" The roadstead or great harbour, entirely scooped by the hand of nature, is one of the most remarkable in Europe, — a repetition of Malta upon a larger scale, and of Sydney upon a smaller. It extends east and west upwards of four miles, by an average breadth of more than half a mile. The shores are naked, barren, and steep, but gradually flatten towards the upper extremity. There are no dangerous rocks or reefs, and good holding-ground everywhere, with a nearly equal depth of water up to the edges of the basin. The entrance, about 1400 yards across, is wide enough to facilitate navigation, and allow vessels to tack, yet suffi-
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cientlj narrow to break the force of the sea and admit of easy defence. The northern side consists of a line of acclivities unbroken by an inlet; the southern, on whicii the town is placed, has three creeks, forming inner havens, two of which run up into it. These lesser harbours are admirably adapted for the requirements of a naval station and commercial port, being completely sheltered by high limestone cliffs, and having at their extremities a depth of nearly forty feet of water, sufficient for vessels of tho.largest draught. First, after passing the entrance of the roads, is Artillery Bay, the ordinary merchant haven; next is the Admiralty or South Bay (now generally known as Dockyard Creek), the largest of the three, appropriated to men-of-war, the dockyard, and other naval purposes; last, towards the east, is Careening Bay. The town lies principally between and behind the first and second of these bays, on the slope of a hill rising from them, intersected by deep ravines. Outside the entrance of the great inlet, on the same side, is the Quarantine Bay; and five creeks occur between it and Cape Chersonese, the extreme point of land jutting out from the Crimea into the Black Sea. They were all deserted, or used only by vessels driven by stress of weather to seek shelter in them, till the arrival of the Allied Armies, when the French made Kamiesch Bay their port for the landing of stores and troops.
" The seaward defences of the port consist of eleven or twelve forts and batteries, mounting altogether from 800 to 1200 guns, for accounts of the number vary to this extent. Fort Constantino guards the entrance of the great inlet on the northern side, and Fort Alexander on the southern, while Forts Nicholas and Paul protect the mouth of the central inner haven. These are the strongest points, consisting each of three tiers of batteries.
" Sebastopol extends more than a mile in length, in the direction of the port, by about three quarters of a mile inland. On the land side it was an open town, being only partly defended by a loop-holed wall, entirely useless. The government, only thinking of attacks by sea, confined its attention to making that quarter invulnerable. The public buildings include the Admiralty, vast barracks for troops, and magazines for stores a cathedral and numerous green-domed churches, an Italian opera, a club-house, a library, and several hotels, with the simple monument of Kosarsky, a naval officer who distinguished himself in the last TurkoRussian War."
On the 17th October, on which day the Allies, having sufficiently completed their preparations, opened fire, the Russians had also finished a continuous and most powerful line of defences, which, avoiding technicalities as much as possible, may be thus briefly enumerated: To the south-west of Careening Bay, and at the extreme left of their line, the Malakoff or Round Tower before mentioned, and whose name has since become so familiar to every one acquainted with the history of the siege, had been surrounded with powerful earthworks, which, equally with the tower itself, were mounted with guns of heavy calibre. Next to this Avork, and on its proper right, was another, technically known as the Redan, of vast strength, and similarly armed. Next to this, again, in the same direction, and still on the eastern side of Dockyard Creek, the Barrack Battery, and on the other side the Flagstaff Battery, or Bastion du Mat, the loop-holed wall, and a line of works terminated by the Quarantine Battery, which formed the extreme right of the Russian line of defence.