THE HERACLEOTIC CHERSONESE.
The Heracleotic Chersonese—Origin of name—Defended by a
wall—Kherson—Its history and remains—House of Lamachus—The
predecessors of Vladimir and their relations with
Constantinople—Account of the siege by Vladimir, taken
out of Nestor—Vladimir’s Baptism—Springs of water—Kherson
destroyed by Lithuanians—The bays between Sevastopol and Cape
Chersonese—Cape Partheniké—The Tauric Diana—The monastery of
St. George—Bustards on the Chersonese.
After taking a general view of the hill country of Crimea, there still
remains one little corner in the south-west to be described, which will
henceforth have a conspicuous place in the history of the world, and,
as we hope under Providence, will be famous as the spot where Russian
tyranny was checked, and France and England cemented a permanent alliance
based upon a common civilization, and fraught with the blessings of
freedom and peace to the whole world.
The submarine volcanoes which raised up the whole Tauric chain of the
southern coast of Crimea, here raged with the greatest fury, and have
torn up the land into a succession of deep and sheltered bays from
Balaclava to Sevastopol, which, fourteen[128] in number, offer convenient
shelter either to commercial or warlike navies.
The ancient name of the peninsula was the Heracleotic Chersonese,
which is derived from two Greek words—Heracleotic, signifying of or
belonging to the Heracleans, and Chersonese, a peninsula. It was called
Heracleotic, because the famous city of Kherson, which was built here,
was originally a colony from Heraclea, a town on the opposite coast of
the Black Sea in Bithynia, where the coal-mines have been lately opened
to supply our fleets, and the city of Kherson, or Khersonesus as it
was sometimes called, received that name because it was situated on a
peninsula.
[Illustration: PLAN OF RUINS OCCUPYING THE SITE OF THE CAMP OF THE
ALLIES AT SEVASTOPOL. 1855.
_Published by John Murray Albemarle Sᵗ. 1855._
_Ford & West. Lithʳˢ._]
This little peninsula, high and rocky, and on three sides surrounded by
water, is cut off from the rest of the Crimea by a low valley, running
between Inkerman and Balaclava, above which, upon a line of heights, is
now placed the French and British camp. A wall, which divided it off from
the rest of the Crimea, may still be traced running from the Tchornaya
Retchka, a little above Inkerman, to Balaclava, for a distance of five
miles,[129] at the foot of the hills running parallel with the valley,
on which the main part of our army, and, since the affair of Balaclava,
a French division under General Bosquet, have been encamped. The whole
of this enclosure was in ancient times occupied with the gardens and
villas of the inhabitants of Kherson, and the space within the wall is
covered with ruins, among which the boundary marks of the fields and
gardens, and the plans of many houses, may still be distinctly traced.
The colony of Kherson was founded in the seventh century before Christ,
by the Heracleans and the Delians, and quickly attained great commercial
importance.
The Khersonians, who were Dorians, were great rivals of the Bosphorians
at Panticápœa or Kertch, who were a colony of Miletus, and consequently
Ionians, and the two cities were continually at war, until both were
united under the sway of Mithridates the Great, king of Pontus, who,
when driven out of his own kingdom by Pompey, succeeded in obtaining the
kingdom of the Bosphorus in the last century before the Christian era.
Kherson, like all the adjacent countries, afterwards fell under the sway
of the Romans, and continued an important place during the greatness and
decline of the empire, down to the epoch when the dispersed Slavonic
tribes were united into one nation, called Russians, by Norman princes,
in the ninth century. From that time Kherson, situated about half-way
between Kief and Constantinople, was constantly a subject of dispute
between the Russians and the Greeks.
There are many remains of the ancient town, the site of which is on the
promontory between the Quarantine and Streletska bays, where a French
battery is now erected.
The wall which defended it was on the land side, running at the head
of Quarantine Bay, passing across the plateau of the isthmus, and then
descending by zigzags to the Bay of Soses, now called Streletska Bay.
The wall was nearly two miles in length, and built of limestone, five or
six feet thick. There were three towers, of which the largest was placed
on the top of the isthmus, and defended the principal gate, a massive
edifice, vaulted, with a guard-house belonging to it. Part of this was
still standing up to the time of the occupation of this site by the
French. An inscription was found in the ruins, which declared the tower
to have been restored about the year 491 A.D. The traces of the ancient
roads and gardens that covered the little territory of the colony, and
the plan of the town, are distinctly traceable. The principal street
through it was about twenty feet wide, and on the left in descending was
the great market-place, which is easily recognised by the heaps of earth
in the shape of a great tumulus, of which further mention will afterwards
be made.
The remains of a large palace stand on one side of the small street
leading to the market-place, which is doubtless one of those which Nestor
mentions as being near the Church of the Virgin.
Lieutenant Kruse was commissioned by the Russian Government to excavate
whatever seemed of interest in the ruins, and he began by the churches,
three of which he uncovered. One of these, the nearest to the
market-place, is most probably the ancient cathedral of Kherson, built
by the piety of Vladimir, in memory of his taking the city, and of his
own conversion to Christianity; and this is probably the church which has
unfortunately been injured[130] by the French, and of which such frequent
mention has been made of late in the Russian proclamations. When it was
discovered, the remains of a semicircular apse were visible; and columns
of a fine white crystalline marble, striped with blue, showed in the
nave of the edifice the position of the transepts and the dome. Great
Byzantine crosses ornamented the capitals of the columns and many parts
of the interior. The whole exterior wall remained to about the height of
three or four feet, and within its precincts Lieutenant Kruse collected
all the columns and other remains that were found, the greater part of
which were drawn out of what he called “a great cistern” underneath the
dome, which was probably an ancient crypt.
The second church that was discovered was larger than the cathedral,
built in the form of a Greek cross, and fifty-three feet each way. The
semicircular seats for the clergy were found entire in the apse, and a
coarse mosaic still existed as the pavement.
This edifice was remarkable, because it was evidently a beautiful Greek
temple metamorphosed into a Christian church, and bases and capitals of
Ionic columns, and other parts of Greek architecture, were built into its
walls. Perhaps this had been the Parthenon of Kherson, dedicated to the
famous Virgin divinity of the ancient Tauri. Lieutenant Kruse excavated
a third church, and then discontinued his labours. The positions of
a mass of streets can be traced, tortuous and narrow, like those of
Eastern towns to this day, and as the whole Chersonese was built over,
we may suppose that there existed here 5000 houses and 40,000 or 50,000
inhabitants.
The high level plain was bordered with houses, from which steps were cut
in the rock down to the water’s edge, and half way between the two bays,
where the rock naturally sloped down, was a landing-place and a market;
and there remains a perfect well and the traces of an aqueduct. There
were only two springs of water in the Chersonese, both near Balaclava.
From one near Khouter Oukhákof the water was conveyed in pipes, some of
which have been lately found, and it was this conduit which Vladimir
cut when he took the town of Kherson. The water of the other spring has
been carried to Sevastopol, which for a long time was only supplied by
some wells and small sources of water at the extremity of the South bay.
This principal spring, which used to be private property, was taken for
public use by the Russian Government, and supplies only thirty-six pints
a minute. Immense reservoirs were constructed in ancient times near the
Quarantine Bay to catch rain-water, but they are now filled up, and three
modern wells have been dug.
The place of one single monument of the ancient Greek times is clearly
marked among the remains of this ancient city, and that is the house of
Lamachus.
At all times I have said there was a great rivalry between the
Bosphorians and the Khersonians, and the latter were probably, for the
first time, subjected to the former during the reign of Praisades I.
Kherson underwent a second time the same fate when hardly pressed by
the Tauro-Scythians, under their king, Skilouros, and the city was then
obliged to place itself under the protection of the great Mithridates,
to whom and his successors, kings of Bosphorus, it remained subject,
until it recovered its independence under the Romans.[131] After this
time there was again constant hostility and war between the two cities,
and when one of the kings of the Bosphorus undertook an expedition into
Asia Minor,[132] the Khersonians took the opportunity of conquering his
capital, Panticápœa (Kertch). Again, in the fourth century, the grandson
of this king was defeated by the Khersonians at Kaffa, or Theodosia,
which then became the boundary of the two States. In a second war soon
afterwards, Pharnáces, the Stephanóphorus of Kherson, killed this king in
single combat, and carried the boundaries of his city close to the walls
of Panticápœa.
Of course these victories of the Khersonians increased the hatred of the
Bosphorians against them, and in the year 334 or 336 A.D., Assander,
the last king of the Bosphorus, thought he had found an effectual way
of meddling in their affairs. He asked in marriage for one of his sons
the daughter of Lamachus, the Stephanóphorus, or chief magistrate of
Kherson, the most powerful man in the town, famous for his riches in
gold, silver, slaves, serving-women, horses, and lands. He also possessed
a house with four courts, occupying all one quarter of the town, lying
near the exterior port of the Bay of Soses (now Streletzka Bay), where
he had a private door pierced in the walls of the town, which is the
only one which now remains entire. Four magnificent gateways guarded
the approaches to his house, and each herd of oxen and cows, horses and
mares, sheep and asses, returning from pasture, had its own particular
entrance and stables.
The eldest of the sons of Assander married Glycia, the daughter of
Lamachus, under the express condition that he should never return to
Panticápœa, to visit his father, not even at the hour of his death.
After two years Lamachus died, and Glycia the following year wished,
according to the general custom, on the anniversary of her father’s
death, to give a grand feast to all the people of Kherson, and her
riches were sufficient to provide them all with wine, bread, oil, meat,
poultry, and fish, and she promised to renew this festival each year. The
son of Assander, deeply vexed at such prodigality, pretended to praise
her filial affection, but secretly determined to revenge himself by
seizing this occasion to hatch a plot against the town. He wrote to his
father to send him from time to time a dozen young Bosphorians, strong
and active, to be introduced into the town under pretext of a visit.
Disembarking at the port of Symbols (Balaclava), where they left their
vessel, they came on foot to Kherson, spent some days there, and then,
pretending to return, passed out at the great gate in the evening, and
crossed the Chersonese; but when night came on, they retraced their steps
by circuitous paths, till they reached the Great Harbour (Sevastopol),
where a boat was in readiness to bring them round to the foot of the Bay
of Soses (Streletzka Bay) on the other side. Here a friend expected them,
and opened for them the little door into the house of Lamachus. Concealed
in the vast palace, they waited for the next anniversary, in order to
seize the town and massacre the people, overcome by wine and good cheer.
A lucky accident caused the treachery to be discovered. On the eve of
the feast, one of the servants of Glycia having disobeyed her mistress,
was shut up in a distant chamber, which happened to be just above that
in which the Bosphorians were concealed. The loss of her spindle, which
rolled into a hole near the wall, induced the girl to lift up a square of
the floor in search of it. She then saw the Bosphorians assembled, and
hastened to inform her mistress, who forgave her fault, and told her to
keep the secret until she should be prepared to deal with the traitors.
She then in strict confidence conferred with three delegates from the
town, and having made them swear that in recompense for her patriotism,
they would, contrary to established custom, bury her inside the town,
she communicated to them the astounding news, and gave them directions
how to act. She made them celebrate the festival gaily as if nothing was
to happen, and only bid each man prepare some faggots and torches. Then,
having drugged her husband’s wine and escaped from the house with her
maids, carrying her trinkets and gold, she ordered the faggots to be
piled round the house and fired, and thus made all the traitors perish in
the flames.
The citizens of Kherson wished to rebuild the house of Glycia at the
public expense, but this she strongly opposed, and, on the contrary,
caused them to heap up every kind of filth and refuse on the place
stained by treachery, which was called ever afterwards “the Den of
Lamachus.”
This monument, more indestructible than brass or marble, is still there,
and, without knowing the story of Glycia, the stranger is astonished to
find the rubbish of all the town piled on the top of the plain, which
borders Streletzka Bay, in one of the finest situations of Kherson. On
passing through the little door which is near the landing-place outside
the walls, the remains of a mole are still to be seen below the level of
the water.
The Khersonians raised two statues of brass on the public place in honour
of Glycia, in one of which she was represented modestly and carefully
attired, receiving the three deputies of the town, and in the other she
was clothed in warrior garments, in the act of avenging the betrayed
citizens. At the time when Constantine Porphyrogenitus wrote the account
from which this has been extracted, every citizen considered it his duty
to keep clean and bright the inscription which the gratitude of the city
had caused to be engraven upon her monument.
Kherson was little distinguished during the time of the Byzantine Empire,
except as occasionally taking part in the frequent revolutions at
Constantinople. As it stood near the route through the plains of Southern
Russia by which the barbarians invaded the empire, it was exposed to
constant wars, and kept up a close intimacy with the Greek emperors, who
frequently sent it succours, and sometimes received from it valuable
assistance. At length, in the tenth century, it underwent a famous siege
by Vladimir, Grand Duke of Russia, which, as it marks the important
period of the conversion of the Russian nation to Christianity, I will
shortly narrate out of the Russian Chronicles, premising a few words
on the early Norman rulers of Russia, to explain the relations of that
people with the Greeks at the period to which I allude.
Rurik[133] the Norman was called over from Scandinavia by the Slave
nations to govern them about the year 862 A.D., as at that time their
chiefs were fighting among themselves, and the people said, in the
words of the old Chronicler, “Let us seek a foreign prince who shall
govern us, and speak justly to us.” An embassy, therefore, was sent to
the Russ Varangians or Normans across the Baltic in Scandinavia, and in
consequence Rurik arrived and reigned till 879 A.D.
Already during his reign some Normans had led a force down the Dniepr
against Constantinople, which is always called in the early chronicles
Tzaragrad, or the city of the Tzar,[134] the title given to the Greek
emperor. Oleg, the successor of Rurik, made another expedition against
Constantinople in 907, which he successfully attacked according to Nestor
by placing his vessels on wheels and sailing across the narrow strip of
land that intervenes between the upper part of the Golden Horn and the
Black Sea. The city was ransomed, and the fleet returned with silken
sails for the Russian and cotton ones for the Slaves, and in 912 a treaty
was concluded “to fix the limits of Russia and Greece.”
Under the next prince, Igor, the Russians made two more attacks against
Constantinople, in the first of which they were defeated by the Greek
fire. The second was successful, and gave rise to a treaty in which
Kherson is mentioned in a way that shows that this city had always
been allied with the Greek emperors, and continually harassed by the
Russians. It is said, “as to the country of Kherson, the Russian princes
are not in future to have any troops in it, or in any of the towns that
are dependent on it, still less to make war with this country and to
endeavour to conquer it. But if the Russian prince requires aid, we the
Tzar (the Greek Emperor) promise to furnish it, to replace under his
authority those of the surrounding countries which have thrown it off.
And if the Russians meet at the mouth the Dniepr Khersonian fishermen,
they shall not injure them, and they shall not have the right to winter
at the mouth of the Dniepr, nor at Bielo Bejie (Berislaf), but at the
approach of autumn they shall return into their own country, into Russia.
If the Black Bulgarians attack the country of Kherson, we recommend the
Russian prince to drive them back, and not to allow them to disturb the
peace.”[135]
Olga, the widow of Igor, reigned after him till 955. She visited
Constantinople as a guest, and became a Christian. Indeed many of the
Russians were christened before this epoch, and the Bible had been
translated into Slavonic nearly a hundred years before. The Emperor
Constantine, or Romanus II., wished to marry Olga, then more than sixty
years old, but she refused him.
Sviatoslaw her son (955-963) twice conquered Bulgaria, and advancing with
a victorious army to the walls of Constantinople, was as usual bought
off, and a new treaty was made, in which Kherson is again mentioned.
Vladimir began to reign in 980, and though in the beginning a determined
idolator, in later times he sent ambassadors to various countries to see
which was the best religion. They visited the Mahometan Bulgarians, Roman
Catholic Germans, the Jews and the Greeks, and struck with the splendour
of their service, they reported in favour of the Greeks.
Upon this nothing took place till, in the words of Nestor, “It happened
that in the course of the next year (988 A.D.) Vladimir with his army
invaded Kherson. The inhabitants shut themselves up in the walls of the
town, and Vladimir established his camp on each side, near the harbour,
just within shot of the said town. The besieged defended themselves
valiantly, yet, as Vladimir always pressed on the siege, they began to
lose courage, and he said to them, ‘If you do not surrender, I swear that
I will remain here three years.’
“To this threat the besieged paid no attention, and Vladimir made his
soldiers take up their arms, and ordered the assault, but while they were
engaged in it, the Khersonians, having made a way into the ditches, took
out the earth which the besieged had thrown into them to fill them up,
and brought it into the town, and the more the Russians threw into the
ditches, the more the besieged took out of them. But while Vladimir was
besieging Kherson, and constraining its inhabitants, a certain Athanasius
shot into the enemy’s camp an arrow bearing this advice, ‘Thou canst stop
or turn aside the source of the springs which are behind thee, towards
the east: it is thence that the waters of the town are brought to us.’
At this news Vladimir lifted his eyes to heaven and cried out, ‘If this
be true, I promise to receive baptism.’ And forthwith he gave the order
to stop the pipes and turn off the water. Soon the besieged, worn
out, and dying of thirst, surrendered, and Vladimir, with his people,
made his entry into the town. Vladimir then asked the Emperors Basil
and Constantine for their sister Anne in marriage, and she was granted
him on condition of his baptism, and was received into the port by the
Khersonians, who conducted her to the palace.
“The baptism of Vladimir[136] took place in the church of the Holy Mother
of God at Kherson, situated in the midst of the town on the market-place.
It is here near the church, by the side of the altar, that is to be seen
to this day the palace of Vladimir and that of the princess. Immediately
after the baptism, the bishop conducted the princess for another
ceremony, that of marriage. Vladimir ordered to be built a church in
Kherson, on the hill made with the earth which the inhabitants had piled
up in the centre of the town during the siege, which church may still be
seen in our days.”[137]
Nothing can be more simple than this church, the remains of which have
been uncovered by Lieutenant Kruse, and which is a model of the antique
Byzantine style. Vladimir received from the Greeks, as the dowry of the
princess, the city of Kherson.
When he returned to Kief he determined, in true autocratic style, that
all his people should follow his own example. So he cast the favourite
idol Peroun, the God of Thunder, into the Dniepr, and then proclaimed
that whoever did not appear on its banks should be treated as a rebel,
and when all the people were assembled, men, women, and children were
sent into the water to be baptized all together.
There has been a question about two gates of Corinthian brass, which
were said to have been carried from Kherson to Kiew by Vladimir, and
to have been removed thence by Boleslas II., king of Poland, who placed
them at the entrance of the cathedral of Grodno, while other authors
pretend that they now exist in the cathedral of St. Sophia at Great
Novgorod.[138] Nestor makes no mention of the doors, but only says that
Vladimir brought back from Kherson the Tzarina Anastasia, the priests of
Kherson, the relics of St. Clement, and his disciple Phira, and vases
and instruments for burning incense, and that he did all this for the
welfare of his soul. He also says that the prince carried away with him
two images of brass, and four horses in metal, which in his time stood
behind the church of the Holy Mother of God in Kiew, and were thought by
the ignorant to be made of marble. It is possible that later writers may
have confounded the “images” with the “gates of brass.”
Kherson was finally destroyed, after 2000 years’ existence, by Olgerd,
the nephew of Gedimine the Lithuanian, the founder of Vilna, the ancestor
of the Jagellons, and the conqueror of Kief and all Southern Russia.[139]
After its pillage by the Lithuanians, Kherson was almost deserted,
and when the Turks, in 1475, took possession of the Crimea, they only
found in it empty houses and deserted churches, from which they removed
the finest marbles for their buildings at Constantinople. Bronovius
visited the city at the end of the sixteenth century, and says that the
Turks called it Sari Kerman, or the Yellow Castle, on account of the
yellow colour of the ground, and it had then been uninhabited for many
centuries. The ruins, however, of what he calls this “proud, delicate,
and illustrious city,” were then wonderful. The wall and its towers,
built of enormous blocks of hewn stone, were perfect, and a beautiful
aqueduct still brought the purest water. The palace of the kings, itself
as large as a city, with magnificent entrance gates, continued to exist.
The churches were despoiled, because of their valuable marbles, and
the largest Greek monastery alone remained entire.[140] After three
more centuries, what the Turks and the Tatars had spared was taken by
the Russians, when they built Sevastopol. Sailors were sent to collect
materials, and no ancient remains respected. The walls and fine gateways
which still existed were pulled down to build the Quarantine, and when
the Emperor Alexander issued orders to stop this Vandalism, the ruin
of every thing precious had been already consummated. The last remains
of works of art, which Lieutenant Kruse had collected with persevering
industry, disappeared after a detachment of soldiers had been lodged in
the ruins for a few years at the time of the plague.
Between Sevastopol and Cape Chersonese, at the extremity of the
peninsula, there are no less than six large bays, which succeed each
other in the following order: the Quarantine Bay and Streletzka Bay,
which have been already mentioned; Krougly Bay, or the Round Bay;
Cosatcha Bay, Bay of Cossacks, and Dvoiny Bay, or Double Bay, where the
Heracleans first settled themselves before they moved to the Kherson,
which has been described. One branch of Dvoiny Bay is also called
Kamiesch, or the Reedy Bay, and it is here that the French ships are
anchored and the stores for their army disembarked. The Chersonese is
terminated to the west by Cape Chersonese, called also Cape Fanar, on
account of the lighthouse, and the whole of the promontory on which it
stands is covered with the ruins of the first Kherson.[141] Crossing
then in a south-east direction for several miles, over a plain covered
with ruins, we arrive at another cape, called in ancient times Cape
Partheniké, or that of the Virgin, and now Cape Violente or St. George,
from the monastery of the same name which is near it, on a spot
interesting for several reasons.
The cape derived its ancient name from the cruel Virgin divinity of the
Tauri, so famous in early history, to whom all strangers were sacrificed
who suffered shipwreck on this inhospitable coast. When the Greeks
arrived from Heraclea they brought in the worship of Hercules and Diana,
and, as they always respected the religion of the countries they visited,
and found a great resemblance between their own Diana and the Virgin of
the Tauri, they probably merged the two into one under the name of the
Tauric Diana, discontinuing the ancient barbarous custom of offering
human victims. At a later period, Iphigenia was confounded with the
other two divinities, as Herodotus expressly says that in his time she
was worshipped as a goddess.[142] The Tauric goddess had her parthenon
in Kherson, and her chapel on Cape Partheniké. The road is still visible
by which the worshippers passed from Kherson to the promontory, crossing
a ridge of rocks, on which the traces of the ancient chariot-wheels are
distinctly visible.
The cape is remarkable as being the exact limit between the most ancient
and the most modern geological formations in the Crimea. Here, on the top
of the precipice, an immense rock of Jurassic limestone juts out from the
coast, on a level with the steppe, and bordered by sheer precipices on
every side, except where it is connected with the mainland. In the centre
are the foundations of an isolated edifice, almost square, constructed
of hewn stone, like the Donjons of the houses on the Chersonese. It was
placed at the angle of the two walls, which, advancing one to the west,
and the other to the south, on the edge of the precipice, formed of the
rest of the platform a kind of court, of which the entrance-gate looked
towards the Chersonese and the road. This could only have been a temple,
for here are neither the wells nor buildings which always characterize a
dwelling-house. This was also the fittest situation for the worship of
the Tauric Virgin, for at this point only could the sea be reached on
this side of the Chersonese, and close to it is a gorge in the form of an
amphitheatre, where doubtless, in the earliest times, crowds assembled to
witness the precipitation of the unhappy victims into the sea.
Near it, ensconced in a ledge of the precipice, is the famous monastery
of St. George.[143] From the plateau above, which has all the aridity
and monotony of the Steppes,[144] its ancient walls are not visible,
and it is not till the traveller approaches the edge of the cliffs, and
looks over, that he sees, instead of a frightful wave-beaten precipice,
a most charming little village, nestled in the rocks at about fifty
feet below him. There are a church, and houses, and terraces, cut one
below the other, and ancient poplars, and gardens irrigated by a fine
rivulet of water. The spot looks like a little oasis suspended, as if by
enchantment, at several hundred feet above the sea, in the midst of an
amphitheatre of black basaltic rocks, which rise majestically around,
and form a striking contrast to the rich verdure in which the monastery
is hidden. A door and staircase, cut in the rock, form the only entrance
to this great Hermitage, which was no doubt first created by the ancient
Troglodytes, or dwellers under ground, whose remains are so numerous
in the Crimea, as all the rocks near the monastery, which are composed
of chalk, are pierced by ancient grottoes, which are now only used as
cellars and poultry-yards, although they were inhabited by the monks
so lately as the time of Pallas, in 1794. The monastery consists of
many large buildings, several of which are devoted to the reception of
strangers. The church has unfortunately been rebuilt, and the ancient
chapel that stood here has been totally destroyed. A rivulet runs in
front of the houses, and trickles into a stone basin, shaded by poplars,
while below it are terraced gardens and small vineyards.
This little nook generally enjoys a most unbroken quiet, but on the 23rd
of April, St. George’s-day—when crowds arrive, and the plateau above is
covered with huts and tents—the Greeks, from all parts of Crimea, flock
to the place, and the women especially frequent the fête, and embellish
the scene by their picturesque dresses and traditional beauty. As in most
religious festivals, the world always claims its part, and a kind of fair
is held here in the early part of the day, at which much business is
done. But all at once the scene changes—the hour of divine service has
arrived, the crowd flocks to the church, and, as soon as the benediction
has been given, there is a rush to the basin containing the water, which
is supposed at this season to be a remedy against all kinds of diseases.
On a terrace, close to the monastery, there are traces of several Greek
temples. A dreary and barren road leads past the village of Karany,
through a valley, to Balaklava, at which town terminates the Chersonese.
The Chersonese in winter serves as a refuge to a great quantity of
bustards, that are driven from the plains by the snow. Thousands may be
seen at once, and the hunters conceal themselves in little cabins and
shoot them as they pass, for the birds, tired and thin at this season
of the year, fly very low, and may be almost caught by the hand. There
are two kinds, a large and a small; the latter are better eating, and
both are very cheap, and a favourite article of food in Sevastopol.[145]
When the snow covers the Chersonese, and the cold reaches sometimes 16°
Fahrenheit, the bustards fly to the southern coast, to Laspi, where it is
always warm.