Events came rapidly enough. Those shadows in the East at which Colonel Airey had been throwing his pen, and was now preparing his sword to demolish, were thickening fast. A mission was offered to me to go to Constantinople, which I eagerly accepted, and in September 1853 I left England for the East. On my arrival there I was sent by Lord Stratford de Redcliffe to Gallipoli. I made a lengthy report to show the uselessness of that spit of land as a place of rendezvous for the English and French to fight the Russians, then hundreds of miles away across the Balkans and the Danube. Gallipoli is a point that may be used to threaten Asia, but not Europe. As such it was used by the Galli or Gauls--hence its name. I exposed the fact that an army disembarking for the purpose of repelling an invader, which the Russian army was, lost all the prestige of success by preparing defences in case of retreat, and the fortifying of Gallipoli meant nothing else. It seemed almost cowardly thus to begin when the Turks alone were meeting the Russians in the open field. After Lord Stratford had received this report, he sent me further directions to visit the whole length of the Dardanelles and investigate the military and political influence they would possess in the East, supposing a war took place between England and Russia. These instructions I followed out, and afterwards returned to Constantinople along the shores of the Sea of Marmora, giving further details concerning the entire coast. His lordship was so satisfied with the manner in which I had performed my task that he gave me immediately another to perform. I was sent on board H.M.S. the Valorous, Captain Loring, with a dragoman of the Embassy (Mr Sarel), to Varna, from whence I was to visit all the fortresses on the Danube, to report on their actual state and future importance, and to furnish a description of the Turkish army then in Bulgaria. On landing at Varna, I found that a report on that place would be useless, as Colonel Neale, then her Majesty’s Consul there, was putting the last touch to a most able account of its importance and real value. The Colonel had seen fighting whilst employed in the Spanish Legion under brave General Evans, and was as competent in wielding the pen as the sword. From Varna we proceeded to Schumla, and a bitterly cold trip it was. I must here explain that I had left Constantinople in an evening costume in the following manner: At a soiree held at the Embassy at which I had the honour to assist, Lord Stratford, to whom that same day I had given in my report concerning the Dardanelles, came from his study into the room and said he wanted me to make a similar report on the Danube, and that I must start directly. He had just spoken to Captain Loring of the Valorous on the subject, who had already left the Embassy for his vessel. Steam was already up, and the sooner I left the better.