I was anxious to obtain an insight into the culinary arrangements and system of management in the French hospitals. This I effected by the aid of Dr. Pincoff, who had frequently brought French doctors to visit my kitchens, and taste my new diets--of which they seemed to approve. Some of them would say, “They are too good and expensive for our hospital;” others, “Your diets are excellent; but our soldiers would not like them, not being used to that kind of food.” This, probably, might at the commencement have been the case; but a man soon gets accustomed to a good thing. I had tried this upon several hundred English soldiers, who never refused it, but, on the contrary, did not like to return to the old system of diets. I had not the slightest doubt they would like the change, but it could not be effected. At all events, this increased my curiosity. Dr. Pincoff, a friend, and myself, determined to go at six o’clock in the morning (the time of their first rounds) to visit the Great Hospital of Pera. This early hour of visiting patients I cannot but give my disapproval of, as it is the time they are likely to repose, or at all events feel more languid than any other part of the night; which disturbance reminds me of the anxious servant, who being requested by his master to awake him at an early hour, knocked at his room-door four or five times during the night to apprise him of the number of hours he had left for sleep. Indeed, even more than this, they actually ask the patients, at that early hour, what they would like for dinner?--the patient, instead of the doctor, prescribing. We arrived at half-past five A.M., through a burning sun, which I consider, at that hour and that time of year, more oppressive in the East than at ten, eleven, or even twelve in the day, when the sea-breeze refreshes the Oriental atmosphere. We were immediately introduced to the medical gentleman on duty, who had just commenced his rounds. He was attended by two orderlies and a Sister of Charity; one of the former carried a tray, upon which the Sister seemed to have placed articles of food belonging to her department: she was also noting down on a tablet the orders of the doctor as to a few articles of extra diet. We watched the proceedings closely, which lasted nearly an hour: each doctor had two wards to attend, and each ward contained about sixty patients.