carts and waggons, upset by those who had fled back by the road they came. The march was slow, and the stoppages, from the carriages and waggons halting on the steep, frequent; and, though evening was approaching, we still had to traverse some miles of plain before reaching water. These plains had a surface of chalk covered thinly with grass, amid which the white dust rose in clouds at every step, and chalky hills were all around. At length, after a long and weary march, we reached the river Tchernaya, which runs through the valley of Inkerman, and pitched our tents after nightfall, while the rear divisions and batteries did not arrive till some hours afterwards. During the night, the redness of the sky above the heights on which Mackenzie's Farm stands, showed that

our allies, following in our steps, were encamping there.

It is not easy to define the object of the Russian troops in thus sallying from Sebastopol. Probably it was done with a view to operate in the woods in our rear during the siege, on the supposition that we should attack the fortress from our camp on the Balbek. But for the halt which our artillery made in the wood, it would have debouched at Mackenzie's Farm, across the middle instead of across the rear of the enemy's column of route. Had the infantry been close, in sufficient force to support us, this would have insured the discomfiture of the Russians, and the capture of many prisoners. But, under the actual circumstances, we may consider the halt fortunate, and console ourselves with thinking all's well that ends well.

On the 27th we only went about four miles; but the consequences of the long and fatiguing march of the day before, showed themselves directly we started. Men, fallen out of the ranks, began to strew the roadside, many of them in the agonies of cholera; and, within a mile, I saw at least fifty or sixty Highlanders lying exhausted. On this day Colonel Cox, of the Guards, seized with cholera, was taken up on one of our gun-limbers, and, going on shipboard, died the same evening.

Before noon the first division halted at the mouth of a gorge between very lofty hills; and up the heights enclosing it, the brigades of the light division advanced, one on each side; while some riflemen took possession of a low pointed hill in the valley, crowned with a white house. From beyond this hill we presently heard some of the guns of the light division, and the smoke of others also rolled back over the heights on the left, while a shell or two from the enemy burst over the valley. The Guards were moved forward into a village at the mouth of the gorge, down which appeared a piece of water like a small lake, closed at the other extremity by a high hill crowned by a long wall with towers, looking in the distance like a respect

able fort. Presently ship's guns were heard from the sea. Our own continued to fire from the height on the left, and dust flew from the walls where they struck; while the garrison, instead of continuing to reply, ran along the edge of the wall towards the sea, apparently in great agitation. A party of Rifles, moving up the slopes, entered the place and followed the garrison along the wall, and a white flag showed that Balaklava had surrendered, fortunately without any blood spilt; while a small English steamer, appearing suddenly on the piece of water below, assured us that the harbour was our own, and our communication with the fleet re-established.

The manœuvre, now successfully accomplished, of transferring the army from the north to the south side of Sebastopol, would, as before remarked, have been impossible under the old conditions of war. With a stationary depôt north of Sebastopol, convoys with munitions could not have been taken past the fortress, unless guarded by detachments of such strength as could not have been spared from the army, and then only with constant risk of interruption and loss. transfer this depôt to the south side of the fortress, in sailing ships, the first condition must have been a

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favourable wind; and, when the fleet had obtained this and taken advantage of it, the manoeuvre, detected from the fortress, would have been baffled by the interposition of a Russian force on the land side of Balaklava. But, thanks to steam, the army could afford to abandon its communications with the fleet on the Balbek, confident of resuming them at the point concerted; and the labours of the Russian engineers, long directed solely to resist the anticipated attack on the north side, were, by this unexpected movement, rendered unavailing.

As Balaklava henceforth becomes a place of importance in the narrative of the campaign, it is worth describing, and indeed deserves notice from its picturesque beauty.

The valley, extending less than a mile from the gorge to the edge of the harbour, consists of gardens, meadows, and vineyards, the latter spreading a little way up the slopes on each side till the hard rock forbids further cultivation. To the soldiers, long accustomed to eat their ration, fresh or salt, with the vegetable accompaniment of rice only, the vineyards, rich with clusters of ripe grapes, and the gardens, abounding overhead in apples and plums, and underfoot in pumpkins, tomatas, and cabbages, all of excellent quality, appeared a paradise. The last-mentioned vegetable seemed especially agreeable to the military palate; and men of all arms of the service might be seen crossing the meadows, bearing on their shoulders long poles, on which whole rows of cabbages were impaled. Clusters of trees were intermingled with the spots of tillage, and a small stream, filling wells as it went, flowed along the meadows.

The harbour, a narrow inlet of the sea winding between steep barren heights, looked more like a fresh-water lake than an arm of the ocean, its mouth

being concealed by an abrupt bend. I have seen something like it in the basins of the hills around Snowdon and Cader Idris. Except at the upper extremity, where it grows shallow, it shelves down to an extraordinary depth close to the shore. Its greatest width is about 400 yards. In the course of the afternoon many ships came in and ranged themselves side by side close to the south shore;the Agamemnon, towering above the rest, looked like the old puzzle of the reel in the bottle on a magnificent scale. The town, consisting of several narrow streets, stands on the south shore; the women, apprehensive of ill treatment, had fled to the opposite side, but a staff officer crossing to assure them of safety, several boat-loads returned. Amongst them was a poor lady who told me in French that she had left Sebastopol only the day before, "to escape from the English": she submitted with exceeding good grace to the will of fate. Outside the guardroom were ranged in order the garrison to the number of eighty, with their venerable white-mustached commandant, prisoners of war, their arms being piled on the ground in front. Behind the town the rock slopes very steeply up to the wall and the towers at the top. These, built in rude times, and unrepaired for centuries, are absolutely useless for defence. The ruinous towers seem ready to topple over with the first footstep that ascends their broken stair; huge gaps yawn in the intervening walls; and the portions of the latter still standing show, by their thin parapet raised in front of a narrow path, that they were intended to resist an enemy who knew not the use of cannon. Nevertheless, at a distance these shattered stones wore an imposing and martial aspect, like an ancient suit of mail in an armoury. There were no guns in the place, and the shells fired at us were from a mortar.

these peaceable days is nothing better than a pond enclosed in broken masonry, the evil qualities of which bit of half-stagnant water are numerous, and would be more so in a less breezy locality, while its sole good one is an innumerable crop of water-lilies; but no one has the heart to destroy this bit of antiquity, and every one is proud of the swan-like floating flowers. Behind the house rises the rocky defence of the hill, so sheltered here that it is green with the richest turf, and draped with wealth of hardy, ruddy, half alpine flowers. Fruit-trees and blossoming shrubs do not refuse to grow under this verdant shadow, and within the warm and well-defended enclosure; and they say it is summer in the garden of the Grange many a day after the autumn winds are wild upon the dreary fields of the level country, and when the last hollyhocks are dying in the cottage flower-plots below. Modern requirements have made sad havoc in the regularity of the building-modern improvements, beginning in the days of Elizabeth, have thrown out oriel windows, and enlarged casements, and built additions, till the Grange, though still not very large, is a cluster of houses, a domestic chronicle of architecture in its own person, and has just that graceful medley of styles and periods, which, with the ivies and mosses of old centuries, and the living flowers of today, combine to form the finest harmony of a hereditary dwelling place.

Within, there is an old hall, no longer used or possible to use in these days. Remnants of old armour, a faded banner, and an emblazoned coat-of-arms, give something of ancestral dignity to this ancient apartment; but the modern servant, who goes soft-footed across its echoing stones towards one of those closed doors, which break the wall, looks strangely out of keeping with the variegated pavement, the great wide chimney, and lofty window, which he passes in his way. No longer the rude retainers of an old Cheshire barony to make this vaulted roof ring again, and yonder old oaken table groanone mild-spoken man of all employments, in his rusty black coat and white neckcloth, like what the parish vicar might have been a hundred years

ago, carrying his tray to the modern drawing-room-and as he opens the door, the modern luxury of a soft Persian carpet appears just edging the pavement of the hall. The wonder is, after all, that there is so slight an incongruity felt and visible between the antique life, chill here without in the ancient apartment, and the modern life, warm and full of comfort, which meets it on the threshold of the modern room.

It is an autumn evening, and the whole family are assembled within. The room is large-very large for the dimensions of the house-stretching from the broad and heavy mullioned window which looks towards the front, to the long narrow modern sashes which open upon the green turf and trim walks of the garden behind. More than one smaller room opens from this drawing-room, and the family must be a tolerably affectionate and harmonious family, or it could not bear such close neighbourhood. One door, which you would fancy to open directly into the wall, opens instead into one of the oddest little nooks of building, as bright as daylight, all aglow with a great round window, where, with fairy bookshelves and a miniature piano, with little ottomans and couches, dainty with their own needlework, the young ladies of the house have made themselves a bower-for only the young ladies' maid, who is much the finest person in the family, calls it the boudoir. Just at the opposite end, running off at an angle, a low one-storeyed addition to the original house is the gentlemanly retirement, the library, a larger, graver apartment-less gay and more comfortable; while the mother claims as her own exclusive property, a door opposite the everopen door of the young ladies' room. The matron's "closet" is always closed, and is a sober, lady-like housekeeper's room; so each separate interest having its separate possession in a cluster round the drawingroom, it is less wonderful to find the whole family assembled here.

You cannot mistake the lady of the house in dignified possession of her little work-table and her easy chair; but that rich gown of dim black silk, and that snowy widow's cap, coming close