2 PRELIMINARY OBSERVATIONS. 
chap. Tanais, watering the plains of Sarmatia, sepa- 
rated the Roxolani and the Jazyges from the 
Hamaxobii and the Alctni. In modern geography, 
the same river, altered in its appellation, 
divides the tribe of the Don Cossacks from the 
Tchernomorshi, whose territory extends from the 
Sea of Jzof to the Kuban. The Greeks, by 
their commerce in the Euxine, obtained a slight 
knowledge of the people who lived on the 
Palus jVUotis. The wars of Russia and 
Turkey sometimes directed our attention to this 
remote country; but the knowledge of its 
inhabitants, both among the Antients and 
Moderns, has scarcely exceeded the names of 
the tribes, and their character in war. With 
their domestic habits, the productions of the 
land, the nature of its scenery, or the remains 
of antiquity they possess, we are very little 
acquainted. By referring to Antient History, 
we find that the same want of information 
prevailed formerly as at present. This may be 
accounted for by the wandering disposition of 
a people, seldom settled for any length of time 
upon the same spot : and with regard to their 
successors, since the establishment oi a metro- 
polis in the marshes of the Don, and the 
expulsion of the Kuban Tartars by the Cossacks 
of the Black Sea, the country has been sub- 
mitted to very little examination. It was 
