./Eolus must have taken his abode somewhere in the neighbourhood of Gallipoli since he removed his Court from Lipari. The unseasonable rapidity with which he opens his bags, and the violence with which he sends forth the sharpest and most truculent of all the winds to sweep over the hills around this miserable spot, would satisfy Juno in her most indignant mood if the place were a Trojan colony. The extraordinary suddenness of these changes and the excessive variations of temperature were very trying to the men in camp, but the average of illness and disease was rather below that of most camps in ordinary circumstances. The sun rises, perchance, from behind the hills of Asia Minor without a cloud to mar his splendour; the Sea of Marmora, bounded by the faint blue lines of the highlands of Asia and the distinctive sweep of the European coast, spreads out towards the north-west like a sheet of
CRIMEA.
burnished silver; the Dardanelles flows swiftly between the contracted channel as smoothly as the Thames in summer time by the pleasant meads of Chertsey. There is a rich sylvan look about the scenery, for at a distance the hills around Lampsaki, across the straits, appear to be dotted with verdant lawns and plantations; and the outline of the high grounds, rising tier after tier till they are capped by the lofty range which stretches along the background from Ida in the Troad, is subdued and regular.
The villages built in the recesses of the hills and in the little bays and creeks of the straits, surrounded by all the enchantment of distance, look clean and picturesque, the dark groves of cypress casting into bright relief the whitewash of the houses and the tall shafts of minarets standing out gracefully from the confused mass of roofs, gables, masts, yards, and sails by the seaside. Further south the coasts close in abruptly, and the straits are like a long Highland loch. The land around Gallipoli on the European side of the straits is more bleak and more level. Indeed, for miles around the town (except towards the south, where there is a very small table-land with patches of trees), and all the way across to the Gulf of Saros, the country very much resembles the downs about Brighton. It is nearly as destitute of wood or plantations. The soil, which is light, but deep and rather sandy, produces excellent crops, but bears no trees, except a few figs and olives. The vines, which are planted in rows, not trailed as in Italy, are abundant, and the grape yields a rich, full, and generous wine, which ishighly esteemed. Into the soil, which is just scratched up by ploughs rather inferior to those described by Yirgil 1800 years ago, the dejected rayahs are busied throwing the corn and barley seed: and as the slow steers or huge lumbering buffaloes pace along the furrows, they are followed by a stately army of storks, which march gravely at the very heels of beast and ploughman, and engage themselves busily in destroying the grubs and larva?. On all the heights around glisten the white tents of French or English, and here and there the eye rests upon their serrated lines on the slope of some pleasant valley, or lights on the encampment of some detached party posted in a recess of the hills. Faint clouds of dust, through which may be seen the glistening of steel and dark masses of uniform, blur the landscape here and there, and betray the march of troops along the sandy roads, which are exactly like those worn by the tramp of men and horses through Chobhamcommon, and had neither fence, boundary-metal, nor drainage.
In a moment the whole scene changes. A violent storm of wind rushes over the face of the sea and straits, lashing them into fury, and sending the Turkish boats flying with drooping peaks to the shelter of the shore — the coast is obscured by masses of black clouds, which burst into torrents of rain resembling tropical waterspouts. The French men-of-war in the bay send down top masts, the merchantmen run out cable and let go another anchor; the rayahs plod across the fields, and crouch in holes and corners till the storm abates; and the luckless troops on their inarch are covered with mud by the action of the rain. In such times as these canvas is a sorry shelter — the pegs draw from the loose soil, and let in wind and rain. On Saturday, the 29th of April, tents were blown down by snch a storm in all directions. In the two English camps about twenty were down at the same time, and exposed the men to all the drenching rain. Lady Errol, who was living with her husband in the Rifle Camp, had to crawl from under the dripping canvas in most sorry plight.