The ride from the top of the Genoese heights to Balaklava harbour, by a new road, through mud, over rocks, rivulets, &c., and mounted upon a strange nag, was anything but pleasant to my feelings as a horseman. At all events, after numerous slippery evolutions on the part of my new charger, I found myself safe at the bottom of the ravine; but here another difficulty presented itself. The quay of the harbour was encumbered with French and Sardinian waggons, mules, and horses. The French, who had a wine depôt there for the troops, were strongly fortified with about a hundred pipes of wine, instead of gabions. So crowded was the road from the immense traffic and the unloading of shipping stores, that it took me nearly half-an-hour to ride a few hundred yards. This brought me as far as the Commissariat, where I had to call upon Commissary Filder. I found that he had just returned from head-quarters. We had about ten minutes’ conversation upon business. I related the result of my visit to the various provision stores--made remarks upon the same, and particularly upon the dry vegetables at that time issued to the troops. He then referred me to Under-Commissary Adams, to whom I promised a scale for a fresh composition of dry vegetables in cake, more suitable for the troops, in lieu of the finer and more expensive quality then issued in boxes. They were composed of one vegetable only, and were much too highly dried, having thus lost their aroma as well as their nutritious qualities. I therefore proposed that the firm of Messrs. Chollet, in Paris, should prepare a sample of cakes of dried vegetables, to be called coarse julienne, for the army. Each hundredweight of fresh vegetables was to consist of the following proportions:-- Twenty pounds of carrots, twenty pounds of turnips, ten of parsnips, fifteen of onions, twenty of cabbage, five of celery, and ten of leeks; with one pound of aromatic seasoning, composed of four ounces of thyme, four of winter savory, two of bayleaf, four of pepper, and an ounce of cloves; the whole to be pulverized and mixed with the vegetables. Each cake was to serve for one hundred men, and to be marked in compartments of ten rations each, like chocolate cakes, instead of being marked upon the wrapper, which is always torn off when the vegetables are issued, and the soldiers cannot tell about quantity. This plan will obviate that evil; for I had seen in camp piles of this excellent vegetable rising pyramidically from the soldiers’ canteen pan while cooking, in consequence of their having put in the best part of three days’ rations instead of one. The dry rations are issued for three days at a time. My proposition having met with the approval of the authorities, was at once forwarded to the War Office. I also promised to submit to Commissary Filder’s notice several plans for improvement in the distribution of the meat.