CHAPTER XII.

BALACLAVA AND VALLEY OF BAIDAR.

Balaclava—Karl Ritter’s views of the importance of the Black Sea in very early times—Homer’s account of Balaclava—The Cembalo of the Genoese—Tatar occupation of it—Arnaouts—Tchorgouna—Mackenzie’s Farm—Valley of Baidar—Manners of the Tatars—Woronzof road.

Balaclava is now a busy scene; the little bay is crowded with transports; thousands of our countrymen disembark here to exercise their perilous profession, and as many re-embark, poor wounded soldiers, shattered in constitution, or with the loss of limbs, but henceforth immortal heroes, whose deeds will be the theme of the historian and the poet, whose future welfare will be a subject of anxious solicitude to their country, and who henceforth, however humble their rank, in whatever country they visit, will be marked men; marked for honour, and distinction, and respect, from all who admire chivalrous boldness, and that still rarer quality, calm unimpassioned endurance. Sevastopol is the grandest theatre of events that has yet been seen. The audience, so to speak, is the largest, and, for the first time, really comprehends the whole world. Even the wars of Napoleon were a subject of little interest in China, or Australia, or California; but each swaying to and fro of the mighty combatants at Sevastopol interests literally the whole globe, and that interest is doubled by the speed with which the news is carried, and the increased knowledge which all nations now possess of each other.

When I visited Balaclava before the present war, nothing could be more quiet than this little port, and a few Greeks sauntering about, or exercising their peddling occupations in the village bazar, were the only persons to be met with. Yet even then, like most out-of-the-way places in the world, there were some representatives of the British nation to be found, and I was asked to go and visit a crew of shipwrecked English sailors in the lazaretto, who had been saved with difficulty on the rocks at the entrance of the harbour. The ship had struck; the poor fellows were thrown on a ledge of the cliffs, where they remained for nearly a day and a night before they could be rescued; yet when they were brought in at last, exhausted, and at death’s door, nothing could induce them to touch the hot brandy that was brought them, lest they should break their pledge as teetotalers. It was impossible not to admire in them that British firmness of purpose, which was the same quality which showed itself in the defence of Inkerman, however mistaken in this application of it.

Balaclava is the only bay on the southern coast resembling those about Sevastopol, where the land rises suddenly on each side, and the water is so deep that the largest ships may anchor close to the shore. On approaching it from the East, the geological formation is seen at once to change in its vicinity; the summits of the rocks are still, like the rest of the Tauric chain, calcareous; but they have been changed by violent action into red, blue, and grey marbles, below which reappears the coarse red pudding-stone of the Tchatyr-Dagh mountain, while a great rent, which opens on the sea, and was called the Valley of the Devil (Shaitan Déréh), shows a black or yellowish schist. I will here quote the words in which Dubois describes his arrival on this singular spot: “Each step,” he says, “in approaching Balaclava is an enigma to me, such an inconceivable disorder reigns among these masses of pudding-stone with enormous pebbles, which alternate with layers of marble and sandstone; and the marble finishes this strange series, which seems like a world turned topsy-turvy. When arrived at the top of the sterile mountain that overhangs Balaclava, I cry out with astonishment, What are these white antique towers perched on the top of rocks descending so rapidly to the water? What is this brilliant lake shut in by the steep mountains? And that red promontory reflected in the waves of the sea? Can this be Balaclava? Nothing but ruins are visible, where then is the town? Contemplating with admiration this romantic scene, I descended the mountain, looking continually for the town, of which I saw no vestige. My guide at last directed me suddenly to the left, and like magic, I found myself in Balaclava, which, placed on the narrow strip of land between the mountain with the ruins and the tranquil bay, is not seen till it is entered.”[153]

Like many other places in the Crimea, Balaclava has a very ancient history. Our first notice of it is in the dim twilight of archaic times. We have the high authority of Karl Ritter for supposing that it is the port of the Læstrigons mentioned in the Odyssey; and the extreme accuracy of Homer’s description of it, as will be presently more fully shown, seems to make Ritter’s supposition extremely probable. But before entering into the particular identification of Balaclava, I will shortly state what Ritter’s views are as to the part which the shores of the Black Sea played in very early times.[154] He has undertaken to prove, from the most ancient monuments which are offered to us by ancient geography, archæology, mythology, architecture, and religious systems, that colonies of Indian priests, having departed with the ancient worship of Buddha from the centre of Asia, came directly or indirectly, before the historic times of Greece, to establish themselves on the banks of the Phasis, around the Euxine Sea, in Thrace, on the Ister, and in many countries of Western Europe, and even in Greece; that these colonies exercised a remarkable religious influence, and that these facts are proved, not only from the relations of the Asiatics, but principally from the study of the most ancient fragments of the historians of Greece and Asia Minor. We in Europe, receiving our lights from Greece, are habituated to adopt all the illusions of the national pride of the Greeks; and, according to them, Greece was the focus of all light, whence science, and civilization, and religion had their origin. But in looking back to their myths, in reading Homer, and the history of the Argonauts, and of Phrixus and Helle, and others, it would seem that the Greeks were always civilized by those whom they called barbarians. The king and the people who received the Argonauts, the Tyrians, the Trojans, were all superior in civilization to the armies of adventurers, who, like the Normans of the middle ages, came to plunder them, in violating the laws of hospitality. All the ancient poets and historians seem to have chosen the Black Sea for the theatre of the exploits of their heroes. All their relations look towards it as the point whence civilization and wealth proceeded. Up to our days the wanderings of Ulysses, in the 10th, 11th, and 12th Books of the Odyssey, were supposed to be on the shores of Italy and Sicily. There were sought the Læstrigons, the Cyclops, and Scylla and Charybdis; but this is certainly wrong, and the poet wished to make Ulysses wander on that inhospitable shore, which appeared to him at the extremity of the world. The moment that Ulysses reaches the coast of the Læstrigons, we must recognize ourselves as on the shores of the Black Sea. Their country can be no other than the barbarous Crimea, and he evidently called the Tauri the Læstrigons, from the Greek “lêstês,” meaning pirate or brigand.

After leaving them, Ulysses was driven on a low coast, the island of Æa, where the enchantress Circe reigned, the sister of Æetes. This was evidently Colchis or Mingrelia, which may be easily recognised by the broad river (the modern Rion) which received the fleet of Ulysses, the vast forests which covered its banks, and the palace hidden in the trees, which exactly represents the Nikolakévi of our days. The wine there is as tempting as ever, the honey as fresh, and the women still pass their time in embroidery as in the time of Homer. From the beauty of the country and its inhabitants it is still the land of enchantment.

That there may be no mistake about the position of Æa, here the poet places the palace of Aurora in which take place the songs and dances of the Hours, and where the sun renews its birth. After leaving Colchis Circe sends Ulysses to consult the oracle of the infernal gods, and when the hero has crossed the empire of Neptune, which he thinks the end of the world, he finds a coast of easy access, shaded with high poplars and sterile willows, where are the habitations of the Cimmerians covered with thick clouds and black obscurity.

The Cimmerians, we know from later authors, lived at Kertch and in the island of Taman, at the extremity of the Black Sea, which to Ulysses appeared the end of the kingdom of Neptune. There he is described as finding one of the entrances to the infernal regions, and there to this moment exist the springs of black and burning naphtha, which roll their stinking waters like the Cocytus and the Acheron; and there also are the mud volcanoes, belching forth a mixture of fire and water, which have altered the form of all the country round.

Then Ulysses returns to Circe, and starts for Ithaca, and leaves the Black Sea by passing through Scylla and Charybdis, which closed the entrance with their rocks surrounded by whirlpools. These are the islands of the “blue Symplegades,” familiar to all who have passed from Constantinople to the Crimea, standing at the entrance of the Bosphorus; and Homer cannot mean the straits of Messina, because he says that the only ship which had passed these straits was the Argo, when it went to Colchis on the expedition for the golden fleece.

Thus it seems almost beyond a doubt that the shores of the Black Sea were the mysterious regions where some of the scenes of Homer were laid, and in parts of which in the very earliest times, as in Colchis, were settled highly civilized communities. Let us now observe Homer’s description of Balaclava, as Pope has translated it:—

“Within a long recess a bay there lies Edged round with cliffs, high pointing to the skies. The jutting shores, that swell on either side, Contract its mouth, and break the rushing tide. Our eager sailors seize the fair retreat, And bound within the port their crowded fleet; For here retired the sinking billows sleep, And smiling calmness silvered o’er the deep. I only in the bay refused to moor, And fixed without my hawsers to the shore: From thence we climbed a point, whose airy brow Commands the prospect of the plains below; No tracks of beasts, or signs of men, we found, But smoky volumes rolling from the ground.”

_Od._, b. 10, v. 101.

It is impossible to give a truer or clearer picture of Balaclava than that which was thus drawn by old Homer nearly three thousand years ago. The two high rocks which advance into the bosom of the waves, and seem approaching to embrace one another, are there, and only leave a narrow passage turned towards the south, which barely allows two vessels to cross one another. Its width is eight hundred feet and its greatest depth one hundred fathoms, and the water of the bay looks very black. When the narrow passage is passed, the port enlarges to a width of twelve hundred feet, and its depth goes on diminishing from ninety to six fathoms, its entire length being nearly a mile.

This bay is a phenomenon in geology, deeply encased as it is at its entrance in rocks of calcareous marble and pudding-stone, and finishing in a black schist, which opens on a basin of chalk.

Wherever Ulysses landed, whether on the right hand or the left, terrible rocks border the shore; and after scaling them, he could only see, as we do now, an unfruitful rocky soil, with no plants but a few juniper trees, and no trace of the labour, either of men or oxen. The smoke could alone show him the town of the Læstrigons hidden in the rocks.

Homer then continues:—

“Two with our herald thither we command With speed to learn what men possessed the land. They went, and kept the wheels’ smooth beaten road, Which to the city drew the mountain wood. When, lo! they met beside a crystal spring The daughter of Antiphates the king; She to Artacia’s silver streams came down (Artacia’s streams alone supply the town): The damsel they approach, and ask what race The people were? Who monarch of the place? With joy the maid the unwary strangers heard, And showed them where the royal dome appeared. They went, but as they entering saw the queen, Of size enormous, and terrific mien, Not yielding to some bulky mountain’s height, A sudden horror struck their aching sight. Swift at her call her husband scoured away, To wreak his hunger on the destined prey. One for his food the raging glutton slew, But two rushed out, and to the navy flew. Balked of his prey, the yelling monster flies And fills the city with his hideous cries: A ghastly band of giants hear the roar, And pouring down the mountains crowd the shore. Fragments they rend from off the craggy brow And dash the ruins on the ships below! The crackling vessels burst; hoarse groans arise, And mingled horrors echo to the skies: The men like fish they stuck upon the flood, And crammed their filthy throats with human blood!”

The herald and the two companions whom Ulysses sent, whether they went to the right or the left, must have come out on the chalky valley of Balaclava, where the people, as is done to this day, export the spoils of the forests on the neighbouring mountains, while the environs of Balaclava are quite naked. By following this road they arrived at the extremity of the port, where is still the only spring of water, or, as it was then called, the fountain of the nymph Artacia, which was free to all the citizens. The younger daughter of Antiphates, the King of the Læstrigons, showed them the lofty gates of a palace which touched heaven, which stood no doubt where now are the ruins of the fortress of Balaclava. This was the palace of her father, which had been built by Lamus, an ancient King of the Læstrigons.

The savage Antiphates, faithful to the character which the ancients always attributed to the Tauri, seized one of the ambassadors to devour him, while the other two fled away. Meanwhile the alarm had been given in the town; the people had seen the fleet of Ulysses enter, and they rushed to it from all parts.

Balaclava was called the port of Symbols by the Greeks, and this name was corrupted into Cembalo by the Genoese, and the place was taken by them from the Greek dukes of the Crimea in 1365, and they then built the fortress which now exists, and by their enterprise greatly increased the commerce of the port. In 1433, the Greeks, who had remained at Cembalo, having conspired, drove out the Genoese, and replaced the town and castle in the hands of a noble Greek, called Alexis, the lord of Theodori (Inkerman). He was driven out in the following year by Charles Somellin, who was sent from Genoa with a fleet of twenty vessels, further augmented in passing through the Greek islands, so that he arrived with 6000 men.

In 1475 Balaclava experienced the fate of Soudak, and was taken by the Turks, who gave it up uninjured to the Tatars, by whom it was held for several centuries, till they were driven out by its present inhabitants, the Arnaout Greeks, in 1780.

When Catherine II. took the Crimea, the Tatars were still a powerful people, with a strong nationality. The object of Catherine was to break this up, and to prepare the country for the future habitation of the great Slave people. She, therefore, encouraged as many of the inhabitants of the Crimea, as she could influence, to emigrate, and appealing to the religious sentiments of the Greeks, and their hereditary hatred of the Turks, she called in Greek soldiers to assist her in expelling the Tatars that were refractory.

A regiment of Albanians was raised, chiefly from the Greeks who had been in the Russian service in the Archipelago, and they were first called Arnaouts at Balaclava. The Tatars having emigrated, or been dispersed, this town, together with the surrounding country, extending to the banks of the Bouiouk Ouzéne, including the villages of Kadikói, Karáni, Kámara, and Alsou (after removing the rest of the Tatar families to other places), was given to the Albanians as a settlement.[155] A few years before the breaking out of the present war they numbered 600 fighting men, and each colonist was liable to be called out for four months of active service, and had the other eight at his disposal for the cultivation of his lands. Each soldier had twenty-eight roubles yearly pay (about 4_l._ 10_s._), and found his own equipment.

The town of Balaclava has probably received its modern name from the strong Greek castle of Pallakium,[156] which stood here, although some suppose it to have been taken from “Bella clava,” or “the beautiful port,” a derivation which every traveller would willingly concede as probable. It is mentioned by one Italian traveller of the seventeenth century under the name of Baluchlacca, and at that time it was inhabited by Turks, Greeks, and Armenians. “Its unrivalled beauty and security,” he says, “tempted him to stay there several days, and at that time its fine Genoese fortifications were entire.”[157] This old fortress, like all the strong places of the Genoese and Greeks in the peninsula, is erected on inaccessible rocks, close to the mouth of the harbour, on the adjoining eastern hill, and is fortified with high walls and towers.

When Clarke visited this magnificent fortress, the arms of Genoa were still upon the walls. “The mountain on the north-east side,” he says, “is covered with its mouldering towers, and the rock itself has been excavated, so as to exhibit stately magazines and chambers, the sides of which were lined with coloured stucco. It is surprising,” he continues, “that the inhabitants of Balaclava do not use these caves, for they are very habitable, and the stucco is still in the highest preservation. We entered one, which was a spacious oblong chamber, lined throughout with stucco, and somewhat resembling the famous _piscina mirabile_, near the supposed villa of Lucullus at Baiæ. We could form no conjecture for what purpose this place was intended, except as a granary or storeroom; it bore no marks of any aqueous deposit on its sides, and was at the same time dry, and in perfect preservation; it could not, therefore, have served as a reservoir for water.”[158] Might not some use be made of these dry caves for the stores of our army, if they be not situated at too high an elevation?

The port of Balaclava is frequented by fish of passage, especially by mackerel, by the _mugil cephalus_, in great numbers, and also by the red mullet, a most delicate fish, whether eaten in a fresh or pickled state, which is also caught in the lakes of the interior. The mackerels become as tender and savoury as herrings, after being kept twelve months in brine.[159] The fishermen, when our army arrived at Balaclava, came with their nets to Lord Raglan, and offered, if they were allowed protection, to supply our army with fish, as the season was just commencing, but, from some mistake, their offer was neglected.

By the shortest road, Tchorgouna is about four miles from Balaclava, and occupies a romantic situation, in a gradually contracting valley, through which the Tchornaya Retchka discharges itself into the bay of Sevastopol. Here is, or was, a lofty octagonal tower, which dated probably from the time of the Genoese, and placed half way between Balaclava and Mangoup, was intended to keep open the communication between them, when Mangoup was an important fortress. At four miles from Tchorgouna, in a north-east direction, is the “_Muilnaya gora_,” or Soap-hill of the Russians, which is literally burrowed with pits for extracting the fuller’s-earth, which is found under chalky marl, at a depth of about forty feet. The soap-hill is a gentle elevation, in a broad tract of level country, about six miles wide, at the foot of the steep mountain called Mackenzie’s Farm. It received this name, because Admiral Mackenzie, who was commander of the fleet at Sevastopol, towards the end of the last century, established a farm on the summit of this mountain, for the erection of which a considerable portion of the woods was granted to him, but subsequently repurchased by the Crown for the use of the navy. The Tatar name for the mountain is Kok-agatch, from the numerous white beech trees which once covered it. The oak, Christ’s thorn, and cornel-tree also grew here, and of the latter the long pipes were made, in such request among the Turks. In spring the ground is covered with large-flowered primroses, bearing white, and yellow, and pale violet blossoms. Veronicas, euphorbias, hyacinths, broad pionies, asphodels, and yellow irises, also deck the ground in spring, and the clematis, wild vine, and wild rose may be found among the shrubs in the neighbourhood of Inkerman.[160]

On leaving Balaclava for the southern coast, the traveller regains the high road, before it enters the celebrated valley of Baidar, which was much praised by the first travellers who wrote after the occupation of the Crimea by the Russians, even before its real beauties were fully known.

The valley is rather more than ten miles in length and six in breadth; so beautifully cultivated, that the eye roams over meadows, woods, and rich corn-fields, enclosed and intersected by green hedges and garden plantations. The villages are neat, and the inhabitants healthy. It is protected on every side from the winds that blow with great fury on the northern slopes of the mountains, and is irrigated by clear streams, that fall imperceptibly through the fields. The mode of enclosure, and the manner of cultivation, are like those of our own country, and there is much to remind the traveller of the vales of Kent and Surrey. The mountains, as well as the plain, were formerly thick set with oak, wild pear, crab, and cornelian cherry trees, which shaded the road, and kept off the scorching rays of the sun, but all these have now disappeared.

The domestic habits of the Tatars are very simple, and resemble those of other Oriental nations, except that they have been to a certain degree modified by contact with the Russians. When a stranger, says Clarke, arrives at a Tatar house, they conduct him to the apartment destined for the men, and present him with a bason, water, and a clean napkin, to wash his hands. They then place before him whatever their dwelling affords, of curd, cream, honey in the comb, poached eggs, roasted fowls, and fruit. After the meal is over, the bason and water are brought in as before, because all the Tatars, like the Turks and other Oriental nations, eat with their fingers, and use no forks. Then, if in the house of a rich Tatar, a long pipe is presented, of cherry-wood, which grows in the mountains, and with amber or ivory. After this, carpets and cushions are laid for the guests, that they may repose. All the houses of the Tatars, even the cottages of the poor, are extremely clean, being often white-washed. The floor is generally of earth, but smooth, firm, dry, and covered with mats and carpets. The meanest Tatar possesses a humble dwelling, one for himself and his guest, and the other for his women. They do not allow their most intimate friends to enter the place allotted for the female part of the family. With so much cleanliness, it is surprising to find the itch prevalent. It is also difficult to escape venomous insects and vermin. The tarantula, the scorpion, cockroach, lice, bugs, fleas, flies, and ants, are more or less to be met with everywhere, but, with proper precautions, the traveller need not be much incommoded by them.

A favourite beverage of sour milk, mixed with water, the yaourt of the Turks, is found in request with the Tatars, as among the Laplanders. They all shave their heads, both young and old, and wear in their houses a sort of scull-cap, over which, in winter, is placed a kind of helmet of wool, and in summer a turban. Their legs in winter are swathed in cloth bandages, like those worn throughout Russia, and their feet are covered by a kind of sandal. In summer both legs and feet are naked. Their shirts, like those of Turkey, are wide and loose at the sleeves, hanging down below the ends of their fingers. If they have occasion to use their hands, either to eat or work, they cast back the sleeve of the shirt upon the shoulder, and leave the arm bare. The jacket or waistcoat is generally of silk or cotton, and the trousers being made very large, full, and loose, though bound tight below the knee, fall over in thick folds on the calf of the leg.

They have no chairs in their houses, and a little short stool, about three inches high, is used for supporting a tray during their meals. This stool is often ornamented, either by carved work or inlaid mother-of-pearl. During the summer months the chief delight of the men consists in the open air, sleeping at night either beneath the shed before the door, or under the shade of the fine spreading trees which they cultivate near their houses. In the principal part of a Tatar dwelling there is a particular part which bears the name of Sopha. This is a platform raised twelve inches from the floor, occupying the entire side of the apartment, not for the purpose of a seat, but as a place for their household chests, the _dii domestici_, and heaps of carpets, mats, cushions, and clothes. The same custom may be observed in the tents of the Kalmucks.

In some things the Tatars display a taste for finery. Their pillows are covered with coloured linen, and the napkins for their frequent ablutions, which hang upon their walls, are embroidered and fringed.

If one of their guests falls asleep, although but for a few minutes, and by accident, during the day, they bring him water to wash himself as soon as they perceive he is awake. In their diet they make great use of honey, and their mode of keeping and taking bees accords with the normal simplicity of their lives. From the trunks of young trees, about six inches in diameter, they form cylinders, by scooping out almost all except the bark, and then closing their extremities with plaster or mud, they place them horizontally, piled one upon another, in the gardens for hives. They often open these cylinders to give their guests fresh honey, and the bees are detached merely by being held over a piece of burning paper, without any aid of sulphur. The honey of the Crimea is of a very superior quality; the bees, as in Greece, feeding on blossoms of the wild thyme of the mountains, and such flowers as the garden spontaneously affords. Every Tatar cottage has its garden, in the cultivation of which the owner finds his principal amusement. Vegetation is so rapid, that, in two years, vines not only shoot up so as to form a shade before the doors, but are actually laden with fruit. They delight to have their houses as it were buried in foliage. These, consisting only of one story, with low flat roofs, beneath trees which spread numerous branches quite over them, constitute villages, which, at a distance, are only known by the tufted grove in which they lie concealed. When the traveller arrives, not a building is to be seen; it is only after passing between the trees, and beneath their branches, that he begins to perceive the cottages overshadowed by an exuberant vegetation of the walnut, the mulberry, the vine, the fig, the olive, the pomegranate, the peach, the apricot, the plum, the cherry, and the tall black poplar; all of which, intermingling their clustering produce, form the most beautiful and fragrant canopies that can be imagined.[161]

Through this beautiful valley, now devastated by contending armies, the high road, called the Woronzof road, leads past the villages of Miskomia and Arnoutka, to reach the southern coast, and crosses the mountain barrier, which shuts out the valley from the sea by the pass of Phoros, which, till the road was made, was only accessible by stone stairs cut in the rock, perilous alike to man and beast.