Untitled Article

to and along the ravines . On its surface everywhere are strewed the carcases of horses and miserable animals torn by dogs and smothered in mud . Vultures sweep over the mounds in flocks ; carrion crows and ' birds of prey obscene' hover over their prey , menace the hideous dogs who are feasting below , or sit in gloomy ^ dyspepsia , with drooped head and dropping wing , on the remnants of their banquet . '

< c It is over this ground , gained at last by great toil and exhaustion and loss of life on the part of the starving beasts of burden , that man and horse have to struggle from Balaklava for some four or five miles with the hay and corn , the meat , the biscuit , the pork , which form the subsistence of our army . Every day this toil must be undergone , for we are fed indeed by daily bread , and only get half rations of it . Horses drop exhausted on the road , and their loads are removed and added to the burdens of the struggling survivors ; then , after a few

efforts to get out of their Slough of Despond , the poor brutes succumb and lie down to die in their graves . Men wade and plunge about , and stumble through the mud , with muttered imprecations , or sit down on a projecting stone , exhausted , pictures of dirt and woe unutterable . Sometimes on the route the outworked and sickly soldier is seized with illness , and the sad aspect of a fellow-countryman dying before his eyes shocks every passer-by- ^ -the more because aid is all but hopeless and impossible . Officers in huge sailors' boots , purchased at Balaklava for about

five times their proper price , trudge on earnestly in the expectation of being able to carry back to their tents the pot of preserved meat or the fowl , bought at a fabulous cost in that model city of usurydom , ere the allotted portion of wood under the cooking tins has been consumed . It requires a soldier ' s eye to tell captains from corporals now , mounted on draggle-tailed and unkempt ragged ponies covered with mud . The pride and hope of our aristocracy , of our gentry , of our manufacturing bourgeoisie , of our bankership , and shipping owners , and

money-owning and money-making classes , with dubiously coloured faces , tattered and bepatched garments , and eccentric great coats and head-gear , are to be seen filing up and down the filthy passes between Balaklava and the camp , carrying out ligneous hams , or dishevelled turkeys , strings of onions , sacks of potatoes , Dutch cheeses , almost as fatal as Russian bullets , bread , the worst varieties of ^ Goldner / bottles of wine and brandy , crocks of butter , and assortments of sausages , from the economical but nasty saveloy , up to the be-silvered and delicate

Bologna . They are decidedly ' disreputable looking . ' The liveliest suspicions of Bow-street would be excited at their appearance in court . They are hairy and muddy , as the police reports would say , in short , c wearing the air of foreigners , ' but the vast majority of them are the noblest , cheeriest , bravest fellows in Europe —men who defy privation , neglect , storm , and tempest—who , in the midst of difficulties , rarely despond and never despair , and who comfort and animate by the brightest examples of courage and high valour , of constancy and unflinching resolution , the gallant fellows around them , "

Such is " The History of the War in the Crimea . " A Leocicon of Freemasonry : containing a Definition of all Us communicable Terms , Notices of its History , Traditions , and Antiquities ; and an Account of all the Files and Mysteries of the Ancient World . By Albert Gr . Mace : at M . D ., Sec . Gen . of the Supreme Council , 33 rd Degree . South Carolina . Third Edition . Philadelphia : Moss .

Brothers ; 8 vo . 524 pp . 1855 . — "We give the full title of this volume , which better explains its contents than any description we can supply . A careful examination enables us to say , this new edition is most carefully edited ; it embodies all the points of difficulty that many Masons meet with in our ceremonial usages , and renders them easy ot solution . We hope to see the volume reprinted and revised for English Masons . VOL . T . 4 L