Recollections by David Christie Murray — Read

At this time trouble was brewing in the east of Europe and less than a year later war between Russia and Turkey was declared. In the early spring of the year, the opposing forces were playing a game of long bowls across the Danube, and very soon the forces commanded by "the divine figure of the North," as Mr Gladstone most infelicitously styled the Czar, had set foot upon the enemy's country. Just before this happened, I received a visit from a gentleman who announced himself as Colonel Keenan, the English representative of the _Chicago Times_, who wanted to know if he could enlist my services for the campaign. I assented eagerly, some sort of a hurried contract was drawn up between us, and on the morrow I was away, bound for Schumla, proposing to take Vienna _en route_, and thence to steam down the Danube to the theatre of the war.

I found that the Donau Damp Schiff Company had despatched its last steamboat to the Black Sea twenty-four hours before I reached Vienna and that the service was temporarily suspended. There was nothing for it but to go on to Trieste and to take boat to Constantinople. I found the city proclaimed in a state of siege and filled with all the rascaldom and ruffiandom of Tripoli and Smyrna, who held the respectable portion of the community in terror, so long as they were quartered there.