329 
ART. II. On the growing power of Russia, and her late Acqui- 
sitions, especially those in Asta. By James BEu1, Esq. 
(Continued from p. 262.) 
By means of such a naval intercourse, Russia will no longer be 
under the necessity of marching her vast armies into Western Asia 
by the circuitous route of the Don, and across the vast steppe that 
extends to the base of the Caucasus. Her forces will no more be 
compelled to toil their way up the long, steep, narrow, and rocky 
glens of that mighty range, and cross its hoary summit alongst the 
brink of precipitous and unfathomable abysses, to arrive at the 
banks of the Kur. Nothing more will be requisite but a fleet of 
transports to convey them to the mouth of the Phasis, which is na- 
vigable 40 miles for large vessels, and 80 miles more for small 
craft to Sarapana or Shaoorapo, from whence, over the Iberian 
Pass, it is five days’ journey to where the Kur becomes navigable. 
In this defile, according to Strabo, were precipices, deep abysses, 
mountain torrents, and doep glens. But this pass was made prac- 
ticable even for elephants by the celebrated Nushirwaun, when he 
marched his armies into Celchis in the sixth century. A voyage of 
a week, or at most ten days, will waft the Russian armies to the 
Phasis, and fourteen days more will march them to Teflis. This 
will cause a vast saving of toil, expense, and time, and even of lives, 
as many must have undoubtedly perished in the long march from 
the Don to the Kur, both of men, and carriage, and cavalry horses. 
By this way all the battering and field artillery were formerly 
brought, and any one who is the least acquainted with the dithculties 
of a mountain road, may conceive the immense toil that must have 
been incurred in dragging them up the steeps of the Dariel, and 
across the mountain barrier that separates the sources of the Terek 
and the Aragwi, and which in winter is wholly impracticable. 
Further, by her late acquisitions on the side of Asiatic Turkey 
and Persia, Russia is now complete mistress of the whole isthmus 
between the Caspian, and the Seas of Azoff and the Euxine. The 
whole range of the vast Caucasus, that_monarch of mountains, 
with all its passes and lateral ranges, as far south as the plains of 
the Araxes, the Apsarus, and the source of the Kur, is now under 
her control. That mighty bulwark which, from immemorial time, 
separated the civilized regions of the south from the innumerable 
rude and warlike tribes of the north, which roamed in the wilds 
and deserts of ancient Scythia and Asiatic Sarmatia, is now laid 
open to conquering bands, more powerful by discipline and science 
than the congregated hordes of the martial Attila, or those which 
composed the immense host of that greatest of conquerors, Zingis 
Khan, or his successor in the path of destruction and carnage, the 
savage Timoor. In no antecedent period of past history, was any 
sovereign possessed of the whole ef this isthmus ; neither the Per- 
VOL. I, 27 
