Having perceived an open window with a Hght we rode up to it, and called out MadamCy^ to an old Frenchwoman whom we saw sitting beside her husband, engaged in knitting. She did not appear at all startled, but holding her light out of the window answered, " Dieu I que vous mavez effrayee! Bon soir, Messieurs;" and we immediately dismounted and presented our papers to show that we were not mere vagabonds. She was too polite however to look at them, and when her old deaf husband took them in his hand and began to study them, she snatched them away screaming in his ear, " Mais, Charles, Charles I Qu^est ce que tufais? Ce sont les passeports des Messieurs. Entrez I Entrez I Messieurs r Uniting Russian hospitality to her native French complaisance, she appeared to feel the utmost confidence in us and soon showed us to apartments, where we passed a very tolerable night, in spite of the officious attentions of certain small animals as abundant here as in Italy. The Frenchwoman and her husband were from Champagne, and had travelled thus far to fabricate the foaming wine of their own country for the master of the estate. These manufacturers of Cliampagno are very common on this coast, where it is from the wine that the j)rinc'ipd revenues of the estates are derived, the juice of the grape coutributhig in some mcasure to defray the expenses of the gardens and houses. The Crimean wines are already much used in Russia, and most of the great landed proprietors have agents in Moscow, Kharkoff, Odessa, and other large towns, who write up over the daors, " South-coast wines from the estate of the Princess X.," &c. The wines of course receive various baptismal appellations, and one may buy port wines, champagne, burgimdy, and madeira, all manufactured in the Crimea. The vines for each sort are however always procured from the respective countries, and, as far as possible, they are managed in the same manner; they always have a certain peculiar flavour which may be called the Crimean; but as this flavour, it is said, becomes every year pleasanter, and the wine more fi-agrant, it is likely that the care bestowed on it may in time place it on an equality with the gi'owth of more favoured lands.
Alushta enjoys a very interesting geographical position. The high wall of the Crimean mountains is here broken through in a remarkable manner, by broad valhes stretching from the sea-shore in the south-east to the steppe in the north-west, sinking at the same time from the height of 4000 to that of 2000 feet, and rising again on the east, abruptly to its former height, whilst from the lower elevation the isolated summit of the Tshatir Dagh, stands out towering a thousand feet above any other point of the whole range, and seemingly quite distinct from it, especially on the north and south. It is called by the Russians " Palata Gora," a name like the Tartar appellation Tshatir Dagh, descriptive of its form, which is exactly that given in pictures to the Table Mountain at the Cape of Good Hope.
This form may be considered common to the mountains of the Crimea, since they all appear as high walls or ridges, intersected by vallies, but it is of course less evident where they are not isolated. The vallies or defiles which cross the Tshatir Dagh from the sea to the steppe, are interesting not merely from their physical conformation, but also in an historical and political point of view. Since they are the most convenient passes through the mountains, they have naturally been employed as the principal channels of communication between the north and the south, and two not inconsiderable commercial towns have arisen, one at each extremity ; Simferapol on the north, and Alushta on the south. Besides this the numerous battles fought in their defile have rendered them quite the classic ground of the Crimea.