STATE BEFORE THE HURRICANE. 129 chases or employing hired lal)Our. But for chap. nursing attendance upon our sick and wounded " men in hospital, the war administration, at first, made no provision at all ; and in the absence of liospital orderlies duly trained for the work, our people had to rely upon the clumsy old plan of drawing sergeants and soldiers from the ranks to make them do the duty of nurses. But even this was not all that the perverseness of the system contrived ; for when the orderlies, and the sergeants especially, had, after a while, learnt tl:eir work and become at last more or less skilled in the performance of their hospital duties, they used to be called back to their regi- ments, and replaced by uninstructed beginners. Our administrators did not even take care that the principal medical officer should be opportunely at hand ; for, to head the medical staff forming part of Lord Eaglan's army, they thought fit to ap- point Dr Hall — an officer then serving in India, and not destined to reach the Levant in time to see the beginning of our general hospital system. So the medical care of our troops when brought out to the East was administered during some weeks through the old regimental machin- ery; but on reaching the shores of the Bosphorus, and assuming the command of our army, Lord Raglan made haste to adopt the plan of having general hospitals. One of these — called the General Hospital Q^) — he himself established at Scutari, the suburb — lovely yet mournful with its palaces, its tombs, and its cypresses — which looks across to Constantinople from the Asiatic VOL. VII. I
