On the very same day something occurred which compelled me to change my plans. Sir Collingwood Dickson sent me a telegram asking me to call upon him at once in the summer residence of the British Embassy at Therapia, and in an interview which I had with him there he told me that news had just been received of terrible fighting at Gorny Dübnik and Telish. The Russian Guards had been brought up, and after a desperate battle at Telish in which the Russians lost four thousand men the Turkish forces sustained a complete defeat. As a result of this victory the Russians were in possession of all the approaches to Plevna, and communication with Osman Pasha's army was absolutely cut off. I listened to this news with dismay, for it was clear now that I could not get back to Plevna; and that night as I lay in bed at the club I made up my mind to accept the offer of the Stafford House Committee and go to Erzeroum. Before I was up in the morning Mr. Barrington Kennett came into my room and told me that he had received a telegram from Erzeroum giving the news of a sanguinary battle close to that place. Mukhtar Pasha had suffered a terrible defeat, and the condition in Erzeroum was desperate. The town was full of wounded men, and supplies of all kinds were urgently needed. Mr. Kennett asked me to start that day at twelve o'clock as there was a steamer going, and he offered to give me any one I liked to go with me, suggesting that I should take a dragoman and Captain Morisot, whom I had already met at Plevna, as a companion. Mr. Stoney, who also belonged to the Stafford House Committee, and who had treated me with the greatest kindness, also urged me to accept the offer; and the upshot of it all was that I told Mr. Kennett that I would be ready to start by the steamer at twelve o'clock. Steamers, however, suffer from unpunctuality in Turkey as well as elsewhere, and at the last moment we found that the boat would not start until next morning. Baron Munday heard of this, and gave a grand farewell dinner to me at the club that night, when about a dozen of us sat down to a regular banquet, and drank each other's healths in bumpers of champagne. In those old fighting days a farewell dinner to any one was a thing to wonder at; for it was always a shade of odds that a fever or a rifle-bullet would claim a good many of the guests before they could meet again, and the more risky the prospects of the future the more lively was the certain pleasure of the present. Late that night, or rather early next morning, they saw me down to the quay where the Messageries boat was lying, and I went on board, lugging with me a bag containing three hundred English sovereigns--perhaps the only coins on earth that will fetch their face value anywhere. With me there went Dr. Woods, an adventurous spark from the north of Ireland, who was deputed to act with me, Captain Morisot, and Mr. Harvey.