ing of sheer starvation: his tail had been gnawed to a stump by his hungry neighbours at picket." Then again:

Major Hamilton lent me his white pony. Oh, dainty pony! with black lustrous eyes, and little prancing feet, and long white tail dyed red with henna, like the finger-tips of the most delicate lady in Stamboul! We rode home at dark, along the rotten, deep, almost impracticable track. The dead horses lying right across the road, as they fell, and the dead and dying bullocks, filled me with horror, and the white pony with spasms of fear. Now we trod upon the muddy carcase of a horse; now we passed a fallen mule, and a huge bullock, sitting up, with long ghastly horns pointing upwards in the moonlight, awaiting his death.

No horse is permitted to be destroyed without a special order from Lord Lucan, except in case of glanders, and, I believe, a broken leg. Some horses in our lines have been lying steeped in mud, and in their death-agony, for three days!

Next comes a picture of the embarkation of the wounded, the dignified indifference of the medical officer, and the rough and indecent way in which the poor howling wretches were hauled along the quay, and bundled, some with one, and others with both legs amputated, into the bottom of a boat:

If anybody should ever wish to erect a "Model Balaklava" in England (says Mrs. Duberly), I will tell him the ingredients necessary. Take a village of ruined houses and hovels in the extremest state of all imaginable dirt; allow the rain to pour into and outside them, until the whole place is a swamp of filth ankle-deep; catch about, on an average, one thousand sick Turks with the plague, and cram them into the houses indiscriminately; kill about one hundred a day, and bury them so as to be scarcely covered with earth, leaving them to rot at leisure-taking care to keep up the supply. On to one part of the beach drive all the exhausted bát ponies, dying bullocks, and worn-out camels, and leave them to die of starvation. They will generally do so in about three days, when they will soon begin to rot, and smell accordingly. Collect together from the water of the harbour all the offal of the animals slaughtered for the use of the occupants of above one hundred ships, to say nothing of the inhabitants of the town, which, together with an occasional floating human body, whole or in parts, and the driftwood of the wrecks, pretty well covers the water-and stew them all up together in a narrow harbour, and you will have a tolerable imitation of the real essence of Balaklava. If this is not piquant enough, let some men be instructed to sit and smoke on the powder barrels landing on the quay; which I myself saw two men doing to-day, on the Ordnance Wharf.

On the 15th of January news came that the Times had taken up the subject of the condition of the army in a way that became the leading organ of the press. "By so doing," Mrs. Duberly says, "that paper cheered and refreshed many a heart that was well-nigh tired of

The trouble and the pain of living."

Alas! it could not awake the dead, but there can be no doubt that its just remonstrances saved many thousands of lives.

Early in March, the transports having been ordered out of Balaklava harbour, Mrs. Duberly removed to a hut on shore, which Captain Lushington had been kind enough to have built for her accommodation. Races now came to enliven the tedium of the siege. The French had their day as well as the English. "The course was crowded, the sun shone, and French officers were riding full gallop everywhere, and making their horses go through all the tricks of the manége. The steeplechase' course, avec huit obstacles, was delightful; the hurdles were not

sufficiently high to puzzle an intelligent and active poodle; the ditches were like the trenches of a celery-bed; and the wall about two feet and a half high." The French arrangements, however ridiculous they may appear in our eyes, were decidedly the wisest. A few days after, in a rush at a wall over four feet in height, Captains Shiffner and Thomas were both nearly killed on the spot.

On the occasion of the assault of the Mamelon, to which 25,000 French marched up, as if to a review in the Champ de Mars, General Bosquet said to Mrs. Duberly, his eyes full of tears," Madame, à Paris on a toujours l'Exposition, les bals, les fêtes; et dans une heure et demie la moitié de ces braves seront morts!" The feeling does honour to the old general.

What a vehement fire! and all directed on the one spot. Two rockets in quick succession are gone up, and a moment after comes the third. Presently the slope of the Mamelon is covered with men, ascending separately and rapidly; not marching up in line, as our infantry would have done, but scattered like a flock of sheep. Two guns, hitherto masked, in the Mamelon open quickly upon them; but they rush up, and form when they reach the entrenchment. For a time we can see nothing but clouds of smoke. The guns are all silent now,nothing but the volley and file firing of musketry. The Russians, standing on the fort, fire down on the advancing French; but presently some men are seen leaving the Mamelon and rushing towards the Malakoff. They are Russians, and the Mamelon vert is now in possession of the French. A momentary silence which succeeds enables us to distinguish musketry on our left. It is the English, who are attacking the quarries in front of the Redan; and an artilleryman, who comes up soon after, informs us that the English have taken the quarries with but little loss, and, if let, will take the Redan,

But the noise in front commences again, and I see men in hundreds rushing from the Mamelon to the Malakoff. Per Dio! they are not satisfied with what they have gained, but are going to try for the Malakoff, with all its bristling guns. Under what a storm of fire they advance, supported by that impenetrable red line, which marks our own infantry! The fire from the Malakoff is tremendous-terrible; but all admit that the steadiness of the French under it is magnificent. On our left the sun is setting in all its glory, but looking lurid and angry through the smoky atmosphere, that is becoming dense and oppressive from perpetual firing. Presently the twilight deepens, and the light of rocket, mortar, and shell falls over the beleaguered town.

And now for Sebastopol itself as seen a few days after its capture, and we must conclude our notice of this very interesting and delightful, although sad record.

Thursday, September 13th.-A memorable day of my life, for on it I rode into the English batteries, into the Redan, the Malakoff, the Little Redan, and all over our quarter of Sebastopol. Such a day merits a detailed description.

Eight consecutive hours spent in sight-seeing under a blazing sun is no light and lady-like délassement at any time, but when the absorbing interest, the horrible associations and excitement of the whole, is added to the account, I cannot wonder at my fatigue of last night, or my headache of to-day.

So many descriptions, pictorial and otherwise, have gone home of our own batteries, that I need not stop to describe them in their present half-dismantled state; so, clambering down (how wonderfully the Turkish ponies can climb!) the stony front of our advanced parallel, we canter across the open space, and ride at a gallop over the steep parapet of the salient angle of the Redan. "Look down," said Henry, "into the trench immediately beneath you; there, where it is partly filled up, our men are buried. I stood by Mr. Wright, on Sunday morning, when he read the funeral service over 700 at once."

What wonderful engineering! What ingenuity in the thick rope-work which is woven before the guns, leaving only a little hole, through which the man laying the gun can take his aim, and which is thoroughly impervious to rifle shot! The Redan is a succession of little batteries, each containing two or three guns, with traverses behind each division; and hidden away under gabions, sand-bags, and earth, are little huts in which the officers and men used to live. Walking down amongst these (for we were obliged to dismount) we found that tradesmen had lived in some of them. Henry picked up a pair of lady's lasts the precise size of my own foot. Coats, caps, bayonets lay about, with black bread and broken guns. The centre, the open space between the Redan and the second line of defence, was completely ploughed by our thirteen-inch shells, fragments of which, together with round shot, quite paved the ground. We col lected a few relics, such as I could stow away in my habit and saddle-pockets, and then rode down into the town.

Actually in Sebastopol! No longer looking at it through a glass, or even going down to it, but riding amongst its ruins and through its streets. We had fancied the town was almost uninjured-so calm, and white, and fair did it look from a distance; but the ruined walls, the riddled roofs, the green cupola of the church, split and splintered to ribands, told a very different tale. Here were wide streets leading past one or two large handsome detached houses built of stone; a little further on, standing in a handsome open space, are the barracks, with large windows, a fine stone façade of great length, several of the lower windows having carronades run out of them, pointing their grim muzzles towards our batteries. Whilst I am gazing at these, a sudden exclamation from Henry, and a violent shy from the pony, nearly start me from my saddle. It is two dead Russians lying, almost in a state of decomposition, at an angle of the building; while in the corner a man is sitting up, with his hands in his lap and eyes open, looking at us. We turn to see if he is only wounded, so life-like are his attitude and face; no, he has been dead for days.

A little further on we came to the harbour, and by the many mast-heads we count the number of ships. Here, too, are fragments of the bridge which I had watched the Russians building, and across which I had seen them so often pass and re-pass. There is a kind of terrace, with a strong wooden railing, overlooking the sea, and underneath us is a level grass-plat, going down with handsome stone steps to the water's edge. Following the wooden railing, we overlooked what had evidently been a foundry, and a workshop for the dockyard; Russian jackets, tools and wheelbarrows, were lying about, and hunting among the ruins was a solitary dog.

But all this time we are trying to find our way to Brigadier-General Windham's office near the custom-house. To get there we must ride round to the head of the dry docks, as the bridges are either broken or unsafe. What is it that makes the air so pestilential at the head of the dry docks? Anything so putrid, so nauseating, so terrible, never assailed us before. There is nothing but three or four land transport carts, covered with tarpaulin, and waiting at the corner. For Heaven's sake, ride faster, for the stench is intolerable. We go on towards the custom-house, still followed by this atmosphere: there must be decaying cattle and horses behind the houses; and yet they do not smell like this! Admiral Sir Edmund Lyons and Admiral Bruat are riding by, so we stop in a tolerably sweet place to congratulate each other on meeting in Sebastopol. We then continue our road to the custom-house. What is it? It cannot surely be-oh, horror!- -a heap, a piled-up heap, of human bodies in every stage of putrid decomposition, flung out into the street, and being carted away for burial. As soon as we gained possession of the town, a hospital was discovered in the barracks, to which the attention of our men was first attracted by screams and cries. Entering, they found a large number of wounded and dying; but underneath a heap of dead men, who, as he lay on the floor, fell over him and died, was an English officer of the 90th Regiment, who being badly wounded, and taken prisoner, was put into this foul place, and left, as in

the case of the hospital near the custom-house, to perish at his leisure, of hunger and pain. He had had no food for three days, and the fever of his wound, together with the ghastly horrors round him, had driven this poor Englishman to raving madness; and so he was found, yelling, and naked. I think the impression made upon me by the sight of that foul heap of green and black, glazed and shrivelled flesh, I never shall be able to throw entirely away. At the moment, however, and I think it a wise ordinance, no sight such as war produces strikes deeply on the mind. We turned quickly back from this terrible sight, and soon after left the town. Riding up towards the Little Redan, we saw where the slaughter of the Russians had principally been. The ground was covered with patches and half-dried pools of blood, caps soaked in blood and brains, broken bayonets, and shot and shell; four or five dead horses, shot as they brought up ammunition for the last defence of the Malakoff. Here we met Colonel Norcott, of the Rifles, who had been reported a prisoner, riding the same chesnut pony which has had honourable mention before. Our congratulations on his escape, when we fancied him marching with the retreating Russians, were neither few nor insincere. The Malakoff lay just before us. I am told that it is, and it struck me as being, one of the most wonderful examples of engineering work possible. It is so constructed, that unless a shot fell precisely on the right spot, it could do no harm. What with gabions, sand-bags, traverses, counter-traverses, and various other means of defence, it seemed to me, that a residence in the Malakoff was far safer and more desirable than a residence in the town. Buried underground were officers' huts, men's huts, and a place used as a sort of [mess-room, with glass lamps, and packs of cards. We are not allowed to carry any outward and visible signs of plunder, but I filled my habit pockets and saddle pockets with various small items, as reliques of these famous batteries and the famous town-lasts, buttons, and grape shot from the Redan; cards, a glass salt-cellar, an English fuzee, and the screw of a gun from the Malakoff; a broken bayonet from the Little Redan; and rifle bullets from the workshop in the town. Then, as it was growing late, we rode back to camp by the Woronzow Road, and down the French heights on to the Balaklava plain.

The realities of war contrast vividly with the falsehoods. In the one instance we have the dark vapourings of political hatreds through which no light, no hope for the future can be discerned. In the other, the truth stands out in not always agreeable, but still naked and bold relief. England, we know, is not in agony. Mistakes have been committed, incapacity has been manifested in high quarters, but all will right itself soon. "After all," Mrs. Duberly justly remarks, "Englishmen are not so helpless, so hopeless, and so foolish as they tried hard last year to make themselves out to be. I think they rested so entirely on the prestige that attached itself to the name of a British soldier, that they thought the very stars would come out of their courses to sustain the lustre of their name. Alas! their name was very literally dragged through the mud, during the miry winter months." It has undoubtedly been a severe lesson. We lost an army from the mere want of the most common-place organisation-we played a secondary part in the siege of Sebastopol from the want of men and the absence of sufficient generalship-but the Anglo-Saxon race is not so easily discouraged as the Franco-Russians-far more inveterate in their hostility than the Russians—would imagine it to be. It will rise purified by trial, resolute in difficulty, nerved for the conflict, and ultimately triumphant, as becomes the descendants of Cœur de Lion and the Black Prince, of Marlborough and Wellington, and of Blake and Nelson.

THE DOCK WARRANTS.

A TALE OF THE TIMES.-IN TWO PARTS.

BY DUDLEY COSTELLO.

PART THE FIRST.

CHAPTER I.

A SHORT CUT TO FORTUNE.

Of all the firms in London, trading as general merchants, metal and colonial brokers-designations which imply almost every kind of mercantile operation-none did a greater business than the house of Graysteel and Handyside, of Blasing-lane, Towzer-street, and Commercial Chambers, Gammonbury Buildings.

It was not, to be sure, one of those traditional firms which City men, when they are thinking of Mammon, involuntarily mutter to themselves in lieu of prayers, for it had risen somewhat suddenly-out of the mud of London, as it were; but it was not on that account the less respected, the great affairs in which "Graysteel and Handyside" were engaged, and the large sums that passed through their hands being, in City estimation, the true and only abstergent. That purism which will not recognise a high position until long years of toil have been devoted to attain it, has no existence now-a-days: when all are striving to reach the goal by the shortest cut, there is no time for turning round to ask your neighbour how he gained his place. "Graysteel and Handyside" were, consequently, looked up to; their movements were so regular, their undertakings so vast, and their payments so punctual, that it could scarcely have been otherwise. Indeed, unless they had been "looked up to SO universally, it is not very likely that Messrs. Godsend, Stiff, and Soaper, the great bill-brokers, would have cashed their paper in the way they did almost without looking at it.

Still, although such influences are less avowed, personal character has its weight. Archibald Graysteel was a man of strictly religious habits; so strict, that he was not content with being a worshipper himself, but devoted all the leisure which his Sabbath opportunities afforded to the inoculation of others with his own religious views: he not only went to church twice on Sunday, but filled up the interval between morning and evening service by extemporaneous preaching on the suburban commons, greatly no doubt-to the edification of the crowds assembled there, until the public-houses opened. To reclaim sinners and set their feet in the right path, was an object he had so much at heart, that, had he followed the bent of his own inclinations, it is more than probable he would have gone about doing the same amount of good on every week-day as well; but, as he was heard to say with a sigh, there were worldly duties which he was compelled to perform, "being also placed here for that purpose;" and, impressed with this conviction, he did not fail to improve each shining

VOL. XXXIX.

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