On the day of our arrival at Baktshisera'i, or rather at a neighbouring convent, it chanced to be the anniversary of a great festival of the church, which every year calls together half the Christians of the Crimea, and, as the day before had been a great Tartar fair, the roads were very animated, resounding incessantly with the clattering of wheels and the trampling of horses. There were but few passengers on foot, but whole troops flew past us on their little mountain steeds, and the Russian troikas darted like arrows past the heavy, creaking Tartar madyars, which drew modestly aside, to make way for their more aristocratic brother vehicles. These madyars are like large chests moxmted on wheels, which, being never greased, make a most frightful noise. They have a hole in the front, through which only the driver can be seen, but, as they serve as travelling harems, one may sometimes catch a flashing glance from one of the fireeyed beauties within. The handsomest equipages we met were the spacious, open waggons of the peasants from the Greek colony, in the mountains between the two towers. They were all filled with pretty, laughing faces, and high in the midst, as on a presidential chair, sat always a remarkably beautiful woman, with a fair complexion and raven black hair, dressed in black silk, richly decorated with gold ornaments. On their foreheads these Greek women wore a most queenly-looking diadem, and their arms were adorned with strings of gold ducats. They were all srhiling most graciously, probably because their ears were all the time saluted by the incense of their male companions.
I was told by a Greek of our party that these people came over about twenty years ago from Asia Minor, having escaped from the outrages of the Turks at the time of the Greek insurrection, by taking refuge in Russian ships The emperor had assigned them lands in the Crimea, where, as might be gathered from their appearance, they had prospered and grown rich. The golden clasps and diadems, however, had been brought with them from their former homes.
In all important political movements, the Crimea and the northern coast of Asia Minor have from the earliest times been accustomed to exchange inhabitants with each other. The " barbarians " passed formerly from the Taurian coast to Asia, but now the reverse takes place, and the children of the south, pursued by barbarians, find a hospitable reception among the fierce tribes of Scythia.
The word " Baktsha" signifies in the Tartar language " garden," and the name of Baktshisera'i would, therefore, signify " seraglio of gardens." This city was for centmies the capital of the remarkable state which formed the last fragment of the great Mongolian empire in Europe, and which, whilst throned in the Crimea, spread its unwholesome influence far over the lands of the Dnieper, the Dniester, and even as fiir as the Volga and the Vistula, until checked by the magical rapidity of tlie growth of Russiji, under the powerful Catherine, the entire northern coast of the Pontus began to develop a more flourishing and prosperous condition than it had ever known before. Ilere in a narrow ravmc in the Crimea dwelt those mighty Khans, before whose name the aneient city of the Czars trembled eacli returning spring, and for whose friendship Poles, Turks, and Russians, vied with one another. Here assembled before their gates those hordes of wild horsemen, ministers of barbarism, who from thousands of square leagues scared away the beneficent plough. The Tartars have still a tender regard for this city, the memorial of their former greatness, and the Russians do not discourage the feeUng in the remnant of a people from whom they have nothing more to fear.