cannon balls--unroofed and
sliced down from eaves to foundation--and now a row of them, half a mile
long, looks merely like an endless procession of battered chimneys. No
semblance of a house remains in such as these. Some of the larger
buildings had corners knocked off; pillars cut in two; cornices smashed;
holes driven straight through the walls. Many of these holes are as
round and as cleanly cut as if they had been made with an auger. Others
are half pierced through, and the clean impression is there in the rock,
as smooth and as shapely as if it were done in putty. Here and there a
ball still sticks in a wall, and from it iron tears trickle down and
discolor the stone.

The battle-fields were pretty close together. The Malakoff tower is on
a hill which is right in the edge of the town. The Redan was within
rifle-shot of the Malakoff; Inkerman was a mile away; and Balaklava
removed but an hour's ride. The French trenches, by which they
approached and invested the Malakoff were carried so close under its
sloping sides that one might have stood by the Russian guns and tossed a
stone into them. Repeatedly, during three terrible days, they swarmed up
the little Malakoff hill, and were beaten back with terrible slaughter.
Finally, they captured the place, and drove the Russians out, who then
tried to retreat into the town, but the English had taken the Redan, and
shut them off with a wall of flame; there was nothing for them to do but
go back and retake the Malakoff or die under its guns. They did go
back; they took the Malakoff and retook it two or three times, but their
desperate valor could not avail, and they had to give up at last.

These fearful fields, where such tempests of death used to rage, are
peaceful enough now; no sound is heard, hardly a living thing moves about
them, they are lonely and silent--their desolation is complete.

There was nothing else to do, and so every body went to hunting relics.
They have stocked the ship with them. They brought them from the
Malakoff, from the Redan, Inkerman, Balaklava--every where. They have
brought cannon balls, broken ramrods, fragments of shell--iron enough to
freight a sloop. Some have even brought bones--brought them laboriously
from great distances, and were grieved to hear the surgeon pronounce them
only bones of mules and oxen. I knew Blucher would not lose an
opportunity like this. He brought a sack full on board and was going for
another. I