Sir William Howard Russell

THE COMMENCEMENT OF ACTIVE OPERATIONS—THE SPRING—REINFORCEMENTS—THE SECOND BOMBARDMENT—ITS FAILURE—THIRD BOMBARDMENT, AND FAILURE—PERIOD OF PREPARATION.

CHAPTER I.

Preparations—The Railway in use—Vanity Fair, or Buffalo Town—Intrusion—Flowers and Birds—Exciting Sport—First Spring Meeting—Rumours—The Turkish Levies—The Electric Telegraph—News of the Death of Nicholas—Mismanagement—Progress of the Siege Works—Jack in Clover—Improved Condition of the Army—Admiral Boxer—Council of War—Affair between the Russians and the French.

IT froze on the night of the 1st of March. The thermometer was at twenty-four degrees at two A.M. next morning, the wind strong and very cold. It was scarcely to be believed that, with all our immense stores of warm clothing, boots and shoes were at that time by no means plentiful in the army. About three hundred pairs of boots were served out to the 14th Regiment, which was employed in fatigue duty in and near Balaklava; but the thick heavy clay sucked the soles off, and for a week some of the men went about without any soles to their boots—ergo, their feet were on the ground, with the thermometer at thirty degrees: that was not agreeable locomotion.

About 240 sick men were sent in from the front to Balaklava on French ambulance mules, and were received and refreshed at the Caradoc restaurant. The preparations for the renewal of our fire were pressed on; and arrangements were made to send up 2000 rounds a day to the front. About 200 mules were pressed into this service in addition to the railway, and the Highlanders and the artillery horses were employed in the carriage of heavy shell to the front, a duty which greatly distressed them. The men of the Fourth Division, the 17th and 18th Regiments, were armed with the MiniÉ rifle.

The silence and calm were but the omens of the struggle which was about to be renewed for the possession of Sebastopol. The Russians were silent because the allies did not impede their works. The allies were silent because they were preparing for the contest, and were using every energy to bring up from Kamiesch and Balaklava the enormous mounds of projectiles and mountains of ammunition which were required for the service of the new batteries and to extend, complete, and strengthen their offensive and defensive lines and trenches.

The railway had begun to render us some service in saving the hard labour attendant on the transport of shot and shell, and enabled us to form a sort of small terminal depÔt at the distance of two miles and three quarters from Balaklava, which was, however, not large enough for the demands upon it, and it was emptied as soon as it was formed by parties of the Highland Brigade, who carried the ammunition to the camp depÔt, three miles and a half further on. The railway was not sufficiently long to induce Mr. Filder to avail himself of it largely for the transport of provisions to the front, as he conceived a partial use of it would impede the formation of the rail, derange his own commissariat transport, and produce endless confusion at the temporary terminus. The commissariat officers of the Second Division were, however, allowed to use the rail between six and eight o'clock every morning.

The navvies, notwithstanding the temptation of the bottle and of strange society in Vanity Fair or Buffalo-town, worked honestly and well, with few exceptions, and the dread of the Provost-Marshal had produced a wholesome influence on the dispositions of the refractory. The Croat labourers astonished all who saw them by the enormous loads they carried, and by their great physical strength and endurance. Broad-chested, flat-backed men, round-shouldered, with long arms, lean flanks, thick muscular thighs, and their calfless legs—feeding simply, and living quietly and temperately—the Croats performed daily an amount of work in conveying heavy articles on their backs which would amaze any one who had not seen a Constantinople "hamal." Their camp, outside the town, was extremely picturesque, and, I am bound to add, dirty. A rich flavour of onions impregnated the air for a considerable distance around, mingled with reminiscences of ancient Parmesan, and the messes which the nasty-handed Phillises dressed for themselves did not look very inviting, but certainly contained plenty of nutriment, and were better, I dare say, than the tough pork and tougher biscuit of our own ration. The men were like Greeks of the Isles in dress, arms, and carriage, but they had an expression of honest ferocity, courage, and manliness in their faces, which at once distinguished them from their Hellenic brethren. We had also a number of strong "hamals" in our service, who were very useful as beasts of burden to the commissariat.

FLOWERS AND BIRDS OF THE CHERSONESE.

Parties of men were lent to Mr. Beatty to assist in the works of the railway, and 200 men of the Naval Brigade detailed in order that the construction of it might be hastened and facilitated as much as possible. I was favoured by a striking proof of the energy of the proceedings of the navvies one day. I had left my delectable premises in their usual condition, in Balaklava, as I did each week, to spend some days going from division to division, and regiment to regiment: outside my den a courtyard of abominations unutterable, the favourite resort of Tartar camel-drivers, when they had a few moments to devote to the pursuit of parasites, and of drunken sailors, who desired dignified retirement from the observation of the Provost-Marshal's myrmidons, was surrounded by a wall which enclosed a few old poplar trees and a ruined shed, in which stood some horses. I left on one post-day and returned on another, and it was with difficulty I recognised the spot. A railway was running right across my court-yard, the walls were demolished, a severance existed between the mansion and its dependencies, and just as my friends and myself entered the "saloon and bedchamber"—a primitive apartment, through the floor of which I could investigate the proceedings of my quadrupeds below—the navvies gave us a startling welcome by pulling a poplar down on the roof, which had the effect of carrying away a portion of the balcony, and pent-tiles, and smashing in my two windows elegantly "glazed" with boards.

Unusual energy was displayed in most departments. The word "must" was heard. Whether its use was attributable to the pressure of the French, to instructions from home, to the necessity which existed for it, or to any specific cause, I am unable to surmise. Certain it is that officers were told that so many guns must be in the batteries on such a day, and that such a work must be finished by such a time, and a General visited the trenches every day, and saw that the men did not neglect their duty. General Simpson, as a Chef d'Etat-Major, was expected to harmonize the operations of the Quarter-master General's and Adjutant-General's departments. A sanatorium was established on Balaklava heights.

The soil, wherever a flower had a chance of springing up, poured forth multitudes of snowdrops, crocuses, and hyacinths. The Chersonese abounds in bulbous plants, some of great beauty, and rare shrubs. The finches and larks had a Valentine's-day of their own, and congregated in flocks. Brilliant goldfinches, buntings, golden-crested wrens, larks, linnets, titlarks, tomtits, hedge sparrows, and a pretty species of wagtail, were very common; and it was strange to hear them piping and twittering about the bushes in the intervals of the booming of cannon, just as it was to see the young spring flowers forcing their way through the crevices of piles of shot, and peering out from under shells and heavy ordnance.

Cormorants and shags haunted the head of the harbour, which was also resorted to by some rare and curious wildfowl, one like the Anas sponsa[17] of LinnÆus, another the golden-eyed pocher, and many sorts of widgeon and diver. Vultures, kites, buzzards, and ravens wheeled over the plateau in hundreds at a time for two or three days, disappeared, and returned to feast on garbage. Probably they divided their attention between the allies and the Russians. The Tchernaya abounded with duck, and some of the officers had little decoys of their own. It was highly exciting sport, for the Russian batteries over Inkerman sent a round shot or shell at the sportsman if he was seen. In the daytime they adopted the expedient of taking a few French soldiers down with them, who, out of love of the thing, and for the chance of a bonnemain, were only too happy to occupy the attention of the Cossacks, while their patrons were after mallard. There were bustards and little bustards on the steppes near the Monastery of St. George, and the cliffs presented an appearance which led two or three officers acquainted with Australia to make fruitless searches for gold ore. The ravines abounded with jasper, bloodstone, and there was abundance of "black sand" in the interstices of the rocks, which were of exceeding hardness; but south-west of St. George, there were fountains of the fine blue limestone.

On the 4th of March the French and Russians had a severe brush about daybreak. Generals Canrobert, Niel, Bosquet, Bizot rode over to the English head-quarters in the course of the day, and were closeted with Lord Raglan, assisted by Sir George Brown, Sir John Burgoyne, and General Jones. They met to consider a proposition made by General Canrobert to attack the north side, by the aid of the Turks, as it seemed to him quite hopeless to attempt to drive the Russians from Inkerman.

On the morning of the 5th of March early there was a repetition of the affair between the French and Russians, who began throwing a new redoubt towards the Victoria Redoubt. In order to strengthen our right, which the enemy menaced more evidently every day, the whole of the Ninth Division of the French army was moved over there. Our first spring meeting took place on the 5th, numerously attended. The races came off on a little piece of undulating ground, on the top of the ridges near Karanyi, and were regarded with much interest by the Cossack pickets at Kamara and on Canrobert's Hill. They thought at first that the assemblage was connected with some military demonstration, and galloped about in a state of excitement, but it is to be hoped they got a clearer notion of the real character of the proceedings ere the sport was over.

In the midst of the races a party of Russians were seen approaching the vedette on No. 4 Old Redoubt in the valley. The Dragoon fired his carbine, and ten turned and fled, but two deserters came in. One of them was an officer; the other had been an officer, but had suffered degradation for "political causes." They were Poles, and the ex-officer spoke French and German fluently. They expressed great satisfaction at their escape, and the latter said, "Send me wherever you like, provided that I never see Russia again." They stated that they had deceived the men who were with them into the belief that the vedette was one of their own outposts, and advanced boldly till the Dragoon fired on them, when they discovered their mistake. The deserters state that a corps of about 8000 men had joined the army between Baidar and Simpheropol. On being taken to Sir Colin Campbell, they requested that the horses might be sent back to the Russian lines, for, as they did not belong to them, they did not wish to be accused of theft. Sir Colin granted the request, and the horses were taken to the brow of the hill and set free, when they at once galloped off towards the Cossacks. The races proceeded after this little episode just as usual, and subsequently the company resolved itself into small packs of dog-hunters.

The weather became mild, the nights clear. Our defensive line over Balaklava was greatly strengthened, and its outworks and batteries were altered and amended considerably. The health of the troops was better, mortality and sickness decreased, and the spirits of the men were good. The wreck of Balaklava was shovelled away, or was in the course of removal, and was shot into the sea to form piers, or beaten down to make roads, and stores and barracks of wood were rising up in its place. The oldest inhabitant would not have known the place on his return. If war is a great destroyer, it is also a great creator. The Czar was indebted to it for a railway in the Crimea, and for new roads between Balaklava, Kamiesch, and Sebastopol. The hill-tops were adorned with clean wooden huts, the flats were drained, the watercourses dammed up and deepened, and all this was done in a few days, by the newly-awakened energies of labour. The noise of hammer and anvil, and the roll of the railway train, were heard in these remote regions a century before their time. Can anything be more suggestive of county magistracy and poor-laws, and order and peace, than stone-breaking? It went on daily, and parties of red-coated soldiery were to be seen contentedly hammering away at the limestone rock, satisfied with a few pence extra pay. Men were given freely wherever there was work to be done. The policeman walked abroad in the streets of Balaklava. Colonel Harding exhibited ability in the improvement of the town, and he had means at his disposal which his predecessors could not obtain. Lord Raglan was out before the camps every day, and Generals Estcourt and Airey were equally active. They visited Balaklava, inspected the lines, rode along the works, and by their presence and directions infused an amount of energy which went far to make up for lost time, if not for lost lives.

The heaps accumulated by the Turks who perished in the foetid lanes of Balaklava, and the masses of abomination unutterable which they left behind them, were removed and mixed with stones, lime, manure, and earth, to form piers, which were not so offensive as might have been expected. The dead horses were collected and buried. A little naval arsenal grew up at the north side of the harbour, with shears, landing-wharf, and storehouses; and a branch line was to be made from this spot to the trunk to the camp. The harbour, crowded as it was, assumed a certain appearance of order. Cesspools were cleared out, and the English Hercules at last began to stir about the heels of the oxen of AugÆus.

The whole of the Turks were removed to the hill-side. Each day there was a diminution in the average amount of sickness, and a still greater decrease in the rates of mortality. Writing at the time, I said a good sanitary officer, with an effective staff, might do much to avert the sickness to be expected among the myriads of soldiers when the heats of spring began.[18] Fresh provisions were becoming abundant, and supplies of vegetables were to be had for the sick and scurvy-stricken. The siege works were in a state of completion, and were admirably made. Those on which our troops were engaged proceeded uninterruptedly. A great quantity of mules and ponies, with a staff of drivers from all parts of the world, was collected together, and lightened the toils of the troops and of the commissariat department. The public and private stores of warm clothing exceeded the demand. The mortality among the horses ceased, and, though the oxen and sheep sent over to the camps would not have found much favour in Smithfield, they were very grateful to those who had to feed so long on salt junk alone. The sick were nearly all hutted, and even some of the men in those camps which were nearest to Balaklava had been provided with similar comforts and accommodation.

An electric telegraph was established between head-quarters and Kadikoi, and the line was ordered to be carried on to Balaklava. The French preferred the old-fashioned semaphore, and had a communication between the camps and naval stations.

The news of the death of the Emperor Nicholas produced an immense sensation, and gave rise to the liveliest discussions as to its effect upon the contest. We were all wrong in our surmises the day the intelligence arrived. The enemy fired very briskly, as if to show they were not disheartened.

The story of the guns of position, at this time available, was instructive. It will be remembered that the Russians inflicted great loss upon us by their guns of position at the Alma, and that we had none to reply to them. Indeed, had they been landed at Kalamita Bay, it is doubtful if we could have got horses to draw them. However, if we had had the horses, we could not have had the guns. The fact was, that sixty fine guns of position, with all their equipments complete, were shipped on board the Taurus at Woolwich, and sent out to the East. When the vessel arrived at Constantinople, the admiral in charge, with destructive energy, insisted on trans-shipping all the guns into the Gertrude. The captain in charge remonstrated, but in vain—words grew high, but led to no result. The guns, beautifully packed and laid, with everything in its proper place, were hauled up out of the hold, and huddled, in the most approved higgledy-piggledy À la Balaklava ancienne, into the Gertrude, where they were deposited on the top of a quantity of medical and other stores. The equipments shared the same fate, and the hold of the vessel presented to the eye of the artilleryman the realization of the saying anent the arrangement of a midshipman's chest, "everything uppermost and nothing at hand." The officer in charge got to Varna, and in vain sought permission to go to some retired nook, discharge the cargo, and restow the guns. The expedition sailed, and when the Gertrude arrived at Old Fort, had Hercules been set to clear the guns, as his fourteenth labour, he could not have done it. And so the medicines, that would certainly have done good, and the guns, that might have done harm, were left to neutralize each other!

PROGRESS OF THE SIEGE WORKS.

The weather was in the early part of March so mild and fine, that it was scarcely generous to notice the few Black Sea fogs which swept over us now and then like shadows and so departed. Our siege works were a kind of Penelope's web. They were always approaching completion, and never (or at least very slowly) attaining it. The matter was in this wise:—Our engineers now and then saw a certain point to be gained by the erection of a work or battery at a particular place. The plans were made and the working parties were sent down, and after a few casualties the particular work was executed; but, as it generally happened that the enemy were quite alive to our proceedings, without waiting for their copies of The Times, we found that the Russians had by the time the work was finished, thrown up another work to enfilade or to meet our guns. Then it became necessary to do something to destroy the position and fresh plans were drawn up, and more trenches were dug and parapets erected. The same thing took place as before, and the process might have been almost indefinite but for the space of soil.

The front of Sebastopol, between English, French, and Russians, looked like a huge graveyard, covered with freshly-made mounds of dark earth in all directions. Every week one heard some such gossip as this—"The Russians have thrown up another battery over Inkerman." "Yes, the French are busy making another new battery in front of the redoubt." "Our fire will most positively open about the end of next week." We were overdoing our "positively last nights."

On the 8th a small work, armed with three heavy guns, which had been constructed very quietly, to open on the two steamers near Inkerman, under the orders of Captain Strange, began its practice early in the morning, at about 1700 yards, and drove them both away after about sixty rounds, but did not sink, or, as far as we knew, seriously disable them.

Every material for carrying on a siege—guns, carriages, platforms, powder, shot, shell, gabions, fascines, scaling-ladders—we had in abundance. The artillery force was highly efficient, notwithstanding the large proportion of young gunners. Our engineers, if not quite so numerous as they ought to have been, were active and energetic; and our army must have consisted of nearly 20,000 bayonets, owing to the great number of men discharged from the hospitals, and returned fit for duty, and to the draughts which had been received. With the exception of the Guards, who were encamped near Balaklava, reduced to the strength of a company, nearly every brigade in the army could muster many more men than they could a month before.

Of the Guardsmen sent to Scutari not more than sixty or seventy were in such a state of convalescence as to permit them to join their regiments. The men in Balaklava fared better, and the weather effected a marked improvement in the health of the men in the field hospitals.

As for Jack, he was as happy as he would allow himself to be, and as healthy, barring a little touch of scurvy now and then, as he could wish; but it must be remembered that he had no advanced trenches, no harassing incessant labour to enfeeble him, and that he had been most successful in his adaptation of stray horseflesh to camp purposes, in addition to which he had a peculiar commissariat, and the supplies of the fleet to rely upon. It is a little out of place, perhaps, to tell a story here about the extraordinary notions Jack had imbibed concerning the ownership of chattels and the distinction between meum and tuum, but I may not have a better chance. A mild young officer went up one day to the sailors' camp, which he heard was a very good place to purchase a horse, and on his arrival picked out a likely man, who was gravely chewing the cud of meditation and tobacco beside the suspension bridge, formed of staves of casks, which leads across a ravine to their quarters. "Can you tell me where I can get a good horse to buy, my man!"

"Well, sir, you see as how our horse parties ain't come in yet, and we don't know what we may have this evening. If your honour could wait."

"Then you haven't got anything to sell now?"

"Ah! how I does wish your honour had a comed up yesterday. We had five regular good 'uns—harabs some on 'em was, but they was all bought up by a specklator from Ballyklava."

"So they're all gone?"

"All, that lot your honour. But," with his face brightening up suddenly, "if you should happen to want a sporting out-and-out dromeydairy, I've got one as I can let you have cheap." As he spoke, Jack pointed in great triumph to the melancholy-looking quadruped, which he had "moored stem and stern," as he expressed it, and was much disappointed when he found there was no chance of a sale.

From hunger, unwholesome food, and comparative nakedness, the camp was a sea of abundance, filled with sheep and sheepskins, wooden huts, furs, comforters, mufflers, flannel shirts, tracts, soups, preserved meats, potted game, and spirits. Nay, it was even true that a store of Dalby's Carminative, of respirators, and of jujubes, had been sent out to the troops. The two former articles were issued under the sanction of Dr. Hall, who gave instructions that the doctors should report on the effects. Where the jujubes came from I know not; but had things gone on at this rate, we might soon have heard complaints that our Grenadiers had been left for several days without their Godfrey's Cordial and Soothing Syrup, and that the Dragoons had been shamefully ill supplied with Daffy's Elixir.

RENEWED VIGOUR OF THE RUSSIANS.

"Hit high—hit low—there is no pleasing him;" but really, the fact is, that the army was overdone with Berlin wool and flannel, and was ill-provided with leather. The men wanted good boots and waterproofs, for there was a rainy season. Medicine was not deficient, and there was an unfortunately large demand for the remedies against the ravages of low fever. Mutton and beef were so abundant, that the men got fresh meat about three times a-week. Some of the mutton, &c., brought to the Crimea ready killed, was excellent. Potatoes, cabbages, and carrots, were served out pretty frequently as the cargoes arrived, and the patients in hospital were seldom or never left short of vegetables. Admiral Boxer was most anxious to clear the harbour, and exerted himself to reduce the number of "adventurers" ships, and applied himself with success to the improvement of the wharfage and of the roads to the north side of the harbour. The dreamers had awakened, and after a yawn, a stretch, a gape of surprise to find that what they had been sleeping over was not a horrid nightmare, set to work with a will to clear away the traces of their sloth. But while all this improvement was taking place, the enemy were gathering strength. The Russians, on the night of the 11th, developed their works on the hill in front of the Malakoff, called the Mamelon Vert, under cover of their rapidly-increasing works at Mount Sapoune, called by the French "les ouvrages blancs." On the 12th, Omar Pasha arrived from Eupatoria, and a council of war was held, at which it was decided that 20,000 Turks should be at once landed from the latter place to co-operate in the attack on the city. The French stated they were ready to begin their fire on the 13th, but that Lord Raglan informed General Canrobert he was not prepared. Our right attack was connected by a trench with the Inkerman attack.

On the 13th General Simpson, chief of the staff, arrived; and Lord Raglan rode into Balaklava, and saw Sir John M'Neill and Colonel Tulloch, the commissioners sent out by Lord Panmure to inquire into the condition of the army.

On the 14th there was an affair with the Russians which was not so fortunate for our allies as might be desired. The Russians advanced some riflemen in front of the French on the right of our Second Division, which caused considerable annoyance. A demi-brigade went down and drove the Russians out. All the batteries opened at once with a tremendous crash, and for half an hour there was a furious cannonade directed against the darkness. In the midst of this fire a strong body of Russians advanced on the French, and obliged them to retire. Assistance was sent down, the French drove the Russians back; but lost sixty-five men, killed and wounded.

CHAPTER II.

Spring Weather—Abundance of Provisions—Fourth Division Races—A Melancholy Accident—Struggles for the Rifle-pits—Reinforcements enter Sebastopol—Departure of Sir John Burgoyne—A Curious Fight—A Hard Struggle—More Contests for the Rifle-pits—Killed and Wounded.

ABOUT the middle of March we were blessed with all the genial influences of a glorious spring. Vegetation struggled for existence beneath the tramp of armed men and the hoof of the war horse, and faint patches of green herbage dotted the brown expanse in which the allied camps had rested so long. The few fruit-trees which had been left standing near Balaklava were in blossom. The stumps on the hill sides were throwing out green shoots as outlets for the welling sap; the sun shone brightly and warmly from blue skies streaked with clouds, which were borne rapidly along by the breeze that never ceased to blow from the high lands. Of course, the beneficial effects of this permanent fine weather on the health and spirits of the army were very great, and became more striking day after day. The voice of song was heard once more in the tents, and the men commenced turning up their pipes, and chanting their old familiar choruses. The railway pushed its iron feelers up the hill-side to the camp. The wire ropes and rollers for the trains had been partially laid down. Every day the plains and hill-sides were streaked with columns of smoke, which marked the spots where fire was destroying heaps of filth and corrupt animal and vegetable matter as sacrifices on the altar of Health. The sanatorium was working in the most satisfactory manner, and had produced the best results. The waters of little streamlets were caught up in reservoirs to provide against drought.

Upwards of 700 huts had been sent to camp and erected. The army, animated by the constant inspection of Lord Raglan, and by the supervision of the heads of the great military departments, was nearly restored, in all but numbers, to what it was six months before. Bakeries, under the control of Government, were established and the troops were fed on wholesome bread. The silence and gloom of despondency had passed away with the snows and the deadly lethargy of our terrible winter. The blessed sounds of labour—twice blessed, but that they spoke of war and bloodshed—rang throughout the camp, from the crowded shore to the busy line of batteries.

It must not be forgotten, however, that the enemy derived equal advantage from the improvement in the weather. Valley and plain were now as firm as the finest road, and the whole country was open to the march of artillery, cavalry, infantry, and commissariat wagons. Each day the Russian camps on the north of Sebastopol increased and spread out. Each night new watchfires attracted the eye. We heard that a formidable army had assembled around Eupatoria, and it was certain that the country between that town and Sebastopol was constantly traversed by horse and foot, who were sometimes seen from the sea in very great numbers. The actual works of the siege made no progress to justify one in prophesying. Actual increase of lines and batteries, and armament there was no doubt, but it existed on both sides, and there had been no comparative advantage gained by the allies. The impression which had long existed in the minds of many that Sebastopol could not be taken by assault, considering the position of the north forts, the fleet, and the army outside, gained ground. It was generally thought that the army outside ought to have been attacked and dispersed, or that the investment of the place should be completed, before we could hope to reduce the city and the citadel.

A SUBSTITUTE FOR THE SHAMROCK.

But coupled with this impression was the far stronger conviction that, had our army marched upon the place on the 25th of September, it would have fallen almost without resistance. A Russian officer, who was taken prisoner and who knew the state of the city well, declared that he could not account for our "infatuation" in allowing the Russians to throw up works and regain heart, when we could have walked into the place, unless under the supposition that the hand of the Almighty was in it, and that He had blinded the vision and perverted the judgment of our generals. "And now," said he, "He has saved Sebastopol, and we, with His help, will maintain it inviolate."

However, let bygones be bygones on this and other points as well—they will be matters for history and posterity.

Several sea-service mortars, with a range of 3,500 yards, were sent up to the front, and the new batteries, now about to open, had the heaviest armament ever used in war.

On the 17th of March the Fourth Division had races. The meeting was well attended, and had this advantage over the races at Karanyi, that the course was almost under long range fire of the forts, and that the thunder of the siege-guns rose now and then above the shouts of the crowd in the heat of the sport. Not a drunken man was visible on the course. Every face beamed with good humour and joy and high spirits. As it was St. Patrick's Day, many an officer had a bit of some sorry green substitute for a shamrock in his cap. Some thoughtful people at home had actually sent out to their friends real shamrocks by post, which arrived just in the nick of time, and an officer of my acquaintance was agreeably surprised by his servant presenting himself at his bedside with a semblance of that curious plant, which he had cut out of some esculent vegetable with a pair of scissors, and a request that he would wear it, "and nobody would ever know the differ."

A melancholy accident occurred on the same night. Mr. Leblanc, surgeon of the 9th Regiment, was coming home after dark, and got outside the French lines. He was challenged; and either did not hear or understand what the man said. The Frenchman challenged again, and, receiving no reply, shot the officer dead. Heavy firing was going on at the time, and a serious affair on our right, another struggle for the pits, which the enemy had thrown up on the right opposite the French, and which our allies carried gallantly, but did not succeed in retaining.

These rifle-pits, which cost both armies such a quantity of ammunition, and led to so considerable a sacrifice on the part of our allies, were placed in front and to the right and left of the Tower of Malakoff, about 600 yards from our works. They were simple excavations faced with sandbags, loopholed, and banked round with earth. Each of these pits contained about ten riflemen. Practice made these soldiers crack shots and very expert, so that if a man showed for a moment above the works in front of these pits he had instantly a small swarm of leaden hornets buzzing round his ears.

They were so well covered and so admirably protected by the nature of the ground that our riflemen could do nothing with them, and the French sharpshooters were equally unsuccessful. It was determined to try a round shot or two at them from one of the English batteries. The first shot struck down a portion of the bank of one of the pits, the second went slap into the sandbags, right through the parapet, and out at the other side, and the riflemen, ignorant of Sir John Burgoyne's advice to men similarly situated to adhere the more obstinately to their work the more they are fired at by big guns, "bolted," and ran across the space to their works. The French sharpshooters, who were in readiness to take advantage of this moment, at once fired on the fugitives, but did not hit one of them.

As it was made a point of honour by General Bosquet that our allies should take these pits, about 5,000 men were marched up to the base of the hills in front of our position, close to the Second and Light Divisions, before dusk on the night of the 17th, and shortly afterwards sent down to the advanced trenches on our right. At half-past six o'clock they were ordered to occupy the pits. About half-past seven o'clock the Fourth Division was turned out by Sir John Campbell, and took up its position on the hill nearly in front of its tents, Sir George Brown at the same time marched the Light Division a few hundred yards forward to the left and front of their encampment. These Divisions remained under arms for nearly four hours, and were marched back when the French finally desisted from their assault on the pits. The Second and Third Divisions were also in readiness. The Zouaves advanced with their usual dash and intrepidity, but they found that the enemy were already in possession. A fierce conflict commenced, but the French could not drive the Russians out. Some misapprehension led the men in the trenches to fire before their comrades reached the pits, and the enemy dispatched a large force to the assistance of the troops already engaged with the French, so that the latter were at last forced back. The contest was carried on incessantly for four hours and a half, and roused up the whole camp. From the almost ceaseless roll and flashing lines of light in front one would have imagined that a general action between considerable armies was going on, and the character of the fight had something unusual about it owing to the absence of any fire of artillery.

Had our allies required our assistance they would have received it, but they were determined on taking and holding these pits, which, in fact, were in front of their works, without any aid. The Zouaves bore the brunt of the fight. Through the night air, in the lulls of the musketry, the voices of the officers could be distinctly heard cheering on the men, and encouraging them—"En avant, mes enfans!" "En avant, Zouaves!" the tramp of feet and the rush of men followed; then a roll of musketry was heard, diminishing to rapid file-firing—then a Russian cheer—then more musketry—dropping shots—and the voices of the officers once more. The French retired, with the loss of about 150 men killed and wounded, and a few prisoners.

SERVICES OF SIR JOHN BURGOYNE.

On the 18th a force, computed to number about 15,000 men, entered Sebastopol from the north side. Large trains of carts and waggons were seen moving round towards the Belbek, and a considerable force bivouacked by the waterside below the citadel. About the same time a portion of the army of Inkerman, numbering, according to the best calculations, 15,000, marched down towards Mackenzie's Farm, and was reported to have crossed the Tchernaya and to have gone towards Baidar.

About four o'clock, General Canrobert, attended by a small staff and escort, passed down the Woronzo Road by our right attack, and carefully examined the position of the "pits," and the works of the Mamelon and of the square redoubt to its right. At nightfall a strong force of French, with six field-guns of "12," were moved down on the left of their extreme right, and another attempt was made to take the pits from the Russians, but it was not successful. Both parties retired from the contest, after an hour's combat.

Our batteries pitched shot and shell right into the Mamelon, which the Russians were fortifying rapidly, and they also threw some excellently-aimed missiles into the new pits which the Russians had erected on the ground where the French were so severely handled some nights before. This redoubt had been armed. It was square, and mounted sixteen guns on the three faces visible to us. The fire at Inkerman, of the forts across the Tchernaya, and of the works of the Malakoff covered this redoubt, and converged on the approaches in front.

Nearly all the firing during the night of the 19th was from the French mortars. The enemy scarcely replied.

Important changes now took place among the generals. On the 21st Sir John Burgoyne left the camp and proceeded to Kamiesch, where he took passage by the mail steamer to England. All kinds of opinions and acts had been attributed to Sir John while he was superintending the earlier operations of the siege, but no one ever denied the entire devotion and zeal which the veteran General displayed in the prosecution of the works so far as he could control them. If his manner exhibited that stoical apathy and indifference which distinguish the few remaining disciples of "the Great Duke," his activity and personal energy were far beyond his years. He was succeeded by Major-General Jones, who possessed activity and energy, and it was hoped that these two appointments would contribute to the improvement of the social and internal economy of the army, and to the accomplishment of the objects of the expedition. The name of the Adjutant-General Estcourt was no longer appended to the general orders. It was the Chief of the Staff, General Simpson, who waited on Lord Raglan each day to ascertain his wishes, and to receive orders, and he communicated those orders to the Quartermaster and Adjutant-General, and saw that they were duly executed.

The Engineer officers alleged there was great difficulty in finding men to execute the necessary works, notwithstanding the improved condition of our army and the diminution of work and labour which had taken place since the co-operation of the French on our right. We frequently had not more than 900 men for duty in the trenches of the left attack, although it was considered that they ought to be defended by at least 1,200 men, and that 1,500 men would be by no means too many for the duty. I saw one parallel in which the officer on duty was told to cover the whole line of work. He had about 340 men with him, and when he had extended his line they were each nearly thirty paces apart. This was in a work exposed to attack at any moment. Notwithstanding the ground taken by the French, we were obliged to let the men stay for twenty-four hours at a time in the trenches. On an average the men had not more than three nights out of seven in bed. The French had five nights out of seven in bed. With reference to the observations which were made at home on the distribution of labour between the two armies, it must be borne in mind that when the French and English first broke ground before Balaklava we were as strong as our allies, and that it was some time after the siege began ere the relative proportions of the two armies were considerably altered to the advantage of the French by the arrival of their reinforcements.

On the 22nd a furious fight raged along our front. About nine o'clock 8,000 Russians disposed themselves in the hollows of the ground, and waited patiently till nightfall. Between eleven and twelve o'clock they rushed on the French works in front of the Mamelon, and made a dash at the trenches connecting our right with the French left. Their columns came upon the men in our advanced trenches on the right attack, with the bayonet, before we were quite prepared to receive them. When they were first discerned, they were close, and, on being challenged, replied with their universal shibboleth, "Bono Franciz." Taken at a great disadvantage, and pressed by superior numbers, the 7th and 97th guarding the trenches made a vigorous resistance, and drove the Russians out at the point of the bayonet, but not until they had inflicted on us serious loss, not the least being that of Captain Vicars of the 97th.

A HAND-TO-HAND STRUGGLE.

The 7th Fusileers had to run the gauntlet of a large body of the enemy, whom they drove back À la fourchette. The 34th Regiment were attacked by great numbers, and their Colonel, Kelly, was taken prisoner, and carried off by the enemy. In the midst of the fight, on our right, where the trench guards were at first repulsed, Major Gordon, of the Royal Engineers, displayed that cool courage and presence of mind which never forsook him. With a little switch in his hand, standing up on the top of the parapet, he encouraged the men to defend the trenches, and hurl down stones upon the Russians. He was struck by a ball which passed through the lower part of his arm, and received a bullet through the shoulder. After an hour's fight the enemy were driven back; but 3 officers and 14 rank and file were killed, 2 officers and 44 rank and file wounded, and 2 officers taken prisoners. Captain Chapman of the 20th Regiment—Lieutenant Marsh, 33rd—Major Browne, 21st—Lieutenant Jordan, 34th (killed)—Captain Cavendish Browne, 7th (killed), and Captain Vicars, 97th (killed), particularly distinguished themselves in the affair.

The French lost 13 officers and 171 men killed, 12 officers and 359 men wounded, and 4 officers and 83 men missing. Prince Gortschakoff admitted a loss of 8 officers and 379 men killed, and 21 officers and 982 men wounded. The hill-sides below the Round Tower and the Mamelon were covered with their dead, mingled with the bodies of the French. The dead were lying about among the gabions which had been knocked down in front of the French sap in great numbers.

At the first charge at the Mortar Battery, the Russian leader, who wore an Albanian costume, and whose gallantry was most conspicuous, fell dead.

It was not known how many Albanian chiefs there were with the Russians; but certainly the two who were killed led them on with intrepidity and ferocious courage. One of them, who struggled into the battery in spite of a severe wound, while his life-blood was ebbing fast, rushed at a powder-barrel and fired his pistol into it before he fell. Fortunately the powder did not explode, as the fire did not go through the wood. Another, with a cimeter in one hand and a formidable curved blade, which he used as a dagger, in the other, charged right into our ranks twice, and fell dead the second time, perforated with balls and bayonets. They were magnificently dressed, and were supposed to be men of rank.

When the Mortar Battery was carried, the enemy held it for about fifteen minutes. At the time the heavy fire between the French and Russians was going on, a portion of the 90th Regiment were employed on fatigue duty on the right of the new advanced works on our right attack. They were in the act of returning to their posts in the Gordon Battery just at the moment the heavy firing on the right had ceased, when a scattered irregular fusillade commenced in the dark on the left of their position close to the Mortar Battery. Captain Vaughton, who commanded the party of the 90th, ordered his men to advance along the covered way to the works. They moved at the double time, and found the Russians in complete possession of the Mortar Battery. The 90th at once opened a heavy fire of musketry, when an alarm was given that they were firing upon the French; but the enemy's fire being poured in with deadly effect, the small party of the 90th were thrown into great confusion. With a loud "hurrah," however, the gallant band sprang with the bayonet upon the enemy, who precipitately retired over the parapet. In order to keep up the fire, the men groped about among the dead Russians, and exhausted the cartridges in the enemy's pouches.

As an act of justice, the names of the officers and men of the party of the 90th Regiment whose conduct was distinguished in this affair should be recorded. They are—Clarke, Brittle, and Essex (sergeants), Caruthers, severely wounded (corporal), Fare, Walsh, Nicholson (wounded), and Nash. Captain Vaughton received a severe contusion in the affair. The courage displayed by Captain Cavendish Browne, of the 7th, in another part of the works, was conspicuous. He was severely wounded at the commencement of the attack, but he refused to go to the rear, though nearly fainting from loss of blood. He led on his men, encouraging them by voice and gesture, to the front. When his body was found, it lay far in advance of our line, with three balls in the chest.

Early on Saturday morning a flag of truce was sent in by the allies with a proposition to the Russians for an armistice to bury the dead, lying in numbers—five or six Russians to every Frenchman and Englishman—in front of the Round Tower and Mamelon, and after some delay, an answer in the affirmative was returned, and it was arranged that two hours should be granted for collecting and carrying away the dead on both sides. The news spread through the camps, and the races which the Chasseurs d'Afrique had got up in excellent style were much shorn of their attractions by the opportunity afforded of meeting our enemies upon neutral ground. The day was beautifully bright and warm. White flags waved gently in the faint spring breeze above the embrasures of our batteries, and from the Round Tower and Mamelon. Not a soul had been visible in front of the lines an instant before the emblems of peace were run up to the flagstaffs, and a sullen gun from the Mamelon and a burst of smoke from Gordon's batteries had but a short time previously heralded the armistice. The instant the flags were hoisted, friend and foe swarmed out of the embrasures. The Riflemen of the allies and of the enemy rose from their lairs in the rifle pits, and sauntered towards each other to behold their grim handiwork. The whole of the space between the Russian lines and our own was filled with groups of unarmed soldiery. Passing down by the Middle Picket Ravine, which was then occupied by the French, and which ran down in front of the Light Division camp, I came out upon the advanced French trench, within a few hundred yards of the Mamelon. The sight was strange beyond description. French, English, and Russian officers were walking about saluting each other courteously as they passed, and occasionally entered into conversation, and a constant interchange of little civilities, such as offering and receiving cigar-lights, was going on. Some of the Russian officers were evidently men of high rank and breeding, their polished manners contrasted remarkably with their plain, and rather coarse clothing. They wore the invariable long grey coat over their uniforms. Many of the Russians looked like English gentlemen in face and bearing. One tall, fine-looking old man, with a long grey beard and strangely shaped cap, was pointed out to us as Hetman of the Cossacks in the Crimea. The French officers were all en grande tenue, and offered a striking contrast to many of our own officers, who were still dressed À la Balaklava, and wore uncouth head-dresses, cat-skin coats, and nondescript paletots. The Russians seemed to fraternize with the French more than with us. The men certainly got on better with our allies than with the privates of our regiments who were down towards the front.

A BREATHING SPACE.

While this civility was going on, we were walking over blood-stained ground, covered with evidences of recent fight, among the dead. Broken muskets, bayonets, cartouch-boxes, caps, fragments of clothing, straps and belts, pieces of shell, little pools of clotted blood, shot—round and grape—shattered gabions and sand-bags, were visible on every side. Through the midst of the crowd stalked solemn processions of soldiers bearing their departed comrades to their long home. I counted seventy-seven litters borne past me in fifteen minutes—each filled with a dead enemy.

At one time a Russian with a litter stopped by a dead body, and put it into the litter. He looked round for a comrade to help him. A Zouave at once advanced with much grace and lifted it, to the infinite amusement of the bystanders; but the joke was not long-lived, as a Russian came up brusquely and helped to carry off his dead comrade.

Some few French, dead, were lying far in advance among the gabions belonging to the advanced trenches, which the Russians had broken down, evidently slain in pursuit. The Russian soldiers were white-faced, many of them had powerful frames, square shoulders, and broad chests. All their dead near our lines were stripped of boots and stockings. The cleanliness of their feet, and of their coarse linen shirts, was remarkable. In the midst of this stern evidence of war, a certain amount of lively conversation began to spring up, in which the Russian officers indulged in badinage. Some of them asked our officers "when we were coming in to take the place?" others "when we thought of going away?" Some congratulated us upon the excellent opportunity we had of getting a good look at Sebastopol, as the chance of a nearer view was not in their opinion very probable. One officer asked a private confidentially in English how many men we sent into the trenches? "Begorra, only 7,000 a night, and a covering party of 10,000," was the ready reply. The officer laughed and turned away. In the town we could see large bodies of soldiery assembled at the corners in the streets, and in the public places. Probably they were ordered out to make a show of their strength. Owing to some misunderstanding or other, a little fusillade began among the riflemen on the left during the armistice, but it soon terminated. The armistice was over about three o'clock. Scarcely had the white flag disappeared behind the parapet of the Mamelon before a round shot from the sailors' battery went slap through one of the embrasures of the Russian work, and dashed up a great pillar of earth inside. The Russians at once replied, and the noise of cannon soon re-echoed through the ravines.

On the night of the 26th, Captain Hill, 89th Regiment, in proceeding to post his pickets, made a mistake in the dark, and got too near the Russian pickets. He was not very well acquainted with the country, and the uncertain light deceived him. The Russians challenged, "Qui va lÀ?" "FranÇais!" was the reply. The two pickets instantly fired, and Captain Hill dropped. There were only two or three men with him, and they retired, taking with them the Captain's great-coat. They went a few yards to the rear to get assistance, and returned at once to the place where Captain Hill fell, but his body had been removed, and the Russian pickets had withdrawn.

On Monday the 2nd of April, M. St. Laurent, Commandant of French Engineers in the right attack, was mortally wounded in the battery over Inkerman. One of the most important works of the right attack bore his name, and he did much to place that portion of our works in a most efficient state.

The Russians now frequently amused themselves by shelling the camp. On the 4th, when there was a large crowd of French and English, including some of the staff, in front of the picket-house, near the Mortar Battery, suddenly a shell fell right into the midst of the group. The greater part of the assembly threw themselves down and rolled away on the ground. At last the shell burst, and one of the fragments struck and wounded a French sentry about fifty yards off. Led horses broke loose or were let go and scampered off in all directions, and as the few officers who had nerve to remain and enjoy the discomfiture of the runaways were enjoying the joke, down came another shell into the very centre of them. The boldest could not stand this, and in a few minutes not a soul was to be seen near the ground. The Military Secretary lost his cap, owing to the eccentric evolutions of his frightened quadruped, but he speedily recovered it, and that was the only loss caused by the two shells, excepting the poor fellow put hors de combat for the time.

THE STRENGTH OF THE BRITISH.

"Cathcart's Hill," in front of the Fourth Division camp, was the favourite resort of sight-seers. The place derived its name from General Cathcart using it as a look-out station, and as his resort of a morning. The flag of the division, a red and white burgee, floated from a staff on the left front angle of the parallelogram, and two stands were erected for telescopes in front. A look-out man was stationed to observe the movements of the enemy. To the front of the flagstaff on the left was a cave in which Sir John Campbell lived. He found it a welcome refuge during the storm of the 14th of November. It was marked by a little wooden fence resting on cannon shot, around which there was an impromptu flower-garden. The General's marquee and the tents of his staff were close at hand. It commanded a view of the extreme French left towards Kamiesch, and of their approaches to the Flagstaff Battery and the crenellated wall. Taking up the view from this point on the left, the eye rested upon the mass of ruins in front of the French lines, seamed here and there with banks of earth or by walls of gabions, dotted with embrasures. This part of Sebastopol, between the sea at Artillery Bay and the Dockyard Creek, was exceedingly like portions of old London after the first burst of the Wide-Street Commissioners upon it. There was a strip of ruin the combined work of French and Russians, about two miles long and 300 or 400 yards broad, and it swept round the town like a zone. The houses inside were injured, but the tall white store-houses, the domes of churches, the porticoes of palaces, and the public buildings, shone pleasantly in the sunshine. Tier after tier of roofs rose up the crest of the hill. In front of this portion of the town the dun steppes were scarred all over by the lines of the French approaches, from which at intervals arose the smoke-wreaths of cannon or the puffs of the rifle, answered from the darker lines of the Russians in front of the city. At night this space was lighted up incessantly by the twinkling flashes of musketry. Cathcart's Hill commanded a view of the whole position, with the exception of a portion of the left attack.

The ground in rear of the dark lines, serrated with black iron teeth which marked our batteries, seemed almost deserted. The soldiers sauntered about in groups just below the cover of the parapets, and a deep greyish blue line denoted the artillerymen and covering parties. In front were the Russian entrenchments and batteries with the black muzzles of the guns peering through the embrasures. The grey-coated Russians stalked about the inner parapets, busily carrying gabions and repairing the damaged works. Suddenly a thick spirt of white smoke bursts from the face of the Mamelon, the shot bounds into Gordon's Battery, knocks up a pillar of earth, and then darts forward, throwing up a cloud of dust at each ricochet. Scarcely has it struck the parapet before another burst of smoke rushes out of one of the embrasures of the Naval Battery, and a mass of whitish earth is dashed up into the air from the Mamelon. Then comes a puff from one of the French batteries on the right, and a shell bursts right in the devoted work. "Bravo the sailors!" "Well done, French!" cry the spectators. As the words leave their lips two or three guns from the Round Tower, and as many from the Mamelon, hurl shot and shell in reply. A duel of this kind, with the occasional divertissement of a shell or round shot at working or covering parties, sometimes lasted all day.

Now and then our sea-service mortars spoke out with a dull roar that shook the earth. After what seems nearly a minute of expectation a cloud of smoke and dust at the rear of the Round Tower denoted the effect of the terrible missiles. About twelve o'clock in the day the Russians left off work to go to dinner, and our men followed their example; silence reigned almost uninterruptedly for two hours or more, and then towards four o'clock the firing began again. Meantime our officers walked about or lounged on the hill-side, and smoked and chatted away the interval between breakfast and the hasty dinner which preceded the turn-out for twenty-four hours' vigil in the trenches. Many a hospitable cigar and invitation to lunch were given, the latter with the surer confidence, and with a greater chance of a ready acceptance, after the Crimean Army Fund had been established, and one was tolerably sure of a slice of a giant game-pie, to be washed down by a temperate draught of that glorious Welbeck ale which made the Duke of Portland's name a household word in our army.

Our first railway trip, on the 5th of April, had rather an unfortunate termination. A party of the 71st Regiment, which had been sent up from Balaklava on Land Transport mules, came down before dark to Head-Quarters, where they were inspected by Lord Raglan, who kept them longer than Mr. Beatty, the engineer, desired. At last, as it was getting dark, the men got into the waggons, which proceeded down the steep incline towards Balaklava. The breaks became useless, the director managed to check the waggons, but many were severely injured. One man was killed upon the spot, and several had to undergo surgical operations.[19]

CHAPTER III.

Second Bombardment—Results—Visit to Balaklava—Watching the Fire—Casualties—Attitude of the Allied Fleet—Effects of the Cannonade—Turkish Infantry—Contest for the Rifle-pits—A Golden Opportunity—The Fire slackens.

ON Easter Monday, April 9, the allied batteries simultaneously opened fire. The English works were armed with twenty 13-inch mortars, sixteen 10-inch mortars, twenty 24-pounders, forty-two 32-pounders, fifteen 8-inch guns, four 10-inch guns, and six 68-pounders. Late on the 8th, hearing that there was nothing likely to take place on Monday, I left the front, and returned to Balaklava; but in the evening I received an intimation that fire would open at daybreak the following morning. It was then black as Erebus, and raining and blowing with violence; yet there was no choice for it but to take to the saddle and try to make for the front. No one who has not tried it can fancy what work it is to find one's way through widely-spread camps in a pitch-dark night. Each camp is so much like its fellow that it is impossible to discriminate between one and the other; and landmarks, familiar in the day-time, are lost in one dead level of blackness. So my two companions and myself, after stumbling into Turkish and French lines, into holes and out of them, found ourselves, after three hours' ride, very far indeed from our destination in the front, and glad to stop till dawn, wet and tired, at the head-quarters' camp.

At four o'clock A.M. we left for the front. The horses could scarcely get through the sticky black mud into which the hard dry soil had been turned by one night's rain. Although it was early dawn, it was not possible to see a man twenty yards off. A profound silence reigned. Suddenly three guns were heard on the left towards the French lines, and then the whole line of batteries opened. The Garden and Redan Batteries came into play soon after we opened fire, but some time elapsed before the Round Tower or the Mamelon answered. The enemy were taken completely by surprise, and for half an hour their guns were weakly handled.

The Inkerman and Careening Bay Batteries were almost silent for three-quarters of an hour before they replied to the French batteries on our right.

A driving rain and a Black Sea fog whirled over the whole camp, which resumed the miserable aspect so well known to us during the winter. Tents were blown down, and the ground, as far as it was visible, looked like a black lake, studded with innumerable pools of dun-coloured water. It was not easy, so murky was the sky and so strong the wind, to see the flashes or hear the report of the Russian guns or of the French cannon on either flank, though the spot from which I watched was within a couple of hundred yards of the enemy's range; but we could tell that our batteries in front were thundering away continuously in irregular bursts, firing some twenty-five or thirty shots per minute. Early in the morning they were firing from seventy to eighty shots per minute, but they reduced the rate of fire. The sound was not so great as that of the 17th of October. Just as the cannonade opened, the sailors came over the hills from the batteries, where they had been relieved, and a few men of the Third Division turned out of the huts to the front, evidently very much astonished at the sudden opening of the fire. On the extreme left the French batteries were firing with energy on the loopholed wall, and on the Flagstaff and Garden Batteries, which were replying very feebly. Our left attack (Greenhill or Chapman's Batteries), directed its fire principally against the Redan, which only answered by five or six guns. Our right attack (Gordon's) aided by the advanced battery and by the French redoubts, had silenced the Mamelon and fired three or four shots for every one from the Round Tower. The Russian batteries to the right of the Mamelon were voiceless. So much could be seen, when rain and mist set in once more, and shut out all, save one faint blear of yellowish haze to the west. The storm was so heavy that scarcely a soul stirred out all day. It was dark as night. Lord Raglan stationed himself at his favourite place. On Cathcart's Hill only Sir John Campbell and an aide-de-camp were visible in front of the General's tent. Colonel Dacres was the only officer in front of Cathcart's Hill when I went up, with the exception of Sir John Campbell. The rain descended in torrents, there was nothing to be seen, heard, or learnt, every one withdrew to shelter after a long and hopeless struggle with the weather. The firing slackened considerably after twelve o'clock.

About five o'clock in the evening the sun descended into a rift in the dark grey pall which covered the sky, and cast a slice of pale yellow light, barred here and there by columns of rain and masses of curling vapour, across the line of batteries. The eye of painter never rested on a more extraordinary effect, as the sickly sun, flattened between bars of cloud, seemed to force its way through the leaden sky to cast one look on the plateau, lighted up by incessant flashes of light; and long trails of white smoke, tinged with fire, whirled away by the wind. The outlines of the town, faintly rendered through the mists of smoke and rain, seemed quivering inside the circling lines of fire around the familiar outlines—the green cupola and roofs, long streets and ruined suburbs, the dockyard buildings, trenches and batteries.

The only image calculated to convey an idea of the actual effect is a vision of the Potteries seen at night, all fervid with fire, out of the windows of an express train.

The practice from the left of the left attack and from the right of the right attack, which was more under observation than other parts of our works, was admirable. Our shell practice was not so good as it might have been, on account of bad fuzes. A large proportion burst in the air. Some of our fuzes were made in 1802. I have heard of some belonging to the last century, but some recent manufacture turned out the worst.

A strange and almost unexampled accident occurred in one of our batteries. A 13-inch mortar burst into two pieces, splitting up longitudinally. One of the masses was thrown thirty yards to the right, and another to the left, and though the fragments flew along the traverses and parapet, not one person was killed or wounded. We were less fortunate in the case of the Lancaster gun, which was struck by a shot, killing and wounding severely six men. Several engineer officers declared their satisfaction at getting rid of the gun, in which they could place no confidence, on account of its wild and uncertain firing.

The French silenced eight or nine guns of the Bastion du MÂt (Flagstaff), and almost shut up the Inkerman Batteries. On our side we had silenced half the guns in the Redan and Malakoff, and had in conjunction with the French left the Mamelon only one out of seven guns, but the Garden, the Road, and the Barrack Batteries were comparatively uninjured, and kept up a brisk fire all day. General Bizot received a fatal wound in our right attack just as he was lamenting the thinness of our parapets. He was struck by a rifle-ball under the ear, and died shortly after, much regretted by our allies and by ourselves.

The Russians, with great sangfroid, repaired the batteries, and appeared to have acquired confidence, but their fire was by no means so brisk as it was when the siege commenced. Omar Pasha visited Lord Raglan again on Wednesday, the 11th, and there was another council of war, at which General Canrobert and General Bosquet were present.

The expectation which the outsiders entertained that "the fleet would go in" on the third day was not realized. At daybreak I was up at Cathcart's Hill. The view was obscured by drizzling rain, but the hulls and rigging of the steamers and line-of-battle ships were visible; and though clouds of steam were flying from the funnels, it was quite evident that the fleet had no intention of taking part in the bombardment. Their presence there had, however, the effect of drawing off a number of the Russian gunners, for the sea batteries on the north and south sides were all manned, and we could see the artillerymen and sailors inside the parapets standing by their guns. It was evident that the Russians had more than recovered from their surprise, and laboured to recover the ground they had lost with all their might. They resorted to their old practice of firing six or seven guns in a salvo—a method also adopted by the French. Large reserves of infantry were drawn up near the north forts, and the corps over Inkerman were under arms. The Russians could be seen carrying their wounded across to the north side. The cannonade continued all day uninterruptedly, but I could not see that any great change had been made in the profile of the enemy's works. Several of the embrasures in the Redan had been destroyed, and the Round Tower works were a good deal "knocked about;" but there was no reduction in the weight of the enemy's fire.

Lord Raglan visited the front and spent some time examining the effects of the fire. Sir John M'Neill, Colonel Tulloch, General Pennefather, and Sir George Brown, were frequently among the spectators on the advanced mounds commanding a view of the operations. During the night the French attacked some rifle-pits at the Quarantine Cemetery, but were repulsed after a very serious affair, in which they lost 300 men; not, however, without inflicting great loss and damage on the enemy.

At dawn on Thursday, the 12th, the allied batteries and the Russians recommenced. The enemy exerted themselves to repair damages during the night, replaced damaged guns, mended embrasures and parapets, and were, in fact, nearly as ready to meet our fire as they had been at any time for six months. On our side, four of the guns for the advanced parallel, which for the previous two nights we had failed to get into position, were brought down after dark, and it was expected that material results would be produced by their fire when they were in position. Orders were sent to restrict the firing to 120 rounds per gun each day. The 13-inch mortar battery fired parsimoniously one round per mortar every thirty minutes, as it requires a long time to cool the great mass of iron heated by the explosion of 16lb. of powder.

The bombardment did not cease during the day, but it was not so heavy on the whole as it had been on the three previous days. At fifty minutes past four the batteries relaxed firing, renewed it at six, and the fire was very severe till nightfall. Then the bombardment commenced and lasted till daybreak. The Sailors' Brigade suffered very severely. They lost more men than all our siege-train working and covering parties put together. Up to half-past three o'clock on Friday, they had had seventy-three men killed and wounded, two officers killed, one wounded, and two or three contused.

At four o'clock on Friday morning, April 13, the Russians opened a destructive fire on our six-gun battery, which was in a very imperfect state, and by concentrating the fire of twenty guns upon it, dismounted some of the pieces and injured the works severely, so as to render the battery useless. One of our 24-pounders was burst by a shot which entered right at the muzzle as the gun was being discharged. Another gun, struck by a shot in the muzzle, was split up to the trunnions, the ball then sprang up into the air, and, falling at the breech, knocked off the button. In the very heat of the fire on the 12th, a Russian walked through one of the embrasures of the Round Tower, coolly descended the parapet, took a view of the profile of the work, and sauntered back again—a piece of bravado which very nearly cost him his life, as a round shot struck within a yard of him, and a shell burst near the embrasure as he re-entered.

Two divisions of Turkish infantry encamped near the English head-quarters. They mustered about 15,000 men, and finer young fellows I never saw. They had had a long march, and their sandal shoon afforded sorry protection against the stony ground; and yet few men fell out of the ranks. One regiment had a good brass band, which almost alarmed the bystanders by striking up a quick step (waltz) as they marched past, in excellent style, but the majority of the regiments were preceded by musicians with drums, fifes, and semicircular thin brass tubes, with wide mouths, such as those which may have tumbled the walls of Jericho, or are seen on the sculptured monuments of primÆval kings.

The colonel and his two majors rode at the head of each regiment, and followed by pipe-bearers and servants, richly dressed, on small but spirited horses, covered with rich saddle-cloths. The mules, with the tents, marched on the right—the artillery on the left. Each gun was drawn by six horses. The two batteries consisted of four 24lb. brass howitzers, and two 9lb. brass field pieces; the carriages and horses were in a very serviceable state. The ammunition boxes were rather coarse and heavy. The baggage animals of the division marched in the rear, and the regiments marched in columns of companies three deep, each company on an average with a front of twenty rank and file. One of the regiments had MiniÉ rifles of English make; the others were armed with flint firelocks, but they were very clean and bright. They displayed standards, blazing with cloth of gold, and flags with the crescent and star upon them. The men carried blankets, squares of carpet for prayer, cooking utensils, and packs of various sizes and substances. As they marched over the undulating ground they presented a very picturesque and warlike spectacle, the reality of which was enhanced by the thunder of the guns at Sebastopol, and the smoke-wreaths from shells bursting high in the air.

At a council of war on the 13th, the question of assaulting the place was discussed, but Lord Raglan and the other English generals who were in favour of doing so were overruled by General Canrobert and General Niel.

Omar Pasha, attended by his suite, rode round the rear of our batteries on the 15th, and Lord Raglan visited the Turkish encampment on the hills to the west of the Col de Balaklava.

On Saturday night (14th), there was a severe and protracted conflict on the left, for the French rifle-pits in front of the Quarantine Works. At first, the weight of the columns which swept out of the enemy's lines bore back the French in the advanced works, where the covering parties were necessarily thin, and many lost their lives by the bayonet. Our allies, having received aid, charged the Russians into their own lines, to which they fled with such precipitation that the French entered along with them, and could have spiked their advanced guns had the men been provided with the means. As they were retiring, the enemy made a sortie in greater strength than before. A sanguinary fight took place, in which the bayonet, the musket-stock, and the bullet were used in a pell-mell struggle, but the French asserted their supremacy, and in defiance of the stubborn resistance of the Russians, evoked by the cries and example of the officers, forced them battling back across their trenches once more, and took possession of the rifle-pits, which they held all night. The loss of our allies was considerable in this brilliant affair. The energy and spirit with which the French fought were beyond all praise.

The next morning our advanced batteries were armed with fourteen guns. They opened at daybreak, and directed so severe a fire against the Russian batteries throughout the day, that they concentrated a number of guns upon the two batteries. We nevertheless maintained our fire.

At half-past eight o'clock in the evening (15th), three mines, containing 50,000 pounds of powder, were exploded with an appalling crash, in front of the batteries of the French, seventy yards in front of the third parallel. The fourth and principal mine was not exploded, as it was found to be close to the gallery of a Russian mine, and the French were unable to make such a lodgment as was anticipated; but they established themselves in the course of the night in a portion of the outer work. The etonnoirs were, after several days' hard labour and nights of incessant combat, connected with the siege works. The Russians, believing the explosion to be the signal for a general assault, ran to their guns, and for an hour their batteries vomited forth prodigious volumes of fire against our lines from one extremity to the other. The force and fury of their cannonade was astonishing, but notwithstanding the length and strength of the fire, it caused but little damage to the works or to their defenders. Next day the magazine of our eight-gun battery in the right attack was blown up by a shell, and seven of our guns were silenced, but the eighth was worked with great energy by Captain Dixon, R. A., who commanded in the battery.

On the 17th, the 10th Hussars arrived, and five hundred sabres were added to the strength of our cavalry. Our fire had much diminished by the 18th of April. The Russian fire slackened just in proportion as they found our guns did not play upon them. The French batteries also relaxed a little. In the night we carried a rifle-pit in front of our right attack, and commenced a sap towards the Redan. The Russians made sorties on the French in the third parallel, and were only repulsed after hard fighting and loss.

CHAPTER IV.

A RECONNAISSANCE was made by twelve battalions of Turkish troops under the command of His Excellency Omar Pasha, assisted by French and English cavalry and artillery, on the 19th. Orders were sent to the 10th Hussars (Brigadier-General Parlby, of the Light Cavalry, in temporary command of the Cavalry Division, during General Scarlett's absence), to the head-quarters of the Heavy Cavalry Brigade, to the C troop of the Royal Horse Artillery, to be in readiness to turn out at daybreak. The Chasseurs d'Afrique and a French rocket troop accompanied the reconnaissance, and rendered excellent service during the day. As the morning was fine and clear, the sight presented by the troops advancing towards Kamara across the plain from the heights was very beautiful. So little was known about the reconnaissance, that many officers at head-quarters were not aware of it, till they learnt that Lord Raglan, attended by a few members of the staff, had started to overtake the troops. A great number of amateurs, forming clouds of very irregular cavalry, followed and preceded the expedition. The Pasha, who was attended by Behrem Pasha (Colonel Cannon), and several Turkish officers of rank, had the control of the movement.

The Turks marched in column; the sunlight flashing on the polished barrels of their firelocks and on their bayonets, relieved the sombre hue of the mass, for their dark blue uniforms, but little relieved by facings or gay shoulder-straps and cuffs, looked quite black when the men were together. The Chasseurs d'Afrique, in powder-blue jackets, with white cartouch belts, and bright red pantaloons, mounted on white Arabs, caught the eye like a bed of flowers. Nor did the rich verdure require any such borrowed beauty, for the soil produced an abundance of wild flowering shrubs and beautiful plants. Dahlias, anemones, sweetbriar, whitethorn, wild parsley, mint, thyme, sage, asparagus, and a hundred other different citizens of the vegetable kingdom, dotted the plain, and as the infantry moved along, their feet crushed the sweet flowers, and the air was filled with delicate odours. Rectangular patches of long, rank, rich grass, waving high above the more natural green meadow, marked the mounds where the slain of the 25th of October were reposing, and the snorting horses refused to eat the unwholesome shoots that sprang there.

The skeleton of an English dragoon, said to be one of the Royals, lay extended on the plain, with tattered bits of red cloth hanging to the bones of his arms. The man must have fallen early in the day, when the Heavy Cavalry, close to Canrobert's Hill, came under fire of the Russian artillery. There was a Russian skeleton close at hand in ghastly companionship. The small bullet-skull, round as a cannon-ball, was still covered with grisly red locks. Farther on, the body of another Russian seemed starting out of the grave. The half-decayed skeletons of artillery and cavalry horses covered with rotting trappings, harness, and saddles, lay as they fell, in a dÉbris of bone and skin, straps, cloth, and buckles. From the graves, the uncovered bones of the tenants started through the soil, as if to appeal against the haste with which they had been buried. With the clash of drums and the shrill strains of the fife, with the champing of bits and ringing of steel, in all the pride of life, man and horse swept over the remnants of the dead.

The relics of the Heavy Cavalry Brigade, Scots Greys and Enniskillens, 4th Dragoon Guards and 5th Dragoon Guards, passed over the scene of their grand encounter with the Muscovite cavalry. The survivors might well feel proud. The 10th Hussars were conspicuous for the soldierly and efficient look of the men, and the fine condition of their light, sinewy, and showy horses. As the force descended into the plain they extended, and marched towards Kamara, spreading across the ground in front of Canrobert's Hill from No. 2 Turkish Redoubt up to the slope which leads to the village. A party of Turkish infantry followed the cavalry in skirmishing order, and on approaching the village, proceeded with great activity to cover the high wooded hill which overhung the village to the right. The Turks were preceded by a man armed with a bow and arrows, who said he was a Tcherkess. In addition to his bow and arrows, he carried a quaint old pistol, and his coat-breast was wadded with cartridges.

The few Cossacks in the village abandoned it after firing a few straggling shots at the advanced skirmishers. One had been taken so completely by surprise that he left his lance leaning against a wall. An officer of the 71st espied it just as the Cossack was making a bolt to recover it. They both rode their best, but the Briton was first, and carried off the lance in triumph, while the Cossack retreated with affected pantomime, representing rage and despair.

I looked into the church, the floor of which had been covered an inch in depth with copper money, when the expedition first came to Balaklava. The simple faith of the poor people in the protection of their church had not been violated by us, but the Cossacks appeared to have had no such scruples, for not a copeck was to be seen, and the church was bare and desolate, and stripped of every adornment. As soon as the Turks on the right had gained the summit of the hill above Kamara, three of the columns advanced and drew up on the slope in front of the church. A detachment was sent towards Baidar, but could see no enemy, and they contented themselves with burning a building which the Cossacks had left standing, the smoke from which led some of us to believe that a little skirmish was going on among the hills.

Meantime the force, leaving three columns halted at Kamara, marched past Canrobert's Hill, the sides of which were covered with the wigwams of the Russians—some recent, others those which were burnt when Liprandi retired. They passed by the old Turkish redoubts Nos. 1 and 2, towards a very steep and rocky conical hill covered with loose stones, near the top of which the Russians had thrown up a wall about 2½ feet high. A group of Cossacks and Russian officers assembled on the top to watch our movements. The Turks ascended the hill with ardour and agility, firing as they advanced, the Cossacks replied by a petty fusillade. Suddenly an arch of white smoke rose from the ground with a fierce, hissing noise, throwing itself like a great snake towards the crest of the hill; as it flew onward the fiery trail was lost, but a puff of smoke burst out on the hill-top, and the Cossacks and Russians disappeared with precipitation. In fact, the French had begun their rocket practice with great accuracy. Nothing could be better for such work as this than their light rocket troops. The apparatus was simple and portable—a few mules, with panniers on each side, carried the whole of the tubes, cases, sticks, fuzes, &c., and the effect of rockets, though uncertain, is very great, especially against cavalry; the skirmishers crowned the hill. The Russians rode rapidly down and crossed the Tchernaya by the bridge and fords near Tchorgoun. Omar Pasha, Lord Raglan, and the French generals spent some time in surveying the country, while the troops halted in rear, the artillery and cavalry first, supported by four battalions of Egyptians. At two o'clock the reconnaissance was over, and the troops retired to the camp, the skirmishers of the French cavalry being followed by the Cossacks, and exchanging long shots with them from time to time, at a prudent distance. Altogether, the reconnaissance was a most welcome and delightful interlude in the dull, monotonous "performances" of the siege. Every one felt as if he had got out of prison at last, and had beaten the Cossacks, and I never saw more cheering, joyous faces at a cover side than were to be seen on Canrobert's Hill. It was a fillip to our spirits to get a gallop across the greensward once more, and to escape from the hateful feeling of constraint and confinement which bores us to death in the camp.

On the same night a very gallant feat of arms was performed by the 77th Regiment. In front of the Redan, opposite our right attack, the Russians had established capacious pits, from which they annoyed us considerably, particularly from the two nearest to us on the left-hand side. Round shot and shell had several times forced the Russians to bolt across the open ground to their batteries, but at night they repaired damages, and were back again as busy as ever in the morning. Our advanced battery would have been greatly harassed by this fire when it opened, and it was resolved to take the two pits, to hold that which was found most tenable, and to destroy the other. The pits were complete little batteries for riflemen, constructed with great skill and daring, and defended with vigour and resolution, and the fire from one well established within 300 or 400 yards of a battery was sufficient to silence the guns and keep the gunners from going near the embrasures.

At eight o'clock the 77th, under Lieutenant-Colonel Egerton, with a wing of the 33rd in support in the rear, moved down the traverses towards these rifle-pits. The night was dark and windy, but the Russian sentries perceived the approach of our men, and a brisk fire was at once opened, to which our troops scarcely replied, for they rushed upon the enemy with the bayonet, and, after a short struggle, drove them out of the two pits and up the slope behind them. It was while setting an example of conspicuous bravery to his men that Colonel Egerton fell mortally wounded. Once in the pits, the engineers set to work, threw up a gabionnade in front, and proceeded to connect the nearest rifle-pit with our advanced sap. The enemy opened an exceedingly heavy fire on them, and sharpshooters from the parapets and from the broken ground kept up a very severe fusillade; but the working party continued in defiance of the storm of shot which tore over them; and remained in possession of the larger of the pits. The General of the day of the right attack telegraphed to head-quarters that our troops had gained the pits, and received directions to keep them at all hazards. At two o'clock in the morning a strong column of Russians advanced against the pits, and the combat was renewed. The enemy were met by the bayonet, they were thrust back again and again, and driven up to their batteries. The pit was most serviceable, not only against the embrasures of the Redan, but in reducing the fire of the rifle-pits on its flank. A drummer boy of the 77th engaged in the mÊlÉe with a bugler of the enemy, made him prisoner and took his bugle—a little piece of juvenile gallantry for which he was well rewarded.

Next night the Russians sought to reoccupy the pits, but were speedily repulsed; the 41st Regiment had fifteen men killed and wounded. The pit was finally filled in with earth, and re-abandoned.

On the 24th a council of war was held at head-quarters, and it was resolved to make the assault at 1 P.M. on the 28th. The English were to attack the Redan; the French the Ouvrages Blancs, Bastion du MÂt, Bastion Centrale, and Bastion de la Quarantaine. In the course of the evening General Canrobert, however, was informed by the French admiral, that the French army of Reserve would arrive from Constantinople in a week,—it was said, indeed, the Emperor would come out to take the command in person, and the assault was deferred.

During the night of the 24th the Russians came out of the Bastion du MÂt (Flagstaff battery) soon after dark, and began excavating rifle-pits close to the French. Our allies drove them back at the point of the bayonet. The enemy, stronger than before, returned to their labour, and, covered by their guns, succeeded in making some progress in the work, finally, after a struggle which lasted from eight o'clock till three o'clock in the morning, and prodigious expenditure of ammunition. The French loss was estimated at 200. The Russians must have lost three times that number, judging from the heavy rolling fire of musketry incessantly directed upon them. In the morning it was discovered that the enemy were in possession of several pits, which they had succeeded in throwing up in spite of the strenuous attempts made to dislodge them.

On the 25th General Canrobert sent to inform Lord Raglan that in consequence of the information he had received of the probable arrival of the Emperor, and of the Imperial Guard and reinforcements to the strength of 20,000 men, he resolved not to make the assault on the 28th. On the 26th General Bosquet's army of observation, consisting of forty-five battalions of infantry, of two regiments of heavy dragoons, and of two regiments of Chasseurs d'Afrique, with sixty guns, were reviewed by General Canrobert, who was accompanied by a large and very brilliant staff, by several English generals, and by an immense "field" of our officers on the ridge of the plateau on which the allies were encamped. The troops took ground from the point opposite the first Russian battery over Inkerman to the heights above the scene of the battle of Balaklava on the 25th of October. The ground was too limited to contain such a body of men even in dense column, and a double wall of battalions.

General Canrobert, his hat trimmed with ostrich plumes, his breast covered with orders, mounted on a spirited charger, with a thick stick under his arm, followed by a brilliant staff, his "esquire" displaying a tricolor guidon in the air, attended by his escort and a suite of generals, passed along the lines. The bands struck up Partant pour la Syrie. The vivandiÈres smiled their best. The golden eagles, with their gorgeous standards, were lowered.

As soon as General Canrobert had reviewed a couple of divisions, there was "an officers' call." The officers formed a square, General Canrobert, riding into the centre, addressed them with much elocutionary emphasis respecting the speedy prospect of active operations against the place, which he indicated by the illustration, "If one wants to get into a house, and cannot get in at the door, he must get in at the window."

The address was listened to, however, with profound silence. The General and staff took up ground near the centre of the position, and regiment after regiment marched past. A sullen gun from the enemy, directed towards the nearest column from the battery over the Tchernaya, denoted the vigilance of the Russians, but the shot fell short against the side of the plateau. The troops—a great tide of men—the coming of each gaudy wave heralded over the brow of the hill, crested with sparkling bayonets, by the crash of martial music—rolled on for nearly two hours. Chasseurs À pied, infantry of the line, Zouaves, Voltigeurs, and Arabs passed on column after column, till the forty-five battalions of gallant Frenchmen had marched before the eyes of him who might well be proud of commanding them. The Chasseurs IndigÈnes, their swarthy faces contrasting with their white turbans, clad in light blue, with bright yellow facings and slashing, and clean gaiters and greaves, showed like a bed of summer flowers; the Zouaves rushed by with the buoyant, elastic, springing tread which reminded one of Inkerman; nor was the soldier-like, orderly, and serviceable look of the line regiments less worthy of commendation. Then came the roll of the artillery, and in clouds of dust, rolling, and bumping, and jolting, the sixty guns and their carriages had gone by. The General afterwards rode along the lines of the Chasseurs d'Afrique, and of the two regiments of dragoons, which went past at a quick trot. It was said that there were 2,000 horsemen in the four regiments. They certainly seemed fit for any duty that horse and man could be called upon to execute. The horses, though light, were in good condition, particularly those of the Chasseurs d'Afrique. The inspection terminated shortly after six o'clock. Each regiment, as it defiled past the General, followed the example of the colonel, and cried "Vive l'Empereur!"

Next day the General reviewed Pelissier's corps, in rear of the trenches, and passed through the 40,000 men of which it consisted, using much the same language as the day previously.

Up to the 27th there was no material change in the position of the allied armies before Sebastopol, or in the attitude of the enemy within and outside the city. Every night there was the usual expenditure of ammunition. Nothing, indeed, was more difficult to ascertain than the particulars of these nocturnal encounters. After a cannonade and furious firing, which would keep a stranger in a state of intense excitement all night, it was common to hear some such dialogue as this the following morning:—"I say, Smith, did you hear the row last night?"

"No, what was it?"

"Oh, blazing away like fury. You don't mean to say you didn't hear it?"

"Not a sound; came up from the trenches last night, and slept like a top."

"Hallo, Jones," (to a distinguished 'cocked hat' on horseback, riding past,) "tell us what all the shindy was about last night."

"Shindy, was there? By Jove, yes; I think I did hear some firing—the French and the Russians as usual, I suppose."

"No, it sounded to me as if it was in front of our right attack."

"Ah, yes—well—I suppose there was something."

Another thinks it was on the left, another somewhere else, and so the matter ends, and rests for ever in darkness unless the Invalide Russe, the Moniteur, or the Gazette throw their prismatic rays upon it. I need not say that all minute descriptions of charges or of the general operations of war conducted at night are not trustworthy. Each man fancies that the little party he is with bears the whole brunt of the work, and does all the duty of repulsing the enemy; and any one who takes his narrative from such sources will be sure to fall into innumerable errors. From the batteries or from the hills behind them one can see the flashes flickering through the darkness, and hear the shouts of the men—but that is all—were he a combatant he would see and hear even less than the spectator. In a day or two after the affair was over, one might hear what really had taken place by taking infinite pains and comparing all kinds of stories. It was, in fact, a process of elimination. Nothing afforded finer scope to the exercise of fancy than one of these fights in the dark—it was easy to imagine all sorts of incidents, to conceive the mode of advance, of attack, of resistance, of retreat, or of capture, but the recital was very inconsistent with the facts. The generals whose tents were near the front adopted the device of placing lines of stones radiating from a common centre towards the principal points of the attack, so as to get an idea of the direction in which the fire was going on at night. Even that failed to afford them any very definite information as to the course of the fight.

CHAPTER V.

THE May-day of 1854 in the Crimea was worthy of the sweetest and brightest May Queen ever feigned by the poets in merry England! A blue sky, dotted with milk-white clouds, a warm, but not too hot a sun, and a gentle breeze fanning the fluttering canvas of the wide-spread streets of tents, here pitched on swelling mounds covered with fresh grass, there sunk in valleys of black mould, trodden up by innumerable feet and hoofs, and scattered broadcast over the vast plateau of the Chersonese. It was enough to make one credulous of peace, and to listen to the pleasant whispers of home, notwithstanding the rude interruption of the cannon before Sebastopol. This bright sun, however, developed fever and malaria. The reeking earth, saturated with dew and rain, poured forth poisonous vapours, and the sad rows of mounds, covered with long lank grass, which, rose above the soil, impregnated the air with disease. As the atmosphere was purged of clouds and vapour, the reports of the cannon and of the rifles became more distinct. The white houses, green roofs, the domes and cupolas of Sebastopol stood out with tantalizing distinctness against the sky, and the ruined suburbs and masses of rubbish inside the Russian batteries seemed almost incorporated with the French intrenchments.

A very brilliant exploit was performed by seven battalions of French infantry, in which the 46th Regiment were particularly distinguished, during the night and morning of the 1st and 2nd of May. The enemy, alarmed by the rapid approaches of the French, had commenced a system of counter approaches in front of the Bastion of the Quarantine, Central Bastion, and Bastion du MÂt, which were assuming enormous proportions. General Pelissier demanded permission to take them. General Canrobert, whose indecision increased every day, at last gave orders for the assault. Three columns rushed out of the works shortly before seven o'clock P.M. The Russians came out to meet them—a tremendous conflict ensued, in which the French, at last, forced the Russians back into the works, followed them, stormed the outworks of the Batterie Centrale, and took off nine cohorns. In this affair, which lasted till two o'clock A.M., the French had nine officers put hors de combat, sixty-three men killed, and two hundred and ten wounded.

On the 2nd of May, at half-past two P.M., Russian troops, in three divisions, each about 2,500 strong, were seen marching into Sebastopol from the camp over the Tchernaya. A very large convoy of carts and pack animals also entered the town in the course of the day, and an equally numerous string of carts and horses left for the interior. The day was so clear that one could almost see the men's faces through the glass. The officers were well mounted, and the men marched solidly and well. Numbers of dogs preceded and played about the line of march, and as they passed by the numerous new batteries, at which the Russians were then working night and day, the labourers saluted the officers and stood gazing on the sight, just as our own artisans would stare at a body of troops in some quiet English town.

About four o'clock P.M., it was observed by us that the enemy was forming in column in the rear of the Bastion du MÂt. A few moments afterwards, about 2,000 men made a rush out of the Batterie Centrale, and with a loud cheer flung themselves on the French trenches. For a moment their numbers and impetuosity enabled them to drive the French out of the works as far as the parallel, but not without a desperate resistance. The smoke soon obscured the scene of the conflict from sight, but the French could be seen advancing rapidly along the traverses and covered ways to the front, their bayonets flashing through the murky air in the sun. In a few moments the Russians were driven back behind their entrenchments, which instantly opened a heavy cannonade. Several Russian officers were taken prisoners. The enemy did not succeed in their object. Next day there was a truce; 121 French were found on the ground, and 156 Russians were delivered to their burial parties. While this affair was taking place our horseraces were going on behind Cathcart's Hill. The monotony of the siege operations was now broken.

On the 3rd of May, the 42nd, 71st, and 93rd, part of the 2nd Battalion Rifle Brigade, two companies of Sappers and Miners, 700 of the 71st Highland Light Infantry, one battery of Artillery, 50 of the 8th Hussars, and the First Division of the First Corps of the French army under D'Autemarre, sailed from Kamiesch and Balaklava; the whole force being under the command of Sir George Brown. The fleet, consisting of about forty sail, with these 12,000 men on board, arrived at the rendezvous, lat. 44·54, long. 36·28, on Saturday morning. There an express steamer, which left Kamiesch on Friday night with orders from General Canrobert, directed the immediate return of the French, in consequence of a communication from the Emperor at Paris, which rendered it incumbent on him to concentrate the forces under his command in the Chersonese. Admiral Bruat could not venture to take upon himself the responsibility of disregarding orders so imperative and so clear, and Admiral Lyons was not in a position to imitate the glorious disobedience of Nelson. Lord Raglan gave permission to Sir George Brown to go on without the French, if he thought proper, but that gallant officer did not consider his force large enough, and would not avail himself of such a proof of his General's confidence. This abrupt termination of an expedition which was intended to effect important services, excited feelings of annoyance and regret among those who expected to win honour, glory, and position.

The expedition returned on the 5th, and the troops were landed, and we began to hear further rumours of dissensions in our councils, and of differences between Lord Raglan and General Canrobert. The Emperor Napoleon had sent out a sketch of operations, to which General Canrobert naturally attached great importance, and from which Lord Raglan dissented. General Canrobert proposed that Lord Raglan should take the command of the allied armies. His lordship, after some hesitation, accepted the offer, and then proposed changes in the disposition of the two armies, to which General Canrobert would not accede. Finding himself thus compromised, Canrobert demanded permission from the Emperor to resign the command of the French army, and to take charge of a division. The Emperor acceded to the request, and General Canrobert was succeeded by General Pelissier, in command of the French army.

On the 8th of May, General Della Marmora and 5,000 Sardinians arrived in the Crimea, and were attached to the English army. Two or three steamers arrived every four-and-twenty hours laden with those excellent and soldier-like troops. They landed all ready for the field, with horses, carts, &c. Their transport cars were simple, strongly made, covered vehicles, not unlike a London bread-cart, painted blue, with the words "Armata Sarda" in black letters, and the name of the regiment to the service of which it belonged. The officers were well mounted, and every one admired the air and carriage of the troops, more especially the melodramatic headdress—a bandit-looking hat, with a large plume of black cock's feathers at the side—of the "Bersaglieri."

PLAN of ODESSA. MAP SHEWING THE MILITARY ROADS & COUNTRIES BETWEEN ODESSA & PEREKOP.

About one o'clock in the morning of the 10th of May, the camp was roused by an extremely heavy fire of musketry and repeated cheering along our right attack. The elevated ground and ridges in front of the Third and Fourth Divisions were soon crowded with groups of men from the tents in the rear. It was a very dark night, for the moon had not risen, and the sky was overcast with clouds, but the flashing of small arms, which lighted up the front of the trenches, the yell of the Russians (which our soldiers christened "the Inkerman screech"), the cheers of our men, and the volume of fire, showed that a contest of no ordinary severity was taking place. For a mile and a half the darkness was broken by outbursts of ruddy flame and bright glittering sparks, which advanced, receded, died out altogether, broke out fiercely in patches in innumerable twinkles, flickered in long lines like the electric flash along a chain, and formed for an instant craters of fire. By the time I reached the front—about five minutes after the firing began—the fight was raging all along the right of our position. The wind was favourable for hearing, and the cheers of the men, their shouts, the voices of the officers, the Russian bugles and our own, were distinctly audible. The bugles of the Light Division and of the Second Division were sounding the "turn out" on our right as we reached the high ground, and soon afterwards the alarm sounded through the French camp.

The musketry, having rolled incessantly for a quarter of an hour, began to relax. Here and there it stopped for a moment; again it burst forth. Then came a British cheer, "Our fellows have driven them back; bravo!" A Russian yell, a fresh burst of musketry, more cheering, a rolling volley subsiding into spattering flashes and broken fire, a ringing hurrah from the front followed; and then the Russian bugles sounding "the retreat," and our own bugles the "cease firing," and the attack was over. The enemy were beaten, and were retiring to their earthworks; and the batteries opened to cover their retreat. The Redan, Round Tower, Garden and Road Batteries, aided by the ships, lighted up the air from the muzzles of their guns. The batteries at Careening Bay and at the north side of the harbour contributed their fire. The sky was seamed by the red track of innumerable shells. The French, on our right, opened from the batteries over Inkerman and from the redoubts; our own batteries sent shot and shell in the direction of the retreating enemy. The effect of this combined fire was very formidable to look at, but was probably not nearly so destructive as that of the musketry. From half-past one till three o'clock the cannonade continued, but the spectators had retired before two o'clock, and tried to sleep as well as they might in the midst of the thunders of the infernal turmoil. Soon after three o'clock A.M. it began to blow and rain with great violence, and on getting up next morning I really imagined that one of our terrible winter days had interpolated itself into the Crimean May.

Soon after General Pelissier took the command, another expedition against Kertch and the Russians in the Sea of Azoff was organized. The command of the British contingent was conferred, as before, on Sir George Brown. On Tuesday evening (May the 22nd) the Gladiator, Stromboli, Sidon, Valorous, Oberon, and Ardent, anchored off Balaklava. The transports, with the British on board, hauled outside.

The force consisted of 7,500 French troops, under General d'Autemarre; of 5,000 Turks, under Redschid Pasha; of 3,805 English, under Sir George Brown—namely, 864 Marines, Lieutenant-Colonel Holloway; 168 Artillery, Captains Barker, Graydon, &c.; the 42nd Highlanders, Colonel Cameron, 550 strong; the 79th Regiment of Highlanders, 430 strong, Colonel Douglas; the 93rd Highlanders, 640 strong, Lieutenant-Colonel Ainslie; the 71st Highland Light Infantry, 721 strong, Lieutenant-Colonel Denny; 50 Sappers and Miners, and 50 of the 8th Hussars, under Colonel de Salis. The staff numbered forty persons, and the Transport Corps 310 officers and men. A flying squadron was organized under the command of Captain Lyons, son of the Admiral, who was on board the Miranda, and consisted of the following vessels:—Vesuvius, Captain Osborn; Stromboli, Captain Cole; Medina, Commander Beresford; Ardent, Lieutenant-Commander Horton; Arrow, Lieutenant Jolliffe; Beagle, Lieutenant Hewett; Lynx, Lieutenant Aynsley; Snake, Lieutenant M'Killop; Swallow, Commander Crauford; Viper, Lieutenant Armytage; Wrangler, Lieutenant Risk; and Curlew, Commander Lambert.

There are not many people who ever heard of Kertch or Yenikale since their schoolboy days until this war directed all eyes to the map of the Crimea, but these towns represented, on a small scale, those favoured positions which nature seemed to have intended for the seat of commerce and power, and in some measure resembled Constantinople, which is placed, like them, on a narrow channel between two seas, whose trade it profited by and commanded. On approaching Cape Takli Bournou, which is the south-western corner, so to speak, of the entrance to the Straits of Kertch, the traveller sees on his left a wide expanse of undulating meadow land marked all along the prominent ridges with artificial tumuli, and dotted at wide intervals with Tartar cottages and herds. The lighthouse at the cape is a civilized European-looking edifice of white stone, on a high land, some height above the water; and as we passed it on the 24th of May, we could see the men in charge of it mounted in the balcony, and surveying the proceedings of the fleet through telescopes.

On the right of the Straits, or, in other words, at the south-eastern extremity, the coast of Taman—famed for its horses, its horsemen, and its buckwheat—offered a varied outline of steep cliffs, or of sheets of verdure descending to the water's edge, and the white houses and steeples of Fanagoria could be seen in the distance. The military road to Anapa wound along a narrow isthmus further south on the right, below the narrow Strait of Bourgas, leading to one of the estuaries which indented the land in all directions in this region of salt lakes, isthmuses, and sandbanks. From Cape Takil to the land on the opposite side of the Straits the distance is about seven miles and a half. The country on both sides, though bright and green, had a desolate aspect, in consequence of the absence of trees, and enclosures, but the numberless windmills on both sides of the Strait proved the fertility of the soil and the comfortable state of the population.

From Cape Takil to Ambalaki, where the expeditionary forces landed, the distance was about twelve miles. It was a poor place, built on a small cliff over the sea, which at the south side swept down to the beach by the margin of a salt-water lake. As there was no force to oppose the landing, the men were easily disembarked on a sandy beach, out of range of the batteries, and close to the salt-water lake. This movement threatened to take the Russians who were in the batteries in the rear, and to cut off their communication with Kertch, which was situated in a bay, concealed from the view of Ambalaki by the Cape of Ak-Bournou.

At forty minutes past one P.M., on approaching Kara-Bournou, a huge pillar of white smoke rushed up towards the skies, opened out like a gigantic balloon, and then a roar like the first burst of a thunder-storm told us that a magazine had blown up. At a quarter past two another loud explosion took place, and a prodigious quantity of earth was thrown into the air along with the smoke. A third magazine was blown up at twenty-five minutes past two. A tremendous explosion, which seemed to shake the sea and air, took place about three o'clock; and at half-past, three several columns of smoke blending into one, and as many explosions, the echoes of which roared and thundered away together, announced that the Russians were destroying their last magazines. They could be seen retreating, some over the hills behind Kertch, others towards Yenikale.

A most exciting scene now took place towards the northward. One of the enemy's steamers had run out of the Bay of Kertch, which was concealed from our view by the headland, and was running for the Straits of Yenikale. She was a low schooner-rigged craft, like a man-of-war, and it was uncertain whether she was a government vessel or not. And, just as she passed the cape, two Russian merchantmen slipped out and also made towards Yenikale. A gunboat dashed after her across the shallows. At the same moment a fine roomy schooner came bowling down with a fair breeze from Yenikale, evidently intending to aid her consort, and, very likely, despising the little antagonist which pursued her. The gunboat flew on and passed the first merchantman, at which she fired a shot, by way of making her bring-to. The forts at Kertch instantly opened, shot after shot splashed up the water near the gunboat, which kept intrepidly on her way. As the man-of-war schooner ran down towards the Russian steamer, the latter gained courage, slackened her speed, and lay-to as if to engage her enemy. A sheet of flame and smoke rushed from the gunboat's sides, and her shot flying over the Russian, tossed up a pillar of water far beyond her. Alarmed at this taste of her opponent's quality, and intimation of her armament, the Russian took flight, and the schooner wore and bore away for Yenikale again, with the gunboat after both of them. Off the narrow straits between Yenikale and the sandbank as the English gunboat, which had been joined by another, ran towards them, a Russian battery opened upon her from the town. The gunboats still dashed at their enemies, which tacked, wore, and ran in all directions, as a couple of hawks would harry a flock of larks.

Sir Edmund Lyon sent off light steamers to reinforce the two hardy little fellows, the French steamers also rushed to the rescue. The batteries on the sandbank were silenced; they blew up their magazines, and the fort at Yenikale soon followed their example.

There was a pretty strong current running at the rate of about three miles an hour over the flats off the town of Yenikale, and the water was almost as turbid as that of the Thames, and of a more yellow hue, as it rushed from the Sea of Azoff. Two gunboats, carrying twelve small pieces each, were moored off the forts of Yenikale, and there was a floating battery close to them armed with two very heavy guns, the floor being flush with the water, and the guns quite uncovered. One man was found dead in the battery at Yenikale, lying, as he fell, with the match in his hand, close to the gun he was about to fire, and two more Russians were found dead on the beach, but they looked as if they had been killed by the explosion of the magazine. The guns in Yenikale were new and fine. Some of them were mounted on a curious kind of swivel—the platforms were upon the American principle. One brass piece, which was lying near the guard-house, was said to have been taken from the Turks at Sinope. Two barks, armed on the main-deck with guns, and used as transports, were resting on the sand, where they had been sunk by our ships as they attempted to escape to the Sea of Azoff. It was suspected that there were few regular troops in proportion to the numbers in and about Kertch and Yenikale, and that there was a large proportion of invalids, local militia men, and pensioners among the soldiers who made such a feeble and inglorious defence. The appearance of our armada as it approached must have been most formidable. The hospital, which was in excellent order, contained sick and wounded soldiers, the former suffering from rheumatism, the latter sent from Sebastopol. The enemy fired the magazine close at hand without caring for these unfortunate fellows, and every pane of glass in the windows was shattered to pieces by the explosion. The total number of guns taken at Yenikale was about twenty-five, of which ten were in a battery inside the old Genoese ramparts, four in a detached battery, and eleven lying partially dismounted about the works.

At about half-past six o'clock the batteries in the Bay of Kertch ceased firing, and the Russians abandoned the town. Dark pillars of smoke, tinged at the base with flame, began to shoot up all over the hill-sides. Some of them rose from the government houses and stores of Ambalaki, where we landed; others from isolated houses further inland; others from stores, which the retreating Russians destroyed in their flight. Constant explosions shook the air, and single guns sounded here and there continuously throughout the night. Here a ship lay blazing on a sandbank; there a farm-house in flames lighted up the sky, and obscured the pale moon with volumes of inky smoke.

As there was nothing to be done at sea, the ships being brought to anchor far south of the scene of action with the gunboats, it was resolved to land at the nearest spot, which was about one mile and a half or two miles from Pavlovskaya Battery. A row of half a mile brought us from our anchorage, where the ship lay, in three fathoms, to a beautiful shelving beach, which was exposed, however, only for a few yards, as the rich sward grew close to the brink of the tideless sea. The water at the shore, unaffected by the current, was clear, and abounded in fish. The land rose abruptly, at the distance of 200 yards from the beach, to a ridge parallel to the line of the sea about 100 feet in height, and the interval between the shore and the ridge was dotted with houses, in patches here and there, through which the French were already running riot, breaking in doors, pursuing hens, smashing windows—in fact, "plundering," in which they were assisted by all of our men who could get away.

Highlanders, in little parties, sought about for water, or took a stray peep after a "bit keepsake" in the houses on their way to the wells, but the French were always before them, and great was the grumbling at the comparative license allowed to our allies. The houses were clean outside and in—whitewashed neatly, and provided with small well-glazed windows, which were barely adequate, however, to light up the two rooms of which each dwelling consisted, but the heavy sour smell inside was most oppressive and disagreeable; it seemed to proceed from the bags of black bread and vessels of fish oil which were found in every cabin. Each dwelling had out-houses, stables for cattle, pens, bakeries, and rude agricultural implements outside. The ploughs were admirably described by Virgil, and a reference to Adams's Antiquities will save me a world of trouble in satisfying the curiosity of the farming interest at home. Notwithstanding the great richness of the land, little had been done by man to avail himself of its productiveness. I never in my life saw such quantities of weeds or productions of such inexorable ferocity towards pantaloons, or such eccentric flowers of huge dimensions, as the ground outside these cottages bore. The inhabitants were evidently graziers rather than agriculturists. Around every house were piles of a substance like peat, which is made, we were informed, from the dung of cattle, and is used as fuel. The cattle, however, had been all driven away. None were taken that I saw, though the quantity which fed in the fields around must have been very great. Poultry and ducks were, however, captured in abundance, and a party of Chasseurs, who had taken a huge wild-looking boar, were in high delight at their fortune, and soon despatched and cut him up into junks with their swords. The furniture was all smashed to pieces; the hens and ducks, captives to the bow and spear of the Gaul, were cackling and quacking piteously as they were carried off in bundles from their homes by Zouaves and Chasseurs. Every house we entered was ransacked, and every cupboard had a pair of red breeches sticking out of it, and a blue coat inside of it. Vessels of stinking oil, bags of sour bread, casks of flour or ham, wretched clothing, old boots, beds ripped up for treasure, the hideous pictures of saints on panelling or paper which adorned every cottage, with lamps suspended before them, were lying on the floors. Droles dressed themselves in faded pieces of calico dresses or aged finery lying hid in old drawers, and danced about the gardens. One house, which had been occupied as a guard-house, and was marked on a board over the door "No. 7 Kardone," was a scene of especial confusion. Its inmates had evidently fled in great disorder, for their greatcoats and uniform jackets strewed the floors, and bags of the black bread filled every corner, as well as an incredible quantity of old boots. A French soldier, who, in his indignation at not finding anything of value, had with great wrath devastated the scanty and nasty-looking furniture, was informing his comrades outside of the atrocities which had been committed, and added, with the most amusing air of virtue in the world, "Ah, Messieurs, Messieurs! ces brigands! ils ont volÉs tout!" No doubt he had settled honourably with the proprietor of a large bundle of living poultry which hung panting over his shoulders, and which were offered to us upon very reasonable terms. We were glad to return from a place which a soldier of the 71st said "A Glasgae beggar wad na tak a gift o'."

In the evening the Spitfire buoyed a passage past Kertch towards Yenikale, and the Miranda, Stromboli, and gunboats ran up the newly marked channel. Next morning (the 25th) the troops after a fatiguing march entered Yenikale. Mr. Williams, master of the Miranda, buoyed a channel into the Sea of Azoff. The allied squadrons, commanded by Captain Lyons, Miranda, consisted of Curlew, Swallow, Stromboli, Vesuvius, Medina, Ardent, Recruit, Wrangler, Beagle, Viper, Snake, Arrow, and Lynx, entered the great Russian lake in the afternoon.

Captain Lyons' squadron, in the Sea of Azoff, meantime inflicted tremendous losses on the enemy. Within four days after the squadron passed the Straits of Kertch they had destroyed 245 Russian vessels employed in carrying provisions to the Russian army in the Crimea, many of them of large size, and fully equipped and laden. Some of these ships had been built for this specific purpose. Immense magazines of corn, flour, and breadstuffs were destroyed at Berdiansk and Genitchi, comprising altogether more than 7,000,000 rations, and the stores at Taganrog were set on fire, and much corn consumed. Arabat was bombarded, and the powder magazine blown up, but, as there were no troops on board the vessels, and as the Russians were in force, it seemed more desirable to Captain Lyons to urge on the pursuit of the enemy's vessels than to stay before a place which must very soon fall into our hands. At Berdiansk the enemy were forced to run on shore and burn four war steamers, under the command of Rear-Admiral Wolff. At Kertch the enemy destroyed upwards of 4,000,000lbs. of corn and 500,000lbs. of flour.

Yenikale derives its importance from its position on a promontory close to the entrance of the Sea of Azoff, at the northern extremity of the Straits of Kertch. Another of the singular banks to be found in this part of the world, shooting from the north-eastern extremity of the Taman Peninsula, runs through the sea in a southerly and westerly direction for seven miles and a half towards Yenikale, and contracts the strait to the breadth of a mile and three-quarters just before it opens into the Sea of Azoff. On this bank, which is full of salt-water marshes, and is two or three miles broad in some places, the Russians had a strong battery commanding the ferry station, armed with long and heavy 36-pounders, and a number of Government buildings of a mean description, and there were great numbers of fishing huts and curing sheds also upon it. The town consisted of two parts—one a suburb of houses close to the water's edge, and commanded by a ridge of high land rising gradually from the sea. The church, a handsome building in the Byzantine style, stood on the hill-side, in the midst of this suburb. The other part consisted of the fort, which was formed by a quadrangular rampart, armed at the angles with bastions and small turrets. Each side of the square was about a quarter of a mile long. The side parallel to the sea-wall was on the top of the ridge, into which the ground rose gradually from the sea, and the sea-wall itself had at its base a broad quay by the water's edge. The ridge once gained, the country extended before one in a spacious plateau, with conical mounds and tumuli, forming natural advanced posts for vedettes in the distance. On the land side the ramparts were provided with embrasures, and were crenellated for musketry; the walls, though very old, were of great solidity, and were tolerably well preserved. Inside the enclosure were the hospital, the Government House, the barrack, the batteries, and the stores and magazines. One of the magazines which was blown up completely destroyed about two hundred feet of the curtain of the work on the land side. There were marks of ancient entrenchments outside the walls, and the moats, ditches, covered ways, &c., very well defined.

The march from Ambalaki to Yenikale was most distressing. The heat of the day was overpowering, and water was scanty and bad. Of 864 Marines who landed from the fleet, four-fifths fell out on the march, the men of that gallant corps not being accustomed to such exertions. The Highlanders fell out in great numbers also, and the tailing off was extraordinary, although the distance was not six miles. When the men did arrive it was found that the tents had not come, and the soldiers were exposed to the blaze of the sun, aggravated by scarcity of water and by salt meat. The officers' baggage was left behind at Ambalaki, and many of them had to lie in their clothes on the ground in a season when night dews are heavy and dangerous. The men had their blankets; the officers had nothing.

Immense quantities of caviare, of dried sturgeon, and of a coarse-scaled fish like a bream, were found in every village, and were relished by our soldiers, but they had very imperfect means of gratifying the thirst which followed, and the stores of country wine (some of it excellent, in spite of the adulteration of essence of roses) were nearly all drank up. The water of the straits was brackish, and our horses, as well as the native cattle, drank it readily, but its taste was very mawkish and disagreeable.

As there was nothing doing at Yenikale, I took an opportunity of paying Kertch a visit. It is only a run of some three or four miles by sea, but the channel is very difficult. As we approached the town, long columns of gray smoke were visible rising from the corn stores, and working parties could be made out on the shore engaged in removing various articles which could be turned to the account of the allies.

Sir George Brown took up his quarters in Yenikale. But the town was set on fire in two places, and it required all the exertions of the authorities to prevent the flames spreading and devastating the whole place. The houses were smashed open, the furniture broken to pieces, and "looting" and plundering were the order or the disorder of the day. Two of the 42nd Highlanders, who were in a crowd assembled round a house, were shot in a very extraordinary manner. A French soldier struck at the closed door with the butt of his musket. The concussion discharged the piece, and the ball killed one of the men on the spot, and wounded the other severely.

The Austrian flag floated before one house, probably that of the Imperial Consul; but the more significant standards of France and England were waving at either end of the quay, and fluttered from numerous boats glancing over the water. The quays were guarded by a few sailors with drawn cutlasses stationed here and there, and with difficulty holding their own against refractory merchantmen. In every direction, wherever the eye turned, up or down the streets, men could be seen hurrying away with bundles under their arms, with furniture on their backs, or staggering under the influence of drink and bedding down to the line of boats which were lying at the sea-wall, laden to the thwarts with plunder. This kind of work is called by sailors "looting," from our Indian reminiscences. The fate of nearly every house of good condition was soon apparent. The windows were broken, the doors smashed open, and men went in and out like bees in a hive. All the smaller and more valuable articles had been removed, either by the Turks or by the Tartars, but big arm-chairs, pictures of the saints with metallic glories round their heads, large feather-beds, card-tables, and books in unknown tongues and type, seemed to possess a strange infatuation for Jack, and to move him as irresistibly as horseflesh.

There were plenty of Tartars in the streets, dressed in black sheepskin cap, or white turban, with handsome jackets and wide breeches of dark silk or fine stuff, and gaudy sashes round their waists. These fellows were of the true Calmuck type—with bullet head, forehead villanously low, dark, piggish, roguish, twinkling eyes, obtuse, obstinate noses, straight lips, and globular chin. Unlike most people, they improve in looks as they grow old, for their beards, which only attain amplitude in age, then give a grisly dignity and patriarchal air to their faces. Groups of men in long lank frock-coats, long waistcoats, trousers tucked into their boots or falling down over slipshod feet, sat on the door-steps, in aspect and attire the very image of a congregation of seedy Puseyites, if such a thing could be imagined. Most of these men wore caps instead of hats, their clothing was of sober snuffy hues, to match their faces, which were sombre and dirty and sallow. Their looks were dejected and miserable, and as an Englishman or a Frenchman came near, they made haste to rise and to salute his mightiness with uncovered head and obsequious noddings and gesticulations. These were the remnants of the Russian population, but there were among them Jews, who might have stepped on any stage amid rounds of applause, in garb and face and aspect so truly Shylock-like were they, cringing, wily, and spiteful, as though they had just been kicked across the Rialto; and there was also a sprinkling of Armenians and Greeks; they were all lean and unhappy alike, and very sorry specimens of Muscovite bourgeoisie.

Tartar women, scantily covered, were washing clothes in the sea, like tamed Hecates—withered, angular, squalid, and ugly in face and form. The Russian fair, not much more tastily clad, might be seen flitting about with an air of awkward coquetry, mingled with apprehension and dislike of the intruders, their heads covered with shawls, and their bodies with bright Manchester patterns. The boys, like boys all over the world, were merry and mischievous. They hung out of the riggings of the vessels near, pelted the street dogs, "chivied" the cats and pigeons, and rioted in the gutted houses and amid the open storehouses in the highest possible spirits, or fed ravenously on dried fish and "goodies" of various kinds, which they picked up in old drawers and boxes in the houses torn open by the "looters." The houses were well supplied with poultry, nor were pigs, rabbits, cats, dogs, and other domestic animals deficient. Each mansion was complete in itself; they were like those in the older streets of Boulogne, and the interiors were furnished somewhat in the same fashion—plenty of mirrors, and hard, inflexible, highly varnished, unsubstantial furniture, no carpets, lots of windows (doubled, by-the-by, to keep out the cold) and doors, and long corridors; the windows and doors were, however, handsomely mounted with brass work, and locks, bolts, and hinges, of great solidity, of the same metal, were exclusively used in the better rooms. The Russian stove, as a matter of course, was found in each apartment. Spacious vaults underneath the houses were often used as storehouses for corn, and the piles of empty and broken bottles marked the locality of the wine-cellar. Icehouses were attached to many residences, and their contents were very welcome to the ships.

The market-place is a large piece of ground of an oval shaper surrounded by a piazza and shops and magazines of an inferior class. Most of them were shut, and fastened up, but butchers displayed some good English-looking beef, and the sounds of English revelry were very distinct from the interior of a wine-shop at the end of an arcade, where some sailors were drinking Russian champagne at 3s. a bottle, and smoking cheap and nasty cigars of native manufacture. Amid the distracting alphabetical mysteries of Cyrillus, which were stuck up on most of these doors, where all one's knowledge of other languages led him hopelessly astray, and where P was R, and H was N, there was sometimes an intelligible announcement that Mdlle. So-and-so was a modiste from Paris, or that M. Brugger was a bootmaker "of the first force" from Vienna. The greater number of the houses in the streets were entered through a large courtyard, surrounded by the offices and out-buildings, to which admission was gained by a porte-cochÈre. There were baths, libraries, schools, literary associations, and academies in Kertch of pretensions beyond its size.

All the military and civil archives of Kertch since 1824 were discovered in a boat towed by the steamer which the Snake had chased, huddled up with the valuables of the Governor of Kertch. In general our army found but little plunder—they had been reined tightly in; while the French and the merchant sailors had the benefit of the pillage; but the 79th Regiment were a little fortunate in finding at the advanced post to which they were sent, near the Quarantine station, a considerable amount of plate in one of the houses.

The hospital was a large, well-built, clean, and excellently ventilated building. It was situated at the outskirts of the town, and was surrounded by iron railings, inside which there was a plantation, which furnished a pleasant shade from the noontide sun to the convalescents. As we entered, some women, who were standing at the gate, retreated, and an old man, with a good clear eye, and an honest soldierly air, came forward to meet us with the word "Hospital," which he had learned as a kind of safeguard and protection against intrusion. He led the way into a dark corridor on the ground floor, on the walls of which the regulations of the establishment (in Russian) were suspended. The wards opened on each side of this corridor. The old man invited us to enter the first: it was spacious and airy, but the hospital smell of wounded men was there. Five wounded Russians and one drunken Englishman were the occupants of the chamber. Two of the Russians had been blown up when the magazines exploded. Their hands and heads were covered with linen bandages, through which holes were cut for the eyes and mouth. What could be seen of these poor wretches gave a horrible impression of their injuries and of the pain which they were enduring, but they gave no outward indication of their sufferings. Their scorched eyes rolled heavily upon the visitors with a kind of listless curiosity. The other men had been shot in various parts of the body, and had probably been sent there from Sebastopol: in one or two I recognized the old Inkerman type of face and expression. The bed and bedclothes were clean and good, and at the head of each bed black tablets of wood were fixed to receive the record of the patient's name, his disease, &c.

On reaching the street we found the people returning to the town—that is, the Tartars were flocking back from the villages where they had been hiding, with bundles of property, much of which they had probably stolen from the Russian houses.

As every wrecked house bore a strong family likeness to its fellow, we entered only one or two, and then wandered through the streets, which were almost deserted by the inhabitants during the heat of the day. Towards evening a number of wounded Russians—forty-seven, I believe—were brought down from Yenikale, whither they had been taken by the gunboats from various places along the coast, and were landed on the quay. They were subsequently sent to the hospital. The Tartar arabas and droschkies were pressed into the service. As each wounded man passed, the women crowded round to look at him out of the houses; but there was more of curiosity than compassion in their looks; and they took care to inform us they were Jews, and had no sympathy with the Muscovite. Once they stared with wonder at the taste and inborn politeness of a French soldier, who joined the group as a Russian was borne by on a litter. The man's eyes were open, and as he went past he caught sight of the Frenchman and smiled feebly, why or wherefore it is impossible for me to say, but the Frenchman at once removed his cap, made a bow to the "brave," and stood with uncovered head till the latter had been carried some yards beyond him.

In the evening all the inhabitants remaining in the town flocked out of their houses and conversed at the corners of the streets, or at favourite gossip-posts. They were an unhealthy and by no means well-favoured race, whether Tartars, Greeks, Jews, or Muscovites. It must be remembered, however, that all the people of rank had fled. Some of the tradespeople, with greater confidence in our integrity than could have been expected, kept their shops open. In a well-fitted apteka or apothecary's shop, we got a seidlitzy imitation of soda-water, prepared from a box, marked in English, "Improved Sodaic Powders, for Making Soda-water;" and some of our party fitted themselves at a bootmaker's with very excellent Wellingtons, for which they paid at their discretion, and according to a conqueror's tariff, 15s. a pair; the proprietor seemed rather apprehensive that he was not going to receive anything at all. Indeed it would have been well if the inhabitants had remained to guard their houses, instead of flying from them, and leaving them shut up and locked, the very thing to provoke the plunderer.

The dockyard magazines at Kertch contained quantities of military and naval stores—boiler plates, lathes, engineers' tools, paint, canvas, hemp and chain cables, bales of greatcoats, uniform jackets, trowsers and caps, knapsacks, belts, bayonets, swords, scabbards, anchors, copper nails and bolts, implements of foundry, brass, rudder-pintles, lead, &c. The French were busy for a few days in taking the clothing, &c., out of the storehouses and destroying it. The valuable stores were divided between the allies, according to their good fortune and energy in appropriation. Numbers of old boats, of large rudders, covered with copper and hung on brass, of small guns, of shot, shell, grape, and canister, were lying in the dockyard. An infernal machine of curious construction attracted a great deal of attention. Like most devices of the kind, it had failed to be of the slightest service. Outside the walls of the dockyard, which was filled with oxen and horses, was another long range of public buildings and storehouses, which had been nearly all gutted and destroyed. Soldiers' caps, belts, coats, trowsers, cartouche-boxes, knapsacks, and canteens, were strewn all over the quay in front of them. In a word, Kertch had ceased to be a military or naval station, and the possession which Russia so eagerly coveted a few years before was of no more use to her than the snows of the Tchatir Dagh.

On Friday night the work of destroying Russian stores began; the French hurled guns into the sea, tore up the platforms, and exploded the shells found in the magazines. Parties of boats were sent in all directions to secure and burn prizes, to fire the storehouses and huts on the sandbanks; by day the sky was streaked with lines of smoke, and by night the air was illuminated by the blaze of forts, houses, magazines, and vessels aground on the flats for miles around us.

The Austrian Consul was found to have a large store of corn, which he concealed in magazines painted and decorated to pass as part of his dwelling-house. It was all destroyed. Amid the necessary destruction, private plunderers found facility for their work. The scene presented by the town could only be likened to that presented by Palmyra, fresh from the hands of the destroyer, or some other type of desolation. Along the quay there was a long line of walls, which once were the fronts of storehouses, magazines, mansions, and palaces. They were empty shells, hollow and roofless, with fire burning luridly within them by night, and streaks and clouds of parti-coloured smoke arising from them by day. The white walls were barred with black bands where the fire had rushed out of the window-frames. These storehouses belonged to Russians, and were full of corn—these magazines were the enemy's—these mansions belonged to their nobles and governors—and these palaces were the residences of their princes and rulers; and so far we carried on war with all the privileges of war, and used all the consequences of conquest. In the whole lengthened front facing the sea, and the wide quay which bordered it, there was not an edifice untouched but one. This was a fine mansion, with a grand semicircular front, ornamented with rich entablatures and a few Grecian pillars. The windows permitted one to see massive mirrors and the framework of pictures and the glitter of brasswork. Inside the open door an old man in an arm-chair received everybody. How deferential he was! how he bowed! how graceful, deprecatory, and soothing the modulation of his trunk and arms! But these were nothing to his smile. His face seemed a kind of laughing-clock, wound up to act for so many hours. When the machinery was feeble, towards evening, the laugh degenerated into a grin, but he had managed with nods, and cheeks wreathed in smiles, and a little bad German and French, to inform all comers that this house was specially under English and French protection, and thus to save it from plunder and pillage. The house belonged, on dit, to Prince Woronzoff, and the guardian angel was an aged servitor of the Prince, who, being paralytic, was left behind, and had done good service in his arm-chair.

The silence of places which a few days before were full of people was exceedingly painful and distressing. It reigned in every street, almost in every house, except when the noise of gentlemen playing on pianos with their boot-heels, or breaking up furniture, was heard within the houses, or the flames crackled within the walls. In some instances the people had hoisted the French or Sardinian flag to protect their houses. That poor device was soon detected and frustrated. It was astonishing to find that the humblest dwellings had not escaped. They must have been invaded for the mere purpose of outrage and from the love of mischief, for the most miserable of men could have but little hope of discovering within them booty worthy of his notice.

It was decided to occupy Pavlovskaia, because it was in a fine position to command the entrance to Kertch and Yenikale, at a place where the channel is narrowed by one of the sandbanks from Taman to the breadth of a mile and a half. Defensive lines were thrown up around Yenikale of the most massive and durable character. They enclosed the ramparts of the old town, and presented on every side towards the land a broad ditch, a steep parapet defended by redoubts, and broken into batteries, which were aided by the fire of the pieces on the walls.

The point or bank of Tcherhka, opposite Yenikale, is one of the many extraordinary spits of land which abound in this part of the world, and which are, as far as I know, without example in any other country. Of all these the Spit of Arabat, which is a bank but a few feet above the water, and is in some places only a furlong in breadth, is the most remarkable. It is nearly 70 miles in length, and its average width less than half a mile from sea to sea. The bank of Tcherhka (or Savernaia Rosa), which runs for nearly eight miles in a south-westerly direction from Cape Kammenoi past Yenikale, closes up the Bay of Kertch on the west, and the Gulf of Taman on the east, is a type of these formations, and is sufficiently interesting to deserve a visit. It only differs from Arabat in size, and in the absence of the fresh-water wells which are found at long intervals on the great road from Arabat to Genitchi. It is so low that it is barely six feet above the level of the sea. A bank of sand on both sides of the spit, piled up three or four feet in height, marks the boundary of the beach. The latter, which is a bank of shingle, shells, and fine sand, is only a few yards broad, and is terminated by the sand and rank grass and rushes of the spit, which rises up a foot or two above the beach.

In the interior, or on the body of the bank, there are numerous lagunes—narrow strips of water much more salt than that of the adjacent sea. Some of these are only a few yards in length and a few feet in breadth, others extend for a quarter of a mile, and are about 100 yards broad. They are all bounded alike by thick high grass and rushes. The bottom, at the depth of a few feet—often at two or three inches—consists of hard sand covered with slimy green vegetable matter. The water abounds in small flounders and dabs, and in shrimps, which jump about in wild commotion at an approaching footstep. Every lagune is covered with mallards and ducks in pairs, and the fringes of the spit are the resort of pelicans and cormorants innumerable. The silence, the dreary solitude of the scene is beyond description. Even the birds, mute as they are at the season of my visit, appeared to be preternaturally quiet and voiceless. Multitudes of old, crustaceous-looking polypous plants sprang up through the reeds; and bright-coloured flycatchers, with orange breasts and black wings, poised over their nests below them.

The first day I went over, we landed upon the beach close to the battery which the Russians placed on the spit at the Ferry station. It consisted of a quadrangular work of sandbags, constructed in a very durable manner, and evidently not long made. In the centre of the square there was a whitewashed house, which served as a barrack for the garrison. The walls only were left, and the smoke rose from the ashes of the roof and rafters inside the shell. Our men had fired it when they landed. A pool of brackish water was enclosed by the battery, which must have been the head-quarters of ague and misery. The sailors said the house swarmed with vermin, and had a horrible odour. Nothing was found in it but the universal black bread and some salt fish. The garrison, some 30 or 40 men probably, had employed themselves in a rude kind of agriculture, and farming or pasturage. Patches of ground were cleared here and there, and gave feeble indications that young potatoes were struggling for life beneath. Large ricks of reeds and coarse grass had been gathered round the battery, but were reduced to ashes. At the distance of a hundred yards from the battery there was another whitewashed house, or the shell of it, with similar signs of rural life about it, and an unhappy-looking cat trod gingerly among the hot embers, and mewed piteously in the course of her fruitless search for her old corner. The traces of herds of cattle, which were probably driven down from the mainland to feed on the grass round the salt marshes, were abundant. There was a track beaten into the semblance of a road over the sand from the battery to Taman, and it was covered with proofs of the precipitate flight of the garrison. Pieces of uniform, bags containing pieces of the universal black bread, strings of onions, old rags, empty sacks and bottles, were found along the track, and some of our party came upon a large chest, which was full of Government papers, stamps, custom-house and quarantine dockets, stamped paper for Imperial petitions and postage, books of tariff and customs in Russian, French, German, and English, and tables of port dues, which we took away to any amount. The heat of the sun, the vapours from the salt lakes, the mosquitoes, the vermin, and the odour, must have formed a terrible combination of misery in close barracks in the dog-days, and have rendered going out, staying in, lying down, and standing up, equally desperate and uncomfortable. The enemy relied considerably on the shallow water to save him from attack, but he was also prepared with heavy metal for gunboats, such as they were in the old war, and he was no doubt astonished when the large shot from the Lancaster guns began to fall upon his works from the small hulls of our despatch gunboats. One of the gunboats which lay off the fort—a mere hulk, without masts or cordage, of 150 tons burden, with embrasures through her sides on the deck for nine small guns—was found to be filled below with the most complete series of galvanic apparatus, attached to vessels full of powder, intended to explode on contact with the keel of a vessel. The submarine machines with their strange cups and exploding apparatus were recognized by Mr. Deane, the diver, as portions of the same kinds of instruments as those he employed in submarine operations. All were regularly numbered, and, as there was a break in the series, it afforded reason for believing that some of them were actually sunk; but the wires connecting them with the battery on board the ship were cut the night we forced the Straits, and the vessel itself was scuttled subsequently. There were many miles of wire, and the number of cells indicated a very powerful battery.

The pillage of Kertch still went on; the inhabitants fled. Even the Tartars were in terror. For two or three days the beach was crowded by women and children, who sat out under the rays of the scorching sun to find safety in numbers. They were starving, and miserably clad, and in charity were taken on board the Ripon, which sailed with them for some Russian port. They were about two hundred in number. Mothers had lost their children, and children were without their mothers. In the confusion which prevailed they were separated, and the Caton carried some off to the Sea of Azoff, and the Ripon took others off to Odessa or Yalta. Our attempts to prevent outrage and destruction were of the feeblest and most contemptible character. If a sailor was found carrying any articles—books, or pictures, or furniture—they were taken from him at the beach and cast into the sea. The result was that the men, when they got loose in the town, where there was no control over them, broke to pieces everything that they could lay their hands on. We did not interfere with French or Turks, and our measures against our own men were harsh, ridiculous, and impotent.

Prince Woronzoff's house was said to be under the protection of the English and French. Was he protected because he was a Prince, or merely because he was supposed to be friendly to the Englishmen, and connected with some English families? Sir George Brown assuredly had no natural sympathy with pure aristocracy or with anything but pure democratic soldiery and military good fortune. It might have been—nay, it was—right to save Prince Woronzoff's house, but would it not have been equally proper to protect the stock-in-trade of some miserable Russian mechanic who remained in the town trusting to our clemency, and who was ruined by a few brutal sailors? Prince Woronzoff had many palaces. His friendly feelings towards England were at best known to but few, and were certainly of no weight with Frenchmen, because those sentiments, if they existed at all, dated from a period antecedent to the true entente cordiale, and were suggestive of anything but good liking towards Frenchmen. However, the house was so far safe, and if we were sorry that the museum was sacked, we might be proud that the palace was spared. The marks of useless destruction and of wanton violence and outrage were too numerous and too distressing to let us rest long on the spectacle of this virgin palace.

The following extract from a "General After Order," which came out subsequently, gives a summary of the operations effected by our expeditionary force:—

"Berdiansk has been destroyed, with four war steamers.

"Arabat, a fortress mounting thirty guns, after resisting an hour and a half, had its magazine blown up by the fire of our ships.

"Genitchi refused to capitulate, and was set fire to by shells. Ninety ships in its harbour were destroyed, with corn and stores to the amount of £100,000.

"In these operations the loss to the enemy during four days has amounted to four war steamers, 246 merchant vessels, and corn and magazines to the amount of £150,000. Upwards of 100 guns have been taken. It is estimated that four months' rations for 100,000 men of the Russian army have been destroyed.

"On the Circassian coast the enemy evacuated Soudjak Kaleh on the 28th of May, after destroying all the principal buildings and sixty guns and six mortars.

"The fort on the road between Soudjak Kaleh and Anapa is also evacuated."