conceived. Game abounded, and the officers who had brought guns with
them found for a time capital sport. Everyone was in the highest
spirits, and the hopes that the campaign would soon open in earnest
were general. In this, however, they were destined to be disappointed,
for on the 24th of June the news came that the Turks had unaided
beaten off the Russians with such heavy loss in their attack upon
Silistria that the latter had broken up the siege, and were retreating
northward.

A weary delay then occurred while the English and French home
authorities, and the English and French generals in the field were
settling the point at which the attack should be made upon Russia. The
delay was a disastrous one, for it allowed an enemy more dangerous
than the Russians to make his insidious approaches. The heat was very
great; water bad, indeed almost undrinkable, the climate was
notoriously an unhealthy one, and fruit of all kinds, together with
cucumbers and melons, extremely cheap, and the soldiers consequently
consumed very large quantities of these.

Through June and up to the middle of July, however, no very evil
consequences were apparent. On the 21st of July two divisions of
French troops under General Canrobert marched into the Dobrudscha, in
search of some bodies of Russians who were said to be there. On the
night of the 28th cholera broke out, and before morning, in one
division no less than 600 men lay dead. The other divisions, although
situated at considerable distances, were simultaneously attacked with
equal violence, and three days later the expedition returned, having
lost over 7000 men. Scarcely less sudden or less fatal was the attack
among the English lines, and for some time the English camps were
ravaged by cholera.