go back and retake the Malakoff or die under its guns. They did go
back; they took the Malakoff and retook it two or three times, but their
desperate valor could not avail, and they had to give up at last.

These fearful fields, where such tempests of death used to rage, are
peaceful enough now; no sound is heard, hardly a living thing moves about
them, they are lonely and silent--their desolation is complete.

There was nothing else to do, and so every body went to hunting relics.
They have stocked the ship with them. They brought them from the
Malakoff, from the Redan, Inkerman, Balaklava--every where. They have
brought cannon balls, broken ramrods, fragments of shell--iron enough to
freight a sloop. Some have even brought bones--brought them laboriously
from great distances, and were grieved to hear the surgeon pronounce them
only bones of mules and oxen. I knew Blucher would not lose an
opportunity like this. He brought a sack full on board and was going for
another. I prevailed upon him not to go. He has already turned his
state-room into a museum of worthless trumpery, which he has gathered up
in his travels. He is labeling his trophies, now. I picked up one a
while ago, and found it marked "Fragment of a Russian General." I
carried it out to get a better light upon it--it was nothing but a couple
of teeth and part of the jaw-bone of a horse. I said with some asperity:

"Fragment of a Russian General! This is absurd. Are you never going to
learn any sense?"

He only said: "Go slow--the old woman won't know any different." [His
aunt.]

This person gathers mementoes with a perfect recklessness, now-a-days;