3-056-390 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Bombardment of Carthagena: view from Mount Forman, looking west, 1873. 'The naval seaport..., on the Mediterranean coast of Spain, is still held by the faction of Intransigentes, or fanatical Communists, against the Government of Madrid...The bombardment, though ineffective for the reduction of a fortified place, has caused a terrible amount of distress to the people of the town...We are indebted to Dr. Fleetwood Buckle, senior surgeon of H.M.S. Invincible, for a sketch taken by him on the 28th from the top of Mount Porman, a height of 1000 ft., looking westward, which gives a view of the valley behind Carthagena, with the forts and batteries, and the lines of besiegers and besieged...In the middle...is a richly-cultivated, fertile plain, interspersed with villages, gardens, orange groves, country houses, and factories...Halfway across the plain is the busy little manufacturing town of Las Alumbras; to the right...are the English iron and lead works of Las Herrerias...In the left centre is Moros Castle, firing rapidly, but with little effect...Fort St. Julian, the key to the whole position, is conspicuous on the summit of that hill...The chapel and whitewashed houses of the cemetery are seen halfway down the hill to the left hand'. From "Illustrated London News", 1873.