I left theCrimea before the effect ofthis arrangement could be known ; but I have since heard, that the Tatars considered it as novel as it was oppressive, and many families left the property in consequence.
To the town ofKaffa belongs twenty thousand desaiteens of land ; originally ten thousand only were granted, which have been, by the interest and solicitations of different governors, increased to the present quantity. This, however, produces only a revenue of two thousand five hundred rubles, it being a thin gravelly soil, and growing generally very meagre crops of corn; but it also grazes several thousand sheep in the spring and early part ofthe summer. The revenue of this town-land belongs to the magistracy, and is spent in town charges of various descriptions. KafFa, so called by the Tatars and Latins, and by the Russians and Greeks, Theodosia, on the supposition of its being the site of the ancient Greek town of that name, was in its prosperity under theGenoese, often designated Krim Stamboul, or Constantinople of the Crimea, and by the Tatars has since been, and is even now, very frequently called Kutchuk Stamboul, or Little Constantinople. This place, it is said, once contained within its walls 36,000 houses, and, including its suburbs, not less than 44,000.
In the year 1780, we are told it had only 100 houses, and in 1800 it is stated by Dr. Clarke to have had a population ofonly fifty families. (This I cannot conceive to have been correct). Since then, the dreadful havoc of the plague of 1812 has depopulated its houses, destroyed the property of every individual, and for a time seemed to have annihilated both the means and the spirit for commerce. At this period it lost 3000 persons.
But the alteration which a few years can produce, is seldom more strongly evinced than on the shores of the Black Sea : scarcely a seaport around its confines that is not capable of bringing incontestible proof of this ; and chief of all of them is Odessa in its present state! That, with the return of quiet and confidence, the revival of commerce should take place, was reasonably to be expected, particularly as the ports of the Crimea afforded such facility to the navigator, and especially the port ofKaifa. That its traffic is reviving, and its 'population rapidly increasing, is unquestionable. In the year 1820, no less than fifty houses were built at Kaifa, and the incorrectness of my former statement in the population of this place, was in under-rating its numbers, since it contained in that year ( 1820 ) five thousand inhabitants, without including the garrison, which consists offrom twelve to fifteen hundred men.
Perhaps I have equally under-rated the population ofAkmetchet, which I doubt not, according to the latest revision, must also have increased materially in number. Kaffa has a free school endowed by the Emperor Alexander, where five different languages are taught: Russian, Turkish or Tatar, Greek, and I believe, Italian and French. The Sclavonian language is also taught, but its study is confined to those intended for the church. Here is also a small museum, established by M. Broneffskey, when he was Nachalneck of the town; but it contains nothing of note, and is said to have been pillaged.
The churches of the Crimeaare poor, and bear no comparison with those which in all the principal towns of the Continent mark the love of splendour and pomp, in both the Greek and Latin churches. Here perhaps I ought to except the new and magnificent church recently erected at Sympheropol, though, for want of money to finish it, it is suspended in its execution, and remains uncompleted.
The trade of the town ofKaffa consists chiefly in the export of wheat ; beside which barley, salt, and afew manufactures in iron and woollen.
The imports are somewhat more numerous:
Greek wines, dried fruits, Turkish stuffs, silks, and other manufactures, raw cotton, and a few copper utensils (smuggled).
Some Italian and French products find admission ; but the chief articles sold in their shops are of Russian manufacture, and brought from the interior, or elseTurkish, eitherfromConstantinople or Trebizond. Kaffa is inferior to the other towns of the Crimea, in point of local situation for communicating with the interior of Russia and Poland; and the peninsula being inhabited by the non-consuming and non-productive race of Tatars, its materials for foreign markets are veryinsignificant. Even in the great article ofwheat, for the growth of which it is so peculiarly well adapted, both from its soil and local situation, it adds but a mere trifle to that immense quantity which is sometimes shipped from Kaffa and Kosloff ; almost every grain of which is brought into the Crimea to be exported from those two towns.
Three hundred years before the Christian j^Era the trade of Theodosia, in wheat, for Athens and other ports of the Mediterranean, was far greater than it is now : probably in a twentyfold ratio greater ; and all of it grew in thepeninsula: but it was then inahbited by a race of men very different from the poor and sluggish Tatars.
There were no Consuls resident at Kaffa, at the time I left, but the appointment ofan English Vice-Consul there had long been spoken of, and has probably taken place.