On May 2nd, 1855, Florence Nightingale, having completed six months’ continuous labour in establishing a system of good administration in the hospitals at Scutari, set out for Balaclava. She was anxious to see how the sick and wounded were faring at the actual seat of war, and it was also her duty as Superintendent of the Nursing Staff in the East to inspect the hospitals in the Crimea. [Illustration: LADY HERBERT OF LEA. [_To face p. 192._ ] There were some sad good-byes to say before she quitted the scene of her work at Scutari, for death would have claimed many brave fellows ere she returned to her old post. Sorrowful eyes followed the gleam of the familiar lamp as she went her final rounds on the night before her departure, and heads were pathetically turned to catch a last look at her shadow as it passed on the whitened wall. Rarely has any human being had such a retrospect of harrowing experience and of insuperable difficulties overcome as passed through Florence Nightingale’s mind when she reviewed the past six months. The Barrack Hospital as she had found it, crowded with suffering humanity in the most appalling state of loathsome neglect, seemed like a hideous nightmare, scarcely to be realised in comparison with the order, comfort, and cleanliness which now prevailed. It was with a heart of thankfulness to the Giver of all Good that she had been permitted to accomplish this great work that Florence Nightingale on a bright May morning stepped aboard the good ship _Robert Lowe_ and set sail for the Crimea. She was accompanied by a staff of nurses and her friend Mr. Bracebridge, and by M. Soyer, the celebrated _chef_, who was going to reform culinary matters at the “front,” and attended by her boy Thomas, a young drummer who had abandoned his “instruments and sticks,” as he called them, to devote himself to the Lady-in-Chief. No general in the field had a more devoted aide-de-camp than Florence Nightingale had in Thomas. He was a lad of twelve, full of life, fun, and activity and of amusing importance, but such was his devotion that he would have been cut to bits ere harm came near his beloved mistress.