To my
astonishment I saw dromedaries yoked to many loaded carts.
The Mithridates is 500 feet high, and beautiful flights of stone
steps and winding paths lead up its sides, forming the only walks of
the towns' people. This hill must formerly have been used by the
ancients as a burial-place, for everywhere, if the earth is only
scraped away, small narrow sarcophagi, consisting of four stone
slabs, are found. The view from the top is extensive, but tame; on
three sides a treeless steppe, whose monotony is broken only by
innumerable tumuli; and on the fourth side, the sea. The sight of
that is everywhere fine, and here the more so, as one sea joins
another, namely, the Black Sea and the Sea of Asoph.
There was a tolerable number of ships in the roads, but very far
short of four or six hundred, as the statements in the newspapers
gave out, and as I had hoped to see.
On my return, I visited the Museum, which consists of a single
apartment. It contains a few curiosities from the tumuli, but
everything handsome and costly that was found was taken to the
Museum at St. Petersburgh. The remains of sculptures, bas-reliefs,
sarcophagi, and epitaphs are very much decayed. What remains of the
statues indicates a high state of art.
