and in the midst of all this confusion, excitement, and
bewilderment, huge lighters crammed with riflemen,
and towed now by French and now by English boats,
might be seen looming through the fog, and making for
the quay. Lines of Turkish soldiers were drawn up on
the jetty; and as fast as each batch of English arrived,
their oriental friends relieved them of their arms and
knapsacks, and assisted them in climbing up on the
platform. The same aid was rendered as regarded the
baggage, which was immediately carried off and packed
in carts. As fast as each company disembarked, it was
formed on the quay, and marched off through the town
to the place set apart for the encampment outside the
Shumla gate. Everyone was astonished at the size and
vigorous appearance of the men, but, more than all, by
the smartness of their clothing and equipments. Their
arms, knapsacks, belts, &c, were made the subjects of
the minutest inspection, and seemed to elicit one still
greater admiration than another. All these marvels
reached a climax, when a boat from the Henri IV.,
rowed by six dashing French sailors, in snow-white
shirts and coquettish little glazed hats, stuck with a
tapageur air on the side of their heads, shot up alongside
the landing-place, and in the stern appeared the
Earl and Countess of Errol, the former an officer in the
Rifles, and the latter intent upon sharing the dangers of
the campaign with her husband. I think the old Civil
Pasha, who was seated on a chair at a little distance,
scarce knew whether he was on his head or his heels,
when the lady was handed up out of the boat, and made
her appearance at the town-gate, with a brace of pistols
hanging in a holster at her waist, and followed by a
Bulgarian porter with a shoal of reticules and carpet-
bags, and books, and taking everything as coolly as if
she were an old soldier. The whole party followed the
Rifles to the field, and the countess is at the present
moment living under canvass. The disembarkation of
the infantry of the line commenced in the afternoon,
many of the transports having entered immediately after
the disappearance of the fog which rose about mid-day.
The 88th were the first to reach the shore, and the blaze
of their scarlet formed for the spectators a very pleasant
contrast to the dark hue of the Rifle uniform. While
waiting for the landing of the baggage, groups of the men
might be seen at every corner, discussing with the Turks
or the French—in the language of signs, however—the
various details of their arms or dress, generally ending
in very intelligible demonstrations of the sort of treatment
which all parties present were to inflict upon the
Russians. The 88th was followed by the 19th, 33rd,
and the 77th, and last of all came a troop of Horse
Artillery. The arrangements for the landing of the
horses were as bad as they could possibly be. The boat
was brought close to a pier, the level of which was two
or three feet higher than the deck. A plank, about a
foot and a half broad, was then extended from one to
the other, with a wide interval between, not narrow
enough to avoid all danger of the horse missing his
footing and falling down, nor yet wide enough to
permit him to swim away without injury or bruises.
Happily, however, all passed off without any accident
whatever."

The same writer gives a painful account of the condition
of the soldiers' wives, who have followed the army:
"Anything so woe-begone, so forlorn, so helpless, hopeless,
and miserable as their appearance I have rarely, if
ever, beheld, and must give foreigners a curious idea of
the state of a soldier's domestic arrangements in the
British army. When I saw these unfortunates trailing
their bundles after them along the quay, in the midst of
all the hurrying, crowding, pushing, bustling, marching,
swearing, yelling, and scolding; now thrust here, then
there, wearied and exhausted by a long voyage and bad
accommodation, wretchedly clothed, and many of them
in an advanced state of pregnancy, I hardly knew
whether to pity them or feel amazed at the mock
humanity or twaddling economy that won't pay for
their subsistence in England; and yet goes to still
greater expense in transferring them to a country in
which they will undergo all the hardships of the English
poor, and a great many that are wholly unknown in
Great Britain. In this instance, their number was no
less astonishing than the apparently total indifference of
everybody to their fate. Their husbands were hurried
off with their companies, and they were left to drag
their wearied limbs with all their bag and baggage, as
best they might, through foreign streets, and under the
mocking gaze of foreign eyes, to the camp, fully two
miles from the quay. Whoever originated, or whoever
upholds, this system of sending soldiers' wives out with
their husbands, has a great responsibility resting upon
him. It ought to be laid down as a rule, once for all,
and made known to the 'women of England,' that no
women will be allowed to accompany the army when
about to engage in active service in foreign countries."

There are no further details respecting the English
and French troops, but it has been said in general
terms that they were on the road to Silistria. All the
British troops had not left Scutari on the 12th inst.,
on which day the Duke of Cambridge's division was
embarking for Varna.

The only important intelligence from the Fleet in the
Black Sea, relates to the loss of the English steam- frigate,
the Tiger. The following are the details of that
unfortunate occurrence:—Her Majesty's ships Tiger,
Vesuvius, Fury, and Niger, were, in the early part of
May, cruising off the coast near Odessa. Early on the
morning of the 12th, the weather was thick and hazy,
and in the fog the four ships parted company. The
Tiger, which was nearest the shore, gradually approached
the coast, until she found herself in five fathoms of
water; and then attempting to return to a safer cruising
ground, and being unable, from the denseness of the
fog, to distinguish the outlines of the coast, she ran on
shore off a jutting promontory, about three miles from
Odessa. Captain Giffard, who commanded the ship,
knew that the alarm would be given on shore, and that
the Russians would be down upon him as soon as day
broke, and the fog cleared away. It appears, too, that
he was not quite aware of his being so dangerously near
Odessa. He fired signal-guns to attract the attention of
the Vesuvius, Fury, and Niger; and to lighten the
ship and get her off, the guns, stores, &c, were thrown
overboard. Only one gun was kept to fire a signal to
the other vessels. The Vesuvius, Fury, and Niger,
which were some distance out at sea, heard the signals,
answered them, and proceeded in the direction from
which the reports came. But their movements were
slow and their bearings uncertain on account of the fog.
The guns of the Tiger were heard in Odessa, and a
battery of mounted artillery, with a company of sharp-
shooters, were sent out to capture the vessel in distress.
Large numbers of the population of Odessa and the
neighbouring villages followed the battery for the
purpose of witnessing its operations. There were among
these non-combatants many women, and even some
children. They arrived on the high jutting rock, at the
foot of which the Tiger lay grounded, just when the
battery, having taken a position on this natural
platform, had pointed down their guns and poured their
first volley into the crippled and defenceless ship. The
Russians poured down upon her shells and red-hot shot.
The vessel was on fire; and Captain Giffard, who,
standing on the bridge between the paddle-boxes,
superintended the combat—if combat it can be called
where the fighting was all on one side—had to order
the majority of the crew down below to extinguish the
fire. Thanks to this circumstance—although the shot
of the enemy came down thick, fast, and from deadly
proximity—very few lives were lost. Captain Giffard
remained on the bridge, exposed to a hail-storm of
shot and shells, and a prominent mark for the Russian
rifles. His clothes were riddled with bullets. The
Tiger could not fire a shot. It was impossible to
point the only gun up to the rocks. When this unequal
combat had lasted some time, Captain Giffard was no
longer seen standing on the bridge. A cannon-ball had
taken off his right leg above the knee. He lay on the
bridge, still resolved to hold out and wait for help if
possible. But a few more volleys of shell rekindled the
conflagration in twenty different parts of the vessel, and
nothing remained for the devoted man but to save the
lives of his crew. He gave the order, the most difficult
for an English captain to give, that the flag should be
struck. Between the command of the order and its