The following day included a trip across the Bosphorus in the Sultan's yacht and a state ball at the British Embassy in the evening, which was, for a short time, attended by the Padishah himself. The Royal party did not retire from the gathering until daylight. During the next three days one function continued to follow another. A visit to the British Memorial Church; attendance with the Sultan at a great special performance in the Theatre through densely-crowded streets; a visit to a cricket match in the suburbs; attendance at a state banquet given by the British Ambassador; inspection by the Prince of a Turkish ironclad--Hobart Pasha's flagship; a dinner at the country home of the Grand Vizier. The day of departure fixed upon was April 10th, and, after a stately breakfast with the Sultan at Dolmabakshi, and farewells exchanged amidst all possible pomp and Oriental pageantry, the _Ariadne_ was boarded and slowly steamed away from the Moslem capital to the sound of cheers and thundering guns from fleet and fort. They were soon in the gloomy waters of the Black Sea on the way to the Czar's dominions. Arrangements had been under discussion for some time in connection with this visit to the Crimea and Sir Andrew Buchanan's opportune arrival had, no doubt, a good deal to do with the matter. On April 12th Sebastopol was sighted, crowned with its ruined bastions and replete to the Royal tourists with memories of the Redan, the Malakoff, and the Mamelon. Neither flags nor men were visible, however, upon the ramparts as the yacht came to its moorings although elsewhere Russian soldiers could be occasionally seen. Presently, General de Kotzebue, Governor of New Russia and Bessarabia, came on board with his suite--a decorated and energetic survivor of the great siege at which he had been Chief of Staff to Prince Gortschakoff. After the four days programme for the Crimea had been settled the Prince and Princess landed and went first to inspect the Memorial Chapel and then to visit the great cemetery. A drive to some of the scenes of battle during the Crimean conflict followed, with an escort of Tartars and with carriage horses which at times seemed to fly over the ground. General de Kotzebue knew every foot of the soil and was, of course, a splendid host on such an occasion. On this first day the field of the desperate Alma fight was gone over carefully and on the succeeding morning the ruined ramparts and redoubts of the once great Fortress of Sebastopol--not as yet restored--were visited and studied. The Cemetery of Cathcart's Hill was visited and here there were few in the party who did not find the names of friends or relatives in this city of silent streets while the Princess found very many around which associations of some kind were twined. In a small farmhouse, close to the windmill which was almost a centre of battle on the day of Inkerman, the Royal party took lunch.