A MONTH IN THE CAMP BEFORE SEBASTOPOL. you LETTER I. Off Malta, Sept. 24th. So do not altogether approve of my project of passing a few weeks in the Crimea, and are inclined to think I shall be "in the ?" way I confess I cannot quite make out from your letter how this is to happen. Surely the Seat of War is a large enough place for all the people now in it, and many more, to live and walk about in, without jostling? I carry my own house and commissariat with me. You do not expect me- do you to pester the Generals with morning calls, or to play the Boy Jones at their councils? For my own part, I see no other satisfactory mode of finding out what our gallant fellows are really doing and suffering, than by pitching B 2 PLEA FOR JOURNEY. one's tent among them. Their own letters, deeply interesting as they are, do not supply all the information that is wanted. Soldiers write like soldiers; that is to say, a kind of professional stoicism restrains them from describing one half of what they go through, while habit dulls their consciousness of the other. Even "Our Own Correspondent," who now-a-days does such excellent service in this respect, leaves something to be desired. He is obliged to be so clever, so busied with the depths and general bearings of things about him, that he cannot fail to leave many gleanings for a plain man to pick up. In short, I am already half-way to my goal; and by the time you are reading this apology for my journey, I hope to be seeing History. Let me now ask, whether you happen to want a good mental alterative after Nisi Prius? If so, pray select—if not for yourself, for a friend-a kit for the Crimea. You will go, of course, in the first place, to Edgington's warehouse across London Bridge; where you will choose a tent appropriate to the various incidents which you think, on reflection, may be looked for at the Seat of War. as if you CHOOSING A KIT. you 3 You will, next, lay in your commissariat and special clothing; your canteen, your saddle, pack-saddle, and saddle-bags: lastly (for, however comical, it must be done), you will provide against Cossacks with a revolver! All this, of course, can't be effected in a day; and many books and friends will have been consulted to enable you to make a proper selection. But, by the time it is accomplished, I venture to predict, that will have gone through a complete campaign in imagination, and will have experienced as many sensations had made the Grand Tour in person. At any rate, I don't envy the clients who may consult you during the process. So exciting, I confess, did I find this kind of vivid projection of myself into a totally strange sphere, that there came at length a moment of reaction, when I felt that I had sufficiently realised the incidents before me, and that the actual execution of my plan would be—a bore! Were you never guilty- of course, in thought only, and for the shortest possible time—of a similar absurdity, amico mio? However, that soon passed; and piling up my traps upon two cabs, on the 13th of September, |