GALT'S CAMP AND CUTTER. * DURING the later autumn and the
winter of last year, Mr. Galt made a trip to the Isles of Greece, Constantinople, and the Crimea, in part by public conveyances, and for a while in his own yacht. He has published an account of his residence at the camp, and his journey to and fro, because of the pleasure they afforded to himself, and because any account of the mode of living in the Crimea would, he thinks, be interesting to the public. This last opinion is a mistake : not that the public feel no in- terest, but because we were amply supplied at the time ; neither was that anxiety felt for the army after the fall of Sebastopol and the establishment of the soldiers in good winter-quarters, which excited the people when the overworked troops were labouring in the trenches and suffering. from want of supplies. A remark or two of Mr. Galt seems to indicate, that had the army been ac- tively employed during the past winter, its health would not have been quite so good as it was, nor its supplies perhaps so abundant. In letters published in the newspapers, we have all read of the great labour employed in road-making, and of the satisfactory results : yet see what the ways were turned to by wet. "A few moments saw me with my haversack on the back of a pony, labour- ing through mud and mire along the Kamiesch road. The thaw for the previous two days, has been very prevalent ; the snow has disappeared from the valleys and lower parts of the mountains, except where some chasm or angle of the rock sheltered it from the sun's heat. The rivulets and gully streams were choked, and the water coursed down the sides of the
working out new channels. Our fine road, the result of so much labour, suffered considerably, the metal being in many places washed away. For the distance of eleven miles, I had no alternative but to wade my pony through the liquid pathway, at times up to knees in mud. The melted snow saddened the roadway, and gave it, in many places, the appearance of the mixture seen in the cooling-vats of the large London brewers. Where the soil was of a lighter colour, there was an unpleasant, sloppy, limy, white- washy, dirty milk-like fluid in the road, which the French soldiers were vainly trying to catch hold of with some large hoes and scrape into the ditch."
Roads cannot be extemporized, at least over an earthy soil. They require time to cohere ; they require ample supplies of road- metal; and this metal must be ground down and mixed with the original earth till it forms a soil like the ancient Corinthian brass, of more value than any natural product. There is nothing in nature like the substance of the older Macadamized roads in Eng- land ; yet no seven miles of them would have stood the work of the Crimea in bad weather, or in good weather without incessant repairs. The only enduring military road is a paved chaussde. Mr. Galt made too short a visit to Turkey, and saw the Turks too distantly and superficially, to form any judgment upon them. A man might as well spend a few weeks in London, and some- thing more in a seaport, and then pronounce upon the character, condition, and prospects of the British people. Yet this is about the sort of thing Mr. Galt undertakes to do ; declaring against the whole Turkish nation from the specimens of apathy, misery, or vice, he saw at Constantinople and the camp. The following remark has some truth ; though Oriental improvement will origi- nate, we think, in the principles of demand and supply, rather than in imitation.
"As I watch the movements of an allied army like this, with all its ma- chinery of action, I cannot but reflect on the motives of this colossal war. It seems apparent to me that its purpose is to work out far higher and nobler ends than the mere curtailment of Russian power ; for in its train follow all the arts of the civilization and commerce of Western Europe, and the poor indolent Turks, and passive tribes bordering upon the Black Sea, are com- pletely ridden over by the restless energy of the Briton and the Gaul. Our steam-ships, railways, and roadways, even now surprise and awe these lazy disciples of Mahomet ; and the refinement of our manners and habits pre- sents a striking contrast to their degraded state. Turkey, indeed, would be a poor object alone to fight for. Her existence upon the map of Europe can- not be for long ; for it must be acknowledged that that nation which has no., literature of its own, which is ignorant of most of the arts and sciences, which does not recognize the influence of woman in society, curbing the growth of her intellect, and hiding her away in solitude, in which no pro- Fess has been made for two or three centuries, and whose whole existence is passed with a pipe in its mouth, and fanaticism and fatalism in its temper and its religion—it must be acknowledged that this nation is not yet fitted to assist in European councils, when its own exclusive and bigoted customs entirely abnegate those social amenities that mark the intercourse of other
states."
The narrative of Mr. Galt's outward journey through France to Malta, and his return by way of Italy and Germany, is a plain,
• The Camp and Gee Cutter ; or a Cruise to the Crimea. By Iiisoim Gait. Pub' fished by Hodgson.
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