The road, on leaving Kylboiiroun, passes between naked downs to the village Esky-ordou, ' old camp,* in a somewhat fertile district, and the farther we advanced the more varied did the landscape become. Tatar hamlets in their picturesque untidyness, with gaily dressed women and dark-eyed little children, the green fields that stretch far away on either side, fresh-looking trees of a size strange to us in the peninsula, and an occasional purling rill, added a quiet charm to the scene, and almost made us foiget the horrible jolting we were enduring. We passed through the villages of Kourtzy and Sably, between rows of willows and many a stately poplar, and then entered groves of box, and dense forests of beech and pine, where the track was strewn with the deciduous wood of past years.
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At Beshcv or Betchey, we rested the horses, and betook ourselves to the garden of the niolla, who ordered refreshments, such as coffee, fruit, and sweetmeats, which were served by old waiting women, while his daughter was completing her toilette under a verandah, her eyebrows undergoing the process of being coloured with kna, a mineral dye, and being united by a straight line painted across.
At Hatrealann, where travellers will find accommodation for the n^ht, but no refreshment, is the Imperial forester's lodge, much of this woodland being the property of the Crown. Here the cart track is lost in the windings of the Ised of the Alma on the Synop-dagh, which becomes perceptibly steeper and more densely covered with firs, until the monastery is reached. We met pilgrims on their way to the wells, while others were returning with bottles fiilled with the miraculous water. One penitent only, a vigorous woman of five-and-thirty, had taken up her quarters in one of the cells ' for the saving of her soul,' where she worked as laundress and tailoress, in return for the hospitality afforded by the monks!
When nearing Kylbouroun, on our way back, we came up with a Tatar wedding party which consisted of a large company, for the bride was the daughter of a moursa. She sat closely veiled in the first carri^e, accompanied by her mother, piles of small coloured kerdiiefs being on the seats in front of them; half-adozen drabas filled with relatives and guests followed, but the whole was a somewhat mournful affair, for the procession moved on slowly and silently. One of our friends exchanged salutations with the father of the bride, who invited us to join, and we took our place in the rear, in our unwieldy and dust-covered wa^on. Upon receiving the hint, 1 walked up to the first carriage
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Dig izsd by Google to salute the bride and her mother, when the latter presented me with a kerchief intended as a wedding favour, which, in imitation of the other gentlemen, I bound round my left arm. The procession was a pageant, for it passed through every hamlet and cluster of houses, not n^lecting even those off the road, and at each a halt was made, the natives having turned out and stretched a long ribbon or cord across the way, as if to summon the bride to pay her footing; and full well was it paid, with handfuls of nuts and sweetmeats distributed among the women and children; men received a little present in money, and if any Russians or Greeks chanced to be present, they were treated to a vodka, not generally indulged in by the Tatars.
' On approaching the bride's future home, we alighted and moved up in the vain hope of seeing something more of her; but she had no sooner descended from the draba, than a crowd of females who were waiting, seized and literally draped or carried her into the house, where she disappeared. The ' happy man 'did not show himself at all, but received his bride indoors, and the party at once broke up, without any of the greetings or salutations usual upon such memorable occasions.