Immediately before Odessa lies the liman of the Httle river Kayalnik, the peressip of wliich is very flat and broad. The side next the sea is occupied by a suburb called after it the Peressip-suburb. It is two versts long and very hvely and populous, since the two great roads leading to Odessa from the interior of Russia meet at the point of the peressip. The wheat of Podolia, the greatest article of export from the port of Odessa, and the wines, fruits, and other articles of Levantine produce sent thence to Moscow, must all pass this way, as well as most of the provisions and necessaries for the town itself. The long slow processions of waggons drawn by oxen, the camels of the Tartars from the Crimea, laden with fruit, tobacco, &c., the travelling-carriages of Polish noblemen, and other passengers to and from Moscow, Petersburg, and the interior, all contribute to give life and animation to the peressip.
Odessa, as is well known, is a free port, and therefore surrounded towards the interior by a rigid custom-house line, and it has but two gates, one on the peressip, aud the other on the Bessarabian road, which are usually surrounded by a throng of travellers, waggons, and cattle, which must be inspected by the custom-house officers before they are allowed to enter. Indeed the town bears some resemblance to a mousetrap, for though it is easy enough to get in, it is very difficult to get out. No one is allowed to bring out of the town any goods which he cannot declare to be Russian, unless on entering it he has taken the precaution to obtain permission to do so.
The houses on this Peressip-suburb are built of the crumbling limestone described above, placed one on another, without cement, and they have, as might be supposed, an exceedingly ruinous and dilapidated appearance. We drove up one of tlie principal streets to the Hotel de Petersbourg, on the boulevard, and found there time and opportunity to refresh body and mind with the enjoyments of civilization, welcome enough after our long and wearisome wanderings across the desolate steppe.
The situation of Odessa has been much and severely criticised — I cannot help thinking without due consideration, in spite of its many undeniable defects, such as the want of a good natural harbour and of good fresh water. The first requisite for a good commercial seaport is ease of access by land and sea ; and, in a deep, navigable bay, in which light we must regard the north-western part of the Black Sea, the point which retires furthest into the land is the most desirable. The roadstead of Odessa offers at least some protection to vessels, an advantage which practical men, acquainted with this coast, are well able to appreciate, however it may be overlooked by the learned men who have never visited it, and since many objections existed to the mouths of the Dnieper and the Dniester, perhaps, on the whole, no spot could have been better chosen.
The great merchants of Odessa are mostly Greeks, Italians, and Germans. English houses, su(jh as are found in Riga and St. Petersburg, strange to say, do not exist here ; but there are a few French, trading chiefly in wine. Of Russian merchants, carrying on business with foreign countries, there are just as few as at other Russian seaports. In the whole there are in Odessa from forty to fifty great commercial houses, of which the principal are Greeks.
The principal article of export from Odessa is the wheat of Podolia, Bessarabia and New Russia, and the only others of any consequence are tallow and wool. The imports are of course mostly manufactured goods, of which a large quantity, officially stated to be for the use of Odessa, find their way, by means of the smugglers, into the interior. Wines, dyestuffs, raisins, fruits, and cotton go from Odessa as far as Moscow, but the advantages of the great market of St. Petersburg are such that great quantities even of goods from the Mediterranean reach the interior of Russia by the way of that city instead of by Odessa. The latter is, indeed, too new to have yet taken possession of the entire trading territory that naturally belongs to it, and it is not at present able to contend on equal terms with two such powerful rivals as Riga and St. Petersburg.
In what a simple and rude state the trade of Odessa still is may be imagined from the fact of the owners of estates occupying themselves with exporting their own corn. Many of the PoHsh nobility have counting-