I should in vain attempt to describe this miserable place, dignified by the name of a poststation. It looked like some rude hovel, the shelter of banditti, and the yemtcheks and peopleabout appeared asferocious and uncivilized as the place itself. It was literally a large hovel, the thatched roof unceiled, and the only division or break in the length of it, was the oven or stove, which projected about one-third of the length ofthe room, making the space left on the side, dark and gloomy, while the top of the stove, or benches, in this darkened recess, served as a sleeping apartment for its inmates. That part of the hovel in front of the stove, was lighted by the glare of a large fire, burning in the oven, and shewed a long table, with benches on either side for seats, its only furniture. Here it was impossible to lie down, or to venture in such company to close the eyes : I recollected the comfort of the Russian cottages, which we had before experienced, and dispatched our Russian servant to find us quarters in the village. He soon returned successful, and we exchanged the most horrible place I entered throughout our journey, for a neat warm cottage, and the smiles ofgood humour and welcome. Here, upon our accustomed beds of hay, or straw, or on the benches around the room, we rested, and slept quietly till morning.
The passing the Ingul was tedious, but not dangerous. We went over in one of the ferries which I have before described, and the floating ice alone caused any impediment to us. Two stations more brought us to the town of Bereslaff. Throughout the last stage the road was ex* ceedingly bad, having to ascend and descend two or three such hills as, in the outset of the journey, I should have conceived impassable for any carriage ; and these were worse than any we had passed, on account of their being a stony rock, and the road exceedingly rough over them.
On all such occasions, our English servant, who rode on the dickey of the britchka, was our guard, walking behind, or by the side of the carriage, up or down hill, wherever there was any danger. It was late when we reached Bereslaff, and still later when the rest ofour party arrived, the drivers, who had set out most unwillingly, overturning one of the kibitkas, and declaring that the wolves had frightened the horses, and occasioned the accident.
At.Bereslaff we had to cross the Dnieper, which we were told was still not safe to go over, on account of the floating ice. We staid two nights here, and then, by dint of obtaining the interference of the Gorodnetchie, and shewing a billet given by Count Langeron to expedite us, we contrived to convince them that the passing the Dnieper must by this time be perfectly safe. We went over in a boat, which took two carriages at a time. The Dnieper is a remarkably fine river in the spring and summer, but at this period of the year it is shallow, and much narrower : the melting of the snow in the spring, occasions an immense increase of the water, and it is then a majestic-looking river.
We were now seventy-eight versts from Perekop, the frontier town of the Crimea, during which nothing worthy notice occurred.
The town of Perekop is not large, and has nothing remarkable to recommend it to notice but the salt lakes in its vicinity, from which last year (1815) four or five million of poods of salt were taken. One merchant at Perekop has a heap of salt lying in the ground, and covered with straw, &c. to defend it from heat, that contains 250,000 poods. The crown revenue last year from this was 2,800,000 rubles, the duty upon it being forty kopeeks per pood. Salt, in Perekop, sells at fifty kopeeks, and any one sending a cart and pair of oxen, may have salt from the lakes at the time it is taken out, for paying the government duty only. Perekop has a garrison, and is governed by a mayor, or Gorodnetchie.
After leaving the town, we passed by the lakes, which of course present nothing very striking to the eye at this time of year. Perekop stands about the centre of the isthmus, which at the narrowest part is four versts from the Black Sea to that ofAzoff.