The soldiers are exceedingljhealth}-, and we have escaped, thank God, the diseases of the Crimean September in a wonderful manner. In order to prevent ennui or listlessness after the great excitement of so many months in the trenches, the Generals of Division are taking pains to drill our veterans, and to renew the long-forgotten pleasures of parades, field-days, and inspections. In all parts of the open ground about the camps the visitor may see men with Crimean medals and Balaklava and Inkermann clasps, practising goose step or going through extension movements, learning, in fact, the A B C of their military education, though they have aU'eady seen a good deal of fighting and soldiering. Still there must be periods when the most inveterate of martinets gets tired, and now the soldier, having nothing else to do, avails himself of the time and the money to indulge in the delights of the canteens.
Brigade and divisional field-daj's fill up the week with parades and regimental inspections. Eoad-making occupies some leisure hours, but the officers have very little to do, and find it difficult to kill time, riding about ♦Sebastopol, visiting Balaklava, foraging at Kamiesch, or hunting about for quail, which are occasionallj', after the north wind has blown, found in swarms all over the steppe, and form most grateful additions to the mess table. There is no excitement in front: the Eussians remain immoveable in their j)Osition at lilackenzie's Farm. The principal streets of Sebastopol have lost the charm of novelty and possession. Even Cathcart's-hill is deserted, except by the " look-out officer" for the day, or by a few wandering strangers and visitors. In times to come this Catlicart's-liill will be a chosen terminus of Saxon pilgrimage.
Whether the traveller beholds from its hnmble parapet the fanaspect of the Imperial city, guarded by threefold mightier batteries than now, or sits upon the broken wall to gaze upon the ruins of Sebastopol, he must, if lie has anjBritish blood in his veins, regai'd with emotion that little spot which encloses all that was mortal of some of the noblest soldiei's who ever sprang irom 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 tei'rible winter with privation, cold, frost, snow, and rain, more terrible and deadly than the fire of the enemy. With the Eedan, the MalakhofF, 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.
How many more of our gallant officers this cemetery may hold it is impossible to say; it is too fuU already. It is a parallelogram of about forty yards long by thirty broad, formed by the base of a ruined wall, which inight 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 indicates to the eye of affection the place where some beloved comrade rests till the last reveil, the care and love of friends here and at home have left memorials in solid stone of most of those whose remains are resting in this spot. The fu-st grave towards the fi-ont and west of the Cemetery consists of a simple mound of earth.
I know not whose remains lie below. The second is marked by a simple slab, with the following inscription: — " Sacred to the memory of Lieutenant H. Trj'on, Rifle Brigade, killed in action on the 20th of November, 1854." He was a thorough soldier, brave, cool, and resolute, and in the teri'ible crisis of lukermann he used a rifle with more deadly certainty and success than any of liis men. In the struggle for the " Ovens" or " Quarries," 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 x)aid him the rare honour of a special mention in the next " General Order of the Day" for the French army.