During the months which succeeded her return, Miss Nightingale, with characteristic business promptitude, prepared a clear and comprehensive statement regarding the “free gifts” which had been sent to her for the sick and wounded, and in the latter months of the war for the convalescent soldiers. One can read between the lines of this report the general muddle which characterised the transit of goods from London to the seat of war, in consequence of which bales of things sent by benevolent people made wandering excursions everywhere but to the Scutari hospitals where they were so urgently wanted, and in some instances were actually brought back to their donors unopened. This was owing to the fact that from May, 1854, when our army first encamped at Scutari, until March, 1855, no office for the reception and delivery of goods had been established either at Scutari or Constantinople. In consequence packages arriving by merchant vessels not chartered by Government passed into the Turkish Custom House, from which they were never extracted without delay and confusion, and many were destroyed or lost. In cases of ships chartered by Government, masses of goods were delayed, as Miss Nightingale wittily remarks, by “an unnecessary trip to Balaclava and back” before they reached her at Scutari. In face of such confusion the task of giving a detailed account of the “free gifts” would have hopelessly baffled a less clear head than Miss Nightingale’s. “The Statement of the Voluntary Contributions” which she had received for the hospitals in the East was published in 1857, and in it Miss Nightingale took occasion to pay a tribute to the devotion and zeal of the medical officers in the hospitals, who had been so handicapped by the lack of proper medical supplies and comforts in the early part of the campaign. She also refers to the liberality of the British Government and the support which she had received from the War Office, and acknowledges the sympathy and help received from various general and commanding officers, both British and French, and pays the following tribute to her old friend Lord Raglan, the Commander-in-Chief: “Miss Nightingale cannot but here recall, with deep gratitude and respect, the letters of support and encouragement which she received from the late Lord Raglan, who invariably acknowledged all that was attempted for the good of his men with the deepest feeling, as well as with the high courtesy and true manliness of his character. No tinge of petty jealousy against those entrusted with any commission, public or private, connected with the army under his command, ever alloyed his generous benevolence.”