Page:The invasion of the Crimea Vol 6.djvu/111

 THE MAIN FIGHT. 67 of the English Heights,* and thence slopes down chap. to the isthmus. ' In the centre of Mount Inkerman, Shell Hill siieiiHiiL lifts its peak to a height of nearly 600 feet above the sea-level ; and, taken along with the rib shooting out on each side, it offers a spacious and commanding site for the establishment of field- batteries: but also the conformation of the ground is such that if the disposers of ordnance brought up from the north should desire, when in action, to refuse their right, they might bend off that part of their artillery line along the crest of West Jut — a less advanced rib of high ground — and in that case they would have for their guns a front of no less than a mile. This Shell Hill, with its juts, east and west, was the range of heights destined to be seized by the Eussians at the very outset of the fight, and to give them the means of at once opening a destructive fire from batteries well covered towards each flank by ravines. As a first stepping-stone to victory. Shell Hill was of infinite M'orth ; but the very excellence of the position was what, in diabolology, has often been called a 'snare,' for it tended to affect the dis- posers of the Russian artillery with a dangerous contentment, ill befitting the design of the enter- prise.-f- i.e., at 'Mount Head'— 636 feet. t General de Todleben's opinion is that the Russian artillery gravely injured the prospects of the enterprise by remaining stationary on Shell Hill instead of pushing on to more advanced positions, and thns bearing forward the weight of battle.
 * 614 feet at the centre. At the northernmost extremity—