Khiva, the markets are held on horseback; sellers as well as buyers are mounted; and "it was extremely droll to see how the Kirghis women, with their great leathern vessels full of kimis, sitting on the horses, hold the opening of the skin above the mouth of the customer. There is adroitness in both parties, for very seldom do any drops fall aside." The tent, with the the drudgery of the camp. exception of the wood-work, is entirely the work of the Turkoman woman, whose duty it is, also, to put it up and to take it down. She even packs it up upon the camel, and accompanies it in the wanderings of her people, close on foot. The tents of the rich and poor are distinguished by their being got up with a greater or less As among our Indian tribes, the women do pomp in the internal arrangements. There are THE SUN-DIAL. only two sorts: 1. The karaoy, a black tent, THE SUN-DIAL. IS an old dial, dark with many a stain; from age; 2. The akoy, a white tent, that is, In summer crown'd with drifting orchard bloom, one covered in the interior with felt of snowy whiteness: it is erected for newly-married couples, or for guests to whom they wish to pay particular honor. The tent made a very pleasant impression on the mind of our traveler, being cool in summer and genially warm in winter. Even in their marriage ceremonial there are Another singular custom has reference to the And white in winter like a marble tomb; Tricked in the autumn with the yellow rain, Lean letters speak-a worn and shattered row: "I am a Shade: a Shadowe too arte thou: And round about its gray, time-eaten brow I marke the Time: saye, Gossip, dost thou soe?" There came a dainty lady to the place, Smoothing the willful waving of her lace: About her tendril-curls the sunlight shone; O'er her blue dress an endless blossom strayed; There came a second lady to the place, The dark shade gloomed an instant on her head; Read and re-read, pulling his tawny beard; Ν and forest of White Oak Swamp. During the long hours of the night of Sunday, the 29th of June, the rear-guard toiled slowly along through the swamp roads, over which the army they had rescued had gone before them. The iron Sumner, chafing and rebelling against the order to fall back, and scarcely consoled by the thought of his salvation of the Army of the Potomac, car IN our last Number we left the heroic patriot ried his men, bis guns, and his flags safely through army in its disastrous march from the Chicka- to the other side of the morass. At 9 o'clock hominy to the James, toiling through the mire on Monday morning, June 30, he looked back defiantly upon Jackson, Longstreet, and Hill, as they prepared to descend from the opposite hills and enter the swamp in pursuit. The danger was now imminent of a flank movement, by which the army might be cut into two portions, and the helpless rear surrounded and destroyed. The roads were intricate. We knew them but imperfectly, while to the rebels they were familiar routes. When we look back upon the position of our army at this crisis its final escape appears providential, and almost miraculous. The road to Turkey Bend or Malvern Hill, called Quaker Road, is the great highway from Savage's Station to James Riyer, and is intersected repeatedly by the roads running from Richmond to the East. Over this road our troops must pass. By any of these Richmond roads a force might be suddenly thrown across our lines of retreat, hampered and choked by artillery and baggage-trains. In the centre General Sumner still held the perilous rear. General Franklin was with him. General Slocum was on his left, and General Heintzelman on the right, to guard, so far as was possible, against the anticipated attempt to flank and divide our forces. Generals Hooker, Kearney, Sedgwick, and M'Call, were all there in the most exposed posts of peril, with the wearied remnants of their divisions, ready for the sixth day and the sixth battle. The early summer day of July 1 broke with parching heat on the already smoking field. Our troops had been drawn up in a line of battle three or four miles long, taking advantage of the cleared farm lands to the right and left of the road. They placed, wherever it was possible, an open field in their front across which the enemy must advance to attack them. With the first light a rebel battery was discovered, which during the night had been moved very nearly up to our lines. Our rifled cannon were at once brought to bear upon it, and in a short time five of the guns were dismounted. Still the rebels, with desperate bravery, held their post and continued their fire. Until 10 o'clock the cannonading was incessant on both sides. Then, from the woods in front of General M'Call's division, poured out a vast body of rebels for an overwhelming charge. General M'Call's division was posted across the New Market Road, and consisted of Pennsylvania regiments; regiments that did such gallant service at Gettysburg a year later, and that had suffered terribly in Gainsville and Mechanicsville three days before. It has been said that these reserves broke into inextricable confusion early in the day. But the incontrovertible proof of their brave fighting was to be seen the next morning in the number of their dead lying upon the ground where they fell, and in the wounded being borne away to the hospitals. The imputations, so cruel and undeserved, which have been cast on the bravery and endurance of these troops can not easily be explained. Even the Commander-in-Chief lent his assistance to the unmerited stigma, which was a hard return for a division which maintained the position at the Cross Roads from morning till night, leaving it strewn with their dead, and held as reserves at Malvern Hill, on the next day plunged boldly in, at the critical moment of the last charge, from which they came out reduced one half in number. Justice, however, is eternal, though slow of speech, and brave men are not called cowards for long. The written testimony of Fitz John Porter and General Meade, among others, will remain as a record of the bravery of M'Call's division. "Had not M'Call," writes Fitz John Porter, Major-General Commanding the Fifth Corps, "held his place on New Market Road, June 30, that line of march would have been cut by the enemy." "It was only the stubborn resistance," writes General Meade, "offered by one division-the Pennsylvania Reserves-prolonging the contest till after dark, and checking, till that time, the advance of the enemy, that enabled the concentration during the night of the whole army on the James River which saved it." The whole force which attacked M'Call's troops consisted of the divisions of Hill, Longstreet, Anderson, Cobb, and Whitticomb; and they fought with bloody will. Twice they captured M'Call's batteries of sixteen guns. Twice our men, rallying under the sting of their loss, retook them, and the last time held them, to do deadly work the next day at Malvern Hill. Through the sultry hours of the long summer's day the fortunes of the fight rose and fell. Now the sweeping fire of our rifled cannon bore the masses of the rebels back in hopeless terror, and as they receded our men sprang forward, and with the old cry, "On to Richmond!" pressed so hard that only superhuman exertions on the part of the rebel officers prevented the entire giving way and rout of their army. Then, rallying under some powerful leader, they would stem and reverse the torrent, and we, in our turn, would yield. Rarely has there been seen more desperate fighting. One of the thrill. ing incidents of the day has been thus eloquently described by the Rev. J. J. Marks. A single brigade of the rebels had made a desperate charge upon one of our divisions, coming on steadily, under a raking fire, with their guns trailed: "They were led by a man of vast muscular strength and prowess. Cheering and shouting to his men he ran on the gunners. The reserve infantry rushed forward to the rescue; and around the cannon, between them and over the bodies of fallen horses and comrades, commenced a contest of the most furious character. Scarcely a single shot was fired. Bayonet crossed bayonet; and frequently after a death-struggle for two or three minutes, the foes stood breathless, with guns locked, foot to foot and face to face, each afraid to move, lest that would give his enemy the advantage; and in that awful moment, when the whole being was fired by & frenzy that seemed supernatural, the counte nance of each was painted on the aind of the other forever. The shouts of command, the yells of fury, the thrust, the parry, the spouting blood, the death-cry, the stroke and the crash of clubbed muskets, the battle receding into the forest, and every tree and bush the scene of a tragedy; and then again the pressing out around the cannon, the officer mounted on the broken wheels, cheering and calling his men, the pause of a moment from exhaustion or to rally, and then the renewal of the fight with greater fury than ever, made this a spectacle of awful grand eur. "In all this conflict the leader of the Confederates had been successful in every struggle, and had hurled to the ground with scornful ease less powerful men. Every where a path opened before him, until a man of equal strength sprang forward to meet him. After they had parried each other's thrusts for a moment, they paused, looked at each other intently, as if to determine what next to do; each feeling that he had met a foe worthy of his steel; and again they rushed forward, with renewed desperation, each intent upon pressing back the other, until some fall or stumble would give him the victory. But they THE SINGLE COMBAT. |