Often in these days of returning strength she would stroll beneath the trees of the cemetery of Scutari, where so many of our brave men lay. It is situated on a promontory high above the sea, with a fine outlook over the Bosphorus. Flowers planted by loving hands were decking the graves of many of her friends who had passed away during the winter, and the grasses had begun to wave above the deep pits where the soldiers lay in a nameless grave. During these walks Miss Nightingale gathered a few flowers here, a bunch of grasses there, and pressed and dried them, to keep in loving memory of the brave dead. They eventually formed part of a collection of Crimean mementoes which she arranged after her return home to Lea Hurst. This burying-ground was really a portion of the ancient cemetery of Scutari, the most sacred and celebrated in the Ottoman Empire. Travellers have described the weird effect of the dense masses of cypress-trees, which bend and wave over three miles of unnumbered tombs, increasing each year in extent. The Turks never disturb their dead, and regard a burying-ground with great veneration, hence the ancient and yet modern character of the Scutari cemetery, and the great extent of the graves over the wide solitude. So thick are the cypress-trees that even the Oriental sun does not penetrate their shade. Byron has described the scene as-- The place of thousand tombs That shine beneath, while dark above The sad but living cypress glooms And withers not, though branch and leaf Are stamped by an eternal grief. According to a poetic legend, myriads of strange birds hover over the tombs, or flit noiselessly from the Black Sea to the fairer one of Marmora, when they turn and retrace their flight. These birds have never been known to stop or feed, and never heard to sing. They have a dark plumage, in unison with the sombre cypress-trees over which they incessantly flit. When there is a storm on the Bosphorus, they send up sharp cries of agony. The Turks believe that the weird birds are condemned souls who have lived an evil life in this world, and are not permitted to rest in a tomb, and so in a spirit of unrest they wander over the tombs of others. One of the most beautiful monuments in the vast cemetery is the one which marks the grave of Sultan Mahmoud’s favourite horse. The Turkish Government gave a piece of ground adjacent to the sacred cemetery to serve as a burying-place for the British soldiers who fell in the Crimea. And it was at the instance of Miss Nightingale that a memorial was erected there to the fallen heroes. She started the scheme during her period of convalescence at Scutari, and it was completed after the conclusion of the war. Some four thousand British soldiers lie in the cemetery, and in the midst of the nameless graves rises a gleaming column of marble. The shaft is supported by four angels with drooping wings. On each side of the base is inscribed in four different languages:--