They turned iln'ir course, however, from the Danube to the Borysthenes. and after occupying tin; fertile plains of the Tkraine for a tin; sallied forth towards the S >uth. They speedily subdued the Crimea the Tauric Chersonese, or the kingdom of Bosphorus, as the was then indifferently called and thence quickly pushed their way into the richest and fairest regions of the empire. It is said that traces of Gothic features, and very faint traces of the Gothic still to be discerned among the inhabitants of the Crimean mountains. They have, however, left no other trace of their occupancy; and for many centuries nothing is known of the history of the country except that it v ledly ravaged by various tribes who, during the "great migration of nations," swept like successive waves from the north-east to the south-west.
At length, in the thirteenth century, a band of the tilars, known as the Khazars, fixed themselves permanently in it, and gave it the name of CrimTlie majority of its inhabitants at the present day are undoubtedly their descendants. During this period a bright gleam of prosperity soon, however, to be again quenched in barbaric darkness shone upon the esc, through the fourteenth century, rapidly ii iheir coimuereial skill and maritime enterprise, the importance of tincountry as a link of communication between Europe and Asia, and purchased permission from the Khans to establ le factories on the coast These speedily became flourishing marts of trade, where the goods of northern Europe, of Asia Minor, of Persia, and even of the distant Indies, were collected and exchanged.
Kaffa, now Theodosia, originally a Milesian city, rose to great wealth and power, containing a population of more than 100,000, and in many respects vying with the proud Italian city herself. These merchant princes have passed away; but even now, along the sounding shores, and far amidst the mountains, in lonely valleys and on lofty hills, there remain many traces of this remarkable people in the nodding towers of crumbling fortresses, and the massive fragments of more enduring and noble architecture, which have stood through many ages in solitary desolation. Kaffa continued to grow and to prosper for about a century and a half. At the close of that period it suffered the doom inflicted on greater and more powerful cities by a ruthless destroyer.
Mahomet II., the Turkish sultan, as is well known, completed the destruction of the eastern empire by the capture and desolation of Constantinople in 1553. About ten years thereafter, be overthrew the noble Trebizond, and still unsated, he, in the year 1575, subjected Kaffa to the same melancholy fate. He spared the buildings, but carried more than 40,000 of the inhabitants to Constantinople in order to re-people its wastes, and took with him many shiploads of gold and silver, and the richest merchandise. The remaining inhabitants were scattered or destroyed. Kaffa soon became an absolute desert, and the other Genoese cities speedily shared its decay. Mahomet perceived his error, and sought by means of Venetian settlers, to whom he offered the highest commercial privileges, to restore the prosperity which he had so wantonly destroyed; but all history shows that even the most powerful despot cannot restore a city once brought to ruins, and the experience of Mahomet rt'ully eontirins the general truth.
Even Constantinople did not revive, and Kalla utterly perished in his hands. For another period of about two hundred years the languished under Turkish rule. About the 17<><>, Catherine II. of Russia, seeing its importance as an outwork whence to push conquest, annexed it to the Russian empire; and that her policy has not been forgotten by her successors, has been too fearfully manifested to all Europe in the late great In tin-, late war modern Europe has for the first time made the Crimean plains the battle-ground, and I doubt not that the acts of heroism to which they have been witness, the patient endurance and stern bravery which been then- displayed, will print the name of that land more indelibly on the page of history, than could all the transient glories of rival cities in days long pa> the barbaric splendour of the many conquerors who have successively ruled and passed away from it f.-r ever.