The hospital was a large, well-built, clean, and excellently ventilated building. It was situated at the outskirts of the town, and was surrounded by iron railings, inside which there was a plantation, which furnished a pleasant shade from the noontide sun to the convalescents. As we entered, some women, who were standing at the gate, retreated, and an old man, with a good clear eye, and an honest soldierly air, came forward to meet us with the word "Hospital," which he had learned as a kind of safeguard and protection against intrusion. He led the way into a dark corridor on the ground floor, on the walls of which the regulations of the establishment (in Russian) were suspended. The wards opened on each side of this corridor. The old man invited us to enter the first: it was spacious and airy, but the hospital smell of wounded men was there. Five wounded Russians and one drunken Englishman were the occupants of the chamber. Two of the Russians had been blown up when the magazines exploded. Their hands and heads were covered with linen bandages, through which holes were cut for the eyes and mouth. What could be seen of these poor wretches gave a horrible impression of their injuries and of the pain which they were enduring, but they gave no outward indication of their sufferings. Their scorched eyes rolled heavily upon the visitors with a kind of listless curiosity. The other men had been shot in various parts of the body, and had probably been sent there from Sebastopol: in one or two I recognized the old Inkerman type of face and expression. The bed and bedclothes were clean and good, and at the head of each bed black tablets of wood were fixed to receive the record of the patient's name, his disease, c.
On reaching the street we found the people returning to the town — that is, the Tartars were flocking back from the villages where they had been hiding, with bundles of property, much of which they had probably stolen from the Russian houses.
As every wrecked house bore a strong family likeness to its fellow, we entered only one or two, and then wandered through the streets, which were almost deserted by the inhabitants during the heat of the day. Towards evening a number of wounded Russians — forty-seven, I believe — were brought down from Yenikale, whither they had been taken by the gunboats from various places along the coast, and were landed on the quay. They were subsequently sent to the hospital. The Tartar arabas and droschkies were pressed into the service. As each wounded man passed, the women crowded round to look at him out of the houses; but there was more of curiosity than compassion in their looks; and they took care to inform us they were Jews, and had no sympathy with the Muscovite. Once they stared with wonder at the taste and inborn politeness of a French soldier, who joined the group as a{275} Russian was borne by on a litter. The man's eyes were open, and as he went past he caught sight of the Frenchman and smiled feebly, why or wherefore it is impossible for me to say, but the Frenchman at once removed his cap, made a bow to the "brave," and stood with uncovered head till the latter had been carried some yards beyond him.
In the evening all the inhabitants remaining in the town flocked out of their houses and conversed at the corners of the streets, or at favourite gossip-posts. They were an unhealthy and by no means well-favoured race, whether Tartars, Greeks, Jews, or Muscovites. It must be remembered, however, that all the people of rank had fled. Some of the tradespeople, with greater confidence in our integrity than could have been expected, kept their shops open. In a well-fitted apteka or apothecary's shop, we got a seidlitzy imitation of soda-water, prepared from a box, marked in English, "Improved Sodaic Powders, for Making Soda-water;" and some of our party fitted themselves at a bootmaker's with very excellent Wellingtons, for which they paid at their discretion, and according to a conqueror's tariff, 15s. a pair; the proprietor seemed rather apprehensive that he was not going to receive anything at all. Indeed it would have been well if the inhabitants had remained to guard their houses, instead of flying from them, and leaving them shut up and locked, the very thing to provoke the plunderer.