money, had contracted so many debts on the journey, that his creditors took the beasts in execution at Utica. Barnum heard of it, and a brilliant idea immediately struck him, He managed to borrow some money, bought the buffaloes for a trifle, and took them to the village of Hobohen, opposite New York. He there made a bargain with the proprietors of the four Hudson ferries, by virtue of which they were at his sole disposal for several days; and this was scarcely arranged, ere yard-long coloured placards and stentor-voiced criers announced in every corner of curious Gotham that twenty real buffaloes would be hunted by wild Indians, mounted on mustangs, in the meadows near Hobohen. The spectators would pay for this ocular festival only the ferry price, which Barnum had raised from four to eight cents. All turned out as the speculator had calculated. Whoever could, accepted the invitation, and for three. days the ferry-boats nearly broke down under the weight of the sightseers. And what did they see? A dozen New York rowdies dressed like Indian hunters, and armed with long lances, with which they rode round the poor beasts that lay comfortably in a circle, and gave them a prod. And was that the end of the ditty? Folk abused and growled, but could not demand their money back, as they had only paid for the passage, not for the sight. Barnum, however, made by this operation a clear profit of nearly 5000 dollars. With these he established his present Museum, which, after its incorporation with another elder institution of the same stamp, became the gathering-ground of all the curious, through the gathering together of all the curiosities, abortions, and rarities, that could be collected.

TOM PEPPER'S LETTERS FROM THE CRIMEA.

Before Sebastopol, December, 1854.

DEAR GUARDIAN,-I suppose Aunt Priscilla has told you (for I sent her a letter not long ago) that I was unable to write to you for want of ink and paper. We are rather better off for it again, so many of our fellows have died off, or vanished somewhere, and amongst their effects we occasionally come upon a little store of stationery.

Did you hear of the dreadful go we had at the battle of Balaklava, on the 25th of October? The battle itself was bad enough, but after it was over and the Russians were retiring, Captain Nolan came galloping down from head-quarters, asking for Lord Lucan. "I'm here," called out his lordship, "what do you want ?” "You are to charge the enemy," he said, "there, right ahead, and rout 'em." So Lord Lucan coolly gave the order to the Light Brigade to go and do it. "It would be perfect madness," remonstrated Lord Cardigan, "to charge the enemy there it's a cul de sac, and we shall be surrounded, and all cut to pieces." Not that Lord Cardigan remonstrated for himself, his bravery is too well known, but he would have given his right hand, rather than

have led his attached followers to a hopeless death. "Cut to pieces, or not," returned Nolan, "it is Lord Raglan's order, and you must obey it.” Charge!" roared out Lord Lucan, by way of settling the dispute, and off dashed Cardigan with his heroic soldiers. They all knew, and saw, that they were going right into the mouths of a hundred cannons, and to effect no good and no earthly purpose; but not one flinched, and they met their fate as none but Englishmen can do. I was not one of those who charged (if I had been, you would never have got this letter nor any other from me), but I was close by, and saw it all. They rode forward at a hard gallop, steady and compact, the very ground shaking under them, and gained the enemy. Then out burst the Russian cannons, with a fury that struck dismay to us, who heard; whatever it may have done to those who felt the fire. Showers of balls from the front, storms of shells from the sides, and both from behind. It was awful. Heads, legs, arms, and trunks of Englishmen, flying in the air, and the horses were shot down more effectually than their riders. If you had seen the poor little remnant of men who were left alive, crawling out, back again, you would never have forgotten it. Lord Cardigan never will. He escaped, but how, he does not himself know. There was plenty of hot discussion about it afterwards; some blaming the order, some saying the fault was Nolan's but Nolan had gone with the arms, and legs, and bodies, so no elucidation could be had out of him. I don't know whether the commander-in-chief chose to, or could, give any: if so, it did not reach us juniors.

Well, that battle passed off, like the one at Alma, leaving no particular effects behind it, save thinned ranks and tents, and a great accumulation of graves; but I must tell you a little about another, one worse than either. I don't speak of skirmishes, which we have had in plenty, for it would skirmish away too much of my time and paper. The 4th of November was on a Saturday; and a blessed Saturday it was for rain. Pour, pour, down it came, steady and soaking, as if it never meant to leave off, the skies and air a dark lead colour. There was scarcely a man in the whole camp but what was knocked up, either in spirits or in health, mostly in both, for things in general were looking hopelessly glum, and disease had crept in at every corner. At night, I had to go into the trenches with the men: none of us were half-clothed for it, and before we gained them we were soaked to the skin. But we have got used to all that, like eels do to skinning, and writing of it will not mend matters. The first set-in rainy night you have, dear sir, just take off your drawers and flannel-shirt, and shoes and stockings, and change your winter clothes for an alpaca suit, and knock the crown out of your hat, and put on the pair of slippers Jessie worked for you, which by this time must be minus the soles, and if you can find a convenient ditch within range of the park guns, get into it, and, bribing the guns to fire off minute volleys, wade about in the rain and mud till morning. When you go home (if you have cleverly contrived to dodge the balls) you will be a tolerable judge of how very agreeably we are passing our nights in the trenches. I got through the night somehow-as I have managed to get through the rest-partly with thinking of the blaze of fireworks that would go off the next day, all over England, and the stunning Guys that would be made, and what particularly stunning Guys we officers

should look, if we were dropped down in London streets in our present trim; and at four the next morning, Sunday, back I and the men waded, after our night's watch. We left a few behind, who were done over with the wet and cold, and who most likely died out before evening, but that's usual.

Some of the men said they heard the church bells ringing in Sebastopol, but I did not. Ugh! what a morning it was! the rain still pouring, and the fog as thick as you get it in the City. I think I slept for half an hour, after I reached the tent, not longer, for my clothes, and the floor, and the tent, were all wet together, and woke me; so I roused up, and began striking at two flint stones (lucifers being exhausted) to try what I could do towards making a fire and boiling some water, when smash! a shot took the tent. My! didn't we brush out of it to see what was up! We saw too soon. The Russians were close upon us. They had climbed up the heights of Inkerman, in the night, had dragged up their guns and artillery, were within a few yards of us, and had opened fire. The confusion we were thrown into was horrible. We did not know which way to advance or how to repel them, for the morning light had not come, and the fog and mist lay thick around. But a few paces removed from us, we could just distinguish masses of grey coats, which we knew to belong to Russians. We had been surprised with a vengeance: there was no disguising the matter: and thousands of us, brave and fearless as we are, never thought to come out, that day, the victors. Shot and shell, balls and bullets hailed down upon us. Our guns were not in readiness; our muskets, damp and wet, would not go off. Could we have seen the position of the enemy, we would not have cared; could we have gained an idea of the numbers that were upon us, it would have been something. We struggled through the brushwood, our skin torn with its prickles, and charged those grey masses, bayonet in hand, fighting, in our desperation, for very life; now slashing here, now there, now repulsed, now stricken down. Sometimes, in the changes of the fight, we could not tell whether we were hewing at friends or foes. Many individual deeds of daring and bravery were done that day: and that's saying something, when all were so brave. There was no particular order given, or plan pursued, so far as we knew: every division did the best it could, and every man in it ditto: but for studied arrangement in the attacks, there was neither time nor light for it. The Duke was in the heart of it, and fought like a Briton. Many of our bravest commanders rushed into the thick of the battle, and never came out of it. It lasted all day. The Russians howled and strove like demons: they had been primed with raw spirits, and were raving drunk. The prisoners we took told us they had received absolution from their priests before starting, and glorious promises. Those who died fighting, if they had led good lives, were to be taken straight to Paradise; those who had led bad lives, were to be transmogrified into little Russian babies, and begin their lives over again: and they are such bigoted ignoramuses, in religion, they believed it all, and regretted they were not amongst the fallen. We came out victors; you may be sure of that; though we were but a handful against their countless hordes. Thousands of them were left dead and dying on the plain. Our loss was dreadful: not in

numbers, as compared with the enemy's, but in the flower of our officers. Scarcely a general officer remained to us, and some regiments were left with a single captain, or perhaps lieutenant, all the rest killed or wounded. The sneaks had picked out our officers, and deliberately aimed at them. The newspapers will tell you the rolls of our dead: : you will find it a lengthy list. At night, past six, I got back to our tent, and found it riddled with shot. Precious hungry I was, having fasted sixand-twenty hours. There was no chance of cooking anything, so I got a drop of rum, some biscuit, and raw pork. Please don't tell Aunt Priscilla this, or she'll call me a cannibal: but I can assure you it's often only one choice with us-eat it raw, or go without. The death-plain was fearful; worse than ever were Balaklava and Alma. English, French, and Russians, lying in heaps: wounded, dying, and dead, all mixed up together. The enemy went prowling about, and beat many of our wounded officers to death. You should have heard the execrations lavished on the tigers, when we found our poor comrades' bodies all bruised and battered: many of them showing only a slight battle wound, from which they would readily have recovered. The next day was occupied with funerals, and with picking out the wounded: the Russians firing on us at the work. As at Alma and Balaklava, we had not half enough surgeons, no bandages, to speak of, no lint, no anything. What to do with the wounded, we did not know: some were kept on the plain, in precious places that they call hospitals, and some were shoved on board transports, to be sent to Scutari. The scene of the Kangaroo, &c., was re-enacted. The poor wretches were crowded on board, without breathing room, no hospital-accommodation, with one, or at most two surgeons to the whole ship-load. They were ten-fifteen-twenty days before they got to Scutari, so that numbers were by that time out of their misery, and gone overboard in their blankets.

Two days after the battle, a council of war was held at head-quarters, and I believe it was a noisy one. Ensign Tubbs told me, and Cornet Stiffing told him, that the Duke of Cambridge spoke out his mind about it, saying the whole army was being sacrificed to indolence and incapacity, and blew up Lord Raglan, sky high, before them all. Major Gum heard what we were saying, and he blew us up, and told Tubbs he'd have him and Stiffing court-martialed, if they retailed such reports. So we held our tongues till the Major was out of hearing, and then went on again. One thing's certain, that when the council was over the Duke left the camp, and went on board the Caradoc, and he's never come back. Major Gum must blow up if he chooses, but things have long been in a dreadful state with us. Our clothes are worn thin and threadbare, and we have none to change. We are exposed in the trenches night and day, often twenty-eight hours out of forty-eight; we are all as thin as weasels (Major Gum and a few of those big ones excepted, and they'll be fat in their coffins); our bones rattle in the wind and in the frost, and lots die from the exposure; we don't get half enough to eat; and the sickness amongst us is so great that we are only the remnant of an army. But of course, as our superior officers tell us, all this is but the fortune of war, and a soldier must learn to put up with it without grumbling. He must put up with mud, too, if he comes out here. I and Tubbs thought it fun at first, to see horses and men sink over their knees

in slosh, at every step, but now that we are used to it it bothers us, especially when we have to go in ourselves.

We seem to be in for every sort of disaster. A great storm overtook some transports that were bringing our horses. The vessels were tossed fearfully, the horses got loose, and there was a general set-to, they biting and kicking, while the crew fastened themselves down in terror. More than three hundred animals were thrown overboard, maimed or dead. But the worst storm I ever saw, or heard of, took place here a few days subsequent to the battle of Inkerman. It began on Monday, the 13th, a squally, drifty day, the gusts of wind shaking us and our tents as if it owed us a grudge. We thought nothing of it, gusts and squalls being so plentiful in the Crimea; and, for myself, I lay down in our tent on Monday night, and was asleep directly, having been in the trenches the previous one. I was awake again before morning: you just fancy whether even a tired lad could sleep, with the wind shrieking and howling inside the tent, its canvas sides blowing up and flapping about, and the rain drifting in upon one. By-and-by, I think it was about six or seven in the morning, bo-o-o-om came the thunder from the distance, whir-r-r-r roared the wind, crack went the poles of the tent, and down it came upon us. Such a struggle and fight as we had to get out of it! We were entangled like the lion in his net, and when we did extricate ourselves, startled, and breathless, and shaken, a pretty prospect was before us. Of course we were not dressed-who was to find clothes smothered in canvas ?—so down we sat in the mud and rain half-naked. It's a good thing nothing was off us but our coats and hats (and sometimes we go to roost in them), but what else we had on was in rags, and a nice shiver we were in. Well, we sat down in the slosh, and looked around. Some of the tents were upset, like ours; the rest were upsetting. All the canvas, within view, was fluttering and flapping like the sails of a ship. Coats, shoes, shirts (of those who possessed two, one on, one off), caps, handkerchiefs, and such-like articles, were flying about in the air, and flakes of mud were splashing over us as thick as hail. Men were clinging to the prostrate tents, or holding on to the ground, grasping the mud and the pools, in dread fear of being taken up after their traps, for the hurricane, in its might and power, was as a rushing whirlwind. I and Tubbs held on, one to the other; but it was the primest game to see some of the old ones rushing about, all in white, after their apparel, ducking down to avoid the gusts, and groaning with the exertion. The horses got frightened and broke loose, and came kicking amongst us. Every tent came down, every one, and there was the whole camp, shelterless, clotheless, and foodless, with shivering limbs and chattering teeth. We could only sit in the mud and stare at each other, and throw ourselves on our faces to meet the fury of the storm. It lasted all day, and in the midst of it, down came a biting snow-fall. By night we were frozen with cold, famished, desolate, and desperate. How we passed that night I am sure I cannot describe to you. I hope I shall never pass such another. I think the storm went right through us all, bones, and sinews, and flesh. Some of the weak ones never recovered it, but were found stiff and cold the next morning and lots of horses. In the midst of the tempest, a fellow came up and said some draughts of regiments were just landed from Kamiesch Bay, and were being swayed about in Feb.-VOL. CIII. NO. CCCCX.

M