Onward, onward, three hundred miles and more across the Euxine, to where the green range of the Balkan looks down upon its waters, and where the lighthouses of Anatolia on one side, and those of Roumelia on the other, guide to the long narrow channel of Stamboul; but ere the latter was reached--and on our starboard bow we saw the white waves curling over the blue Cyanean rocks, where Jason steered the Argonauts--we had to deposit many a poor fellow in the deep; for we had four hundred convalescent and helpless men on board, and only one surgeon, with scarcely any medicines or comforts for them, as John Bull, if he likes glory, likes to obtain it _cheap_. It was another case of Whig parsimony; so every other hour an emaciated corpse, rolled in a mud-stained greatcoat or well-worn blanket, without prayer or ceremony of any kind, was quietly dropped to leeward, the 32-pound shot at its heels making a dull plunge in that huge grave, the world of water, which leaves no mark behind. I gladly left the Kangaroo at Pera, and, establishing myself at the Hôtel d'Angleterre, wrote from thence to Sir Madoc that I should take one of the London liners at Malta for England, and to write me to the United Service Club in London; that all my plans for the future were vague and quite undecided; but I was not without hope of getting some military employment at home. The Frankish hotel was crowded by wounded officers, also _en route_ for England or France, all in sorely faded uniforms, on which the new Crimean medals glittered brightly. As all the world travels nowadays, I am not going to "talk guide-book," or break into ecstasies about the glories of Stamboul as viewed from a distance, and not when floundering mid-leg deep in the mud of its picturesque but rickety old thoroughfares; yet certainly the daily scene before the hotel windows was a singular one; for there were stalwart Turkish porters, veritable sons of Anak; stagey-looking dragomen, with brass pistols and enormous sabres in wooden sheaths; the Turk of the old school in turban, beard, slippers, and flowing garments; the Turk of the new, whom he despised, close shaven, with red fez and glazed boots; water-carriers; Osmanli infantry, solemn, brutal, and sensual, jostled by rollicking British tars and merry little French Zouaves; and for a background, the city of the Sultans, with all its casements, domes, and minarets glittering in the unclouded sunshine. Two light cavalry subs, who had ridden in the death ride at Balaclava, and bore some cuts and slashes won therein, three others of the Light Division, and myself, agreed to travel homeward together; and pleasant days we had of it while skirting the mountainous isles of Greece, Byron's "Isles of Greece, where burning Sappho loved and sung,"