Page:The invasion of the Crimea Vol 7.djvu/133

 WAY OF MINISTERING TO THE ARMIES. 89 of war may be least able to spare ; for the lives chap. of the soldiers and the fate of military operations ' may be hanging- upon despatch. Distressing experience proved that a Govern- ])iiiic,uity of ment buying things for an 'army from traders at iu-qulnug bj home may not only have to wait, but in spite tiie needed of all the money it offers, to go on waiting and ""^^ '^^* waiting during a painfully lengthened period. See, for instance, the fate of an order to provide for our army in the Crimea one simple article of commerce. Few trades, one would think, are less complicated and more easily susceptible of rapid expansion than the ancient trade of the tent-maker, the trade of the apostle St Paul ; yet (including the time passed in transmission) it took five months to supply our troops on the Chersonese witii any new tents at all, and seven months even elapsed before they received the whole number of 3000 tents demanded in the month of November. (^) If commerce was thus slow in London, the greatest mart of the world, much more might it be expected to lag, when invited by the Com- missary-General to bring him supplies of those kinds — such as horses, bullocks, sheep, vege- tables, fuel, hay — which he sought to draw from the Levant : and in truth his task there bristled always with special difficulties ; for, despite the contrivances used for binding men down by hope of gain and fear of loss, the signature at the foot of a contract in that part of Europe and Asia was too often far, very far, from ensuring its punctual fulfilment. ('^)