and dockyard, round which a thriving and populous city had sprung up. The Generals of the Anglo-French forces soon ascertained by reconnaissance that they had not nearly men enough to invest the whole perimeter of the fortress, and at the same time to repel the attacks to be expected from the enemy’s field troops. All they could hope to accomplish was to pour upon one portion of the defences a fire so heavy as to become insupportable; and as the real power of the defence was obviously concentrated in the arsenals, stores, and barracks round the inner harbour, the Allies selected the southern works, those protecting the heart of the fortress, as the object of their first attack, and took up positions on the plateau between Balaclava and Sebastopol. Bounded on the north by the harbour, on the west and south by the sea, and on the east by the valley of the Tchernaya, the surface of this plateau, or “Upland” as the British termed it, was seamed by ravines which, beginning as mere depressions in the ground, grew deeper as they approached the fortress, finally becoming precipitous gorges, difficult for troops to cross. Close to the harbour the ground between these gorges rose into gentle elevations, crowned by works which, as soon as the Russians realised that the southern side of the fortress was threatened, were heavily armed and greatly strengthened. The largest of these ravines, dividing the plain from south to north, descended to the head of the inner harbour, and served as the boundary between the British on the right, and the French on the left of the besiegers’ line.