We spent the evening in the hotel and on the cliff overlooking the harbor, and tried to imagine the scenes of twenty years ago.
“The rocket’s red glare and bombs bursting in air” have ceased over Sevastopol—let us hope for ever—and all was calm as though the spot had never known the horrors of war. The loquacious landlord told us many stories of the siege, and of the fortunes of Sevastopol before and since the war. “Now we are to have better times,” he said; “the railway will be completed next year, and we shall then have a line of steamers direct to Constantinople. Capitalists are coming here to start business, and we shall hope for commercial activity. The government has determined that Sevastopol shall rise again, and we feel sure that it will rise.”
Before the war the city had little short of thirty thousand inhabitants. Now it has about five thousand, but the number is slowly increasing. With a revival of business and a restoration of the naval dockyard, Sevastopol will resume its old activity and importance and become again the mistress of the Euxine. Her harbor is one of the finest in the world, and her geographical position renders it of great value.
The landlord escorted me to my room, and as he set the dripping and guttering candle on a rickety table, his loquacity continued:
“This,” said he, “is the room that was occupied by Kinglake, when he came here to study the siege of Sevastopol. He was a good fellow, and, when he left, he gave my daughter a new sovereign and she has kept it ever since. Of course you have read his history of the war? Many officers who come here say he has made some mistakes, but no man can be expected to get everything right.”
I went to sleep and dreamed of assaults on the Malakoff and Redan, and of the morning when the grey regiments which were Russia’s pride and glory burst through the pall of fog, and fell upon the unexpecting allies in their camp at Inkermann. Clash of steel, roll of musketry, and the diapason of artillery resounded through the night and made my slumber unrefreshing. I recalled the time when the whole civilized world turned its eyes upon the Crimea, and with what an electric thrill was received the announcement “Sevastopol has fallen!” And here in the city, where for many months the sounds of war were heard almost without cessation, all was now the stillness of a long peace. Waking, I could hardly realize that I was in Sevastopol. Sleeping, I lived again in the midst of the strife, and participated in the exciting events that have found a place in history.
In the morning we set out for Yalta in a carriage which we hired of an enterprising Tartar who demanded his pay in advance. He demanded and we refused, and the more he wanted his money on the spot the more he didn’t get it.
