But these gay balls, dinners, concerts, &c., are now only things of the past. The inhabitants can be counted by tens instead of by thousands, and but for the families of those whose duty obliges them to remain, the town would speedily cease to be. Dull as Sevastopol generally is, it was duller than usual during our stay, for several of the principal officials had been summoned to Odessa to attend two of the imperial princes. Those who remained, however, seemed as if they could not be kind enough, or friendly enough, to travellers from a country who a few years back had been so terrible an enemy.
There has ever been such kind feeling and such friendship between Russia and England that it must always be painful to an Englishman to think circumstances should have forced us into a cruel war with an old and steady friend.
The day after our arrival we got three droskies to take us to the Redan and the neighbouring heights. Crimean droskies are like very low gigs, and hold two persons besides the driver, who sits upon a small box or perch high above the body of the carriage. One of the horses is in shafts, with a wooden arch hung with bells over his head, the other is in traces on the left side. When well driven this horse canters while the other trots, and however rough and uneven the road, the pace is generally tremendous.
The drivers were strange wild creatures, with long unkempt beards, and hair that flew out behind them like a cloud as we raced along. They wore coarse frieze coats, with long full skirts coming down to their heels, and loose trousers tucked into great Wellington boots, so redolent of musk and train oil that every time their owner kicked the plank beneath his feet, in his energy to overcome some unusual difficulty, an odour was wafted to us that was far from resembling those that come from Araby the Blest.
Our progress was both noisy and exciting. On coming to a bad place the drivers stood up, stamped with excitement, shouting to their team, and addressing them in a stream of terms both of endearment and abuse. The horses tossed their heads as they struggled and plunged, the bells jangling furiously, and we could only hold tight as the light carriage bounded over hole or mound.
Carriage-hire is dear, each drosky costing about one rouble and a half an hour; a rouble is nearly 3s. 4d. in English money.
The dust during the summer in and about Sevastopol is quite remarkable, and can be only equalled by the mud in winter. The soil is principally of a description of chalk that rapidly pulverises during dry weather, and equally rapidly dissolves during wet. The result is that in summer the town and country seem wrapped in clouds of fine penetrating dust, and during winter the mud is ancle-deep.
Within ten minutes of our start we were as white as millers, and half-choked besides, as, perfectly regardless of our wishes and requests, the drivers occasionally amused themselves by racing, or else insisted upon keeping close to the wheels of the preceding carriage.
After passing through street after street of ruins, we found ourselves in a narrow ravine immediately beneath the Redan, and at about a quarter of a mile from the town came to the first or most advanced English trench. Of course years have gradually levelled the soil, and now it is like a small dry ditch, but even had the mound raised been three times the height it now is, it seemed amazing that so slight an amount of earth could have been sufficient to protect the soldiers from the rain of shot so unceasingly poured from the town. Even with gabions on the top, the men could not have stood upright in the trench.
About fifty yards up the valley was a mound of earth with two “dents” in it. This had been an English battery of two guns, and the dents marked the places where the cannon had stood. Higher up was another trench, then another battery, and so on, until, the defile making a turn, the town was no longer commanded.