The Sun.
London, England, 1856-01-09 00:00:00

KERTCH.

Our latest advices from Kertch state that the town
is occupied by the First Brigade of the Turkish Con-
tingent, under Brigadier Holmes, and the Second,
commanded by Brigadier-General Evans, is no less
comfortably quartered in the outskirts. Theirihuts,
it is said, are admirable—the roof consisting of
planks and iron plates, and the walls of stone for
the most part. The floor is sunk 3 feet below the
level of the ground, and the troops contrive never-
theless to protect themselves against the damp,
which prevails more or less necessarily under such
circumstances. Such are the accommodations of
the sth, 6th, ith, Bth, and a portion of the 10th
Regiments of the Second Brigade, and when it is
considered that it is hardly a month since the re-
moval of these troops from Yenikal6 to Kertch,
they deserve great credit for the arrangement of
their winter quarters, as well as for their general
state of discipline and efficiency. Their labours
and activity in the trenches are, moreover, a gene-
ral subject of applause. Patrols have been estab-
lished, and pickets posted on every important point
—from which sentinels issue, rigorously insisting
on the watchword.

THE BALTIC.
COPENHAGEN, Jan. 2.—Although the blockade of
the Russian ports has been virtually raised by the
return home of the Allied fleets, and officially by
the announcement in the Gazette, it is incompre-
hensible why the Government did not leave a
couple of fast-sailing steamers to watch any suspi-
cious-looking vessels, and search them for contra-
band of war. For this piece of—it appears almost
wilful—negligence, the Rissians may be grateful,
as it enables theta to obtain a seasonable supply of
arms, if not ammunition, from the United States.
Long before the return Lome of the fleets, a large
and deeply-laden three-masted
'clipper, under the
American flag, arrived here from Boston, and an-
chored in the deep water of the so-called Rinne, out-
side the Trekroner Battery. The ship is called the
Wolga, and the commander (Captain Holm) is a
native of Copenhagen, and well acquainted with
the navigation of the Baltic. Whether he has be-
come naturalised in the United States, and thus
obtained a right to command a vessel under the
flag of the republic, and whether the ship's papers
are in order, and would pass muster with the lieu-
tenant of the Driver, who last year so keenly over-
hauled the Sammy Appleton, after landing her re-
volvers at Baltish Port,•is more than I can say.
A few days ago, however, he weighed anchor dur-
ing the thaw and sailed up the Baltic, and a vessel ar-
rived here from Bornholm reports having exchanged
signals with her off that island. It is generally stated
here as a well-known fact that she has arms and
ammunition on board, which being contraband of
war would have been liable to confiscation, although
the blockade of the Russian ports has been aban-
doned for the winter.
According to a telegraphic despatch received
here by one of the foreign embassies, a Russian
vessel, loaded with salt, which was in the act of
lea), ing the harbour of Elsinore last spring when
the arrival of the advanced squadron in the Sound