After crossing the river Bug, we found to our vexation that our britshka required repairs, so that it was night before we were again on the steppe. We lost little by this circumstance, as this is one of the most desolate countries that can be imagined, without a trace of a settlement of any kind, except a few miserable post-stations kept by Jews ; but towards morning a cool wind blew to us from the south, and my companion awakened me and electrified me with the words, " Here's the breeze of the Black Sea !"
The arrival on the coast of a new sea is always an interesti-ng moment to the traveller, and 1 waited with eager expectation, till at length we beheld its wide surface glittering in the first rays of the morning sun, and distinguished the long white hne of surf on the shore, and heard with delight the rushing sound of its waves.
The first station on the sea-shore was Troitzkoye, at the mouth of the Liman of Teligul, and it was here I first became acquainted with these peculiar formations of the Black Sea, which I had afterwards ample opportunities for studying, since we passed no less than four iimans between here and Odessa.
Tlie word Liman is usually translated bay, lagoon, or haff, but it is far better to preserve the word itself, as the Uman i& distinguished ; by pecuHar characteristics, from the lagoons of the Adriatic, or the haffs of the Baltic.
These Umans, which are found at the mouths of the smallest as well as of the largest rivers, from the Dnieper to the Danube, or rather to ihe Pruth, consist of basins of greater or less depth, formed by the contending waters of the sea and of the rivers. The steppe was originally a connected unbroken plateau, or terrace, in which the rivers in time wore deep furrows.
414 THE LIMANS OF THE BLACK SEA.
At first they probably precipitated themselves as cataracts into the sea, till, as their beds became deeper, they gradually reached the level of the sea.
It then became possible, when the sea rose high with a south or southwest wind, for it to force itself into the mouths of the rivers, and a struggle then arose between the contending waters, in which parts of the steppe were torn down, the basin enlarged, and, when the sea retired, the soil which had been washed down was again floated out.
In this manner long narrow basins were formed, the beds of which were somewhat higher than the bottom of the sea, as the deposits they contained were never entirely carried away. These were called limans, and the surf breaking on their outer limits, as on those of all bays or haffs, threw up the sand into narrow bars or dykes, on which the name of peressip has been bestowed, from a word signifying passage or ford. These peressips are low strips of land partly overgrown with grass, and have a singular appearance when viewed from the interior, appearing like narrow grassy banks in the middle of the water. That such has really been the course of these formations, is evident from what we see daily passing before our eyes. All these operations, the rushing in of the sea — the struggle of its waters with those of the river — the falling in of the banks — the throwing up of sand on the peressips, are daily repeated on these limans. In some of them it is true the peressips have become so high that the sea only breaks through once in ten or twenty years, but by far the greater number have a constant opening in the peressip, through which the waters rush in and out. On these openings the people of the country have bestowed the name of gheerls, and bridges are in some places thrown over them.
The influence of these hmans on the atmosphere of the suiTOunding country, when their waters are not in communication -with the sea, is often very unfavourable, and instances have been known, when the wind has blown in a particular direction, of whole villages falling sick in one night from the effect of the miasma emitted by the stagnant water.
Some compensation is, however, afforded for these occasional injuries, by the abundance in which they furnish one of the first necessaries of life — namely salt.
The limans of the great rivers, such as the Dnieper and the Dniester contain but little, on account of the great body of fresh water poured into them, and the quantity found in the other limans varies according to the time of year, the depth, and other circumstances. The most productive are the three limans of Bessarabia, lying south-west from Odessa, and among these especially that called the Dusle-YvaMin.