CHAPTER XV.

FROM ALOUCHTA TO SIMPHERÓPOL, KARASOUBAZAR, ESKI KRIM, AND THEODOSIA.

Valley of Alouchta—Obelisk—Valley of the Angar—Tavshan Bazar—Fortified Gorge—Yenisála, a Greek Colony—Aian and the source of the Salghír—Ascent of the Tchatyr-Dagh—Yaila—Snow reservoirs—From Tchafki to Simpherópol—Excursion up valley of Little Salghír to caves of Kisilkoba—Caverns—Simpherópol to Karasóubazar—The Shireen family—Eski Krim—Theodosia, or Kaffa—B.C. 700, Theodosia founded by Milesians—A.D. 250, totally destroyed by the Huns—Desert for 1000 years—A.D. 1280, Kaffa founded by Genoese on site of Theodosia—Short history of it—A.D. 1475, taken by Turks—Its decline—Revival in seventeenth century—1781, taken by Russians—Description of ruins—Their destruction by the Russians—Position of Kaffa in commercial point of view—Arabat—The wall of Asander—The approach to Kertch.

The macadamised road does not extend along the coast further than Alouchta, and here turns off northwards to Simpherópol, a distance of about forty miles. It mounts for the first twelve miles through the rich valley of Alouchta, till an obelisk marks the highest point, whence it descends through the cheerful little valley of the Angar, which runs into the Salghír. Here the Tchatyr-Dagh, the highest mountain in the Crimea, rises immediately on the left, and the valley is an enormous rent in the red pudding stone of which the mountain itself is composed.

A little further on, a shady spot, called Tavshan Bazar (the Hare market), serves as a resting-place for carriages coming from Simpherópol, before they encounter the hilly part of the journey to the coast, and from Tavshan Bazar to Simpherópol the road is good and even.

Two limestone mountains[202] here rise above the road on the right, and vast blocks which have rolled down from them nearly fill up the valley of the Angar, and advantage has been taken of the narrow passage, called Demirkapou, or the gates of iron, to erect one of the walls so common in the Crimea, by which the southern coast was protected against invasions from the north.

A little beyond Tavshan Bazar,[203] to the right, is the village of Yenisála, occupying the bottom of the valley. This was a Greek village, abandoned in 1778, of which there only remain now the ruins of a chapel and some tombs. The inhabitants were induced to remove at the great emigration which took place five years before the Russian conquest of the Crimea, and were transferred to the shores of the Sea of Azof, near Mariopol, where they founded a new Yenisála. They never, however, forgot their old abodes, and the present possessor of the village, M. Grot, has seen old men arrive to visit the scenes of their youth, and find out among the tangled bushes their ancient home, which they came once to revisit before their strength failed them. A little beyond Yenisála the Angar falls into the Salghír, and the high road follows the banks of the latter river all the way to Simpherópol. There are no remains of antiquity, except an old Tatar palace, called Eski Serai; but the country around is rich and wooded, with fine poplars and aspens, and Tatar villages are dotted thickly over it, with tiled houses and white minarets rising among the trees.

It is worth while, however, to stop on the high road at Tchafki and make an excursion to the source of the Salghír and the summit of the Tchatyr-Dagh. From Tchafki the ride is short to the little Tatar village of Aian,[204] which is close to the sources of the Salghír, to visit which the traveller must descend from the limestone terrace, on which the village is situated, into the neighbouring narrow valley, which is a rent in the red marble rocks, terminating, at a few hundred yards distance, in a great chasm in the flank of the mountain. There, under an enormous rock, surmounted by other broken fragments, is a large mouth, which vomits forth the Salghír in the midst of mossy blocks of stone. The wave, scarcely escaped from its cavern, falls in a cascade over a mass of marble, and the noise of the waterfall is mingled with the roaring of the waters in the gulf from which it issues in the very bowels of the mountain. From a grotto above it the water may be seen boiling and foaming in the dark abyss. These subterranean gulfs penetrate into the heart of the mountain, where they communicate with other gulfs and abysses, which reach the whole way through the mountain from near its summit, and, preserving the snow during the whole year like glaciers, continually feed the river.

To mount the Tchatyr-Dagh,[205] on its eastern side, the first part of the ascent is in the direction of Tchafki, over the schists, which to a considerable height compose the western side of the valley of the Angar. Then follows the red marble, and a very steep ascent, which leads to the table-land or Yaila of the mountain, four or five miles in length and two miles broad, and upwards of 4000 feet above the level of the sea. It is very even and covered with fine pasture, on which feed numerous flocks of sheep; but strange to say the strata of black limestone which compose it are not horizontal, as might have been expected from its even surface, but vertical, at right angles to the surface of the earth, and planed off by some agency which nobody has been able to determine. The heads of the beds may be seen running east and west, and the harder strata rise slightly above the others, and have scarcely any vegetation upon them. There are frequent slight depressions in the soil, from 40 to 100 feet in diameter, and about 10 feet deep; but sometimes they sink into the unfathomable abysses which have been mentioned as forming reservoirs of snow to supply the rivers which issue from the Tauric chain. From this lower table rises another, 700 or 800 feet high, which forms the summit of the mountain, offering the magnificent view I have already described in a former chapter.

Nothing of interest occurs on the road from Tchafki to Simpherópol; from which latter place there is an agreeable excursion up the valley of the Little Salghír, which runs on the east, parallel to the great river of the same name.[206] After passing the village of Mamak, at a short distance from Simpherópol, a vast wall of porphyry, fifteen miles long, closes the valley to the east, and extends from Djamatai to Yenisála, which has been mentioned as being close to the high road to Alouchta. This wall is the eastern side of the great circular crater, in the midst of which Mount Tchatyr-Dagh has been raised up, and along it there are rents, which form narrow valleys to the east, in many of which villages are situated. At Terenair is some black schistous earth, somewhat resembling coal in appearance; but although it would no more burn than so much granite, the possessor of it, Mr. Kortchan, always uses his utmost endeavours to obtain a certificate of its carbonaceous virtues from geological travellers, that he may enter into contracts to supply it as coal to the fleet at Sevastopol. Higher up is the valley of the Kisilkoba, with a village of the same name at its entrance, and a rivulet running through it, shaded by high trees. After passing the village, and following, for a short distance, a narrow path by the side of the stream, we come to a very steep ascent among the rocks, where numberless fragments of pottery mark the spot as once having been inhabited. Ascending the sombre and narrow glen, we then arrive at an even terrace, some acres square, covered with fine trees, and surrounded by high rocks, in which grottoes have been excavated. It is impossible to conceive a spot more fitted for a hermitage, where the world is only seen at a distance through the entrance of the little valley. At the back of the terrace the stream bursts forth from subterranean canals, like those under the Tchatyr-Dagh, and at the time of the melting of the snows a great body of water issues forth.

The course of the stream appears to have been several times changed, for above its present place of exit, there are two other stages of the empty canals, which form a series of majestic grottoes. The least elevated, but the most beautiful, rise above the cascade, with a fine entrance about twenty feet high, and within them the ground is found to be sandy, and the cavern descends into the interior of the mountain. At half its depth there is a passage of rising ground, which leads into other canals, of such extent, that a French gentleman, having taken provisions and lights, walked for a whole day with the guide, Mambet, without reaching the extremity.[207] In the lower grotto, at sixty paces from the entrance, there is a basin of limpid water, and between the strata of the limestone the Tatars of Karasóubazar collect a red and yellow clay for the manufacture of pipe bowls. The upper grottoes are two hundred feet above the terrace, and the access to them is difficult. Their entrance is low, but the passage rapidly increases in height and breadth in a north-east direction. It then turns towards the north-west, and three more caverns are passed, covered with white stalactites, which, by the light of the flambeaux, make a beautiful contrast with the red rocks around. The length of these caverns, as far as they are generally followed, is seven hundred feet, and supposing that the dislocation of the strata, which formed them, dates from the raising up of the Jurassic island of the Crimea, fossil bones might perhaps be found here of great importance.

At a mile and a half[208] from Kisilkoba is another gorge, Koutchouk Yankoi, which much resembles the one I have described, and here ends the valley of the Salghír, between the foot of the Tchatyr-Dagh and the heights of the Samarkaia.[209]

We will now return to Simpherópol, and follow the post-road thence to Theodosia. From Simpherópol to Karasóubazar the road is very uninteresting, and runs over a chalky undulating ground with little cultivation and few trees. Half way is the post station of Konia, near which are two large tumuli.

Karasóubazar,[210] or the market of the black water, is one of the two towns reserved by Catherine II. at the conquest of the Crimea, for the exclusive occupation of the Tatars, and it therefore retains a strictly Oriental character, which has quite disappeared from the towns inhabited by the Russians.

The only public edifices of any importance here are the khans or caravanserais, where merchants rest on their journeys, and of these there are between twenty and thirty, not equalling in architectural beauty those of Georgia and Persia. The largest, called the Tachekhan, was built in 1656 by Sefir Ghazi Atcheiou, minister of Mehmet Geray, and is an immense square edifice, presenting outside only four blank walls, but in the inside there is a large court occupied with rooms for travellers and a number of shops. One of the last constructed khans is that of the Armenians, which contrasts favourably with the others in point of luxury and comfort. It is built like one of the covered arcades or the “_passages_” of Paris, on a much greater scale, with wider arcades, lighted by large apertures in its lofty roof. The shops are ranged on each side, and there is a large passage or street between them always filled with busy groups. There are also twenty-two mosques in Karasóubazar, but none of them remarkable for beauty.

The Greek church deserves a visit for its originality; it is built in the shape of a cross with a dome which lights the centre. Karasóubazar was in former times celebrated for its cutlery, and about 1755 it exported to the Caucasus and Mingrelia as many as 400,000 small knives or daggers, such as are commonly worn in the girdle in eastern countries. The cemeteries round the town are of enormous extent, and from that of the Greeks there is an admirable view of the town, with its red-tiled houses, winding streets, and shady gardens.

Between Karasóubazar and Kertch are situated the vast domains of the Shireen family, which was the second in rank in the Crimea after that of the Gerays, and so powerful that they were almost their rivals. Their importance dated from the time when a certain Dangey Bey of this family, in a general revolt, saved the last scion of the Geray family, who was afterwards raised to the dignity of khan, and showed his gratitude to the Shireens by conferring upon them many privileges. They alone could marry the princesses of the Geray family, and near Karasóubazar is a mountain, called by the Russians Shireenskaia Gora, or the Hill of the Shireens, where they used to hold meetings of their dependents, when, as was often the case, they disapproved of the conduct of the khans, and wished to influence their government. According to one tradition, the ancestor of this family was the companion in arms of Zingis Khan, and conquered the Crimea for him, so that they might be even said to have some claims to the throne itself.[211]

The only point of interest between Karasóubazar and Theodosia are the ruins of Eski Krim, which was the most ancient capital of the Tatars after their conquest of the Crimea. The date of its foundation is unknown, but already in 1266 it was the appanage of Oran Timour. Under the Mongols it was one of the greatest towns in Asia, and a well-mounted horseman required half a day to ride round it. It is now almost deserted, and scarce any traces remain of the great city where the rich caravans of olden times used to come laden with all the precious products of Asia. The traces of the pavements of the streets may be observed in the fields that now occupy its site. The ruins of five mosques and large vaulted baths remain; and one Greek church and one mosque are still used for religious purposes. The Armenians are the only inhabitants who have remained here, and they still retain their church and a convent, dedicated to St. George, on the neighbouring hill of Karasou, which is the object of numerous pilgrimages. The best view of the town is from the hill of Aghermiche, which embraces the whole valley, once occupied by buildings, and on one side may be traced the remains of the ancient wall, flanked with towers, which surrounded the city, and included an enormous cemetery, in which tombs may still be seen of every variety of form.

Near Eski Krim is the post-station of Krinitski, and beyond it begins the flat uncultivated peninsula of Kertch.[212] There is now no sign of a tree or a shrub, although traces exist in some parts of ancient forests, and there is so great a want of water that the Tatars are obliged to dig ponds in the soil to water their flocks.

At fifteen miles from Krinitski is the once famous town of Theodosia or Kaffa, situated on the shores of the finest bay on the northern coasts of the Black Sea after those of Sevastopol.

Twice have the commercial advantages of this situation been recognised, and twice has a proud city arisen on the gentle slopes of this bay. The Milesians, at the time of their first expedition into the Black Sea, founded here a flourishing colony, which prospered long in an independent state, and was then incorporated into the kingdom of the Bosphorus. After an existence of 900 years, from the seventh century before Christ to the third of our æra, there then intervened a period of ten centuries, during which the plough passed over the site of Theodosia, and it is barely mentioned by contemporary historians. Thus it remained a ruin during the millennium, from the third to the thirteenth century, when so many nations in succession made the Crimea their temporary dwelling-place. Then, in the thirteenth century, soon after the Tatars had made their first inroad, there landed on the shores of the Crimea navigators, not less intelligent and enterprising than the Milesians, and soon, on the site of the ancient Greek city of Theodosia, arose Kaffa, the annals of which form undoubtedly one of the brightest pages in the political and commercial history of the Black Sea.[213]

In the middle of the thirteenth century, after the conquest of the Crimea by the Mongols, at the moment when three powerful republics were disputing the empire of the seas, the Genoese, landing in the bay of Theodosia, on the deserted spot, which was then called Kaffa, obtained from Prince Oran Timour a small territory on the shore. In 1280 the colony was founded, and its rise was so rapid, that nine years afterwards it was enabled, without neglecting its own defence, to send three galleys to the relief of Tripoli besieged by the Saracens. The Genoese obtained from the Tatars the monopoly of wheat and salt, and established themselves at Kertch (Cerco), Taman (Materca), and Tana at the mouths of the Don. The foundation of Kaffa increased the hatred between the Genoese and the Venetians, and in 1295 the former massacred the latter at Constantinople, and the next year, in 1296, the Venetians took their revenge, defeated the Genoese in a great battle on the Bosphorus, near Constantinople, and, having surprised Kaffa with a fleet of twenty galleys, utterly destroyed the town. Such was the energy and vitality of the Italian republics at that time, however, that the next year the Genoese again took possession of their territory,—Kaffa arose quickly from its ruins, and in 1318 Pope John XXII. erected it into a bishopric. It was then governed by a consul, and the Podesta, the supreme ruler of all the Genoese establishments in the Black Sea, resided at Galata.

In 1343 a war having broken out with the Tatars, Djanibek Khan, the King of Kiptchak, besieged Kaffa, and a crusade was preached in its favour by Clement VI. The Genoese were victorious, but the dangers to which they had been exposed made them feel the necessity of a formidable system of fortification. The southern ramparts and palisades of the town were replaced by high and thick walls, flanked with towers, and surrounded by a deep ditch, lined with masonry. These magnificent works, of which even the traveller at the present day may admire the admirable execution, were commenced in 1353, by Godefrey de Zoaglio, and finished in 1386 by Benedict Grimaldi. The most remarkable tower of the enceinte, the southern one, which commands the whole town, was consecrated to the memory of Pope Clement VI., with an inscription relating to the crusade preached by him at the moment the Tatars were besieging the colony. The Genoese probably drew the materials for their fortifications from the ancient Greek city of Kimmericum, now Opouk. In 1365 they conquered the Greek colonies of Cembalo (Balaclava), and Soldaya (Soudak), which were tributary to the khan of the Tatars, and in 1380 obtained from him a grant of Gothia, or all the sea-coast between Balaclava and Soudak, which was inhabited by the Christians.[214] After that time Kaffa went on increasing in prosperity, and had commercial relations with the most distant countries of Asia, and soon, according to its historians, it equalled in size and population the capital of the Greek empire, and surpassed it in trade and wealth.

The Genoese colony thus arrived, in the middle of the fifteenth century, at the zenith of its glory and power, when the capture of Constantinople by Mahomet II. isolated it from the mother city, and prepared the way for its entire destruction. On the 1st of June, 1475, four hundred and eighty-two sail of galleys, commanded by the grand Admiral Achmet Pasha, appeared before Kaffa, and some hours afterwards the Genoese town saw its walls bombarded by the formidable artillery of the Ottomans. The siege lasted only a short time, and a large portion of the enceinte, raised at a time when artillery was unknown, gave way; breaches were multiplied, and on the 6th of June, 1475, the besieged surrendered at discretion, after having in vain attempted to obtain a capitulation. Achmet Pasha entered Kaffa irritated by resistance and hostile to the Christian name. After taking possession of the consular palace, he disarmed the population, levied a large sum of money on the town, and seized half the property of the inhabitants, as well as all slaves of both sexes. The Latin Catholics were then embarked on board the Turkish fleet and carried to Constantinople, where the Sultan established them by force in the faubourgs of his new capital, after taking fifteen hundred of their male children, to incorporate in his guards. Thus in the space of a few days, after a glorious existence of two hundred years, was ruined this celebrated city, which European genius had raised in this remote country, and which had developed a most important traffic with Eastern Europe and Asia.

Kaffa, the ruin of which was followed immediately by that of Soldaya and Cembalo, was directly united to the Ottoman Empire, and was not, like the rest of the Crimea, left as a fief in the hands of the Tatars. During one hundred and fifty years it had no other importance than that which it derived from being the seat of a Turkish garrison, and a strong military position on the borders of a Mussulman state, which the Sultans were always anxious to conquer. In the middle of the seventeenth century the ancient Genoese city again became considerable on account of the great commercial and manufacturing movement which took place at that time among the Tatars, and which caused it to become once more an important commercial port of the Black Sea.

In 1663 Chardin found in the bay of Kaffa more than 400 ships. The town was then called by the Turks Kutchuk Stamboul (little Constantinople) and had 4000 houses, and more than 80,000 inhabitants. The prosperity of Kaffa, however, did not last long. Since the time of Peter the Great, Russia has been continually advancing towards the Black Sea, and already in the time of that monarch, she had pushed her victorious armies to the Danube. In this progressive march towards the south, the Crimea especially excited the ambition of the Tzars, and in the reign of Catherine II., was incorporated into the Russian Empire.

Under the Muscovite dominion Kaffa sunk again. It lost even officially the name under which it had pursued so glorious a career in modern times, to resume at the caprice of the Emperor Alexander its ancient Greek name, and it now does not possess more than 4500 inhabitants. At Kaffa, as at Soldaya, the erection of useless barracks was the signal for the destruction of the ancient Genoese monuments. The revêtements of the ditches were first carried away, and then, owing to the indifference of the government, the walls themselves disappeared. The magnificent towers which defended them were successively thrown down, and at this day there only exist three remnants of the remarkable bastion, christened in honour of Pope Clement VI.

The Genoese fortifications once destroyed, the vandalism of the administrative authorities next attacked the civil monuments. When the Russians took possession of the place, two imposing buildings ornamented the principal square of Kaffa; the great Turkish baths, an admirable monument of Oriental architecture, and the ancient episcopal church of the Genoese, an edifice built in the fourteenth century, and then converted into a mosque after the Turkish conquest. Under the reign of Catherine II., it was decided to restore the mosque to the Christian faith, and it was given to the established Greek church of Russia. Unfortunately, instead of preserving it intact, they entertained the fatal idea of decorating it with a miserable portico in the quasi Doric style, such as is seen from one end of Russia to the other. The elegant domes, which surrounded in a graceful manner the principal part of the building, were then demolished, and the bases of the new columns were hardly laid, when money failed, and the government refused to make further advances. The beautiful mosque, from which the lead had been torn off, doubtless to be sold for the profit of the employés, was thus abandoned to the injuries of the weather and the public, and soon became a perfect ruin.

In 1833 the civil governor, M. Kasnatcháief, in a most barbarous and ignorant manner, completed the work of destruction, by attacking the great baths which had hitherto remained intact. He asked permission from Prince Woronzof to enlarge the great square, because it was too small for a parade ground, and the instant he obtained it (knowing that he would be stopped when his intentions were found out), he set about destroying the mosque and the baths.[215] In the space of a fortnight, by the aid of the pick-axe and powder, both these admirable monuments, with which the Genoese and Turkish occupations had enriched the town, completely disappeared. In 1840 the great square was filled with their precious materials, which the local administration were selling at the price of common stone.

Of all the splendid edifices of the Genoese colony, only two churches have escaped the Russian vandalism; having been granted to the Catholics and the Armenians, and preserved by them. For a long time, these two foreign communities struggled against the indifference of the government, and endeavoured to obtain assistance to repair their churches; and having been unsuccessful, they in a spirited manner restored them at their own expense.

If from the interior of the town we cast our eyes to the environs, the same spectacle of destruction saddens the view. All the beautiful gardens, and the rich orchards, which surrounded the town in the time of the Tatars, have disappeared. One single winter was sufficient for two Russian regiments to annihilate every trace of the brilliant cultivation which formerly covered the hills.

From[216] the fort of the tower of Clement VI. there is a fine view of the town and the bay. In the midst of the panorama rises the ancient Genoese citadel, now dismantled, with its walls threatening to fall down. Before the citadel, a building, remarkable by its two massive groups of building, but without any exterior ornament, is the principal Armenian church, which the emigrants of that nation constructed when they arrived here under the protection of the Genoese, after the terrible earthquake of 1319, which destroyed Anni,[217] and so terrified one portion of the Armenian nation, that they took refuge with the Tatars of Kiptchak, in the environs of Astrakhan. Hence they sent colonies into the Crimea and established themselves, with the consent of the Genoese, at Kaffa, Eski Krim, and in the environs of Soudak.

Before the Russian conquest, in 1713, Peyssonel relates that the Armenians had twenty-four churches at Kaffa, and Levasseur de Beauplan, a century earlier, counted thirty-two.

The church in question is now converted into a warehouse, but its interior has preserved the distribution of the religious edifices of Armenia—a grand oratory as an entrance, then a nave, a dome, and a choir with lateral sacristies. The other Armenian church, which has been already mentioned, deserves a careful study as a good and well preserved specimen of Armenian architecture, and is an exact copy of those still to be seen in Armenia. The portico is the most ornamental part of the edifice, and the mouldings and roses are as varied as in Gothic and Byzantine styles. There are two images of St. George, the saint in which the Georgians and the Armenians have so much confidence, and the walls of the church are covered both inside and outside with funeral crosses, as in Armenia.[218] In every detail it is interesting to observe how faithfully the Armenians, in their distant colonizations, preserved the artistic traditions of their country.[219]

Hommaire de Hell is not the only traveller who deplores the vandalism of the Russians. Dubois says, “that he dare not express his feelings at seeing the noble works of the Genoese so uselessly ruined.”

The “mild and amiable” Pallas was a Russian subject, and dared not express his indignation at the atrocities he saw perpetrated. When he first visited Theodosia, the great mosque was complete, with its noble cupola 54 feet in diameter, surrounded on three sides by eleven smaller domes. “There were also,” as Pallas says, “two minarets 96 feet high, furnished with serpentine staircases leading to the top; _though both structures have been since destroyed_.”[220]

Clarke, it appears, was an eye-witness of this last barbarous proceeding, and describes the painful feelings it occasioned to all the civilized persons who beheld it. “The melancholy devastation,” he says,[221] “while it draws tears down the cheeks of the Tatars, and extorts many a sigh from the Anatolian Turks who resort to Kaffa for commercial purposes, cannot fail to excite the indignation of every enlightened people. At Kaffa, during the time we remained, the soldiers were allowed to overthrow the beautiful mosques, or to convert them into magazines, to pull down the minarets, to tear up the public fountains, and to destroy all the public aqueducts, for the sake of a small quantity of lead, which they were thereby enabled to obtain.

“Such is the true nature of Russian protection; such the sort of alliance which Russians endeavour to form with every nation weak enough to submit to their power, or to become their dupe. While these works of destruction were going on, the officers were amusing themselves in beholding the mischief. Tall and stately minarets, whose lofty spires added such grace and dignity to the town, were daily levelled with the ground, which, besides their connection with the religious establishments for whose maintenance the Russian empire had been pledged, were of no other value to their destroyers than to supply a few soldiers with bullets, or their officers with a dram. I was in a Turkish coffeehouse, at Kaffa, when the principal minaret, one of the ancient and characteristic monuments of the country, to which the Russians had been some days employed in fixing ropes and blocks, came down with such violence that its fall shook every house in the place. The Turks, seated on divans, were all smoking, and when such is the case, an earthquake will scarcely rouse them; nevertheless, at this flagrant act of impiety and dishonour, they rose, breathing out deep and bitter curses against the enemies of their Prophet. Even the Greeks who were present testified their anger by similar imprecations. One of them, turning to me, said, with a countenance of contempt and indignation, Εκυθαι! Scythians! which I afterwards found to be a common term of reproach; for though the Greeks profess the same religion as the Russians, they detest the latter as cordially as the Turks or Tatars. The most lamentable part of the injury thus sustained has been in the destruction of the conduits and public fountains which conveyed, together with the purest water from distant mountains, a source of health and comfort to the people. They first carry off the leaden pipes to make bullets; they then take down all the marble slabs and large stones for building materials, which they employ in the construction of barracks; lastly, they blow up the channels which convey water, because they say the water-porters cannot earn a livelihood where there are public fountains.”

In spite of all the depredations of the authorities, and the stupid ignorance of the governor, Kaffa has never been completely metamorphosed into a Russian town. Its principal monuments have been demolished, its walls razed to the ground, its later population expelled, but the general appearance of the town, the private dwellings, the streets paved with large flags, all announce a different people. It is to be hoped the town may long preserve this picturesque aspect, which resembles that of many little ports on the shores of the Mediterranean.[222]

There is a museum at Theodosia, which is an ancient Turkish mosque, with two lions at its entrance, which were brought from Phanagoria. Whatever ancient Greek monuments are here have been brought from Kertch, when Theodosia was the capital of this part of the Crimea; and among them is a griffin of fine workmanship. But there are no inscriptions or important monuments of the ancient Theodosia, which, indeed, Clarke and others suppose to have been at some distance from the site of Kaffa.[223] There are, however, many Genoese inscriptions in the museum, and among them an important one found on the tower of Pope Clement VI.[224]

The peninsula of Kertch was formerly closed by three ramparts, which were raised for political reasons to defend it from dangerous enemies. The most ancient is that of Asander. It starts from the extremity of the Tauric chain, and finishes at the sea of Azof, near the commencement of the tongue of Arabat. The Scythian slaves of Sindic origin raised it to defend themselves against their masters when they returned from Asia. Asander, King of the Bosphorus from 49 B.C. to 14 B.C., renewed it and fortified it with towers as a defence against the invasions of the Scythians, and it has ever since borne his name. It may still be traced with the places for the towers. The rampart of the Golden Mountain, at a few miles from Kertch, was the primitive frontier of the kingdom of the Bosphorus and the colony of Panticapæum. The success of the Leuconides in the 4th century before Christ had carried it beyond the peninsula of Kertch, by uniting Nymphæum and Theodosia to the kingdom. Asander fixed it at the rampart of the Scythian Slaves, and this was for several centuries its limit. In the mean time the Chersonians replaced the Scythians as the predominant people in the Crimea, and they had taken Panticapæum during the absence of Sauromates V., who had gone to pillage Asia Minor in the third century after Christ, notwithstanding the army which the Emperor Constance opposed to him. In order to re-enter his capital, Sauromates was obliged to give up his prisoners and booty. His grandson, Sauromates VI., who reigned A.D. 302 to 310, wished to avenge himself on the Chersonians; he was however beaten by them near the rampart of Asander, and obliged to swear never to pass it in arms. Violating his oath, he again appeared in the field, and consented to terminate the war by a single combat with Pharnáces, the chief of the Chersonians. He was killed, and his army, undergoing the yoke of the conquerors, was obliged to retire half-way from Theodosia to Kertch, where the Chersonians permitted the limits of the kingdom to be fixed. Then was erected the rampart of Akkos, or Cybernicus, which commences at the salt lake of Itar Altchiek and finishes at the Sea of Azof. It is very well preserved; the ditch turned towards the Crimea is still very deep, and the mounds along the rampart would lead to the belief that it had been supported by towers. These three ramparts are almost the only ancient monuments between Theodosia and Kertch; and the road is most uninteresting and monotonous, passing through a thinly-peopled steppe, covered with deserted Tatar villages and vast cemeteries.

The first station from Theodosia is Porpatche, at 22 versts distance. The second is Arghin, at 27 versts; and between these two is passed the rampart of Asander. At Arghin travellers turn off who wish to visit or to pass along the Arabat. The third station is Suftanofka, at 28 versts distance, and in this stage the rampart of Akkos is passed. At this station there are springs and a well, and here for the first time the horizon is seen crowned by the tumuli and coral-rag peaks which characterize the environs of Kertch. Those who go to Simpherópol from Kertch, and have their own horses with them, may avoid the détour by Theodosia, and continue their road straight across the Isthmus to Krinitski. The road then lies through Ormeil and Karagos, celebrated for its ancient mosque in the primitive style of Tatar architecture. This is one of the four most ancient mosques in the Crimea, in the architecture of which are to be observed only straight lines or semicircles.[225]