32 NORTH AMERICAN INSECTS. 



"Where the citron and olive are fairest of fruit, 

 And the voice of the nightingale never is mute ; 

 Where the tints of the earth and the hues of the sky, 

 In colour though varied, in beauty may vie, 

 And the purple of ocean is deepest in dye ; 

 Where the virgins are soft as the roses they twine, 

 And the spirit of man is all but divine ! " 



Although this terrestrial paradise now belongs to 

 Russia, and its inhabitants have lost their national 

 independence, still they have preserved their genuine 

 Caucasian beauty ; and while gazing with admiration 

 upon them, it has often ocaurred to me that the Apollo 

 of Belvidere, the Venus de Medicis, and the Madonna 

 of Raphael must have been accurate copies of the men 

 and women of the Crimea. 



Their morals are not less to be admired than their 

 beauty. Drunkenness, quarrelling, riots and murders 

 are entirely unknown there. You may travel unarmed 

 and laden with riches from one end of the country to 

 the other, without being molested ; such a thing as a 

 thief is never heard of there, and everywhere, in the 

 cottage and in the palace, you will be hospitably re- 

 ceived and entertained as an old friend. If the rest 

 of the world were more like the poor people of the 

 Crimea, " 't would be something." That country was 

 conquered at the end of the last century by the 

 famous Potemkin the favourite of Catherine 1 IT., and 

 its sovereign, the Khan, sent a prisoner to St. Peters- 

 burg, where he died. 



