" The scene which bursts upon the eye on emerging from the arch is one of the finest I have ever witnessed — indeed, I am not sure that it is not the most beautiful and grand that can be seen anywhere. You find yourself standing in a very narrow road, on the left hand of which a sheer slab of rock rises to the height of 600 or 700 feet above — its surface rent with fissures, here and there dotted by stunted firs, which cling like weeds to its surface, diversified with all the tints for which volcanic rocks are remarkable. At the base of this cliff, which stretches further than the sight can trace it, there is a ragged fringe of mighty boulders, of fragments of mountains tossed down in the wildest confusion amid the straggling brushwood. On your right, nearly 1,000 feet below, is the sea, washing the narrow selvage of land which, covered with thick groves and dotted with rocks, tumbles down beneath your feet in waves of verdure, so rapidly that the dark blue waters, which are really nearly a mile distant, seem to be only a few hundred yards from the road. This narrow shelving strip of land, which lies beneath the cliff and descends to the sea, formed of the debris of the mountain-chain above it, extends along the coast from Phoros to Demur Kapu, or the Iron Gate, widening as it runs eastward, and losing its distinctive character completely ere it reaches Aloushta, in consequence of the great wall of cliff on the left hand receding rapidly inland and northwards from the point opposite Yalta. The length of this strip is thirty miles. It is nearly a mile broad at Phoros, and thence it gradually expands, till at Aloupka it attains a breadth of three miles from the sea to the base of the cliff, and at Yalta is five miles. The road winds for many miles along the foot of these stupendous
PUBLIC WOEKS — PHOEOS PASS. 477
crags, but there is a lower road, reached by zig-zags, which leads to the villas situated in the lovely valleys by the coast. This strip of shelving land is of the most varied formation. It is tossed about into hill and dale, and is seamed with shady ravines and deep woody dells, which are watercourses in winter. As it is quite sheltered by the cliff from northerly winds, and is exposed to the full power of the sun, the climate here is beautifully mild until the heats of summer begin, and the land produces in great perfection an astonishing variety of vegetable productions.