The British Expedition to the CrimeaRussell, William Howard, Sir
History
The British Expedition to the Crimea
Russell, William Howard, Sir
Crimean War, 1853-1856
A few words of command running through the toiling crowd--some blasts on
the bugle--and the regiments got together, steady and solid, with long
lines of bullock carts and buffalo arabas drawn up between them, and
commenced their march over the sandy slopes which led to the sea. There
lay the fleet of transports, anchored with their attendant steamers in
long lines, as close inshore as they could approach with safety. The
_Vesuvius_, steam sloop, Commander Powell, the _Simoom_ and the _Megæra_
troop ships (screw-steamers), sent in their boats to aid those of the
merchantmen and steamers in embarking the men and baggage, and Admiral
Boxer, aided by Captain Christie, Commander Powell, and Lieutenant
Rundle, R.N., superintended the arrangements for stowing away and
getting on board the little army, which consisted of about 6,500 men.
The morning was fine, but hot. The men were in excellent spirits, and as
they marched over the dusty plain to the landing-places, they were
greeted with repeated peals of cheering from the regiments of the other
division. The order and regularity with which they were got on board the
boats, and the safety and celerity with which they were
embarked--baggage, horses, women, and stores--were creditable to the
authorities, and to the discipline and good order of the men themselves,
both officers and privates.
No voyager or artist can do justice to the scenery of the Bosphorus. It
has much the character of a Norwegian fiord. Perhaps the rounded outline
of the hills, the light rich green of the vegetation, the luxuriance of
tree and flower and herbage, make it resemble more closely the banks of
Killarney or Windermere. The waters escaping from the Black Sea, in one
part compressed by swelling hillocks to a breadth of little more than a
mile, at another expanding into a sheet of four times that breadth, run
for thirteen miles in a blue flood, like the Rhone as it issues from the
Lake of Geneva, till they mingle with the Sea of Marmora, passing in
their course beautiful groupings of wood and dale, ravine and hill-side,
covered with the profusest carpeting of leaf and blade. Kiosk and
pleasure-ground, embrasured bastion and loopholed curtain, gay garden,
villa, mosque, and mansion, decorate the banks in unbroken lines from
the foot of the forts which command the entrance up to the crowning
glory of the scene, where the imperial city of Constantine, rising in
many-coloured terraces from the verge of the Golden Horn, confuses the
eye with masses of foliage, red roofs, divers-hued walls, and gables,
surmounted by a frieze of snow-white minarets with golden summits, and
by the symmetrical sweep of St. Sophia. The hills strike abruptly
upwards to heights varying from 200 feet to 600 feet, and are bounded at
the foot by quays, which run along the European side, almost without
interruption, from Pera to Bujukderé, about five miles from the Black
Sea. These quays are also very numerous on the Asiatic side.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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