Page:The invasion of the Crimea Vol 6.djvu/116

 72 THE BATTLE OF INKERMAN. CHAP. VL The Post- road. The old track along che bed of the Quarry Ravine. great traius of artillery could well be dragged up the ravines. After, years before, bringing an aqueduct along the northern skirts of Mount Inkerman, and across the Careenage Ravine, Science did not then press on its conquest of natural obstacles by carrying a roadway in the same direction ; and even down to the outbreak of the war, it was only by fetch- ing an extravagant circuit along the Post-road, and travelling all round the ravine, that a man could pass with a carriage from Inkerman Bridge to Sebastopol. This still unaltered Post-road, after crossing Inkerman Bridge, begins the ascent of the Mount by entering the Volovia Gorge, but presently bends round into the jaws of a long, craggy, wind- ing defile called the Quarry Ravine, and climbs up along its left bank, keeping always on ground much higher than the bed of the watercourse. After coming up clear of the ravine to the open downs at its head, the line of way stretches south- wards under the front of the Fore Ridge, crosses over the Home Ridge, runs straight through the centre of what was Pennefather's camping-ground, goes on by the Isthmus to ground near the Wind- mill, and — being then at last clear of the Careen- age Ravine — turns off into the Woronzoff road. In old times, before skilled engineers had traced the line of the post-road, people threaded their way tlirough the Quarry Ravine by following the course of its bed, and the road then in use still existed at the time of the battle. There were