Thus was this strong sortie of the garrison of Sebastopol repulsed at all points with severe loss to the enemy, who were deeply discouraged at the failure of an enterprise planned on a scale calculated for the most important results, and exhibiting a combination at once profound and extensive. " The prisoners we have taken," writes General Canrobert, in his despatch of the 28rd of March, "declare that their losses were enormous, and we think in fact that this disorderly combat, as all night combats are, and where the firing lasted for many hours, must have cost the Russians, considering the masses they brought forward, 1,000 to 1,200 men at least hors-de-combat. The ground in front of our parallels was strewn with the slain."
The French loss was estimated by the same authority at above 300 killed and wounded, while our own number of killed, wounded, and missing amounted to about ninety. Among the missing were Lieutenant-Colonel Kelly of the 34th, who was also wounded, and Captain Montague, R.E. Both of these officers were prisoners in the hands of the Russians, the latter having been taken in the attack on our extreme left.
This desperate conflict was succeeded by one of the most curious and interesting episodes of the siege. On the 24th a suspension of hostilities was agreed upon for about three hours, to commence shortly after noon; and at the time appointed a white flag was hoisted at the summit of the Mamelon; the signal was repeated from the other Russian batteries, and answered in the same way from our own trenches. Colonel Hamley and the correspondents of The Times and Morning Herald have each devoted a considerable space in their respective works to a minute and detailed description of this armistice,
THE EAST.
and our readers will readily pardon us for reproducing from these sources a few of the most striking features and incidents of that event.
Colonel Hamlej', to whom the world is indebted for a work no less remarkable for its manly simplicity of style, and scrupulous accuracy of detail, than for the comprehensive views which it enunciates, and the unflagging interest it excites, thus describes what he saw: — ■
"At noon the firing had almost ceased, and, at the appointed hour, a white flag was elevated over the Mamelon, while one appeared simultaneously on each of the French and English works, when those who had been watching for it at once streamed down the hill to the scene of contest. The spectacle that followed was one of the strangest that had occurred during the campaign.
"While we went down the slope to the ravine, the French burial parties advanced from their trenches, and hundreds of Eussians came out from behind the Mamelon and approached our works, some of them bearing stretchers.
" Passing through the interval in our rearmost intrenchment where it crosses the ravine, we first saw a small heap of bodies, six Russians and two Frenchmen, lying on the side of the hill, having probably fallen within the French lines, and been collected there during the preceding night. At the point where the advanced trench meets ours, the ravine is very rugged and broken, and those who had ridden down left their horses there. The first object I saw there was the body of the Albanian leader, who had fallen in our trenches, borne by four of our men on a stretcher to the outside of the parapet, where it was received by Russian soldiers. It had been partially stripped, and covered again with his white kilt and other drapery, leaving his feet bare, as also his breast, on which, as on Count Lara's, appeared the scars of several old wounds. In a deep gulley, below the verge of our slope of the hill, lay a Russian on his back. He had been wounded in the neck, and had lain there since the night before last, suffering and alone, on a bed of loose stones, with his head, which he had pillowed on his forage cap, lower than his body. Judging from his aspect, his case was by no means desperate. His comrades, at the call of our men, who discovered him, flocked round and carried him off. I crossed the broken ground, which was sprinkled with dead, to the o]Dposite side of the ravine, in front of the Fi'ench parallel, where a crowd of Russian and French officers and soldiers were intermixed, with a good many English officers as spectators.
"Many, both officers and men, wore orders and medals. Between these groups passed and repassed the burial parties, lifting each grim, gory figure from its face or back, placing it on a stretcher, and bearing it, with the dead to CO
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