On leaving Parthenit we passed very close to some old fortifications covering a whole hill with their imposing ruins. At evening we arrived at the post station of Alouchta,[70] where our party was to break up. Some of our companions returned to Ialta, others proceeded towards Simpheropol; whilst we ourselves, accompanied by a single Tatar and our dragoman, set out by the sea-coast for Oulou Ouzen. The distance was but twelve versts, but we spent several hours upon it, in consequence of the difficulty of the ground and the steepness of the cliffs which we were often obliged to ascend. We met no one on the way; this part of the coast is quite deserted and sterile.
Oulou Ouzen, our point of destination, is a narrow valley opening on the sea, and belonging to Madame Lang, who has covered it with vineyards and orchards. A week passed quickly away in the agreeable society of our hostess, whose residence is one of the prettiest in the country. Being very fond of birds, she has succeeded by a very simple process in converting her garden into a great aviary. On the day we arrived we were surprised to see her continually assailed by a flock of pretty titmice that pecked at her hair and hands with extraordinary familiarity. They were the progeny in the third and fourth generation of a pair she had reared two years before, and had liberated in the beginning of spring. Next year they returned with a young brood that grew used by degrees to feed on the balcony, and at last to eat out of her hands. These in their turn brought her their young ones; other birds followed their example, and thus she has always a flock of gay dwellers of the air perching and fluttering about her balcony, which is covered with nets to protect them from birds of prey.
At Madame Lang's we met a very agreeable gentleman and a great admirer of the Crimea, M. Montandon, who has written an excellent itinerary of the country. We talked a great deal with him about a French lady, Mademoiselle Jacquemart, whose acquaintance my husband had made some months previously. She has resided for the last fifteen years in Soudagh, a valley near Oulou Ouzen. The Duc de Raguse speaks at great length of her in his Excursion en Crimee, and relates the tragic adventure of which she was the heroine some years ago, but he assigns for it a romantic cause which Mademoiselle Jacquemart has absolutely contradicted.
Few ladies have passed through a more eccentric life than Mademoiselle Jacquemart. In her young days, her beauty, her talents, and her wit invested her with a celebrity, such as rarely falls to the lot of one in the humble position of a governess. After having lived long in the great world of St. Petersburg and of Vienna, she suddenly withdrew to the Crimea, where, having like many others almost ruined herself by vintage speculations, she purchased the little property in which she now resides. Her history and her unusual energy of character led to a close intimacy between her and the old Princess Gallitzin, who was herself enough of an original character to like every thing uncommon, and Mademoiselle Jacquemart was an habitual guest at Koreis.
Before we left Oulou Ouzen we went to spend a day with Madame Lang's only neighbour, an old bachelor, who lives quite alone, not out of misanthropy, but that he may devote himself without interruption to his favourite pursuit of botany. A deep ravine between the two properties, and a steep descent overlooking the sea, render the road so dangerous that ladies can venture to traverse it only in a vehicle drawn by oxen. It was in this strange equipage, guided by a Tatar armed with a long goad, that we reached the house of M. Faviski, who was quite delighted, but greatly puzzled to receive ladies. He did the honours of his bachelor's dwelling, nevertheless, like a very well-bred gentleman.