The railway is perhaps the best test of the gigantic activity which prevails: numbers of mortars and large quantities of ammunition are daily transported by it, and vanish again silently, to be replaced by others. The trenches give one a good idea of an unfathomable abj'ss, such an incredible mass of mortars, guns, shells, and shot, do they swallow up. When they will be satiated, and when the word " enough" Avill be spoken, seem as uncertain as Crimean weather. I was told a few days ago, by a French officer of artillery, that 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 cor2)s d'armee." But if the Russians lose many men by sickness, the}^ replace them somehow or other. Numbers of stories are in circulation about the formidable forces which have come, and are still coming down this way, and apprehensions of an attack on the Tchernaya line gain ground daily. In the meantime, not even with the aid of the most powerful telescopes, can the approach of this formidable force be discovered, and the Russians content themselves with firing a shot now and then from the batteries on the Mackenzie-ridge at the harmless sheep and cattle sent by the French over the Tchernaya to graze, or on the horses going down for water.
However improbable all tliese appreliensioiis about an Iiiipend-- ing attack of the Russians may be, there is one advantage connected with them — tliey impart a certain amomat of life and activity to the armies occupying the Tchcrnaya line. Without some such stimulant the men would be overpowered by ennui; moreover, these flying reports act as a kind of corrective against sickness. In winter, the troops engaged in the trenches sutfered much more from sickness than those in the rear on the heights bej'ond Balaklava; now the reverse is the case, and the troops in the trenches are in better health than those at the Tchernaya. Of course, inactivity is just as fatal to a body of troops as overwork. The Turks alone form an exception.
I do not think that they covdd be injured by any amount oi faineantisme. The loss in the Sardinian army may be in some measure attributed to the want of excitement, which has engendered a morbid, hj^DOchondrlac feeling, and this produces a great deal of illness. Yet, with all its losses, the Sardinian contingent is still a fine body of men. I went the day before j'esterday to see their church parade, which is held every Sunday, and at which all the troops not on duty are present. The ground chosen for this ceremony is a slope leading from Kamara towards the plain of Balaklava. The troops occupy three sides of a square, and on the fourth, which is the highest, a tent is erected in which mass is celebrated.
They have an excellent band, and it plays during the service. The whole ceremony reminds one very much of the church parades of the Austrian army. After the service was over, the troops defiled before General della Marmora: first, the infantry, and then the artillery. The men, although perhaps not quite so tall as those in the old English regiments, are considerably above the average of French troops. After the infantry came the artillery in their short blue tunics, with yellow facings. When the defi.ling was over, the cavalry went through some short evolutions. Although collected from several regiments, each of which furnished a squadron, as every regiment of infantry furnished a battalion, they executed their manoeuvres with beautiful precision. The horses, although inferior in size and breeding to the English cavalry horses, are compact and useful-looking animals.
They are mostly of the Italian breed, much improved by Arab blood. 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 vox. II. D 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 waiof 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 dillbrent systems. The result is a blending of the two in arms, accoutrements, administration, and movements.