The silence of places which a few days before were full of people was exceedingly painful and distressing. It reigned in every street, almost in every house, except when the noise of gentlemen playing on pianos with their boot-heels, or breaking up furniture, was heard within the houses, or the flames crackled within the walls. In some instances the people had hoisted the French or Sardinian flag to protect their houses. That poor device was soon detected and frustrated. It was astonishing to find that the humblest dwellings had not escaped. They must have been invaded for the mere purpose of outrage and from the love of mischief, for the most miserable of men could have but little hope of discovering within them booty worthy of his notice.
[fragment illegible in the scan of the first edition]
It was decided to occupy Pavlovskaia, because it was in a fine position to command the entrance to Kerfcch and Yenikale, at a place where the channel is narrowed by one of the sandbanks from Taman to the breadth of a mile and a half. Defensive lines were thrown up around Yenikale of the most massive and durable character. They enclosed the ramparts of the old town, and presented on every side towards the land a broad ditch, a steep parapet defended by redoubts, and broken into batteries, which were aided by the fire of the pieces on the walls.
The point or bank of Tcherhka, opposite Yenikale, is one of the many extraordinary spits of land which abound in this part of the world, and which are, as far as I know, without example in any other country. Of all these the Spit of Arabat, which is a bank but a few feet above the water, and is in some places only a furlong in breadth, is the most remarkable. It is nearly 70 miles in length, and its average width less than half a mile from sea to sea. The bank of Tcherhka (or Savernaia Rosa), which runs for nearly eight miles in a south-westerly direction from Cape Kammenoi past Yenikale, closes up the Bay of Kertch on the west, and the Gulf of Taman on the east, is a type of these formations, and is sufficiently interesting to deserve a visit. It only differs from Arabat in size, and in the absence of the fresh-water wells which are found at long intervals on the great road from Arabat to Genitchi. It is so low that it is barely six feet above the level of the sea. A bank of sand on both sides of the spit, piled up three or four feet in height, marks the boundary of the beach. The latter, which is a bank of shingle, shells, and fine sand, is only a few yards broad, and is terminated by the sand and rank grass and rushes of the spit, which rises up a foot or two above the beach.
In the interior, or on the body of the bank, there are numerous lagunes — narrow strips of water much more salt than that of the adjacent sea. Some of these are only a few yards in length and a few feet in breadth, others extend for a quarter of a mile, and are about 100 yards broad. They are all bounded alike by thick high grass and rushes. The bottom, at the depth of a few feet — often at two or three inches — consists of hard sand covered with slimy green vegetable matter. The water abounds in small flounders and dabs, and in shrimps, which jump about in wild commotion at an approaching footstep. Every lagune is covered with mallards and ducks in pairs, and the fringes of the spit are the resort of pelicans and cormorants innumerable. The silence, the dreary solitude of the scene is beyond description. Even the birds, mute as they are at the season of my visit, appeared to be preternaturally quiet and voiceless. Multitudes of old, crustaceous-looking polypous plants sprang up through the reeds; and bright- coloured flycatchers, with orange breasts and black wings, poised over their nests below them.
The first day I went over, we landed upon the beach close to the battery which the Russians placed on the spit at the Ferry station. It consisted of a quadrangular work of sandbags, constructed in a very durable manner, and evidently not long made, In the centre
CRIMEA.