there is no book of Massari for that year, antecedent documents show that the cislenu at Cafla, Cembalo, and Sougdaya. weie in course of restoration, and it is therefore possible that the altar at the church underwent a change at the same period. This supposition meets with some confirmation, if the word atalana, in the very defective inscription over the fountain outside the gates, Iw read c
F GENOESE FORTRESS, SOUDAK.
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CHAPTER XLIII.
SEVENTY-SEVENTH TO SEVENTY-NINTH DAV.
RoodfroiaSoudak—TbeSleppe -A pleasant YeinilcijKi—The 'White Rock'— Karesou-bazar — Places of Interest— Baiaare— Tatar Cemeteries— Sympheropol— The old Town— Market-place — Gipsy Quarter— A drive to Saky— Supposed Site of Nea* polls— Valley of the Salghyr-Kylboiiroun — Source of the Salghyr— Byouk Ankoi — A AMla'i Quarters— Ascent of the Tchadyr^lagh— The Grottoes.
Beyond Elbously, the first post-station after leaving Soudak, the road turns to the left, and continues for some little distance over wooded and picturesque uplands where the hazel and walnut grows in abundance, until the pretty valley of the river YndoU is traversed at Kyshlaou. At the 14 versts post, two barrows are passed, and at the same moment the first sight is obtained of the vast and endless steppe — a greyish expanse, with a horizon like that of a waveless ocean. There were signs of a good harvest on the cultivated land near the road, but the appearance of the country in general is sterile, with scarcely a tuft of even the wildest vegetation; the landscape would indeed be a cheerless one, but for the long, narrow strips of green that appear on the banks of little streams by which the plains are scantily watered, such as the Boulganack, dignified as a river in the Russian maps, but only a sluggish water-course, that finds its way with some difficulty to the Putrid sea.
I had an intelligent and pleasant yemstckyck on the lonely VOL. 11. H
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[fragment illegible in the scan of the first edition]
and dusty road we had entered upon; he was a native of the government of Orel, a thorough Russian moujyk, cheerful, goodnatured, and good-tempered. The horses seemed to know his voice, for they slackened their pace as he spoke coaxingly and in the most ridiculously endearing terms to them, nice sounding words that were repeated alternately with the most dreadful oaths, when the brutes would go faster, for the man never employed his whip, and in place of the cruel lash he sounded a shrill whistle which would set the animals off at a canter. The ycmitchjck was an old soldier, who had served during the late war, notably at the siege of Silistria; when he ceased addressing the horses, he would relate how prince Gortchakoff disliked prince Paskievitch, and how prince Paskievitch found fault with prince Gortchakoff. He had never seen either of those generals, but he knew a great deal about them, he said, from hearsay, for they were the constant talk of the army during the campaign on the Danube,
At about 3 miles from Kira-sou- bazar, there are some curiouslooking chalk cliffs named Ak-Kiya, 'white rock,' that form the summit of an eminence 400 or 500 feet above the plain, and present the exact appearance of the walls of an extensive fortification, facing the south and west. Dubois, who ascended the hill, found several crypts of considerable dimensions, some measuring from rs feet to 20 feet in height, and 40 feet in depth. The hill has been named the Tchyrynskaya gari by the Russians, from the following circumstance.
The most powerful family in the Crimea, after the Ghyreys, was that of the Tchyryns, who enjoyed large possessions extending from Kara-sou- bazar to Kertch and many great privileges, for which they were indebted to a boy named Danghy who had saved the life of the l?st of the Ghyreys, when that family was being by Google exterminated in a general insurrection. Such privil^es, and a sense of their power, incited the Tchyryns to form ambitious projects and set themselves up in opposition to the khans, and at the least cause for discontent, their chief, who bore the title of Tchyryn, assembled his partisans with their retainers, when all followed him to the top of the ' white rock,' where they united in forming plans of revolt.
A remarkable feature on entering the town of Kdra-sou-bazar, is the lai^e number of well-dressed Tatar mendicants, mostly females, that are seated by the road-side begging, many we saw having taken up their position by the Kira-sou, to importune travellers while their horses were being watered.