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MONTH 
 
 CAMP BEFORE SEBASTOPOL. 
 
London . 
 
 A. and G. A. Spottiswoodh, 
 
 New-street- Square. 
 
. A 
 
 MONTH 
 
 CAMP BEFORE SEBASTOPOL. 
 
 BY A NON-COMBATANT. 
 
 THIBD EDITION. 
 
 LONDON: 
 
 LONGMAN, BROWN, GREEN, AND LONGMANS. 
 
 1855. 
 
• 7 
 
 Bl 
 
 HENRY 
 
 M ok«e t-rvrtvum 
 
PRESERVATION 
 cuz lf COPY ADDED 
 
 ¥'l 8 1994 ORi Qm/KL T0 
 
 RETAINED 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 LETTER I. 
 
 Plea for Journey — Choosing a Kit — Polish Volunteers — 
 " Turkish Cossacks" — Handsome Offer — Malta — 
 The Sea - - - Page 1 
 
 LETTER II. 
 
 Archipelago — Ida — Dardanelles — Bosphorus — Tidings 
 of Victory — Scutari — " Cambria " — Storm — Troop- 
 horses Lost — Moonlight Concert- - 8 
 
 LETTER III. 
 
 Crimea — Sebastopol — Balaklava — Sentry at Head- 
 quarters — Camp -foragers — Tartar Araba-driver — Drive 
 to Camp — Arrival in Camp — Camp Hospitality — Tent 
 Pitched — Night in Camp — Midnight Massacre — 
 " Alarm "—Result - - - - 15 
 
VI CONTENTS. 
 
 LETTER IV. 
 
 A Day in Camp — Kit — Tent — Tent Furniture — Camp 
 Honesty — Privations of Army — A Colonel Reporting — 
 Morning in Camp — The " Twelve Apostles" — A 
 Russian Visitor — Picket-house — Sebastopol — Siege 
 Preparations — Menschikoff — Russian Bayonets — 
 Camp Repasts — Private Commissariat — Evening in 
 Camp — Church-parade — A Move Down - Page 30 
 
 LETTER V. 
 
 Description of Camp — Scenery — Arrangement of Tents 
 — Divisions of Army — Regiments forming Divisions — 
 Arrangements in Tents — Cooking — Rations — Raw 
 Coffee — No Oats — Tobacco — Teetotalism — Hospitals — 
 Stretchers — Not enough Doctors — " Something 'ot" — 
 Suggestion — Pillows — Medical Stores — Port Wine — 
 Vegetable Cakes — Lemon Juice — Prevalence of Disease 
 — French " Wrinkles " — French Tents — French Bread — 
 Cooking by Rotation — "Bidon" versus Canteen — Music 
 in Camp — Waste of Resources - - 50 
 
 LETTER VI. 
 
 Russian Reconnoissance — Sharpshooters — Volunteers — 
 Soldiers and Sailors — A Contrast — " The Eve of the 
 Bombardment " — Opening of Bombardment — Lancaster 
 
CONTENTS. Vii 
 
 Guns — Round Tower — Narrow Escape — r Explosion — 
 Ships — The Trenches — Prevailing Malady Page 70 
 
 LETTER VII. 
 
 Share of Ships in the Bombardment — Order of Battle — 
 Place of each Ship — French and Turkish Ships — 
 Ultimate Order of Battle — " Fortune favours the Brave" 
 — Daring Exploit — Wounded Russian Officer — White 
 Hearses - - - - - - 81 
 
 LETTER VIII. 
 
 Battle of Balaklava — False Premises — Russian Advance 
 — Turkish Cowardice — Final Disposition of Forces — 
 Interpretation — Moral — Defence of Silistria — Turks 
 " well-Officered ! " — Dilemma — Field after Fight — 
 Balaklava Prices — Economical Paradox — " TeDeum" 90 
 
 LETTER IX. 
 
 "Raising the Siege" — Boats at Balaklava — Going to 
 Bed— On board Ship — A Sailors " Lark" — How to 
 take Sebastopol— " Neat as a Pin " — Middies - 103 
 
 LETTER X. 
 
 Battle of Inkerman — Removing the Wounded — The 
 General Wounded— Point of View — Aspect of Battle 
 
ym CONTENTS. 
 
 — Russian Retreat — Stretchers on Field — Incongruous 
 Reflections — Flooring a Croaker — Epigram — Field 
 after Fight — Red Uniforms — Attitudes of Dead — 
 Maltreatment of Wounded — Duke of Cambridge — 
 Departure - Page 111 
 
A MONTH 
 
 IN THE 
 
 CAMP BEFORE 8EBASTOPOL. 
 
 LETTER I. 
 
 Off Malta, Sept. 24th. 
 
 So you do not altogether approve of my pro- 
 ject of passing a few weeks in the Crimea, and 
 are inclined to think I shall be " in the way ?" 
 I confess I cannot quite make out from your 
 letter how this is to happen. Surely the Seat 
 of War is a large enough place for all the 
 people now in it, and many more, to live 
 and walk about in, without jostling ? I carry 
 my own house and commissariat with me. 
 You do not expect me — do you — to pester 
 the Generals with morning calls, or to play the 
 Boy Jones at their councils ? 
 
 For my own part, I see no other satisfactory 
 mode of finding out what our gallant fellows 
 are really doing and suffering, than by pitching 
 
 B 
 
2 PLEA FOR JOURNEY. 
 
 one's tent among them. Their own letters, 
 deeply interesting as they are, do not supply 
 all the information that is wanted. Soldiers 
 write like soldiers ; that is to say, a kind of 
 professional stoicism restrains them from de- 
 scribing one half of what they go through, 
 while habit dulls their consciousness of the 
 other. Even "Our Own Correspondent," who 
 now-a-days does such excellent service in this 
 respect, leaves something to be desired. He 
 is obliged to be so clever, so busied with the 
 depths and general bearings of things about 
 him, that he cannot fail to leave many glean- 
 ings for a plain man to pick up. In short, 
 I am already half-way to my goal ; and by the 
 time you are reading this apology for my 
 journey, I hope to be seeing History. 
 
 Let me now ask, whether you happen to 
 want a good mental alterative after Nisi 
 Prius? If so, pray select, either for your- 
 self or a friend, a kit for the Crimea. You 
 will go, of course, in the first place, to Edging- 
 ton's warehouse across London Bridge ; where 
 you will choose a tent with a view to the 
 various incidents which you think, on reflec- 
 tion, may be looked for at the Seat of War. 
 
CHOOSING A KIT. 3 
 
 You will, next, lay in your commissariat and 
 special clothing ; your canteen, your saddle, 
 pack-saddle, and saddle-bags : lastly (for, how- 
 ever comical, it must be done), you will pro- 
 vide against Cossacks with a revolver! All 
 this, of course, cannot be effected in a day; and 
 many books and friends will have been con- 
 sulted, to enable you to make a proper selec- 
 tion. But, by the time it is accomplished, 
 I venture to predict that you will have gone 
 through a complete campaign in imagination, 
 and will have experienced as many sensations 
 as if you had made the Grand Tour in person. 
 At any rate, I don't envy the clients who may 
 consult you during the process. So exciting, 
 I confess, did I find this kind of vivid pro- 
 jection of myself into a totally strange sphere, 
 that there came, at length, a moment of re- 
 action, when I felt that I had sufficiently 
 realised the incidents before me, and that the 
 actual execution of my plan would be — a 
 bore ! Were you never guilty — of course, in 
 thought only, and for the shortest possible 
 time — of a similar absurdity, amico mio? 
 However, that soon passed ; and, piling up my 
 traps upon two cabs, on the 13th of September, 
 
 B 2 
 
4 POLES — " TURKISH COSSACKS." 
 
 I found myself, by nightfall, not in the least 
 sick, and already out of the Mersey. 
 
 Thus far we have journeyed prosperously 
 enough — no storms, hurricanes, or any other 
 of the catastrophes which make a voyage 
 amusing to the impartial reader. But you, 
 who are so much occupied with " the Eastern 
 question," may be interested in learning, that 
 we carry with us no less than twenty Polish 
 volunteers for the Turkish army. They came 
 on board, with a letter of introduction to the 
 Captain from Lord Dudley Stuart ; and .are 
 destined for a cavalry corps in course of 
 formation, which, together with two others 
 already embodied, will complete Sadik Pasha's 
 brigade. That chief, as perhaps you know, 
 is himself a Pole ; his more Christian de- 
 nomination being Michel Chaikowsky. The 
 brigade goes by the name of " The Turkish 
 Cossacks" — a title adopted, according to our 
 volunteers, out of deference to Austria, who, 
 they declare, objects to the more natural 
 epithet. Certainly, a Pole by any other name 
 will hit as hard ; and they are right not to 
 stick at a trifle. But you will agree that a 
 simpler explanation is to be found in the fact, 
 
HANDSOME OFFER. 5 
 
 that Poles form an insignificant minority in 
 
 the brigade. Major , than whom there 
 
 can be no better authority on such a point, 
 told me he himself saw them, not long ago, ma- 
 noeuvring at a review, on scraggy ponies, and 
 at a foot's pace ; and that the only men worth 
 their salt among the number (not excepting th<j 
 Pasha) were veritable Cossacks — inhabitants 
 of a colony planted in Turkey many years back, 
 under the auspices of Catherine the Naughty. 
 Au reste, our adventurers are mild, mus- 
 tachioed, musical men — equal, nevertheless, 
 to a stroke of trade when occasion serves. 
 Thus, they were provided with first-class 
 passages — at the expense, I presume, of other 
 pockets than their own. Hearing, however, 
 on our arrival at Gibraltar, that there were 
 more applications for first-class berths than 
 could be granted, their gallant leader quietly 
 proposed to the Captain, on behalf of himself 
 and his friends, that they should finish the voy- 
 age as second-class passengers, on " a consider- 
 ation " being given them for the sacrifice. The 
 offer was, of course, declined ; but it proves 
 them to be smart Officers — if in no other sense 
 — within the Yankee meaning of the term. 
 
 a 3 
 
b MALTA. 
 
 I shall post this at Malta, where Ave arrived 
 to-day. Know'st thou the land of the Orange 
 and Mitten (I allude to the blood-red and 
 black-lace varieties respectively) — henns't 
 du es wohl? Then you won't be surprised to 
 hear, that I look forward to leaving it to- 
 morrow without regret. Know'st thou it not? 
 Then learn that it is a Peter Schlemhil of 
 a place, with no shade, save in the faces 
 of the natives ; while these are so plain, 
 that the eye is fain to revert to the glare. 
 Fancy an island which looks as if it had been 
 deluged with a rain of light ochre, reducing 
 town and country, soil, pavement, and roofs, 
 to a uniform yellow; banish trees and grass 
 from the landscape ; place the whole under a 
 blinding sun ; and, with your mental optics, you 
 will gaze, or rather blink, at Malta. Hurrah, 
 therefore, for the cool blue sea again to-morrow ! 
 
 Hitherto, the mere aspects of sky and 
 ocean have been enough for my enjoyment. 
 After all, it was something to escape, at a 
 bound, from a country where the best part 
 of people's " sensations" reach them through 
 the medium of small pica, to the wild Atlantic 
 — something for a busy man to plunge 
 at once into a mode of existence where 
 
THE SEA. 7 
 
 the mere perceptions, though confined to a 
 few simple combinations of air, light, and 
 water, are yet vivid enough to dispense with 
 reflection, and where one can live through 
 one's eyes, like a child. How long would it 
 not take to weary of a sky, which, at mid-day, 
 glows with the hue of the turquoise ; growing 
 fainter from the zenith, till, at the horizon, it 
 shows like pearly-white against a tumbling 
 ocean of lapis-lazuli ? How long, before one 
 would tire of tracing the long eddies of foam 
 which, whirled below the surface in the 
 vessel's wake, curl away, like wreaths of pale 
 green mist, through the blue abyss ? How 
 long might not one be content to lie o' nights on 
 deck, in this soft warm air, watching the stars 
 as they reel around the rocking masts ; while, 
 swelling above the bulwarks, the phosphores- 
 cent waves might almost make you dream, that 
 3^ou were rushing through some mazy dance 
 of meteors, in which the heavens and sea were 
 commingling ? How long ? Why, we are 
 both of us yawning — so, perhaps, such enjoy- 
 ments have their period. Never mind; my 
 next will be dated from terra firma : on the 
 1st, we expect to land in Turkey. 
 
 B 4 
 
8 
 
 LETTER II. 
 
 Black Sea, Oct. 3rd. 
 
 I trust you are prepared to make a very 
 rapid transit with me to Constantinople. The 
 shores of the JEgean and the Hellespont, 
 with all their glories, are they not written in 
 the Handbooks of Murray ? And is not one 
 great end of those rubicund tomes even this 
 — to shame garrulous travellers out of de- 
 scribing what has been well enough described 
 already ? The fact is, it is not the time of 
 year for such places. The " Isles of Greece," 
 in September, are a cluster of brown rocks ; 
 and the most interesting fact I have to record 
 about them is, that, at Syra, an Austrian lady 
 became our fellow passenger, attended by a 
 lively little Greek brunette, who, with hair 
 disposed in the true "Zoe" style, and feet 
 guiltless of shoes and stockings, had, withal, 
 those soft, playful, innocent eyes — which do so 
 much mischief on board ship. She bore the 
 classical name of IIoAAuo/a. Modern Greeks, 
 you know, pronounce v like y, and care much 
 more for accent than quantity ; so be pleased 
 to call her — no, not Polly dear! — but Polly dia. 
 
IDA — DARDANELLES — BOSPHORUS. 9 
 
 As regards Besika Bay, with the plains of 
 Troy, and Ida, in the background — our pace 
 was too good for any effect, save that of 
 shaking my faith in the applicability of the 
 epithet " woody " to the mountain in ques- 
 tion. Summer, one is bound to believe, must 
 make a great difference, or Homer would 
 never have peopled so bare and palpable a 
 height with gods and goddesses. Be that as 
 it may, the story of Old Troy and The Battle 
 of the Ships bid fair to outlast the memory 
 of our fleet in the same regions, unless this, 
 too, can contrive to get embalmed in some 
 poetical lie. 
 
 The sun shone brightly as we steamed by 
 the castles of Europe and Asia, which reflected 
 his rays from batteries resplendent with fresh 
 whitewash ; not so, alas ! as we rounded 
 Seraglio Point, where a fog, worthy of London, 
 made the Bosphorus as dingy as the Thames. 
 
 It was ten o'clock on the morning of the 30th 
 September ; we had anchored within the Golden 
 Horn ; your humble servant was growling at 
 the ill-timed mist ; and his companions were 
 duly telling over the historical rosary by the 
 Guide Book for that place made and provided ; 
 
10 TIDINGS OF VICTORY. 
 
 when a barge, full of red-fezzed, loose-trousered 
 soldiers, was rowed by. " Look at those lazy 
 Turks," cried somebody. " Those are not 
 Turks," said a gentleman who had just come 
 up the ship's side ; " they are Zouaves, wounded 
 at the Alma:" and in a moment, he was telling 
 us the glorious tale ! I leave you to imagine the 
 effect of such a recital in such a scene. 
 There, with her rich argosies, her full-domed 
 mosques, and spear-like minarets, lay Stam- 
 boul, coveted of Czars — 
 
 . " teterrima belli 
 Causa.". 
 
 Yet no one thought of her. Every eye was 
 fixed on the narrator, or followed the receding 
 forms of those who had bled in the conflict he 
 was describing ; while the faces of the listeners 
 burned as if they already felt the breath of 
 War. For myself, two facts soon absorbed my 
 faculties. One was, that the transport " Cam- 
 bria " was to start for the Crimea next morn- 
 ing ; the other, that Admiral Boxer had the 
 giving away of the passages. I hurried to the 
 office, and was successful. So vanished one at 
 least of the lions which fearful friends had 
 descried in my patlj. 
 
SCUTARI — " CAMBRIA." 11 
 
 The next morning saw me and my ser- 
 vant, tents and baggage, en route for Bala- 
 klava, and steaming past Scutari barracks. 
 The latter, as you know, are now used as 
 a hospital; and I hear that so many of 
 the rooms are occupied by wounded Russians, 
 that some of our countrymen are lying in the 
 passages ! 
 
 It has a strange effect, this thickening of 
 the incidents of war around one. The very 
 transport in which we are now travelling, 
 carried, a fortnight ago, 400 men sick with 
 cholera, smallpox, and fever, to Scutari. There 
 were four doctors on board, who worked like 
 slaves day and night ; but, as they could not 
 perform miracles, and had only arrow-root 
 and brandy to administer, their patients died 
 in crowds. The cabins have since been fumi- 
 gated with gunpowder, and squibs, and chloride 
 of lime — not enough so, however, to quiet the 
 suspicions of a transport captain, who is our 
 fellow-passenger, and who persists in making 
 his nights miserable in the saloon. This comes 
 of being too knowing : the odds are, that he 
 will sicken on his precautions. 
 
 At Buyukdereh, a detachment of the 1st 
 
12 TROOP-HORSES LOST. 
 
 (Royal) dragoons came on board, after being 
 very nearly wrecked in a sailing transport. 
 The tug which had towed them from Varna, 
 had abandoned them from stress of weather. 
 Ere long, the guns of the vessel got unlim- 
 bered in the storm, and a beam, to which the 
 horses were tied, fell and crushed crowds of the 
 poor creatures beneath it. One (a fine mare) 
 leapt overboard ; others were shot, by the 
 violence of the motion, into the hold ; others, 
 from terror, struggled so convulsively, that 
 they were dangerous to approach ; while the 
 rest, with eyes knocked out, and bones pro- 
 truding from their skin, were dashed from side 
 to side on the deck at each roll of the vessel ; 
 and the only wonder is, that they and the un- 
 limbered guns, between them, did not stave in 
 the bulwarks, and send the whole affair to the 
 bottom. The second day, proving a little less 
 rough, was passed in throwing overboard the 
 dead horses, which had begun to stink almost 
 immediately — the lurches of the ship being 
 taken advantage of for that purpose — and, in 
 the evening, she reached Buyukdereh. During 
 all these hours of uproar and dismay, no 
 human lives were^ sacrificed. Still, 100 ani- 
 
MOONLIGHT CONCERT. 13 
 
 mals perished in the storm — a very great 
 loss to the service at this time ; and a yet 
 greater one to the Officers, who each possessed 
 two or three nags, worth from 100/. to 150/. 
 a-piece; for not one of which will the 
 frugal public pay more than 30/. or 40/. com- 
 pensation. 
 
 Two such days and nights would hardly 
 tend, you might suppose, to sweeten men's tem- 
 pers ; yet nothing can exceed the good humour 
 and pleasantness of the new comers. Since 
 their arrival, moreover, our evenings have been 
 enlivened with music. Three or four troopers 
 who, in peace-time, belonged to the Band, play 
 tunes on their bugles, varied by songs from 
 those who possess vocal qualifications. I wish 
 you could see one of these moonlight concerts. 
 The men come out in every variety of dress 
 and undress — some with the brass helmet on ; 
 some wearing over it the white linen cover, 
 with loose side-flaps ; others with their heads 
 tied up in red handkerchiefs, their tall figures 
 wrapped in military cloaks, or, yet more 
 picturesquely, draped in blankets. The Offi- 
 cers gather near, on the poop, and join 
 heartily in the plaudits ; but it is a point of 
 
14 MOONLIGHT CONCERT. 
 
 etiquette for the men to ignore their presence. 
 Presently a song is called for; and a huge 
 mustachioed giant advances to the window of 
 the steward's cabin, and clears his voice. He 
 is the gran tenore of the regiment. Standing 
 outside the cabin, and placing his hands on the 
 roof, about as easily as you might rest yours 
 on a mantelpiece — the light falling full on his 
 face — he sings some Tyrtaean strain, darkly 
 alluding to the Czar, under threats of " driv- 
 ing back to his mountains the grizzly old 
 Bear;" and each verse closing with the re- 
 frain — 
 
 " Then come along — come along — drink while you may- 
 To-morrow we fight, boys (bis) — let 's be happy to-day ! " 
 
 Poor fellows ! The chorus is real enough 
 for them; and the monotone of the rushing 
 water as the ship dashes on with them to her 
 Goal, does not lessen its significance. But the 
 concert is soon over, as our hours on board 
 ship are early. So, good night ! 
 
15 
 
 LETTER III. 
 
 Camp, Oct. 6th. 
 
 The bold headlands of the Crimea loomed 
 on our horizon on the afternoon of the 3rd ; 
 and we anchored in Eupatoria Bay just in 
 time to hear the bells on board some twenty 
 great black men-of-war announce midnight. 
 Here we learnt — what we were unpatriotic 
 enough to hail as good news — that Sebastopol 
 had yet to be taken. At dawn, we resumed 
 our voyage, and a fine day showed to great 
 advantage the bluff, scarped masses of the 
 interior. Every second mountain seemed a 
 natural fortress ; it was like passing a series 
 of Gibraltars. 
 
 Sebastopol we reconnoitred at a respectful 
 distance. A jet of light smoke leapt every 
 now and then from the forts, but at too long 
 intervals to make us apprehensive that the 
 assault was in progress. In less than an 
 hour more, we were steaming straight into 
 what seemed a curved bank of high lime- 
 stone rocks. It soon proved, however, to be 
 obliquely cut, about the centre, by a narrow 
 inlet, like the estuary of a second-class river. 
 
16 BALAKLAVA. 
 
 Balaklava harbour (for such it was) is nothing 
 more than the continuation below the sea's 
 level of a precipitous gorge. For some dis- 
 tance from its mouth, it may be said to be 
 skirted less with shores than with walls ; and 
 so rapidly do these descend, that within a few 
 feet of them ride our men-of-war, lying side 
 by side, as snug as if in dock. 
 
 Our first introduction to Enemy's Country, 
 will never, I am sure, be forgotten by any 
 one of our party who was gifted with a sense 
 of the noisome. At the entrance of the har- 
 bour, considerable curiosity had been excited 
 on board by the spectacle of a dead horse, its 
 legs sticking starkly out of water, being towed 
 by a steamer out to sea. But the reason soon be- 
 came obvious to the dullest olfactories. Floating 
 in all directions, but especially near shore, were 
 the bloated bodies and fragments of animals, 
 in every stage of decomposition, and in num- 
 bers sufficient to account for quite as much 
 sickness as we afterwards heard was in the 
 place. I suppose it can't be helped ; but " 'tis 
 pity ; " because here are maintained two hospi- 
 tals for the poor fellows from camp. As regards 
 our own party, you maybe certain no one among 
 
BALAKLAVA. 17 
 
 us was going to play Hotspur's "waiting gen- 
 tlewoman " thus early in the day. So, gaily 
 ignoring the carrion, we here wished each 
 other good speed, and went our several ways. 
 
 Fortunately for me the was in har- 
 bour. Next morning, therefore (having 
 slept on board the transport), I set off to 
 deliver my letter and parcel. I found 
 
 that was closeted with Lord Eaglan ; 
 
 and, waiting till he was disengaged, I em- 
 ployed the interval in observing the scene 
 around me. The town, though it boasts one 
 or two mean-looking churches, and though a 
 ruined tower crowns one of the heights above 
 it, is a sad tumble-down affair. It is situated 
 two or three hundred yards from the mouth 
 of the harbour, and straggles for about a 
 quarter of a mile along the South side of it, on 
 the narrow strip of shore which there inter- 
 venes between the water and the rock. In 
 general effect, it reminded me of the sort of 
 places one sees in some parts of Ireland, where 
 stone is abundant, and nothing else ; and 
 where copious whitewash does duty for repairs. 
 
 Lord Raglan's house was not much 
 above the level of the general wretchedness. 
 c 
 
18 SENTRY AT HEAD-QUARTERS — QUAY. 
 
 Before the door paced to and fro a sentry, 
 whose get-up was not at all out of keep- 
 ing with his situation. He had a soiled 
 red coat ; its ragged worsted tags were the 
 reverse of ornamental ; and its open collar 
 showed neither stock nor shirt. His rusty 
 black trousers gaped vainly here and there 
 for buttons, and were tucked up unceremoni- 
 ously at the heels to keep dry. His boots were 
 the colour of the dust they trod on ; so were 
 his Saxon locks, and sunburnt face. Never- 
 theless, there was that about his quiet honest 
 bearing which would, I think, have proclaimed 
 him, even without the distinctive red, a 
 British soldier. 
 
 The quay before the house was one struggling 
 mass of bullock- waggons, dromedaries, and am- 
 munition-carts. There were Jack-tars in couples 
 baling out of barges heavy shot, and using 
 for that purpose an iron instrument, shaped 
 like two Greek es placed over each other, one 
 upside down, and the other erect, so that the 
 circles coincide (each man takes hold of the 
 two prongs at his own end, and the shot lies 
 in the central ring). Commissaries were shout- 
 ing to bombardiers, soldiers were imprecating 
 
CAMP-FORAGERS. 1 9 
 
 araba-drivers, who in their turn were taking a 
 vicarious vengeance by prodding their beasts. 
 But that the whole business was not so chaotic 
 as it looked, was proved by the continuous line 
 of carts, full of provisions and munitions of war, 
 which streamed steadily off towards the camp. 
 While I was watching this novel scene, 
 
 came out into the porch, and most 
 
 hospitably invited me to make the my 
 
 head-quarters during my stay in the Crimea. 
 Upon my expressing, however, a desire to 
 reach the front without delay, he, with equally 
 ready kindness, gave me the means of doing so. 
 I now returned to the "Cambria" for my bag- 
 gage, and found her already invaded by a tat- 
 tered, but gallant, troop from the camp. They 
 had cleaned out pretty nearly everything ; but 
 I succeeded in buying a bottle of whiskey (5s.), 
 two live ducks, a ham and tongue (all for 
 moderate prices), and a lump of salt. The last 
 luxury I was put up to purchasing by one of 
 the new comers, who gave me many good 
 hints on the subject of my commissariat. I 
 don't know my benefactor's name, but sure I 
 am that he was an accomplished forager and 
 
 excellent man. 
 
 c 2 
 
20 TARTAR ARABA-DRIVER. 
 
 Leaving my baggage to follow with my ser- 
 vant, I set off to the camp, and was lucky enough 
 to get a lift in an araba, which was conveying 
 a sick Officer to the same Division of the Army 
 as that to which I was destined. "Luck," you 
 know, is a comparative word. The vehicle in 
 question was simply a basket on wheels, 
 drawn by bullocks, and devoid of springs, 
 cushions, seats, or any other contrivance 
 for saving the human vertebrae from dislo- 
 cation. The driver was one of a batch of 
 Crim-Tartars, who were pounced upon — bul- 
 locks, waggons and all — by our troops, on 
 their march to their present quarters. 
 
 As matters turned out, I had plenty of leisure 
 to philosophise on the features of this specimen 
 of the human race, which did not strike me as 
 very Mongolian in type. His cheek bones, like 
 those of many others of his brethren whom I 
 have since observed, were not particularly 
 high ; his eyebrows did not slope up, as I had 
 expected, a la Chinoise; nor was his mouth 
 of any remarkable amplitude. The chief 
 peculiarity about the Crim-Tartars lies, I 
 think, in their nose, which, though straight, 
 is so small, both as to length and prominence, 
 
DRIVE TO CAMP. 21 
 
 that, set as it is on a full round face but 
 slightly garnished with beard, it gives them 
 the appearance of overgrown boys. Although 
 prisoners, they look fat and jolly enough; 
 and have, indeed, small cause to look other- 
 wise ; seeing that we pay them 5/. a month, 
 out of which, I hear, they manage to save 
 money. 
 
 Just as we had commenced jolting along at 
 
 the bottom of our basket, my friend , who is 
 
 one of General 's Aide-de-camps, happened 
 
 by good luck to cross our path. His face had got 
 so gloriously blowzed, and he sported so mag- 
 nificent a beard, that nothing but the tones of 
 his hearty voice enabled me to recognise him. 
 After a brief welcome, he galloped off to give 
 directions as to the pitching of my tents ; and 
 I jogged on my way, rejoicing at having come 
 thus early across his cheerful presence. 
 
 But hour after hour passed; the distance was 
 only six miles; we had mounted many hills, and 
 fathomed many ruts — yet no camp was visible. 
 The sun, moreover, was setting, and we were in 
 enemy's country. Above all, our compound con- 
 tusions were beginning to tell. Fiercely turn- 
 ing, therefore, on the arabajee, we charged 
 
 c 3 
 
22 ARRIVAL IN CAMP. 
 
 him with the design of taking us to Sebastopol ! 
 Perhaps, the accusation was true ; most pro- 
 bably, it was not : certain it is, that, after an 
 animated discussion, in which " Johnny " 
 (equivalent to heark'ye!), in connection with 
 U Bono" and " No Bono," formed pretty nearly 
 the only language common to all parties, 
 our Jehu turned bolt round, took a direction 
 at right angles to that which he had been pur- 
 suing, and brought us, a little after dark, 
 
 within sight of the camp-fires of the 
 
 Division. 
 
 And now, should you ever run your head 
 against the " Great Asian Mystery," and have 
 to discourse on the marvellous virtues of the 
 Arab race, set it roundly down, that they 
 are hospitable because they live in tents. 
 Under similar conditions of canvass, John 
 Bull beats them hollow ! Such, at least, was 
 the ethnological conviction — the more valu- 
 able, as I never travelled in Arabia — which 
 
 flashed across me on arriving at the 
 
 Division. My traps had not come up; I 
 was an idler in the midst of stern work ; yet 
 
 not only did my friend invite me for 
 
 that night to share his pavilion (it is 6 feet 
 long, by 3 high, and 2| broad), but General 
 
CAMP HOSPITALITY. 23 
 
 , to whom I merely carried a letter of 
 
 introduction, pressed me most kindly to 
 accept a corner of his, and that, though 
 one of his Aide-de-camps already divides it 
 with him. 
 
 While it was yet uncertain whether I should 
 have to close with either of these good-natured 
 offers, dinner was served, and I became a 
 hungry partaker. The appetite inspired by 
 my long drive did not prevent my looking 
 with considerable interest at the novel en- 
 tourage of this my first camp-repast. The 
 General's tent differs in no respect from those 
 of the common soldiers. A single wax-candle, 
 placed on the ground, lit the interior. Canvass 
 forage-bags, cloaks, and waterproofs, spread 
 around, hid the bare earth ; and on them re- 
 clined, more antiquo, the General and his Staff. 
 I alone enjoyed the dignity of a seat, viz., 
 a portmanteau. No such thing as table, chair, 
 bed, bedding, or couch, was visible. As I 
 looked at these simple arrangements, I could 
 not help thinking — if such was all the comfort 
 enjoyed by a General in the Crimea, what must 
 be the condition of inferior Officers ? It was 
 not till afterwards that I learnt that, in these 
 
 c 4 
 
24 CAMP HOSPITALITY. 
 
 respects, Sir cannot be persuaded 
 
 to allow himself, either on the score of his years 
 or of his rank, the smallest advantage over his 
 subalterns. Fortunately, however, for my un- 
 Spartan appetite on the occasion in question, it 
 does happen that the General, having to feed 
 three lusty Aides, keeps a French chef; and this 
 incomparable artist, though he cooks alfresco, 
 is said to be capable of doing anything short 
 of transmuting ration-pork and biscuits into 
 soles au gratin. A very good dinner was 
 followed by coffee, and by tobacco for the 
 juniors. 
 
 You do not, of course, imagine that our 
 entertainment was of the full-dress order. 
 Everybody, in fact, except my unmilitary 
 self, wore the working Staff-uniform — blue 
 frock and gilt buttons, blue red-striped 
 trousers, and high boots — nor did any one 
 doff his gold-laced forage-cap, in compliment 
 either to the occasion, or to the flimsy 
 canopy which alone protected our heads 
 from heaven. Altogether — setting aside a 
 certain grotesque figure on a portmanteau 
 — a painter might have made something of 
 
TENT PITCHED. 25 
 
 the gallant group which, lit by that solitary 
 candle, lay, little dreaming of a tableau, 
 round the person of their chief. 
 
 Meantime, my tents had arrived, and I re- 
 tired to assist in pitching them. The camp- 
 fires had all gone out ; but there, sure 
 enough, by the light of the stars, appeared 
 a small heap of bags and portmanteaus, shot 
 out on the bare earth ; out of which (it re- 
 quired a strong effort of reason to believe) 
 I was thenceforth to find myself in bed, 
 board, and lodging. The tents were soon 
 out of their bags, and sprawling over the 
 ground. But how to put them up? My 
 servant, John Economites — a native of the 
 Ionian Islands, whom I had engaged at Con- 
 stantinople — had never done such a thing in 
 
 his life. My friend 's camp-servants, on 
 
 the other hand, were only accustomed to the 
 Regulation bell-tents, from which mine differed 
 considerably. Moreover, the night was cold. It 
 was decided, under these circumstances, that, 
 leaving the more recondite portions to be put 
 up next morning, we should confine our atten- 
 tion to the outer wall of the principal tent f and 
 
26 NIGHT IN CAMP. 
 
 this, after a vigorous effort of our united 
 intellects, we succeeded in erecting properly. 
 My traps were soon placed inside; a water- 
 proof blanket, 'ycleped a " waterdeck," spread 
 out on the ground, served for a bed ; and, with 
 the unattached canvass tent-lining for bed- 
 clothes, I made no doubt that I should pass the 
 night comfortably (N.B. Nobody undresses 
 in camp, except for ablutionary purposes). 
 
 My friend 's servant engaged to find 
 
 lodging for John. The only other living 
 beings remaining to be provided for, were my 
 two ducks, which were hung up by the heels 
 to one of the strings from the roof of my tent. 
 With a parting counsel not to be disturbed if 
 I heard a little musketry before dawn — 
 that being the favourite time for the Cossacks 
 to vex our pickets — my friend wished me 
 good-night. 
 
 I was soon asleep ; when, hark ! what sound 
 was that close to my ear ! Cossacks ? then Cos- 
 sacks must make very singular noises ! " Quack- 
 quack, quack-quack, quack-quack ! " At last, 
 thoroughly awake, I remembered the sus- 
 pended ducks. Poor creatures — I reflected — 
 
MIDNIGHT MASSACRE. 27 
 
 they are certainly addicted, when at liberty on 
 the water, to thrusting their tails up and their 
 heads down ; but, perhaps, so prolonged an in- 
 version of the centre of gravity as they had 
 now undergone, might have become a little 
 too much of a good thing. So, emerging 
 most reluctantly from my warm nest, I 
 placed them (merely tying them together 
 by the feet to prevent escape), on the ground, 
 and went to sleep again. In vain! Once 
 more the wretched couple — may-be, grown 
 sick of each other — set up their confounded 
 clamour ; and this time so loudly, that I 
 thought , his brother Aides, and the Ge- 
 neral himself, would be awakened by it ! The 
 case evidently called for extreme measures. 
 Moodily lighting my candle, therefore, and 
 gazing awhile at the doomed pair, I sought 
 among the litter around me for an imple- 
 ment suitable to the crisis — that night they 
 quacked no more ! 
 
 It was not long before my rest was 
 
 broken, as had predicted, by distant 
 
 musketry. In another minute, I could hear 
 the prophet, in his proper person, ordered off 
 
28 " ALARM." 
 
 to ascertain the cause. Away went his 
 horse's hoofs in the direction of the firing ; 
 whence, after a few minutes, they as quickly 
 clattered back to the General. " Fall in ! " 
 — "Get under arms!" now buzzed along 
 the lines ; followed by a heavy trampling of 
 feet, as the men ran from their tents to their 
 firelocks. I had been forewarned that these 
 "alarms" were constant, and had nothing 
 necessarily alarming about them ; but, being 
 dressed and booted, I could not resist going 
 out to see what was doing. There, in their 
 grey great coats, and already formed in line, 
 
 stood the soldiers of the Division. Three 
 
 minutes before, they were in dream-land. The 
 musketry had ceased, but no more sleep was in 
 store for them that morning. The " alarm " 
 had, in fact, occasioned a turn-out half an hour 
 before the period (four a. m. till sunrise) consi- 
 dered to be the most likely for attempts at sur- 
 prises; and which is, therefore, in obedience to 
 a Standing Order, always passed under arms. 
 It was now bright moonlight and bitterly cold. 
 So, shivering both for myself and them, I ran 
 back under cover, and dived under the pile 
 
KESULT. 29 
 
 of lining — feeling, I confess, a good deal like 
 a Sybarite, who has no business to be so com- 
 fortable. Nevertheless — but that, you'll say, 
 only completes the resemblance — I soon slept, 
 and soundly ; till daylight, and a buzz of con- 
 versation, of which my woven walls gave me 
 the full benefit, banished all further ideas of 
 repose. 
 
30 
 LETTER IV. 
 
 Camp, Oct. 9th. 
 
 It certainly has a strange effect, to awake 
 from some dream of England to midnight in 
 camp ; to stretch out one's hand in sleep 
 against the dew-drenched canvass, and sud- 
 denly become conscious, that you are on the 
 Czar's land without leave. It takes a mo- 
 ment or two to remember, that the perfect 
 stillness is not solitude ; that the slumbering 
 host around is encircled by hundreds of 
 wakeful eyes ; and that a single shot, a single 
 cry, would send a shock of life through the 
 whole mass ! 
 
 That is to say, the effect did strike me as 
 strange. But I have now been under canvass 
 four days, and am grown so familiar with a 
 hundred equally strange things, that I see 
 clearly, if I do not at once attempt to give you 
 some notion of them, I shall become as in- 
 capable of doing so, as if I had been out here 
 for a twelvemonth. 
 
 Whatever intricate dogmas may prevail 
 on the subject, there can be no doubt that 
 human happiness, in some situations, de- 
 pends largely on a man's kit. Mine is whim- 
 
A DAY IN CAMP — KIT. 31 
 
 sically said to be a luxurious one ; so it may 
 the better serve to suggest the state of other 
 people's. Some idea on this subject you must 
 perforce have, before I can explain to you the 
 character of a day in camp. 
 
 Let us begin, then, with my domicile. It is 
 one of Benjamin Edgington's " Travellers' 
 Tents," and differs altogether from the Regula- 
 tion " bell-tent " of the Army. The latter — as 
 you probably are aware — is composed of a cone 
 about eight feet high, with a diameter of four- 
 teen, on a circular w T all a foot and a half high ; 
 the whole supported by a single pole. The 
 shape of mine is that of two oblong planes in- 
 clined against each other, with their bases (which 
 are twelve feet long) about ten feet apart. It 
 is supported by three very light poles, which 
 take to pieces. The centre one is about eight 
 feet high ; the two at the ends are two feet 
 shorter ; so as to give the top line of the roof 
 a slightly pyramidical character. The per- 
 pendicular walls at the two ends are bisected 
 from top to bottom, and the halves can either 
 be reefed up, so as to leave an open entrance ; 
 
 or they can be laced together, when they 
 
 effectually shut out the wind. 
 
32 " traveller's tent." 
 
 This shape, which, I believe, obtained for its 
 inventor a reward at the Great Exhibition, has 
 certainly some advantages over the bell-tent. 
 Being less tall and more compact, it does not, 
 in a gale, make such a deafening rattle — and 
 that, by the way, is no slight consideration in a 
 camp, where a quick ear when one is in one's 
 tent, is as important as a quick eye when one 
 is out of it. Again, in hot weather, by reefing 
 the doors at the two ends, you can obtain a 
 draught through the whole tent from top to 
 bottom ; whereas in the other, where there is 
 but one entrance through a little flap in the 
 side, a draught can only be made by reefing 
 the circular wall ; and as this is only a foot 
 and a half high, the current scarcely reaches a 
 man on a camp-bedstead, while the hot air in 
 the body of the tent remains quite unagitated. 
 
 The only inconvenience I have discovered in 
 the shape of the " Traveller's Tent," is one that 
 would not affect travellers in general; and for 
 aught I know, even it might be remedied. There 
 are two ropes attached to the tops of the poles 
 at each end, which require to be pegged down 
 on the ground, at a distance of from five to six 
 feet fore and aft of the tent. As the bell-tents 
 
TENT-LINING. 33 
 
 are otherwise constructed, nobody in camp 
 looks out for these projecting supports ; and 
 at night, especially, they are sad stumbling- 
 blocks. In fact, a horseman has just given 
 the tent so violent a shock through this cause, 
 that my unfortunate aneroid has been pre- 
 cipitated from its nail on the centre pole, and 
 will never foretell weather more. 
 
 But the grand comfort, or as they call it here, 
 the "luxury" of my tent, is one that is indepen- 
 dent of its external shape : namely, the lining 
 through one half of it. This is stretched at a 
 distance of about six inches from the outer 
 canvass, and when closed at both ends forms 
 a distinct inner room. The protection it 
 affords against cold, or heat, may be put down 
 at six degrees Fahrenheit. Thus, though my 
 tent is so much less tall than a bell-tent, that 
 its weight, together with that of the lining, 
 little exceeds that of the other, yet the ad- 
 vantage in point of temperature is altogether 
 on the side of the former ; and in a land where 
 extremes of heat and cold succeed each other 
 rapidly, this is but another mode of saying, 
 that the advantage in point of healthfulness is 
 so likewise. 
 
 D 
 
34 TENT FURNITURE. 
 
 My servant's domicile, called in England a 
 " patrol-tent," and a " kennel " here, stands 
 close by, so as to be within hail, and is about 
 six feet long, by three high. Two of the Gene- 
 ral's Aides have nothing better ! 
 
 My furniture may be very shortly de- 
 scribed: — A stretcher, or bedstead, formed 
 of two wooden 6|- feet poles (each of which 
 takes to pieces), connected by a strip of 
 canvass 3 feet wide ; the latter being stretched 
 tight by means of three pair of low, detachable, 
 scissor-shaped legs, on the principle of a com- 
 mon camp-stool ; — one inch-thick mattrass and 
 pillow ; — two waterproof blankets, or " water- 
 decks;" — an iron wash-hand-stand which can be 
 packed in a tin box ; the box serving as a tub, 
 and its cover, when placed on the wash-hand- 
 stand, forming a table ( Nota bene. The com- 
 mon fault of such articles is, that they are 
 made as high as if meant for use in England, 
 whereas in a place where chairs are not, and 
 where stretchers are the loftiest seats procu- 
 rable, no table should stand more than a foot 
 and three-quarters from the ground) ; — a very 
 primitive Maltese canteen, consisting of a pan 
 large enough to hold a kettle (which also serves, 
 
CAMP HONESTY. 35 
 
 or rather served, as teapot), a gridiron, three 
 tin cups without handles, three tin plates, two 
 knives and forks, two large and two small pew- 
 ter spoons (Nota bene again. Theordinary can- 
 teen-kettle is made very shallow and broad, 
 to facilitate, I suppose, its stowage. But the 
 result is, that unless it is placed very evenly 
 on the fire, the highest portion of the bottom 
 is left dry, and becomes unsoldered. My own 
 is already rendered useless from this cause, and 
 I am consequently dependent on the General's) ; 
 — lastly, one portmanteau for my wardrobe, 
 and another in which are stowed some her- 
 metically-sealed provisions, a case of Lemann's 
 biscuits, and a few soda-water bottles filled with 
 brandy and whisky. Nothing hides the hard 
 brown earth; inasmuch as the tent and bedstead 
 bags, which might have been applied to the pur- 
 pose, are a great deal more necessary for John, 
 who sleeps in the "kennel" on the ground. 
 
 It will convey to you some idea of the ad- 
 mirable order in camp, when I add, that 
 one of my boxes, containing things for which 
 I have no immediate use, is kept outside my 
 tent. Though the wood, at any rate, of which 
 it is composed, would be useful to many a sol- 
 
 D 2 
 
36 PRIVATIONS OF ARMY. 
 
 dier who has to trudge to a distance for fuel, 
 everybody assures me that it is perfectly safe. 
 Indeed pilfering, so far as I can ascertain, is 
 unheard of. Of what other community could 
 the same be said ? 
 
 I don't suppose the foregoing enumeration 
 of my possessions in the Crimea is so inviting as 
 to put you out of conceit of your establishment 
 in the Temple ; nevertheless, there are items in 
 it, for which no equivalents, or substitutes, how- 
 ever paltry, are to be found among the majority 
 of the Officers in camp. Thus, in most tents, 
 the means of ensuring personal cleanliness are 
 absolutely wanting. The sea is too distant 
 for bathing \ and though there are little springs 
 in various neighbouring hollows, nobody has 
 vessels which can be applied to washing. The 
 men have only the small pans which they use 
 in cooking; the Officers, destitute even of 
 these, borrow them from the men, and manage, 
 perhaps, such a toilet as can be accomplished 
 with half a pint of water, unaided by towel, 
 soap, nail-brush, tooth-brush, hair-brush, or 
 comb ! Eazors, naturally, are out of the ques- 
 tion. Even before the landing, almost every 
 one had abandoned them — from the bearded 
 
PRIVATIONS OF ARMY. 37 
 
 Grenadier, whose face looks like a continuation 
 of his own bearskin, to the callow Ensign, 
 whose 
 
 " beauty draws us by a single hair." 
 
 Of course, it was the necessity, when they dis- 
 embarked here, of bearing all their possessions 
 on their backs, that reduced the Army to their 
 worst trials. The sufferings entailed by actual 
 fighting, by night- work in the trenches, or by 
 a bivouac such as the troops were only relieved 
 from five or six days ago, are bad enough ; 
 yet they are only part of the prospect contem- 
 plated by every man of sense when he adopts 
 the military profession. But the unmentionable 
 horrors of a state of things where neither the 
 clothing can be changed, nor the body cleansed, 
 for weeks on weeks! — when men born and. 
 trained as our Officers are born and trained, 
 are found undergoing these, without a com- 
 plaint on their lips — England may well be 
 proud of her " gentlemen." 
 
 The Generals, Field-officers, and Staff are 
 somewhat better off; they possess basins and 
 tubs ; those who like it, can shave ; and I have 
 even seen a few white shirts, though they were 
 
 D 3 
 
38 A COLONEL REPORTING. 
 
 not starched. Still it was only the other day 
 that even this portion of the Army got tents over 
 their heads ; and that you may not have too ex- 
 alted a notion of their comforts, I will describe 
 to you the costume in which I lately saw the 
 Colonel of a regiment making his morning's 
 report to General Brown. Both stood outside 
 Sir George's tent, and I was one of a fumigating 
 group not far off. The Colonel's black trou- 
 sers hung in folds over his spurs, for lack of 
 braces. His red coatee was fastened with 
 three buttons, and showed to advantage a 
 chocolate-coloured flannel shirt. The long 
 ends of a silk neckcloth, tied in a sailor's knot, 
 dangled over the coatee ; and over all, was a 
 dilapidated great coat, which had certainly 
 not been brushed for the occasion. One hand 
 he kept in his pocket ; the other held a well- 
 browned meerschaum ; and with many vigo- 
 rous pulls thereat, he told his story. 
 
 But to return. The day in camp begins, 
 for me, when I hear the troops coming 
 back to their tents after morning parade. 
 Persons who have not tried it, might sup- 
 pose, that the pounding from the fort-guns 
 would act as an earlier reveille. But to this 
 
A RUSSIAN VISITOR. 39 
 
 the ear becomes habituated almost immedi- 
 ately. I have heard a General of Division say, 
 that, while he sleeps easily enough through 
 almost any amount of cannonading, the faintest 
 report of a musket rouses him at once; for 
 that indicates the approach of the enemy. As 
 regards myself, not having to get up at either, 
 I can sleep through both. 
 
 Directly after sunrise, the soldiers light their 
 fires, and the Officers light their cigars, and 
 chat over the night's work in cosy little 
 groups, till the sun puts some warmth into 
 them after the cold parade. Two or three of 
 them were thus engaged yesterday before my 
 tent, when I received the nearest introduction 
 I have yet obtained to a Russian projectile. 
 You must know, the sound made by the rushing 
 of shot and shell through the air, is generally 
 audible here ; though we are so far from the 
 fort guns that they cannot carry anything like 
 the distance, unless fired at a great elevation. 
 When this is the case, accuracy of aim is out 
 of the question ; and even if a ball does pay 
 you a visit, it descends from such a height 
 that it lies where it falls, and does no further 
 mischief. A shell, however, is a more ugly 
 
 D 4 
 
40 A RUSSIAN VISITOR. 
 
 customer ; and one, happening to alight, three 
 or four days ago, among the tents of the Fourth 
 Division, killed one man and wounded another. 
 The piece that did the mischief is supposed to 
 be on board a certain man-of-war called the 
 M Twelve Apostles," which lies at the nearest, 
 or Southern, extremity of the harbour. She 
 is careened over before firing, in order to give 
 the mortar the highest possible elevation. 
 
 However, I have given you a very long 
 preface to a very simple affair. Our visitor 
 announced his approach in this wise: — First, 
 came the report of the discharge ; then, a loud 
 noise, between a whistle and a whiz (a sort of 
 crescendo wheu-u-u-gh ! ), apparently quite close ; 
 then, a thud against the ground, some thirty 
 yards past me; and then — a sense of the extreme 
 ease with which I had earned the respectability of 
 having been " under fire !" The missile fell near 
 a donkey, without penetrating the hard ground 
 more than an inch or two ; and for a few 
 seconds, the soldiers round about, taking it 
 for a shell, gave it a wide berth, expecting to 
 see the poor jackass blown into fragments. 
 The spectacle not coming off, however, as soon 
 as was expected, some one went up, and dis- 
 
PICKET-HOUSE. 41 
 
 covered the cause of all the excitement to be 
 a plain unexplosive 32-pounder. 
 
 The donkey and myself, all this while, had 
 kept our legs, though wiser animals threw 
 themselves on their faces. In fact, the chief 
 start my nerves sustained on the occasion, 
 was from seeing one or two of my friends fall 
 flat at my feet. This, however, I afterwards 
 learnt, is quite the correct mark of respect to 
 pay a passing shell, nor have I the slightest 
 intention of omitting it for the future. 
 
 After the matinee fumante, comes breakfast; 
 and then — equally a matter of course — a walk 
 to the Picket-house. No account of Crimean 
 camp-life would be complete without mention 
 of this much-frequented lounge. It is a little 
 ruin, appropriated, as its name imports, to one 
 of the pickets, and is situated on the brow of 
 the hill, two or three hundred yards in front 
 of the Light Division. Thence it commands 
 a view of Sebastopol to the left, and of the sea 
 and the fleets to the right. There is a court- 
 yard round it, with a wall about four feet 
 high, behind which may perpetually be seen 
 Officers with double eye-glasses and telescopes 
 directed towards the town. 
 
42 SIEGE PREPARATIONS. 
 
 Sebastopol, seen from this point, appears 
 to be a handsome city, containing many 
 substantial public works constructed out of 
 the light stone of the country. There are 
 no walls; so the talk about ''breaching" 
 is — talk. But the place is defended on the 
 South side by a Kound Tower, a Redan, 
 and various earthworks. The masts of the 
 "Twelve Apostles" are easily distinguishable. 
 
 Everything is preparing for the bombard- 
 ment. The trenches were commenced the day 
 before yesterday, and a few guns are, I believe, 
 placed in position . They will remain silent, how- 
 ever, for the present, and until they can open 
 their fire to some purpose ; as, of course, there 
 is no use in letting the enemy know beforehand 
 their true position and forwardness. Up to 
 this moment, though it is clear, from the in- 
 creased activity of the fort batteries, that some- 
 thing is suspected, no shot or shell have 
 come near the working parties. Meanwhile, 
 waggons after waggons arrive from Balaklava, 
 filled with the fruits of the immense efforts 
 made at Varna to prepare munitions for the 
 siege. So incessant, I am told, was the labour 
 there imposed upon the troops, that a private 
 
MENSCHIKOFF — RUSSIAN BAYONETS. 43 
 
 was heard to exclaim, that he supposed people 
 at head-quarters now read the 4th command- 
 ment as, " Six days thou shalt make gabions 
 and fascines, and the seventh day thou shalt 
 have heavy- marching-order parade ! " 
 
 It does not appear whether the Russians have 
 recovered from the fright they got on the 20th. 
 A Polish deserter who was taken the other 
 day, said that MenschikoiF had given out, that 
 our triumph at the Alma was entirely due to 
 our superiority in fire-arms ; and that we could 
 only be effectually opposed with the bayonet ! 
 The story, ridiculous as it sounds, receives 
 some colour of probability from what one of our 
 sentries has just seen. He got close enough 
 to Sebastopol to observe a body of infantry 
 practising charging at wooden boards — prac- 
 tising, moreover, cheering as they did so ! 
 
 After spending the morning at the Picket- 
 house, those who have nothing better to do, 
 generally go, during the heat of the day, to 
 their tents to read the newspapers. Of these 
 we get a good supply, and, though they 
 seem engrossed with what is doing here, 
 they often bring news. Much is said about 
 the harm they do by conveying information 
 
44 CAMP REPASTS. 
 
 to the enemy. When, however, one considers 
 the enormous quantity of rumours in camp 
 that are affirmed one day, and contradicted 
 the next — and the very few persons who can 
 possibly know what is really doing, and being 
 projected — it is difficult not to believe that 
 the estimate of the evil is exaggerated. The 
 Czar, one would rather suspect, must be situated 
 in the matter much as is the poor Sultan 
 with regard to his Bulgarian subjects, accord- 
 ing to the Cadi in Household Words : — " Our 
 father, the Sultan, knows how to deal with 
 the Turks, for they always speak truth ; and 
 with the Greeks, for they always tell lies ; but 
 with the Bulgarians, who speak sometimes 
 truth, and sometimes lies — with them, he 
 knows not how to deal ! " 
 
 The afternoon is always cool, and is the 
 best time for seeing the country, and for ex- 
 ploring among the curiosities of the camp. 
 So the day passes till dinner. You are aware, 
 I dare say, that there are no regimental 
 messes here ; but that the Officers generally 
 club together in twos and threes. On my way 
 home of an evening, my efforts are directed to 
 breaking up some one or other of these parties, 
 
PRIVATE COMMISSARIAT. 45 
 
 by carrying off a stray friend to share my 
 scrambling repast ; when John's inventive fa- 
 culties are taxed to the utmost. Happily, my 
 guests are easy to please ; but I have already 
 made the discovery, that my month's store of 
 food is not quite so luxurious as it promised 
 to be. The cans of hermetically-sealed cooked 
 meats which I brought out, labelled " Lamb 
 and Peas," " Boiled Beef," " Haricot Mutton," 
 and bearing a dozen other equally imposing 
 titles, are certainly better than nothing — but 
 that is all I can say of them. The meat is 
 cooked to rags, and these, again, are lubricated 
 by masses of fat. No invalid could touch them. 
 Why gelatine should not be resorted to, in- 
 stead of grease (as in the case of Hogarth's 
 Essence of Beef, and of the preserved soups), 
 I don't know. 
 
 If I were to lay in a fresh commissariat 
 (you may tell your military friends), I would 
 bring lemons, to counteract these adipose pre- 
 parations, and to supply, in a sanitary point 
 of view, the place of vegetables. I would 
 also try to get the French caked preparation 
 of vegetables themselves; and I would cer- 
 tainly put up some tins of the English patented 
 
46 EVENING IN CAMP. 
 
 paste of preserved milk and chocolate — the 
 preserved milk alone is not worth its room. 
 
 This, however, is a digression. Practically, 
 and so long as a man is well, his camp-appe- 
 tite is equal to most things. The dinner 
 equipage may be scanty ; but, by dint of a 
 bold nomenclature, its shortcomings are grace- 
 fully veiled. Thus, one talks of a "glass" of 
 wine, though that liquor (supposing you to 
 possess it) is served in a handleless tin mug 
 — the same mug which, in the course of the 
 evening, will figure as a " cup" or a " tumbler," 
 according as it may be charged with coffee, or 
 whisky-toddy. Smoke, moreover, with which 
 the repast invariably concludes, covers a mul- 
 titude of sins in the preceding arrangements 
 
 — but not smoke of Turkish chibouques, 
 nor of mild, romantic, Oriental tobacco. Ca- 
 vendish and shag — short clays and meer- 
 schaums — and cigars, when they can be got 
 
 — maintain their ground in the taste of the 
 campaigners, despite of their Eastern experi- 
 ence ; and a ship-load of such supplies, would, 
 no doubt, be easily sold here. 
 
 Everybody turns in by half-past nine. By ten, 
 the last fires have gone out, the last araba has 
 
CHURCH-PARADE. 47 
 
 screeched past with its load ; and — but for the 
 long spectral crowd of tents that you see glim- 
 mering through the distance, as you lace up 
 your doors for the night — you might believe 
 yourself in the wilderness. 
 
 Such is a general description of a day in 
 camp ; but yesterday the routine was 
 broken by the impressive ceremony of an 
 open-air Church-parade. Each Division, on 
 these occasions, has divine service performed 
 by its own Chaplain. Ours was drawn up on 
 the rising ground, just beyond the tents, in 
 a dense hollow square. The Clergyman and 
 Officers occupied the centre. Every one was 
 covered. Some of the men wore forage- 
 caps, for lack of shakos ; and on dit that the 
 loss of these stiff and ugly varieties of head- 
 gear is submitted to with great resignation by 
 the Line generally. The Chaplain, with his 
 dark velvet skull-cap, and black moustache 
 and beard, reminded me of a foreign padre in 
 canonicals. 
 
 We were scarcely placed in position, before 
 the loud rush of round-shot from the fort was 
 heard, again and again, in our ears, causing 
 sundry dislocations of the square — the men 
 
48 CHURCH -PARADE. 
 
 grinning and swaying about at each whirr 
 in a kind of jocular disorder. Nothing was 
 left for it but to move off. So we took up our 
 ground a few hundred yards lower down ; and 
 here — though a fleecy little cloudlet, which 
 announced its birth in a thunder-clap, showed 
 that a shell had burst above us, not very far 
 off to our rear — the service was conducted to 
 a close. Every body, of course, stands, upon 
 these occasions, throughout the ceremony. To 
 obviate fatigue, therefore, the Litany and Com- 
 munion are omitted. The Chaplain preached 
 extemporaneously, and with so excellent a 
 voice, that, though the wind was blowing his 
 surplice about, it did not drown his tones. I was 
 amused by his British sang froid. Half his con- 
 gregation might perish round the walls of Se- 
 bastopol before next Church-parade — a theme 
 which the threatening missiles exploding about 
 him would have served sufficiently well to en- 
 force — but he utterly disdained such obvious 
 rhetoric. Perhaps, indeed, it is considered 
 undesirable to allude to subjects of the kind ; 
 and certainly they are too patent to need much 
 insisting on. At any rate, the reverend 
 gentleman neither noticed the pyrotechnics 
 
A MOVE DOWN. 49 
 
 in his sound practical sermon, nor in his own 
 person ; but stood with his back to the fort, 
 and preached on some everyday text, and never 
 changed his voice, or turned his head, in com- 
 pliment to shot or shell. 
 
 Next day the Division moved its quarters 
 two or three hundred yards further from the 
 enemy. 
 
50 
 
 LETTER V. 
 
 Camp, Oct. 14th. 
 
 I dare say you think it is time that I should 
 fulfil my promise of giving you a general 
 description of the camp ; but I confess, I do 
 not even now approach so large a subject 
 without trepidation. No one but a mili- 
 tary man can treat it properly. However, 
 if you will take the following "notions" 
 for what they are worth — as the impressions 
 of a pekin, who pretends not to professional 
 accuracy — why, perhaps, they may help you 
 in any after inquiries into the subject, or, 
 possibly, throw light on some of the more 
 authoritative accounts that will reach you 
 from hence. 
 
 Nothing can be imagined more dreary and 
 barren than the country in which the camp 
 is pitched. Though, in reality, an elevated 
 table land, it is so extensive that it produces 
 the effect of an undulating plain. The high 
 distant hills beyond its Eastern and Southern 
 extremities, are thus comparatively dwarfed. 
 The sea is hidden by rising ground to the 
 
CAMP SCENERY. 51 
 
 Westward. The highest side of the plateau 
 is towards the North, and the camp is placed 
 two or three hundred yards below the summit. 
 This summit is crossed by several gorges ; 
 and from it, there is a slope Northward, about a 
 mile and a half long, down to Sebastopol. 
 
 The colouring of the scenery is simple 
 enough — namely, plain drab. No vegetation 
 is visible. There are, indeed, good vineyards 
 (now sear, and stripped of grapes) in th 
 hollows near Balaklava ; and there are culti- 
 vated strips at the sheltered bottoms of most 
 of the gorges where water is found ; but such 
 oases lie too low to affect the general land- 
 scape. Elsewhere, the grass is scanty and 
 withered. There are no trees, only here and 
 there patches of short oak scrub. Even the 
 withered grass and the scrub must be looked 
 for. As a rule, one sees nothing but bare 
 brown earth, strewn with rough stones that set 
 their faces against galloping Aide-de-camps; 
 or bristling with bunches of burnt-up, star- 
 headed, thistles, of which the best that can be 
 said, is, that they now and then shelter a 
 misguided anemone. 
 
 Flecking this tawny Sahara, in a line from 
 
 E 2 
 
52 ARRANGEMENT OF TENTS. 
 
 East to West, is the British camp. It is three 
 or four miles long, and reaches from the East- 
 ern extremity of the plateau to a ravine on 
 our left ; whence the French lines continue the 
 cordon to the sea. Picture to yourself a triple 
 line of those bell- shaped red-tipped tents which 
 you remember at Chobham. In front, and 
 within a few feet of them, stand all the fire- 
 locks, in a single row of tripods — each bayonet 
 being surmounted by the shako of its owner. 
 One can thus tell the Guards' camp from the 
 row of bearskins, the lines of the Highlanders 
 from the plumes, and so forth; though the 
 heroes themselves may be cooking their din- 
 ners, or otherwise non-apparent. Moreover, 
 this arrangement, in case of an alarm, enables 
 the men to find their arms at once, and in the 
 very places on which the regiments would 
 naturally stand when forming line. 
 
 Every tent (I assume you to be looking 
 towards the front) is pitched about eight yards 
 off its side-neighbour, and (in order to give 
 room for the cooking-fires) about twice that 
 distance from the one before, or behind, it. 
 To the rear of the whole triple row — but 
 laterally more distant from each other — are 
 
DIVISIONS OF ARMY. 53 
 
 the tents of the Generals, the Field Officers, 
 and the Staff. Behind these, again, are hos- 
 pital-marquees, picquetted horses, bullock- 
 waggons, &c. &c. 
 
 My description, however — if you have had 
 the patience to follow it — will give you much 
 too formal an idea of the effect of the lines, 
 unless you allow for the curves produced by 
 inequalities of ground, and for the long in- 
 tervals between separate Divisions. The truth 
 is, that except at particular spots, where the 
 symmetry of certain portions becomes appa- 
 rent, the camp seems to consist of long strag- 
 gling crowds of tents, variously distributed, 
 though following a certain general direction. 
 There are, moreover, only two or three heights 
 whence a view of the whole line can be ob- 
 tained. 
 
 The Army is divided into six Divisions. 
 They are thus placed : — The Second Division 
 occupies the extreme right ; behind it, in re- 
 serve, is the First ; to the left of the Second, 
 is the Light Division ; after which, following 
 the same direction, comes the Fourth; the 
 Third holds the extreme left ; and the Cavalry 
 Division is at Balaklava. As a knowledge 
 
 E 3 
 
54 REGIMENTS FORMING DIVISIONS. 
 
 of the composition of these Divisions is neces- 
 sary for comprehending even the public de- 
 spatches, and as you cannot obtain it from the 
 Army List, you may probably find the sub- 
 joined memorandum useful: — 
 
 The Light Division consists of the 7th, 19th, 
 23rd, 33rd, 77th, and 88th regiments; with 
 the 2nd battalion of the Rifle Brigade : 
 
 The First Division consists of the Grenadier, 
 Coldstream, and Scots Fusileers, Guards ; and 
 of the 42nd, 79th, and 93rd, Highlanders: 
 
 The Second Division consists of the 30th, 
 41st, 47th, 49th, 55th, anct 95th regiments : 
 
 The Third Division consists of the 1st, 4th, 
 28th, 38th, 44th, and 50th regiments : 
 
 The Fourth Division consists of the 20th, 
 21st, 46th, 57th, 63rd, and 65th regiments; 
 with the 1st battalion of the Rifle Brigade : 
 
 The Cavalry Division consists of the 4 th and 
 5th Dragoon Guards, the 1st, 2nd, 4th, 6th, 8th, 
 13th and 17th Dragoons, and the 11th Hussars. 
 
 To these must be added the 150 Sailors, 
 who are encamped between the Fourth and 
 Light Divisions ; a detachment of Sappers 
 and Miners ; the troops of Horse Artillery 
 attached to each Division, and the Marines 
 
ARRANGEMENTS IN TENTS — COOKING. 55 
 
 at Balaklava. A Chaplain of the Church of 
 England, and, I believe, a Roman Catholic 
 Priest, attends every Division. There are no 
 women, native or imported. 
 
 The regimental tents form, as I have men- 
 tioned, a line which is only three deep. Ac- 
 cording to camp rules, the tents of each com- 
 pany are arranged in a row running from front 
 to rear ; the men occupying the front, and the 
 Officers the rear. The only tents behind these 
 are those appropriated to the Staff, Field Offi- 
 cers, &c. Thus the depth of the general line 
 depends upon the number of tents allowed to 
 the men and Officers of a single company. 
 Here, the allowance is two to the men, and one 
 to the Officers ; but so diminished is the effec- 
 tive force of each regiment, that there are not, 
 I believe, on an average, more than sixteen men, 
 or four Officers, to each tent. Of course, many 
 inconveniences must attend a total absence of 
 privacy ; but, these apart, I should think that, 
 in a place where people need little or no room 
 for stowing away their possessions, and where 
 the nights are often bitterly cold, close pack- 
 ing can be no very great hardship. 
 All the tents have little trenches, about a foot 
 
 E 4 
 
56 RATIONS — RAW COFFEE — NO OATS. 
 
 wide, and four or five inches deep, dug round 
 them to carry off water, in case of rain. Cook- 
 ing, of course, goes on outside. The men make 
 little fireplaces with a couple of stones, crossed 
 with two or three bars made out of the hoops 
 of ration-casks ; and the whole is protected by 
 a semicircle of some half dozen more stones 
 against the wind. Fuel is obtained from the 
 patches of outlying brushwood, which are in 
 danger of being soon exhausted. Each man 
 has his pot for boiling, and cooks his own 
 food. The rations allowed per diem are, 
 I believe, l^lb. of biscuit, lib. of salt meat, 
 and half a gill of rum. Coffee is also served 
 out ; but I have not taken pains to ascertain 
 the exact quantity, seeing that it is given 
 the men, not only unground, but raw, and 
 they have nothing either to roast, or grind it 
 with. Au reste, the rations are excellent of 
 their kind, and are, I believe, varied with 
 fresh meat twice a-week. 
 
 Good drinking water is obtained from the 
 springs at the bottoms of the neighbouring 
 ravines. It is brought to camp in blue wooden 
 kegs, called canteens. 
 
 No oats, I hear, can be got for the horses. 
 
TOBACCO — TEETOTALISM. 5 7 
 
 This is a great misfortune; for though the 
 country nags thrive well enough on hay and 
 barley, such a diet is found to "blow out" our 
 English steeds. 
 
 Tobacco the men have to buy for themselves. 
 It is, moreover, difficult to procure, as you 
 may judge from the following anecdote. Two 
 privates had got hold of a goose, which they 
 intended for their own consumption. An 
 Officer coveting the bird, offered 10s. for it, 
 and was refused. A few minutes afterwards, 
 the men bartered it with somebody else for 
 a lump of tobacco which, in England, might 
 have cost twopence ! To people at home, this 
 deficiency of the " fragrant weed" may ap 
 pear a very slight evil, if not an actual ad 
 vantage. The fact is, however, that in camp 
 tobacco is almost a necessary of life. Smoking 
 is decidedly a good stop-gap and palliative 
 and, in proportion to a man's actual wants 
 and hardships, he is driven to resort to it 
 I think it is Dickens who introduces a cha 
 racter, to whom it is said to have been " bed 
 board, lodging, and washing." That is pre 
 cisely what it is out here to nearly everybody 
 When the Army go back to veritable beds 
 
58 HOSPITALS — STRETCHERS. 
 
 wholesome living, warm houses, and soap, it 
 will be time enough to rail against their pipes. 
 Meanwhile, I should like to see the wholesale 
 denouncer either of tobacco or fermented 
 liquors, sent to digest his own arguments, 
 without the one or the other, for twenty-four 
 hours in the trenches. Recollect, our men go 
 out to the works at 4 A. m., and are not them- 
 selves relieved till the same hour next day. 
 What is it to these poor fellows, lying on their 
 stomachs to avoid shot and shell, all through 
 the bitter night, on the bare ground, that 
 total abstinence promotes longevity ? The 
 question with them, is how to keep alive till 
 they are relieved next morning ; and, without 
 a little rum and tobacco, they would often 
 find it difficult to do so. 
 
 As regards the provision for the sick and 
 wounded, there is a double-poled hospital mar- 
 quee attached to each Brigade; and ambulance- 
 carts are used for conveying such patients 
 as require more care and comforts than can 
 be afforded them in camp, to Balaklava. At 
 that place, there are, I believe, two hospitals ; 
 and, if these happen to be full, there are 
 transports always plying to Scutari. The 
 
NOT ENOUGH DOCTORS. 59 
 
 wounded are carried on what are called 
 stretchers — long narrow wooden frames, 
 stretched over with canvass, and with the 
 poles extending at both ends, so as to admit of 
 being borne by two men. The members of 
 the regimental Bands, whose musical functions 
 are in abeyance during the campaign, are em- 
 , ployed in this office. 
 
 I believe that everything, within the scope of 
 ordinary foresight, has been done by the home 
 authorities to render the Medical Department 
 effective. Still there are many facts which 
 show the necessity of further measures. You 
 are aware, of course, that a large proportion 
 of the Surgeons sent out with the expedition 
 had to return home sick, before the landing 
 in the Crimea. As regards the Medical 
 Officers who remain in the field, there is un- 
 happily so much cholera (though it is di- 
 minishing), diarrhoea, dysentery, and fever, 
 that they are fully employed from morning 
 to night. What will they do, when some 
 bloody engagement triples, and quadruples, 
 their work? On the other hand, there is 
 a palpable difficulty about permanently in- 
 creasing the Medical Staff of the Army to a 
 
60 "something 'ot" — SUGGESTION. 
 
 numerical strength which is only called for 
 by a temporary emergency ; while if an extra 
 number are to be engaged pro hdc vice merely, 
 they must, of course, be paid much higher 
 allowances than are received by their col- 
 leagues en permanence. 
 
 As a palliative measure — or, perhaps, 
 in any case — it might be advisable to . 
 retain the services of a lower grade of men. 
 I heard a story, the other day, about a 
 soldier, who, after some bloody affair, lay in 
 the trenches, apparently in the last stage of 
 cholera, A couple of men passed by with a 
 stretcher, exclaiming that there was clearly no 
 use in picking him up. " Don't you be in a 
 'urry" gasped the poor soul, "I'm not dead 
 yet ! — I daresay I should do well enough, if I 
 could only get something } otI" So strenuous 
 an appeal was irresistible, and they carried 
 him off. But I hope his recovery did not 
 depend on the speedy administration of the 
 treatment he himself indicated; for, pending 
 the demand at that moment for the scalpel 
 and the saw, " something 'ot" was the last 
 thing he was likely to get. Now, there are 
 few men, however slight their knowledge of 
 
PILLOWS — MEDICAL STORES. 61 
 
 medicine, who could not be of use in such 
 cases as this. They might apply friction ; put 
 on hot flannels, and mustard poultices ; they 
 might, in short, administer a hundred simple 
 remedies which would save valuable lives; 
 and that, with no better skill than they could 
 pick up from the general instructions which, 
 of course, would be issued to them by the re- 
 gular Medical Staff. More than one Officer 
 has told me with his own lips, that he ascribed 
 his recovery from cholera to the untiring 
 efforts of some friend, who rubbed and rubbed 
 away, for hours, at the bloodless skin, till cir- 
 culation was restored. But who is to apply 
 such protracted remedies to the common sol- 
 dier ? It can only be done by retaining a far 
 greater number of hospital assistants. And 
 adequate funds, I suppose, will not be forth- 
 coming for such a purpose, unless we resort 
 to the comparatively low-paid class of un- 
 skilled labour. 
 
 Pillows, for the wounded, are sadly wanted 
 both here and at Scutari. 
 
 With respect to the Medical Stores, they 
 were sent from England in abundance to 
 Malta ; but the case I lately mentioned to you 
 
62 PORT-WINE — VEGETABLES. 
 
 of the transport " Cambria," would make it 
 appear, that they have not been sufficiently 
 drawn upon. Rice is a great remedy in the 
 various bowel complaints that prevail, and I 
 have not heard that it is deficient ; but there are 
 other articles of diet for invalids, the necessity 
 of which was not so easily suggested by the 
 experience of Medical Officers in England. 
 For instance ; at home, a compound of opium 
 and calomel is, I believe, very commonly 
 exhibited in cases of diarrhoea. Now, out here, 
 the administration of such medicine, in any 
 thing like the proportions in which it is given 
 to patients living in houses, would be impos- 
 sible. A tent in the Crimea, with steppe-winds 
 blowing, is too cold, in any case, for much 
 calomel ; but for a man afflicted with a disease 
 which is constantly depriving him even of the 
 indifferent shelter which that tent affords, such 
 treatment would be fatal. Port-wine is found 
 to be of great service under these circum- 
 stances. There is, however, far too little of it 
 to admit of its being freely administered. 
 
 With regard to vegetables, they cannot, of 
 course, be sent out here in their natural state ; 
 but there is a French patent, under which 
 
PKEVALENCE OF DISEASE. 63 
 
 they are pressed by steam power into thin 
 cakes, which remain fresh for any length of 
 time. Why not procure supplies of these ? 
 A square inch expands, after boiling, into ten 
 times its size, and supplies enough for a meal. 
 I have myself some Brussels-sprouts, prepared 
 under this patent, which were given me by an 
 Officer, and I often use them, and find them 
 tolerable, though a little more bitter than the 
 unsophisticated originals. The desideratum 
 is, however, to supply, not a dainty, but a 
 powerful sanitary agent. 
 
 Once more ; if our sailors, even in health, 
 are supplied with lemon juice, why should 
 the soldiers be without it ? 
 
 There is no denying, that the troops suffer 
 greatly from disease. The extent to which 
 they do so, may be conjectured from the fact, 
 that in the four weeks after the Army landed 
 in the Crimea, its effective strength* had been 
 
 * Left Varna : — 
 
 23,500 infantry, 
 2,000 artillery, 
 1,000 cavalry, 
 600 sappers and miners. 
 
 Total force 27,100 
 
64 EFFECT OF COLD. 
 
 reduced by 7000. Placing (in round numbers) 
 2000 of this amount to the account of the 
 Battle of the Alma, there remains 5000 to be 
 put down to disease. Cholera has, happily, 
 almost ceased ; but hardly any body escapes 
 from some form or other of bowel-complaint. 
 So great is the liability to diarrhoea, that very 
 slight doses of ordinary cathartics are suf- 
 ficient to bring it on. The bleak winds, which 
 come and go here so suddenly, have the 
 peculiarity of invariably aggravating its 
 amount. Cold in England attacks you man- 
 fully in the head, throat, or chest : here it 
 always hits you under the waistcoat. Many 
 Officers wear, as a preservative, red woollen 
 sashes, tied several times round the hips ; in 
 fact, the kumur-bund of Eastern nations, who, 
 I suppose, did not adopt it without some such 
 good cause. A blue or green sash is part of 
 the uniform of the Zouaves, and of the 
 Indigenes; but the French Officers, like our 
 own, affect the red ones, as being, I presume, 
 more picturesque. 
 
 Apropos of the French, let me wind up this 
 long account with some noticeable points of 
 difference between their camp-ways and ours. 
 
FRENCH " WRINKLES " — FRENCH TENTS. 65 
 
 If it is lawful to learn from an enemy, one 
 may certainly take hints from an ally. I do 
 not pretend to decide the merits of the tent 
 controversy. You know, of course, that every 
 French soldier carries his own little piece of a 
 tent on his back ; that three or more of these 
 can be fastened together ; and that thus they 
 escape the risk of ever having to bivouac, as 
 our poor fellows did on their first arrival here. 
 On the one hand, it is said, that the w r eight 
 the Frenchman has to carry, is thus greatly 
 increased, so as to interfere with his power of 
 making rapid forced marches ; while the tents 
 themselves do not afford one quarter as much 
 comfort and space as a bell-tent. On the 
 other hand, one must admit, that it is in those 
 very campaigns which involve the greatest 
 number of forced marches, that the means of 
 conveying our bell-tents would oftenest be 
 found wanting. But whatever may be the 
 true deduction to make from these pros and 
 cons, as regards campaigns in general, there 
 can be no doubt, that, on an expedition like 
 the present one, with nothing about it of a 
 roving character, the British soldier is the 
 best housed. 
 
66 FRENCH BREAD — COOKING BY ROTATION. 
 
 As regards diet, the following differences 
 are the most striking. 
 
 The French soldiers have flour served out 
 to them, instead of biscuit, and bake their own 
 bread. General Canrobert handsomely distri- 
 buted one day's supply lately to every soldier 
 in the British camp. 
 
 In the next place, one Frenchman cooks for 
 twelve, instead of each man, as with us, pre- 
 paring his own dinner. They carry out, in 
 other words, the old principle of the Division 
 of Labour. The office is taken by rotation. 
 Amongst other advantages arising from this 
 arrangement, a few large marmites serve for a 
 whole regiment, instead of every man being 
 cumbered with his particular pots and pans. 
 But above all, by its means, a more palatable 
 and wholesome dinner for the troops is se- 
 cured. So it might be with us. For instance, 
 nothing can be better than our ration-pork 
 when it has been well soaked for two or three 
 hours before being dressed; nor anything 
 more salt, and hence more likely to aggra- 
 vate the diseases prevalent in camp, than 
 the same pork, when cooked without the ini- 
 tiatory process in question. It is, of course, 
 
« -dt-p^-vt M 
 
 BID0N" VERSUS CANTEEN. 67 
 
 impossible for each of our soldiers, amidst the 
 various calls on him, to spare every day the 
 time necessary for soaking his pork ; but one 
 man in twelve might, I suppose, very easily 
 do so. 
 
 Again : the French soldier carries, by way of 
 water-flask, a light flat tin vessel, like a shallow 
 canister, about six inches long by two deep ; 
 slightly curved longitudinally, to suit the shape 
 of his body ; and slung across his shoulders by a 
 strap. There are two orifices in the top : one is 
 stopped by a cork, and is surmounted by a short 
 fixed funnel ; to admit of being conveniently 
 placed to the lips for drinking, or of passing 
 liquid into the flask without waste. The other 
 orifice has a conical pipe, about an inch long, at- 
 tached to it, so small at the top, that water can- 
 not easily be spilt from it, and at the same time, 
 large enough to admit of the soldier sucking a 
 mouthful through it, if he is thirsty. This 
 flask, or bidon, as it is called, costs in France 
 about a franc. It is covered with cloth by the 
 men themselves, to keep the tin from soiling 
 their uniforms. 
 
 In remarkable contrast with it, is the 
 blue keg, or canteen, with which the En- 
 
 F 2 
 
68 MUSIC IN CAMP. 
 
 glishman is afflicted. First, it is made of 
 wood, and carries therefore less liquid, in pro- 
 portion to its size, and is less easily rinsed out, 
 than if it were made of tin. Secondly, it is 
 about twice as deep as a bidon, has no curve 
 to fit the body, is (I should guess) half-a-dozen 
 times as heavy, and, being round, like a tub cut 
 short, takes up more space laterally. Thirdly, 
 its orifice, being neither more nor less than a 
 bung-hole, is not well adapted for receiving 
 and conducting liquid into the canteen without 
 the aid of a funnel, and is, of course, particularly 
 awkward to drink from. Lastly, it must cost 
 twice the sum. There is, in fact, but this 
 to be said for it — it dates from the days of 
 Marlborough ! 
 
 One other point of difference between the two 
 camp systems remains to be stated. The mem- 
 bers of our Bands are, as I have said, devoted 
 to bearing stretchers. The French musicians, 
 on the contrary, are, at this moment, playing 
 " Rule Britannia," in compliment to the entente 
 cordiale ; and many a poor sick Briton is, I 
 dare say, raising himself on his elbow, to catch 
 the faint, but cheering strains, as they float 
 to our lines. Our Allies argue, that camp is 
 
WASTE OF RESOURCES. 69 
 
 the very place where music is wanted; that 
 a soldier can carry a stretcher into action as 
 well as an accomplished musician, but that, if 
 both get knocked on the head, a month's 
 training will replace the one, and not the 
 other. They add, that even if the musician 
 alone will serve our turn, it would be well 
 that he should, at any rate, play during the 
 days and weeks that happily intervene be- 
 tween bloody engagements, in the most active 
 warfare. Can you answer this Gallic view of 
 the case ? 
 
 F 3 
 
70 
 
 LETTER VI. 
 
 Camp, Oct. 19th. 
 
 Since my letter of the 9th, everything here 
 has received a great impulse. Dissatisfied, I 
 suppose, with the information brought by 
 their cowardly Cossacks, who invariably scam- 
 per off at the first shot of our pickets — the 
 Russians made, on the afternoon of that day, 
 a grand reconnoissance on our right front. 
 It occurred about three o'clock, too late for 
 me to tell you about it by that opportunity. 
 I had noticed an unusual scuffling of feet, 
 when John ran in to my tent, to apprise me 
 that the enemy were in sight of the camp. I 
 went out, and there, true enough, were the 
 Russians on the crest of the hill, with a few 
 mounted Officers in advance of them. Our 
 troops were already in line ; horse artillery 
 were scudding to the right, and everything 
 seemed to promise a general action on our own 
 ground. 
 
 Under these circumstances, I made my 
 dispositions both for seeing the sport, and 
 for beating a retreat if necessary. Putting my 
 money, some biscuits, and a flask of brandy 
 
RUSSIAN RECONNOISSANCE. 71 
 
 into my own pocket, I told John to put half a 
 dozen " concentrated beefs" into his ; to wait 
 where he was, till I came back, and to lie 
 on his face, if the round shot and canister 
 grew unpleasant. He behaved perfectly 
 well, and promised obedience. I then bor- 
 rowed 's pony, and sticking a revolver 
 
 (don't laugh!) into my holster, rode up and 
 down behind the whole length of the lines to 
 see the arrangements. The troops merely 
 stood before the tents, with the Generals and 
 Staff in front ; waiting, I suppose, for the 
 Eussians to make the first move. This, how- 
 ever, the latter had no intention of doing ; and, 
 after exposing everybody to an hour or two 
 of bitter bleak wind, they retired. I confess I 
 was gratified, on coming back half frozen, to 
 find my new domestic and traps where I left 
 them. But it is only fair to add, that, so 
 far as I could see, the camp-servants, gene- 
 rally, behaved quite as quietly as if the enemy 
 had been all the while in Sebastopol. 
 
 Sir Edmund Lyons happened to have ridden 
 here from head-quarters (where he goes pretty 
 nearly every day) just in time to see the turn- 
 out. 
 
 F 4 
 
72 SHARPSHOOTERS — VOLUNTEERS. 
 
 I don't know whether this affair gave the 
 Russians a better notion of the position of our 
 works than they previously possessed, but on 
 the 11th, they contrived to kill two men, and 
 wound two more, at the trenches. Soon after- 
 wards, Lord Raglan decided on employing 
 sharpshooters to approach the enemy's batte- 
 ries, and to pick off the gunners at the embra- 
 sures ; and the men were invited to volunteer 
 for the purpose. Nothing can better indicate 
 how little the morale of the poor fellows is 
 broken by all the hardships they are under- 
 going, than the fact that, though only six out 
 of each corps were required for this dangerous 
 work, no less than twenty-six men out of a 
 single regiment offered their services. The 
 duty, however, was one requiring skill quite as 
 much as courage ; so, in the end, I believe, the 
 best marksmen were taken, irrespectively of 
 their own inclinations in the matter. 
 
 The bombardment of the town was, about 
 the same time, announced to take place on 
 the 17th. The Ships were to join ; and many 
 persons expected that it would be a matter of 
 a few hours, followed by an assault. 
 
 Such being the state of affairs, about nine 
 
SOLDIERS AND SAILORS. 73 
 
 o'clock on the previous night, T could not 
 help walking through various portions of the 
 camp, to see what effect was produced by the 
 prospect of so deadly a conflict on the men 
 about to be engaged in it. The soldiers, 
 worn out with toil and disease, were perfectly 
 silent, and were preparing to go to sleep, pre- 
 cisely as usual. The sailors, on the contrary, 
 who had been hard at work, ever since their 
 arrival, in hauling huge ship-guns up the 
 heights, had got lights in their tents, and were 
 indulging in every species of fun and lark. 
 There was one tent in particular which I 
 noticed, in which a jolly tar, gifted with a 
 piercing falsetto, was aping a woman, and 
 singing a song in the highest possible treble, 
 and with such comical airs and graces, that 
 the place rang with roars of merriment, and 
 approving bravos, from his comrades. But it 
 was a touching contrast. Something, no doubt, 
 was due to Jack's proverbial light-hearted- 
 ness ; but much also to the fact, that he was 
 comparatively fresh from his ships, and was 
 in the condition natural to Englishmen. Not 
 so, the poor soldiers, who have been running 
 the gauntlet of exposure and disease, month 
 
74 A CONTRAST. 
 
 after month, until, as an Officer lately ob- 
 served to me, they can hardly be recognised 
 as the same men who landed at Gallipoli. 
 Some such reflections, I suppose, prompted 
 the following lines, which were written by a 
 man who lives not far from my tent : — 
 
 " THE EVE OF THE BOMBARDMENT. 
 
 O'er against the leaguered city, countless tents are gleaming 
 
 white — 
 Silent, save where, crowding gaily, England's sailors rouse the 
 night 
 
 With jest and laugh and chorus' d song, 
 By flickering camp-fires stretched along. 
 
 On our muskets sadly leaning, list we to our comrades' mirth, 
 As each hearty shout reminds us of the Land that gave us birth : 
 
 So — ere a felon clime could smite 
 
 Us down — so leapt our pulses light ! 
 
 Ah ! ' tis long since Cheer and Revel from our pest-worn lines 
 
 have shrunk : 
 Yet a thought of comfort stirs us, musing on the thousands sunk 
 Beneath a foe that mocks our ken — 
 To-morrow we shall fight with men ! 
 
 Welcome steel— the onset welcome, fiery shell and glancing 
 
 glaive — 
 So we perish not like lepers — so we 'scape the lazar-grave, 
 
 Heaped up in hurried stealth and gloom, 
 
 Without a stone to mark our doom ! 
 
OPENING OF BOMBARDMENT. 75 
 
 Hastes the Hour for which we've laboured, nightly 'nea th our 
 
 starry pall, 
 Digging close the circling trenches, piling firm the gabion-wall, 
 While ever on the thund'ring town 
 Our sheeted Camp looked stilly down. 
 
 Not an answering shot has sounded; hoarded vengeance waits — 
 
 'till morn ! 
 So the serpent's prey, imprisoned, strikes with frantic hoof and 
 horn, 
 
 While, coiled in many a giant ring, 
 He nor speeds, nor stays, his spring. 
 
 Foes ! whom, hating not, we hold as victims to a despot's pride ! 
 Nobler victims to his madness, conquering, crimsoned Alma's 
 tide — 
 
 Along the gory path they trod, 
 
 Bear ye the tyrant's name to God ! " 
 
 It was arranged that the bombardment was 
 to begin at half-past six on the morning of the 
 17th, upon two shells being fired by the 
 French batteries. A quarter of an hour before 
 the time, I found myself in the court of the 
 Picket-house, among a little crowd of Generals 
 and Staff-Officers, who were all levelling their 
 glasses at the town, in anxious expectation of 
 the spectacle. But already the smoke of the 
 Russian batteries, aided by the wind, had so 
 enveloped the whole place, that little was to 
 be seen except the Round Tower, which stands 
 somewhat in advance of the other works, and 
 
76 LANCASTER GUNS — ROUND TOWER. 
 
 to the British right. Somehow or other, the 
 appointed signal was not made to time ; so „ 
 the Seaman's Battery opened the ball. In a 
 few seconds, another battery followed, and 
 before half a minute, a long irregular line of 
 jets of smoke had made the position of the 
 British trenches no more a secret to any one. 
 Amidst the general din — which, however, was 
 not overpowering, as nobody had to raise his 
 voice in talking — the rush of the shot from 
 the Lancaster guns through the air was dis- 
 tinctly audible. Its resemblance to the pant- 
 ing-sound of a railway engine in motion be- 
 came at once the subject of remark. As some 
 Paddy observed, " it was the noise of an ex- 
 press-train that stopped at no intermadiate 
 stations!" The Round Tower was appa- 
 rently the principal object of the new pro- 
 jectile. Indeed, most of the batteries 
 seemed to have selected that unhappy edi- 
 fice for their mark. To the spectators in 
 the Picket-house, no arrangement could have 
 been more agreeable, as the smoke prevented 
 us from easily discerning any other target. 
 For some time the shots fell a little short, but 
 at length a 68-pounder from the Seaman's 
 Battery hit it full, and made a gap that could 
 
NARROW ESCAPE. 77 
 
 be seen with the naked eye. The tower was 
 soon scarred all over, but the men inside it stood 
 pluckily to their guns, despite the heavy odds 
 against them, for about an hour, when it was 
 silenced; and the bombardment thenceforward 
 became all smoke and noise. 
 
 During this time, I had been trying to sketch 
 the scene — I need not send you the result, as 
 you will obtain a sufficiently clear idea of it by 
 referring back to Punch' 's picture of the Naval 
 Keview. But the sketch finished, and break- 
 fast time having arrived, I returned to my 
 tent, leaving behind, amongst other Officers, 
 Sir George Brown. The General was soon 
 afterwards joined by the Duke of Cambridge, 
 who had also been there earlier in the morn- 
 ing. While they were engaged in talking 
 behind the low wall, a round shot came up 
 from the fort, lighted on the wall just between 
 them, and after making a playful bound or 
 two between the building and the side of the 
 court, fell spent against the back of it. 
 
 A second shot had been seen approaching 
 when I was there, to which a general obeisance 
 had been made ; but it stopped short. I 
 should add, that there are always a few balls 
 
78 EXPLOSION — SHIPS. 
 
 lying in front of the place, though the enemy 
 seldom manage to fire past it. 
 
 While I was in my tent, a grand explosion 
 occurred, evidently that of a powder-cart or 
 magazine. I was out in a moment, and saw a 
 white column of smoke towering above the hill 
 between us and the works, and surmounted by 
 a head of tight little curls, which gradually 
 opened out, till the whole resembled — if you 
 will forgive so homely a figure — a gigantic 
 cauliflower. The men cheered vociferously, 
 and I believe I joined them ; but we subse- 
 quently learnt, that it was one of our own am- 
 munition-waggons that had given our lungs so 
 much play. 
 
 The Ships did not contribute their quota to 
 the entertainment till half-past one. The con- 
 tinuous muffled roar of their distant broad- 
 sides was very grand. Curiously enough, 
 though it seemed far less loud than the can- 
 nonade from the trenches, it alone had the 
 effect of making my tent-poles vibrate. The 
 two sounds together reminded me (my head 
 must have been full that day of household 
 images) of a gusty corridor in an old mansion ; 
 the naval broadsides were the long rattling of 
 
THE TRENCHES. 79 
 
 distant window-frames, and the shots from the 
 trenches the sharp banging of doors. 
 
 I again visited the Picket-house in the even- 
 ing, and found that the French guns had ceased 
 firing, in consequence of a powder-magazine ex- 
 ploding, so that the enemy were paying us their 
 undivided attentions. The shells looked like 
 revolving lights as it grew dark, and I was 
 tempted to accompany a picket of the 19th 
 Regiment, then going to guard the left Lan- 
 caster battery. This was my first visit to the 
 trenches. The night covered us effectually on 
 our way, and when there, the compact nine-feet- 
 high wall of bank and gabions and sand-bags, 
 against which the Officer in command and my- 
 self reclined, seemed a very fair security against 
 round-shot to those who had nothing to do with 
 the embrasures. Poor Captain Rowley was, in- 
 deed, killed by one that bounded down on him 
 from the top of the parapet as he lay in the 
 trench; but this must be a rare case. Shell, of 
 course, are inconvenient in all situations of life, 
 but at night they are less so than at other times, 
 as one can see them coming, and scud out of 
 the way. In fact, I had promised myself a 
 very pleasant pyrotechnical evening in com- 
 
80 PREVAILING MALADY. 
 
 pany with the Officer who had invited me 
 down ; but the reports from the enemy's bat- 
 teries gradually diminished in frequency ; and 
 at length there came an order to the gentle- 
 man in charge of the gun to cease firing for 
 the night. So I retired, having not done much 
 more than ascertain, that the enemy's prac- 
 tice had been sufficiently good during the day 
 to prove, that the perpetual pounding away 
 that has been going on from the town for the 
 last fortnight, has, at any rate, taught them 
 the range of their metal. 
 
 That night, the Russians threw up earth- 
 works which enfiladed the French guns, and 
 swept many of them out of their embrasures ; 
 which, coupled with the explosion of two powder 
 magazines, kept our gallant Allies silent all 
 yesterday. The Besiegers employed last night, 
 and the one before, in repairing the mischief 
 done to their works during the day — and 
 so did the Besieged! The croakers are tri- 
 umphant. I have got the prevalent malady (I 
 don't mean croaking) ; and though port w r ine 
 
 and Dr. are bringing me round, I am 
 
 half afraid I shall have to go on board ship 
 before the town is taken, after all. 
 
81 
 
 LETTER VII. 
 
 Camp, Oct. 24th. 
 
 Though little has been done worth writing 
 about since my last letter, I have lately ascer- 
 tained some particulars respecting the share 
 of the Fleets in the affair of the 17th, which 
 will, I think, interest you. Of course, you 
 will have heard before this arrives, that, ex- 
 cept a good shaking given to Fort Constan- 
 tine, where two embrasures were knocked into 
 one — little damage was done to the enemy's 
 works by the Allied navies on the occasion in 
 question. I do not pretend to know what 
 may have been the objects of the demonstra- 
 tion, or how far they were accomplished ; 
 but the moot question of Ships versus Forts 
 certainly remains unaffected by it. This will 
 be apparent from the account which I am 
 going to give you, of the positions taken by the 
 various English, French, and Turkish vessels. 
 No less an authority, on such matters, than 
 the present Governor of Malta, has, I believe, 
 laid it down, that 300 yards is the smallest dis- 
 
 G 
 
82 ORDER OF BATTLE. 
 
 tance at which a fort should be built from 
 the shore, that being the range within which 
 men-of-war can concentrate their broadsides, 
 so as to be a match for stone- walls. The shoals 
 round Sebastopol made it impossible for the 
 British ships to approach to anything like this 
 degree of nearness ; and all, except two, lay 
 off at distances varying from 1000 to 1700 
 yards. The following was the order of bat- 
 tle. I cannot guarantee the absolute preci- 
 sion of the distances ; but I think you may 
 rely on their relative accuracy. 
 
 Let us begin with the Britannia. Place a 
 good map of the coast before you, and de- 
 scribe a circle, having its centre at Cape Con- 
 stantine, with a radius of 1720 yards, and 
 another circle having its centre at Cape Alex- 
 ander, with a radius of 1990 yards ; and the 
 Western point of intersection will give you the 
 position of Admiral Dundas's ship. Alter the 
 first radius to 770 yards, and the second to 
 1590, and the same process will give you 
 that of the Agamemnon. Substitute 1208 
 for 770, and 2280 for 1590, and the point 
 of contact will show the position of the Terri- 
 ble. The British ships were arranged in a form 
 
PLACE OF EACH SHIP. 
 
 83 
 
 something like a pair of compasses, nearly- 
 closed, and minus half of one leg. Speaking 
 more precisely, it was an acute angle, formed 
 by two irregular lines, which, sloping towards 
 the North-East from the Britannia and the 
 Agamemnon, met at the Terrible. I will now 
 write their names in the order which they 
 would take in the imaginary figure I have de- 
 scribed : — 
 
 
 
 Distance 
 
 i in yards from 
 
 British Line. 
 
 Towed by Cape Constantine. 
 
 Britannia .... 
 
 Furious 1720 
 
 Trafalgar , . . . 
 
 Retribution 
 
 
 
 . 1620 
 
 Vengeance . . . 
 
 Highflyer . , 
 
 
 
 . 1580 
 
 Rodney .... 
 
 Spiteful . , 
 
 
 
 . 1300 
 
 Bellerophon . . . 
 
 Cyclops 
 
 
 
 . . 1160 
 
 Queen 
 
 Vesuvius . 
 
 
 
 . 1140 
 
 Lynx (look-out ship) 
 
 
 
 
 . . 1140 
 
 Sphynx (ditto) 
 
 
 
 
 , . 1150 
 
 Tribune (ditto) 
 
 
 
 
 
 . . 1340 
 
 Sampson (ditto) 
 
 
 
 
 . . 1340 
 
 Terrible (ditto) 
 
 
 
 
 
 , . 1410 
 
 Then, returning in a direction back towards 
 the South- West, the 
 
 Albion . . 
 Arethusa . 
 London 
 Sanspareil . 
 Agamemnon 
 
 Firebrand 1230 
 
 Triton 1140 
 
 Niger 1040 
 
 ...... 880 
 
 770 
 
 The Spiteful occupied a place inside the 
 
 G 2 
 
84 
 
 FRENCH AND TURKISH SHIPS. 
 
 angle, between the London and the Sphinx. 1 
 have indicated all the ships by their distances 
 from Cape Constantine, because it is neces- 
 sary to have a common standard of compari- 
 sons ; but you will, of course, remember, that the 
 Agamemnon, and all the vessels north of her, 
 were also exposed to the Telegraph and Wasp 
 Forts, as well as to some recent earthworks, 
 higher up the coast. Some of these ships were, 
 indeed, much closer to the last-mentioned forts 
 than to Fort Constantine. 
 
 The French and Turkish men-of-war took up 
 their positions in a line stretching in a South- by- 
 South-Westerly direction from the Britannia, 
 to a point within 260 yards from the shore. 
 They were placed in the following order : — 
 
 French and Turkish Line. 
 Napoleon . . . 
 Henri IV. . . . 
 Mahmoudie . . 
 Valmy .... 
 Ville de Paris 
 Jupiter . . . 
 Turkish (two-decker) 
 Friedland . . . 
 Marengo . . . 
 Montebello . . 
 Suffren .... 
 Jean Bart . . . 
 Charlemagne . . 
 
 Towed by 
 
 Canada. 
 
 Turkish Admiral. 
 Descartes. 
 Primoguet. 
 Christophero Colombo. 
 
 Vauban. 
 Labrador. 
 
 Albatros. 
 
ULTIMATE ORDER OF BATTLE. 85 
 
 I should add that these lists represent the 
 order and composition of the lines at half-past 
 one, when they opened fire ; but, by half-past 
 five, the following were almost the only ships 
 engaged with the forts : — Agamemnon, Sans- 
 pareil, Rodney (on shore), Bellerophon, 
 Queen, Sampson, Terrible, Spitfire, and 
 Sphynx. 
 
 I have received another account, which puts 
 the Britannia at 2500 yards, and the Aga- 
 memnon at 800 yards, from Fort Constantine ; 
 and which places the latter ship at 750 from the 
 Telegraph Fort, and at 1200 from the Wasp 
 Fort. As regards Fort Constantine, perhaps 
 the apparent difference may be explained by 
 the position of its batteries on the coast. The 
 first scale is measured, not from the batteries, 
 but from the Cape. 
 
 The sea round Sebastopol is so shallow, that 
 even at the place occupied by the Britannia 
 there are only fifteen fathoms water; while 
 Admiral Lyons, who pushed his ship — no 
 prophet was needed to predict it — as far as 
 she could go (into five and a quarter fathoms), 
 did not get closer than the point I- have above 
 indicated. 
 
 G 3 
 
86 " FORTUNE FAVOURS THE BRAVE." 
 
 In spite of the distance, the Agamemnon 
 and Sanspareil (a soldier gravely mentioned 
 her to me the other day, as the Sarsapareil) 
 shook Fort Constantine so terribly between 
 them, that I suppose it will always be a ques- 
 tion, how much the vast naval forces of the 
 Allies might not have effected, had it been 
 deemed expedient for them all to anchor as 
 close along shore as their draught of water 
 permitted. The experience of Sir Edmund 
 Lyons and Captain Dacres seems to show, 
 that the injury to the Fleets, in such a case, 
 and in the then state of things, would not have 
 been so great as might be imagined. The 
 enemy, not contemplating so near an approach 
 of our men-of-war, had constructed their em- 
 brasures in a mode that did not admit of the 
 guns being easily depressed to the level 
 of the hulls of ships only 800 yards distant. 
 Thus, though the Agamemnon was hit no less 
 than 217 times, nearly all the damage she sus- 
 tained was in her rigging; and of the 650 
 persons on board, there were only four killed 
 and twenty-six wounded. On the other hand, 
 the Sanspareil, being compelled to retire for 
 twenty- six minutes, suffered, proportionally, 
 
DARING EXPLOIT, 87 
 
 far more injury during her temporary retreat, 
 than when she was in her original position. 
 
 It must be recollected, too, that the damage 
 sustained in these two cases, was, of course, 
 enhanced by the isolation of the vessels, and 
 by the concentrated fire which the enemy was 
 thus enabled to bring to bear on them. The 
 Agamemnon was so hard pressed from this 
 cause (during the short absence of the Sans- 
 pareil), that her Flag-Lieutenant, Mr. Coles, 
 undertook the hazardous office of going in an 
 open boat to the Bellerophon for assistance. 
 The Rodney came about five to relieve, and 
 the Agamemnon then engaged the Telegraph 
 and Wasp Forts. 
 
 Whatever conclusion these facts may sug- 
 gest as to the part played by the Fleets on 
 the 17th, it appears that, in one respect, so 
 favourable an opportunity as they then en- 
 joyed, cannot recur. The Russians, taught by 
 experience, are said to have deepened their 
 embrasures in Fort Constantine, so as to admit 
 of the guns being hereafter depressed to the 
 requisite level. 
 
 But to get back to terra firma. Deserters 
 bring very cheering accounts of the distress in 
 
 G 4 
 
88 WOUNDED RUSSIAN OFFICER. 
 
 Sebastopol, and these appear to be confirmed 
 by the circumstance, that there is not more 
 than one man seen working every three or 
 four guns. Our sharpshooters do excellent 
 service. They brought in a Russian Officer 
 the other day, shot through both jaws with 
 a Minie ball ; it had also cut the root of his 
 tongue so deeply as to make the end protrude 
 from his mouth ; and there was the greatest 
 danger of his dying either from suffocation, 
 or from the impossibility of swallowing food. 
 He was placed in a little ruin used as a store- 
 house, and I lately went with , of Brigadier 
 
 General 's Staff, to ascertain if we could 
 
 be of use to him. He never looked up as we 
 came in. It was night, and it was piteous to 
 see him by the glimmering candle light in that 
 desolate place, sitting in his shirt on an old 
 box, before being put to bed ; his face tied up, 
 and his swollen tongue being laved by the 
 soldier who attended him. But my reason for 
 describing to you such misery is to come. 
 By the skill of Dr. Alexander, of the Light 
 Division, this man recovered sufficiently to be 
 sent on board ship ; and he left the poor soldier 
 who had helped to clothe him out of his own 
 
WHITE HEARSES. 89 
 
 scanty wardrobe, and who had nursed him, like 
 a woman, night and day — without a single 
 look, sign, or token of acknowledgment ! 
 
 The doctors have enough to do just now. 
 Cholera is gone, but diarrhoea remains, and 
 lying o' nights in the trenches is not good for 
 the complaint. Still, though I often talk to 
 the men out on picket, I never hear them 
 grumbling ; they only seem anxious to know 
 when they are to storm " Sebastopool," and, 
 'faith, they are not singular in their curiosity. 
 
 I have just been thoroughly sickened by 
 
 seeing poor , and , go off ill in one 
 
 of those white hearses, called ambulances. 
 Fancy a live man being put on a stretcher and 
 slid into a kind of pigeon hole, under the 
 seats, in the body of such a vehicle ! I was 
 
 glad that determined to sit out the 
 
 journey, as he best might, on the bench. 
 They are going on board ship at Balaklava, 
 and till they return, the General will have 
 but one Aide-de-camp. 
 
90 
 
 LETTER VIII. 
 
 Camp, Oct. 29th. 
 
 Well ! I have seen a Battle, or rather part — 
 the bloodiest part — of a Battle ; and am 
 amazed to find how little I have seen ! If I 
 had been told beforehand, that the spectacle 
 of two armies, arrayed front to front in a 
 spacious valley, and assailing each other with 
 the deadliest instruments of modern warfare, 
 differs little, to the mere eye, from a Review 
 — that even to the mind of one "who hath 
 no friend or brother there," the Event of the 
 Day is so absorbing, that at the moment, he 
 hardly heeds the human wrecks, dwarfed 
 by distance into pigmies, which mark the 
 course of every manoeuvre — that a single- 
 combat is more stirring than a general Engage- 
 ment, and the anguish of one poor wounded 
 wretch, whose groans are in } r our ears, more 
 shocking than the most wholesale slaughter — 
 I should have doubted. Yet such is the les- 
 son of my own experience, and I believe that 
 
BATTLE OF BALAKLAVA. 91 
 
 those who have witnessed similar scenes would, 
 if true to themselves, bear me out in the 
 avowal. 
 
 I am glad, at any rate, that you do not de- 
 pend upon me, exclusively, for an account of 
 the Battle of Balaklava. How any one, who 
 has not somebody in the secrets of the Generals 
 by his side, to explain the movements, can un- 
 derstand an affair of the kind, is to me a mys- 
 tery. If a man is in the melee, he sees only 
 that. If, on the other hand, he is at a suffi- 
 cient distance to take in the whole field, he 
 sees an array of dark sparkling masses — now 
 moving, now stationary — covered with smoke, 
 or emerging from it. Finally, he sees a certain 
 portion of the whole marching away, perhaps 
 in very good order. We will suppose that, at 
 such a juncture, by good luck, he really does 
 know that the fight is decided, and which party 
 it is that is retreating; and that he rejoices, or 
 laments, appropriately. Nevertheless, as re- 
 gards all the sudden emergencies, the daring 
 movements, and sagacious plans — all, in fact, 
 that give the battle its historical interest — our 
 spectator comprehends no more of them, be- 
 
92 FALSE PREMISES. 
 
 lieve me, than you comprehend of the ma- 
 noeuvres of a Review. 
 
 And now, having reduced your anticipa- 
 tions to the proper level, let me fairly own, that 
 I was on the wrong side of the Ridge for observ- 
 ing the most interesting portions of the engage- 
 ment of the 25th. The reason was, that when, 
 on that morning, repeated discharges of mus- 
 ketry and artillery in our rear proclaimed the 
 long-expected arrival of Osten-Sacken's force, 
 I, in common with my neighbours, believed 
 that it would very soon be beaten back again. 
 The enemy were advancing at the time to- 
 wards the ridge to which I have alluded, and 
 which traversed the valley at a point between 
 them and Balaklava. Now, this ridge, though 
 a great deal lower than the hills which it 
 connects, is yet high enough to conceal from 
 persons on one side of it, the movements of 
 troops for some distance behind the other. 
 Assuming, therefore, that the enemy would 
 be routed and pursued, I determined not to 
 let the ridge intervene between me and the 
 sport, and took up my position on what 
 may be called the Russian, as opposed to 
 the Balaklava, side, at the French Mortar 
 
RUSSIAN ADVANCE. 93 
 
 Battery under the telegraph. The battery is 
 situated just under the crest of the Western 
 hill-side of the valley in the rear of our Camp, 
 and commands a view of Balaklava to the 
 right, broken only by the unlucky ridge. The 
 valley must be a mile and a half broad. The 
 hills are of limestone rock, rising steeply 
 from the two sides of the plain, and are fan- 
 tastically scarped, like most of the Crimean 
 heights ; while the general landscape, even in 
 the valley, is just as brown, and sterile, as 
 on the plateau. The whole country, in fact, 
 looks as if it was made for fighting ; but by 
 no means as if it was worth fighting about. 
 
 On arriving at the battery about half-past 
 eight, I could see the Russians (computed at 
 20,000 strong) defiling from behind some rising 
 ground to our left, on the opposite, or Eastern, 
 side of the valley. Numerous loose horsemen 
 preceded them. Detached portions of the force 
 were scattered over the whole breadth of the 
 plain, and the mortars near which I stood, 
 played upon some of the nearest of them with 
 evident effect. We watched the shells bursting 
 over and among them, and producing large gaps 
 in their masses ; but it was too far to see indi- 
 
94 TURKISH COWARDICE. 
 
 viduals being killed. The fire was not re- 
 turned. 
 
 After half an hour or so had been thus 
 spent, a body of Russian horse charged over 
 the nearest end of the ridge, and to the great 
 mirth and delight of our party (I was stand- 
 ing among some French Officers) we soon 
 saw them galloping back again. Then they 
 joined the main body on the Eastern side 
 of the valley, and the whole advanced up 
 the farthest end of the ridge, where there 
 were three Turkish redoubts, giving a cheer 
 as they reached the summit. To our in- 
 tense chagrin, they stopped there. We saw 
 nothing like resistance. After a time, the 
 troops of the British First Division (who had 
 been ordered down from the camp) began to 
 cross the ridge about its centre, and bodies 
 of our cavalry took up their position between 
 them and the Western hills. The larger por- 
 tion of the Russian force then retired half a 
 mile. Our troopers shortly afterwards were 
 seen galloping towards the enemy. There was 
 a mass of smoke ; and when it cleared away, 
 we saw many corpses strewing the ground ; 
 and some horses galloping riderless, and some 
 
FINAL DISPOSITION OF FORCES. 95 
 
 lying on the field. Whether they were British 
 soldiers who had been slaughtered, or Rus- 
 sians, or both, we could not tell; but after 
 the smoke had cleared away, the melee was 
 at an end. Excepting some sharp firing 
 behind the Balaklava side of the ridge, in 
 the direction of the redoubts, we could dis- 
 cover or hear nothing more ; till at two, 
 becoming impatient, I went down to the 
 ridge to an earthwork manned by a French 
 regiment (the 27th). Here I perceived the 
 whole arrangement of the British force. They 
 were formed in three rows, extending across 
 the valley; the first composed of regiments 
 of the Line ; the second of troopers standing by 
 their horses; the third of the Guards and 
 Highlanders. Ambulances were posted here 
 and there; and everything seemed ready for 
 a general action ; but after waiting till four, 
 and seeing no new symptoms of a move on 
 either side, I returned to camp — there to 
 learn what I had really been looking at ! 
 
 I soon ascertained, that all the most effective 
 portion of the battle had taken place on that 
 side of the ridge which I had visited too late. 
 The Russians whom we saw galloping back 
 
9 6 INTERPRETATION. 
 
 over it in the morning, were no doubt the 
 relics of those whom the Heavies, as you will 
 have learnt, had drubbed so heartily, and 
 against such fearful odds — one of the few 
 spectacles in modern warfare, by the bye, which, 
 from its having been a purely cavalry affair, 
 had none of its effect marred by smoke. The 
 splendid reception given by the 93rd High- 
 landers to the Russian cavalry, was shut out 
 from us by the same unlucky screen. The 
 troopers whom we had watched dashing into 
 the fire of musketry and artillery on the further 
 side of the valley, were, it is true, then and there 
 making their terrible charge under Lord Cardi- 
 gan ; but so dense was the pall in which they 
 were at once wrapped by the musketry and ar- 
 tillery of the enemy — so complete, too, our 
 ignorance of the nature and object of the move 
 ment — that even now I can hardly believe 
 myself to have witnessed that sublime display 
 of military devotion. I had so far provided 
 
 against this annoyance by arranging with , 
 
 that I was to accompany him in the event of any 
 engagement taking place, when I should have 
 been pretty sure of seeing the best of every- 
 thing, and with the best lights. But he, poor 
 
" ONE THING AT A TIME." 97 
 
 fellow, was, and is, sick on board the ; 
 
 and even had it been otherwise, I suppose his 
 duty would have compelled him to remain 
 behind in camp with his chief, to look after 
 the front. And — but that is enough in all 
 conscience ! Why I should have told you so 
 long a story, with so little to tell, I'm sure I 
 don't know, unless to convince you that see- 
 ing a battle is not always comprehending it, 
 and to make you of a grateful and contented 
 mind with your newspaper in the Temple. 
 
 Next day I again went to the rear, and rode 
 pretty close to the two redoubts, which were 
 taken by the enemy, and which still remain 
 in their hands. Cavalry pickets were posted 
 near the other earthwork ; but I learnt, that 
 no attempt would be made on the part of 
 the Allies to offer battle. Certainly, unless 
 some great advantage was to be gained by a 
 general engagement, one thing is enough at 
 a time, when that thing is the siege of Sebas- 
 topol ; while there could be no point of honour 
 with the Western Powers in driving the enemy 
 from posts which were wrested only from Turks. 
 
 By the way, the misconduct of these rascals, 
 who, not content with running away, plun- 
 
 H 
 
98 SIEGE OF SILISTRIA. 
 
 dered the tents of the Cavalry Division, will go 
 far towards dispelling the pleasing illusion that 
 prevails at home respecting their character. 
 I was once told by Major , the best au- 
 thority on the subject, that the far-famed 
 defence of Silistria was due much more to 
 Arnaouts and Egyptians than to the race 
 who got all the credit of it. The common 
 cry is, however, that Turks will do anything 
 " if well officered." But no more formidable 
 qualification of the assertion could be added. 
 How are good Officers to be found for them ? 
 If, by way of encouraging bravery, recourse 
 is had to the ranks, it is found that a com- 
 mission is apt to nullify the very virtue it 
 was meant to reward. The Turkish soldier 
 transformed into an Officer, however valiantly 
 he may have acquitted himself before, immedi- 
 ately resolves that, having won the things which 
 make life pleasant, he will not further risk it. 
 To quote an example that was lately men- 
 tioned to me; Latif Pasha was distinguished for 
 daring as a private ; he was rewarded by pro- 
 motion, and ultimately obtained a brigade and 
 the rank of Pasha ; yet at Silistria, this quon- 
 dam hero might at times be seen in tears at 
 
TURKS " WELL-OFFICERED." 99 
 
 the head of his brigade; and poor Captain 
 Butler was, on one occasion, compelled to 
 threaten to shoot him in order to make him 
 lead on the troops. 
 
 If, on the other hand, you resort to Chris- 
 tian nations for Officers, the revolting charac- 
 ter of Turkish morals is found to be a barrier 
 to any thing like that proper sympathy which 
 should exist between the men and their lead- 
 ers. " Give young Turks," say some, by way 
 of meeting the difficulty, "a moral training, 
 without meddling with their religion, and 
 promote them." But though these advisers 
 rightly assume that it is his defective morale, 
 and not his Mussulman faith, that makes the 
 Turk deficient in the proper qualities of an 
 Officer ; they seem to forget that it is only that 
 defective morale which enables him to tole- 
 rate the vices of his men. Qualify him in one 
 respect, and you disqualify him in another. 
 Certainly, the nut is a hard one to crack ; but 
 I should not be surprised if, some day, the 
 Greeks were to crack it. 
 
 I saw eight or ten Russians, and three or four 
 horses, lying dead, on the slope, as I rode over 
 the spot where the affair with the Heavy 
 
 H 2 
 
100 FIELD AFTER FIGHT. 
 
 Cavalry took place. The rest, I suppose, had 
 been buried in the twenty-four hours that had 
 elapsed in the interval. The corpses bore the 
 number "12" on their buttons, wore fur- 
 trimmed pelisses, and belonged, I believe, to 
 a crack regiment that goes by the name of 
 the " Weimar Hussars." Their feet had already 
 been stripped by our men of boots and stock- 
 ings ; a practice invariably resorted to, partly 
 on account of the value of the articles them- 
 selves, and partly from a belief that money is 
 to be found concealed in them. I noticed that 
 the features of these men had become so coarse 
 from exposure, that they expressed little be- 
 yond a stern, sad endurance. Still, the " last 
 enemy" had lent their faces a dignity which I 
 have not seen in the countenances of their 
 living countrymen ; and the stark, white feet 
 told eloquently of death. It felt strange to 
 find, and leave, them there alone, scattered 
 among the stones and thistles — and not a liv- 
 ing soul to watch ! 
 
 Being bound for Balaklava, where and 
 
 were still sick on board a transport, 
 
 previous to their removal to the , I 
 
 rode via the tents of the Cavalry Division, 
 and called on some of my old fellow-passen- 
 
ECONOMICAL PARADOX. 101 
 
 gers of the Royals. Captain regaled me 
 
 on a luncheon of devilled ration-biscuits and 
 candied fruits. You open your eyes, and so 
 did I, at the un-Crimean dainties. The fact is, 
 that some German has had the wit to freight a 
 vessel to Balaklava with English stores. Cigars 
 (smokeable ones) are now selling at thirty 
 shillings a pound ; and during the week or two 
 that the cargo may remain unexhausted, T dare 
 say a good many comforts will be purchase- 
 able at equally moderate prices. Afterwards, 
 nothing of the kind, perhaps, will be obtainable 
 for loveor money. The laws of political economy 
 do not seem to operate here in raising prices 
 in full proportion to the demand ; and scarcity, 
 rather than dearness, is the inconvenience to 
 be dreaded. I can only account for it by sup- 
 posing, that the traders, knowing that they are 
 admitted only on sufferance, fear to lose favour 
 with the authorities by driving quite such hard 
 bargains as the necessities of the Army might 
 otherwise enable them to do. Still the prices are 
 quite high enough to remunerate handsomely 
 any merchants who may have the sense to 
 seize the opportunity. For instance, the cigars 
 in question, being only just good enough for 
 
 H 3 
 
102 "TE DEUM." 
 
 a camp, and having paid no duty, are pro- 
 bably fetching the importer 50 per cent, profit. 
 I cantered back to the front by about three, 
 and was deposited at the tents by the summary 
 process of the mare rolling over with me. Find- 
 ing, however, that the troops were out, I re- 
 mounted her, and went forward towards the 
 right. Here were two or three regiments lying 
 on the ground, and every sign of business, 
 except actual fighting. It turned out that a 
 sortie of some 8000 men on the Second Division 
 had just been repulsed. The Russians had in 
 the morning sung a Te Deum at Sebastopol over 
 the English guns taken from the Turks the 
 day before, and under the double influence of 
 religion and rum, had been gulled by their 
 leaders into the singularly illogical conclusion 
 of attempting to win similar trophies from 
 the English themselves. Possibly, even those 
 leaders were not aware, that the Guards had re- 
 turned from Balaklava on the previous evening. 
 It was all over, however. In my quest of a 
 battle in the rear, I had missed a very brilliant 
 affair in the front. I met Lord Raglan, Gene- 
 ral Brown, and the whole Staff, together with 
 Sir Edmund Lyons, returning from the field, 
 as I went back to my tent. 
 
103 
 
 LETTER TX. 
 
 Balaklava Bay, Nov, 3rd. 
 
 You will guess from the heading of this letter 
 that I have " raised the siege ; " and so far as 
 bidding farewell to camp-life goes, I have done 
 so. Work-time is come, and Othello's non- 
 occupation is, or ought to be, gone ! 
 
 Observe, however, that my commissariat 
 was not exhausted. There was still enough 
 greasy meat for three days ; and half a bottle 
 of sherry, given me by a friend, remained 
 to be drunk. Nevertheless, one or two causes 
 had, I will own, combined to quicken my 
 departure. So bleak a wind had set in on 
 the 29th, after some oppressively hot weather, 
 that I had been compelled to double my cloth- 
 ing, and even then, could not get warm. Above 
 all, during two mortal nights, the luckless 
 Economites, shivering, and bent on being off, 
 broke my rest with low moans, interspersed 
 with a sort of rattle, which he has the 
 faculty of making with his teeth. It was 
 in vain that the good-natured Doctor accom- 
 
 H 4 
 
104 BOATS AT BALAKLAVA. 
 
 panied me at all sorts of hours to the "ken- 
 nel," and that there, by the light of a candle 
 held in my hat, we challenged the Ionian to 
 swallow both pill and potion. He took them 
 without demur! If he shammed, he did it 
 bravely ; but his grinders rattled on unwearied, 
 or paused but for such intervals as made the 
 recurring hubbub only the more destructive of 
 sleep. When, therefore, on the 30th, he de- 
 clared, for the third time that week, that he 
 would decamp on the morrow, whether I did 
 or not, I succumbed. My kit was soon sold, 
 and the next day we trudged to Balaklava. 
 
 By the time we reached the harbour, I had 
 contrived to get a headache, while John, on 
 the contrary, had regained his full share of 
 health and spirits. Never did I hear of a case 
 where change from bad air to a worse pro- 
 duced so rapid a cure as in his. The mischief, 
 however, was, that I could make no use of his 
 recovered energies in effecting the only object 
 I had in view, which was to get rowed out 
 
 of harbour to the . Nobody, I should tell 
 
 you, at Balaklava, has yet had the penetration 
 to make his fortune by starting boats for hire. 
 One, must, therefore, depend on the charity 
 
GOING TO BED. 105 
 
 ot such naval Officers as may chance to be 
 going in one's own direction, and to have seats 
 disengaged. The consequence is, that hosts of 
 people are to be seen every day wandering up 
 and down the quay, snuffing up garbage, 
 and devouring their dear hearts, who would 
 willingly give five shillings for a row of per- 
 haps as many minutes. Of course, my Ionian 
 might have applied to dozens of the said Offi- 
 cers before they would have listened to him. 
 Nothing, therefore, was left for it but to under- 
 take the work myself. And wander about I did, 
 shouting first to this man-of-war's boat, and 
 then to that, till, what with my headache, the 
 cold, and the stench, I thought my campaign 
 was likely to have a bad end. At last Captain 
 
 took pity on me, and, though he could 
 
 spare no boat to take me to the , kindly 
 
 allowed me to pass the night on board his own 
 renowned two-decker. 
 
 Do you know, I am inclined to think it is 
 worth spending a month in camp, if only to 
 appreciate the luxury of going to bed at the 
 end of the time ! It is true, that during my 
 tent-life, I never once felt any hardship in 
 sleeping booted and clothed ; and that, for the 
 
106 ON BOARD SHIP. 
 
 simple reason, that I always did sleep as soon 
 as I blew out the candle. But when, on 
 
 board the , I for the first time for nearly 
 
 four weeks, lay with the smooth fresh sheets 
 lapping around me, I knew, and tasted the 
 difference between that rude prosaic method 
 of tumbling out of every-day life into barren 
 unconsciousness, and being deliciously wooed, 
 lured, and coaxed into repose. I could not, 
 indeed, help coquetting with the thing, and 
 tried hard to keep awake awhile, that I might 
 have my fill of the sensation ; but it might not 
 be ! In a quarter of an hour, I was stupidly 
 oblivious — from all which, you will perceive, 
 it follows, that the more a man roughs it, 
 the more luxurious his tastes become. 
 
 I was too late to catch on his way to 
 
 Head-quarters, though I landed at nine. It 
 appears, he leaves his ship by these early 
 hours nearly every morning for the purpose of 
 riding to Lord Raglan's, and of conferring with 
 him on the requirements of the expedition. 
 However, I met him on the quay when he re- 
 turned, and he immediately renewed the hos- 
 pitable offer he made to me when I first landed 
 in the Crimea. I have now been here two days, 
 
a sailor's "lark." 107 
 
 and what with the kindness I have received, 
 and the novelty to me of the ways and cus- 
 toms on board a first-rate man-of-war, I have 
 found much to enjoy. 
 
 Sailors have so much the advantage over 
 soldiers during actual war, that, to a person 
 fresh from witnessing the sufferings of the 
 latter, it is difficult, without an effort of reason, 
 to give the former credit for enduring anything. 
 Then the tars are such jovial fellows. They do 
 everything to music, and make work itself a 
 kind of dance. There are four or five hundred 
 of them at this moment hauling up a rope, 
 with their feet tramping to the tune of Rory 
 O'More. Why, it is regular " down the middle 
 and up again !" No one who looked for an 
 instant at their hearty good-humoured faces, 
 could suppose that they felt the exercise as a 
 toil. 
 
 In camp, where no fiddle was to be had, 
 they used to time their steps in hauling up the 
 guns, by making one of their number sing; 
 and in the trenches, their animal spirits showed 
 themselves in the most exuberant daring. 
 Captain Lushington, I heard the other day, 
 told some of them who had worked for several 
 
108 HOW TO TAKE SEBASTOPOL. 
 
 hours at the Seaman's Battery, that they might 
 " now go and have a lark." They instantly 
 jumped on the parapets to have it there ! At 
 that battery, indeed, it is with the greatest 
 difficulty that they are restrained from expos- 
 ing themselves in this way every moment, as 
 nothing will content them but watching the 
 course of the balls as they fire them ! There 
 is but one martial duty with which they cannot 
 be trusted, and that is to guard the casks of 
 ration-rum — the spirit invariably vanishes 
 under their care. Apropos of this little foible, 
 somebody suggested, in reply to a remark on 
 the difficulties of penetrating into Sebastopol, 
 — " Only put up a grog-shop on the other side, 
 and the sailors will find their way through!" 
 I am not going to attempt to describe 
 
 to you the good ship , but I will mention 
 
 a single thing that struck me as very cha- 
 racteristic of the wonderful order and finish 
 of a man-of-war. After having been cour- 
 teously shown over the whole vessel by one of 
 the Officers — from the great 64-pounders, 
 (between two of which my cot is swung) to the 
 operation-table, which always stands ready for 
 its bloody use — I was taken into the carpenter's 
 
"neat as a pin." 109 
 
 shop. It was so dark, that a light was neces- 
 sary to exhibit it by. Here, at any rate, I 
 thought the elaborate arrangements elsewhere 
 displayed, were not likely to be exemplified. 
 But I was wrong. The spirit of order had 
 found scope even in the carpenter's nails. 
 These were stuck in little holes made for the 
 purpose in the side of the shop, and were so 
 placed as to form national and patriotic mot- 
 toes, such as " God save the Queen," and 
 Nelson's last signal. One has heard the 
 phrase, " as neat as a pin," but here was a 
 carpenter's shop as neat as a natal pin- 
 cushion ! 
 
 The damage sustained by the ship at the 
 bombardment is nearly all repaired. I can 
 see, however, plenty of scars. I hear that the 
 missile which told most on her, so far as 
 vibration was concerned, was a small water- 
 rocket that hit her low down near the keel. 
 The shock received was as great as if she had 
 struck on a rock. Its violence was accounted 
 for on the hypothesis, that the compression of 
 the explosion outwards by the weight of water, 
 had increased the force of the explosion against 
 the timbers. 
 
110 MIDDIES. 
 
 What a softening, inexpressible grace is lent 
 to a man-of-war by the Middies ! It is particu- 
 larly striking after living in a camp exclusively 
 composed of mature men. The Army has 
 nothing corresponding to these pretty little 
 fellows, who, with their rosy cheeks, resemble 
 their mamas much more than they do the 
 heroes they are one day to be. To meet them, 
 too, in the midst of stern work ; and with the 
 knowledge, that it was but the other day, that 
 the poor boys were ducking their curly 
 heads, and laughing, amidst shot and shell; 
 possibly, with about the same sense of adven- 
 ture, as if it had been a game at snow-balls ! 
 Never dream of degeneracy in a land where 
 mothers thus devote their offspring. Talk 
 of Sparta — of Rome! England alone rocks 
 her children on the wave, and War is the 
 " wolf" which suckles them. 
 
Ill 
 
 LETTER X. 
 
 "Caradoc," Nov. 10th. 
 
 I am on my way home ; but as this letter will 
 reach you some days before I can follow it, I 
 take the opportunity of sending you a rapid 
 account of what I have seen since I last wrote. 
 You know, of course, from other sources, 
 that a tremendous battle has been fought, and 
 how it was fought. I shall as usual, therefore, 
 relate only what I witnessed myself. 
 
 We were at breakfast on board the , on 
 
 Sunday the 5th, when indistinct sounds of 
 heavy firing attracted our attention ; and Cap- 
 tain mentioned, that he had noticed them 
 
 ever since dawn. Of course, the gig was soon 
 
 manned, and took a strong party ashore. 
 
 got a pony, but most of us, myself included, 
 were compelled to walk. After a mile or two, I 
 was obliged to diverge from the rest, as I meant 
 to go in the first instance to my old camp- 
 quarters, there to borrow -'s mare (he had 
 
 got well again, and had returned to work), 
 and to join him and the General on the field. 
 
112 CARRYING THE WOUNDED. 
 
 It was a seven-mile up-hill trudge. The 
 occupation of the valley by the Russians had 
 closed the shortest way (by the telegraph) ; and 
 the nearest road, moistened by a Scotch mist, 
 had been churned by ammunition- waggons and 
 horses' hoofs into unctuous mud. When, 
 therefore, I had climbed to the crest of the 
 plateau, I cut across country. The fog 
 prevented one's seeing far ahead, but the 
 sharp reports of musketry, and the roar of 
 artillery, were quite enough to mark the direc- 
 tion, even without the stream of French and 
 English soldiers, bearing on their backs, and 
 on stretchers, the wounded to the rear. I 
 did not stop to question these men, but tried 
 to read in their faces the fortune of the day. 
 They all looked grave, and behaved with a 
 silent, manly propriety, in good keeping with 
 their sad office ; but quite at variance with the 
 stories one reads of the conduct of soldiers when 
 relieved, as these were, from surveillance. 
 
 On arriving at the road which leads to my old 
 quarters, I found it full of waggons carrying 
 ammunition to the field, and wounded from it. 
 But I was surprised to perceive, when at last 
 (about one) I arrived, that my friend , 
 
THE GENERAL WOUNDED. 113 
 
 and a brother Aide, instead of being in the 
 thick of the contest, were in camp. Their looks 
 showed that something wrong had happened, 
 and I soon heard, with great concern, that 
 
 poor General had been badly wounded, 
 
 and was then lying, faint from loss of blood, 
 in what used to be my tent. A shell had also 
 
 hurt, but not severely, 's knee. Both my 
 
 friends were naturally absorbed in devising 
 means for conveying their gallant chief to some 
 place where he would be more fitly sheltered 
 than under canvass. But they found time, in 
 a few hurried words, to describe the carnage 
 which they had witnessed, and pointed out 
 the spot (easily visible from the tents) where 
 the battle had raged the most fiercely. 
 
 No nag, of course, could now be lent me, nor 
 was there any one whom I could join in the field. 
 The fight, however, had become purely one of 
 artillery ; and the best point of view — as well 
 as the safest — for seeing the practice on both 
 sides, was some position opposite the centre of 
 the line of fire. Having ascertained that a 
 place called the Five-gun Battery (in reality 
 the Right Lancaster Battery), answered to this 
 description, I decided on going there — not, 
 
 I 
 
114 POINT OF VIEW. 
 
 however, till I had succeeded, amidst the 
 painful excitement around, in obtaining some 
 ration-biscuit ! I felt the incongruity of ask- 
 ing for food at such a moment. I would have 
 given anything to have been able to weather 
 the day without. But I had taken a long walk, 
 and (if not knocked on the head between 
 whiles, which I did not anticipate) should 
 have to take another. So, being famished, I 
 asked, and was satisfied. I record the fact, be- 
 cause it illustrates the humbling truth, that 
 hunger is as callous as Launce's cur. 
 
 The Five-gun Battery is between the Round 
 Tower and the tents of the Second Division. 
 It commands the best view I have obtained of 
 Sebastopol ; and, now that the fog had cleared 
 away, the city appeared to great advantage. 
 There was a mound behind the battery, four or 
 five feet high, so situated as to conceal persons 
 lying down under it, from the Russians in the 
 field, but not from the garrison in the town. 
 Nor was it quite steep enough, I should think, 
 to have stopped a rolling round shot from any 
 direction. Though, however, both the enemy's 
 field artillery on our right, and the fort and 
 ship guns on our left, commanded the position, 
 
ASPECT OF BATTLE. 115 
 
 our party was too small to be much noticed. 
 It consisted of General England and his Staff, 
 and a troop of horse artillery. The horses of 
 the latter, which the mound could not conceal, 
 were probably the occasion of the very few 
 missiles that actually lit near us. The Round 
 Tower was firing over our heads at the Allied 
 armies. The Russian park of artillery, on the 
 other hand, had enough to do with the antago- 
 nists before them, who, already (it was not quite 
 two o'clock) were slowly gaining ground. In 
 fact, the only narrow escape I had, was from a 
 shell, which did me the honour to burst within 
 a few yards of me, when my ears were, foi 
 the first and last time, regaled with the peculiar 
 hum which marks the near approach of the 
 flying fragments of those uncomfortable pro- 
 jectiles (I picked up a hot bit as a memento). 
 Still, though we were comparatively safe, I 
 was amused, considering all things, by the 
 politeness of an Officer present, who on light- 
 ing his cigar from mine, expressed an artistic 
 regret, that he should " spoil so beautiful an 
 ash!" 
 
 At this time, the aspect of the battle, as seen 
 
 from our position, was as follows. Two large 
 
 i 2 
 
116 RUSSIAN RETREAT. 
 
 bodies of the Allied troops stood, or rather lay, 
 close before the foremost tents of the Second 
 Division, a little below the long low rounded 
 outline of the hill on which these are pitched, 
 and which, on its furthest side, descends to the 
 Tchernaya. Another mass occupied a place (as 
 seemed to me) about a hundred yards in ad- 
 vance, on the very profile of the hill. The whole 
 of this ground, I should tell you, rises gradu- 
 ally, for two or three hundred yards in front of 
 the tents. Crossing the highest portion of its 
 outline, was a fourth body of the Allies. The 
 ground then makes a dip for about four hun- 
 dred yards, when it makes another gradual rise 
 of the same rounded character, until it reaches 
 an elevation somewhat higher than the hill oc- 
 cupied by the French and British troops. Here 
 I counted six bodies of the enemy. I suppose 
 the two Armies were seven or eight hundred 
 yards apart. All parties were pounding away 
 with their artillery, and the wind carried off the 
 smoke, so that we could clearly see the spec- 
 tacle. About three, the Allied troops gra- 
 dually advanced, till their foremost park of 
 artillery occupied the bottom of the valley 
 between the two hills. In half an hour more, 
 
STRETCHERS ON EIELD, 117 
 
 the Russians were in full retreat towards 
 Sebastopol. I could see them in their long 
 grey coats marching past us, with their arms 
 shouldered, and in good order. 
 
 My sketch of the ground was now completed, 
 the victory won, and I got up and prepared 
 for my long trudge, so as to be in time for 
 
 dinner on board the ; but I had not walked 
 
 many paces, when one of our regiments was 
 brought forward past me, to fire at the re- 
 treating foe. Stretchers were being carried 
 behind them ; and though I had often seen such 
 implements used in carrying the wounded, 
 I confess, it gave me a shock to see them borne 
 close behind these soldiers — now walking well 
 and erect, their faces full in my view — in 
 anticipation! An anticipation soon realised. 
 Directly they arrived at the place where I had 
 been lying, it seemed alive with round shot 
 throwing up the dust in all directions ; while 
 the stretcher-bearers were running here and 
 there — I knew too well for what reason. 
 
 It did also occur to me (why will thoughts 
 cross one at the wrong times ?) that, perhaps, 
 it was lucky for a certain person that these 
 poor fellows did not come up before — that had 
 
 i 3 
 
118 INCONGRUOUS REFLECTIONS. 
 
 that happened, he might have presented him- 
 self at a particular nook of the Temple with 
 a wooden leg ; but with no honours, no pension, 
 to show for it — only sharp shafts of ridi- 
 cule, and — " Que, diable, allait-il /aire dans 
 cette galereV Ah, ha! you have lost that 
 triumph ! 
 
 But to return — a very long way — the Lan- 
 caster gun in front is said to have done good ser- 
 vice at this juncture, by mauling the retreating 
 columns of the enemy. I confess I looked hard 
 with my glass, and could see no gaps made, 
 nor any approach to unsteadiness. That, 
 however, proves nothing ; as a battle is such a 
 huge complicated affair, and there is so much 
 difficulty in getting a full view of it, that it is 
 only by comparing the accounts of a large 
 number of witnesses, that a correct notion of 
 the whole can be obtained by anyone. 
 
 As I had to return in time for 's dinner, 
 
 I could not, as some of my friends did, go over 
 the field that evening. It was dark when I 
 got to Balaklava, and, as usual, a boat was 
 not to be had for love or money. A deus ex 
 machind, however, at length appeared, in no 
 
 less a person than Admiral , who kindly 
 
 gave me a seat in his gig. His Turks rowed 
 
FLOORING A CROAKER. 119 
 
 so well, that my contempt for the tribe was in 
 complete abeyance, till I got on board the . 
 
 Here, I was rejoiced to learn, that the Gene- 
 ral had been safely brought. His cot was swung 
 between two great guns, with a curtain drawn 
 before it, in the cabin where we dined. Every 
 one was glad, when, during our dinner, he rallied 
 from his loss of blood sufficiently to put in, 
 now and then, a word from behind his screen. 
 He was lying in the cot I had myself slept in 
 up to that day. Is it not a curious string of 
 coincidences, that, when wounded on the field, 
 he was given to drink some weak brandy and 
 water, which I had mixed for the purpose of 
 giving the wounded at Balaklava (the flask 
 being part of the kit I had sold to one of 
 his Aides) — that he was, next, put upon 
 the stretcher, and in the tent, that had be- 
 longed to me — and that he was now lying 
 in the cot which I had occupied ? 
 
 When I left, he was well enough to walk 
 about the cabin ; making, in fact, rather too 
 little of his wound. Apropos of his spirits in 
 spite of it, I can't resist telling you a story. 
 I dare say you know that he, like our gallant 
 host, belongs altogether to the hopeful faction. 
 
 i 4 
 
120 EPIGRAM. 
 
 The first day that he was well enough to come 
 to table, somebody (I forget who) happened 
 to be talking very lugubriously about various 
 things and the campaign in particular, and 
 at length exclaimed, "Ah, war is a terrible 
 thing ! " " That's what my wife says," cheerily 
 put in the General, and settled the croaker ! 
 
 In England, one reads a good deal of plau- 
 sible writing about the necessity for young 
 blood in our military chiefs; and there is a 
 mot on the subject attributed to the late Sir 
 Charles Napier, which is certainly piquant. 
 He was asked what he thought of the Army 
 and Navy Club ? " Fine young men — very !" 
 What of the Junior United Service ? " Fine 
 old men — very ! ! " What of the Senior 
 United Service ? " Fine old women — very 1 1 1 " 
 A ])riori, the young, at any rate, are apt to 
 jump to the same conclusion. But observe, the 
 sexagenarian himself had lost none of his 
 dash and spirit, when he uttered the epigram. 
 And whatever truth it may contain for grey- 
 beards in general, there are assuredly some 
 among our veterans in the Crimea, of whom 
 no one in his senses will believe, that, "in 
 their hot youth," they could have possessed 
 
FIELD AFTER FIGHT. 121 
 
 more glorious energy than they now display 
 whenever " deeds of dering-do " are to be 
 done. Whether their bodily frames will 
 enable them to hold out against any long con- 
 tinuation of the hardships they are under- 
 going, is another matter. 
 
 The morning after the fight, I again walked to 
 the front, and went over a portion of the field. 
 No English wounded, I rejoice to say, were visi- 
 ble. I made many inquiries of the stretcher- 
 bearers, while they were engaged in picking up 
 those Russians who had lived through the night, 
 and from what they told me, I infer that all, 
 or nearly all, our poor countrymen were 
 removed the evening before. 
 
 The slope on the other side of the tents is 
 not very steep : in fact, a pony which I had 
 borrowed in camp, walked up and down it quite 
 easily. There was a good deal of low oak 
 scrub, but it was not thick enough to pre- 
 vent one's picking one's way through the place. 
 Our men were digging large pits for burying 
 the dead. The horrors I had heard of as 
 having been witnessed on the field by those 
 who went there directly after the action, were 
 to a great degree abated. The Russians who 
 
122 RED UNIFORMS. 
 
 yet survived, were too faint to do more than 
 groan faintly. They seemed grateful, poor 
 fellows, when 1 gave them small portions of 
 brandy from my flask ; but, as I had not tem- 
 pered it with water, and wished to distribute 
 it as widely as possible, I poured out only a 
 tablespoonful for each man. It might, perhaps, 
 have served to keep them alive, after the cold 
 night, till they could be taken to hospital. 
 
 I could see comparatively few English and 
 French among the dead. The former, as you 
 know, fought in their grey great coats, from 
 there not having been time to take them off; 
 and the inconvenience which this occasioned, 
 by confounding friend and foe, will, I should 
 think, cut short the clamour against the 
 hue of our Line uniforms. Those writers at 
 home who have been running at red, like mad 
 bulls, ignore the circumstance, that the French 
 — pretty good judges in such matters — make 
 their infantry wear trousers of the same 
 colour. No doubt, it is an inconvenience for 
 troops to be seen plainly by the enemy ; but it 
 is a greater one, not to be seen plainly by their 
 own comrades; especially when, as happens in 
 our case, the latter shoot the best of the two. 
 
ATTITUDES OF DEAD. 123 
 
 Many of the Russian dead had been stripped, 
 and appeared to be good specimens of men. 
 Most of them had blue eyes, regular features, 
 coarse brown complexions, and averaged, I 
 should say, rather more than the height of 
 Frenchmen. They were provided with what 
 looked like little bolsters, but which were really 
 bags of crumbled brown biscuit. It did not taste 
 bad, and, I suppose, it is given them broken 
 up, for the purpose of being made more readily 
 into porridge. Each man had four days' pro- 
 visions ; a circumstance which, with the fact of 
 their having brought gabions and fascines, 
 shows how confidently they expected to esta- 
 blish themselves on Sir De Lacy Evans's 
 position. 
 
 The attitudes of the dead were most start- 
 ling. I think I told you, that I found the 
 Hussars, who were sabred by our Heavy 
 Dragoons at Balaklava, lying flat on the 
 ground. Here, on the contrary (and the same 
 is said to have been the case at the Alma), the 
 dead were strewed about in every imaginable 
 posture. Arms were stretched upwards, as if 
 warding blows, or dealing thrusts. Bodies 
 were half raised — the head bent forward — the 
 
124 MALTREATMENT OF WOUNDED. 
 
 nether lip bit in — the eyes open — but for the 
 glassy stare and marble feet, you might have 
 thought them springing at your throat ! The 
 suddenness of the stroke had fixed the last 
 movement of volition. Those who had bled 
 to death, lay placidly. 
 
 You will have heard of the atrocities com- 
 mitted by the enemy on the wounded. As I 
 returned from the field, I met two or three 
 hundred prisoners being taken into Balaklava, 
 upon whom, as they passed, all kinds of abuse 
 were being lavished by our men. I saw one 
 of these Russians, in particular, signalise a 
 private who was smoking, to give him a light ; 
 but it was refused, with the most hearty 
 maledictions. Now, as vindictive feeling 
 towards the conquered is the very last sen- 
 timent that enters the breast of an English 
 soldier, these are symptoms of the extent to 
 which the barbarities in question are beginning 
 to inflame the minds of our Army. Let the 
 irritation go on a little longer, and " quarter " 
 will be unknown. 
 
 During the whole course of my walk from 
 the camp to the harbour, English and French 
 Officers were making inquiries of me, re- 
 specting the health of the General. 
 
DEPARTURE. 125 
 
 On the 8th I obtained, by Captain Derri- 
 man's kindness, a passage in the vessel from 
 which this is dated. She is bound for Con- 
 stantinople, whence — as I have not time to 
 deliver my letters at the Embassy — I shall 
 proceed at once to England. Dining on board 
 her, before she started, were the Duke of 
 Cambridge and his Staff, General Bentinck 
 (wounded in the arm), Major Nasmyth, and 
 others. H.R. EL mentioned many interesting 
 circumstances connected with Inkerman, and 
 told us that a ball had penetrated his over- 
 coat, but had glanced off, in consequence of 
 striking against a gold cuff-button of his 
 shirt. He was suffering from aguish symp- 
 toms, but looked well, considering the amount 
 of rough work which he had gone through. 
 
 About nine p.m., I saw my last of the . 
 
 On board her were all those to whom chiefly 
 it was due, that my visit to the Crimea was an 
 enjoyable one. 
 
 THE END. 
 
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