XX11 LIFE OF DR. ROLLFSTON. 



have never reached their destination, and that makes all the 

 difference. For my own part, I have not often had such a con- 

 tinuance of good health and vigour. For the last six weeks 

 I have had Dr. Martin's wards as well as my own to take care 

 of, and I never found myself the least overworked, even at the 

 time the two sick ships came down. It was of course a great 

 advantage to get so much practice put into my hands all at 

 once, and, by a little management, I contrived to get a very 

 large share of what are called "good" cases (i.e. dangerous 

 ones) into my own wards. At the present moment I have as 

 many of these cases, more, I think, than anyone else. Of the 

 first lot (16 or so), one died in about 36 hours after landing: 

 the rest are all doing fairly. Very few deaths have taken place 

 lately, I don't think more than one this week. We have in 

 reality about 750 soldiers here, though the papers speak of us 

 as having only 500 ; our hospital has only 500 men in it, but it 

 has a Convalescent establishment as well, which no other 

 hospital has, so that they keep and count their convalescents 

 whereas we send them off one mile to the Lazaretto and do not 

 count them in our sum total. Hence our mortality is really 

 very low. ... I have plenty of time for visiting and flirting, and 

 reading to boot. In fact I have read more medical books since 

 I have been here than I could have done anywhere else I think, 

 also I have contrived to find an outlet for some of those social 

 qualities which go towards making up the entire man.' After 

 a while, finding himself with nothing to do, Rolleston came to 

 Sebastopol to offer his services, but Dr. Hall told him he had 

 more doctors already than he knew what to do with, so ' I re- 

 signed myself to sight-seeing for my fortnight's leave of absence. 

 In the three days I have had here, I have seen Balaclava, Inker- 

 man and Sebastopol. I have got clear notions of what war 

 really is, which you cannot do from books or prints (though the 

 Redan and Malakoff are very like their pictures in last week's 

 "Illustrated"), and I have gone over those famous fields and 

 collected trophies with my own hands from them. Also I have 

 heard the whistling of the round shot which the Russians fling 



