Page:The invasion of the Crimea Vol. 5.djvu/238

 216 THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. chap, the tidings of the Light Cavalry charge, and to indicate a nature which might have in it some- thing of chivalrous, nay even Quixotic exaltation. His blue, frank-looking, genial eyes revealed none of the narrowness of disposition which I have thought myself obliged to ascribe to him. As might be supposed, he had an excellent cavalry seat, and was erect — but also stiff — in the saddle. He wore the uniform of his old regiment, the 11th Hussars ; but instead of dangling loose from the shoulders, his pelisse — richly burthened in front with gold lace — was worn closely put on like a coat, and did not at all break or mitigate the rigid outline of his figure.* The charger he rode was a thorough-bred chestnut, with marks of a kind visible from afar, which in controversy it may be well to remember. On the near side before, as well as on the near side behind, the horse had one white leg.i* In the small group which repre- sented the Brigade- Staff, Lieutenant Maxse, assis- tant aide-de-camp, and Sir George Wombwell, pelisse in the same way as Lord Cardigan. t Under the oft' hind fetlock, also, the horse —he still survives, or did a few months ago (1868) — lias a stain of white, but so small as not to be visible from a distance. As far as could be seen by any one on the field of battle not coming close to the horse, he had no white stains on his legs, except one higf 'white stocking' before, and another high 'white stocking' behind, both the 'white stockings' being on the near side. General Liprandi, when questioning English prisoners with a view to identify the English officer whom he had seen galloping back, seems to have Bpokeo of the horse as a chestnut with white heels, only one of the witnesses saying that the Russian General asked as to the rider of a chestnut with white lew*
 * In the Crimea at this time the Hussar regiments wore the