Page:The invasion of the Crimea Vol. 8.djvu/42

 10 todleben's vast resources. chap, had not only all the ship's guns — some 1900 ' in number — not only the ammunition, the iron, the timbers, the cordage, the spars, the tanks, the canvas — all, in short, that a great fleet could need, with vast quantities of stone, already de- tached from the neighbouring rocks, but also the machinery, the implements, and the materials which had been in use for the ordinary business of the dockyards, or for quarrying stone on the Chersonese, or carrying on endless works in the port, whether formed by excavations, by em- bankments, or masonry, including amongst such resources the windlasses, the cranes, the gins, the levers, the engines of all kinds, by which Man enforces his dominion over things of huge bulk and weight, and that all these appliances were not only at the disposal of the defenders, but closely within their reach, coming apt to the hands of labourers who had long been accus- tomed to wield them.* "What, however, still re- mains to be shown is the strength in numbers of workmen which the besieged and the besiegers respectively could during this winter command for the purposes of defence or attack, as compared Whilst the suffering and hampered Allies means winch could employ workmen only by hundreds, ( 3 ) the Engineers Kussians kept engaged on their works an organ- could com- . . . mand. ised body of labourers with a varying strength of no less than from six to ten thousand ; t nor t Todleben, i. p. 514. The men were organised in two brigades.
 * Vol. iv. chap. iii.