We found the deck as thronged with smartly-di-essed ladies and gentlemen as a rout in a London drawing-room, and were considering how it would be possible for all these fine folks to be stowed away, so that there might be room to eat and sleep, and be sea-sick, when the bell gave the signal for our departure, and our hoHday companions who, it appeared, had merely accompanied their friends on board, took their leaves and retired, leaving behind them the real passengers in their more simple traveUing costume.
Marshal Marmont, in his travels, speaks in very flourishing terms of the situation of Odessa, and the fine view of it obtained from the sea. What is meant by a fine view of an object not really in sight at all, it is not easy to understand ; and the prospect of a single row of houses, which is aU that can be seen of Odessa from the sea, can scarcely be called a view of the town. There are neither trees nor mountains to make amends for its absence ; nothing but the high, steep, naked shore of the steppe, with a surface as flat as that of a table.
No regret at leaving a place possessed of so few attractions disturbed our enjoyment of the lovely weather, and of the social meal which we took together on deck, envied, no doubt, by the sharks and dolphins around us. The voyage from Odessa to the Crimea is, for the good of the steward, just calculated so as to include two dinners. The fare to Yalta is sixty rubles, and the accommodation good enough for any one who knows nothing of the convenience and luxury of a Great Western. The boats go every fourteen days, and touch at various points to set down and take up goods and passengers.
Though the motion of the vessel was very trifling, only one of the ladies, the sister of the former governor, remained up. She sat as blooming as ever, knitting a stocking, and looking round, hke a conqueror, on the recumbent forms that occupied their respective mattresses, and had hardly voice enough left to ask for help.
I held for the heroine — not the laurel wreath, but the worsted which her busy hands were weaving into a stocking, and spun with her a very agreeable thread of conversation that lasted the whole evening. How widely tea and civilization are extended now-a-days ! On the inliospitable Euxine — foaming waves around, and unknown monsters beneath — were we gossiping over the cheering fragrant cup about sapngs and doings of London and Paris !
In approaching the Crimea from Odessa it is by no means the nearest lend that comes first into sight, but rather the centre of the peninsula, whose lofty mountain summits arose on ouur horizon in the gray dawn of the Rowing morning. The sun had risen ovBr the Caucasus of a blood - red colour, and l(X)ked like the Russian god of wnr, threatening the nations that inhabit it, and as he climbed higher in the east we advanced to meet him from tlie west, the landscape gradually unrolling itself, tili the lighthouse, built by the Russians on a low projecting point of land, came full into view.
Of the ancient Cherson no image remains but what the creative fancy forms for itself : its ruins lie too low ; and of the millions of its vessels that once ploughed the deep not a vestige is left. The sea is as un-historical as possible. The most wonderful events that take place on its bosom leave not a trace for future ages —
" Unchangeable save to thy wild waves' play, Time writes no wrinkle on thine azure brow ; Such as creation's dawn beheld, thou rollest now."
Might it not, however, sometimes be possible to erect a naval monument ? some kind of memorial to mark an interesting spot ? — a buoy, or a raft with a high mast for instance, or a columna rostrata on the scene of a battle, decorated with the flags of the contending nations ?
The Chersonesus Trachea is a perfectly flat country, if we except a very gentle slope on its western side towards the level of the sea. The mountains only begin to rise at Balaklava. The birds of passage that come from Asia Minor in the spring, come by the Crimea as the shortest passage over the Euxine. In the south of the peninsula they come to a high mountain, where they divide into two parties ; the one proceeding eastward, tlu-ough the defiles and deep valleys of the Khatir Dagh, the other going westward over the low Chersonesus. They come in immense flocks, and their numbers give great animation to these usually wild and desolate regions. It is hkely that when they are wearily winging their flight over the sea, the lonely light-house may attract them, for there are frequently many hovering about it, and the windows are often broken by their flapping against them.