To return, however, to our voyage. The men regained their usual spirits in the course of a few hours, and as the three vessels, which had embarked the greater part of our men and horses, sailed out of the Sound on a beautiful evening in the early part of May, 1854, the joke and song, with the merry laugh at some attempts to dance, told plainly that there was more of gladness than sorrow on board our transport. The sailors especially were very pleased with our company: they donned our clothes, examined our arms, patted our horses, and would have jumped on their backs had they been allowed. After we had been at sea a couple of days a stiff breeze sprung up, and many of the men being unable to drink their daily rations of excellent rum, the sailors tossed theirs off instead, with many a wish for their safe return from "a-lickin' the Roosians." The weather was, however, on the whole favourable, and the men having quite recovered from sickness, before a week had passed were enabled to drink their own rum and eat their rations with amazing relish; indeed, food is never so enjoyable as after a recovery from sea-sickness. CHAPTER TWENTY SIX. Now all the youth of England are on fire, And silken dalliance in the wardrobe lies; Now thrive the armourers, and honour's thought Reigns solely in the breast of every man. Shakespeare. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ About sixteen days after leaving Plymouth, the vessel I sailed in reached Scutari, where we found one of the transports had arrived nearly a day before us; the other had not come in, but arrived in about twelve hours after us. Many regiments of infantry had a couple of months prior to our arrival landed at Malta, from whence they had sailed for Gallipoli, where they met the first instalment of our allies--the French and the Turks.