The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1855-12-25 00:00:00

THE MUD OF THE CRIMEA.

We are all ancle-deep in mud. No, that would be nothing.
It would be no great matter of complaint or grievance if we
had to deal with the ordinary material, so familiar to all
Londoners after a few wet days before the scavengers remove
the formidable soft parapets which line the kerbstones. That
can be scraped off, cleaned, rubbed away, or washed out.
This nothing but long and persevering efforts, continually
renewed, and combining all the former operations, can remove.
It sticks in pasty clods to the shoes, and will insist on being
brought into clean huts and tents to visit your friends. It
has a great affection for straws, with which it succeeds in
working itself up into a kind of gigantic brick, somewhat
underdone, in which condition it threatens to build your
legs into the ground if you stand long enough in
one place to give it a chance ; and it mightily affects
horseshoes also, and sucks them off with a loud
smack of relish in those little ravines between rocky
hill sides, in which it exercise the greatest influence.
Literally and truly it is like glue half boiled and spread over
the face of the earth for the depth of several feet. It is no
ioke for a soldier to see his sleeping place, in hut or tent,
covered with this nasty slime ; but they cannot be kept clean.
One step outside, and you are done for. The mud is lying in
wait for you, and you just carry as much back on your feet
as if you walked a mile. Carts stick immoveably in the
ground, or the wheels and axles fly into pieces from the strain
of the horses and mules, which have led a wretched existence,
indeed, ever since this weather began. As I write, the air re-
sounds with the noise of the blows inflicted on the heads, sides,
and legs of the miserable quadrupeds drawing fuel and stores
from the commissariat depot of the division.

He continues his narrative on the 4th of December, and
thus speaks of the
HUTS AND TENTS :

We are in statu quo; possibly the mud is deeper, and the
Russians fire more than usual upon the town. There is no
change in the attitude of the enemy. The storm of Saturday
morning taxed the huts severely, arid they are by no means
highly spoken of; they are too frail and lightly built, and the
rain and wind pass through with uncomfortable facility. The
huts constructed in the sides of the hills by the French and
Sardinians are said to be more comfortable, and do not cost
a tithe of the money. They are roofed with wattles, covered
with mud and earth, and, if they are rather dark, they are at
all events warm and water-tight. It is now said that the men
would have done much better if the authorities had sent out
nails, hammers, planks, old canvas, and some glass. But it is
impossible to satisfy everybody.
In reference to the same topic, he further proceeds :
The new huts are much complained of, and it is said they
are frail, ill-made, full of chinks and knots, which drop out,
and leave inimical little embrasures for the wind to shoot
through. During a moderately strong breeze of wind, a short
time ago, the roof of one of the hospital huts at the Monas-
tery went off on a mission of its own, and left the poor-
inmates shivering in the cold till they were removed to
another building. The hut in question, however, was built
before the new huts came. The tents now issued to the
army are new and good, and most of the war and time-worn
fabrics, inside which our gallant ancestors reposed in Egypt
or Spain, have been condemned, and are used as outsides for
the new tents, or as covers for huts, officers' quarters, stables,
and fabrics of that kind. The authorities at home, you
already know, refused the application of the commissariat for
more tarpaulins to cover the stores, "because they were very
expensive:' Well, the wet weather came on—hay began to
smoke, corn and barley to heat; and the commissariat officers
were obliged to purchase canvas wherever they could, to
prevent the loss of thousands of pounds' worth of property,
not to speak of the mischief to the army. But the " holders
of canvas stood firm ;" they saw their opportunity, and
they refused to sell it for less than 2s. a yard, at which
sum many hundred yards were purchased for the commissa-
riat store of this division. But even now the stores are badly
protected, for their is no pitch or tar to cover the canvas,
although there is a vessel reported to be in Balaklava with
300 tons of these useful articles on board for the use of the