TO THE CIMMERIAN BOSPORUS. 57 
The air was excessively sultry and unwhole- C I '- U> - 
some. At length we reached a division of the ' , — > 
river which insulates the territory ot 1 aman : theKiver. 
here, crossing by a ferry, we came to Kopil, 
another military station. The branch of the 
river where this ferry is stationed bears the 
name of Protocka, and it tails into the Sea of 
Azof. The other branch retains the original 
appellation of Kuban, and lalls into the Black 
Sea. The Isle of Taman, separating the two, is 
the territory opposed to the Promontory of 
Kertchy in the Crimea, constituting those Straits 
called, from the earliest ages, the Cimmerian 
Bosporus -. At Kopil we found a General-officer, 
who had married the daughter of one ol the 
T'chernomorski. He shewed to us some of the 
subalterns’ tents, full of dirt and wretchedness. 
In the Colonel's tent, who was absent, we saw 
a table beautifully inlaid with mother-of-pearl 
and ivory. Asking where it was made, we 
were told it had been purchased of the Cir- 
cassians, who are very ingenious in such arts. 
The General said, significantly, he preferred 
Kopil to Petersburg ; — any place, we inferred, 
rather than the residence of the Emperor Paul. 
(2) * e Bosporus Cimmerius, ut Strabo putat, nomen hoe & Cimbris 
sortitus est. Sed ego falli eum arbitror: Cimineriffi enim nomen 
multi* antiquius et ab Homeri tempuribus cognitum fuit. ’ Dcscript, 
Tartar, p. 234 . Bat. 1G30. 
