From the “Hastings and St. Leonards Penny Press”
The soil around the shattered walls of South Sebastopol is everywhere sacred. Hallowed by the dying efforts of thousands of the bravest of Britain’s warrior race, at the mere mention of Sebastopol must henceforth arise feelings of the deepest emotion; for with that struggle how many terrible, though glorious episodes of war are associated!
In the huge cemetery, however, which environs this once proud stronghold of Russia—and it may well be called a cemetery, for here Briton, Gaul, and Muscovite lie wrapt in the sleep of death —in all this earthy bed of glory, there is no spot so deeply interesting, or more fraught with sad reminiscences, than the burial ground of the Crimean heroes at Cathcart’s-hill. Situated on the summit of the hill, the burial-ground overlooks all the chief scenes of that long and arduous struggle between liberty and oppression—there is the Redan, the Malakhoff, the Quarries, the Mamelon, and there is the site of those tedious trenches, where the strong man waxed weaker day after day, and the sanguine became hopeless, and where the British soldier fought with privation, cold, frost, snow, and rain, more terrible and deadly than the fire of the enemy. The aspect and situation of the place may well revive the memories of that great siege, and renew the incidents of its history; and when we reflect that, around us and beneath our feet are the gallant spirits who laid down their lives for England's honour, we may well be overcome by the solemnity which surrounds the spot Many a scattered tumuli in other parts of the country environing Sebastopol, points out to the eye of affection the resting place of some loved comrade; but in the cemetery at Cathcart's Hill, the love and care of friends have left memorials in solid stone of most of those whose remains have been deposited there. Here the heroes of the Alma, Inkermann, Balaclava, and a score of other fierce sorties, in which they proved that British courage was still the Briton’s birthright, lie side by side. Burke had long ago said that “the age of chivalry had fled,” but here are those whose valour could bear comparison with the great heroes of antiquity. Palmerin of England or Amadis de Gaul had not exceeded some of them in the chivalry and devotion which had distinguished their conduct on the field of battle. But let us glance at a few of these inscriptions as they now appear in this British cemetery in the soil of Russia. Generals, colonels, and officers of every grade repose here; but we shall take them without reference to their former rank, for Death has levelled all their distinctions, and we rather honour great names for their deeds than their affixes: ”Here lieth the mortal remains of Captain Edward Stanley, 57th regiment, killed at the battle of Inkermann, November 5th, 1854, to whose memory this stone is erected by the men of his company.—‘ Cast down, but not destroyed,’ 2 Corinthians, iv. 9.’” The tombstone has a large ornamental cross at the top, and the efforts of some ruder chisel than the sculptor’s has inscribed upon it—‘‘ Come here, and read.” This is truly the grave of honour, and the respect which the poor soldiers have paid to their gallant officer is perhaps more valuable than the most splendid marble sarcophagi which wealth could have reared to his memory, How valorously had Stanley led on his troops on that day of Inkermann—
”Filled with high hope, advancing to the fight,
He drew his sabre in the cause of Right;
He tempted fate, and sought a glorious doom,
A bright destruction and a Shining tomb.”
Further on, however, is another grave marked by a simple stone slab. It is inscribed—“ To the memory of Lieutenant H. Tryon, Rifle Brigade, killed in action on the 20th November 1854.” He had survived the terrible crisis of Inkermann; but in the attack on the “ Ovens,” or Quarries, a fortnight afterwards, he fell gallantly leading on his men. Tryon was slain in the moment of victory. With a small body of his brigade he dislodged an immense force of the enemy from these Quarries, whence the Russians had been enabled to pour the most fatal volleys on the assailing troops, without the danger of a returning shot. Ere he fell he had displayed such gallantry that General Canrobert paid him the rare honour of special mention in the next general order of the day for the French army. Truly, this is the grave of a hero. But let us proceed.
The resting-place of Sir George Cathcart is marked by a very fine monument: the troops of his division have raised it to the memory of their beloved and lamented commander. Cathcart, as every one knows, was slain at Inkermann; he was in the thickest of that terrible fight. When, after many hours of fierce and obstinate contention, all the ammunition of his men was expended by the frequent firing, and one of those moments of hesitation had come over his soldiers which sometimes ends in panic, he cried— ”Do not flinch, men—we still have our bayonets;” and with the bayonet, indeed, they sternly pushed forward: it was hacking and thrusting, and clubbing of muskets for some hours—and then—but everyone knows the result of that sanguinary day. Suffice it that in this work of blood the Briton proved victorious. It was a battle of heroes—and one of the bravest who fell was this Cathcart—
“His few surviving comrades saw
His smile when rang the proud hurra,
And the red field was won;
They saw in death his eyelids close
Calmly, as to a night's repose,
Like flowers at set of sun.”
General Cathcart, like many other commanding officers of the Crimean campaign, had passed a long life in the service of his country, and though it has been perhaps reasonably averred that younger and more vigorous men would have been better suited to active warfare, there could not be a more sublime spectacle than to witness the ardour with which these old soldiers responded to the trumpet-call on the breaking out of the present war.
Further on, a handsome pillar of hewn stone, surmounted by a cross, and placed upon two horizontal slabs, attracts the attention. It bears the inscription—”To Lieutenant-Colonel C. F. Seymour, Scots Fusilier Guards, killed in action, November 5, 1854." At the foot of the tomb is an elaborately carved stone, and on it is engraved the crest of the deceased, with some heraldic bird springing from the base of a coronet, with the legend ”Foi pour devoir, C. F. S., Æ. 36.” How many of the brave and noble lineage of Seymour have mourned over the premature death of this officer: and how isolated seems his grave when one remembers the long line of ancestors who are deposited in the family tomb in England. Those precious remains might have been easily conveyed to the ancestral vaults at home—but no, it is with better taste that he is suffered to lay here, among the heroes whose perils and glories he shared in life. Requiescat in pace.
In this sacred ground, indeed, are deposited a great proportion of the officers whose names are enrolled among the list of killed during the present war, In other parts of the cemetery lie the remains of Brigadiers Goldie and Strangways, of Sir R. Newman, of the Grenadier Guards, all of whom fell at Inkermann, and of Sir John Campbell, Colonel Gough, and of many others.
On many of these tombs a few lines in the Russian language craves Christian forbearance for the peaceful repose of the bones of the brave soldiers beneath. When these memorials were set up Sebastopol had not fallen, and the issue of that protracted siege was exceedingly doubtful: but now, though the drum beating the charge is still audible at Cathcart’s Hill, and “the diapason of the cannonade” is not hushed among the neighbouring hills and valleys—now, though the Czar himself comes to the Crimea, there is little cause to fear that the resting-places of these brave soldiers will be disturbed, or their tombs profaned by the sacrelegious(sic) hands of Cossacks. Alexander II. has said that “ Russia can better afford to lose St. Petersburg itself, than an inch of ground in the Crimea;” but, desperate as the efforts of the Muscovites have been, and prolong the contest as they yet may, the allied arms must ultimately prevail against such troops as Russia can bring into the field. The graves of our heroes are in some sort a guarantee of our continued occupation of this portion of the Russian territory; and, indeed, it is now felt that the only durable peace which could be entered into, must embrace the cession of the Crimea by Russia to the allies, as a preliminary stipulation. The British flag must continue to wave over the monumental tombs of Britain’s Crimean warriors !
ADVICE TO CONSUMPTIVE PERSONS.
PULMONARY consumption, or phthisis, is the bane of our country, and the ablest and most unremitting attentions of medical men, have as yet failed to discover any satisfactory means of counteracting the ravages of this disease, From the constitutional nature of the malady, however, consumptive persons may, by adopting certain precautions, do much in the way of guarding against its active development. Regarded only as a disease of the lungs, alarm is not taken, nor are remedies resorted to, until its effects are rendered too plainly manifest, In some good a to consumptives, Dr. Hall makes the following remarks :— “Eat all you can digest, and exercise a great deal in the open air, to convert what you eat into pure, healthful blood. Do not be afraid of out-door air day or night. Do not be afraid of sudden changes of weather; let no change, hot or cold, keep you in doors, If it is rainy weather, the more need of your going out, because you eat as much on a rainy day as upon a clear day, and if you exercise less, that much more remains in the system of what ought to be thrown off by exercise, and some ill result, some consequent symptom or ill-feeling is the certain issue. If it is cold out of doors, do not muffle your nose, eyes, and mouth in furs, veils, woollen comforters, and the like; nature has supplied you with the best muffler, with the best inhaling regulator, that is, two lips; shut them before you out of a warm room into the cold air, and keep them shut until you have walked briskly a few rods and quickened the circulation a little; walk fast enough to keep off a feeling of chilliness, and taking cold will be impossible, hat are the facts of the case? Look at a railroad conductor's going out of hot air into the piercing cold of winter, and in again, every five or ten minutes, and yet they do not take cold oftener than others; you will scarcely find a consumptive in a thousand of them. It is wonderful how afraid consumptive people are of cold air, the very thing that would cure them, the only obstacle to a cure being that they do not get enough of it, especially if it is cold; when it is known that the colder the purer it must be. Yet, if people cannot go to a hotter climate, they will make an artificial one, and imprison themselves for a whole winter in a warm room, with a temperature not varying ten degrees in six months; all such people die, and yet we follow in their footsteps.
If I were seriously ill of consumption I would live out of doors day and night, except it was raining or mid-winter, then I would sleep in an unplastered log-house. My consumptive friends, you want air, not physic; you want pure air, not medicated air; you want nutrition, such as plenty of meat, and bread will give, and they alone; physic has no nutriment, gaspings for air cannot cure you, and stimulants cannot cure you. If you want to get well go in for beef and out-door air, and do not be deluded into the grave by advertisements and unreliable certifiers.”
