We now ascended by a steep street to the upper town. The most
prominent object in the first open space we came to is the cathedral,
a new and large but tasteless structure, with a profusely gilt
bell-tower, in the Russian manner; and the walls of the interior are
covered with large paintings of no merit. But one must not be too
critical: a kindling of intellectual energy ever seems, in most
countries, to precede excellence in the imitative arts, which latter,
too often survives the ruins of those ruder and nobler qualities which
assure the vigorous existence of states or provinces.

In the centre of the town is an open square, which forms a sort of
line of demarcation between the crescent and the cross. On the one
side, several large and good houses have been constructed by the
wealthiest senators, in the German manner, with flaring new white
walls and bright green shutter-blinds. On the other side is a mosque,
and dead old garden walls, with walnut trees and Levantine roofs
peeping up behind them. Look on this picture, and you have the type of
all domestic architecture lying between you and the snow-fenced huts
of Lapland; cast your eyes over the way, and imagination wings
lightly to the sweet south with its myrtles, citrons, marbled steeps
and fragrance-bearing gales.

Beside the mosque is the new Turkish coffee-house, which is kept by an
Arab by nation and a Moslem by religion, but born at Lucknow. One day,
in asking for the mullah of the mosque, who had gone to Bosnia, I
entered into conversation with him; but on learning that I was an
Englishman he fought shy, being, like most Indian Moslems when
travelling in Turkey, ashamed of their sovereign being a protected
ally of a Frank government.