TWO RING STORIES.
[To THE EDITOR OP THE " $FECTATOR.1
Sra,—The story of the ring in the Spectator of August 13th, which I have just read, induces me to send you two little ring reminiscences of auld lang syne when I was young, if not warm or wise. In the summer of 1850 I happened to be at Chamounix. The day after my arrival I started on one of the usual Mont Blanc excursions, in the course of which I visited the Mer de Glace and came to a very wide crevasse, the blue walls of which rose above the rush of waters far below the icelield. Lying on the brink, I craned my head to look down on the awful gulf. It was a broiling hot day, and I was wearing a flannel shirt with a silk handkerchief round my neck circled by an old cameo-ring, and I was peering into the depths when some bright object fell with a metallic tinkle into the groove. I pat my hand to my throat ; the neckerchief was loose and the ring was gone I The guide told me the crevasse was many hundreds of feet deep, and that the torrent we heard flowed below the glacier into a tributary of the brawling Arve. Nearly three years afterwards I was at Chamounix again, and I saw in a shop window a bowl containing various curios, among which was a battered ring, that put me in mind of my ancient trinket, and, entering the shop, I asked for the bowl, and I recognised the cameo quite defaced, the hollow setting sadly battered, the ring, in fact, that had disappeared in the crevasse of the Mer de Glace. The woman said that it had been found the year before in a pool at the foot of the Mer de Glace by a boy who was looking for polished pebbles. She was very glad to sell it for £2, which I was very glad to give. On the march from old fort to the Alma in September, 1854, one of the baggage carts broke down, and the alava on which I had stowed my poor portmanteau was unloaded on the Steppe and appropriated to carry the ammunitions with which the disabled waggon had been charged. I never saw the portmanteau or any of its contents again. My cameo-ring with the old Roman setting is now probably a Cossack heirloom !
Now for my second ring story. At the close of the battle of the Tchernaya I was riding from the bridge towards our camp when a Zonave offered me a huge gold signet-ring which he had taken off the finger of a Russian officer. need not mention how he had obtained it, but I bought the ring as a memento of the day. It bore a massive shield with a coat - of - arms, and a coronet with the letter "Z." I wore it occasionally on my forefinger as a signet-ring, and the likeness of it is to be seen in an engraving from a photograph, which adorns one of my books. When I attended the Coronation of the Czar in 1856 Count —, adjoint of the Minister of Finland, to whom I told the story of the ring, took an impression of the seal, and discovered that the ring belonged to a Colonel whose widow, an English lady who had been a Miss Hope of the Commandery of Worcester, was then living at her country seat some distance from Moscow. I sent the lady the ring with a few lines to say how fortunate I esteemed myself te be the means of restoring her a souvenir of her gallant hus- band. Before I left Moscow my fair countrywoman brought me the ring, and with many thanks asked me to keep what was painfully associated with the memory of one whom she could never forget. I was not destined to keep it long. Tbe following year I was on my way to Sir Colin Campbell's camp, and whilst the 'Nubia' was coaling at Aden, Mr. Stewart Muirhead, of the 7th Hussars, and I were lodged in a sort of cave for the night. It was intensely hot, and my companion, who was a confirmed sybarite, hired a Somali Arab to fan him to keep the mosquitoes away whilst he slept I reposed on an adjoining couch, and when I woke in the morning the ring which I wore on my finger was gone I The hotel was turned inside out, the police were summoned, all the Somali boys in Aden were driven like a flock of sheep into the yard, where their wool was closely searched and their scanty clothing minutely examined ; but though I offered egregious ransom, the P. and 0. 'Nubia' sailed that day with me for Calcutta, disconsolate and ringless ! I have still another ring story to narrate, but I cannot venture ta ask for more of your space.—I am, Sir, &c.,
WILLIAM HOWARD RUSSELL.
Longueville, Mallow, Co. Cork, August 22nd.
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