ON THE CRIMEAN STEPPES. 249 



station, where travelers by the regular Russian post 

 might stay. Here the proprietor, a Russian, either 

 from suspicion of what I might be, or from prejudice 

 because I was riding my own horse, or from sheer in- 

 hospitality and indifference, refused either to sell me 

 any feed or stable room for Texas for the night. 



On the opposite side of the street, some young Tar- 

 tars, who were drinking coffee in front of a little coffee 

 shop, seeing the dilemma of a passing stranger, came 

 over to the rescue at once. They had neither horse- 

 feed nor stable ; but one of them led Texas away to 

 water, then tied him up in a little private yard on their 

 side of the village ; and another skirmished around 

 and obtained a bunch of hay. Bread, a boiled sheeps- 

 head, and coffee were obtained for supper, and I was 

 provided with a rude divan in the coffee shop for a bed. 

 I had at length, after six weeks in the saddle, arrived 

 among a people who neither regarded me with sus- 

 picion, nor as a windfall to be overcharged and finan- 

 cially made the most of. 



From Bekchiserai I was riding over historically in- 

 teresting ground. Between Simferopol and Baalbek 

 I watered Texas in the Alma, a small stream from 

 which the well-known battle of the Crimean War de- 

 rived its name ; and an hour or two from Baalbek the 

 evidences of the struggle of 1854 were on every hand. 

 Dismantled batteries still frowned from the heights of 

 Inkerman, as though the ghosts of war still haunted 

 the fields of carnage, reluctant to depart. 



Leaving the main road, I picked a way toward 

 Sevastopol over the rocky heights on which the bat- 

 teries and trenches of the allied armies had invested 



