Exposure to the heavy dews of the ]\Iediterranean, and want of proper rest — for sleep refreshes little that is snatched in one's clothes on a ship's deck — during a period of two or three weeks, is not a good means of preparing youths, as yet uninured to hardships, for those they inevitably must encounter in a Crimean campaign. Nor is it to be borne that shipowners, who are making enormous fortunes by the war, should thus ill pei'form their part of the contract. Some of the officers on board the "Cambria" were suffering, when they arrived here, from diarrhoea, probably induced by the circumstances above detailed. By the same number of passengers of mature age and greater experience, the general state of the vessel's accommodation and service would doubtless have been made matter of serious complaint and protest; but those by the Cambria were, with few exceptions, mere lads, too full of anticipations to dwell upon the disagreeables of the voyage when once the haven was in sigiit.
Avnust ■>. The news of the day is the recal of General Canrobert. No cause is assigned, but it is felt that his position was awkward, as subordinate to Generals Pelissier and Bosquet, whom he lately commanded. The recent rains have brought a slight return of cholera. The day before yesterday the 72nd buried ten men, dead of that complaint; but the 72nd is a recent arrival out here, and may therefore be expected to suffer more than others. As a general rule, wet appears to bring cholera, and heat dysentery. At present there is little fever. The sanitary state of the French army is, as far as I can ascertain, pretty satisfactory; there is some cholera, but not to a great extent, and it arises chiefly from severe duty in the wet trenches.
An officer came off that duty at four o'clock yesterday morning, and at eight he was a corpse. To-day, as I was riding along the Woronzoff road, I overtook a French battalion returning from duty in the trenches • — their clothes, from heel to collar, and their muskets, smeared and begrimed with mud. They mai-ched briskly enough, but one poor fellow, who hung in the rear, at last fell by the roadside, deadly sick — the sweat literally raining from his fiice. The trenches are converted into ponds and sloughs by the late bad weather. To-day is sunny and windy, and things are drying up. One ravine, down which the French habitually pass, was yesterday a torrent five feet deep, by which some men were nearly carried awa}^ The Eussian steamers continue to annoy our allies in the night time with grape.
The French are constructing batteries to command the Russian fleet, and so to facilitate an attack on the Malakhoff". As soon as all are complete, it appears the opinion of the French that the JMalakhoff •will again be assailed. These say that their approaches are now brought within about a hundred metres (110 or 115 yards) of the enemy's position, and that the engineers can go no further. The distance appears to be, and probably is, rather greater than that. On the 31st of July the 30th Regiment and 3rd Buffs were reviewed by General ]\Iark]iam. The Duke of Newcastle is in camp, quartered in General Bentinck's tents. Aiigmt 4. There has been a good deal of firing these last two nights. The night before last the Russians made a sortie, but were driven back.
Thej^ carried away five yards of the chevaitx de frise on the Woronzofl' road. Their reserves were very strong. It is thought they desire to distract our attention from the point they really mean to assail, which some suppose to be the Cemetery. Reports of an approaching attack on the Malalchoff, for which various dates are conjectured, continue to circulate. It is time that something were done, if anything is to be. From the 18th of June to the 4th of August is a long time (in the best season of the 3'ear) to spend in inaction before a battered wall, battered but not yet breached. Tt is but discouraging work for the troops to be marcbecl down nig-ht after niglit to the trenches, there to be pelted with sliot and shell, with a feeling that nothing is gained by the exposure.