The Adelaide arrived in Balaklava on the 17th of January, after a splendid passage from England, and the passengers must have been a little astonished at the truly Christmas aspect presented by the Crimea; somewhat more real and less jovial they found it than the pictures which represented florid young gentlemen in gorgeous epaulettes, gloating over imaginary puddings and Christmas presents in snug tents, and ready to partake of the fare that England had sent to her dear boys in the Crimea, but which none of them had then received, and which none of them would ever eat in such comfort and with such appliances of luxury. There was a wind that would have effectually deprived, if wind could do it, any number of rats of their whiskers. Anxious to see what things were like on the heights above Balaklava, I started, with my gun upon my shoulder, through the passes across the hill, knee-deep in snow; and after a shot or two at great, raw-necked vultures, and stately eagles, and some more fortunate cracks at "blue rocks," scraping the snow off the points of the cliffs, I arrived in the camp of the Highlanders, several hundred feet below the elevated position of the Rifles, but quite high enough to induce me to accept a hearty invitation to stop to dinner, and rest for the night. Oh, could "Caledoniensis," "Pictus," "Memor antiquæ virtutis," or any of the high-spirited Celtic gentlemen who are fighting about lions rampant and Scottish rights, and the garb of that respectable person, Auld Gael, but have seen what their countrymen were like as they faced the Crimean winter, how shamed they would have been of their kilt and philibeg and stocking declamation! All such things were clean gone, and if the gallant Highlanders ever wore the kilt 'twas for punishment! Breeks—low-lived breeks—and blanket gaiters, and any kind of leggings over them, were the wear of our Scottish Zouaves, though, in good sooth, they were no more like Zouaves, except in popular modern legends, than they were like Dutchmen, à la Rip Van Winkle.
Over the waste or snow, looking down from the heights towards the valley of the Tchernaya, I saw those indefatigable Cossacks riding about their picket ground, and a few waggons stealing along from Mackenzie's Farm towards the heights of Inkerman. A vedette or two were trotting up and down along a ridge, keeping a bright lookout on our movements, and through the glass we perceived them flapping their hands under their armpits, as London cabmen do on a cold night when waiting for a fare. Towards Baidar, pickets of the same active gentry were moving along to keep themselves warm. We had no cavalry posts advanced towards them. In fact we could not conveniently send any out. Those ragged ruffians, in sheepskin coats and fur caps, mounted on ragged ponies, with deal lances and coarse iron tips, were able in drifting snow and biting winds to hold ground which our cavalry could not face.
In the middle of January there were severe and sudden alterations of temperature. Men were frozen in their tents, and several soldiers on duty in the trenches were removed to hospital with severe frost-bites, but the frost enabled the men to get up considerable supplies of warm clothing, though the means at our disposal did not permit of the wood for huts being sent to the front. When a path had once been trodden through the snow, men and horses could get along much more easily than if they had to wade through mud or across a country in a state of semi-solution. Many thousands of coats, lined with fur, long boots, gloves, mits, and socks were served out, but there were regimental hospitals where they had only one blanket to lie upon.
Our army consisted of officers and regiments almost new to this campaign. The generation of six months before had passed away; generals, brigadiers, colonels, captains, and men, the well-known faces of Gallipoli, of Bulari, of Scutari, of Varna, of Aladyn, of Devno, of Monastir—ay, even of the bivouac of Bouljanak, had changed; and there was scarcely one of the regiments once so familiar to me which I could then recognise save by its well-known number. What a harvest Death had reaped, and yet how many more were ripe for the sickle of the Great Farmer! It was sad to meet an old acquaintance, for all one's reminiscences were of noble hearts now cold for ever, and of friend after friend departed. And then came—"Poor fellow! he might have been saved, if——"
A NONDESCRIPT ARMY.
Excepting Lord Raglan, Lord Lucan, and Sir R. England, not one of our generals remained of those who went out originally; the changes among our brigadiers and colonels were almost as great. Sir George Brown, the Duke of Cambridge, the Earl of Cardigan, Sir George Cathcart, Sir De Lacy Evans, General Tylden, General Strangways, Brigadier Bentinck, Brigadier Goldie, Brigadier Buller, Brigadier Adams, Brigadier Torrens, Brigadier Cator, Lord de Ros—had all been removed from the army by wounds, by sickness, or by death. And so it was with the men themselves.
On the 16th the thermometer was at 14° in the morning and at 10° on the heights over Balaklava. The snow fell all night, and covered the ground to the depth of three feet; but the cold and violent wind drifted it in places to the depth of five or six feet. In the morning 1200 French soldiers came down to Balaklava for shot and shell, and the agility, good spirits, and energy with which they ploughed through the snow were alike admirable. The wind blew almost a gale, and the native horses refused to face it, but our poor fellows came trudging along in the same dreary string, and there was something mournful in the very aspect of the long lines of black dots moving across the vast expanse of glittering snow between Sebastopol and Balaklava. When these dots came up, you saw they had very red noses and very white faces and very bleared eyes; and as to their clothes Falstaff would have thought his famous levy a corps d'élite if he could have beheld our gallant soldiery. Many of the officers were as ragged and as reckless in dress. The generals made appeals to their subalterns "to wear their swords, as there was no other way of telling them from the men."
It was inexpressibly odd to see Captain Smith, of the——Foot, with a pair of red Russian leather boots up to his middle, a cap probably made out of the tops of his holsters, and a white skin coat tastefully embroidered all down the back with flowers of many-coloured silk, topped by a head-dress à la dustman of London, stalking gravely through the mud of Balaklava, intent on the capture of a pot of jam or marmalade. Does the reader wonder why we were all so fond of jam? Because it was portable and come-at-able, and was a substitute for butter, which was only sent out in casks and giant crocks, one of which would exhaust the transport resources of a regiment. Captain Smith was much more like his great namesake of the Adelphi, when, in times gone by, he made up for a smuggler-burglar-bandit, than the pride of the High-street of Portsmouth, or than that hero of the Phœnix-park, with golden wings like an angel, before the redness of whose presence little boys and young ladies trembled. All this would be rather facetious and laughable, were not poor Captain Smith a famished wretch, with bad chilblains, approximating to frost-bites, a touch of scurvy, and of severe rheumatism.
This cold weather brought great quantities of wild fowl over the camp, but it was rather too busy a spot for them to alight in. They could scarcely recognize their old haunts in the Chersonese, and flew about disconsolately over their much metamorphosed feeding-grounds. Solemn flights of wild geese, noisy streams of barnacles, curlew, duck, and widgeon wheeled over the harbour, and stimulated the sporting propensities of the seamen who kept up a constant fusillade from the decks. Balls and No. 1 shot whistled unpleasantly close to one's ears, and one day a man was startled by receiving a bullet slap through his arm. Huge flocks of larks and finches congregated about the stables and the cavalry camps, and were eagerly sought by our allies, who much admire a petite chasse, which furnished them with such delicate reliefs to the monotony of ration dinners. They were rather reckless in pursuit of their quarry; the enthusiastic Zouave in chase of a fluttering bunting was frequently greeted by sounds which his ignorance of English alone prevented him from considering a teterrima causa belli.
Lord Raglan's visit to Balaklava, on the 18th of January, was a memorable event. Men were set to work throwing stones down into the most Curtius-like gulfs in the streets.