The expedition, however, was never intended to operate against Odessa, but to occupy the forts at the mouth of the Dnieper. These forts were Oczakoff, or Ochakov, on the north, and Kinburn on the south side of the entrance. The former is built upon a small promontory, called Oczakoff Point; the other is situated on a long narrow spit of sand, which may be considered as the north-western termination of the extraordinary spit of Djarilgatch. The distance between Oczakoff and Kinburn, across the entrance to Cherson or Dnieper Bay does not exceed a mile and a quarter, and the passage up the Dnieper to Nicholaieff winds close to Kinburn, and is not more than three-quarters of a mile from the forts. A very extensive and dangerous sandbank, twenty miles long and of varying breadth, lies between Odessa and the entrance to the Bug and Dnieper. This bank commences at the distance of ten miles outside Odessa, and thence runs across to Kinburn. The water on it does not exceed three fathoms, and in some places is even less, but up to the distance of three-quarters of a mile from the shore from Odessa to Oczakoff, there is a belt of deep water, about three miles broad, between the shore and the great sandbank. At a mile from Kinburn the water begins to shoal rapidly from three fathoms in depth to a few feet. The entrance to Cherson Bay is guarded, as it were, by the island of Beresan, and numerous beacons and lights were formerly used to guide the mariner to the{404} channel, which is difficult and tortuous. The coast is well provided with telegraphs.
Nicholaieff (the name of which is spelt by us in six different ways) lies on the east bank of the Bug, at the distance of thirty-five miles from the forts. Cherson Bay, which is formed by the confluence of the Bug and Dnieper, before they flow through the channel between Oczakoff and Kinburn, is very shallow, the navigation is extremely dangerous and intricate, and the mouths of the Dnieper, which resemble on a small scale the debouchments of the Danube, are almost unknown to us. The Bug varies from three miles and a half to two miles in breadth as far upwards as Nicholaieff, below which a sudden bend contracts its course, the passage of which is here defended by formidable works. Its depth is about three fathoms, but there are many sandbanks in the channel, which winds from one side to the other of the river, and a vessel would in any position be under easy rifle range from both sides of the stream at the same time. It is more than thirty miles from Kinburn to the entrance of the Dnieper, and Cherson is fifteen miles above the ill-defined boundary where the extensive marais through which the Dnieper, with many muddy mouths, eats its way to the sea, ceases to become part of the mainland, and is resolved into water. Persons at home endeavouring to connect this expedition with a demonstration against Perekop might well be puzzled when they saw that it was upwards of fifty miles from Cherson to the Isthmus, and that the crow's flight between Kinburn and Perekop, as he passes over the desolate Taurida — bleak, waterless, and lifeless — exceeded ninety miles. Kinburn fort was a regular casemated stone-built work, mounting forty guns, according to the most extreme calculation — some giving only twenty and others thirty-two guns — but north of the fort on the spit running towards Oczakoff the Russians had built two sand batteries. Oczakoff Fort was not very strong, but on the coast between it and the ferry, across the arm of the sea which runs up to Kesandria, the enemy threw up three small batteries, with heavy guns, one near the ferry of three guns, and two of five and three guns respectively to the west of Oczakoff, which bore upon the channel between that place and Kinburn. There was a good road along the spit between Kinburn and Cherson, which, according to the best charts, are about forty-eight or fifty miles apart by this route. The vast importance of retaining possession of this place could not be overrated.