Being anxious to get a letter off by the post ere it started from Kamiesch, and not being aware that the expedition had been countermanded, I started early in the morning for the post-office marquee through a blinding storm of snow. The wind bowled fiercely over the plain; it was so laden with snow that it was quite palpable, and had a strange solid feel about it as it drifted in endless wreaths of fine small flakes, which penetrated the interstices of the clothing, and blinded horse and man. For some time I managed to get on very well, for the track was beaten and familiar. I joined a convoy of artillerymen, but at last the drifts became so thick that it was utterly impossible to see to the right or left for a horse's length. I bore away a little, and soon after met a solitary pedestrian, who wanted to know the way to Balaklava. I sincerely trust he got there by my directions. As he was coming from Lord Raglan's he confirmed me in the justice of my views concerning the route, and I rode off to warn my friends, the artillerymen of their mistake. They were not to be found. I had only left them three or four minutes, and yet they had passed away as completely as if the earth had swallowed them up. So I turned on my way, as I thought, and, riding right into the wind's eye, made at the best pace I could force the horse to put forth, for my destination.
It was not above an hour's ride on a bad day, and yet at the end of two hours I had not only not arrived, but I could not make out one of the landmarks which denoted an approach to it. Tents, and hill-sides, and jutting rocks, all had disappeared, and nothing was visible above, around, below, but one white sheet drawn, as it were, close around me, This was decidedly unpleasant, but there was no help for it but to ride on, and trust to Providence. The sea or the lines would soon bring one up. Still the horse went on snorting out the snow from his nostrils, and tossing his head to clear the drift from his eyes and ears; and yet no tent, no man — not a soul to be seen in this peninsula, swarming with myriads of soldiery.
Three hours passed! — Where on earth can I be? Is this enchantment? Has the army here, the lines of trenches, and Sebastopol itself, gone clean off the face of the earth? Every instant the snow fell thicker and thicker. The horse stopped at last, and refused to go on against the storm. A dark form rushed by with a quick snarling bark — it is a wolf or a wild dog, and the horse rushed on afrighted. The cold pierced my bones as he faced the gale, now and then he plunged above the knees into snow-drifts, which were rapidly forming at every hillock and furrow in the ground; a good deep fallow — a well or pit — might have put aspeedy termination to one's fears and anxiety at a moment's notice.
My eyes were bleared and sore striving to catch a glimpse of tent or man, and to avoid the dangers in our path. Suddenly I plunged in amongst a quantity of brushwood — sure and certain signs that I had gone far astray indeed, and that I was removed from the camp and the wood-cutter. The notion flashed across me that the wind might have changed, and that in riding against it I might have shaped my course for the Tchernaya and the Russian lines. The idea of becoming the property of a Cossack picket was by no means a pleasant ingredient in one's thoughts at such a moment. Still what was to be done? My hands and feet were becoming insensible from the cold, and my face and eyes were exceedingly painful.
There was no help for it but to push on before nightfall. That would indeed have been a serious evil. There was a break in the snowdrift, and I saw to my astonishment a church dome and spires which vanished in a moment. I must either be close to Kamara or to Sebastopol, and that the church was in either of those widely separated localities. The only thing to do was to bear to the left to regain our lines, though I could not help wondering where on earth the French works were, if it was indeed Sebastopol. I had not ridden very far when, through the ravings of the wind, I heard a hoarse roar, and could just make out a great black wall rising up through the snow. The position was clear at once. I was on the edge of the tremendous precipices which overhang the sea near Cape Fiolente! I was close to the Monastery of St. George. Dismounting, and leading my horse carefully, I felt my way through the storm, and at last arrived at the monastery. A Zouave was shooting larks ouit of a sentry-box; he took my horse to the stable, and showed me the way to the guardhouse, where his comrades were enjoying the comforts of a blazing fire.