The Redan, as is well known, was the principal Russian work on which the energies of the English attack were concentrated, and the sanguinary and unsuccessful attempts which on two successive occasions were made by our gallant troops to obtain possession of it, and which were only relinquished after they had left half their numbers around and within its fatal precincts, invest this portion of the defences of Sebastopol with an interest to which, for the countrymen of the assailants, that of all the rest of the Russian works is necessarily subordinate. We have elsewhere recorded our opinion as to the manner in which these repulses, and more especially the later one, affect the reputation of the British army; the details of the two attacks will be found in the earlier portion of these pages; and we shall now, therefore, leave the reader in the hands of Mr. Simpson, who thus describes his own drawing:
" As these works are made to afford cover from missiles coming from every direction, it becomes difficult to find a spot from which you can see much beyond where you happen to be standing.
" In our batteries there is only one parapet in front, but in the Redan you may say that there is a parapet in the rear, with openings here and there for the men to pass in and out. These two parapets are connected at short intervals by very strong traverses, under all of which are bombproof holes and caves where the men found shelter. This peculiarity of the work I have endeavoured to show in the drawing on the right of the flags; but on the left face, instead of a parapet behind, there is a large mass of work thrown up, forming a curtain between every traverse, and leaving a passage at each comer.
" In the embrasure of the gun in the foreground, I have shown the mantelets made of ropes, which were employed to cover the gunners from the fire of our riflemen. On the salient angle itself is a space, and a slope up to it (which I have indicated), to which when an assault was made the Russians took up field-pieces. I noticed similar places in other parts of the works.
" The long battery in the distance is our left attack; and the small space outside the Redan, marked by a group of figures, is the ground over which our troops marched to the assault. The explosions on the right are some of the mines in the Garden or Flagstaff Battery. In the rear of the Redan, the ground is all ploughed up with our shot and shell, which are scattered about in every direction, mixed with the damaged guns of the enemy."
CHURCH IN THE REAR OF THE REDAN, LOOKING
NORTH,
SHOWING THE EFFECTS OF SHOT AND SHELL.
"This pretty little church, rendered still more picturesque by the battering it has received, is situated amongst a number of buildings close to the rear of the Redan. These buildings are now nothing but a mass of rent and crumbling walls, and will convey some notion of the effects of shot and shell. All the church-bells are placed in wooden erections outside the main building, one of which is shown in the di'awing. In this case not only has the wooden house suffered, but the bell itself has been struck and half of it knocked away. The long line of front in the distance is part of the Arsenal: here were some batteries intended to command the rear of the Redan. To the left, the large creek lies between the spectator and the town, which is seen on the heights beyond."
This drawing is supposed to represent the morning after the evacuation by the Russians of the South Side; the masses of smoke issuing from behind the Arsenal, come from the dockyard buildings and some of the ships which were on fire at that time.
SEBASTOPOL FROM THE REAR OF FORT NICHOLAS,
LOOKINGSOUTH.
This view supplies a very important deficiency in our estimate of the defences of Sebastopol, by making us acquainted with the rear of the Malakoff and Redan, and their exact position in reference to the Karabelnaia, or that portion of Sebastopol situated on the eastern side of the Inner Harbour, and which contained the Docks, the Arsenal, the Barracks, and the Military Hospital.
On the extreme left of the picture are seen a long range of government store-houses, built on the edge of the water, and which extend for some distance to the back of a spit of land forming the entrance of the Docks.. Immediately above the store-houses is the Karabelnaia suburb properly so called, separated from the dockyard buildings by a long white wall. At the back of the dockyard rises the hiU of Malakoff, whose importance as the key of this part of the position is the more easily applicable, as it is perceived to be higher than any of the ground near it, which it consequently