SOUTH COAST OF THE CRIMEA. 
discerned from this mountain. There is cer- 
tainly nothing to intercept the view, as far as 
human sight can possibly extend ; because the 
whole district to the north is as flat as the rest 
of the great eastern plain. The village of 
Almta , once a place of considerable importance, 
still exhibits some vestiges of its antient dig- 
nity. The ruins of the citadel — erected, toge- 
ther with the fortress of Yourzuf, by Justinian, 
according to Procopius — are still seen, upon pre- 
cipices contiguous to the sea 2 . Three of its 
towers remain, and a stone wall, twelve feet in 
height, and near seven feet in thickness. At pre- 
sent, the place consists only of a few Tahtar huts : 
in one of these we passed the night; having 
observed nothing remarkable, excepting a very 
small breed of buffaloes ; the females being 
little larger than our market calves. 
At Alusta we terminated our journey along the 
coast ; and on Friday morning, August the eighth, 
we set out, by a route across the Tchetirdagh, for 
Akmetchet. We rode for some time in the Dale 
of Alusta, a delightful valley, full of apple, pear, 
plum, and pomegranate trees, with vineyards 
(2) “ Somewhere between Sudak and Lambat ( Lampas ) is a rock, 
believed, from its fancied resemblance to a ship, to have been a vessel 
which, with its crew, was turned into stone.” Hcbcr's MS. Journal. 
