Long lines of arabas, laden with provisions and stores, crawled slowly along between Balaklava and the front.

Strings of mules and horses, laden with tents, and driven by men of every nationality bordering the Mediterranean, followed the same line.
Parties of soldiers, in fatigue suits, went down to Sebastopol to assist unloading the ships and bringing up stores.

Parties of officers on ponies brought from Varna or other ports on the Black Sea, cantered down to make purchases of little luxuries on board the ships in the harbor, or from the Levantines, who had set up little shops near it.
All was life and gayety.
"It is all very well, Mr.Archer," growled Dick Simpson, an old boatswain, as the men paused after helping to drag a heavy gun up one of the slopes, "in this here weather, but it won't be no laughing matter when the winter comes on.

Why, these here fields would be just a sheet of mud.

Why, bless you, last winter I was a staying with a brother of mine what farms a bit of land down in Norfolk, and after a week's rain they couldn't put the horses on to the fields.