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Since Florence Nightingale worked among the soldiers in the Crimea, army nurses have worn red crosses upon their sleeves, as the crusaders did long ago. But those who wear the cross to-day do not go to battle to fight, but to help the wounded and the dying. Over the hospitals on the battlefield too flies the red cross flag, and no enemy ever fires at it or injures any one who wears the red cross badge.

The British soldiers were brave, and in spite of sickness and suffering they fought gallantly, but they were often badly led, and many mistakes were made. One dreadful mistake was made at a battle called Balaclava.

There was a brigade of cavalry called the Light Brigade. Lord Raglan sent a message to the officer in command, telling him to prevent the Russians carrying away some guns. The officer thought he was meant to charge right forward, and he did so. But it was a mistake. He and his men rode straight to death. For a mile and a half they rode with Russian guns in front of them, Russian guns on either side of them, thundering death. When their comrades saw what the Light Brigade was doing, they stood watching in horror and wonder, as six hundred men of the brigade rode down the lane of fire and smoke, and disappeared in the bank of smoke beyond.

It was horrible! What was happening to these gallant soldiers? They rode straight up to the Russian guns and drove the gunners away. But they could not stay there. The whole Russian army was arrayed against them, so they rode back again—back through that awful lane of shot and shell. Six hundred and seven men went, only one hundred and ninety-eight returned.

It was a splendid show of bravery, but utterly useless. What was the order given? What were the men meant to do? No one can answer the question. “It is magnificent,” said a French officer who saw it, “but it is not war.” Yet all the world saw what Britons could do in obedience to a command.

“Half a league, half a league,

��Half a league onward,

All in the valley of Death

��Rode the six hundred.

‘Forward the Light Brigade.

Charge for the guns!’ he said:

Into the valley of Death

��Rode the six hundred.

“Forward the Light Brigade.”

Was there a man dismayed?

Not tho’ the soldier knew

��Some one had blundered:

Theirs not to make reply,

Theirs not to reason why,

Theirs but to do and die:

Into the valley of Death

��Rode the six hundred.

“Cannon to right of them,

Cannon to left of them,

Cannon in front of them

��Volley’d and thunder’d;

Storm’d at with shot and shell,

Boldly they rode and well,

Into the jaws of Death,

Into the mouth of Hell

��Rode the six hundred.

“Flash’d all their sabres bare,

Flash’d as they turn’d in air,

Sabring the gunners there,

Charging an army, while

��All the world wonder’d:

Plunged in the battery-smoke,

Right thro’ the line they broke;

Cossack and Russian

Reel’d from the sabre-stroke

��Shatter’d and sunder’d.

Then they rode back, but not

��Not the six hundred.

“Cannon to right of them,

Cannon to left of them.

Cannon behind them

��Volley’d and thunder’d;

Storm’d at with shot and shell.

While horse and hero fell,

They that had fought so well

Came thro’ the jaws of Death,

Back from the mouth of Hell,

All that was left of them,

��Left of six hundred.

“When can their glory fade?

Oh! the wild charge they made.

��All the world wonder’d.

Honor the charge they made,

Honor the Light Brigade,

��Noble six hundred.”

The siege of Sebastopol lasted about a year, during which time the Sardinians joined the allies. Sardinia was a very small kingdom, but the people were brave; they wanted to take a place among the great powers of Europe, and the allies were very glad to have their help. During the winter, too, the Russian Emperor died. He was so sad and disappointed because his soldiers were being beaten, that he did not care to live. He died of a broken heart. When the Emperor died, people hoped that the war would come to an end, but it did not. His son, the new Emperor, still carried it on.

At last the French and British made a fierce attack on Sebastopol, and, although they did not succeed in doing all they meant to do, the Russians felt that they could hold out no longer. Next morning Sebastopol was empty and in flames. The Russians had set it on fire and fled.

After this, the war soon came to an end, and a few months later peace was signed. Russia had failed, and Turkey was neither conquered nor divided.

CHAPTER 105 VICTORIA—THE LAND OF SNOW

IN days long, long ago, men knew very little of the world, and all the countries it contained. But in the time of Henry VII., great sailors began to sail into far seas and discover new lands. From that time onward there have been many great and daring sailors who have sailed the seas and discovered more and more lands, until the blue of our maps has became marked with islands and continents.

The way to India and China is long, and, in the days when there were no steamers, it was dangerous too. In the time of King Henry VII. a man called Sebastian Cabot tried to find a short way to India, by going round the north of America through the Arctic Ocean. This began the quest of what was called the “North-West Passage.”

For hundreds of years men struggled to find this North-West Passage, but all in vain, and many brave lives were lost in the bitter frost and snow of the far north. As new lands were discovered, the map of the Arctic region began to be filled in bit by bit, but the North-West Passage remained undiscovered.

At last the British Government decided in 1845 A.D. to send out an Arctic expedition, and Sir John Franklin, who had already been on two voyages of discovery to Arctic regions, was put in command.

Sir John was no longer a young man, but he loved the sea and the north, and he went out like an old sealion, eager to find the long-sought passage.

He sailed away with two ships, called the Terror and the Erebus, manned by a hundred men and more. The last good-by was said, the last handshake given, and away sped the ships further and further north into the white and silent land, never again to return.

A year passed, then another. At home anxious hearts waited and waited for news, but no news came. Then, as nothing was heard of the ships and their gallant crews, both Sir John Franklin’s wife and the British Government sent out expeditions to try to find the Terror and the Erebus.

These new ships sailed to the north, keeping as much as possible in the course Sir John had gone, but they could find no trace of him. Here and there sailors landed on the bare, white shores which they passed, and left supplies of food under great heaps of stones or cairns as they are called. They also left letters telling which way their ships had gone. This they did hoping that some of Franklin’s men might pass that way and find the food and letters. The sailors also caught white foxes which run about wild in these cold countries. Round the necks of these foxes they put copper collars on which were engraved directions how to find the ships and the stores of food. The foxes were then let loose again, in the hope that some of them might find their way to the Terror and the Erebus and bring comfort and encouragement to Sir John and his men.

But nothing was of any use. No sign of Franklin and his brave men could be found, although expedition after expedition was sent out. At one time as many as fifteen ships were looking for Franklin, but each one failed.

‘THE SHIPS WERE CALLED THE “TERROR” AND THE “EREBUS”’

At last, after about twelve years, the searchers were rewarded. They found a cairn in which was a tin can containing a paper which had been put there by one of Sir John’s men. This paper told how at last the North-West Passage had been discovered; how Sir John had died a few days later, and how as the ships were stuck fast in the ice and could not get through to the sea beyond, the men had at last left them and started southward on sledges. That was all.

None of the men ever reached home again. They all died of cold and hunger, and here and there along the way they had gone their skeletons were found bleached and white.

The people who live in the cold, far north are called Eskimos. When they were questioned, some of them remembered having seen white men traveling southward with a sledge. “But they were very thin,” said one old woman, “they fell down and died as they walked.”

The Eskimos had among them silver spoons and forks which the searchers knew had belonged to Sir John. These were all collected and brought home, but of the ships themselves nothing was ever seen.

All through the long search it was Lady Franklin who urged the explorers on, and when at last she knew that her dear husband was indeed dead, she raised a tomb to his memory in Westminster Abbey. She herself wished to write the words which were to be carved on the stone, but she died before they were written. The great poet laureate, Tennyson, wrote them instead.

“Not here! The White North hath thy bones, and thou,

Heroic sailor soul,

Art passing on thy happier voyage now

Towards no earthly pole.”

Although it is now known that there is a North-West Passage, it is also known that it can be of no use for trade. Even if the passage was not blocked with ice, the danger and suffering from the cold are too great to be endured.

There are still wonderful things to be learned in the cold, white north, and there have been many Arctic expeditions since the death of Sir John Franklin, but I have told you about him because he was one of the most famous Arctic explorers. He really discovered the North-West Passage, and his death in the far north caused many other expeditions to be sent out, and, although they did not find Sir John, they learned much that was new about the Arctic regions.

CHAPTER 106 VICTORIA—THE SIEGE OF DELHI

A HUNDRED years had passed since the terrible night when the British had been murdered in the Black Hole of Calcutta; a hundred years had passed since Clive had gained the victory of Plassey. Since then the British power in India had steadily grown and grown until, instead of a few sepoys, there was a great Indian army; instead of a few factories, the whole of India was under the rule of Britain, and British rule in India seemed firm and certain. But suddenly, from out the calm, rebellion blazed.

New guns had been sent to India for the use of the sepoys. The powder and shot for a gun is made up with paper into what is called a cartridge. In those days the end of the cartridge had to be bitten off before it could be used. The paper of these cartridges was greased, and somehow the sepoys came to think that the grease was a mixture of cow’s fat and pig’s lard, and they refused to use the cartridges.

These Indian soldiers were

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