In times to come this Cathcart's Hill will be a chosen terminus of Saxon pilgrimage. Whether the traveller beholds from its humble parapet the fair aspect of the Imperial city, guarded by threefold mightier batteries than before, or sits upon the Cemetery wall to gaze upon the ruins of Sebastopol, he must, if he has any British blood in his veins, regard with emotion that little spot which encloses all that was mortal of some of the noblest soldiers that ever sprang from our warrior race. He will see the site of those tedious trenches where the strong man waxed weak day after day, and the sanguine became hopeless, and where the British soldier fought through a terrible winter with privation, cold, frost, snow, and rain, more terrible and deadly than the fire of the enemy. With the Redan, the Malakoff, the Quarries, the Mamelon, Gordon's Attack, Chapman's Attack, under his eyes, he will revive with the aspect of the places where they stood the memories of this great struggle, and in his mind the incidents of its history will be renewed.
The Cemetery is a parallelogram of about forty yards long by thirty broad, formed by the base of a ruined wall, which might in former days have marked the lines of a Tartar fort, or have been the first Russian redoubt to watch over the infancy of Sebastopol. Although many a humble tumulus indicated to the eye of affection the place where some beloved comrade rests till the last reveillée, the care and love of friends had left memorials in solid stone of most of those whose remains were buried in this spot. The first grave towards the front and west of the Cemetery consisted of a simple mound of earth. I know not whose remains lie below. The second was marked by a simple slab, with the following inscription: — "Sacred to the memory of Lieutenant H. Tryon, Rifle Brigade, killed in action on the 20th of November, 1854." He was a thorough soldier, brave, cool, and resolute, and in the terrible crisis of Inkerman he used a rifle with more deadly certainty and success than any of his men. In the struggle for the "Ovens" on the 20th of November, in which a small body of the Rifle Brigade dislodged a force of the enemy much greater than their own, he displayed such gallantry that General Canrobert paid him the rare honour of a special mention in the next "General Order of the Day" for the French army. Next to his reposed the remains of a lamented officer. The stone recorded his name, "Sacred to the memory of Brigadier-General Thomas Leigh Goldie, commanding the first Brigade of the 4th Division of the British army, Lieutenant-Colonel of the 57th Regiment, who fell at Inkerman, November 5, 1854." No. 4 was a rude cross of stone, without mark or name. The fifth grave was distinguished by a stone cross at the feet, and at the head was a slab with an ornamental top, beneath which was written, "Sacred to the memory of Brigadier-General Fox Strangways, killed in action November 5, 1854." A few lines in Russian asked the Christian forbearance of our enemies upon our departure for the bones of one whom they would have admired and loved had they known him. No. 6 was conspicuous by a large tombstone, with an ornamental cross at the top, and some simple efforts at the chisel at the sides and base. Come and read! "Here lieth the mortal remains of Captain Edward Stanley, 57th Regiment, killed at the battle of Inkerman, November 5, 1854, to whose memory this stone is erected by the men of his company — 'Cast down but not destroyed,' 2 Corinthians, iv. 9." Who will not look with respect on the tombs of{500} these poor soldiers, and who does not feel envy for the lot of men so honoured? There were fourteen other graves in the same row, of which only one could be identified.