CHAP. XXXVIII. Our ignor the coun try and of the enemy's strength. CHAPTER XXXVIII. CONCERNING the country which they were going Re to invade the Allies were poorly informed. Of Seance of bastopol, the goal of the enterprise, they knew little, except that it was a great military port and arsenal, and was deemed impregnable towards the sea. specting the province generally, it was known, by means of books and maps, that Crim Tartary, or "the Crimea," as people now called it, was a peninsula situate between the Black Sea and the Sea of Azof; and there was a theory - not perfectly coinciding with the truth that the only dry communication with the mainland was by the isthmus of Perekop. It was understood that the north of the peninsula had the character of an elevated steppe that towards the south it was rocky and mountainous and that the undulating downs which connected the steppe with the mountainous region of the south were seamed with small rivers flowing westward from the summits of the highland district. * It was * A great body of most valuable information respecting the Crimea had been imparted to the English public by General (then Colonel) Mackintosh, and the Colonel had also addressed important reports on XXXVIII. believed that the main of the inhabitants were Tartars, CHAP. men holding to the Moslem faith. Of the enemy's forces in this country, the Allies, in a sense, were ignorant; for although the information which had come round to them by the aid of the Foreign Office was in reality well founded, they did not believe at the time that they could at all rely upon it, and therefore they were nearly as much at fault as if they had had no clue. They knew, however, that the peninsula was a province of Russia that Russia was a great military power that, so long as three months ago, the invasion had been counselled in print and that afterwards the determination to undertake it had been given out aloud to the world. From these rudiments, and from what could be seen from the decks of the ships, they inferred that, either upon their landing, or on some part of the road between the landing-ground and Sebastopol, they would find the enemy in strength. to the the char an ad But beyond this little was known; and the ima- This gives gination of men was left to range so free that, expedition although they were in the midst of their "19th cen-acter of tury,” with all its prim facts and statistics, the enter- venture. prise took something of the character of adventure belonging to earlier ages. Common, sensible, fanciless men men wise with the cynic wisdom of London clubs were now by force turned into the same subject to the military authorities. What I intend to indicate in the text is, not that the means of knowledge were wanting, but that they had not been extensively taken advantage of. XXXVIII. CHAP. venturers, intent, as Argonauts of old, in gazing upon the shores of a strange land to which they were committing their lives. From many a crowded deck they strained their eyes to pierce the unknown. They could not see troops. They saw a road along the shore: now and then there appeared a peasant with a cart; now and then a horseman riding at full speed. Neither peasant nor horseman seemed ever to pause in his duty that he might cast a glance of wonder at the countless armada which was gathering in upon his country. At the northern end of the bay there was a bright little town: maps showed that this was Eupatoria. Оссира Eupatoria. At noon on the 13th the English fleet had drawn tion of near to this port of Eupatoria. There were no Russian forces there except a few convalescent soldiers; and the place being defenceless, Colonel Trochu and Colonel Steele, accompanied by Mr Calvert the interpreter, were despatched to summon it. The governor or head man of the place was an official personage in a high state of discipline. He had before his eyes the armed navies of the Allies, with the countless sails of their convoys; and to all that vast armament he had nothing to oppose except the forms of office. But to him the forms of office seemed all-sufficing, and on these he still calmly relied; so, when the summons was delivered, he insisted upon fumigating it according to the health regulations of the little port. When he understood that the Western Powers intended to land, he said that decidedly they might CHAP. necessary XXXVIII. do so; but he explained that it would be On the following day the place was occupied by a small body of English troops. The few Russian inhabitants of the place, being mainly or entirely official personages, had all gone away, but the Tartar inhabitants remained; and although these men did not exhibit, as some might have expected, any eager or zealous affection for the allies of the Caliph, they seemed inclined to be friendly. Thoughtful men cared deeply to know whether between these natives and the Allies the relation of buyer and seller could be established for it was of vital moment to the success of the expedition that the Allies should be able to obtain supplies of cattle and forage in the invaded country; and it was probable that much would turn upon the success of the first attempt to make purchases from the people of the country. The first experiment which was made in this direction elicited a curious proof of the difficulty which there is in causing mighty nations to act with the forethought of a single traveller. It was to be expected that, at the commencement of any attempted intercourse, the willingness of the natives to sell would depend upon their being tempted by the coins to which they were accustomed; because just at first they would not only be ignorant of the value of foreign money, but would also dread the consequence of being found in possession of coin plainly received XXXVIII. -- CHAP. from the invaders. Yet the precaution of bringing Russian money had been forgotten by the public authorities; and when Mr Hamilton of the Britannia was preparing to land, with a view of endeavouring to begin a buying-and-selling intercourse with the natives, he had nothing to offer except English sovereigns. It chanced, however, that there were two or three English travellers on board the flag-ship, and that these men (foreseeing the likelihood of their having to buy horses or make other purchases from the natives of the invaded country) had supplied themselves with some of the gold Russian coins called "half-imperials," which were to be obtained without difficulty at Constantinople. The travellers Sir Edward Colebrooke, I think, was one of them - advanced as many of these as they could spare to the public authorities; and Mr Hamilton being thus enabled to land with a small supply of the magic half-imperials, and being, besides, a good-tempered, humorous man, with a tendency to make cordial speeches in English to all his fellow-creatures alike, whether Russian, or Tartar, or Greek, he was able to make a merry beginning of that intercourse with the natives which was destined to become a fruitful source of strength to the Allied armies. The gains made by the first sellers soon drew fresh supplies into the place from the surrounding country; the commissariat afterwards began its operations in the town, and in time a good lasting market was opened to the invaders. |