The British Expedition to the Crimea

by Sir William Howard Russell

Before they started, Sir Houston Stewart, having signalled for an officer of the Spitfire to come on board, went off in the Cracker, attended by the Grinder, to examine the coast to the SSE., and to ascertain the cause of the numerous fires, indicated by pillars of smoke, in that direction. The Allied troops were supposed to be advancing for forty miles along the Spit, to destroy the forage and provision, so as to make the country waste. However harsh this measure may appear, it was a necessary operation. When Sydney Smith drew his terrible picture of John Bull's afflictions in a probable invasion—corn-ricks blazing on every side—sows of the best breed running about with their throats cut, he must have had a prophetic inkling of the operations of the troops on their way to Cherson.

Our Allies sidled up to the Spit, where we were engaged. Perhaps they had some notion that they might succeed in destroying the battery which their good friends, the English, had not reduced to silence. The day was very dull, and there was immense refraction, so that the end of the cliff appeared to be lifted out of the water, and the vessels to have wavering hulls and quivering masts. At last they arrived off the Spit, and the enemy opened fire upon them at once. The small gun-boat stood bravely on till it was within 1,500 yards of the shore—the others anchored at 1,800, and they then engaged the breastwork very sharply. The French averred that they dismounted one gun at least, and drew down a great body of the enemy before they retired. This they did after half an hour's dalliance, and then they anchored off the mouth of the Bug, close to us once more.

WAS IT THE CZAR?

Meantime we had seen a sight which led us to believe that His Majesty the Czar, or one of his Imperial family, was actually honouring our little squadron by a minute inspection. Perhaps he was thinking how much better they would look if they were all assembled to run for a marine Cesarewitch. It might, indeed, have been after all only a Governor of Cherson whom we saw, but there certainly did appear, on the east bank of the Bug, about mid-day, some great man on a big, black horse, followed by ten or twelve mounted officers, and some few orderlies. This august personage rode over to the Cossack post, dismounted, and honoured us, through his glass, by a good look, which he interrupted from time to time by a few words to those around him. Presently a Cossack came galloping across the steppe at full speed, to the group of cavaliers. He dismounted, and walking to the surveyor of our navy, knelt down, and appeared to kiss his feet, as he handed him a despatch. The great man read the missive, mounted his horse, and, followed by his suite, rode off to a neighbouring post. The next time we saw him he was visiting the Cossack post higher up the river, after which he proceeded along the road towards Nicholaieff. Some time after the French boats had returned, the English gun-boats came in sight. They all came back, having disturbed immense quantities of wildfowl, which have frequented the banks of the Borysthenes since remotest history. The vessels anchored in their old place, and Admiral Stewart left the Cracker, and went on board the Stromboli. At night strict watch was kept. Fire-ships are not much to be feared by steamers, but still the wind was strong down from Nicholaieff, and the Russians might attempt something. Look-out men, sentinels, and loaded carronades were placed fore and aft, and with these precautions we went to sleep—in the waters, for the time being, of Her Majesty the Queen and of His Imperial Majesty Louis Napoleon.

On October 22 the wind chopped round and blew up the Bug. At ten o'clock A.M., Admiral Stewart went on board the Spitfire, and proceeded southwards, towards Kinburn Spit, to look out for the expeditionary column. Fires were still blazing along the horizon. As he bore away, a French gun-boat came with a despatch from Admiral Pellion, which politely placed at the disposal of Sir Houston Stewart several chaloupes cannonières lying off the mouth of the Dnieper, in case he felt inclined to destroy certain large boats on the beach below Stanislaff. As the Spitfire was forging ahead, the little Danube, with an admiral's flag, red at the mizen, was seen on the horizon. It could be no other than Sir Edmund Lyons. The echo of the guns, and the distant scent of gunpowder, had enticed him into our waters to see what was going on. Sir Houston Stewart, Captain Spratt, Commander Cowper Coles, went on board the Danube, which, accompanied by the Spitfire, immediately steamed towards Kinburn Spit. They got within half a mile of the marais, which binds the coast with a belt of long deep rushes, but not a soldier was visible, with the exception of one solitary Cossack. There were some traces of the troops at Skadovska, about thirteen miles from Kinburn, for black columns of smoke rose up from the Spit in that direction. But the reconnaissance failed in detecting the line of march of the troops or in opening communications with them.

At 2.30 P.M. the Admirals returned from their cruise, and stood in towards Stanislaff. As they approached, it was clear the enemy thought two British Admirals did not fly their flags together for nothing. A strong body of infantry was drawn up on the heights among the houses, lest the admirals and post-captains should land and take Stanislaff by assault, or the Danube and Spitfire attempt to bombard the place. A very considerable force of field-artillery was stationed in the rear. The Russians had erected a solid, compact-looking sand battery with five embrasures, on the sand-bank below the town, where no trace of such a work existed twenty-four hours previously. The Admirals having taken a good look at the place, now parted company; Sir E. Lyons returned in the Danube to the fleet, and Sir H. Stewart steamed away in the Spitfire to the anchorage of the Bug, and afterwards went on board the Stromboli.

The reconnaissance burned all the stores and houses which could render service to the enemy for seven or eight miles towards Cherson. Ere we left we discovered two large rafts of wood concealed in the rushes off the mouth of the Dnieper.

Sir Edmund Lyons presented one of the rafts to the French—an act of courtesy and consideration which our Allies estimated at its full value. Their dimensions were as follows:—The first 420 feet long by 63 feet wide, and six feet deep. The second, nearly the same length as the first, 54 feet broad; it grounded in eight feet water. At a rough calculation the two rafts contain 90,000 cubic feet of the finest timber, and the present made by the English fleet to the French, through our Commander-in-Chief, cannot be estimated at a lower value than £20,000; at least if the timber was in England, it would be well worth the money, for the majority of the balks, spars, and centre pieces composing it are of the very finest white oak.

The dockyards of Nicholaieff are supplied with timber and wood from the Government of Ligtewski, which contains several large forests of fine trees. These are situated chiefly in the neighbourhood of Minsk, Mohilev, and Vitebsk. The wood is floated down the Dnieper to Cherson in rafts firmly clamped and bound together, with strong and substantial huts upon them for the navigators. Each raft is generally composed of 4,000 large trunks of oak-trees, which are covered with knees and smaller pieces roughly shaped after drawings and instructions sent to the cutters. This is done, that the timber may be made available at once for use in the dockyards. After being floated as far as the current will take them down the Dnieper, they are met by the Government steamers outside or inside the bar off the mouths of that river, and thus towed up to Nicholaieff. Some small steamers must be kept at Nicholaieff, at all events at this moment, but they have never stirred, nor have we seen any traces of them in the Bug. Cherson was the great ship-building and maritime yard for the Black Sea fleet in former days, but the difficulty of building large ships there, or rather of getting them away when once they were built, on account of the shallowness of the water on the bar of the Dnieper, forced the Russian Government to remove their establishments to Nicholaieff, on the confluence of the Bug and of the Ingul. The bar of the Bug has a depth of eighteen or nineteen feet; the bar of the Dnieper has only eight feet water upon it in ordinary seasons. The ships of the line are built at Nicholaieff, but it is not improbable that small vessels and frigates of light draught may still be constructed at Cherson. The arsenal at Nicholaieff is very extensive, but its principal supplies of timber came from the Dnieper, and the loss of these two rafts will be no inconsiderable injury. Fine oak timber such as they contain is very dear and scarce in Russia. The timber in the casemated Spit Battery, and the expense of erecting it, came to no less a sum than 45,000 silver roubles, or £7,500 English currency.

DEFENCE OF KINBURN.