Page:The invasion of the Crimea Vol 7.djvu/196

152 THE WINI'Ki; TKOUHLES. CHAP. VIII. Warm clothin" Sufrering.s from cold. mour at one time ascribed to them was altogether imaginary ; for the terrible accumulation of hard- ships which they needs had to bear as an evil inseparable from the winter campaign was aggra- vated by defective arrangements, and in particular by a want of due forethoiight and care with respect to both shelter and food. The expedient of distributing amongst the men some separate slips of canvas, which by aid of a small short stick might be raised some three feet from the ground, was one that in Africa had proved to be more or less useful. But the notion of trusting to this little frail thing as a means of protecting troops against the rigours of the Clier- sonese winterwas always denounced bytheFrench, with indignation and disgust ; for the shelter men found in what they nick -named their ' dog- tents ' (^) was only to be gained by crawling on all-fours through the frozen or wet mud and snow without to the mud and the wet snow within.(^) Before October had ended, the French War Department bought up or caused to be made a large quantity of warm clothing for Canrobert's troops ; (^) and so early as the 28th of November, no small part of these welcome supplies was already in camp.(^) But the distribution long remained incomplete ; and distressing accounts of the sufferers brought down for embarkation in thin, scanty rags show by sample what medi- cal statements establish by wholesale in figures, and lielp to prove that the men suffered cruelly, and too often fatally, from wet, exposure, and c6ld.(*^) Men in thousands were stricken with