Thus it was, that within a few miles as great a difference of climate was found as common! between the opposite sides of a great continent, and while the outposts of the enemy's ibnes which occupied the southern lift".Ml duringwhiter all the luxury of an Italian sky and tropical vegetation, our army lay in the sweep noitheni and eastern blasts, which, blowing over tin/.eu plains of tipinterior, brin tu' with the rigour oj winter. I hav. hinted at the, of the climate of tli by the allied i - iiidoubtedly its i dngfettl an temperaiure of a week or lit not, indeed, differ greatly from that of the week or the month which preceded or followed
THE CRIMEAN WAK. but the daily sensible variations were frequently very great.* At some seasons these diurnal changes were more severe than at others. Thus, in winter, something of the following succession not uncommonly occurred. A dark, " muggy morning," with, perhaps, a " Black Sea fog " rolling its heavy, damp folds over the plain, giving you, when inclosed in its embrace, a feeling that resembled nothing so much as being in the drying-room of some large wash-house, would be succeeded by a splashing rain, a sharp hail-storm, and an intense frost, all within a few hours. The alternation of frost and thaw was sometimes very remarkable, and it was difficult to tell which would ultimately prevail. A heavy fall of snow occurring during the night, would have its surface rendered crisp and dusty by the keen morning frost, and at mid-day be converted into a deep slush by the hot, sultry breath of the sea wind.
Even so it must have been in those dark and stormy days when Ovid looked out from his place of exile on the wintry sea, and wrote his dreary account of a Pontic winter. Successive seasons appear, from the record of travellers, to differ considerably the one from the other. Cycles, too, of a similar character, alternate with others of a different description. During the stay of the Allies, the first winter was providentially much less severe than the second, when the preparations to meet it were more complete. A dreadful severity appears periodically to mark the cold season. Fearful snow-storms, greatly dreaded by the inhabitants, pass like whirlwinds of death and destruction over the exposed parts of the country, and bury whole villages beneath their drifting * See Appendix B.
PHYSICAL ( 1IAKA< ITU OF TillCKIMKA..', eddies, while those icy winds, which few who liavc ever t'dt their edge will forget, lash the unibrtunate traveller as with stripes of scorpions. The transition from winter to spring is very rapid. A few daya revolutionize the year. In 1856 this was markedly the ease. To winter's "ruffian blasts" quicklv " Those softer gales, at whose kind touch Dissolving snows in livid torrents lost, And mountains lift their green heads to the sky." Then, for a time, the climate became delicious. All nature was in a moment astir, and awoke suddenly from the long winter's sleep. We, too, "felt the spring in all our pulses." Music was again heard in the various j s, which became the scene of vigorous sports and healthful lal)our.
Even through the thickly-scattered fragments of the deadly shell, the spring flowers gentle heads; while down the little val' and by the water-courses, the crocus and snowdrop, with us orchidaceous plants, re-minded one of similar.-licit, Ted nooks at home. the most part oppressively hot. In.Iiiii.-, July, and August, the temperature ranged from 80 a to 100 on the plateau, and this, durinic "inoccupation, was often far more than could be borne with comfort, protected as we were only by the thin eov feebleness, utterly prostrated tinpoor invalid.
Then, too, the nauseous effluvia of a great camp became most obnoxious, and the loaded air srRr.EKY OF THE CRIMEAN WAR. refused to the sick and languid that refreshment they so greatly needed. The dryness of the wind which so often prevailed at this season, removed the moisture from the body as soon as it was formed, and produced an amount of lassitude difficult to describe. If the nights had been fresh, the effects produced on the sick by this weather would have been less destructive than they were, but, unfortunately, the breeze often died away at sunset, and rendered the evening hours very exhausting. After the unfortunate assault of the 18th of June, this circumstance was very marked, and proved highly injurious to the wounded.