The quantity of snow that had fallen during those two days retarded our speed. A man rode on before the carriage and carefully sounded the ground, for the metel had filled up the holes and ditches, and obliterated all landmarks. Nothing can be more frightful than those snowy wastes recently swept and tossed by furious winds. All trace of man's existence and his works, have disappeared beneath those white billows heaped upon each other like those of the ocean in a storm. How well we could appreciate, in those long days we spent in plodding through the snow, the horrible sufferings of our poor soldiers, perishing by thousands in the fatal retreat of 1812! The thought of their misery smote upon our hearts, and forbade us to complain, warmly clad as we were, drawn by stout horses, and having all we required done for us by others.
As we approached Kherson post-sledges began to show themselves; several of them shot by us with travellers wrapped up to the eyes in their fur cloaks. These sledges are very low, and hold at most two persons. It very often happens that the body part upsets without the driver's perceiving it; the accident is not at all dangerous; but it must be exceedingly annoying to the traveller, as he rolls in the snow, to see his sledge borne away from him at full speed, leaving him no help for it but to follow on foot. If the driver does not take the precaution to look back from time to time, the traveller may chance to run all the way to the next station, and it may be imagined in what a plight he arrives there. When the accident happens by night the case is still more serious. Many Russians have told us that they had thus lost their way, and only after a day or two's search had found the station where their sledge had arrived empty. Nothing, indeed, is more common than to lose one's way in the steppes, nor is it at all necessary to that end that one should fall out of his sledge. We ourselves were once in danger of roaming about all night in the neighbourhood of Kherson in search of our road, which we could not find. A very dense fog surprised us at sunset, scarcely five versts from the town. For a long time we went on at random, not knowing whether we were going north or south, and Heaven knows where we should have found ourselves at last, if we had not caught the sound of horses' bells. The travellers put us on the right way, and told us it was ten o'clock, and we had twelve versts between us and Kherson.
CHAPTER XXXIV.
DEPARTURE FOR THE CRIMEA—BALACLAVA—VISIT TO THE MONASTERY OF ST. GEORGE—SEVASTOPOL—THE IMPERIAL FLEET.
After a winter spent in the pleasures of repose, we left Odessa at the end of April to visit the Crimea, on board the Julia, a handsome brig, owned and commanded by M. Taitbout de Marigny. Our departure was extremely brilliant. The two cannons of the Julia, and those of the Little Mary, that was to sail in company with us, announced to the whole town that we were about to weigh anchor. Our passage could not fail to be agreeable under such a captain as ours. M. Taitbout de Marigny, consul of the Netherlands, joins to the varied acquirements of the man of science all the accomplishments of the artist and man of the world.
The voyage was very short, but full of chances and incidents; we had sea-sickness, squalls, clear moonlight nights, and a little of all the pains and pleasures of the sea. On the second morning, the sun shining brightly, we began to discern the coast of that land, surnamed inhospitable by the ancients, by reason of the horrible custom of its inhabitants to massacre every stranger whom chance or foul weather led thither. The woes of Orestes alone would suffice to render the Tauris celebrated. Who is there that has not been moved by that terrible and pathetic drama, of which the brother and sister were the hero and heroine on this desert shore! As soon as I could distinguish the line of rocks that vaguely marked the horizon, I began to look for Cape Parthenike, on which tradition places the temple of the goddess of whom Iphigenia was the priestess, and where she was near immolating her brother. With the captain's aid I at last descried on a point of rock at a great distance from us a solitary chapel, which I was informed was dedicated to the Virgin. What a contrast between the gentle worship of Mary and that of the sanguinary Taura, who exacted for offerings not the simple prayers and ex voto of the mariner, but human victims! All this part of the coast is sterile and desert: a wall of rock extended before us, and seemed to shut us out from the peninsula so often conquered and ravaged by warlike and commercial nations. Richly endowed by nature, the Tauris, Chersonese, or Crimea, has always been coveted by the people of Europe and Asia. Pastoral nations have contended for possession of its mountains; commercial nations for its ports and its renowned Bosphorus; warlike peoples have pitched their tents amid its magnificent valleys; all have coveted a footing on that soil, to which Greek civilisation has attached such brilliant memories.
During a part of the day the wind was contrary, and obliged us to make short tacks in view of the rocky wall; but at four o'clock a change of wind allowed the brig to approach the coast. The sea was like a magnificent basin reflecting in its transparent waters the great calcareous masses that overhung it. It was a fine spectacle; but our captain's serious expression of countenance, and the intentness with which he watched the sails, and directed the manœuvres, plainly showed that our situation was one of difficulty, if not of danger. A boat was manned and sent off to explore the coast, and as its white sail gleamed at a distance in the sun, it looked like a seabird in search of its nest in the hollow of some rock. The Little Mary imitated all our evolutions, skimming over the waves like a sea swallow. She shortened her trip at every tack, and kept closer and closer to us; and our captain's face grew more and more grave, until all at once to our great surprise the rock opened before us like a scene in a theatre, and afforded us a passage which two vessels could not have entered abreast. Having got fairly through the channel, M. Taitbout was himself again. This entrance he told us is very dangerous in stormy weather, and often impracticable even when the wind is but moderately fresh. The scene, however, on which it opens is extremely beautiful. The port is surrounded with mountains, the highest of which still bear traces of the old Genoese dominion, and in front of the entrance is the pretty Greek town of Balaclava, with its balconied houses and trees rising in terraces one above the other. A ruined fortress overlooks the town: from that elevated point the Genoese, once masters of this whole coast, scanned the sea like birds of prey, and woe to the foreign vessels tempest driven within their range! Balaclava, with its Greek population, its girdle of rocks, and its mild climate, resembles those little towns of the Archipelago that are seen specking the horizon as one sails towards Constantinople.
While we remained on board waiting for the completion of the custom-house formalities, we were entertained with the most picturesque and animated scene imaginable. It was Sunday, and the whole population was scattered over the shore and the adjoining heights. Groups of sailors, Arnaouts, and girls as gracefully formed as those of the Grecian isles, were ascending the steep path to the fortress, or were dancing to the shrill music of a balalaika. All the balconies were filled with spectators, who were busy, no doubt, discussing the apparition of a brig in their port; for the trade of Balaclava, so flourishing under the Genoese, is now fallen to such a degree that the arrival of a single vessel is an event for the whole town.
Balaclava, the Cembalo of the Genoese, is now the humble capital of a little Greek colony founded in the reign of Catherine II., and now numbering several villages with 600 families. During her wars with the Porte, the empress thought of appealing to the national sentiments of the Greeks, and their hatred of the Turks. The result answered her expectations, and Russia soon had a large naval force that displayed the most signal bravery in all its encounters with the enemy. When the campaign against Turkey was ended, the Greek auxiliaries took part in the military operations in the Crimea; and after the conquest of the peninsula, they were employed in suppressing the revolts of the Tatars, and striking terror into them by the sanguinary cruelty of their expeditions. It was at that period the Mussulmans of the Crimea gave them the name of Arnaouts, which they have retained ever since.