At this time the eyes of the world were turned towards Plevna, and I found, somewhat to my astonishment, that my name was already fairly well known in Stamboul. Every one was anxious to hear something of the famous victories that had just been won from an eye-witness, and I had to fight my battles over again in the club and the café, the bureau and the boudoir, for the benefit of hundreds of patriotic inquirers all eager for the latest news. Among others I met General Sir Collingwood Dickson, an old Crimea man, who was intensely interested in the operations against the enemy, whose grey coats he had seen in front of him some three and twenty years before at Alma and at Inkermann. It was wonderful to see the warrior's eyes flashing with the battle-light again, as I told him the story of the Krishin redoubts--how Skobeleff took them and held them for one desperate day and night, and how, after many repulses, the Ottoman troops at five o'clock on the following afternoon poured over the parapets in a mighty, irresistible wave and swept the Russians back to the Green Hills once more. Taking Osman Pasha's letter with me, I paid a visit to the Seraskierat, and, having presented my introduction, was welcomed most warmly by the officers of the War Office, who thanked me on behalf of the Turkish Government for my services. Up to this time the Ottoman troops had been making a very good fight of it on the whole, in spite of the losses at the Shipka Pass and on the Lom; and the brilliant victories which Osman Pasha had been winning encouraged the officers of the Seraskierat to hope for further successes. It is perhaps outside my purpose here to criticise in detail the conduct of the operations by the Turkish Government; but I cannot help referring to the opinion which was very generally expressed outside that the mismanagement and divided control at headquarters were entirely responsible for the headway which the enemy had made up to the present, and that if the brilliant qualities of the Turkish forces in the field had been supported by a more rational and consistent policy at Constantinople the peaked caps of the Russians would never have been seen before Stamboul.