From thence a run of about one hundred and fifty miles brought us to the low flat shore of Varna, where, on the 28th of May, we were all landed without accident or adventure, and placed under canvas among the rest of the troops. The aspect of Varna from the bay was somewhat depressing. Rising from a bank of yellow sand, a time-worn rampart of stone, ten feet high, loop-holed and painted white, encloses the town on its four sides, each of which measures somewhat more than a mile. This old wall had witnessed the defeat and death of Uladislaus of Hungary, by the troops of the Padishah Amurath II., and it yet bore traces of the cannon-shot of the Scoto-Russian Admiral Greig, who bombarded Varna in 1828. Before the walls lies a ditch, twelve feet deep, and over both frown a number of heavy guns, which I found to be chiefly sixty-eight pounders; and over all rose the countless red-tiled roofs of the houses, with the slender white minarets and round leaden domes of the mosques, looking like wax-candles by the side of inverted sugar basins. Beyond, in the distance, stretched far away to the base of wooded hills the flat Bulgarian shore. Painted with various colours, the tumble-down and rickety houses were all of wood, and exhibited a rapid state of dilapidation and decay. Prior to our arrival, the silence must have been oppressive. Save when a swallow twittered under the broad eaves, when a saka (or water-carrier), with his buckets suspended from a leather belt, shambled along, slipshod or barefoot, with water for sale, a hamal (or porter), laden with his burden, or when the wild dog that lay panting on a heap of festering offal uttered a hoarse growl, no sight or sound of life was there, when the fierce sun of unclouded noon blazed down into the narrow and tortuous streets. The place exhibited only Turkish filth, inactivity, and stupidity, till the arrival of the Allies, when its wooden jetties opposite the principal gate became piled up with munitions of war—bales, tents, tumbrils, and cannon; its roadstead crowded with war-ships, transports, and gunboats, under sail or steam; its bazaar filled by regimental quartermasters, cooks, and caterers, or soldiers’ wives in search of food, &c.; its five gates held by military guards—the merry Zouave, the grave and stern Scottish Highlander, the showy Coldstream, or the sombre rifleman. Then its streets became literally alive, and crowded with the British, who came by sea, and the French, who came pouring over the Balkan. Their silence was broken by the sharp beat of the brass drum, and the sound of the ringing bugle every hour or more, and by the measured tramp of feet, as detachments on every imaginable duty marched to and fro between the camps, the town, and harbour, scaring the wild dogs from the streets, and the kites from the roofs and mosque domes, who were alike unused to such unwonted bustle and activity.