Note 1 — Chapter I · THE COAST AND THE PORT

Among the most pleasing and, perhaps, not the least striking feature in the composition of these scenes must at all times have been the luxuriance and variety of the vegetation which is natural to this soil. The necessary moisture is provided, not by stagnant pools and marshes, as in the country watered by the Kolchian rivers further east, but by salubrious springs, bubbling from the surface of the rock and collecting in rustling streams. The sun is indeed the fiery orb of Eastern landscapes; but the climate is tempered by the chilling winds from across the sea, bringing rain and mist in their train. The outcome of these conditions is the simultaneous exuberance of the trees and plants which flourish upon the coasts of the Mediterranean and of the leafy giants of our Northern woods; side by side with shady thickets of chestnut, elm, oak and hazel, groves of cypress, laurel and olive grace the shore. The wild vine hangs in festoons from the branches, and in sheltered places the orange tree, the lemon, and the pomegranate thrive and yield their fruit. All our fruits are found in the well-stocked gardens, while the fig of Trebizond is of old as famous as the grapes of Tripoli and the cherry of Kerasun. Cucumbers are cultivated, and heavy pumpkins, and tobacco, and Indian corn, with its reed-like stalks and luscious leaves. The beautiful pink flowers of the oleander may be seen rising above some orchard wall. In the middle of the seventeenth century we are told of upwards of thirty thousand gardens and vineyards inscribed in the city registers, and at that time the slopes about Boz Tepe were completely covered with vines. But it is on the western rather than on the eastern side of the fortress that Nature has most freely lavished her gifts; and on no spot with more abundance or greater effectiveness than on the western ravine. The beauties of that valley, almost as we see them to-day, have been described in glowing language by Cardinal Bessarion in the fifteenth century, himself a son of Trebizond, and by the historian of the Comnenian empire whose warm imagination was kindled by scenes which recalled and intensified the graces of his native Tyrol.1 A path leads down from the suburb on the west into the shade and freshness of the gorge, through thickets of lofty forest-trees, their leafy branches laced together by wild vines. Even at mid-day, when the sun hangs cloudless over the narrow vista, the rays scarcely penetrate to the deep shadows of the evergreens—a luxuriant undergrowth of myrtle, laurel and ivy, rising from the floor and up the cliffs. From the highest point of the castle rock some 150 feet above you, amongst a wild confusion of creepers and trees, the bold wall of the palace, now reduced to an empty skeleton, still stands up against the sky; and the broad windows which once opened from the emperor’s apartments still overlook the verdant scene below. Past mossy banks, upon which the iris and primrose flourish, through leafy brakes, where trees of laurel hide the ground, the little stream cascades into the laps of the hollows or plashes over ledges of hard rock.