On these Arcadian couches, which, with a higher temperature and beneath a serener sky, a Sybarite might not have disdained, our tentless Army betook themselves to repose. As the night wore on, the rain increased in violence, and for hours it poured down in sheets of water, whose weight and volume mocked the powers of resistance of great-coats and blankets, and only found an impervious aquascutum in the human skin. The General and the private soldier shared the exposure alike, and one only embraced in the former category, thanks to the care of his staff, was provided with shelter from this " pitiless pelting." All were alike rejoiced when daylight enabled them to rise from the pools into which their bed-places had been converted, and, by a process the secret of which is confined to campaigners, obtain fire from such pieces of damp brushwood as could be collected on the spot, and thus cook their meal, which, if not a sumptuous one, wanted not at any rate the most undeniable of sauces. During the day the Artillery and the Cavalry were landed in spite of a heavy sea and a dangerous surf, and, though some horses were lost, this difficult operation was accomplished on the whole most successfully.
The three following days were spent in recruiting the strength of the men, and in the indispensable preparations for an advance in the direction of the river Alma, on the opposite bank of which it was now understood that the enemy held a strongly intrenched position in considerable force. On the 18th Lord Raglan gave orders that the tents which had been landed after the discomforts of the first night should be struck at daybreak, and sent back on board ship; and on the 19th this order was carried out, and the AUies commenced their forward movement in the direction of Sebastopol.
As we are approaching a period marked by events whose interest is even now almost as intense as at the moment when they occurred, and whose stirring nature will give small scope for digression in the narrative, it may not be amiss, ere we are carried along in the fuU rush of the resistless tide, to avail ourselves of this opportunity to take a brief glance at the geography of the invaded country, and the then resources and prospects of its defenders. In the former of these inquiries we shall be much indebted to the accurate research and clear statements of Mr. Milner's recent work on the Crimea, who thus commences a more extended sketch of the physical geography of the country than would be consistent with our limits. " The Crimea, formerly called Crim Tartary, and in remoter times known by the designation of Taurica Chersonesus, is a peninsula on the Northern Shore of the Black Sea, projecting into it from the mainland of Southern Russia. It forms part of the extreme SouthEastern corner of Europe. The territory henceforth of celebrity in our annals lies between the meridians of 32° 45' and 36° 39' East longitude, and between the parallels of 44° 40' and 46° 5' North latitude; thus corresponding in its latitudinal position with the North of Italy and the South of France. It extends rather more than 130 miles from North to South, by 170 miles from West to East; but the latter direction embraces a long narrow strip of country abutting eastward from the main mass. The total area is estimated at 10,050 square miles, which is equal to that of our own principality of Wales, with the addition to it of the English border-counties." This peninsula is joined to the mainland by the Isthmus of Perekop, which is about seventeen miles in length by five in breadth, and is so nearly flush with the level of the seas on either side as to countenance the not improbable hypothesis that the Crimea was once actually an island. There are three small peninsulas comprised within the main one, to all of which a peculiar interest of their own, derived from the history either of the past or of the present, is attached. The first of these, the Spit of Arabat, is a narrow strip of land seventy miles in length, and often not more than a quarter of a mile in breadth, dividing the Putrid Sea from the Sea of Azoff", which communicate with each other through the confined channel of the Strait of Genatch or Gcnitchi. " Here," adds the author from whom we have quoted above, " a bridge connects the peninsula with the mainland of Russia, and by this route the chief intercourse between the Eastern part of the Crimea and the Continent was carried on." But, thanks to the indefatigable zeal of Sir Edmund Lyons and the ofiicers of the fleet, and to the enterprise.