At Balaklava, a town built on a tract of land bestowed by Catherine the Second on a colony of Greeks, by whom it is exclusively inhabitedwe obtained post-horses, and proceeded through a torrent of rain as far as the valley of Baidar, which has the reputation of being, as in fact it is, one of the most beautiful in the Crimea. It is a large, elegantly-formed oval basin, enclosed within mountains crowned with woods, and containing twelve villages imbosomed in groves of fruit trees, and situated in meadows which the moisture from the neighbouring mountains preserves of a lovely green. It happened, however, that we ourselves received so large a share of this beneficent moisture by the way, that we arrived wet to the skin, and were glad enough to get a night's shelter in the house of a hospitable Tartar named Ali Mustapha Oglu. He gave up to us his best room, and made a bright fire that soon dried our wet clothes, and sent a fresh supply of vital warmth tlirough our benumbed hmbs, so that we felt like Socrates, as he laid aside his fetters, that nothing in the world bestows so keen a relish of the joys of life as previous suffering. No place could be more dehghtful, after our cold wet ride, than the warm, soft carpeted and cushioned Tartar room, which resembled nothing so much as one enormous bed.
What is the rest afforded by a European chair, compared with the luxury of one of these Oriental divans ? The fire was made in a comer of the room, on the ground, some hard-beaten clay serA^ng for a hearth. The Tartars have neither fire-place, nor stove, nor brasero^ but a cliimney hangs in the shape of a funnel low down over the fire, and draws up the smoke and vapour.
The wedding of a sister of our host had taken place shortly before, and from the beams of the ceilinsr were still hanofingf some of the handkerchiefs richly embroidered in silver thread, which the Tartar girls prepai'e foi these occasions, to decorate the festive chamber. These pretty di-aperies ghttering in tlic light of the fire, the voluptuous softness of our couch, and the feeling of indescribable comfort occasioned by the contrast of our present with our recent position, gave greater charms to our little room than could have been found in any European hotel. Besides our other accommodations, we had even a superfluity of attendance, for, in addition to what wc had brought with us, our host and his two sons remained constantly standing at the door, ready to execute our behests. His brother-in-law. however, wlio had come from a village in the neighbourhood, entered the room, and joined our company. We inquired of him how many wives he had, and his answer was — " Of course only one ! No Tartar has more than one wife — except such as are rascals ;" so that it appears Mahomet's indulgent permission to have four is made but little use of. The injunction to make a pilgrimage to Mecca is also much neglected, a circumstance not to be wondered at, when we consider the complete isolation of the Mahometans of the Crimea, surrounded as they are by Christian nations, and cut off by a wide sea from their Moslem brethren.
While we were indulging ourselves over our pipes, our new acquaintance relat^id to us the story of a law suit, in wliich he and the people of his village were engaged with a'Russian, who had long been regarded as the scourge of the country. He had received, by a grant from Catherine, 700 acres of land in this valley, and had gradually encroached on the possessions of his helpless neighboius, enclosing the woods and meadows, till his estate amounted to 20,000 acres. Even this was not all, for as the terms of the grant were not very precise, he maintained that he had also a claim on the labour of the peasants in his neighbourhood. The poor villagers had undertaken to have the cause tried in St. Petersburg, but had as yet not been able to obtain any decision.