As there was nothing specially to be done--at all events, until the English and French Governments had made up what they were pleased to call their minds as to future operations--I was fortunate enough in November to obtain a few weeks' leave, and went off to Malta for a holiday. On arriving at Constantinople I embarked in a small store steamer, in which there was only one passenger besides myself--a private soldier on his way to England. So, we talked of the war, and on my asking who had ordered him home, he replied: 'The Minister for War, sir.' On my asking why, he said, 'I'm in charge of his brother, sir.' This seemed rather incomprehensible, so I added, 'Where is his brother?' 'Sure, he's in the hold, sir.' This bewildered me still more; but it appeared that the soldier had been present at the funeral of Colonel the Honourable Lauderdale Maule, who died of cholera at Varna just before we left in the autumn of 1854, and had been sent to exhume the body and bring it to England at the request of his brother, Lord Panmure. When I returned to the Crimea at the end of the year, although active operations were necessarily suspended for the winter, we were busily occupied in blowing up the docks, forts, and barracks, and in carrying off the Russian guns out of the arsenal (about 2,000 in number) and thus completing the destruction of Sebastopol. Preparations were also being made for a renewal of hostilities in the spring in some other part of the Russian Empire. But in reality a change was coming over the scene, and, instead of action, reaction had set in. In the first place, France was tired of the war. Her finances were exhausted and her troops anxious to return home. On the other hand, Russia also was crippled, both as to men and means. England, so tardy at the outset and so unprepared, was indeed the only Power which apparently had the will or vigour left to continue the contest. Our troops during the second winter were well clothed, housed, and fed, and as healthy as at home; and their numbers were daily increasing. At the beginning of 1856 we had upwards of 50,000 men and 96 field guns in the Crimea, with considerable reserves both at Malta and in England. The administrative departments, also, were becoming models of efficiency; and the transport branch, which hardly existed at the outset, had no less than 28,000 animals collected and ready for the field.