TRAVELS IN THE CRIMEA.

ii

pofts, which have recently been placed, for marking the diftaiiceof each verft.

On leaving Tifhoon, we pafTed over a handfome bridgcarched with free-ftone, and built by the Turks acrofs an arm ofthe Black Sea, which extends to a confiderable diflance into thecountry, and at length turns toward the North. We thencroffed feveral fmaller bridges, ere&ed over marfhy faline glens,or hollow grounds, which take their diredtion from the gentlyfloping and vifcous fteppe toward the Black Sea. The fecondftage, being eighteen verfts diftant from the laft-mentionedplace, is Dürmeen ; where the ufual road, leading from Pere-kop to Koflof, turns to the South-Weft.

About halfway from the next ftage, the fteppe rifes imper-ceptibly; the foil becomes black, is occafionally covered with agrafs fward, and underneath exhibtts the firft beds of yellowifhor reddilh fhell-lime, compofed of fragments of bivalves andftratified oolites ; the grains of which uniformly confift of veryfmall teftaeeous particles. Two broad ridges, but with a levelfurface, alfo difcover a fimilar foil on the top, as well as in thelower ftratum. On the firft of thefe is fituated the Tartarvillage of Kara-Kodfha, in the front of which, near the publicroad, we took notice of an ancient cemetery, diftinguifhed bypeculiar tomb-ftones, in the fhape of obelifks ; a form whichwe had not hitherto obferved in the Crimea.

After having paffed the ftage of Albar, twenty-fix verftsdiftant from Dürmeen, the fteppe again prefemed a yellow,clayey, and level furface. We then travelled twenty-twoverfts, and arrived in the dark at the village of Abiana, whichis divided into three diftridls. The darknefs of the night

c i obliged