Danube, and the Bulgarian villages of half underground mud houses afforded no accommodation, being already overcrowded by refugees. All our supplies of wood and munitions of war have had to come from Russia along one rickety line of railway, as Hungary combined with Turkey to starve out the Russians and Roumanians from Bulgaria, and now that railway was blocked with snow, and the communications across the Danube most uncertain; so it seemed necessary to convey the prisoners nearer to the Russian resources, and trust to the comparatively milder weather keeping up for a few days more. The Russian army was not all supplied with warm clothing, so there was none to spare for the prisoners, who when they were captured were very ill-provided with clothes. Still the milder weather might continue, and all would be well.

The prisoners started under Russian and Roumanian escorts in different directions, but in the end all were obliged to cross the river at Sistova, for a most terrific storm arose on the 18th, and this time it entirely carried away the newly-repaired bridge at Nikopolis. The waggons which had set out with them to convey provisions were stopped by the snow, and they had to carry their scanty amount of food, huddling together the first night, trying to keep warm in a deserted and roofless Bulgarian village, so that the weakest succumbed to the cold, and some of their more warmly clothed guards were frozen to death. But nothing could be done but push on, hoping to meet provisions on the way; instead of which a cold pitiless icy snow-storm driven in their faces by the north-east wind, obstructed their journey along the whole route. Some fell down and could proceed no further; and if they died, their clothes were at once stripped off, to supplement the torn rags which were the only covering of men who in numerous instances had come from northern Africa or the warm districts round Bagdad. Poor fellows! they bore their sufferings and fatigue with a resignation which made us forget their barbarous cruelty to the wounded prisoners who had fallen into their hands, and of whom not one remained alive to welcome us into Plevna.

An old campaigner says that things were as bad with the Russians during the siege of Sevastopol in the winter of 1854-5, and that many of their recruits were frozen to death between Odessa and the seat of war, while others were actually starved to death. He tells me that, after Alma and Inkermann, the Russian desperately wounded were sent untended by the Allies under a flag of truce to Odessa; and that

after our war-ships had bombarded Kertch, Taganrog, and other towns on the coasts, the French and Turks pillaged and destroyed the houses of the Tartar and Russian population, who were consequently taken on board the British fleet and landed at Odessa-to embarrass the Russians -while hospital fever was raging there; and that he himself occupied a cellar in Sevastopol with one hundred wounded, all of whom, except himself, were corpses when, two days after the capture of that city, the allied armies first sent their surgeons to examine into the condition of the Russian prisoners. I was not at Sevastopol, but I was at Sedan when the French army surrendered in 1870, and for two days was without food. Some of the wounded also lay on the fields round that town for many nights; but the weather was warm and beautiful, most unlike the ice and snow of Bulgaria in December. When the Turkish prisoners at last arrived at Sistova, they were lodged in comparative comfort, but then began their march through Roumania, amid fresh snow-storms and a degree of cold which had not been known in these parts for fifty years, added to which they had brought away the seeds of typhus fever and small-pox, which now began to show themselves.

At the beginning of the war the Russian ambulances were so well supplied, that English aid to the sick and wounded was all sent to Turkey, whose arrangements in that respect were below criticism. And lest the voluntary services of the English surgeons should be rejected if they appeared wearing the badge of Christians, they adopted a crescent on their sleeves and caps to show their good will to Mahometans, whom they were engaged especially to assist. Even this did not, however, protect them from the Circassians, who are of no creed at all, and are ready to pillage Mahometan and Christian indiscriminately, nor always from the Bashi-bazouks; and the Eastern Christian who has seen his relatives murdered before his eyes, rather than assume any sign of Mahometanism, cannot comprehend this religious liberality. It also surprised the Jewish and Mahometan officers; these are numerous enough in the Russian army to astonish an Englishman, who is apt to forget that the Czar has more Mahometan subjects even in Europe than the Sultan ever had there, and nearly 3,000,000 Jewish subjects. The last are the chief bankers and government contractors throughout Russia, and there are Jewish and Mahometan imperial aids-de-camp. But as time went on, and not only their own, but a greater part of the Turkish wounded was thrown upon the Russian hands, her Red Cross Society became sorely pressed, and a small English sub

scription was raised for Russia, to show England's neutrality, to which Mr. Meynell and several noblemen were munificent donors. It was altogether far less than the handsome sums which had flowed into Turkey; but Dr. Humphrey Sandwith, one of the Kars heroes in 1855, was sent to dispense it at Bucharest, and he erected a large wooden hospital at Putenieu, which he placed under the direction of M. le Baron de Benkendorf and the Russian Sisters of Mercy-an admirable corps,—and this was entirely devoted to the succour of the Turkish prisoners as they passed through on their way to Bucharest, and has probably saved hundreds of lives. Nothing makes men so selfish as extreme cold, and, naturally egotistical, the Turkish soldiers pushed their own dying comrades away from the fire, and fought with them for the hot soup which the Sisters of Mercy brought them as they halted for the night; but on Dr. Sandwith coming in, and remonstrating with them in their own tongue, they allowed the weaker ones to have an equal share.

The Turkish officers condemn Osman Pasha for holding on so long in the hope of starving out the besiegers, when, if such a hope failed, it must bring the greater misery to the besieged. Paris, in 1871, capitulated with eight days' provisions left; yet trucks of food and fuel had been waiting for weeks at Folkestone and Boulogne, ready to pour into the city; as it was thought, even with a line of railway extending to all parts of Germany and France, the besieging army could not be expected to preserve the inhabitants from starvation. And here was Plevna with the besieging army blocked in on all sides except one by the Turks, and that one side liable to be entirely impeded by snow, wind, or thaw. But a commander invariably gains his renown at the expense of humanity. "I never met glory yet," says a modern writer,

and I do not know what he or she is like, but I have met war face to face in half a dozen countries. If the warlike politicians were to witness just half an hour of actual warfare as I have witnessed it in America, in Italy, in Mexico, in France, in Spain, their martial ardour would cool down a little, and they would not be quite so prompt to blow the bellicose trumpet."

The Crimean war left a terrible legacy of famine to Lapland and Finland, for the allied ships destroyed the villages and stores of grain on the coasts, and in those bleak countries nature is slow in repair, and there was then no railroad to connect them with Southern Russia. People died, as they are dying in China now, after subsisting on bark

and grass, till they were too weak to reach the relief stores which were established at wide distances by the Russian government. It is said that the full extent of the calamity was carefully kept from the Emperor lest it should make him low-spirited, till he read it in the Times. After Napoleon's abdication in 1814, typhus fever raged in Germany and Italy for three years, the result of over-crowded hospitals, spreading infection among the civil population; and in 1816, our own island heavily taxed to pay for the long French war, was afflicted with a bad harvest in common with Germany and France, and the poor in Manchester and Birmingham were seen collecting potatoe peelings in the gutters for food; while in foreign countries our manufactures and colonial produce were prohibited, to prevent them from competing with the continental manufactories, which only sprang into life during that war, so that a depressed trade added to the national distress.

Marshal Blucher used to say, there would be no wars, if those who made them had to march in the van of an army; and it might also be added, if they also clearly foresaw the inevitable, but always underestimated cost.

EASTER-TIDE.

As Spring is the season in the natural year in which the blossoms we welcome so gladly are "nursed by weeping skies;" when "stern March winds, soft April showers, brace the roots, embalm the flowers," so Lent is the season in the Church's year in which "pure thoughts and orderly desires" are increased by lowly penitence; when unsparing self-denial strengthens and purifies steadfast resolutions, and the gracious influence of the HOLY SPIRIT causes these resolves to bud and bring forth fruit. Furthermore, as Lent is the preparation for Easter, so is our life upon earth a preparation for the last great Resurrection.

Our musing upon flowers leads us to another one upon gardens. We think of those two gardens which stand out in such sharp contrast to each other-Eden and Gethsemane.

In Eden we read that the first Adam chose, without any recorded struggle, to obey his own will when first it inclined in a contrary direction to the will of GOD, and to eat the sweet fruit of self-gratification. In Gethsemane the second Adam forced His will to conform

to the will of the FATHER after intensest agony, and chose to drink the bitter cup of self-sacrifice. Adam's disobedience caused the ground to be cursed and to bring forth thorns and briers; CHRIST'S "obedience unto death, even the death of the Cross," bowed His Head to wear the crown of thorns, type of the inherited sorrows of mankind. To gratify self, man in Eden yielded his will to the persuasion of the serpent, CHRIST in Gethsemane suffered Himself to be betrayed by serpent treachery in order that He might take upon Himself the curse brought upon mankind by that yielding, and might bruise the serpent's head. At even-tide man was driven out from the presence of GOD; at even-tide CHRIST went forth to His Passion which would restore that communion with GOD forfeited by Adam.

The cherubim placed eastward in the Garden of Eden were signs to the first Adam of the wrath of GOD; an angel in Gethsemane strengthened the second Adam to do His FATHER's will. A flaming sword guarded the tree of life from being tasted by Adam and his seed; the spear that pierced CHRIST Crucified, drew forth symbols of the means whereby man is made an inheritor of life everlasting. And as it was upon the woman first in the Garden of Eden that the curse following her sin was pronounced, so it was to the loving, penitent woman in the garden of His burial that CHRIST first spoke after His resurrection, laying upon her the blessed mission of publishing the glorious tidings of the re-opening of the gates of heaven. The garments with which the shame-stricken pair in Eden were clothed, were tokens of GOD's tender love and memorials of their justly-incurred mortality, and so the grave-clothes left in that empty tomb guarded by angels, were symbols that man's weeds of corruption were put off in the grave now that CHRIST was risen, "the first-fruits from the dead," and that He will rise incorruptible. Therefore we do well to rejoice at Eastertide in holy comfort, for although we may not dally in any earthly Paradise; although we must expect thorns and briars to spring up on the little plot of ground on which day by day we painfully labour, and may perhaps be permitted our share in the agony of spiritual conflict, yet we are not kept back from the tree of life by wrathful cherubim. Rather are we helped up the ladder of obedience, self-abnegation and painful worship, by strengthening angels, and we know that when the messenger comes to lead us out of the garden of our earthly labour, it will but be to a peaceful resting-time till the summons comes for us to rise and put on immortality.