Nearly all the salt used in the Crimea is obtained from the lakes in the neighbourhood of Perekop*, where but little art is required for * There are other salt lakes, but not so considerable, near the sea of Azoff. They belong to the town of Theodosia. the collection of it. A cart is driven into the water, and the salt is shovelled into it from the bottom with a spade. This operation takes place in the month ofSeptember, after the heats ofsummer have produced the necessary evaporation, and before the commencement of the autumnal rains. The salt is sold to the consumer in the state in which it comes from the lake, and is afterwards purified by him, if he think proper, at his own house. Starch is likewise an object of domestic manufacture.
In the summer of 1817, I performed a journey on horseback round the mountains which border the south coast of the peninsula, and which have been often and accurately described.
The most beautiful spots in that delightful district appeared to me to be Kutchuk Lambat, (at the edge of a small bay, and opposite to the loftymountainAyou-dagh), Nikita, andAloupka.
The descriptions ofthese places may be found in the works of the numerous travellers who have borne testimony to their beauties.
The bay trees ofAloupka are much celebrated, but those ofthe adjoining village ofSimeus are scarcely less remarkable, one which we measured being upwards of thirteen feet in circumference. The lower part of the large and open valley of Nikita is now covered by a government nursery garden, which has been formed within the last few years, for the purpose of encouraging and extending the cultivation of fruit trees in the peninsula. We saw large beds ofseedling olives, and ofthe Spanish chesnut tree, ofwhich latter, till lately, only two specimens were to be found in the Crimea. Apple, pear, peach and almond trees are sold at Nikita, at the price of from thirty to fifty kopeeks the plant, during the first year after grafting; and in 1815, six thousand plants were thus disposed of. At the season of our visit, which took place about the end ofJune, the fig trees were covered with unripe fruit, and the olives and pomegranates were still in blossom. This establishment is under the care ofGerman directors.
The scenery of Alushta, which is one of the most celebrated points within the compass of our tour, is inferior, I think, to that ofthe three spots which I have mentioned, and somewhat disappoints expectation; though the broad valley, stretching inland from the sea to the roots of Tchatyr Dagh, possesses, without question, considerable beauty. With what different eyes has this singularly shaped mountain been viewed by different nations ; and how plainly have they betokened their several habits in thenames which they have chosen to affix to it! The Greeks called it Table Mountain; the Tatars, Tent Mountain ; the Cossacks, Saddle Mountain ; but an Englishman at Sevastopol told a friend of mine, that he considered it as resembling nothing so much as a sirloin of beef.
On that part ofthe coast which lies between Kaffa and Sudac, some ruins have latelybeen discovered, at a spot called Koktabell, which are believed by some to denote the site ofthe ancient Theodosia. Its distance from the Cimmerian Bosphorus issaidto coincide exactly with Strabo's account, and an artificial as well as a natural harbour is still discernible ; the sea now breaking over the mole which formerly protected it, and running smoothly through the entrance of the haven. A vastnumber of ruinsbespeak it to have been a place of large extent ; but those which I observed consisted merely offoundations, constructed of rough stones and cement. We ascended a mountain to the ruins of a Genoese castle, the pathway on the summit of which is singularly narrow and tremendous. A small tongue of land near this port, commanding an extensive view of the Euxine, is now occupied by a Cossack guard.