while the second man said, “You are to wait on the Captain.” When I did so, he ordered me “Watch and watch” for not having gone to his cabin before I obeyed the other order. Nevertheless, he was fond of me, and in his letters to his sister, while he admits the propriety of a Senior officer, Captain (afterwards Sir) Stephen Lushington, being sent on shore, he adds, “As I could not go myself, I was determined that our family should be represented;” and turning to the Commander he asked, “Which Midshipman will you take?” “I am thinking, sir.” “Then take young Wood.” “Oh, but he is too young, sir; it will kill him.” “No, I think not; but I will answer for that.” And the rugged Commander said, “Well, youngster, you shall go.” The selected detachments went on board H.M.S. _Firebrand_ for passage to Balaklava, which is a curious inlet from the sea. When the armies moving round from the north side of Sevastopol, having crossed the Tchernaya Valley, looked down on their objective, they saw below a little pool of water overshadowed east and west by cliffs, from 500 to 600 feet high. The harbour is indeed small,--about 300 yards wide,--but there is anchorage for half a mile, with depth of water for even larger ships than we possessed in 1854, and being landlocked the water is as smooth as an inland lake. The historian, Mr. Kinglake, aptly named the treeless elevated plateau on which England’s Army fought and won, but suffered and starved for months, “The Upland.” The highest part of the crest is 500 feet above the Tchernaya Valley, and the plateau extends in a straight line from north to south eight miles, if we reckon in the elevated ground, Balaklava, and Sevastopol harbour. It is also nearly eight miles from west to east, measuring from Kamiesh Bay, to the height overlooking Tractir Bridge, on the Tchernaya River. For practical purposes we may say the extent of ground over which the British Army worked for nine months was in straight lines eight miles by four. The geological formation is peculiar. The elevated ground, or Upland, being bounded by a cliff-like formation 800 feet high, which runs generally, from the head of Sevastopol harbour on the north, six miles south, and then trends away to the south-west, and passing a mile north-west of Balaklava, joins the cliffs on the sea-coast. The ground falls from this cliff-like formation gradually, northwards towards Sevastopol, north-west to Kamiesh Bay, southwards towards Balaklava, and south-east to the Tchernaya Valley. From the cliffs it rises again slightly about 2000 yards nearer to Sevastopol, thus forming a shallow basin, behind the crest of which the British camps were pitched, generally out of sight of the enemy’s batteries, although the camp of the 2nd Division on the north-east corner of the Upland, _i.e._ Inkerman, was partly visible from the harbour, and subject to shell fire from ships in it.