314 
BY THE ISTHMUS OF PERECOP, 
chap, than the hamlet which supplies, with quarters, 
t a few worn-out invalids. A very inconsiderable 
rampart extends from sea to sea : the distance 
across the Isthmus, in the narrowest part, 
scarcely exceeds five miles; the Avater being 
visible from the middle of the passage on either 
side. Upon the north side of this rampart is a 
fosse, twelve fathoms wide, and twenty-five feet 
deep; but this is noAV dry; and the difficulty of 
filling it with Avater is insuperable, in its present 
state. The rest of the fortification, originally 
a Turkish work, is in a state of neglect and ruin. 
The air of the place is very bad ; consequently, 
the inhabitants of the neighbouring hamlets, who 
are chiefly disbanded soldiers, suffer much from 
intermittent fevers'. Strabo, with a degree of 
accuracy which characterizes every page of his 
writings relative to the Crimea, states the 
breadth of the Isthmus as being equal to forty 
stadia 1 2 , or five miles. The waters of the Black 
Sea and of the Sea of Azof annually sustain a 
(1) The author cannot account for the remarks made by Patlus 
(val. II. p. 469.) concerning the air of this place, and of Koslaf. He says, 
the saline effluvia from the Sivash correct the otherwise unwholesome 
nature of the atmosphere; yet the bad health of the inhabitants is 
directly in contradiction of that statement. And again, in p. 9, of the 
same volume, “ During the prevalence of east winds, a disagreeable 
smell from the Sivash, or Putrid Sea, is strongly perceived at Pertcop. 
It is nevertheless believed, that these vapours preserve the inhabitants 
from those intermittent fevers, formerly very frequent in the Crimea.” 
(2) Strab. Ceogr. lib. vii. p.445. ed. Oxon. 
