Lincolnshire before the invention of railroads.
In fact, there seemed an impression that all
things might be had here, even to the luxury
of something eatable. My companion, therefore,
looked at me with considerable surprise,
when I told him ruefully, that I had some
preserved meats and fruits carefully packed in
tin cases somewhere among my luggage (a
dreary pile), I did not clearly know where; for
my faculties were frozen. "Preserved things
in tin cases," said my friend, brightening up
when he clearly understood me, "Oh, we
can send those on to the camp. Here we have
got all sorts of things—salt beef and pork—
and pork and beef—and, and—well, not much
more, but we are fairly in clover compared
with the rest of the fellows."

It was quaint to hear my companion, a
regular London swell—whom I remembered
very well with nerves, and a damaged
digestion—thus lauding the accommodations
of Balaklava. It is but a village
—a mere collection of huts. In ordinary
times it must be inexpressibly dreary; but
now the General Post Office ten minutes
before closing time is hardly fuller of bustling,
and hustling, and scuffling. Rusty,
impatient individuals on short leave from other
places, flounder about hurriedly, yet with an
odd air of business and authority in all they
do, which bespeaks the stranger on a hostile
soil. They are armed also—needlessly just
here—but who among them knows when he
may be summoned to the front, and find
himself hand to hand with the enemy? It is
well, therefore, to ride prepared even when
foraging within your own lines. They are
strangely altered, some of those bucks and
bloods I see stride slouchingly up the broken
street, now in a mud hole, now out of it, now
sending the splashes from a half-melted snow
puddle flying right and left on each side of
them. They hardly look the same men who
used to step mincingly out of their cabs and
strut daintily into their clubs. Barring a few
soiled and torn remnants of what was once a
uniform, and still looks something like one
when you get quite close to it, they might be
so many Californian Diggers. They are
begrimed, gaunt, grim, famished, and luckless
enough. They have the boldest contrivances
to keep themselves dry and warm. Wherever
an article of fur or wool can be worn by any
one who is fortunate enough to possess it,
there it is. Round their waists are twisted
immense gay-coloured scarfs, bought at
fabulous prices. On their feet, are coverings
which might be the seven-leagued boots of
the giant Blunderbore.

The occupation of almost everybody seems
to be connected with eating. Little knots of
fellows adjourn for impromptu feasts to all
sorts of places, and dispense with knives,
and forks, and plates with the utmost readiness.
They have at length acquired that
branch of Turkish politeness, which consists
in eating with the fingers; others more
fortunate have invitations to cosy little things
on board some of the ships in the bay. Lucky
dogs!

Meantime, I wander about leisurely,
nobody minding me—by-and-by, at dinner
time, there will be some conversation, but not
now. So I get among the hovels near the
shore, and enter one, knocking my head
distinctly, as I do so. It looks not unlike an
all-sorts shop at Wapping. Rolling about in
oozy, frozen barrels, is an immense quantity
of salt pork—that prime delicacy
recommended for its being easier cooked, and keeping
better than beef: also recommended,
perhaps, because swine's flesh is precisely the
sort of meat which is forbidden to be eaten
by the inhabitants of those latitudes. Trim
kegs of rum, piled up one over the other, look
cheerily at us from corners. Something is
carefully packed in sacking, and steadily lying
in soak as it were between the wet ground and
the snow. This, I am told, is part of the fresh
supply of warm clothes sent from Constantinople
or Bucharest since the loss of the Prince.
There are stacks of guns, too, and piles of
ammunition, also some cannon. Everything
seems in a wretched disorderly plight. Out
of doors there is a crowd fully equal to that
of Whitechapel on a Saturday night, barring
the ladies. There is quite as much shouting
and hallooing, however, for provisions are
being landed from the transports and then
hurried away to the camp. It is not very far
off, but the road there is "too bad, sir,
entoirely!" as an Irishman has just told me.
Neither horse nor man can make sure of
reaching it when he goes hence, and a pound
weight difference to their burthen may render
the journey impossible to either.

Wandering about, I find that Balaklava
boasts a low wall, singularly useless and
ill-built; down a break-toe street also is a
well, quite impregnable, I should say, from
the difficult and ancle-wrenching nature of its
natural fortifications. Farther on, are some
melancholy hypochondriacal trees, four of
them, I think, as straight and dull as so many
gigantic vegetable policemen. Balaklava
possesses also a good-for-nothing old Genoese
fortress, a church of no account, and a brisk
colony of a small Crimean insect which seems
to have a wonderful partiality for fresh
stranger considered in an alimentary point of
view. This energetic little race provides me
with considerable occupation: it is with
satisfaction also that I notice several other persons
furnished with employment similar to mine,
and performing their allotted task with
much diligence and apparent pleasurable
feeling.

Yes; Balaklava is a wretched little place
enough; yet I dare say there are some who
would rather not ride away from it through
the last falling snow to-night; and I feel that
many a bold fellow must turn longing glances
at the lights which glow out of the snug
cabin windows, and the blazes seen through