94 THE WINTER lllOUBLES. CHAP. V. by the Eng- lish. Extreme narrowness of the com- munication through Balaclava. powerful body of officers and men which was called, as we saw, the Intendance, stood ready to form magazines, to bring up the needed supplies by sufficing means of land-transport, and dis- tribute them at last in the camp. The regi- ments, as we have seen, had their own bakers with them ; and it well might be taken for granted that, until wounded or stricken by sick- ness, the French soldier would use his known skill and resource in making the very best of his too meagre ration, and his wretched means of shelter. To our people, on the other hand, the advan- tages thus enjoyed by the French were all of them unhappily wanting. They had no sufficing harbour. The iron-bound coast in their rear forbade all contact with the shipping, except through the basin of Balaclava, and this inlet was so extremely diminutive that it constituted a sorry port of supply for the vast and pressing needs of an army. ' None,' said the Quartermaster- General to the Chelsea Board, — 'none except those wlio witnessed ' our elfbrts in the autumn and early winter of ' 1854, can form an adequate conception of the
- difficulty with which the vast and bulky sup-
' plies and warlike stores requisite for maintain- ' ing the army and carrying on the siege were ' got into a small inlet of the sea, and landed ' and stored in the narrow little fishing-place
- of Balaclava. There was a gallant army on
' the hill, and a great nation 3000 miles off, ' sparing no expense to supply it, but narrow
- indeed at this point was the channel of com-
