The Press.
London, England, 1855-06-23 00:00:00

THE PRESS.

gives has been previously known to us through
the pages of Haxthausen, Tegoborski, and
other writers, but the compilation is judicious
and especially welcome at the present mo-

went.

From the details given here a good notion
may be formed of the great importance of our
conquests in the Sea of Azof

The military stores and provisions for Sebastopol come
from the interior of Great Russia and Siberia, down the
Volga and Don to Rostof, on the Sea of Azof, whence in
peace they were shipped, and passed through the Straits of
Kertch, the whole way by sea to Sebastopol and the other
fortresses on the Black Sea. Since the war began they
have come, as usual, down the Don and across the Sea of
Azof, but instead of passing through the Straits of Kertch
they have been landed near Cape Kazantip, on the coast
of Crimea, within the Sea of Azof, and thence were
carried across Crimea about 100 miles to Sebastopol,
during the whole time of the siege, till the Sea of Azof
froze in November last.

• • • •
•
Thus continual supplies were poured into Sebastopol up
to last November, the period of the freezing of the Sea of
Azof ; and since that time the stores for Sebastopol have
probably been carried across the ice to some point on the
northern shore of the Azof, and thence by land over the
isthmus of Perekop. Had the latter place been occupied,
it would have been easy to have taken possession of the
Strait of Yenitchi, and to have commanded the tongue of
Arabate. Indeed, as I have mentioned in another place,
there is deep water (24 feet) along the Arabate, on the side
of the Azof, and a few gun-boats in the Sea of Azof would
have rendered the Arabate impassable to the Russians.
The Straits of Kertch were undefended up to May last; and
had possession of thew been taken by our Government,
and a very small force of gun-boats been placed in the Sea
of Azof, the' supplies might have been stopped, and the
Russians in Sebastopol reduced by this measure alone to
great difficulties. Not only the military stores but also the
rye-flour, for the troops at Sebastopol, is furnished from
Rostof.

In another place he writes that " Rostof is
" the key to all the trade of the Sea of Azof,
" and the south-eastern parts of the Russian
" empire." A glance at the map will show
that it lies some miles up the Don, and would
probably be found as incapable of defence as
Kertch. The allies it is to be hoped will pay a
visit to the ports of Azof and Rostof, as there
can be no surer mode of weakening the Rus-
sians in the Crimea than by cutting off their
supplies, nor of tiring the Government and
people with the war than by entirely checking
the trade of these ports.
The work of intercepting supplies from the
mainland on this side the Crimean peninsula
would still, however, be but half done, though
the loss of the magazines doubtless collected
in those ports would be severely felt. The
roads of the mainland would remain open for
the conveyance of Russian produce, which
could be brought into the Crimea by the main
road recently constructed bridging over por-
tions of the Putrid Sea. It remains to be
seen whether an expedition can penetrate
in boats through the Straits of Yenitehi.
The strait, Mr. Seymour writes, " is 129 yards
" wide, and 18 feet deep, but at the entrance
" there is only four-feet water." While this
road, connecting the Crimea with the main-
land, remains open on one side, and commu-
nication through Perekop is undisturbed on
the other, it is not likely that supplies will
fail the Russians, as the wide steppes between
the Dniester and the Don comprise some of
the finest soil in the world, and produce
amazing quantities of grain—so much so that
until the war broke out 'we had been accus-
tomed to consider the northern shores of the
Black Sea as our " bread-basket." Were it
practicable—as from a superficial view it
would seem—to effectually intercept supplies by
the two routes mentioned, that would appear
to be the easiest way of effecting the complete
subjugation of the Crimea, and of compelling
the surrender of army and fortress together,
as, cut off from the mainland, their supply of
food would fail, their guns would get worn out,
their ammunition exhausted, and their rein-
forcements be stopped.
Though Mr. Seymour's book is written in a
temperate spirit towards Russia, he clearly
shows the aggressive policy systematically
maintained by her Government since Peter
the Great. Only on the supposition of a great
scheme for the conquest of Europe can we
explain her immense accumulation of military
stores :--
We have found to our cost bow inexhaustible are the
stores of Sebastopol, and yet it is said that a still greater
amount is laid up in the chain of fortresses that have been
erected during the last twenty years on the German, and
particularly on the Prussian, frontier.

599

As the nations of Europe are fully occupied in their
own affairs, and as Russia is peculiarly inaccessible by na-
ture, she never could fear an invasion, and her armaments
roust therefore be looked upon as threatening her neigh-
bours. Besides, as will afterwards be seen, her army for
the internal service of the country is totally distinct from
the immense mass of men called the Grand Army, kept
hovering for many years past on the frontiers of Germany,
in a mobilised state, and ready to pour down its legions
upon any point at a moment's notice.

He writes in another place :
The possession of India, of the Mediterranean, and of
the Sound, were three principal objects of Peter the
Great's ambition. The Sound has been prospectively
guaranteed to Russia by the treaty which Lord Painterators
concluded three years ago, in which the reversion of the
Danish throne is secured to the Czar. Our present expf di-
tion to Sebastopol is to prevent her first step in the Medi-
terranean by the possession of Constantinople and the
Dardanelles. With respect to India, Russia has quietly
worked her way as far as the Sea of Aral, by advancing
♦illages of Cossacks, and digging wells every ten miles.
The English Government have for many years past been
remiss in noticing these aggressive measures, and even
now it is to be feared that our agents in Persia, whence we
act upon Central Asia, are not men fitted to oppose the
experienced and able agents of Russia, or to give us that
reasonable probability of success in our Eastern campaign
which proper measures might command.

But powerful while unchecked, Mr. Seymour
conceives that Russia must break down in the
present contest through want of both money
and men. His details on these points in his
eighth chapter are valuable. Her revenue at
present, he calculates, is not equal by several
millions to the expenses of her army and navy
alone, leaving all the expenses of the State
and the interest of her debt unprovided for.
So great is the waste of life in the Russian
armies, that the conscription is a fearful drain
on the people. He estimates that " 1,350,000
" have disappeared through the agency of the
" Russian army since 840." The average
duration of life in Russia he takes to be only
twenty years, while in London it is forty-three
years. He is too sanguine, however, in sup-
posing that it will be impossible for Russia to
carry on the war for six months longer. The
resources of a great power—and Russia is rich
in natural products—are not to be exhausted
so soon. Speculations on an early termina-
tion of the contest would but mislead us. The
war has assumed a new aspect, and it must be
waged till Russia is sufficiently weakened to
induce her to accept peace on terms which
will limit her power in the South, give to her
empire in that direction an express and will-
dettned frontier, and so prevent a continuants
of that aggressive policy which, preying espe-
cially on the Turkish provinces, and threaten-
ing to absorb Asia Minor, has brought her
too near to the States of Western Europe on
one side, and to our Indian empire ou the
other.
The history given of the Crimea is com-
plete, and we can particularly praise the por-
tion relating to its antiquity. The argument
to show that the wanderings of Ulysses in the
10th, I lth, and 12th books of the Odyssey were
on the coasts of the Black Sea, and not on
those of Italy and Sicily, is extremely inge-
nious. Mr. Seymour supposes the Ltestrigous
to have been the inhabitants of the Crimea.
Balaklava is identified as the port where
Ulysses met the daughter of Antiphates :
Within a long recess a bay there lies
Edged round with cliffs high pointing to the skies :
The jutting shores that swell on either side
Contract its mouth and break the rushing tide.
The rocks of Scylla and Charybdis, with
their whirlpools, are taken to be the " blue
Symplegades," at the entrance of the Bos-
phorus. Scholars will read this portion of
the work with pleasure, and the fulness of its
information on subjects which have become
the most engrossing of the day will no doubt
F secure for it welcome reception by the public.

Royal Hotel Guide. London : W. H. Smith.
THE third edition of this useful handbook to tra-
vellers still improves in all matters of detail upon its
previous issues. We have now a good list of conti-
nental hotels—many with their charges affixed—
which can be recommended to tourists. The advan-
tage of possessing such a guide is obvious, as it
enables the traveller to make his arrangements, and
calculate his expenses before setting out. There is
only one improvement we would recommend, which
is that the hotels should not be arranged alpha-
betically, but in that order of precedence to which
their station entitles them. All doubt would by this
means be removed from the mind as to the real posi-

tion of the hotel, which, under the present arrange-
ment, and especially with a similarity of charge, it is
impossible to decide.

Selections from the Best Italian Writers. For the
Use of Students of the Italian Language. By
J. P. Lacaita, LL.D. London : Longraans.

THIS selection will, no doubt., find a considerable
circulation. There is an ample variety in the speci-
mens chosen, both in prose and poetry; and the
compiler seems to have been, in this particular, more
fortunate than most of those who have undertaken
to do so much for the English language through its
classic writers. The arrangement is chronological ;
and we are disposed to agree with the author, that
selections from the drama, in a school reading-book,
even where its chief gems are chosen, prove un-
satisfactory to the schoolboy or learner, as indeed
they often do to the adept, from the impossibility of
conveying the story. The little work embraces the
aeries of Italian writers from 1182 to the present
time.

Stories in Verse. By Leigh Hunt. London:
Rout.ledge.

THIS pretty ♦olume is a collection of Leigh Hunt's
shorter stories, most of which are already familiar to
a multitude of readers. A new preface at consider-
able length has been added, dissertating upon
Chaucer, heroic verse, and the " musical element in
poetry," and an extract from the preface to Mr.
Moxen's edition in 1832, entitled " A Study in Versi-
fication," inculcating, like the former, the admira-
tion of Chaucer, and containing many acute and
judicious critical suggestions. This collection con-
tains " Rimini " and the " I'alfrey," with Chaucer's
fragment of "Cambus Khan" modernised; and
some new pieces in the old ballad style. The volume
is pretty within and without, and will no doubt com-
mand the railway circulati .n of which the poet, in a
playful preface, declares himself ambitious.

PUBLICATIONS RECEIVED.
BOOKS.

Th. Senses and the Intellect. Alexander Bain, . A.M.

J. W. Parker and Bon.
Genealogical and Heraldic Dictionary. Sir Bernard
Burke. Hurst and Blackett.
Salathicl, the Immortal. Rev. George Croly, LL.D. Do.
The Emigrant's Lost Son. Routledge.
Iphigenia at Delphi. A Tragedy. Rev. Archer Gurney.
Longmans.
1 Legitimate System of National Education. John Sibbald
Edwin. Rivingtons.
Smaller Latin• English Dictionary. W. Smith, LL.D.
Murray.
The Music Master. A Love Story. William Allingham.
Routledge.
Practical Sermons. G. W. 13rameld, M.A. Hope and Co.
Thomas Wilson. 1)e.
Blackstone. Abridged and Adapted to the Existing Law.
Samuel Warren. Maxwell.
Lands of the Slave and the Free. Hon. H. A. Murray.

J. W. Parker and Son.
Russia on the Black Sea and Sea of Asoff. With Maps.
11. D. Seymour, M.P. Murray.
The Epistles of St. Paul to the Thessalonians, Galatians,
Romans. Benjamin Jowett, M.A. Do.
Treatise on the Augustinian Doctrine of Precli."-
J. B. Mosley, B.D.
The Jealoue Wife. Miss Pardoe.

Do.
Hurst and Blackett.

Behool Atka qf Astronomy. A. Keith Johnston. Black-
_

wood and Sons.
General Gazetteer. A. K. Johnston, F.R.S.E., F.R.G.S.,
F.G.S. Longinans.
Woman is the Nineteenth Century. Margaret Fuller Ossoli.
Trubner and Co.
Dante's Divine Comedy. Notes on the Translation. By
C. B. Cayley, B.A. Longinans.
Hy Brother's Keeper. Routledge.
PAMPHLETS.
The Voice of Elijah.
The