Page:The invasion of the Crimea Vol. 4.djvu/344

314 THE CANNONADE 0¥ CHAP. Kussians had hitherto seemed so equal as to J. L_ disappoint the reckoning of the great Eussian Engineer; fur Todleben's idea of overwhelming the batteries on Mount Eodolph by a mightier and more embracing array of ordnance - power had been baffled, as yet, by the prowess of the French artillerymen ; and also, it would seem, by the obstinacy with which the Eussian seamen still clung to their favourite notion of constantly firinjT in ' broadsides.' The frontinf^ walls of the cazeru at the gorge of the Central, and the one at the gorge of the Land Quarantine Bastions, were in some places destroyed, in others, grievously injured ; and, the parapet of that last cazern being also destroyed, the five guns ranged behind it were soon reduced to silence. Also, the lower part of the town wall was a good deal damaged, and in some places broken through, by the French shot. Moreover, tiiere were some of the Eussian bat- teries opposed to the French, in which a large proportion of the gunners originally serving the guns had already been killed or wounded, and replaced by fresh combatants. But if the strife of great guns between the French and the Eussians was thus for a while almost equal, it was otherwise with the conflict of artillery-power going on in the Karabel faubourg ; for there, the besiegers were obtaining the ascen- dant. With all his skill and all the resources at his command, Todleben, as we saw, had failed to provide sufficing means to counteract the two Eufilish Attacks. Before the first hour of the