When _The Times_ commissioner reached the Bosphorus, he again had cold water thrown on his mission. Officialdom laughed amiably over “bringing coals to Newcastle.” Mr. Macdonald found, however, that the men of the 39th Regiment on their way to the seat of war were going to face the rigours of a Crimean winter in the trenches before Sebastopol in the light and airy garments which they had been wearing at Gibraltar, and he got rid of some of his _Times_ gold by going into the markets of Constantinople and purchasing suits of flannels for the men. When Mr. Macdonald at length reached the hospitals at Scutari--those hospitals the deficient and insanitary state of which had moved the heart of the country to its core--he must have felt dumfounded when Dr. Menzies, the chief medical officer, in answer to his offer of help, told him that “nothing was wanted.” It seemed that officialdom was leagued together to deny the existence of wants which the Government ought to have met. In a higher quarter still, Kinglake relates that _The Times_ commissioner was met with the astounding proposal that as the fund was wholly unneeded, he might disembarrass himself of it by building an Episcopal Church at Pera! However, there was one person to whom Mr. Macdonald had not yet offered his money-bags, and he forthwith proceeded to the Barrack Hospital and sought an interview with the Lady-in-Chief and related his experiences. “Help not needed! the soldiers provided with all necessaries! the proffered money thrown back on the donors!” Florence Nightingale must have taken a long gasp when she heard that. She marshalled the excellent Mr. Macdonald and his superfluous cash away to her office in the Nurses’ Tower, where he could see for himself the daily demands on her private stores made by the sick and wounded soldiers, and how impossible it was, despite the generous gifts already received from the charitable at home, to meet all requirements. The Lady-in-Chief could tell of men arriving by hundreds without a shred of decent clothing on their backs, of the lack of hospital furniture, of beds, pillows, sheets, and sanitary appliances, even of drugs, to say nothing of materials for invalid food. Before the narration was concluded Mr. Macdonald must have come to the conclusion that there would be no church built at Pera just yet.