flag of truce was hoisted. Suddenly T. said, "Let's ride up to the Russian battery," and we went along the road at a canter, and then at speed. We were, however, soon ridden after and brought back by the better mounted Sardinian cavalry, who were on duty at the bridge: they simply put us down as a couple of eccentric young Englishmen. I remember thinking at the time it was rather hazardous to ride through the cavalry videttes and straight at a battery which had fired at us only a few days before; but being with T., concluded it could not be altogether wrong, and thought nothing more about it except as a rather exciting lark.

Next day we heard the flag of truce was to be rehoisted, so I decided to go again to Traktir. My pony not being available-possibly it had to go to Balaklava for its weekly forage ration-I had to walk all the way. On returning I had to pass through the Sardinian camp. Some one cantered up to me: this proved to be T. Just then it commenced to rain heavily, and seeing me look rather tired with my long tramp, he insisted on my getting up behind him. As we were cantering along, laughing at our appearance, two on one horse, he suddenly said, "I am choking! I was off in an instant, and just caught him in my arms as he fell dead. Two days afterwards my first special regimental friend was buried in the Highland Division cemetery at Kamara, in the midst of one of the worst snowstorms of the second winter. The shock of so tragically losing my ever-cheery hut companion quite broke me down for the time: even the men, survivors of the first winter's trenches, whom T. had so well looked after in hard times, were visibly affected. Since those Crimean days I have more than once

VISIT TO OUR LATE ENEMY.

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thought over the ride with him when he galloped towards the Russian battery, and could not help being of opinion that he was in hopes the Russians would open fire and give him his longed-for wish and last chance before hostilities ceased, of dying a soldier's death, and that in the excitement of the moment he absolutely forgot he was not alone.

After the peace, a small party of us, including Hawley Smart, got a week's leave and went into the Crimea as far as Simferopol. We took tents for ourselves and servants, camping outside Bakchiserai, on the Alma, and at Simferopol. The Russian officers were most hospitable, insisting on treating us to champagne and bottled porter. We were shocked on finding out afterwards that the bottled porter, which had to come all across the Continent, cost 16s. a-bottle. met had as a youngster been present at the battle of Borodino in 1812.

One old officer we

When at Simferopol it fell to my turn to do the marketing for our little mess. Not knowing a word of the language, it was not an easy matter, but the inhabitants were quite interested in my work, and did their best to assist me. By cackling like a hen and crowing like a cock, I got eggs and fowls. Mutton was a simple matter, a single "baa" being enough. Fish was the difficulty: the motion of swimming with my hands puzzled the natives, but on my putting one hand behind and waving it from side to side like a fish's tail, there was a dead silence for a minute or two, and then with a shout of laughter one intelligent individual said something in Russian, and took me straight to the fish

market.

On our return another party from the regiment went on a similar trip: the party included a clever but very quaint little Scotch assistant-surgeon. One of his companions happened to notice the very handsome little animal he had brought, and asked him how he had managed to get such a particularly fine beast. 'Weel, I don't quite know where it came from, but it's just a wild Tartar pony I happened to find behind my hut." It was the Arab charger of one of the field officers of the 72nd Highlanders, the next regiment in our brigade! This same amusing little doctor nearly suffered sudden death at the hands of his hut companion, who had saved up his week's ration of rum for the entertainment of some friends. On going to his rum-jar he was horrified to find it full of dead snakes. Shouting to his companion the doctor to know what the horror meant, the quiet explanation was as follows: "Weel, I thought as ye didna drink yer rum, it ought not to be wasted, so I just used it for keeping my specimens." One party from the regiment made an excursion along the coast road as far as Yalta, visiting the summer palace of Prince Voronsoff, where everything was in perfect order. The mountain country round the Baidar Valley which we knew so well was very fine, but was nothing in comparison with the Russian Riviera, the south coast of the Crimea.

A few Russian officers returned our visits, and one to whom a pressing invitation had been sent astonished his host by bringing his family with him. Just before our leaving the Crimea the Russian generals had an opportunity of inspecting the infantry of the Allies on the Sebastopol plateau, and a magnificent sight

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it was, the French showing some 80,000, ourselves about 40,000, and the Sardinians 20,000. Although so many old soldiers, and the boy recruits sent to replace them, had died in the first winter, our losses had been made good to a considerable extent by fine well-drilled men from the embodied militia. Our army was fit for anything, and we were all keenly looking forward to a campaign in Asia Minor, when, to our utter disgust, it was announced that the French had had enough of it and peace was to be arranged.

Soldiering in those Crimean days was a much more simple matter for the regimental officer than now, an occasional sealed pattern division day on the plain of Balaklava being about our hardest work. One division (Eyre's) had a good deal of instruction towards the spring, but we had a decidedly quiet time of it. There were some energetic commanding officers who made what they could of their opportunities; but they were the exception, a precise barrack-square drill, when the weather and ground permitted, being as a rule all the regimental preparation considered necessary for the expected campaign.

An enormous amount of ammunition had been blazed away from the advanced trenches during the siege, but systematic target practice in fine days during the winter, when the men might have been taught how to get the best value out of their new rifled firearms, was apparently not thought of. Certainly just before we left the Crimea some subalterns were nominated as musketry instructors, but that was rather late in the day.

One department of the army learnt, however, to do its duty-viz., the commissariat. Starved to death as thousands had been during the first winter, no

force could have been better fed, clothed, or housed than the British army during the second winter in the Crimea; and when the fine weather came in the spring, so healthy were the men that our hospitals at Varnutka Pass were quite empty there were no sick, and doubtless the rest of the army was much the same. The rations were very good. The bread we got was at times badly baked and about as solid as a round-shot, but the meat was excellent; one particular ration-pemmican, if I remember correctly -was perfection. The hearts, tails, and shanks of the commissariat-bullocks not being regulation meat, were procurable for a trifle, and with a decent cook they were valuable additions. It was said that at first those parts not being regulation were buried with the offal. One day in the spring Soyer, with a staff officer or two in attendance, cantered up to our camp to instruct our cooks; but the end of it was that Soyer's manner so got the cooks' backs up that two of them were marched off to the guard-tent. A French chef may have been a useful addition at headquarters, but such a spasmodic attempt to teach a British army on active service how to make the most of its rations was very amusing to us. The public at home, however, evidently thought it a wonderful piece of administrative ability.

The amount of military crime, as it is called, was wonderfully small, more especially when it is remembered how little work or occupation the men had, that liquor was easily procurable, and that all the reinforcements who joined were really taught to like drink by the very liberal daily ration of rum. Corporal punishment could be administered regimentally in those days, and probably that had something