Orders were despatched to Sir George Cathcart and the Duke of Cambridge, to put the Fourth and the First in motion; and intelligence of the advance of the Russians was furnished to General Canrobert. Immediately the General commanded General Bosquet to get the Third Division under arms, and sent artillery and 200 Chasseurs d'Afrique to assist us. Sir Colin Campbell, who was in command of Balaklava, had drawn up the 93rd Highlanders a little in front of the road to the town, at the first news of the advance of the enemy. The Marines on the heights got under arms; the seamen's batteries and Marines' batteries, on the heights close to the town, were manned, and the French artillerymen and the Zouaves prepared for action along their lines. Lord Lucan's men had not had time to water their horses; they had not broken their fast from the evening of the day before, and had barely saddled at the first blast of the trumpet, when they were drawn up on the slope behind the redoubts in front of their camp, to operate on the enemy's squadrons. When the Russians advanced, the Turks fired a few rounds, got frightened at the advance of their supports, "bolted," and fled with an agility quite at variance with common-place notions of Oriental deportment on the battle-field. [Sidenote: PICTURESQUE SITUATIONS OF THE ARMIES.] Soon after eight o'clock, Lord Raglan and his staff turned out and cantered towards the rear of our position. The booming of artillery, the spattering roll of musketry, were heard rising from the valley, drowning the roar of the siege guns before Sebastopol. As I rode in the direction of the firing, over the undulating plain that stretches away towards Balaklava, on a level with the summit of the ridges above it, I observed a French light infantry regiment (the 27th, I think) advancing from our right towards the ridge near the telegraph-house, which was already lined by companies of French infantry. Mounted officers scampered along its broken outline in every direction. General Bosquet followed with his staff and a small escort of Hussars at a gallop. Never did the painter's eye rest on a more beautiful scene than I beheld from the ridge. The fleecy vapours still hung around the mountain tops, and mingled with the ascending volumes of smoke; the patch of sea sparkled freshly in the rays of the morning sun, but its light was eclipsed by the flashes which gleamed from the masses of armed men.