194 THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. CHAP, that they were, each of them, in a condition to 1_ be more or less completely rolled up by an at- tack of cavalry, or even — without waiting for actual collision — by the mere sight of squadrons approaching.* Close in advance of the discomfited Eussian cavalry, and, like them, fronting up the North Valley, some twelve pieces of the Don Cossack ordnance were in battery. -J* At a later moment, the smoke from this bat- tery served to screen the horsemen behind it from the sight of the English ; but at the time now spoken of, this great body of Eussian cavalry, though a mile and a half off, could be descried by one standing on the ground where Lord Cardigan was posted. From the effect of distance and close massing, the dusky, grey columns looked black. Besides the main body of the Eussian cavalry which thus stood drawn up in rear of the Cos- sack guns, Liprandi now had at his disposal six squadrons of lancers under the command of Colonel Jeropkine ; J and these horsemen, divided into two bodies of three squadrons each, were so posted — the one in a fold of the Fediou-
- For proof of this — proof by actual experiment— Loth as re-
gards the column posted along the line of the Causeway Heights, a nd as regards the other column — the one on the Fedioukine Hills — see later pages narrating the retreat of the Odessa bat- talions and (subsequently) of the forces on the Fedioukine Hills which were put to flight by D'Allonville. t Eight pieces {i. e., one battrry), according to Eussian offi- cial accounts ; but oral testimony shows that the real numbe? of these guns was twelve t A force called the 'combined lancers.'
