TO NICHOLAEF. 
311 
caught it with some difficulty; and should not chap. 
have succeeded, but for the cracking of a large ' — y — 
whip ; this terrified it so much, that it lost all 
recollection of its burrow. Its leaps were 
extraordinary for so small an animal ; some- 
times to the distance of six or eight yards, but 
in no determinate direction : it bounded back- 
wards and forwards, without ever quitting the 
vicinity of the place where it was found. The 
most singular circumstance in its nature is the 
power it possesses of altering its course when 
in the air. It first leaps perpendicularly from 
the ground, to the height ot four feet or more ; 
and then, by a motion of its tail, with a clicking 
noise, it bears off in whatsoever direction it 
chooses. 
From the appearance which Perecop a makes Perecop. 
(2) “ At Perekop are only one or two houses, inhabited by the 
postmaster and custom-house officers; and a little barrack. The 
larnous wall is of earth, very lofty, with an immense ditch. Itstretches 
■ n a straight line from sea to sea, without any remains of bastions or 
flanking towers, that 1 could discover. The Golden Gate is narrow, 
and too low for an English waggon. Golden, among the Tahtars, seems 
synonymous with Jloynl ; and thus we hear of the Golden horde, the 
Golden tent, &c. Colonel Symes mentions the same manner of 
expression in Ava ; so that I suppose it is common all over the East. 
There is only one well at Perekop, the water of which is brackish and 
muddy. A string of near two hundred kibitkas were passing, laden 
with salt, and drawn by oxen : they were driven by Malo-Russians, who 
had brought corn into the Crimea, and were returning with their pre- 
sent cargo. White or clarified salt is unknown iu the South of Russia; 
it 
