It may be true that the enemy were suffering still more than our own men, but the calculation of equal losses on the part of England and on the part of Russia in the article of soldiery, cannot be regarded as an ingredient in the consideration of our position. Our force was deprived of about 100 men every twenty-four hours. There were between 7000 and 8000 men sick, wounded, and convalescent in the hospitals on the Bosphorus. The 39th Regiment before it had landed was provided with some protection against the severity of the weather — not by government, but by The Times Commissioner at Scutari: and I heard from the best authority that the bounty of the subscribers to the fund intrusted to The Times for distribution was not only well bestowed to the men, but that the officers of the regiments had evinced the greatest satisfaction at the comfort.
"When the various articles sent up by The Times Commissioner arrived at the camp, there was a rush made to get them by the regimental medical officers, and no false delicacy was evinced by them in availing themselves of the luxuries and necessaries placed at their diposal, and of which they had been in so much need.
We had rather a dreary Christmas. Where were the offerings of our kind country-men and country-women, and the donations from our ducal parks? The fat bucks which had exhausted the conservative principles of a Gunter; the potted meats, which covered the decks and filled the holds of adventurous yachts; the worsted devices which had employed the fingers and emptied the crotchet-boxes of fair sympathizers at home?
Omar Pasha arrived on the 4th of January, on hoard the " Inflexible," and landed at the Ordnance-wharf. A council of war? — was held, at which the French General-in-Chief, the French Admiral, Sir E. Lyons, and Sir John Burgoyne, were present.
Next day, 1600 French were sent down to Balaklava to help us in carrying up provisions and ammunition. Each man received from our commissariat a ration of rum and biscuits.
The scenery of our camping ground and of the adjacent country assumed a wintry aspect. The lofty abrupt peaks and sharp ridges of the mountains which closed up the valley of Balaklava were covered with snow. On the tops of the distant mounds black figures, which appeared of enormous size, denoted the stations of the enemy's pickets and advanced posts.
The 63rd Regiment had only seven men fit for duty; the 46th had only thirty on the 7th. A strong company of the 90th was reduced in a week to fourteen file, and that regiment lost fifty men in a fortnight. The Scots Fusileer Guards, who had 1562 men, mustered 210 on parade. Other regiments suffered in like proportion. The men sought after ardent spirits with great avidity, and in carrying out rum to camp broached the kegs when the eye of the officer in charge was off them.
The duty of the fatigue parties was, indeed, very trying. A cask of rum, biscuit, or beef was slung from a stout pole between two men, and then they went off on a tramp of about five miles from the commissariat stores at Balaklava to head- quarters. As I was coming in from the front one day, I met a lad who could not long have joined in charge of a party of the 38th Regiment. He had taken the place of a tired man, and struggled along under his load, while the man at the other end of the pole exhausted the little breath he had left in appeals to his comrades. "Boys! boys! won't you come and relieve the young officer? " Horses could not do this work, for they could not keep their legs.
Hundreds of men had to go into the trenches at night with no covering but their greatcoats, and no protection for their feet but their regimental shoes. Many when they took off their shoes were unable to get their swollen feet into them again, and they might be seen bare-footed, hopping along about the camp, with the thermometer at twenty degrees, and the snow half a foot deep upon the ground. The trenches were two and three feet deep with mud, snow, and half- frozen slush. Our patent stoves were wretched. They were made of thin sheet iron, which could not stand our fuel — charcoal. Besides, they were mere poison manufactories, and they could not be left alight in the tents at night. They answered wTell for drying clothes.
I do not know how the French got on, but I know that our people did not get a fair chance for their lives while wintering in the Crimea. Providence had been very good to us. With one exception, which must have done as much mischief to the enemy as to ourselves, we had wonderful weather from the day the expedition landed in the Crimea.
One day as I was passing through the camp of the 5th (French)
V CRIMEA.