The Sun.
London, England, 1858-09-13 00:00:00

THE PRESENT 00.11-111T1 9N .OF
SEBASTOPOL. .
.:OF
. 7
A trustworthy correspontlent, in a letter dated
" Constantinople, Aug. 20,"0us deseribiis-the pre-
sent state of Sebastopol, regairding 'Mali: many
so
contradictory accounts have lately4ppelaed:4_
We have accomplished an excursion to the
Crimea, and were much gratified with it. Swebeahstao(i
pol was our head-quarters for a week,
so
plenty of time fully to examine tho various places
of interest in connection with the war. Everything
at present remains in very much the same state as
at the conclusion of the war. The town, which has
been a very fine one) is now but a scene of ruin and
desolation. The present population (reduced from
40.000 to 6,000) mostly live in the wooden huts
left by the British and French armies; some few
stone houses have been rebuilt, but very few, an d
of a very common sort. The magnificent docks
remain in the state of total ruin to which they were
reduced during the occupation of the town by
the allies, and heaps of stone are the only indi-
cations of the positions of the forts on the south
side of the harbour. But on the north side the forts
are in as efficient a state as ever, it being perfectly
ludicrous to observe how little damage they have
received from the bombardment given them by Lord
Lyons. The trenches, batteries, and other earth-
works remain as they were during'' the war, with
merely the slight alterations
caused by wind and
weather, and, even at this distance of time, cannon
balls, shot, powder, cans, broken pieces of shells,
&c., are found lying on the ground (especially in
the neighbourhood of the batteries) in such quanti-
ties as to keep men at work collectini, them for
their value as old iron, and taking them away by
cart-loads. Even whole unexploded shells are yet
occasionally to be met with. We fell in with one
the very day of our arrival ; but they are not plea-
sant things to meddle with, as they at times explode
with no very apparent good reason ; and an unfor-
tunate Eng'ish sailor was blown all to pieces a few
months ago by an accident of this sort. I remember
seeing some months ago in the Times some state-
ment to the effect that the graves in the Crimea
were not taken proper care of, but I must say I
came to quite a different conclusion. I visited most
of the English cemeteries at Balaklava, Inkermann,
and the Alma, as well as those nearer Sebastopol,
and with one exception did not see a single monu-
ment injured or defaced. The one and only excep-
tion is the ease of the obelisk erected by the British
army in front of the Redan, Which is mutilated by
divers visitors having cut their names in the
stone, and the inscription on it is also partly
defaced, very probably, I think, in some drunken
frolic. During our short residence among the
Russians, we found them all, whether rich or poor,
most civil and desirous of obliging us, and apparently
bearing us no on account of our country. In
the harbour of Sebastopol they are very. busily
employed, under the direction of an American, m
working with the sunken ships. They have relin-
quished all hope of getting up the large men-of-
war entire, and are now blowing them up, and so
getting them up piecemeal ; but with some of the
smaller craft they are more successful, and we saw
one small steamer that had been just raised when
we were there. It certainly looked a queer
affair ; but they said the wood was sound, and that
a few repairs would make the engines all right.
The steamer that took us from Constantinople to
Odessa, on our way to the-Crimea, had been sub-
merged for about a year and according to, the cap-
tain. (whose statement I receive with doubt) the
engines recommenced working without any repairs
being required."----Scotsman.