THE CASUS BELLI 3 



personal guidance ; but Lacy Yea, who commanded 

 the regiment, was a man of onward, fiery, violent 

 nature, not likely to suffer his cherished regiment to 

 stand helpless under the muzzles pointed down on 

 him and his people by the skirmishers close overhead. 



"The will of a horseman to move forward, no less 

 than his power to elude or overcome all obstacles^ 

 is singularly strengthened by the education of the 

 hunting-field, and Lacy Yea had been used in early 

 days to ride to hounds in one of the stiffest of all 

 huntine countries. To him this left bank of the 

 Alma, crowned with Russian troops, was very like 

 the wayside activity which often enough in his boy- 

 hood had threatened to wall back and keep him 

 down in the depths of a Somersetshire lane whilst 

 the hounds were running high up in the field some 

 ten or fifteen feet above. His practised eye soon 

 showed him a fit ' shord ' or break in the scarped 

 face of the bank, and then shouting out to his 

 people, 'Never mind forming! Come on, men! 

 Come on anyhow,' he put his cob to the task and 

 quickly gained the top. On either side of him men 

 of his regiment quickly climbed up, and in such 

 numbers that the Russian skirmishers who had been 

 lining it fell back upon their battalions." ^ 



Why did General Hamley, when Commandant 

 of the Staff College, encourage hunting so much, 

 and hold that to be a bad rider was a bar to active 

 Staff employment ? Again, why did the late Com- 



^ Kinglake, The Invasioii of the Crimea, vol. ii. p. 322. The 

 italics have been added. 



