guns to fire over to their steamers on the north side; for, they sank all their shipping except six steamers. In the morning as soon as they could see our battery, they set fire to and blew up four of those vessels, and so they have only two small ones left.”
“John Whyborn”
Of a still later date – namely Sept. 17th, another of Lieut Harkness’s interesting letters to his mother was written, and from which the following extracts are taken:- “I have been four or five times into the town. Out last furious bombardment seems to have reduced the enemy’s works to such a state as to be no longer tenable. It was with very great interest I examined the interior of the Redan and Malakoff works which have so long withstood us. We were all very much surprised at the tenacity with which they held on so long amidst such a mass of ruins. The labour it cost them must have been immense, to say nothing of their daily loss. Their bomb-proofs and magazines are splendidly constructed and of prodigious strength. The barracks are the finest I ever saw; the front towards the harbour is very handsome and all of white stone, but they are completely riddled by our shot and shell. The Russians left all their knapsacks behind them in their flight. In a fine bakery in the barracks we found heaps of fresh brown bread and dough ready mixed for baking. In the stores are soldiers clothing, helmets, oil-cake (which they eat), butter, corn, &c. The dry docks are also very fine, and a steamer is burnt in one of them. Fort Paul is blown up and is only a loose heap of rubbish in the water. The English have the Karabelnaia part of the town, where the docks and the stores are, and the French the large part of the left. The main street appears to have been fine, of which the fronts of some handsome buildings are standing. But there is not a window and scarcely a roof in the whole town, everything being burnt or otherwise destroyed. Barricades are thrown across the streets, and mounted with guns. There are hundreds of new guns in the arsenal. French bands play in the town every evening; I heard one commenced to play ‘God save the Queen’. The 3rd Buffs are as yet the only English regiment quartered in the town. We are sometimes on fatigue down there, clearing out stores, &c. Last Wednesday I had a horrible job. From ten till sunset I was engaged in burying dead Russians. They were found dead of their wounds by hundreds in the large magazines used as hospitals. Some must have been dead for weeks, and were in a most horrible state. My party of 50 men unloaded four carts, and buried in two large holes 284 bodies. Some of my men were sick and kept applying to my brandy flask. We seemed to have as bad a job as had the buriers in the Plague of London. Two sailors came to me yesterday, and announced themselves as Reeves and Philpott, Hastings men; the former a son of Reeves, the-
