TO NICHOLAEF. 
321 
difficult of approach upon the Russian side. We 
proceeded towards the Dnieper ; and journeyed, 1 — ' 
as before, over plains upon which there is not 
a trace of any thing that can properly be called 
a road. Different excursions in Taurica had General^ 
made the whole Peninsula familiar to our recol- the Crimea . 
lection; and we were amused by considering 
the probable surprise a traveller would expe- 
rience, who, after reading the inflated and 
fallacious descriptions that have been published 
of the Crimean scenery, should pass the Isthmus 
of Perecop, and journey, during a day and a 
half, without beholding any other proofs of a 
habitable country, or any other object through- 
out a flat and boundless desert, than a few 
miserable peasants, stationed at the different 
relays to supply horses for the post. So 
narrow is the tract of cultivated land upon the 
southern coast, that it may be compared to an 
edging of lace upon the lower hem of a large 
apron. Beyond the Isthmus, towards the north, 
the plains were covered by caravans of salt, 
and every route was filled with them. For the 
rest, the appearance of the country was pre- 
cisely the same as in the north of the Crimea. 
Our journey, therefore, resembled that of De Country 
J J . j i . north of tli 
Rubruquis, in the thirteenth, century ; and. it might isthmus . 
he fully described in seven of his own words : — 
“ NULLA EST SYLVA, NULIUS MONS, NULLUS 
