Up to the middle of May the French pushed their approaches with the greatest vigour in the direction of the works protecting the town of " Sebastopol, the Ville Civile as distinguished from the Karabelnaya. All these works were to the left of the head of the inner harbour, and amongst them the Bastion du Mat seems to have been regarded both by assailants and defenders as the key of the position. The Kussians in consequence exhausted the resources of engineering in adding to its strength, and, so effectually did they carry out this object, that they succeeded in making it by far the most impracticable point in the whole of their vast chain of defences. The French indeed seem to have considered it impregnable, for subsequently to the above date, when their advanced parallel was already within a quite inconsiderable distance of the bastion, their efforts in this direction seem to have been completely abandoned, and all the energy of their attack was concentrated on the Malakoff and the works at the head of Careening Bay. On the day of the final assault, when every other point was made the object of an attack either real or feigned, no attempt whatever was made upon the Bastion du Mat: a fact which can only be accounted for on the hypothesis just suggested. The drawing to which we now beg the reader's attention is specially calculated to illustrate the manner in which this work was rendered so extremely formidable; and a detailed reference to the principal features selected for delineation in the sketch will convey an amount of information which will render the result obtained by the Russians no longer a matter of surprise.
The ditch of the bastion was of twice the ordinary width, and flanked at the further end by a caponiere, or bomb-proof block-house, mounting two guns, which of course swept it in its entire length, and would have inflicted a loss almost amounting to annihilation on any storming party which might have penetrated so far. At regular intervals along the bottom of the ditch were square apertures leading into a mine of equal length, which communicated by small subterraneous galleries with the Eussian rifle-pits in advance of the work, and with the countermines against the French approach.
The scarp was faced with a stockade, constructed of beams of wood fixed perpendicularly in the ground, and sharpened to a point at their upper extremities, which gave them a resemblance to a row of shark's teeth. The counterscarp was perforated with caves for the protection of the soldiers, by whom
THE EAST.
the ditch seems to have heen no less regularly garrisoned than the body of the bastion itself. Even outside the ditch, rows of planks had been placed upon the ground with large sharp nails projecting from their upper surface, which would have wounded and lacerated the feet of those who must have passed over them in making the assault. Such were the objects accumulated by a hellish ingenuity to render an entrance into the work impossible; but, even had these been surmounted and the entrance effected, so completely was the Bastion du Mat.commanded by the Garden Battery, that the hapless stormers, in the very moment of their delusive success, must have found themselves face to face with the muzzles of the guns of the latter, and destitute of any species of shelter, must have been swept away almost to the last man.
The French therefore exercised a wise discretion in shifting the main point of their attack to the Malakoff, whose great height, while it prevented the possibility of its being commanded by any of the other batteries, rendered all those within the range of its guns untenable from the moment the assailants were firmly established there.
In the middle distance of this drawing are seen the embrasures of the Bastion Central, the next Eussian battery on the proper right of the Bastion du Mat.
PLATE LXVI.
DOCKS AT SEBASTOPOL, WITH EUINS OF FORT
These stupendous dpcks, one of the boldest and happiest efforts of engineering skill, were constructed at a vast exjjense during the reign of the Emperor Nicholas, by the late Colonel Upton, an Englishman, who, having been led fi'om circumstances into which it is now bootless to enquire to quit his native country, entered the Russian service in which his unquestionable talents speedily secured him a position of distinction.
Dr. Koch, whose account of these colossal works is by far the most clear and intelligible of any we have met with, thus describes them: —