We then parted. The Doctor and myself walked round the whole of the corridors, both sides of which were filled with patients. The numerous wards round the barracks, each of which held about thirty patients, were also full. These melancholy sights have been so often depicted in letters in the public press, that it would only be reopening an old wound were I to dilate upon them. There is a wide difference between seeing the thing upon the spot, in all its painful and wretched truth, and in merely reading a well-written description. This fact all who have witnessed such spectacles have felt, without being able or willing to describe. I must say that, in spite of the _sang froid_ and energy I possess, the sight of such calamities made a most extraordinary impression upon me, and produced an effect which lasted for several days afterwards. At length I found a place on one of the large staircases, in which I could make an excellent model kitchen, and of this discovery I at once informed Dr. Cumming. The afternoon was drawing to a close, and being obliged to return to Pera, I was compelled to leave without seeing Miss Nightingale, for whom I had brought several letters--one in particular, from the Duchess of Sutherland. In the evening I went to the British Embassy to have a little conversation with Signor Roco Vido, respecting the Kululee hospital, and obtained from him a list of the various sorts of diets he had been supplying. He then informed me that our visit to Kululee with her ladyship was deferred for a day or two on account of so many visitors staying at the Embassy on their way to the Crimea. This news I received with much pleasure, being anxious to commence operations at the Barrack Hospital. As it was near Lord Stratford’s dinner-hour, he requested me to sit down, and gave me the book containing the account of all that he had supplied from the beginning of the war. This I took for my guide.