1 854] GRIEF OVER BAD NEWS 8i poor dear mother and all my sisters will bear this sad shock with all the fortitude and resignation that can be expected. Poor Ella! it is a sad honour for her to have been the first called upon to make a sacrifice for the dear old country. There is nothing to be said more. He has done his duty, and may he meet his reward. The regrets in the Fleet are deep in the greatest degree; he was universally loved, and nothing can be more gratifying than the terms in which I hear him spoken of. The officers of the Fleet consider the bad turn his wound has taken to be owing partly to a previous bad state of health, but principally to his distress of mind at losing his ship, although not the slightest particle of blame is attached to any individual in the ship. The regrets of the Fleet — for they unwillingly allude to the subject — are entirely out of respect to his sufferings, mental and bodil}^ on the occasion.
Our Light Division under Sir G. Brown sailed for Varna yesterday; our Division goes next, under the Duke of Cambridge. As soon as the transports return, which will be about the latter end of this week, the 2nd or 3rd of June, the army will encamp near a place called Devna or Devina, at the head of a small lake of that name, close to Varna — you will probably see it in my large Atlas. When the allied army is concentrated we shall advance to attack the enemy. I told William in my last that we shall march to relieve Silistria; since then I have heard that we shall march to Trajan's Wall, in front of which the Russians are entrenched. I promise you we will give a good account of the Russians whenever we do meet them, for nothing can exceed the good state, mental and bodily, our troops are in, and their anxiety to be moving. This letter will be a dull and stupid one, but I feel poor Henry's loss too much to be able to send you amusing descriptions of all I see..,. And now God bless you, my dear mother. I am in the best health, and except for this news from the Black Sea in the highest spirits. — Ever your affectionate son, Fredk. Stephenson.
To Lady Stephenson
Camp Scutari, June 5, 1854.
My dear Mother, — Our departure from Scutari is postponed, but I think only for a few days. The fact is, we are unprovided with baggage animals, and until the Commissariat furnish them we should not be able to move up to the Danube, even if we were sent to Varna. The Light Division, which moved up a week ago, had to borrow 150 animals from Omar Pasha, when they disembarked to carry their reserve ammunition to their camp. Two officers from each battalion of our Brigade have been sent by Lord Raglan to scour the neighbouring country, and try and buy as many horses as they can. This is properly the duty of the Commissariat, but whether the neglect is their fault or that of the Government for not sending that department out here sooner, is more than I can tell. Lord Raglan goes up to Varna again to-day, and will return in a day or two. Omar Pasha sent him a special courier two or three days ago to announce that the Russians in attempting to storm Silistria or its outworks had been repulsed with heavy loss, and that there was now free communication with that town. You get news in England concerning this war with so much more certainty than we do, that anything I can tell you may be no news at all; but there is apparently great uncertainty as to our movements, owing, I imagine, to the following reasons: first and foremost, we are not prepared to move from want of guns, cavalry, and baggage animals; secondly, I believe that the Russians are dying away like rotten sheep in the Dobrutska, and if so we cannot do better than let them alone; and lastly, Austria and even Sweden seem to be coming over to our side, and perhaps we are waiting till something more decided is settled on that point. I walked the other day round the walls of Constantinople from the Seven Towers on the Sea of Marmora
1 854] WALLS OF CONSTANTINOPLE 83