I 
BY THE ISTHMUS OF PERECOP, 
a nature are the tales which a traveller, in this 
country, may expect to hear continually related 
by new settlers in the Crimea and in the Ukraine. 
We did not give much credit to any of them ; 
and must confess we should not be surprised to 
hear the same stories repeated in other coun- 
tries, as having happened where banditti are 
supposed to infest the public roads. 
Being unacquainted with the topography of 
Biroslaf, and having no map in which it is traced, 
it is not possible to give an accurate description 
of the different streams and lakes of water we 
passed, in order to reach that place. The 
inhabitants were even more ignorant than our- 
selves of the country. Before we arrived, we 
traversed an extensive tract of sand, apparently 
insulated : this, we were told, was often inun- 
dated ; and boats were then stationed to 
conduct travellers. Having crossed this sandy 
district, we passed the Dnieper by a ferry, and 
ascended its steep banks on the western side 
Caravans. to the town. The conveyance of caravans, 
upon the sands, was effected with great diffi- 
culty ; each waggon requiring no less a number 
of oxen than eight or twelve ; and even these 
seemed hardly adequate to the immense labour 
of the draft. All the way from Perecop to 
Biroslaf, the line of caravans continued almost 
330 
CHAP. 
VIII. 
