Climbing up the slope of the steep hill between the harbour and the bay, shaking down little showers of water from every bush, we touched, and treading under foot hundreds of dewy flowers, we came suddenly upon the monument of La Perouse.  I hope his countrymen, the French, have erected to his memory some more tasteful and enduring token of their esteem than this.  It is simply a wooden frame, covered with sheet iron, and painted black.  It bears no date or inscription whatever, and looks more like the tombstone over the grave of a criminal, than a monument to keep fresh the memory of a distinguished navigator.

Bush sat down on a little grassy knoll to make a sketch of the scene, while Mahood and I wandered on up the hill toward the old Russian batteries.  They are several in number, situated along the crest of the ridge which divides the inner from the outer bay, and command the approaches to the town from the west.  They are now almost overgrown with grass and flowers, and only the form of the embrasures distinguishes them from shapeless mounds of earth.  It would be thought that the remote situation and inhospitable climate of Kamchatka would have secured to its inhabitants an immunity from the desolating ravages of war.  But even this country has its ruined forts and grass-grown battle-fields; and its now silent hills echoed not long ago to the thunder of opposing cannon.  Leaving Mahood to make a critical survey of the entrenchments—­an occupation which his tastes and pursuits rendered more interesting to him than to me—­I strolled on up the hill to the edge of the cliff from which the storming party of the Allies was thrown by the Russian gunners.  No traces now remain of the bloody struggle which took place upon the brink of this precipice.  Moss covers with its green carpet the ground which was torn up in the death grapple; and the nodding bluebell, as it bends to the fresh sea-breeze, tells no story of the last desperate rally, the hand to hand conflict, and the shrieks of the overpowered as they were thrown from the Russian bayonets upon the rocky beach a hundred feet below.

It seems to me that it was little better than wanton cruelty in the Allies to attack this unimportant and isolated post, so far from the real centre of conflict.  Could its capture have lessened in any way the power or resources of the Russian Government, or, by creating a diversion, have attracted attention from the decisive struggle in the Crimea, it would perhaps have been justifiable; but it could not possibly have any direct or indirect influence upon the ultimate result, and only brought misery upon a few inoffensive Kamchadals who had never heard of Turkey or the Eastern Question and whose first intimation of a war probably was the thunder of the enemy’s cannon and the bursting of shells at their very doors.  The attack of the Allied fleet, however, was signally repulsed, and its admiral, stung with mortification at being foiled by a mere handful of Cossacks and peasants, committed suicide.  On the anniversary of the battle it is still customary for all the inhabitants, headed by the priests, to march in solemn procession round the village and over the hill from which the storming party was thrown, chanting hymns of joy and praise for the victory.