The Express.
London, England, 1855-02-19 00:00:00

on a very large proportion the
rep 0.
this aids of the Golden Horn, and have agencies work which are is themselves nearly sufficient to as
supply every current want of their Crimean army. The
leaden weights of routine clog none of their ofileief
movements: what they want they take, and what
they take they make the most of. Their lab*
appropriation has been the splendid palace of the
Russian embassy, which they are about to
devote to the reception of their wounded
Russian prisoners : a medical staff has bon
already organised for it, and before another week
has elapsed, the once magnificent saloons of P •
eee
Mentohikoff will be peopled with his captured coon-
tr.ymen now scattered throughout the other eight es
nine French hospitals in Pere..
A friend who came down yesterday from Balaldava
gives me sad accounts of the continued hardships of
our troops. The fine weather had to some degree
lessened the intensity of the cold, and hardened the
mud; bat the temperature was still at a very per,
fully low point, and firing there was almost none.
Many of the wooden huts, which are, and hive beau
for sometime lying on the beach at Balsklava fee
want of means to transport them to the camp, are
being broken up by the soldiers and used u fire.
wood,—* better use than that they should con.
throe to lie there doing good to nobody.
This, however, only reminds me of another
instance of commissariat neglect, which is even mote
to be wondered at and less excused than many others
with which the public are already familiar. From
the mouth of the Boephorns, round along the
southern shores of the Black Sea, to Trebizond and
Batoum—a distance of some 600 miles—forest sea
coeds forest, down to the very shore, offering facilities
for the procurement of any amount of firewood which
the allied armies could require. The sailing distance
is not much above a week or ten days thence to the
Crimea • and why, with hundreds of transports atone
disposal, we have not drawn supplies of fuel from
these vast woods so conveniently at hand, I profess
myself unable to understand. This source of supply
was suggested to the commissary-general many
weeks ago, but without any result following from
the hint ; and when he was at the same time informed
that the same coast could furnish him with any
amount of gra,n he might require, his rel
" There is no regular market." No regular market!
Why all the world knows that a demand would
create a market ; and were it not so, our consuls and
consular agents at Sinope, Samsoon, and Trebizond,
could secure the delivery at these ports of 20,000 qrs.
of barley within a fortnight'. Official wisdom, how.
ever, cannot see this, and our horses must continue
to die in consequence.
By a return made public within the last few days
I learn that since the establishment of the seven
principal French hospitals here the total number of
their inmates, sick and wounded, has not exceeded
four thousand ; whilst of these only eleven hundred
have died. To this low aggregate of invalids and
deaths oar own returns at Scutari have formed a
melancholy contrast. Well it is that even thus late
in the season our arrangements have reached a point
of improvement which justifies the hope that weber.
seen oar worst.