FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE,. hitherto been the superintendence of hospitals abroad. Wine and bottles of chicken broth, preserved meat for soup, &c., will be most acceptable. We have not seen a drop of milk, and the bread is extremely sour, the butter is most filthy; it is Irishbutter in a state of decomposition, and the meat is more like moist leather than food. Potatoes we are waiting for till they arrive from France." Linen, flannels, stockings, and other necessary articles of clothing were not to be obtained; the vast freights which had been sent from England were either rotting under the snow at Ealaklava, or hidden in the mud outside the custom-house at Constanti- nople. The strength with which Miss Nightingale supported the difficulties and duties of her position surpassed even the expectations of those who were best acquainted with her character and the resources of her nature. Every day brought some new com- plication of misery to be unravelled. "Each day," observes a qualified witness, " had its own peculiar trial to one who had taken such a load of respon- sibility in an untried field, and with a staff of her own sex all new to it. She has frequently been known to stand twenty hours, on the arrival of fresh detachments of sick, apportioning quarters, distri- buting stores, directing the labours of her corps, assisting at the most painful operations where her presence might soothe or support, and spending hours over men dying of cholera or fever. Indeed, the more awful to every sense any particular case 22
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