The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser. — Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1855-07-03 00:00:00

;W Y SUPPLEMENT TO spP# gt nibrrp‘o,oi taut art!, rid AND GENERAL COMMERCIAL ADVERTISER, officer of note in the English service, accompanied Lord Durham, on his embassy to St. Petersburg, as far as Constantinople, where, joining Captain Drink water, of the English naval service, the two proceeded on a sort of quasi-secret service expedition in the regions referred to. At the period alluded to, there existed strong apprehensions on the part of the British Government as to sinister intentions against Turkey on the part of Russia ; and these two officers were deputed by Lord Palmerston to investigate the actual state of matters in the East. In the course of his tour of inspection, Lord De Ros visited all the ports on the Euxine, including the scenes of our present military and naval exploits. He thus describes ANAPA, KERTCII, AND THE STRAIT OF TENIKALE. Nov. 7th.—By daylight we found ourselves under Mount Caucasus, on the Circassian coast, and being to the southward of our course, we coasted upwards till we reached Anapa, which is a gloomy, desolate-looking place, like a fortified barrack yard, with extensive entrenchments, a great many guns, and a number of stacks of hay and grain, but not a vessel in the roadstead, nor any sign of trade or commerce, nor, indeed, anything of a port or harbour. After examining it as well as we could, considering the weather, which was dreadful, our steamer's head was turned westward. In the evening, we ran up the Straits of Yenical6, and are now at anchor in the port of Kertsch, a place of some commerce, with many vessels in the roads. Kertsch is remarkable for having been the seat of government of Mithridates, the famous King of Pontus, and one of the most inveterate and dangerous enemies of the Romans. Upon the hills above the town are seen a number of hillocks or ancient tumuli; in such as have been opened, many curious relics have been found, showing them to have been tombs of princes and warriors, but no tradition exists as to who they were or when they lived. A few days afterwards, he proceeded towards the south-west, where he visited and inspected, with con siderable care, the o' I • 4 1, hk o , I 7 1 - E TV S • ~,., arr e 4 4" 41 1ee,,„ 8 ° P th. -- , . Adventures of the • olt ~,',',. 11, , .ara zn ; or, '4 ' l l3l .' Geol. W. Thornburg . London: , 1 . ,„,_ ..„, e ' l / 4 tl 4 4 isto rl . 4 Eett. ,hi le . of th e „ kach Yea r Buccaneers is a work which, in hns4lsl,,lboA°,._f our youth, was wont to be in f 1 , ) ,721t0 ea b t . L'ands ; and from its pages have t L' , lu;`,„ e its I„, e 'l the model of many a hero's . prot ' k . 'ilk'' ` 4ze s of wildadventure , ata ll ,„ L . Nv have, without ~ 4 ~ttit , , ee t va '.' a ni gh-spirited though gentle youth_ '.° et% of haPpy circle of a rural hearth to 'Pld ,7 the deep, and in some instances, it ' I ll qj, WI, t 1) 0 , 5 "' ° , r isk, if n' ot to incur , the taint of 11 4 1 4 4 kr, with all its fascinations, seems to ./), Iv , kz,r 4 tst o 4 l l 4? il ' il Y j and to be forgotten. In the three t ail." ,ter consideration Mr. Thornbury 1 '4 o ltke „" 4 , ked himself to a 'higher enterprise, i ; L N 111,:ttilin the limits of sober history a tt,nr, nee 5e exploits which border quite as much 't' l 4 4 l7 et wv , to have connexion with the domain 1 , lil e i t Which are nevertheless not more removed l ‘ , ll\, i rktr ait s of the latter than the highly-embe - l h . 1 14 . 1 )4 Of ( 1! 1 ,° 1 a court limner are separated from ' ) 1 ,,1ii 5 '4, loksc'illeative art. Both are exaggerations ;.1 o°B4 1 the truth, although the deviations a l it' ( l o r sections. The historian of such is , ' 44 si zeh a fraternity becomes almost of_ c Sit,ellithusiast. The deeds of daring, though ,0t R Mth treachery and deeply stained with t s .,:t i t 4 li t e . kOst revolting character, were also ik t l i ended yp of self-denial ~$ r harecorded of the heroic ages. To say that •ik . 4k 04 not succeeded in making his work an , k i sz ble 4 , to the mo re f ast i d i ous class of readers, pZik Zion of that author's merits tto say, ,til t tiv, l ,,,,of it with truth, that he has pruned kat! to .- i l l ' 4 alay of its most odious features, and tiac, q 73p, % tublic the picture of a community rriblir.",tak4'leet of study, is to bestow on him be rears txekeunt of praise ; and that b r o i c vvid', With re tled himself to. Th? t .7, Ilot . , a , Slir - ),,,,, rev i th . e and with profit ; its pictures ''' 4 of ---,_° NIY, painted. i:it . a r on 0,,, /84644,- : ci fil the Principalities, Crimea, lMter 35 -6. bicteent to the Black Sea In rite t d and s '-'3 7 Lord De Ros. London : J. W. .. Ntl ist °i. ' , litibi ls koli4 t o g th e titof l i e d, 6 • number of books which have ie ' th ' r ing a reference to the countries Zit' it w i n e, little volum e of which the above is ' W 4 ' de e d 4- I Qear withfavourable comparison with . 4 4, 1 ' 4 1 , 11 8e i,,.. any of them. It is a plain, n k34'. Itllidc : — ` ll al of a tour, made twenty years t No vidual competent to observe, and fiF 11' 4 Nre°°d' oPPortunities of doing so ; but' its colleeted without any view to publica- U rd, then Major De Ros, a cavalry F , d o ifjy ~•. ~~ l ' ,` ~.. TOWN AND FORTIFICATIONS OF SEBASTOPOL. Nov. 13th.—We went on shore very early to Colonel Semenow's, and actually found him getting ready (nobody is ever ready here except for dinner),. and 31dRe. Rosen's horse saddled in the yard, with another for Drinkwater. We sallied forth in the wind and rain, and went over the whole of the lines, from some points of which there are beautiful views of the harbour and roads. The roadstead, or great harbour of Sebastopol, is formed by the little river Omen, or Tchernaya, which, running down in a westerly direction from Inkerman, expands, at about four miles from the sea, into a large and deep creek, sheltered by high land, and capable of containing a numerous fleet. The southern shore of the roadstead is (commencing from its entrance) indented by several lesser creeks, between which are high ridges, or tongues of land, sloping down to the water's edge, and ending in low points. At the point of the first, or westernmost ridge, as you enter the roadstead, is placed the Alexander Battery, with barracks on the high ground behind it. The second ridge is occupied by the town of Sebastopol, and rises up to a considerable height with regular streets to the telegraph, a little above which it ter minates abruptly with a deep ravine, at the bottom of which is the lagoon at the head of the south harbour. The point of the third ridge is called Paul's Point. The bay (a small one) between the Alexander Battery and the town is called Artillery Bay, on the town shore of which are the barracks of the artillery. Between the town and Paul's Point, the south harbour as it is termed, runs inland the whole length of the town , which overlooks it all the way. This south harbour has again a small inlet just within Paul's Point, which is called the Ship's Bay. The general plan of the land fortification of Sebastopol is to embrace with a single line of entrenchment, with redoubts at seven or eight of the most commanding angles, the great ridge of land upon which Sebastopol is built, together with the adjacent harbour, barracks, and public works ! In pursuance of this view, the line of entrenchment com mences with the Alexander Battery, on the point of the western ridge, at the entrance of the great harbour. From thence it runs, with a wide sweep to the southward, along the commanding crest of the high ground behind Artillery Bay, till it crosses the head of the inner harbour, where that inlet becomes merely a shallow lake. To have included it with the deep valley in which it terminates within the lines would have extended them too much, so the work is carried across the water by a fortified causeway a good distance above the shipping, and up the other bank, where, continuing over the height, it terminates in a battery upon the shore of the outer harbour, close to the new aqueduct, constructed by Mr. Upton, for bringing water from Inkerman. to Sebastopol. The book contains much shrewd observation, dis played without ostentation, and arranged with great practical sagacity. In more places than one he ex presses disapprobation of that false liberalism, which enabled foreign nations generally, and Russia in parti cicular, to become minutely familiar with the contents and management of our arsenals and dockyards, our fortresses and military stations, and the exact extent of our naval and military armaments. In one portion of his journal, he minutely describes a foreign officer being instructed in seamanship on board an English man-of-war, and, with proper disapprobation of such a proceeding, concludes,—" I must say I cannot dis cover the advantages of instructing other nations in our practical seamanship, merely because we happen to be at peace with them at the present time." Of course no one could discover the advantage to Britain of such a line of tuition ; but it is not impossible that some of the pro-Russian faction, which is scattered here and there in English society, may now be able to point out the benefits we have obtained in return for such Quixotic liberality. The History of England from the Invasion of Julius Ccesar to the Accession of Queen Victoria. By Hume and Smollett, with a continuation by the Rev. T. S. Hughes. London : George Bell. This handsome cabinet edition of the great English History has now reached its sixteenth volume, the fifteenth bringing the work down to the year 1809. It continues to be got up with spirit and taste ; is accurately and beautifully printed, and, notwithstand ing that it is copiously illustrated by high-class en gravings, it is published at a remarkably low price; Land, Labour, and Gold ; or, Two Years in Vic toria. With Visits to Sydney and Van Diemen's Land. By W. Howitt. London: Longman and Co. Nearly'all the world has of late years heard less or more of William Howitt, and not a few will remember, with feelings the reverse of gratifying, the intense and_ virulent, some said the discreditable part, which an in dividual bearing that name took in respect to the property in a periodical called the " People's Journal," a work which was conducted with considerable spirit, and claimed to teach the people all manner of public and private virtue. A difference occurred in reference to the pecuniary affairs of the periodical, and then the virtues of self-denial, meek and long-enduring charity, and brotherly love, appeared to receive such a read ing as our remote ancestors believed those fabulous creatures " The Witches" bestowed on their prayers. In this unseemly dispute, the name of William Howitt figured somewhat prominently, and at its conclusion the name, like the last Pleiade, shot suddenly out of the reach of human vision, and was lost to memory. Some said the individual bearing it had migrated, and, in the present instance, a book appearing under the name of one so circumstanced, leads not unnaturally to the conclusion that it may have been written by him ; and, in the belief that such may, be the case, we have undertaken its perusal with the caution called for in examining the testimony of a witness who had himself created a prejudice against its value. The pictures of society presented by Mr. Howitt lead to very unprepossessing impressions of the pre sent condition of that land to which so many thou sands of our enterprising countrymen have flocked of late years ; and in which so many of them have en countered only bitter disappointment and a lingering death. Still, with all its drawbacks of moral turpi tude—its illustrations of individual defeat of purpose —and its black catalogue of crime, Mr. Howitt sees in it a land of present plenty and of future hopes, He is eloquent in denouncing the improvidence which besets and accompanies too many of the emigrants, who, stimulated by exaggerated hope of fortune at the " Gold-fields," exhibit a woeful amount of apathy in qFIELDSAGAIAr* -411P414 ARE IN THE ..__ Ti lt 114 .. 41 .01Yer a are i n the fields again, O4lllight's on the grass, Itkra's bloom flings a perfume i 3 Pii.NSS as we pass ; Of i j t " t ; ti ts of beds and flowers, Akt eSad ie 4 .44tIa changeful world of ours , 44t h of Paradise. +het, padweri are in the fields again, clouds and sto torms have P Y ve Riven ii , ay b. - ighter day 33s 9 . „.. I to ._ y. 41 IS IS 44 at last ; Tl at 14 o, twill be th rough life's career, :4°, gloo m, and pain, kmqstil,ißver shning neav i ,. '''''....'"••,,,....e: i win come again.