Page:The invasion of the Crimea Vol. 9.djvu/257

 HIS DEFENCE OF SEBASTOPOL. 227 wholly free to receive all the succours that Russia chap. . VIII. might send him, he had no exhaustion to fear, L except indeed such an exhaustion affecting Russia herself as would prevent her furnishing means for the continued defence of the fortress. The garrison holding Sebastopol, and made, one may say inexhaustible by constant reinforcement, used in general to have such a strength as the Russians themselves thought well fitted for the defence of the fortress ; and, if they did not aug- ment it, this was simply because greater numbers for service required behind ramparts would have increased the exacted sacrifices, without doing proportionate good. But in truth — because constantly drawing fresh accessions of strength from the rear — this pecu- liarly circumstanced garrison represented both a power and a sacrifice that could not be measured by merely counting its numbers at any one given time. The force was so privileged as to be ex- empt from the weakness of armies with dwindling numbers. The garrison was ever young, ever strong, ever equal in numbers to what were con- sidered its needs. It was constantly indeed send- ing off great numbers of men sick and wounded to hospitals over the Roadstead, and was always contributing largely to ' the grave of the hundred • thousand ' in the Severnaya ; * but the wounded, (sanctified by a church) called grandly by Russians 'the tomb ' of the hundred thousand.' The real number of sailors and soldiers sacrificed at Sebastopol, and laid in this ' tomb ' waa
 * On the Severnaya, or North Side, there is a sepulchre