Travels in the Steppes of the Caspian Sea, the Crimea, the Caucasus Part 36

[75] Formerly French Consul at Theodosia; deprived of his place for his opinions upon the return of the Bourbons, and now filling the humble functions of Neapolitan consular agent. He is the author of a valuable work on the political revolutions of the Crimea.

CHAPTER XLI.

POLITICAL AND COMMERCIAL REVOLUTIONS OF THE CRIMEA.

EXTENT AND CHARACTER OF SURFACE--MILESIAN AND HERACLEAN COLONIES--KINGDOM OF THE BOSPHORUS--EXPORT AND IMPORT TRADE IN THE TIMES OF THE GREEK REPUBLICS--MITHRIDATES--THE KINGDOM OF THE BOSPHORUS UNDER THE ROMANS--THE ALANS AND GOTHS--SITUATION OF THE REPUBLIC OF KHERSON--THE HUNS; DESTRUCTION OF THE KINGDOM OF THE BOSPHORUS--THE KHERSONITES PUT THEMSELVES UNDER THE PROTECTION OF THE BYZANTINE EMPIRE --DOMINION OF THE KHAZARS--THE PETCHENEGUES AND KOMANS--THE KINGDOM OF LITTLE TATARY--RISE AND FALL OF THE GENOESE COLONIES--THE CRIMEA UNDER THE TATARS--ITS CONQUEST BY THE RUSSIANS.

The Crimea comprises a surface of about 1100 square geographic leagues, divided into two distinct regions. The first of these is mountainous, and forms a strip of about ninety-five English miles in length along the southern coast, with a mean breadth of from twelve to sixteen miles; the second, the region of the plains, presents all the characters of the steppes of Southern Russia, and extends northward to the isthmus of Perecop, which connects the peninsula with the continent. The Crimea now forms part of the government called the Taurid, the territory of which extends beyond Perecop, between the Dniepr and the Sea of Azof, to the 47th degree of lat.i.tude. Simpheropol is its chief town.

In order to give a clear conception of the political and commercial importance of the Crimea, which, by its almost central position in the Black Sea, commands at once the coasts of Asia, the mouths of the Danube, and the entrance to the Constantinopolitan Bosphorus, it is indispensable to present a rapid sketch of the numerous revolutions which the march of time and the invasions of peoples have effected in that important peninsula. It was in the middle of the seventh century before Christ, that the Milesians made their appearance on the northern sh.o.r.es of the Euxine. The eastern part of the Tauris, an open country and easy of occupation, having attracted their attention, they founded their first colonies there, possessing themselves at the same time of all the little region which we now call the peninsula of Kertch. The agricultural prosperity which they soon attained, was quickly known in Greece, whence it occasioned fresh and important emigrations. Theodosia, Nymphea, Panticapea, and Mermikion, were erected on the sh.o.r.e of the little peninsula, and served as seaports for the thriving colonists.

The success of the Milesians stimulated the Heracleans to follow their example. They chose the most western part of the country, landed not far from the celebrated Cape Perthenica, and after having beaten the savage natives and driven them back into the mountains, they settled in the little peninsula of Trachea, known in our day by the name of the ancient Khersonesus. Thus were laid the foundations of the celebrated republic of Kherson, which subsisted, great and prosperous, for more than 1500 years, and the capital of which having become the temporary conquest of a Grand Duke of Russia, in the tenth century, was the starting point of that great religious revolution which completely changed the face and the destinies of the Muscovite empire.

Whilst the Heracleans were consolidating their power by improving their trade, the Milesian settlements on the Bosphorus were growing up with magic rapidity, and were spreading even beyond the strait to the Asiatic coast, where the towns of Phanagoria, Hermona.s.sa, and Kepos were founded. At first all these Milesian colonies were independent of each other, but at last they became united into the kingdom of the Bosphorus, B.C. 480.

As agriculture formed the basis of the public wealth of the Milesians, it became the object of the new government's peculiar attention. On his accession to the throne, Leucon relieved the Athenians of the thirtieth imposed on exported corn, in consequence of which liberal measure those exports increased prodigiously; the Cimmerian peninsula became the granary of Greece, and merchants flocked to Theodosia and Panticapea, where they procured at the same time wool, furs, and all those salted provisions, which still const.i.tute one of the chief riches of Southern Russia. As for the import trade, of which history says little, it is easy to conceive the nature of its operations from the important archeological discoveries of Panticapea.

The Bosphorians undoubtedly received in exchange for their produce, all the manufactured goods which wealth and luxury had brought into vogue in Athens, and it was probably Greek artists who executed all those magnificent objects of art which are contained in the museum of Kertch, and which prove that the agricultural colonists of the Tauris did not fall short of the opulence of their brilliant mother city. Building materials seem to have formed an important item of importation. There is no trace of white marble either in the Crimea or on the northern coasts of the Black Sea; nevertheless, large quant.i.ties have been found in the excavations made at Kertch, and there is every reason to presume that the huge ma.s.ses of cut marble employed in the public and private buildings, were imported ready wrought from Greece.

Despite the dangerous vicinity of the Sarmatians, the kingdom of the Bosphorus enjoyed perfect tranquillity for above three hundred years, and through a steady and rational policy increased in prosperity and riches, until the conquest of Greece by the Romans subverted all the commercial relations of the East. At that period the Bosphorians, attacked by the Scythians, and too weak to resist them, threw themselves into the arms of the celebrated Mithridates, who turned their state into a province of the Pontus, and bestowed it as an appanage on his son Makhares.

After the defeat and death of her implacable enemy, Rome maintained the traitor Pharnaces in possession of the crown of the Bosphorus; but the new prince's sovereignty was merely nominal, and the successors of the son of Mithridates, powerless and despoiled of all the Milesians had possessed on the Asiatic sh.o.r.e of the strait, reigned only in accordance with the caprice of the Roman emperors.

About the middle of the first century after Christ, the Alans entered the Tauris, devastated the greater part of the country, and entirely destroyed Theodosia, which had offered them some resistance. They were followed by the Goths, who in their turns became masters of the peninsula. But far from abusing their victory, they blended their race with that of the vanquished, founded numerous colonies on the vast plains north of the mountainous region, and followed their natural bent for a sedentary life and rural occupations. The Tauric Khersonese now entered on a fresh period of tranquillity and agricultural prosperity.

Unfortunately, Greece was at this period rapidly declining under the Roman yoke; Rome having become the capital of the whole world, Egypt, Sicily, and Africa had naturally acquired to themselves the monopoly of the supply of corn; so that with all its efforts the Tauris could not emerge from the depression into which it had been plunged by the political events of the first Christian century.

The remote and inaccessible position of the little republic of Kherson, preserved its independence during all these early barbarian invasions.

In Diocletian's time, the Khersonites, whose dominions extended over nearly the whole of the elevated country, had concentrated in their own hands almost all the commerce that still existed between the Tauris and some parts of the sh.o.r.es of the Black Sea.[76] Their republic was the most powerful state of the peninsula, when war broke out between them and the Sarmatians, who had already seized the kingdom of the Bosphorus, and given it a king of their own nation. The struggle between the two rival nations lasted nearly a century, and the Sarmatians having been at last expelled, the Bosphorians again enjoyed some years of freedom and quiet. But the peace was not of long duration. The unfortunate peninsula was soon visited by the most violent tempest that had yet desolated it.

The Huns, from the heart of Asia, came down to the Asiatic side of the strait, and soon the terrified Bosphorians beheld those furious hordes traversing the Sea of Azof, which had for a while arrested their progress. The ancient kingdom of the Milesians was then extinguished for ever. (A.D. 375.) The numerous colonies of united Goths and Alans shared the same fate, and all the rich agricultural establishments of the country were reduced to ashes. Still protected by their isolated position, the Khersonites alone escaped the devastation, in consequence of the rapidity with which the torrent of the invaders rushed forth towards the western regions of Europe.

The Tauris was still suffering under the effects of the frightful disasters inflicted on it by the Huns, when it was again ravaged by their disbanded hordes, after the death of Attila. The Khersonites were now in jeopardy, and in their alarm, they sought the protection of the Eastern Empire. Justinian, who then reigned at Constantinople, acceded to their request, but he made them pay dear for the imperial protection.

Under pretence of providing for the defence of the country, he erected the two strong fortresses of Alouchta and Gourzoubita, on the southern coast, and the republic of Kherson became tributary to the empire.

In the latter part of the seventh century (A.D. 679) the Tauris was invaded by the Khazars, hordes that having accompanied the Huns, had settled in Bersilia (Lithuania), and had been formed into an independent kingdom by Attila himself. The apparition of these new conquerors, already masters of a vast territory, made such a sensation at Constantinople, that their alliance was courted by the sovereigns of the East, and the Emperor Leo even asked for his son the hand of the daughter of the kalgan, or chief of the nation. The forebodings of the imperial government were soon realised, for in the short s.p.a.ce of 150 years the Khazars, who had given their own name to the peninsula, founded a vast monarchy, the limits of which extended in Europe beyond the Danube, and in Asia to the foot of the Caucasus.

After the Khazars, whose fall was caused chiefly by the attacks of the Russians, and who thenceforth disappeared entirely from the records of history, the victorious Petchenegues ruled over the whole land except the southern territory of Kherson, which was incorporated with the Empire of the East. Under the sway of this other Asiatic people, the trade and commerce of the peninsula revived, its intercourse with Constantinople resumed activity, and the Tauric ports supplied the merchants of the Lower Empire with purple, fine stuffs, embroidered cloths, ermines, leopard skins, furs of all kinds, pepper, and spices, which the Petchenegues purchased in Eastern Russia, south of the Kouban, and in the Transcaucasian regions that extend to the banks of the Cyrus and the Araxes. Thus began again for this unfortunate country a new era of prosperity, unexampled for many previous centuries.

The dominion of the Petchenegues lasted 150 years, and then they themselves endured the fate they had inflicted on the Khazars. a.s.sailed by the Comans, whom the growth of the Mongol power had expelled from their own territory, they were beaten and forced to return into Asia.

The Comans, a warlike people, made Soldaya their capital; but they had scarcely consolidated their power when they were obliged to give place to other conquerors, and seek an abode in regions further west. With the expulsion of the Comans ceased all those transient invasions which dyed the soil of the Tauris with blood during ten centuries. The various hordes that have left nothing but their name in history, were succeeded by two remarkable peoples: the one, victorious over Asia, had just founded the most gigantic empire of the middle ages; the other, issuing from a trading city of Italy, was destined to make Khazaria the nucleus of all the commercial relations between Europe and Asia.

With the Mongol invasion of 1226, the empire of the tzars entered on that fatal period of servitude and oppression which has left such pernicious traces in the national character of the Muscovites. Russia, Poland, and Hungary, were successively overrun by the hordes of the celebrated grandson of Genghis Khan; Khazaria was added to their enormous conquests, and became, under the name of Little Tatary, the cradle of a potent state, which maintained its independence down to the end of the eighteenth century. Under the yoke of the Mongols the Tauris, after being oppressed at first, soon recovered; Soldaya was restored to the Christians, and soon proved that the resources of the country were not exhausted, and that nothing but peace and quiet were wanted to develop the elements of wealth with which nature had so liberally endowed it. In a few years Soldaya became the most important port of the Black Sea, and one of the great termini of the commercial lines between Europe and Asia.

The greatness of Soldaya was, however, of short duration: another people, more active, and endowed with a bolder spirit of mercantile enterprise than the Greeks, came forward about the same period, and concentrated in its own hands the whole heritage of the great epochs that had successively shed l.u.s.tre on the peninsula from the day when the Milesians founded their first colonies on the Cimmerian Bosphorus. Being already possessed of important factories in Constantinople, the Genoese had long been aware of the circ.u.mstances of the Black Sea, and the immense resources it would place at the disposal of enterprising men who should there centralise for their own profit all the commercial relations of Europe with Russia, Persia, and the Indies. The rivalry which then existed between them and the Venetians, accelerated the execution of their projects, and in 1820, after having secured the territory of the ancient Theodosia, partly by fraud, partly by force, they laid the foundation of the celebrated Caffa, through which they became sure masters of the Black Sea, and sole proprietors of its commerce. With the arrival of the Genoese the Tauris saw the most brilliant epochs of its history revived. Caffa became by its greatness, its population, and its opulence, in some degree the rival of Constantinople, and its consuls, possessing themselves of Cerco, Soldaya, and Cembalo, made themselves masters of all the southern coast of the Crimea. Other equally profitable conquests were subsequently made beyond the peninsula. The galleys of the republic entered the Palus Maeotis; Tana, on the mouth of the Don, was wrested from the Tatars; a fortress was erected at the mouth of the Dniestr; several factories were established in Colchis, and on the Caucasian coast, and even the imperial town of Trebisond was forced to admit one of the most important factories of the republic on the Black Sea. The Genoese colonies thus became the general emporium of the rich productions of Russia, Asia Minor, Persia, and the Indies; they monopolised for more than two centuries all the traffic between Europe and Asia, and presented a marvellous spectacle of thriving greatness. All this glory had an end.

Mahomet's standard was planted over the dome of St. Sophia in 1453, and the intercourse of the Crimea with the Mediterranean was broken off. The destruction of the Genoese settlements was then inevitable; and the republic, despairing of their preservation, a.s.signed them over to the bank of St. George, on the 15th of November, 1453. The consequences of this cession which put an end to the political connexion of the colonies with the mother state, were of course disastrous. Despair and loss of public spirit fell upon the colonists, individual selfishness predominated in all their councils, and the consular government, before remarkable for its integrity and its virtues, instead of uniting with the Tatars, and rendering its own position with regard to the Porte less perilous, completely disgusted them by a total want of honesty, and by selling its aid for gold to all the parties that were desolating the Crimea. So many faults were followed by the natural catastrophe. Caffa was forced to surrender at discretion to the Turks on the 6th of June, 1473, and some months afterwards all the points occupied by the Genoese fell one by one into the hands of the Ottomans.

After the disaster of the Genoese colonies, the great lines of communication of the trans-Caucasian regions, the Caspian, the Volga, the Don, and the Kouban, were broken, having lost their feeders, and all the commercial relations with Central Asia were for a while suspended.

The Venetians, who had obtained from the Turks the right of navigating the Black Sea, in consideration of a yearly tribute of 10,000 ducats, strove in vain to take the place their rivals had lost; they were expelled in their turn from the Black Sea, the Dardanelles were closed against all the nations of the West, and the Turks and their subjects, the Greeks of the Archipelago, alone possessed the privilege of pa.s.sing through the strait. In our remarks on the Caspian we have already pointed out the new outlets which the Eastern trade procured for itself by way of Smyrna, and the great revolution which followed Vasco de Gama's discovery.

Under the reign of the first khans, who were tributary to the Porte, the Crimea lost all its commercial and agricultural importance. Continual wars, and incessant revolts, sometimes favoured, sometimes punished by the Porte, added to the still deeply-rooted habits of a nomade and vagabond existence, for many years precluded the regeneration of the country. But a rich fertile soil, and a country abundantly provided with all the resources necessary to man, triumphed over the natural indolence of the Tatars, just as they had done before by the savage hordes that successively invaded the Tauris. The hill sides and valleys became covered with villages, and all branches of native industry increased rapidly with the internal tranquillity of the country. The corn, cattle, timber, resins, fish, and salt of Little Tatary furnished freights for a mult.i.tude of vessels. The commerce of Central Asia, it is true, was lost for it beyond recovery, but the exportation of its native produce and of that which Russia sent to it by the Don and the Sea of Azof, was more than sufficient to keep its people in a very thriving, if not an opulent condition. Caffa shared in the general improvement; it rose again from its ruins, became the commercial centre of the country, as in the time of the Genoese, and its advancement was such, that the Turks bestowed on it the flattering name of Koutchouk Stamboul (Little Constantinople).

The dominion of the khans extended at this period, in Europe and Asia, from the banks of the Danube to the foot of the mountains of the Caucasus, and the indomitable mountaineers of Circa.s.sia themselves often did homage to the sovereigns of the Tauris. The Mussulman population was divided in those days into two great cla.s.ses: the descendants of the first conquerors, known by the special designation of Tatars; and the Nogais, nomade tribes who, subsequently to the conquest, had come and put themselves under the protection of the ill.u.s.trious Batou khan. The former, mixed up with the remains of the ancient possessors, formed the civilised part of the nation. Possessing the mountainous regions, and residing in towns and villages, they were both agriculturists and manufacturers; whilst the Nogais, who lived in a manner independently in Southern Russia, applied themselves solely to cattle rearing. They were at that time divided into five princ.i.p.al hordes: the Boudjiak occupied the plains of Bessarabia from the mouths of the Danube to the Dniestr; the Yedisan, the largest, which could bring into the field 80,000 hors.e.m.e.n, encamped between the Dniestr and the Dniepr; the Djamboiluk and Jed.i.c.khoul, the remnants of which still inhabit the territory of their ancestors, extended from the banks of the Dniepr to the western coasts of the Sea of Azof; lastly, the tribes of the Kouban, nomadised in the steppes between that river and the Don, which now form the domain of the Black Sea Cossacks. All these tribes collectively could, in case of urgent necessity, bring into the field upwards of 400,000 men. Such was the political condition of Little Tatary, when the Russian conquest of the provinces of the Sea of Azof and the Black Sea destroyed all the fruits of the great social revolution which had been effected in the habits of the Mussulmans by the new development of trade and commerce.

The first Muscovite invasion took place in 1736. A hundred thousand men, commanded by Field-marshal Munich forced the Isthmus of Perecop, entered the peninsula, and laid waste the whole country, up to the northern slope of the Tauric chain. The peace of Belgrade put an end to this first inroad, but the political existence of Little Tatary was, nevertheless, violently shaken; and from that time forth the khans were kept in continual perplexity by the secret or armed interventions of Russia, their subjects were stimulated to revolt, and they themselves were but puppets moved by the court of St. Petersburg.

In 1783, Sahem Guerai abdicated in favour of the Empress Catherine II., and the kingdom of the Tatars, exhausted by extensive emigrations and b.l.o.o.d.y insurrections, finally ceased to exist; and then perished rapidly the last elements of the prosperity of a land that had been so often ravaged, and had always emerged victoriously from its disasters.

Previously to this period, in 1778, the irresistible command of Russia had determined the emigration of all the Greek and Armenian families of the peninsula, and an agricultural and trading population had been seen to quit, voluntarily as Russia pretends, fertile regions, and a favouring climate, to settle in the savage steppes of the Don and the Sea of Azof. About the same period, and under the same influence, began the emigration of the Tatars and Nogais, some of whom retired into Turkey, others joined the mountaineers of the Caucasus. The Russian occupation accelerated this disastrous movement, and on the day when the tzars extended their frontiers to the banks of the Dniestr, the celebrated horde of Yedisan disappeared entirely from the soil of the empire. The Tatars of the region between the Dniepr and the Sea of Azof did not emigrate in such numbers as the others, for the imperial government had hemmed them in, even previously to the conquest, by formidable military lines on the east and on the west. The heaviest calamities fell, of course, on the peninsula, which was covered with fixed settlements, and was the centre of the Tatar civilisation and power, and there the scenes of carnage and devastation which had marked the irruption of the barbarians from Asia were renewed in all their horrors. The peninsula lost at least nine-tenths of its population; its towns were given up to pillage, its fields laid waste; and in the s.p.a.ce of a few months that region which had been still so nouris.h.i.+ng under its last khan, exhibited but one vast spectacle of oppression, misery, and devastation.

Since that period there have elapsed sixty years, during which the Russian domination has never had any resistance to encounter or revolt to quell; and yet, notwithstanding the opening of the Dardanelles, the Tauris has been unable, to this day, to rise from the deep depression into which it was sunk by the political events of the close of the eighteenth century. It is true, no doubt, that very handsome villas have been erected on the southern coast, and that luxurious opulence has made that region its chosen seat; but the vital and productive forces of the peninsula have been smothered, its trade and agriculture have been destroyed; and that bootless quietude in which the dwindled population of the Tatars now vegetates, results, in fact, only from the destruction of all material resources, and the extinction of all moral and intellectual energy which have come to pa.s.s under the sway of the Russian administration.

FOOTNOTES:

[76] Const. Porph. de adm. Imp., c. xiii.

CHAPTER XLII.

COMMERCIAL POLITY OF RUSSIA IN THE CRIMEA--CAFFA SACRIFICED IN FAVOUR OF KERTCH--THESE TWO PORTS COMPARED--THE QUARANTINE AT THE ENTRANCE OF THE SEA OF AZOF, AND ITS CONSEQUENCES--COMMERCE OF KERTCH--VINEYARDS OF THE CRIMEA; THE VALLEY OF SOUDAK--AGRICULTURE--CATTLE--HORTICULTURE-- MANUFACTURES; MOROCCO LEATHER--DESTRUCTION OF THE GOATS-- DECAY OF THE FORESTS--SALT WORKS--GENERAL TABLE OF THE COMMERCE OF THE CRIMEA--PROSPECTS OF THE TATAR POPULATION.

When the Russian authority was fully established in the Crimea, and the inevitable disasters attending the occupation of a country by Muscovite troops had subsided, the imperial government seemed for a while disposed to rekindle the embers of the peninsular prosperity. The Emperor Alexander was personally acquainted with the intrinsic value of the country, and manifested the best and most earnest intentions in its favour; but unfortunately he could not overcome the inveterate habits of the Russian functionaries, and their utter indifference to the true interests of the empire. Half measures, therefore, were all that was effected; custom-houses and quarantines were established, Caffa exchanged its name for that of the Milesian colony, German villages were founded,[77] large grants of land were made to Russians and strangers, vines were planted, and the cultivation of the olive was attempted; but all capital questions were overlooked or misconceived; no thought was given to the matter of markets or to commercial relations; and the government persisting in its prohibitive system, a.s.similated the Crimea to the other provinces, in spite of strong remonstrances, and repudiated all thoughts of mercantile freedom, the only means by which it could have given new life to the Crimea, and created an active and industrious population in the place of the Tatar tribes, of whom war and emigration had deprived the country.

But in lieu of such privileges Caffa was from the first endowed with a tribunal of commerce, a quarantine, and a custom-house of the first cla.s.s; and if it could not recover its old greatness under the new domination, it might at least have expected to become one of the chief places of export and import in southern Russia, within the bounds prescribed by the exigencies of the customs. Situated at the extremity of the Tauric chain, not far from the Cimmerian Bosphorus, possessing the only trading port open to vessels in all seasons, in easy communication with rich and productive regions, this town possessed every possible claim to the peculiar attention of the Russian government. But the hopes which had been at first conceived, were entirely disappointed, and the unfortunate Theodosia was positively devoted to abandonment and destruction.

It is not easy to determine the real motives for which the old Genoese city was abandoned in favour of its rival on the Cimmerian Bosphorus.

The ostensible reasons were sanatory measures, the necessity of having a general quarantine at the entrance of the Sea of Azof, encouragement of coasters and lighters, and the utility of a vast emporium opened to the productions of all Russia. We believe, however, that all these arguments were in reality of very secondary weight, and that the downfall of Theodosia is to be ascribed to nothing else than an absurd vanity. To resuscitate the ancient name of _Odessus_; to found a town called _Ovidiopol_ in a country where Ovid never resided; to lead our geographers into error by giving the name of _Tiraspol_ to a mean village on the Dniestr, in the front of Bender; to subst.i.tute the name of _Theodosia_ for that of Caffa; all these innovations might have pleased certain archaeologists, but how was it possible to resist the thought of rebuilding the celebrated capital of the kingdom of the Bosphorus? How irresistible the temptation to raise a new and great city at the foot of Mithridates' rock! The memory of the Milesians had, therefore, to fade before that of the ill.u.s.trious sovereign of Pontus; Theodosia was despoiled of its privileges and its revenues, its tribunal of commerce was transferred to Kertch, and double arbour dues were imposed on vessels touching there before arriving at the latter port.

a.s.suredly no stronger testimony could be borne to the superiority of Theodosia than that which was embodied in these arbitrary measures, nor could there be a more incontestible proof of the caprice to which the Genoese town was sacrificed. Caffa was infinitely better fitted than Kertch to satisfy those conditions which the official orders announced as the grounds for destroying its commercial position. The Kertch roads are often closed against vessels for three or four months continuously; the anchorage is unsafe, and often disastrous, both from the want of shelter and from the shallowness of the water. The port of Theodosia, on the contrary, is always open, and s.h.i.+pwrecks are unknown there. During the fine season an active service of lighters might have concentrated there all the freights brought by the Don and the Sea of Azof. In this way the commercial intercourse with Russia by the Black Sea would never have suffered the least interruption; and, what is an incalculable advantage in those lat.i.tudes, foreign vessels, being no longer constrained to make the long and difficult pa.s.sage to Taganrok, or to run the risk of wintering in the ice, might, if they failed to obtain freight at Theodosia, have proceeded in search of one without loss of time to the southern sh.o.r.es of the Black Sea. All these grand considerations, which had raised the prosperity of Caffa so high, were superseded by the dictates of vanity.

Kertch then was declared, in 1827, a port of the first cla.s.s, with a custom-house of entry and exit. A vast lazaret was immediately constructed, and five years afterwards appeared the famous sanatory orders which still regulate the navigation of the Sea of Azof. The duration of the quarantine was fixed at thirty days, but before that time can begin to run, the vessel must be moored within the lazaret, and every thing on board, including the effects of the crew, must be subjected to a fumigation of twenty-four hours. This operation being ended the sailors land, after having first divested themselves of all their dress and portable articles; the sails are plunged in water by the servants of the establishment, and the hull of the vessel is disinfected. After these preliminaries, which often occupy from ten to fifteen days, the sailors return to their vessels, and their days of quarantine begin to count. All these regulations are in curious contrast with those of the lazaret of Odessa, where the quarantine lasts only fifteen days.

This new system, which was in fact an interdict upon the Sea of Azof, told of course in favour of Kertch. But the fact.i.tious prosperity of that town appears to us to have already reached its utmost limit, and we doubt much that the best devised or most stringent orders can ever give to its port those elements of commercial prosperity which nature has refused to it. Hence we see, that to avoid the delay and cost of the Kertch quarantine, the merchants of Taganrok and the neighbouring towns, use lighters almost exclusively to carry their goods to the vessels moored in the Cimmerian Bosphorus. On their arrival in the channel, these lighters are put into the hands of the crew belonging to the vessel to be freighted, and their men remain on sh.o.r.e during the trans-s.h.i.+pment. This being accomplished, the lighters are fumigated for twenty-four hours, and then taken back by the lightermen to the Sea of Azof. All these operations, however, are tedious, costly, and uncertain; and the only reason why the merchants have adopted this plan of proceeding is, that they all are reluctant to incur the great expenses of storing their goods in Kertch, and that the paucity of lighters, together with the irregularity of the winds, and the many shoals in the Sea of Azof, render s.h.i.+pments extremely expensive, so that no additional charge could be easily borne. At the opening of the navigation in 1839, freight between Taganrok and Kertch cost as much as four rubles per tchetvert of wheat, and 1-1/2 in the course of the summer. M. Taitbout de Marigny, who has paid great attention to all these matters, estimates the freight charges in question as equivalent on the average to those usually paid to Black Sea vessels bound for the Archipelago.[78]

A remarkable result of this whole system of quarantine and customs is as follows. Suppose two vessels start simultaneously from the Mediterranean, the one for Taganrok, the other for Odessa, and that the latter failing to obtain a cargo, shall quit Odessa after its fifteen days' quarantine, and sail for the Sea of Azof: there is every probability that after remaining at Taganrok long enough to take in its cargo, it will on its return still find the first vessel in the Kertch roads, waiting to complete the formalities required before it can enter the Sea of Azof. Such measures as these, would inevitably keep aloof from the ports of the Sea of Azof, and even from that of Kertch, every vessel that was sure of its cargo beforehand. It is needless to insist afresh in this place on the superiority of Theodosia, considered as a general entrepot of the goods arriving in the Sea of Azof, and of those which might have flowed directly into its port through the Isthmus of Arabat.

As for the commercial resources belonging intrinsically to the town of Kertch, it is enough to look at its situation at the extremity of a long, depopulated, and sterile peninsula, and its distance from every route, whether political or commercial, to be a.s.sured that they must be quite futile. Seven years after the creation of its port, the annual customs' revenue had not risen above 1200 rubles. In 1840, the whole quant.i.ty of corn that had issued from the town of Kertch since its origin, whether directly or through the medium of its entrepots, scarcely amounted to 5000 tchetverts, and the receipts of the custom-house for the same year were but 695,130. If from this sum we deduct 551,108, the amount of the excise on salt destined exclusively for Russian consumption, and a further considerable sum produced by other imposts, there will remain an exceedingly small amount to represent the nett commercial revenue. The port of Kertch has, therefore, by no means fulfilled the grand expectations so foolishly conceived of it; it has ruined the great city of Theodosia, robbed the Crimea of its commercial importance, cut off all chances of prosperity from the ports of the Sea of Azof, and crippled navigation; and all this without any profit worth speaking of to itself, and without the least prospect of ever rising above the low condition in which it is doomed to vegetate, both by its geographical situation, and the nature and configuration of the adjacent regions.

The results have not been much more satisfactory as regards the growth of the Russian mercantile navy. According to official reports, which we believe exaggerated, there were, in 1840, in the Sea of Azof, 323 vessels measuring about 26,000,000 of kilogrammes, and manned by 1517 individuals. If we recollect that the Sea of Azof is but a marsh, the greatest depth of which does not exceed fourteen metres, that the crafts which ply in it, pursuing always the same invariable track, hardly require the simplest rudiments of nautical skill for their management, and that the navigation of the sea is usually interrupted during four or five months of the year, it will be easily conceived that the maritime advantages which may accrue to Russia, from the closing of the Sea of Azof, must be very insignificant, not to say quite illusory.

We have now to examine the manufacturing and agricultural resources of the Crimea, and the measures which have been taken by the imperial government to further them. The cultivation of the vine may be considered as at present the most important, if not the most productive branch of industry in the country. When Russia took possession of it, the vineyards were concentrated in the southern valleys of Soudak, Kobsel, Koze, and Toklouk, and in those of the Katch, the Alma, &c., on the northern slope of the Tauric chain. These vineyards which seem to have existed from very remote antiquity, were all in the plain, where they were subjected to continual irrigations after the system of the Greeks and Tatars. The consequence of this mode of culture was that the crops were extremely abundant, and the wine of a very poor quality.[79]

After the Russian occupation, however, the business of vine-growing increased considerably in the northern valleys, which were soon frequented by the merchants of the interior, who were attracted both by the extraordinary cheapness of the produce, and by the facilities of transport. Thus the wines of the Crimea found their way into the interior of the empire, but they were chiefly used for mixing and adulteration; the small quant.i.ty that was sold in its original state was always of very bad quality, so that the peninsular wines were in very bad repute, and for a long while lost all chance of sale. This well-merited depreciation was such that even in our own day a merchant of eminence in Moscow or St. Petersburg would have thought it a serious disgrace to him to admit into his cellars a few bottles of Crimean wine.

Such was the state of the vine cultivation in the Crimea, when Count Voronzof was named governor-general of New Russia. Under his active and enterprising administration, a bold attempt was made to change the whole system of cultivation, so as to produce wines capable of competing advantageously with those of foreign countries.[80] The valleys, with their method of irrigation, were therefore abandoned, and the preference was given to the long strip of schistous and _eboulement_ grounds which stretches along the seaside between Balaklava and Alouchta, on the southern coast. Count Voronzof set the example with his characteristic ardour; his first operations took place in 1826 at Aidaniel,[81] and six years afterwards he was the owner of 72,000 vine plants. The example of the governor-general was quickly followed, and in 1834, there were already 2,000,000 stocks in the country, from cuttings brought chiefly from the Rhenish and the French provinces.