After our arrival at Varna we had to wait a few days for the order of embarkation, and finally sailed in company with the 17th Lancers in the _Himalaya_, Lord Cardigan and his staff being aboard the same vessel; the 11th Hussars, 4th and 13th Light Dragoons being embarked aboard other transports, as also the heavy cavalry at the same time. Never was an army embarked for almost immediate active service under less favourable circumstances. Our ranks were decimated by disease, and the authorities apparently regardless of our health, food, clothing, and comfort, so necessary to render an army contented and vigorous in the face of the enemy. Still our men kept up their spirits, and only one desire pervaded the whole of the cavalry with whom I came in contact, and this was to "meet the Roosians and have done with it." Not a man knew where it was intended to land the army, but it was generally understood that fighting would begin in earnest directly we came in sight of the enemy on the shores of the Crimea. I noticed the gallant 42nd Highlanders aboard the _Emeu_, and the Scots Fusiliers aboard the _Kangaroo_, and no men could be in better spirits. The 4th Light Dragoons embarked in the _Simla_, and the 4th Royal Irish Dragoon Guards, with the remnant of the 5th, were conveyed to the scene of action in the _Trent_. The men were all in capital spirits, and their after-service proved that they meant business, as also did the 13th Light Dragoons (who sailed in the _Jason_, if I remember right); and the 17th Lancers, with the old 8th King's Royal Irish and 11th Hussars, proved what British cavalry can do, even under the most distressing circumstances, as shown by their wild death-ride through the vale of Balaklava, where the imbecility of their leaders nearly caused what few of them that the cholera had left, to be annihilated by charging unsupported an army in position. The transports and other vessels necessary to remove the Allied array numbered over 700, which, with the fleet, formed a magnificent sight when fairly out of the bay of Varna. Captain Longmore of ours, who accompanied Lord Cardigan in his reconnoitring expedition along the Danube, died of cholera aboard the _Himalaya_ before we sailed, and his body was taken ashore and buried. Not a better officer ever commanded a troop; he was a strict disciplinarian, but not a petty tyrant, and there was not a man in the regiment but who mourned his loss as children would a father. Several more officers and men died before sailing and on the passage, and their bodies were thrown overboard. I saw about fifty Zouaves drowned between the transport on board which they were to embark and the shore: they were all in complete marching order, and thus were prevented from swimming. The boat came in contact with a foreign vessel containing stores, and the former was sunk in less than a minute, the Zouaves disappearing with the most frightful yells; and they never rose again, a