| Description | "I am sorry to say we have more enemies than the Russians to contend against & as there will very likely be an exaggerated account in the newspapers, you will like to hear what is really the case. The truth is that about 4 days ago that dreadful edpidemic the Asiatic Cholera broke out amongst us & of a most virulent kind, certain death having been the end of all the unfortunates who were attacked, with very few exceptions. We have now a loss of 18 men & a quarter master, the other regiments of the Royals in proportion ... You can hardly understand the panic it gave us all, having no means of getting out of the way of it. Derna was unhealthy there is no doubt, having a great swamp close to us, now we have gone higher up and are quite right .... We hope soon to face the Russians in earnest. Something is brewing up, transports are at Varna waiting for somebody and we hear that Sir George Brown is to have the command whatever it may be, but whether Odessa or Anapa or the Crimea we know not. I do not think Sebastopol is likely. There are political reasons against it as well as military. The French do not wish us to take it, they are afraid of leaving us the masters of the seas if we destroy the Russian fleet and that we shall be too powerful. Marshal St. Arnaud says it would take 2 armies & 3 years before we could organize an expedition to take the place. Our Engineers on the contrary guarantee that the place shall be in our possession in 3 months if we like to try ... so there is a little difference of opinion ... I wonder at Colonel Dixons thinking much of the Turkish ladies. I have not seen anything yet to cause raptures. Their main beauty lies in their eyes, the rest of the face being quite covered up ..." "The town (Baradi) is like all the Turkish towns, wretchedly dirty with a nasty sluggish stream running thro' it looking the very essence of cholera." |