A considerable number of sick men (217) were sent down on the 10th from the camp to Balaklava. There were many bad cases of scurvy and of scorbutic dysentery among the men; and yet vegetables of all sorts, and lemons and oranges, were to be found in abundance, or could have been purchased in any quantities, all along the shores of the Black Sea and the Sea of Marmora. No one could say there were no ships to bring them. Balaklava contained ships which had been lying here for weeks — ay, for months — doing nothing. The splendid screw steamer Jason fitted up especially as a horse transport, came in many days before from Ismed laden with a cargo of wood for fuel. The expenses of such a large vessel must have been enormous, and yet she had been in harbour for nearly a fortnight doing nothing.
The 11th was a day quite worthy of "General Février's" gratitude — bleak, raw, and stormy; the wind raging furiously between intervals of profound calm — the sky invisible in a murky sheet, from which fell incessant showers of rain, sleet, or snow alternately, or altogether — and the landscape shut out of sight at a few yards' distance by the grey walls of drizzling clouds and vapour. It{218} might be imagined that no one who could help it stirred out; a few drenched fatigue parties and some artillery wagons sent down for shot and shell were all one could see between Balaklava and the camp, and in the front all was silent — not a gun was fired the greater part of the day, and the popping of rifles also nearly ceased.