The Sun.
London, England, 1856-01-03 00:00:00

THE ARMY IN THE CRIMEA.

( From the Times correspondent.)

CAMP BEFORE SEBASTOPOL, Dec. 21, 1855.

Winter is now come upon us in reality, and
we have had for the last few days some very cold
weather.

On the night of the 18th the thermometer went
down to eight degrees below zero in the camp of
the Engineers, Fourth Division. This was by a
self-registering thermometer. At 10 a.m. on the
19th it was only three degrees above zero. This
is nearly or quite equal to Canadian cold, and, as
might be expected, a great number of men have
been more or less frost-bitten. I have heard of no
serious cases among our men. The French suffer
a great deal from cold. The other night two French
soldiers went into ono of our guardrooms in Sebas-
topol and asked for some coffee, and to be allowed
to warm themselves by the fire. Our men gave
them some coffee and biscuit, and they sat down
by the fire. One of them took off his shoes (ho had
no stockings) and began rubbing his feet, which
wore frostbitten. In about 10 minutes he got up,
but staggered and fell dead, to the great horror of
the English soldiers. The other was taken care of and
was all right iuthe morning. The French are getting
great quantities of sheepskin coats from Constanti-
nople. To-day I met on my way to Kamiesch some
hundreds of pack-mules, with 50 coats on each, and
a great number of the equipages militaires, also full
of coats. The whole of our men were well clothed
and well fed, and are in capital health and spirits.
Now there is snow cu the ground it is dangerous
to go through the camp, as you are almost certain
to get a blow on the head from a snow ball, which
was aimed at some one else. It is a blessing that
these are the only balls we are in danger from now.
Really the difference between this winter and last
is extraordinary. Instead of the sullen, despairing
look of last year, every man seems happy and con-
tented.

We have also civilised amusements going on. On
every Saturday night there is a " symposium," or
sort of Cider Collar, in the restaurant of the Fourth
Division, composed of officers of the division, who
meet at half-past 9, and have a kind of supper, and
then sing till 12, when the national anthem is sung
in chorus and the meeting separates. The
.officers
of the Fourth Division have also got up some thea-
tricals, which they are going to act in the restaurant.
They are to perform twice, I am told, for the men—
that is, for 10 or 12 men chosen from each regiment
and twice for the officers of the division, once for
each brigade. I hear the first piece is " Box and
Cox Married and Settled. These must be the first
theatricals ever performed on Crimean soil, as I
don't think the Tartars indulge much in that
style. The Crimea is subject to new innova-
tions every day. There is now a real, bona
fide, yellow omnibus in Kamiesch. If we are here
lunch longer we may expect to be carried from
camp to camp in Hansoms. There are one or
two dogcarts here already. We have a hunt here
also—the "H. Q. P." hunt, which means the
Head-quarters Paper Hunt. This is carried on in
the following manner :—The fox, which is in this
hunt a well-mounted man, has a quarter of an
hour's law, and goes off with his pocket full of
pieces of paper, one of which he drops at intervals.
At the end of his quarter of an hour the field,
which has consisted on the two or three meets
which have taken place of nearly a hundred, go off
after him, a little scattered, all looking eagerly on
the ground for pieces of paper. The pace is very
fast, and consequently the field tails considerably
after a few minutes. There were a great many
men out last time who had evidently hunted in a
very diff.drent country, and among them Sir W.
Eyre, wito was mounted en a very fine horse, and
kept well ahead.
There have been some very severe ;ales lately
in the Black Sea. One of two vessels have been
lost near Kamiesch. Ono mail, also, has never
turned up yet, and nothing has been heard of it
since the steamer left Constantinople. It is the
oue duo on the 13th. lam told that the two mails
of the 13th and 17th left Constantinople on the
same day. The 17th one arrived yesterday, but
nothing has been heard of the other. There are
numbers of "shaves" flying about the camps.
Men have nothing else to do, and therefore make
" shaves" to amuse themselves and their neigh-
bours. I heard two extraordinary ones to-day.
One of them is, that a night or two ago a Russian
outlying picket, consisting of 120 men, posted
somewhere along the Tchernaya (where the
" shave" did not say) came over the river, and
gave themselves up to the French, as they said
they were half-starved, and suffered such hard-
ships that they would rather become prisoners
than remain where they wore.
The windy weather has been fatal to the hopes
of many out here with regard to the home-made
plum-puddings that were coming out for Christ-
mas-day. The Parcels-office in Balaklava is
crammed every day with men eagerly asking if
various vessels aro in, and who generally go away
disappointed. lam afraid that most people will
have to be satisfied with a Crimean plum-pudding
for Christmas-day. The turkeys and geese to be
met coining from Balaklava to the camps are almost
as numerous as they used to be in the old coaching
days coming to town from Suffolk and Norfolk.
There is, however, a great difference in the size of
the birds.
We have had immense flecks of bustards flying
from the eastward for the last few days. Hundreds
of sportsmen have been on the look-out for them,
and several have been killed. They are very large.
Some of those killed, I am told, weigh as much as
151 b. or 161 b. There is snipe and wild fowl shoot-
ing to be had down on the Tchernaya, but it is at
the risk of one's life that this sport is to be enjoyed,
as the Russians are within shot, and generally take
advantage of it. However, there are some men
out here who are such eager sportsmen that they
are not deterred even by rifle bullets.
The mail which was due yesterday has not ar-
rived yet.