A few closing remarks onlyremain to bemade. Lady Craven has been strangely mistaken, in speaking of rice growing in the Crimea; they have no land that is at all adapted for the cultivation of rice. Her description of the Russian singing is very correct; its effect is singular and pleasing ; and particularly so, when, in the o2 stillness ofthe earlymorn, or evening, it is heard at a distance, from the peasants going to, or returning from labour, or the soldiers assembled in the guard-room.
The building spoken of by Mr. Heber, to the left of the road leading from Staria Crim to Sudac, is a priory, with a few Armenian monks resident there, and a very fine estate of three thousand desaiteens attached to it. The situation of this monastery is most romantic and beautiful, but excepting the scenery around, it has nothing worthy of remark.
Bachtcheserai is said to have contained, in 1803, thirty-one mosques, and seventy-five fountains : except Dr. Clarke, no late travellers have noticed thefinefountainswhich are still preserved here, though those of almost every other town have been destroyed.
Alushta has been remarked, as furnishing from its neighbourhood the best hemp in the Crimea; and at Ourzoffwe saw a piece of ground which had been cultivated for upwards ofa century for flax alone. As this crop is generally considered of the most exhausting nature, such a circumstance is very remarkable, and will perhaps be considered a lusus naturae in the agricultural world. Karasubazar holds, according to the last revision, nine thousand souls, exclusive of the barracks, which are a considerable distance out of the town ; these, in time of peace, do not contain above fifteen hundred men, including artillery.
Perhaps the management of bees, amongst a few intelligent people in England, is superior to all that the Tatars can boast ; yet undoubtedly their superiority over all other classes in the Crimea is clear and decided ; to which their fine climate, and the great profits attending the concern, contribute most essentially. The Tatars are said to possess such discriminating knowledge, that some of them, on seeing the bees at work on the flowers of the field, will directly tell to what village they belong, and some, it is affirmed, will know ofwhat proprietor they are the property.
The wages ofa bee-gardener vary according to the numberofwhich he has the charge ; but at Karagoss he received three hundred rubles from Easter to Michaelmas, twelve bushels (English) of wheat, and some coarse linen for trowsers and shirting, besides skin shoes. The largest hive at Karagoss, from its pre-eminence in size, was called the Espravnek; exclusive of this, the largest, when full, yielded from sixty to eighty pounds weight of honey and wax ; moderate sized ones, from thirty to sixty pounds ; the least from ten to thirty pounds. This was the produce ofgood years, andwhen the hollowed trunks oftrees (which are mostcommonlyused forhives), were full. Many of these hives, to remove from their summer to their winter quarters, required two stout Greeks to carry them.