The people of England, who had looked with complacency on the reduction of expenditure in all branches of our warlike establishments, ought not to have been surprised at finding the movements of our army hampered by the results of an injudicious economy. A commissariat officer is not made in a day, nor can the most lavish expenditure effect the work of years, or atone for the want of experience. The hardest-working treasury clerk had necessarily much to learn ere he could become an efficient commissariat officer, in a country which our old campaigners declare to be the most difficult they ever were in for procuring supplies. Let those who have any recollections of Chobham, just imagine that famous encampment to be placed about ten miles from the sea, in the midst of a country utterly deserted by the inhabitants, the railways from London stopped up, the supplies by the cart or wagon cut off, corn scarcely procurable, carriages impossible, and the only communication between the camp and port carried on by means of buffalo and bullock arabas, travelling about one mile and a half an hour, and they will be able to form some faint idea of the difficulties experienced by those who had to procure the requisite necessaries for the expeditionary forces. To give the reader a notion of the requirements of such a body as an expeditionary army of 25,000 men, it may be stated that not less than 13,000 horses and mules would be required for the conveyance of their ammunition, baggage, and stores in the field.
The movements of the troops were often delayed on account of{46} want of transport. Buffalo and bullock carts, and their drivers, vanished into thin air in the space of a night. A Bulgarian is a human being after all. A Pasha's cavass might tear him away from "his young barbarians all at play;" but when he had received a few three-and-eightpences a day, off he started the moment the eye of the guard was removed, and, taking unknown paths and mountain roadways, sought again the miserable home from which he had been taken.
The people were so shy, it was impossible to establish friendly relations with them. The inhabitants of the Bulgarian village of Aladyn, close to the camp at the borders of the lake, abandoned their houses altogether. Not one living creature remained out of the 350 or 400 people who were there on our arrival. Their houses were left wide open, and such of their household goods as they could not remove, and a few cocks and hens that could not be caught, were all that was left behind. The cause generally assigned for this exodus was the violence of a few ruffians on two or three occasions, coupled with groundless apprehension of further outrages — others said it was because we established our slaughter-houses there. Certainly the smell was abominable. Diarrhoea broke out in the camp soon after my arrival, and continued to haunt us all during the summer. Much of this increase of disease must be attributed to the use of the red wine of the country, sold at the canteens of the camp; but, as the men could get nothing else, they thought it was better to drink than the water of the place. There were loud complaints from officers and men from this score, and especially on account of the porter and ale they were promised not being dealt out to them; and the blame was laid, as a matter of course, on the shoulders of Sir George Brown. While the men of the light division lay outside Varna they were furnished with porter; but on moving further off they were deprived of it, and the reasons given for the deprivation were various, but the result was manifest. The men heard that the soldiers of the other divisions near Varna got their pint of porter a day, and that they should be dissatisfied at this distinction is not surprising. A draught of good porter, with the thermometer at 93° or 95° in the shade, would be a luxury which a "thirsty soul" in London could never understand. It was evident that some wholesome drink ought to have been provided for the men, to preserve them from the attacks of sickness in a climate where the heat was so great and the supply of pure water inadequate. Many of the officers rode into Varna, bought salt, tobacco, tea, and spirits, and brought it out in the saddle-bags, either to distribute gratuitously or at cost price to their men. This was an immense boon, particularly as the men, except servants on leave, were not allowed to go into Varna. A small stock of preserved potatoes was sent out, but it was soon exhausted.