The good wish for the boy baby in his cradle is, "May you not die in your bed," and to face death is to the boy or man the most joyous of games.

I have seen a man, in the midst of a hot interchange of rifle bullets between the Turkish trenches and our own, the trenches occupying the crests of two parallel ranges of low hills, go around outside the works and climb with the greatest deliberation up the hillside, exposed to the Turkish fire, and back over the breastwork into our trenches, all the time under a hail of rifle bullets.

During the siege operations at Niksich the Prince was obliged to issue an order of the day forbidding burial to any man killed in this ostentatious exposure to the Turkish fire, so many men having been killed while standing on the crests of the shelter trenches in pure bravado.

While lying at headquarters at Orealuk (where the Prince had a little villa), waiting the opening of the campaign of 1877, I was walking on the terrace with him one day after dinner when I noticed a boy of sixteen or eighteen standing at the end of the terrace with his cap in his hand, the usual form of asking for an audience.

"Now I'll show you an interesting thing," said the Prince, as he made a sign to the boy to approach.