wondered in your innocence if it were a camel or a sheep. Even that everyday meal breakfast has its unexpected incidents, and dinner, the culinary arrangements of which have been superintended by a representative of the Press, often turns out a marvellous-if not an agreeable-surprise. Coningsby it was who aimed at gastronomic excellence, especially on one occasion; but alas! he aimed only.

His efforts in this particular case took the shape of an omelette a memorable omelette-which he strove to make in some queer Bulgarian utensil, and which was ultimately poured out of the spout, and drunk out of cups.

Ye gods! it was a mystic concoction indeed.

His great 'international' stew, as he called it, was, however, a marked success, a concoction in which tinned soups, fish, flesh, fowl, and vegetables played very mixed parts. Like the 'penny surprise packet' of the London toy-shop, you never knew what was going to turn up; just as a strongly suspicious flavour of rabbit began to assert itself, you found it gliding rapidly into that of sardines, succeeded in turn by boiled mutton and pickled cabbage. Shudder if you will at so strange a conglomerate; quality in those rough times was not so much a consideration as quantity. With the appetites of ostriches, we were equal to anything, ex necessitate rei. Grasping the situation, we accepted with equal satisfaction each fresh development. A good substantial stew of something was quite sufficient, no matter what the ingredients might be; it was satisfying, and that was everything.

It is astonishing how vigorous good health and a wellsharpened appetite will adjust matters, for we were always able to sleep snugly through the bombardment, which was a running accompaniment to all we did, without a shadow of indigestion, and even to withstand, as a rule, the howling of those wolves, which at night came down in hundreds, seeking what they might devour, always supposing the object of their attention was beyond the power of retaliation, for they had too much dead material at hand to be very dangerous to the living; yet there was something indescribably weird and grim about the short snapping bark of those mangy scavengers, as they scurried past us, scraping and raking about in the darkness, as they went in quest of food.

Amongst the many contributions I sent home was a sketch

of our little encampment so attacked, in which Coningsby and myself were depicted issuing from our tents with cocked revolvers, endeavouring to scare the intruders. I may here incidentally mention Coningsby's version of that illustration, which he amusingly explained at a Press dinner given me by my brethren of the pen and pencil, in their kindness of heart, on my return to England. The portion referring to those wolves ran somewhat as follows:

Never, under any circumstances, gentlemen, should any of you become correspondents, go to the front with a war artist; they are dangerous to a degree on the war-path, I can assure you. Some here may remember a

picture in the Illustrated London News, representing_Montagu and myself attacked by wolves in our encampment at Plevna. The true story of the origin of that sketch has never been told; you shall have it now.

I was in sorry plight; all day had I been on the move in quest of incident, and now my well-earned repose was to be disturbed by crowds of howling, blear-eyed beasts outside. I was utterly disgusted. Suddenly a brilliant idea suggested itself; there was at least one way out of the difficulty. If there was one thing in this world calculated, above all others, to scare those wolves, it would be a sketch by the special artist of the Illustrated London News;-so, without more ado, I rushed into Montagu's tent, seized one of his latest productions, and, rushing out into the open, displayed it by the light of the moon to those noisy intruders. The effect was magical; with a howl that I can never forget, they frantically tore away, far, far out into their dreary Balkan retreats. But, gentlemen (he went on), there is a

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terrible sequel to this, which proves, beyond the shadow of a doubt, how dangerous a travelling companion your war artist is.

upon me.

About an hour afterwards, those persistent wolves actually came back again in redoubled numbers, and then it was that a terrible vengeance fell Had one of the brutes got hold of him? No; he came in breathless haste, saying, 'There is but one thing now left to us, otherwise we shall be devoured; it's a terrible resource, but extreme cases require extreme measures!' and with this he rushed forward and seized my last manuscript for the Times. The next moment found him outside facing a crowd of those lean beasts, reading aloud to them one of the paragraphs from my article. It was more than enough for our four-footed enemy. They disappeared in less than no time; indeed, I have been told, they have not been seen in Bulgaria since (?).

Montagu came flying into my tent-he startled me.

Take Coningsby's story with the proverbial grain of salt if you will-reference to it finds a proper place here; but, at the same time, let it not for one moment interfere with the continuity of our story of everyday life at Plevna.

Hark! what's that? the Faithful to prayer. It was early morning. The Times correspondent, myself, and four Russian officers had been taking a ride round the lines before breakfast. Our horses were fresh, and what with giving them rein on this account, and a dense fog preventing our seeing many inches before our noses, we had lost our way so utterly that we were only saved from going straight into the Ottoman camp-which would have meant certain death-by that timely call to prayer, chanted in measured tones by the Muezzin

Yes, it must be the Muezzin calling
What an awful predicament!

'Allah, el Allah! Allah be praised!'

We reined in instantly, wondering which way to turn, yet fearing lest we should be detected.

Happily for us, the snow was so deep that our approach had at least been noiseless. As far as sound is concerned, nothing is so deceptive as fog; and this made our present situation all the more perplexing, as our next move might actually lead us into the very jaws of death.

We were at that moment just, as it were, within the very grip of the enemy; one false step and we should be lost. Imagine, if you can, a moment more critical; and then suppose, peering through the fog as we did, that you see ten or twelve shadowy horsemen approaching. Mechanically we