Several large lighters, under sail and full of men, were standing over from side to side of the harbour, and dockyard galleys, manned with large crews of rowers all dressed in white jackets, were engaged in tugging flats laden with stores to the south-western side of the town. A tug steamer was also very active, and spluttered about in all directions, furrowing the surface of the{225} water, which was scarcely "crisped" by the breeze, so completely was the harbour landlocked. The men-of-war, with their large white ensigns barred by a blue St. Andrew's cross flying from the peak, lay in a line at the north side, the top-gallant yards and masts of two out of four being down; a two-decker with bare topmasts lay on the south side, with her broadside towards the Ville Civile; and the white masts of three vessels peered above the buildings of the town further away on the right towards Inkerman.
The inner part of the town itself seemed perfectly untouched, the white houses shone brightly and freshly in the sun, and the bells of a Gothic chapel were ringing out lustily in the frosty air. Its tall houses running up the hill sides, its solid look of masonry, gave Sebastopol a resemblance to parts of Bath, or at least put one in mind of that city as seen from the declivity which overhangs the river. There was, however, a remarkable change in the look of the city since I first saw it — there were no idlers and no women visible in the streets, and, indeed, there was scarcely a person to be seen who looked like a civilian. There was, however, abundance of soldiers, and to spare in the streets. They could be seen in all directions, sauntering in pairs down desolate-looking streets, chatting at the corners or running across the open space, from one battery to another; again in large parties on fatigue duty, or relieving guards, or drawn up in well-known grey masses in the barrack-squares. Among those who were working on the open space, carrying stores, I thought I could make out two French soldiers. At all events, the men wore long blue coats and red trousers, and, as we worked our prisoners and made them useful at Balaklava, where I had seen them aiding in making the railway, I suppose the Muscovite commanders adopted the same plan.
Outside the city, at the verge of the good houses, the eye rested on great walls of earth piled up some ten or twelve feet, and eighteen or twenty feet thick, indented at regular intervals with embrasures in which the black dots which are throats of cannon might be detected. These works were of tremendous strength. For the most part there was a very deep and broad ditch in front of them, and wherever the ground allowed of it, there were angles and flèches which admitted of flanking fires along the front, and of cross fires on centre points of each line of attack or approach. In front of most of the works on both the French and English sides of the town, a suburb of broken-down white-washed cottages, the roofs gone, the doors off, and the windows out, had been left standing in detached masses at a certain distance from the batteries, but gaps had been made in them so that they might not block the fire of the guns. The image of misery presented by these suburbs was very striking — in some instances the havoc had been committed by our shot, and the houses all round to the rear of the Flagstaff Battery, opposite the French, had been blown into rubbish and mounds of beams and mortar. The advanced works which the Russians left on the advance of our allies still remained{226} and it was hard to say whether there were any guns in them or not, but they were commanded so completely by the works in their rear that it would have been impossible to hold them, and they would have afforded a good cover to the Russians, while the latter could fire through the embrasures of the old works with far greater ease than the enemy could get at them.