1 8 CRASNOI LAIS. 



After this, however, we got to piled and broken 

 ice, where the accidents of the last four days had 

 occurred, and where our driver averred a current 

 existed. Here my friend got nervous, and insisted 

 on walking at a fair distance from the sledge, which 

 proceeded meanwhile at a foot's pace. This in the 

 increasing frost mist was not so cheerful, but the 

 current was soon cleared, and in another half hour 

 we landed safe and sound at that miserable little 

 town of Taman. 



The only living things we had passed on our 

 way were several wretched assemblies of pale-look- 

 ing gulls, literally frozen out, poor fellows, and a 

 few huge eagles, squatting on the ice, their plumes 

 all ruffled up, suffering probably as much from a 

 surfeit of wounded ducks as from cold. The whole 

 scene as we crossed was as desolate as the mind can 

 well imagine ; Kcrtch behind us, white with snow, 

 clustering round the hill of Mithridates, a mere 

 skeleton of her former glory in the days of Greek 

 and Persian ; Taman, once too a prosperous city, 

 now a few hovels buried in a snowdrift ; Yenikale 

 perhaps more dead than cither ; and all round the 

 long low hills, the rounded tumuli of dead kings ; 

 the tall bare masts of the belated ships ; a frozen 

 sea beneath and a free/ing sky above. 



Once in Taman we gave our driver a good tip 

 ( ' na tchai ' ) for the tea as they call it, and betook 

 ourselves to a friend's house for a few minutes' rest 



