ching flocks and herds, they used to remain on the
knolls very still for long hours together, and when they moved, they
strode over the hills in their slow-flowing robes with something of the
forlorn majesty of peasants descended from warriors."[7]

* * * * *

Into this secluded and remote peninsula Madame de Hell and her husband
carried their rare powers of observation and description. They landed at
Balaklava, since so famous in the annals of the British army, for it was
there that "the thin red line" resisted unmoved all the fury and force
of the Muscovite hosts. Its appearance from the sea is very attractive,
for its port is surrounded with mountains, the highest of which still
retains a memorial of the old Genoese dominion, while in part of its
blue expanse lies the pretty Greek town, with its balconied houses and
masses of foliage rising in terraces one above the other. Above it
towers a ruined castle, whence the Genoese, in their days of supremacy,
scanned with vulture-gaze the sweep of sea, prepared to pounce upon any
hapless vessel wind-driven into these waters. It was Sunday when our
travellers arrived, and the whole population were holiday making on the
green shore or greener heights. Groups of mariners, Arnaouts in their
quaint costume, and girls as graceful of shape as those who of old
joined in the choric dances of Cytherea, wound their way up the steep
path to the fortress, or tripped in mirthful measures to the shrill
music of a balalaika.

* * * * *

The day after their arrival at Balaklava they undertook a boating
excursion to explore the geological formation of the coast, and landed
in a delightful little cove, embowered amid flowering trees and shrubs.
On their return the boatmen decked themselves and their boat with
wreaths of hawthorn and blossoming apple sprays, so that they entered
the harbour with much festal pomp. In her poetic enthusiasm, Madame de
Hell, as she gazed upon the cloudless sky and the calm blue sea and the
Greek mariners, who thus, on a foreign shore, and after the lapse of so
many centuries, retained the graceful customs of their ancestors, could
not but be reminded of the deputations that were wont every year to
enter the Piraeus, the prows of their vessels bright with festoons of
flowers, to share in the gorgeous festivals of Athens.

From Balaklava the travellers proceeded to Sevastopol, of which Madame
de Hell