We Made A Rush At The First
Open Door, And Passed Comfortably Under The Heels Of Some Horses
Gathered Under The Arched Court, And Up A Stone Staircase, Which
Turned Out To Be That Of The Russian Consul's House.
His people
welcomed us most cordially to his abode, and the ladies and the
luggage (objects of our solicitude) were led up many stairs and
across several terraces to a most comfortable little room, under a
dome of its own, where the representative of Russia sat.
Women
with brown faces and draggle-tailed coats and turbans, and
wondering eyes, and no stays, and blue beads and gold coins hanging
round their necks, came to gaze, as they passed, upon the fair neat
Englishwomen. Blowsy black cooks puffing over fires and the
strangest pots and pans on the terraces, children paddling about in
long striped robes, interrupted their sports or labours to come and
stare; and the consul, in his cool domed chamber, with a lattice
overlooking the sea, with clean mats, and pictures of the Emperor,
the Virgin, and St. George, received the strangers with smiling
courtesies, regaling the ladies with pomegranates and sugar, the
gentlemen with pipes of tobacco, whereof the fragrant tubes were
three yards long.
The Russian amenities concluded, we left the ladies still under the
comfortable cool dome of the Russian consulate, and went to see our
own representative. The streets of the little town are neither
agreeable to horse nor foot travellers. Many of the streets are
mere flights of rough steps, leading abruptly into private houses:
you pass under archways and passages numberless; a steep dirty
labyrinth of stone-vaulted stables and sheds occupies the ground-
floor of the habitations; and you pass from flat to flat of the
terraces; at various irregular corners of which, little chambers,
with little private domes, are erected, and the people live
seemingly as much upon the terrace as in the room.
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