leaving three Generals, three guns, 700 prisoners, and 4000 killed and wounded, behind them.
The loss on the part of the British was 2000 killed, wounded, and missing; that of the French, about 1400.
On the night after the battle the allied army bivouacked on the summit of the heights which they had so gloriously won; the French Marshal pitching his tent on the very spot occupied by that of Prince Menschikoff the morning before.
On the 23d the Allied armies left the Alma and proceeded to cross the Katscha; on the 24th they crossed the Belbec, where it had been intended to effect the landing of the siege materiel with a view to an attack on the north side of Sebastopol. It was found, however, that the enemy had placed a fortified work so as to prevent the vessels and transports from approaching this river; and it was determined to advance at once by a flank march round the east of Sebastopol, to cross the valley of the Tchernaya, and seize Balaklava as the future basis of operations against the south side of the harbor at Sebastopol.
The enemy did not hold Balaklava in any strength. After a few shots the little garrison surrendered, and as Sir E. Lyon's ship, the Agamemnon, reached the mouth of the harbor at the very time that the troops appeared on the heights, the British army was once more in full communication with the fleet.
The march of the French army which followed in the track of the British, was more prolonged and fatiguing. They did not reach the Tchernaya river until the 26th, having passed the previous night at Mackenzie's Farm. It was on this day that the French marshal, at length succumbing to his fatal malady, issued his last order of the day, in which he took leave formally of his troops, and resigned the command into the hands of General Canrobert.
Having swept the enemy from their path by the bloody triumphs of the Alma, the next step of the Allies was to lay siege to Sebastopol.
The bay of Balaklava, which now became the principal base of their operations, is a place admirably suited for the landing of stores and materiel. As a port it is the most perfect of its size in the world. The entrance is between perpendicular cliffs, rising eight hundred feet high on either hand, and is only wide enough to allow the passage of one ship at a time; but once in you find yourself in a land-locked tideless haven, still as a mountain lake, three quarters of a mile in length, by two hundred and fifty yards wide, and nowhere less than six fathoms deep, so that every square foot of its surface is available for ships of the greatest burden.
The bay of Balaklava was instantly adopted as the new base of operations of the British army, and never before did its waters mirror so many tall ships on their bosom.
From fifty to a hundred war-ships and transports were constantly at anchor, landing the siege-guns, stores, and provisions of all kinds. The only access to Balaklava from the land side is at the inner end of the bay, through a breach in the surrounding hills, which gradually opens out into an extensive valley, about three miles long by about two broad; it was in this valley that the serious part of the combat of the 25th October took place. Through this valley runs the road to the Tchernaya and Mackenzie's Farm, by which the Allies advanced to Balaklava, and which on the
