Miss Nightingale’s last act before leaving the Crimea was to order, at her own expense, the erection of a monument to the dead. It took the form of a monster white marble cross twenty feet high, and was placed on the peak of a mountain near the Sanatorium above Balaclava, and dedicated to the memory of the fallen brave, and to those sisters of her “Angel Band” who slept their last sleep in that far-away Eastern land. She caused it to be inscribed with the words, Lord, have mercy upon us. _Gospodi pomilori nass._ The “Nightingale Cross,” as the monument came to be called, strikes the eye of the mariner as he crosses the Black Sea, and to the British sailor it must ever be an object to stir a chivalrous feeling for the noble woman who thus honoured the brave dead. On her way home from the Crimea, Miss Nightingale called at Scutari, that place of appalling memories, and saw the final closing of the hospitals. The Barrack Hospital had now been taken back by the Turkish authorities, but the suite of rooms which Miss Nightingale had occupied in the southern tower were preserved as she left them, and kept so for some years. The Sultan had been an admiring witness of Miss Nightingale’s labours, and presented her with a magnificent diamond bracelet as a farewell gift and a mark of his estimation of her devotion. Before leaving the Crimea Miss Nightingale had received from Queen Victoria a beautiful jewel, for which the Prince Consort made the design. It consists of a St. George’s Cross in red enamel, on a white field, representative of England. On the cross are the letters V.R., surmounted by a crown in diamonds. A band of black enamel, inscribed in gold letters with the words “Blessed are the merciful,” surrounds the cross. Palm leaves, in green enamel, form a framework for the shield, and on the blue enamel ribbon which confines the palms is inscribed in letters of gold “Crimea.” On the back of the jewel is an inscription written by Queen Victoria, recording that the gift was made in memory of services rendered to her “brave army” by Florence Nightingale. The following letter accompanied the gift. “WINDSOR CASTLE, _“January 1856_. [Illustration: THE NIGHTINGALE JEWEL]