The Sun.
London, England, 1855-10-08 00:00:00

her, which Prince Mentschikoff alleged to be the inciting
cause of the atrocities committed by the Russian soldiers
on the allied wounded during the early part of the siege ;
and certainly, from the present aspect and condition 'of
the edifice, the Muscovite indignation was not without
cause. I had first seen the church from the parapet of
the Quarantine batteries within the town, and from
that point its pretty altar-dome and steeple, partly hidden
by the blow of the intervening hill, and shaded, too, by
the mulberry and other trees in which it lay emboss?med,
struck me at once as being the must picturesque sight I
had anywhere met with in the neighbourhood of Sebas•
topol. Itieeead of dispelling this impression, a nearer
inspection only served to confirm it.
The church stands nearly in the centre of an enclosed
graveyard of some 15 or 20 acres in extent, and which
occupies nearly two-thirds of the valley within which
the little temple is situated. Tombs, graven, and en-
closed family vaults cluster round it as thickly as they
can be ; and over each is some sculptured slab or other
monumental covering, bearing inscripflons in Russian to
the memory of the buried ones beneaN Black wooden
crosses of a triangular shape also rise out of the tops of
more than three-fourths of the entire graves within the
.cemetery ; those which have them not being surmounted
by green or white marble ones instead. Broken pillars,
vases, sarcophagi, and all the other usual forms of se-
pulchral monument, are thickly scattered over the place,
and serve, with the interclustering trees, to complete
the prettiest picture of graveyard scenery I have seen
anywhere in the East. But even this beautiful and
consecrated spot has not escaped the destruction
which the siege and Lie operations have brought upon
everything in and around the captured town.
Crosses, tombstones, and monumental sculptures lie
around on. all hands, overthrown and shattered by
shot and shell, which in this instance, however, must
have come from friendly guns. During the earlier. ope-
eations a the siege this valley lay in frozstaoL4he.izeitiethe
batteries, and received whatever shot and shell from the
town fell short of the French works, whilst latterly it
caught those which were aimed at, but passed over, the
advanced batteries which our allies had thrown up be-
tween it and the defending redoubts. -Thus, in either
case, its present battered condition is attributable to
Russian guns. The church itself is a small rectangular
building of about 40 feet by 15, and over its northern
(altar) end rises a small well-proportioned dome, painted
green on the outside, like all the Russo-Greek churches,
and surmounted by a large gilt ball and cross. At the
opposite extremity is the entrance porch, supported by a
simple row of white columns, which are carried round
each of the two adjacent corners of the building for about
ten feet. Through the centre of this rises a square bell-
tower, from which again springs a graceful needle-like
spire painted a bright green, like the dome behind, and,
like it too, terminating in a golden ball and cross. Each
of the side walls, I may add, is pierced with four win-
dows and an entrance door in the centre, and the whole
is roofed in with sheet lead or iron, painted of the same
sacred colour as the cupola and spire. So much for the
exterior of the building. Its interior, I need hardly
remark, has long been rifled and stripped of everything
which French rapacity could covet, or French violence
remove. Even of the very flooring planks some have
been torn up and carried away, whilst every altar fitting,
or other piece of fixed or moveable furniture, has shared
the same fate. The very doors have been wrenched off
their hinges, and born away by the plundering Zouaves,
Chasseurs, or other drilled Vanddls of the Armee
d'Orient, in whom the instinct of pillage had extinguished
every spark of reverence for the temples of a faith which
differs but little from their own. The walls are covered
with frescoes of saints, angels, and other the usual subjects
of ecclesiastical decoration, over and between which are
scrawled in chalk the names of French visitors, and other
inscriptions as destitute of the intended wit as of corn-
mon decency. On the wall of the large semi-circular
recess which formed the altar is a very fine fresco paint-
ing of the Crucifixion ; but even it had not escaped
the desecration with which the mitred members of the
canon had been defaced, names and jeu d'esprits being in
like manner traced all over its really well painted sur-
face. Above this, where the wall curves towards the
roof, a group, representing a throned Jehovah, sur-
rounded by crowned apostles and martyrs, has been
more fortunate ; but it owes its escape, lam confident,
rather to its elevation than to any respectful consider.
ation on the part of those who have defaced and dese-
crated all within reach below. Even while I was in the
building a couple of red-breeched Goths were tugging
away at a solitary window-frame, which had pro-
bably not been thought worth the trouble of deporta-
tion by previous pillagers. Outside, too, amongst
the tombs, I saw another pair employed in tearing
down some iron railing which had enclosed a small
family burying plot, and a few minutes later one of
the scoundrels came to me offering for sale a neatly de-
signed wire stand, which had supported a broken vase
in the centre of the enclosure. Verily, with the best
possible disposition to admire and praise our allies, I am
sometimes compelled to yield for a moment to a very
different class of feelings, and believe that, with all our
roughness of mariner, our civilisation is in same respects
a century ahead of theirs. War has horrors enough, in all
conscience, without any enhancement of its terrible
fruits, from the indulgence of a vandalic rapacity and love
of ruin. I finally left this desolated but still picturesque
spot by a breach in the enclosing wall made by cannon
shot or shell, and returned to our own lines over the net•
work of ditches and earthworks which formed the
trenches of the French left attack.
Tee three days which have passed since the departure
of the last mail have been almost utterly unproductive
of anything in the shape of local news—the rumour of a
movement towards Eupatoria remaining in eatu quo,
unrealised or undisproved. The weather, in the mean-
time, has been unusually fine, and suitable for any ope-
rations that could be undertaken. On the whole, the gene-
ral opinion is setting in in favour of the belief that the
old game of delay and hesitation is to he played again,
and that, excepting whatever resultless "demonstration"
the small French force lately despatched to Eupatoria
may make, the main body of the allied armies will do
nothing more till spring. In the first gush of our recent
triumph everybody believed in and talked of some rapid
movement which would put the top stone on the fabric
of the past campaign's success ; but as days and weeks
wear by without any sign of this occurring, we are be-
ginning to prepare for a long wintry interval of apathetic
idleness and ennui. The French, to be sure, continue
their partial shelling of the north side, to which the
enemy replies with shot for shot ; but this can conduce
little to the advancement of the grand end in view—that
of driving them from their new and sufficiently strong
position.

We have already garrisoned our portion of the town
—the Admiralty, with its adjacent buildings—with a
body of troops, a service which is to be taken in turn by
each of the regiments in front. I regret to report that
a shot from one of the batteries on the north side fell
into these new quarters a few nights ago, and killed a
couple of men of the 3d Buffs, who happened to ho the
regiment that then supplied the occupying detachment.
M. Soyer, I am also sorry to have occasion to men-
tion, has been seriously ill for the last ten days with a
bad attack of fever, and is yet confined to his tent. The
chef had intended to have left ere this for England, to
complete his arrangements for the carrying on of his
winter culinary campaign here ; but this severe indispo-
sition has knocked all his arrangements thus far on the
head.