Читать книгу Around the Black Sea. Asia Minor, Armenia, Caucasus, Circassia, Daghestan, the Crimea, Roumania онлайн

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There is a long range of snow-clad mountains along the southern coast of the Black Sea reaching almost the entire distance from Trebizond to Rizeh, the next stopping place, and between them and the water side are low foothills covered with farms. The new wheat was a vivid green that lights up a lovely picture. There is no more beautiful sea coast. Indeed, there is nothing to surpass that landscape in the Alps, or the Pyrenees, or the Andes, or the Rocky Mountains, or anywhere else, owing to the great variety of scenery that lies between the water and the snow-capped crags. In May, when we were there, nature is all smiles. Both the woods and the fields are alive with glory. The foliage is perfect; rhododendrons and azaleas hide the scars in the rocks and creepers drape the rugged cliffs with a profusion of garlands that artificial decorations cannot compare with. Here and there the farming land is broken by a lofty precipice rising a thousand feet or more directly out of luxuriant vegetation, just as an artist would put some bold figure into a picture to offer a contrast to the peaceful, cultivated slope. And the lofty mountain peaks look bolder and sterner because they rise so near the wheat fields, the gentle valleys dotted with white villages, and the sombre forests that are so thick and so green.