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The justice of this observation has since been confirmed by the charge at Balaklava, where our cavalry undauntedly rushed into the face of death under the command of that intrepid officer Lord Cardigan. Experience has taught me that there is nothing more valuable than the opinions of intelligent foreigners on the military and naval excellences, and the failures, of our united service.
They were never merrier; they have their grog at night, and tell the raciest stories; they hear of the death of people about their own age, or even younger, not as if it was a grisly warning, but with a simple childlike pleasure at having outlived some one else; and when a draught might puff them out like a guttering candle, or a bit of a stumble shatter them like so much glass, their old hearts keep sound and unaffrighted, and they go on, bubbling with laughter, through years of man's age compared to which the valley at Balaklava was as safe and peaceful as a village cricket-green on Sunday.
Not the least of the misfortunes which the allies suffered was the loss of the causeway, or main road, from Balaklava to the high grounds where they were encamped. It had been taken by the Russians three weeks before, and never regained.
Roberton of Manchester, who has exploded so many of our fancies about the women of the East, say to this? "A wound, for which the German woman would require surgical aid, in the French woman cures itself." We must say of such an unproved assertion as the French General said of the charge at Balaklava, "C'est magnifique, mais ce n'est pas la" médecine.
It was tremendous work getting up the guns, but soldiers and sailors willingly toiled away, pushing, and hauling, and aiding the teams, principally composed of bullocks, which had been brought up from Constantinople and other Turkish ports. Long lines of arabas, laden with provisions and stores, crawled slowly along between Balaklava and the front.
But the most interesting object of all was the screw troop- ship Himalaya, which was embarking the Scots Greys for the Crimea that regiment which has since earned so glorious but fatal a celebrity on the bloody field of Balaklava.
He sent out a telegram to Balaklava Place requesting his beautiful sitter by no manner of means to fail him. When his servant came back it was to usher into the studio Peter Sherringham, whom the man had apparently found at the door.
"No' ony laddie could gang a' the way up an' come doon wi' 'is heid no' broken. Bobby couldna do it, an' he's mair like a wild fox than an ordinar' dog. Noo, we're the Light Brigade at Balaklava. Chairge!" The Crimean War was then a recent event. Heroes of Sebastopol answered the summons of drum and bugle in the Castle and fired the hearts of Edinburgh youth.
Many of the injured being invalided home while the war was in progress, Her Majesty embraced the opportunity to testify her sympathy and admiration, giving to them in public with her own hands the medals for service rendered at Alma, at Balaklava, and at Inkerman. It would not be easy to say whether the Sovereign or the soldiers were more deeply moved on this occasion.
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