Upon our return to Baghtchasaral, wc dined off kebabs at a by Google kahwd, 'coffee-house,' and spent the evening conversing with Tatars of every degree. Five molias came in -and took up their pipes, but they were guarded and uncommunicative; others, however, were not slow to express their disaffection, and were bitter against the new oukas on conscription; for what is there indeed that will more readily disturb the habitual serenity of a Moslem, and incite him, if anything should, to revolt, than the thought that his services are required on compulsion by a Christian!
Soon after the promu^tion of the oukas, 1 50 Tatar youths fled to Turkey, besides whole families which deserted their homes, to embark at dusk on board of small sailing vessels that lay in readiness off the coast at Aloushta and Yalta, their infants and children of tender years being left behind, that their cries might not betray the fugitives.
So £reat were the demonstrations of discontent among the Tatars on the subject of the new military code, that Prince Woron- 2off was sent to Baghtchasaral to reassure them. Addressing thdr deputies in the court of the palace of the khans, the prince said: * I am sent here by the Emperor to declare to you that he thiols of you Mahomedans, and loves you, as be does his own children.' They were promised considerable indulgences, and informed that under no circumstances would they be permitted to emigrate to Turkey. Military service, they were told, was no longer what it used to be, and would they shirk it like cowards and run away like hares, when the eyes of the world were on them? The Tatars asked for time to consider, and on the third day they declared their submission to the new laws.'
A battalion of 170 men.has been formed, no heavy drain out of a population of 127,682; the head-quarters are at Baghtchasaral,
' Corr. Odat. Vytitynia, April 1874.
by Google wliere the newly enrolled Tatars are permitted the full enjoyment of their national customs and religion.
Having a day to spare before being obliged to return to Sevastopol to meet the steamer, we.were enabled to visit other crypts in the neighbourhood. We entered the beautiful valley of the Katcha at Kosh-dermen, between which place and the hamlet of Moustapha-bey, are seen at a short distance from each other, two pillars of calcareous rock of striking appearance, a lustts natura, the one called by the Tatars val vat ina kayassy,^ the other val vat kayassy. Old Said told us that there was once a %voman, who, desiring to become a Christian, had fled her village, and was being pursued by her daughter who sought to bring her back, when all of a sudden the would-be apostate was turned to stone as a punishment for wishing to leave the true faith; the daughter, amazed at the sight, be:amc likewise turned to stone, and is heard on dark ni^ts to cry faintly, Vat vat dtia, vat vat dna.
Proceeding along the valley under the shade of the grand old trees on either side of the parched stream,* shade we greatly needed with the thermometer at 107°, we came to the modem church of St. Athanasius on the Pytchky estate. Above it, high up the cliffs, are the crypts of Katch-kalen, in a position impregnable by nature except towards the north-west, where a formidable wall of defence had been co'hstructed; in a cemetery inside this wall are several tombstones like those at Bya-sali and Mangoup, and in their midst a great mass that has tumbled from the rocks above, and on which a huge cross has been hewn in relief.
The crypts of Katch-kalen, which face to the south-west, are innumerable and of every size, many being quite inaccessible;
' Ana is ' mother '; A'ayaisy, Kdya in Turkish, ' a stone.'
[fragment illegible in the scan of the first edition]
by Google
[fragment illegible in the scan of the first edition]
they have their compartments, niches and bins, also wtne-preiises and reservoirs, not seen in any other crypt town in the Crimea. At a spring of impure water, pilgrimages by Greeks and Russians were made up to a recent period. As a whole, the excavations at Katch-kalen are seen to the greatest advanti^e from the road below, after the church of St Athanasius is passed.