356 
DON COSSACKS. 
c ^ap- great extent of territory. Over this we now 
— 1 passed by water to Teller hash. The water 
retires in the month of July or August. The 
same aquatic plants are found in both rivers ; 
tall flags, reeds, and bulrushes, sometimes rising 
to the height of twenty feet. The manner of 
their entrance into the sea, by several mouths, 
is also the same ; forming small islands, as in 
the Delta, with fens and morasses. Both one 
and the other serve as boundaries to two prin- 
cipal quarters of the globe. When the waters 
retire, the astonishing variety of insects might 
induce a zealous entomologist to visit tire Don, 
if it were only on their account. During the 
inundation, when the waters were at the 
highest, we observed above thirty different 
kinds of flies, at the same instant, upon the 
tables of our apartment. Many of these we 
collected, but they were too much injured in 
the subsequent journey to be delineated. The 
whole course of the Don is about six hundred 
and sixty-six miles'. It rises near Tula, in a 
lake called Ivan Ozero, or St. John's Sea. Below 
Wormetz, it is from three hundred to six hun- , 
dred fathoms broad ; and of sufficient depth for 
ships of burthen, from the middle of April to 
(I) One thousand versts. 
