=Source.=—_The Times._
VARNA, _August 20_.
It appears that, notwithstanding the exquisite beauty of the country
around Aladyn, it is a hotbed of fever and dysentery. The same is true
of Devno, which is called by the Turks “The Valley of Death”; and
had we consulted the natives before we pitched our camps, we should
assuredly never have gone either to Aladyn or Devno, notwithstanding
the charms of their position or the temptations offered by the abundant
supply of water, and by the adjacent woods. These meadows nurture the
fever, the ague, dysentery and pestilence in their bosom—the lake and
the stream exhale death, and at night fat unctuous vapours rise up
fold after fold from the valleys, and creep up in the dark, and steal
into the tent of the sleeper, and wrap him in their deadly embrace.
So completely exhausted on last Thursday were the Brigade of Guards,
these three thousand of the flower of England, that they had to make
two marches in order to get over the distance from Aladyn to Varna,
which is not more than ten miles. But that is not all. Their packs were
carried for them. The ambulance corps has been completely crippled by
the death of the drivers and men belonging to it.... Walking by the
beach one sees some straw sticking up through the sand, and, scraping
it away with his stick, he is horrified at bringing to light the face
of a corpse, which has been deposited there with wisps of straw around
it, a prey to dogs and vultures. Dead bodies rise up from the bottom of
the harbour, and bob grimly round in the water, or float in from sea,
and drift past the sickened gazers on board the ships—all buoyant,
bolt upright, and hideous, in the sun.
SCUTARI, _October 9_.
Cholera and fever certainly have made great ravages since the departure
from Varna, and the crowded state of the transports has prevented the
men receiving the benefit which usually attends a sea voyage. Numbers
arrived sickly and weak on the beach of Kalamita Bay, and the dreadful
night of the 14th, during which the whole army stood knee-deep in
mire, beneath a pouring rain, had an immediate effect on many who were
comparatively healthy.... There is one experiment which has been a
perfect failure. At the commencement of the war a plan was invented,
and carried out, by which a number of Chelsea pensioners were sent out
as an ambulance corps to attend on the sick. Whether it was a scheme
for saving money by utilising the poor old men, or shortening the
duration of their lives and pensions, it is difficult to say; but they
have been found in practice rather to require nursing than to be able
to nurse others.
SCUTARI, _October 12_.
It is with feelings of surprise and anger that the public will learn
that no sufficient preparations have been made for the proper care
of the wounded. Not only are there not sufficient surgeons—that, it
might be urged, was unavoidable—not only are there no dressers or
nurses—that might be a defect of system, for which no one is to blame;
but what will be said when it is known that there is not even linen to
make bandages for the wounded? After the troops have been six months
in the country, there is no preparation for the commonest surgical
operation. Not only are the men kept, in some cases, for a week without
the hand of a medical man coming near their wounds—not only are they
left to expire in agony, unheeded, and shaken off, though catching
desperately at the surgeon whenever he makes his rounds through the
fœtid ship, but now, when they are placed in the spacious building, it
is found that the commonest appliances of a workhouse sick-ward are
wanting.
_October 18._
The manner in which the sick and wounded have been treated is worthy
only of the savages of Dahomey. In one ship were four surgeons to 300
wounded and 170 cholera patients. Numbers arrived at Scutari without
having been treated by a surgeon since they fell pierced by Russian
bullets on the slopes of the Alma. The _Colombo_ left the Crimea on a
morning four days after the battle. She carried 27 wounded officers,
422 wounded soldiers, and 124 Russian prisoners, in all 573 souls.
About half the wounded had received surgical assistance before they
were put on board. To supply the wants of this mass of misery were four
medical men, one of whom was the surgeon of the ship and sufficiently
employed in looking after the crew. The upper deck became a mass of
putridity; the neglected gun-shot wounds bred maggots, which infected
the food on board; the officers were nearly overcome, and the captain
made ill by the stench. Blankets to the number of 1,500 were spoilt and
thrown overboard. Forty-six men were needlessly left on board two days
after the arrival of the ship.
HEIGHTS OF THE ALMA, _October 20_.
When I was looking at the wounded men going off to-day, I could not
see an English ambulance. Our men were sent to the sea, three miles
distant, in jolting arabas or tedious litters. The French—I am tired
of this disgraceful antithesis—had well-appointed covered hospital
vans, to hold ten or twelve men, drawn by five mules.