Page:The invasion of the Crimea Vol. 3.djvu/30

 r. 4 BATTLE OF THE ALMA. CHAP, the abrupt cliaracter which marks the West Cliff. They are steep, but both towards the river and towards the east they are much broken up into knolls, ridges, hollows, and gullies. At all points they can be ascended by a man on foot, and at some l)y waggons. These steep sides of the Telegraph Height are divided from the river by a low and almost flat ledge with a varying breadth of from two to six hundred yards. The ledge was a good deal wooded at the time of the war, and on some parts of it there were vineyards or orchards. To the east of the Telegraph Height the trend- ing away of the hills leaves a hollow or recess, so formed and so placed that its surface might be likened to a huge vine-leaf — a vine-leaf placed on a gentle incline, with its lower edge on the river, its stem at the bridge, and its main fibre following the course of the great road which bends up over the hill towards Sebastopol. This opening in the hills is the main Pass ; and through it (as might be gathered from what has just been said) the Causeway or great post-road goes up, after cross- ing the bridge.* At right-angles to the line of the Pass, and crossing it at a distance of a few yards from the bridge, there are small natural mounds or risings of ground, having their tops at a height of about sixty feet above the level of the river. These are so ranged as to form, one with the example of one whom I regard as a great master of the diction applicable to military suhjects ; but it is not, of course, meant llmt there is anything at all Alpine in the character of this range of low hills— hills less than 400 feet hi''h.
 * In speaking of tliis opening as a 'Pass,' 1 have followed