Page:The invasion of the Crimea Vol. 3.djvu/353

 FIELD OF THE ALMA. 327 a swiftness, that a field wliieli was speckled and en a P. glittering, at the close of the battle, with the ^''j uniforms of prostrate soldiers, is changed of a sud- den to a ghastly shamble, with little except maimed or dead horses, and the buff, naked corpses of men, to show where the battle has raged. But the breadth of the lands and the seas which divide this simple Grim Tartary from the great seats of European vice, had hitherto defeated the baneful energy of those who come out to prey upon armies by selling strong drinks, and robbing the dead and the wounded. Armed and clothed as he stood when, receiving his death-wound, he heard the last of the din of battle, so now the soldier lay. Many had been struck in such a manner that their limbs were suddenly stiffened, and this so tixedly, that, although their bodies fell to the ground, their hands and arms remained held in the very posture they chanced to be in at the moment of death.* This was observed, for the most part, in instances of soldiers who had been on the point of firing at the moment when they were struck dead; for, where this had hap- pened, the man's hands being thrown forward and fixed in the attitude required for levelling a fire- lock, they of course stretched upwards towards the heavens when the body fell back upon the ground. These upstretched arms of dead men lepsy-like stiffness might now and then result from a gunshot wound ; but I believe they were somewhat surprised at the large propoi'tion of instances in which it occurred.
 * Medical men knew, a.s inffjht be expected, that this cata-