Wherever the men were to provide themselves with anything to eat or to wear out of their pay, they were found to suffer. There is no natural market, with fair prices, in the neighborhood of warfare; and, on the one hand, a man cannot often get what he wishes, and, on the other, he is tempted to buy something not so good for him. If there are commissariat stores opened, there is an endless accumulation of business,--a mass of accounts to keep of the stoppages from the men's pay. On all accounts it is found better for all parties that the wants of the soldier should be altogether supplied in the form of rations of varied food and drink, and of clothing varying with climate and season. In regard to food, which comes first in importance of the five heads of the soldier's wants, the English soldier was remarkably helpless till he learned better. The Russians cut that matter very short. Every man carried a certain portion of black rye bread and some spirit. No cooking was required, and the men were very independent. But the diet is bad; and the Russian regiments were composed of sallow-faced men, who died "like flies" under frequently recurring epidemics. The Turks were in their own country, and used their accustomed diet. The French are the most apt, the most practised, and the most economical managers of food of any of the parties engaged in the war. Their campaigns in Algeria had taught them how to help themselves; and they could obtain a decent meal where an Englishman would have eaten nothing, or something utterly unwholesome. The Sardinians came next, and it was edifying to see how they could build a fire-place and obtain a fire in a few minutes to boil their pot. In other ways both French and Sardinians suffered miserably when the British had surmounted their misfortunes. The mortality from cholera and dysentery in the French force, during the last year, was uncalculated and unreported. It was so excessive as, in fact, to close the war too soon. The Sardinians were ravaged by disease from their huts being made partly under ground. But, so far as the preparation of their food went, both had the advantage of the British, in a way which will never happen again. I believe the Americans and the English are bad cooks in about the same degree; and the warning afforded by the one may be accepted by the other. At the end of a day, in Bulgaria or the Crimea, what happened was this.