The Press. — London, England, 1856-09-13 00:00:00

SEPT. 13, 1856. sat outside the coach on the rail with their backs towards the coachman's and their round visages vis.d•vis that of the Empress. On the right of the carriage rode the Grand Ecuyer; ou the left the Aide de-camp General attached to the person of the Empress. An officer of the Imperial stable rode before it, and four Cossacks of the Chamber Sollowed the Ecuyer and the General. Behind the carriage were six Pages of the Chamber, and two Palefreniers on horseback. As the carriage passes amid the thunders of ten thousand voices another vehicle, if possible more magnificent, comes before us ; and again the hurrahs of the troops and the people ring through the air. The Empress Marie Alexaadrovna is seated in this carriage, and by her side the little Grand Duke Vladimir Alexan drowitch, who is in full military uniform. Her Majesty seemed much affected as she bowed to the right and left and acknowledged the salutations of the people with vivacity and impreAsemerif. The boy seemed to take it all as a matter of course, and probably the archducal mind VAS occupied by distracting thoughts of dinner. The 'equipment and attendance of the vehicle were the same as those of the Empress Mother. And now a galaxy of what are really " stage coaches," so richly gilt and deco. rated are they, pass before ns. The first contains the Grand Duchess Marie I'aulovna and Alexander Jose. phorna ; the second the Grand Duchesses Alexandre Petrovna and Helene Paulovna; the third the Grand Duchesses Mario Nicolaevna and Catherine Michailovna ; and the fourth her Imperial Highness the Princess of Oldenburg. Another military spectacle closes up in the rear of the last carriage. For three hours the procession and the ceremony Hof kissing the sacred images and accepting bread and salt listed, amid the cheers and prayers of the people. The Emperor rested in the Kremlin that night. On the following day be retired to Petrovsky till the 7th, when the coronation took place. We have all heard of a " drosky," the national carriage of Russia. An amusing description is given by a correspondent of the pleasures of a drive : If an " enlightened foreigner " on visiting England is but half as perplexed and helpless as an Englishman in :Russia, he ought to be an object of the profoundest sympathy tl every one who possesses the smallest spark of humanity. I cannot imagine any position much more appalling than a seat is a drosky with a wild being before you who is abso• late master of your fete, who does not understand or want to understand yon, who goes on when you want to stop, and obstinately insists on knocking at the most morose• looking doors and on introducing you to a belacquered lacquey gifted with an unknown tongue when you desire to go on, who whirls you for miles through tortuous streets, with gilded churches, all so like that you seem to be constantly galloping past the same edifice, whose fares are impossible and whose change is ridiculous, and whom you cannot force to take you back to the place whence you came when, choked with dust, starved, and hot, you faintly strive, by pantomime worthy of Grimaldi, to signify that you have abandoned your search after an invisible house, and want to return to your Russian home. But the position is not only morally but physically painful. No one who has not tried the adaptability of short legs to the sides of a dray horse can conceive how dolorous are the results of the first drive in one of these ingenious vehicles, whereon you sit stradilelegged behind the driver, whom you are sometimes driven involuntary to embrace as he whirls round a corner in his mad career. The seat is about as pleasant as that on the back of an Irish jaunting • ear with both sides removed. There are droskies of another and more convenient form, but the Russians always engage them, and the others remain unused till the unwary stranger, yielding to the force of circumstances and the sense of novelty, mounts, and is lost for the day. In vain does he consult his vocabulary. He can find out what is the Russian for " a preserve where they keep live fish," or, " I trust, honoured sir, that you possess excellent health," and many pleasant phrases for shopping and for tea-drinking, but he will not discover the smallest clue to the mystery of communicating to the driver bis desire to "get down and have another carriage." Should he artfully construct a compound sen tence, and with infinite pains give it utterance in speech, the hairy ruler of his destinies for the day shakes Ins head and shrugs his shoulders at the jargon addressed to him, in which a few " schtch's " and " tchseh's " are left out very probably, and, imagining it to be some remonstrance on the score of speed, urges his horse at a flying gallop over the wavy, wooden pavement. Such have been the sufferings of the man who cannot speak Russian and who cannot get a valet de place in St. Petersburg ; and they are, if possible, aggravated in Moscow. It must be admitted that the drosky drivers are intelligent and obliging, but " nods and becks and wreathed smiles " will not supply the place of the vernacular, and Englishmen are so little used to pantomime that they are, generally speaking, less successful than their neighbours in the use of it. TILE IMPERIAL GOVERNMENT OF Russu made 80 bad a speculation in their Moscow railway contract that it is said some shyness is felt of foreign con. tractors. Gossip from Moscow says that his Majesty the Emperor, at a recent " presentation," put to an eminent Belgian contractor the usual question — whether this was his first visit to Russia, and what had attracted him? On this occasion the Belgian promptly answered that he came with a view to the establishment o railways. "Ah !" said the Empe ror, " we want railways, but we must wait two or three years yet." The same question was subse quently put by the Empress to the same individual, and on receiving the same answer, her Majesty said, " Yes, we want railways much ; but I fear the country is too large for us to think of them." THE PRESS. RUSSIA AND THE TREATY OF PARIS. Le Nord publishes the following account of a diplomatic note which it asserts the Russian Govern ment has addressed in reply to Lord Clarendon's complaint of the delay of the execution of the treaty of Paris : This note is an answer to another note which had been addressed by the British Government to that of St. Peters burg, complaining of the delay which Russia, in its opinion, apparently wished to cause in carrying out the engagements it had contracted by the treaty of Paris. Recapitulating all the gnefs of the Foreign•office, Prince Gortschakoff analyses them in succession, and refutes them with such lucidity, precision, and firm ness of language as must have proved to the Cabinet of London that, although Russia wishes to keep up friendly relations with England, she has no intention, for all that, to use a colloquial expression, of letting her toes be trodden on. Prince Gortschakoff proves irrefutably that Russia, far from carrying out with a bad grace the stipulations of the treaty of peace, is, on the contrary, ready in every place to fulfil her engagements to the very letter; proved, for the rest, by her evacuation of Kass, performed with an obliging promptitude and a good grace that even the journals of Constantinople have been compelled to acknowledge. As for the Isle of Serpents, Prince Gortschakoff declares that Russia cannot concede to one of the powers that signed the treaty of Paris the right of raising by herself alone, and of her own mere motion, a question that cannot be solved unless by all these powers at one and the same time, as the Congress of Paris has clearly specified. Besides, the demarcation of the new frontiers of Bessarabia has to be performed, and is being performed by the commission appointed for that purpose by the Congress of Paris ; and as for what concerns the regulating of the navigation of the Danube and the Russian frontier in Asia, the Russian Commissioners have been long at their post, where they meirely wait for the other delegates to arrive in order to commence their task. Such is in sum, leaving out the conclusive arguments and the unanswerable facts quoted in illustration, the answer with which the Emperor Alexander's Minister of Foreign Affairs rebuts the accusation attempted to be foisted on Russia by the British Cabinet with little apparent good faith, in so unusual a manner, and so exceedingly ill-timed. THE EVACUATION OF KARS. A LETTER from Erzeroum, this week, dated August the 16th, gives some interesting details of the sur render of this fortress into tits hands of the Turks. The Russian generals appear to have treated the English officers, Major Frazer, Major Peel, and Capt. Evans, of the 9th Lancers, with distinguished hospitality. The day fixed for the ceremony of restoration was the 6th of August. The three officers, accompanied by the correspondent of the Times, arrived at Kars on the 3rd : On reporting our arrival to the Governor, every atten tion was immediately shown that respect and hospitality could suggest; General Boutiloff insisted upon giving us his room for our accommodation; we were pressingly in vited to dine with the Governor during our stay ; horses were at our disposal, and a Cossack escort told off to attend upon us. These civilities, which pslicy, if not a better motive, would have dictated, were perhaps in some measure in tended to repay the friendly reception which Lorismelikoff and suite experienced from the officers of the British staff on the occasion of his recent visit to Erzeronm. Bat I would not attach much value to this remark, for since the establishment of peace the meeting of British and Russian officers in these parts has in every instance been charac. Wised by feelings worthy of gallant gentlemen and soldiers. On the 4th we visited the scene of the bloody fight of the 29th of September, being accompanied by a Cossack officer who was himself engaged in that memorable struggle. His account of the whole affair was clear and circumstantial ; he related every incident, and pointed out every spot of special interest; and it was impossible not to admire the composure—l may say the stoicism—with which he thus detailed for our information the particulars of as signal a defeat as his countrymen sustained through. out the war. _ _ . _ On the sth we dined at the Russian camp with General Kruloff, who invited a large party of his friends to meet us; toasts were the order of the day, and General Wil liams's health was drunk three times with enthusiastic cheers, in whish the troops, who had gathered in force round the tent, joined to the full stretch of their voices. After dinner, which was over at three o'clock, there was a parade for all hands. We had an opportunity of wit nessing some beautiful Cossack drill, and then went down the ranks of the infantry. In stature the men were below the average height, but they were well appointed and drilled. The Russian camp, I should observe, is about four miles from Kars, on the road to Gumri, and oom• prises about 5,000 men of all arms. On the oth the Turkish troops under Hussein Pacha were advancing on the road from Erzeroum : They consisted of two battalions of infantry, two com panies of Chasseurs, one troop of Lancers, and two guns— the force which, until further orders, is to constitute the garrison of Kars. Joining them a few miles from the town, wo accompanied them for the remainder of their march in, and, tell it not in Gath, on the way Hussein Pacha was glad to learn a few hints as to the manner in which he was to act his part. Approaching the fortress we found the Russian infantry, under Lorismelikoff, formed in line to receive us, outside the works, on the 871 Erzeroum•road. At the distance of about ten yards from them the Turkish column halted, and deployed into line, parallel to and facing the Russians. General salutes were exchanged, after which the lines broke into contiguous columns of sections, and marched side by side into the fortress. The Turkish flag was hoisted on the citadel, salutes were fired, the Russian guard and sentries were relieved by Turks, and the old fortress was once more in possession of its former owners. There was no cheering, no expression of popular feeling; but the whole affair was as inanimate and formal as can well be conceived. During the short time the Russian and Turkish troops were drawn up face to face we were struck with the supe rior personnel of the latter; in every other respect the ad vantage was with the former. At nine a.m. on the following day the Mushir arrived ; either personal feeling or national etiquette forbade his entering the fortress until it had been evacuated by the Russians ; he rode without any display into the town, and retired at once to the quarters which had been provided for his reception. We went out several miles to meet him, accompanied by our band of faithful Cossacks, who, plain as they were in dress and appointments, contrasted most favourably as soldiers with the gaudy troop of Bashi•Bazouks that escorted his Excellency. All along the road the Cossacks and Bashi•Bazouks kept up a constant succession of mock skirmishes and single combats, in which each party made the best display of his peculiar tactics. The superior adroitness of the Cossack was, however, conspicuous, both in horsemanship and the use of his weapons. Some of their feats were astonish ing. Just fancy a man, when closely pressed by his adver sary, at full speed, disappearing over his horse's side, and, holding on by the heel, leaving nothing but the sole of a buskin as a mark ! His wily little horse, thoroughly trained to all these marneuvres, or rather seeming to exer cise an independent intelligence of its own, carries him safely out of harm's way, and soon after he reappears on the offensive when and where least expected. These skirmishes threatening more than once to exceed the limits of mere display, it was deemed advisable to recal the parties to the ranks. At three p.m. a grand review of the Russians took place in presence of the Mushir The Mushir was received by the whole Russian force with a general salute and rounds of cheers (not ex actly the British cheer), after which, breaking into open columns, the troops marched past—the infantry in slow time, the Cossacks at the gallop. And here again these astonishing horsemen treated us to some specimens of their India-rubber performances. While at full speed some would spring from the stirrups to a stand. ing position in the saddle-tree, others would bend down out of sight ; they writhed and twisted about, backwards, forwards, and sideways, after a fashion that, I think, would astonish your stately giant at the Horse Guards, while, at the same time, they rent the air with yells and screams of most unearthly discord. Muy the fortune of war defend me from such enemies ! The review over, we proceeded to the tent of General Kruloff, where a magnificent banquet was ready spread, and we spent the remainder of the day and a great part of the night too in a course of feasting and thinking which, perhaps, it would be as well not to describe too minutely. It was a day of festivity for all. As long as there was light the soldiers engaged in coarse comedies, one per sonating to admiration the character of a lady of the camp. When darkness set in these amusements were succeeded by fireworks. Within the tent all was good fellowship. Champagne flowed without stint. Healths were drank with uproarious applause—the Sultan, oar Queen, Napoleon, the Emperor, Mouravieff, Williams, &c. ; and at last the fraternisation was carried to such a degree of warmth that it could be expressed only by embraces. My English friends were the special objects of these caresses ; and it was amusing to witness the fervour with which these men of broad shoulders and bearded faces were hugged and kissed by our loving friends. . . We slept that night at the camp, in the tent of a general officer which had been kindly vacated for our use, and over which a strong guard of honour was posted. Next day, according to orders, we set out for Erzeroum, after an affectionate leave-taking with our hospitable friends. FOREIGN LEGIONS AND ENGLISH OFFICERS. " EL Mono," a correspondent of the Times this week, asks what have the German and Italian Legions done which the Turkish Contingent did not, that the officers and men of the first are to be sent to the Cape, with a year's pay as gratuity, and given a free grant of land, with arms, rations, and supplies; those of the second to the I'arana, upon the same terms ; while the English officers of the third are to take only two and a half month's pay as, gratuity, and be turned about their business : One naturally asks what have these German and Italian Legions done to deserve this favoured treatment. The answer is " Nothing." Well, the Turkish Contingent did quite as much, at all events. " But," say their admirers, " they are a splendid body of men, and if they had been called into the field would have distinguished themselves." And I answer, so would have we! Is it right that because Englishmen made no bargain with Government for their blood that they should meet with worse terms than those mercenaries who calculate on our country's distress, and sold their swords accordingly. Would not an Englishmen have the defence of the Care frontier equally at heart with a German, and is an English! man a worse farmer than an Italian refugee ? Th ere are many o ffi cers who did good service in the contingent, who sacrificed their all to join it from distant lands, and have uuw returned to their families to regret the day in "bleb