10 THE ILAXK MARCH. CHAP, luivini/ willi liiiu his escort, rodu on alonrr the ' shoulder oi" the hill which there bulges out to- unfn^tssoo wards the west. When he stopped, he was at no separate "* great distaucc from the eastermost of those two san°""'"*" lighthouses which stand at the head of the bay.* Then the prize, for the winning of which the Allies had come over the seas, lay spread out be- fore him. Of such defences as there might be on the land side of the place he indeed could discern very little ; but, the day being bright, and the ground so commanding as to give him full scope for his survey, he looked all the way down the great roadstead from the east to the west, and even could mark where the waves were lapj^ing the booms at its entrance. He saw part of the fleet and the docks, the approaches of the man- of-war harbour, and the long-nurtured malice of the casemated batteries crouching down at the M'ater's edge. On the upland above the Severnaya or North Side, he saw the Star Fort now left behind and avoided, and on the South, the Kara- bel faubourg, with, beyond, the steep shining streets and the olive-green domes of Sebastopol. So glittered befure him what Eussians called fondly their Czar's ' priceless jewel.' f So opened under his gaze the field of a conflict approaching, and not destined to end whilst he lived. None foresaw, I believe, at the time, that the
- See hi.s position indicated Ly the letter R in the frontis-
piece Plan. t la a letter to Ids sovereign which he wrote iji contemplation of ' Inkerinan,' Prince Mentsehikolf gives to Sebastopol the ap- pellation of 'priceless jewel.'
