Immediately on our arrival at Odessa, we found ourselves in the hands of a Jew, who announced himself as the '■^Factor'' of the hotel, — a dignity with which I had not previously been acquainted. The " Factor," it seems, is the representative of the landlord ; he points out lodgings to strangers, makes agreements with them, procures servants for them, and generally attends to their wishes. The landlord himself, or, as he calls himself, the 'proprietor of the hotel, never shows himself at aU, but lives in dignified retirement without troubling himself about his guests, and merely verifies every evening the accounts of his Factor. He is never, as with us, a cook or waiter, w'ho has worked himself up through the various gi'ades, and who knows how to animate the whole estabHshment with his active spirit, but is usually a retired merchant or a ci-devant officer in the army. In the kitchen, or course he takes no concern, but farms it out to a Traiteur, who has his own servants in the house, and supplies what is wanted.
It may easily be supposed that upon this plan, though the hotels of Odessa are very large, they are extremely uncomfortable. Every guest is expected to bring with him his own servant and his own bedding, as he will find nothing but the bare bedstead, or at most some mattresses ; and if he has them not he must make a separate agreement concerning them with the Factor. This exceedingly inconvenient arrangement prevails also in the Crimea, Bessarabia, and Galicia. It is probably a custom derived from Poland, whose manners have exercised generally a very important influence in Odessa.
The second individual to whom we were introduced was a Grusinian, a professor of the tonsorial art. During the time we had spent on the steppe, our beards had growTi like the grass, and to relieve ourselves from this incumbrance, in the manner in which the operation is managed liere, was a real enjoyment. A young, handsome, elegant-looking fellow, dressed in a rich half-European, halfAsiatic costume, presented himself as harber, and his agreeable manners, no less than his skill in his occupation, convinced us at once that the barber's is a genuine oriental art. He infoimed me that his country-people are almost exclusively in possession of this trade in Odessa. They have upwards of a hundred shops, which are spacious pleasant apartments, handsomely carpeted, and adorned with pictures and flowers, with a long divan running all round them. In Germany one cannot visit such places without disgust, but here they are really an agreeable lounge, and make one understand at once the part they play in Eastern life.
There are two harbours in Odessa ; one for the Russian ships of war and coasters ; the other, called the Quarantine harbour, for all vessels coming from plague countries ; and as no foreign ships can reach Odessa without passing the Bosphoinis, which is considered unclean as belonging to Turkey, the quarantine-harbour necessarily receives all foreign vessels.
To each of these two harbours, a deep valley or ravine leads down from the high terrace of the steppe. These ravines, probably, were at one time water-courses, but now the stream of human life is the only stream that flows through them ; for they are the only roads to the sea-shore, with the exception of some httle inconvenient footpaths. Waggons with goods are, consequently, always moving up and down, and droshkies are incessantly flying through them with merchants and their clerks, who are obliged to adopt this mode of communicating with the captains in. quarantine.
The quarantine harbour encloses a large space of ground, reacliing back to the steppe, surrounded with walls and fortifications, and by a line of soldiers with loaded fire-arms, who will allow no living soul to ente — or more properly, none to go out. The walls contain a citadfil, an hospital for the sick, warehouses for suspected goods, dwelling-houses for the physicians and other ofiicials, as well as for persons subjected to quarantine, and coffee-houses, besides spacious grounds for walking about and for the unloading of goods. Towards the sea the quarantine harboinr is watched by a cordon of armed vessels.