TO CAFFA. 
127 
Could there be found a native of Russia, with CI 1 I [ | P - 
a passion for literature, who to a knowledge of v» — y— 
the Tahtar language added also that of the the obscu- 
modern Greek , (and many of the Russians speak 
both these languages with fluency,) the antient 
topography of the Crimea would not long 
remain in obscurity. Unfortunately, all those 
persons whom Catherine employed to travel 
through her dominions for purposes of science, 
were either solely occupied in the pursuits of 
natural history, or they were employed, more 
politically, in preparing splendid statistical 
accounts of the most wretched provinces 3 . 
(3) Professor Pallas was among the number of those who became 
victims to the consequences of their own too favourable representa- 
tions. Having published his tf Tableau de la Tauride , M printed at 
Petersburg in 1796, in which he describes the Crimea as a terrestrial 
paradise, (or, to use his own words in the dedication to Zoubof, as 
Cette belle Tauride — cette province si heureusement disposee pour toutes 
les cultures qui manquent encore a V empire de Russie”) the Empress 
sent him to reside there, upon an estate she gave to him ; where 
we found him, as he himself confessed, in a pestilential air, the dupe 
a sacrifice he had made to gratify his sovereign. 
** In the first stage towards Sudak, a building presents itself on 
the left hand, in a beautiful situation among woods, on the side of a 
*teep hill, which our Tahtar guide said had been an Armenian convent. 
We conversed with the Tahtars by an interpreter whom we hired at 
Kaffa: he was a Polish Jew, "but had resided several years at Constan- 
tinople. Nothiug could be more interesting, and to us novel, than the 
prospect, and the appearance of every one we met. A Mirza , or 
noble, one of the few who still remain in the country, overtook us ; 
and I was delighted at being addressed for the first time by the 
Oriental salam, by which we were afterwards saluted by all the pas- 
sengers. In this part of the country 1 only saw one camel, a she one, 
and kept for her milk: the roads arc too steep and rocky for them. 
The 
