plete little batteries for riflemen, and the fire from one well established, within 600 or 700 yards of a battery of ordnance, is suflScient to silence the guns, and keep the gunners from going near the embrasures. Jj^ front of the Eedan, opposite our right attack, the Kussians established some capacious pits, from which they annoyed us considerably, particularly from the two nearest us on the left-hand side. Our advanced battery, when it opened, would have been greatly harassed by this fire, and it was resolved to take the two pits, to hold that which was found most tenable, and to destroy the other. That service was effected last night. About eight o'clock the party of the 77th under Lieutenant-Colonel Egerton, supported by a wing of the 33rd under Lieutenant-Colonel Mundy, moved down the traverses towards the rifle-pits. The night was dark and windy, but the Russian sentries perceived the approach of our men, and a brisk fire was at once opened on them by the enemy, to which the troops scarcely replied, for, firing a terrible volley, they rushed upon the enemy with the bayonet, and after a short but desperate struggle, drove them out of the two pits and up the slope behind them. Once in the pits, the Engineers, Officers, and Sappers and Miners, set to work to strengthen the defences, and threw up a gabionade in front, and with great coolness and courage proceeded to connect the trench of the nearest of the rifle-pits with our advanced sap." The enemy kept up a heavy fire of round, grape-shot, and shell upon them, and about two o'clock in the morning made a desperate but ineffectual attempt to regain the pits.
" It was while setting an example of conspicuous bravery to his men that Colonel Egerton fell mortally wounded. The rifle-pit is now in our hands, and a smart fire is kept up from it. Its fire is most serviceable, not only against the embrasures of the Redan, but in reducing and disturbing the fire of the Russian rifle-pits on its flank."
The next morning the other rifle-pit, captured after a feeble resistance, was levelled and fiUed in with earth.
[fragment illegible in the scan of the first edition]
NEAR YALTA, ON THE SOUTH COAST OF THE CRIMEA.
The Castle of Alupka, the world-renowned residence of Prince Woronzoff", is situated at the base of the wild, precipitous, and barren rocks which form this part of the south-coast range of the Crimea, and whose savage
PRINCE WORONZOFf's PALACE. 109
grandeur presents the most striking contrast with the exquisite beauty and luxuriant vegetation of the grounds which surround the palace, and descend in a biilliant mass of flowers and foliage to the very water's edge. These grounds, the result of twenty-five years' personal superintendence and care, exhibit one of the highest triumphs of landscape gardening, and vie with, if they do not surpass, the happiest creations of our English artists. Exotic plants of the rarest species and of the most gorgeous hues, selected with admirable taste and discrimination from the flora of Southern Europe, of the East, and even of America, clothe in beauty the gardens and terraces which slope down to the sea, climb the rugged sides of the rock, and peep out of unexpected nooks in its volcanic fissures.
Trees of the most varying foliage embosom the chateau, and throw out with a mass of verdure its picturesque outlines. Thick hedges of evergreens enliven the plantations, and contrast with the dark lustreless leaves of the laurel; here is a deHcate-leaved acacia, there a large-flowering magnolia; the lotus-tree, the weeping ash, the silver protea, the tree of life, the shrubby jasmine, are accumulated with a profusion which would exhaust the vocabulary of a forester; and lower down the weeping wiUow sweeps the surface of the water with its gracefully pendulous branches. The palace, which has been designated the Alhambra of the Crimea, is thus described by Oliphant, in his " Russian Shores of the Black Sea: " —
" We descended abruptly to the Castle of Alupka, the residence of Prince Woronzoff, passing through extensive vineyards which belong to this property.