IN THE CRIMEA. 
feeding upon blossoms of the wild thyme of 
the mountains, and the indigenous flowers of 
the country. Every Tahtar cottage has its 
garden, in the cultivation of which the owner 
finds his principal amusement. Vegetation is 
so rapid, that within two years, as already 
stated in the account of Balaclava, young vines 
not only form a shade before the doors, but 
appear actually laden with li'uit. The Tahtars 
delight to have their houses buried, as it were, 
in foliage. These dwellings consist each only 
of one story, with a low flat roof, beneath trees 
spreading immense branches quite over the 
whole building; so that a village, at a distance, 
is only known by the tufted grove wherein it 
lies concealed. When the traveller arrives, 
not a house is to be seen; it is only after 
passing among the trees, and beneath their 
branches, that he begins to perceive cottages, 
overshadowed by the exuberant vegetation of 
the walnut, the mulberry, the vine, the fig, the 
olive, the pomegranate, the peach, the apricot, 
the plum, the cherry, and the tall black poplar 
tree : all of which, intermingling their clustering 
produce, form the most beautiful and fragrant 
canopies that can be imagined. 
In every Tahtar house they preserve one or 
more copies of the Koran ; these are always in 
