Page:The invasion of the Crimea Vol 7.djvu/148

 104 THE WINTER TliOUBLES. CHAP, for this kind of work ; and six or seven days ' later (though the tools had not reached Bala- clava), the making of the road was commenced by removing the layer of mud which encum- bered the old waggon-track by digging wide drains on each side of it, and finally, by collect- ing the stones which were to be afterwards broken up and converted into the requisite ' metal.' Four hundred Turks were employed upon this task, and it made fair progress during the few fine days which succeeded to the storm of the 1 4th ; but the torrents of rain which afterwards fell, and the sickness and deaths that ensued, proved destructive to every hope of Vain efforts promptly Completing the work without the help 'metal' it. of many more hands. Of the 400 Turks who at first had been employed, only 150 could now be collected, and even these were in too feeble a state to be capable of anything like a full day's work. No hired labour worth having could be obtained at this season. The Com- missary-General, it is true, was able to hire workmen on the shores of the Euxine and the Bosphorus, and he accordingly imported them by hundreds ; but they died by fifties, and the duty of burying them deep enough to prevent their bodies from tainting the air, became an additional task hardly counterpoised by any good service that the feeble survivors could render. Without stopping short in the siege- work upon wiiich he had entered, or ceasing, as though in despair, to show a due front to the enemy, Lord Kaglan could afford no sufficient