When we got to Smyrna we entered a beautiful bay, somewhat like that of Rio Janeiro, and I went out on the fortified hill that overlooks the city. I saw from the hill that troops were marching on parade, and went off alone to see them. I was told to let my donkey go his own way. He brought me to a place where were about one hundred stone steps, almost perpendicular. I had a little hesitation about going down these steps, but he seemed to know what he was about, and I could do nothing with him but hang on his back. I expected him to tumble, and that would have been the last of me. He didn't miss a step, however, but took me safely to the bottom. I thought of General Putnam's stone-step ride. If he had only had a Turkish donkey he would have missed being a hero. My donkey seemed to know more than I about the streets of Smyrna, and I gave him the rein. He took me past the sentinels to the parade ground, as he appeared to know the password, and across the parade, which was against regulations. When we arrived at the center of the ground, he began very peculiar operations, as if he had been with Barnum. Here was a donkey that would have made a fortune for a circus. The soldiers were coming up in platoons, when the donkey began to stand on his hind feet, and then on his fore feet. The roar of the advancing regiment convinced me that I was in a tight place. I got off his back and walked alone on the opposite side, and then escaped through a gate. I have never heard of the obstinate animal since. From Smyrna to Constantinople we passed among famous Greek islands--Rhodes, and Chios, where twenty-two thousand Greeks were killed by the Turks--but we had not time to stop at any of them. At Constantinople I preferred to take passage in a transient steamer, instead of waiting for the Government boat. I stopped here only to see our minister, Carroll Spence, of Baltimore, and then hurried on through the Marmoro Strait and the Bosporus, and into the Black Sea, and there found an immense fleet of transports, from the port of Sebastopol. I was delighted to see alongside of one another three of our Boston clippers, built by Donald Mackay in East Boston, that had brought French troops from France: the Great Republic, Captain Limeburner, the Monarch of the Seas, Captain Gardner, and the Ocean Queen of clippers, Captain Zerega. Ships filled the little bay, bows and sterns touching the shore on one side and the other. Not one could have got out in case of fire. We immediately got horses to go out to Balaklava, and there I was glad to meet my old friend, Captain Furber, of the Black Ball Line and the Ocean Clipper, who gave me a state-room and all the courtesies of his ship. He had come for the French. Kennard went with the British. Horses and attendants were furnished me by the French generals free of cost.