Many were the terrible scenes witnessed in the gardens of the quaint last-century houses on Denmark Hill. Around those old-world residences, standing along the road leading down to Half Moon Lane, time-mellowed relics of an age bygone, Indians fought with Zouaves, and British Volunteers struggled fiercely hand to hand with French infantrymen. The quiet old-fashioned quarter, that was an aristocratic retreat when Camberwell was but a sylvan village with an old toll gate, when cows chewed the cud upon Walworth Common, and when the Walworth Road had not a house in the whole of it, was now the scene of a frightful massacre. The deafening explosions of cordite from magazine rifles, the exultant shouts of the victors and the hoarse shrieks of the dying, awakened the echoes in those quaint old gardens, with their Dutch-cut zigzag walks, enclosed by ancient red brick walls, moss-grown, lichen covered, and half hidden by ivy, honeysuckle, and creepers. Those spacious grounds, where men were now being mercilessly slaughtered, had been the scene of many a brilliant _fête champêtre_, where splendid satin-coated _beaux_, all smiles and _ailes de pigeon_, whispered scandal behind the fans of dainty dames in high-dressed wigs and patches, or, clad as Watteau shepherds, had danced the _al fresco_ minuet with similarly attired shepherdesses, and later on played _piquet_ and drank champagne till dawn. [Illustration: GOORKAS SLAUGHTERING THE FRENCH ARTILLERY AT GREENWICH OBSERVATORY.] In the good old Georgian days, when Johnson walked daily under the trees in Gough Square, when Macklin was playing the "Man of the World," and when traitors' heads blackened on Temple Bar, this colony was one of the most rural, exclusive, and gay in the vicinity of London. Alas, how it has decayed! Cheap "desirable residences" have sprung up around it, the hand of the jerry-building Vandal has touched it, the sound of traffic roars about it; yet still there is a charm in those quaint old gardens of a forgotten era. From under the dark yew hedges the jonquils still peep out early--the flowers themselves are those old-fashioned sweet ones beloved of our grandmothers--and the tea roses still blossom on the crumbling walls and fill the air with their fragrance. But in this terrible struggle the walls were used as defences, the bushes were torn down and trampled under foot, and the flowers hung broken on their stalks, bespattered with men's blood! Proceeding south again, the defenders successfully attacked the strong batteries on One Tree Hill at Honor Oak, and on Sydenham Hill and Forest Hill, and then extending across to the Crystal Palace, had joined hands with our Volunteers from Essex, where they were now wreaking vengeance for the ruthless destruction caused in London.