or CRIM TARTARY, anciently the Chersonesus Tauricus, a peninsula situated directly to the south of St Petersburg, between the 44th and 46th degrees of north latitude, and in 34 degrees of east longitude. Its southern and western coasts are on the Euxine; its northern and eastern on the Patrid Sea and the Sea of Azof. It is joined to the continent on the north by a small neck of land not more than six miles in breadth. This peninsula has been known for more than three thousand years, since the first naval expedition of the Argonauts; a story which, though mixed with fable, is yet well founded in its principal facts. The mountainous parts were inhabited by the Tauri, probably a colony of Scythians; while its coasts on the west, the east, and the south, were occupied by Greeks. The Scythians were driven out by Mithridates; the Greeks by the Sarmatians; and these again by the Alanis and Goths, a northern horde of Scythians. The Hungarians, the Cossacks, and Tartars, succeeded in their turn; and the Genoese, in the twelfth century, held a temporary and precarious possession of the sea-ports, which they were obliged to yield to the Turks in 1475. At the peace of 1774, the Tartars of the Crimea were declared independent; and in 1783, this peninsula was definitively united to the Russian empire.

From the isthmus, on which is built the fortress of Orkapo or Perecop, to the first elevation of the hill at Karasubazar, the country is one continued flat; then it rises by an easy gradation to the summit of the hill, which forms the southern side of the peninsula and the shore of the Euxine Sea. The surface of the soil is almost all of one kind, namely, a reddish-gray loam; on digging, it is found more or less mixed with a black earth, and the hills abound with marl. The whole flat country from Perecop to the river Salgir, an extent of about eighty miles, is full of saline marshes and lakes, whence the neighbouring Russian governments, as well as the Crimea itself, Anatolia, and Bessarabia, are supplied with salt. The most remarkable of these lakes are five in number: Koslof and Caffa, both very large, and so called after the towns near which they lie; the Tusla, about fifteen versts from Perecop, on the road from Caffa; the Red Lake, not far from that last mentioned; and the Black Lake. Besides these, there are many other swamps and lakes, whence the inhabitants obtain salt for their own consumption.

The greater part of the peninsula is so level that a man may travel over the half of it without meeting with a river, or even the smallest brook; the inhabitants of the villages, therefore, make a pit in the yard of every house, for receiving and containing the rain water. The whole tract is destitute of every kind of tree. Not a bush or a bramble is to be seen, and the herbage is extremely scanty. This, however, does not proceed so much from the unfruitfulness of the soil, as from the vast herds of cattle which rove from place to place during the whole year, by which means the grass in spring, summer, or autumn, no sooner appears through the long drought which succeeds the rainy season, than it is immediately devoured or trodden down. The universal prevalence of this custom of keeping cattle to wander up and down, joined to the slothfulness of the Tartars, together with their inaptitude and aversion to agriculture, is the reason of the total neglect of cultivation in the Crimea. Were the land divided into portions and properly managed, there would be a sufficiency for the cattle, and the rest would be fruitful in corn and grain.

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Biographia Britannica, vol. iv. p. 465.

"C'est fait," says Bayle, "l'un des plus extraordinaires prodiges d'esprit qu'on ait jamais vus." (Dictionnaire Historique et Critique, tom. i. p. 941.) This is scarcely exceeded by the panegyric of Imperiali: "Hic est Cato, ille Scotus, transitus diuodum seculi monstrum, orbis naturae opificis consuet editum, quo Parnassi spatia stupendo et insatis spectaculo illustrantur. Hic est totius adunco orbis judicio Phoenix habitus ingeniorum, divinis mentis ignitis summum potius datores referens nujestatem; quam mortalem ad sanctimonialia lacessere induantur." (Museum Historicum, p. 241.)

* The verst, a Russian measure of length, is equal to 3520 English feet; consequently three versts are equal to two English miles. This peninsula is indeed but a little district, yet from the many advantages conferred upon it by nature it may be considered as peculiarly rich. It is divided into the hill country and the flat. The latter, which extends from Perecop to Koslof and the river Bulganap, to Karasubasar, Caffa, and Yenicali, is diversified here and there with little Tartar villages, maintained by cattle and the produce of the salt lakes. The highlands or hill country forms the southern part of the Crimea, along the straight coast of the Black Sea, and stretching westward in a right line from Caffa to the vicinity of Belbek. These hills are composed of layers of chalk, which, in the headlands and promontories, are soft, but more inland quite hard. The strata of the high hills are like those of the promontories, and take a direction from north to south. These qualities of the strata prevail not throughout the whole hills, but only in the large and lofty ones; such as the two which rise near Karasubasar, and a very high one near Akmetchet, which bears the name of Aktau. The other smaller hills lie scattered and dispersed, but take the names of the greater ones, to which they seem to belong, and are called Palhans.

Nature has favoured these highland countries with great advantages, and blessed them with abundance of all things. A number of springs which flow from the mountains form the two considerable rivers Salgir and Karasu, which run into the Patrid Sea. The former, which takes its rise from a cavern in a high hill near Akmetchet, falls straight into the plain below, and waters a great part of the Crimea; the other, commencing behind Karasubasar, falls likewise into the plain, and mingles with the Salgir. There are many other little rivers and streams which run eastward, and either join the two above mentioned or fall immediately into the Patrid Sea. All the streams which begin at Caffa flow to the north or the north-east, excepting the one behind Akmetchet, which falls on the other side. This river, rising on the northern side of the mountain, flows, as was before observed, towards the northeast, to the Salgir and the Patrid Sea; and those which spring on the western side also take their course westward to the Bulganak, and thence straight to the Black Sea, which receives all the other little rivers which rise from these hills, as the Amma, the Katscha, the Belbek, the Kasulkiöi, and some others.

The mountains are covered with wood fit for the purpose of ship-building, and abound in wild beasts. The valleys consist of fine arable land; whilst on the sides of the hills grow corn and vines in great abundance, and the earth is rich in mines. But the mountaineers are as careless and negligent as the inhabitants of the deserts; they slight all the advantages we have mentioned, and, like their brethren of the lowlands, think themselves sufficiently happy if they are in possession of a fat sheep and a small portion of bread.

The houses in the towns as well as the villages are for the most part built of square timbers, having the interstices filled with brick work, if the possessor can afford it, and those of the poorer sort with turf. The chinks and crannies are made tight with clay, and then plastered both within and without. The covering commonly consists either of bricks or of turfs. Only the medscheds, minarets, and baths are of stone, and a few, extremely handsome, of marble. They have chimneys in the chambers, at which they likewise dress their victuals, but no stoves in the Russian manner. In extreme frosts a great iron pan of charcoal is brought into the room. Their custom is to sit upon low sofas, with Turkish coverings and cushions, or upon a clay seat, somewhat raised above the ground and covered with a carpet. In these rooms are cupboards and chests, often covered with cushions to serve as seats, and in these they keep their gold, silver, and valuables. Such are the inner apartments or harams in which the women generally live; the others are not so fine, and contain only a sofa, or a bank of clay covered with a carpet, as in the chimney rooms.

The rich Tartars, and their nobility or murzas, commonly reside all the year round in the country, coming only to town when they have business there. There are but few towns in the Crimea, at least in comparison of its former population. The Krimskoi Tartars have no tribunals of justice, controversies and quarrels being seldom heard of amongst them; and, if a dispute should arise, it is immediately settled by an appeal to the Koran. Little differences which occur in the villages about property, or other matters not taken notice of in that code, are amicably adjusted by the eldersmen and abeses; but in the towns all weighty concerns, excepting the single case of murder or homicide, are brought before the kaimakan, or commandant, who settles them absolutely without appeal.

The residence of the khans of the Crimea was formerly Baktchi-serai, in which city they held their seat for upwards of two centuries. They went thither from Eski-Crim, or Old Crim, the capital city of the Genoese, upon Bengli Ghirei Khan's plundering the sea-ports, and expelling all the Genoese from their stations. Before Eski-Crim became the capital, and indeed upon the Tartars first coming into this peninsula, the sovereign residence was at Koslof; but here it did not long continue. Under the khan Shagin Ghirei it was held at Caffa, the ancient Theodosia, which is ten miles distant from Eski-Crim, said to be the Cimmerium of the ancients.

The principal cities or towns of the Crimea shall now be enumerated. Perecop is a fortified place, consisting only of three houses. The suburbs are three versts or two English miles distant, peopled by a thousand individuals, who carry on a trade in salt; but they are very ill built. The towns are chiefly situated in the district watered by the Salgir. That part of the country in which Akmetchet, or the capital, stands, is unfruitful, and ill provided with water, and the inhabitants are exposed to endemic fevers. This town has been called Sympheropol by the Russians, since they became masters of the peninsula; but it is only known in the country by the name which it received from the Tartars. The population is not less than 20,000 souls. The inhabitants are indolent, and the place is without commerce. The distance from Akmetchet to Baktchi-serai is not more than thirty versts, or twenty English miles. It was once the residence of the khan, and the Tartar capital of the Crimean. It is built on the craggy side of a large natural moat or ravine between two mountains, and surrounded with fountains, streams, terraces, hanging vineyards, and groves of black poplars near rocks and precipices. The vast palace of the khans still remains, but many other edifices have been destroyed by the victorious Russians. The number of inhabitants is now reduced to seven or eight thousand; their principal trade consists in cutlery and morocco leather. Tchurut-Kali, an ancient fortress erected by the Genoese on a lofty precipice, is not more than five versts from the last-mentioned town. It is now a place of refuge for 1200 Jews, of the sect Karait. The character of the Karaites is very different from that of their brethren in other countries; they live without reproach, their honesty is proverbial in the Crimea, and the word of a Karait is to be as good as another man's bond. They still adhere to the law of Moses; they have rejected the Talmud, every Rabbinical doctrine, and all interpolations of scriptural texts. Koslof, which was for a short time distinguished by the name of Eupatoria, is situated on the western coast; its port is the most commercial of any in the peninsula, and its population amounts to 12,000 inhabitants. many of whom are brewers of bouza, the Mussulman ale, which is drunk on the banks of the Sennar. Akhtiar or Sebastopol, a large naval arsenal, and a temporary station of the Russian Black Sea fleet, from which it can sail in twenty-four hours to the Bosphorus, is built on the southern extremity of the same coast. This was one of the chief mercantile towns of the ancient kingdom of Colchis: it now contains about 3000 inhabitants. The harbour is excellent: the principal bay, which runs up between four and five miles into the land, is from six to eight hundred fathoms in width, and from ten to eleven fathoms deep, is perfectly sheltered, and without a single shoal. After having doubled the capes of the Chersonesus and St George, the voyager observes the narrow entrance of the port Balaklava, where two thousand Greeks gain a subsistence by trade and the produce of their mackerel fisheries. All the rocky and steep coast from Cape Aia to Cape Altodoro is probably the front of the ram, or the Criou-Metopon, of the ancients. Travelers remark at the base of the mountains, or the Byzantine Klimata, the romantic towns of Nikita, Aloutcheti, Sudak, with its small harbour, and Iounrof, with a castle belonging to the governors of Taurida. Caffa or the ancient Theodosia is situated at the extremity of the mountains on the bay of Caffa. It covers the southern side of the gulf; and rises like a vast theatre of mosques and minarets near the hills which inclose that part of the bay. It merited and obtained in past times the appellation of the Lesser Constantinople. It contained 36,000 houses within its walls, and not fewer than 8000 in the suburbs. It must be confessed, however, that the ruins do not indicate a space proportionate to so great a number. Mahommed II., having made himself master of the Bosphorus, took the town in 1475. It continued to flourish under the Tartars; but its inhabitants, like those throughout the Crimea, abandoned their possessions at the approach of the Russians, and the Genoese and Tartar monuments were destroyed by the barbarous troops of the czar. The present population is less than 400. Kerstsh, once the residence of Mithridates, and the capital of the Bosphorin kings, and Yenikali, a small fortress which commands the strait, are situated on the eastern peninsula. Near the former is the tomb of Mithridates; and a magnificent sarcophagus at Yenikali is now converted into a reservoir. The Atyn Obo, or highest hill in that part of the Crimea, is about four versts distant from Kerstsh.

The neck of land which joins the peninsula with the continent is at least six miles broad, and is intersected by a wide and deep ditch lined with stone, which reaches from the Black Sea to the Patrid Sea. This was formerly kept without water, but it is now filled from both seas. On the Crimean side a high wall of earth runs across from one sea to the other. The people pass over the ditch by means of a drawbridge, and through the wall by a gateway. The walls of the fortress are some fathoms from the road side, but the ruins are only now discernible, namely, large brick houses, with a number of bomb-shells and cannon-balls lying about them, which were formerly kept in the fortress. About two miles from this is a pretty populous but miserable place, being probably the town to which this fort belonged. Near the gate is a custom-house, where all imports and exports pay duty.

The Crimea was heretofore divided into twenty-four kadaliks or districts, namely, Yenikali, Kerstsh, Arabat, Eski-Crim, Caffa, Karnsubasar, Sudak, Akmetchet, Yalof, Baktchi-serai, Balaklava, Mangup, Inkerman, Koslof, Or, Mansur, Turkan, Sivasch, Tischongar, Sarubulat, Barun, Argun, Sidschugut, and Schirin. Several of these districts are named after the town or village in which the governor resides.