and line regiments lay as thick as leaves, intermixed with dead and wounded horses. The path lay through thick brushwood, but it was slippery with blood, and the brushwood was broken down and encumbered with the dead. The scene from the battery was awful beyond description. I stood upon its parapet at about nine at night, and I felt my heart sink as I gazed upon the scene of carnage around.
'The moon was at its full, and showed every object as if by the light of day. Facing me was the valley of Inkerman, with the Tchernaya, like a band of silver, flowing gracefully between the hills, which, for varied and picturesque beauty, might vie with any part of the world. Yet I shall never recall the memory of Inkermann valley with any but feelings of horror; for round the spot from which I surveyed the scene lay upwards of five thousand bodies. Some lay as if prepared for burial, and as though the hands of relatives had arranged their mangled limbs; while others again were in almost startling positions, half standing or kneeling, clutching their weapons or drawing a cartridge. Many lay with both their hands extended towards the sky, as if to avert a blow or utter a prayer; while others had a malignant scowl of fear and hatred. The moonlight imparted an aspect of unnatural paleness to their forms, and as the cold, damp wind swept round the hills and waved the boughs above their upturned faces, the shadows gave a horrible appearance of vitality; and it seemed as if the dead were laughing, and about to rise. This was not the case on one spot only, but all over the bloody field.'
The whole of the 6th (the day after the battle) was devoted to the sorry task of burying the dead. A council of war was held, presided over by Lord Raglan, at which it was determined to winter in the Crimea, and orders were issued accordingly. Large reinforcements were demanded bath by Lord Raglan and General Canrobert, which, with considerable promptitude were despatched by their respective governments.
HISTORY OF FRANCE.
The Franks, a tribe of German origin, had marched from their hereditary
possessions on the Lower Rhine to the Meuse and the Sambre, A. D.
486. From this place, their warlike king, Clovis, led them forth to war
and plunder. After he had conquered and put to death the last Roman
governor, Syágrius, in Soissons, and made himself master of the country
between the Seine and the Loire, he advanced against the Alemanni, who
were in possession of an extensive kingdom on both banks of the Rhine.
He defeated them in the great battle of Zülpich (between Bonn and Aix),
and subjected their country on the Moselle and the Lahn. In the heat of
the battle, Clovis had sworn, that if the doubtful combat should terminate
in his favor, he would embrace the faith of his Christian wife; and in the
same year, he, with 8,000 nobles of his train, received baptism in the waters
of the Rhine. But Christianity produced no emotions of pity in his
savage heart. After he had extended the Frank empire to the Rhone on
the east, and to the Garónne on the south, he attempted to secure the whole
territory to himself and his posterity, by putting to death the chiefs of all
the Frank tribes.
