Page:The invasion of the Crimea Vol 7.djvu/153

 WAY OF MINISTERING TO THE ARMIES. 109 powerful teams ; and a tiiue was even at hand CHAP. when the Commissary- General would find him- self compelled to abandon altogether the use of wheeled carriages, trusting only thenceforth to the expedient of sending up his supplies on the backs of horses and mules. This change would at once reduce the transport power of each beast to a third of what it had been when applied to the draught of a waggon ; and yet, far from having been tripled to meet a thus tripled neces- sity, the number and strength of our baggage Thein,-«M horses and mules in the Crimea will be found transi.ort •11 1 • -1 declining. growing every day less until brought, m mid- winter, so low as to be almost on the verge of extinction. Already, cold, wet, and hard work (to be followed at times and too often by a more or less prolonged want of food) were not only killing those beasts, but fast weakening our artillery teams ; and, there being every day from these causes a need of more transport-power, we shall see Mr Filder prevented from importing the fresh horses and mules, of which he had numbers in readiness, because he knew that, if they were landed, lie had not the means of feeding them.(27) By reason of the woes it occasioned, this want want of of forage unhappily was not a trivial circum- stance ; and one of the two distinct causes to which it has been traced was obstruction en- countered in England. In almost all Turkish provinces (with some barley, besides, for horses) the forage mainly used was chopped straw — a kind of food so unwieldy,