By a little guile the eager Frenchman led the unsuspecting idol of the troops into a position where she could be well seen by the soldiers; and while she was seated on the Morta, in view of them all, it hardly needed his own dramatic outcry for a salutation to “the Daughter of England” to call forth the ringing cheers which greeted her from the men of the 39th Regiment, and the shouts were taken up so loudly by all the rest that the Russians were actually startled by them at Sebastopol. The darkness fell quickly, and half-way back to Balaclava Miss Nightingale and her party found themselves in the midst of a merry Zouave camp, where the men were singing and drinking coffee, but warned our friends that brigands were in the neighbourhood. However, there was nothing for it but to push on, and, as a matter of fact, the only wound received was from the head of Miss Nightingale’s horse, which hit violently against the face of her escort at the bridle rein, who kept silence that he might not alarm her, but was found with a face black and bleeding at the end of the journey. After her night’s rest in her state-cabin in the _Robert Lowe_, though still feeling used up with the adventurous visit to the camp hospitals, Miss Nightingale visited the General Hospital at Balaclava and the collection of huts on the heights, which formed the sanatoria, and also went to see an officer ill with typhus in the doctors’ huts. She renewed her visit next day, when, after a night at Balaclava, she settled three nurses into the sanatorium, and then for some days continued her inspection of hospitals and moved into the ship _London_, the _Robert Lowe_ having been ordered home. Worn out by her ceaseless labours at Scutari, she had probably been specially open to infection in the sick officer’s hut, and while on board the _London_ it became clear that she had contracted Crimean fever in a very bad form. She was ordered up to the huts amid such dreadful lamentations of the surrounding folk that, thanks to their well-meant delays, it took an hour to carry her up to the heights, her faithful nurse, Mrs. Roberts, keeping off the sun-glare by walking beside her with an umbrella, and her page-boy Thomas weeping his heart out at the tail of the little procession. A spot was found after her own heart near a running stream where the wild flowers were in bloom, and she tells in her _Nursing Notes_ how her first recovery began when a nosegay of her beloved flowers was brought to her bedside. But for some days she was desperately ill, and the camp was unspeakably moved and alarmed. Britain also shared deeply in the suspense, though happily the worst crisis was passed in about twelve days, leaving, however, a long time of great weakness and slow convalescence to be won through afterwards.