Visits to the Alma

"The Katcha is a deep narrow stream with rotten banks, and some people think it would have afforded a better position than the Alma; but, in fact, it is too near Sebastopol. We found a few Russian soldiers in the houses; and on the first occasion it happened to be the Greek Easter Sunday, and we were most{486} hospitably entertained by a poor Russian family, who insisted on our partaking of painted eggs, of salt pork steeped in vinegar, and cabbage, of brown bread, butter, vodka, or white home-made brandy, and Crim tobacco, and then on embracing us because we were Christians — a severe punishment, which, if often repeated, might lead to recantation. Crossing the Katcha by the bridge over which our army filed into Eskel, we find ourselves on the steppe — the dry barren plain studded with tumuli, which extends in wavy folds right away to Perekop. At this season of the year it is glorious with large beds of wild flowers, sweet-pea, roses, mignonette, thyme, orchids of all kinds, sweet-william, and many other varieties, whose tame and developed species are the ornaments of our gardens at home; it is musical, too, with the song of birds singing to their mates in the nest; but in September it is an arid, scorched waste, covered with coarse hay, and as it is devoid of water, it is unfit for pasturage. The ride to the Alma from the Katcha is not more than eight miles, but it seems twice the distance. The white telegraph station over the river, which stood on the Russian left, can be seen for many miles on a clear day, but on the steppe mirage is very common, and the horizon is rarely well defined. It is often lost in a fantastic margin resembling the sealine of an agitated ocean. Bustards, on the qui vive about their young ones, soar slowly before us, and eagles, vultures, and many species of falcons are visible in pursuit of their prey, which must consist for the most part of hares, which are very large and numerous. Some of these hares have been found to weigh ten or twelve pounds, and I have heard of a monster who turned the scale at fourteen pounds. In one of the hollows in the steppe, about three miles from the Alma, there is a small hamlet, but, with this exception, not a habitation is visible over the whole of this vast expanse of land. It is famous ground for a long canter, or as much of a gallop as your horse will stand; so with the help of an occasional scurry after a hare the distance melts away, and as we go crashing through the sweet flowers, the telegraph rises higher and clearer till we pull up at the foot of the mound on which it stands. This was the scene of a fierce struggle, and it was here the French had some really hard fighting before they forced the enemy to fly.