We found a few Russian soldiers in the houses; and on the first occasion it happened to be the Greek Easter Sunday, and we were most hospitably entertained by a poor Russian family, who insisted on our partaking of painted eg^s, of salt pork steeped in vinegar, and cabbage, of brown bread, butter, vodka, or white home-made brandy, and Crim tobacco, and then on embracing us because we were Christians — a severe punishment, which, if often repeated, might lead to recantation. Crossing the Katcha by the bridge over which our army filed into Eskel, we find ourselves on the steppe — the dry barren plain studded with tumuli,, which extends in wavy folds right away to Perekop. At this season of the year it is glorious with large beds of wild flowers, sweet pea, roses, mignonette, thyme, orchids of all kind, sweet William, and many other varieties, whose tame and developed species are the ornaments of our gardens at home; it is musical, too, with the song of birds singing to their mates in the nest; hut in Reptemher it is an arid, scorched waste, covered with coarse hay, and, as it is devoid of water, it is nnfit ibr pastura<^e.
The ride to the Ahna from the Katcha is not more tlian eight miles, but it seems twice the distance. The white telegraph station over the river, which stood on the Eussian left, can he seen for many miles on a clear day, but on the steppe mirage is very common, and the horizon is rarely well-defined. It is often lost in a fantastic margin resembling the sea-line of an agitated ocean. Bustards, on the qui vive about their young ones, soar slowly before us, and eagles, vultures, and many species of falcons are visible in pursuit of their prey, which must consist for the most part of hares, which are very large and numerous. Some of these hares have been found to weigh ten or twelve pound, and I have heard of a monster who turned the scale at fourteen pound.
In one of the hollows in the steppe, about three miles from the Alma, there is a small hamlet, but, with this exception, not a habitation is visible over the whole of this vast expanse of land. It is famous ground for a long canter, or as much of a gallop as your horse will stand; so with the help of an occasional scurry after a hare the distance melts awaj", and as we go crushing through the sweet flowers, the telegraph rises higher and clearer till we pull up at the foot of the mound on which it stands. This was the scene of a fierce struggle, and it was here the French had some really hard fighting before they forced the enemy to fly.
The telegi'aph is a quadrilateral figure of white stone, and it has never been finished. It is covered with names; and on one side is engraved " La Bataille d'Alma, 8 Septemhre." The French had put the right date, the 20th; but the Russians obliterated it, and altered it to their own style. There are 15 large sepulchral mounds around the telegraph, wherein lie French and Russians, and the ravines are still full of bones, and of fragments of clothing and accoutrements. Cannon-shot appear to have been carefully removed. There is an excellent view of the French position and attack from the edge of the plateau. The enemy must have had every movement of the allies under their eyes from the time they left Eouljanak till they halted to form for battle; and the spectacle could not have been one to have given them much courage, or to have influenced their ardour.
The Russians declare they had only 33,000 or 34,000 on the field; but, admitting that to be so, they made a bad fight, considering the position they occupied,, and their cavalry exhibited that passive and unenterprising character whicli it maintained throughout the war. An officer of the old Pestal regiment told me that he charged our first attacking body when they were checked with the bayonet, and that if all the troops inside and on the flanks of the redoubts had rushed out simultaneously, the day would have been lost to us; but he was rather surprised when he heard that our Third and Fourth Divisions were still intact, and that the Guards, whom he supposed to have been routed, were never broken except in the centre, where the Scots Fusiliers wavered for a time in their advance under the heavy fire of the Russians and the pressure of the disjointed groups of the Light Division.