Thanks to the fact that nowadays more and more books are digitized we are able to read books that are some times for decades no longer available for the public for several reasons. That's quite a pity while these books contains useful information while the archives are destroyed, incomplete or nor accessible. While visiting the Russian harbour and naval base Sevastopol Oliphant made the following remarks.
p. 255. ”As I stood upon the handsome stairs that lead down to the water's edge, I counted thirteen sail of the line anchored in the principal harbour. The newest of these, a noble three-decker, was lying within pistol shot of the quay. The average breadth of this inlet is one thousand yards; two creeks branch off from it, intersecting the town in a southerly direction, and containing steamers and smaller craft, besides a long row of hulks which have been converted into magazines or prison ships. The hard service which has reduced so many of the handsomest ships of the Russian navy to this condition, consists in lying for eight or ten years upon the sleeping bosom of the harbour. After the expiration of that period, their timbers, composed of fir or pinewood never properly seasoned, become perfectly rotten. This result is chiefly owing to inherent decay, and in. some degree to the ravages of a worm that abounds in the muddy waters of the Tchernoi Retcka, a stream which, traversing the valley of Inkerman, falls into the upper part of the main harbour. It is said that this pernicious insect—which is equally destructive in salt water as in fresh—costs the Russian government many thousands, and is one of the most serious obstacles to the formation of an efficient navy on the Black Sea.
p. 256: It is difficult to see, however, why this should be the case, if the ships are copper-bottomed ; and a more intimate acquaintance with the real state of matters would lead one to suspect that the attacks of the naval employes are more formidable to the coffers of the government than the attacks of this worm, which is used as a convenient scape-goat, when the present rotten state of the Black Sea fleet cannot otherwise be accounted for. In contradiction to this, we may be referred to the infinitely more efficient condition of the Baltic fleet; but that may arise rather from their proximity to headquarters than from the absence of the worm in the northern seas. The wages of the seamen are so low - about sixteen rubles a year - that it is not unnatural they should desire to increase so miserable a pittance by any means in their power. The consequence is, that from the members of the naval board to the boys that blow the smiths' bellows in the dockyard, everybody shares the spoils obtained by an elaborately devised system of plunder carried on somewhat in this way: A certain quantity of well-seasoned oak being required, government issues tenders for the supply of the requisite amount. A number of contractors submit their tenders to a board appointed for the purpose of receiving them, who are regulated in their choice of a contractor, not by the amount of his tender, but of his bribe. The fortunate individual selected immediately sub-contracts upon a somewhat similar principle. Arranging to be sup-
p. 257: plied with the timber for half the amount of his tender, the sub-contractor carries on the game, and perhaps the eighth link in this contracting chain is the man who, for an absurdly low figure, undertakes to produce the seasoned wood. His agents in the central provinces, accordingly, float a quantity of green pines and firs down the Dnieper and Bog to Nicholaeff, which are duly handed up to the head contractor, each man pocketing the difference between his contract and that of his neighbour. When the wood is produced before the board appointed to inspect it, another bribe seasons it, and the government, after paying the price of well-seasoned oak, is surprised that the 120 gunship, of which it has been built, is unfit for service in five years. The rich harvest that is reaped by those employed in building and fitting her up is as easily obtained; and to such an extent did the dockyard workmen trade in government stores, &c., that merchant vessels were for a long time prohibited from entering the harbour. I was not surprised, after obtaining this interesting description of Russian ingenuity, to learn that, out of the imposing array before us, there were only two ships in a condition to undertake a voyage round the Cape. If, therefore, in estimating the strength of the Russian navy, we deduct the ships which, for all practical purposes, are unseaworthy, it will appear that the Black Sea fleet, that standing bugbear of the
p. 258: unfortunate Porte, will dwindle into a force more in proportion to its limited sphere of action, and to the enemy which, in the absence of any other European power, it would encounter. There is no reason to suppose that the navy forms an exception to the rule, that all the great national institutions of Russia are artificial. The Emperor and the army are not to be regarded in that light, though the latter will doubtless be glad of an early opportunity of redeeming its character, which has been somewhat shaken by the unsatisfactory displays of prowess daily exhibited in the Caucasus, and the absurd misadventures of one of the divisions, which ultimately failed in taking part in the last Hungarian campaign, for lack of a properly organised commissariat. The greatest excitement prevailed during our stay at Sevastopol; crowds of people had been attracted from all parts of the south of Russia to receive the Emperor; the garrison had been whitewashing their barracks, and drilling themselves with praiseworthy perseverance; while the whole dockyard force had been engaged for months past in getting the ships into the presentable condition they now exhibited. It seems that a very small complement of men is kept on board each ship while in harbour, the majority of the crews being employed on shore, a system which is not very well calculated to keep the men in training. As a cruise under the Emperor's personal inspection was anticipated, a great deal of exercising was
p. 259: necessary, to rub off the dockyard dust, for which his Imperial Majesty possesses a particularly keen eye. It is hardly natural, however, to expect that men whose maritime experience has perhaps never extended beyond the Bosphorus, should be as good sailors as those who have gone round the Horn once for every year of their lives. The seamen reared in such a nursery as our mercantile marine affords, must ever be a very different stamp of men from those reared in the dockyard of Sevastopol. It is maliciously said, that upon the few occasions that the Russian fleet in the Black Sea have encountered a gale of wind, the greater part of the officers and men were always sea-sick. It is certain that they have sometimes been unable to tell whereabouts they were on their extensive cruising-ground; and once between Sevastopol and Odessa, it is currently and libellously reported that the admiral was so utterly at a loss, that the flaglieutenant, observing a village on shore, proposed to land and ask the way.”
Source
Laurence Oliphant. The Russian shores of the Black Sea in the autumn of 1852 with a voyage down the Volga, and a tour through the country of the Don Cossacks. London, 1854.
