The Scranton tribune. [volume] (Scranton, Pa.) 1891-1910, 1897-05-08

renee that had taken place an hour or
two before, which we found afterward
exploited at length and with good
deal Of wit in the Odessa Vaestnik.
The police had been Informed that
when our party arrived it would be
their duty not only to receive us with
marks of courtesy, but to escort us
and our impedimenta to the hotel
where lodgings had been secured for
us. A Russian steamer hao arrived
pretty early in the morning, and the
police officers inquired if there were
any Americans among the passengers
Two gentlemen answering the de-
scription were found, and, without
further inquiry, they were informed
that they were expected that their
trunks were to be passed unopened,
and that the officers would at once
conduct hem to their lodgings. Sur
prised but not displeased by this in
telligence, the two gentlemen, both of
them merchants of some description
hailing from Boston, Immediately
started for the hotel, but, on arriving
there, they declared that the rooms
to which they were shown could not
be intended for two persons only, and
so the mistake was found out. Thus
the Vaestnik had a chance to laugh at
the police, on account of this blunder,
and the rare opportunity was well i'm
proved.
ODESSA.
Odessa is indeed a very charming city
boasting some 100000 inhabitants.
Spread out over an elevated and rather
1o 10 trif
a bluff perhaps seventy feet in height.
Along the outer border of this bluff is
a neat little park called a boulevard,
much frequented by ladies and chill
dren. The streets are wide, the public
buildings many of them very hand
some, the private houses spacious and
elegant. We spent a part of three or
four afternoons at the athletic grounds
furnished by the city, where cricket is
played mainly by foreigners and lawn
tennis cultivated by clubs of ladies and
gentlemen. 1t was also our good fOr-
tune to attend a celebration in the ca
thedral on the day of the new en-
peror's coronation in Moscow. The
singing was magnificent, as | have al
most always found it in Russian Or
thodoX churches, though the choir con-
sists of male voices alone and no in
struments are allowed. review in
the adjoining public square following
after the tie Deum" in the church was
quite impressive, both for the martial
appearance of the soldiers and the pre-
csion of their movements Lieutenant
General Felony, the political governor
and military commander of the pro-
vince, received us with extreme gra-
ciousness, recalling the time when, as
a subordinate officer he had visited
New York with the Russian fleet to-
ward the close of the civil war.
Leaving Odessa at about three in the
afternoon by a Russian ship-and we
are bound to say that these ships are
elegant, comfortable, and satisfactory
we went directly to Sevastopol, land
ing in that famous seaport of the
Crimea before noon the next day The
entrance into the inner harbor is broad
and without any obstacle, and the city
which was destroyed in the Crimean
war of 1854 now shows no scars of that
calamity, but stretches out along its
ridges and sunny slopes i'm a way most
attractive and hospitable. Like the
hotels of Russia in general those of
Sevastopol are spacious, clean and in
every way agreeable, and the drives
around the town are picturesque and
pleasing, quite apart from their inter
est as memorable scenes in modern his
tory. In this latter respect, however
IL is not too much to say that there is
scarcely another place in Europe which
can vie with this corner of the Crimea
The Malakoff, the Redan, the Name
lon. the vast field on the southeast that
slopes toward BalaklaVa, the monu-
ments that mark the charge of the
Light Brigade, the cemeteries of the
English, the French, the Italians, and
the Russian defenders of the place
perhaps the most gallant of all, and
Balaklava itself, with its wonderful
harbor. whose entrance is so narrow
that two ships cannot navigate it to-
gether, absorb the mind with memories
OF that tremendous struggle, at once
one of the most heroic and most use
less wars of modern times; useless be-
cause it has left no permanent fruits
and the questions they fought about
then are essentially the same as those
which still confront the contendina
powers.
THE CRIMEA.
The immense historical interest OF
the Crimea has combined with Ger,
tain comparative inaccessibility to pre-
vent the universal recognition of iti
extraordinary natural beauty and at
tractlveness as a semi-tropical region
quite near to the Caucasus. But 1t wa.
not until we had finished with tn,
sights and the memories of Sevastopo
and Balaklava that we came to appre
ciate the strange charm of the Crimes
and the delight 1t has in store for trav
ellArs woh are not too much in a hurry