DON COSSACKS. 
388 
chap, equal to four miles without once being off a 
. XUL . bridge. The people were all in their best attire ; 
and the sight on that account was the more 
interesting. From the high and narrow bridges, 
single planks frequently lead off, as the only 
mode of approaching the houses of the inha- 
bitants: these have covered galleries around 
them. In those galleries, where the deal, ol 
which they are constructed, was as white as 
water and the sun’s rays could make it, sat the 
old and respectable Cossacks ; almost all oi 
whom, as we passed, pressed us to walk into 
their houses and to regale ourselves. The water 
flows beneath many of the buildings ; and all of 
them are upon piles, in the midst of the flood 1 . 
The prodigious quantity of timber consumed in 
* (0 “ Tcherhash stands on some marshy islands in the river. The 
houses are all raised on wooden pillars, and connected hy foot bridges. 
The foot-paths run like galleries before the houses. When we saw it, 
every part was flooded, except the principal street, the great church, 
and the market-place. The antic wooden cabins, mixed with the 
domes of churches, tops of trees, and Calmuck tents, had an interest- 
ing effect, just rising from the water. The sudah still continued to 
poison the air; but the houses, notwithstanding the people are all 
fishers, are neat. The Cossacks are much cleaner than the Hussions. 
There is a spacious and antient cathedral, nearly on the same plan as 
the Casan Church in Mosco. Detached from the rest of the building is a 
large tower, which, at a distance, gives a faint recollection of St. Mary’s 
spire at Oxford. There are many other churches, full of very costly 
ornaments. 1 never saw so many pearls at once, as on the head of a 
Madonna in the cathedral. These treasures arethespoils ofTurkey and 
Poland.” Heber’s MS. Journal. 
