince him that it would be for the general benefit
and his own, if I could learn from this poor little thing the
secret inner workings of our common foe; and ultimately
he stayed by me, and aided me in my first and last post
mortem examination. It seems a strange deed to accomplish,
and I am sure I could not wield the scalpel or the
substitute I then used now, but at that time the excitement
had strung my mind up to a high pitch of courage
and determination; and perhaps the daily, almost hourly,
scenes of death had made me somewhat callous. I need
not linger on this scene, nor give the readers the results of
my operation; although novel to me, and decidedly useful,
they were what every medical man well knows.

We buried the poor little body beneath a piece of
luxuriant turf, and stole back into Cruces like guilty things.
[Pg 31]
But the knowledge I had obtained thus strangely was
very valuable to me, and was soon put into practice. But
that I dreaded boring my readers, I would fain give them
some idea of my treatment of this terrible disease. I have
no doubt that at first I made some lamentable blunders,
and, may be, lost patients which a little later I could have
saved. I know I came across, the other day, some notes
of cholera medicines which made me shudder, and I dare
say they have been used in their turn and found wanting.
The simplest remedies were perhaps the best. Mustard
plasters, and emetics, and calomel; the mercury applied externally,
where the veins were nearest the surface, were
my usual resources. Opium I rather dreaded, as its effect
is to incapacitate the system from making any exertion,
and it lulls the patient into a sleep which is often the sleep
of death. When my patients felt thirsty, I would give
them water in which cinnamon had been boiled. One stubborn
attack succumbed to an additional dose of ten grains
of sugar of lead, mixed in a pint of water, given in doses
of a table-spoonful every quarter of an hour. Another
patient, a girl, I rubbed over with warm oil, camphor, and
spirits of wine. Above all, I never neglected to apply
mustard poultices to the stomach, spine, and neck, and
particularly to keep my patient warm about the region of
the heart. Nor did I relax my care when the disease had
passed by, for danger did not cease when the great foe
was beaten off. The patient was left prostrate; strengthening
medicines had to be given cautiously, for fever, often of
the brain, would follow. But, after all, one great conclusion,
which my practice in cholera cases enabled me to
come to, was the old one, that few constitutions permitted
[Pg 32]
the use of exactly similar remedies, and that the course of
treatment which saved one man, would, if persisted in,
have very likely killed his brother.

Generally speaking, the cholera showed premonitory
symptoms; such as giddiness, sickness, diarrhœa, or sunken
eyes and distressed look; but sometimes the substance
followed its forecoming shadow so quickly, and the crisis
was so rapid, that there was no time to apply any remedies.
An American carpenter complained of giddiness and sickness—warning
signs—succeeded so quickly by the worst
symptoms of cholera, that in less than an hour his face became
of an indigo tint, his limbs were doubled up horribly
with violent cramps, and he died.

To the convicts—and if there could be grades of
wretchedness in Cruces, these poor creatures were the
lowest—belonged the terrible task of burying the dead; a
duty to which they showed the utmost repugnance. Not
unfrequently, at some fancied alarm, they would fling
down their burden, until at last it became necessary to
employ the soldiers to see that they discharged the task
allotted to them. Ordinarily, the victims were buried immediately
after death, with such imperfect rites of sepulture
as the harassed frightened priests would pay them,
and very seldom was time afforded by the authorities to
the survivors to pay those last offices to the departed which
a Spaniard and a Catholic considers so important. Once I
was present at a terrible scene in the house of a New
Granada grandee, whose pride and poverty justified many
of the old Spanish proverbs levelled at his caste.

It was when the cholera was at its height, and yet he
had left—perhaps on important business—his wife and
[Pg 33]
family, and gone to Panama for three days. On the day
after his departure, the plague broke out in his house, and
my services were required promptly. I found the miserable
household in terrible alarm, and yet confining their
exertions to praying to a coarse black priest in a black
surplice, who, kneeling beside the couch of the Spanish lady,
was praying (in his turn) to some favourite saint in Cruces.
The sufferer was a beautiful woman, suffering from a violent
attack of cholera, with no one to help her, or even to take
from her arms the poor little child they had allowed her to
retain. In her intervals of comparative freedom from pain,
her cries to the Madonna and her husband were heartrending
to hear. I had the greatest difficulty to rout the stupid
priest and his as stupid worshippers, and do what I could
for the sufferer. It was very little, and before long the
unconscious Spaniard was a widower. Soon after, the
authorities came for the body. I never saw such passionate
anger and despair as were shown by her relatives and servants,
old and young, at the intrusion—rage that she,
who had been so exalted in life, should go to her grave like
the poor, poor clay she was. Orders were given to bar
the door against the convict gang who had come to discharge
their unpleasant duty, and while all were busy
decking out the unconscious corpse in gayest attire, none
paid any heed to me bending over the fire with the motherless
child, journeying fast to join its dead parent. I had
made more than one effort to escape, for I felt more sick
and wretched than at any similar scene of woe; but finding
exit impossible, I turned my back upon them, and attended
to the dying child. Nor did I heed their actions until I
heard orders given to admit the burial party, and then I
[Pg 34]
found that they had dressed the corpse in rich white satin,
and decked her head with flowers.

The agitation and excitement of this scene had
affected me as no previous horror had done, and I could
not help fancying that symptoms were showing themselves
in me with which I was familiar enough in others. Leaving
the dying infant to the care of its relatives (when the
Spaniard returned he found himself widowed and childless),
I hastened to my brother’s house. When there, I felt an
unpleasant chill come over me, and went to bed at once.
Other symptoms followed quickly, and, before nightfall, I
knew full well that my turn had come at last, and that the
cholera had attacked me, perhaps its greatest foe in Cruces.

CHAPTER V.

When it became known that their “yellow doctress” had
the cholera, I must do the people of Cruces the justice to
say that they gave her plenty of sympathy, and would
have shown their regard for her more actively, had there
been any occasion. Indeed, when I most wanted quiet, it
was difficult to keep out the sympathising Americans and
sorrowing natives who came to inquire after me; and who,
not content with making their inquiries, and leaving their
offerings of blankets, flannel, etc., must see with their own
eyes what chance the yellow woman had of recovery. The
rickety door of my little room could never be kept shut
[Pg 35]
for many minutes together. A visitor would open it
silently, poke his long face in with an expression of sympathy
that almost made me laugh in spite of my pain,
draw it out again, between the narrowest possible opening,
as if he were anxious to admit as little air as he could;
while another would come in bodily, and after looking at
me curiously and inquisitively, as he would eye a horse or
nigger he had some thoughts of making a bid for, would
help to carpet my room, with the result perhaps of his
meditations, and saying, gravely, “Air you better, Aunty
Seacole, now? Isn’t there a something we can du for you,
ma’am?” would as gravely give place to another and another
yet, until I was almost inclined to throw something at
them, or call them bad names, like the Scotch king does
the ghosts in the play.[A] But, fortunately, the attack was a
very mild one, and by the next day all danger had gone
by, although I still felt weak and exhausted.

After a few weeks, the first force of the cholera was
spent, and although it lingered with us, as though loath to
leave so fine a resting-place, for some months, it no longer
gave us much alarm; and before long, life went on as
briskly and selfishly as ever with the Cruces survivors,
and the terrible past was conveniently forgotten. Perhaps
it is so everywhere; but the haste with which the Cruces
people buried their memory seemed indecent. Old houses
found new masters; the mules new drivers; the great
Spaniard chose another pretty woman, and had a grand,
poor, dirty wedding, and was married by the same lazy
black priest who had buried his wife, dead a few months
[Pg 36]
back; and very likely they would all have hastened as
quickly to forget their doctress, had circumstances permitted
them: but every now and then one of them sickened
and died of the old complaint; and the reputation I had
established founded for me a considerable practice. The
Americans in the place gladly retained me as their medical
attendant, and in one way or other gave me plenty to do;
but, in addition to this, I determined to follow my original
scheme of keeping an hotel in Cruces.

Right opposite my brother’s Independent Hotel there
was a place to let which it was considered I could adapt to
my purpose. It was a mere tumble-down hut, with wattled
sides, and a rotten thatched roof, containing two rooms,
one small enough to serve as a bedroom. For this charming
residence—very openly situated, and well ventilated—twenty
pounds a month was considered a fair and by no
means exorbitant rent. And yet I was glad to take possession
of it; and in a few days had hung its rude walls with
calico of gayest colour in stripes, with an exuberance of
fringes, frills, and bows (the Americans love show dearly),
and prepared it to accommodate fifty dinner guests. I had
determined that it should be simply a table d’hôte, and that
I would receive no lodgers. Once, and once only, I relaxed
this rule in favour of two American women, who sent me to
sleep by a lengthy quarrel of words, woke me in the night
to witness its crisis in a fisticuff duello, and left in the morning,
after having taken a fancy to some of my moveables
which were most easily removeable. I had on my staff my
black servant Mac, the little girl I have before alluded to, and
a native cook. I had had many opportunities of seeing how
my brother conducted his business; and adopted his tariff
[Pg 37]
of charges. For an ordinary dinner my charge was four
shillings; eggs and chickens were, as I have before said,
distinct luxuries, and fetched high prices.

Four crowds generally passed through Cruces every
month. In these were to be found passengers to and from
Chili, Peru, and Lima, as well as California and America.
The distance from Cruces to Panama was not great—only
twenty miles, in fact; but the journey, from the want of
roads and the roughness of the country, was a most fatiguing
one. In some parts—as I found when I made the
journey, in company with my brother—it was almost impassable;
and for more than half the distance, three miles
an hour was considered splendid progress. The great
majority of the travellers were rough, rude men, of dirty,
quarrelsome habits; the others were more civilized and
more dangerous. And it was not long before I grew very
tired of life in Cruces, although I made money rapidly, and
pressed my brother to return to Kingston. Poor fellow!
it would have been well for him had he done so; for he
stayed only to find a grave on the Isthmus of Panama.

The company at my table d’hôte was not over select;
and it was often very difficult for an unprotected female to
manage them, although I always did my best to put them
in good humour. Among other comforts, I used to hire a
black barber, for the rather large consideration of two
pounds, to shave my male guests. You can scarcely conceive
the pleasure and comfort an American feels in a clean
chin; and I believe my barber attracted considerable custom
to the British Hotel at Cruces. I had a little out-house
erected for his especial convenience; and there, well provided
with towels, and armed with plenty of razors, a
[Pg 38]
brush of extraordinary size, and a foaming sea of lather,
José shaved the new-comers. The rivalry to get within
reach of his huge brush was very great; and the threats
used by the neglected, when the grinning black was considered
guilty of any interested partiality, were of the
fiercest description.

This duty over, they and their coarser female companions—many
of them well known to us, for they travelled
backwards and forwards across the Isthmus, hanging
on to the foolish gold-finders—attacked the dinner, very
often with great lack of decency. It was no use giving
them carving-knives and forks, for very often they laid
their own down to insert a dirty hairy hand into a full
dish; while the floor soon bore evidences of the great
national American habit of expectoration. Very often
quarrels would arise during the progress of dinner; and
more than once I thought the knives, which they nearly
swallowed at every mouthful, would have been turned
against one another. It was, I always thought, extremely
fortunate that the reckless men rarely stimulated their
excitable passions with strong drink. Tea and coffee were
the common beverages of the Americans; Englishmen, and
men of other nations, being generally distinguishable by
their demand for wine and spirits. But the Yankee’s
capacity for swilling tea and coffee was prodigious. I saw
one man drink ten cups of coffee; and finding his appetite
still unsatisfied, I ran across to my brother for advice.
There was a merry twinkle in his eyes as he whispered,
“I always put in a good spoonful of salt after the sixth
cup. It chokes them off admirably.”

[Pg 39]
It was no easy thing to avoid being robbed and cheated
by the less scrupulous travellers; although I think it was
only the ’cutest Yankee who stood any fair chance of outwitting
me. I remember an instance of the biter bit, which
I will narrate, hoping it may make my reader laugh as
heartily as its recollection makes me. He was a tall, thin
Yankee, with a furtive glance of the eyes, and an amazing
appetite, which he seemed nothing loath to indulge: his
appetite for eggs especially seemed unbounded. Now, I
have more than once said how expensive eggs were; and
this day they happened to be eightpence apiece. Our plan
was to charge every diner according to the number of shells
found upon his plate. Now, I noticed how eagerly my thin
guest attacked my eggs, and marvelled somewhat at the
scanty pile of shells before him. My suspicions once excited,
I soon fathomed my Yankee friend’s dodge. As soon
as he had devoured the eggs, he conveyed furtively the
shells beneath the table, and distributed them impartially
at the feet of his companions. I gave my little black maid
a piece of chalk, and instructions; and creeping under the
table, she counted the scattered shells, and chalked the
number on the tail of his coat. And when he came up to
pay his score, he gave up his number of eggs in a loud
voice; and when I contradicted him, and referred to the
coat-tale in corroboration of my score, there was a general
laugh against him. But there was a nasty expression in
his cat-like eyes, and an unpleasant allusion to mine, which
were not agreeable, and dissuaded me from playing any
more practical jokes upon the Yankees.

I followed my brother’s example closely, and forbade
[Pg 40]
all gambling in my hotel. But I got some idea of its fruits
from the cases brought to me for surgical treatment from
the faro and monte tables. Gambling at Cruces, and on the
Isthmus generally, was a business by which money was
wormed out of the gold-seekers and gold-finders. No attempt
was made to render it attractive, as I have seen done
elsewhere. The gambling-house was often plainer than our
hotels; and but for the green tables, with their piles of
money and gold-dust, watched over by a well-armed determined
banker, and the eager gamblers around, you would
not know that you were in the vicinity of a spot which the
English at home designate by a very decided and extreme
name. A Dr. Casey—everybody familiar with the Americans
knows their fondness for titles—owned the most favoured table
in Cruces; and this, although he was known
to be a reckless and unscrupulous villain. Most of them
knew that he had been hunted out of San Francisco; and
at that time—years before the Vigilance Committee commenced
their labours of purification—a man too bad for
that city must have been a prodigy of crime: and yet, and
although he was violent-tempered, and had a knack of
referring the slightest dispute to his revolver, his table
was always crowded; probably because—the greatest
rogues have some good qualities—he was honest in his
way, and played fairly.

Occasionally some distinguished passengers passed on
the upward and downward tides of rascality and ruffianism,
that swept periodically through Cruces. Came one day,
Lola Montes, in the full zenith of her evil fame, bound for
California, with a strange suite. A good-looking, bold
woman, with fine, bad eyes, and a determined bearing;
[Pg 41]
dressed ostentatiously in perfect male attire, with shirt-collar
turned down over a velvet lapelled coat, richly worked
shirt-front, black hat, French unmentionables, and natty,
polished boots with spurs. She carried in her hand a
handsome riding-whip, which she could use as well in the
streets of Cruces as in the towns of Europe; for an impertinent
American, presuming—perhaps not unnaturally—upon
her reputation, laid hold jestingly of the tails of her
long coat, and as a lesson received a cut across his face that
must have marked him for some days. I did not wait to
see the row that followed, and was glad when the wretched
woman rode off on the following morning. A very different
notoriety followed her at some interval of time—Miss
Catherine Hayes, on her successful singing tour, who disappointed
us all by refusing to sing at Cruces; and after
her came an English bishop from Australia, who need have
been a member of the church militant to secure his pretty
wife from the host of admirers she had gained during her
day’s journey from Panama.

Very quarrelsome were the majority of the crowds,
holding life cheap, as all bad men strangely do—equally
prepared to take or lose it upon the slightest provocation.
Few tales of horror in Panama could be questioned on the
ground of improbability. Not less partial were many of
the natives of Cruces to the use of the knife; preferring,
by the way, to administer sly stabs in the back, when no
one was by to see the dastard blow dealt. Terribly bullied
by the Americans were the boatmen and muleteers, who
were reviled, shot, and stabbed by these free and independent
filibusters, who would fain whop all creation abroad as
they do their slaves at home. Whenever any Englishmen
[Pg 42]
were present, and in a position to interfere with success,
this bullying was checked; and they found, instead of the
poor Spanish Indians, foemen worthy of their steel or lead.
I must do them credit to say, that they were never loath to
fight any one that desired that passing excitement, and
thought little of ending their journey of life abruptly at
the wretched wayside town of Cruces. It very often happened
so, and over many a hasty head and ready hand have
I seen the sod roughly pressed down, their hot hearts stilled
suddenly in some senseless quarrel. And so in time I grew
to have some considerable experience in the treatment of
knife and gun-shot wounds.

One night I heard a great noise outside my window,
and on rising found a poor boatman moaning piteously, and
in a strange jumble of many languages begging me to help
him. At first I was afraid to open the door, on account of
the noisy mob which soon joined him, for villainy was very
shrewd at Cruces; but at last I admitted him, and found
that the poor wretch’s ears had been cruelly split by some
hasty citizen of the United States. I stitched them up as
well as I could, and silenced his cries. And at any time,
if you happened to be near the river when a crowd were
arriving or departing, your ears would be regaled with a
choice chorus of threats, of which ear-splitting, eye-gouging,
cow-hiding, and the application of revolvers were the
mildest. Against the negroes, of whom there were many
in the Isthmus, and who almost invariably filled the municipal
offices, and took the lead in every way, the Yankees
had a strong prejudice; but it was wonderful to see how
freedom and equality elevate men, and the same negro who
perhaps in Tennessee would have cowered like a beaten
[Pg 43]
child or dog beneath an American’s uplifted hand, would
face him boldly here, and by equal courage and superior
physical strength cow his old oppressor.

When more than ordinary squabbles occurred in the
street or at the gambling-tables, the assistance of the
soldier-police of New Granada was called in, and the affair
sometimes assumed the character of a regular skirmish.
The soldiers—I wish I could speak better of them—were a
dirty, cowardly, indolent set, more prone to use their knives
than their legitimate arms, and bore old rusty muskets, and
very often marched unshod. Their officers were in outward
appearance a few shades superior to the men they commanded,
but, as respects military proficiency, were their equals.
Add to this description of their personnel the well-known
fact, that you might commit the grossest injustice, and
could obtain the simplest justice only by lavish bribery,
and you may form some idea of our military protectors.

Very practised and skilful in thieving were the native
population of Cruces—I speak of the majority, and except
the negroes—always more inclined to do a dishonest night’s
labour at great risk, than an honest day’s work for fair
wages; for justice was always administered strictly to the
poor natives—it was only the foreigners who could evade
it or purchase exemption. Punishment was severe; and in
extreme cases the convicts were sent to Carthagena, there
to suffer imprisonment of a terrible character. Indeed,
from what I heard of the New Granada prisons, I thought
no other country could match them, and continued to think
so until I read how the ingenuity in cruelty of his Majesty
the King of Naples put the torturers of the New Granada
Republic to the blush.

[Pg 44]
I generally avoided claiming the protection of the law
whilst on the Isthmus, for I found it was—as is the case in
civilized England from other causes—rather an expensive
luxury. Once only I took a thief caught in the act before
the alcalde, and claimed the administration of justice. The
court-house was a low bamboo shed, before which some
dirty Spanish-Indian soldiers were lounging; and inside,
the alcalde, a negro, was reclining in a dirty hammock,
smoking coolly, hearing evidence, and pronouncing judgment
upon the wretched culprits, who were trembling
before his dusky majesty. I had attended him while suffering
from an attack of cholera, and directly he saw me
he rose from his hammock, and received me in a ceremonious,
grand manner, and gave orders that coffee should be
brought to me. He had a very pretty white wife, who
joined us; and then the alcalde politely offered me a
cigarito—having declined which, he listened to my statement
with great attention. All this, however, did not
prevent my leaving the necessary fee in furtherance of
justice, nor his accepting it. Its consequence was, that
the thief, instead of being punished as a criminal, was
ordered to pay me the value of the stolen goods; which,
after weeks of hesitation and delay, she eventually did, in
pearls, combs, and other curiosities.

Whenever an American was arrested by the New Granada
authorities, justice had a hard struggle for the
mastery, and rarely obtained it. Once I was present at
the court-house, when an American was brought in heavily
ironed, charged with having committed a highway robbery
—if I may use the term where there were no roads—on
some travellers from Chili. Around the frightened soldiers
[Pg 45]
swelled an angry crowd of brother Americans, abusing and
threatening the authorities in no measured terms, all of
them indignant that a nigger should presume to judge one
of their countrymen. At last their violence so roused the
sleepy alcalde, that he positively threw himself from his
hammock, laid down his cigarito, and gave such very determined
orders to his soldiers that he succeeded in checking
the riot. Then, with an air of decision that puzzled everybody,
he addressed the crowd, declaring angrily, that since
the Americans came the country had known no peace, that
robberies and crimes of every sort had increased, and ending
by expressing his determination to make strangers respect
the laws of the Republic, and to retain the prisoner; and
if found guilty, punish him as he deserved. The Americans
seemed too astonished at the audacity of the black man,
who dared thus to beard them, to offer any resistance; but I
believe that the prisoner was allowed ultimately to escape.

I once had a narrow escape from the thieves of Cruces.
I had been down to Chagres for some stores, and returning,
late in the evening, too tired to put away my packages,
had retired to rest at once. My little maid, who was not
so fatigued as I was, and slept more lightly, woke me in
the night to listen to a noise in the thatch, at the further
end of the store; but I was so accustomed to hear the half-starved
mules of Cruces munching my thatch, that I
listened lazily for a few minutes, and then went unsuspiciously
into another heavy sleep. I do not know how
long it was before I was again awoke by the child’s loud
screams and cries of “Hombro—landro;” and sure enough,
by the light of the dying fire, I saw a fellow stealing away
with my dress, in the pocket of which was my purse. I was
[Pg 46]
about to rush forward, when the fire gleamed on a villainous-looking
knife in his hand; so I stood still, and screamed
loudly, hoping to arouse my brother over the way. For
a moment the thief seemed inclined to silence me, and had
taken a few steps forward, when I took up an old rusty
horse-pistol which my brother had given me that I might
look determined, and snatching down the can of ground
coffee, proceeded to prime it, still screaming as loudly as my
strong lungs would permit, until the rascal turned tail and
stole away through the roof. The thieves usually buried
their spoil like dogs, as they were; but this fellow had
only time to hide it behind a bush, where it was found on
the following morning, and claimed by me.

CHAPTER VI.

I remained at Cruces until the rainy months came to an
end, and the river grew too shallow to be navigable by the
boats higher up than Gorgona; and then we all made preparations
for a flitting to that place. But before starting,
it appeared to be the custom for the store and hotel keepers
to exchange parting visits, and to many of these parties I,
in virtue of my recent services to the community, received
invitations. The most important social meeting took place
on the anniversary of the declaration of American independence,
at my brother’s hotel, where a score of zealous
Americans dined most heartily—as they never fail to do;
[Pg 47]
and, as it was an especial occasion, drank champagne
liberally at twelve shillings a bottle. And, after the usual
patriotic toasts had been duly honoured, they proposed
“the ladies,” with an especial reference to myself, in a
speech which I thought worth noting down at the time.
The spokesman was a thin, sallow-looking American, with
a pompous and yet rapid delivery, and a habit of turning
over his words with his quid before delivering them, and
clearing his mouth after each sentence, perhaps to make
room for the next. I shall beg the reader to consider that
the blanks express the time expended on this operation.
He dashed into his work at once, rolling up and getting rid
of his sentences as he went on:—

“Well, gentlemen, I expect you’ll all support me in a
drinking of this toast that I du——. Aunty Seacole, gentlemen;
I give you, Aunty Seacole——. We can’t du less
for her, after what she’s done for us——, when the cholera
was among us, gentlemen——, not many months ago——.
So, I say, God bless the best yaller woman He ever made——,
from Jamaica, gentlemen——, from the Isle of
Springs——Well, gentlemen, I expect there are only tu things
we’re vexed for——; and the first is, that she ain’t one of
us——, a citizen of the great United States——; and the
other thing is, gentlemen——, that Providence made her
a yaller woman. I calculate, gentlemen, you’re all as
vexed as I am that she’s not wholly white——, but I du
reckon on your rejoicing with me that she’s so many shades
removed from being entirely black——; and I guess, if we
could bleach her by any means we would——, and thus
make her as acceptable in any company as she deserves to
be——. Gentlemen, I give you Aunty Seacole!”

[Pg 48]
And so the orator sat down amidst much applause. It
may be supposed that I did not need much persuasion to
return thanks, burning, as I was, to tell them my mind on
the subject of my colour. Indeed, if my brother had not
checked me, I should have given them my thoughts somewhat
too freely. As it was, I said:—

“Gentlemen,—I return you my best thanks for your
kindness in drinking my health. As for what I have done
in Cruces, Providence evidently made me to be useful,
and I can’t help it. But, I must say, that I don’t altogether
appreciate your friend’s kind wishes with respect to
my complexion. If it had been as dark as any nigger’s, I
should have been just as happy and as useful, and as much
respected by those whose respect I value; and as to his
offer of bleaching me, I should, even if it were practicable,
decline it without any thanks. As to the society which
the process might gain me admission into, all I can say is,
that, judging from the specimens I have met with here and
elsewhere, I don’t think that I shall lose much by being
excluded from it. So, gentlemen, I drink to you and the
general reformation of American manners.”

I do not think that they altogether admired my speech,
but I was a somewhat privileged person, and they laughed
at it good-naturedly enough. Perhaps (for I was not in
the best humour myself) I should have been better pleased
if they had been angry.

Rightly, I ought to have gone down to Gorgona a few
weeks before Cruces was deserted, and secured an hotel;
but I did not give up all hope of persuading my brother to
leave the Isthmus until the very last moment, and then, of
course, a suitable house was not to be hired in Gorgona for
[Pg 49]
love or money. Seeing his fixed determination to stay, I
consented to remain with him, for he was young and often
ill, and set hard to work to settle myself somewhere.
With the aid of an old Jamaica friend, who had settled
at Gorgona, I at last found a miserable little hut for sale,
and bought it for a hundred dollars. It consisted of one
room only, and was, in its then condition, utterly unfit
for my purpose; but I determined to set to work and
build on to it—by no means the hazardous speculation in
Gorgona, where bricks and mortar are unknown, that it is
in England. The alcalde’s permission to make use of the
adjacent ground was obtained for a moderate consideration,
and plenty of material was procurable from the opposite
bank of the river. An American, whom I had cured
of the cholera at Cruces, lent me his boat, and I hired
two or three natives to cut down and shape the posts and
bamboo poles. Directly these were raised, Mac and my
little maid set to work and filled up the spaces between
them with split bamboo canes and reeds, and before long
my new hotel was ready to be roofed. The building process
was simple enough, and I soon found myself in possession
of a capital dining-room some thirty feet in length,
which was gaily hung with coloured calico, concealing all
defects of construction, and lighted with large oil lamps;
a store-room, bar, and a small private apartment for ladies.
Altogether, although I had to pay my labourers four shillings
a day, the whole building did not cost me more than
my brother paid for three months’ rent of his hotel. I gave
the travelling world to understand that I intended to devote
my establishment principally to the entertainment of
ladies, and the care of those who might fall ill on the
[Pg 50]
route, and I found the scheme answered admirably. And
yet, although the speculation paid well, I soon grew as
weary of my life in Gorgona as I had been at Cruces; and
when I found my brother proof against all persuasion to
quit the Isthmus, I began to entertain serious thoughts of
leaving him.

Nor was it altogether my old roving inclination which
led me to desire a change, although I dare say it had something
to do with it. My present life was not agreeable for a
woman with the least delicacy or refinement; and of female
society I had none. Indeed, the females who crossed my
path were about as unpleasant specimens of the fair sex
as one could well wish to avoid. With very few exceptions,
those who were not bad were very disagreeable, and
as the majority came from the Southern States of America,
and showed an instinctive repugnance against any one
whose countenance claimed for her kindred with their
slaves, my position was far from a pleasant one. Not that
it ever gave me any annoyance; they were glad of my
stores and comforts, I made money out of their wants; nor
do I think our bond of connection was ever closer; only
this, if any of them came to me sick and suffering (I
say this out of simple justice to myself), I forgot everything,
except that she was my sister, and that it was my
duty to help her.

I may have before said that the citizens of the New
Granada Republic had a strong prejudice against all Americans.
It is not difficult to assign a cause for this. In the
first place, many of the negroes, fugitive from the Southern
States, had sought refuge in this and the other States of
Central America, where every profession was open to them;
[Pg 51]
and as they were generally superior men—evinced perhaps
by their hatred of their old condition and their successful
flight—they soon rose to positions of eminence in New Granada.
In the priesthood, in the army, in all municipal
offices, the self-liberated negroes were invariably found in the
foremost rank; and the people, for some reason—perhaps
because they recognised in them superior talents for administration—always
respected them more than, and preferred
them to, their native rulers. So that, influenced
naturally by these freed slaves, who bore themselves before
their old masters bravely and like men, the New Granada
people were strongly prejudiced against the Americans.
And in the second and third places, they feared their
quarrelsome, bullying habits—be it remembered that the
crowds to California were of the lowest sorts, many of
whom have since fertilised Cuban and Nicaraguan soil—and
dreaded their schemes for annexation. To such an
extent was this amusingly carried, that when the American
Railway Company took possession of Navy Bay, and
christened it Aspinwall, after the name of their Chairman,
the native authorities refused to recognise their right to name
any portion of the Republic, and pertinaciously returned
all letters directed to Aspinwall, with “no such place
known” marked upon them in the very spot for which
they were intended. And, in addition to this, the legal
authorities refused to compel any defendant to appear who
was described as of Aspinwall, and put every plaintiff out
of court who described himself as residing in that unrecognised
place.

Under these circumstances, my readers can easily understand
that when any Americans crossed the Isthmus,
[Pg 52]
accompanied by their slaves, the Cruces and Gorgona people
were restlessly anxious to whisper into their ears offers of
freedom and hints how easy escape would be. Nor were
the authorities at all inclined to aid in the recapture of a
runaway slave. So that, as it was necessary for the losers
to go on with the crowd, the fugitive invariably escaped.
It is one of the maxims of the New Granada constitution—as
it is, I believe, of the English—that on a slave
touching its soil his chains fall from him. Rather than
irritate so dangerous a neighbour as America, this rule was
rarely supported; but I remember the following instance
of its successful application.

A young American woman, whose character can be best
described by the word “vicious,” fell ill at Gorgona, and
was left behind by her companions under the charge of a
young negro, her slave, whom she treated most inhumanly,
as was evinced by the poor girl’s frequent screams when
under the lash. One night her cries were so distressing, that
Gorgona could stand it no longer, but broke into the house
and found the chattel bound hand and foot, naked, and being
severely lashed. Despite the threats and astonishment of
the mistress, they were both carried off on the following
morning, before the alcalde, himself a man of colour, and
of a very humane disposition. When the particulars of
the case were laid before him, he became strongly excited,
and called upon the woman to offer an explanation of her
cruelty. She treated it with the coolest unconcern—“The
girl was her property, worth so many dollars, and a child at
New Orleans; had misbehaved herself, and been properly
corrected. The alcalde must be drunk or a fool, or both
together, to interfere between an American and her
[Pg 53]
property.” Her coolness vanished, however, when the
alcalde turned round to the girl and told her that she was
free to leave her mistress when she liked; and when she
heard the irrepressible cheering of the crowded court-hut
at the alcalde’s humanity and boldness, and saw the slave’s
face flush with delight at the judge’s words, she became
terribly enraged; made use of the most fearful threats, and
would have wreaked summary vengeance on her late
chattel had not the clumsy soldiery interfered. Then,
with demoniac refinement of cruelty, she bethought
herself of the girl’s baby at New Orleans still in her
power, and threatened most horrible torture to the child
if its mother dared to accept the alcalde’s offer.

The poor girl trembled and covered her face with her
hands, as though to shut out some fearful sight, and, I
think, had we not persuaded her to the contrary, that she
would have sacrificed her newly won freedom for the
child’s sake. But we knew very well that when the heat
of passion had subsided, the threatener would be too ’cute
to injure her own property; and at once set afloat a subscription
for the purchase of the child. The issue of the
tale I do not know, as the woman was very properly removed
into the interior of the country.

Life at Gorgona resembled life at Cruces so nearly that
it does not need a separate description. Down with the
store and hotel keepers came the muleteers and mules,
porters and hangers-on, idlers and thieves, gamblers and
dancing women; and soon the monte-tables were fitted up,
and plying their deadly trade; and the dancers charmed
the susceptible travellers as successfully in the dirty streets
of Gorgona as they had previously done in the unwholesome
[Pg 54]
precincts of Cruces. And Dr. Casey was very nearly
getting himself into serious trouble, from too great a readiness
to use his revolver. Still, he had a better excuse for
bloodshed this time than might have been found for his previous
breaches of the sixth commandment. Among the desperadoes
who frequented his gambling-hut, during their
short stay in Gorgona, was conceived the desperate plan of
putting out the lights, and upsetting Casey’s table—trusting
in the confusion to carry off the piles of money upon it.
The first part of their programme was successfully carried
out; but the second was frustrated by the Doctor promptly
firing his revolver into the dark, and hitting an unoffending
boy in the hip. And at this crisis the Gorgona police entered,
carried off all the parties they could lay hands upon
(including the Doctor) to prison, and brought the wounded
boy to me.

On the following morning came a most urgent request
that I would visit the imprisoned Doctor. I found him
desperately angry, but somewhat nervous too, for the
alcalde was known to be no friend to the Americans,
owed Casey more than one grudge, and had shown recently
a disposition to enforce the laws.

“I say, Mrs. Seacole, how’s that —— boy?”

“Oh, Dr. Casey, how could you shoot the poor lad, and
now call him bad names, as though he’d injured you? He
is very ill indeed—may die; so I advise you to think
seriously of your position.”

“But, Madame Seacole,” (this in a very altered tone),
“you’ll surely help me? you’ll surely tell the alcalde that
the wound’s a slight one? He’s a friend of yours, and
will let me out of this hole. Come, Madame Seacole,
[Pg 55]
you’ll never leave me to be murdered by these bloodthirsty
savages?”

“What can I do or say, Dr. Casey? I must speak the
truth, and the ball is still in the poor lad’s hip,” I answered,
for I enjoyed the fellow’s fear too much to help him. However,
he sent some of his friends to the boy’s father, and
bribed him to take the lad from my care, and send him to
Navy Bay, to a surgeon there. Of course, he never returned
to prosecute Dr. Casey; and he was left with the alcalde
only to deal with, who, although he hated the man, could
not resist his money, and so set him free.

Gorgona lying lower than Cruces, its inhabitants more
frequently enjoyed the excitement of a flood. After heavy
rains, the river would rise so rapidly that in a few hours the
chief part of the place would be under water. On such
occasions the scene was unusually exciting. As the water
crept up the street, the frightened householders kept removing
their goods and furniture to higher ground; while here
and there, where the waters had surrounded them unawares,
boats were sent to their rescue. The houses, not made to
resist much wind or water, often gave way, and were carried
down the Chagres. Meanwhile, the thieves were the
busiest—the honest folks, forgetting the true old adage,
“God helps those who help themselves,” confining their
exertions to bringing down their favourite saints to the
water’s edge, and invoking their interposition.

Fortunately my hotel was at the upper end of the town,
where the floods had been rarely known to extend; and
although there was a sufficient chance of the water reaching
me to compel me to have all my stores, etc., ready
packed for removal, I escaped. Some distressing losses
[Pg 56]
occurred. A Frenchman, a near neighbour, whose house
was surrounded by the waters before he could remove his
goods, grew so frantic at the loss, that he obstinately refused
to quit his falling house; and some force had to be
used before they could save his life.

Scarcely had the ravages of the last flood been repaired
when fire marked Gorgona for its prey. The conflagration
began at a store by the river-side; but it spread rapidly,
and before long all Gorgona was in danger. The town
happened to be very full that night, two crowds having
met there, and there was great confusion; but at last the
lazy soldier-police, aided by the Americans, succeeded in
pulling down some old crazy huts, and checking the fire’s
progress. The travellers were in sore plight, many of
them being reduced to sleep upon their luggage, piled in
the drenched streets. My hotel had some interesting inmates,
for a poor young creature, borne in from one of the
burning houses, became a mother during the night; and
a stout little lassie opened its eyes upon this waesome
world during the excitement and danger of a Gorgona
conflagration.

Shortly after this, tired to death of life in Panama, I
handed over my hotel to my brother, and returned to
Kingston. On the way thither I experienced another instance
of American politeness, which I cannot help recording;
first reminding my readers of what I have previously
said of the character of the Californian travellers. Anxious
to get home quickly, I took my passage in the first steamer
that left Navy Bay—an American one; and late in the evening
said farewell to the friends I had been staying with, and
went on board. A very kind friend, an American merchant,
[Pg 57]
doing a large business at Navy Bay, had tried hard to persuade
me to delay my journey until the English company’s
steamer called; without, however, giving any good reasons
for his wish. So, with Mac and my little maid, I passed
through the crowd of female passengers on deck, and
sought the privacy of the saloon. Before I had been long
there, two ladies came to me, and in their cool, straightforward
manner, questioned me.

“Where air you going?”

“To Kingston.”

“And how air you going?”

“By sea.”

“Don’t be impertinent, yaller woman. By what conveyance
air you going?”

“By this steamer, of course. I’ve paid for my passage.”

They went away with this information; and in a short
time eight or nine others came and surrounded me, asking
the same questions. My answers—and I was very particular—raised
quite a storm of uncomplimentary remarks.

“Guess a nigger woman don’t go along with us in this
saloon,” said one. “I never travelled with a nigger yet,
and I expect I shan’t begin now,” said another; while
some children had taken my little servant Mary in hand,
and were practising on her the politenesses which their
parents were favouring me with—only, as is the wont of
children, they were crueller. I cannot help it if I shock
my readers; but the truth is, that one positively spat in
poor little Mary’s frightened yellow face.

At last an old American lady came to where I sat, and
gave me some staid advice. “Well, now, I tell you for
your good, you’d better quit this, and not drive my people
[Pg 58]
to extremities. If you do, you’ll be sorry for it, I expect.”
Thus harassed, I appealed to the stewardess—a tall sour-looking
woman, flat and thin as a dressed-up broomstick.
She asked me sundry questions as to how and when I had
taken my passage; until, tired beyond all endurance, I
said, “My good woman, put me anywhere—under a boat—in
your store-room, so that I can get to Kingston somehow.”
But the stewardess was not to be moved.

“There’s nowhere but the saloon, and you can’t expect
to stay with the white people, that’s clear. Flesh and
blood can stand a good deal of aggravation; but not that.
If the Britishers is so took up with coloured people, that’s
their business; but it won’t do here.”

This last remark was in answer to an Englishman,
whose advice to me was not to leave my seat for any of
them. He made matters worse; until at last I lost my
temper, and calling Mac, bade him get my things together,
and went up to the captain—a good honest man. He and
some of the black crew and the black cook, who showed
his teeth most viciously, were much annoyed. Muttering
about its being a custom of the country, the captain gave
me an order upon the agent for the money I had paid;
and so, at twelve o’clock at night, I was landed again upon
the wharf of Navy Bay.

My American friends were vastly annoyed, but not
much surprised; and two days later, the English steamer,
the “Eagle,” in charge of my old friend, Captain B——,
touched at Navy Bay, and carried me to Kingston.

[Pg 59]

CHAPTER VII.

I stayed in Jamaica eight months out of the year 1853,
still remembered in the island for its suffering and gloom.
I returned just in time to find my services, with many
others, needful; for the yellow fever never made a more
determined effort to exterminate the English in Jamaica
than it did in that dreadful year. So violent was the epidemic,
that some of my people fell victims to its fury, a
thing rarely heard of before. My house was full of sufferers—officers,
their wives and children. Very often they
were borne in from the ships in the harbour—sometimes
in a dying state, sometimes—after long and distressing
struggles with the grim foe—to recover. Habituated as I
had become with death in its most harrowing forms, I
found these scenes more difficult to bear than any I had
previously borne a part in; and for this reason perhaps,
that I had not only to cheer the death-bed of the sufferer,
but, far more trying task, to soothe the passionate grief of
wife or husband left behind. It was a terrible thing to
see young people in the youth and bloom of life suddenly
[Pg 60]
stricken down, not in battle with an enemy that threatened
their country, but in vain contest with a climate that
refused to adopt them. Indeed, the mother country pays
a dear price for the possession of her colonies.

I think all who are familiar with the West Indies will
acknowledge that Nature has been favourable to strangers
in a few respects, and that one of these has been in instilling
into the hearts of the Creoles an affection for
English people and an anxiety for their welfare, which
shows itself warmest when they are sick and suffering. I
can safely appeal on this point to any one who is acquainted
with life in Jamaica. Another benefit has been conferred
upon them by inclining the Creoles to practise the healing
art, and inducing them to seek out the simple remedies which
are available for the terrible diseases by which foreigners
are attacked, and which are found growing under the same
circumstances which produce the ills they minister to. So
true is it that beside the nettle ever grows the cure for its
sting.

I do not willingly care to dwell upon scenes of suffering
and death, but it is with such scenes that my life’s experience
has made me most familiar, and it is impossible to
avoid their description now and then; and here I would
fain record, in humble spirit, my conclusions, drawn from
the bearing of those whom I have now and then accompanied
a little distance on their way into the Valley of the
Shadow of Death, on the awful and important question of
religious feeling. Death is always terrible—no one need
be ashamed to fear it. How we bear it depends much
upon our constitutions. I have seen some brave men, who
have smiled at the cruellest amputation, die trembling like
[Pg 61]
children; while others, whose lives have been spent in
avoidance of the least danger or trouble, have drawn their
last painful breath like heroes, striking at their foe to the
last, robbing him of his victory, and making their defeat a triumph.
But I cannot trace all the peace and resignation
which I have witnessed on many death-beds to temperament
alone, although I believe it has much more to do with them
than many teachers will allow. I have stood by receiving
the last blessings of Christians; and closing the eyes of those
who had nothing to trust to but the mercy of a God who
will be far more merciful to us than we are to one another;
and I say decidedly that the Christian’s death is the glorious
one, as is his life. You can never find a good man
who is not a worker; he is no laggard in the race of life.
Three, two, or one score years of life have been to him a
season of labour in his appointed sphere; and as the work
of the hands earns for us sweet rest by night, so does the
heart’s labour of a lifetime make the repose of heaven
acceptable. This is my experience; and I remember one
death, of a man whom I grew to love in a few short weeks,
the thought of which stirs my heart now, and has sustained
me in seasons of great danger; for before that time,
if I had never feared death, I had not learnt to meet him
with a brave, smiling face, and this he taught me.

I must not tell you his name, for his friends live yet,
and have been kind to me in many ways. One of them we
shall meet on Crimean soil. He was a young surgeon, and
as busy, light-hearted, and joyous as a good man should
be; and when he fell ill they brought him to my house,
where I nursed him, and grew fond of him—almost as
fond as the poor lady his mother in England far away.
[Pg 62]
For some time we thought him safe, but at last the most
terrible symptoms of the cruel disease showed themselves,
and he knew that he must die. His thoughts were never
for himself, but for those he had to leave behind; all his
pity was for them. It was trying to see his poor hands
tremblingly penning the last few words of leave-taking—trying
to see how piteously the poor worn heart longed to
see once more the old familiar faces of the loved ones in unconscious
happiness at home; and yet I had to support him
while this sad task was effected, and to give him all the
help I could. I think he had some fondness for me, or,
perhaps, his kind heart feigned a feeling that he saw would
give me joy; for I used to call him “My son—my dear
child,” and to weep over him in a very weak and silly
manner perhaps.

He sent for an old friend, Captain S——; and when
he came, I had to listen to the dictation of his simple will—his
dog to one friend, his ring to another, his books to a
third, his love and kind wishes to all; and that over, my
poor son prepared himself to die—a child in all save a
man’s calm courage. He beckoned me to raise him
in the bed, and, as I passed my arms around him, he
saw the tears I could not repress, rolling down my
brown cheeks, and thanked me with a few words.
“Let me lay my head upon your breast;” and so he
rested, now and then speaking lowly to himself, “It’s
only that I miss my mother; but Heaven’s will be done.”
He repeated this many times, until the Heaven he obeyed
sent him in its mercy forgetfulness, and his thoughts no
longer wandered to his earthly home. I heard glad words
feebly uttered as I bent over him—words about
[Pg 63]
“Heaven—rest—rest”—a holy Name many times repeated; and then
with a smile and a stronger voice, “Home! home!” And
so in a little while my arms no longer held him.

I have a little gold brooch with his hair in it now. I
wonder what inducement could be strong enough to cause
me to part with that memorial, sent me by his mother some
months later, with the following letter:—

After this, I was sent for by the medical authorities to
provide nurses for the sick at Up-Park Camp, about a mile
from Kingston; and leaving some nurses and my sister at
home, I went there and did my best; but it was little we
could do to mitigate the severity of the epidemic.

About eight months after my return to Jamaica, it
became necessary that some one should go to the Isthmus
of Panama to wind up the affairs of my late hotel; and
having another fit of restlessness, I prepared to return there
myself. I found Navy Bay but little altered. It was
evening when I arrived there; and my friend Mr. H——,
who came to meet me on the wharf, carefully piloted me
through the wretched streets, giving me especial warning
not to stumble over what looked like three long boxes,
loosely covered with the débris of a fallen house. They
had such a peculiar look about them that I stopped to ask
[Pg 64]
what they were, receiving an answer which revived all
my former memories of Darien life, “Oh, they’re only
three Irishmen killed in a row a week ago, whom it’s
nobody’s business to bury.”

I went to Gorgona, wound up the affairs of the hotel,
and, before returning to Navy Bay, took the occasion of accompanying
my brother to the town of Panama. We did
not go with the crowd, but rode alone on mules, taking with
us three native guides on foot; and although the distance
was not much over twenty miles, and we started at daybreak,
we did not reach Panama until nightfall. But far from
being surprised at this, my chief wonder was that we ever
succeeded in getting over the journey. Through sand and
mud, over hill and plain—through thick forests, deep
gulleys, and over rapid streams, ran the track; the road
sometimes being made of logs of wood laid transversely, with
faggots stuffed between; while here and there we had to
work our way through a tangled network of brushwood, and
over broken rocks that seemed to have been piled together
as stones for some giant’s sling. We found Panama an old-fashioned,
irregular town, with queer stone houses, almost
all of which had been turned by the traders into stores.

On my return to Navy Bay—or Colon, as the New
Granadans would have it called—I again opened a store,
and stayed there for three months or so. I did not find
that society had improved much in my absence; indeed, it
appeared to have grown more lawless. Endless quarrels,
often resulting in bloodshed, took place between the
strangers and the natives, and disturbed the peace of the
town. Once the Spanish were incensed to such an extent,
that they planned a general rising against the foreigners;
[Pg 65]
and but for the opportune arrival of an English war-steamer,
the consequences might have been terrible. The
Americans were well armed and ready; but the native
population far outnumbered them.

Altogether, I was not sorry when an opportunity offered
itself to do something at one of the stations of the New
Granada Gold-mining Company, Escribanos, about seventy
miles from Navy Bay. I made the journey there in a little
vessel, all communication by land from Navy Bay being impossible,
on account of the thick, dense forests, that would
have resisted the attempts of an army to cut its way through
them. As I was at this place for some months altogether,
and as it was the only portion of my life devoted to gold-seeking,
I shall make no apologies for endeavouring to describe
the out-of-the-way village-life of New Granada.

Escribanos is in the province of Veraguas, in the
State of New Granada—information uninteresting enough,
I have little doubt, to all but a very few of my readers.
It lies near the mouth of a rivulet bearing that name, which,
leaving the river Belen, runs away to the sea on its own account,
about a mile from the mouth of that river. It is a
great neighbourhood for gold-mines; and about that time
companies and private individuals were trying hard to turn
them to good account. Near it is the Fort Bowen mine,
and several others; some yielding silver, others gold ore,
in small quantities. Others lie in the vicinity of the Palmilla—another
river, which discharges itself into the sea
about ten miles from Escribanos; and there were more eastward
of it, near a similar river, the Coquelet. Legends
were rife at that time, and they may be revived at no distant
date, of the treasures to be found at Cucuyo, Zapetero,
[Pg 66]
Pananomé, and many other Indian villages on their banks,
which in times gone by had yielded up golden treasures to
the Old World. But at this time the yield of gold did not
repay the labour and capital necessary to extract it from the
quartz; and it can only prove successful if more economical
methods can be discovered than those now used for that
purpose.

Carlos Alexander, the alcalde of Escribanos, had made
a good thing out of the gold mania. The mine had belonged
to him; had been sold at a fine price, and, passing
through several hands, had at last come into possession of
the Company who were now working it; its former owner
settling down as ruler over the little community of two
hundred souls that had collected at Escribanos. He was a
black man; was fond of talking of his early life in slavery,
and how he had escaped; and possessed no ordinary intellect.
He possessed, also, a house, which in England a
well-bred hound would not have accepted as a kennel; a
white wife, and a pretty daughter, with a whity-brown
complexion and a pleasant name—Juliana.

Of this mine Mr. Day—by whose invitation, when I
saw him at Navy Bay, I went there—was at that time
superintendent. He was a distant connection of my late
husband, and treated me with great kindness. Strangely
enough, we met again in a far different part of the world,
and became more closely connected. But I am anticipating.

The major part of the population of Escribanos, including
even the women and children, worked at the mine.
The labour was hard and disagreeable. I often used to
watch them at their work; and would sometimes wander
about by myself, thinking it possible that I might tumble
[Pg 67]
across some gold in my rambles. And I once did come
upon some heavy yellow material, that brought my heart
into my mouth with that strange thrilling delight which
all who have hunted for the precious metal understand so
well. I think it was very wrong; but I kept the secret
of the place from the alcalde and every one else, and filled
some bottles with the precious dust, to carry down to Navy
Bay. I did not go for some time; but when I did, one
of my first visits was to a gold-buyer; and you can
imagine my feelings when he coolly laughed, and told me
it was some material (I forget its name) very like gold, but—valueless.
The worst part of it was that, in my annoyance
and shame, I threw all I had away, and among it some
which I had reason to believe subsequently was genuine.

The landing at Escribanos was very difficult, and when
the surf ran high, impossible; and I was once witness to a harrowing
scene there. A little boat, manned by three sailors,
grounded on a rock not far from shore, at a terrible season,
when to reach it from the land was, after many attempts,
found impossible. The hapless crew lingered on for two
days, suffering cruelly from hunger and thirst, their cries
ringing in our ears above the storm’s pitiless fury. On the
third day, two of them took to the sea, and were drowned;
the third was not strong enough to leave the boat, and died
in it.

I did not stay long at Escribanos, on my first visit,
as the alcalde’s guest; but, having made arrangements
for a longer sojourn, I went back to Navy Bay, where
I laid in a good stock of the stores I should have most
use for, and returned to Escribanos in safety. I remained
there some months, pleased with the novelty of
[Pg 68]
the life, and busy with schemes for seeking for—or, as the
gold-diggers call it, prospecting for—other mines.

The foreigners were just as troublesome in this little
out-of-the-way place as they were, and are, in every other
part of Central America; and quarrels were as frequent in
our little community as at Cruces or Navy Bay. Indeed,
Alexander had hard work to maintain peace in his small
kingdom; and although ably seconded by Mr. Day, more
than once American disregard of his sway was almost too
strong for him. Very often the few foreigners would
quarrel among themselves; and once when they came to
blows, and an Irishman was stabbed by an American named
Campfield, the alcalde roused himself to punish the culprit.
The native population were glad enough to have an American
in their power; and when I heard Alexander give his
men instructions to shoot the culprit if he resisted, I
started off to his hut, and reached it in time to prevent
bloodshed. He was taken and kept in confinement; and
soft-hearted Juliana and I had enough to do to prevent his
being made a stern example of. But we got him off for a
fine of five hundred dollars.

Again the little community of Escribanos was very near
getting up a revolution against its constituted government—a
very common amusement in Central America. Twelve
sailors, deserters from an American ship, found their way
there, and before long plotted to dethrone Alexander, and
take possession of the mine. Mr. Day gained information
of their plan. The whole population of Escribanos were
roused and warned; and arming a score of the boldest
natives, he surrounded the house in which they were, and
captured the conspirators, who were too much taken by
[Pg 69]
surprise to offer resistance, and sent them down to Navy
Bay, there to be handed over to the Government whose
service they had left.

Of course, my medical skill did not rust for want of
practice at Escribanos. The place was not healthy, and
strangers to the climate suffered severely. A surgeon himself,
sent there by the West Granada Gold-mining Company,
was glad to throw his physic to the dogs, and be cured in
my way by mine; while I was fortunately able to nurse
Mr. Day through a sharp attack of illness.

In consequence of the difficulty of communication with
Navy Bay, our fare was of the simplest at Escribanos. It
consisted mainly of salt meat, rice, and roasted Indian corn.
The native fare was not tempting, and some of their delicacies
were absolutely disgusting. With what pleasure, for
instance, could one foreign to their tastes and habits dine
off a roasted monkey, whose grilled head bore a strong resemblance
to a negro baby’s? And yet the Indians used
to bring them to us for sale, strung on a stick. They were
worse still stewed in soup, when it was positively frightful
to dip your ladle in unsuspectingly, and bring up what
closely resembled a brown baby’s limb. I got on better
with the parrots, and could agree with the “senorita, buono
buono” with which the natives recommended them; and
yet their flesh, what little there was of it, was very coarse
and hard. Nor did I always refuse to concede praise to a
squirrel, if well cooked. But although the flesh of the
iguana—another favourite dish—was white and tender as
any chicken, I never could stomach it. These iguanas
are immense green lizards, or rather moderate-sized
crocodiles, sometimes three feet in length, but weighing
[Pg 70]
generally about seven or eight pounds. The Indians used
to bring them down in boats, alive, on their backs, with
their legs tied behind them; so that they had the most
comical look of distress it is possible to imagine. The
Spanish Indians have a proverb referring to an iguana so
bound, the purport of which has slipped from my memory,
but which shows the habit to be an old one. Their eggs
are highly prized, and their captors have a cruel habit of extracting
these delicacies from them while alive, and roughly
sewing up the wound, which I never could muster sufficient
courage to witness.

The rivers near Escribanos were well stocked with
crocodiles, the sea had its fair share of sharks, while on
land you too often met with snakes and other venomous
reptiles. The sting of some of them was very dangerous.
One man, who was bitten when I was there, swelled to an
enormous size, and bled even at the roots of his hair. The
remedy of the natives appeared to be copious bleeding.

Before I left Escribanos I made a journey, in company
with a gentleman named Little, my maid, and the alcalde’s
daughter, into the interior of the country, for a short distance,
following the course of the Palmilla river. This
was for the purpose of prospecting a mine on that river,
said to be obtainable at an easy price. Its course was a
very winding one; and we often had to leave the canoe
and walk through the shallow waters, that every now and
then interfered with our progress. As we progressed,
Little carefully sounded the channel of the river, with the
view of ascertaining to what extent it was navigable.

The tropical scenery was very grand; but I am afraid
I only marked what was most curious in it—at least, that
[Pg 71]
is foremost in my memory now. I know I wondered much
what motive Nature could have had in twisting the roots
and branches of the trees into such strange fantastic contortions.
I watched with unfailing interest the birds and
animals we disturbed in our progress, from the huge peccary
or wild boar, that went tearing through the brushwood,
to the tiniest bright-hued bird that dashed like a
flash of many-coloured fire before our eyes. And very
much surprised was I when the Indians stopped before a
large tree, and on their making an incision in the bark with
a matcheto (hatchet), there exuded a thick creamy liquid,
which they wished me to taste, saying that this was the
famous milk-tree. I needed some persuasion at first; but
when I had tasted some upon a biscuit, I was so charmed
with its flavour that I should soon have taken more than
was good for me had not Mr. Little interfered with some
judicious advice. We reached the mine, and brought back
specimens of the quartz, some of which I have now.

Soon after this I left Escribanos, and stopping but a
short time at Navy Bay, came on direct to England. I had
claims on a Mining Company which are still unsatisfied;
I had to look after my share in the Palmilla Mine speculation;
and, above all, I had long been troubled with a
secret desire to embark in a very novel speculation, about
which I have as yet said nothing to the reader. But
before I finally leave the republic of New Granada, I may
be allowed to write a few words on the present aspect of
affairs on the Isthmus of Panama.

Recent news from America bring the intelligence that
the Government of the United States has at length succeeded
in finding a reasonable excuse for exercising a
[Pg 72]
protectorate over, or in other words annexing, the Isthmus of
Panama. To any one at all acquainted with American
policy in Central America, this intelligence can give no
surprise; our only wonder being that some such excuse
was not made years ago. At this crisis, then, a few remarks
from the humblest observer of life in the republic
of New Granada must possess some interest for the curious,
if not value.

I found something to admire in the people of New
Granada, but not much; and I found very much more to
condemn most unequivocally. Whatever was of any worth
in their institutions, such as their comparative freedom, religious
toleration, etc., was owing mainly to the negroes who
had sought the protection of the republic. I found the
Spanish Indians treacherous, passionate, and indolent, with
no higher aim or object but simply to enjoy the present after
their own torpid, useless fashion. Like most fallen nations,
they are very conservative in their habits and principles;
while the blacks are enterprising, and in their opinions
incline not unnaturally to democracy. But for their old
antipathy, there is no doubt that the negroes would
lean towards America; but they gladly encourage the
prejudice of the New Granadans, and foster it in every
way. Hence the ceaseless quarrels which have disturbed
Chagres and Panama, until it has become necessary for an
American force to garrison those towns. For humanity
and civilization’s sake, there can be little doubt as to the
expediency of this step; but I should not be at all surprised
to hear that the republic was preparing to make
some show of resistance against its powerful brother; for,
as the reader will have perceived, the New Granadans’
[Pg 73]
experiences of American manners have not been favourable;
and they do not know, as we do, how little real sympathy
the Government of the United States has with the extreme
class of its citizens who have made themselves so conspicuous
in the great high-road to California.

CHAPTER VIII.

Before I left Jamaica for Navy Bay, as narrated in the
last chapter, war had been declared against Russia, and
we were all anxiously expecting news of a descent upon
the Crimea. Now, no sooner had I heard of war somewhere,
than I longed to witness it; and when I was told
that many of the regiments I had known so well in Jamaica
had left England for the scene of action, the desire
to join them became stronger than ever. I used to stand
for hours in silent thought before an old map of the world,
in a little corner of which some one had chalked a red
cross, to enable me to distinguish where the Crimea was;
and as I traced the route thither, all difficulties would
vanish. But when I came to talk over the project with
my friends, the best scheme I could devise seemed so wild
and improbable, that I was fain to resign my hopes for a
time, and so started for Navy Bay.

But all the way to England, from Navy Bay, I was
[Pg 74]
turning my old wish over and over in my mind; and
when I found myself in London, in the autumn of 1854,
just after the battle of Alma had been fought, and my old
friends were fairly before the walls of Sebastopol, how to
join them there took up far more of my thoughts than that
visionary gold-mining speculation on the river Palmilla,
which seemed so feasible to us in New Granada, but was
considered so wild and unprofitable a speculation in London.
And, as time wore on, the inclination to join my
old friends of the 97th, 48th, and other regiments, battling
with worse foes than yellow fever or cholera, took such
exclusive possession of my mind, that I threw over the
gold speculation altogether, and devoted all my energies
to my new scheme.

Heaven knows it was visionary enough! I had no
friends who could help me in such a project—nay, who
would understand why I desired to go, and what I desired to
do when I got there. My funds, although they might, carefully
husbanded, carry me over the three thousand miles,
and land me at Balaclava, would not support me there long;
while to persuade the public that an unknown Creole woman
would be useful to their army before Sebastopol was too improbable
an achievement to be thought of for an instant.
Circumstances, however, assisted me.

As the winter wore on, came hints from various
quarters of mismanagement, want, and suffering in the
Crimea; and after the battles of Balaclava and Inkermann,
and the fearful storm of the 14th of November, the
worst anticipations were realized. Then we knew that
the hospitals were full to suffocation, that scarcity and
exposure were the fate of all in the camp, and that the
[Pg 75]
brave fellows for whom any of us at home would have
split our last shilling, and shared our last meal, were
dying thousands of miles away from the active sympathy
of their fellow-countrymen. Fast and thick upon the
news of Inkermann, fought by a handful of fasting and
enfeebled men against eight times their number of picked
Russians, brought fresh and animated to the contest, and
while all England was reeling beneath the shock of that
fearful victory, came the sad news that hundreds were
dying whom the Russian shot and sword had spared, and
that the hospitals of Scutari were utterly unable to shelter,
or their inadequate staff to attend to, the ship-loads of sick
and wounded which were sent to them across the stormy
Black Sea.

But directly England knew the worst, she set about
repairing her past neglect. In every household busy
fingers were working for the poor soldier—money flowed
in golden streams wherever need was—and Christian
ladies, mindful of the sublime example, “I was sick, and
ye visited me,” hastened to volunteer their services by
those sick-beds which only women know how to soothe
and bless.

Need I be ashamed to confess that I shared in the
general enthusiasm, and longed more than ever to carry my
busy (and the reader will not hesitate to add experienced)
fingers where the sword or bullet had been busiest, and
pestilence most rife. I had seen much of sorrow and
death elsewhere, but they had never daunted me; and if I
could feel happy binding up the wounds of quarrelsome
Americans and treacherous Spaniards, what delight should
I not experience if I could be useful to my own “sons,”
[Pg 76]
suffering for a cause it was so glorious to fight and bleed
for! I never stayed to discuss probabilities, or enter into
conjectures as to my chances of reaching the scene of
action. I made up my mind that if the army wanted
nurses, they would be glad of me, and with all the ardour
of my nature, which ever carried me where inclination
prompted, I decided that I would go to the Crimea; and
go I did, as all the world knows.

Of course, had it not been for my old strong-mindedness
(which has nothing to do with obstinacy, and is in no
way related to it—the best term I can think of to express
it being “judicious decisiveness”), I should have given
up the scheme a score of times in as many days; so regularly
did each successive day give birth to a fresh set of
rebuffs and disappointments. I shall make no excuse to
my readers for giving them a pretty full history of my
struggles to become a Crimean heroine!

My first idea (and knowing that I was well fitted for
the work, and would be the right woman in the right place,
the reader can fancy my audacity) was to apply to the
War Office for the post of hospital nurse. Among the
diseases which I understood were most prevalent in the
Crimea were cholera, diarrhœa, and dysentery, all of them
more or less known in tropical climates; and with which,
as the reader will remember, my Panama experience had
made me tolerably familiar. Now, no one will accuse me
of presumption, if I say that I thought (and so it afterwards
proved) that my knowledge of these human ills
would not only render my services as a nurse more valuable,
but would enable me to be of use to the overworked doctors.
That others thought so too, I took with me ample
[Pg 77]
testimony. I cannot resist the temptation of giving my
readers one of the testimonials I had, it seems so eminently
practical and to the point:—

So I made long and unwearied application at the War
Office, in blissful ignorance of the labour and time I was
throwing away. I have reason to believe that I considerably
interfered with the repose of sundry messengers, and
disturbed, to an alarming degree, the official gravity of some
nice gentlemanly young fellows, who were working out
their salaries in an easy, off-hand way. But my ridiculous
endeavours to gain an interview with the Secretary-at-War
of course failed, and glad at last to oblige a distracted messenger,
I transferred my attentions to the Quartermaster-General’s
department. Here I saw another gentleman, who
listened to me with a great deal of polite enjoyment,
[Pg 78]
and—his amusement ended—hinted, had I not better apply to
the Medical Department; and accordingly I attached myself
to their quarters with the same unwearying ardour. But,
of course, I grew tired at last, and then I changed my
plans.

Now, I am not for a single instant going to blame the
authorities who would not listen to the offer of a motherly
yellow woman to go to the Crimea and nurse her “sons”
there, suffering from cholera, diarrhœa, and a host of lesser
ills. In my country, where people know our use, it would
have been different; but here it was natural enough—although
I had references, and other voices spoke for me—that
they should laugh, good-naturedly enough, at my
offer. War, I know, is a serious game, but sometimes
very humble actors are of great use in it, and if the reader,
when he comes in time to peruse the evidence of those
who had to do with the Sebastopol drama, of my share in
it, will turn back to this chapter, he will confess perhaps
that, after all, the impulse which led me to the War Department
was not unnatural.

My new scheme was, I candidly confess, worse devised
than the one which had failed. Miss Nightingale had left
England for the Crimea, but other nurses were still to
follow, and my new plan was simply to offer myself to
Mrs. H—— as a recruit. Feeling that I was one of the
very women they most wanted, experienced and fond of
the work, I jumped at once to the conclusion that they
would gladly enrol me in their number. To go to Cox’s,
the army agents, who were most obliging to me, and obtain
the Secretary-at-War’s private address, did not take long;
and that done, I laid the same pertinacious siege to his
[Pg 79]
great house in —— Square, as I had previously done to his
place of business.

Many a long hour did I wait in his great hall, while
scores passed in and out; many of them looking curiously
at me. The flunkeys, noble creatures! marvelled exceedingly
at the yellow woman whom no excuses could get rid
of, nor impertinence dismay, and showed me very clearly that
they resented my persisting in remaining there in mute appeal
from their sovereign will. At last I gave that up, after a
message from Mrs. H. that the full complement of nurses had
been secured, and that my offer could not be entertained.
Once again I tried, and had an interview this time with one
of Miss Nightingale’s companions. She gave me the same
reply, and I read in her face the fact, that had there been
a vacancy, I should not have been chosen to fill it.

As a last resort, I applied to the managers of the Crimean
Fund to know whether they would give me a passage
to the camp—once there I would trust to something turning
up. But this failed also, and one cold evening I stood in
the twilight, which was fast deepening into wintry night,
and looked back upon the ruins of my last castle in the air.
The disappointment seemed a cruel one. I was so conscious
of the unselfishness of the motives which induced me to
leave England—so certain of the service I could render
among the sick soldiery, and yet I found it so difficult
to convince others of these facts. Doubts and suspicions
arose in my heart for the first and last time, thank Heaven.
Was it possible that American prejudices against colour
had some root here? Did these ladies shrink from accepting
my aid because my blood flowed beneath a somewhat
duskier skin than theirs? Tears streamed down my foolish
[Pg 80]
cheeks, as I stood in the fast thinning streets; tears of grief
that any should doubt my motives—that Heaven should
deny me the opportunity that I sought. Then I stood
still, and looking upward through and through the dark
clouds that shadowed London, prayed aloud for help. I
dare say that I was a strange sight to the few passers-by,
who hastened homeward through the gloom and mist of that
wintry night. I dare say those who read these pages will
wonder at me as much as they who saw me did; but you
must all remember that I am one of an impulsive people,
and find it hard to put that restraint upon my feelings
which to you is so easy and natural.

The morrow, however, brought fresh hope. A good
night’s rest had served to strengthen my determination.
Let what might happen, to the Crimea I would go. If in
no other way, then would I upon my own responsibility
and at my own cost. There were those there who had known
me in Jamaica, who had been under my care; doctors who
would vouch for my skill and willingness to aid them, and
a general who had more than once helped me, and
would do so still. Why not trust to their welcome and
kindness, and start at once? If the authorities had allowed
me, I would willingly have given them my services as a
nurse; but as they declined them, should I not open
an hotel for invalids in the Crimea in my own way? I
had no more idea of what the Crimea was than the home
authorities themselves perhaps, but having once made up
my mind, it was not long before cards were printed and
speeding across the Mediterranean to my friends before
Sebastopol. Here is one of them:—

[Pg 81]

“BRITISH HOTEL.
Mrs. Mary Seacole
(Late of Kingston, Jamaica),

Respectfully announces to her former kind friends, and to the
Officers of the Army and Navy generally,

That she has taken her passage in the screw-steamer “Hollander,”
to start from London on the 25th of January, intending on her arrival
at Balaclava to establish a mess table and comfortable quarters for
sick and convalescent officers.”

This bold programme would reach the Crimea in the
end of January, at a time when any officer would have
considered a stall in an English stable luxurious quarters
compared to those he possessed, and had nearly forgotten
the comforts of a mess-table. It must have read to them
rather like a mockery, and yet, as the reader will see, I
succeeded in redeeming my pledge.

While this new scheme was maturing, I again met Mr.
Day in England. He was bound to Balaclava upon some
shipping business, and we came to the understanding that
(if it were found desirable) we should together open a
store as well as an hotel in the neighbourhood of the camp.
So was originated the well-known firm of Seacole and
Day (I am sorry to say, the camp wits dubbed it Day and
Martin), which, for so many months, did business upon the
now deserted high-road from the then busy harbour of Balaclava
to the front of the British army before Sebastopol.

These new arrangements were not allowed to interfere
in any way with the main object of my journey. A great
portion of my limited capital was, with the kind aid of a
medical friend, invested in medicines which I had reason to
[Pg 82]
believe would be useful; with the remainder I purchased
those home comforts which I thought would be most difficult
to obtain away from England.

I had scarcely set my foot on board the “Hollander,” before
I met a friend. The supercargo was the brother of the
Mr. S——, whose death in Jamaica the reader will not have
forgotten, and he gave me a hearty welcome. I thought
the meeting augured well, and when I told him my plans
he gave me the most cheering encouragement. I was glad,
indeed, of any support, for, beyond all doubt, my project
was a hazardous one.

So cheered at the outset, I watched without a pang the
shores of England sink behind the smooth sea, and turned
my gaze hopefully to the as yet landless horizon, beyond
which lay that little peninsula to which the eyes and hearts
of all England were so earnestly directed.

So, cheerily! the good ship ploughed its way eastward
ho! for Turkey.

CHAPTER IX.

I am not going to risk the danger of wearying the reader
with a long account of the voyage to Constantinople,
already worn threadbare by book-making tourists. It was
a very interesting one, and, as I am a good sailor, I had not
[Pg 83]
even the temporary horrors of sea-sickness to mar it. The
weather, although cold, was fine, and the sea good-humouredly
calm, and I enjoyed the voyage amazingly. And as
day by day we drew nearer to the scene of action, my
doubts of success grew less and less, until I had a conviction
of the rightness of the step I had taken, which would
have carried me buoyantly through any difficulties.

On the way, of course, I was called up from my berth
at an unreasonable hour to gaze upon the Cape of St. Vincent,
and expected to feel duly impressed when the long
bay where Trafalgar’s fight was won came in view, with
the white convent walls on the cliffs above bathed in the
early sunlight. I never failed to take an almost childish interest
in the signals which passed between the “Hollander”
and the fleet of vessels whose sails whitened the track to and
from the Crimea, trying to puzzle out the language these
children of the ocean spoke in their hurried course, and wondering
whether any, or what sufficiently important thing
could happen which would warrant their stopping on their
busy way.

We spent a short time at Gibraltar, and you may imagine
that I was soon on shore making the best use of the
few hours’ reprieve granted to the “Hollander’s” weary
engines. I had an idea that I should do better alone, so I
declined all offers of companionship, and selecting a brisk
young fellow from the mob of cicerones who offered their
services, saw more of the art of fortification in an hour or
so than I could understand in as many years. The pleasure
was rather fatiguing, and I was not sorry to return
to the market-place, where I stood curiously watching its
strange and motley population. While so engaged, I heard
[Pg 84]
for the first time an exclamation which became familiar
enough to me afterwards.

“Why, bless my soul, old fellow, if this is not our
good old Mother Seacole!” I turned round, and saw two
officers, whose features, set in a broad frame of Crimean
beard, I had some difficulty in recognising. But I soon
remembered that they were two of the 48th, who had been
often in my house at Kingston. Glad were the kind-hearted
fellows, and not a little surprised withal, to meet their
old hostess in the market-place of Gibraltar, bound for the
scene of action which they had left invalided; and it was
not long before we were talking old times over some
wine—Spanish, I suppose—but it was very nasty.

“And you are going to the front, old lady—you, of all
people in the world?”

“Why not, my sons?—won’t they be glad to have me
there?”

“By Jove! yes, mother,” answered one, an Irishman.
“It isn’t many women—God bless them!—we’ve
had to spoil us out there. But it’s not the place even
for you, who know what hardship is. You’ll never get a
roof to cover you at Balaclava, nor on the road either.”
So they rattled on, telling me of the difficulties that were
in store for me. But they could not shake my resolution.

“Do you think I shall be of any use to you when I
get there?”

“Surely.”

“Then I’ll go, were the place a hundred times worse
than you describe it. Can’t I rig up a hut with the packing-cases,
and sleep, if need be, on straw, like Margery
Daw?”

[Pg 85]
So they laughed, and drank success to me, and to our
next meeting; for, although they were going home invalided,
the brave fellows’ hearts were with their companions,
for all the hardships they had passed through.

We stopped at Malta also, where, of course, I landed,
and stared about me, and submitted to be robbed by the
lazy Maltese with all a traveller’s resignation. Here, also, I
met friends—some medical officers who had known me in
Kingston; and one of them, Dr. F——, lately arrived
from Scutari, gave me, when he heard my plans, a letter
of introduction to Miss Nightingale, then hard at work,
evoking order out of confusion, and bravely resisting the
despotism of death, at the hospital of Scutari.

So on, past beautiful islands and shores, until we are
steaming against a swift current, and an adverse wind,
between two tower-crested promontories of rock, which
they tell me stand in Europe and in Asia, and are connected
with some pretty tale of love in days long gone by.
Ah! travel where a woman may, in the New World, or the
Old, she meets this old, old tale everywhere. It is the
one bond of sympathy which I have found existing in
three quarters of the world alike. So on, until the cable
rattles over the windlass, as the good ship’s anchor plunges
down fathoms deep into the blue waters of the Bosphorus—her
voyage ended.

I do not think that Constantinople impressed me so
much as I had expected; and I thought its streets would
match those of Navy Bay not unfairly. The caicques,
also, of which I had ample experience—for I spent six
days here, wandering about Pera and Stamboul in the daytime,
and returning to the “Hollander” at nightfall—might
[Pg 86]
be made more safe and commodious for stout ladies, even
if the process interfered a little with their ornament.
Time and trouble combined have left me with a well-filled-out,
portly form—the envy of many an angular
Yankee female—and, more than once, it was in no slight
danger of becoming too intimately acquainted with the
temperature of the Bosphorus. But I will do the Turkish
boatmen the justice to say that they were as politely careful
of my safety as their astonishment and regard for the
well-being of their caicques (which they appear to love
as an Arab does his horse, or an Esquimaux his dogs, and
for the same reason perhaps) would admit. Somewhat
surprised, also, seemed the cunning-eyed Greeks, who
throng the streets of Pera, at the unprotected Creole
woman, who took Constantinople so coolly (it would require
something more to surprise her); while the grave
English raised their eyebrows wonderingly, and the more
vivacious French shrugged their pliant shoulders into the
strangest contortions. I accepted it all as a compliment to
a stout female tourist, neatly dressed in a red or yellow
dress, a plain shawl of some other colour, and a simple
straw wide-awake, with bright red streamers. I flatter
myself that I woke up sundry sleepy-eyed Turks, who
seemed to think that the great object of life was to avoid
showing surprise at anything; while the Turkish women
gathered around me, and jabbered about me, in the most
flattering manner.

How I ever succeeded in getting Mr. Day’s letters from
the Post-office, Constantinople, puzzles me now; but I
did—and I shall ever regard my success as one of the
great triumphs of my life. Their contents were not very
[Pg 87]
cheering. He gave a very dreary account of Balaclava
and of camp life, and almost dissuaded me from continuing
my journey; but his last letter ended by giving me instructions
as to the purchases I had best make, if I still
determined upon making the adventure; so I forgot all
the rest, and busied myself in laying in the stores he
recommended.

But I found time, before I left the “Hollander,” to
charter a crazy caicque, to carry me to Scutari, intending
to present Dr. F——’s letter to Miss Nightingale.

It was afternoon when the boatmen set me down in
safety at the landing-place of Scutari, and I walked up the
slight ascent, to the great dull-looking hospital. Thinking
of the many noble fellows who had been borne, or had
painfully crept along this path, only to die within that
dreary building, I felt rather dull; and directly I entered
the hospital, and came upon the long wards of sufferers,
lying there so quiet and still, a rush of tears came to my
eyes, and blotted out the sight for a few minutes. But I
soon felt at home, and looked about me with great interest.
The men were, many of them, very quiet. Some of the
convalescent formed themselves into little groups around
one who read a newspaper; others had books in their
hands, or by their side, where they had fallen when slumber
overtook the readers, while hospital orderlies moved to
and fro, and now and then the female nurses, in their quiet
uniform, passed noiselessly on some mission of kindness.

I was fortunate enough to find an old acquaintance, who
accompanied me through the wards, and rendered it unnecessary
for me to trouble the busy nurses. This was an
old 97th man—a Sergeant T——, whom I had known in
[Pg 88]
Kingston, and who was slowly recovering from an attack
of dysentery, and making himself of use here until the
doctors should let him go back and have another “shy at
the Rooshians.” He is very glad to meet me, and tells me
his history very socially, and takes me to the bedsides of
some comrades, who had also known me at Up-Park Camp.
My poor fellows! how their eyes glisten when they light
upon an old friend’s face in these Turkish barracks—put
to so sad a use, three thousand miles from home. Here
is one of them—“hurt in the trenches,” says the Sergeant,
with shaven bandaged head, and bright, restless, Irish eyes,
who hallooes out, “Mother Seacole! Mother Seacole!” in
such an excited tone of voice; and when he has shaken
hands a score of times, falls back upon his pillow very wearily.
But I sit by his side, and try to cheer him with
talk about the future, when he shall grow well, and see
home, and hear them all thank him for what he has been
helping to do, so that he grows all right in a few minutes;
but, hearing that I am on the way to the front, gets excited
again; for, you see, illness and weakness make these
strong men as children, not least in the patient unmurmuring
resignation with which they suffer. I think my
Irish friend had an indistinct idea of a “muddle” somewhere,
which had kept him for weeks on salt meat and biscuit,
until it gave him the “scurvy,” for he is very anxious
that I should take over plenty of vegetables, of every sort.
“And, oh! mother!”—and it is strange to hear his almost
plaintive tone as he urges this—“take them plenty of
eggs, mother; we never saw eggs over there.”

At some slight risk of giving offence, I cannot resist
the temptation of lending a helping hand here and
[Pg 89]
there—replacing a slipped bandage, or easing a stiff one. But I do
not think any one was offended; and one doctor, who had
with some surprise and, at first, alarm on his face, watched
me replace a bandage, which was giving pain, said, very
kindly, when I had finished, “Thank you, ma’am.”

One thought never left my mind as I walked through
the fearful miles of suffering in that great hospital. If it
is so here, what must it not be at the scene of war—on the
spot where the poor fellows are stricken down by pestilence
or Russian bullets, and days and nights of agony must be
passed before a woman’s hand can dress their wounds.
And I felt happy in the conviction that I must be useful
three or four days nearer to their pressing wants than this.

It was growing late before I felt tired, or thought of
leaving Scutari, and Dr. S——, another Jamaica friend,
who had kindly borne me company for the last half-hour
agreed with me that the caicque was not the safest conveyance
by night on the Bosphorus, and recommended me to
present my letter to Miss Nightingale, and perhaps a
lodging for the night could be found for me. So, still
under the Sergeant’s patient guidance, we thread our way
through passages and corridors, all used as sick-wards,
until we reach the corner tower of the building, in which
are the nurses’ quarters.

I think Mrs. B——, who saw me, felt more surprise
than she could politely show (I never found women
so quick to understand me as the men) when I handed her
Dr. F——’s kind letter respecting me, and apologized for
troubling Miss Nightingale. There is that in the Doctor’s
letter (he had been much at Scutari) which prevents my
request being refused, and I am asked to wait until Miss
[Pg 90]
Nightingale, whose every moment is valuable, can see me.
Meanwhile Mrs. B. questions me very kindly, but with
the same look of curiosity and surprise.

What object has Mrs. Seacole in coming out? This is
the purport of her questions. And I say, frankly, to be of
use somewhere; for other considerations I had not, until
necessity forced them upon me. Willingly, had they accepted
me, I would have worked for the wounded, in
return for bread and water. I fancy Mrs. B—— thought
that I sought for employment at Scutari, for she said, very
kindly—

“Miss Nightingale has the entire management of our
hospital staff, but I do not think that any vacancy—”

“Excuse me, ma’am,” I interrupt her with, “but I
am bound for the front in a few days;” and my questioner
leaves me, more surprised than ever. The room I waited
in was used as a kitchen. Upon the stoves were cans of
soup, broth, and arrow-root, while nurses passed in and out
with noiseless tread and subdued manner. I thought
many of them had that strange expression of the eyes
which those who have gazed long on scenes of woe or
horror seldom lose.

In half an hour’s time I am admitted to Miss Nightingale’s
presence. A slight figure, in the nurses’ dress; with
a pale, gentle, and withal firm face, resting lightly in the
palm of one white hand, while the other supports the
elbow—a position which gives to her countenance a keen
inquiring expression, which is rather marked. Standing
thus in repose, and yet keenly observant—the greatest
sign of impatience at any time[B] a slight, perhaps unwitting
[Pg 91]
motion of the firmly planted right foot—was Florence
Nightingale—that Englishwoman whose name shall never
die, but sound like music on the lips of British men until
the hour of doom.

She has read Dr. F——’s letter, which lies on the table
by her side, and asks, in her gentle but eminently practical
and business-like way, “What do you want, Mrs. Seacole—anything
that we can do for you? If it lies in my power,
I shall be very happy.”

So I tell her of my dread of the night journey by
caicque, and the improbability of my finding the “Hollander”
in the dark; and, with some diffidence, threw myself upon
the hospitality of Scutari, offering to nurse the sick for the
night. Now unfortunately, for many reasons, room even
for one in Scutari Hospital was at that time no easy matter
to find; but at last a bed was discovered to be unoccupied
at the hospital washerwomen’s quarters.

My experience of washerwomen, all the world over, is
the same—that they are kind soft-hearted folks. Possibly
the soap-suds they almost live in find their way into their
hearts and tempers, and soften them. This Scutari washerwoman
is no exception to the rule, and welcomes me most
heartily. With her, also, are some invalid nurses; and
after they have gone to bed, we spend some hours of the
night talking over our adventures, and giving one another
scraps of our respective biographies. I hadn’t long retired
to my couch before I wished most heartily that we had
continued our chat; for unbidden and most unwelcome
companions took the washerwoman’s place, and persisted
not only in dividing my bed, but my plump person also.
Upon my word, I believe the fleas are the only industrious
[Pg 92]
creatures in all Turkey. Some of their relatives would
seem to have migrated into Russia; for I found them in
the Crimea equally prosperous and ubiquitous.

In the morning, a breakfast is sent to my mangled remains,
and a kind message from Mrs. B——, having
reference to how I spent the night. And, after an interview
with some other medical men, whose acquaintance I had
made in Jamaica, I shake hands with the soft-hearted
washerwoman, up to her shoulders in soap-suds already,
and start for the “Hollander.”

CHAPTER X.

During my stay in Constantinople, I was accustomed
to employ, as a guide, a young Greek Jew, whose name it
is no use my attempting to spell, but whom I called by the
one common name there—“Johnny.” Wishing, however,
to distinguish my Johnny from the legion of other Johnnies,
I prefixed the term Jew to his other name, and addressed
him as Jew Johnny. How he had picked up his knowledge
I cannot tell, but he could talk a little broken English,
besides French, which, had I been qualified to criticise
it, I should have found, perhaps, as broken as his
English. He attached himself very closely to me, and
seemed very anxious to share my fortunes; and after he
had pleaded hard, many times, to be taken to the Crimea,
[Pg 93]
I gave in, and formally hired him. He was the best and
faithfullest servant I had in the Crimea, and, so far from
regretting having picked up Jew Johnny from the streets
of Pera, I should have been very badly off without him.

More letters come from Mr. Day, giving even worse
accounts of the state of things at Balaclava; but it is too
late for hesitation now. My plans are perfected, my purchases
made, and passage secured in the “Albatross”—a
transport laden with cattle and commissariat officers for
Balaclava. I thought I should never have transported my
things from the “Hollander” to the “Albatross.” It
was a terrible day, and against the strong current and
hurricane of wind Turkish and Greek arms seemed of little
avail; but at last, after an hour or more of terrible anxiety
and fear, the “Albatross’s” side was reached, and I clambered
on deck, drenched and wretched.

My companions are cheerful, pleasant fellows, and the
short, although somewhat hazardous, voyage across the
Black Sea is safely made, and one morning we become excited
at seeing a dark rock-bound coast, on which they tell
us is Balaclava. As we steam on we see, away to the
right, clouds of light smoke, which the knowing travellers
tell us are not altogether natural, but show that Sebastopol
is not yet taken, until the “Albatross” lays-to
within sight of where the “Prince,” with her ill-fated
companions, went down in that fearful November storm,
four short months ago, while application is made to the
harbour-master for leave to enter the port of Balaclava.
It does not appear the simplest favour in the world that we
are applying for—licence to escape from the hazards of
the Black Sea. But at last it comes, and we slowly wind
[Pg 94]
through a narrow channel, and emerge into a small landlocked
basin, so filled with shipping that their masts bend
in the breeze like a wintry forest. Whatever might have
been the case at one time, there is order in Balaclava Harbour
now, and the “Albatross,” with the aid of her boats,
moves along to her appointed moorings.

Such a busy scene as that small harbour presented
could be rarely met with elsewhere. Crowded with shipping,
of every size and variety, from the noble English
steamer to the smallest long-shore craft, while between
them and the shore passed and repassed innumerable boats;
men-of-war’s boats, trim and stern; merchant-ship’s boats,
laden to the gunwales; Greek and Maltese boats, carrying
their owners everywhere on their missions of sharp dealing
and roguery. Coming from the quiet gloomy sea into this
little nook of life and bustle the transition is very sudden
and startling, and gives one enough to think about without
desiring to go on shore this afternoon.

On the following morning, Mr. Day, apprised of my arrival,
came on board the “Albatross,” and our plans were laid.
I must leave the “Albatross,” of course, and, until we decide
upon our future, I had better take up my quarters on
board the “Medora,” which is hired by the Government, at a
great cost, as an ammunition ship. The proposal was not a
very agreeable one, but I have no choice left me. Our
stores, too, had to be landed at once. Warehouses were
unheard of in Balaclava, and we had to stack them upon
the shore and protect them as well as we were able.

My first task, directly I had become settled on board the
“Medora,” was to send word to my friends of my arrival
in the Crimea, and solicit their aid. I gave a Greek idler
[Pg 95]
one pound to carry a letter to the camp of the 97th, while
I sent another to Captain Peel, who was hard at work
battering the defences of Sebastopol about the ears of the
Russians, from the batteries of the Royal Naval Brigade.
I addressed others to many of the medical men who had
known me in other lands; nor did I neglect to send word
to my kind patron, Sir John Campbell, then commanding
a division: and my old friends answered my letters
most kindly. As the various officers came down on
duty or business to Balaclava they did not fail to find me
out, and welcome me to the Crimea, while Captain Peel
and Sir J. Campbell sent the kindest messages; and when
they saw me, promised me every assistance, the General
adding that he is glad to see me where there is so much to
do. Among others, poor H. Vicars, whose kind face had
so often lighted up my old house in Kingston, came to
take me by the hand in this out-of-the-way corner of the
world. I never felt so sure of the success of any step as I
did of this, before I had been a week in Balaclava. But
I had plenty of difficulties to contend with on every side.

Among the first, one of the ships, in which were many of
our stores, the “Nonpareil,” was ordered out of the harbour
before we could land them all, and there was more than a
probability that she would carry back to Constantinople
many of the things we had most pressing occasion for.
It became necessary, therefore, that some one should see
Admiral Boxer, and try to interest that mild-spoken and
affable officer in our favour. When I mentioned it to Mr.
Day, he did not seem inclined to undertake the mission,
and nothing was left but for me to face the terrible Port-Admiral.
Fortunately, Captain H——, of the “Diamond,”
[Pg 96]
was inclined to be my friend, and, not a little amused
with his mission, carried me right off to the Admiral. I
confess that I was as nearly frightened out of my wits as
I ever have been, for the Admiral’s kind heart beat under a
decidedly rough husk; and when Captain H—— told him
that I wanted his permission for the “Nonpareil” to remain
in the harbour for a few days, as there were stores on
board, he let fly enough hard words to frighten any
woman. But when I spoke up, and told him that I had
known his son in the West Indies, he relented, and
granted my petition. But it was not without more hard
words, and much grumbling that a parcel of women should
be coming out to a place where they were not wanted.

Now, the Admiral did not repeat this remark a few
days afterwards, when he saw me attending the sick and
wounded upon the sick wharf.

I remained six weeks in Balaclava, spending my days
on shore, and my nights on board ship. Over our stores,
stacked on the shore, a few sheets of rough tarpaulin were
suspended; and beneath these—my sole protection against
the Crimean rain and wind—I spent some portion of each
day, receiving visitors and selling stores.

But my chief occupation, and one with which I never
allowed any business to interfere, was helping the doctors
to transfer the sick and wounded from the mules and ambulances
into the transports that had to carry them to the
hospitals of Scutari and Buyukdere. I did not forget the
main object of my journey, to which I would have devoted
myself exclusively had I been allowed; and very
familiar did I become before long with the sick wharf of
Balaclava. My acquaintance with it began very shortly
[Pg 97]
after I had reached Balaclava. The very first day that I
approached the wharf, a party of sick and wounded had
just arrived. Here was work for me, I felt sure. With
so many patients, the doctors must be glad of all the hands
they could get. Indeed, so strong was the old impulse
within me, that I waited for no permission, but seeing a
poor artilleryman stretched upon a pallet, groaning heavily,
I ran up to him at once, and eased the stiff dressings.
Lightly my practised fingers ran over the familiar work,
and well was I rewarded when the poor fellow’s groans
subsided into a restless uneasy mutter. God help him!
He had been hit in the forehead, and I think his sight
was gone. I stooped down, and raised some tea to his
baked lips (here and there upon the wharf were rows of
little pannikins containing this beverage). Then his hand
touched mine, and rested there, and I heard him mutter
indistinctly, as though the discovery had arrested his
wandering senses—

“Ha! this is surely a woman’s hand.”

I couldn’t say much, but I tried to whisper something
about hope and trust in God; but all the while I think
his thoughts were running on this strange discovery.
Perhaps I had brought to his poor mind memories of his
home, and the loving ones there, who would ask no greater
favour than the privilege of helping him thus; for he continued
to hold my hand in his feeble grasp, and whisper
“God bless you, woman—whoever you are, God bless
you!”—over and over again.

I do not think that the surgeons noticed me at first,
although, as this was my introduction to Balaclava, I had
not neglected my personal appearance, and wore my
[Pg 98]
favourite yellow dress, and blue bonnet, with the red ribbons;
but I noticed one coming to me, who, I think, would have
laughed very merrily had it not been for the poor fellow
at my feet. As it was, he came forward, and shook hands
very kindly, saying, “How do you do, ma’am? Much
obliged to you for looking after my poor fellow; very glad
to see you here.” And glad they always were, the kind-hearted
doctors, to let me help them look after the sick
and wounded sufferers brought to that fearful wharf.

I wonder if I can ever forget the scenes I witnessed
there? Oh! they were heartrending. I declare that I
saw rough bearded men stand by and cry like the softest-hearted
women at the sights of suffering they saw; while
some who scorned comfort for themselves, would fidget
about for hours before the long trains of mules and ambulances
came in, nervous lest the most trifling thing that
could minister to the sufferers’ comfort should be neglected.
I have often heard men talk and preach very learnedly and
conclusively about the great wickedness and selfishness of the
human heart; I used to wonder whether they would have
modified those opinions if they had been my companions
for one day of the six weeks I spent upon that wharf, and
seen but one day’s experience of the Christian sympathy
and brotherly love shown by the strong to the weak. The
task was a trying one, and familiarity, you might think,
would have worn down their keener feelings of pity and
sympathy; but it was not so.

I was in the midst of my sad work one day when the
Admiral came up, and stood looking on. He vouchsafed
no word nor look of recognition in answer to my salute,
but stood silently by, his hands behind his back, watching
[Pg 99]
the sick being lifted into the boats. You might have
thought that he had little feeling, so stern and expressionless
was his face; but once, when they raised a sufferer
somewhat awkwardly, and he groaned deeply, that rough
man broke out all at once with an oath, that was strangely
like a prayer, and bade the men, for God’s sake, take more
care. And, coming up to me, he clapped me on the
shoulder, saying, “I am glad to see you here, old lady,
among these poor fellows;” while, I am most strangely
deceived if I did not see a tear-drop gathering in his eye.
It was on this same day, I think, that bending down over
a poor fellow whose senses had quite gone, and, I fear me,
would never return to him in this world, he took me for
his wife, and calling me “Mary, Mary,” many times,
asked me how it was he had got home so quickly, and why
he did not see the children; and said he felt sure he should
soon get better now. Poor fellow! I could not undeceive
him. I think the fancy happily caused by the touch of a
woman’s hand soothed his dying hour; for I do not fancy
he could have lived to reach Scutari. I never knew it for
certain, but I always felt sure that he would never wake
from that dream of home in this world.

And here, lest the reader should consider that I am
speaking too highly of my own actions, I must have recourse
to a plan which I shall frequently adopt in the
following pages, and let another voice speak for me in the
kind letter received long after Balaclava had been left to
its old masters, by one who had not forgotten his old companion
on the sick-wharf. The writer, Major (then Captain)
R——, had charge of the wharf while I was there.

Major R—— was a brave and experienced officer, but the
scenes on the sick-wharf unmanned him often. I have
known him nervously restless if the people were behindhand,
even for a few minutes, in their preparations for the
wounded. But in this feeling all shared alike. Only
women could have done more than they did who attended
to this melancholy duty; and they, not because their
hearts could be softer, but because their hands are moulded
for this work.

But it must not be supposed that we had no cheerful
scenes upon the sick-wharf. Sometimes a light-hearted
fellow—generally a sailor—would forget his pain, and do
his best to keep the rest in good spirits. Once I heard my
name eagerly pronounced, and turning round, recognised
a sailor whom I remembered as one of the crew of the
“Alarm,” stationed at Kingston, a few years back.

“Why, as I live, if this ain’t Aunty Seacole, of
Jamaica! Shiver all that’s left of my poor timbers”—and
I saw that the left leg was gone—“if this ain’t a
rum go, mates!”

“Ah! my man, I’m sorry to see you in this sad
plight.”

[Pg 101]
“Never fear for me, Aunty Seacole; I’ll make the
best of the leg the Rooshians have left me. I’ll get at
them soon again, never fear. You don’t think, messmates”—he
never left his wounded comrades alone—“that
they’ll think less of us at home for coming back
with a limb or so short?”

“You bear your troubles well, my son.”

“Eh! do I, Aunty?” and he seemed surprised. “Why,
look’ye, when I’ve seen so many pretty fellows knocked
off the ship’s roll altogether, don’t you think I ought to
be thankful if I can answer the bo’swain’s call anyhow?”

And this was the sailors’ philosophy always. And
this brave fellow, after he had sipped some lemonade, and
laid down, when he heard the men groaning, raised his
head and comforted them in the same strain again; and,
it may seem strange, but it quieted them.

I used to make sponge-cakes on board the “Medora,”
with eggs brought from Constantinople. Only the other
day, Captain S——, who had charge of the “Medora,”
reminded me of them. These, with some lemonade, were
all the doctors would allow me to give to the wounded.
They all liked the cake, poor fellows, better than anything
else: perhaps because it tasted of “home.”

[Pg 102]

CHAPTER XI.

My life in Balaclava could not but be a rough one.
The exposure by day was enough to try any woman’s
strength; and at night one was not always certain of repose.
Nor was it the easiest thing to clamber up the steep
sides of the “Medora;” and more than once I narrowly
escaped a sousing in the harbour. Why it should be so
difficult to climb a ship’s side, when a few more staves in
the ladder, and those a little broader, would make it so easy,
I have never been able to guess. And once on board the
“Medora,” my berth would not altogether have suited a
delicate female with weak nerves. It was an ammunition
ship, and we slept over barrels of gunpowder and tons of
cartridges, with the by no means impossible contingency
of their prematurely igniting, and giving us no time to
say our prayers before launching us into eternity. Great
care was enjoined, and at eight o’clock every evening
Captain S—— would come down, and order all lights out
for the night. But I used to put my lantern into a deep
basin, behind some boxes, and so evaded the regulation.
I felt rather ashamed of this breach of discipline one
[Pg 103]
night, when another ammunition ship caught fire in the
crowded harbour, and threatened us all with speedy destruction.
We all knew, if they failed in extinguishing
the fire pretty quickly, what our chances of life were worth,
and I think the bravest drew his breath heavily at the
thought of our danger. Fortunately, they succeeded in
extinguishing the firebrand before any mischief was done;
but I do not think the crew of the “Medora” slept very
comfortably that night. It was said that the Russians
had employed an incendiary; but it would have been
strange if in that densely crowded harbour some accidents
had not happened without their agency.

Harassing work, indeed, was the getting our stores on
shore, with the aid of the Greek and Maltese boatmen,
whose profession is thievery. Not only did they demand
exorbitant sums for the carriage, but they contrived to rob
us by the way in the most ingenious manner. Thus
many things of value were lost in the little journey from
the “Albatross” and “Nonpareil” to the shore, which
had made the long voyage from England safely. Keep as
sharp a look out as I might, some package or box would
be tipped overboard by the sudden swaying of the boat, or
passing by of one of the boatmen—of course, accidentally—and
no words could induce the rascals, in their feigned
ignorance of my language, to stop; and, looking back at
the helpless waif, it was not altogether consolatory to see
another boat dart from between some shipping, where it
had been waiting, as accidentally, ready to pounce upon
any such wind or waterfalls.

Still more harassing work was it to keep the things
together on the shore: often in the open light of day,
[Pg 104]
while I sat there (after my duties on the sick-wharf were
over) selling stores, or administering medicine to the men
of the Land Transport and Army Works Corps, and others,
who soon found out my skill, valuable things would be abstracted;
while there was no limit to the depredations by
night. Of course we hired men to watch; but our choice
of servants was very limited, and very often those we employed
not only shut their eyes to the plunder of their
companions, but helped themselves freely. The adage,
“set a thief to catch a thief,” answered very badly in
Balaclava.

Sometimes Jew Johnny would volunteer to watch for
the night; and glad I was when I knew that the honest
lynx-eyed fellow was there. One night he caught a great-limbed
Turk making off with a firkin of butter and some
other things. The fellow broke away from Johnny’s grasp
with the butter, but the lad marked him down to his
wretched den, behind the engineers’ quarters, and, on the
following morning, quietly introduced me to the lazy culprit,
who was making up for the partial loss of his night’s
rest among as evil-looking a set of comrades as I have ever
seen. There was a great row, and much indignation
shown at the purpose of my visit; but I considered myself
justified in calling in the aid of one of the Provost marshal’s
officers, and, in the presence of this most invaluable
official, a confession was soon made. Beneath the fellow’s
dirty bed, the butter was found buried; and, in its company,
a two-dozen case of sherry, which the rogue had, in
flagrant defiance of the Prophet’s injunction, stolen for his
own private drinking, a few nights previously.

The thievery in this little out-of-the way port was
[Pg 105]
something marvellous; and the skill and ingenuity of the
operators would have reflected credit upon the élite of their
profession practising in the most civilized city of Europe.
Nor was the thievery confined altogether to the professionals,
who had crowded to this scene of action from the
cities and islands of the Mediterranean. They robbed us,
the Turks, and one another; but a stronger hand was
sometimes laid on them. The Turk, however, was sure
to be the victim, let who might be the oppressor.

In this predatory warfare, as in more honourable service,
the Zouaves particularly distinguished themselves.
These undoubtedly gallant little fellows, always restless
for action, of some sort, would, when the luxury of a
brash with the Russians was occasionally denied them,
come down to Balaclava, in search of opportunities of
waging war against society at large. Their complete and
utter absence of conscientious scruples as to the rights of
property was most amusing. To see a Zouave gravely
cheat a Turk, or trip up a Greek street-merchant, or Maltese
fruit-seller, and scud away with the spoil, cleverly
stowed in his roomy red pantaloons, was an operation,
for its coolness, expedition, and perfectness, well worth
seeing. And, to a great extent, they escaped scatheless,
for the English Provost marshal’s department was rather
chary of interfering with the eccentricities of our gallant
allies; while if the French had taken close cognizance of
the Zouaves’ amusements out of school, one-half of the
regiments would have been always engaged punishing the
other half.

The poor Turk! it is lamentable to think how he was
robbed, abused, and bullied by his friends. Why didn’t
[Pg 106]
he show a little pluck? There wasn’t a rough sailor, or
shrewd boy—the English boy, in all his impudence and
prejudice, flourished in Balaclava—who would not gladly
have patted him upon the back if he would but have held
up his head, and shown ever so little spirit. But the
Englishman cannot understand a coward—will scarcely take
the trouble to pity him; and even the craven Greek could
lord it over the degenerate descendants of the fierce Arabs,
who—so they told me on the spot—had wrested Constantinople
from the Christians, in those old times of which I
know so little. Very often an injured Turk would run up
to where I sat, and stand there, wildly telegraphing his
complaints against some villainous-looking Greek, or
Italian, whom a stout English lad would have shaken out
of his dirty skin in five minutes.

Once, however, I saw the tables turned. As the
anecdote will help to illustrate the relative positions
of the predatory tribes of Balaclava, I will narrate it.
Hearing one morning a louder hubbub than was usual
upon the completion of a bargain, and the inevitable
quarrelling that always followed, I went up to where
I saw an excited crowd collected around a Turk, in
whose hands a Greek was struggling vainly. This
Greek had, it seemed, robbed his enemy, but the Turk
was master this time, and had, in order to force from
the robber a confession of the place where the stolen
things were deposited (like dogs, as they were, these fellows
were fond of burying their plunder), resorted to
torture. This was effected most ingeniously and simply
by means of some packthread, which, bound round the
Greek’s two thumbs, was tightened on the tourniquet
[Pg 107]
principle, until the pain elicited a confession. But the
Turk, stimulated to retaliation by his triumph, bagged the
Greek’s basket, which contained amongst other things two
watches, which their present owner had no doubt stolen.
Driven to the most ludicrous show of despair, the Greek
was about to attempt another desperate struggle for the
recovery of his goods, when two Zouaves elbowed their
small persons upon the crowded stage, and were eagerly
referred to by all the parties concerned in the squabble.
How they contrived it, I cannot say, so prompt were their
movements; but, in a very few minutes, the watches were
in their possession, and going much faster than was agreeable
either to Turk or Greek, who both combined to
arrest this new movement, and thereby added a sharp
thrashing to their other injuries. The Zouaves effected
their escape safely, while the Greek, with a despair that
had in it an equal share of the ludicrous and the tragic,
threw himself upon the dusty ground, and tore his thin
hair out by handfuls. I believe that the poor wretch,
whom we could not help pitying, journeyed to Kamiesch,
to discover his oppressors; but I fear he didn’t gain much
information there.

Had it not been for the unremitting activity of the authorities,
no life would have been safe in Balaclava, with
its population of villains of every nation. As it was,
murder was sometimes added to robbery, and many of the
rascals themselves died suspicious deaths, with the particulars
of which the authorities did not trouble themselves.
But the officials worked hard, both in the harbour and on
shore, to keep order; few men could have worked harder.
I often saw the old grey-haired Admiral about before the
[Pg 108]
sun had fairly shown itself; and those of his subordinates
must have been somewhat heavy sleepers who could play
the sluggard then.

At length the necessary preparations to establish our
store were made. We hit upon a spot about two miles from
Balaclava, in advance of Kadikoi, close to where the railway
engines were stationed, and within a mile of head-quarters.
Leave having been obtained to erect buildings here,
we set to work briskly, and soon altered the appearance of
Spring Hill—so we christened our new home. Sometimes
on horseback, sometimes getting a lift on the commissariat
carts, and occasionally on the ammunition railway-waggons,
I managed to visit Spring Hill daily, and very soon fitted
up a shed sufficiently large to take up my abode in. But
the difficulty of building our store was immense. To obtain
material was next to impossible; but that collected
(not a little was, by leave of the Admiral, gleaned from
the floating rubbish in the harbour), to find workmen to
make use of it was still more difficult. I spent days
going round the shipping, offering great wages, even, for
an invalid able to handle saw and hammer, however
roughly, and many a long ride through the camps did I
take on the same errand. At length, by dint of hard canvassing,
we obtained the aid of two English sailors, whom
I nicknamed “Big and Little Chips,” and some Turks,
and set to work in good earnest.

I procured the Turks from the Pacha who commanded
the division encamped in the neighbourhood of Spring
Hill. It was decided that we should apply to him for
help, and accordingly I became ambassadress on this
delicate mission, and rode over to the Pacha’s quarters,
[Pg 109]
Jew Johnny attending me as interpreter. I was received
by the Pacha with considerable kindness and no trifling
amount of formality, and after taking coffee I proceeded,
through Jew Johnny, to explain the object of my visit,
while his Excellency, a tall man, with a dark pleasing
face, smoked gravely, and took my request into his gracious
consideration.

On the following day came the answer to my request, in
the persons of two curious Turkish carpenters, who were
placed at our orders. After a little while, too, a Turkish
officer, whom I christened Captain Ali Baba, took so great
an interest in our labours that he would work like any carpenter,
and with a delight and zeal that were astonishing.
To see him fall back, and look smilingly at every piece of
his workmanship, was a sight to restore the most severely
tried temper. I really think that the good-hearted fellow
thought it splendid fun, and never wearied of it. But for
him I do not know how we should have managed with our
other Turkish “chips”—chips of the true old Turkish
block they were—deliberate, slow, and indolent, breaking
off into endless interruptions for the sacred duties of eating
and praying, and getting into out-of-the-way corners at
all times of the day to smoke themselves to sleep.

In the midst of our work a calamity occurred, which
was very nearly becoming a catastrophe. By the giving
way of a dam, after some heavy rains, the little stream which
threaded its silvery way past Spring Hill swelled without
any warning into a torrent, which, sweeping through my
temporary hut, very nearly carried us all away, and destroyed
stores of between one and two hundred pounds in
value. This calamity might have had a tragical issue for
[Pg 110]
me, for seeing a little box which contained some things,
valuable as relics of the past, being carried away, I
plunged in after it, and losing my balance, was rolled over
and over by the stream, and with some difficulty reached
the shore. Some of Lord Raglan’s staff passing our wreck
on the following day, made inquiries respecting the loss
we had sustained, and a messenger was sent from head-quarters,
who made many purchases, in token of their
sympathy.

My visit to the Turkish Pacha laid the foundation of a
lasting friendship. He soon found his way to Spring
Hill, and before long became one of my best customers
and most frequent visitors. It was astonishing to note
how completely, now that he was in the land of the
Giaours, he adapted himself to the tastes and habits of the
infidels. Like a Scotch Presbyterian, on the Continent for
a holiday, he threw aside all the prejudices of his education,
and drank bottled beer, sherry, and champagne with
an appreciation of their qualities that no thirsty-souled
Christian could have expressed more gratefully. He was
very affable with us all, and would sometimes keep Jew
Johnny away from his work for hours, chatting with us
or the English officers who would lounge into our as yet
unfinished store. Sometimes he would come down to
breakfast, and spend the greater part of the day at Spring
Hill. Indeed, the wits of Spring Hill used to laugh, and
say that the crafty Pacha was throwing his pocket-handkerchief
at Madame Seacole, widow; but as the honest
fellow candidly confessed he had three wives already at
home, I acquit him of any desire to add to their number.

The Pacha’s great ambition was to be familiar with
[Pg 111]
the English language, and at last nothing would do but he
must take lessons of me. So he would come down, and
sitting in my store, with a Turk or so at his feet, to attend
to his most important pipe, by inserting little red-hot
pieces of charcoal at intervals, would try hard to sow a
few English sentences in his treacherous memory. He
never got beyond half a dozen; and I think if we had continued
in the relation of pupil and mistress until now, the
number would not have been increased greatly. “Madame
Seacole,” “Gentlemen, good morning,” and “More champagne,”
with each syllable much dwelt upon, were his
favourite sentences. It was capital fun to hear him, when
I was called away suddenly to attend to a customer, or to
give a sick man medicine, repeating gravely the sentence
we had been studying, until I passed him, and started him
with another.

Very frequently he would compliment me by ordering
his band down to Spring Hill for my amusement. They
played excellently well, and I used to think that I preferred
their music to that of the French and English regimental
bands. I laughed heartily one day, when, in compliance
with the kind-hearted Anglo-Turkish Pacha’s orders, they
came out with a grand new tune, in which I with difficulty
recognised a very distant resemblance to “God save
the Queen.”

Altogether he was a capital neighbour, and gave such
strict orders to his men to respect our property that we
rarely lost anything. On the whole, the Turks were the
most honest of the nations there (I except the English and
the Sardinians), and the most tractable. But the Greeks
hated them, and showed their hate in every way. In
[Pg 112]
bringing up things for the Pacha’s use they would let the
mules down, and smash their loads most relentlessly. Now
and then they suffered, as was the case one day when I
passed through the camp and saw my friend superintending
the correction of a Greek who was being bastinadoed. It
seemed a painful punishment.

I was sorry, therefore, when my friend’s division was
ordered to Kamara, and we lost our neighbours. But
my pupil did not forget his schoolmistress. A few days
after they had left the neighbourhood of Spring Hill came
a messenger, with a present of lambs, poultry, and eggs,
and a letter, which I could not decipher, as many of the
interpreters could speak English far better than they could
write it. But we discovered that the letter contained an
invitation, to Mr. Day and myself, to go over to Kamara,
and select from the spoil of the village anything that
might be useful in our new buildings. And a few days
later came over a large araba, drawn by four mules, and
laden with a pair of glass-doors, and some window-frames,
which the thoughtful kind Pacha had judged—and judged
rightly—would be a very acceptable present. And very
often the good-natured fellow would ride over from Kamara,
and resume his acquaintance with myself and my
champagne, and practise his English sentences.

We felt the loss of our Turkish neighbours in more
ways than one. The neighbourhood, after their departure,
was left lonely and unprotected, and it was not until a division
of the Land Transport Corps came and took up their
quarters near us, that I felt at all secure of personal
safety. Mr. Day rarely returned to Spring Hill until
nightfall relieved him from his many duties, and I
[Pg 113]
depended chiefly upon two sailors, both of questionable character,
two black servants, Jew Johnny, and my own reputation
for determination and courage—a poor delusion,
which I took care to heighten by the judicious display of
a double-barrelled pistol, lent me for the purpose by Mr.
Day, and which I couldn’t have loaded to save my life.

CHAPTER XII.

Summer was fairly advanced before the British Hotel was
anything like finished; indeed, it never was completed,
and when we left the Hill, a year later, it still wanted
shutters. But long before that time Spring Hill had
gained a great reputation. Of course, I have nothing to
do with what occurred in the camp, although I could not
help hearing a great deal about it. Mismanagement and
privation there might have been, but my business was to
make things right in my sphere, and whatever confusion,
and disorder existed elsewhere, comfort and order were
always to be found at Spring Hill. When there was no
sun elsewhere, some few gleams—so its grateful visitors
said—always seemed to have stayed behind, to cheer the
weary soldiers that gathered in the British Hotel. And,
perhaps, as my kind friend Punch said, after all these
things had become pleasant memories of the past.

Let me, in a few words, describe the British Hotel.
It was acknowledged by all to be the most complete thing
there. It cost no less than £800. The buildings and
yards took up at least an acre of ground, and were as perfect
as we could make them. The hotel and storehouse
consisted of a long iron room, with counters, closets, and
shelves; above it was another low room, used by us for
storing our goods, and above this floated a large union-jack.
Attached to this building was a little kitchen, not
unlike a ship’s caboose—all stoves and shelves. In addition
to the iron house were two wooden houses, with sleeping
apartments for myself and Mr. Day, out-houses for our
servants, a canteen for the soldiery, and a large enclosed
yard for our stock, full of stables, low huts, and sties.
Everything, although rough and unpolished, was comfortable
and warm; and there was a completeness about the
whole which won general admiration. The reader may
judge of the manner in which we had stocked the interior
of our store from the remark, often repeated by the officers,
that you might get everything at Mother Seacole’s, from an
anchor down to a needle.

In addition, we had for our transport service four
carts, and as many horses and mules as could be kept
from the thieves. To reckon upon being in possession of
these, at any future time, was impossible; we have more
than once seen a fair stud stabled at night-time, and on
the following morning been compelled to borrow cattle
[Pg 115]
from the Land Transport camp, to fetch our things up
from Balaclava.

But it must not be supposed that my domestic difficulties
came to an end with the completion of the hotel.
True, I was in a better position to bear the Crimean cold
and rain, but my other foes were as busy as ever they had
been on the beach at Balaclava. Thieves, biped and
quadruped, human and animal, troubled me more than
ever; and perhaps the most difficult to deal with were
the least dangerous. The Crimean rats, for instance, who
had the appetites of London aldermen, and were as little
dainty as hungry schoolboys. Whether they had left Sebastopol,
guided by the instinct which leads their kindred
in other parts of the world to forsake sinking ships, or
because the garrison rations offended their palates, or
whether they had patriotically emigrated, to make war
against the English larders, I do not pretend to guess;
but, whatever was their motive, it drew them in great
abundance to Spring Hill. They occasionally did us
damage, in a single night, to the tune of two or three
pounds—wasting what they could not devour. You could
keep nothing sacred from their strong teeth. When hard
pressed they more than once attacked the live sheep; and
at last they went so far as to nibble one of our black
cooks, Francis, who slept among the flour barrels. On the
following morning he came to me, his eyes rolling angrily,
and his white teeth gleaming, to show me a mangled
finger, which they had bitten, and ask me to dress it. He
made a great fuss; and a few mornings later he came
in a violent passion this time, and gave me instant notice
to quit my service, although we were paying him two
[Pg 116]
pounds a week, with board and rations. This time the
rats had, it appeared, been bolder, and attacked his head,
in a spot where its natural armour, the wool, was thinnest,
and the silly fellow had a notion that the souls of the slain
Russian soldiers had entered the bodies of the rats, and made
vengeful war upon their late enemies. Driven to such an
extremity, I made up my mind to scour the camp, in
search of a cat, and, after a long day’s hunt, I came to the
conclusion that the tale of Whittington was by no means
an improbable one. Indeed, had a brisk young fellow
with a cat, of even ordinary skill in its profession, made
their appearance at Spring Hill, I would gladly have put
them in the way—of laying the foundation, at least—of a
fortune. At last I found a benefactor, in the Guards’
camp, in Colonel D——, of the Coldstreams, who kindly
promised me a great pet, well known in the camp, and
perhaps by some who may read these pages, by the name
of Pinkie. Pinkie was then helping a brother officer to
clear his hut, but on the following day a Guardsman
brought the noble fellow down. He lived in clover for a
few days, but he had an English cat-like attachment for
his old house, and despite the abundance of game, Pinkie
soon stole away to his old master’s quarters, three miles
off. More than once the men brought him back to me, but
the attractions of Spring Hill were never strong enough
to detain him long with me.

From the human thieves that surrounded Spring Hill
I had to stand as sharp a siege as the Russians had in that
poor city against which we heard the guns thundering
daily; while the most cunning and desperate sorties were
often made upon the most exposed parts of my defences,
[Pg 117]
and sometimes with success. Scores of the keenest eyes
and hundreds of the sharpest fingers in the world were
always ready to take advantage of the least oversight. I
had to keep two boys, whose chief occupation was to watch
the officers’ horses, tied up to the doorposts of the British
Hotel. Before I adopted this safeguard, more than one
officer would leave his horse for a few minutes, and on his
return find it gone to the neighbourhood of the Naval
Brigade, or the horse-fair at Kamiesch. My old friends,
the Zouaves, soon found me out at Spring Hill, and the
wiry, light-fingered, fighting-loving gentry spent much of
their leisure there. Those confounded trowsers of theirs
offered conveniences of stowage-room which they made
rare use of. Nothing was too small, and few things too
unwieldy, to ride in them; like the pockets of clown in a
pantomime, they could accommodate a well-grown baby
or a pound of sausages equally well. I have a firm conviction
that they stuffed turkeys, geese, and fowls into
them, and I positively know that my only respectable teapot
travelled off in the same conveyance, while I detected one
little fellow, who had tied them down tight at his ankles,
stowing away some pounds of tea and coffee mixed. Some
officers, who were present, cut the cords, and, holding up
the little scamp by the neck, shook his trowsers empty
amid shouts of laughter.

Our live stock, from the horses and mules down to the
geese and fowls, suffered terribly. Although we kept a
sharp look-out by day, and paid a man five shillings a
night as watchman, our losses were very great. During
the time we were in the Crimea we lost over a score of
horses, four mules, eighty goats, many sheep, pigs, and
[Pg 118]
poultry, by thieving alone. We missed in a single night
forty goats and seven sheep, and on Mr. Day’s going to
head-quarters with intelligence of the disaster, they told
him that Lord Raglan had recently received forty sheep
from Asia, all of which had disappeared in the same
manner. The geese, turkeys, and fowls vanished by scores.
We found out afterwards that the watchman paid to guard
the sheep, used to kill a few occasionally. As he represented
them to have died a natural death during the night,
he got permission to bury them, instead of which he sold
them. King Frost claimed his share of our stock too, and
on one December night, of the winter of 1855, killed no
less than forty sheep. It is all very well to smile at these
things now, but at the time they were heartrending
enough, and helped, if they did not cause, the ruin which
eventually overtook the firm of Seacole and Day. The
determination and zeal which besiegers and besieged
showed with respect to a poor pig, which was quietly and
unconsciously fattening in its sty, are worthy of record.

Fresh pork, in the spring of 1855, was certainly one
of those luxuries not easily obtainable in that part of the
Crimea to which the British army was confined, and when
it became known that Mother Seacole had purchased a
promising young porker from one of the ships in Balaclava,
and that, brave woman! she had formed the courageous
resolution of fattening it for her favourites, the excitement
among the frequenters of Spring Hill was very great. I
could laugh heartily now, when I think of the amount of
persuasion and courting I stood out for before I bound
myself how its four legs were to be disposed of. I learnt
more at that time of the trials and privileges of authority
[Pg 119]
than I am ever likely to experience again. Upon my
word, I think if the poor thing had possessed as many legs
as my editor tells me somebody called the Hydra (with
whom my readers are perhaps more familiar than I am)
had heads, I should have found candidates for them. As
it was, the contest for those I had to bestow was very
keen, and the lucky individuals who were favoured by me
looked after their interests most carefully. One of them,
to render mistake or misunderstanding impossible, entered
my promise in my day-book. The reader will perhaps
smile at the following important memorandum in the
gallant officer’s writing:—

Now it was well known that many greedy eyes and
fingers were directed towards the plump fellow, and considerable
interest was manifested in the result of the struggle,
“Mrs. Seacole versus Thievery.” I think they had
some confidence in me, and that I was the favourite; but
there was a large field against me, which found its backers
also; and many a bet was laughingly laid on the ultimate
fate of the unconscious porker.

I baffled many a knavish trick to gain possession of the
fine fellow; but, after all, I lost him in the middle of the
day, when I thought the boldest rogues would not have
run the risk. The shouts and laughter of some officers who
were riding down from the front first informed me of my
loss. Up they rode, calling out—“Mother Seacole! old
lady! quick!—the pig’s gone!”

I rushed out, injured woman that I was, and saw it all
[Pg 120]
at a glance. But that my straw wide-awake was in the
way, I could have torn my hair in my vexation. I rushed
to the sty, found the nest warm, and with prompt decision
prepared for speedy pursuit. Back I came to the horsemen,
calling out—“Off with you, my sons!—they can’t
have got very far away yet. Do your best to save my
bacon!”

Delighted with the fun, the horsemen dispersed, laughing
and shouting—“Stole away! hark away!” while I ran indoors,
turned out all my available body-guard, and started in
pursuit also. Not half a mile off we soon saw a horseman
wave his cap; and starting off into a run, came to a little
hollow, where the poor panting animal and two Greek
thieves had been run down. The Provost-marshal took the
latter in hand willingly, and Piggy was brought home in
triumph. But those who had pork expectancies, hearing
of the adventure, grew so seriously alarmed at the narrow
escape, that they petitioned me to run so desperate a
hazard no longer; and the poor thing was killed on the
following day, and distributed according to promise. A
certain portion was reserved for sausages, which, fried
with mashed potatoes, were quite the rage at the British
Hotel for some days. Some pork was also sent to head-quarters,
with an account of the dangers we ran from
thieves. It drew the following kind acknowledgment
from General B——:

For the truth was—although I can laugh at my fears
now—I was often most horribly frightened at Spring Hill;
and there was cause for it too. My washerwoman, who,
with her family, lived not half a mile from us, was with
me one day, and carried off some things for the wash. On
the following morning I was horrified to learn that she,
her father, husband, and children—in all, seven—had been
most foully murdered during the night: only one of the
whole family recovered from her wounds, and lived to tell
the tale. It created a great sensation at the time, and
caused me to pass many a sleepless night, for the murderers
were never discovered.

Whilst I am upon the subject of Crimean thievery, I
may as well exhaust it without paying any regard to the
chronological order of my reminiscences. I have before
mentioned what I suffered from the French. One day I
caught one of our allies in my kitchen, robbing me in the
most ungrateful manner. He had met with an accident
near Spring Hill (I believe he belonged to a French regiment
lent to assist the English in road-making), and had
been doctored by me; and now I found him filling his
pockets, before taking “French” leave of us. My black
man, Francis, pulled from his pockets a yet warm fowl,
and other provisions. We kicked him off the premises,
and he found refuge with some men of the Army Works
Corps, who pitied him and gave him shelter. He woke
[Pg 122]
them in the middle of the night, laying hands rather
clumsily on everything that was removeable; and in the
morning they brought him to me, to ask what they should
do with him. Unluckily for him, a French officer of rank
happened to be in the store, who, on hearing our tale,
packed him off to his regiment. I gathered from the expression
of the officer’s face, and the dread legible upon
the culprit’s, that it might be some considerable time
before his itch for breaking the eighth commandment could
be again indulged in.

The trouble I underwent respecting a useful black
mare, for which Mr. Day had given thirty guineas, and
which carried me beautifully, was immense. Before it had
been many weeks in our store it was gone—whither, I
failed to discover. Keeping my eyes wide open, however,
I saw “Angelina”—so I christened her—coming quietly
down the hill, carrying an elderly naval officer. I was
ready to receive the unconscious couple, and soon made my
claim good. Of course, the officer was not to blame. He
had bought it of a sailor, who in his turn had purchased
the animal of a messmate, who of course had obtained it
from another, and so on; but eventually it returned to its old
quarters, where it only remained about a fortnight. I grew
tired of looking for Angelina, and had given her up, when
one day she turned up, in capital condition, in the possession
of a French officer of Chasseurs. But nothing I could
say to the Frenchman would induce him to take the view
of the matter I wished, but had no right to enforce. He
had bought the horse at Kamiesch, and intended to keep
it. We grew hot at last; and our dispute drew out so large
an audience that the Frenchman took alarm, and tried to
[Pg 123]
make off. I held on to Angelina for a little while; but at
last the mare broke away from me, as Tam o’ Shanter’s
Maggie did from the witches (I don’t mean that she left
me even her tail), and vanished in a cloud of dust. It was
the last I ever saw of Angelina.

More than once the Crimean thievery reduced us to
woeful straits. To a Greek, returning to Constantinople,
we entrusted (after the murder of our washerwoman) two
trunks, containing “things for the wash,” which he was
to bring back as soon as possible. But neither upon Greek,
trunks, nor their contents did we ever set eyes again. It
was a serious loss. The best part of our table-cloths and
other domestic linen, all my clothes, except two suits, and
all of Mr. Day’s linen vanished, and had to be replaced as
best we could by fresh purchases from Kamiesch and Kadikoi.

Perhaps the most ridiculous shift I was ever put to by
the Crimean thieves happened when we rose one morning
and found the greater part of our stud missing. I had, in
the course of the day, urgent occasion to ride over to the
French camp on the Tchernaya; the only animal available
for my transport was an old grey mare, who had contracted
some equine disease of which I do not know the
name, but which gave her considerable resemblance to a
dog suffering from the mange. Now, go to the French camp
I must; to borrow a horse was impossible, and something
must be done with the grey. Suddenly one of those happy
thoughts, which sometimes help us over our greatest difficulties,
entered into my scheming brains. Could I not
conceal the poor mare’s worst blemishes. Her colour was
grey; would not a thick coating of flour from my dredger
make all right? There was no time to be lost; the remedy
[Pg 124]
was administered successfully, and off I started; but, alas!
the wind was high and swept the skirts of my riding habit
so determinedly against the side of the poor beast, that
before long its false coat was transferred to the dark cloth,
and my innocent ruse exposed. The French are proverbially
and really a polite and considerate nation, but I
never heard more hearty peals of laughter from any sides
than those which conveyed to me the horrible assurance
that my scheme had unhappily failed.

CHAPTER XIII.

MY WORK IN THE CRIMEA.

I hope the reader will give me credit for the assertion
that I am about to make, viz., that I enter upon the particulars
of this chapter with great reluctance; but I
cannot omit them, for the simple reason that they
strengthen my one and only claim to interest the public,
viz., my services to the brave British army in the Crimea.
But, fortunately, I can follow a course which will not only
render it unnecessary for me to sound my own trumpet,
but will be more satisfactory to the reader. I can put on
record the written opinions of those who had ample means
of judging and ascertaining how I fulfilled the great object
which I had in view in leaving England for the Crimea;
and before I do so, I must solicit my readers’ attention to
the position I held in the camp as doctress, nurse, and
“mother.”

[Pg 125]
I have never been long in any place before I have found
my practical experience in the science of medicine useful.
Even in London I have found it of service to others. And
in the Crimea, where the doctors were so overworked, and
sickness was so prevalent, I could not be long idle; for I
never forgot that my intention in seeking the army was to
help the kind-hearted doctors, to be useful to whom I have
ever looked upon and still regard as so high a privilege.

But before very long I found myself surrounded with
patients of my own, and this for two simple reasons. In
the first place, the men (I am speaking of the “ranks”
now) had a very serious objection to going into hospital
for any but urgent reasons, and the regimental doctors
were rather fond of sending them there; and, in the second
place, they could and did get at my store sick-comforts
and nourishing food, which the heads of the medical staff
would sometimes find it difficult to procure. These reasons,
with the additional one that I was very familiar with the
diseases which they suffered most from, and successful in
their treatment (I say this in no spirit of vanity), were
quite sufficient to account for the numbers who came daily
to the British Hotel for medical treatment.

That the officers were glad of me as a doctress and
nurse may be easily understood. When a poor fellow lay
sickening in his cheerless hut and sent down to me, he
knew very well that I should not ride up in answer to his
message empty-handed. And although I did not hesitate
to charge him with the value of the necessaries I took
him, still he was thankful enough to be able to purchase
them. When we lie ill at home surrounded with comfort,
we never think of feeling any special gratitude for the
[Pg 126]
sick-room delicacies which we accept as a consequence of
our illness; but the poor officer lying ill and weary in his
crazy hut, dependent for the merest necessaries of existence
upon a clumsy, ignorant soldier-cook, who would almost
prefer eating his meat raw to having the trouble of cooking
it (our English soldiers are bad campaigners), often finds
his greatest troubles in the want of those little delicacies
with which a weak stomach must be humoured into
retaining nourishment. How often have I felt sad at the
sight of poor lads, who in England thought attending early
parade a hardship, and felt harassed if their neckcloths set
awry, or the natty little boots would not retain their
polish, bearing, and bearing so nobly and bravely, trials and
hardships to which the veteran campaigner frequently
succumbed. Don’t you think, reader, if you were lying,
with parched lips and fading appetite, thousands of miles
from mother, wife, or sister, loathing the rough food by
your side, and thinking regretfully of that English home
where nothing that could minister to your great need
would be left untried—don’t you think that you would
welcome the familiar figure of the stout lady whose bony
horse has just pulled up at the door of your hut, and
whose panniers contain some cooling drink, a little broth,
some homely cake, or a dish of jelly or blanc-mange—don’t
you think, under such circumstances, that you would
heartily agree with my friend Punch’s remark:—

I tell you, reader, I have seen many a bold fellow’s eyes
[Pg 127]
moisten at such a season, when a woman’s voice and a
woman’s care have brought to their minds recollections of
those happy English homes which some of them never saw
again; but many did, who will remember their woman-comrade
upon the bleak and barren heights before
Sebastopol.

Then their calling me “mother” was not, I think,
altogether unmeaning. I used to fancy that there was
something homely in the word; and, reader, you cannot
think how dear to them was the smallest thing that
reminded them of home.

Some of my Crimean patients, who were glad of me as
nurse and doctress, bore names familiar to all England, and
perhaps, did I ask them, they would allow me to publish
those names. I am proud to think that a gallant sailor, on
whose brave breast the order of Victoria rests—a more
gallant man can never wear it—sent for the doctress whom
he had known in Kingston, when his arm, wounded on the
fatal 18th of June, refused to heal, and I think that the
application I recommended did it good; but I shall let
some of my patients’ letters, taken from a large bundle,
speak for me. Of course I must suppress most of their
names. Here are two from one of my best and kindest
sons.

You see the medicine does him good, for a few days
later comes another from the same writer:—

It was a capital prescription which had done his jaundice
good. There was so great a demand for it, that I kept
it mixed in a large pan, ready to ladle it out to the scores
of applicants who came for it.

Sometimes they would send for other and no less important
medicines. Here is such an application from a
sick officer:—

Doesn’t that read like a sick man’s letter, glad enough
to welcome any woman’s face? Here are some gentlemen
of the Commissariat anxious to speak for me:—

Here is Mr. M——, paymaster of the Land Transport
Corps, ready with a good account of my services:—

And some of the men shall speak for themselves:—

Many of my patients belonged to the Land Transport
and Army Works Corps. The former indeed were in my
close neighbourhood, and their hospital was nearly opposite
to the British Hotel. I did all I could for them, and have
many letters expressive of their gratitude. From them I
select the following:—

I hope that Mr. P——, of the Army Works Corps, will
pardon my laying the following letter before the public:—

Here is a certificate from one of the Army Works’
men, to whose case I devoted no little time and trouble:—

Here are three more letters—and the last I shall print—from
a sailor, a soldier, and a civilian:—

[Pg 132]
And now that I have made this a chapter of testimonials,
I may as well finish them right off, and have done
with them altogether. I shall trouble the patient reader
with four more only, which I have not the heart to omit.

The third is from the pen of one who at that time was
more looked to, and better known, than any other man in
the Crimea. In the 2nd vol. of Russell’s “Letters from
the Seat of War,” p. 187, is the following entry:—

Yes! I cannot—referring to that time—conscientiously
charge myself with doing less for the men who had only
thanks to give me, than for the officers whose gratitude
gave me the necessaries of life. I think I was ever ready
to turn from the latter to help the former, humble as they
might be; and they were grateful in their way, and as far
as they could be. They would buy me apples and other
fruit at Balaclava, and leave them at my store. One made
me promise, when I returned home, to send word to his
Irish mother, who was to send me a cow in token of her
gratitude for the help I had been to her son. I have a
book filled with hundreds of the names of those who came
to me for medicines and other aids; and never a train of
sick or wounded men from the front passed the British
Hotel but its hostess was awaiting them to offer comforts
to the poor fellows, for whose suffering her heart bled.

Punch, who allowed my poor name to appear in the
pages which had welcomed Miss Nightingale home—Punch,
that whimsical mouthpiece of some of the noblest
hearts that ever beat beneath black coats—shall last of all
raise its voice, that never yet pleaded an unworthy cause,
for the Mother Seacole that takes shame to herself for
[Pg 134]
speaking thus of the poor part she bore of the trials and
hardships endured on that distant shore, where Britain’s
best and bravest wrung hardly Sebastopol from the grasp
of Britain’s foe:—

Reader, now that we have come to the end of this
chapter, I can say what I have been all anxiety to tell you
from its beginning. Please look back to Chapter VIII.,
and see how hard the right woman had to struggle to
convey herself to the right place.

[Pg 135]

CHAPTER XIV.

MY CUSTOMERS AT THE BRITISH HOTEL.

I shall proceed in this chapter to make the reader acquainted
with some of the customers of the British Hotel,
who came there for its creature comforts as well as its
hostess’s medicines when need was; and if he or she should
be inclined to doubt or should hesitate at accepting my
experience of Crimean life as entirely credible, I beg that
individual to refer to the accounts which were given in the
newspapers of the spring of 1855, and I feel sure they will
acquit me of any intention to exaggerate. If I were to
speak of all the nameless horrors of that spring as plainly
as I could, I should really disgust you; but those I shall
bring before your notice have all something of the humorous
in them—and so it ever is. Time is a great
restorer, and changes surely the greatest sorrow into a
pleasing memory. The sun shines this spring-time upon
green grass that covers the graves of the poor fellows we
left behind sadly a few short months ago: bright flowers
grow up upon ruins of batteries and crumbling trenches,
and cover the sod that presses on many a mouldering token
of the old time of battle and death. I dare say that, if I
went to the Crimea now, I should see a smiling landscape,
instead of the blood-stained scene which I shall ever associate
with distress and death; and as it is with nature so
it is with human kind. Whenever I meet those who have
[Pg 136]
survived that dreary spring of 1855, we seldom talk about
its horrors; but remembering its transient gleams of sunshine,
smile at the fun and good nature that varied its long
and weary monotony. And now that I am anxious to
remember all I can that will interest my readers, my
memory prefers to dwell upon what was pleasing and
amusing, although the time will never come when it will
cease to retain most vividly the pathos and woe of those
dreadful months.

I have said that the winter had not ended when we
began operations at the British Hotel; and very often, after
we considered we were fairly under spring’s influence, our
old enemy would come back with an angry roar of wind
and rain, levelling tents, unroofing huts, destroying roads,
and handing over May to the command of General Fevrier.
But the sun fought bravely for us, and in time always dispersed
the leaden clouds and gilded the iron sky, and made
us cheerful again. During the end of March, the whole
of April, and a considerable portion of May, however, the
army was but a little better off for the advent of spring.
The military road to the camp was only in progress—the
railway only carried ammunition. A few hours’ rain rendered
the old road all but impassable, and scarcity often
existed in the front before Sebastopol, although the
frightened and anxious Commissariat toiled hard to avert
such a mishap; so that very often to the British Hotel
came officers starved out on the heights above us. The
dandies of Rotten Row would come down riding on sorry
nags, ready to carry back—their servants were on duty in
the trenches—anything that would be available for dinner.
A single glance at their personal appearance would suffice
[Pg 137]
to show the hardships of the life they were called upon to
lead. Before I left London for the seat of war I had been
more than once to the United Service Club, seeking to gain
the interest of officers whom I had known in Jamaica; and
I often thought afterwards of the difference between those
I saw there trimly shaven, handsomely dressed, with spotless
linen and dandy air, and these their companions, who
in England would resemble them. Roughly, warmly
dressed, with great fur caps, which met their beards and
left nothing exposed but lips and nose, and not much of
those; you would easily believe that soap and water were
luxuries not readily obtainable, that shirts and socks were
often comforts to dream about rather than possess, and
that they were familiar with horrors you would shudder to
hear named. Tell me, reader, can you fancy what the
want of so simple a thing as a pocket-handkerchief is?
To put a case—have you ever gone out for the day without
one; sat in a draught and caught a sneezing cold in the
head? You say the question is an unnecessarily unpleasant
one, and yet what I am about to tell you is true,
and the sufferer is, I believe, still alive.

An officer had ridden down one day to obtain refreshments
(this was very early in the spring); some nice
fowls had just been taken from the spit, and I offered one
to him. Paper was one of the most hardly obtainable
luxuries of the Crimea, and I rarely had any to waste upon
my customers; so I called out, “Give me your pocket-handkerchief,
my son, that I may wrap it up.” You see
we could not be very particular out there; but he smiled
very bitterly as he answered, “Pocket-handkerchief,
mother—by Jove! I wish I had one. I tore my last shirt
[Pg 138]
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
[Pg 139]
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,
eggs, pepper, and salt, were very good; game, wild fowl,
vegetables, also preserved, eggs, sardines, curry powder,
cigars, tobacco, snuff, cigarette papers, tea, coffee, tooth
powder, and currant jelly. When cargoes came in from
Constantinople, we bought great supplies of potatoes,
carrots, turnips, and greens. Ah! what a rush there used
to be for the greens. You might sometimes get hot rolls;
but, generally speaking, I bought the Turkish bread
(ekmek), baked at Balaclava.

Or had you felt too ill to partake of your rough camp
fare, coarsely cooked by a soldier cook, who, unlike the
French, could turn his hand to few things but fighting,
and had ridden down that muddy road to the Col, to see
what Mother Seacole could give you for dinner, the
chances were you would have found a good joint of
mutton, not of the fattest, forsooth; for in such miserable
condition were the poor beasts landed, that once, when
there came an urgent order from head-quarters for twenty-five
[Pg 140]
pounds of mutton, we had to cut up one sheep and a
half to provide the quantity; or you would have stumbled
upon something curried, or upon a good Irish stew, nice
and hot, with plenty of onions and potatoes, or upon some
capital meat-pies. I found the preserved meats were
better relished cooked in this fashion, and well doctored
with stimulants. Before long I grew as familiar with the
mysteries of seasoning as any London pieman, and could
accommodate myself to the requirements of the seasons as
readily. Or had there been nothing better, you might
have gone further and fared on worse fare than one of my
Welch rabbits, for the manufacture of which I became so
famous. And had you been fortunate enough to have
visited the British Hotel upon rice-pudding day, I warrant
you would have ridden back to your hut with kind
thoughts of Mother Seacole’s endeavours to give you a
taste of home. If I had nothing else to be proud of, I
think my rice puddings, made without milk, upon the
high road to Sebastopol, would have gained me a reputation.
What a shout there used to be when I came out
of my little caboose, hot and flurried, and called out, “Rice-pudding
day, my sons.” Some of them were baked in
large shallow pans, for the men and the sick, who always
said that it reminded them of home. You would scarcely
expect to finish up your dinner with pastry, but very often
you would have found a good stock of it in my larder.
Whenever I had a few leisure moments, I used to wash
my hands, roll up my sleeves and roll out pastry. Very
often I was interrupted to dispense medicines; but if the
tarts had a flavour of senna, or the puddings tasted
of rhubarb, it never interfered with their consumption.
[Pg 141]
I declare I never heard or read of an army so partial to
pastry as that British army before Sebastopol; while I had
a reputation for my sponge-cakes that any pastry-cook in
London, even Gunter, might have been proud of. The
officers, full of fun and high spirits, used to crowd into the
little kitchen, and, despite all my remonstrances, which
were not always confined to words, for they made me
frantic sometimes, and an iron spoon is a tempting weapon,
would carry off the tarts hot from the oven, while the
good-for-nothing black cooks, instead of lending me their
aid, would stand by and laugh with all their teeth. And
when the hot season commenced, the crowds that came to
the British Hotel for my claret and cider cups, and other
cooling summer drinks, were very complimentary in their
expressions of appreciation of my skill.

Now, supposing that you had made a hearty dinner
and were thinking of starting homeward—if I can use so
pleasant a term in reference to your cheerless quarters—it
was very natural that you should be anxious to carry back
something to your hut. Perhaps you expected to be sent
into the trenches (many a supper cooked by me has been
consumed in those fearful trenches by brave men, who
could eat it with keen appetites while the messengers of
death were speeding around them); or perhaps you had
planned a little dinner-party, and wanted to give your
friends something better than their ordinary fare. Anyhow,
you would in all probability have some good reason
for returning laden with comforts and necessaries from
Spring Hill. You would not be very particular about carrying
them. You might have been a great swell at home,
where you would have shuddered if Bond Street had seen
[Pg 142]
you carrying a parcel no larger than your card-case; but
those considerations rarely troubled you here. Very likely,
your servant was lying crouched in a rifle pit, having
“pots” at the Russians, or keeping watch and ward in
the long lines of trenches, or, stripped to his shirt, shovelling
powder and shot into the great guns, whose steady
roar broke the evening’s calm. So if you did not wait
upon yourself, you would stand a very fair chance of being
starved. But you would open your knapsack, if you had
brought one, for me to fill it with potatoes, and halloo out,
“Never mind, mother!” although the gravy from the fowls
on your saddle before you was soaking through the little
modicum of paper which was all I could afford you. So
laden, you would cheerfully start up the hill of mud hutward;
and well for you if you did not come to grief on that
treacherous sea of mud that lay swelling between the Col
and your destination. Many a mishap, ludicrous but for
their consequences, happened on it. I remember a young
officer coming down one day just in time to carry off my
last fowl and meat pie. Before he had gone far, the horse
so floundered in the mud that the saddle-girths broke, and
while the pies rolled into the clayey soil in one direction,
the fowl flew in another. To make matters worse, the
horse, in his efforts to extricate himself, did for them
entirely; and in terrible distress, the poor fellow came
back for me to set him up again. I shook my head for a
long time, but at last, after he had over and over again
urged upon me pathetically that he had two fellows coming
to dine with him at six, and nothing in the world in his
hut but salt pork, I resigned a plump fowl which I had
kept back for my own dinner. Off he started again, but
[Pg 143]
soon came back with, “Oh, mother, I forgot all about the
potatoes; they’ve all rolled out upon that —— road; you
must fill my bag again.” We all laughed heartily at him,
but this state of things had been rather tragical.

Before I bring this chapter to a close, I should like,
with the reader’s permission, to describe one day of my life
in the Crimea. They were all pretty much alike, except
when there was fighting upon a large scale going on, and
duty called me to the field. I was generally up and busy
by daybreak, sometimes earlier, for in the summer my
bed had no attractions strong enough to bind me to it after
four. There was plenty to do before the work of the day
began. There was the poultry to pluck and prepare for
cooking, which had been killed on the previous night; the
joints to be cut up and got ready for the same purpose;
the medicines to be mixed; the store to be swept and
cleaned. Of very great importance, with all these things
to see after, were the few hours of quiet before the road
became alive with travellers. By seven o’clock the morning
coffee would be ready, hot and refreshing, and eagerly
sought for by the officers of the Army Works Corps engaged
upon making the great high-road to the front, and the
Commissariat and Land Transport men carrying stores from
Balaclava to the heights. There was always a great
demand for coffee by those who knew its refreshing and
strengthening qualities, milk I could not give them (I
kept it in tins for special use); but they had it hot and
strong, with plenty of sugar and a slice of butter, which I
recommend as a capital substitute for milk. From that
time until nine, officers on duty in the neighbourhood, or
passing by, would look in for breakfast, and about half-past
[Pg 144]
nine my sick patients began to show themselves. In
the following hour they came thickly, and sometimes it
was past twelve before I had got through this duty. They
came with every variety of suffering and disease; the cases
I most disliked were the frostbitten fingers and feet in the
winter. That over, there was the hospital to visit across
the way, which was sometimes overcrowded with patients.
I was a good deal there, and as often as possible would
take over books and papers, which I used to borrow for that
purpose from my friends and the officers I knew. Once,
a great packet of tracts was sent to me from Plymouth
anonymously, and these I distributed in the same manner.
By this time the day’s news had come from the front, and
perhaps among the casualties over night there would be
some one wounded or sick, who would be glad to see me
ride up with the comforts he stood most in need of; and
during the day, if any accident occurred in the neighbourhood
or on the road near the British Hotel, the men
generally brought the sufferer there, whence, if the hurt
was serious, he would be transferred to the hospital of the
Land Transport opposite. I used not always to stand upon
too much ceremony when I heard of sick or wounded
officers in the front. Sometimes their friends would ask me
to go to them, though very often I waited for no hint, but
took the chance of meeting with a kind reception. I used
to think of their relatives at home, who would have given
so much to possess my privilege; and more than one officer
have I startled by appearing before him, and telling him
abruptly that he must have a mother, wife, or sister at
home whom he missed, and that he must therefore be glad
of some woman to take their place.

[Pg 145]
Until evening the store would be filled with customers
wanting stores, dinners, and luncheons; loungers and
idlers seeking conversation and amusement; and at eight
o’clock the curtain descended on that day’s labour, and I
could sit down and eat at leisure. It was no easy thing to
clear the store, canteen, and yards; but we determined upon
adhering to the rule that nothing should be sold after that
hour, and succeeded. Any one who came after that time,
came simply as a friend. There could be no necessity for
any one, except on extraordinary occasions, when the rule
could be relaxed, to purchase things after eight o’clock.
And drunkenness or excess were discouraged at Spring Hill
in every way; indeed, my few unpleasant scenes arose
chiefly from my refusing to sell liquor where I saw it was
wanted to be abused. I could appeal with a clear conscience
to all who knew me there, to back my assertion
that I neither permitted drunkenness among the men nor
gambling among the officers. Whatever happened elsewhere,
intoxication, cards, and dice were never to be seen,
within the precincts of the British Hotel. My regulations
were well known, and a kind-hearted officer of the Royals,
who was much there, and who permitted me to use a familiarity
towards him which I trust I never abused, undertook
to be my Provost-marshal, but his duties were very
light.

At first we kept our store open on Sunday from sheer
necessity, but after a little while, when stores in abundance
were established at Kadikoi and elsewhere, and the absolute
necessity no longer existed, Sunday became a day of most
grateful rest at Spring Hill. This step also met with opposition
from the men; but again we were determined, and
[Pg 146]
again we triumphed. I am sure we needed rest. I have
often wondered since how it was that I never fell ill or
came home “on urgent private affairs.” I am afraid that
I was not sufficiently thankful to the Providence which
gave me strength to carry out the work I loved so well, and
felt so happy in being engaged upon; but although I
never had a week’s illness during my campaign, the labour,
anxiety, and perhaps the few trials that followed it, have
told upon me. I have never felt since that time the strong
and hearty woman that I was when I braved with impunity
the pestilence of Navy Bay and Cruces. It would
kill me easily now.

CHAPTER XV.

In the last three chapters, I have attempted, without any
consideration of dates, to give my readers some idea of
my life in the Crimea. I am fully aware that I have jumbled
up events strangely, talking in the same page, and even
sentence, of events which occurred at different times; but I
have three excuses to offer for my unhistorical inexactness.
In the first place, my memory is far from trustworthy, and
I kept no written diary; in the second place, the reader
must have had more than enough of journals and chronicles
[Pg 147]
of Crimean life, and I am only the historian of Spring
Hill; and in the third place, unless I am allowed to tell
the story of my life in my own way, I cannot tell it at all.

I shall now endeavour to describe my out-of-door life
as much as possible, and write of those great events in the
field of which I was a humble witness. But I shall
continue to speak from my own experience simply; and if
the reader should be surprised at my leaving any memorable
action of the army unnoticed, he may be sure that it
is because I was mixing medicines or making good things
in the kitchen of the British Hotel, and first heard the
particulars of it, perhaps, from the newspapers which came
from home. My readers must know, too, that they were
much more familiar with the history of the camp at their
own firesides, than we who lived in it. Just as a spectator
seeing one of the battles from a hill, as I did the Tchernaya,
knows more about it than the combatant in the valley
below, who only thinks of the enemy whom it is his immediate
duty to repel; so you, through the valuable aid of the
cleverest man in the whole camp, read in the Times’ columns
the details of that great campaign, while we, the
actors in it, had enough to do to discharge our own duties
well, and rarely concerned ourselves in what seemed of
such importance to you. And so very often a desperate
skirmish or hard-fought action, the news of which created
so much sensation in England, was but little regarded at
Spring Hill.

My first experience of battle was pleasant enough.
Before we had been long at Spring Hill, Omar Pasha got
something for his Turks to do, and one fine morning they
were marched away towards the Russian outposts on the
[Pg 148]
road to Baidar. I accompanied them on horseback, and enjoyed
the sight amazingly. English and French cavalry
preceded the Turkish infantry over the plain yet full of
memorials of the terrible Light Cavalry charge a few
months before; and while one detachment of the Turks
made a reconnaissance to the right of the Tchernaya, another
pushed their way up the hill, towards Kamara, driving
in the Russian outposts, after what seemed but a
slight resistance. It was very pretty to see them advance,
and to watch how every now and then little clouds of
white smoke puffed up from behind bushes and the crests
of hills, and were answered by similar puffs from the long
line of busy skirmishers that preceded the main body.
This was my first experience of actual battle, and I felt
that strange excitement which I do not remember on future
occasions, coupled with an earnest longing to see more of
warfare, and to share in its hazards. It was not long before
my wish was gratified.

I do not know much of the second bombardment of
Sebastopol in the month of April, although I was as assiduous
as I could be in my attendance at Cathcart’s Hill.
I could judge of its severity by the long trains of wounded
which passed the British Hotel. I had a stretcher laid
near the door, and very often a poor fellow was laid upon
it, outwearied by the terrible conveyance from the front.

After this unsuccessful bombardment, it seemed to us
that there was a sudden lull in the progress of the siege;
and other things began to interest us. There were several
arrivals to talk over. Miss Nightingale came to supervise
the Balaclava hospitals, and, before long, she had practical
experience of Crimean fever. After her, came the Duke
[Pg 149]
of Newcastle, and the great high priest of the mysteries
of cookery, Mons. Alexis Soyer. He was often at Spring
Hill, with the most smiling of faces and in the most gorgeous
of irregular uniforms, and never failed to praise my soups
and dainties. I always flattered myself that I was his
match, and with our West Indian dishes could of course
beat him hollow, and more than once I challenged him to
a trial of skill; but the gallant Frenchman only shrugged
his shoulders, and disclaimed my challenge with many
flourishes of his jewelled hands, declaring that Madame
proposed a contest where victory would cost him his reputation
for gallantry, and be more disastrous than defeat.
And all because I was a woman, forsooth. What nonsense
to talk like that, when I was doing the work of half a dozen
men. Then he would laugh and declare that, when our
campaigns were over, we would render rivalry impossible,
by combining to open the first restaurant in Europe. There
was always fun in the store when the good-natured Frenchman
was there.

One dark, tempestuous night, I was knocked up by the
arrival of other visitors. These were the first regiment of
Sardinian Grenadiers, who, benighted on their way to the
position assigned them, remained at Spring Hill until the
morning. We soon turned out our staff, and lighted up
the store, and entertained the officers as well as we could
inside, while the soldiers bivouacked in the yards around.
Not a single thing was stolen or disturbed that night,
although they had many opportunities. We all admired
and liked the Sardinians; they were honest, well-disciplined
fellows, and I wish there had been no worse men
or soldiers in the Crimea.

[Pg 150]
As the season advanced many visitors came to the
Crimea from all parts of the world, and many of them were
glad to make Spring Hill their head-quarters. We should
have been better off if some of them had spared us this
compliment. A Captain St. Clair, for instance—who could
doubt any one with such a name?—stayed some time with
us, had the best of everything, and paid us most honourably
with one bill upon his agents, while we cashed another to
provide him with money for his homeward route. He was
an accomplished fellow, and I really liked him; but, unfortunately
for us, he was a swindler.

I saw much of another visitor to the camp in the
Crimea—an old acquaintance of mine with whom I had
had many a hard bout in past times—the cholera. There
were many cases in the hospital of the Land Transport
Corps opposite, and I prescribed for many others personally.
The raki sold in too many of the stores in Balaclava
and Kadikoi was most pernicious; and although the
authorities forbade the sutlers to sell it, under heavy penalties,
it found its way into the camp in large quantities.

During May, and while preparations were being made
for the third great bombardment of the ill-fated city,
summer broke beautifully, and the weather, chequered
occasionally by fitful intervals of cold and rain, made us
all cheerful. You would scarcely have believed that the
happy, good-humoured, and jocular visitors to the British
Hotel were the same men who had a few weeks before
ridden gloomily through the muddy road to its door. It
was a period of relaxation, and they all enjoyed it.
Amusement was the order of the day. Races, dog-hunts,
cricket-matches, and dinner-parties were eagerly indulged
[Pg 151]
in, and in all I could be of use to provide the good cheer
which was so essential a part of these entertainments; and
when the warm weather came in all its intensity, and I
took to manufacturing cooling beverages for my friends and
customers, my store was always full. To please all was
somewhat difficult, and occasionally some of them were
scarcely so polite as they should have been to a perplexed
hostess, who could scarcely be expected to remember that
Lieutenant A. had bespoken his sangaree an instant before
Captain B. and his friends had ordered their claret cup.

In anticipation of the hot weather, I had laid in a large
stock of raspberry vinegar, which, properly managed, helps
to make a pleasant drink; and there was a great demand
for sangaree, claret, and cider cups, the cups being battered
pewter pots. Would you like, reader, to know my recipe
for the favourite claret cup? It is simple enough. Claret,
water, lemon-peel, sugar, nutmeg, and—ice—yes, ice, but
not often and not for long, for the eager officers soon made
an end of it. Sometimes there were dinner-parties at
Spring Hill, but of these more hereafter. At one of the
earliest, when the Times correspondent was to be present,
I rode down to Kadikoi, bought some calico and cut it up
into table napkins. They all laughed very heartily, and
thought perhaps of a few weeks previously, when every
available piece of linen in the camp would have been
snapped up for pocket-handkerchiefs.

But the reader must not forget that all this time,
although there might be only a few short and sullen roars
of the great guns by day, few nights passed without some
fighting in the trenches; and very often the news of the
morning would be that one or other of those I knew had
[Pg 152]
fallen. These tidings often saddened me, and when I
awoke in the night and heard the thunder of the guns
fiercer than usual, I have quite dreaded the dawn which
might usher in bad news.

The deaths in the trenches touched me deeply, perhaps
for this reason. It was very usual, when a young officer
was ordered into the trenches, for him to ride down to
Spring Hill to dine, or obtain something more than his
ordinary fare to brighten his weary hours in those fearful
ditches. They seldom failed on these occasions to shake
me by the hand at parting, and sometimes would say,
“You see, Mrs. Seacole, I can’t say good-bye to the dear
ones at home, so I’ll bid you good-bye for them. Perhaps
you’ll see them some day, and if the Russians should
knock me over, mother, just tell them I thought of them
all—will you?” And although all this might be said in a
light-hearted manner, it was rather solemn. I felt it to
be so, for I never failed (although who was I, that I should
preach?) to say something about God’s providence and
relying upon it; and they were very good. No army of
parsons could be much better than my sons. They would
listen very gravely, and shake me by the hand again, while
I felt that there was nothing in the world I would not do
for them. Then very often the men would say, “I’m
going in with my master to-night, Mrs. Seacole; come and
look after him, if he’s hit;” and so often as this happened
I would pass the night restlessly, awaiting with anxiety
the morning, and yet dreading to hear the news it held in
store for me. I used to think it was like having a large
family of children ill with fever, and dreading to hear
which one had passed away in the night.

[Pg 153]
And as often as the bad news came, I thought it my
duty to ride up to the hut of the sufferer and do my
woman’s work. But I felt it deeply. How could it be
otherwise? There was one poor boy in the Artillery, with
blue eyes and light golden hair, whom I nursed through a
long and weary sickness, borne with all a man’s spirit,
and whom I grew to love like a fond old-fashioned mother.
I thought if ever angels watched over any life, they would
shelter his; but one day, but a short time after he had left
his sick-bed, he was struck down on his battery, working
like a young hero. It was a long time before I could
banish from my mind the thought of him as I saw him
last, the yellow hair, stiff and stained with his life-blood,
and the blue eyes closed in the sleep of death. Of course,
I saw him buried, as I did poor H—— V——, my old
Jamaica friend, whose kind face was so familiar to me of
old. Another good friend I mourned bitterly—Captain
B——, of the Coldstreams—a great cricketer. He had been
with me on the previous evening, had seemed dull, but
had supped at my store, and on the following morning a
brother officer told me he was shot dead while setting his
pickets, which made me ill and unfit for work for the whole
day. Mind you, a day was a long time to give to sorrow
in the Crimea.

I could give many other similar instances, but why
should I sadden myself or my readers? Others have
described the horrors of those fatal trenches; but their real
history has never been written, and perhaps it is as well
that so harrowing a tale should be left in oblivion. Such
anecdotes as the following were very current in the Camp,
but I have no means of answering for its truth. Two
[Pg 154]
sergeants met in the trenches, who had been schoolmates in
their youth; years had passed since they set out for the
battle of life by different roads, and now they met again
under the fire of a common enemy. With one impulse
they started forward to exchange the hearty hand-shake
and the mutual greetings, and while their hands were still
clasped, a chance shot killed both.

CHAPTER XVI.

Before I left the Crimea to return to England, the Adjutant-General
of the British Army gave me a testimonial,
which the reader has already read in Chapter XIV., in
which he stated that I had “frequently exerted myself in
the most praiseworthy manner in attending wounded men,
even in positions of great danger.” The simple meaning of
this sentence is that, in the discharge of what I conceived
to be my duty, I was frequently “under fire.” Now I
am far from wishing to speak of this fact with any vanity
or pride, because, after all, one soon gets accustomed to it,
and it fails at last to create more than temporary uneasiness.
Indeed, after Sebastopol was ours, you might often
see officers and men strolling coolly, even leisurely, across
[Pg 155]
and along those streets, exposed to the enemy’s fire, when
a little haste would have carried them beyond the reach of
danger. The truth was, I believe, they had grown so
habituated to being in peril from shot or shell, that they
rather liked the sensation, and found it difficult to get on
without a little gratuitous excitement and danger.

But putting aside the great engagements, where I
underwent considerable peril, one could scarcely move
about the various camps without some risk. The Russians
had, it seemed, sunk great ships’ guns into the earth, from
which they fired shot and shell at a very long range, which
came tumbling and plunging between, and sometimes into
the huts and tents, in a very unwieldy and generally harmless
fashion. Once when I was riding through the camp
of the Rifles, a round shot came plunging towards me, and
before I or the horse had time to be much frightened, the
ugly fellow buried itself in the earth, with a heavy
“thud,” a little distance in front of us.

In the first week of June, the third bombardment of
Sebastopol opened, and the Spring Hill visitors had plenty
to talk about. Many were the surmises as to when the
assault would take place, of the success of which nobody
entertained a doubt. Somehow or other, important secrets
oozed out in various parts of the camp, which the Russians
would have given much to know, and one of these places
was the British Hotel. Some such whispers were afloat
on the evening of Sunday the 17th of June, and excited
me strangely. Any stranger not in my secret would have
considered that my conduct fully justified my partner,
Mr. Day, in sending me home, as better fitted for a cell in
Bedlam than the charge of an hotel in the Crimea. I
[Pg 156]
never remember feeling more excited or more restless than
upon that day, and no sooner had night fairly closed in upon
us than, instead of making preparations for bed, this same
stranger would have seen me wrap up—the nights were
still cold—and start off for a long walk to Cathcart’s Hill,
three miles and a half away. I stayed there until past
midnight, but when I returned home, there was no rest for
me; for I had found out that, in the stillness of the night,
many regiments were marching down to the trenches, and
that the dawn of day would be the signal that should let
them loose upon the Russians. The few hours still left
before daybreak, were made the most of at Spring Hill.
We were all busily occupied in cutting bread and cheese
and sandwiches, packing up fowls, tongues, and ham, wine
and spirits, while I carefully filled the large bag, which I
always carried into the field slung across my shoulder,
with lint, bandages, needles, thread, and medicines; and
soon after daybreak everything was ready packed upon two
mules, in charge of my steadiest lad, and, I leading the
way on horseback, the little cavalcade left the British
Hotel before the sun of the fatal 18th of June had been
many hours old.

It was not long before our progress was arrested by the
cavalry pickets closely stationed to stop all stragglers and
spectators from reaching the scene of action. But after a
Blight parley and when they found out who I was, and
how I was prepared for the day’s work, the men raised a
shout for me, and, with their officer’s sanction, allowed me
to pass. So I reached Cathcart’s Hill crowded with non-combatants,
and, leaving there the mules, loaded myself
with what provisions I could carry, and—it was a work of
[Pg 157]
no little difficulty and danger—succeeded in reaching the
reserves of Sir Henry Barnard’s division, which was to
have stormed something, I forget what; but when they
found the attack upon the Redan was a failure, very wisely
abstained. Here I found plenty of officers who soon relieved
me of my refreshments, and some wounded men
who found the contents of my bag very useful. At length
I made my way to the Woronzoff Road, where the temporary
hospital had been erected, and there I found the
doctors hard enough at work, and hastened to help them
as best I could. I bound up the wounds and ministered
to the wants of a good many, and stayed there some considerable
time.

Upon the way, and even here, I was “under fire.”
More frequently than was agreeable, a shot would come
ploughing up the ground and raising clouds of dust, or a
shell whizz above us. Upon these occasions those around
would cry out, “Lie down, mother, lie down!” and with
very undignified and unladylike haste I had to embrace
the earth, and remain there until the same voices would
laughingly assure me that the danger was over, or one,
more thoughtful than the rest, would come to give me a
helping hand, and hope that the old lady was neither hit
nor frightened. Several times in my wanderings on that
eventful day, of which I confess to have a most confused
remembrance, only knowing that I looked after many
wounded men, I was ordered back, but each time my
bag of bandages and comforts for the wounded proved my
passport. While at the hospital I was chiefly of use
looking after those, who, either from lack of hands or
because their hurts were less serious, had to wait, pained
[Pg 158]
and weary, until the kind-hearted doctors—who, however,
looked more like murderers—could attend to them. And
the grateful words and smile which rewarded me for
binding up a wound or giving cooling drink was a pleasure
worth risking life for at any time. It was here that I received
my only wound during the campaign. I threw
myself too hastily on the ground, in obedience to the command
of those around me, to escape a threatening shell, and
fell heavily on the thumb of my right hand, dislocating it.
It was bound up on the spot and did not inconvenience me
much, but it has never returned to its proper shape.

After this, first washing my hands in some sherry from
lack of water, I went back to Cathcart’s Hill, where I
found my horse, and heard that the good-for-nothing lad,
either frightened or tired of waiting, had gone away with
the mules. I had to ride three miles after him, and then
the only satisfaction I had arose from laying my horse-whip
about his shoulders. After that, working my way
round, how I can scarcely tell, I got to the extreme left
attack, where General Eyre’s division had been hotly engaged
all day, and had suffered severely. I left my horse in
charge of some men, and with no little difficulty, and at
no little risk, crept down to where some wounded men lay,
with whom I left refreshments. And then—it was growing
late—I started for Spring Hill, where I heard all about
the events of the luckless day from those who had seen
them from posts of safety, while I, who had been in the
midst of it all day, knew so little.

On the following day some Irishmen of the 8th Royals
brought me, in token of my having been among them, a
Russian woman’s dress and a poor pigeon, which they had
[Pg 159]
brought away from one of the houses in the suburb where
their regiment suffered so severely.

But that evening of the 18th of June was a sad one,
and the news that came in of those that had fallen were
most heartrending. Both the leaders, who fell so gloriously
before the Redan, had been very good to the mistress of
Spring Hill. But a few days before the 18th, Col. Y—— had
merrily declared that I should have a silver salver to
hand about things upon, instead of the poor shabby one
I had been reduced to; while Sir John C—— had been my
kind patron for some years. It was in my house in Jamaica
that Lady C—— had once lodged when her husband
was stationed in that island. And when the recall home
came, Lady C——, who, had she been like most women,
would have shrunk from any exertion, declared that she
was a soldier’s wife and would accompany him. Fortunately
the “Blenheim” was detained in the roads a few
days after the time expected for her departure, and I put
into its father’s arms a little Scotchman, born within sight
of the blue hills of Jamaica. And yet with these at home,
the brave general—as I read in the Times a few weeks
later—displayed a courage amounting to rashness, and,
sending away his aides-de-camp, rushed on to a certain death.

On the following day, directly I heard of the armistice,
I hastened to the scene of action, anxious to see once more
the faces of those who had been so kind to me in life.
That battle-field was a fearful sight for a woman to
witness, and if I do not pray God that I may never see its
like again, it is because I wish to be useful all my life,
and it is in scenes of horror and distress that a woman can
do so much. It was late in the afternoon, not, I think,
[Pg 160]
until half-past four, that the Russians brought over the
bodies of the two leaders of yesterday’s assault. They
had stripped Sir John of epaulettes, sword, and boots.
Ah! how my heart felt for those at home who would so
soon hear of this day’s fatal work. It was on the following
day, I think, that I saw them bury him near Cathcart’s
Hill, where his tent had been pitched. If I had been in
the least humour for what was ludicrous, the looks and
curiosity of the Russians who saw me during the armistice
would have afforded me considerable amusement. I
wonder what rank they assigned me.

How true it is, as somebody has said, that misfortunes
never come singly. N.B. Pleasures often do. For while
we were dull enough at this great trouble, we had cholera
raging around us, carrying off its victims of all ranks.
There was great distress in the Sardinian camp on this
account, and I soon lost another good customer, General
E——, carried off by the same terrible plague. Before
Mrs. E—— left the Crimea, she sent several useful things,
kept back from the sale of the general’s effects. At this
sale I wanted to buy a useful waggon, but did not like to
bid against Lord W——, who purchased it; but (I tell
this anecdote to show how kind they all were to me) when
his lordship heard of this he sent it over to Spring Hill,
with a message that it was mine for a far lower price than
he had given for it. And since my return home I have
had to thank the same nobleman for still greater favours.
But who, indeed, has not been kind to me?

Within a week after General E——’s death, a still
greater calamity happened. Lord Raglan died—that great
soldier who had such iron courage, with the gentle smile
[Pg 161]
and kind word that always show the good man. I was
familiar enough with his person; for, although people did
not know it in England, he was continually in the saddle
looking after his suffering men, and scheming plans for
their benefit. And the humblest soldier will remember
that, let who might look stern and distant, the first man
in the British army ever had a kind word to give him.

During the time he was ill I was at head-quarters
several times, and once his servants allowed me to peep
into the room where their master lay. I do not think they
knew that he was dying, but they seemed very sad and low—far
more so than he for whom they feared. And on the
day of his funeral I was there again. I never saw such
heartfelt gloom as that which brooded on the faces of his
attendants; but it was good to hear how they all, even the
humblest, had some kind memory of the great general
whom Providence had called from his post at such a season
of danger and distress. And once again they let me into
the room in which the coffin lay, and I timidly stretched
out my hand and touched a corner of the union-jack
which lay upon it; and then I watched it wind its way
through the long lines of soldiery towards Kamiesch, while,
ever and anon, the guns thundered forth in sorrow, not in
anger. And for days after I could not help thinking of
the “Caradoc,” which was ploughing its way through the
sunny sea with its sad burden.

It was not in the nature of the British army to remain
long dull, and before very long we went on gaily as ever,
forgetting the terrible 18th of June, or only remembering
it to look forward to the next assault compensating for all.
And once more the British Hotel was filled with a busy
[Pg 162]
throng, and laughter and fun re-echoed through its iron
rafters. Nothing of consequence was done in the front for
weeks, possibly because Mr. Russell was taking holiday,
and would not return until August.

About this time the stores of the British Hotel were well
filled, not only with every conceivable necessary of life,
but with many of its most expensive luxuries. It was at
this period that you could have asked for few things that I
could not have supplied you with on the spot, or obtained
for you, if you had a little patience and did not mind a
few weeks’ delay. Not only Spring Hill and Kadikoi,
which—a poor place enough when we came—had grown
into a town of stores, and had its market regulations and
police, but the whole camp shared in this unusual plenty.
Even the men could afford to despise salt meat and pork,
and fed as well, if not better, than if they had been in
quarters at home. And there were coffee-houses and
places of amusement opened at Balaclava, and balls given
in some of them, which raised my temper to an unwonted
pitch, because I foresaw the dangers which they had for
the young and impulsive; and sure enough they cost several
officers their commissions. Right glad was I one day
when the great purifier, Fire, burnt down the worst of
these places and ruined its owner, a bad Frenchwoman.
And the railway was in full work, and the great road
nearly finished, and the old one passable, and the mules
and horses looked in such fair condition, that you would
scarcely have believed Farrier C——, of the Land Transport
Corps, who would have told you then, and will tell you
now, that he superintended, on one bleak morning of February,
not six months agone, the task of throwing the
[Pg 163]
corpses of one hundred and eight mules over the cliffs at
Karanyi into the Black Sea beneath.

Of course the summer introduced its own plagues, and
among the worst of these were the flies. I shall never
forget those Crimean flies, and most sincerely hope that,
like the Patagonians, they are only to be found in one
part of the world. Nature must surely have intended
them for blackbeetles, and accidentally given them wings.
There was no exterminating them—no thinning them—no
escaping from them by night or by day. One of my boys
confined himself almost entirely to laying baits and traps
for their destruction, and used to boast that he destroyed
them at the rate of a gallon a day; but I never noticed
any perceptible decrease in their powers of mischief and
annoyance. The officers in the front suffered terribly from
them. One of my kindest customers, a lieutenant serving
in the Royal Naval Brigade, who was a close relative of
the Queen, whose uniform he wore, came to me in great
perplexity. He evidently considered the fly nuisance the
most trying portion of the campaign, and of far more consequence
than the Russian shot and shell. “Mami,” he
said (he had been in the West Indies, and so called me
by the familiar term used by the Creole children), “Mami,
these flies respect nothing. Not content with eating my
prog, they set to at night and make a supper of me,” and
his face showed traces of their attacks. “Confound them,
they’ll kill me, mami; they’re everywhere, even in the
trenches, and you’d suppose they wouldn’t care to go there
from choice. What can you do for me, mami?”

Not much; but I rode down to Mr. B——’s store, at
Kadikoi, where I was lucky in being able to procure a
[Pg 164]
piece of muslin, which I pinned up (time was too precious to
allow me to use needle and thread) into a mosquito net,
with which the prince was delighted. He fell ill later in
the summer, when I went up to his quarters and did all I
could for him.

As the summer wore on, busily passed by all of us at
the British Hotel, rumours stronger than ever were heard
of a great battle soon to be fought by the reinforcements
which were known to have joined the Russian army.
And I think that no one was much surprised when one
pleasant August morning, at early dawn, heavy firing was
heard towards the French position on the right, by the Tchernaya,
and the stream of troops and on-lookers poured from all
quarters in that direction. Prepared and loaded as usual,
I was soon riding in the same direction, and saw the chief
part of the morning’s battle. I saw the Russians cross
and recross the river. I saw their officers cheer and wave
them on in the coolest, bravest manner, until they were
shot down by scores. I was near enough to hear at times,
in the lull of artillery, and above the rattle of the musketry,
the excited cheers which told of a daring attack or a successful
repulse; and beneath where I stood I could see—what
the Russians could not—steadily drawn up, quiet
and expectant, the squadrons of English and French
cavalry, calmly yet impatiently waiting until the Russians’
partial success should bring their sabres into play.
But the contingency never happened; and we saw the
Russians fall slowly back in good order, while the dark-plumed
Sardinians and red-pantalooned French spread out
in pursuit, and formed a picture so excitingly beautiful
that we forgot the suffering and death they left behind.
[Pg 165]
And then I descended with the rest into the field of
battle.

It was a fearful scene; but why repeat this remark.
All death is trying to witness—even that of the good man
who lays down his life hopefully and peacefully; but on
the battle-field, when the poor body is torn and rent in
hideous ways, and the scared spirit struggles to loose itself
from the still strong frame that holds it tightly to the last,
death is fearful indeed. It had come peacefully enough
to some. They lay with half-opened eyes, and a quiet
smile about the lips that showed their end to have been
painless; others it had arrested in the heat of passion, and
frozen on their pallid faces a glare of hatred and defiance
that made your warm blood run cold. But little time had
we to think of the dead, whose business it was to see after
the dying, who might yet be saved. The ground was
thickly cumbered with the wounded, some of them calm
and resigned, others impatient and restless, a few filling
the air with their cries of pain—all wanting water, and
grateful to those who administered it, and more substantial
comforts. You might see officers and strangers, visitors to
the camp, riding about the field on this errand of mercy.
And this, although—surely it could not have been intentional—Russian
guns still played upon the scene of action.
There were many others there, bent on a more selfish task.
The plunderers were busy everywhere. It was marvellous
to see how eagerly the French stripped the dead of what
was valuable, not always, in their brutal work, paying
much regard to the presence of a lady. Some of the
officers, when I complained rather angrily, laughed,
and said it was spoiling the Egyptians; but I do think the
[Pg 166]
Israelites spared their enemies those garments, which,
perhaps, were not so unmentionable in those days as they
have since become.

I attended to the wounds of many French and Sardinians,
and helped to lift them into the ambulances, which
came tearing up to the scene of action. I derived no little
gratification from being able to dress the wounds of several
Russians; indeed, they were as kindly treated as the others.
One of them was badly shot in the lower jaw, and was
beyond my or any human skill. Incautiously I inserted
my finger into his mouth to feel where the ball had lodged,
and his teeth closed upon it, in the agonies of death, so
tightly that I had to call to those around to release it,
which was not done until it had been bitten so deeply that
I shall carry the scar with me to my grave. Poor fellow,
he meant me no harm, for, as the near approach of death
softened his features, a smile spread over his rough inexpressive
face, and so he died.

I attended another Russian, a handsome fellow, and an
officer, shot in the side, who bore his cruel suffering with
a firmness that was very noble. In return for the little
use I was to him, he took a ring off his finger and gave it
to me, and after I had helped to lift him into the ambulance
he kissed my hand and smiled far more thanks than I had
earned. I do not know whether he survived his wounds,
but I fear not. Many others, on that day, gave me thanks
in words the meaning of which was lost upon me, and all
of them in that one common language of the whole world—smiles.

I carried two patients off the field; one a French officer
wounded on the hip, who chose to go back to Spring Hill
[Pg 167]
and be attended by me there, and who, on leaving, told us
that he was a relative of the Marshal (Pelissier); the other, a
poor Cossack colt I found running round its dam, which
lay beside its Cossack master dead, with its tongue hanging
from its mouth. The colt was already wounded in the
ears and fore-foot, and I was only just in time to prevent
a French corporal who, perhaps for pity’s sake, was preparing
to give it it’s coup de grace. I saved the poor thing
by promising to give the Frenchman ten shillings if he
would bring it down to the British Hotel, which he did
that same evening. I attended to its hurts, and succeeded
in rearing it, and it became a great pet at Spring Hill, and
accompanied me to England.

I picked up some trophies from the battle-field, but
not many, and those of little value. I cannot bear the
idea of plundering either the living or the dead; but I
picked up a Russian metal cross, and took from the bodies
of some of the poor fellows nothing of more value than a few
buttons, which I severed from their coarse grey coats.

So end my reminiscences of the battle of the Tchernaya,
fought, as all the world knows, on the 16th of August,
1855.

CHAPTER XVII.

The three weeks following the battle of the Tchernaya
were, I should think, some of the busiest and most eventful
[Pg 168]
the world has ever seen. There was little doing at
Spring Hill. Every one was either at his post, or too
anxiously awaiting the issue of the last great bombardment
to spend much time at the British Hotel. I think that I
lost more of my patients and customers during those few
weeks than during the whole previous progress of the
siege. Scarce a night passed that I was not lulled to sleep
with the heavy continuous roar of the artillery; scarce a
morning dawned that the same sound did not usher in my
day’s work. The ear grew so accustomed during those
weeks to the terrible roar, that when Sebastopol fell the
sudden quiet seemed unnatural, and made us dull. And
during the whole of this time the most perplexing rumours
flew about, some having reference to the day of assault,
the majority relative to the last great effort which it was
supposed the Russians would make to drive us into the
sea. I confess these latter rumours now and then caused
me temporary uneasiness, Spring Hill being on the direct
line of route which the actors in such a tragedy must take.

I spent much of my time on Cathcart’s Hill, watching,
with a curiosity and excitement which became intense, the
progress of the terrible bombardment. Now and then a
shell would fall among the crowd of on-lookers which
covered the hill; but it never disturbed us, so keen and
feverish and so deadened to danger had the excitement
and expectation made us.

In the midst of the bombardment took place the important
ceremony of distributing the Order of the Bath to
those selected for that honour. I contrived to witness this
ceremony very pleasantly; and although it cost me a day,
I considered that I had fairly earned the pleasure. I was
[Pg 169]
anxious to have some personal share in the affair, so I
made, and forwarded to head-quarters, a cake which Gunter
might have been at some loss to manufacture with the
materials at my command, and which I adorned gaily with
banners, flags, etc. I received great kindness from the
officials at the ceremony, and from the officers—some of
rank—who recognised me; indeed, I held quite a little
levée around my chair.

Well, a few days after this ceremony, I thought the
end of the world, instead of the war, was at hand, when
every battery opened and poured a perfect hail of shot and
shell upon the beautiful city which I had left the night
before sleeping so calm and peaceful beneath the stars.
The firing began at early dawn, and was fearful. Sleep
was impossible; so I arose, and set out for my old station
on Cathcart’s Hill. And here, with refreshments for the
anxious lookers-on, I spent most of my time, right glad of
any excuse to witness the last scene of the siege. It was
from this spot that I saw fire after fire break out in
Sebastopol, and watched all night the beautiful yet terrible
effect of a great ship blazing in the harbour, and
lighting up the adjoining country for miles.

The weather changed, as it often did in the Crimea,
most capriciously; and the morning of the memorable
8th of September broke cold and wintry. The same little
bird which had let me into so many secrets, also gave
me a hint of what this day was pregnant with; and very
early in the morning I was on horseback, with my bandages
and refreshments, ready to repeat the work of the 18th
of June last. A line of sentries forbade all strangers passing
through without orders, even to Cathcart’s Hill; but
[Pg 170]
once more I found that my reputation served as a permit,
and the officers relaxed the rule in my favour everywhere.
So, early in the day, I was in my old spot, with my old
appliances for the wounded and fatigued; little expecting,
however, that this day would so closely resemble the day
of the last attack in its disastrous results.

It was noon before the cannonading suddenly ceased;
and we saw, with a strange feeling of excitement, the
French tumble out of their advanced trenches, and roll
into the Malakhoff like a human flood. Onward they seemed
to go into the dust and smoke, swallowed up by hundreds;
but they never returned, and before long we saw workmen
levelling parapets and filling up ditches, over which they
drove, with headlong speed and impetuosity, artillery and
ammunition-waggons, until there could be no doubt that
the Malakhoff was taken, although the tide of battle still
surged around it with violence, and wounded men were
borne from it in large numbers. And before this, our men
had made their attack, and the fearful assault of the Redan
was going on, and failing. But I was soon too busy to
see much, for the wounded were borne in even in greater
numbers than at the last assault; whilst stragglers,
slightly hurt, limped in, in fast-increasing numbers, and
engrossed our attention. I now and then found time to
ask them rapid questions; but they did not appear to know
anything more than that everything had gone wrong. The
sailors, as before, showed their gallantry, and even recklessness,
conspicuously. The wounded of the ladder and
sandbag parties came up even with a laugh, and joked
about their hurts in the happiest conceivable manner.

I saw many officers of the 97th wounded; and, as far
[Pg 171]
as possible, I reserved my attentions for my old regiment,
known so well in my native island. My poor 97th! their
loss was terrible. I dressed the wound of one of its
officers, seriously hit in the mouth; I attended to another
wounded in the throat, and bandaged the hand of a third,
terribly crushed by a rifle-bullet. In the midst of this
we were often interrupted by those unwelcome and impartial
Russian visitors—the shells. One fell so near that
I thought my last hour was come; and, although I had
sufficient firmness to throw myself upon the ground, I was
so seriously frightened that I never thought of rising from
my recumbent position until the hearty laugh of those
around convinced me that the danger had passed by.
Afterwards I picked up a piece of this huge shell, and
brought it home with me.

It was on this, as on every similar occasion, that I saw
the Times correspondent eagerly taking down notes and
sketches of the scene, under fire—listening apparently
with attention to all the busy little crowd that surrounded
him, but without laying down his pencil; and yet finding
time, even in his busiest moment, to lend a helping hand
to the wounded. It may have been on this occasion that
his keen eye noticed me, and his mind, albeit engrossed
with far more important memories, found room to remember
me. I may well be proud of his testimony, borne so
generously only the other day, and may well be excused
for transcribing it from the columns of the Times:—“I
have seen her go down, under fire, with her little store of
creature comforts for our wounded men; and a more
tender or skilful hand about a wound or broken limb could
not be found among our best surgeons. I saw her at the
[Pg 172]
assault on the Redan, at the Tchernaya, at the fall of
Sebastopol, laden, not with plunder, good old soul! but
with wine, bandages, and food for the wounded or the
prisoners.”

I remained on Cathcart’s Hill far into the night, and
watched the city blazing beneath us, awe-struck at the
terrible sight, until the bitter wind found its way through
my thin clothing, and chilled me to the bone; and not till
then did I leave for Spring Hill. I had little sleep that
night. The night was made a ruddy lurid day with the
glare of the blazing town; while every now and then came
reports which shook the earth to its centre. And yet I
believe very many of the soldiers, wearied with their day’s
labour, slept soundly throughout that terrible night, and
awoke to find their work completed: for in the night,
covered by the burning city, Sebastopol was left, a heap of
ruins, to its victors; and before noon on the following day,
none but dead and dying Russians were in the south side
of the once famous and beautiful mistress-city of the
Euxine.

The good news soon spread through the camp. It gave
great pleasure; but I almost think the soldiers would have
been better pleased had the Russians delayed their parting
twelve hours longer, and given the Highlanders and their
comrades a chance of retrieving the disasters of the previous
day. Nothing else could wipe away the soreness of defeat,
or compensate for the better fortune which had befallen
our allies the French.

The news of the evacuation of Sebastopol soon carried
away all traces of yesterday’s fatigue. For weeks past I
had been offering bets to every one that I would not only
[Pg 173]
be the first woman to enter Sebastopol from the English
lines, but that I would be the first to carry refreshments
into the fallen city. And now the time I had longed for
had come. I borrowed some mules from the Land Transport
Corps—mine were knocked up by yesterday’s work—and
loading them with good things, started off with my
partner and some other friends early on that memorable
Sunday morning for Cathcart’s Hill.

When I found that strict orders had been given to
admit no one inside Sebastopol, I became quite excited;
and making my way to General Garrett’s quarters, I made
such an earnest representation of what I considered my
right that I soon obtained a pass, of which the following
is a copy:—

So many attached themselves to my staff, becoming for
the nonce my attendants, that I had some difficulty at
starting; but at last I passed all the sentries safely, much
to the annoyance of many officers, who were trying every
conceivable scheme to evade them, and entered the city.
I can give you no very clear description of its condition on
that Sunday morning, a year and a half ago. Many parts
of it were still blazing furiously—explosions were taking
place in all directions—every step had a score of dangers; and
yet curiosity and excitement carried us on and on. I was
often stopped to give refreshments to officers and men, who
[Pg 174]
had been fasting for hours. Some, on the other hand, had
found their way to Russian cellars; and one body of men
were most ingloriously drunk, and playing the wildest
pranks. They were dancing, yelling, and singing—some
of them with Russian women’s dresses fastened round their
waists, and old bonnets stuck upon their heads.

I was offered many trophies. All plunder was stopped
by the sentries, and confiscated, so that the soldiers could
afford to be liberal. By one I was offered a great velvet
sofa; another pressed a huge arm-chair, which had graced
some Sebastopol study, upon me; while a third begged
my acceptance of a portion of a grand piano. What I did
carry away was very unimportant: a gaily-decorated altar-candle,
studded with gold and silver stars, which the
present Commander-in-Chief condescended to accept as a
Sebastopol memorial; an old cracked China teapot, which
in happier times had very likely dispensed pleasure to
many a small tea-party; a cracked bell, which had rung
many to prayers during the siege, and which I bore away
on my saddle; and a parasol, given me by a drunken soldier.
He had a silk skirt on, and torn lace upon his
wrists, and he came mincingly up, holding the parasol
above his head, and imitating the walk of an affected lady,
to the vociferous delight of his comrades. And all this,
and much more, in that fearful charnel city, with death
and suffering on every side.

It was very hazardous to pass along some of the streets
exposed to the fire of the Russians on the north side of the
harbour. We had to wait and watch our opportunity, and
then gallop for it. Some of us had close shaves of being
hit. More than this, fires still kept breaking out around;
[Pg 175]
while mines and fougasses not unfrequently exploded from
unknown causes. We saw two officers emerge from a heap
of ruins, covered and almost blinded with smoke and dust,
from some such unlooked-for explosion. With considerable
difficulty we succeeded in getting into the quarter of the
town held by the French, where I was nearly getting into
serious trouble.

I had loitered somewhat behind my party, watching,
with pardonable curiosity, the adroitness with which a
party of French were plundering a house; and by the
time my curiosity had been satisfied, I found myself quite
alone, my retinue having preceded me by some few hundred
yards. This would have been of little consequence,
had not an American sailor lad, actuated either by mischief
or folly, whispered to the Frenchmen that I was a Russian
spy; and had they not, instead of laughing at him, credited
his assertion, and proceeded to arrest me. Now, such a
charge was enough to make a lion of a lamb; so I refused
positively to dismount, and made matters worse by knocking
in the cap of the first soldier who laid hands upon me,
with the bell that hung at my saddle. Upon this, six or
seven tried to force me to the guard-house in rather a
rough manner, while I resisted with all my force, screaming
out for Mr. Day, and using the bell for a weapon.
How I longed for a better one I need not tell the reader.
In the midst of this scene came up a French officer, whom
I recognised as the patient I had taken to Spring Hill after
the battle of the Tchernaya, and who took my part at once,
and ordered them to release me. Although I rather
weakened my cause, it was most natural that, directly I
was released, I should fly at the varlet who had caused me
[Pg 176]
this trouble; and I did so, using my bell most effectually,
and aided, when my party returned, by their riding-whips.

This little adventure took up altogether so much time
that, when the French soldiers had made their apologies to
me, and I had returned the compliment to the one whose
head had been dented by my bell, it was growing late, and
we made our way back to Cathcart’s Hill. On the way, a
little French soldier begged hard of me to buy a picture,
which had been cut from above the altar of some church
in Sebastopol. It was too dark to see much of his prize,
but I ultimately became its possessor, and brought it home
with me. It is some eight or ten feet in length, and represents,
I should think, the Madonna. I am no judge of
such things, but I think, although the painting is rather
coarse, that the face of the Virgin, and the heads of
Cherubim that fill the cloud from which she is descending,
are soft and beautiful. There is a look of divine calmness
and heavenly love in the Madonna’s face which is very
striking; and, perhaps, during the long and awful siege
many a knee was bent in worship before it, and many a
heart found comfort in its soft loving gaze.

On the following day I again entered Sebastopol, and
saw still more of its horrors. But I have refrained from
describing so many scenes of woe, that I am loth to dwell
much on these. The very recollection of that woeful
hospital, where thousands of dead and dying had been left
by the retreating Russians, is enough to unnerve the
strongest and sicken the most experienced. I would give
much if I had never seen that harrowing sight. I believe
some Englishmen were found in it alive; but it was as
[Pg 177]
well that they did not live to tell their fearful experience.

I made my way into the Redan also, although every
step was dangerous, and took from it some brown bread,
which seemed to have been left in the oven by the baker
when he fled.

Before many days were passed, some Frenchwomen
opened houses in Sebastopol; but in that quarter of the
town held by the English the prospect was not sufficiently
tempting for me to follow their example, and so I saw out
the remainder of the campaign from my old quarters at
Spring Hill.

CHAPTER XVIII.

Well, the great work was accomplished—Sebastopol was
taken. The Russians had retired sullenly to their stronghold
on the north side of the harbour, from which, every
now and then, they sent a few vain shot and shell, which
sent the amateurs in the streets of Sebastopol scampering,
but gave the experienced no concern. In a few days the
camp could find plenty to talk about in their novel position—and
what then? What was to be done? More fighting?
Another equally terrible and lengthy siege of the north?
That was the business of a few at head-quarters and in
council at home, between whom the electric wires flashed
[Pg 178]
many a message. In the meanwhile, the real workers
applied themselves to plan amusements, and the same
energy and activity which had made Sebastopol a heap of
ruins and a well-filled cemetery—which had dug the miles
of trenches, and held them when made against a desperate
foe—which had manned the many guns, and worked them
so well, set to work as eager to kill their present enemy,
Time, as they had lately been to destroy their fled enemies,
the Russians.

All who were before Sebastopol will long remember
the beautiful autumn which succeeded to so eventful a
summer, and ushered in so pleasantly the second winter of
the campaign. It was appreciated as only those who earn
the right to enjoyment can enjoy relaxation. The camp
was full of visitors of every rank. They thronged the
streets of Sebastopol, sketching its ruins and setting up photographic
apparatus, in contemptuous indifference of the
shot with which the Russians generally favoured every conspicuous
group.

Pleasure was hunted keenly. Cricket matches, pic-nics,
dinner parties, races, theatricals, all found their admirers.
My restaurant was always full, and once more merry
laughter was heard, and many a dinner party was held,
beneath the iron roof of the British Hotel. Several were
given in compliment to our allies, and many distinguished
Frenchmen have tested my powers of cooking. You might
have seen at one party some of their most famous officers.
At once were present a Prince of the Imperial family of
France, the Duc de Rouchefoucault, and a certain corporal
in the French service, who was perhaps the best known
man in the whole army, the Viscount Talon. They
[Pg 179]
expressed themselves highly gratified at the carte, and
perhaps were not a little surprised as course after course
made its appearance, and to soup and fish succeeded
turkeys, saddle of mutton, fowls, ham, tongue, curry,
pastry of many sorts, custards, jelly, blanc-mange, and olives.
I took a peculiar pride in doing my best when they were
present, for I knew a little of the secrets of the French
commissariat. I wonder if the world will ever know
more. I wonder if the system of secresy which has so
long kept veiled the sufferings of the French army before
Sebastopol will ever yield to truth. I used to guess something
of those sufferings when I saw, even after the fall
of Sebastopol, half-starved French soldiers prowling about
my store, taking eagerly even what the Turks rejected as
unfit for human food; and no one could accuse them of
squeamishness. I cannot but believe that in some desks
or bureaux lie notes or diaries which shall one day be given
to the world; and when this happens, the terrible distresses
of the English army will pall before the unheard-of sufferings
of the French. It is true that they carried from
Sebastopol the lion’s share of glory. My belief is that
they deserved it, having borne by far a larger proportion
of suffering.

There were few dinners at Spring Hill at which the
guests did not show their appreciation of their hostess’s labour
by drinking her health; and at the dinner I have above
alluded to, the toast was responded to with such enthusiasm
that I felt compelled to put my acknowledgments into the
form of a little speech, which Talon interpreted to his
countrymen. The French Prince was, after this occasion,
several times at the British Hotel. He was there once
[Pg 180]
when some Americans were received by me with scarcely
that cordiality which I have been told distinguished my
reception of guests; and upon their leaving I told him—quite
forgetting his own connection with America—of my
prejudice against the Yankees. He heard me for a little
while, and then he interrupted me.

“Tenez! Madame Seacole, I too am American a little.”

What a pity I was not born a countess! I am sure I
should have made a capital courtier. Witness my impromptu
answer:—

“I should never have guessed it, Prince.”—And he
seemed amused.

With the theatricals directly I had nothing to do. Had
I been a little younger the companies would very likely
have been glad of me, for no one liked to sacrifice their
beards to become Miss Julia or plain Mary Ann; and even
the beardless subalterns had voices which no coaxing could
soften down. But I lent them plenty of dresses; indeed,
it was the only airing which a great many gay-coloured
muslins had in the Crimea. How was I to know when I
brought them what camp-life was? And in addition to
this, I found it necessary to convert my kitchen into a
temporary green-room, where, to the wonderment, and
perhaps scandal, of the black cook, the ladies of the company
of the 1st Royals were taught to manage their petticoats
with becoming grace, and neither to show their
awkward booted ankles, nor trip themselves up over their
trains. It was a difficult task in many respects. Although
I laced them in until they grew blue in the face, their
waists were a disgrace to the sex; while—crinoline being
unknown then—my struggles to give them becoming
[Pg 181]
embonpoint may be imagined. It was not until a year
later that Punch thought of using a clothes-basket; and I
would have given much for such a hint when I was dresser
to the theatrical company of the 1st Royals. The hair
was another difficulty. To be sure, there was plenty in
the camp, only it was in the wrong place, and many an
application was made to me for a set of curls. However,
I am happy to say I am not become a customer of the
wigmakers yet.

My recollections of hunting in the Crimea are confined
to seeing troops of horsemen sweep by with shouts and
yells after some wretched dog. Once I was very nearly
frightened out of my wits—my first impression being that
the Russians had carried into effect their old threat of
driving us into the sea—by the startling appearance of a
large body of horsemen tearing down the hill after, apparently,
nothing. However I discovered in good time
that, in default of vermin, they were chasing a brother
officer with a paper bag.

My experience of Crimean races are perfect, for I was
present, in the character of cantiniere, at all the more important
meetings. Some of them took place before Christmas,
and some after; but I shall exhaust the subject at
once. I had no little difficulty to get the things on to
the course; and in particular, after I had sat up
the whole night making preparations for the December
races, at the Monastery of St. George, I could not get my
poor mules over the rough country, and found myself, in
the middle of the day, some miles from the course. At
last I gave it up as hopeless, and, dismounting, sat down
by the roadside to consider how I could possibly dispose
[Pg 182]
of the piles of sandwiches, bread, cheese, pies, and tarts,
which had been prepared for the hungry spectators. At
last, some officers, who expected me long before, came to
look after me, and by their aid we reached the course.

I was better off at the next meeting, for a kind-hearted
Major of Artillery provided me with a small bell-tent that
was very useful, and enabled me to keep my stores out of
reach of the light-fingered gentry, who were as busy in the
Crimea as at Epsom or Hampton Court. Over this tent
waved the flag of the British Hotel, but, during the day, it
was struck, for an accident happening to one Captain
D——, he was brought to my tent insensible, where I
quickly improvised a couch of some straw, covered with
the Union Jack, and brought him round. I mention this
trifle to show how ready of contrivance a little campaigning
causes one to become. I had several patients in consequence
of accidents at the races. Nor was I altogether
free from accidents myself. On the occasion of the races
by the Tchernaya, after the armistice, my cart, on turning
a sudden bend in the steep track, upset, and the crates,
containing plates and dishes, rolled over and over until their
contents were completely broken up; so that I was reduced
to hand about sandwiches, etc., on broken pieces of earthenware
and scraps of paper. I saved some glasses, but not
many, and some of the officers were obliged to drink out
of stiff paper twisted into funnel-shaped glasses.

It was astonishing how well the managers of these
Crimean races had contrived to imitate the old familiar
scenes at home. You might well wonder where the racing
saddles and boots, and silk caps and jackets had come from;
but our connection with England was very different to what
[Pg 183]
it had been when I first came to the Crimea, and many a
wife and sister’s fingers had been busy making the racing
gear for the Crimea meetings. And in order that the
course should still more closely resemble Ascot or Epsom,
some soldiers blackened their faces and came out as
Ethiopian serenaders admirably, although it would puzzle
the most ingenious to guess where they got their wigs and
banjoes from. I caught one of them behind my tent in
the act of knocking off the neck of a bottle of champagne,
and, paralysed by the wine’s hasty exit, the only excuse
he offered was, that he wanted to know if the officers’
luxury was better than rum.

A few weeks before Christmas, happened that fearful
explosion, in the French ammunition park, which destroyed
so many lives. We had experienced nothing at all like
it before. The earth beneath us, even at the distance of
three miles, reeled and trembled with the shock; and so
great was the force of the explosion, that a piece of stone
was hurled with some violence against the door of the
British Hotel. We all felt for the French very much,
although I do not think that the armies agreed quite so
well after the taking of the Malakhoff, and the unsuccessful
assault upon the Redan, as they had done previously. I
saw several instances of unpleasantness and collision,
arising from allusions to sore points. One, in particular,
occurred in my store.

The French, when they wanted—it was very seldom—to
wound the pride of the English soldiery, used to say significantly,
in that jargon by which the various nations in
the Crimea endeavoured to obviate the consequences of
what occurred at the Tower of Babel, some time ago,
[Pg 184]
“Malakhoff bono—Redan no bono.” And this, of course, usually
led to recriminatory statements, and history was ransacked
to find something consolatory to English pride. Once I
noticed a brawny man, of the Army Works Corps, bringing
a small French Zouave to my canteen, evidently with the
view of standing treat. The Frenchman seemed mischievously
inclined, and, probably relying upon the good
humour on the countenance of his gigantic companion,
began a little playful badinage, ending with the taunt of
“Redan, no bono—Redan, no bono.” I never saw any man
look so helplessly angry as the Englishman did. For a
few minutes he seemed absolutely rooted to the ground.
Of course he could have crushed his mocking friend with
ease, but how could he answer his taunt. All at once,
however, a happy thought struck him, and rushing up to
the Zouave, he caught him round the waist and threw him
down, roaring out, “Waterloo was bono—Waterloo was
bono.” It was as much as the people on the premises could
do to part them, so convulsed were we all with laughter.

And before Christmas, occurred my first and last attack
of illness in the Crimea. It was not of much consequence,
nor should I mention it but to show the kindness of my
soldier-friends. I think it arose from the sudden commencement
of winter, for which I was but poorly provided.
However, I soon received much sympathy and many
presents of warm clothing, etc.; but the most delicate
piece of attention was shown me by one of the Sappers and
Miners, who, hearing the report that I was dead, positively
came down to Spring Hill to take my measure for a coffin.
This may seem a questionable compliment, but I really
felt flattered and touched with such a mark of thoughtful
[Pg 185]
attention. Very few in the Crimea had the luxury of any
better coffin than a blanket-shroud, and it was very good of
the grateful fellow to determine that his old friend, the
mistress of Spring Hill, should have an honour conceded
to so very few of the illustrious dead before Sebastopol.

So Christmas came, and with it pleasant memories of
home and of home comforts. With it came also news of
home—some not of the most pleasant description—and
kind wishes from absent friends. “A merry Christmas to
you,” writes one, “and many of them. Although you
will not write to us, we see your name frequently in the
newspapers, from which we judge that you are strong and
hearty. All your old Jamaica friends are delighted to
hear of you, and say that you are an honour to the Isle of
Springs.”

I wonder if the people of other countries are as fond of
carrying with them everywhere their home habits as the
English. I think not. I think there was something
purely and essentially English in the determination of the
camp to spend the Christmas-day of 1855 after the good
old “home” fashion. It showed itself weeks before the
eventful day. In the dinner parties which were got up—in
the orders sent to England—in the supplies which came
out, and in the many applications made to the hostess of
the British Hotel for plum-puddings and mince-pies. The
demand for them, and the material necessary to manufacture
them, was marvellous. I can fancy that if returns
could be got at of the flour, plums, currants, and eggs
consumed on Christmas-day in the out-of-the-way Crimean
peninsula, they would astonish us. One determination
appeared to have taken possession of every mind—to spend
[Pg 186]
the festive day with the mirth and jollity which the
changed prospect of affairs warranted; and the recollection
of a year ago, when death and misery were the camp’s
chief guests, only served to heighten this resolve.

For three weeks previous to Christmas-day, my time
was fully occupied in making preparations for it. Pages
of my books are filled with orders for plum-puddings and
mince-pies, besides which I sold an immense quantity of
raw material to those who were too far off to send down
for the manufactured article on Christmas-day, and to such
purchasers I gave a plain recipe for their guidance. Will
the reader take any interest in my Crimean Christmas-pudding?
It was plain, but decidedly good. However,
you shall judge for yourself:—“One pound of flour,
three-quarters of a pound of raisins, three-quarters of a
pound of fat pork, chopped fine, two tablespoonfuls of
sugar, a little cinnamon or chopped lemon, half-pint of
milk or water; mix these well together, and boil four
hours.”

From an early hour in the morning until long after the
night had set in, were I and my cooks busy endeavouring
to supply the great demand for Christmas fare. We had
considerable difficulty in keeping our engagements, but by
substituting mince-pies for plum-puddings, in a few cases,
we succeeded. The scene in the crowded store, and even
in the little over-heated kitchen, with the officers’ servants,
who came in for their masters’ dinners, cannot well be
described. Some were impatient themselves, others dreaded
their masters’ impatience as the appointed dinner hour
passed by—all combined by entreaties, threats, cajolery,
and fun to drive me distracted. Angry cries for the major’s
[Pg 187]
plum-pudding, which was to have been ready an hour ago,
alternated with an entreaty that I should cook the captain’s
mince-pies to a turn—“Sure, he likes them well done,
ma’am. Bake ’em as brown as your own purty face, darlint.”

I did not get my dinner until eight o’clock, and then I
dined in peace off a fine wild turkey or bustard, shot for
me on the marshes by the Tchernaya. It weighed twenty-two
pounds, and, although somewhat coarse in colour, had
a capital flavour.

Upon New Year’s-day I had another large cooking of
plum-puddings and mince-pies; this time upon my own
account. I took them to the hospital of the Land Transport
Corps, to remind the patients of the home comforts
they longed so much for. It was a sad sight to see the once
fine fellows, in their blue gowns, lying quiet and still, and
reduced to such a level of weakness and helplessness.
They all seemed glad for the little home tokens I took
them.

There was one patient who had been a most industrious
and honest fellow, and who did not go into the hospital
until long and wearing illness compelled him. I was particularly
anxious to look after him, but I found him very
weak and ill. I stayed with him until evening, and before
I left him, kind fancy had brought to his bedside his wife
and children from his village-home in England, and I
could hear him talking to them in a low and joyful tone.
Poor, poor fellow! the New Year so full of hope and
happiness had dawned upon him, but he did not live to
see the wild flowers spring up peacefully through the war-trodden
sod before Sebastopol.

[Pg 188]

CHAPTER XIX.

Before the New Year was far advanced we all began to think
of going home, making sure that peace would soon be concluded.
And never did more welcome message come anywhere
than that which brought us intelligence of the armistice,
and the firing, which had grown more and more slack
lately, ceased altogether. Of course the army did not
desire peace because they had any distaste for fighting; so
far from it, I believe the only more welcome intelligence
would have been news of a campaign in the field, but they
were most heartily weary of sieges, and the prospect of
another year before the gloomy north of Sebastopol damped
the ardour of the most sanguine. Before the armistice
was signed, the Russians and their old foes made advances
of friendship, and the banks of the Tchernaya used to be
thronged with strangers, and many strange acquaintances
were thus began. I was one of the first to ride down to
the Tchernaya, and very much delighted seemed the
Russians to see an English woman. I wonder if they
thought they all had my complexion. I soon entered
heartily into the then current amusement—that of exchanging
coin, etc., with the Russians. I stole a march
upon my companions by making the sign of the cross upon
[Pg 189]
my bosom, upon which a Russian threw me, in exchange
for some pence, a little metal figure of some ugly saint.
Then we wrapped up halfpence in clay, and received coins
of less value in exchange. Seeing a soldier eating some
white bread, I made signs of wanting some, and threw
over a piece of money. I had great difficulty in making
the man understand me, but after considerable pantomime,
with surprise in his round bullet eyes, he wrapped up his
bread in some paper, then coated it with clay and sent it
over to me. I thought it would look well beside my
brown bread taken from the strange oven in the terrible
Redan, and that the two would typify war and peace.
There was a great traffic going on in such things, and a wag
of an officer, who could talk Russian imperfectly, set himself
to work to persuade an innocent Russian that I was his
wife, and having succeeded in doing so promptly offered to
dispose of me for the medal hanging at his breast.

The last firing of any consequence was the salutes with
which the good tidings of peace were received by army
and navy. After this soon began the home-going with
happy faces and light hearts, and some kind thoughts and
warm tears for the comrades left behind.

I was very glad to hear of peace, also, although it
must have been apparent to every one that it would cause
our ruin. We had lately made extensive additions to our
store and out-houses—our shelves were filled with articles
laid in at a great cost, and which were now unsaleable,
and which it would be equally impossible to carry home.
Everything, from our stud of horses and mules down to our
latest consignments from home, must be sold for any price;
and, as it happened, for many things, worth a year ago
[Pg 190]
their weight in gold, no purchaser could now be found.
However, more of this hereafter.

Before leaving the Crimea, I made various excursions
into the interior, visiting Simpheropol and Baktchiserai.
I travelled to Simpheropol with a pretty large party, and
had a very amusing journey. My companions were young
and full of fun, and tried hard to persuade the Russians
that I was Queen Victoria, by paying me the most absurd
reverence. When this failed they fell back a little, and
declared that I was the Queen’s first cousin. Anyhow,
they attracted crowds about me, and I became quite a
lioness in the streets of Simpheropol, until the arrival of
some Highlanders in their uniform cut me out.

My excursion to Baktchiserai was still more amusing
and pleasant. I found it necessary to go to beat up a
Russian merchant, who, after the declaration of peace, had
purchased stores of us, and some young officers made
up a party for the purpose. We hired an araba, filled it
with straw, and some boxes to sit upon, and set out very
early, with two old umbrellas to shield us from the mid-day
sun and the night dews. We had with us a hamper
carefully packed, before parting, with a cold duck, some
cold meat, a tart, etc. The Tartar’s two horses were soon
knocked up, and the fellow obtained a third at a little
village, and so we rolled on until mid-day, when,
thoroughly exhausted, we left our clumsy vehicle and
carried our hamper beneath the shade of a beautiful cherry-tree,
and determined to lunch. Upon opening it the first
thing that met our eyes was a fine rat, who made a speedy
escape. Somewhat gravely, we proceeded to unpack its
contents, without caring to express our fears to one
[Pg 191]
another, and quite soon enough we found them realized.
How or where the rat had gained access to our hamper it
was impossible to say, but he had made no bad use of his
time, and both wings of the cold duck had flown, while
the tart was considerably mangled. Sad discovery this for
people who, although, hungry, were still squeamish. We
made out as well as we could with the cold beef, and gave
the rest to our Tartar driver, who had apparently no disinclination
to eating after the rat, and would very likely
have despised us heartily for such weakness. After dinner
we went on more briskly, and succeeded in reaching
Baktchiserai. My journey was perfectly unavailing. I
could not find my debtor at home, and if I had I was told
it would take three weeks before the Russian law would
assist me to recover my claim. Determined, however, to
have some compensation, I carried off a raven, who had
been croaking angrily at my intrusion. Before we had
been long on our homeward journey, however, Lieut.
C—— sat upon it, of course accidentally, and we threw it
to its relatives—the crows.

As the spring advanced, the troops began to move away
at a brisk pace. As they passed the Iron House upon the
Col—old for the Crimea, where so much of life’s action had
been compressed into so short a space of time—they would
stop and give us a parting cheer, while very often the band
struck up some familiar tune of that home they were so
gladly seeking. And very often the kind-hearted officers
would find time to run into the British Hotel to bid us
good-bye, and give us a farewell shake of the hand; for
you see war, like death, is a great leveller, and mutual
suffering and endurance had made us all friends. “My dear
[Pg 192]
Mrs. Seacole, and my dear Mr. Day,” wrote one on a scrap
of paper left on the counter, “I have called here four
times this day, to wish you good-bye. I am so sorry I was
not fortunate enough to see you. I shall still hope to see
you to-morrow morning. We march at seven a.m.”

And yet all this going home seemed strange and somewhat
sad, and sometimes I felt that I could not sympathise
with the glad faces and happy hearts of those who were
looking forward to the delights of home, and the joy of
seeing once more the old familiar faces remembered so
fondly in the fearful trenches and the hard-fought battle-fields.
Now and then we would see a lounger with a
blank face, taking no interest in the bustle of departure,
and with him I acknowledged to have more fellow-feeling
than with the others, for he, as well as I, clearly had no
home to go to. He was a soldier by choice and necessity,
as well as by profession. He had no home, no loved
friends; the peace would bring no particular pleasure to
him, whereas war and action were necessary to his
existence, gave him excitement, occupation, the chance
of promotion. Now and then, but seldom, however, you
came across such a disappointed one. Was it not so with
me? Had I not been happy through the months of toil
and danger, never knowing what fear or depression was,
finding every moment of the day mortgaged hours in
advance, and earning sound sleep and contentment by sheer
hard work? What better or happier lot could possibly
befall me? And, alas! how likely was it that my present
occupation gone, I might long in vain for another so
stirring and so useful. Besides which, it was pretty sure
that I should go to England poorer than I left it, and
[Pg 193]
although I was not ashamed of poverty, beginning life
again in the autumn—I mean late in the summer of life—is
hard up-hill work.

Peace concluded, the little jealousies which may have
sprung up between the French and their allies seemed forgotten,
and every one was anxious, ere the parting came,
to make the most of the time yet left in improving old
friendships and founding new. Among others, the 47th,
encamped near the Woronzoff Road, gave a grand parting
entertainment to a large company of their French neighbours,
at which many officers of high rank were present.
I was applied to by the committee of management to superintend
the affair, and, for the last time in the Crimea, the
health of Madame Seacole was proposed and duly honoured.
I had grown so accustomed to the honour that I had no
difficulty in returning thanks in a speech which Colonel
B—— interpreted amid roars of laughter to the French
guests.

As the various regiments moved off, I received many
acknowledgments from those who thought they owed me
gratitude. Little presents, warm farewell words, kind
letters full of grateful acknowledgments for services so
small that I had forgotten them long, long ago—how easy
it is to reach warm hearts!—little thoughtful acts of kindness,
even from the humblest. And these touched me the
most. I value the letters received from the working men
far more than the testimonials of their officers. I had
nothing to gain from the former, and can point to their
testimony fearlessly. I am strongly tempted to insert
some of these acknowledgments, but I will confine myself
to one:—

But I had other friends in the Crimea—friends who
could never thank me. Some of them lay in their last
sleep, beneath indistinguishable mounds of earth; some in
the half-filled trenches, a few beneath the blue waters of
the Euxine. I might in vain attempt to gather the wild
flowers which sprung up above many of their graves, but
I knew where some lay, and could visit their last homes
[Pg 195]
on earth. And to all the cemeteries where friends rested so
calmly, sleeping well after a life’s work nobly done, I
went many times, lingering long over many a mound that
bore the names of those whom I had been familiar with
in life, thinking of what they had been, and what I had
known of them. Over some I planted shrubs and flowers,
little lilac trees, obtained with no small trouble, and flowering
evergreens, which looked quite gay and pretty ere I left,
and may in time become great trees, and witness strange
scenes, or be cut down as fuel for another besieging army—who
can tell? And from many graves I picked up pebbles,
and plucked simple wild-flowers, or tufts of grass, as
memorials for relatives at home. How pretty the cemeteries
used to look beneath the blue peaceful sky; neatly
enclosed with stone walls, and full of the grave-stones
reared by friends over friends. I met many here, thoughtfully
taking their last look of the resting-places of those
they knew and loved. I saw many a proud head bowed
down above them. I knew that many a proud heart laid
aside its pride here, and stood in the presence of death,
humble and childlike. And by the clasped hand and
moistened eye, I knew that from many a heart sped upward
a grateful prayer to the Providence which had
thought fit in his judgment to take some, and in his
mercy to spare the rest.

Some three weeks before the Crimea was finally evacuated,
we moved from our old quarters to Balaclava, where
we had obtained permission to fit up a store for the short
time which would elapse before the last red coat left
Russian soil. The poor old British Hotel! We could do
nothing with it. The iron house was pulled down, and
[Pg 196]
packed up for conveyance home, but the Russians got all of
the out-houses and sheds which was not used as fuel. All
the kitchen fittings and stoves, that had cost us so much,
fell also into their hands. I only wish some cook worthy
to possess them has them now. We could sell nothing.
Our horses were almost given away, our large stores of
provisions, etc., were at any one’s service. It makes my
heart sick to talk of the really alarming sacrifices we made.
The Russians crowded down ostensibly to purchase, in
reality to plunder. Prime cheeses, which had cost us tenpence
a pound, were sold to them for less than a penny a pound;
for wine, for which we had paid forty-eight shillings a
dozen, they bid four shillings. I could not stand this, and
in a fit of desperation, I snatched up a hammer and broke
up case after case, while the bystanders held out their
hands and caught the ruby stream. It may have been
wrong, but I was too excited to think. There was no
more of my own people to give it to, and I would rather
not present it to our old foes.

We were among the last to leave the Crimea. Before
going I borrowed a horse, easy enough now, and rode up
the old well-known road—how unfamiliar in its loneliness
and quiet—to Cathcart’s Hill. I wished once more to impress
the scene upon my mind. It was a beautifully clear
evening, and we could see miles away across the darkening
sea. I spent some time there with my companions, pointing
out to each other the sites of scenes we all remembered
so well. There were the trenches, already becoming indistinguishable,
out of which, on the 8th of September, we
had seen the storming parties tumble in confused and
scattered bodies, before they ran up the broken height of
[Pg 197]
the Redan. There the Malakhoff, into which we had also
seen the luckier French pour in one unbroken stream;
below lay the crumbling city and the quiet harbour, with
scarce a ripple on its surface, while around stretched
away the deserted huts for miles. It was with something
like regret that we said to one another that the play was
fairly over, that peace had rung the curtain down, and that
we, humble actors in some of its most stirring scenes, must
seek engagements elsewhere.

I lingered behind, and stooping down, once more
gathered little tufts of grass, and some simple blossoms
from above the graves of some who in life had been very
kind to me, and I left behind, in exchange, a few tears
which were sincere.

A few days latter, and I stood on board a crowded
steamer, taking my last look of the shores of the Crimea.

CONCLUSION.

I did not return to England by the most direct route, but
took the opportunity of seeing more of men and manners
in yet other lands. Arrived in England at last, we set to
work bravely at Aldershott to retrieve our fallen fortunes,
and stem off the ruin originated in the Crimea, but all in
vain; and at last defeated by fortune, but not I think disgraced,
we were obliged to capitulate on very honourable
conditions. In plain truth, the old Crimean firm of Seacole
and Day was dissolved finally, and its partners had to
recommence the world anew. And so ended our campaign.
[Pg 198]
One of us started only the other day for the Antipodes,
while the other is ready to take any journey to any place
where a stout heart and two experienced hands may be
of use.

Perhaps it would be right if I were to express more
shame and annoyance than I really feel at the pecuniarily
disastrous issue of my Crimean adventures, but I cannot—I
really cannot. When I would try and feel ashamed of
myself for being poor and helpless, I only experience a
glow of pride at the other and more pleasing events of my
career; when I think of the few whom I failed to pay in
full (and so far from blaming me some of them are now
my firmest friends), I cannot help remembering also the
many who profess themselves indebted to me.

Let me, in as few words as possible, state the results
of my Crimean campaign. To be sure, I returned from it
shaken in health. I came home wounded, as many others
did. Few constitutions, indeed, were the better for those
winters before Sebastopol, and I was too hard worked not
to feel their effects; for a little labour fatigues me now—I
cannot watch by sick-beds as I could—a week’s want of
rest quite knocks me up now. Then I returned bankrupt
in fortune. Whereas others in my position may have come
back to England rich and prosperous, I found myself
poor—beggared. So few words can tell what I have lost.

But what have I gained? I should need a volume to
describe that fairly; so much is it, and so cheaply purchased
by suffering ten times worse than what I have experienced.
I have more than once heard people say that they would
gladly suffer illness to enjoy the delights of convalescence,
and so, by enduring a few days’ pain, gain the tender love
[Pg 199]
of relatives and sympathy of friends. And on this principle
I rejoice in the trials which have borne me such
pleasures as those I now enjoy, for wherever I go I am
sure to meet some smiling face; every step I take in the
crowded London streets may bring me in contact with
some friend, forgotten by me, perhaps, but who soon
reminds me of our old life before Sebastopol; it seems
very long ago now, when I was of use to him and he
to me.

Where, indeed, do I not find friends. In omnibuses,
in river steamboats, in places of public amusement, in
quiet streets and courts, where taking short cuts I lose my
way oft-times, spring up old familiar faces to remind me of
the months spent on Spring Hill. The sentries at Whitehall
relax from the discharge of their important duty of
guarding nothing to give me a smile of recognition; the
very newspaper offices look friendly as I pass them by;
busy Printing-house Yard puts on a cheering smile, and
the Punch office in Fleet Street sometimes laughs outright.
Now, would all this have happened if I had returned to
England a rich woman? Surely not.

A few words more ere I bring these egotistical remarks
to a close. It is naturally with feelings of pride and pleasure
that I allude to the committee recently organized to
aid me; and if I indulge in the vanity of placing their
names before my readers, it is simply because every one of
the following noblemen and gentlemen knew me in the
Crimea, and by consenting to assist me now record publicly
their opinion of my services there. And yet I may reasonably
on other grounds be proud of the fact, that it has
been stated publicly that my present embarrassments
[Pg 200]
originated in my charities and incessant labours among the
army, by

THE END.

London: Printed by Thomas Harrild, 11, Salisbury Square, Fleet Street.