A walk over the cliffs leads to the ruins of a castle and fortress built by the Genoese in the Middle Ages on the summit to command the harbour. Only a portion of the walls remain. The castle, or citadel, was the apex of a triangular fortification, the base of which was parallel to the port, and there was a strong tower at each corner. The Genoese were in possession of this part of the coast for several centuries and made Balaklava a stronghold. A
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graphic description of the place was written by a Russian merchant named Nikitin, who stopped here in 1472 on his return from a trip to India, but a thousand years previous Balaklava was described by Strabo and other Greek writers when it was known as "the calm port of the signals."
"Miss Nightingale's seat," on the hillside overlooking the village, is a group of rocks where she used to go for rest and thought, and beside it are the graves of a few of her brave nurses. Every house in which she slept, every place in the vicinity that is associated with her in any way is hallowed. The present owners are as proud of that distinction as owners of English castles are of the rooms in which Queen Elizabeth slept. Her principal hospital was at the monastery of St. George, said to be the oldest and one of the largest in Russia. Most of the monks fled on the approach of the allies, and the British seized the buildings for hospital purposes and placed them under Miss Nightingale's charge. The room she occupied is sacred and is shown to all visitors with great satisfaction.
The monastery was built in the latter part of the ninth century, somewhere about the year 890, by certain Greek merchants who were miraculously saved during a fearful storm by the intercession of St. George. It occupies an extraordinary position at the top of a cliff, several hundred feet above the sea, in the midst of an amphitheatre of black basaltic rock, which rises to the height of one thousand feet on both sides and in the rear. The amphitheatre is entered through a tunnel cut in the rocks, no doubt by the ancient troglodytes, whose remains are found in the neighbourhood. Tradition says that this amphitheatre was the site of a temple and altar to the goddess Iphigenia,
Sm daughter of Agamemnon, and here were sacrificed all strangers and castaways that the Tauri found upon their coast.
The most interesting remains of the troglodytes are found in cliffs overhanging a little stream at Inkerman, where another fierce battle was fought during the Crimean war. The Russians have erected a monument in the field where most of the fighting was done, and a granite shaft marks the centre of the English camp, which is inscribed:
In memory of the English, French and Russian soldiers who fell in the battle of Inkerman, Nov. 5, 1854.
Erected by the British Army, 1856
The battle of Inkerman was a surprise. The Russians crept up a ravine in the night and before daylight struck the sleeping Englishmen in their camp. It so happened that many of the officers were absent and in the beginning every soldier fought independently for his life. After the dawn, when there was light enough for the Englishmen to see what was going on, the defence was thoroughly organized and the Russians were driven back with a heavy loss.
The village of Inkerman occupies the head of the bay which forms the harbour of Sevastopol and is surrounded by the most noted quarries in southern Russia. They have been worked for ages, and vast chambers have been excavated in the soft limestone which underlies the scanty soil of a high, dry, bare plateau. These chambers are en-
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tered through square doorways cut in the cliffs and wooden tramways and skids are laid along the floors of the galleries, so that the blocks of stone can be hauled out. It is as soft as chalk when first cut, but grows hard by exposure. Odessa, Sevastopol and other cities in southern Russia are built almost entirely of this material. At present the quarrymen are engaged in cutting out vast quantities of small blocks of stone for a new palace which the czar is building on his estate on the Crimean coast, near Yalta.