Page:From Constantinople to the home of Omar Khayyam.djvu/68

 18 FROM THE BLACK SEA TO THE CASPIAN

and a sweep of sea magnificent in the extreme. The steep zigzag descent, through the archway of Foros piercing the living rock, past a Russian Greek church cresting a height, and among a wilderness of rugged peaks and jagged cliffs that beetle over the blue Euxine, gives a thrill of excitement that enhances twofold the enjoyment of the beautiful. This doubled sensa- tion, ever renewed, melted into a feeling of aesthetic pleasure, heightened by the sunset glow, as we drew nearer to the splen- did Bay of Yalta some six hours later. The driveway was then between rich country-houses with green lawns and lux- urious shade trees, and past the parks of the Imperial Domain at Livadia, with their almost tropical exuberance of vegetation. In good style our troika galloped up before the terrace of the Hotel de Russie, from whose garden surroundings a myriad electric lights flashed forth as darkness fell, and illuminated the broad paths leading down to the quay where our vessel lay ready to convey us farther on our journey towards the East.

Steaming on the Black Sea under conditions of weather so perfect was like a pleasure outing on a yacht. A call at Feodosia gave a chance to see how a modern commercial port may inherit the advantages of ages past. Founded under the name of Theodosia as a colony of the Milesians in the sixth century B.C., it soon became the granary of Greece, nor has it ever lost its tradition of being a thriving center of export for cereals. The Genoese were proud to hold it while they were masters of the sea in the thirteenth century ; the Turks knew its worth when they took it later ; and the Russians recognized its value when the place passed into their sovereign hands. The old walled town that rises on a slight elevation from the shore shows traces of the varied historic past ; the new Russian city, skirting the strand, is modern in its way, commercial in tone, and prosperous, even to the possession of villas by its ruble-rich merchants.

Another day and we hove in sight of Gagri, a favorite sea- side and health resort for the Russians, which lies nestled

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