could not work without it; and the way they grinned and showed their white teeth with a self-laudatory exclamation of Bono, Johnny; ayyeh? was most amusing. On the other hand, keep them but one moment after gun-fire, and you could not get a stroke of work from them; they would assemble and argue the point, or else mob the interpreter till he explained the wrong from which they were suffering: the rest of the regiment would eat the whole of the rice, and not leave a morsel for them. And when the word to go was given, off they would start like great schoolboys, jumping on each other's shoulders, or making fearful faces at any Frenchman they met.

As usual, the French were detested; and at Fort Paul the feeling rose to such a height that furious battles took place, and much alarm was felt. The cause of war originated with the Turks' partiality for cats as playthings, and the French liking for the same animals as an article of food. The cats disappeared; and the Turks could only give utterance to their feelings in a suggestive Miauw!' whenever they passed a Frenchman. This soon led to blows; and a formal complaint that the English officers took the part of their men. I am afraid there was no love lost on either side, and that we were pleased to hear of the Frenchmen getting a good thrashing. At last the fights at the watering-place grew so protracted and dangerous, that the Turkish regiments were moved into Kertch, and the fort left to the French, much to their satisfaction, I have not the least doubt. In spite of the eulogies which have been so lavishly bestowed on the French military system, what I saw of it at Kertch led me to doubt its perfectness. It must be remembered we had one of the crack regiments-the Chasseurs d'Afrique-with us; and yet, after peace was announced, they were left almost to starve. Their pride would not allow them to accept the assistance readily offered by our commissariat; but they went about the town begging hay for their horses at the suttlers' shops; at the same time they carried on the system of appropriation to a great extent. One night an old copper boiler disap

peared from the artillery wharf, and although it weighed nearly a ton, it was broken up and sold in the town during the course of the night. We shut our eyes as far as we could to their proceedings, for, poor fellows, they were humiliated enough at the sufferings to which they were exposed by the neglect of their Government.

In

As soon as the armistice was proclaimed, we amused ourselves, for our forced confinement during the winter, by making excursions to all the objects of note in the vicinitythe salt lakes, the mud volcanoes, and so on, which have been already so amply described that I need waste no words about them here. spite of the utter absence of vegetation, there is something majestic about the interminable steppes of the Crimea, and the weird appearance of the burian, or congregated masses of weeds and shrubs interlaced, and bounding over the plains, produces that feeling for which we have no word, but which the Germans so aptly render by 'unheimlich.' Magnificent country houses stud the vicinity; and it was lamentable to notice the vast result of energy and patience which had been destroyed by the inroad of the Turks. About seven miles from town was a splendid country-seat, on which an immense sum had been expended; the house was of course utterly destroyed, and the trees cut down, but you could still trace the remains of the garden; and crocuses and violets betrayed the presence of feminine taste at one time. The

proprietor must have combined trade with splendour, as is so frequently the case in Russia, for there were entire orchards of gooseberry bushes, strongly suggestive of British champagne. We also found the remains of some nursery gardens, very extensive, and once carefully tended; in the centre was one of those immense kourgans or tumuli, which give so distinctive a character to the scenery round Kertch, and which had been cut into terraces, on which shrubs had once been planted. But I experienced the greatest shock after the signature of peace, when a Count Zelinski, commanding the Cossacks, came in. As he could only speak German, and I was enabled to act as his interpreter, I

1857.]

saw much of him, and we proceeded together to look for his house, the whole property he possessed for the support of his wife and children. He could not even tell me where it had stood; it had been so utterly razed that not one stone still remained standing on the other. He was completely ruined; and no wonder that tears stood in his eyes when he surveyed the desolation which had fallen on his once peaceful home. War is a stern master; but such incidents as these are apt to make a man put faith in the doctrines of the peaceat-any-price party.

*

I need not say anything here about the excavations which were carried on at Kertch in search for relics of the Mithridatic age, for they have been amply described by a far abler pen than mine. I can only refer my readers who wish to be informed on this interesting subject, to a valuable work recently published by Dr. McPherson, on Kerteh and its Antiquities. An old familiar lion, on whose back I have sat many a weary hour outside the Museum, waiting for the foe who never came, and laying up a stock of rheumatism sufficient to last me for life, stared me in the face when I last visited the British Museum; and there, too, may be found many interesting specimens, due to the unwearied patience of Dr. McPherson. I am afraid, however, many valuable relics have been lost to the country through the rapacity of the Tatars, who would enter the excavations at night, and carry off all they could lay their sacrilegious hands on. The hammals, too, who were employed on the work, secreted many valuable articles, which were only too eagerly bought up on the market-place. Still, the collection is valuable in many respects; not the least that it contains many evidences of our forefathers having resided in the Cimmerian Bosphorus long prior to the Russian rule. But the great feature which attracted the English officers at Kertch was the purchase of pictures-sacred and otherwise. They were sold at exorbitant prices, and the priests made an excellent market. Their churches had been spared;

407

and they repaid our magnanimity by weeding them of the rubbish, which they sold as valuable specimens of mediæval design. They carefully preserved everything that was at all valuable or likely to be missed, and reaped a fine harvest by our credulity. Nor were the townspeople loth to earn a trifle; they gladly sold valuable pictures which I have strong suspicions never belonged to them. In fact, judging from the class of Russians we found in Kertch, it was impossible to believe that they were the real proprietors. In all probability they were serfs who, on the flight of their masters, boldly claimed the property as their own, and joined in the plunder. An amusing instance of this occurs to me. An old scoundrel passed himself off as a Russian colonel en retraite, and threw himself and his household on the generosity of the English. He was very kindly treated, and was selected by General Vivian as the dispenser of his bounty to the poorer townsfolk. With the peace, his true character came out: he was a convict who had been hung in effigy, but, by judicious bribery to the police, had been allowed to live in a neighbouring village; with the arrival of the English, he came in, took possession of the real Simon Pure's house, and, worse than all, gained a pardon from the Czar by acting as a spy upon us.

After spending six months in Kertch, the fatal news reached me that the Contingent was to be broken up and the English officers disbanded. It was much to be regretted; for although I individually was only too glad to escape from those ungrateful Turks, I could not close my eyes to the fact that a very favourable chance was being thrown away of consolidating our influence in Turkey. However, the town was speedily evacuated; the English huts were sold to the Russians for about a pound a piece, for they cunningly refused to give more, knowing we should not carry them away, and trusting to our magnanimity not to burn them; our horses were turned loose or sold for a nominal price, and the Contingent was shipped for Constantinople.

The English officers received two months' gratuity as the reward for their exertions, and were sent about their business, without a word of recognition or thanks; a medal to which they were fairly entitled was refused them, and they were left to find their way home, to besiege Government with applications for employment, to which a deaf ear has in all cases been turned.

I think, however, Government is wrong in one respect-that of imagining services can be gauged by a pecuniary standard. The Contingent officers certainly received high pay, though not so much as they had in India; and though many of us are losers, not having received enough to cover the expenses of our outfit in some instances, still that would have been gladly passed over had we only been treated as deserving officers. It would have been a slight matter to let us receive the Medjidiè medal, which the Sultan offered us, but which Lord Stratford declined in our name; and even supposing we had no opportunity of facing the enemy, it was no fault of ours. We were engaged in the presence of an enemy for some time; and although the Crimean medal may not be our due, it would at any rate have been a graceful compliment to allow us to accept the Medjidiè. A few favoured individuals, it is true, received their firman appointing them lieutenant-colonels in the Turkish army; but this was made a great favour, and exclusively reserved for the big men,' as the Turks would call them. But grumbling is of no avail: I can only express my opinion that, in the event of another war, Government will not so easily procure volunteers for so unpleasant and ill-rewarded a service as that of the Contingent.

In conclusion, I may be allowed to add a few words about the moral influence produced by enlisting Turks in our service. I am inclined to regard it as incalculable; for although the Turk is utterly ignorant of such a feeling as gratitude, interest has great weight with him. A large number of soldiers have been brought into intimate contact with the English, and they have learned to appreciate our good qualities. They have seen that we adhere implicitly to our promises,

and are as ungrudging of our gold as we are of our blood. They found themselves treated for once like human beings: they were regularly fed and paid, and protected from the avaniahs of their native officers. Justice was meted out to all indifferently: no rank, however high, was an excuse for tyranny, and they began gradually to believe that they were in some degree more valuable than their Pacha's horses. With such feelings assuming the place of gratitude, they would have gladly followed us into the field, confident that we would not desert them; and while, at the first formation of the Contingent, they were ready to murder us, just prior to its dissolution they would almost have laid down their lives for our sake, because we treated them as fellow-beings. The Turks may be a disgrace to civilized Europe, and, regarding some of their propensities, I am not disposed to deny it; but they form excellent food for powder, and if they have any virtue it is that of bravery. They were beginning to become disciplined; they took a childish delight in their Minié rifles and the new uniforms we had given them; and they were handed over to the Seraskier to be robbed of both, and regarded with a scowl because they had been in contact with infidels, and had thus lost caste.

But the feelings with which we inspired them will last for a long time: they will return to their homes to sing praises of English gold, and while displaying their hoarded sovereigns, they will instil their countrymen with a feeling of respect for England. No other country could have succeeded in forming valuable soldiers out of such material as that handed over to us; and I am confident that should ever an occasion recur when we should require their services, we could raise à band of volunteers, and thus be spared that mass of intrigue and consequent obloquy which adhered to the Turkish Contingent as long as it remained in existence. The first step in a good direction has been taken; and it will be our own fault if we do not foster the feeling of respect which the efforts of the English officers awakened in behalf of their country.

L. W.

1857.]

MY father was very weak, and looked dreadfully ill: the doctor had recommended repose and absence of all excitement; especially,' said the man of science, let us abstain from painting. Gentle exercise, generous living, and quiet, absolute quiet, Sir, can alone bring us round again.' Notwithstanding which professional advice, I found the patient in his dressing-gown, hard at work as usual with his easel and colours, but this time the curtain was not hastily drawn over the canvas, and my father himself invited me to inspect his work.

I came in heated and excited; my father was paler than ever, and seemed much exhausted. He looked very grave, and his large dark eyes shone with an ominous and unearthly light.

'Vere,' said he, 'sit down by me. I have put off all I had to say to you, my boy, till I fear it is too late. I want to speak to you now as I have never spoken before. Where have you been this morning, Vere?'

I felt my colour rising at the question, but I looked him straight in the face, and answered boldly, At Beverley Manor, father.'

'Vere,' he continued, 'I am afraid you care for Miss Beverley-nay, it is no use denying it,' he proceeded; 'I ought to have taken better care of you. I have neglected my duty as a father, and my sins, I fear, are to be visited upon my child. Look on that canvas, boy; the picture is finished now, and my work is done. Vere, that is your mother.'

It was the first time I had ever heard that sacred name from my father's lips. I had often wished to question him about her, but I was always shy, and easily checked; whilst he from whom alone I could obtain information, I have already said, was a man that brooked no inquiries on a subject he chose should remain secret, so that hitherto I had been kept in complete igno

rance of the whole history of one parent. As I looked on her likeness now, I began for the first time to realize the loss I had sustained.

The picture was of a young and gentle-looking woman, with deep, dark eyes and jet-black hair; a certain thickness of eyebrows and width of forehead denoted a foreign origin; but whatever intensity of expression these peculiarities may have imparted to the upper part of her countenance, was amply redeemed by the winning sweetness of her mouth, and the delicate chiselling of the other features. She was pale of complexion, and looked somewhat sad and thoughtful; but there was a depth of trust and affection in those fond eyes that spoke volumes for the womanly earnestness and simplicity of her character. It was one of those pictures that, without knowing the original, you feel at once must be a likeness. I could not keep down the tears as I whispered, Oh mother, mother, why did I never know you!'

My father's face grew dark and stern: Vere,' said he, 'the time has come when I must tell you all. It may be that your father's example may serve as a beacon to warn you from the rock on which so many of us have made shipwreck. When I

was your age, my boy, I had no one to control me, no one even to advise. I had unlimited command of money, a high position in society, good looks-I may say so without vanity now-health, strength, and spirits, all that makes life enjoyable, and I enjoyed it. I was in high favour with the Prince. I was sought after in society; my horses won at Newmarket, my jests were quoted in the Clubs, my admiration was coveted by the "fine ladies," and I had the ball at my foot. Do you think I was happy? No. I lived for myself; I thought only of pleasure, and of pleasure I took my fill; but pleasure is a far different thing from

happiness, or should I have wandered away at the very height of my popularity and success, to live abroad by myself with my colours and sketch-book, vainly seeking the peace of mind which was not to be found at home. I was bored, Vere, as a man who leads an aimless life always is bored. Fresh amusements might stave off the mental disease for a time, but it came back with renewed virulence; and I cared not at what expense I purchased an hour's immunity with the remedy of fierce excitement. But I never was faithless to my art. Through it all I loved to steal away and get an hour or two at the easel. Would I had devoted my lifetime to it. How differently should I feel now.

'One winter I was painting in the Belvidere at Vienna. A young girl timidly looked over my shoulder at my work, and her exclamation of artless wonder and admiration was so gratifying, that I could not resist the desire of making her acquaintance. This I achieved without great difficulty. She was the daughter of a bourgeois merchant, one not moving in the same society as myself, and consequently unknown by any of my associates. Perhaps this added to the charm of our acquaintance; perhaps it imparted the zest of novelty to our intercourse. Ere I returned to London, I was fonder of Elise than I had ever yet been of any woman in the world. Why did I not make her mine? Oh! pride and selfishness; I thought it would be a mésalliance-I thought my London friends would laugh at meI thought I should lose my liberty. Liberty, forsooth! when one's will depends on a fool's sneer. And yet I think if I had known her faith and truth, I would have given up all for her, even then. So I came back to England, and the image of my pale, lovely Elise haunted me more than I liked. I rushed deeper into extravagance and dissipation; for two years I gambled and speculated and rioted, till at the end of that period I found ruin staring me in the face. I saved a competency out of the wreck of my property; and by Sir Harry's advice-our neighbour, Vere; you needn't wince, my boy-I managed to keep the old house here as a refuge for my old

age. Then, and not till then, I thought once more of Elise-oh, hard, selfish heart!-not in the wealth and luxury which I ought to have been proud to offer up at her feet, but in the poverty and misfortune which I felt would make her love me all the better. I returned to Vienna, determined to seek her out and make her my own. I soon discovered her relatives; too soon I heard what had become of her. In defiance of all their wishes, she had resolutely refused to make an excellent marriage provided for her according to the custom of her country. She would give no reasons; she obstinately denied having formed any previous attachment; but on being offered the alternative, she preferred taking the veil,' and was even then a nun, immured in a convent within three leagues of Vienna. What could I do? Alas! I know full well what I ought to have done; but I was headstrong, violent, and passionate: never in my life had I left a desire ungratified, and now could I lose the one ardent wish of my whole existence for the sake of a time-worn superstition and an unmeaning vow? Thus I argued, and on such fallacious principles I acted.

'Vere, my boy, right is right, and wrong is wrong. You always know in your heart of hearts the one from the other. Never stifle that instinctive knowledge, never use sophistry to persuade yourself you may do that which you feel you ought not. I travelled down at

once to the convent. I heard her at vespers; I knew that sweet, silvery voice amongst all the rest. As I stood in the old low-roofed chapel, with the summer sunbeams streaming across the groined arches and the quaint carved pews, and throwing a flood of light athwart the aisle, while the organ above pealed forth its solemn tones, and called us all to repentance and prayer, how could I meditate the evil deed? How could I resolve to sacrifice her peace of mind for ever to my own wild happiness? Vere, I carried

her off from the convent-I eluded all pursuit, all suspicion-I took her with me to the remotest part of Hungary, her own native country. For the first few weeks I believe