Page:The invasion of the Crimea Vol. 4.djvu/54

 24 THE FLANK MARCH. The inarcli resumed on the 26tli. Lord Rag- lan before Balaclava. liiglitly looked at, the need that there was for resorting to ventures like these will help perhaps to disclose the hazardous character of the Flank March, and the weakness of the posture in which the Allied army lay on the night of the 25th ot Septemher.* Oh the morning of the next day, Lord Uaglan resumed his march, and crossing, after a time, the now famous Woronzoff Eoad, was at length upon ground where, unless the maps were deceiving him, he must needs be very near to Balaclava, But the country which lay before him seemed closed up at every point by towering hills, and there was not the least sign of an opening in which to look for a seaport. Soon he came upon a village, but a smiling and apparently inland village, having the porches of its cottages richly laden with clustering grapes, and disclosing no sign of its being a place near the sea. This was Kadikoi. The villagers were questioned a little, and they said that Balaclava was un- defended. They seemed to speak like people who had nothing they cared to withhold. The Kities were already ascending the hills which lay towards the south, but, upon the road by which he was moving, Lord llaglan, at this time, had no advanced-guard before him. As at the Alma, when he gained the knoll looking down upon the enemy's reserves, and as yesterday at Mackenzie's Farm, when he all but struck in upon the rear-guard of a Russian army, so to-day, • See the Plan.