Steam has been brought into satisfactory subjection in the _Novgorod_. The turret is controlled and the guns are operated by steam; steam propels the boat, and may be made to steer it. Very little hand labor is required, and the boat may carry fewer men than other war-ships of her capacity. She is built throughout in the strongest manner, and her constructors are very proud of her.
For harbor and coast defence they claim great advantages over the old style of war ships, and I was told that it was the intention of the government to build a considerable number of ships of the _Novgorod_ pattern. They were to be stationed at the ports of the Black Sea, and along the Baltic, and it was thought they could made things lively for a blockading squadron. The _Novgorod_ was of a hundred and the _Popofka_ a hundred and twenty-five feet diameter; whether the others would be of greater or less size I am unable to say. Other ships of war are to be constructed on the Black sea, and in course of time the Russians hope to bring their Black Sea fleet up to something { 103}like its old standard. The arsenal at Sevastopol is theoretically the property of the Russian Company of Navigation and Commerce, and contains their repair shops, but practically it is the property of the government, and will be more and more so as time rolls on.
We spent the evening in the hotel and on the cliff overlooking the harbor, and tried to imagine the scenes of twenty years ago.
“The rocket’s red glare and bombs bursting in air” have ceased over Sevastopol--let us hope for ever--and all was calm as though the spot had never known the horrors of war. The loquacious landlord told us many stories of the siege, and of the fortunes of Sevastopol before and since the war. “Now we are to have better times,” he said; “the railway will be completed next year, and we shall then have a line of steamers direct to Constantinople. Capitalists are coming here to start business, and we shall hope for commercial activity. The government has determined that Sevastopol shall rise again, and we feel sure that it _will_ rise.”
Before the war the city had little short of thirty thousand inhabitants. Now it has about five thousand, but the number is slowly increasing. With a revival of business and a restoration of the naval dockyard, Sevastopol will resume its old activity and importance and become again the mistress of the Euxine. Her harbor is one of the finest in the world, and her geographical position renders it of great value.