To whom? Can a campaign be played out, like a game of chess, by electric telegraph? September 21. This stillness, Avhich is almost startling after the mighty tumults which have broken on our ears for a long j^ear, still continues. Tliere is not a sound to break the silence in the camps except the boom of an occasional gun from Fort Constantine or the dull report of the French mortars. The fleet — what good is it here, now that the Hussians have sunk and destroyed their ships, and that the Admirals tacitly admit that they cannot force a passage? — the fleet has even given up practising, and the mortar-boats jjet steam up and let it off ag-ain, and that is all.
At daybreak this morninf^ I saw through the mist on the Mackenzie ridji^e a numerous line of watchfires, and later in the early lij^^ht a sti'ong column of the Russian infantry was visible in bivouac to our right of the telegraph station and to the left of the Spur Battery, near the Mackenzie road. Part of these marched away agiiin in the course of the day. The rest remain in the same place and are busy hutting themselves, an operation which they perform with great skill and alacrity. They were encamped in a sort of chapparell, and they have abeady cleared a good bit of it and converted the branches into the sides and coverings of theuhuts. Their arms were piled when they iirst arrived at the bivouac, but three hours later the glistening barrels and bayonets had disappeared, having possibly been placed in some dry and secm-e place.
The recent heavy rains will fill all the wells and swell the water-courses of this disti'ict, and it will no longer be untenable by large bodies of men. Having secured their right flanlc by the very formidable earthworks and batteries which we are permitting the enemy even now to erect, in addition to thenformer defences and their regular forts, the Russians will no doubt direct the bulk of their army to protect theucentre resting on the Tchernaya and Mackenzie, and their left at Aitodor, and on the Upper Belbek to Bakshiserai. They seem prepared to hold this extensive line, and we appear at present by no means ready or willing to attack it. As the allies can scarcely spare men enough to send to Eupatoria, and thence to march on Simpheropol, or to force the Russian position on the Belbek by a moving corps to operate against them from the north, and as there is no apparent intention of attacking them from Inkermann or the Tchernaya, this dead lock may last longer than we think, and. is likely enough not to be relaxed this winter.
The quantity of stores removed by the Russians from the north side to their new depot shows that they are not in want of provisions, unless they take the trouble to caiTy dummy sacks and fill their carts with " make-believes." It may and must be difficult for them to feed their army, but, somehow or other, they do so. They left considerable quantities of food behind them Vl\ the city; large flocks and herds (many of which, however, may be araba oxen) stud the plains near the citadel. The soldiers who fell into the hands of the Sardinians and French on the 16th of August carried abundance of bread and spirits, and we hear they had meat and £00 FIRST FRUITS OF A'ICTORY. plenty of everything except water, when they came down to attack the allies.
It" matters come to the Avorst, the stoiiiaoh of the ]\Iujik soldier is as well able to dii;;est araba ox beef as the stomachs of the hungry Highlanders, who did not despise that very muscular fibre one day after our landing at Gallipoli; so that, altogether, I am not so very sanguine as to think the liussians will be forced to abandt>n their ])osition on the approach of winter. The country around tliem will supply abundance of wood for fuel, and they are skilled in makingcomfortable and warm underground huts. The enemy, therefore, will be as well housed as the allies, supposing the latter succeed in getting up huts before the winter sets in. " Leaving them alone" will never drive a Kussian army out of the field; the only thing to do that is the French and English bayonet, and plenty of fighting.
About noon to-day a flag of truce came in from the fleet, and •was met near Tort Constantine by a Russian boat. The conference did not last very long, and its object has not yet transpired. The French mortars and guns were not silent while the flags were flying. Their mortar battery, which is protected by the walls of Fort Xicholas, keeps up a constant fire of bombs against the quadrangular storehouse. In addition to the fire which their shells caused inside yesterday, the French sent two bombs through the roof of the building to-da3% and they are rapidlj'' defacing its external Avails. Their practice is very variable, owing probably to the imperfect manufacture of theii* shells, -which are frequently of unequal Aveight, and are consequently of uncertain range.