Page:The invasion of the Crimea vol. 2.djvu/348

 318 VOYAGE OF THE AEMADA CHAP. George Brown. Not long after daybreak the Caradoc neared Fort Constantine, aud then ap- proached the entrance to the harbour. It was a fair, bright morning, and the Sunday bells were ringing in the churches when Lord Eaglan first saw the great forts, and the ships, and the glitter- ing cupola'd town. Afterwards, the vessel being steered round off Cape Chersonesus, he could see two old Genoese forts, and ridges of hills dividing the great harbour from the southern coast of the peninsula, WJiat he looked on was for him fated ground, for the Genoese forts marked the inlet of Balaclava, and the ridges he saw were the ' heights ' before Sebastopol.' But the future lay hidden from his gaze. The Caradoc was now steered towards the north, and the officers on board her surveyed the mouths of the Belbek, the Katcha, the Alma, and the Bulganak, and the coast stretching thence to Eupatoria. Of the sites thus reconnoitred, General Canrobert thought the Katcha the one best fitted for a landing. Lord Eaglan entirely disapproved of the Katcha, and he did not at all like the ground at the mouths of the other rivers; but when, moving on in the Caradoc, he was off the part of the coast which lies six miles north of the Bulganak, he observed an extended tract of beach, which seemed to him to be the gj'ound for which the Allies were seeking. Without gener- ating a debate upon the subject, he nevertheless HechoosM elicited so much of the opinion of those around place. "' him as he deemed to be useful. Then he declared