which crosses the river at that point, and thus to turn the position of the French and Sardinians. On the following day Lord Raglan reached Balaklava, and after a faint show of resistance from the Genoese fort, whose ruins crown one of the heights overlooking the harbour, but which was speedily subdued by the fire of Her Majesty's ship Agamemnon, and of the Rifles and some of the Light Division, the place surrendered at discretion, and the Commandant, with the fifty or sixty men who formed its garrison, were made prisoners. The Agamemnon had arrived thus opportunely, thanks to the energy and enterprise of Lieutenant Maxse, R.N., who, on the preceding day, volunteered to Lord Raglan to return alone through a difiicult country infested with Cossacks, and to communicate the movements of the Armies to the Fleets. During the march of the 25th the French had been constantly taking ground to the left, and thus, when the Allies sat down before Sebastopol, the relative position of the two Armies, which had been preserved hitherto from the landing, was reversed, the left attack falling to the lot of the French, who immediately established their base of operations at Kamiesch, and the surrounding creeks, while the whole of the right attack, from Inkermann to the ravine at the head of Dockyard Creek, was at first undertaken by the English. Considerable disappointment was at first felt by both Armies, when it was found that no immediate assault was intended, but that recourse would be had to the slower and less exciting operations of a regular siege; and the voice of more than one high in authority in the British Army was, it is stated, raised in favour of the prompter and more vigorous course of action. The counsels of caution however prevailed, though it is questionable whether, could the trials and disasters of the coming winter have been foreseen, any risks would not have been encountered for the sake of avoiding, if possible, such terrible calamities. There is considerable discrepancy of opinion as to what the fortifications on the South side actually were at this period, but the only permanent ones were the Malakofi" Tower and a low crenellated wall on the western side of Dockyard Creek.
From the moment, however, that the South side was threatened, the Russians employed themselves day and night in throwing up earthworks and batteries, which proceeded more than pari passu with our own siegeworks, since the enemy pressed even women and children into the service, thus rendering available the whole population of the town. Every preparation indeed was now being made on the part of the besieged for a desperate defence, and the extraordinary resolution adopted and carried out by Prince MenschikofF, of sinking several of the largest ships of the Russian Navy across the great naouth of the harbour, announced that no sacrifice Avould be shrunk from which could contribute to this end.
Aktiar, the modern Sebastopol, was long an almost unnoticed village on the southern shore of the harbour, and would appear to have been indebted for its present eminence to the piercing eye and quick military intuition of Suwarrow, that strange compound,
" Hero, buffoon, half demon, and half dirt,"
who, to all these qualities, added at least a consummate knowledge of his art. Wishing to drive away a Turkish fleet which was at anchor in the port, without permitting it to communicate with the Tartars, whose affection for the Russian protection, which the Crimea was then enjoying, was somewhat suspect, he took possession of the heights on either side, and immediately began, favoured by night, to fortify the mouth of the harbour.
This step had its desired effect, and the Turks at once quitted an anchorage which might soon have become a prison; but the lesson was not thrown away, and in 1786 a naval and military station was founded under its present imposing title.
The late Emperor, whose whole reign was occupied in a slow and dissembled but steady pursuance of the hereditary policy of Russia, conscious of the vast importance of the position in reference to his longmeditated plans upon Turkey, took the greatest interest in its development, and it was under his auspices, and during the vice-royalty of Prince Woronzoff, that it became that standing menace to the independence of the Porte, which led to the threatening of its own existence.
Sebastopol is thus described by a contemporary author whom we have before had occasion to quote: —