Soon after five o'clock on the morning of the 31st of July a most violent storm of wind and rain commenced. It caused much discomfort and actual damage in the camp, over which it raged with combined fury and obstinacy which I do not remember to have seen surpassed. The extensive portion of the camp, of which I commanded a view from my hut, was converted into a lake, the rain descending much faster than it could sink into the earth. Over the surface of this lake the rain was borne in clouds by the driving wind, and formed a sort of watery curtain through which the soaked tents looked dreary and dismal enough. The shelter which they offered, imperfect as it was, was sought, and only here{310} and there a drenched figure was to be seen struggling 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 again 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'armée." 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 — France and Austria — has evidently watched with attention the progress and improvements which have been introduced into the military systems of these two neighbouring empires, and adapted their experiments in these matters to her own advantage. In the autumn of every year a concentration of 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{311} one could scarcely distinguish French cavalry manœuvring from Piedmontese, were it not for the difference in the seat of the riders. The manège is decidedly Austrian.