other side of the Tchernaya enters deep gorges in the mountains. On the side next the sea this valley is bounded by a line of hills stretching from Balaklava to Inkerman, and along the summit of which runs the road to Sebastopol. Another road in the opposite direction conducts to the valley of Baider, the most fertile district of the Crimea.
The port of Balaklava 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. The country between Balaklava 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 Tchernaya. The front of the besieging force extended in a continuous line from the mouth of the Tchernaya to the sea at Strelitska bay, forming nearly a semicircle around Sebastopol, at a distance of about two miles from the enemy's works. The position was found to be close enough, as the Russian guns were found to throw shells to the distance of four thousand yards. A most unfortunate delay took place in landing and bringing up the siege guns 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 entrenchments, and in covering the front of their stone-works with earth.
The force disposable for the defense of Sebastopol was nearly equal in number to the besieging army; and as, from the nature of its position, the place could only be 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 the flank and rear of the allies.
Never did any army ever undertake so vast and perilous an enterprise as that in which the allied commanders found themselves engaged.
Sebastopol is situated at the southern point of the Crimea, which puts out into the Black Sea, and is distant from Odessa, 192 miles; from Varna, 295, and from Constantinople, 343.
It is one of the most modern creations of the Czar, and stands, like an advanced post, near to Cape Chersonese—its site, until 1786, having been occupied by a few straggling huts. Catherine II, on her accession, perceived its natural advantages as a naval port, the first stone was laid in 1780, and from that period it has rapidly increased in strength and importance. On doubling the Cape, bordered with a vast chain of rocks and breakers, Sebastopol appears about six and a half miles to the east—a remarkable picture, on account of its white cliffs, and the amphitheatrical appearance of the town.
The port of Sebastopol consists of a bay running in a south-easterly direction, about four miles long, and a mile wide at the entrance, diminishing to 400 yards at the end, where the Tchernaya or Black River empties itself. On the southern coast of this bay are the commercial, military, and careening harbors, the quarantine harbor being outside the entrance—all these taking a southerly direction, and having deep water. The military harbor is the largest, being about a mile and a half long by 400 yards wide, and is completely land-locked on every side. Here it is that
