a display of modern elegance, what is called, in North Britain, a peat-moss, the accumulated mud having been all regularly cut and stacked up to dry, exactly like peat in the midst of a morass. Nothing but the healthiness of the situation could have justified the removal of the former commercial stations of Taganrog and Kherson to Odessa, which has no river, but lies midway between the mouths of two rivers, the Dniester and the Dnieper; while both Akkerman, near the former, and Otchakof on the latter, directly command an extensive inland navigation. The town of Kherson, on the Liman (estuary) of the Dnieper, was said to be inconvenient and unhealthy; and if so, it was right to remove the admiralty establishment to the new town of Nicolaief, at the junction of the Ingul and the Bog, where the admiral of the Black Sea has his residence, and not at Sebastopol (Aktiar), the station of the Black Sea fleet. Near the junction of the Bog with the Liman of the Dnieper, are still to be seen the ruins of the ancient town of Olbiopolis, mentioned by Herodotus, and also by Strabo, as being a great emporium of trade. It must have been a place rich in learning too, if it be true, as has been said, that, in the reign of the Emperor Trajan, the inhabitants were accustomed to read the works of Plato, and that many of them knew the Iliad by heart.

About four miles to the north of Kherson, are seen standing on the level steppe two brick pyramids and a few graves. The one pyramid is the monument of the illustrious Howard, who, after travelling over a space of fifty thousand miles, to investigate and relieve the sufferings of humanity, fell a victim, near this place, to his unremitting exertions in this benevolent cause. It was his anxious desire that this sequestered spot should receive his mortal remains, and that neither monument nor inscription, but simply a sundial, should be placed over his grave. The second pyramid is said to have been raised over the grave of a Frenchman who revered his memory, and wished to be buried by his side. That of the philanthropist, it seems, could only be distinguished by some admirer having cut into the bricks the words Vixit propter alios.' The late Emperor of Russia, however, has caused a handsome cenotaph to be erected to his memory in the vicinity of Kherson, in the form of an obelisk, of white free-stone, thirty feet high, surrounded by a wall, within which is planted a row of Lombardy poplars. On the pedestal is an inscription, in Russian characters, Howard. Died January 20th, 1790, aged sixty-five;' and, in accordance with the request of the good man, a sun-dial is represented near the summit of the obelisk.

Our travellers now crossed the deep ditch, and passed the gate which opens into the Tauridean peninsula,-the Crimea. The modern name, Perekop, signifying, in the Russian language, a

ditch or fosse, was substituted for the Tartar Orkapi, which, Dr. Henderson says, denotes the 'gate of the neck or isthmus.' The late Bishop Heber, who furnished so many valuable notes to Dr. Clarke's account of Russia, deceived by the French appearance of the word, translates Orkapi into Golden gate;' the bishop observed that the epithet 'golden' signifies royal in the eastern world; and this is true enough; but the Tartar word for gold is not, says Dr. Henderson, or, but altun. The principal town on the Crimea is Akmetchet, or the White mosque,' containing a population of eighteen thousand souls. Farther south is the town of Baghtchisarai, or the Paradisaical palace'-rather, we should say, the Palace of gardens'-the ancient residence of the Tartar Khans. Here, says Dr. Henderson,-'every thing around us inspired the mind with ideas and feelings altogether novel, and more resembling those produced by reading the airy fictions of romance, than any we had ever experienced in contemplating the objects of natural or artificial reality. The transition was nearly as great as that a person would be conscious of could he be transported in a moment from any European town, and set down in the midst of Bokhara or Sarmacand-so completely did every object wear an Asiatic appearance.'—p. 296.

With the exception of a few Greeks and Armenians, this town is wholly inhabited by Tartars and Jews, amounting together to about nine thousand souls. Dr. Henderson visited the principal of its thirty-three mosques, at the evening-service of the Tartars, of which he speaks in the following favourable terms:

"The Tartars all sat on their heels in the oriental manner, while the Mollah recited to them certain Surahs, or chapters of the Koran; and when he came to the end of a section, or where any direct reference was made to the object of worship, they bowed themselves twice, so as to touch the ground with their foreheads. During prayer they covered their faces with both hands, following the Mollah with low and solemn sighs, manifesting throughout the most profound reverence and veneration. Much has been said in defence of pompous and splendid forms of worship, and many have insisted on their absolute necessity in order to interest the vulgar; but I will venture to affirm, that all the dazzling splendour of external ceremonies, superadded to the Christian system, never produced a solemnity to be compared with that resulting from the simple adoration here exhibited in a Mohammedan mosque; every sense seemed closed against earthly objects, and a high degree of self-annihilation appeared to inspire the mind of every worshipper. How humbling the reflection, that so little real devotion, and so feeble a sense of the presence of the great Jehovah, is often to be found in assemblies professing to worship him in spirit and truth!'-Henderson, pp. 202, 203.

Our travellers had long regarded with pleasing anticipations, the opportunity of obtaining a personal interview with the Karaite Jews, who inhabit an ancient fortress, situated on the summit

of

of a steep rock, at the distance of a few miles from Baghtchisarai; it is now named Djufut-Kalé, or the Jews' Fort:

The antiquity of the sect, the reasonableness of their grounds of separation from the great body of the Jewish people, their purely oriental habits, the little intercourse that any of the learned in Europe have had with them, and the fact, long known yet but little investigated, that they possessed the books of the Old Testament in a peculiar dialect of the Tartar language: all tended to excite our curiosity, and render them the subject of Biblical and literary research.'—p. 306.

Peysonel, in his Commerce of the Black Sea,' states, that a tradition obtained among this small community of Israelites, that their ancestors inhabited the city of Bokhara, in Great Tartary, and accompanied the Tartars in their memorable expedition into Europe. No such tradition, however, has reached the present generation; they have never heard that any bond of union ever existed between their ancestors and the Bokharian Jews; nor are there now, to their knowledge, any Karaim in that part of the world. The only traditionary account among them is, that their forefathers came from Damascus, and settled where they themselves now live, about five hundred years ago, under the protection of the Khans of the Crimea. Dr. Henderson enters into a learned and critical discussion on the points of doctrine, in which they differ from other sects of the progeny of Abraham, and of their translation of the Tartar Targum, in which we shall not attempt to follow him, more especially as, in our review of Dr. Clarke's book,* the reader may find an account of this extraordinary sect, who have been not improperly styled the Protestants of Judaism,' not materially different from that given by our author; but we cannot omit his testimony to their exemplary character:

The Karaim are free from many of the superstitions to be found among the Jews in general, such as the transmigration of souls, the power of talismans, &c.; and, as might naturally be expected from their principles, the standard and tone of morals which their general deportment exhibits, is quite of a different stamp from those of the Rabbinists. In their persons they are tidy; their domestic discipline and arrangements are correct and exemplary; and their dealings with others are characterized by probity and integrity. It is one of their favourite maxims, that "Those things which a man is not willing to receive himself, it is not right for him to do to his brethren,"-a maxim literally corresponding with that which our Lord pronounces to be the sum of what the law and prophets taught as the duty of man to man.-Matt. vii. 12. How far the Karaim act up to this principle, may be ascertained by the fact, that they are universally respected by all who know them; and I never yet heard any person speak ill of them, except he

* Quarterly Review, Vol. IV.

was

was a bigoted adherent of the Talmud. In the south of Russia, where they are best known, their conduct is proverbial; and I cannot place it in a stronger light than by recording the testimony borne to it by a Polish gentleman in Dubno, who informed me that, while the other Jews resident in Lutsk are continually embroiled in suits at law, and require the utmost vigilance on the part of the police, there is not on record a single instance of prosecution against the Karaim for the space of several hundred years, during which they have been settled in that place!-Henderson, pp. 322, 323.

Leaving the Crimea, our travellers proceeded along a narrow and sandy isthmus, which separates the Palus Mæotis, or sea of Azof, on its western side, from the Putrid Lake,' called by the Tartars Tchuvash Dengiz.' The waters of the latter are stagnant, impregnated with salt, and give out a disagreeable and insalubrious smell. The narrow isthmus, which separates the two waters, is two days' journey in length, during which not a human habitation occurs, except two or three post stations. At the northern extremity of this isthmus, a deep strait connects the Palus Mæotis with the Putrid Lake. A little to the northward, and between the River Moloshnaia and the Sea of Azof, are colonies of Nogai Tartars, who, till within these few years, led a life corresponding with that of the Nomadic Scythians, as described by Herodotus, when they were spread over the steppes on the northern shores of the Mæotis. They are descendants of that great body of Asiatic Tartars which passed into the west under Gengis Khan: in the wars of the south of Russia, they had been forced across the Kuban into the regions of Caucasus, from whence, being plundered and annoyed by the warlike and predatory Circassians, they were glad to return and submit to the Russian sceptre, in the year 1791. Various attempts were made to establish villages for their accommodation, but it was not till 1808 that they could be prevailed on to discontinue that erratic mode of life to which they had always been accustomed-dwelling in tents, and moving their flocks and herds from place to place according as pasturage and water rendered change necessary. By persuasion, however, and the adoption of regulations which were in accordance with their feelings such as the appointment of Elders, and of their own Kadis or Judges-the Russian authorities so far succeeded, that, towards the end of 1812, villages began to rise on the steppe, and in a short time the whole population was brought into a settled and orderly state of society. In 1818, the number of both sexes amounted to thirty-two thousand, distributed into seventy-three villages, each of which had its own duly-elected magis

trate.

On the right bank of the Moloshnaia, or Milky River, is established

established a sect of dissenters, who have been called Russian Quakers, and who, indeed, call themselves Wrestlers with the Spirit. They exclude all external rites and ceremonies; all their knowledge is traditionary. They told our travellers, who offered them copies of the Scriptures, that they had no occasion for the gift; they had the Bible in their hearts-the light thus imparted was sufficient-they needed nothing more. A striking contrast to these conceited and repulsive sectarians was found on the opposite side of the river, in the settlements of the Mennonites, whose industrious habits, and the neatness of their villages, (amounting to thirty-three in number, and containing about eight thousand inhabitants,) made our travellers fancy almost that they were in the heart of Prussia.

'The Mennonites in this quarter are descendants of those to whom Frederick the Great granted peculiar privileges on the banks of the Vistula, in East Prussia, where they were raised, by the blessing of God on their industry, and the sobriety of their habits of life, to circumstances of prosperity and ease. Here they remained till the year 1805, when the Prussian government found it necessary to raise a powerful army against the French, and, contrary to their well-known principle of non-resistance, proceeded to enrol them among the new conscripts. On refusing to comply with the order, they were informed that there was no other alternative but to sell their property, pay ten per cent. of their capital, and leave the country. The only country to which they could flee as an asylum was Russia; and accordingly, in the above-mentioned year, disposing of all their immovable property, they quitted Germany; and taking along with them the greater part of their live stock, they arrived in these regions, where they had the most liberal grant of land, and privileges allowed them by the Russian government.'-Henderson, p. 387.

Contiguous to these worthy Mennonites were found no fewer than twenty-one colonies of other Germans, partly Protestants and partly Catholics, consisting of four hundred and eighty-six families; and there are five hundred families of emigrants from Wirtemberg, not far off, all of them apparently dwelling together in a state of the utmost harmony.

The number of immense tumuli which were scattered over this steppe led our travellers to conclude that they had before their eyes the spot which, according to Herodotus, was held sacred among the Scythians, as the place of interment for their kings. They may be about twenty feet high, and two hundred in circumference. If they be indeed the identical sepulchres, their enormous appearance still bears testimony to the barbarous rites of Paganism at that distant period of time. On the death of any of their kings, his body was instantly embalmed, and sent round to all the nations of Scythian origin, each of which, in its turn, conveyed it, in solemn

procession,