When my regiment was sent out of the fortress to the encampment, I was detailed for hospital duty, and took up my quarters at a small fifth-rate Bulgarian hotel on the banks of the Danube. The principal diversion was to go on board the big passenger steamers, and hear the news of the outside world and what people were saying of us in England. I met a charming Frenchman on board one of them, a highly cultured and agreeable military man, named Captain Bouchon, who was going down to Rustchuk. However, I persuaded him to stop with me for a week, and his society gave me the greatest pleasure. The first war correspondent whom I met in Widdin was a man named Fitzgerald, who came out as the representative of the London _Standard_. He was a fine fellow, and had seen service in the British army. It was the month of April when he arrived, among the first of the petrels who presaged the coming storm; and about the same time there came two battalions of Egyptian troops under Prince Hassan, the Khedive's second son. These made a strong reinforcement for the large body of troops already in Widdin. One day Fitzgerald came to me, and said that he was going away up the river for a few days. He asked me to look after his correspondence, and to send any items of news worth telegraphing to the _Standard_. He took the boat, and went away leaving me in charge, and I have never seen him from that day to this. I took up his work, and sent several messages during the campaign which followed to the _Standard_, spending a considerable sum of money out of my own pocket upon telegraphing. Afterwards, when I got down to Constantinople and explained matters to Mr. Frank Ives Scudamore, a well known personality there, he refunded me the money. When the Egyptian troops arrived, they naturally occasioned a good deal of stir, and they were keenly criticised by their Turkish allies. For physique and fighting qualities there could be no comparison between the two bodies of men, the Turks easily carrying off the palm. Still, the Egyptians were by no means to be despised. Their officers were highly trained and intelligent, and the equipment of the troops was new and good, far superior, in fact, to that of the Turkish soldiers. Moreover, the Egyptian force brought with it an excellent band of brass and strings, which proved a perfect god-send, as we had no band among all the Turkish forces, and the bugles were not particularly agreeable to listen to. The Egyptians afterwards behaved well in action, and many of them fought at the defence of Widdin under Izzet Pasha, who successfully beat off the repeated assaults of the Roumanians and the Servians, and preserved the town intact.