The navigation of the Dniester is very unimportant, for there is scarcely any thing to be seen on it but rafts, and a kind of craft that is but little better, on wliieh wood is brought down from Bessarabia and Gallicia, besides some wooden wares manufactured among the Carpathians, a little wheat, and plaster of Paris. One -half of these goods goes to Akerman, the other half by land to Odessa.
We landed on the Moldavian side of the river, and commenced our return journey to Lustdorf, but remembering Herodotus, we resolved to seek a night's lodging among the Troglodytes of the steppe. The abodes of the inhabitants of this country are precisely what they were in his days, for nature here has remained the same, and building materials have not become more plentiful since the time of the father of history.
To avoid the heats of summer and the cold of winter, and economise as much as possible so precious an article as wopd, they dig holes of twelve or fourteen feet deep, and of the required length and breadth. At each end, and in the middle, they place an upright beam, and across these thi-ee a horizontal one. From this, sloping to the ground, on either side they lay reeds and branches, and then cover the whole \^'ith turf and mud ; after which the roof of the semlanka is complete. It is, of course, soon overgrown with grass and weeds, and to any one coming from the north such a dwelling looks only like a little unevenness on the gromid. Towards the south the wall rises out of the ground to the height of about six feet ; it is plastered with clay, and sniiill pieces of glass are stuck in for windows, so that the whole habitation, with its window just peeping above the ground, looks like a seedling house that has lately sprouted up. The people who inhabit these ^^ semlanka s,'^ as they are called, live as snugly as so many moles, the stormy winds of the steppe raging over
This pliice is a colony of Raskolniki, or old-believing Russians, whose anccstoi-s in juicient times fled from the persecution of their own countrymen, and sought shelter under tlic more tolerant sceptre of the Mussidmans. There are many similar colonies in tlie provinces that formerly belonged to Tui'key. The most remarkable, perhaps, is that of the Nekrassoli' Cossacks.
their heads without their ever feeling them. A flight of steps covered in, and provided with a door at top and at bottom, leads down to the house from the ground above. The sheds for the domestic animals are constructed in a precisely similar manner. The cattle have, indeed, in many cases nothing more than a square hole, open at the top ; but horses, pigs, sheep, fowls, and ducks, have each their separate dwellings of proportionate size. The poor ducks of the steppe are denied the recreation of ponds, and are forced to put up with about a pailful of water poured into a hole two feet long by one broad, and lined with clay.
Barns for corn are not to be seen in any part of South Russia. The sheaves and the hay lie in great heaps romid the house, but the threshed corn is preserved in conical holes dug in the ground, in which some straw is previously burnt to render it perfectly dry. A certain quantity for daily use is kept inside the house, in a huge basket, containing at least eight bushels, but in both cases it suffers from the depredations of mice. Dm-ing the summer the cookery is all carried on in an open hole, to which a fhght of steps leading down serves, at the same time, for a resting-place for the cook.
It was at a Troglodyte household of this kind that we now claimed hospitality for the night, and I was agreeably surprised to find the neatness and cleanliness of the inside of the house so far exceeding the promise of its exterior. The ground was strewn with grass, the walls decorated with sweet herbs, the benches ^vith gay and handsome coverings, and the beds amply provided with pillows neatly arranged. The image of the saint also was duly honoured with its little lamp and embroidered curtains. In an opposite apartment was a goodly store of household utensils, and along the wall was a row of holes neatly painted, in each of which sat a brooding hen.