Anápa, that manufactory of arms for the robbers of the mountains, that bazar where are sold the tears, the blood, the sweat of Christian slaves, that torch of rebellion to the Caucasus--Anápa, I say, was, in 1808, invested by the Russian armies, on the sea and on the mountain side. The gun-boats, the bomb-vessels, and all the ships that could approach the shore, were thundering against the fortifications. The land army had passed the river which falls into the Black Sea, under the northern wall of Anápa, and was posted in swampy ground around the whole city. Then they constructed wooden trenches, hewing down, for that purpose, the surrounding forest. Every night new works arose nearer and nearer to the walls of the town. The interior of the houses flamed from the effects of the shells; the outer walls fell under the cannon-balls. But the Turkish garrison, reinforced by the mountaineers, fought desperately, made fierce sorties, and replied to all proposals for surrender by the shots of their artillery. Meanwhile the besiegers were incessantly harassed by the Kabardinétz skirmishers, and the foot-archers of Abazékhs, Shamsóukhs, Natoukháitzes, and other wild mountaineers of the shores of the Black Sea, assembled, like the jackals, in hope of plunder and blood. Against them it was necessary to erect redans; and this double work, performed under the fire of cannon from the fortress and from the forest, on irregular and boggy ground, delayed long the capture of the town. At length, on the eve of the taking of Anápa, the Russians opened a breaching-battery in a ravine on the south-east side of the town: its effect was tremendous. At the fifth volley the battlements and parapets were overthrown, the guns laid bare and beaten down. The balls, striking against the stone facing, flashed like lightning; and then, in a black cloud of dust, flew up fragments of shattered stone. The wall crumbled and fell to pieces; but the fortress, by the thickness of its walls, resisted long the shattering force of the iron; and the precipitous steepness of the ruins offered no opportunity for storming. For the heated guns, and for the weary artillerymen, worn out by incessant firing, repose was absolutely necessary. By degrees the firing from the batteries by land and sea began to slacken; thick clouds of smoke, floating from the shore, expanded over the waves, sometimes concealing, sometimes discovering, the flotilla. From time to time a ball of smoke flew up from the guns of the fortress, and after the rolling of the cannon-thunder, far echoing among the hills, a ball would whistle by at random. And now all was silent--all was still both in the interior of Anápa and in the trenches. Not one turban was seen between the battlements, not one carabineer's bayonet in the intrenchment. Only the Turkish banners on the towers, and the Russian ensign on board the ships, waved proudly in the air, now undimmed by a single stream of