A lighthouse, at some distance from the walls of Odessa, is the first landmark noted by mariners. An hour after it came in sight, we were in front of the town. Europe was once more before our eyes, and the aspect of the straight lines of street, the wide fronted houses, and the sober aspect of the buildings awoke many dear recollections in our minds. Every object appeared to us in old familiar hues and forms, which time and absence had for a while effaced from our memories. Even Constantinople, which so lately had filled our imaginations, was now thought of but as a brilliant mirage which had met our view by chance, and soon vanished with all its illusive splendours.
Odessa looks to great advantage from the quarantine harbour, where the steamer moored. The eye takes in at one view the boulevard, the Exchange, Count Voronzof's palace, the pratique harbour, and the Custom-house; and, in the background, some churches with green roofs and gilded domes, the theatre, Count de Witt's pretty Gothic house, and some large barracks, which from their Grecian architecture, one would be disposed to take for ancient monuments.
Behind the Custom-house, on some steep calcareous rocks, sixty or seventy feet high, stands the quarantine establishment, looking proudly down on all Odessa. A fortress and bastions crowning the height, protect the town. All the remarkable buildings are thus within view of the port, and give the town at first sight an appearance of grandeur that is very striking.
The day of our arrival was a Sunday; and when we entered the harbour, it was about four in the afternoon, the hour of the promenade, and all that portion of the town adjoining the port presented the most picturesque appearance imaginable. We had no difficulty in distinguishing the numerous promenaders that filled the alleys of the boulevard, and we heard the noise of the droshkys and four-horse equipages that rolled in every direction. The music, too, of a military band stationed in the middle of the promenade, distinctly reached our ears, and heightened the charms of the scene. It was, indeed, a European town we beheld, full of affluence, movement, and gaiety. But, alas! our curiosity and our longings, thus strongly excited, were not for a long while to be satisfied. The dreaded quarantine looked down on us, as if to notify that its rights were paramount, and assuredly it was not disposed to abrogate them in our favour. One of the officers belonging to it had already come down to receive the letters, journals, and passports, and to order us into a large wooden house, placed like a watchful sentinel on the verge of the sea. So we were forced to quit the brilliant spectacle on which we had been gazing, and go and pass through certain preliminary formalities in a smoky room, filled with sailors and passengers, waiting their turn with the usual apathy of Russians.
We had no sooner entered the quarantine, than we were separated from each other, and every one made as much haste to avoid us, as if we were unfortunate pariahs whose touch was uncleanness. All our baggage was put aside for four-and-twenty hours, and we were accommodated in the meantime with the loan of garments, so grotesque and ridiculous, that after we had got into them, we could not look at each other without bursting into laughter. We made haste to inspect our chambers, which we found miraculously furnished with the most indispensable things. But what rejoiced us above all, was a court-yard adorned with two beautiful acacias, the flowery branches of which threw their shade upon our windows. Our guardian, who had been unable to preserve the usual gravity of a Russian soldier at the sight of our ludicrous travestissement, surprised us greatly by a few words of French which he addressed to us. By dint of mangling our mother tongue, he managed to inform us that he had made the campaign of 1815, and that he was never so happy as when he met Frenchmen. On our part we had every reason to be satisfied with his attentive services.