levieir of Ui'L-firi', 1 111/13. 



MY FATHER. 



867 



all but name, we noticed 



the battleiields of that 



and useless war between 



with her French, Turkish 



allies, and Russia. It 



smiling 



freezing" 



si and in 



nany of 



iisastrous 



ingland, 



ind Sardinian 



vas hard to believe that this 



and could have witnessed the xi^v_z...i^ 



o death of thousands of the soldiers of 



he Allies, whom mismanagement left 



argely unprovided for severe weather, 



md whose camps were pitched in the 



nost exposed and bleak plateaux in- 



;tead of in the warmer valleys. Father 



hus described Sebastopol the day before 



ve left for Constantinople : — 



Last night Sebastopol was en fete. The 

 Cmperor and Empress liad come over in the 

 niperial yacht from Yalta to inspect the 

 ilack Sea Fleet, and to meet the Dowager 

 Cmpress on her arrival from Copenhagen, 

 ^'he yacht was lying opposite the Count's 

 anding place, all aglow with electric light. 

 ^ short distance further down the harbour 

 ay fiv^e battleships, black and grim, tlieir 

 lUge bulk looming large acro.ss the gleaming 

 i-ater. Viewed from my balcony, the scene 

 vas singularly beautiful. The moon, now at 

 ler full, shone down from a cloudless sky, 

 looding the white city with white light, 

 ^'rom the boulevard, where once frowned the 

 hree-tiered rows of the two hundred and 

 ixty cannon of Fort Nicholas, there came, 

 IS the music rose and fell, throbbing strains 

 hf melody. Tn the streets the bright lights 

 ►f the electric cars shot out here and there 

 hrough the leafy avenues; in the harbour 

 ie lynx-eyed patrol-boat, with its double 



lamp, steamed ceaselessly round and round 

 the Imperial yacht, keeping jealoius watch, 

 like the fire-eyed water snake of fairy legend 

 over the Prince's bower. 



I bad crossed that afternoon the battle- 

 field of Balaklava, and the site of the famous 

 Flagstaff Battery, behind which the Russians 

 kept at bay for two years tlie allied forces 

 of four nations. Forty-two years ago the 

 whole south side oif the city where I was 

 standing had been battered into blood- 

 stained, smoking ruin. Two miles to the 

 nortliward .stands the great pyramid erected 

 in the Russian cemetery to the memory of 

 the tens of thousands of Russian soldiers 

 who died in defence of their fatherland 

 against the foreiiru invader. The ink with 

 which I write this letter is taken from an 

 inkstand made out of case-shot, picked up 

 on the battlefield. Everywhere some name re- 

 called the sombre memories of the great crime 

 whereby the long peace was broken up, and 

 the half-century of war was begun. Two 

 lines came humming through my head : 



" Here, where Murder breathed her bloody 

 steam. 



And man was slaughtered by his fellow 

 man." 



And wherefore slaughtered? Wherefore 

 but because those who decreed the slaughter 

 wished to destroy Sebastopol, and to forbid 

 Russia being the naval mistress of the Black 

 Sea. Now Sebastopol is far more strongly 

 armed tlian it was in 1853. And the great 

 floating fortres.ses of iron and steel anchored 

 in the harbour make the Tsar the undisputed 

 Lord of the Euxine up to the very gates 

 of tbe Basphorus. Everything is as it was be- 

 fore the war began, only more so, excepting 

 the hundred thou.sand gallant soldiers who 

 died that it may be otherwise tlian it was 

 written in the book of fate. 



♦t^ -<*" 



/ 



<JP^-, 



THE FIRST .-VND LAST OK FIELDS. K L\(L\L\KINCi VICTORY. 



