The Sun.
London, England, 1854-05-19 00:00:00

Jaded, the self-denial, power of endurance, and perse-
verance displayed are perfectly wonder:ul;'•auel tlese qua-
litMs are maintained against a neVtr-resting, ueflinelt-
ing: and fearless enemy, whose resistance is its hard a. is
the steel they wield. If the loss of life is so irentendoue
—the nimiber of our womaleal is at present 2.600 whieh
according to the usual proportion must eive about 3.000
dead and missing—the loss iu hor,es, baggage and mu-
nition must, to judge from the fresh supplies demanded,
have been quite as great. Terrible though the foregoing
numbers may appear, they are but too correct. Not far
from Kostentlje, on a piece of boggy meadow land, with
an area of hardly 6,000 feet, we lost 243 men and 71
horses, although this engagement, in comparison with
some others, was unimportaet, and ended by the retreat
of the Russians. The Turks are far better acquainted
with the ' terrain' and tie way of taking advantace of it
than we are, and then they have the habit of (.ringing
'their heavy artillery into play only after the battle is
Well engage I, when their guns being murderously well
pointed,' they floor whole files of their opponents.
" Their artillery department is evidently better
mansged than ours, for they have 'nary small guns
which can be carried on pack horses. In consequence
of this they often fight with superior weapons, and how
they fight is best been by the number of killed and the
-extremely severe • wounds inflicted on our troops. A
single gun-shot wound is snmething rare; the me. have
generally two or three, and the consequence is that
ninny die of sheer pain and loss of be od before they
reach the infirmary. We have recent'y had numerous
cases of fractured legs from Silistria and other places on
the river. The mortality among the wounded has been
31 per cent. during the month of April.
" Our men, who were half-starved during the Easter
fasts, get good rations of meat, of which there is until
now no want in the Dobrudscha, but bread and our
celebrated biscuit get damp, soft, and mouldy, end are not
only disagreeable to the palate but the cause of :ell kinds
of complaints... There is almost everywhere a terrible
want of good water, and even when by chance this is
found, it can hardly be preserved in the miserable
wooden flasks called chiateras, which are so saturated
with schnapps that the water at once gets an empyreu-
matic taste. The only creature comforts which the men
get are schnapps. tea, and tobacco.
The affair at ezernavoda, the most sanguinary of
all, and the almost dally recurring attacks on the field-
works at Rassova and Silistria, have caused such a
bustle on this part of the Danube, that the traces of
citizen and pea...ant are almost lost in the turmoil of war.
Everythibg.that.is t be found belongs to the soldier
alone ; he has -Lae ''y houv, bed, vet icle, horse, melt',
. , bread, hay, Oath, wine, :oa, schnapps. but even the arms
and legs of the Man •in m !In,' who must work hard in
fortifyieg and foiegi. g. You will be able to guess how
we are liked, if you
,ever chanced o inhabit a besieged
town of which th, enemy was in po- session.
"The news from the higher parrs ..t the Danube is ef
a contradictory deseriptien. This much, however, v‘e
know to a certainty—e The bust informed officers in Wal
lachia do not consider things safe, and have sent the it
Wives, valuables, and better carriages and harness to
the left bank of the Pruth. Th y have, besides. sud-
denly.and totally left tiff talking big about reacbh g
Constantinople this 'Summer. In the meantime rein-
forcements keep coming in from Bessarabia, aid par-
ticularly cavalry and heavy artillery, which last is sent
to the Dobrudecha and Balarasch fur arming the boats
and sloops. The troops coming through Moldavia en-
camp on the Fokschani' line up to the frontiers of Tran-
sylvania. Behind Fok-chani a vast camp hospital is
ceing arranged for immediate service.
"By a'l this you will see that the war is likely to be
a long and bloody cm We are already rich in ague,
typhus, dysentery, scurvy, home sickness, and hospital
gangrene, so that it does not require much more to pro
duce that Wallachian pest which, being discovered in
1827 and 1829 by the illustrious Councillor of State the
Chevalier von Seidlitz, gave the critical gentlemen of
the faculty and the academicians of St. Petersburg a
convenient opportunity of earning laurels without risk
and danger.

MONTENEGRO.
•
A general rising is expected in Montenegro in
favour of Russia, but Austria, it is said, is.fully
prepared to oppose it.
Six hundred of the Montenegrins have made a
foray into the Herzegovina and killed several of
the Turkish inhabitants.