They started before day-break, but the sun rose before they reached the river, and his earliest beams lit up a scene of unsurpassed natural beauty, animated by one of those gorgeous spectacles of military splendour which occasionally relieve with a gleam of ti-ansient brightness the dark pictures of the horrors and desolation of war. For miles the eye rested on a very forest of glittering bayonets, and the air resounded with the thrilling notes of martial instruments, rising now loud and shrill, now thin and clear from the distance, above that confused murmur, so suggestive of numbers and powei-, which proceeds from an army on the march. The morning was bright and still and balmy: the dew lay heavy on the grass, and clung in glistening pearls on the bright-tinted fragrant wild-flowers with which the ground was literally carpeted. The road lay across smiling valleys, divided by low chains of hills, which melted in the distance, till they were blended and lost in the bolder and more romantic forms of the mountains of the coast range and the interior of the Crimea. In one of these valleys a large force of the Allied cavalry was held in reserve, and the gorgeous trappings and brilliant appearance of these troops, whose innumerable squadrons covered a vast space of ground, formed a tableau unrivalled for magnificence and beauty.
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THE SEAT OF WAR, 93
As the army advanced, the Turks re-occupied the heights in front of Balaklava, from which they were driven on the 25th of October, so as to form a support to the French, who, after crossing the intervening valley, established their left on the edge of the ridge which overhangs the valley opposite the heights of Inkermann, while their right extended to a point beyond Traktir. General Canrobert, who was in command of the French divisions, pushed across the bridge at this point, and, having cleared his front by driving off the enemy, who were not in great numbers, returned to his position on the left side of the river. The ground more to the right behind Tchourgoun was occupied by the Sardinians, whose extreme right out-post was thrown back nearly to Kamara; and the line of defences was completed to the sea-shore considerably to the south-east of Balaklava, by the Koyal Marines, who were advanced by Sir Colin Campbell from their old eyrie, the " crow's nest," to a point commanding the old Baidar Road.
Meanwhile the most active preparations had been going on for opening the third bombardment. New batteries had been erected and armed, large quantities of ammunition accumulated, and an important addition made to the number of our mortars. The English had 157 guns and mortars in position, most of them in their advanced works near the enemy; the French had nearly 300 pieces of ordnance; and of the total number of pieces thus brought to bear on the Russian defences, not less than sixty were mortars.
At three o'clock on the afternoon of the 6th of June, one blank gun was fired as a signal, and the French and English batteries once more opened on the place. The fire on our side was kept up with the greatest energy until the fall of evening; the Russians replied with great vigour, but it was observed that their fire was not so well directed as on i^revious occasions — a change which was attributed to their deficiency in experienced artillerymen, no adequate reinforcements having been brought up to make good their heavy losses in this important arm. During the night, mortars only were employed by the Allies; but the next morning the whole of the guns resumed the work of destruction with the most telling effect. This bombardment was distinguished from the preceding ones by the greatly increased mortar firing from our batteries, and the loss thus inflicted on the defenders of the Russian works was correspondingly heavy. The practice of the Allied artillerymen was admirable; shell after shell burst within the parapets of the Malakoff and Mamelon. Some small cohorns in the advanced work did fearful execution among the riflemen in the Quarries — as a new trench or place d'armes constructed on some broken ground in front of the Redan since the last bombardment was named; and the long guns were laid with such precision that, in a few hours, the parapets of the Mamelon and the Redan and the face of the Malakoff looking towards our trenches were