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The Storm on Land. The following letter from Lieut. Harkness, of the 55th Regt., although written before three others which have here appeared was 27 days in reaching its destination, thus showing that the ship service was much the quickest. In the said letter to his mother, this gallant young officer said:-
- “ Since I wrote to you on the 13th instant, we have had more extraordinary changes of weather. Three days ago it blew a hurricane from the S.W., with very heavy rain and snow all day. I was away with a party on fatigue at the siege train before daylight; the mud on the road over one’s ankles and the wind and rain increasing so that I was sent back by nine o’clock, as no work could be done. On arriving in our camp, I found all the officers’ tents and nearly all the men’s blown down. All our things were drenched, and there was no help for it but to let them be there, as the wind was too furious to attempt to raise a tent. We crouched into one that was left standing, and by four of us continually supporting the pole and a couple of men outside attending to ropes and pegs, we kept it up by main force, as well as having a second pole to support the other. We made a fire inside (at the expense of being nearly stifled by smoke) and cooked a stew and some tea for breakfast. We continued holding up the tent till about one o’clock, when the rain ceased and the wind a little abated. The aspect of the camp was miserable, nearly every tent lying flat on the ground, and the unfortunate fellows all wet. We managed during the afternoon to get most of the tents up again, but they were covered with mud, and all our things – eatables included – mixed with dirt and spoiled. The hospital marquees, with the sick, were blown down, too. We all felt wet and miserable the rest of the day and night. The succeeding days have been fortunately dry, and we have now recovered from the mishap, but it is not pleasant to think that it may happen again any-day at this time of year. Numbers of the men coming off picket next morning were obliged to go into hospital. If we stay in tents during the winter we shall lose half the men by sickness. The clothing is insufficient to enable us to bear the cold. Our regiment have only got the summer trousers they landed in, the black ones being still on board ship. But our misfortunes the other day were small compared to the loss among the shipping. Eight vessels went down, two of them with ammunition, some also with warm clothing for the troops, and some with rum and other stores. They were outside the harbour of Balaclava, the latter being too small to contain many vessels. The Retribution 18-gun war steamer lost her rudder, and was obliged to throw her guns overboard. It is also said that £250,000 in gold for the troops also went to the bottom....Such are the effects of our generals being driven against their own judg-
