one occasion a shell, lodging between the spokes of a wheel, exploded there, blowing off three wheels and the side of the waggon, and blackening the cases of powder without igniting their contents. Hitherto the attention of the Allies had been concentrated on the fortress, but on the 20th October a new element forced itself into their calculations. Russian troops showed themselves on the cluster of low heights which, as before mentioned, divide the valley of the Tchernaya into two defiles. Some Cossack horsemen lounged about the meadows at about two thousand yards from our position, and about fifty infantry soldiers, emerging from a ravine in the heights, crossed to the river for water, remaining for some time on the bank of the stream, and returning with a deliberation which showed they felt secure of support if molested. A body of cavalry with some guns also posted itself

on the Bakshi-serai road, near the bridge which crosses the Tchernaya there, and close to the meadow where our own artillery had bivouacked on the night of the flank march. From day to day this force seemed to be augmented, and was judged to be the rearguard of an army whose numbers, being hidden in the farther defile, were unknown.

On the night of the 20th a sortie was made by the garrison on the French trenches. The Russians, calling out in French, "Ne tirez pas, nous sommes Anglais," penetrated into the works without opposition, and bayoneted some of the defenders, but were speedily repulsed with a loss of six killed and four wounded. During the next few nights some Russian guns on the heights in the valley once or twice opened fire on the Turks garrisoning the outposts in front of Balaklava, without result.

In the description of our position, the line of outposts occupied by the Turks was said to be on a range of low hills, crossing the plain from below the heights of the plateau to the opposite mountains near the village of Kamara. Between these hills the plain slopes upward from Balaklava to a ridge, and down on the opposite side, where the valley, as before mentioned, is divided into two defiles, the one sweeping round to the left under the heights of the plateau held by the Allies, the other passing straight on to the Tchernaya. In this latter defile, and on the low eminences dividing it from the other, the Russian army, now numbering thirty thousand men, under General Liprandi, was posted.

At daybreak on the 25th the Russian guns on the eminences and in the valley commenced a cannonade on the outposts held by the Turks. A troop of horse-artillery and a field battery, supported by the Scots Greys, were ordered up from Balaklava to the slopes between the outposts, and found themselves opposed to the fire of several field - batteries and some guns of position, which covered an advance of infantry against the hills

on the right. As the troop was armed only with six-pounders, it and the field-battery were quite overmatched, both in metal and in numbers; nevertheless, our artillery maintained the contest till its ammunition was exhausted, when it retired, having lost a good many horses and a few men, besides Maude, the captain of the troop, who was severely wounded by a shell which burst in his horse.

At about 9 A.M, the first division and part of the light were ordered down to support the troops in Balaklava, which consisted of a body of marines and seamen, with heavy ships' guns, on the heights to the right of the valley, the 93d Highlanders and a Turkish detachment in front of the village of Kadukoi, and all the cavalry drawn up behind their encampment on the plain to the left, near a vineyard. The first division, passing along the heights from the Woronzoff road to that which descends from the plateau to the valley of Balaklava, had a complete view of the attack.

The Russians, pushing on a large force of infantry, cavalry, and artillery, had just succeeded in carrying the works on the hills nearest Kamara.

his own band. This gallantry availed nothing. The whole Russian force was before them; a body of cavalry interposed to cut off their retreat; and, assailed on every side by every arm, and their ranks utterly broken, they were compelled to fight their way through, and to regain our position under the same artillery fire that had crashed into their advance. Singly, and in two's and three's, these gallant horsemen returned, some on foot, some wounded, some supporting a wounded comrade. The same fire which had shattered their ranks had reached the heavy cavalry on the slope behind, who also suffered severely. Our loss would have been greater but for the timely charge of a body of French cavalry, which, descending from the plateau, advanced up the heights in the centre of the valley, where they silenced a destructive battery.

The ridge of hills, stretching entirely across the plain, hid the occurrences on the Russian side of the ground from the view of our troops in front of Balaklava; but the nature of the disaster soon became apparent. Riderless horses galloped towards us over the hill, and wounded men were brought in, or rode slowly back, escorted by their comrades. I saw three privates of heavy dragoons riding back in this way. The middle one, a smooth-faced young fellow, hardly twenty, in no ways differed in his demeanour from the other two, sitting straight in his saddle and looking cheerful; but, as he passed, I saw that a cannon shot had carried away a large portion of his arm, sleeve, flesh, and bone, between the shoulder and elbow, leaving the lower part attached only by a narrow strip of flesh and cloth. Colonel Yorke of the Royals, too, rode past, supporting himself with his hand on the cantle of his saddle, and, in reply to an inquiry from the Duke of Cambridge, said his leg was broken.

In this unhappy affair the light cavalry lost 10 officers and 147 men killed or missing, and 11 officers and 110 men wounded, with 335 horses. The heavy brigade lost, during the day, 9 men killed, and 10 officers and 87 men wounded, and 46 horses.

When the artillery fire ceased, some

rifles were moved in skirmishing order up towards the hill near Kamara, apparently as a preliminary to an advance to retake it. But none such took place, though the expectation was universal amongst our people that it was to be recaptured at once. Towards evening some rum and biscuit were served out to the men, who had had no dinner, and at dusk the first division was marched back to its own encampment on the heights. The Russians were left in possession of two of the outposts held by the Turks in the morning, and nine guns, and their columns remained in the plain, about 1500 yards from our front, drawn up as if to offer battle. Much murmuring was heard that they should be allowed thus to defy us, and to keep possession of the hills. But their success was rather apparent than real, and, but for the loss our cavalry suffered, would have been even beneficial to us. While it showed us that we were holding a front more extended than was necessary or desirable, it conferred on the enemy no advantage worth fighting for. Balaklava was no more assailable after the action than before; and if the possession of the road into the mountains by Kamara was convenient to the Russians for supplies from the interior, they could, by a detour from the valley of the Tchernaya, have communicated with it.

The Turks were loaded with abuse for running away from the outposts, and losing the guns; and certainly the celerity with which they fled from the left of the position reflected no great credit on them. But the amount of obloquy seems undue. Others besides Turks would have left slight fieldworks attacked by an army, and having no support within cannon-range. The redoubts and works nearest our heights were so weakly constructed as to be rather a cover for the defenders than an obstacle to the assailants. Any sportsman would have considered it no great feat to have ridden his horse over both ditch and parapet. These works were held by few men; the distance from them to the scanty force covering the entrance of the valley of Balaklava was 3000 yards; and they were not all abandoned without a struggle; for an Englishman, serv

ing with our Ottoman allies, told me on the field that he had seen thirtyseven of the fugitives from the posts on the right who had received bayonet wounds in their defence. But the combats on the Danube had procured for our Mussulman friends such a reputation for valour in defending intrenchments, that it was believed to be necessary only to throw up a few shovelfuls of earth, and any Turk posted behind them would live and die there; and the reaction produced by the upsetting of this belief, operated a little unjustly to their disadvantage.

It is not easy to assign any precise object to the Russian attack, except that of penetrating into the village,

and doing what hasty damage they could to the stores there, and to the vessels in the harbour. To attempt to hold the place without the command of the sea, and with a very superior enemy on the heights on each side, would have been madness. The Russians would have been enclosed, and destroyed or captured to a man. Nor, in any case, would the loss of Balaklava, though a disaster, have been absolutely crippling to the allies, or effectual for the relief of Sebastopol, since the British might have landed their supplies, as the French did, at Kherson; and the abandonment of Balaklava, as too distant from our siege-works, was once said to be in contemplation.

On a detailed map of the Crimea, a path is shown which, branching to the right from the Woronzoff road in its course towards Sebastopol, descends the heights to the valley of the Tchernaya, close to the head of the great harbour. On this road the second division were encamped across the slope of an eminence. The road, passing over the ridge, turns to the right down a deep ravine to the valley. To the left of this road the ground, sloping gently downwards from the crest in front of the second division, rises again to a second eminence about 1200 yards in front of the first; and from this second ridge you look down across the head of the harbour in front, on the town and allied attack on the left, and on the ruins and valley of Inkermann on the right. To the right of the road the ground, first sloping upwards, then descends to the edge of the heights opposite Inkermann. All the space between and around the two ridges, down to the edge of the heights, was covered with low coppice.

From the first, the Russians showed great jealousy of any one advancing on any part of the ground beyond the ridge. As soon as any party, if even but two or three in number, showed itself there, a signal was made from a telegraph on the Russian side of the valley to the ships in the harbour, which (though the spot was not visible

from their position) immediately sent up shot and shell at a tolerably good range. As the ridge in front was rather higher than that behind which the second division was posted, and as the road, as well as the slopes from the valley on the left of it, afforded facilities to the advance of an enemy not found at any other point of the heights, this was notoriously the weak point of our position.

About noon on the day after the action at Balaklava, a Russian force was descried from the naval battery on the right of the attack, sallying from the fortress, and, shortly afterwards, the pickets of the second division were driven in. Volleys of musketry on the ground between the ridges showed the affair to be serious, and a battery from the first division hastened to join those of the second in repelling the attack, while the Guards were moved up the slope in support. Some shot from the enemy's field-pieces were pitching over the ridge, behind which the regiments of the second division were lying down, while their skirmishers met the enemy's down the slope; and the guns of the second division had come into action on the crest of the hill. The battery of the first division (Wodehouse's) ranged itself in line with them, and, the enemy's guns being at once driven off the field, the whole eighteen pieces directed their fire upon

a Russian column advancing half-way between the ridges. Unable to face the storm of shot, the column retired precipitately down the ravine to its left, where our skirmishers fired into it, and completed its discomfiture. Another strong column then showed itself over the ridge, and, after facing the fire of the batteries for a minute, retired the way it came. Presently the first column, having passed along the ravine, was descried ascending, in scattered order, the height beyond; at fourteen hundred yards every shot and shell pitched among them, our skirmishers also pressing hard on their rear and flank. When they had disappeared over the hill, the only enemy visible was the body of skirmishers fighting with our own on the space between the ridges, and to them our guns were now turned. From the circumstance of those of our men who had been on outpost duty that day wearing their great-coats, it was difficult to distinguish them from the grey-clad Russians, especially as all were hidden to their waists in coppice, but an occasional speck of red enabled us to avoid mistakes. The Russian skirmishers, under the fire of our guns and musketry, retired, as I have always seen them retire, without precipitation, turning to fire as they went; and, in less than an hour from the beginning of the combat, the space between the ridges was cleared of them. As their columns retreated towards Sebastopol, they came within range of the Lancaster gun in the right siege-battery. The naval officer in charge (Mr Hewett) blowing away the right cheek of the embrasure, to obtain the requisite lateral sweep, fired nearly a dozen rounds into them with very great effect; and the men of the second division, pressing on their rear, were with difficulty recalled from the pursuit. The Russians left a hundred and thirty dead within our pickets. We took forty prisoners, and a great number of wounded were brought into our hospitals. Next day parties from the fortress were seen on their own side of the hill, burying numbers slain in the retreat. Altogether, the Russians were estimated to have lost 1000 men, while we had ten killed and sixty wounded; so that this brilliant affair made amends to the army for whatever

was unsatisfactory in the combat of the preceding day.

The regiments engaged in this action were the 30th, 55th, 95th, 41st, 47th, and 49th. The batteries were Turner's, Franklin's (commanded by Captain Yates), and Wodehouse's.

While the Russians were retiring, a French staff-officer came to General Evans, with an offer from General Bosquet of immediate assistance, which Sir De Lacy declined with thanks, requesting him to inform the French general that the enemy were already defeated.

Parties of the attacking force were observed to carry intrenching tools in this enterprise. The design of the enemy probably was, after driving back the troops in front, to throw up cover on the opposite ridge, from behind which they might afterwards attack the same point of our line with sufficient force to follow up any advantage, and meet the allies on the plains. Had they succeeded in intrenching themselves, we must either have dislodged them at once in a pitched battle, or have allowed them to collect troops and artillery there till it should suit their convenience to attack us with every advantage on their side. The value of the service done in repelling them with so inferior a force (there were 1500 men of the second division engaged against 8000 Russians) was perhaps not quite appreciated. It is scarcely too much to say, that the presence of a strong intrenched force upon that part of the ground would have been a more serious disaster than the loss of Balaklava. However, even had they succeeded in driving back the second division, they would have been encountered by the other divisions coming to its support. But the Russian general probably calculated that the attack on Balaklava of the previous day would have induced us to strengthen that part of the position at the expense of the rest, and that we should be able to oppose but a weak force in an opposite quarter.

All that afternoon waggons were bringing in wounded Russians. Passing the hospital tent of the first division on the way to my own that evening, I saw a neat boot sticking out of the door-way, the wearer's leg being