These fearful fields, where such tempests of death used to rage, are peaceful enough now; no sound is heard, hardly a living thing moves about them, they are lonely and silent--their desolation is complete.
There was nothing else to do, and so every body went to hunting relics.
They have stocked the ship with them. They brought them from the Malakoff, from the Redan, Inkerman, Balaklava--every where. They have brought cannon balls, broken ramrods, fragments of shell--iron enough to freight a sloop.
Some have even brought bones--brought them laboriously from great distances, and were grieved to hear the surgeon pronounce them only bones of mules and oxen. I knew Blucher would not lose an opportunity like this. He brought a sack full on board and was going for another. I prevailed upon him not to go. He has already turned his state-room into a museum of worthless trumpery, which he has gathered up in his travels. He is labeling his trophies, now. I picked up one a while ago, and found it marked "Fragment of a Russian General." I carried it out to get a better light upon it--it was nothing but a couple of teeth and part of the jaw-bone of a horse. I said with some asperity: