16 SIR WILLIAM FLOWER CHAP. 



provisions and a barge containing a pontoon 

 bridge. 



There were a good many vessels in sight all day, several of 

 them being French transports, schooners, and brigs of one to 

 three hundred tons, bound in the same direction as ourselves, and 

 having on board cavalry and stores ; what a miserable and 

 uncertain mode of conveyance these seemed, compared with our 

 mighty steamer ! Early this morning we fell in with the Medora, 

 transport ship, having Artillery on board, and as she was becalmed 

 we took her in tow, as well as the other two, so our procession 

 now was very imposing. 1 



On the yth of August they arrived off Constanti- 

 nople. In this neighbourhood they remained till the 

 end of the month, sometimes on board ship, some- 

 times in camp in Sultan's Valley near Beicos, when 

 they sailed on, first to Varna, and afterwards to 

 Baltchik. Sickness had already set in ; before they 

 left the Bosphorus there had been nine deaths from 

 cholera in the 63rd Regiment alone, and in some 

 other regiments many more. 



Ships and men were now being hurriedly 

 assembled in Varna Bay ; great was the excitement 

 on board the Avon, something was really to be 

 done now, but nobody knew what, till on the 6th 

 September they received orders announcing that 

 the invasion of the Crimea had been determined on. 



On the following day the combined fleets of 

 England, France, and Turkey, together with the 

 transports carrying troops and stores, nearly 700 



1 From Diary of the 5th and 6th August 1854. 



