The Sun.
London, England, 1855-01-03 00:00:00

a time ; in eed, the young hands cannot do~ it ;
they sit or he down in the wet, get cramps, and
are carried: to hospital, where they die. That is
the way they have all gone. The old soldiers
know that their only chance is to keep moving
about, vr7aich they do while they can stand. We
hear rum vtirs of iron houses being sent out to us
from England. I only hope it may be title, as we
shall then have A dry place to go to, and where we
can have same chance of keeping our things dry.
December, they say, is generally a fine mouth out
here ; January and February very bad but
nothing could be much worse than the last fort-
night, which is a sort of consolation. Some ar-

rangenionts must be made about firewood ; there
is none within two miles of us ; but near the Light
Division there is brushwood which would last
some time; we have no animals here of any sort,
or else we might lay in a supply.
The artillery have taken advantage of the fine
weather to bring up two 13-inch mortars, and the
French ha.ve dragged up five cannon ; they began
to repair our platforms yesterday in the bat-
teries, which looks as if they intended to have
another brush at them. Our last 68-pounder on
the left attack was disabled two days ago in a
curious manner. It was a ship gun, and the
sailors had. loaded, and were standing by ready to
fire, when a shell from one of the Russian guns
entered the muzzle. The concussion sent our gun
off, and at the same time the enemy's shell
burst inside the gun, tearing two or three feet of
thA lip to pi or act _ T claw tlto gun yesterday in the
trenches, all jagged and splintered. Not one of
the eight sailors was touchel. Our guns present a
very melancholy spectacle ; some burst, others with
trunnions broken off, and placed hors de combat in
every possible manner ' • but if we have fine wea-
ther, and the beasts, of Which 500 are coming from
Constantinople, arrive, hope we shall be able to
open fire again with more effect than on the first
days. The streets are, I believe, barricaded and
trenched in every possible way, and, with .their
pai•ently inexhaustible supply of powder, shot,
and 'shell, we shall have much trouble with them

even when once inside the place. They are work-
ing night and day, and we can see plainly long
strings of arabas and dromedaries passing and re-
passing to and from the city. With a telescopeyou
can see plainly the people walking quietly along
the streets, while the town, with the exception of a
few barracks, or large houses on the outside, is
perfectly uninjured, and if it was not for the re-
ports of the rifles and the occasional discharge of, a
gun from our batteries, no one could tell there was
an. hostile army before the place ; all the magnifi-
cent arsenals and buildings near the clocks are per-
fectly uninjured. I walked over the field of Inker-

man yesterday ; it is still covered with fragments
of shot and shell, bullets, bayonet scabbards,
pouches, and torn olothing, arc. We are making
strong redoubts to prevent a second attack on that
flank, and the Russians are doing the same on the
other side ; it was there they were seen in motion,
and collecting in large masses this morning. In a
few days the works will be finished, and then they
will have hard work to turn the position ; the guns
are not up yet.

(FROM ANOTHER OFFICER.)
Camp near Sebastopol, Dec. 13.
We were all turned out of bed this morning at 1
o'clock by the alarm sounding • there was a very
heavy fire of musketry along all the line of French
trenches, and at one part of ours. We fell in and
.teinained Under arms, expecting to get the order
to march down in support ; but the attack on our
lino was repulsed in about three-quarters of an
hour, and the orderly galloped up to say we were
nokwanted. The light and grenadier companies
were sent out on picket, and we had to 'stop on
the top of a lleak hill on the left of our attack for
two hours. We all expected to have a second In-
kerman-day, as the Russians had been moving ix
large masses on our right flank all day, and so we
thought the attack on our front a mere diversion.
I do not know the particulars of it, but they ad-
vanced in heavy columns up a ravine, through
which runs the high road from Sebastopol to Bala-
klava. There are high cliffs with caves on each.
side ; the road is broken up, and a ditch and para-
pet thrown across it. We generally have two com-
panies in the caves and on the road by night, and
one by day ; and if it is true that the Russians ad-
vanced in columns, they must have got their
"greens." Our men were in high delight at the
prospect of getting a supply of Russian boots, and
I found my martial glory evaporated very fast by
the time we were marched from our picket. We
are very hard worked indeed, 'especialtV the 'Third
Division. We were in hopes that the 90th would
join our brigade ; but I heat they are posted. to the
Second Division, on the right of our line (they have
no trench work ; a few pickets is all they have to
furnish) ; but we are obliged to keep a large force
there, as the Russians continually threaten us in
that direction. For the same reason the Highland
Brigade and. Cavalry Division, with the Marines,
are down at Balaklava, useless as far as the siege
operations are concerned, but still necessary to pre-
serve our base of operations, which might be cut
off at any time without them, as General Liptandi
is somewhere in that direction, though, they say,
he has moved towards the Alma to hold the Turks
at Eupatoria in check. The 90th and. 34th are
still at Balaklava • they are inuring them a little
to the climate, as the fearful experience of the 9th
Regiment and our draughts shows how deadly hard
work is to new arrivals ; the 9th have lost half
their regiment in the ten days they have been
here. They marched up from Balaklava, pitched
their tents on a wet day, slept on the wet soil; the
next night, also wet, they relieved us -in the
trenches, and that sealed their death warrants.
They were all old soldiers, and bad been some
years in the Mediterranean.
I was in the trenches the night I came in with
our draught ; it rained without ceasing. Bythe
next afternoon four of them were dead, and since
then, out of 120 men, 42 are buried. Now they
allow no new arrivals to go in the trenches for the
first week. The 46th and 57th, too, have suffered
very much ; but for the last week, thank God, the
weather has been dry. It is a most extraordinary
climate. With a north wind, it has been exces-
sively cold and frosty ; to-day the Wind is south,
and as warm as an English spring day. January
and February, with' part of March, are very 'Ad,
and the cold will-be most intense. The houses-in
Balaklava are all built with very thick walls, large
stoves, double windows, the roofs lined with fas.