INKERMAN, MANGOUP, AND THE HILLY COUNTRY OF THE CRIMEA.
The Bay of Sevastopol to Inkerman—Aktiar—Inkerman
Castle—Its history—Crypts—Fuller’s earth, or natural
soap—Tchorgouna—Tchouli, residence of Pallas—Crypts at
Karakoba—Mount Aithodor—Mangoup—Description and history—Gothic
architecture—Position of Mangoup—Interesting character of
surrounding country—The Tchatyr Dagh and the Yailas.
From Sevastopol to Inkerman the road by land is either very long or
very fatiguing.[122] In order to avoid the numberless ravines which cut
up the Chersonese, a circuitous route must be taken, and it is hardly
possible to attempt to cross in a straight line. Scarcely has the
descent been made to the bottom of one ravine by a very steep declivity,
than an equally precipitous ascent must be made at the other side; and
neither the one nor the other of these routes has anything picturesque
or interesting, except some poor ruins scattered here and there among
the rocks. Nothing was desert here in the time of ancient Kherson.
A laborious population, sacrificing pleasure in the noble object of
possessing a little corner of ground, then occupied the sides of all the
ravines, and living half in the grottoes, and half in miserable huts of
stone and earth, devoted themselves to the cultivation of a precious
and tolerably fertile soil, by raising terraces of earth, on which they
planted vines and fruit-trees. Neither the north wind nor the piercing
frost could penetrate these well-protected and sheltered spots; but
during the heats of summer they must have been hardly supportable, unless
some covered shelter was made on one side or the other under the rock.
Although the land journey from Sevastopol to Inkerman be so difficult
in times of peace, nothing used to be more interesting than the sea
voyage, which might be performed by hiring a little boat at Sevastopol,
and leisurely sailing or rowing down the Great Bay. It is not that the
country is very attractive in itself by shady groves and country houses:
on the contrary, these are rare on the shores of this bay, which are
rather severe in aspect, from the abrupt forms and nakedness of the
rocks. It is the bay itself, piercing nearly five miles into the land,
which invests the scene with all its magnificence.
As to the geology of the coasts of the bay, beginning at the entrance
from the sea, the low shores are formed by beds of the recent tertiary
volcanic formation, very much thrown out of their place. These beds
gradually rise higher up the sides as far as the Careening Bay, and there
appear under them brilliant beds of white clay, with layers of small
stones and cinders, and land and lake mollusques. This formation is of
considerable extent, and presents high cliffs of so dazzling a white
colour, that they have generally been taken for chalk.
Under the clay, and near the extremity of the bay, appears in its turn,
in thick even layers, the nummulite limestone, rich in fossils, raised
on the back of a new formation, that of the chalk, which has a great
development, and of which the high walls, principally composed of green
sandstone or chlorited chalk, encase the bottom of the bay, opening a
large entrance at its farthest extremity for the Bouiouk Oozoun river, or
the Tchornaya Retchka of the Russians, which is lost in a marsh before
it mixes with the salt waves of the bay. Close to the Careening Bay are
the first crypts cut in the rocks, and the principal ones, the entrance
to which is very little raised above the level of the bay, are large,
of a regular square shape, and cut in the front of the rock. On the
northern shore, opposite the crypts, in a little valley, are the ruins
of the village of Aktiar, which replaced Kherson, giving its name to the
bay. This served as the first establishment of the Russians after the
conquest of the Crimea. Here is the summer habitation and the garden of
the admiral-commandant of Sevastopol, and here are the storehouses and
bakehouses of the fleet, a large hospital, now abandoned, and an ancient
hermitage cut in the rock, painted with frescoes.
The extremity of the bay in ancient times was richly cultivated, but
the sea has now been driven back by the unwholesome marshes of the
Tchornaya Retchka, and high reeds stop the course of all vessels by their
inextricable labyrinths. With the exception of a powder-magazine and a
few sheds, these ravines are naked and uninhabited, and the villages
which crowned the summits of the cliffs and extended on the plateau of
the northern part of the Chersonese, where the second division of the
British army is now encamped and the famous two-gun battery was erected,
have disappeared.
The ruins of the villages cover a space of two miles, and end with the
great rock in which is cut the first of the crypt churches of Inkerman.
These were all defended by walls from the Steppe, one of which is still
seen, four feet in thickness. The direct road from Kherson to Inkerman
passed by these villages, and a very steep road led from the plateau to
the bottom of the ravine, where there is the church. The greater part
of these remains of antiquity have disappeared before the labours of
the engineers, who have blown up the rocks with the crypts in them to
obtain the soft but beautiful building-stone for the construction of the
magnificent aqueduct which carries the water of the Tchornaya Retchka to
the docks of Sevastopol.
The aqueduct is carried on 10 arches, and measures 200 feet in length;
the piles on which it is built are 18 feet deep, as this is the only
depth at which a firm foundation could be found. After it leaves the
aqueduct the water is carried by a tunnel 800 feet in length. The canal
is 4 feet deep and 9 feet broad, and the gallery through which it is
carried is 6 feet high to the top of the vault, and 12 feet wide.
From this place the road continues to Inkerman,[123] which is the modern
name of the promontory rising at the end of the Bay of Sevastopol on
its northern shore, and looking down upon the marshes of the Tchornaya
Retchka. The rock is pierced all over with the subterranean dwellings
of the ancient Tauri, and on the top are the ruins of the castle built
by Diophantes, the general of Mithridates, who was sent to help the
Khersonians against the Tauro-Scythians, a little before the birth of
Christ. This castle was called Eupatorion, a name which, like many
others, has been misapplied by the Russians, and given to the town of
Koslof.
From the castle, Diophantes made a communication with the other side, by
filling up the valley with earth, and leaving a passage for the river by
a bridge with three arches, of which one remained in 1834, and the bank
itself is perfectly preserved. This was the bridge that was broken down
by Liprandi after the battle of Inkerman, when he retired to the northern
side of the Tchornaya Retchka, and by this act acknowledged that he had
been defeated. In the rocks near are seen the enormous quarries for the
building-stone, which in all times has been celebrated. Near here, and
cut in the solid rock of the promontory of Inkerman, is a regularly
constructed Greek church, with all its parts complete, and on the top
of the rock in which it is cut is the fortress of Diophantes, which in
the middle ages was called Theodori, and was the residence of some Greek
princes dependent on Constantinople. One of them, called Alexis, took
Balaclava from the Genoese, and was again driven out of it in A.D. 1434.
In 1475 this little Greek principality suffered the same fate as the
Gothic duchy of Mangoup; and the castle was taken by the Turks, who
placed a garrison here, and allowed the fortress to go to ruin. In the
time of Bronovius (A.D. 1578) Greek inscriptions and heraldic bearings
were to be seen over the gates and public buildings, but they have now
entirely disappeared.
The crypts made by the ancient Tauri are on the south side of the rock,
which was generally the situation they chose; and from the interior of
the fortress there is a path leading down to numberless rows of them, in
six or seven tiers, one above another. The simplest of these crypts have
only one room, a part of which was raised one foot high, and two feet
broad for a bed; and the holes may still be seen in front of the kind of
niche in which it was placed, to which a curtain was probably attached.
The more complicated crypts have many rooms, and all of these, except the
principal chamber, have beds. The doors were of wood; the ceilings rise
to a point; and in the centre of the floor there was a hole one foot and
a half deep, and two feet across, which was the fireplace and the oven,
such as is found in the crypts of Georgia, and is still used in that
country to the present day.
The crypts were innumerable, but are now rapidly diminishing. In some
places, from natural causes, the rock has given way, and carried down
whole stages of crypts, with the passages and staircases of communication
between the various stories; and Lieutenant Kruse, who had a contract for
stone for the public buildings of Sevastopol, blew up vast numbers.
As the valley of Inkerman is now extremely unhealthy, it may be asked
how it could ever have been so thickly populated as the remains would
indicate; but its unhealthiness is caused by the stagnant marshes of the
Tchornaya Retchka, which in ancient times were flourishing gardens, from
which all superfluous water was drained off.[124]
The same layers of green sandstone, which form one of the sides of the
gorge of Inkerman, then take a more eastern direction; and here, facing
the south, the strata are so full of subterranean dwellings that they
might almost be called beds of crypts.
Immediately below the second group of crypts further on, in the direction
of Tchorgouna and Mangoup, is a layer of fuller’s earth, two feet in
thickness, and of a grey colour, accompanied below by talk. This is used
as fossil soap, and is exported to Constantinople, where it is known
in the baths under the name of Keffe Kil, or clay of Caffa.[125] There
is a similar deposit at Sabli, and on one of the banks of the Alma the
greenish talkous fuller’s earth is mixed with silicious pebbles and
broken ammonites, while on the other bank may be extracted from wells
the best fuller’s earth in the Crimea. This same bed, again, appears at
the foot of Mount Akhaia, near Karasóubazar, on the western side of the
peninsula. Below these beds are totally different deposits. At Inkerman
is a white or grey clay, more or less schistous, almost entirely without
fossils, and several hundred feet thick. Its rounded forms start from
the foot of the wall of green sandstone, cover a part of the valley
of Balaclava, and advance as far as Tchorgouna. Tchorgouna lies in a
gorge formed nearly of the same pudding-stones and marbles as those at
Balaclava.
The Tchornaya Retchka, coming from the valley of Baidar, here unites
its two principal branches, which escape from wild chasms in the
Jurassic rocks. Before forcing itself between the two last rocks of
marble, which almost stop it, and just as it reaches the chalk valley
of Balaclava, where it is diverted for the docks of Sevastopol, it
receives the rivulet of Tchouli, which has quite a different course,
and which takes its name from the village of Tchouli, the residence of
the famous traveller Pallas. This little river may be followed up in a
north-eastward direction to Mangoup, and presents the curious phenomenon
of running exactly between the Jurassic and cretaceous formations. The
stream divides these two formations, the former of which gives its
picturesque beauty to the southern coast of the Crimea, while the latter
is synonymous with the dull level of the Steppe; so that on its right is
seen the Jura, with its characteristic rounded calcareous domes, well
wooded, and cut into valleys, and on the other side the chalk presents
its high crests and jutting buttresses, covered with a meagre vegetation,
and surmounted by an enormous naked wall of green sandstone, prolonged
without interruption to Mount Aithodor, which only wants a sea below it
to become the most picturesque of promontories. Here there is a group
of crypts like those at Inkerman, called Karakoba (the Black Grotto),
and the high promontory which rises above Aithodor is called Elli Boroun
(the Cape of Tempests). This high advanced rock, crowned with a few
marine or littoral pines, forms a side of one of the great chasms that
have been opened in the chalk; and it can hardly have been by the agency
of any river, as none of the larger streams of the Tauric chain have
condescended to take advantage of its opening to pass through it, so that
there is only a very small current of water which runs into the Belbek.
In the midst of this chasm stands an immense rock, perpendicular on all
sides, and rising like the isolated pier of some gigantic bridge, and
this bears on its summit the celebrated fortress of Mangoup.
No position in the Crimea could be stronger, and none has been more
celebrated. Mangoup commanded one of the gates of the Steppe, and as
a wall was built across the valley of Inkerman, so it seems that this
entrance was also closed in by two walls, separated by an interval of
fifty feet, and of which there are well-preserved traces in the valley
that leads from Koráles to Aithodor.
The rock of Mangoup rises to upwards of a thousand feet, and every
accessible place in its vicinity is fortified with walls and towers. One
valley, called the Tabana Déréh (Tatar for the Valley of the Tannery),
is fortified by a wall and four towers, and contains several stages of
crypts and a fine spring of water. It was inhabited up to 1800 by some
Karaim Jews, who were tanners, and when they quitted, no living being was
left in the deserted town of Mangoup.[126]
On mounting the plateau from the valley, there are the remains of a
Byzantine Greek church, with frescoes, and surrounded by tombs like those
at Laspi on the southern coast. To the left of the church is a mosque
and a Turkish cemetery, and beyond it is another valley, closed like
the other by a wall, with a door in the middle. The view from hence is
magnificent, and extends over Sevastopol to the sea. In the acropolis
of Mangoup there are the remains of a fine palace, of two stories high,
resting on a terrace, with a handsome flight of steps. On the first
floor of this palace there are placed, in symmetrical order, and richly
decorated, four windows: three bead ornaments surrounded the two in the
middle, which terminated in a flat arch: those at the end were richly
charged with ornaments, and of larger dimensions. The workmanship of the
arabesques, and of the roses, the fillets, and the wreaths, are in the
Eastern style, very like that of Armenia. There is some resemblance to
the style of Turkey, but, besides being less regular and symmetrical,
it cannot be supposed that the Turkish conquerors, who took Mangoup in
1475, and then abandoned it to a few soldiers, would ever have erected
such edifices. Bronovius proves the contrary; he says, “Eighteen years
after it was taken by the Turks, as the Christian Greeks relate, Mangoup
was almost utterly destroyed by a horrible and sudden fire. Nothing of
importance was saved except the Acropolis, in which there was a fine
gateway, ornamented with marble, with Greek inscriptions, and a high
palace in stone. It was in this house that the khans, in their barbarian
fury, have several times shut up the Muscovite ambassadors, and made them
suffer a severe captivity.” The door and the palace, which have been
described, evidently date before the fire, and consequently before its
capture by the Turks. It is a memento of the Gothic Dukes of Mangoup;
and the Armenian style that predominates may be explained by the fact
that, in the middle of the fourteenth century, a number of Armenians had
quitted their country, in terror at the great earthquake of Anni, and had
filled the Crimea with their colonies. As perhaps a solitary memorial
of the architecture of the Goths in the Crimea, this palace possesses
considerable interest.
If the reader will now look at the map, he will see that at Mangoup we
are about one-third of the distance from Sevastopol to Baktchéserai, and
on the confines of the two formations that cause Steppes to the north and
a romantic scenery to the south. A tributary of the Belbek leads down
a wild valley from Mangoup to Koráles, which I have already noticed as
the residence of the beautiful Tatar princess, Adel Bey; and a little
to the west of Koráles is Tcherkess Kerman, or the fortress of the
Tcherkess, and Tcherkess Tus, the plain of the Tcherkess, and the river
Kabarda, which mark the spot where a colony of that noble and chivalrous
people, whom we call the Circassians, dwelt for several centuries, and
beyond this plain the high road is seen running to Sevastopol along
the open Steppe. There is, therefore, little to interest the traveller
to the north; but let him go east, south, and west of Mangoup, and he
may make endless excursions in a most lovely country. He may wander up
the valleys of the Belbek, the Katcha, and the Alma, and cross the
mountainous country which divides their channels; and whether he be
geologist, archæologist, or only an admirer of the beauties of nature,
he will find his tastes amply gratified, and every simple want supplied
among the primitive and hospitable Tatars.
The geologist may admire and unravel the intricate system where endless
strata have been forced up and bent, especially in the Heracleotic
Chersonese, into the most fantastic forms, while jets of igneous rocks
may be traced, giving the key to the wild confusion that reigns around.
The archæologist will find in every hill top, and in every rock and
valley, traces of the many nations that have inhabited the Crimea,
from the rude crypts of the savage Tauri, to the graceful fragments of
the Grecian column; and the traveller, who wanders simply to enjoy his
physical existence, will ever find health and strength in a delicious
climate, and the purest enjoyment of the senses in its exquisite rural
beauty. Endless flocks and herds browze along the valleys, while near the
fresh high plains, raised up in the bosom of the mountains by stupendous
volcanic agency, Tatar villages are snugly situated in sheltered spots,
surrounded by orchards, which supply even Petersburg with fruit, and
where the vine has flourished from the earliest ages. Added to all these
charms, the sea is always near, and its glorious expanse is seen from
every mountain-top, and that coast can at all times be readily visited,
which tempted the beauty-loving Greeks to found here some of their
earliest and most flourishing colonies.
The Ai Petri, Mount Babougan (4500 feet), and the Tchatyr Dagh (5125
feet), the highest mountains in the Crimea, are seen from all parts, and
from the summit of the latter there is a very beautiful view. All around
it, in the country within the influence of the Tauric chain of mountains,
is a succession of verdant hills and valleys, which seem, as Dubois
says, to be a great island, surrounded by two oceans, that of the sea on
the south, and of the Steppes on the north, so flat and uniform do the
latter appear to be. Tchatyr Dagh means tent-mountain in Tatar, and this
name has been given to it because of its form, the last 700 feet of which
rise like a large oblong tent, which in ancient times procured it the
name of Mount Trapezus. There are, all along the Tauric chain, elevated
plains, called in Tatar, Yailas, such as are also found in the range of
the Caucasus, covered in both countries with excellent herbage, on which,
in summer, large flocks of sheep and goats are pastured.[127]