Pritchard — and the executive officers of the various departments are unremitting in the discharge of theh" duties. Commander Lacon, the principal agent of transports, was just master of the position, and had become perfectly acquainted with the details of his department, when the Admiralty, with wonderful tact, supersede him at the very nick of time, and send out a new man to learn his trade as agent of transports — Captain Burnet, B.N., who will perhaps be removed in turn just as he has attained to the executive knowledge now possessed by Commander Lacon. The harbour-master, Mr. Paul, — Lieutenant Hawkins, who has been unremitting in his exertions in hoisting out and landing all the guns and mortars used for the siege, — Lieutenant Scott, in charge of the sick landing wharf, — Lieutenant Freese, Transport Department, — all, in fact, are actuated by the utmost anxiety to do their best, and to leave no cause for complaint in the execution of their difficult duties; and, if it is not in mortals to command success, nearly every one of these officers deserves to do so, but directions from home, and home arrangements, sometimes send all the fruits of their labours to the dogs.
The discipline of the harbomis strict, but it sometimes happens that a number of mirtdy Turks or Greeks run theiivessels right in slap-dash among the vessels, neither comprehending signals nor regulations. The order of mooring is preserved strictly by English ships. The shipping lie with sterns to the quays, in three rows, the inner line consisting of ships with cargoes of first necessity, and so on; the large vessels lie in deep water at the Diamond Wharf, high up the harbour on the western side. The Sardinians have a portion of the harbour near the Cattle Wharf, and the French a reserved quay close to them. With its forests of m.asts closely packed together — its wall-like sides of rock — its wooden houses — its railway — its party coloured population — its Babel of tongues — its huge mountains of stores piled for many feet high by the water's edge — its ti'cmendous traffic — its mud — its locomotive whistling through the main street, and regarded by the rude Tartar from distant holes as a wild beast of inconceivable power and ferocity — and its picturesque old ruins, Balaklava is well worth a visit.
By-the-bye, any antiquary who desires to see the castle must come out quick; it is undergoing demolition fast, and the work of the Genoese is from time to time being transferred to the holds of merchantmen in the ignoble form of "ballast!" This is permitted in order to save demurrage dues. It is lucky, perhaps, that the Piraeus is not the scene of our operations, for in that case the Acropolis in a fragmentary state might now be €72 route for Newcastle, as the centre of gravity of the Black Diamond transport, and the Parthenon might be employed to trim the " John Smith, of London." But, if we destroy, so do we create. A splendid military road from Balaklava to the front, with numerous branches and arms, is no bad equivalent for the Avails of a ruined fortress.
Colonel ]\Tunro has, as you have heard, brought to light an interesting building which may yet derange the intellects of the leading members of the Archaeological Society, and, although he has gone away home, the researches he inaugurated are continued. There are now visible, in addition to the circular building, the remains of three smaller buildings, and the wall which enclosed the whole, formed of massive blocks of stone, manj' of which bear the marks of the chisel. Being utterly ignorant of the uses of the concavities, lined with red tiles, which are found in the circular building and in one of the other buildings, it will be most prudent in me not to hazard a guess as to the nature of these interesting excavations.
Yet, in the exercise of the right of private judgment, I maybe permitted to say that I doubt that they are the ruins of a temple, inasmuch as the use of mortar would seem to indicate a more recent origin than the supposition that they were formerly the scenes of human sacrifices would justify; and, indeed, the rudeness of the architecture would point to a barbarous age, between the old civilization and the new. It is not Cyclopean, nor Grecian, nor Italian; the x^eople who left behind them the ruins of Chersonese, or the caves of Inkermann, or the forts of Balaklava, could scarcely have been the builders of these walls. Perhaps, after all, it was a sort of fortress used by a little colony as a defence against the barbarians who in those days haunted the heights of Mackenzie; that the enclosure Avas a farmyard; the circular building, in which there is a deep well, a house of defence; and the concavities rude magazines for the reception of winter stores, some of which cheeses might have been prepared on the flat stones found in the buildings.