The Kansas City sun. (Kansas City, Mo.) 1908-1924, 1917-06-09

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" tween New York and the
ports of the Black sea, it
may well be hoped that Americans, for
their own sake, will discover and ap-
p%reciate the wonderful Crimea. Prob
ably most Americans, having forgot
ten the ancient history they once
learned at school, have but few definite
ideas connected with the name Crimea.
There once was a war in the Crimea,
for instance. involving a town which
English-printing newspapers and 9TH
ers carefully misspell "Sebastopol."
Also, it is remembered, there was
Balaklava, and the charge that was
magnificent, but not war" And also,
there was Florence Nightingale. All
of these were, and some still are,
notable.
But there is much more than all
these to the Crimea, says q writer in
the magazine Russia, and indeed they
suggest nothing whatever of the beau
tiful and extraordinary south coast
stretch of the peninsula; nothing of
its luxuriant and semi-tropical vegeta-
ton rising upon the steep heights
which fringe the shore; nothing of the
summer pastures in the high valleys
pastures as notable as the much bet
ter known almen of the Swiss Alps,
which these grazing places for sheep
closely resemble. Nor do our few
American modern memories suggest
the fact that the Crimea was one of
the melting-pots of classical antiquity
not in the center of the ancient
foundry, it is true-but the scene of
coloniZatlons by Greeks, Venetians,
Genoese, invading Goths, Turks, Tar
tars; until in 1888 Russia established
peace and control. Americans by the
thousand visit the Riviera; by the
thousands they may well repay them
selves, a little later, by visiting what
is often called "the Russian Riviera
the south coast of the Crimea.
Why the "BIaek" Sea.
From the moment his ship enters the
Black sea, the American explorer will
find himself in a region of waters of
a kind new to him. The Black sea
Is not actually black; but it is of a
much darker blue than the Mediterra-
mean. 1t is practically without tides,
also-a great deep bowl with steep
sides, with water some 4,500 feet deep
close to the sides, and over 1000 in
the middle. The black mud of
it's bottom contains no animal life (;
OF warm summer evenings its waters
show phosphorescence.
Into the northern side of this huge
basin of the Black sea projects the
peninsula of the Crimea, sloping up
wards from the mainland towards the
south until it reaches the summit of
the Yaila range (Yaila is the Tartar
word for summer pasture") just be-
hind the southern shore line; from
there it plunges abruptly into the
Black sea.
1t is this strip of steep, verdure-
smothered coast land Give to eight
miles wide) between the SUBMITS VI
the Yaila range and the sea that is the
paradise of the Crimea. From the
southernmost point of the peninsula, at
Cape Sarytch, to Fayodosla English,
Theodosia) towards the northeast, the
Yaila range bordering the coast is
pierced by passes, through which car
rage roads lead northward in general
direction, across the high mountain
pastures, and down the northward
slope to the railroad lines from Sc
vastopol on the west shore, and Kertch
and Fayodosia on the east, which join
In the line to the mainland. This Yaila
range sometimes called the "Moun-
tain Meadows mountains') is a con-
tinuation of the Caucasus, and has It's
western end at Cape FiOlente (the an
Client Parthenium) which is the south
-westernmost point of the Crimea. The
ancient name of the cape is due to
the legend that on that promontory
stood the temple of Artemis (Dlana)
in which ~Iphigeneia served as a priest
ess. The general elevation of the
Yaila IL from 1900 to $500 feet.
1t is a creditable element in the Rus
sian attitude towards the finer pleas
ure places that the generally ubiqui
tous railroad-or lacking that, the
trolley car-has found no place OF
the south shore strip of the Crimea
This is a region of roads, southwark
from Seyastopol on the west, to Fayo
dosia on the east. One may reach the
coast places by boats plying between
the two cities named, and there are
some advantages, always, in seeing &
bold and picturesque shore from the
water side. But finally, one must de
pend on roads.
Along the shore line is the mair
highway, extending from Cape Sarytcf
on the west to Fayodosia on the east