CHAPTER XI. 



THE CRIMEA. 



HE Crimean peninsula is attached to the mainland only by the 

 narrow isthmus of Perekop. Still the nature of the soil and the 

 level surface of its northern steppes show that they are merely 

 a continuation of the New Russian steppe, forming Avith it a 

 single geological region. The real Crimea, that portion at least 

 which is geographically distinct from the rest of the empire, is the highland 

 southern district stretching from the Khersonesus headland to the Strait of 

 Yeni-Kaleh, and whose axis is connected with that of the Caucasus, in the 

 volcanic peninsulas of Kertch and Taman. These highlands, and especially the 

 southern sloj^es of the mountains, differ essentially from Russia proper both in 

 their greoloo-y, their history, and even in their climate. The Crimea was already 

 associated in its legends with the Hellenic world many centuries before the vast 

 land of the Scythians began to be revealed, and later on it never ceased to take 

 part in the great historic movements of the Mediterranean nations. Here was 

 that capital of the Pontine kingdom whic"h Mithridates had founded as a rallying- 

 point in his struggle with Rome; and here were, later on, those flourishing 

 Byzantine, Pisan, and Genoese colonies which served as the means of communi- 

 cation between the civilised peoples of the South and the still barbarous tribes 

 of the Volga, Even quite recently the Crimea has been the battle-field of Russia 

 with the two chief states of West Europe, For the Russians themselves, here 

 till lately far less numerous than the descendants of the Asiatic and Mediter- 

 ranean races, the peninsula is, so to say, a foreign land, a colonial possession ; 

 or rather the southern slope of the Taurida mountains, sung by Pushkiv, is for 

 them a second Italy in its plants, its climate, in the aspect of land and sky — one 

 of those reo-ions which have most contributed to develop in the modern Russian 

 a feeling for nature. Yet, compared with the boundless empire of the Czar, it is 

 a very insignificant land, the highlands occupying no more than one-fifth of the 

 peninsula, and the whole peninsula itself forming a mere maritime fragment of the 

 government of Taurida, exceeded in area by one of the northern lakes, and in 

 population by such cities as St, Petersburg, Moscow, or even Warsaw. 



