MARIOPOL. 
21 
of th e earth was covered with a moving mass of flame. The effect 
produced was an apparently interminable avenue, dividing a sea 
of fire. The height of the flame could not be more than two or 
three feet from the ground : and on either side of our path, the 
smoke was so light as to enable us to discern this tremendous 
scene stretching to an endless distance. Not a breath of wind 
disturbed the atmosphere ; hence it eat its devastating way over 
the face of the country, with the steadiness and majesty of an 
advancing ocean. During the course of my journey afterwards, 
I observed many blackened tracts, from fifty to sixty wersts in 
length, which had been so marked by one of these calamitous 
ignitions. 
On my arrival at Mariopol, a town on the shores of the sea 
of Azoff, I was not a little interested by the view of that fine 
expanse of waters, where Peter the Great first tried his naval 
experiments, and, aided by the brave Cossacks of the Don, 
witnessed their success to the full promise of his expectations. 
But, how changed is the scene! The seeming consequence of 
Mariopol, when beheld at a distance, only shows its deserted 
state more strikingly, when we really approach it. Scarce a 
living creature was seen in the streets ; not a vestige of existing 
industry discernible ; all was motionless and silent. Two 
wretched little vessels lay in the Kalmius, that river dividing 
the town ; and they were the only objects which gave symptoms 
of retained animation. On quitting Mariopol, we crossed the 
river on a raft. 
During a short halt, at a village in the neighbourhood, my 
attention was caught by a couple of strange-looking figures 
sculptured in a sort of white hard stone. Their execution might 
reach to about the same degree of proficiency in the art as that 
