26 
FROM THE CIRCASSIAN FRONTIER, 
Watch- 
Towers, 
chap, informed, to converse with the guard. On the 
Russian side, the scenery is of a very different 
description ; particularly in the journey from 
Kalaus to Kopil, where it is a continual swamp. 
In travelling through it, tall reeds, the never- 
failing indication of unwholesome air, rose above 
the roof of our carriage, to the height of sixteen 
or twenty feet. Sometimes, for many miles, 
we could see no other objects ; nor were other 
sounds heard excepting the noise of mosqui- 
toes, and the croaking of toads and frogs. 
Upon the elevated land nearer to the river, and 
in the midst of the military stations protecting 
the line, observatories of a very singular 
construction are raised, for the purpose of 
containing each a single person. They resemble 
so many eagles’ nests. Each of these is placed 
upon three upright tall poles, or trunks of trees. 
Here a Cossack sentinel, standing with his fusil, 
continually watches the motions of the Cir- 
cassians, upon the opposite side of the Kuban. 
As we left Kourky, the mosquitoes began to 
diminish in number; and, to our inexpressible 
joy, in the approach towards the shores of the 
Cimmerian Cimmerian Bosporus, or Straits of Raman, 
1 they suddenly disappeared altogether 1 . 
(1) The inhabitants of Taman had never been tormented by these 
insects ; but during the night after our arrival, the whole family with 
whom 
