" This work, which is a sort of earthen citadel of 350 metres in length, and 150 metres in width, armed with sixty-two guns of different calibre, crowns a mamelon, which commands the whole of the Karabelnaia quarter, takes in reverse the Redan, which was attacked by the English, is only 1,200 metres from the South Harbour, and threatens not merely the whole anchorage now remaining for the ships, but the only means of retreat open to the Russians, namely, the bridge thrown across the roadstead from one bank to the other."
It is scarcely necessary to add, that it was the capture of this powerful work which virtually terminated the siege.
LOWER PICTURE.
This drawing is designed as a contrast to the one above, in wliich some of the embrasures of the Malakoff are shown, as yet uninjured by shot, neatly revetted, and finished with the care which the Russians dehghted to bestow even to the last on the detail of their defences. Here everything is in disorder and confusion — the battery knocked to pieces, guns disabled, guncarriages smashed, and the ground strewed with the dead bodies of Russians, in the attitudes in which they were frozen by the icy hand of Death. It is in fact a picture in miniature of the horrors and desolation caused by War.
THE EAST.
The bomb-proofs, the entrance to one of which is here given, were constructed of immense beams of wood taken from the dockyard, laid horizontally to form a roof, on which earth was heaped up to a thickness which no shell could penetrate. The horizontal beams were supported by smaller uprights, also of wood; and round the walls were shelves for the men to lie upon.
Mr. Simpson, when he visited one of these chambers, found the interior filled with worn-out uniforms, old clothes and boots, spoons and dishes, cobbler's tools, and what not, proving that the men while in the batteries carried on their usual occupations, a circumstance explained bj^ their only being relieved about once a week, and not, as our men were, every twentyfour hours.
THE CAVALRY AFFAIR OF THE HEIGHTS OF BULGANAK.
This smart little affair, which took place the day before the Battle of the Alma, and within five days from the landing of the Allies in the Crimea, was the first encounter with the Russians, and, while it demonstrated the superiority "of our Cavalry and Horse Artillery to that of the enemy, it encouraged the troops, who hailed it as an omen of that success which, in the space of one short year, has so frequently waited on, and at last so fully crowned, our arms.
The artist has chosen for his illustration the moment when the Russian guns are opening their fire on the English Cavalry, who have crossed the stream and advanced into the valley to offer battle to a large body of the enemy's Dragoons and Cossacks, posted on the opposite heights. Two or three puffs of white smoke mark the spot where the first guns of the campaign uttered their hoarse defiance to the Allies, and awoke echoes which, rolling over the well-contested fields of Alma and Inkermann, Balaklava and the Tchernaya, and swelled to a solemn and terrible diapason on the blood-stained plateau before Sebastojjol, reached their latest reverberations in the sound of the Tower and Park ordnance, which, on the 11th September, announced to rejoicing England the fall of the Russian stronghold.
On the right, and in rear of the guns, are seen the masses of Russian cavalry slowly descending the hill, with a line of skirmishers thrown out in front. In the centre of the i^icture are the 11th Hussars and the 13th Light Dragoons, drawn up in two lines, in front of the first of which are Lord Cardigan and his staff, while Lord Lucan with his staff are on the left in front of the second line. On the left of the foreground the 17th Lancers and a few of the 8th Hussars are held in reserve, and on their flank two or three more Staff Officers are to be seen conversing.
The English Artillery has not yet replied to the enemy, but the rapid pace at which the two troops under Captains Maude and Brandling, on the extreme lO
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BALAKLAVA LOOKING TOWARDS THE SEA. 1'23