following May departed on a visit to the Crimea, on board a brig
belonging to the consul of the Netherlands. Their voyage was short, but
it was not unmarked by incident, by sea-sickness and sudden squalls, by
calm moonlit nights, by something of all the pain and pleasure of the
sea. At sunrise on the second morning, the voyagers first caught sight
of the coast of that gloomy peninsula which the ancients stigmatized as
inhospitable, in allusion to the cruel custom of its inhabitants to
massacre every stranger whose ill-fortune led him thither. The woes of
Orestes, as depicted by the Greek poet, have for ever made the Tauris
famous. Who does not remember the painful beauty of that grand sad
drama, in which the vengeful cries of the Furies seem to echo along this
wild and desert shore? As soon as Madame de Hell could distinguish the
line of rocks that traced the vague horizon, she began to look for Cape
Parthenike, the traditional site of the altar of the goddess, to whom
the young priestess Iphigenia was on the point of sacrificing her
brother. Assisted by the captain, she at length descried on a rocky
headland a solitary chapel, dedicated, she was told, to the Virgin
Mother. "What a contrast," she naturally remarks, "between the gentle
worship of Mary and that of the sanguinary Taura, who was not content
with the mariners' prayers and offerings, but demanded human victims!"
All this part of the coast is barren and bleak; a barrier of rock seems
to shut out the stranger from the celebrated peninsula which warlike
nations have ravaged and commercial nations coveted. Richly gifted by
Nature's liberal hand, it has always been an object of desire to the
people of Europe and Asia. Pastoral races have lusted after its green
mountain ranges; commercial nations have striven to gain possession of
its ports and straits; warrior tribes have pitched their tents in its
fertile valleys; and all have craved a foothold in that land to which
cling so many glorious memories of the Greek civilization. But in the
eighteenth century the contention came to an end, at least so far as
political observers can determine, for ages, and under the rule of the
Russian Czar, the Crimea has long enjoyed a profound tranquillity.[6]
"So that," as Mr. Kinglake puts it, "the peninsula which divides the
Euxine from the Sea of Azov was an almost forgotten land, lying out of
the chief paths of merchants and travellers, and far away from all the
capital cities of Christendom. Rarely went thither any one from Paris,
or Vienna, or Berlin; to reach it from London was a harder task than to
cross the Atlantic; and a man of office receiving in this distant
province his orders despatched from St. Petersburg, was the servant of
masters who governed him from a distance of a thousand miles.
"Along the course of the little rivers which seamed the ground, there
were villages and narrow belts of tilled land, with gardens and fruitful
vineyards; but for the most part this neglected Crim-Tartary was a
wilderness of steppe or of mountain-range, much clothed towards the west
with tall stiff grasses, and the stems of a fragrant herb like
southernwood. The bulk of the people were of Tartar descent, but no
longer what they had been in the days when nations trembled at the
coming of the Golden Horde; and although they yet hold to the Moslem
faith, their religion has lost its warlike fire. Blessed with a
dispensation from military service, and far away from the accustomed
battle-fields of Europe and Asia, they lived in quiet, knowing little
of war except what tradition could faintly carry down from old times in
low monotonous chants. In their husbandry they were more governed by the
habits of their ancestors than by the nature of the land which had once
fed the people of Athens, for they neglected tillage and clung to
pastoral life. Watching flocks and herds, they used to remain on the
knolls very still for long hours together, and when they moved, they
strode over the hills in their slow-flowing robes with something of the
forlorn majesty of peasants descended from warriors."[7]
* * * * *
Into this secluded and remote peninsula Madame de Hell and her husband
carried their rare powers of observation and description. They landed at
Balaklava, since so famous in the annals of the British army, for it was
there that "the thin red line" resisted unmoved all the fury and force
of the Muscovite hosts. Its appearance from the sea is very attractive,
for its port is surrounded with mountains, the highest of which still
retains a memorial of the old Genoese dominion, while in part of its
blue expanse lies the pretty Greek town, with its balconied houses and
masses of foliage rising in terraces one above the other. Above it
towers a ruined castle, whence the Genoese, in their days of supremacy,
scanned with vulture-gaze the sweep of sea, prepared to pounce upon any
hapless vessel wind-driven into these waters. It was Sunday when our
travellers arrived, and the whole population were holiday making on the
green shore or greener heights. Groups of mariners, Arnaouts in their
quaint costume, and girls as graceful of shape as those who of old
joined in the choric dances of Cytherea, wound their way up the steep
path to the fortress, or tripped in mirthful measures to the shrill
music of a balalaika.
* * * * *
The day after their arrival at Balaklava they undertook a boating
excursion to explore the geological formation of the coast, and landed
in a delightful little cove, embowered amid flowering trees and shrubs.
On their return the boatmen decked themselves and their boat with
wreaths of hawthorn and blossoming apple sprays, so that they entered
the harbour with much festal pomp. In her poetic enthusiasm, Madame de
Hell, as she gazed upon the cloudless sky and the calm blue sea and the
Greek mariners, who thus, on a foreign shore, and after the lapse of so
many centuries, retained the graceful customs of their ancestors, could
not but be reminded of the deputations that were wont every year to
enter the Piraeus, the prows of their vessels bright with festoons of
flowers, to share in the gorgeous festivals of Athens.
From Balaklava the travellers proceeded to Sevastopol, of which Madame
de Hell supplies an excellent description, necessarily rendered
valueless, however, by the events of the Crimean war. She speaks of its
harbour as one of the most remarkable in Europe. It owes all its
excellence to Nature, which has here, without assistance from the
science of the engineer, provided a magnificent roadstead, the branches
of which form a number of basins admirably adapted for the requirements
of a great naval station. The whole expanse of this noble harbour is
commanded from the upper part of the town. The roadstead first catches
the eye; it stretches east and west, penetrates inland to a depth of
four miles and three-quarters, with a mean breadth of 1,000 yards; and
forms the channel of communication between Sevastopol and the interior
of the peninsula. The northern shore is girt by a line of cliffs; the
southern shore, broken up by numerous natural basins. To the east, at
the very foot of the hill on which the town stands, lies South Bay,
nearly two miles in length, and completely sheltered by high limestone
cliffs. Beyond lies the dockyard, and the dock, which is of great
extent; and to the west may be seen Artillery Bay.
In spite of the historical interest which now attaches to Sevastopol, as
the scene of the crowning struggle between Russia and the Western
Powers, the most remarkable place in the Chersonese is Bagtche Serai,
"that ancient city which, prior to the Muscovite conquest of the
peninsula, might compete in wealth and power with the great cities of
the East." Beautiful exceedingly is the approach to it, by a road
running parallel with a chain of heights, and clothed with luxuriant
orchards, studded with village and farm, and brightened by the sheen of
brooks. Owing to an ukase of Catherine II., which allowed the Tartars to
keep possession of their ancient capital, Bagtche Serai retains to this
day its individuality of aspect. It is neither modernized nor
Russianized. Sauntering through its narrow streets, and looking upon its
mosques, shops, and cemeteries, the traveller feels that the atmosphere
of the East is around him. And amid the courts and gardens of the old
palace he may well believe himself transported to an "interior" in
Bagdad or Aleppo.
This palace has been celebrated by the muse of Pushkin, the Russian
poet; in fine, it is not possible to do justice to its charms, which
seem to have powerfully impressed our traveller's susceptible
imagination. "It is no easy task," she exclaims, "to describe the magic
of this superb and mysterious abode, wherein the voluptuous Khans forgot
the trials and sorrows of life: I cannot do it, as in the case of one of
our Western palaces, by analyzing the style, the arrangement, and the
details of its splendid architecture, by deciphering the idea of the
artist in the regularity, grace, and simplicity of the noble edifice.
All this may easily be understood or described, but one needs something
of the poet's heart and brain to appreciate an Oriental palace, the
attraction of which lies not in what one sees, but in what one feels
(and imagines?). I have heard persons speak very contemptuously of
Bagtche Serai. 'How' they ask, 'can any one apply the name of palace to
that cluster of wooden houses, daubed with coarse paintings, and
furnished only with divans and carpets?' From this point of view they
are right. The positive cast of their minds prevents them from seeing
the beautiful in aught but costly material, well-defined forms, and
highly-polished workmanship: hence, to them Bagtche Serai must be a mere
group of shabby huts adorned with paltry ornaments, and fit only for the
habitation of miserable Tartars."
To this order of minds, however, Madame de Hell, as we have had abundant
opportunities of observing, did not belong, and Bagtche Serai has
justice done to it at her hands.
The Serai, or palace, is situated in the centre of the town; it is
enclosed within walls and a moat, and fills the heart of a valley, which
is surrounded by irregular heights. Entering the principal court you
find yourself in the shade of flowering lilacs and tall poplars, and on
your ear falls the murmur of a fountain, which sings its monotonous song
beneath the willows. The palace, properly so called, displays externally
the usual irregularity of Oriental architecture, but its want of
symmetry is forgotten by him who surveys its broad colonnades, its
bright decorations, its fantastic pavilions, and sheltering groves. As
for the interior, it is a page out of the "Arabian Nights." In the first
hall is the celebrated Fountain of Tears, to which Pushkin has dedicated
a beautiful lyric. It derives its pathetic name from the sweet sad
murmur of its pearly drops as they fall upon the marble basin. The
sombre and mysterious aspect of the hall stimulates the tendency in the
mind of the visitor to forget reality for the dreams of the imagination.
The foot falls noiselessly upon soft Egyptian mats: the walls are
blazoned with sentences from the Koran, written in gold on a black
ground in those fantastic Turkish characters which seem better adapted
to express the vagaries of a poetical fancy than to become the vehicles
of sober thought.
From the hall we pass into a large reception-salon, where a double row
of windows of richly stained glass represent a variety of rural scenes.
Ceiling and doors are richly gilded; the workmanship of the latter is
exquisite. Broad divans, resplendent with crimson velvet, run all round
the room. In the centre a fountain springs from a basin of porphyry. In
this room everything is magnificent, but its effect is neutralized by
the curious fashion in which the walls are painted, their surface being
covered with the inventions of a prolific fancy in the shape of castles
and harbours, bridges, rivers, islands--all crowded together with a
sublime disregard for perspective--while in niches above the doors are
collected all kinds of children's toys, such as wooden dolls' houses,
fruit-trees, models of ships, and little figures of men writhing in a
thousand contortions. These interesting objects were accumulated by one
of the last of the Khans, who would shut himself up every day in this
room in order to admire them. "Such childishness," as Madame de Hell
remarks, "so common among the Orientals, would induce us to form an
unfavourable opinion of their intelligence, were it not redeemed by
their innate love of beauty and their genuine poetic sentiment. We may
forgive the Khans the strange devices on their walls in consideration of
the silvery fall of the shining fountain and the adjoining garden with
its wealth of bloom."
The hall of the divan is of regal magnificence; the mouldings of the
ceiling, in particular, are of exquisite delicacy. But every room has in
it many evidences of the wealth and taste of its former occupants, and
all are adorned with fountains, and the glow and gleam of colour. Not
the least interesting is that which belonged to the beautiful Countess
Potocki. It was her ill fate to inspire with a violent passion one of
the last of the Crimean Khans, who carried her off and made her absolute
queen and mistress of his palace, in which she lived for ten years,
struggling between her love for an infidel, and the penitence that
brought her prematurely to the grave. "The thought of her unhappy
fortune," says Madame de Hell, "invested everything we beheld with a
magic charm. The Russian officer, who acted as our cicerone, pointed out
to us a cross carved above the mantel-piece of the bedroom. The mystic
symbol, placed above a crescent, eloquently interpreted the condition of
a life divided between love and grief. What tears, what conflicts of the
heart and mind had it not beheld!"
The travellers passed through a succession of gardens and walled
enclosures, in the course of their inspection of the various pavilions,
kiosks, and buildings comprised within the precincts of the palace. To
the one occupied by the harem has appropriately been given the name of
"The Little Valley of Roses." It is a beautiful rose-bower, which echoes
divinely with the sound of falling waters and the song of the
nightingales.
A tower of considerable altitude, with a terrace fronted with gratings
that can be raised or lowered at will, overlooks the principal court. It
was erected to enable the inmates of the harem to watch, unseen, the
martial exercises that were practised there. The prospect from the
terrace, embracing a bird's-eye view of the labyrinth of buildings,
gardens, and other enclosures, is very lovely. It includes a panorama of
the town as it rises, tier upon tier, against the background of the
sloping hills. The various voices of the town collected and reverberated
within the limited space, are heard distinctly, especially at hush of
eve, when the summons to prayer from every minaret mingles with the
bleating of the weary flocks, and the cries of the shepherds returning
from their pastures.
* * * * *
Before Madame de Hell quitted the Chersonese, she paid a visit to
Karolez, a mountain village belonging to the Princess Adel Bey, who
received her visitors with admirable courtesy.
"The guest-house was prepared with the ostentation which the Orientals
are fond of displaying on all occasions. A double row of servants of all
ages was drawn up in the vestibule when my husband and I dismounted;
and one of the eldest and also the most sumptuously attired, introduced
us into a saloon arranged in Oriental fashion, with brightly painted
walls and red silk divans. The son of the princess, a charming boy of
twelve, who spoke Russian fluently, attached himself to us, politely
translated our orders to the servants, and was careful that we should
want for nothing. I gave him my letter of introduction, which he
immediately carried to his mother, and soon afterwards, returning, he
told me, to my great delight, that she would receive me when she had
completed her toilette. In my eager curiosity I now counted every
minute, until an officer followed by an aged female, veiled, came to
usher me into the mysterious palace of which, as yet, I had seen only
the lofty outer wall.
"My husband, as we had preconcerted, attempted to follow us, and, no
impediment being offered, unceremoniously passed through the little door
into the park, crossed the latter, boldly ascended a terrace adjoining
the palace, and at last found himself--much surprised at his
extraordinary good fortune--in a little room that seemed one of the
princess's private apartments. Hitherto no male stranger except Count
Worontzov, had entered the palace; the flattering and unlooked-for
exception which the princess had made in my husband's favour, induced us
to hope that she would carry her complaisance still further. We were
soon undeceived. The officer who had acted as our guide, after offering
us iced water, sweetmeats, and pipes, took my husband by the hand, and
conducted him from the room with significant celerity. As soon as he had
disappeared, a curtain was raised at the other end of the apartment, and
a strikingly beautiful woman, richly clad, made her entry. Advancing
with a singularly dignified air, she took both my hands, kissed me on
both cheeks, and with many friendly demonstrations sat down by my side.
She was highly rouged, her eyelids were painted black and met over the
nose, communicating to her countenance a certain sternness, that,
nevertheless, did not impair its agreeable character. To her still
elegant figure fitted closely a vest of furred velvet. Altogether she
was far more beautiful than I had imagined.
"We passed a quarter of an hour in close examination of each other,
interchanging as well as we could a few Russian words which very
inadequately expressed our thoughts. But in such cases, looks supply the
deficiencies of speech, and mine must have expressed the admiration I
felt. Hers, I own, in all humility, seemed to indicate much more
surprise at, than approval of, my travelling costume. What would I not
have given to know the result of her purely feminine analysis of my
appearance! In this _tete-a-tete_ I felt an inward twinge of conscience
at having presented myself before her in male attire, which must have
given her a strange idea of European fashions.
"I would fain have prolonged my visit in the hope of seeing her
daughters, but the fear of appearing intrusive prompted me to take my
leave. Checking me with a very graceful gesture, she said eagerly,
'_Pastoy! Pastoy!_' (Stay, stay!) and clapped her hands several times.
At the signal a young girl entered, who, by her mistress's orders, threw
open a folding door, and immediately I was silent with surprise and
admiration at the brilliant apparition before me. Let the reader imagine
the most beautiful sultanas, or 'lights of the harem,' of whom poet and
artist have endeavoured to give the presentment, and his conception will
still fall far short of the enchanting models on whom my gaze rested.
Each of these three was as lovely and as graceful as her companions. Two
wore tunics of crimson brocade, embellished in front with broad gold
lace. The tunics were open and disclosed beneath them cashmere robes,
with very tight sleeves terminating in gold fringes. The youngest was
attired in a tunic of azure brocade, with silver ornaments; this was the
sole difference between her dress and that of her sisters. All these had
superb black hair, which escaped in countless tresses from a fez of
silver filagree, set like a diadem over their ivory foreheads; they wore
gold embroidered slippers and wide trousers drawn close at the ankle.
"Skins of such dazzling purity, eyelashes of such length, a bloom of
youth so delicate, I had never before looked upon. The calm repose that
breathed from their lovely countenances had never been disturbed by any
profane glance. None but their mother had ever told them that they were
beautiful; and this reflection enhanced the charm of their beauty in my
eyes. In our Europe, where women, exposed to the gaze of crowds, so
quickly learn the art of coquetry, the imagination would not be able to
form such a type of loveliness. The features of our maidens are too soon
affected by the vivacity of their impressions, for the artist's eye to
have any chance of discovering in them that divine grace of beauty and
ignorance which so profoundly impressed me in the Tartar princesses.
After embracing me they withdrew to the end of the room, where they
remained standing in those graceful Oriental attitudes no woman of the
West can imitate. A dozen attendants, shrouded in white muslin, were
gathered round the door, and regarded the scene with respectful
curiosity. This delightful vision lasted an hour. When the princess saw
that I had determined on taking my leave, she made signs that I should
go and see her garden; but, though gratefully acknowledging the
courteous attention, I prepared to rejoin my husband immediately, being
impatient to relate to him all the particulars of the interview with
which I was completely dazzled."
* * * * *
The Crimea is not without its memorable places. Madame de Hell refers to
Parthenit, where still flourishes the great hazel under which the Prince
de Ligne wrote to the modern Messalina, Catherine II.; Gaspra, the
residence for some years of Madame de Krudener, the beautiful mystic and
religious enthusiast who exercised so powerful an influence over the
Czar Alexander; Koreis, the retreat of the Princess Galitzin, the soul
of so many strange political intrigues, and afterwards one of the
associates of Madame de Krudener, and the small villa on the seashore,
near Delta, beneath the roof of which died, in 1823, the _soi-disant_
Countess Guacher, now known to have been none other than the notorious
Madame de Lamotte, who figured in the strange romantic history of "The
Diamond Necklace," and as an accomplice of Cagliostro was whipped in the
Place de Greve, and branded on both shoulders with a V for _Voleuse_,
Thief.[8]
At Soudagh, a valley near Oulou-Ouzon, Madame de Hell visited one of the
most remarkable women of her time, Mademoiselle Jacquemart, of whom a
long but not wholly accurate biographical sketch appears in the Duc de
Raguse's "Excursion en Crimee."
Few women have had a more eccentric career. In her early years her
beauty, her wit, and her talents gained her a degree of fame such as
rarely attaches to one in the humble position of a governess. From the
age of sixteen, when she removed from Paris to St. Petersburg, and
entered upon a professional life, she enjoyed an unparalleled social
distinction. Suddenly, for no reason apparent to the world at large, she
retreated to the Crimea, abandoning everything in which she had hitherto
delighted, and voluntarily sentencing herself to a seclusion which to
her, of all women, it might have been thought, would have proved most
distasteful. Seeing her in the semi-masculine costume, studying geology,
painting, music, and poetry, without the shadow of a pretension, one
could not help asking oneself in what mysterious drama her strange
existence had been involved. Having been apprised, the day before, of
Madame de Hell's intended visit, she hastened to meet her, and received
her with an unaffectedly cordial welcome. Her guest could not look at
her, however, without a feeling of astonishment. Attired in a long brown
petticoat, and a vest which concealed her figure, she wore a manly
virile aspect, according thoroughly with the character of the life she
had adopted.
Her cottage consisted of a single room on the ground floor, which served
as dining-room, drawing-room, and bedroom; it was adorned with a guitar,
a violin-case, a collection of animals, art-objects, and arms. The
exceeding solitariness of her dwelling exposed her to frequent attacks
by night, and hence a brace of pistols always hung at the head of her
bed. Her fruit, her poultry, and even her vines suffered from prowling
depredators; she was continually on the watch, and especially had to
guard against a repetition of the cruel attempt to which on one occasion
she nearly fell a victim.
Her account of this affair was as follows:--Two days before it occurred,
a Greek applied to her for work and food. The former she was unable to
give; the latter she would never deny. The next day but one, as she was
returning in the twilight from a geological excursion, carrying in her
hand a small hatchet which she used for breaking stones, she discovered
that this man was walking behind her stealthily. Turning to look in his
face, she found herself at the same moment grasped round the waist--the
hatchet was snatched from her hand--and blow after blow was rained on
her head until she fell to the ground in a swoon. When she recovered
consciousness, the assassin had disappeared. How she reached home with
her skull fractured she never could explain. For months her life was in
peril, and her reason trembled in the balance. At the time of Madame de
Hell's visit she still suffered acutely from some fragments of a comb
that remained in her head.