and there a drenched figure was to be seen straggling through the blast. In the pens the mules and horses hung their heads mournfully, enduring, with melancholy philosophy, the inevitable and unwelcome douche. In sundry nooks and corners to the leeward of tents, and under the eaves of huts, the camp fowls took refuge, with drooping plumes, and that look of profound discomfort peculiar to poultry under difficulties. Even the furious war of the elements did not arrest the strife between man and man, and from time to time, above the roar of the wind and the plash of the rain, the boom of a gun reached us.
I was told by a French officer of Artillery, that General Pelissier, on being asked when offensive siege operations would be a^ain resumed, said, " Well, I don't know: the Russians are losing every day 300 or 400 men by sickness. If we wait a week, they will have lost a brigade; if we wait a month, they will have lost a corps d'armee." But if the.Russians lost many men by sickness, they managed to replace them. Numbers of stories were in circulation about the formidable forces which had come, and kept coming, and apprehensions of an attack upon the Tchernaya line gained ground daily.-
On the night of August 2nd, between ten and eleven o'clock, p.m., the Russians sallied out of the town by the Woronzoff Road, and advanced to the heavy iron frieze placed across the Woronzoff Road, between the left and right attacks. The advanced picket at the chevaux de frise was commanded by Lieutenant R. E. Carr, of the 39th Regiment, who behaved with coolness and gallantry. He fell back slowly, keeping up a fire on the Russians, to the 'advanced trench guard, under Captain Lackie, 39th Regiment. The trench guard on the right of the fourth parallel, under Captain Boyle, 89th, and Captain Turner, 1st Royals, checked the enemy, and they retired after ten minutes' firing, leaving a few men killed behind them,, and carrying off a part of the barrier.
Piedmont, placed as it is between two great military Powers — has evidently watched with attention the progress and improvements whio.h have been introduced into the military systems of these two neighbouring pffipiVnn.rmrr ^ffop+Q d their experiments in these matters to her own advantage. In the autumn of every year a colicentrat^n^oT troops takes place in Lombardy, and before the war of 1848 numbers of Piedmontese officers used to assemble there. The same was, and I think is still, the case whenever a camp is collected in the south of France. Thus they had the opportunity of studying two, in many respects, very different systems. The result is a blending of the two in arms, accoutrements, administration, and movements. For instance, the infantry is dressed in French fashion, with leather gaiters under the trousers, the long coat reaching to the knees; the only exception being the shako, which more resembles the Austrian shako than the French kepi. The cavalry and the artillery, on the contrary, wear the short tunic of the Austrian cavalry and artillery. For the movements of infantry as well as of cavalry the French manual has been exclusively adopted, and at some distance one could scarcely distinguish French cavalry manoeuvring from Piedmontese, were it not for the difference in the seat of the riders, The manege is decidedly Austrian.
The spirit of the Piedmontese army — I mean, the relations existing between soldiers and officers, and of the intercourse of the latter with one another — is, however, more analagous to that of the English than to that of either the French or Austrian armies. It is neither the easy familiarity which exists between the French officer and soldier, nor that " beggar- on-horseback "-like tyranny of the officer and the unwilling slavishness of the soldier which characterize the Austrian army. The officers in the Piedmontese, like those in the English Army, belong almost exclusively to the higher classes, and only rarely does an officer rise from the ranks, so that the distance between officer and soldier is not one of mere discipline, but social; and, however the spirit of Republicanism and the longing for equality may be developed in other states of Italy, Piedmont does not seem to be impregnated with it, and the system adopted of choosing for officers men from the higher classes answers very well. On the other hand, the officers themselves associate much in the same manner as in the English Army. When official business is over and social intercourse begins, the difference between the higher and lower officer entirely ceases, and they associate as gentlemen are wont to do.