465 yards through the.solid rock in several instances. These labours are of the most stupendous character, and must have proved very exhaustiu": to the garrison. CHAPTER XLVII. OUR GRAVES IN THE CRIMEA AND THE ALMA REVISITED. Memorials of the brave — Tour of inspection in the Crime.a — DifBcuIties of the Ru.-sian position — A farcAvel! — Two visits to the Alma — The route — Anecdotes of the battle — Dr. Thompson's heroism — Kecollectioiis. June 30. The British army, relieved from the pressure of military duties, and warned of their approaching departure, laboured, regiment by regiment, for many long weeks, to erect memorials to the comrades whose remains will be left behind him by the last Englishman who quits this soil; and the works of this nature, which their hasty embarcation did not permit them to complete, have been undertaken by the few skilled soldier-labourers now belonging to the fragments of the army.
The Chersonese is covered with isolated graves, with longer burial-grounds, and detached cemeteries from Balaklava to the verge of the roadstead of Sebastopol. Eavine and plain — hill and hollow — the roadside and secluded valley — for miles around, from the sea to the Tchernaya, present those stark-white stones, singly or in groups, stuck upright in the arid soil, or just peering over the rank vegetation which springs from beneath them. I have already described Cathcart's-hill Cemetery. The burialgrounds of the Light and Second Divisions have since attained such dimensions that it would be impossible in a newspaper article to give even an idea of their position, and of the monuments they contain. Without pretending to oifer a guide-book, or to notice the many sad memorials of our losses and sufferings in the Crimea, a brief supplementary notice of some of the principal burial-grounds may not be uninteresting.
The French have taken but little pains with their graves. One large cemetery has been formed with great care and good taste near the old Inkermann camp, but in general our allies have not enclosed their burial places. The Sardinians have erected a pedestal and obelisk of stone on the heights of Balaklava, close VOL. II. H H AGO OUR GRAVES IN THE CIUMEA. to their hospital, to the memory of their departed comrades, and Ave have erected similar monuments on the heights of Inl<ermann and on the plain of IJalaklava to commemorate the fifth of November and the twenty-tifth of October. These will endm-e for ages if they are permitted to remain untouched by man. In front of the salient angle of the Redan, at a few yards from the ditch, a handsome white stone obelisk has been put up, with an inscription to the meraoi'y of those who fell in the assaults on the place, engraved on one of the square slabs at the base.
At the Malakhoft" there is nothing that I could see but a large wooden cross, at the head of a mound full of dead, with this inscription in white paint (sic): " Unis pour la victoire, Keuni par la mort, Du soldat c'est la gloire, Du brave c'est le sort.' Outside the vineyard, at the English head-quarters, there is a small graveyard which contains but two monuments. One, formed of a large horizontal slab of marble, marks the spot where lies the body of our excellent Adjutant-General, and in addition to some Russian inscriptions has the simple words — " To the memory of Major-General J. Bucknall Estcourt, Adjutant-General of the British army, who died of cholera, June 24, 1855. Born 1802." The next is a handsome cross — " To the memory of C.
R. Cattley, Esq., who died of cholera while serving on the staff of Lord Raglan, July, 1856." The rest are all nameless. In a small enclosure, separated from the natural meadow on the slopes of Inkermann, near the most southerly point of the Russian attack, are three monuments. The centre is a slab of fine white stone lying horizontally on two deep slabs of larger size, so that they form as it were a small flight of steps. It bears a cross at the head and the following inscription: 41st Regiment. Sacred to the memory of Lieutenant-Colonel Carpenter, Captain Richards, Lieutenant Swaby, Lieutenant Taylor, Lieutenant Stirling, who fell at the Battle of Inkermann, Nov. 5th, 1854; also of Assistant-Surgeon Lamont, who died on the 5th of January, 1855." On the left of this is a horizontal monument of stone, inscribed — " Sacred to the memory of Sergeant-Major Spence, 41st Regiment, who was killed at the Battle of Inkermann, on the 5tli of November, 1854, aged 28 years;" and on the right is a smaller slab — " Sacred to the memory of J.