Chapter XXXV…

Chapter XXXV

BAGTCHE SERAI--HISTORICAL REVOLUTIONS OF THE CRIMEA--THE PALACE OF THE KHANS--COUNTESS POTOCKI.

After our excursion to Inkermann we left Sevastopol the same day, glad to quit the Russians and their naval capital for Bagtche Serai, that ancient city, which previously to the Muscovite conquest might still vie in power and opulence with the great cities of the East. Even now, though much decayed, Bagtche Serai is the most interesting town in the Crimea.

The road which leads to it runs parallel with a mountain chain, and commands very beautiful scenery, which we beheld in all the fresh luxuriance of May. The hills and valleys were clothed with forests of peach, almond, apple, and apricot trees in full blossom, and the south wind came to us loaded with their fragrance. We had many a flying glimpse of landscapes we would willingly have paused to admire in detail, but the pereclatnoi whirled us along, and towns, hillsides, winding brooks, farms, meadows, and Tatar villages shot past us with magic rapidity.

Notwithstanding a temperature of 25 deg. Reaumer, the day appeared to us very short. Yet we were impatient to see Bagtche Serai, its palace and its fountains which have been sung by Pushkin, the Russian nightingale; and this impatience, which increased as we approached our journey's end, prevented us from visiting different spots which less hasty travellers would not have disdained. Every mountain, valley, or village has some peculiar interest of its own. There were aqueducts, old bridges, and half-ruined towers in every direction to tell of an ancient civilisation; but all these interested us less, perhaps, than the modest dwelling in which Pallas long resided, and where he ended his days.

Bagtche Serai has completely retained its national character in consequence of an ukase of Catherine II., empowering the Tatars to retain exclusive possession of their own capital. You would fancy yourself in the heart of the East, in walking through the narrow streets of the town, the mosques, shops, and cemeteries of which so much resemble those of the old quarters of Constantinople. But it is especially in the courts, gardens, and kiosks of the harem of the old palace, that the traveller may well believe himself transported into some delicious abode of Aleppo or Bagdad.

It was in 1226, that the Mongol or Tatar hordes led by Batu Khan, grandson of Genghis Khan, after invading Russia, Poland, and Hungary, made their first appearance in the Crimea, and laid the foundations of the Tatar kingdom, which was soon to attain a high degree of power. The Genoese about the same time took possession of several important points on the southern coast, and founded Caffa and other towns, which became extremely flourishing seats of commerce. Their prosperity lasted until 1473, when the Turks, already masters of Constantinople, drove the Genoese out of the Crimea, and took under their protection the Khans of little Tatary, who became vassals of the Porte, whilst retaining their absolute sway over the Crimea. From that time until the eighteenth century, the history of the peninsula is but a long series of contests between the Ottomans, the Tatars, and the Muscovites.

Russia, coveting this fine country, took advantage of its continual revolutions, and sent a large army thither in 1771, for the purpose of putting the young prince Saheb Guerai on the throne. By this stroke of policy, she took the Crimea out of the hands of the Porte, and brought it under her own sole protection. In return for the empress's good offices, Saheb Guerai ceded to her the towns of Kertch, Yeni Kaleh, and Kalbouroun, very advantageously situated on the Dniepr. In this way Russia took the first steps towards the celebrated treaty of Kainardji of 1774, which conceded to her the free navigation of all the seas dependent on the Turkish dominions. But it was not until 1783, that her sway was irrevocably established in the peninsula, and the Tatars submitted to a yoke against which they had so often and so boldly struggled.

During the brilliant period in which the khans reigned in the Crimea, the seat of government alternated between Eski Krim and Tchoufout Kaleh, until the beginning of the sixteenth century, when Bagtche Serai was made the capital.

One would hardly recognise in the simple and orderly Tatars of the present day, the descendants of those fierce Mongols who imposed their sway on a part of western Europe. There is a great difference between the Tatars of the coast and those of the mountains. The former have been rendered covetous, knavish, and treacherous by their continual intercourse with the Russians; whilst their mountain brethren have retained the patriarchal manners that distinguish the Asiatic peoples. Their hospitality is most generous. The Tatar's best room, and the best which his house and his table can afford, are offered to his guest with a cordial alacrity that forbids the very idea of a refusal; and he would deem it an insult to be offered any other payment than a friendly grasp of the hand.

The Tatar women, without being handsome, display a timid grace that makes them singularly engaging. In public they wear a long white veil, the two ends of which hang over their shoulders, and they are particularly remarkable for their complete freedom from every appearance of vulgarity. We saw none at Bagtche Serai, but those of the poorer classes; the women of the mourzas (nobles), and beys (princes) live quite retired and never show themselves in public.

But to return to the palace of Bagtche Serai. It is no easy task to describe the charm of this mysterious and splendid abode, in which the voluptuous khans forgot all the cares of life: it is not to be done, as in the case of one of our palaces, by analysing the style, arrangement, and details of the rich architecture, and reading the artist's thought in the regularity, grace, and noble simplicity of the edifice: all this is easy to understand and to describe: such beauties are more or less appreciable by every one. But one must be something of a poet to appreciate a Turkish palace; its charms must be sought, not in what one sees, but in what one feels. I have heard persons speak very contemptuously of Bagtche Serai. "How," said they, "can any one apply the name of palace to that assemblage of wooden houses, daubed with coarse paintings, and furnished only with divans and carpets?" And these people were right in their way. The positive cast of their minds disabling them from seeing beauty in any thing but rich materials, well-defined forms and highly-finished workmanship, Bagtche Serai must be to them only a group of shabby houses adorned with paltry ornaments, and fit only for the habitation of miserable Tatars.

Situated in the centre of the town, in a valley enclosed between hills of unequal heights, the palace (Serai) covers a considerable space, and is enclosed within walls, and a small stream deeply entrenched. The bridge which affords admission into the principal court is guarded by a post of Russian veterans. The spacious court is planted with poplars and lilacs, and adorned with a beautiful Turkish fountain, shaded by willows; its melancholy murmur harmonises well with the loneliness of the place. To the right as you enter are some buildings, one of which is set apart for the use of those travellers who are fortunate enough to gain admittance into the palace. To the left are the mosque, the stables, and the trees of the cemetery, which is divided from the court by a wall.

We first visited the palace properly so called. Its exterior displays the usual irregularity of Eastern dwellings; but its want of symmetry is more than compensated for by its wide galleries, its bright decorations, its pavilions so lightly fashioned that they seem scarcely attached to the body of the building, and by a profusion of large trees that shade it on all sides. These all invest it with a charm, that in my opinion greatly surpasses the systematic regularity of our princely abodes. The interior is an embodied page out of the Arabian Nights. The first hall we entered contains the celebrated Fountain of Tears, the theme of Pushkin's beautiful verses. It derives its melancholy name from the sweet sad murmur of its slender jets as they fall on the marble of the basin. The sombre and mysterious aspect of the hall, further augments the tendency of the spectator's mind to forget reality for the dreams of the imagination. The foot falls noiselessly on fine Egyptian mats; the walls are inscribed with sentences from the Koran, written in gold on a black ground in those odd-looking Turkish characters, that seem more the caprices of an idle fancy than vehicles of thought. From the hall we entered a large reception-room with a double row of windows of stained glass, representing all sorts of rural scenes. The ceiling and doors are richly gilded, and the workmanship of the latter is very fine. Broad divans covered with crimson velvet run all round the room. In the middle there is a fountain playing in a large porphyry basin. Every thing is magnificent in this room, except the whimsical manner in which the walls are painted. All that the most fertile imagination could conceive in the shape of isles, villages, harbours, fabulous castles, and so forth, is huddled together promiscuously on the walls, without any more regard for perspective than for geography. Nor is this all: there are niches over the doors in which are collected all sorts of children's toys, such as wooden houses a few inches high, fruit trees, models of ships, little figures of men twisted into a thousand contortions, &c. These singular curiosities are arranged on receding shelves for the greater facility of inspection, and are carefully protected by glass cases. One of the last khans, we were assured, used to shut himself up in this room every day to admire these interesting objects. Such childishness, common among the Orientals, would lead us to form a very unfavourable opinion of their intelligence, if it was not redeemed by their instinctive love of beauty, and the poetic feeling which they possess in a high degree. For my part I heartily forgave the khans for having painted their walls so queerly, in consideration of the charming fountain that plashed on the marble, and the little garden filled with rare flowers adjoining the saloon.

The hall of the divan is of royal magnificence; the mouldings of the ceiling, in particular, are of exquisite delicacy. We passed through other rooms adorned with fountains and glowing colours, but that which most interested us was the apartment of the beautiful Countess Potocki. It was her strange fortune to inspire with a violent passion one of the last khans of the Crimea, who carried her off and made her absolute mistress of his palace, in which she lived ten years, her heart divided between her love for an infidel, and the remorse that brought her prematurely to the grave. The thought of her romantic fate gave a magic charm to every thing we beheld. The Russian officer who acted as our cicerone pointed out to us a cross carved on the chimney of the bed-room. The mystic symbol, placed above a crescent, eloquently interpreted the emotions of a life of love and grief. What tears, what inward struggles, and bitter recollections had it not witnessed!

We passed through I know not how many gardens and inner yards, surrounded with high walls, to visit the various pavilions, kiosks, and buildings of all sorts comprised within the limits of the palace. The part occupied by the harem contains such a profusion of rose-trees and fountains as to merit the pleasing name of The Little Valley of Roses. Nothing can be more charming than this Tatar building, surrounded by blossoming trees. I felt a secret pleasure in pressing the divans on which had rested the fair forms of Mussulman beauties, as they breathed the fresh air from the fountains in voluptuous repose. No sound from without can reach this enchanted retreat, where nothing is heard but the rippling of the waters, and the song of the nightingales. We counted more than twenty fountains in the courts and gardens; they all derive their supply from the mountains, and the water is of extreme coolness.

A tower of considerable height, with a terrace fronted with gratings that can be raised or lowered at pleasure, overlooks the principal court. It was erected to enable the khan's wives to witness, unseen, the martial exercises practised in the court. The prospect from the terrace is admirable; immediately below it you have a bird's-eye view of the labyrinth of buildings, gardens, and other enclosures. Further on the town of Bagtche Serai rises gradually on a sloping amphitheatre of hills. The sounds of the whole town, concentrated and reverberated within the narrow space, reach you distinctly. The panorama is peculiarly pleasing at the close of the day, when the voices of the muezzins, calling to prayer from the minarets, mingle with the bleating of the flocks returning from pasture, and the cries of the shepherds.

After seeing the palace we repaired to the mosque and to the cemetery in which are the tombs of all the khans who have reigned in the Crimea. There as at Constantinople, I admired the wonderful art with which the Orientals disguise the gloomy idea of death under fresh and gladsome images. Who can yield to dismal thoughts as he breathes a perfumed air, listens to the waters of a sparkling fountain, and follows the little paths, edged with violets, that lead to lilac groves bending their flagrant blossoms over tombs adorned with rich carpets and gorgeous inscriptions?

The Tatar who has charge of this smiling abode of death, prompted by the poetic feeling that is lodged in the bosom of every Oriental, brought me a nosegay plucked from the tomb of a Georgian, the beloved wife of the last khan. Was it not a touching thing to see this humble guardian of the cemetery comprehend instinctively that flowers, associated with the memory of a young woman, could not be indifferent to another of her sex and age?

Some isolated pavilions contain the tombs of khans of most eminent renown. They are much more ornate than the others, and the care with which they are kept up testifies the pious veneration of the Tatars. Carpets, cashmeres, lamps burning continually, and inscriptions in letters of gold, combine to give grandeur to these monuments, which yet are intended to commemorate only names almost forgotten.

Such is a brief sketch of this ancient abode of the khans, which was carefully repaired by the Emperor Alexander. He found it in such a state of disorder and neglect, that it was probable nothing would remain in a few years of a dwelling with which is associated almost the whole past history of the Crimea. But Alexander, whose temperament was so well adapted to appreciate the melancholy beauty of the spot, immediately on his return to St. Petersburg sent a very able man to Bagtche Serai, with orders to restore the palace to the state in which it had been in the time of the khans. Since then the imperial family has sometimes exchanged the dreary magnificence of the St. Petersburg palaces for the rosy bowers and sunny clime of the Tatar Serai.

In speaking of this Tatar town, I must not forget to mention a man known throughout the Crimea for his eccentricity. It is about twelve years since a Dutchman of the name of Vanderschbrug, a retired civil engineer in the imperial service, arrived in the Tatar capital with the intention of settling there. His motive for this act of misanthropy has never been ascertained; all that is known is, that his resolution has remained unshaken. Since his installation among the Tatars, Major Vanderschbrug has never set his foot outside the town, though his family reside in Simpheropol. His retiring pension, amounting to some hundred rubles, allows him to lead a life, which to many persons would seem very uninviting, but which is not devoid of a certain charm. The complete independence he has secured for himself, makes up to him, in some sort, for the void he must feel in the loss of family affection. He lives like a philosopher in his little cottage, with his cow, his poultry, his pencils, some books, and an old housekeeper. He speaks the language of the Tatars like one of themselves, and his thorough knowledge of the country, and the originality of his mind render his conversation very agreeable. All over the country he is known only by the name of the hermit of Bagtche Serai. The Tatars hold him in great respect, often refer their disputes to his decision, and implicitly follow his advice.

We breakfasted with him, and seeing him apparently so contented with his lot, we thought how little is sufficient to make a man happy when his desires are limited. Major Vanderschbrug beguiles his solitude with reading and the arts, for which he has preserved a taste. He showed us some fine water-coloured drawings he had made, and an old volume of Jean Jacques Rousseau, which he has kept for many years as a precious treasure. To all the objections we raised against the strange exile to which he condemned himself, he replied that ennui had not yet invaded his humble dwelling.

Before bidding farewell to Bagtche Serai, we went in company with our recluse to visit the Valley of Jehoshaphat and the famous mountain of Tchoufout Kaleh,[68] which has been for several centuries the exclusive property of certain Jews, known by the name of Karaimes or Karaites. They are a sect who still adhere to the law of Moses, but who separated from the general body, as some writers suppose, several centuries before the Christian era. According to other authorities, the separation did not occur until A.D. 750. There is a marked difference between them and the other Jews. The simplicity of their manners, their probity and industry give them a strong claim to the traveller's respect.

At six in the morning we mounted our little Tatar horses, and began to ascend the steep road that winds through a vast cemetery, covering the whole side of the mountain. The melancholy aspect of the tombs, covered with Hebrew inscriptions, accords with the desolation of the scene. Of the whole population, that during the lapse of ages have lived and died on this rock, nothing remains but tombs, and a dozen families that persist, from religious motives, in dwelling among ruins.

In the time of the khans, the Karaites of Tchoufout Kaleh were stoutly confined to their rock, being only allowed to pass the business hours of the day in the Tatar capital, returning every evening to their mountain. When one of them arrived opposite the palace on horseback, he was bound to alight and proceed on foot until he was out of sight. But since the conquest by the Russians, the Karaites are free to reside in Bagtche Serai, and they have gradually left the mountain, with the exception, as I have stated, of a few families who regard it as a sacred duty to abide on the spot where their forefathers dwelt.

Considering the almost inaccessible position of the town, its want of water, the sterility of the soil, and the loneliness of the inhabitants, we cannot fail to be struck by the thirst for freedom that made the Karaites of yore choose such a site, and the constancy of the families that still cling to it. Tchoufout Kaleh is built entirely on the bare rock, and the mountain is so steep that in the only place where it admits of access, it has been necessary to cut flights of steps several hundred feet long. As you ascend, huge masses of overhanging rocks seem to threaten you with destruction, and when you enter the ruined town, the sepulchral silence and desolation of its dilapidated streets make a painful impression on the mind. No inhabitant comes forth to greet the stranger or direct him on his way. The only living beings we saw abroad were famished dogs that howled most dismally.

Besides the interest we felt in this acropolis of the middle ages, we had a still stronger motive for our journey to Tchoufout Kaleh; namely, to see a poet who has resided from his youth upwards on that dreary rock. We had heard a great deal about it from M. Taitbout de Marigny and from Major Vanderschbrug; the first point, therefore, towards which we bent our steps was the rabbi's dwelling, built like an eagle's nest on the point of a rock. Being shown into a small room furnished with books and maps, we found ourselves in presence of a little old man with a long white beard who received us with the grave and easy dignity of the Orientals. His features were of the most purely Jewish cast. With the help of the major, who acted as our interpreter, we were enabled to carry on a long conversation, and to admire the varied knowledge possessed by a man so completely cut off from the world. Is it not wonderful that a person in such a position, and so totally deprived of all necessary appliances, should undertake the gigantic task of writing the history of the Karaites from the time of Moses to our days? Yet thus our rabbi has been employed for upward of twenty years, undismayed by the difficulties of all kinds that lie in his way. It was not a little moving to see a man of great intellect, vast erudition, and poetic imagination, wearing out on a desolate rock the remains of a life which would have been so fair and so productive if passed in more active scenes. He showed us several sacred poems in manuscript written in his youth. How much I regretted that I could not read the productions of such a poet.

He lives like a patriarch surrounded by ten or a dozen children of all ages who enliven and embellish his solitude. Several little rooms communicating together by galleries form his dwelling. It is very humble, but the rabbi's remarkable physiognomy, and the Oriental costume of his wife and daughters, impart a charm even to so rude a tenement. He escorted us to the synagogue, a small building, long left to solitude. We saw, too, not without a lively interest, the grave of a khan's daughter, who, in the time of the Genoese rule, forsook the Koran for the law of the Christians, and died at the age of eighteen among those who had converted her. Like every thing else about it, it was in a state of neglect and decay.

All the lower part of the mountain, and also a deep narrow valley stretching eastward of Tchoufout Kaleh are covered with tombs, to which circumstance the situation owes its name of Valley of Jehoshaphat. Opposite the Karaite town is the celebrated convent of the Assumption, which is annually visited in the month of August by more than twenty thousand pilgrims. Its cells excavated in the rock have a very curious appearance from a distance. Some wooden flights of stairs on the outside of the rock lead to the several stages of this singular convent inhabited only by a few monks.

On our return to Bagtche Serai we noticed several crypts in the rock which are the haunt of a large number of Tsiganes. Nowhere does this vagrant people present a more disgusting aspect than in this locality. Their horrible infirmities, distorted limbs, and indescribable wretchedness make one almost doubt that they can belong to humanity.

We proceeded the next day to Simpheropol where we were to pass some days.

FOOTNOTES:

[68] Tchoufout Kaleh, formerly called Kirkov, was for a long series of years the residence of the khans, until Mengle Gherai quitted it for Bagtche Serai, in 1475.

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Chapter XXXVI

SIMPHEROPOL--KAKOLEZ--VISIT TO PRINCESS ADEL BEY--EXCURSION TO MANGOUP KALEH.

Under the Tatars Simpheropol was the second town of the Crimea, and the residence of the Kalga Sultan, whose functions were nearly equivalent to those of vice-khan. He exercised the regency of the country on the death of the khan, until his successor was nominated by the Porte. The Kalga's court was composed of the same functionaries as that of Bagtche Serai, and his authority extended over all the regions north of the Crimea mountains. Simpheropol was then adorned with palaces, mosques, and fine gardens, few traces of which now remain. The tortuous streets, high walls, and rose thickets of the old city, have given place to the cold monotony of the Russian towns. It is the capital of the government of the Crimea, with a population of about 8000 souls, of whom 1700 are Russians, 5000 Tatars, 400 strangers, and 900 gipsies. Its plan is large enough to comprise ten times as many houses as it possesses; but, at least, it retains its Salghir, the banks of which are covered with the finest orchards in the Crimea. But instead of building the new town in the valley, it has been set at the top of a great plateau where its few houses and its disproportionately wide streets present no kind of character. It is with extreme pleasure, therefore, that after wandering through the streets in which the sun's rays beat down without any thing to break their force, one finds himself under the cool verdant shades that fringe the Salghir, with the pretty country houses that peep out from the orchards.

We made many excursions in the vicinity, and were above all pleased with the beautiful landscapes in the valley of the Alma. In a ride on horseback to visit some rocks of an interesting geological character, we crossed the river eighteen times in the space of three hours: this may afford an idea of the multitude of meanders it makes before continuing its course to the Black Sea.

Bagtche Serai being on the road to Karolez, we could not resist the pleasure of once more seeing its delightful palace. We passed the evening in one of the large galleries, admiring the magic appearance of the buildings and gardens by moonlight. The deep stillness of the place; the mysterious aspect of the principal edifice, one part of which was completely in the shade, whilst the other, with its coloured windows and its open balconies, received the full rays of the moon; the masses of foliage in the gardens, and the melancholy sounds of the fountain; all this accompanied by the imaginative relations of our eccentric friend, the major, made an indelible impression on our minds.

At Bagtche Serai we finally exchanged the pereclatnoi for Tatar horses, the serviceable qualities of which had commended themselves to us in many trials. Our cavalcade made a grotesque appearance as we rode out of the palace. For my own part I looked oddly enough, perched on an enormously high Tatar saddle in my Caspian costume, with my parasol in my hand. Hommaire wore with Oriental gravity the Persian cap, the girdle and the weapons, to which he had become accustomed in his long wanderings. But the queerest figure of all was our dragoman. Half-a-dozen leather bags containing provisions dangled at his horse's flanks; my poor straw bonnet, which I had been obliged to abandon for a round hat, hung at the pummel of his saddle, and in addition to all this accoutrement he carried in his hand a large white canvass umbrella to screen him from the sun. Two Tatar horsemen followed us, carrying likewise their contingent of baggage.

After some hours' riding through a lovely country, intersected with streams, valleys, and numerous orchards, we arrived in the evening at Karolez, a Tatar village, lost among mountains, in the valley of the same name, which is one of the most delightful spots in the beautiful Crimea, so rich in picturesque scenes.

Though it does not belong to the southern coast, and consequently has no maritime traffic, Karolez, nevertheless, possesses a romantic attraction, which every year brings to it numerous visitors. This is owing to its vicinity to Mangoup Kaleh, the abundance of its waters, the mountains that encompass the valley with a line of battlemented walls, as if Nature had been pleased in a sportive mood to imitate art, whilst yet retaining her own more majestic proportions; and, lastly, the merit of belonging to the Princess Adel Bey, whose beauty, though invisible has inspired many a poet.

I had taken care before leaving Simpheropol to furnish myself with a letter from the governor to the princess, in order to obtain an interview which might enable me to judge whether the beauty of this Tatar lady and her daughters was as great as fame reported. The question had been often agitated since our arrival in the Crimea; it may, therefore, be imagined how desirous I was to resolve it. But in spite of my letter of introduction, my admission to the palace was still very problematical. Many Russian ladies had tried in vain to enter it; for the princess, while exercising the noblest hospitality, was seldom disposed to satisfy the curiosity of her guests. Though the law of Mahomet respecting the seclusion of women is less rigidly observed among the Tatars of the Crimea than among the Turks of Constantinople, rich ladies do not often pass the threshold of their own dwellings, and when they do they are always closely veiled.

One of my friends from Simpheropol, who had proceeded the day before to the princess's, having giving notice of our coming, we were received in the most brilliant style. The guest house was prepared with the ostentation which the Orientals are fond of displaying on all occasions. A double line of servants of all ages was drawn up in the vestibule when we dismounted; and one of the oldest and most richly dressed ushered us into a saloon arranged in the fashion of the East, with gaily painted walls and red silk divans that reminded us of the delightful rooms in the palace of the khans. The princess's son, an engaging boy of twelve years of age, who spoke Russian very well, attached himself to us, obligingly translated our orders to the domestics, and took care that we wanted for nothing. I gave him my letter, which he immediately carried to his mother, and soon afterwards he came and told me, to my great satisfaction, that she would receive me when she had finished her toilette. In the eagerness of my curiosity I now counted every minute, until an officer, followed by an old woman in a veil, came to introduce me into the mysterious palace of which I had as yet seen only the lofty outer wall.

My husband, as arranged between us beforehand, attempted to follow us, and seeing that no impediment was offered, he stepped without ceremony through the little door into the park, crossed the latter, boldly ascended a terrace adjoining the palace, and, at last, found himself, not without extreme surprise at his good fortune, in a little room that seemed to belong to the princess's private apartments. Until then no male stranger except Count Voronzof had ever entered the palace; the flattering and unexpected exception which the princess made in favour of my husband, might, therefore, lead us to hope that her complaisance would not stop there. But we were soon undeceived. The officer who had ushered us into the palace, after having treated us to iced water, sweetmeats and pipes, took my husband by the hand, and led him out of the room with very significant celerity. He had no sooner disappeared than a curtain was raised at the end of the room, and a woman of striking beauty entered, dressed in a rich costume. She advanced to me with an air of remarkable dignity, took both my hands, kissed me on the two cheeks, and sat down beside me, making me many demonstrations of friendship. She wore a great deal of rouge; her eyelids were painted black and met over the nose, giving her countenance a certain sternness, that, nevertheless, did not destroy its pleasing effect. A furred velvet vest fitted tight to her still elegant figure. Altogether her appearance surpassed what I had conceived of her beauty. We spent a quarter of an hour closely examining each other, and interchanging as well as we could a few Russian words that very insufficiently conveyed our thoughts. But in such cases, looks supply the deficiencies of speech, and mine must have told the princess with what admiration I beheld her. Hers, I must confess, in all humility, seemed to express much more surprise than admiration at my travelling costume. What would I not have given to know the result of her purely feminine analysis of my appearance! I was even crossed in this tete-a-tete by a serious scruple of conscience for having presented myself before her in male attire, which must have given her a strange notion of the fashions of Europe.

Notwithstanding my desire to prolong my visit in hopes of seeing her daughters, the fear of appearing intrusive prompted me to take my leave; but checking me with a very graceful gesture, she said eagerly "Pastoy, Pastoy" (stay, stay), and clapped her hands several times. A young girl entered at the signal, and by her mistress's orders threw open a folding door, and immediately I was struck dumb with surprise and admiration by a most brilliant apparition. Imagine, reader, the most exquisite sultanas of whom poetry and painting have ever tried to convey an idea, and still your conception will fall far short of the enchanting models I had then before me. There were three of them, all equally beautiful and graceful. Two were clad in tunics of crimson brocade, adorned in front with broad gold lace. The tunics were open and disclosed beneath them cashmere robes, with very tight sleeves terminating in gold fringes. The youngest wore a tunic of azure blue brocade, with silver ornaments: this was the only difference between her dress and that of her sisters. All three had magnificent black hair escaping in countless tresses from a fez of silver filigree, set like a diadem over their ivory foreheads; they wore gold embroidered slippers and wide trousers drawn close at the ankle.

I had never beheld skins so dazzlingly fair, eyelashes so long, or so delicate a bloom of youth. The calm repose that sat on the countenances of these lovely creatures, had never been disturbed by any profane glance. No look but their mother's had ever told them they were beautiful; and this thought gave them an inexpressible charm in my eyes. It is not in our Europe, where women, exposed to the gaze of crowds, so soon addict themselves to coquetry, that the imagination could conceive such a type of beauty. The features of our young girls are too soon altered by the vivacity of their impressions, to allow the eye of the artist to discover in them that divine charm of purity and ignorance with which I was so struck in beholding my Tatar princesses. After embracing me they retired to the end of the room where they remained standing in those graceful Oriental attitudes which no woman in Europe could imitate. A dozen attendants muffled in white muslin, were gathered round the door, gazing with respectful curiosity. Their profiles, shown in relief on a dark ground, added to the picturesque character of the scene. This delightful vision lasted an hour. When the princess saw that I was decided on going away, she signified to me by signs that I should go and see the garden; but though grateful to her for this further mark of attention, I preferred immediately rejoining my husband, being impatient to relate to him all the details of this interview, with which I was completely dazzled.

Next morning we set out on horseback for Mangoup Kaleh, a mountain renowned throughout the country, and of which the inhabitants never speak but with veneration. Goths, Turks, and Tatars have been by turns its possessors. Owing to its almost impregnable position, it has played an important part in all the revolutions of the Crimea. The town of Mangoup, which appears to have been the residence of the Gothic princes, was formerly a very considerable place. It had a bishop in 754. The Turks took it and put a garrison in it in 1745. Twenty years afterwards it was entirely burnt down. The khans of the Crimea next took possession of it, and let it gradually fall into decay. At the close of the last century, the population of this ancient town still consisted of some Karaite families; at present there remains no other trace of their existence than the tombs spread over the mountain side.

For three hours we ascended the mountain by scarcely marked bridle roads, astonished at the confidence with which our horses walked up those steep slopes where there seemed hardly any hold for their feet. But the horses of the Crimea are wonderfully surefooted, and if they can set down their feet anywhere, it is alike to them whether it is on a smooth plain or on the verge of a precipice. Here, as at Tchoufout Kaleh, the mountain was covered with tombs; but these bore inscriptions in Tatar as well as Hebrew, showing that this deserted soil had formerly been trodden by more than one people. The ascent ended at a broad triangular plateau on the summit of the mountain, where the town once stood. It is now a barren spot, strewed all over with ruins. Two sides of the plateau are perpendicular; the third was defended by a fortress, part of which is still standing.

Every thing on this mountain wears a grand and melancholy character. Desolation has long taken it for its domain. Nothing meets the eye but ruins, tombs, and a naked soil. And yet, notwithstanding the stern aspect of the place, it does not fill the soul with the same feelings of painful awe as Tchoufout Kaleh. This is because the ancient town of the Karaites, all mutilated as it is by time and events, still retains a semblance of existence, and this alliance between life and death necessarily impresses the mind with a superstitious dread. At Mangoup Kaleh all human traces have been too long effaced to awaken painful thoughts. There one thinks not so much of men as of remote epochs, of the great events and numerous revolutions of which this rock has been the theatre.

The facade of the fortress has withstood the slow attacks of time, though full of cracks, and the lofty walls appear still from a distance to protect Mangoup Kaleh. Herds of Tatar horses graze in complete freedom on the plateau, and drink from a large reservoir supplied by a spring that never fails in any season. As we were exploring the interior of what must have been the citadel, we came upon a clump of lilacs in full bloom among the ruins. I cannot tell the impression made on me by those flowers thus unfolding their sweets under the dew of Heaven far from every human eye. Besides the fortress we found another edifice partly spared by time. Its construction and the graves about it showed it to be an old Christian church. The chancel was in tolerably good preservation, and even the windows had not suffered much dilapidation.

The view from Mangoup Kaleh is very extensive and varied. On the one side is the sea with its islands and capes, its vessels, and Sevastopol, which can be distinctly perceived in clear weather. To the west, magnificent orchards, vine-clad hills, and broad meadows, intersected with streams, stretch away as far as the eye can reach in the direction of Simpheropol; then, at the foot of the mountain, the valley of Karolez, its forests, its rocky girdle, its Tatar village, and the palace of the princess Adel Bey, disclosing its Moorish architecture from behind a screen of poplars.

At the earnest recommendation of our guides, I ventured to explore some grottoes hollowed in the rock, the descent to which is rather difficult and dangerous. There are about a dozen of them opening one into the other, and separated only by shapeless pillars. The Tatars could give us no sort of explanation as to these subterraneous chambers. They seem like those of Inkermann to belong to very remote antiquity, but their origin and history are quite unknown.

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Chapter XXXVII

ROAD TO BAIDAR--THE SOUTHERN COAST; GRAND SCENERY--MISKHOR AND ALOUPKA--PREDILECTION OF THE GREAT RUSSIAN NOBLES FOR THE CRIMEA.

The country we passed over, next day, on our way to the southern coast, had a wild sylvan appearance strikingly in contrast with what we had hitherto seen. Between the valley of Karolez and that of Baidar near the coast, lies a chain of mountains with deep gorges filled with forests. Sometimes the road passed along the bottom of one of these gorges, where we were constantly obstructed by watercourses and thickets; sometimes we pursued a track barely discernible along the flank of the mountain, and then the summits of the hills that had seemed so high when we looked up to them from below, were hidden beneath us in dense vapours. At last, by dint of ascending and descending, we reached the wide plain of Baidar, with the village in its centre. Early next morning we were again on horseback, and breathing with delight the wild odours exhaled by the still dewy forest.

Our road ascended gently to the culminating point of the mountain, and then we stood rooted for a while to the spot in admiration of the magnificent sea view that burst upon us. But our thoughts were suddenly called off in another direction by the music of a military band, and looking down we were surprised to see several groups of soldiers posted some hundred feet below the point where we stood. It was a whole regiment employed in making a new road between Sevastopol and Ialta. Some were blowing up rocks, and filling the air with something like the din and smoke of battle; others were busy round a great fire preparing the morning meal; the musicians were waking the mountain echoes with their martial strains, and the officers were lounging in front of a tent smoking their pipes.

When we had sufficiently indulged our admiration of the scene, we turned with some dismay to contemplate the descent before us. The mountain which we had found so gently sloping on the western side, here fell so precipitously that I could not imagine how our horses were to make their way down. For my part I thought it safest to alight and lead my horse. The band of the regiment, as if they had guessed we were French, saluted us with the overture of the Fiancee. After we had already reached the seaside, we still heard that charming music, weakened by distance, but kindling our recollections of home in the most unexpected manner.

We spent some days at Moukhalatka, the residence of Colonel Olive, a Frenchman, formerly page to Louis XVIII., who entered the service of the Grand-duke Constantine shortly after the return of the Bourbons to France. Beyond Moukhalatka our way lay over mountains, the scenery of which partly compensated for the incessant toil of climbing up broken rocks, and passing through glens where we could only advance in single file. But with the exception of these difficulties, the whole journey to Aloupka was a continual enchantment. Talk of the isles of the Archipelago with their naked rocks! Here a luxuriant vegetation descends to the water's edge, and the coast everywhere presents an amphitheatre of forests, gardens, villages, and country houses, over which the eye wanders with delight. The almond, the cythesus, the wild chestnut, the Judas-tree, the olive, and the cypress, and all the vegetation of a southern clime, thrives there with a vigour that attests the potency of the sun. On our left we had gigantic masses towering vertically, sombre tints, and an inconceivable chaos of rocky fragments; on our right a brilliant mosaic bordered by the sea. But the beauty of the scenery about Aloupka is even still more striking. The eye takes in at once the majestic Tchatir Dagh, Cape Aitodor, with its lighthouse, the Aiou Dagh, the brow of which, by a curious freak of nature, seems crowned with bastions and half-ruined towers, the Ai Petri, and the Megabi, with its gilded dome surmounted by a cross which was erected by the celebrated Princess Gallitzin, whose memory is still fresh in the Crimea. All these objects are clothed in a rich and varied garb of light such as belongs only to the warm atmosphere of southern lands.

Aristocracy has set its seal on this favoured portion of the coast. The change in the appearance of the roads indicates the neighbourhood of wealthy landowners. They have been made expressly for the dashing four-horse equipages that are continually traversing it. We observed that the limits of each estate were marked by a post bearing the blazonry of the proprietor.

We were most agreeably surprised in the neighbourhood of Aloupka, where we fell in on the road with our friend M. Marigny. In consequence of this welcome encounter we put off our visit to Aloupka to the next day, and proceeded with the consul to Mishkor, the estate of General Narishkin, adjoining that of Count Voronzof.

We were greatly pleased with this fine property, on the maintenance of which the general annually expends 100,000 francs. It comprises forests, a park, a chateau, a church, and a great number of ornamental buildings, that bespeak the exquisite taste of the proprietor. Mishkor has this great advantage, that its costly artificial arrangements are so well disguised under an appearance of rural simplicity, that one is almost tempted to attribute its perfections to the hand of nature.

The reverse is the case at Aloupka where art reigns supreme. This almost royal residence, which has excited the envy even of the Emperor Nicholas, has already cost Count Voronzof between 4,000,000 and 5,000,000 of francs, although it is not yet finished. All epochs and all styles are represented in its architecture and embellishments. Its lofty walls, its massive square tower and belfry, its vaulted passages and the mysterious aspect of its long galleries, give it a considerable resemblance to a feudal manor; but the Oriental style is exhibited in its small columns, its chimneys, and its profusion of pinnacles and domes. To justify the construction of such a porphyry chateau, the count should have been able to retrograde some centuries: in our own times such a dwelling is an anachronism. What is the use of such walls when there is no fear of being attacked by a neighbour? What is the use of those vaulted passages without men-at-arms to fill them? An old castle speaks to the imagination, recalling the chronicles, the fortunes and events connected with it, but a modern construction like this is a thing of no meaning. Its towers, battlements, and threatening walls seem a parody on the past. What have they seen? of what combats, feuds, loves, and revenges have they been witnesses?

In addition to this total want of fitness of character, the chateau has besides the grievous defect of being very disadvantageously situated. The coast is so narrow at this spot that there are but a few paces' breadth between the facade of the building and the sea, so that, in order to have a fair view of the whole, one must take a boat and put out from the shore until the proper point of view is found. Now it is not every one who will be disposed to take this trouble solely for the purpose of appreciating the effect of a facade.

The park displays a charming labyrinth of broken rocks, and a variety of natural picturesque and extraordinary features. Art has had nothing to do but to make paths and alleys between the accumulated volcanic masses, and to adorn the sides of the cascades with flowers. In the hollow of a rock there is a deep grotto with a little babbling spring, inviting to repose and meditation. At the eastern end of the chateau there is a lofty cypress wood, which the countess calls her Scutari.

The general aspect of this magnificent abode is too grave to delight the eye; we admire but do not covet it. The gigantic shadow of the Ai Petri, which hangs like a veil over the whole domain, adds still more to its sternness.

The reputation of the southern coast dates only from the arrival of Count Voronzof in the Crimea, previously to which no one thought of residing on it, except some speculators who were beginning to try the cultivation of the vine there. The count, who is a man of much taste, was at once struck with the beauty of the country, and soon became the purchaser of several estates in it. His example was followed by numbers of wealthy nobles whose eyes were immediately opened to the charms of the landscapes when once the count had proclaimed their attractions. Numerous villas were erected in the course of a few years along all the coast from Balaclava to Theodosia. A fleet of steamers was established, with the port of Ialta for their head quarters. The imperial family itself gave into the fashion and purchased Oreanda, one of the most beautiful sites on the coast; and many foreigners, infected by the prevailing fever, turned all they had into money and settled in the Crimea to cultivate the vine, a pursuit which Count Voronzof was then encouraging to the utmost of his power. But this was the reverse of the medal; most of them were ruined, and are now expiating in extreme poverty the cupidity with which they plunged into foolish enterprises.

Throughout its whole extent the coast presents only a narrow strip, seldom half a league wide, traversed by deep ravines, and backed by a range of calcareous cliffs that shelter it from the north wind. It is only on this detritus that the handsomest domains are situated. Among these are Koutchouk Lampat, belonging to General Borosdine; Parthenit, where is still to be seen the great hazel under which the Prince de Ligne wrote to Catherine II.; Kisil Tasch, the proprietor of which bears a name famous in France, that of Poniatowski; Oudsouf, lying close under the forest shades of Aiou Dagh; Arteck the estate of Prince Andrew Gallitzin; Ai Daniel, the property of the late Duc de Richelieu; Marsanda; Oreanda, an imperial domain; Mishkor and Nikita; Gaspra where Madame de Krudener died in the arms of her daughter, Baroness Berckheim; and Koreis where Princess Gallitzin, exiled from court, ended her days.

All these properties, adjoining each other, are, in the fine season, the rendezvous of a numerous society eagerly intent on pleasure. Aloupka is the great centre of amusement. Foreigners of distinction who are for the moment at Odessa, are ex officio the guests of Count Voronzof; but many of them have on their return complained of paying somewhat too dearly for the governor-general's hospitality. As the chateau, notwithstanding its imposing appearance, can contain only a small number of the select, the majority are compelled to find a lodging at the inn of the Two Cypresses near Aloupka, the landlord of which, by way of doing honour to his noble patron, practises unsparing extortion on all who have need of his apartments.

On our way to Ialta, about a dozen versts from Mishkor we visited the country houses best worth seeing, particularly Gaspra, which interested us for Madame de Krudener's sake. Perhaps the reader will not be unwilling to peruse the details I collected respecting the motives that induced that celebrated woman to settle in the peninsula, and which connected her name with that of two other women equally remarkable for their strange fortunes.

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XXXVIII. THREE CELEBRATED WOMEN

Every one is aware of the mystic influence which Madame de Krudener exercised for many years over the enthusiastic temperament of the Emperor Alexander. This lady who has so charmingly portrayed her own character in Valerie, who was pre-eminently distinguished in the aristocratic salons of Paris by her beauty, her talents, and her position as an ambassadress, who was by turns a woman of the world, a heroine of romance, a remarkable writer, and a prophetess, will not soon be forgotten in France. The lovers of mystic poetry will read Valerie, that charming work, the appearance of which made so much noise, notwithstanding the bulletins of the grand army (for it appeared in the most brilliant period of the empire); those who delight in grace, combined with beauty and mental endowments, will recall to mind that young woman who won for herself so distinguished a place in French society; and those whose glowing imaginations love to dwell on exalted sentiments and religious fervour, united to the most lively faith, cannot refuse their admiration to her who asked of the mighty of the earth only the means of freely exercising charity, that evangelical virtue, of which she was always one of the most ardent apostles.

The Lettres de Mademoiselle Cochelet make known to us with what zeal Madame de Krudener applied herself to seeking out and comforting the afflicted. Her extreme goodness of heart was such that she was called, in St. Petersburg, the Mother of the Poor. All the sums she received from the emperor were immediately distributed to the wretched, and her own fortune was applied in the same way, so that her house was besieged from morning till night by mujiks and mothers of families, to whom she gave food both for soul and body.

With so much will and power to do good, Madame de Krudener by and by acquired so great an influence in St. Petersburg, that the government at last became alarmed. She was accused of entertaining tendencies of too liberal a cast, religious notions of no orthodox kind, extreme ambition cloaked under the guise of charity, and therewith too much compassion for those miserable mujiks of whom she was the unfailing friend. But the chief cause of the displeasure of the court was the baroness's connexion with two other ladies, whose religious sentiments were by all means exceedingly questionable. They were the Princess Gallitzin and Countess Guacher (we will give the real name of the latter by and by).

The publicity which these ladies affected in all their acts could not but be injurious to the meek Christian enterprise of Madame de Krudener. The princess was detested at court. Too superior to disguise her opinions, and renowned for her beauty, her caustic wit, and her philosophic notions, she had excited against her a host of enemies, who were sure to take the first opportunity of injuring her with the emperor. As for the Countess Guacher, the chief heroine of our tale, her rather equivocal position at the court furnished a weapon against her, when suddenly issuing from the extreme retirement in which she had previously lived, she became one of Madame de Krudener's most enthusiastic adepts. But before we proceed further it will be necessary to give a brief account of her arrival in Russia.

Two years before the period I am speaking of, a lady of high rank arrived in St. Petersburg, accompanied by a numerous retinue, and giving herself out for one of the victims of the French revolution. In that quality she was received with alacrity in the society of the capital, and the Emperor Alexander himself was one of the foremost to notice her. It appeared that she came last from England, where she had taken shelter during the revolutionary troubles; but the motive which had induced her, after so long a residence among the English, to quit their country for Russia, remained an impenetrable secret. She always evinced an extreme repugnance to meet the French emigrants, who resided in St. Petersburg, and they on their part declared that the name she bore was entirely unknown to them. It soon began to be whispered about, that the lady was, perhaps, a personage of illustrious birth who desired to be incognita; but what her real name was no one could tell, not even the emperor. The wit of the courtiers was baffled by the lofty reserve of the countess, who always affected a total silence whenever France was mentioned in conversation. Alexander, always prompt to declare himself a champion of dames, respected the fair stranger's incognito with chivalric loyalty, and declared that any attempt to penetrate the mystery would exceedingly displease him. This was enough to cool the fever of curiosity that had infected the courtiers since Madame Guacher's first appearance; her name was thenceforth mentioned only with a circumspection that would have seemed very curious to any one unacquainted with the Russians, and she soon became a stranger to the court, where she appeared only on rare occasions.

The emperor alone, stimulated no doubt by the mystery she observed respecting her past history, and struck by her high-bred demeanour, kept up an intercourse with her to which he seemed to attach much value. There was nothing of ordinary gallantry in this, at least there never was any thing to indicate that their intimacy had led to so commonplace a result. The romantic spirit of Alexander, delighted to build all sorts of hypotheses on a person whose noble presence and lofty airs exercised a peculiar prestige upon his imagination.

When the Princess Gallitzin returned to St. Petersburg after a journey to Italy, the emperor, who sincerely admired her, took upon himself to make two ladies acquainted whom he thought so fitted to appreciate each other. As he had foreseen, a close intimacy grew up between them, but to the great mortification of the court, this intimacy was, through Madame de Krudener's influence, the basis of an association which aimed at nothing less than the conversion of the whole earth to the holy law of Christ.

At first the scheme was met with derision, then alarm was felt, and at last, by dint of intrigues, the emperor, whom these ladies had half made a proselyte, was forced to banish them from court, and confine them for the rest of their days to the territory of the Crimea. It is said that this decision, so contrary to the kind nature of Alexander, was occasioned by an article in an English newspaper, in which the female trio and his imperial majesty were made the subjects of most biting sarcasms. Enraged at being accused of being held in leading strings by three half-crazed women, the emperor signed the warrant for their exile to the great joy of the envious courtiers. The victims beheld in the event only the manifestation of the divine will, that they should propagate the faith among the followers of Mahomet. In a spirit of Christian humility they declined receiving any other escort than that of a non-commissioned officer, whose duty should be only to see to their personal safety, and transmit their orders to the persons employed in the journey. Their departure produced a great sensation in St. Petersburg; and every one was eager to see the distinguished ladies in their monastic costume. The court laughed, but the populace, always sensitive where religion is concerned, and who, besides, were losing a most generous protectress in Madame de Krudener, accompanied the pilgrims with great demonstrations of respect and sorrow to the banks of the Neva, where they embarked on the 6th of September, 1822.

Two months after that date, on a cold November morning, when the Sea of Azof was already beginning to be covered near shore with a thin coat of ice, there arrived in Taganrok one of those large boats called lodkas, which ply on all the navigable rivers of the empire, and are used for the transport of goods. This one seemed to have been fitted up for the temporary accommodation of passengers. The practised eyes of the sailors in the port soon noticed the peculiar arrangement of the deck, the care with which the bales of merchandise were ranged along the gangways, and above all, the great carpet that covered the whole quarter-deck. These circumstances excited much curiosity in the port, especially as at that advanced season arrivals were very rare; but conjecture was exerted in vain, as to who might be the mysterious passengers, for the whole day passed without one of them appearing. It was ascertained, indeed, that a non-commissioned officer landed from the lodka, and waited on the police-master and the English consul, and that those functionaries repaired on board the lodka; but that was all, and the public remained for ever in ignorance whence the lodka came, whither it was bound, and who were the persons on board of it.

The same evening the English consul was waiting with some curiosity for the visit of a foreigner, who, as he had been informed by the non-commissioned officer of the lodka, would call on him at eight o'clock; but her name and her business remained a mystery for him. At the appointed time the door opened, and a person entered whose appearance at first sight did not seem to justify the curiosity which the consul had felt about her. Dressed in a long, loose, grey robe, and a white hood with lappets falling on the bosom, she had all the appearance of those Russian nuns who go about to rich houses and beg for their convents. Taking her for one of these persons, Mr. Y---- was about to give her a very expeditious answer, when to his surprise she accosted him in excellent English. The appearance and manners of the visitor soon convinced him she was a person of superior station. The conversation turned at first on England. The unknown told him that having long resided in that country, she had felt desirous of seeing its representative in Taganrok; she then went on to discuss English society, mentioning the most aristocratic names, and talking in such a manner as to show that she must have been long familiar with the London world of fashion. After this she proceeded to the main object of her visit, which was to procure from the consul a podoroshni, to continue her journey by land instead of by water as before.

All this while the consul was scrutinising his strange visitor with increasing astonishment. She appeared to be about fifty years of age; her features, which were still very well preserved, must have been once very handsome. She had a Bourbon countenance, large blue eyes, grave lineaments, and a somewhat haughty ease in her demeanour, that altogether produced a singularly imposing effect. The conversation gradually becoming more familiar, the lady confessed that having been converted by the Baroness de Krudener and the Princess Gallitzin, she had been exiled with those ladies to the Crimea, where she purposed to preach the faith.

This unexpected communication of course increased the surprise of Mr. Y----, and drew from him some observations on the nature of such a project. After lauding the zeal of the fair missionary, he hinted a doubt that she would find many proselytes among the Mahometans, and asked her had she no family or friends who had a more direct claim on her charity than strangers, who were too barbarous to appreciate her motives. This question produced an extraordinary effect on the lady. She grew pale and confused, and muttered indistinctly that all her earthly ties were broken, and that the wrath of Heaven had long rested on her head! A silence of some minutes followed that avowal. The consul remained with his eyes fixed on the strange being before him, and in spite of all his address and knowledge of the world, he was quite at a loss how to behave or how to renew the conversation. His visitor, however, relieved him by taking her leave, after repeating her request that he would supply her with a podoroshni on the following morning.

It may easily be imagined that Mr. Y---- did not wait until the next day to satisfy his curiosity respecting the ladies whose invincible spirit of proselytism had sent them from the banks of the Neva to the shores of the Black Sea, and soon after the departure of his visitor he was on his way to the port. He had no difficulty in finding the lodka; the deck was deserted, but a light shone through one of the skylights. Looking down he saw three phantom-like females standing at a table covered with papers, and reading out of large books. When their prayers were ended they began to chant hymns in a slow measure. The solemn religious harmony, suddenly breaking the deep silence, made so intense an impression on the consul, that twenty years afterwards he still spoke of it with enthusiasm.

Countess Guacher stood with her back towards him, but he had a full view of the faces of the two other ladies. Madame de Krudener was small, delicate, and fair haired; her inspired looks and the gentleness of her countenance bespoke her boundless beneficence of soul. The Princess Gallitzin, on the contrary, had an imposing countenance, the expression of which presented a strange mixture of shrewdness, asceticism, sternness, and raillery. For a long while the pilgrims continued chanting Sclavonic psalms, the mysterious impart of which accorded with the enthusiastic disposition of their souls. Before they had ended, the sound of footsteps on the deck woke Mr. Y---- from his trance of wonder. The new comer was the non-commissioned officer, and Mr. Y---- desired the man to announce him, although he hardly expected to be admitted at so late an hour. His visit was nevertheless accepted, and the ladies received him with as much ease as if they had been doing the honours of a drawing-room.

In spite of their religious enthusiasm, and the apostolic vocation which they attributed to themselves, it may easily be imagined that these three high-bred ladies, accustomed to all the refinements of luxury, should now and then have had their tempers a little ruffled by the hardships of their journey, and that their mutual harmony should have suffered somewhat in consequence. Their wish, therefore, to separate on their arrival at Taganrok was natural enough. Countess Guacher especially, having made less progress than her companions in the path of perfection, had often revolted against the austere habits imposed on her; but these ebullitions of carnal temper were always brief and transient; and on the day after her visit to the consul, when he returned to the port to announce that the podoroshni was ready, the boat and its passengers had disappeared, and no one could give any information about them.

II.

The apparition of these ladies in the Crimea threw the whole peninsula into commotion. Eager to make proselytes, they were seen toiling in their beguine costume, with the cross and the gospel in their hands, over mountains and valleys, exploring Tatar villages, and even carrying their enthusiasm to the strange length of preaching in the open air to the amazed and puzzled Mussulmans. But as the English consul had predicted, in spite of their mystic fervour, their persuasive voices, and the originality of their enterprise, our heroines effected few conversions. They only succeeded in making themselves thoroughly ridiculous not only in the eyes of the Tatars, but in those also of the Russian nobles of the vicinity, who instead of seconding their efforts, or at least giving them credit for their good intentions, regarded them only as feather-witted illuminatae, capable at most of catechising little children. The police, too, always prompt to take alarm, and having besides received special instructions respecting these ladies, soon threw impediments in the way of all their efforts, so that two months had scarcely elapsed before they were obliged to give up their roving ways, their preachings, and all the fine dreams they had indulged during their long and painful journey. It was a sore mortification for them to renounce the hope of planting a new Thebaid in the mountains of the Crimea. Madame de Krudener could not endure the loss of her illusions; her health, already impaired by many years of an ascetic life, declined rapidly, and within a year from the time of her arrival in the peninsula, there remained no hope of saving her life. She died in 1823, in the arms of her daughter, the Baroness Berckheim, who had been for some years resident on the southern coast, and became possessed of many documents on the latter part of a life so rich in romantic events: but unfortunately these documents are not destined to see the light.

Princess Gallitzin, whose religious sentiments were perhaps less sincere, thought no more of making conversions after she had installed herself in her delightful villa on the coast. Throwing off for ever the coarse beguine robe, she adopted a no less eccentric costume which she retained until her death. It was an Amazonian petticoat, with a cloth vest of a male cut. A Polish cap trimmed with fur completed her attire, that accorded well with the original character of the princess. It is in this dress she is represented in several portraits still to be seen in her villa at Koreis.

The caustic wit that led to her disgrace at the court of St. Petersburg, her stately manners, her name, her prodigious memory, and immense fortune, quickly attracted round her all the notable persons in Southern Russia. Distinguished foreigners eagerly coveted the honour of being introduced to her, and she was soon at the head of a little court, over which she presided like a real sovereign. But being by nature very capricious, the freak sometimes seized her to shut herself up for whole months in total solitude. Although she relapsed into philosophical and Voltairian notions, the remembrance of Madame de Krudener inspired her with occasional fits of devotion that oddly contrasted with her usual habits. It was during one of these visitations that she erected a colossal cross on one of the heights commanding Koreis. The cross being gilded is visible to a great distance.

Her death in 1839 left a void in Russian society which will not easily be filled. Reared in the school of the eighteenth century, well versed in the literature and the arts of France, speaking the language with an entire command of all that light, playful raillery that made it so formidable of yore; having been a near observer of all the events and all the eminent men of the empire; possessing moreover a power of apprehension and discernment that gave equal variety and point to her conversation; a man in mind and variety of knowledge, a woman in grace and frivolity; the Princess Gallitzin belonged by her brilliant qualities and her charming faults to a class that is day by day becoming extinct.

Now that conversation is quite dethroned in France, and exists only in some few salons of Europe, it is hard to conceive the influence formerly exercised by women of talent. Those of our day, more ambitious of obtaining celebrity through the press than of reigning over a social circle, guard the treasures of their imagination and intellect with an anxious reserve that cannot but prove a real detriment to society. To write feuilletons, romances, and poetry, is all very well; but to preside over a drawing-room, like the women of the eighteenth century, has also its merit. But we must not blame the female sex alone for the loss of that supremacy which once belonged to French society. The men of the present day, more serious than their predecessors, more occupied with positive, palpable interests, seem to look with cold disdain on what but lately commanded their warmest admiration.

But we have lost sight of the Countess Guacher, who is not for all that the least interesting of our heroines. Resigning herself with much more equanimity than her companions to the necessity of leaving the Tatars alone, she hired for herself, even before their complete separation, a small house standing by itself on the sea shore; and there she took up her abode with only one female attendant. Following the example of the Princess Gallitzin, she threw off the beguine robe and assumed a kind of male attire. For some time her existence was almost unknown to her neighbours; so retired were her habits. The only occasions when she was visible was during her rides on horseback on the beach, and it was noticed that she chose the most stormy weather for these excursions.

But her recluse habits did not long conceal her from curious inquiry. A certain Colonel Ivanof, who had noticed the strange proceedings of the pilgrims from their first arrival in the Crimea, set himself to watch the countess, and at last took a house near her retreat; but in order that his presence might not scare her, he contented himself for some weeks with following her at a distance during her lonely promenades, trusting to chance for an opportunity of becoming more intimately acquainted with her. His perseverance was at last rewarded with full success.

One evening, as the colonel stood at his window observing the tokens of an approaching storm, he perceived a person on horseback galloping in the direction of his house, evidently with the intention of seeking shelter. Before this could be accomplished the storm broke out with great fury, and just then the colonel was startled by the discovery that the stranger was his mysterious neighbour. The sequel will be best told in his own words:

"Full of surprise and curiosity I hastened to meet the countess, who entered my doors without honouring me with a single look. She seemed in very bad humour, and concentrated her whole attention upon a tortoise she carried in her left hand. Without uttering a word or caring for the water that streamed from her clothes, she sat down on the divan, and remained for some moments apparently lost in thought. For my part, I continued standing before her, waiting until she should address me, and glad of the opportunity to scrutinise her appearance at my ease. She wore an Amazonian petticoat, a green cloth vest, buttoned over the bosom, a broad-brimmed felt hat, with a pair of pistols in her girdle, and, as I have said, a tortoise in her hand. Her handsome, grave countenance excited my admiration. Below her hat appeared some grey locks, that seemed whitened not so much by years as by sorrow, of which her visage bore the impress.

"Without taking off her hat, the flap of which half concealed her face, she began to warm the tortoise with her breath, calling it by the pet name Dushinka (little soul), which duty being performed she deigned to look up, and perceived me. Her first gesture bespoke extreme surprise. Until then, supposing she was in a Tatar house, she had taken no notice of the objects around her, but the sight of my drawing-room, my library, my piano, and myself, struck her with stupefaction. 'Where am I?' she exclaimed, in hurried alarm. 'Madam,' I replied, 'you are in the house of a man who has long lived as a hermit--a man who like you loves solitude, the sea, and meditation--who has renounced like you the society of his kind to live after his own way in this wilderness.' These words struck her forcibly. 'You, too,' she ejaculated, 'you, too, have divorced yourself from the world, and why? Ay, why?' she repeated, as if conversing with her own thoughts, 'why bury yourself alive here, without friends, without relations, without a heart to respond to yours? Why die this lingering death, when the world is open to you--the world with its delights, its balls and spectacles, its passionate adorations, with the fascinations of the court, the favour of a queen?' Imagine my astonishment to hear her thus in a sort of hallucination, revealing her secret thoughts and recollections. In these few words her whole life was set forth, the life of a beautiful woman, rich, flattered, habituated to the atmosphere of courts.

"After a pause of some duration she entered into conversation with me, questioned me at great length on the way in which I passed my time, on my tastes, the few resources I enjoyed for cultivating the arts, &c. We chatted for more than an hour like old acquaintances, and she seemed quite to have forgotten the strange words she had uttered in the beginning of the interview. Being very much puzzled to know what pleasure she took in carrying the tortoise about with her, I asked her some questions on the subject; but with a solemnity that seemed to me strangely disproportioned to the subject, she told me she had made a vow never to separate from it. 'It is a present from the Emperor Alexander,' she said, 'and as long as I have it near me I shall not utterly despair of my destiny.' Availing myself of this opening I tried to make her talk of the motives that had brought her to the peninsula, but she cut me short by saying that since she had become acquainted with the character of the Tatars she had given up all thought of making converts among them. 'They are men of pure feelings and pure consciences,' she said, impressively; 'why insist on their changing their creed, since they live in accordance with the principles of morality and religion? After all it matters little whether one adores Jesus Christ, Mahomet, or the Grand Lama, if one is charitable, humble, and hospitable.'

"I laughed, and said she spoke rank heresy, and that if she preached such doctrines, she ran great risk of having a bull of excommunication fulminated against her. 'It is since I have given up preaching,' she replied, 'that I have begun to think in this way; solitude makes one regard things in quite a different aspect from that in which they are seen by the world. Only three months ago I set Catholicism above all religions, and now I meditate one still more perfect and sublime. Will you be my first disciple?' she said, in a tone between jest and earnest, that left me very uncertain whether she was serious or not. When she left my house I escorted her to her own door, and promised I would call on her the next day."

The second interview was not less curious than the first: the colonel found his neighbour busily at work with a glass spinner's lamp and a blowpipe, making glass beads. She did not allow her visitor's presence to interrupt her operations, but finished before him enough to make a necklace. She then showed him several boxes filled with beads of all sorts, made by her own hands, and said very seriously, "If ever I return to the world I will wear no other ornaments than such pearls as these. It is a stupid thing to wear true ones. See how bright, clear, and large these are! Would any one suppose they were not the produce of the Indian Ocean? So it is with every thing else: what matters the substance if the form is beautiful and pleasing to the eye?" The colonel was about to enter into a grave discussion of this very questionable moral doctrine, very common in the eighteenth century, when suddenly changing the subject, the countess took down a sword that hung at the head of her bed and laid it on his lap. "You see this weapon, colonel: it was given me by a Vendean chief in admiration of my courage; for though a woman I have fought for the good cause, and many a time smelt powder among the bushes and heaths of Bretagne. You need not wonder at my partiality for weapons and for male costume; it is a reminiscence of my youth. A Vendean at heart, I long made part in the heroic bands that withstood the republican armies, and the dangers, hardships, and fiery emotions of partisan warfare are no secrets to me." "But," observed the colonel, "how is it that thus devoted as you are to the royal cause you do not return to your country, where monarchy is again triumphant?" "Hush!" she answered, lowering her voice, "hush! let us say no more of the present or the past. Would you ask the shrub broken by the storm why the breath of spring does not reanimate its mutilated form? Let us leave things as they are, and not strive to repair what is irreparable. Man's justice has pronounced its decree; let us trust in that of God, merciful and infinite, like all that is eternally just and good!"

It was in vain the colonel endeavoured by further questions to become acquainted with that mysterious past to which she could not make any allusion without extreme perturbation of mind; she remained silent, and retired to another room without renewing the conversation.

After these two interviews, Colonel Ivanof had no other opportunity of gathering any hints that could lead him towards a definite conclusion respecting this extraordinary woman, although he saw her almost daily for more than two months. She often talked to him of her residence in London, her friendly relations with the Emperor of Russia, her travels, and her fortune; but of France not a word. Not an expression of regret, not a name or allusion of any sort, afforded the colonel reason to suspect that his neighbour had left behind her in her native land any objects on which her memory still dwelt. His brain was almost turned at last by the romantic acquaintance he had made. His vanity was piqued, and his desire to solve so difficult an enigma gave him no rest. He diligently perused the history of the French Revolution, in hopes to find in it a clue to his inquiry, but it was to no purpose. He felt completely astray in such a labyrinth. Many great names successively occurred to him as likely to belong to his mysterious neighbour, but there were always some circumstances connected with them that refuted such a supposition.

Perhaps a more matter-of-fact person would at last have discovered the truth; but the colonel's lively imagination led him to embrace the oddest hypothesis. It was his belief that the countess was the illegitimate offspring of a royal amour. Setting out from this principle he put aside all the names proscribed by the revolution, and stuck obstinately to a myth. But tired at last of this pursuit of shadows, he resolved to trust to that chance which had already been so favourable for the clearing up of his uncertainty. Assiduously noting all the lady's eccentricities, he knew not whether to pity or admire her, though very certain that her wits wandered at times.

She frequently received despatches from St. Petersburg, and seemed, notwithstanding her exile, to have retained a certain influence over the mind of the tzar. One day she showed her neighbour a letter from a lady of the court, who thanked her warmly for having obtained from the emperor a regiment which that lady had long been ineffectually soliciting for her son.

So absorbed was the Russian officer by the interest he took in the countess, that he seemed to have forgotten all the world besides; but an unexpected event suddenly put an end to his romantic loiterings, and sent him back to the realities of life. A Frenchman, calling himself Baron X--, arrived one fine morning from St. Petersburg, and established himself without ceremony as the countess's factotum. From that moment all intimacy was broken off between the latter and Colonel Ivanof. The cold, astute behaviour of the baron, and his continual presence, obliged the colonel to retire. It may seem strange that he surrendered the field so quickly to an unknown person, but it was time for him to return to his military duties, and besides, what could he do with a man whose connexion with the countess seemed of old standing, and who watched her with a jealous vigilance enough to discourage the most intrepid curiosity? His departure was scarcely noticed by Madame Guacher, whose habits had undergone an entire change since the arrival of the baron. The incoherence of her mind became more and more visible; it was only at long and uncertain intervals she rode out on horseback; the rest of her time was spent in enduring all sorts of extraordinary mortifications.

Baron X--remained in the Crimea until the death of the countess, which took place in 1823. Being fully acquainted with all her affairs he was her sole heir, not legally, perhaps, but de facto. On leaving the peninsula he proceeded to England, where a large part of our heroine's property was invested, and he afterwards returned to Russia with a considerable fortune.

A curious incident occurred after the death of the countess. As soon as the emperor was informed of the event he despatched a courier to the Crimea, with orders to bring him a casket, the form, size, and materials of which were described with the most minute exactness. The messenger, assisted by the chief of the police, at first made a fruitless search; but at last, through the information of a waiting woman, the casket was found sealed up, under the bed of the deceased lady. The courier took possession of it and returned with the utmost speed. In ten days he was in St. Petersburg.

The precious casket was delivered to the emperor in his private cabinet, in the presence of two or three courtiers. Alexander was so impatient to open it that he had the lock forced. But alas! what a sad disappointment! The casket contained only--a pair of scissors. It surely was not for the sake of a pair of scissors that Alexander had made one of his Cossacks gallop 4000 versts in a fortnight. Be that as it may, Baron X--was accused of having purloined papers of the highest importance, and unfairly possessed himself of Madame Guacher's fortune. But as he was then on his road to London, the emperor's anger was of no avail.

At a subsequent period, the disclosures made by this man, and the discovery of a curious correspondence, at last revealed the real name of the countess; but the tardy information arrived when there was no longer any one to be interested in it; the emperor was dead, and Colonel Ivanhof was fighting in the Caucasus.

Interred in a corner of the garden belonging to her house, that mysterious woman who had been the subject of so many contradictory rumours, had not even a stone to cover her grave, and to mark to the stranger the spot where rest the remains of the Countess de Lamothe, who had been whipped and branded in the Place de Greve, as an accomplice in the scandalous affair of the diamond necklace.[69]

FOOTNOTES:

[69] All the facts we have related respecting Madame de Lamothe are positive and perfectly authentic: they were reported to us by persons who had known that lady particularly, and who moreover possessed substantial proofs of her identity. It is chiefly to Mademoiselle Jacquemart, mentioned in "Marshal Marmont's Travels," that we are indebted for the details we have given respecting the arrival of our three heroines in the Crimea. We have ourselves seen in that lady's possession the sword which the countess alleged she had used in the wars of La Vendee, and sundry letters attesting the great influence she exercised over the Emperor Alexander.

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Chapter XXXIX

IALTA--KOUTCHOUK LAMPAT--PARTHENIT--THE PRINCE DE LIGNE'S HAZEL--OULOU OUZEN; A GARDEN CONVERTED INTO AN AVIARY--TATAR YOUNG WOMEN--EXCURSION TO SOUDAGH--MADEMOISELLE JACQUEMART.

The proximity of Ialta to the most remarkable places on the coast, its harbour, and its delightful situation, make it the rendezvous of all the travellers who flock to the Crimea in the fine season. A packet-boat from Odessa brings every week a large number of passengers, and the harbour is further enlivened by a multitude of small vessels from all parts of the coast. Nothing can be more charming than the sight of that white Ialta, seated at the head of a bay like a beautiful sultana bathing her feet in the sea, and sheltering her fair forehead from the sun under rocks festooned with verdure. Elegant buildings, handsome hotels, and a comfortable, cheerful population, indicate that opulence and pleasure have taken the town under their patronage; its prosperity, indeed, depends entirely on the travellers who fill its hotels for several months of the year. When it belonged to the Greeks it was counted among the most important towns on the coast; but the successive revolutions of the Crimea were fatal to it, and for a long while it remained only a wretched village. At present a custom-house and a garrison complete its pretensions to the style and dignity of a grand town. But nature has been so liberal to it, that instead of wondering at its rapid rise one is rather disposed to think it much inferior to what it might be.

We left Ialta in a tolerably large body, some on horseback, others in carriages. Leaving behind us Aloupka, Mishkor, Koreis, and Oreanda, we soon forgot their sumptuous displays of art for the inexhaustible marvels of nature. Our road lay parallel to the coast, and the continual variations of its admirable scenery made us think the way too short. A storm of rain overtook us in the fine forest of Koutchouk Lampat, and made us all run for shelter. The more advanced of the party easily reached the house of General Borosdin the owner of the property; but those in the rear, of whom I was one, were obliged to take refuge in a pavilion. Whilst we were quietly waiting there until the storm should blow over, the people of the house were seeking for us on all sides, having been sent out by our companions. Several times we saw them passing along at a distance armed with large umbrellas; but as there was a billiard-table in the pavilion we never showed ourselves until we had finished an interesting game. The chatelain of Koutchouk Lampat, delighted to receive so numerous a party, entertained us with an excellent collation, in which figured all the wines of France and Spain.

A few leagues from Koutchouk Lampat lies Parthenit, a village where, for the first time, I received a mark of civility from Tatar females. As I entered the place, keeping in the rear of the others according to my usual custom, I passed in front of a house in the large balcony of which there were three veiled women. Just as I passed beneath the balcony I slackened my horse's pace and made some friendly signals to them, whereupon, one of them, and I make no doubt the prettiest, repeatedly kissed a large bouquet of lily of the valley she held, and threw it to me so adroitly that it fell into my hand. Delighted with the present, I hastened up to my companions and showed it to them; but they were all malicious enough to assure me that the gift had been addressed not to myself but to my clothes. The reader will remember that I travelled in male costume.

At Parthenit we failed not to sit under the famous hazel-tree of the Prince de Ligne. Its foliage is so thick and spreading that it overshadows a whole place. The trunk is not less than eight yards in circumference, and is surrounded by a large wooden divan, almost always occupied by travellers, who use it as a tavern. The inhabitants of Parthenit regard this tree with great affection, and beneath its shade they discuss all the important affairs of the village. A limpid fountain, the waters of which are distributed through several channels, adds to the charm of the spot. Our whole cavalcade was completely sheltered under the dome of the magnificent hazel. The Tatars brought us sweetmeats, coffee, and fresh eggs, and obstinately refused to take payment for them. Almost the whole population came to see us, but their curiosity was not at all obtrusive. Such of them as had no immediate business with us kept a respectful distance.

On leaving Parthenit we passed very close to some old fortifications covering a whole hill with their imposing ruins. At evening we arrived at the post station of Alouchta,[70] where our party was to break up. Some of our companions returned to Ialta, others proceeded towards Simpheropol; whilst we ourselves, accompanied by a single Tatar and our dragoman, set out by the sea-coast for Oulou Ouzen. The distance was but twelve versts, but we spent several hours upon it, in consequence of the difficulty of the ground and the steepness of the cliffs which we were often obliged to ascend. We met no one on the way; this part of the coast is quite deserted and sterile.

Oulou Ouzen, our point of destination, is a narrow valley opening on the sea, and belonging to Madame Lang, who has covered it with vineyards and orchards. A week passed quickly away in the agreeable society of our hostess, whose residence is one of the prettiest in the country. Being very fond of birds, she has succeeded by a very simple process in converting her garden into a great aviary. On the day we arrived we were surprised to see her continually assailed by a flock of pretty titmice that pecked at her hair and hands with extraordinary familiarity. They were the progeny in the third and fourth generation of a pair she had reared two years before, and had liberated in the beginning of spring. Next year they returned with a young brood that grew used by degrees to feed on the balcony, and at last to eat out of her hands. These in their turn brought her their young ones; other birds followed their example, and thus she has always a flock of gay dwellers of the air perching and fluttering about her balcony, which is covered with nets to protect them from birds of prey.

At Madame Lang's we met a very agreeable gentleman and a great admirer of the Crimea, M. Montandon, who has written an excellent itinerary of the country. We talked a great deal with him about a French lady, Mademoiselle Jacquemart, whose acquaintance my husband had made some months previously. She has resided for the last fifteen years in Soudagh, a valley near Oulou Ouzen. The Duc de Raguse speaks at great length of her in his Excursion en Crimee, and relates the tragic adventure of which she was the heroine some years ago, but he assigns for it a romantic cause which Mademoiselle Jacquemart has absolutely contradicted.

Few ladies have passed through a more eccentric life than Mademoiselle Jacquemart. In her young days, her beauty, her talents, and her wit invested her with a celebrity, such as rarely falls to the lot of one in the humble position of a governess. After having lived long in the great world of St. Petersburg and of Vienna, she suddenly withdrew to the Crimea, where, having like many others almost ruined herself by vintage speculations, she purchased the little property in which she now resides. Her history and her unusual energy of character led to a close intimacy between her and the old Princess Gallitzin, who was herself enough of an original character to like every thing uncommon, and Mademoiselle Jacquemart was an habitual guest at Koreis.

Before we left Oulou Ouzen we went to spend a day with Madame Lang's only neighbour, an old bachelor, who lives quite alone, not out of misanthropy, but that he may devote himself without interruption to his favourite pursuit of botany. A deep ravine between the two properties, and a steep descent overlooking the sea, render the road so dangerous that ladies can venture to traverse it only in a vehicle drawn by oxen. It was in this strange equipage, guided by a Tatar armed with a long goad, that we reached the house of M. Faviski, who was quite delighted, but greatly puzzled to receive ladies. He did the honours of his bachelor's dwelling, nevertheless, like a very well-bred gentleman.

While we were waiting for dinner, Madame Lang conceived the happy thought of sending for all the Tatar beauties of the village that I might see them. When they arrived, the gentlemen were obliged to leave the room, which was immediately entered by a dozen of pretty bashful young women, looking like a herd of scared gazelles. But after a few words from Madame Lang, who speaks Tatar very well, they soon became familiarised with our strange faces, and grew very merry. They took off their veils and papouches at our request, and favoured us with an Oriental dance. One of them quite astonished me by the magnificent lineaments of her face, which reminded me of the head of an empress on an ancient medal. They examined all the details of our toilette with childlike curiosity, and exacted from us the same attentive notice of the embroidery on their bodices and veils. Meanwhile, so amused were we by this scene, that we had quite forgotten the gentlemen whom we had turned out, and who now began to thump lustily at the door. The Tatar women were now thrown into the most picturesque and comical disorder, and ran about in all directions looking for their veils. In the midst of the confusion I was wicked enough to hide the veil and slippers of the young beauty, and then throw the door wide open. It was curious to see the dismay of the poor blushing creature who knew not how to escape from the bold admiration of several men. She had never in her life been in such a situation before; so when I thought the gentlemen had sufficiently indulged their curiosity, I hastened to relieve her by returning her veil.

Next day, after a fatiguing journey, we reached Soudagh in the evening. It was with no little interest I beheld the humble abode of a woman of talent, who, through some unaccountable whim, had quitted the world while still young, and retired to almost absolute solitude. She was glad to receive the visit of compatriots, and talked frankly to us of the hardships and discomforts of a life she had not the courage to abandon. The extreme loneliness of her dwelling exposed her to frequent attacks by night, and obliged her to have a brace of pistols always at the head of her bed. People stole her fruit, her poultry, and even her vines; she was kept continually on the alert, and had the fear before her of repetition of the horrible attempt to which she was once near falling a victim.

The account she herself gave us of that affair was as follows. Two days before it happened, a Greek applied to her for work and food. Not having any employment for him, she gave him some provisions, and advised him to look elsewhere for work. The next day but one, as she was returning in the evening from a geological excursion, carrying in her hand a small hatchet she used for breaking pebbles, she perceived the same man walking behind her in silence. Feeling some uneasiness, she turned round to look in the Greek's face; but at that moment she felt herself grasped round the waist, the hatchet was snatched out of her hand, and she received several blows with it on the head that deprived her of all consciousness. When her senses returned the assassin had disappeared. How she reached home with her skull fractured, she never could explain. For many months her life was in imminent danger, and her reason was impaired. At the time we saw her she still suffered acutely from some splinters of a comb that remained in her head. This is a much less romantic story than that told by Marmont.

FOOTNOTES:

[70] About A.D. 465, the Khersonites invoked the protection of the emperors of the East against the Huns. Justinian seized the opportunity to erect the two fortresses of Alouchta and Oursouf, by means of which he subsequently rendered the republic of Kherson tributary to the empire. There still exist at Alouchta three large towers that formed part of the imperial castle.

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Chapter XL

RUINS OF SOLDAYA--ROAD TO THEODOSIA--CAFFA--MUSCOVITE VANDALISM--PENINSULA OF KERTCH--PANTICAPEA AND ITS TOMBS.

Leaving my wife to return with Mademoiselle Jacquemart to Oulou Ouzen, I took my way by the lower part of the valley of Soudagh through a labyrinth of vineyards and meadows covered with blossoming peach and apricot trees. Passing the paltry village that has borrowed one of the names of the celebrated Soldaya, we soon arrived at the sea beach at the foot of the triple castle erected by the intrepid Genoese, in 1365, on the site of a city they had just conquered, and which had flourished under the successive dominion of the Greeks, the Komans, and the Tatars.

The origin of Soldaya, or Sougdai, belongs to the most remote periods of Crimean history. In the eighth century it was a bishop's see, and though then dependent on the Greek empire it boasted not the less of its own sovereigns. Four centuries afterwards, in 1204, the Komans, an Asiatic people, expelled from their own territories, and driven westward by the hordes of Genghis Khan, entered the Crimea, where they were the precursors of that terrible Mongol invasion that was soon to overwhelm all the east of Europe. The arrivals of these fugitives was fatal to the Greek settlements; the princes of Soldaya were exterminated, and the victors took possession of their capital. But the Komans did not long enjoy their conquests. Overtaken a second time by the rapid current of the Mongol invasion, they were obliged to abandon the Crimea after thirty years' possession, and seek an asylum in the most western regions of Thrace.

Under the Mongol dominion the Greeks returned to Soldaya, which again became a Christian town, and the most important port of the peninsula. It was tributary, indeed, to the Tatars, but it had a bishop and its own administration.

In the beginning of the fourteenth century, when the Tatars of the Kaptchak adopted the religion of Mahomet, Mussulman fanaticism prevailed for a while in the Crimea, the Christians were expelled from Soldaya and their numerous churches were converted into mosques. But it is a remarkable fact that the word of a pope, John XXII., was of such force in 1323, that Ousbeck Khan allowed the exiles to resume possession of their city with the enjoyment of their ancient privileges.

But twenty years had elapsed when a fresh revolution, occasioned by intestine disorder and dissensions, finally extinguished all trace of the Greek sway in Soldaya. The Genoese, who had for nearly a century been masters of Caffa, incorporated the ancient capital of the Komans with their own territory on the 18th of June, 1365.[71] Then it was that in order to secure their possession of the fertile territory of Soudagh and defend it against the Tatars, the enterprising merchant princes erected, on the most inaccessible rock at the entrance of the valley, that formidable fortress of three stories, crowned by the gigantic Maiden Tower (Kize Kouleh) whence the warders could overlook the fort, the sea, and the adjacent regions.

The Genoese remained in quiet possession of their castle for more than a century; but after the taking of Constantinople by Mahomet II., and the almost immediate destruction of Caffa, the capital of the Crimean colonies, Soldaya, shared the same fate. The Turks laid siege to the fortress in 1475. It made a long and obstinate resistance, and famine alone overcame the valour of the garrison.[72]

With the Genoese sway, fell all that had constituted the glory and prosperity of Soldaya during so many centuries; the population of the town was driven out and scattered; the once animated harbour was deserted, and grass grew in the streets trodden of yore by the elegant Greeks of the Lower Empire, the victorious Komans and the proud citizens of Genoa. A feeble Turkish garrison became the tenants of the place, and for nearly three centuries continued the unmoved spectators of the decay and desolation of one of the oldest and most remarkable cities of the Pontus Euxinus.

The imperial eagle of the tzars floated over the towers of Soldaya in 1781, and from that time began for the monuments of the Genoese colony that rapid destruction which everywhere characterises the Russian conquests. All the beautiful public and private buildings which Pallas so much admired in his first journey, disappeared, and out of their precious remains, Muscovite vandalism erected great useless barracks, the unmeaning ruins of which have, for many years, strewed the ground. At present Soldaya, erased from the list of towns and fortresses, has not even a watchman to guard its walls and its magnificent towers with their proud inscriptions. Every year the sight is saddened by fresh mutilations, and ere long there will remain nothing of those marble tablets with their elegant arabesques that adorned every tower and doorway, and recorded its origin and history. The only thing that could save the Genoese castle from total destruction, would be to leave it quite alone, and to remove far from it every body of Russian authorities. Unfortunately, the government seems willing to take upon itself the care of its preservation, and there can be no doubt that demolition awaits the remains of Soldaya from the moment an employe, without salary enough to live on, shall be invested with the right of protecting them against the ravages of time and of men.[73]

On leaving Soldaya we proceeded towards Theodosia, the Caffa of the Genoese. We will not weary the reader with a monotonous description of our route. This part of the country is less diversified, less beautiful and picturesque, and the population much more thinly spread than in the other mountainous parts of the Crimea. The great calcareous chain recedes considerably from the coast, and from its precipitous sides it sends off blackish schistous offshoots, scarcely covered by a meagre vegetation, enclosing between them in their course to the sea some valleys in which the Tatars have established the only villages in the country. Completely abandoned by the aristocracy, destitute of roads, and unadorned by any of those elegant dwellings with which luxury and fashion have embellished the hill sides of Ialta, the whole coast between Alouchta and Theodosia is neglected by most tourists, and is only visited at rare intervals by scientific travellers. But if the Soudagh coasts are disdained by the Russian nobles, and display no Italian villas or porphyry gothic manors, the traveller finds there the most frank reception and truly Oriental hospitality. Far from all the centres of the elegant and partly corrupt civilisation which the Russians have imported into the Crimea within the last twenty years, the Tatars of these regions retain unaltered their ancient usages, and the prominent features of their primitive character. I could not easily describe the kindly good-will with which I was received in all the villages where I stopped. The fact that I was a Frenchman, who had nothing to do with any branch of Russian administration, had a really marvellous effect on the mountaineers. Wherever I went the best house, the handsomest divan, cushions, and carpets were assigned for my use; and in an instant I found myself sipping my coffee and smoking my chibouk, surrounded with all those comforts the want of which is so sorely felt by those who travel in certain parts of the East.

In Toklouk, Kooz, and Otouz, which we passed through successively, the flat-roofed Tatar houses are, as everywhere else, backed against the hills that flank the valley. By this means the inhabitants are enabled to keep up a communication with each other by the terrace tops of their houses, where they regularly carry on their work, and which are formed of stout carpentry covered with a thick bed of clay. Nothing can be more picturesque than the appearance, at evening, of all these terraces rising in gradations one above the other. At that period of the day the whole population of each village is on the alert; and quitting the dark rooms in which they had sheltered from the heat of the day, men, women, and children gather on the roofs; animation, mirth, and the din of tongues, takes place of the silence of day, and the observer is never weary of watching the picturesque scenes formed by the various groups engaged in their household occupations.

At Koktebel, a little village on the sea shore, twenty-nine versts from Soudagh, the sombre headland Kara Dagh terminates the bolder scenery of the Crimea. Beyond that point the country presents no picturesque features; vast plains gradually succeed the hills, and as the traveller advances he is forewarned by various tokens of his approach to the steppes, which form all the northern part of the peninsula, and extend eastward of the old Genoese colony to the shores of the Cimmerian Bosphorus. Along the whole line from Soudagh to Theodosia there is not one point, not one monument or ruin to interest the historian or the antiquarian. Indeed the nature of the coast, now abrupt, now formed of great unsheltered flats, does not seem to favour the foundation of a town or of a harbour, whether for war or commerce.

We are now arrived at Theodosia or Caffa, formerly the splendid metropolis of the Genoese dominion in the Black Sea, now a Russian town, stripped of all political and commercial importance. The genius of barbarous destruction has wrought still more deplorable effects here than at Soldaya or any other spot in the Crimea.

Theodosia was founded by the Milesians in the early times of their expedition to the Pontus Euxinus, and long prospered as an independent colony. It was afterwards incorporated into the kingdom of the Bosphorus, and shared its destinies for many centuries. The Alans, a barbarous people from the heart of Asia, appeared in the Crimea about the middle of the first century of our era; Theodosia was sacked by them, and sixty years afterwards Arrian speaks of it in his Periplus of the Black Sea as a town entirely deserted. The Huns subsequently completed what the Alans had begun, and left not a vestige to indicate the true position of the old Milesian colony.

Ten centuries after the destruction of Theodosia, other navigators not less intelligent or enterprising than the Milesians, landed on the Crimean coasts; and soon there arose on the site of the Greek city another equally remarkable city, the annals of which form unquestionably one of the finest chapters in the political and commercial history of the Black Sea. It was in the middle of the thirteenth century, after the conquest of the Crimea by the Mongols, when three potent republics were contending for the empire of the seas, that the Genoese, entering the bay of Theodosia, obtained from Prince Oran Timour the grant of a small portion of ground on the coast. The colony of Caffa was regularly founded in 1280, and so rapid was its rise, that in nine years from that date it was able, without impairing its own means of defence, to send nine galleys to the succour of Tripoli, then besieged by the Saracens.[74]

The foundation of Caffa increased the rancorous strife between Genoa and her potent rival of the Adriatic. The Crimean colony was surprised by twenty Venetian galleys in the year 1292, and totally destroyed. In the following year the Genoese again took possession of their territory; Caffa quickly rose from its ruins, and twenty years afterwards Pope John XXII. made it a bishop's see. War having broke out with the Tatars in 1343, Djanibeck Khan, sovereign of Kaptchak, laid siege to Caffa. The Genoese came off victorious in this warfare, but the dangers to which they were exposed made them feel the need of a strong system of fortifications. The earthen ramparts and the palisades of the town were, therefore, replaced by thick and lofty walls, flanked by towers, and surrounded by a deep, wide ditch, faced with solid masonry. These magnificent works, whose excellence and gigantic proportions may still be admired by the traveller, were begun in 1353, and finished in 1386. The most remarkable tower, that at the southern corner which commands the whole town, was dedicated to the memory of Pope Clement VI., in an inscription relating to the crusade preached by that pontiff at the time when the Tatars were invading the colony.

From that period the prosperity of Caffa augmented incessantly; it attracted to itself the trade of the most remote regions of Asia, and according to the statement of its historians it soon equalled in extent and population the capital of the Greek empire, which it surpassed in industry and opulence. The Genoese colony had thus reached the apogee of its glory and might in the middle of the fifteenth century, when the taking of Constantinople by Mahomet II. cut it off from the metropolis, and prepared its entire destruction.

On the 1st of June, 1475, a fleet of 482 vessels, commanded by the high admiral Achmet Pacha, appeared before Caffa, which was immediately bombarded by the formidable Ottoman artillery. The attack was of short duration; large portions of the walls, erected at a period when the use of cannons was unknown, were rapidly dismantled; breaches were made in all directions, and the besieged were forced to surrender at discretion on the 6th of June, 1475, after ineffectually attempting to obtain terms of capitulation.

Achmet Pacha entered Caffa as an incensed victor and an enemy of the Christian name. After taking possession of the consular palace, he disarmed the population, imposed an enormous fine on the town, and then seized half the property of the inhabitants, and all the slaves of both sexes. The Latin Catholics were shipped on board the Turkish fleet and carried to Constantinople, where the sultan, established them by force in the suburbs of his new capital, after taking from them 1500 male children to be brought up as members of his guard. Thus was annihilated in the space of a few days, after 200 years of glorious existence, that magnificent establishment which the genius of Europe had erected on those remote shores, and which had shed such lustre on the commerce of the Black Sea.

Caffa, the destruction of which was immediately followed by that of Soldaya and Cembalo, was annexed to the Turkish dominions, and for upwards of 550 years had no other importance than what it derived from its Turkish garrison and its military position on the shore of a Mussulman region, the absolute conquest of which never ceased to be an object of the Porte's ambition. In the middle of the seventeenth century, the old Genoese city awoke from its long trance, and in consequence of the commercial and industrial movement which then took place among the Tatars, it again became the great trading port of the Black Sea. Chardin, on his journey to Persia in 1663, found more than 400 vessels in the bay of Caffa. The town, to which the Turks then gave the name of Koutchouk Stamboul (Little Constantinople) contained 4000 houses, with a population exceeding 80,000 souls.

The new prosperity of Caffa was short lived. From the time of Peter the Great Russia pursued her threatening advance towards the regions of the Black Sea, and in 1783, in the reign of the Empress Catherine II., the Crimea was finally incorporated with the Muscovite empire. Caffa now accomplished the last stage of its destinies; it lost even officially its time-honoured name, and under the pompous appellation of the Greek Colony, bestowed on it by the Emperor Alexander, it became a paltry district town, to which authentic documents assign at the present day scarcely 4500 inhabitants. At Caffa, just as at Soldaya, the construction of useless barracks occasioned the demolition of the Genoese edifices. The facings of the ditches were first carried off, and then, emboldened by the deplorable indifference of the government, the destroyers laid hands on the walls themselves. The magnificent towers that defended them were pulled down, and there now remain only three fragments of walls belonging to the remarkable bastion erected in honour of Pope Clement VI. When the Genoese fortifications had been destroyed, the civil monuments next fell under the ruthless vandalism of the authorities. At the time the Russians took possession, two imposing edifices adorned the principal square of Caffa, the great Turkish baths, an admirable model of Oriental architecture, and the ancient episcopal church of the Genoese, built in the beginning of the fourteenth century, and converted into a mosque after the Turkish conquest. It was decided in the reign of Catherine II. that the mosque should be restored to the Greek church, but unfortunately instead of preserving it unaltered, the fatal project of adorning it with wretched doric porticoes was adopted. The elegant domes that so gracefully encompassed the main building were, therefore, demolished; but scarcely were the bases of the columns laid when a trifling deficit occurred in the funds, as M. Dubois relates, and thenceforth the government refused to make any further advances.

The beautiful mosque which had been quickly stripped of its lead, to be sold, of course, for the benefit of the Russian officials, was thus abandoned to the mutilations of time and of the population, and soon became a mere ruin. In 1833, the ignorance of a civil governor, Kasnatcheief, completed this afflicting work of destruction, which extended at the same time to the great baths that still remained untouched. A fortnight's work with the pickaxe and gunpowder razed to the ground the two admirable monuments with which the Genoese and the Turks had adorned the town. When I visited Theodosia in 1840, the great square was still obstructed with their precious materials, which the local administration was eager to dispose of at a low price to whoever would buy them.

Of all the splendid edifices of the Genoese colony two churches alone have escaped the destroyer; art owes their preservation to the Catholics and the Armenians. For a very long time those two foreign communities struggled against the indifference of the government, and strove to obtain its aid for the repair of their edifices; but their applications were all unsuccessful, and it was by great personal sacrifices that they succeeded in recent times in themselves effecting the restoration of their temples.

If we turn our attention from the interior of the town to its environs, we are still afflicted by the same spectacle of destruction. All the thriving fields and orchards that encompassed the town in the time of the Tatars have disappeared. Two Muscovite regiments annihilated in a single winter all trace of the rich cultivation that formerly clothed the hills.

There is a museum in Theodosia, but except some Genoese inscriptions, foremost among which is that of the famous tower of Clement VI., it contains no remains belonging to the ancient Milesian colony. All the antiquities it possesses come exclusively from Kertsch (Panticapea), and were brought to Theodosia at a period when that town was still the chief seat of the administration of the Crimea. Dr. Grapperon, a Frenchman, is the director of the museum. He never fails to mystify the antiquaries who pass through his town, by exhibiting to them a pretended female torso, found in the heart of the Crimean mountains; but the cunning old man knows very well that his chef-d'oeuvre is only a lusus naturae.

Notwithstanding all the depredations of the authorities, and the stupid ignorance of a governor, Caffa has not been entirely metamorphosed into a Russian town. Its chief edifices have been demolished, its walls razed, its Tatar population expelled, and solitude has succeeded to its former animation, yet the general appearance of the city, its various private buildings, and its streets paved with large flags, all bespeak a foreign origin and a foreign rule. Long may the town preserve this picturesque aspect, which reminds the traveller of that of the little Mediterranean seaports.

After three days spent in exploring the ruins of the Genoese colony, days rendered doubly agreeable by the varied and instructive conversation of my kind cicerone, M. Felix Lagorio,[75] I set out again to continue my investigations as far as the most eastern point of the Crimea. It is from the point where the last hills of the Crimean chain subside at the foot of the walls of Theodosia that the celebrated peninsula of Kertch begins, which extends between the Black Sea and the Sea of Azof to the shores of the Cimmerian Bosphorus. As I traversed its now deserted and arid plains, where nothing seems formed to arrest the attention for a single moment, my mind went back with astonishment to those glorious times when flourished the numerous opulent towns which the colonising genius of the Milesians erected in these regions. Theodosia, Nimphea, Mirmikione, and on the other side of the strait Phanagoria, crowded the brilliant historic scene called up by my recollections; but above them all stood Panticapea, the celebrated capital of the kingdom of the Bosphorus, where Greek elegance and civilisation reigned for so many ages, and where Mithridates died after having for a while menaced the existence of the Roman empire. While my imagination was thus reconstructing the splendid panorama which the peninsula must have presented when the Bosphorians had covered it with their rich establishments, the Russian pereclatnoi was carrying me along through vast solitudes, where I sought in vain to discover some traces of that ancient Greek dominion, the grandeur and prosperity of which were extolled by Herodotus five centuries before the Christian era. Towards evening only, as I approached the Bosphorus, my curiosity was strongly excited by the singular indentations which the steppe exhibited along the line of the horizon, and soon afterwards I found myself in the midst of one of the chief necropolises of the ancient Milesian city. Huge cones of earth rose around me, and numerous coral crags, mingled with the mounds erected by the hands of men, enhanced the grandeur of this singular cemetery. On reaching the extremity of the plateau, I could overlook the whole extent of the Cimmerian Bosphorus. The last rays of the setting sun were colouring the cliffs on the Asiatic side, and the triangular sails of some fishing boats; the many tumuli of Phanagoria stood in full relief against the blue sky, and whilst the melancholy hue of evening was gradually stealing upon the smooth waters of the channel, the deeply-marked shadow of Cape Akbouroun was already spreading far over them. I had but a few seconds to admire these magnificent effects of light and shade: the sun dipped below the horizon, and twilight immediately invested the scene with its uniform hues. Ten minutes afterwards I entered Kertch, a Russian town of yesterday, stretching along the sea at the foot of the celebrated rock which popular tradition has decked with the name of Mithridates' Chair. It was on the side of this mountain, formerly crowned by an acropolis, that the capital of the kingdom of the Bosphorus expanded like an amphitheatre. A few mutilated fragments are all that now exist of Panticapea; the hill on which it stood is parched, bare, and rent by deep ravines, and modern archaeologists have had much difficulty in positively determining the site of the most celebrated of the Milesian colonies.

Having taken up my quarters in Kertch under the hospitable roof of M. Menestrier, one of the most agreeable of my countrymen I have met in my travels, I set earnestly about my excursions, and through the obliging kindness of Prince Kherkeoulitchev, the governor of the town, I was soon in possession of all the data requisite to guide me in my researches. I shall not, however, obtrude upon the reader all the archaeological notes with which I enriched my journal, while exploring the tombs and monuments of Panticapea, since I have been anticipated in this respect by others more competent in such matters, especially M. Dubois Montperreux.

In roaming about the environs of Kertch, among the innumerable tumuli, that served as tombs for the sovereigns and wealthy citizens of Panticapea, one is instantly struck by the exceedingly slovenly and mischievous manner in which every opening of these mounds has been performed during the last twenty years. Instead of seeking to preserve these precious monuments bequeathed unaltered to them by so many generations, the Russians have been only bent on destroying them, in order to arrive the sooner at the discovery of the valuable contents thought to be enclosed within them. All the tumuli against which official exploratory operations have been directed, have been totally demolished, or cut in four by wide trenches from the summit to the base, and no one has even thought of effecting the required researches by means either of a vertical shaft or by tunnelling.

I have visited all the chief points where the destructive genius of the Muscovite archaeologists has been exercised; but it would be impossible for me to describe the grief I felt at the sight of such horrible devastation. They have not contented themselves with destroying the form of the monuments; the inner chambers and the mortal remains within them have been no more respected than the earth and stones that had protected them for so many ages from all profanation. The bones have everywhere been taken out of the tombs, and exposed on the surface of the ground to the inclemency of the weather. M. Menestrier, of whom I have spoken above, and whose generous indignation has not spared the directors of these operations, had one day to bury with his own hands the still entire skeleton of a young woman. I have myself seen soldiers warming themselves at large fires which they fed with the precious fragments of wooden sarcophagi they had just discovered.

Among the various tumuli, that situated near the quarantine establishment north of the town, unquestionably deserved especial attention on the part of the local administration. Considering the gigantic dimensions of its central chamber and gallery, both having corbelled ceilings, it was a truly unique monument, which the government should have been solicitous to transmit unimpaired to future generations. The entrance gallery is 36.25 metres long, 2.80 wide, and 7.50 high. The five lower courses forming the basement are each 0.45 thick. Then come twelve other courses, only 0.40 high, and rising in corbels so as to form a series of regular projections on the interior of 0.12. The two upper courses, which have an interval of 0.25 between them, instead of being joined by keystones, are merely covered with large flags laid flat in mortar. The stability of such ceilings is evidently contrary to all the rules of art, and it is probable that in erecting them the builders must have used numerous wooden props and trusts, until the whole structure was consolidated by a sufficient load of earth. A rectangular opening at the end of the gallery three metres high and 2.35 wide, gives admission into the interior of the central chamber or cupola.

The base of the cupola consists of four courses, of 0.40 to 0.45 in thickness, forming a total height of 1.85. The ground plan of this part is an irregular square, the sides of which are 4.50, 4.40, 4.45 and 4.30. Above the fifth course the four angles are filled in by stones forming a circular projection of 0.30 in the line of the diagonal. The same thing is repeated in the succeeding courses. The curved portions thus gradually increase in extent, until at the ninth course they form together a complete circle, the diameter of which diminishes with each succeeding course, until at top there is only a circular opening of 0.70 diameter, which is closed in the same manner as the upper part of the entrance gallery. The total height of the cupola is 9.10. The material is tertiary shell limestone, large quarries of which exist in the neighbourhood. Of all the tombs recently explored by the Russians, that of the quarantine is the only one which had been previously opened. It was found completely empty. The first examination appears to have occurred at a very early date; perhaps at the time when the Genoese possessed the small fort of Cerco, at the foot of the mountain of Panticapea.

Of the tombs with semi-circular arches, that discovered in the summer of 1841 is among the most remarkable. It consists of two distinct chambers communicating with each other. In the centre of the inner one was found a wooden sarcophagus with a male skeleton having a crown of dead gold on the skull. It was from this sarcophagus that the wooden target was taken representing a fight between a stag and a griffin, which I have presented to the Cabinet of Antiquities of the Bibliotheque du Roi. Another coffin found in the centre of the outer chamber contained a female skeleton in a wonderful state of preservation. The smallest bones of the fingers and toes were perfect, and where the skull lay was seen a large quantity of light brown hair. The garments even retained their form and colour, but they fell to pieces at the least touch. In this chamber, to the right on entering, there was a small niche, in which had been deposited the body of a child, with a bronze lamp and two lacrymatories, one of them of glass, beside it. I have the last two in my possession.

In 1841, when I first explored the remains of Panticapea, this remarkable tomb, which excited the admiration of all artists, served as a place of shelter for the cattle of the neighbourhood, and its fine entrance gallery was falling to ruin. Some months after my departure the work of destruction was carried on in the face of day, and the magnificent pavement of the chamber was shamelessly carried off. At Soudagh and Theodosia, I could in some degree account for the disastrous effects of administrative recklessness; the ignorant governors to whom was committed the sole custody of the antiquities of those towns, could see in the buildings of past ages only a quarry to be worked for their own profit. But at Kertch, which possesses a museum, and a committee of savans to superintend the processes for exploring its antiquities, such destruction appeared to me quite incomprehensible. It is true the Russian government cares little about the preservation of monuments, even of such as directly concern its own history; it granted only 4000 paper rubles for the investigations, and seems in reality to be interested only about objects of art, such as Etruscan vases, gold ornaments, small statues, &c., which may serve to decorate the rooms of the Hermitage; but there exists in Southern Russia a numerous society of antiquaries, officially constituted, and there cannot be a question, that if it would or could fulfil in some small degree the nominal purpose of its creation, it would immediately obtain from the emperor all the necessary supplies for the conservation of the monuments in the peninsula of Kertch. Unhappily, that general indifference to intellectual pursuits, which we have dwelt on in a preceding chapter, prevails as much with regard to archeology as any thing else. When I examined the exploring works, and conversed with the learned gentlemen that directed them, I could not help seeing before me, instead of the love of knowledge, palpable evidence of private interest and ambition employing all means to rise in the nobiliary scale of the empire; and whilst the Russian journals trumpeted forth the admirable discoveries made in the name of the history of mankind, every man of those who were disturbing the ashes of the ancient Panticapea thought only of augmenting his own income, or gaining a grade or a decoration.

Another proof how secondary a consideration in these researches is the interest of learning and history, is the scandalous neglect of the sarcophagi, the bas-reliefs, the architectural fragments, and, in a word, all the large sculptures that cannot be sent to St. Petersburg and laid before his majesty. When I visited the museum of Kertch, I found the approaches to the building filled with antiques, which lay on the ground without any shelter. The noses and chins of the principal figures on the bas-reliefs had just been broken, perhaps that very morning; yet the learned committee had not thought of making the least complaint, so little importance did it attach to the matter. In passing through the various halls of the museum, I everywhere noticed the same negligence, and tokens of incessant pillage. Among other relics the destruction of which I had to deplore, I was shown the remains of a magnificent wooden sarcophagus, which had been found in perfect condition. It was enriched with Greek carvings, the prominent parts of which were gilded, and the hollow parts painted red, and it was in my opinion the most interesting piece in the museum. Thanks, however, to the obliging disposition shown by the keepers towards strangers, I doubt if a fragment or two of it yet remain at this moment. We should never have done, if we were to recite all the acts of vandalism and depredation of which the museum of Kertch has been the theatre. The details which we have given will sufficiently indicate the value of the archeological labours carried on upon the site of the ancient Panticapea; may the remonstrances we here put forth in the name of art, literature, and science, attract the notice of all those Russians who take a real interest in the historical monuments of their country.

FOOTNOTES:

[71] Superbi discordes et desides Graeci a Genuensibus Italis fracti et debilitati civitatem eam amiserant (Martini Briniovii Tartaria, 1575).

[72] Cum obsidionem diuturnam ac famem, Genuenses diutius ferre nee impetum tam numerosi exercitus Turcorum sustinere amplius possent, in maximum tempum illud, quod adhuc ibi integrum est, centeni aliquot vel mille fere viri egregii sese receperant, et per dies aliquot in arce inferiori in quam Turcae irruperant fortiter et animose sese defendentes, insigni et memorabili Turcarum strage edita tandem in templo illo universi concidere.--Ibid.

[73] For a more detailed description of the ruins of Soudagh, see the remarkable work of M. Dubois de Montperreux. Paris, 1843.

[74] Giust. Ann. di Genova, lib. iii.

[75] Formerly French Consul at Theodosia; deprived of his place for his opinions upon the return of the Bourbons, and now filling the humble functions of Neapolitan consular agent. He is the author of a valuable work on the political revolutions of the Crimea.

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XLI. POLITICAL AND COMMERCIAL REVOLUTIONS OF THE CRIMEA

EXTENT AND CHARACTER OF SURFACE--MILESIAN AND HERACLEAN COLONIES--KINGDOM OF THE BOSPHORUS--EXPORT AND IMPORT TRADE IN THE TIMES OF THE GREEK REPUBLICS--MITHRIDATES--THE KINGDOM OF THE BOSPHORUS UNDER THE ROMANS--THE ALANS AND GOTHS--SITUATION OF THE REPUBLIC OF KHERSON--THE HUNS; DESTRUCTION OF THE KINGDOM OF THE BOSPHORUS--THE KHERSONITES PUT THEMSELVES UNDER THE PROTECTION OF THE BYZANTINE EMPIRE --DOMINION OF THE KHAZARS--THE PETCHENEGUES AND KOMANS--THE KINGDOM OF LITTLE TATARY--RISE AND FALL OF THE GENOESE COLONIES--THE CRIMEA UNDER THE TATARS--ITS CONQUEST BY THE RUSSIANS.

The Crimea comprises a surface of about 1100 square geographic leagues, divided into two distinct regions. The first of these is mountainous, and forms a strip of about ninety-five English miles in length along the southern coast, with a mean breadth of from twelve to sixteen miles; the second, the region of the plains, presents all the characters of the steppes of Southern Russia, and extends northward to the isthmus of Perecop, which connects the peninsula with the continent. The Crimea now forms part of the government called the Taurid, the territory of which extends beyond Perecop, between the Dniepr and the Sea of Azof, to the 47th degree of latitude. Simpheropol is its chief town.

In order to give a clear conception of the political and commercial importance of the Crimea, which, by its almost central position in the Black Sea, commands at once the coasts of Asia, the mouths of the Danube, and the entrance to the Constantinopolitan Bosphorus, it is indispensable to present a rapid sketch of the numerous revolutions which the march of time and the invasions of peoples have effected in that important peninsula. It was in the middle of the seventh century before Christ, that the Milesians made their appearance on the northern shores of the Euxine. The eastern part of the Tauris, an open country and easy of occupation, having attracted their attention, they founded their first colonies there, possessing themselves at the same time of all the little region which we now call the peninsula of Kertch. The agricultural prosperity which they soon attained, was quickly known in Greece, whence it occasioned fresh and important emigrations. Theodosia, Nymphea, Panticapea, and Mermikion, were erected on the shore of the little peninsula, and served as seaports for the thriving colonists.

The success of the Milesians stimulated the Heracleans to follow their example. They chose the most western part of the country, landed not far from the celebrated Cape Perthenica, and after having beaten the savage natives and driven them back into the mountains, they settled in the little peninsula of Trachea, known in our day by the name of the ancient Khersonesus. Thus were laid the foundations of the celebrated republic of Kherson, which subsisted, great and prosperous, for more than 1500 years, and the capital of which having become the temporary conquest of a Grand Duke of Russia, in the tenth century, was the starting point of that great religious revolution which completely changed the face and the destinies of the Muscovite empire.

Whilst the Heracleans were consolidating their power by improving their trade, the Milesian settlements on the Bosphorus were growing up with magic rapidity, and were spreading even beyond the strait to the Asiatic coast, where the towns of Phanagoria, Hermonassa, and Kepos were founded. At first all these Milesian colonies were independent of each other, but at last they became united into the kingdom of the Bosphorus, B.C. 480.

As agriculture formed the basis of the public wealth of the Milesians, it became the object of the new government's peculiar attention. On his accession to the throne, Leucon relieved the Athenians of the thirtieth imposed on exported corn, in consequence of which liberal measure those exports increased prodigiously; the Cimmerian peninsula became the granary of Greece, and merchants flocked to Theodosia and Panticapea, where they procured at the same time wool, furs, and all those salted provisions, which still constitute one of the chief riches of Southern Russia. As for the import trade, of which history says little, it is easy to conceive the nature of its operations from the important archeological discoveries of Panticapea.

The Bosphorians undoubtedly received in exchange for their produce, all the manufactured goods which wealth and luxury had brought into vogue in Athens, and it was probably Greek artists who executed all those magnificent objects of art which are contained in the museum of Kertch, and which prove that the agricultural colonists of the Tauris did not fall short of the opulence of their brilliant mother city. Building materials seem to have formed an important item of importation. There is no trace of white marble either in the Crimea or on the northern coasts of the Black Sea; nevertheless, large quantities have been found in the excavations made at Kertch, and there is every reason to presume that the huge masses of cut marble employed in the public and private buildings, were imported ready wrought from Greece.

Despite the dangerous vicinity of the Sarmatians, the kingdom of the Bosphorus enjoyed perfect tranquillity for above three hundred years, and through a steady and rational policy increased in prosperity and riches, until the conquest of Greece by the Romans subverted all the commercial relations of the East. At that period the Bosphorians, attacked by the Scythians, and too weak to resist them, threw themselves into the arms of the celebrated Mithridates, who turned their state into a province of the Pontus, and bestowed it as an appanage on his son Makhares.

After the defeat and death of her implacable enemy, Rome maintained the traitor Pharnaces in possession of the crown of the Bosphorus; but the new prince's sovereignty was merely nominal, and the successors of the son of Mithridates, powerless and despoiled of all the Milesians had possessed on the Asiatic shore of the strait, reigned only in accordance with the caprice of the Roman emperors.

About the middle of the first century after Christ, the Alans entered the Tauris, devastated the greater part of the country, and entirely destroyed Theodosia, which had offered them some resistance. They were followed by the Goths, who in their turns became masters of the peninsula. But far from abusing their victory, they blended their race with that of the vanquished, founded numerous colonies on the vast plains north of the mountainous region, and followed their natural bent for a sedentary life and rural occupations. The Tauric Khersonese now entered on a fresh period of tranquillity and agricultural prosperity. Unfortunately, Greece was at this period rapidly declining under the Roman yoke; Rome having become the capital of the whole world, Egypt, Sicily, and Africa had naturally acquired to themselves the monopoly of the supply of corn; so that with all its efforts the Tauris could not emerge from the depression into which it had been plunged by the political events of the first Christian century.

The remote and inaccessible position of the little republic of Kherson, preserved its independence during all these early barbarian invasions. In Diocletian's time, the Khersonites, whose dominions extended over nearly the whole of the elevated country, had concentrated in their own hands almost all the commerce that still existed between the Tauris and some parts of the shores of the Black Sea.[76] Their republic was the most powerful state of the peninsula, when war broke out between them and the Sarmatians, who had already seized the kingdom of the Bosphorus, and given it a king of their own nation. The struggle between the two rival nations lasted nearly a century, and the Sarmatians having been at last expelled, the Bosphorians again enjoyed some years of freedom and quiet. But the peace was not of long duration. The unfortunate peninsula was soon visited by the most violent tempest that had yet desolated it. The Huns, from the heart of Asia, came down to the Asiatic side of the strait, and soon the terrified Bosphorians beheld those furious hordes traversing the Sea of Azof, which had for a while arrested their progress. The ancient kingdom of the Milesians was then extinguished for ever. (A.D. 375.) The numerous colonies of united Goths and Alans shared the same fate, and all the rich agricultural establishments of the country were reduced to ashes. Still protected by their isolated position, the Khersonites alone escaped the devastation, in consequence of the rapidity with which the torrent of the invaders rushed forth towards the western regions of Europe.

The Tauris was still suffering under the effects of the frightful disasters inflicted on it by the Huns, when it was again ravaged by their disbanded hordes, after the death of Attila. The Khersonites were now in jeopardy, and in their alarm, they sought the protection of the Eastern Empire. Justinian, who then reigned at Constantinople, acceded to their request, but he made them pay dear for the imperial protection. Under pretence of providing for the defence of the country, he erected the two strong fortresses of Alouchta and Gourzoubita, on the southern coast, and the republic of Kherson became tributary to the empire.

In the latter part of the seventh century (A.D. 679) the Tauris was invaded by the Khazars, hordes that having accompanied the Huns, had settled in Bersilia (Lithuania), and had been formed into an independent kingdom by Attila himself. The apparition of these new conquerors, already masters of a vast territory, made such a sensation at Constantinople, that their alliance was courted by the sovereigns of the East, and the Emperor Leo even asked for his son the hand of the daughter of the kalgan, or chief of the nation. The forebodings of the imperial government were soon realised, for in the short space of 150 years the Khazars, who had given their own name to the peninsula, founded a vast monarchy, the limits of which extended in Europe beyond the Danube, and in Asia to the foot of the Caucasus.

After the Khazars, whose fall was caused chiefly by the attacks of the Russians, and who thenceforth disappeared entirely from the records of history, the victorious Petchenegues ruled over the whole land except the southern territory of Kherson, which was incorporated with the Empire of the East. Under the sway of this other Asiatic people, the trade and commerce of the peninsula revived, its intercourse with Constantinople resumed activity, and the Tauric ports supplied the merchants of the Lower Empire with purple, fine stuffs, embroidered cloths, ermines, leopard skins, furs of all kinds, pepper, and spices, which the Petchenegues purchased in Eastern Russia, south of the Kouban, and in the Transcaucasian regions that extend to the banks of the Cyrus and the Araxes. Thus began again for this unfortunate country a new era of prosperity, unexampled for many previous centuries.

The dominion of the Petchenegues lasted 150 years, and then they themselves endured the fate they had inflicted on the Khazars. Assailed by the Comans, whom the growth of the Mongol power had expelled from their own territory, they were beaten and forced to return into Asia. The Comans, a warlike people, made Soldaya their capital; but they had scarcely consolidated their power when they were obliged to give place to other conquerors, and seek an abode in regions further west. With the expulsion of the Comans ceased all those transient invasions which dyed the soil of the Tauris with blood during ten centuries. The various hordes that have left nothing but their name in history, were succeeded by two remarkable peoples: the one, victorious over Asia, had just founded the most gigantic empire of the middle ages; the other, issuing from a trading city of Italy, was destined to make Khazaria the nucleus of all the commercial relations between Europe and Asia.

With the Mongol invasion of 1226, the empire of the tzars entered on that fatal period of servitude and oppression which has left such pernicious traces in the national character of the Muscovites. Russia, Poland, and Hungary, were successively overrun by the hordes of the celebrated grandson of Genghis Khan; Khazaria was added to their enormous conquests, and became, under the name of Little Tatary, the cradle of a potent state, which maintained its independence down to the end of the eighteenth century. Under the yoke of the Mongols the Tauris, after being oppressed at first, soon recovered; Soldaya was restored to the Christians, and soon proved that the resources of the country were not exhausted, and that nothing but peace and quiet were wanted to develop the elements of wealth with which nature had so liberally endowed it. In a few years Soldaya became the most important port of the Black Sea, and one of the great termini of the commercial lines between Europe and Asia.

The greatness of Soldaya was, however, of short duration: another people, more active, and endowed with a bolder spirit of mercantile enterprise than the Greeks, came forward about the same period, and concentrated in its own hands the whole heritage of the great epochs that had successively shed lustre on the peninsula from the day when the Milesians founded their first colonies on the Cimmerian Bosphorus. Being already possessed of important factories in Constantinople, the Genoese had long been aware of the circumstances of the Black Sea, and the immense resources it would place at the disposal of enterprising men who should there centralise for their own profit all the commercial relations of Europe with Russia, Persia, and the Indies. The rivalry which then existed between them and the Venetians, accelerated the execution of their projects, and in 1820, after having secured the territory of the ancient Theodosia, partly by fraud, partly by force, they laid the foundation of the celebrated Caffa, through which they became sure masters of the Black Sea, and sole proprietors of its commerce. With the arrival of the Genoese the Tauris saw the most brilliant epochs of its history revived. Caffa became by its greatness, its population, and its opulence, in some degree the rival of Constantinople, and its consuls, possessing themselves of Cerco, Soldaya, and Cembalo, made themselves masters of all the southern coast of the Crimea. Other equally profitable conquests were subsequently made beyond the peninsula. The galleys of the republic entered the Palus Maeotis; Tana, on the mouth of the Don, was wrested from the Tatars; a fortress was erected at the mouth of the Dniestr; several factories were established in Colchis, and on the Caucasian coast, and even the imperial town of Trebisond was forced to admit one of the most important factories of the republic on the Black Sea. The Genoese colonies thus became the general emporium of the rich productions of Russia, Asia Minor, Persia, and the Indies; they monopolised for more than two centuries all the traffic between Europe and Asia, and presented a marvellous spectacle of thriving greatness. All this glory had an end. Mahomet's standard was planted over the dome of St. Sophia in 1453, and the intercourse of the Crimea with the Mediterranean was broken off. The destruction of the Genoese settlements was then inevitable; and the republic, despairing of their preservation, assigned them over to the bank of St. George, on the 15th of November, 1453. The consequences of this cession which put an end to the political connexion of the colonies with the mother state, were of course disastrous. Despair and loss of public spirit fell upon the colonists, individual selfishness predominated in all their councils, and the consular government, before remarkable for its integrity and its virtues, instead of uniting with the Tatars, and rendering its own position with regard to the Porte less perilous, completely disgusted them by a total want of honesty, and by selling its aid for gold to all the parties that were desolating the Crimea. So many faults were followed by the natural catastrophe. Caffa was forced to surrender at discretion to the Turks on the 6th of June, 1473, and some months afterwards all the points occupied by the Genoese fell one by one into the hands of the Ottomans.

After the disaster of the Genoese colonies, the great lines of communication of the trans-Caucasian regions, the Caspian, the Volga, the Don, and the Kouban, were broken, having lost their feeders, and all the commercial relations with Central Asia were for a while suspended. The Venetians, who had obtained from the Turks the right of navigating the Black Sea, in consideration of a yearly tribute of 10,000 ducats, strove in vain to take the place their rivals had lost; they were expelled in their turn from the Black Sea, the Dardanelles were closed against all the nations of the West, and the Turks and their subjects, the Greeks of the Archipelago, alone possessed the privilege of passing through the strait. In our remarks on the Caspian we have already pointed out the new outlets which the Eastern trade procured for itself by way of Smyrna, and the great revolution which followed Vasco de Gama's discovery.

Under the reign of the first khans, who were tributary to the Porte, the Crimea lost all its commercial and agricultural importance. Continual wars, and incessant revolts, sometimes favoured, sometimes punished by the Porte, added to the still deeply-rooted habits of a nomade and vagabond existence, for many years precluded the regeneration of the country. But a rich fertile soil, and a country abundantly provided with all the resources necessary to man, triumphed over the natural indolence of the Tatars, just as they had done before by the savage hordes that successively invaded the Tauris. The hill sides and valleys became covered with villages, and all branches of native industry increased rapidly with the internal tranquillity of the country. The corn, cattle, timber, resins, fish, and salt of Little Tatary furnished freights for a multitude of vessels. The commerce of Central Asia, it is true, was lost for it beyond recovery, but the exportation of its native produce and of that which Russia sent to it by the Don and the Sea of Azof, was more than sufficient to keep its people in a very thriving, if not an opulent condition. Caffa shared in the general improvement; it rose again from its ruins, became the commercial centre of the country, as in the time of the Genoese, and its advancement was such, that the Turks bestowed on it the flattering name of Koutchouk Stamboul (Little Constantinople).

The dominion of the khans extended at this period, in Europe and Asia, from the banks of the Danube to the foot of the mountains of the Caucasus, and the indomitable mountaineers of Circassia themselves often did homage to the sovereigns of the Tauris. The Mussulman population was divided in those days into two great classes: the descendants of the first conquerors, known by the special designation of Tatars; and the Nogais, nomade tribes who, subsequently to the conquest, had come and put themselves under the protection of the illustrious Batou khan. The former, mixed up with the remains of the ancient possessors, formed the civilised part of the nation. Possessing the mountainous regions, and residing in towns and villages, they were both agriculturists and manufacturers; whilst the Nogais, who lived in a manner independently in Southern Russia, applied themselves solely to cattle rearing. They were at that time divided into five principal hordes: the Boudjiak occupied the plains of Bessarabia from the mouths of the Danube to the Dniestr; the Yedisan, the largest, which could bring into the field 80,000 horsemen, encamped between the Dniestr and the Dniepr; the Djamboiluk and Jedickhoul, the remnants of which still inhabit the territory of their ancestors, extended from the banks of the Dniepr to the western coasts of the Sea of Azof; lastly, the tribes of the Kouban, nomadised in the steppes between that river and the Don, which now form the domain of the Black Sea Cossacks. All these tribes collectively could, in case of urgent necessity, bring into the field upwards of 400,000 men. Such was the political condition of Little Tatary, when the Russian conquest of the provinces of the Sea of Azof and the Black Sea destroyed all the fruits of the great social revolution which had been effected in the habits of the Mussulmans by the new development of trade and commerce.

The first Muscovite invasion took place in 1736. A hundred thousand men, commanded by Field-marshal Munich forced the Isthmus of Perecop, entered the peninsula, and laid waste the whole country, up to the northern slope of the Tauric chain. The peace of Belgrade put an end to this first inroad, but the political existence of Little Tatary was, nevertheless, violently shaken; and from that time forth the khans were kept in continual perplexity by the secret or armed interventions of Russia, their subjects were stimulated to revolt, and they themselves were but puppets moved by the court of St. Petersburg.

In 1783, Sahem Guerai abdicated in favour of the Empress Catherine II., and the kingdom of the Tatars, exhausted by extensive emigrations and bloody insurrections, finally ceased to exist; and then perished rapidly the last elements of the prosperity of a land that had been so often ravaged, and had always emerged victoriously from its disasters. Previously to this period, in 1778, the irresistible command of Russia had determined the emigration of all the Greek and Armenian families of the peninsula, and an agricultural and trading population had been seen to quit, voluntarily as Russia pretends, fertile regions, and a favouring climate, to settle in the savage steppes of the Don and the Sea of Azof. About the same period, and under the same influence, began the emigration of the Tatars and Nogais, some of whom retired into Turkey, others joined the mountaineers of the Caucasus. The Russian occupation accelerated this disastrous movement, and on the day when the tzars extended their frontiers to the banks of the Dniestr, the celebrated horde of Yedisan disappeared entirely from the soil of the empire. The Tatars of the region between the Dniepr and the Sea of Azof did not emigrate in such numbers as the others, for the imperial government had hemmed them in, even previously to the conquest, by formidable military lines on the east and on the west. The heaviest calamities fell, of course, on the peninsula, which was covered with fixed settlements, and was the centre of the Tatar civilisation and power, and there the scenes of carnage and devastation which had marked the irruption of the barbarians from Asia were renewed in all their horrors. The peninsula lost at least nine-tenths of its population; its towns were given up to pillage, its fields laid waste; and in the space of a few months that region which had been still so nourishing under its last khan, exhibited but one vast spectacle of oppression, misery, and devastation.

Since that period there have elapsed sixty years, during which the Russian domination has never had any resistance to encounter or revolt to quell; and yet, notwithstanding the opening of the Dardanelles, the Tauris has been unable, to this day, to rise from the deep depression into which it was sunk by the political events of the close of the eighteenth century. It is true, no doubt, that very handsome villas have been erected on the southern coast, and that luxurious opulence has made that region its chosen seat; but the vital and productive forces of the peninsula have been smothered, its trade and agriculture have been destroyed; and that bootless quietude in which the dwindled population of the Tatars now vegetates, results, in fact, only from the destruction of all material resources, and the extinction of all moral and intellectual energy which have come to pass under the sway of the Russian administration.

FOOTNOTES:

[76] Const. Porph. de adm. Imp., c. xiii.

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Chapter XLII

COMMERCIAL POLITY OF RUSSIA IN THE CRIMEA--CAFFA SACRIFICED IN FAVOUR OF KERTCH--THESE TWO PORTS COMPARED--THE QUARANTINE AT THE ENTRANCE OF THE SEA OF AZOF, AND ITS CONSEQUENCES--COMMERCE OF KERTCH--VINEYARDS OF THE CRIMEA; THE VALLEY OF SOUDAK--AGRICULTURE--CATTLE--HORTICULTURE-- MANUFACTURES; MOROCCO LEATHER--DESTRUCTION OF THE GOATS-- DECAY OF THE FORESTS--SALT WORKS--GENERAL TABLE OF THE COMMERCE OF THE CRIMEA--PROSPECTS OF THE TATAR POPULATION.

When the Russian authority was fully established in the Crimea, and the inevitable disasters attending the occupation of a country by Muscovite troops had subsided, the imperial government seemed for a while disposed to rekindle the embers of the peninsular prosperity. The Emperor Alexander was personally acquainted with the intrinsic value of the country, and manifested the best and most earnest intentions in its favour; but unfortunately he could not overcome the inveterate habits of the Russian functionaries, and their utter indifference to the true interests of the empire. Half measures, therefore, were all that was effected; custom-houses and quarantines were established, Caffa exchanged its name for that of the Milesian colony, German villages were founded,[77] large grants of land were made to Russians and strangers, vines were planted, and the cultivation of the olive was attempted; but all capital questions were overlooked or misconceived; no thought was given to the matter of markets or to commercial relations; and the government persisting in its prohibitive system, assimilated the Crimea to the other provinces, in spite of strong remonstrances, and repudiated all thoughts of mercantile freedom, the only means by which it could have given new life to the Crimea, and created an active and industrious population in the place of the Tatar tribes, of whom war and emigration had deprived the country.

But in lieu of such privileges Caffa was from the first endowed with a tribunal of commerce, a quarantine, and a custom-house of the first class; and if it could not recover its old greatness under the new domination, it might at least have expected to become one of the chief places of export and import in southern Russia, within the bounds prescribed by the exigencies of the customs. Situated at the extremity of the Tauric chain, not far from the Cimmerian Bosphorus, possessing the only trading port open to vessels in all seasons, in easy communication with rich and productive regions, this town possessed every possible claim to the peculiar attention of the Russian government. But the hopes which had been at first conceived, were entirely disappointed, and the unfortunate Theodosia was positively devoted to abandonment and destruction.

It is not easy to determine the real motives for which the old Genoese city was abandoned in favour of its rival on the Cimmerian Bosphorus. The ostensible reasons were sanatory measures, the necessity of having a general quarantine at the entrance of the Sea of Azof, encouragement of coasters and lighters, and the utility of a vast emporium opened to the productions of all Russia. We believe, however, that all these arguments were in reality of very secondary weight, and that the downfall of Theodosia is to be ascribed to nothing else than an absurd vanity. To resuscitate the ancient name of Odessus; to found a town called Ovidiopol in a country where Ovid never resided; to lead our geographers into error by giving the name of Tiraspol to a mean village on the Dniestr, in the front of Bender; to substitute the name of Theodosia for that of Caffa; all these innovations might have pleased certain archaeologists, but how was it possible to resist the thought of rebuilding the celebrated capital of the kingdom of the Bosphorus? How irresistible the temptation to raise a new and great city at the foot of Mithridates' rock! The memory of the Milesians had, therefore, to fade before that of the illustrious sovereign of Pontus; Theodosia was despoiled of its privileges and its revenues, its tribunal of commerce was transferred to Kertch, and double arbour dues were imposed on vessels touching there before arriving at the latter port. Assuredly no stronger testimony could be borne to the superiority of Theodosia than that which was embodied in these arbitrary measures, nor could there be a more incontestible proof of the caprice to which the Genoese town was sacrificed. Caffa was infinitely better fitted than Kertch to satisfy those conditions which the official orders announced as the grounds for destroying its commercial position. The Kertch roads are often closed against vessels for three or four months continuously; the anchorage is unsafe, and often disastrous, both from the want of shelter and from the shallowness of the water. The port of Theodosia, on the contrary, is always open, and shipwrecks are unknown there. During the fine season an active service of lighters might have concentrated there all the freights brought by the Don and the Sea of Azof. In this way the commercial intercourse with Russia by the Black Sea would never have suffered the least interruption; and, what is an incalculable advantage in those latitudes, foreign vessels, being no longer constrained to make the long and difficult passage to Taganrok, or to run the risk of wintering in the ice, might, if they failed to obtain freight at Theodosia, have proceeded in search of one without loss of time to the southern shores of the Black Sea. All these grand considerations, which had raised the prosperity of Caffa so high, were superseded by the dictates of vanity.

Kertch then was declared, in 1827, a port of the first class, with a custom-house of entry and exit. A vast lazaret was immediately constructed, and five years afterwards appeared the famous sanatory orders which still regulate the navigation of the Sea of Azof. The duration of the quarantine was fixed at thirty days, but before that time can begin to run, the vessel must be moored within the lazaret, and every thing on board, including the effects of the crew, must be subjected to a fumigation of twenty-four hours. This operation being ended the sailors land, after having first divested themselves of all their dress and portable articles; the sails are plunged in water by the servants of the establishment, and the hull of the vessel is disinfected. After these preliminaries, which often occupy from ten to fifteen days, the sailors return to their vessels, and their days of quarantine begin to count. All these regulations are in curious contrast with those of the lazaret of Odessa, where the quarantine lasts only fifteen days.

This new system, which was in fact an interdict upon the Sea of Azof, told of course in favour of Kertch. But the factitious prosperity of that town appears to us to have already reached its utmost limit, and we doubt much that the best devised or most stringent orders can ever give to its port those elements of commercial prosperity which nature has refused to it. Hence we see, that to avoid the delay and cost of the Kertch quarantine, the merchants of Taganrok and the neighbouring towns, use lighters almost exclusively to carry their goods to the vessels moored in the Cimmerian Bosphorus. On their arrival in the channel, these lighters are put into the hands of the crew belonging to the vessel to be freighted, and their men remain on shore during the trans-shipment. This being accomplished, the lighters are fumigated for twenty-four hours, and then taken back by the lightermen to the Sea of Azof. All these operations, however, are tedious, costly, and uncertain; and the only reason why the merchants have adopted this plan of proceeding is, that they all are reluctant to incur the great expenses of storing their goods in Kertch, and that the paucity of lighters, together with the irregularity of the winds, and the many shoals in the Sea of Azof, render shipments extremely expensive, so that no additional charge could be easily borne. At the opening of the navigation in 1839, freight between Taganrok and Kertch cost as much as four rubles per tchetvert of wheat, and 1-1/2 in the course of the summer. M. Taitbout de Marigny, who has paid great attention to all these matters, estimates the freight charges in question as equivalent on the average to those usually paid to Black Sea vessels bound for the Archipelago.[78]

A remarkable result of this whole system of quarantine and customs is as follows. Suppose two vessels start simultaneously from the Mediterranean, the one for Taganrok, the other for Odessa, and that the latter failing to obtain a cargo, shall quit Odessa after its fifteen days' quarantine, and sail for the Sea of Azof: there is every probability that after remaining at Taganrok long enough to take in its cargo, it will on its return still find the first vessel in the Kertch roads, waiting to complete the formalities required before it can enter the Sea of Azof. Such measures as these, would inevitably keep aloof from the ports of the Sea of Azof, and even from that of Kertch, every vessel that was sure of its cargo beforehand. It is needless to insist afresh in this place on the superiority of Theodosia, considered as a general entrepot of the goods arriving in the Sea of Azof, and of those which might have flowed directly into its port through the Isthmus of Arabat.

As for the commercial resources belonging intrinsically to the town of Kertch, it is enough to look at its situation at the extremity of a long, depopulated, and sterile peninsula, and its distance from every route, whether political or commercial, to be assured that they must be quite futile. Seven years after the creation of its port, the annual customs' revenue had not risen above 1200 rubles. In 1840, the whole quantity of corn that had issued from the town of Kertch since its origin, whether directly or through the medium of its entrepots, scarcely amounted to 5000 tchetverts, and the receipts of the custom-house for the same year were but 695,130. If from this sum we deduct 551,108, the amount of the excise on salt destined exclusively for Russian consumption, and a further considerable sum produced by other imposts, there will remain an exceedingly small amount to represent the nett commercial revenue. The port of Kertch has, therefore, by no means fulfilled the grand expectations so foolishly conceived of it; it has ruined the great city of Theodosia, robbed the Crimea of its commercial importance, cut off all chances of prosperity from the ports of the Sea of Azof, and crippled navigation; and all this without any profit worth speaking of to itself, and without the least prospect of ever rising above the low condition in which it is doomed to vegetate, both by its geographical situation, and the nature and configuration of the adjacent regions.

The results have not been much more satisfactory as regards the growth of the Russian mercantile navy. According to official reports, which we believe exaggerated, there were, in 1840, in the Sea of Azof, 323 vessels measuring about 26,000,000 of kilogrammes, and manned by 1517 individuals. If we recollect that the Sea of Azof is but a marsh, the greatest depth of which does not exceed fourteen metres, that the crafts which ply in it, pursuing always the same invariable track, hardly require the simplest rudiments of nautical skill for their management, and that the navigation of the sea is usually interrupted during four or five months of the year, it will be easily conceived that the maritime advantages which may accrue to Russia, from the closing of the Sea of Azof, must be very insignificant, not to say quite illusory.

We have now to examine the manufacturing and agricultural resources of the Crimea, and the measures which have been taken by the imperial government to further them. The cultivation of the vine may be considered as at present the most important, if not the most productive branch of industry in the country. When Russia took possession of it, the vineyards were concentrated in the southern valleys of Soudak, Kobsel, Koze, and Toklouk, and in those of the Katch, the Alma, &c., on the northern slope of the Tauric chain. These vineyards which seem to have existed from very remote antiquity, were all in the plain, where they were subjected to continual irrigations after the system of the Greeks and Tatars. The consequence of this mode of culture was that the crops were extremely abundant, and the wine of a very poor quality.[79] After the Russian occupation, however, the business of vine-growing increased considerably in the northern valleys, which were soon frequented by the merchants of the interior, who were attracted both by the extraordinary cheapness of the produce, and by the facilities of transport. Thus the wines of the Crimea found their way into the interior of the empire, but they were chiefly used for mixing and adulteration; the small quantity that was sold in its original state was always of very bad quality, so that the peninsular wines were in very bad repute, and for a long while lost all chance of sale. This well-merited depreciation was such that even in our own day a merchant of eminence in Moscow or St. Petersburg would have thought it a serious disgrace to him to admit into his cellars a few bottles of Crimean wine.

Such was the state of the vine cultivation in the Crimea, when Count Voronzof was named governor-general of New Russia. Under his active and enterprising administration, a bold attempt was made to change the whole system of cultivation, so as to produce wines capable of competing advantageously with those of foreign countries.[80] The valleys, with their method of irrigation, were therefore abandoned, and the preference was given to the long strip of schistous and eboulement grounds which stretches along the seaside between Balaklava and Alouchta, on the southern coast. Count Voronzof set the example with his characteristic ardour; his first operations took place in 1826 at Aidaniel,[81] and six years afterwards he was the owner of 72,000 vine plants. The example of the governor-general was quickly followed, and in 1834, there were already 2,000,000 stocks in the country, from cuttings brought chiefly from the Rhenish and the French provinces.

When the vines were in full bearing, the next thing to be considered was to find a market for their produce; but here arose a great and unforeseen difficulty, and the brilliant expectations of the planters were soon miserably disappointed. In spite of the difficulties of the route, some merchants yielded to the earnest solicitations of the governor-general and his imitators, and arrived on the coast to purchase; but the demands of the proprietors were exorbitant; their first outlay had been very great, and their produce small, yet they were bent on realising at once the amount of their investments. They thought, too, that by setting a high price on their wines, they would secure their reputation; accordingly they fixed it at twenty to twenty-five rubles the vedro (0.1229 hectolitres), and immediately they lost all chance of sale.

The business prospered better in the valley of the Soudak, where the same modifications had been introduced into the culture of the vine. The hill wines were sold at the rate of twelve to fifteen rubles the vedro, and those of the plain at five and six. But this did not last long; in 1840 the wine growers of Soudak could no longer dispose of their stock, though they had reduced their prices to two and three rubles for the best qualities, and to one and one and a half for the lowland wines. As to the wine-growers of the southern coasts, they were very glad at that time if they could find purchasers at the rate of five or six rubles the vedro.

Several causes contributed to these unfortunate results. The southern coast, as we have already said, consists of a long narrow strip of argillaceous schist and detritus, with a very steep inclination, and overtopped throughout its length by high cliffs of jura limestone. In consequence of these topographical conditions, the heat is very great in summer; the soil, which is quite destitute of watercourses, dries rapidly, and the many ravines by which it is intersected, completely deprives it of any little moisture that may remain in it. The scarcity of rain augments these disadvantages, so that the vine plants procured from abroad degenerate rapidly; as the grapes cannot ripen before autumn, the wine loses much in quality; and, moreover, the quantity is far from abundant, in proportion to the extent of the ground. These circumstances, combined with those occasioned by the desire to exalt the wines of the Crimea in public opinion, inflame both the pretensions of the proprietors and the indifference of the merchants, who could never have disposed of the coast wine at the high prices asked for it. These were afterwards considerably diminished, but not sufficiently to produce any effect. Whatever be said to the contrary, it is certain that the wines of the southern Crimea can never sustain any sort of comparison with those of France or the Rhine; hence they continued to be held in low repute, and the merchants of the interior still found it more to their advantage to make their purchases in the northern valleys, which were easy of access, and where the wine was incomparably cheaper. In spite of all their efforts, therefore, the wine-growers of the southern coast could not find a market for their produce, and were obliged to consume the chief part of it themselves.

It may, perhaps, excite surprise that no attempt has been made to evade the difficulties of land-carriage by seeking outlets by sea, and procuring customers in the great maritime towns of Russia. But unluckily there exists between Russia and Greece an ancient treaty, which the tzars, for political considerations no doubt, persist in religiously observing, and by virtue of which Greek wines are received almost free of duty in the imperial ports. Whoever is aware of the prodigious quantity and incredible cheapness of the wines of the Archipelago, and of the great facilities they afford for effecting mixtures and adulterations, will easily conceive, that with such a competition to encounter, the sale of Crimean wines became absolutely impossible. If the culture of the vine in the Crimea was induced by encouragements on the part of the government, then the landowners were grossly duped. But, as we shall explain by and by, the ministry seem never to have looked favourably on this branch of industry, and the vine-growers have only their own extreme want of forethought to blame for all the disasters that have befallen them.

At Soudak, however, the mischief appears to us attributable solely to the misconduct of the authorities. We have already stated that the vintage speculations of Soudak were at first much more prosperous than those of the southern coast. The situation of the valley, which is of very easy access for northern traffic, and the decided preference of the German colonists for white wines, for many years kept the fine plain of Soldaya in a thriving if not an opulent condition. But unfortunately, that western part of the coast not being within the region which the governor-general and the great landowners had taken under their special protection, Soudak was completely abandoned to her own resources; her roads were left without repairs, and the local administration took no measures whatever for the preservation of order and the security of individuals. When I visited the coast in 1840, the roads of this district were in the most deplorable condition;[82] they were strewed with fragments of carts and casks; a German waggoner was killed in my presence by the breaking down of his waggon; thieving and pillage were the order of the day in the valley, and the proprietors could only preserve their chattels by keeping a close personal watch upon them day and night.

The consequences of this culpable neglect may readily be imagined. Purchasers diminished in number year by year, the wines lost their value, and the unfortunate proprietors with large stocks on hand were reduced to great poverty. All sorts of expedients were adopted under the pressure of the calamity; the wines were turned into vinegar, but again the speculation failed for want of a market. We heartily desire that our reasonable remonstrances in favour of Soudak may reach the imperial government, so that effectual measures may be taken to revive the great natural wealth of that magnificent valley. We do not know the intentions of the present finance minister, but it is to be hoped that he will not partake the narrow views of his predecessor. Count Cancrini was a fanatic partisan of the consumption of foreign wines, and at the same time the declared enemy of the home growth, which he regarded as most injurious to the customs' revenue of the empire.

In the present state of things it is not easy to predict the future fortunes of the Crimean wine production. For our own part, we are thoroughly convinced that France has no sort of competition to fear on the part of those regions. Whether the cultivation of the vine be concentrated in the valleys or on the hill sides, we do not think that the vintage can ever rival ours. It has been very justly remarked that wherever the vine and the olive grow together, the wines cannot have that delicacy and that bouquet which belong only to our temperate climates. We believe, however, that if the wines of the Archipelago were subjected to higher duties, if the means of transport were rendered more facile, and increased cultivation were given to the more open hill sides that extend towards the east of the Tauric chain, the Crimea would soon be enabled to supply the demand of the whole empire for the commoner sorts of wine, and the result would, perhaps, be extremely advantageous in diminishing the mischievous use of ardent spirits. Such a change as this would evidently be not at all prejudicial to French commerce, which sends only wines of the first quality to the south of Russia.

According to a report printed in the Russian journals of 1834, and cited by M. Dubois, the 7,100,000 vine plants, contained in that year on the old and new plantations, were distributed as follows:--

South-west coast of the Crimea 1,600,000 Soudak and south-east coast 2,000,000 Valley of the Katch 2,000,000 " the Alma 500,000 " the Belek 500,000 German colonies 500,000

The wine yielded by the vintage of 1832, was 32,307 hectolitres, of which 1694 were the produce of the south-west coast, 6050 that of Soudak, and 7865 that of the valley of the Katch.

The plantations have augmented considerably since that time; we cannot venture, however, to accept as authentic, the following statistics of the annual production of the Crimea, given us by landowners in 1840:--

Valley of Soudak 80,000 vedros 9,760 hectolitres Southern coast 120,000 " 14,640 " Northern valleys 750,000 " 91,500 "

We have not much to say of the other branches of agriculture; they are all in the most deplorable state. The magnificent forests, yielding such quantities of timber, that formerly clothed the mountains, are rapidly disappearing. Camel breeding, formerly very productive to the Tatars of the plain, has given place to lank flocks of merinos. The most fertile valleys are in the same state of desolation in which they were left by the great calamities at the close of the last century, and the peninsula now produces scarcely corn enough for its own consumption. Horticulture alone has made any real progress. Some foreigners practise it with profit in the northern valleys, which for many years past have enjoyed the privilege of supplying all the fruit used at the tables of Moscow and St. Petersburg.

Manufactories are almost in the same state of decay as agriculture. Morocco and other leathers formerly constituted an important part of the exports from the Crimea; at present the value of these exports is no more than 129,646 rubles. It is about five years since this branch of industry was ruined. All that time there existed on the mountains of the peninsula a great quantity of goats, which being left at liberty, caused, it must be confessed, much damage to the forests, by nipping off the young shoots. According to the usual Russian practice of attacking secondary causes rather than going at once to the root of any evil, the local administration could devise nothing better in the case than to proclaim a war of extermination, by giving every one the right of hunting and killing goats, in all places and at all seasons. The goats were almost all destroyed, and with them fell of necessity the greater part of the manufactories for morocco leather. It would certainly have been easy for authorities, possessed of any practical ability, to preserve the forests without exterminating the goats; but as they would not, or could not, deal with the real destroyers, the noble landowners, they wreaked their spite on the quadrupeds. It is really inconceivable with what rapidity the finest forests of the Crimea are disappearing; year by year whole hills are totally stripped, and the government, stern as it has shown itself against the goats, takes no means to check this fatal devastation. Several great landowners are engaged in lawsuits gravely affecting their rights, and meanwhile, until their causes shall have been decided, they use their opportunity to cut timber as fast as possible. Foremost in those proceedings is Admiral Mordvinof, who has already destroyed the exceedingly rich forests that clothed the hills above the valley of Baidar. The effects of this clearing away of the forests are already felt severely; the rivers are diminishing in volume, a great number of springs have run dry, and fire wood, now costs as much as forty rubles the fathom at Ialta.

Another branch of industry, likewise very profitable in former times, was the working of the rich salt-pits in the environs of Kozlov (Eupatoria). Only a few years ago eighty vessels used to come to the port from Anatolia, to take in cargo. The price of the salt was then very low, but the trade was nevertheless a source of employment and profit for all the surrounding population. The minister of finance was jealous of the profits realised by individuals in this trade, and therefore laid a considerable export duty on the salt. In the following year not a single vessel came from Anatolia, and it was soon ascertained that, prompted by necessity, the people of the southern shores of the Black Sea had found rich salt-pits in their own territory.

The following table of the commerce of the Crimea in 1838 and 1839, is taken from official documents. The figures contained in it are in our opinion exaggerated, for they do not by any means agree with those resulting from the detailed table we shall give further on.

------------+-----------------------+----------------------- | IMPORTS. | EXPORTS. |-----------+-----------+-----------+----------- | 1838. | 1839. | 1838. | 1839. ------------+-----------+-----------+-----------+----------- | rubles. | rubles. | rubles. | rubles. | | | | Kertch | 175,321 | 250,887 | 226,999 | 123,082 Theodosia | 673,535 | 695,130 | 1,281,244 | 955,108 Eupatoria | 185,480 | 131,222 | 2,299,365 | 2,394,867 Balaclava | 6,605 | | | +-----------+-----------+-----------+----------- Total | 1,040,941 | 1,077,239 | 3,807,608 | 3,473,057 ------------+-----------+-----------+-----------+-----------

Be it remarked that among the exports corn alone figured in 1839 for 835,486 rubles for Theodosia, and 1,755,052 rubles for Eupatoria; and as all this corn came from countries beyond the Crimea, the nullity of the peninsular exportation is apparent. Moreover, the gross total of three and a half millions is scarcely the fifteenth part of the annual exportation of the town of Odessa alone. In order to give a more exact idea of the industrial and commercial situation of the Crimea, we set down the details of its exports and imports in 1839.

IMPORTS.

---------------------------+-----------+------------+-----------+ ARTICLES. | KERTCH. | THEODOSIA. | EUPATORIA.| ---------------------------+-----------+------------+-----------+ | rubles. | rubles. | rubles. | Cotton | 49,993 | 33,650 | | Cotton thread | 4,080 | 4,986 | | Turkish cotton cloths | 14,164 | 532,976 | | Chairs | 5,750 | | | Wooden vessels | 3,645 | 2,441 | | Woollen caps | 4,504 | 29,218 | | Oil | 20,636 | 3,589 | 16,997 | Sickles | 5,000 | | | Wines | 12,069 | 2,190 | 2,342 | Porter | 4,600 | 2,171 | | Cassonade | 14,354 | | | Fresh and dried fruit | 100,402 | 15,107 | 27,464 | Fine pearls | | 4,000 | | Coffee | | 4,319 | 25,102 | Linen thread | | 2,204 | | Nard juice and grapes | | 6,269 | | Turkish tobacco | | 3,345 | 7,823 | Olives | | 3,467 | | Raw silk | | 9,008 | | Dyed silk thread | | 20,915 | | Oak galls | | | 20,387 | Colours | | | 13,814 | Vegetables | | | 2,122 | Pepper | | | 3,063 | ---------------------------+-----------+------------+-----------+

EXPORTS.

---------------------------+-----------+------------+----------- ARTICLES. | KERTCH. | THEODOSIA. | EUPATORIA. ---------------------------+-----------+------------+----------- | rubles. | rubles. | rubles. Raw hides | 15,152 | 22,653 | 68,312 Fish | 7,310 | | Red caviar | 13,113 | | Linseed | 6,100 | | Rapeseed | 6,600 | | Wheat | 31,040 | 745,031 | 1,544,313 Wool | 41,185 | 19,087 | 344,997 Cordage | | 3,275 | Woollen felt | | 7,670 | 31,424 Tanned leather | | 18,375 | 5,150 Flax, hemp, and stuffs | | 11,323 | 27,065 Butter | | 8,133 | 61,445 Bar iron | | 2,340 | 14,700 Salt | | 8,813 | 5,700 Soda | | 4,691 | Rye | | 48,157 | 66,600 Barley | | 39,485 | 1,333,640 Millet | | 2,870 | 1,910 Glue | | | 3,494 Raw Hemp | | | 3,264 Locks | | | 22,296 Copper utensils | | | 3,050 Brass, and brass wire | | | 4,650 Cutlery | | | 13,509 Swords and epaulettes | | | 3,000 Sheep skins | | | 3,650 Suet | | | 11,893 Turpentine | | | 2,100 Beans | | | 8,589 Flour | | | 2,120 Raw silk | | | 3,200 ---------------------------+-----------+------------+-----------

We do not at all coincide in opinion with those who attribute the decadence we have just described to the general character of the people of the East. The Orientals, it is true, have none of that feverish activity which characterises the people of our climes; besides which their wants are so limited and so easily satisfied, that they can never, in their present social condition, become strenuous workers. Yet we have seen that the Tatars, when they first occupied the country, were distinguished for their agricultural and industrial labours, whether it was in consequence of their mixture with the old races, or merely of the propitious climate; they also employed themselves with such success in gardening and the cultivation of the vine and of corn, that the Crimea under the khans was considered one of the chief regions whence Constantinople drew its supplies. It was only the steppe tribes, whose sole wealth was their cattle, that remained true to their primitive habits and their nomade life. In like manner there exists to this day a very striking difference, both intellectual and physical, between the two fractions of the Mussulman race of the Crimea.

We believe, therefore, that under a better system it would have been easy to revive the laborious disposition of the Tatars by facilitating and encouraging commercial transactions, and gradually effacing the disheartening apprehensions under which the Mussulman population have naturally laboured since their great calamities befel them. Assuredly we cannot blame Russia for that depopulation of the country which was the first cause of its decadence. As victors, the Russians used all the rights of the strong hand to consolidate their conquest and extinguish all chance of insurrection. The means no doubt were violent, disastrous, and often even exceeded all the bounds of humanity; yet it was scarcely possible but that excesses should be committed in a war between Russian Christians and Mussulman Tatars, who had so often braved, triumphed over, and swayed the Muscovite power. In fairness, therefore, we can only criticise the measures adopted by the Russian government subsequently to the conquest, from the day when the country was completely pacified, and the Tatars submitted implicitly to the new yoke, and lost all hope of deliverance.

We have already seen how an act of caprice annihilated the commercial prosperity of Theodosia, which would naturally have had the greatest influence over the industrial development of the peninsula; and we have pointed out the mischievous measures that ruined various branches of the native trade. To these depressing causes, for which the government with its fatal system of prohibition and its half measures is alone responsible, we must add others no less active, because they principally affect the agricultural population who stand most in need of encouragement. We have already repeatedly mentioned the countless depredations of the inferior government agents. In the Crimea the difference of religion and language, and the difficulty of making any kind of appeal for redress, naturally rendered the local administration more troublesome and rapacious than in any other province. The consequence was that the Tatars led a life of fear and distrust, agriculture languished, and every man cultivated yearly only as much as was necessary for the subsistence of his family, that he might not excite the cupidity of the employes.

On his accession to the government, Count Voronzof, with his natural kindness, applied himself strenuously to improve the condition of the Tatars; he took them under his special protection, and prevented the rapacity of his underlings as far as in him lay. Unfortunately, his efforts could hardly avail beyond the limits of his own estates, and all his generous intentions were baffled or worn out by the incessant pettyfogging arts of the employes. Nothing could more signally exemplify the distrustful feelings of the Tatars, than the events which occurred during the famine of 1833, which was so great that whole families perished of hunger. Moved by these misfortunes the government offered aid to the Tatars, but incredible as it may appear, the proffered succours were generally refused, so much did the Mussulmans dread the price which would be afterwards exacted for such assistance.

Towards 1840, after the creation of the ministry of the domains of the crown under Count Kizilev, the imperial government set about the task in which Count Voronzof had failed. Men of the best character for intelligence and probity were sent to the Crimea, but their efforts were all ineffectual, and they soon retired in disgust from the useless struggle. The unfortunate Crimea was again surrendered to the unlimited power and endless knaveries of the captain ispravniks, and of the worthy subaltern agents of the local administration.

What are the destinies ultimately reserved for the Mussulman population of the Crimea,[83] now numbering barely 100,000 souls?[84] We are strongly inclined to anticipate its total extinction at a more or less remote date. The tribes are rapidly degenerating; the moral and physical forces of the nation are daily declining; the territorial wealth of the Tatars has been destroyed, sold, or divided; the native families distinguished for their past history or for their fortunes have disappeared; the population, instead of increasing, diminishes. There remains, therefore, no element of vitality to revive the effete remains of a power that made Russia tremble during so many centuries, and that even menaced for a while the political existence of all Europe.

FOOTNOTES:

[77] These colonies now consist of nine villages, with a population of 1800 souls.

[78] Trade of the Sea of Azof, in 1838 and 1839.

--------------------+-----------------------+---------------------- | IMPORTS. | EXPORTS. +-----------+-----------+-----------+---------- | 1838. | 1839. | 1838. | 1839. | Rubles. | Rubles. | Rubles. | Rubles. | | | | Taganrok {Goods | 5,887,901 | 5,334,369 | 7,666,943 |13,813,323 {Cash | 1,414,596 | 2,885,279 | | | | | | Marcoupol {Goods | 300 | 987 | 3,422,107 | 6,276,882 {Cash | 640,660 | 1,515,525 | | | | | | Rostof on {Goods | | | 3,205,406 | 6,078,037 the Don {Cash | | | | | | | | Bordiansk {Goods | | | 2,971,426 | 4,107,638 {Cash | 768,722 | 825,113 | | +-----------+-----------+-----------+---------- Total | 8,712,179 |10,561,273 |17,265,882 |30,275,880 --------------------+-----------+-----------+-----------+----------

[79] De La Mottraye, who visited the Crimea in 1711, speaks of a Soudak wine the flavour of which he compares with Burgundy. At that period the wines of the northern valleys sold at 2-1/2 centimes the bottle. In Peyssonel's time, in 1762, the Soudak wines fetched from 32 to 38 centimes the bottle; those of Belbek 22 to 25, and those of Katch, of which De La Mottraye speaks, 13 to 15. The Ukraine Cossacks and the Zaporogues consumed the greatest portion of these wines; about 1210 hectolitres annually according to Peyssonel. In 1784, at the time of the Russian occupation, the price of Soudak wine was 5 to 6 centimes the litre; it rose to 65 centimes in 1793, during the war with Turkey.--(See Pallas, Voyage dans la Russie Meridionale.)

[80] Previously to Count Voronzof, M. Rouvier, who introduced the breed of merino sheep into Russia, had planted vines from Malaga on the hill sides of Laspi, at the western extremity of the chain; but his example had not many imitators.

[81] Aidaniel is north-east of Ialta, a little town, the chief station for steamboats.

[82] Of roads perfectly practicable for wheeled vehicles there exist in the Crimea: 1. The road leading from Simpheropol to Sevastopol, skirting the northern slope of the Tauric chain; its length is thirty-nine English miles; 2. That from Simpheropol to Ialta, crossing the mountains at the foot of the Tchatir Dagh, forty-nine miles; 3. That from Ialta to Balaclava, proceeding along the southern coast as far as Foros, where it passes on to the northern side of the mountains; its length is forty miles between Ialta and Foros; the second portion was in course of construction in 1840. This line of road seems to us extremely ill-contrived. It has been carried along the very foot of the jura-limestone cliffs, for the purpose of avoiding expense in crossing the ravines; and thus it is completely exterior to the vine-growing and cultivable district, and every proprietor who desires to use it must make a private road at his own expense, in order to reach the elevated level of the highway. We say nothing of the roads in the plains, the construction of which, just as in the interior of Russia, consists merely in tracing the breadth and direction by a ditch on either side.

[83] Hitherto the Tatars have been exempted from military service; they are merely required to furnish one squadron to the imperial guard, to be discharged every five years. As for the taxes imposed on them they amount to the illusory sum of 8_s._ 4_d._ for every male individual, not including duty work on roads, transports, &c.

[84] The total population of the Crimea is about 200,000, including Russians, Greeks, Armenians, Karaites, Germans, and other foreigners.

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