But the armies of the allies were about to enter upon the career of active warfare, and to escape from a spot fraught with memories of death unredeemed by a ray of glory. It was no secret that in the middle of July a council of generals and admirals had, by a majority, overcome the timides avis of some, and had decided upon an expedition to the Crimea, in compliance with the positive orders of the English Cabinet, and with the less decided suggestions of the Emperor of the French. That project had been arrested by the sickness and calamities which had fallen on the French and English armies, but it had not been abandoned.
In the second week in August the cholera assumed such an alarming character that both Admirals (French and English) resolved to leave their anchorage at Baltschik, and stand out to sea for a cruise. On Wednesday the 16th the Caradoc, Lieutenant Derriman, which left Constantinople with the mails for the fleet and army the previous evening, came up with the English fleet. The Caradoc was boarded by a boat from the Britannia, and the officer who came on board communicated the appalling intelligence that the flag-ship had lost 70 men since she left Baltschik, and that she had buried 10 men that morning. Upwards of 100 men were on the{64} sick list at that time. Some of the other ships had lost several men, but not in the same proportion.
After the great fire on the night of the 10th the cholera seemed to diminish in the town itself, and the reports from the various camps were much more favourable than before. The British army was scattered broadcast all over the country, from Monastir to Varna, a distance of twenty-six or twenty-seven miles. The Duke of Cambridge's division marched in from Aladyn, and encamped towards the south-western side of the bay. It appeared that notwithstanding the exquisite beauty of the country around Aladyn, it was a hot-bed of fever and dysentery. The same was true of Devno, which was called by the Turks "the Valley of Death;" and had we consulted the natives ere we pitched our camps, we assuredly should never have gone either to Aladyn or Devno, notwithstanding the charms of their position and the temptations offered by the abundant supply of water and by the adjacent woods. It was the duty of the general in command to pay attention to the representations of the medical officers and the traditions of the natives, which assigned to this locality a most unfavourable character for the preservation of health.
Whoever gazed on these rich meadows, stretching for long miles away, and bordered by heights on which the dense forests struggled all but in vain to pierce the masses of wild vine, clematis, dwarf acacia, and many-coloured brushwoods — on the verdant hill-sides, and on the dancing waters of lake and stream below, lighted up by the golden rays of a Bulgarian summer's sun — might well have imagined that no English glade or hill-top could well be healthier or better suited for the residence of man. But these meadows nurtured the fever, the ague, dysentery, and pestilence in their bosom — the lake and the stream exhaled death, and at night fat unctuous vapours rose fold after fold from the valleys, and crept up in the dark and stole into the tent of the sleeper and wrapped him in their deadly embrace. So completely exhausted was the Brigade of Guards, that these 3,000 men, the flower of England, had to make two marches from Aladyn to Varna, which was not more than (not so much many people said as) ten miles. Their packs were carried for them. How astonished must have been the good people of England, sitting anxiously in their homes, day after day, expecting every morning to gladden their eyes with the sight of the announcement, in large type, of "Fall of Sebastopol," when they heard that their Guards — their corps d'élite — the pride of their hearts — the delight of their eyes — these Anakims, whose stature, strength, and massive bulk they exhibited to kingly visitors as no inapt symbols of our nation, had been so reduced by sickness, disease, and a depressing climate, that it was judged inexpedient to allow them to carry their own packs, or to permit them to march more than five miles a day, even though these packs were carried for them! In the Brigade there were before the march to Varna upwards of 600 sick men.