Note 115 — 1798-1799.

Brigadier-General Koehler, Major Holloway, and six other officers and gentlemen proceeded by the overland route to Constantinople. Three of the detachment accompanied them—privates Joseph Comfort, Jonathan Lewsey, and David Waddell. “Their journey in the outset,” says Dr. Wittman, in his ‘Travels in Turkey,’ &c., p. 6, “had been attended by uncommon severities, such, however, as might have been expected from a season more rigorous than any which had been experienced for many years. In passing over the continent, they had, at the entrance of the Elbe, been shipwrecked among the shoals of ice; and to relieve themselves from the perilous situation, had been under the necessity of passing over the ice to the extent of two miles, to gain the shore; by this effort they were providentially saved.” They now prosecuted their journey to Constantinople, where they arrived in March, 1799.