ng, in many cases with
undressed wounds, on the hard, springless, and jolting vehicles,
suffered excruciating agony. Many of these, unable to endure their
sufferings, died, and thus the living and the dead were in some cases
jolted slowly along together. The road on each side was lined with dead
animals and men--the latter lying in a state of apparent _rest_, which
called forth envious looks from the dying.

But a still sadder spectacle met my eye when, from another road which
joined this one, there came a stream of peasantry, old men, women, and
children, on foot and in country carts of all kinds, flying from the
raging warriors who desolated their villages, and seeking, they knew not
where--anywhere--for refuge. Too often they sought in vain. Many of
these people had been wounded--even the women and little ones--with
bullet, sword, and spear. Some carried a few of their most cherished
household articles along with them. Others were only too glad to have
got away with life. Here an old man, who looked as if he had been a
soldier long before the warriors of to-day were born was gently
compelled by a terror-stricken young woman with a wounded neck to lay
his trembling old head on her shoulder as they sat on a little straw in
the bottom of a native cart. He had reached that venerable period of
life when men can barely totter to their doors to enjoy the sunshine,
and when beholders regard them with irresistible feelings of tenderness
and reverence. War had taught the old man how to stand erect once
more--though it was but a spasmodic effort--and his poor fingers were
clasped round the hilt of an old cavalry sabre, from which female hands
had failed to unclasp them. There, in another cart, lay an old woman,
who had been bed-ridden and utterly helpless for many a year, but war
had wrought miracles for her. It had taught her once again to use her
shrunken limbs, to tumble out of the bed to which she had been so long
accustomed, and where she had been so lovingly nursed, and to crawl in a
paroxysm of terror to the door, afraid lest she should be forgotten by
her children, and left to the tender mercies of Cossack or Bashi-Bazouk.
Needless fear, of course, for these children were only busy outside
with a few absolute necessaries, and would sooner have left their own
dead and mangled bodies behind than have forgotten "granny"! Elsewhere
I saw a young woman, prone on her back in another cart, with the pallor
of death