At this period of her life, the empress at five-and-forty retained her fine shape and noble carriage, while her countenance showed the remains of considerable beauty, more impaired by sorrow than time. Calumny itself had never dared to aim her envenomed shafts at one so eminently chaste and good. Her presence demanded the respect due to virtue, still more than the homage proper to her elevated rank. She resembled indeed more an angel exiled from heaven, than the imperial consort of a prince who ruled a large portion of the earth. In the summer of 1825, the last he was destined to see, the physicians of the emperor unanimously recommended a journey to the Crimea, as the best medicine he could take. Alexander appeared perfectly indifferent to a measure which regarded his individual benefit, but the empress, deeply interested in any event likely to restore her husband's health, asked and obtained permission to accompany him. The necessary preparations for this long absence overwhelmed the emperor with business, and for a fortnight he rose earlier, and went to bed later, than was customary to him. In the month of June, no visible alteration was observed in his appearance, and he quitted St. Petersburgh after a service had been chanted, to bring down a blessing from above on his journey. He was accompanied by the empress, his faithful coachman Ivan, and some officers belonging to the staff of General Diebitch. He stopped at Warsaw a few days, in order to celebrate the birthday of his brother, the Grand-Duke Constantine, and arrived at Tangaroff in the end of August, 1825. Both the illustrious travelers found their health benefited by the change of scene and climate. Alexander took a great liking to Tangaroff, a small town on the borders of the Sea of Azof, comprising a thousand ill-built houses, of which a sixth-part alone are of brick and stone, while the remainder resemble wooden cages covered with dirt. The streets are large, but then they have no pavement, and are alternately loaded with dust, or inundated with mud. The dust rises in clouds, which conceals alike man and beast under a thick vail, and penetrates every where the carefully closed jalousies with which the houses are guarded and covers the garments of their inhabitants. The food, the water, are loaded with it; and the last can not be drunk till previously boiled with salt of tartar, which precipitates it; a precaution absolutely necessary to free it from this disagreeable and dangerous deposit.