The point or bank of Tcherhka, opposite Yenikale, is one of the many extraordinary spits of land which abound in this part of the world, and which are, as far as I know, without example in any other country. Of all these the Spit of Arabat, which is a bank but a few feet above the water, and is in some places only a furlong in breadth, is the most remarkable. It is nearly 70 miles in length, and its average width less than half a mile from sea to sea. The bank of Tcherhka (or Savernaia Rosa), which runs for nearly eight miles in a south-westerly direction from Cape Kammenoi past Yenikale, closes up the Bay of Kertch on the west, and the Gulf of Taman on the east, is a type of these formations, and is sufficiently interesting to deserve a visit. It only differs from Arabat in size, and in the absence of the fresh-water wells which are found at long intervals on the great road from Arabat to Genitchi. It is so low that it is barely six feet above the level of the sea. A bank of sand on both sides of the spit, piled up three or four feet in height, marks the boundary of the beach. The latter, which is a bank of shingle, shells, and fine sand, is only a few yards broad, and is terminated by the sand and rank grass and rushes of the spit, which rises up a foot or two above the beach.
In the interior, or on the body of the bank, there are numerous lagunes—narrow strips of water much more salt than that of the adjacent sea. Some of these are only a few yards in length and a few feet in breadth, others extend for a quarter of a mile, and are about 100 yards broad. They are all bounded alike by thick high grass and rushes. The bottom, at the depth of a few feet—often at two or three inches—consists of hard sand covered with slimy green vegetable matter. The water abounds in small flounders and dabs, and in shrimps, which jump about in wild commotion at an approaching footstep. Every lagune is covered with mallards and ducks in pairs, and the fringes of the spit are the resort of pelicans and cormorants innumerable. The silence, the dreary solitude of the scene is beyond description. Even the birds, mute as they are at the season of my visit, appeared to be preternaturally quiet and voiceless. Multitudes of old, crustaceous-looking polypous plants sprang up through the reeds; and bright-coloured flycatchers, with orange breasts and black wings, poised over their nests below them.
PILLAGE OF KERTCH.
The first day I went over, we landed upon the beach close to the battery which the Russians placed on the spit at the Ferry station. It consisted of a quadrangular work of sandbags, constructed in a very durable manner, and evidently not long made. In the centre of the square there was a whitewashed house, which served as a barrack for the garrison. The walls only were left, and the smoke rose from the ashes of the roof and rafters inside the shell. Our men had fired it when they landed. A pool of brackish water was enclosed by the battery, which must have been the head-quarters of ague and misery. The sailors said the house swarmed with vermin, and had a horrible odour. Nothing was found in it but the universal black bread and some salt fish. The garrison, some 30 or 40 men probably, had employed themselves in a rude kind of agriculture, and farming or pasturage. Patches of ground were cleared here and there, and gave feeble indications that young potatoes were struggling for life beneath. Large ricks of reeds and coarse grass had been gathered round the battery, but were reduced to ashes. At the distance of a hundred yards from the battery there was another whitewashed house, or the shell of it, with similar signs of rural life about it, and an unhappy-looking cat trod gingerly among the hot embers, and mewed piteously in the course of her fruitless search for her old corner. The traces of herds of cattle, which were probably driven down from the mainland to feed on the grass round the salt marshes, were abundant. There was a track beaten into the semblance of a road over the sand from the battery to Taman, and it was covered with proofs of the precipitate flight of the garrison. Pieces of uniform, bags containing pieces of the universal black bread, strings of onions, old rags, empty sacks and bottles, were found along the track, and some of our party came upon a large chest, which was full of Government papers, stamps, custom-house and quarantine dockets, stamped paper for Imperial petitions and postage, books of tariff and customs in Russian, French, German, and English, and tables of port dues, which we took away to any amount. The heat of the sun, the vapours from the salt lakes, the mosquitoes, the vermin, and the odour, must have formed a terrible combination of misery in close barracks in the dog-days, and have rendered going out, staying in, lying down, and standing up, equally desperate and uncomfortable. The enemy relied considerably on the shallow water to save him from attack, but he was also prepared with heavy metal for gunboats, such as they were in the old war, and he was no doubt astonished when the large shot from the Lancaster guns began to fall upon his works from the small hulls of our despatch gunboats. One of the gunboats which lay off the fort—a mere hulk, without masts or cordage, of 150 tons burden, with embrasures through her sides on the deck for nine small guns—was found to be filled below with the most complete series of galvanic apparatus, attached to vessels full of powder, intended to explode on contact with the keel of a vessel. The submarine machines with their strange cups and exploding apparatus were recognized by Mr. Deane, the diver, as portions of the same kinds of instruments as those he employed in submarine operations. All were regularly numbered, and, as there was a break in the series, it afforded reason for believing that some of them were actually sunk; but the wires connecting them with the battery on board the ship were cut the night we forced the Straits, and the vessel itself was scuttled subsequently. There were many miles of wire, and the number of cells indicated a very powerful battery.
The pillage of Kertch still went on; the inhabitants fled. Even the Tartars were in terror. For two or three days the beach was crowded by women and children, who sat out under the rays of the scorching sun to find safety in numbers. They were starving, and miserably clad, and in charity were taken on board the Ripon, which sailed with them for some Russian port. They were about two hundred in number. Mothers had lost their children, and children were without their mothers. In the confusion which prevailed they were separated, and the Caton carried some off to the Sea of Azoff, and the Ripon took others off to Odessa or Yalta. Our attempts to prevent outrage and destruction were of the feeblest and most contemptible character. If a sailor was found carrying any articles—books, or pictures, or furniture—they were taken from him at the beach and cast into the sea. The result was that the men, when they got loose in the town, where there was no control over them, broke to pieces everything that they could lay their hands on. We did not interfere with French or Turks, and our measures against our own men were harsh, ridiculous, and impotent.
Prince Woronzoff's house was said to be under the protection of the English and French. Was he protected because he was a Prince, or merely because he was supposed to be friendly to the Englishmen, and connected with some English families? Sir George Brown assuredly had no natural sympathy with pure aristocracy or with anything but pure democratic soldiery and military good fortune. It might have been—nay, it was—right to save Prince Woronzoff's house, but would it not have been equally proper to protect the stock-in-trade of some miserable Russian mechanic who remained in the town trusting to our clemency, and who was ruined by a few brutal sailors? Prince Woronzoff had many palaces. His friendly feelings towards England were at best known to but few, and were certainly of no weight with Frenchmen, because those sentiments, if they existed at all, dated from a period antecedent to the true entente cordiale, and were suggestive of anything but good liking towards Frenchmen. However, the house was so far safe, and if we were sorry that the museum was sacked, we might be proud that the palace was spared. The marks of useless destruction and of wanton violence and outrage were too numerous and too distressing to let us rest long on the spectacle of this virgin palace.
The following extract from a "General After Order," which came out subsequently, gives a summary of the operations effected by our expeditionary force:—
"Berdiansk has been destroyed, with four war steamers.
"Arabat, a fortress mounting thirty guns, after resisting an hour and a half, had its magazine blown up by the fire of our ships.
"Genitchi refused to capitulate, and was set fire to by shells. Ninety ships in its harbour were destroyed, with corn and stores to the amount of £100,000.