VALLEY OF TCHORGONA. 
295 
Black Sen swarmed with corsairs, who invaded 
the coast, and l'ansacked the peaceful valleys 
of the Crimen. We found in its upper chambers 
a few swivels, and some other small pieces of 
artillery; yet the building itself appeared to 
have been erected in an age anterior to the use 
of gunpowder in Europe. The Tahtars in the 
Valley of Tchorgonn are reckoned among the 
richest of the country. From their vicinity to 
Aktiar they find a ready market for the produce 
of their lands; carrying thither, honey, wax, 
fruit, and corn. Their sequestered valley seemed 
to be the retreat of health and joy; not a Russian 
was to be seen ; the pipe and tabor sounded 
merrily among mountains, thick set with groves, 
which closed them in on every side. The 
morning after our arrival, we were roused by a 
wild concert from the hills, of such instruments 
as perhaps enlivened the dances of uncivilized 
nations in the earliest periods of society. The 
performers were a party of T zigankies, or gipsies, 
who, as mendicant artificers, musicians, and 
astrologers, are very common over all the 
South of Russia. They had a wind-instrument, 
something like a hautboy, made of the wood 
of cherry-tree; and carried the large Tahtar 
drum, noticed before as being characteristic of 
the Cimbri in the time of Strabo *. 
CHAP. 
vi r. 
(2) See p. 1 38 of this Volume. 
