including its reserves, which cannot be easily augmented. Each man that falls now becomes of great importance to the Emperor; for the conscription is becoming more and more difficult, and bearing with increased severity upon all the interests of the empire. The age at which conscripts are taken is now raised to thirty-seven; and the sons of aged or widowed parents, who have hitherto been exempted, are to serve, and be formed into separate corps. I believe that in the manufacturing establishments in Russia as many as 25 per cent. of the workmen have lately been carried off for the conscription. The difficulties of Russia are increasing every day; and it is hardly possible for her to carry on the war for another six months, if with our change of Ministry we likewise have a change of system, and if at home and in the Crimea our superior officials, both military and civil, have anything like that intelligence, activity, intrepidity, and single-minded love of their country displayed by the common soldiers and regimental officers of our army, who have hitherto been the only bulwarks to save us from national disgrace. See Kreutz Zeitung,' Feb. 1, 1855, a Prussian newspaper, generally considered to have good information on Russian subjects. This paper also states, that, exclusive of the corps of the Caucasus and two divisions of the fifth and sixth corps detached in Asia, the Russian active forces now amount to 607 battalions, 562 squadrons, and 1712 field-pieces, which on paper represents 637,000 infantry, 95,000 cavalry, and 42,000 artillery; and that no more than 10 per cent. is to be deducted for non-effectives. This would give a total of nearly 700,000 men. CHAPTER IX. INKERMAN, MANGOUP, AND THE HILLY COUNTRY OF THE CRIMEA. The Bay of Sevastopol to Inkerman - · Aktiar Inkerman Castle Its Tchorgouna history Crypts Fuller's earth, or natural soap FROM Sevastopol to Inkerman the road by land is either very long or very fatiguing. In order to avoid the numberless ravines which cut up the Chersonese, a circuitous route must be taken, and it is hardly possible to attempt to cross in a straight line. Scarcely has the descent been made to the bottom of one ravine by a very steep declivity, than an equally precipitous ascent must be made at the other side; and neither the one nor the other of these routes has anything picturesque or interesting, except some poor ruins scattered here and there among the rocks. Nothing was desert here in the time of ancient Kherson. A laborious population, sacrificing pleasure in the noble object of possessing a little corner of ground, then occupied the sides of all the ravines, and living half in the grottoes, and half in miserable huts of stone and earth, devoted themselves to the cultivation of a precious and tolerably fertile soil, by raising terraces of earth, on which they planted vines and fruit-trees. Neither the north wind nor the piercing frost could penetrate these well-protected and sheltered spots; but during the heats of summer they must have been hardly supportable, unless some covered shelter was For this Chapter see Dubois, vol. vi. made on one side or the other under the rock. Although the land journey from Sevastopol to Inkerman be so difficult in times of peace, nothing used to be more interesting than the sea voyage, which might be performed by hiring a little boat at Sevastopol, and leisurely sailing or rowing down the Great Bay. It is not that the country is very attractive in itself by shady groves and country houses: on the contrary, these are rare on the shores of this bay, which are rather severe in aspect, from the abrupt forms and nakedness of the rocks. It is the bay itself, piercing nearly five miles into the land, which invests the scene with all its magnificence. As to the geology of the coasts of the bay, beginning at the entrance from the sea, the low shores are formed by beds of the recent tertiary volcanic formation, very much thrown out of their place. These beds gradually rise higher up the sides as far as the Careening Bay, and there appear under them brilliant beds of white clay, with layers of small stones and cinders, and land and lake mollusques. This formation is of considerable extent, and presents high cliffs of so dazzling a white colour, that they have generally been taken for chalk. Under the clay, and near the extremity of the bay, appears in its turn, in thick even layers, the nummulite limestone, rich in fossils, raised on the back of a new formation, that of the chalk, which has a great development, and of which the high walls, principally composed of green sandstone or chlorited chalk, encase the bottom of the bay, opening a large entrance at its farthest extremity for the Bouiouk Oozoun river, or the Tchornaya Retchka of the Russians, which is lost in a marsh before it mixes with the salt waves of the bay. Close to the Careening Bay are the first crypts cut in the rocks, and the principal ones, the entrance to which is very little raised above the level of the bay, are large, of a regular square shape, and cut in the front of the rock. On the northern shore, opposite the crypts, in a little valley, are the ruins of the village of Aktiar, which replaced Kherson, giving its name to the bay. This served as the first establishment of the Russians after the conquest of the Crimea. Here is the summer habitation and the garden of the admiral-commandant of Sevastopol, and here are the storehouses and bakehouses of the fleet, a large hospital, now abandoned, and an ancient hermitage cut in the rock, painted with frescoes. With the exception The extremity of the bay in ancient times was richly cultivated, but the sea has now been driven back by the unwholesome marshes of the Tchornaya Retchka, and high reeds stop the course of all vessels by their inextricable labyrinths. With the exception of a powdermagazine and a few sheds, these ravines are naked and uninhabited, and the villages which crowned the summits of the cliffs and extended on the plateau of the northern part of the Chersonese, where the second division of the British army is now encamped and the famous two-gun battery was erected, have disappeared. The ruins of the villages cover a space of two miles, and end with the great rock in which is cut the first of the crypt churches of Inkerman. These were all defended by walls from the Steppe, one of which is still seen, four feet in thickness. The direct road from Kherson to Inkerman passed by these villages, and a very steep road led from the plateau to the bottom of the ravine, where there is the church. The greater part of these remains of antiquity have disappeared before the labours of the engineers, who have blown up the rocks with the crypts in them to obtain the soft but beautiful building-stone for the construction of the magnificent aqueduct which carries the water of the Tchornaya Retchka to the docks of Sevastopol. The aqueduct is carried on 10 arches, and measures 200 feet in length; the piles on which it is built are 18 feet deep, as this is the only depth at which a firm foundation could be found. After it leaves the aque duct the water is carried by a tunnel 800 feet in length. The canal is 4 feet deep and 9 feet broad, and the gallery through which it is carried is 6 feet high to the top of the vault, and 12 feet wide. From this place the road continues to Inkerman, which is the modern name of the promontory rising at the end of the Bay of Sevastopol on its northern shore, and looking down upon the marshes of the Tchornaya Retchka. The rock is pierced all over with the subterranean dwellings of the ancient Tauri, and on the top are the ruins of the castle built by Diophantes, the general of Mithridates, who was sent to help the Khersonians against the Tauro-Scythians, a little before the birth of Christ. This castle was called Eupatorion, a name which, like many others, has been misapplied by the Russians, and given to the town of Koslof. From the castle, Diophantes made a communication with the other side, by filling up the valley with earth, and leaving a passage for the river by a bridge with three arches, of which one remained in 1834, and the bank itself is perfectly preserved. This was the bridge that was broken down by Liprandi after the battle of Inkerman, when he retired to the northern side of the Tchornaya Retchka, and by this act acknowledged that he had been defeated. In the rocks near are seen the enormous quarries for the building-stone, which in all times has been celebrated. Near here, and cut in the solid rock of the promontory of Inkerman, is a regularly constructed Greek church, with all its parts complete, and on the top of the rock in which it is cut is the fortress of Diophantes, which in the middle ages was called Theodori, and was the residence of some Greek princes dependent on Constantinople. One of them, called Alexis, took Balaclava from the Genoese, and was again driven out of it in A.D. 1434. In 1475 this little Greek principality suffered the b This name is derived from In and kerman, a castle. |