The yacht lay-to just opposite a small village at the entrance of the Black Sea, and here Domenico went on shore to get some of the necessaries always required at the last moment. Seeing some of the seaweed which we needed for our little fish, and which it was not always easy to get, he wisely brought back some with him, but in his unwise zeal was rashly putting it into the bowl when, being suddenly called, he turned hastily, and stumbled, upsetting the glass and its precious contents. The mother was put back alive, but alas! all the fragile little ones were dead. Great was our grief and vexation, and we had not even the consolation of scolding the wretched Domenico. He was so distressingly contrite and unhappy at the fatal results of his disobedience, that he left us nothing to add to the storm of reproaches that he showered upon himself. The mother sea-horse lived for about a fortnight after this sad misfortune; whether she mourned at having thus lost, at one fell swoop, all her large little family, or whether she herself had sustained some injury, we could never discover; but she dwindled and dwindled, and was found one day dead; so all we could do was to preserve her little remains in spirits of wine. We had given a great many of the young ones to Prince L----, who wished to take them to St. Petersburg with him, but they did not survive many days, and their little dried bodies alone reached their destination. A favourable breeze soon carried us within sight of the coast of the Crimea. The air was balmy, the sea was bright, though it had no longer the intense blueness that is so characteristic of the Bosphorus and the Mediterranean; the atmosphere, also, had a certain mistiness about it more akin to northern regions. We were not very far from the land, and could see that the country was flat and barren. In the far distance we could trace the faint outlines of a range of hills. CHAPTER VII. EUPATORIA. We coasted on, the shore becoming lower and lower, until at length nothing was to be seen but an arid, sandy plain stretching away for miles. Not a tree or house broke its dull uniformity. In the midst of this gloomy desert is Eupatoria. It would be difficult to find a more wretched-looking little place. The town consists of a tumble-down mosque, a couple of Christian churches, a caravanserai for strangers, and a few low miserable houses. There is also a small wooden landing-place, and a few huts, like sentry-boxes, scattered along the shore. These huts, however, make the fortune, such as it is, of Eupatoria. They are the famous mud baths well known in the Crimea, and during the summer are resorted to, from all parts of Southern Russia, by persons afflicted with skin diseases.