After I had been a few days at Aladyn, I rode down to Varna, and was astonished at the change which the place had undergone. Old blind side walls had been broken down, and shops opened, in which not only necessaries, but even luxuries, could be purchased;{47} the streets, once so dull and silent, re-echoed the laughter and rattle of dominoes in the newly-established cafés. Wine merchants and sutlers from Algiers, Oran, Constantine, Marseilles, Toulon, had set up booths and shops, at which liqueurs, spirits, and French and country wines, could be purchased at prices not intolerably high. The natives had followed the example. Strings of German sausages, of dried tongues, of wiry hams, of bottles of pickles, hung from the rafters of an old Turkish khan, which but a few days before was the abode of nothing but unseemly insects; and an empty storehouse was turned into a nicely whitewashed and gaily painted "Restaurant de l'Armée d'Orient pour Messieurs les Officiers et Sous-officiers." The names of the streets, according to a Gallic nomenclature, printed in black on neat deal slips, were fixed to the walls, so that one could find his way from place to place without going through the erratic wanderings which generally mark the stranger's progress through a Turkish town. One lane was named the Rue Ibrahim, another Rue de l'Hôpital, a third Rue Yusuf; the principal lane was termed the Corso, the next was Rue des Postes Françaises; and, as all these names were very convenient, and had a meaning attached to them, no sneering ought to deter one from confessing that the French manage these things better than we do. Did any one want to find General Canrobert? He had but to ask the first Frenchman he met and he would tell him to go up the Corso, turn to the right, by the end of the Rue de l'Hôpital, and there was the name of the General painted in large letters over the door of his quarters. The French post-office and the French hospital were sufficiently indicated by the names of the streets. Where at this period was the English post-office? No one knew. Where did the English general live? No one knew. Where was the hospital for sick soldiers? No one knew.
On the 12th, the 5th Dragoon Guards, which left Cork on the 28th of May, were landed from the Himalaya. The French from Gallipoli had already approached the lower Balkans. Lord Raglan was confined for some days to his quarters at Scutari by illness. The Duke of Cambridge and his staff landed on the 14th of June, and with him came the Brigade of Guards.
The disembarkation of the Guards was effected, and with a rapidity and comfort which conferred great credit on the officers. The French assisted with the most hearty goodwill. Of their own accord the men of the Artillery and the Chasseurs came down to the beach, helped to load buffalo carts, and to thump the drivers, to push the natives out of the way, to show the road, and, in fact, to make themselves generally useful.{48}