“I will place your Prussian officer. I cannot make Prince Potemkin advance as far as the Liman, but I can advance officers. I have made generals, majors, etc.; but you have made your crop of laurels, and can laugh at me. “Always the same inaction, one-third through fear, one through spite, and one through ignorance. I would wish, at the end of the war, to have one-quarter of your glory in this campaign. Your letters are gay and brave, like yourself; they bear your image. “A fearful storm obliges me to go to bed. A cloud has burst over the camp, and inundated the two pretty little houses I have erected under my immense Turkish tent, so that I do not know where to put my foot. Oh, oh! I am this moment informed that a major has been killed by lightning in his tent; it falls nearly every day, catch it who may. “The other day the arms of an officer of light cavalry had to be amputated on account of the bite of a tarentula; as for lizards, no one is in a better position than I am to assert that they are the friend of man; for I live with them, and can trust them better than my friends in this country. Sometimes I hear the wind rising, and have my tent opened, but I shut it up again quickly; for the wind seems to blow off a furnace. Oh! we do enjoy every sort of advantage here. Shall I give you a specimen of Prince Repnin’s good taste? You know the habits of the service here, the baseness of the inferiors, and the insolence of the superiors. When Prince Potemkin makes a sign or drops anything, twenty generals prostrate themselves to earth. The other day seven or eight of them tried to help Prince Repnin off with his cloak: ‘No, gentlemen,’ he said; ‘the Prince de Ligne will kindly do it.’ A good lesson! They have more refinement of mind than of heart, and they felt it. “Nevertheless, I rather play the victim; but Sarti[71] is here with an excellent orchestra, and he has brought that music you know so well, in which there are thirty C’s, thirty D’s, etc. Sometimes we have no bread, only biscuits and macaroons; no apples or pears, but pots of jam; no butter, but ices; no water, but every kind of wine; no wood for the kitchen fire sometimes, but logs of aloës to burn for perfume. We have here Madame Michel Potemkin, who is extremely beautiful; Madame Skawrowski, another niece of the vizier or patriarch Potemkin (for he arranges his religion also), very charming; and Madame Samoiloff, another niece, still more lovely. I played a proverb for her in this desert, and she seemed to like it, for she has since said: ‘Do play another _riddle_ for me.’ “I presented the other day to the Prince a blockhead sent to me by a fool. One is called Marolles, the other is M. de X----, who recommends him as head of the engineers, and destined to take Oczakoff.