OPERATIONS ON THE DANUBE. 209 Tlierc was a part of the allied camp where the chap. French and the English soldiery could hear in ' a quiet hour the distant guns of Silistria. Day after day they listened for the continuing of the sound ; and they listened keenly, for they were expecting the end, and there was nothing but the booming of the cannon to assure them that the fortress held out. On the 22d of June, and dur- ing a great part of the night which followed it, they heard the low thunder of the siege more continuously than ever before ; but on the dawn of the following day they listened, and listened in vain. The cannonade had ceased, and it was be- lieved in camp that the place had been taken. The opposite of this was the truth. The siege had been raised. The event was one upon which the course of history was destined to hinge ; for this miscarriage at Silistria put an end at once to all schemes for the invasion of the Sultan's dominions in Europe. Whilst Europe was still in wonder at the deliverance of Silistria, the French and the Eng- lish armies at Varna were greeted with tidings of yet another victory won by the Turks. Hassan Pasha was at Eustchuk with a large iiiight have founded upon the official materials in my possession would have been obviously inferior to the newspaper in point of authenticity. Accordingly, with the exception of two or three minor facts drawn from the correspondence wliiuh is in my possession, and the substitution of 18th June for 17th, which I owe to General Cannon, all 1 have said of the siege is taken from those journals of Nasmyth and his successor which were printed in the ' Times' during the summer of 1851. VOL. II.
