KUBAN TAHTARY. 
18 
ciiap. Ekatkrlnkdaua, or Catherines Gift, the 
' , < metropolis of the Tchernomorski Cossacks, makes 
the Tcher - a very extraordinary appearance. It has no 
ntmurtict. resemblance to a town ; but it is rather a grove 
or forest of oaks, in which a number of straggling 
cottages, widely separated, are concealed, not 
only from all general observation, but even from 
the view of each other. The inhabitants have 
cut down many of the trees, and cleared the 
land as much as possible; but the streets (if 
they may be called streets), and the spaces 
between the houses, are covered with dwarf 
oaks, and thick branches yet sprouting from 
roots left in the earth. The antiquity of the 
Tumuli covering all this country may in some 
degree be proved even by the appearance of 
the oaks growing upon them. We saw some 
tre^s, perhaps as old as any in the world, so 
situate. The inhabitants had excavated some 
of the Tumuli, to form cellars for their ice and 
wine : and, in so doing, they had found several 
terra-cotta, vases, deposited with the skeletons 
which those sepulchres contained : unfortu- 
nately, they had destroyed every thing thus 
discovered. The air in this metropolitan forest 
is pestiferous, and the water of the place very 
unwholesome. Fevers, similar to those pre- 
vailing near the Pompline Marshes, in the Gulph 
qf Salernum, and upon the coast of Baia in Italy, 
