Travels in the Steppes of the Caspian Sea, the Crimea, the Caucasus, &c. Xavier Hommaire de Hell
as it entered the Bosphorus, we could not withdraw our eyes from the magnificent panorama we were leaving behind us.
Constantinople then appeared to us in all its grandeur and beauty. Seated like Rome on its seven hills, exercising its sovereignty like Corinth over two seas, the vast city presented to our eyes a superb amphitheatre of palaces, mosques, white minarets and green plane-trees glistening in an Asiatic sunshine. What description could adequately depict this marvellous spectacle, or even give an idea of it? Would it not be wronging creation, as Lamartine has said, to compare Constantinople with any thing else in this world?
Meanwhile, we were advancing up the Bosphorus, and the two shores, fringed all along to the Black Sea with cypress groves, and half hidden beneath their sombre shade, invited a share of that attentive gaze we had hitherto bestowed only on the great city that was vanishing in our wake. The Bosphorus itself presented a very animated scene. A thousand white-sailed caïques glided lightly over the waves, coming and going incessantly from shore to shore. As we advanced, the Bosphorus widened more and more, and we soon entered that Black Sea, whose ominous name so well accords with the storms that perpetually convulse it. A multitude of vessels of all kinds and dimensions, were anchored at the entrance of the channel, waiting for a favourable wind to take them out of the straits, which alone present more dangers than the whole navigation of the Black Sea. The difficulties of this passage are further augmented in the beginning of spring and the end of autumn by dense fogs, which have caused an incalculable number of vessels to be wrecked on the steep rocks of these iron-bound coasts.
The passage from Constantinople to Odessa is effected in fifty hours in the Russian steamers, which ply twice a month from each of these ports. Those who are accustomed to the comfort, elegance, and scrupulous cleanliness of the Mediterranean and Atlantic steamers, must be horrified at finding themselves on board a Russian vessel. It is impossible to express the filth and disorder of that in which we were embarked. The deck, which was already heaped from end to end with goods and provisions, was crowded besides with a disgusting mob of pilgrims, mendicant monks, Jews, and Russian or Cossack women, all squatting and lying about at their ease without regard to the convenience of the other passengers. Most of them were returning from Jerusalem. The Russian people are possessed in the highest degree with the mania for pilgrimages. All these beggars set off barefooted, with their wallets on their backs, and their rosaries in their hands, to seek Heaven's pardon for their sins; appealing on their way to the charity of men, to enable them to continue that vagabond and miserable life which they prefer to the fulfilment of homely duties.
It was a sorry specimen of the people we were going to visit that we had thus before our eyes, and our repugnance to these Muscovites was all the stronger from our recollections of the Turks, whose noble presence and beauty had so lately engaged our admiration.
On the morning of the second day, we saw on our left a little island called by the sailors the Island of Serpents. The Russians have retained its Greek name of Fidonisi. It was anciently called Leucaia, or Makaron Nesos (Island of the Blest), was sacred to Achilles, and contained a temple, in which mariners used to deposit offerings. It is a calcareous rock, about thirty yards high and not more than 600 in its greatest diameter, and has long been uninhabited. Some ruins still visible upon it would probably be worth exploring, if we may judge from an inscription already discovered.
Soon afterwards we were made aware of our approach to Odessa, our place of destination, by the appearance of the Russian coast with its cliffs striated horizontally in red and white. Nothing can be more dreary than these low, deserted, and monotonous coasts, stretching away as far as the eye can reach, until they are lost in the hazy horizon. There is no vegetation, no variety in the scene, no trace of human habitation; but everywhere a calcareous and argillaceous wall thirty or forty yards high, with an arid sandy beach at its foot, continually swept bare by the waves. But as we approached nearer to Odessa, the shore assumed a more varied appearance. Huge masses of limestone and earth, separated ages ago from the line of the cliffs, form a range of hills all along the sea border, planted with trees and studded with charming country-houses.
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.
The first hours we passed in quarantine, were extremely tedious and unpleasant, in consequence of the want of our baggage. Our books, our papers, and every thing we had most urgent need of, were carried off to undergo two whole days' fumigation. But afterwards the time passed away glibly enough, and I should never have supposed it possible to be so contented in prison. But for the iron bars and the treble locks which had to be opened every time we had occasion to leave our rooms, we might have fancied we were rusticating for our pleasure. A handsome garden, a capital cook, books, a view of the sea—what more could any one desire? We were allowed to walk about the whole establishment, on condition only that we kept at a respectful distance from all who came in our way, and