My dear Mother, — Our Division embarked from Scutari on Tuesday last, and arrived at Varna on Wednesday afternoon. We saw the combined fleet lying at anchor off Kavarna, about two miles off. The Generals and their staffs of the two Brigades had a ship to ourselves; we disembarked our horses and baggage as soon as we could, but not till the night had already set in with rain, so that we began the first night of our campaign in real earnest, for we did not land at the town, but on the south side of the Bay, where there was no habitation of any kind. We had to land at a very rough kind of pier run out for the disembarkation of troops by our sappers, and as the night was very dark, and there was a good deal of baggage to get on shore besides forty horses, there was some little confusion and one or two things lost. We then had to pitch our tents in the midst of the rain, picket our horses, and make snug for the night. I never slept sounder in all my life, for the pattering of the rain against a tent is always an agreeable soporific, unless it is blowing a hurricane. The next morning we packed our baggage animals, and rode round the head of the lake to the outside of the town, where our Division was to be encamped; and here we are in a fresh encamping-ground, not so beautiful as the last, but still very pretty. We are just outside the trumpery little fortifications of Varna — here and there are large tumuli, where the Russians buried their dead in 1828-29; the men build their kitchens against the sides, or rather dig them into the sides of these mounds, and occasionally the bones inside get burnt by the fire. Several broken pieces of a shell have been picked up, a grape-shot, and the brass plate of a Russian soldier's cloak with [? the number of] his regiment upon it, the remains of the siege of 1828-29. The plain on which we are encamped is a very pretty piece of ground, with the Devna Lake on one side of it and a range of lofty hills on the other, which flow and run west and east. The French are encamped in the plain as well as ourselves; we are all mixed up together (of course each army has its separate piece of ground), we fraternise immensely. They have one Division in advance on the top of the high range I have mentioned to watch our front; and we have a Division about 9 miles up the plain at a place called Aladyn, at the other end of the Devna Lake, to watch our left. I rode to this place yesterday over such a pretty country, one mass of uninterrupted verdure, hardly cultivated anywhere, but fertile to a
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degree. In good hands this would be a splendid country: it wants water certainly, there are no rivers but plenty of springs, cattle are in abundance and fowls cheap to your heart's content; geese sell for is. apiece, and green geese for 6d. apiece. I do not know what our next movements will be; they are, however, sadly hampered by the Commissariat, the heads of which department are utterly inefficient. The chief is long past his work, and ought to be sent home; we cannot move, owing to his utter want of foresight and common precaution, and general mismanagement in not providing the army with proper means of transport to move up the country, and he has established no proper depot of grain or the means of subsistence, as he ought to have done. I had such a touching and beautiful letter from dear Ella the other day announcing the sad result of her visit to Odessa. I was introduced to Captain Drummond of the Retribution yesterday; he spoke in such high terms of Ella: she is indeed a noble creature. He told me that she visited all the prisoners at Odessa, and addressed a few parting words to them, telling them she hoped they would not forget all the advice their late Captain used to give them as to their behaviour. Everyone speaks in such high terms of the noble manner in which she has behaved. I do feel proud of her. Captain Drummond told me that poor Henry was universally beloved in the Fleet, and that the Tiger would never have been lost had he been well, but that when the ship ran ashore he was ill in bed of a fever. He had this fever on him before the bombardment of Odessa, but said nothing about it for fear it should prevent his going, and immediately after the affair he took to his bed. He did his duty like a true and gallant sailor. And now God bless you, my dear mother. — Ever your affectionate son,
Fredk. Stephenson.
To Lady Stephenson