The Press.
London, England, 1856-02-09 00:00:00

MAJOR TEESDALE.

Teesdale lived with that gallant Hungarian and fitst•rate
soldier limety, on Tahmasp tabia. These two had formed
a strong attachment, based on mutual admiration ; there
was the hero of many campaigns and the young soldier,
brimful of courage, hope, and noble aspirations. Teesdale
acted as chief of his staff, and, besides his graver duties,
he was constantly harassing the Cossacks with parties of
riflemen, or menacing and attacking the Russian cavalry
with a company of rifles and a couple of guns. The state
of blockade to which we were now reduced fretted his
ardent spirit not a little ; he wanted to attack almost
against any odds, and had each soldier and Turkish offizer
resembled himself, I very believe we might have done so.

COLONEL LAKE.
I find I have been biographising, if I may coin a word.
But amid the sketches thus involuntarily falling from my
lien. I have omitted Colonel Lake. The truth is he cannot
be found either at Karadagh or Tahmasp ; he, like the
general, is doing his best to wear out an iron frame ; his
couch is his saddle, for alt day long he is working at the
entrenchments and all night he is visiting the sentries.
The Queen has had many a bad bargain during this war,
but I doubt whether more admirable officers are to be found
in the English army than the four I have mentioned.

At the commencement of September forage
for the horses failed, and a thousand cavalry
were sent out to cut their way through the
Russian lines: other horses slowly perishing
from starvation were slaughtered, it being ne-
cessary now to economise food to the utmost.
With scarcity, cholera appeared, but the garri-
son were cheered with the intelligence that
Orner Pacha, with 43,000 men, had landed at
Soukham Kale. Movements in the Russian
camp led to the belief that the enemy were
abJut to depart. In reality, Mouravieff was
preparing for an assault. He had heard of the
fall of Sebastopol, and he believed that he
should soon have to encounter a considerable
force sent against him. The author does jus-
tice to the valour dr obstinacy of the Russians
on the 29th of September :
Ever obedient to the dictates of a stern discipline, they
advanced again and again to the deadly batteries, and were
blown from the very mouths of the guns.
Their loss was immense ; had the garrison
possessed two thousand cavalry, Mouraviefrs
army might have been destroyed. The moral
effect on the gariison was peculiar. For two
days the cholera ceased its ravages. Every
one expected that the besieging army would
break up, and the advance of aid was regarded
as certain. But Mouravieff maintained his
position, and no aid came. The reaction on
the spirits of the garrison was deadly. Animal
food failed for the troops ; each man was
placed on an allowance of eleven ounces of
bread per diem and a thin flour soup. The
citizens were still worse off. They tore up
grass from the open spaces that they might
eat the roots. Crowds of women besieged the
public offices begging for bread. Horseflesh
became a fashionable luxury. Twenty men
were brought into hospital poisoned by eating
the roots of the Hyoscyamus Niger. Some
onions smuggled into the town were sold at
i
SIX shillings the pound. As the scarcity n-
creasE d, "an unusual number of soldiers
entered the hospitals, dying of starvation."
As a remedy for sudden prostration, " sur-
-44 gFons were posted in every part of the camp,
" with broth of horseflesh in the form and