LET us resume the narrative of this ever-memorable Expedition, upon the progress of which the eyes of Europe are now fixed with most absorbing interest, and upon the successful issue of which so much depends. As it is, the future effects of the deadly-contested struggle around Sebastopol are likely to impart a momentous interest to the details of this most remarkable of enterprises.

Having swept the enemy from their path by the bloody triumph of Alma, the next step of the Allies was to lay siege to Sebastopol. The circuitous march of the 25-6th September, had the good effect of giving to the Allies a much more convenient communication with the fleet than they could possibly have found in the open and unsheltered roadstead at the mouth of the Belbek. The bay of Balaclava, which now became the principal base of their operations, is a place admirably suited for the landing of stores and matériel. As a port it is the most perfect of its size in the world. The entrance is between perpendicular cliffs, rising 800 feet high on either hand, and is only wide enough to allow the passage of one ship at a time; but once in, you find yourself in a landlocked tideless haven, still as a mountain-tarn, three-quarters of a mile in length by 250 yards wide, and nowhere less than six fathoms deep, so that every square foot of its surface is available for ships of the greatest burden.

The Bay of Balaclava was instantly adopted as the new base of operations of the British army; and never, even in the days when the towers now so gaunt and ruined looked down on the

VOL. XLIV.-NO. CCLXIV.

still waters of "Bella Chiave," in the flush of the young strength of Genoa, did its waters mirror so many tall ships on their bosom. From fifty to a hundred war-ships and transports were constantly at anchor, landing the siege-guns, and stores and provisions of all kinds, while the commissariat, ordnance, and ammunition depôts were formed in the village. The only access to Balaclava from the land side is at the inner end of the bay, through a breach in the surrounding hills, which gradually opens out into an extensive valley, about three miles long, by about two broad. It was in this valley that the serious part of the combat of the 25th October took place. Through this valley runs the road to the Chernaya and Mackenzie's Farm, by which the Allies advanced to Balaclava, and which on the other side of the Chernaya enters steep gorges in the mountains, by the possession of which the Russians could at any time advance without warning into the valley, and threaten either Balaclava or the rear of the besieging force. On the side next the sea, this valley is bounded by a line of hills, stretching from Balaclava to Inkerman, at the mouth of the Chernaya, and along the summit of which runs the first three miles of the eight-mile road from Balaclava to Sebastopol. Another road branching off from Balaclava in the opposite direction, conducts to the Valley of Baidar, the most fertile district of the Crimea. On the 2d of October (the sixth day after the Allies first reached Balaclava) an attempt was made to open a source of supplies in this fertile district by means of a maritime expe

2 U

dition of considerable strength, which proceeded forty miles eastward of Balaclava to Yalta, in the beautiful environs of which town are the marine villas of many of the Russian nobility, scattered along the sheltered coast. Marsanda, the seat of Count Woronzoff, was visited and found deserted, but not destroyed, as were the Russian villas on the Katcha and Belbek. The expedition failed in its object, for the Tartar peasantry were too much afraid of the Russians to come forward with supplies, and the strength of the besieging army was not great enough to allow of a detachment being spared for the permanent occupation of Yalta.

The port of the Balaclava having been found barely large enough for the landing of the British stores and guns, the French selected, as their base of operations, the three deep bays lying between Cape Chersonesus and Sebastopol bay where they had the advantage of disembarking their siegeartillery much nearer than ours to the scene of action.

General François Canrobert, who now took the command of the French army, had won his laurels, like the lamented St. Arnaud and all the present generation of French generals, in the wars of Africa. He appears to differ very much from St. Arnaud in character giving way little to enthusiasm, making no appeals to the imagination or love of glory of his soldiers (rather a fault in a French general, but suiting admirably in one who has to co-operate with the sober generals of England), and in his bulletins and despatches exhibiting that calm matterof-factness characteristic of our own generals.

The country between Balaclava and Sebastopol, upon which the Allied army encamped, is a barren hilly steppe, destitute of water, and covered with no better herbage than thistles. The French took up their position next the sea; the British inland, next the Chernaya. The front of the besieging force extended in a continuous line from the mouth of the Chernaya to the sea at Strelitska Bay-forming nearly a semicircle around Sebastopol, at a distance of about two miles from the

enemy's works. This position was found to be close enough, as the Russian guns were found to throw shells to the distance of 4000 yards. A great and most unfortunate delay took place

in landing and bringing up the siegeguns and stores of the Allies-a delay which was improved to the utmost by the Russians, who kept large bands of citizens, and even women, as well as the garrison, at work in relays both night and day, in throwing up a vast exterior line of earthen redoubts and intrenchments, and in covering the front of their stone-works with earth, so as to render it almost impossible to breach them. In truth, if the Allied generals had had any correct idea of the time it would take to get their guns into position, and of the immense resources at the command of the garrison, they would probably have deemed it by far the wisest course to have assaulted the town with the bayonet the moment they arrived in front of it (28th September), when as yet no earthworks had been thrown up, and the tremendous artillery which subsequently faced them was still on board the Russian fleet, or in the forts down at the edge of the Bay. Likewise, if they had sooner discovered how inef fective was the fire of the fleet against the granite of the forts, they would probably have drawn more upon that branch of the expedition, both in guns and gunners, to meet the similar force brought against them by the enemy. It was only as the siege advanced that the extraordinary nature of the enterprise revealed itself. Had Sebastopol been a first-class fortress, defended by an ordinary garrison, it must have proved an easy and speedy capture. But it was defended by earthwork intrenchments, nearly in a straight line, and not presenting, like a fortress, any angles upon which we could concentrate our fire, and so obtain a decisive superiority at the point of attack; and upon these unbreachable ramparts was mounted an artillery much more powerful than that of the besiegers, which could be replaced by new guns as fast as dismounted, yet which must be silenced before an assault could be ventured upon. Moreover, the force disposable for the defence of Sebastopol was nearly equal in number to the besieging army; and as, from the nature of its position, the place could be only invested upon one side, supplies of all kinds could be conveyed into the town, and the Russian generals could either man the works with their whole forces, or direct incessant attacks against our flank and rear. Never did

any army ever undertake so vast and perilous an enterprise as that in which the Allied commanders found themselves engaged; but never did any army ever win for itself, by its transcendent gallantry and endurance, so extraordinary but dear - bought re

nown.

For three weeks after leaving Old Fort, the British troops were without tents, and had to bivouac in the open air; but on the 7th October the besieging army once more got under canvas, and became as comfortable as it was possible for men in their trying circumstances to be. that is to say, with a third of the army constantly out all night, on duty at the outposts or in the trenches. The British portion of the Allied camp presented a much duller appearance than that of their more lively allies; no music of the military bands being heard in the former, the bands of many of the regiments having been broken up, and the men set to work at other duties; while a constant stir of music enlivened the evenings in the French camp. The British quarters, however, were not without their share of merriment. "Jack" was ashore again among the redcoats, and in all his glory. A thousand sailors were accordingly landed, under Captain Lushington of the Albion, to take part in the siege; and a finer set of men, it was allowed, it was impossible to meet with. They labelled their tents with all manner of quaint devices; and such remarks as the following were constantly being heard amongst them:-"I say, Tom, look at this here Dutchman's hat which the sogers have sarved out to us as a house for fifteen!" "Never mind, Bill, if you cut and run from the Rooshians, you will then be called the Flying Dutchman.” Jack was allowed on all hands to be of essential service in hard work; the only thing alleged against him being, that he was too strong.

The country around Sebastopol sinks gradually down, in a succession of ridges, from the position occupied by the Allied army to the town; but for nearly a third of a mile, immediately in front of the town, the ground is quite flat the ridges having there been long ago levelled away by the Russians, in order to give no cover to an attacking force. Another of the endless embarrassments in the siege was, that the ground was rocky, and

hardly yielded earth enough for the necessary intrenchments; while, diminishing in depth as it approached the town, the soil at length became quite inadequate to the wants of the engineers, and nothing but a large supply of gabions and fascines prepared at Varna rendered it possible to carry on the approaches with effect. We have said that there is a circuit of five or six hundred yards of level ground immediately around the town; and as it was beyond this radius (at least along the British front) that the Russians threw up their new works, erecting strong redoubts on several elevated positions, the Allies had to open their trenches at the distance of a mile from the body of the place, although within 1200 yards of the Russian batteries. The French were the first to break ground. At nine at night on the 9th, the trenches were opened by 1,600 workmen, divided into reliefparties, and supported by eight battalions, appointed to defend the works. A loud wind, and an almost entire absense of moonlight, favoured the operations, and by break of day an intrenchment 936 metres in length was completed, without interruption from the enemy, of sufficient depth to cover the men. Next night the British broke ground; but this time the garrison were on the alert, and kept up a very heavy but ineffectual fire. From the first day that the Allies appeared before Sebastopol, the Russians had never ceased pitching shot and shell into our encampment, hardly killing a man a-day; but from the opening of the trenches, hardly a night passed that a cannonade was not kept up against the besiegers' lines, showing a prodigality of warlike material that was perfectly astonishing. The rush of the shot and shell through the air, with a noise not unlike that of rockets, followed by the peculiar flat dull sound which marks the abrupt termination to their course, as they strike the ground; the crash of the bursting shell, accompanied, if high in the air, with a ringing metallic sound; the whiz of the fragments, and the repeated booming of the guns, echoing among the mountains.

The British, who occupied much higher ground than the French, placed their batteries with great skill. The raised mounds or beds of earth upon which the guns were placed were erect

ed precisely along the crest of the various ridges on which the batteries were planted, and, when finished, showed only the muzzle of the guns over the brow of the ridge, so as to present little to the direct fire of the enemy. Strong covering parties were constantly close in rear of the batteries, lying flat upon their faces a little further down the slopean irksome position, and one exposing the men dreadfully to the effects of cold, but absolutely necessary, and answering the purpose so well, that although the fire of the Russian batteries was well directed, frequently striking the parapets, scarcely a man was hit. The besiegers' batteries were now drawing near completion, and the Governor of Sebastopol had sent a request to Lord Raglan that he would spare the inhabitants by not firing upon the civilian part of the city, to which his lordship properly replied that he would grant a safe-conduct to such of the inhabitants as were desirous of leaving, but would promise nothing as to his mode of attack, save that the buildings marked by the yellow flag should be respected as hospitals. Every means was adopted by Prince Menschikoff to keep up the spirits of the garrison. Balls were given every other night, and it was confidently announced that reinforcements were on their march from Perekop, which would force the Allies to raise the siege.

On the 17th of October the dreadful work began, and no one then present will ever forget that memorable scene. The morning dawned slowly; a thick fog hung over the town, and spread far up the heights. Towards six o'clock the mist began to disperse, and the rich clear October sun every instant made objects more and more visible. In the Allied lines all the artillerymen were at their pieces; and as the iron muzzles of the guns became visible through the fog in the now unmasked embrasures, a scattering and fast-increasing fire was opened upon them from the Russian lines. Soon the Russian works, crowded with grey figures, could be seen below, with in rear the large handsome white houses and dockyards of Sebastopol itself. Slowly, like the drawing back of a huge curtain, the mist moved off seaward, a cool morning breeze sprang up, and the atmosphere became clear and bright. Around were the wide-ex

tending lines of the besiegers, sloping down from the elevated ridges-held by the British to the low grounds on the coast occupied by the French; facing them below was the continuous line of Russian intrenchments of earthwork, interspersed with redoubts and stone towers and loopholed walls, with the line-of-battle-ships showing their heavy broadsides in the harbour; and beyond all, the open sea, bearing on its bosom, like a dark belt, the immense armada of the Allied fleet.

At half-past six, the preconcerted signal of three shells went up one after another from a French battery, and the next instant the whole Allied batteries opened fire simultaneously. On the side of the British, seventy-three, and of the French, fifty-three-in all, one hundred and twenty-six guns, onehalf of which were of the very heaviest calibre, launched their thunders on the side of the Allies; while upwards of two hundred replied in one deafening and continuous roar from the Russian lines. Two long lines of belching flame and smoke appeared, and through the space between hurtled a shower of shot and shell, while the earth shook with the thunders of the deadly vollies. Distinctly amidst the din could be heard the immense Lancaster guns, which here for the first time gave evidence of their tremendous powers. Their sharp report, heard among the other heavy guns, was like the crack of a rifle among muskets; but the most singular thing was the sound of their ball, which rushed through the air with the noise and regular beat, precisely like the passage of a rapid railway train at close distance-a peculiarity which at first excited shouts of laughter from our men, who instantly nicknamed it the " express train." The effect of the shot was terrific; from its deafening and peculiar noise, the ball could be distinctly traced by the ear to the spot where it struck, when stone or earth alike were seen to go down before it.

The first few minutes' firing sufficed to show to each side, what neither bad as yet accurately known, the actual strength of its opponents; and it soon appeared that, even in the extent of the earthwork batteries thrown up since the siege began, the Russians immensely surpassed their besiegers. Besides their stone forts, and a long line of intrenchments, guns of heavy calibre had been planted on every ridge and height;