Miss Nightingale, on becoming convalescent, was strongly advised by the doctors to take a voyage to England. She would not listen to such advice. Her work at the front had but just begun, and she was resolved to return to it after the shortest possible delay. The voyage to the Bosphorus was the longest that she could be induced to take. Her good Mrs. Bracebridge had arrived from Scutari just in time to accompany her friend on the return voyage. Lord Ward, whose steam-yacht was in harbour at the time, pressed the use of it upon her, and in it she was taken to Scutari. When the yacht reached Scutari, all the high officials were present to meet it. One of the large barges, used to remove the sick and wounded, was brought alongside, and Miss Nightingale, in a state of extreme weakness and exhaustion, was lowered into it. At the pier soldiers were in readiness, who carried her on a stretcher to the chaplain's house, followed by a large and sympathetic crowd. "I do not remember anything during the campaign," wrote the good-hearted Soyer, "so gratifying to the feelings as that simple though grand procession." "Ah," said a soldier, "there was no sadder sight than to see that dear lady carried up from the pier on a stretcher just like we men, and perhaps by some of the fellows she nursed herself."[176] It was the same when she was presently moved from Scutari to the shore in order to go to Therapia, where the Ambassador had placed his summer residence at her disposal. She was carried in a litter by four guardsmen, but, though it was only five minutes' walk to the shore, there were two relays, and her baggage was divided among twelve soldiers, though two could easily have carried the whole,[177] so great was the desire of the men to share in the honour of helping the Lady-in-Chief. [176] _Blackwood_, p. 115. [177] _Memoirs of Lady Eastlake_, vol. ii. p. 44.