ODESSA. 491 



opera. Its commercial prosperity will no doubt be largely 

 increased by the opening of railway communication witli 

 Moscow. 



Situated on tlie brow of a cliff, and at the edge of a 

 sandy plain, Odessa has few attractions for the passing 

 traveller, who, as soon as he has sauntered through the 

 streets, visited one or two churches, the Jewish synagogues, 

 and the boulevard, will be glad to continue his journey. 

 This, now that the railroads are finished, will be found no 

 difficult matter, but for us it was different. The line to 

 Kieff was as yet unopened, and at one time the difficulties 

 of making our way across Russia to St. Petersburg seemed 

 so great that we had almost decided to fly to Istamboul and 

 return home by Athens, when a piece of intelligence, which 

 afterwards proved untrustworthy, made Tucker and myself 

 revert to our original plan. Moore, however, could not 

 spare longer time, and left us to cross Eiu'ope by a more 

 direct route, by way of Lemberg, Czernowitz, and Cracow, 

 by which he succeeded in reaching Paris in 6^ days' hard 

 travelling, including a detention of twenty-four hours at 

 Czernowitz. Paul also, who had served us well and faith- 

 fully during our Caucasian wanderings, was now dismissed, 

 to return to his Mingrelian home ; thus Tucker and I were 

 left to end our journey, as we had begun it, by ourselves. 



On the evening of the 21st September, we went by rail 

 to Birzoula, where the new Kieff Line branches off from 

 that to Elizavetgrad ; it had been partially opened, and we 

 had hopes of being forwarded along it, which however 

 proved illusory. After a vexatious delay of twenty-four 

 hours, we went on again by the Odessa train, and reached 

 Elizavetgrad on the morning of the 23rd. This part of 

 Eussia consists of nothing but bare rolling downs, on which 

 much of the corn shipped annually from Odessa is grown; 

 the scenery is consequently very uiiinteresting and mono- 



