ENSIGN PEPPER'S LETTERS FROM THE CRIMEA.

Before Sebastopol, February, 1855.

DEAR GUARDIAN,-I write to you in obedience to injunctions in your recent letter, which I received with Aunt Priscilla's; but it's not that I have much to say either of myself or the siege. The siege is just as it was when I wrote in December, progressing backwards; and I'm the same, but I'm very plucky, and ready to hold out against any odds. Pluck does not always answer, though, for food and warmth, and some of the best of us go off into the grave, pluck and all.

You complain in England of your changeable climate, but the Crimea bangs everything. Morning, will be warm and lovely; mid-day, murky and snowy; dusk, sleet and high wind; midnight, sharp frost-rather too sharp for the vitals out here; next morning, ground hardened over, and you may walk out (treading gingerly) and not go into the mud above every twenty steps, but you'll get back to tent without a nose, if you don't keep rubbing it with snow; three o'clock, when you have heaped on every available article of apparel, including the sleeping blanket, out bursts the sun, the mercury rises to 70, or thereabouts, the mud shows out again, in its liquid state, and you feel as if in a vapour-bath, and in danger of smothering with heat.

The worst frost set in the 5th of January. I was off duty for that night (you can chalk it up) and went with the rest of us to bed—that is, we lay down on the ground, under our threadbare tent, and covered our heads with the blanket. The cold was so intense, that, tired as we were, it was impossible to get to sleep, and we awoke frozen, in the morning. The blankets were frozen, where we had breathed, our clothes were frozen, and our boots (some new ones we had managed to bag, out of Balaklava) were as rigid as pokers. Jamieson, one of our ensigns, crawled in, stiff, from the trenches: he had been ailing for weeks, only there was nobody to take his duty. We got up then, and tried to force ourselves into the frozen boots, but it was no go, and I went out, barefoot, to look up a fellow who waits on me and Gill. The snow and ground were hard and crunchy, and I had no feel in my feet. Who should I come upon, but Major Gum-we are always meeting him when we don't expect it-and he called me a young fool, and asked if I wanted to see my feet drop off, or else what brought me out without my boots when he knew I'd got a pair. So I asked if he would please to show us how our boots were to be put on, and he came into the tent. a tent of misery. Everything in it more wretched than another: the bare ground; the clothes standing up of themselves, stiff; the white faces looking out from their dirty blankets; some raw pork and biscuit in the pan; a charcoal fire, with a tin pot on it; and Jamieson lying down in a corner. Gum saw how ill he looked, and asked what he had had to eat. "Nothing, to speak of, for a long while," Jamieson said, for he could not swallow the rations, and was too weak to forage out anything else. "Have you no coffee?" inquired Major Gum. "What's

It was

the good of coffee to us?" cried Tubbs, who never minds what he says to our superiors-he would accost the field-marshal, as soon as look at him, if he could get a chance of doing either-"it's green, major." And out he tumbled a heap of useless berries at the major's feet. What do you drink then?" cried Gum to Jamieson, crossly-" water?" "I don't know where he would get water from, major," answered Tubbs, "unless he put snow in his mouth, and let it melt." "What's that in the tin pot?" returned the major, looking at the stove. "That's for him, sir,” said Tubbs, "and for us all too; we want it just as bad as he does, only we have more pluck. It's tea, and will be three goes, as big as thimbles, apiece for us, when it's doled out; and we got it at a thundering cost at Balaklava." Oh, come, Jamieson, cheer up!" cried the major, who's not a bad man at bottom, "you'll be all right again soon. There's scarcely one of us who is not ill, but we manage to knock along." Well, if you'll credit it, dear sir, with that, Jamieson breaks out a-sobbing, and then began to excuse himself. "It's not for the fever, major," he says,

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or for the pain, but it's the weakness; and the thoughts of home overcome me. I could have died fighting as well as any of them, but it is hard to go of neglect and starvation-to go off by inches. I had a letter from home yesterday

Nobody knows what Jamieson was coming out with, about his letter, for at the moment, Tubbs, who was brewing, upset the tin pot, putting out the fire and the tea together, and poor Jamieson looked round, with his greedy eyes, as if he could have beaten the charcoal for getting all the drink. So there was an end of our breakfast, for we had used all our charcoal.

Of the horses that remained to us, poor ill-used wretches, dozens died that night, and were found stiff in the daylight; and the men were shovelled from the trenches with their noses or toes, or ears or hands up frostbitten, and had to go into field-hospital-such as it is. I have got a fur comforter, which I bought from a fellow who died—that is, I bought it at the sale of his effects-and I wrap that round my ears and nose, and have managed to come out of the trenches with them whole, but when the fur gets wet, with the breath, and freezes, it's like a piece of rawedged glass to the lips and face.

That day the surgeon saw Jamieson, and said he must go down to Balaklava hospital, but there was an everlasting fuss to get him there. He could not go without an order, and there was nobody to give it, so he stopped in camp for ever so many days. He ought to have had some medicine, but there was none-there never is. It gets wasted somehow. I'll give you an instance. One day news came that a vessel had arrived in Balaklava with medical stores. Down tramped the surgeons, crowing over everybody, because they got their physic in, and we didn't get our provisions; but weren't they in a passion when they reached the ship, and came to see their medicines! All the bottles were broken and their contents swimming in the hold, and the powders and pills, and salves and leeches had got loose, and were floating in it: all a smash and a mash together. It was nobody's fault at all, dear sir, only the ship's: she would persist in pitching and rolling, the captain said—and how was he to help her ?-it was her nature. It's true that some heavy stores of

shot and shell had been stowed in the same compartment with the bottles and pill-boxes; but that was only an error in judgment, and what business had the ship to flounder and pitch? The surgeons were excessively crestfallen, and said they should report; but as nobody's authorised to receive such reports, they got no hearing.

After a week spent in the mud at camp, with a blanket over him, and a piece of tarpaulin tied round his throat, which was sore, Jamieson got taken down to Balaklava. The French lent us some mules, and he was swung behind one, and the procession started. I hate to meet these processions: the fellows look more like corpses than living men: and a good many become corpses before they get to Balaklava. Jamieson had a jolt for it; for the mules were obstinate, and would put their feet in all the holes, and as some are knee-deep, you may judge of the effect.

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never say

Three days afterwards I went to see Jamieson. My stars! what a wonderful place that Balaklava hospital is! If I get ill, I'd rather lie and die in camp than be shoved there. I couldn't find where he was lying, and the place was so crowded, and the filth and confusion so great, it was difficult to get along: besides the groans. I turned to struggle out again, for my breath and sight were leaving me with the stench, when I saw an arm lifted towards me from the floor, where the chaps were lying. It was Jamieson. Poor old chum ! death was stamped on his wasted face, and he signed to me to stoop down over him. Well, old boy," said I, thinking I'd cheer him up, "are you almost ready to come out to camp again, and take a spell at the trenches ?" "I shall never go out of here again," said he, his great mournful eyes straining eagerly on me, till they carry me out feet foremost." "Oh, that be blowed," I answered, making my words as merry as I could; " die. How do they treat you here?" "As well as they can, I think," he said. "I don't want to complain, for it's not their fault. A doctor has seen me once, and said I might have some tea, and I have had a drink twice in the three days." "Do they dose you well?" I went on. "They have got no medicine to dose us with, and no comforts for us, and there are as good as no doctors. You never saw such a lot, Pepper, as are taken away every morning dead. I don't believe one in twenty need have died, had there been anybody to bestow upon us common care. I know I should not." "Now don't give way like that, Jamieson," I said; "you'll live to make old bones yet. Pepper," he cried, shaking his ghastly head, "you know where we live: if you escape the common fate here, and get back to London, go and see my mother, and tell her I died in Balaklava hospital. Don't tell her how things were, out here: it would only grieve her, to hear that three parts of those who are under the ground were coolly murdered, and nothing less. You know it, Pepper. But let that pass-for me, all is nearly over. Give my love to my dear mother, and tell her I should not so much care to die, if I could have seen her again, and heard her say she forgave me for all the uneasiness I have ever caused her."

All this made me feel queer, dear sir, fearing it might be my turn next, so I thought I'd cut it, and wished Jamieson good day. But he called me back, to say if anything good came out for him, any hamper, we were to divide it; and that I might have his trousers, which were as

good as new (so to speak), having only three holes in them, two in the knees and one behind. He died that night.

Some cheering news was brought one morning into camp-that the Golden Fleece had come into Balaklava harbour, with hundreds and thousands of sheepskin coats for us officers, presents from Trieste. As many of us as could stand the sea of mud, tore down to Balaklava, and there we boarded the good ship, and were regaled with a view of the bales. The captain said he was anxious for somebody to come and relieve him of them, and we stopped till there was no chance of their being got out that afternoon. After days of impatience, and no coats appearing, we made another journey, and, if you'll believe it, dear sir, the ship had sailed, taking the coats back in her. The quartermaster-general's department had refused to land them, as it had not been paid the compliment of receiving official advice of their arrival. We turned away, exploding with wrath, shivering and shaking in the bitter cold, feeling the deficiencies in our garments all the more keenly for having had our imaginations exalted up to sheepskin coats. Some of us have got coats, such as they are, served out to us now; but they are not the sheepskins of the Golden Fleece. I think they were all made to fit one man some can't stretch into them any way, so they tie their sleeves round their necks, as the lazy Italians do, and let the coat swing behind. The boots are the worst, such as have reached us, and our poor devils of men have to go barefooted. They are made too small for the feet, and can't be dragged on anyhow-but the men have to pay for them. Once, wnen we were all shoeless, a ship's load arrived at Balaklava harbour. And there the ship stopped, and the shoes in her, for the captain could get nobody to relieve him of his cargo. One official said it was not in his department; another said he could get no orders from Lord Raglan ; a third, that no bill-of-lading had been sent to him; a fourth, that he never acted but under direct orders from her Majesty's Government; and a fifth said, the army had got plenty of everything. So the captain went storming and swearing out of port, with his ship and his shoes, and our naked feet rejoiced on in their nakedness. Many such jokes occur here, dear sir,-in fact, we seem to be in for nothing else. One famous affair came off, causing much diversion in camp. The surgeons wrote home for brandy and port wine for the sick, and the Government sent back a ship full-I am not clear as to the exact quantity. By the time it arrived (for it took its own time), the sick it had been wanted for were gone where cordials could not avail them, and many generations had gone after them; but there was still a full list on the books-as there always will be out here--and the surgeons brought a gleam of recovery into their wan faces, by promising that before night they should all have a taste-dysentery ones brandy, weak ones wine. At night the coveted reinforcements arrived at camp, and the medicals (crowing again) set to, drew corks, and poured out the port wine sparingly. It looked very funny-a greeny, yellowy, whity liquid, thick and oily. One of them had the pleasure of tasting it. He smacked his lips before he began (thinking the benevolent Government had opened their hearts, and sent out a supply of crême de menthe to comfort the weak insides), and took down a decent glassful before he discovered his mistake, and it was too

late then to spit it out. It was castor-oil-best, cold-drawn castor-oil! When they came to the brandy, that turned out to be another sort of oil, darker than the first, and with such a peculiar perfume that everybody was knocked backwards. It was balsam of Co-something-I forget the name, but Tubbs says it's Latin for prussic acid. The doctors went into the field hospitals, and told the patients that the brandy and wine had not come, only plenty of castor oil: they might have some of that if they liked. I don't know whether they accepted the offer, but a lot of lives went out before morning.

One night I was in the trenches, stamping my feet to feel if I had got any (for it is no unusual thing to find one, or both, gone), when a most singular noise, overhead, attracted my attention. It was as a rush of a mighty body through the air, and a cracking of cords; but I could see nothing, for the night was dark. "What's that?" I said to one of the men. "Don't know, sir," he answered, “unless it's some bird of prey on a large scale—a griffin, maybe, with iron tails and claws. He makes row enough." He just did, whatever it was, but it was soon past. In the morning, Gill, who had been in tent that night, asked if I heard the row: it woke him, and half the camp. The next day, while I was lying down, getting a nap after the night-work, a wonderful hubbub rose in the camp. Tent doors were lifted, officers and men rushed out, consternation was on every face, and nobody could tell what for. I rushed out with the rest, thinking it might be the Old Gentleman appearing with all that commotion. Every eye was directed to a distance, and sure enough it was an old gentleman-but not the one I expected. He wore a white feather, and was riding in the midst of a crowd of horsemen. It was the commander-in-chief! It was; and it's not my fault if you won't take it in. After months of seclusion or absence (which, is a dispute here still) he had appeared to gladden the eyes of the camp. Some say he had been here all along, sleeping away his time, and that the previous night, while he was reading some leading articles in a newspaper, he suddenly opened his eyes, stared very much, and called out that his staff were to attend him somewhere the next day. But the more general belief is, that the nocturnal disturbance we heard was a balloon, bringing his lordship back to head-quarters. A fellow, who is an orderly, or something of that, at Lord Raglan's house, came into camp that evening, and told us the staff was turned upside down with astonishment when his lordship issued his orders for a sortie amongst his own men: such a blacking of boots, and brushing of coats, and oiling of hair, and wondering what could have taken the commander! The orderly said his lordship was going out once a fortnight, at least: and it looks like it. He has been down to Balaklava three or four times, and singular to relate, each time, a ship has been on fire in the harbour. Not much damage has been done as yet, for they have contrived to extinguish the fires ; but as sure as my name's Tom Pepper, they'll have a blow-up some day, if they let them take fire indiscriminately. The harbour is crammed with ships, and some have got powder on board.

The obedience to official routine here is admirable, and will be a feather in the war's cap as long as its history shall last. Not a thing is done without direct orders from home-from the War Minister, or the Horse