The road from the city to the quarantine harbour runs along tlie seashore, which is occupied by a row of warehouses. These serve for the immediate reception of goods brought from quarantine, such as Englisli coals, Levant fruits, Greek wines, Italian stores, Egyptian cotton, which are here laid up in immense quantities, as well as vast heaps of Greek and Turkish sweetmeats, which the Russians have everlastingly in their mouths. These magazines are also cut off from the town by gates and barriers, not however, on account of the plague, but of the custom-house. The other harbour contains little that is interesting. A few ships of war, a few \ATetched steamboats, which run between this place and the Crimea, and some Russian coasters whose crews are said to be among the worst sailors in the world. In illustration of the lubberly character of these Russian coasting sailors, various odd stories are told at Odessa. It was related to me, though perhaps with some exaggeration, that an English captain entering the Dardanelles in bad weather, once met one of these Khersonese vessels off the coast of Troy, and was asked what shore they were off? It then appeared that the poor devils had been caught in a storm, had lost not only mast and sails, but their wits into the bargain, and had been fairly driven by the wind through the Black Sea, the Bosphorus, the Propontis, and the Dardanelles, into the Egean Sea, without being able to make out where they were. The Englishman took them in tow, and brought them into Odessa. — " The first thing these KJiersonese do when the weather gets rough," said a merchant to me, " is to throw overboard whatever they can, and if that does not set all right, they throw themselves on their knees before the images of their saints, and abandon their ship to the mercy of Providence.
The Greeks, on the contrary, are as bold sailors as are to be found anywhere, and scarcely ever lose their ships unless they choose to do so ; but as they are known to be the greatest rogues in the world, no one will insure them willingly, at least not without a very high premium. The Greek captain, when he gets a good way off Odessa into the sea of Marmora, or the Archipelago, suddenly bethinks himself that his ship is old and good-for-nothing, and insured in Odessa for a handsome sum ; and he soon manages to inin his ship on some island, or on the coast of Anatolia, saves himself and his crew, bribes the Turkish authorities to confirm his account of the wreck, proves and swears all that is requued, and pockets a handsome sum from the insurers in Odessa.
The Turkish sailor again is different from both. In ignorance he equals the ICliersonese, but his good faith may be relied on ; and whilst with the Greek the insurers calculate the chances of his turning out a rogue, with the Turks they merely consider the hazard to be feared from his awkwardness. The Turkish sailors are the honestest fellows in the world, and always mean to take as good care of their ships as they can, with the help of the Prophet ; but without caring much for chart or compass.
The premium for insurances on the Black Sea is always very high, and higher from Odessa to the Caucasus, than for a voyage to England, for, although the Black Sea is entirely free from shoals or islands, it is still now, as in ancient times, one of the most dangerous inland seas in the world. The inaccuracy of the charts, the scarcity even of such as they have, and the want of good harbours, contributes much to this insecurity.
Although Odessa is called a free port, merchandise there is still liable to duty ; Imt the duty is only one-fifth of what it would be in any otiicr Russian port, and this fifth has Ijecn given to the city, Avhich derives from this concession a revenue of three or four millions of rubles yearly.
Of the two nations which have been hitherto in possession of the coasts of this sea, the Turks have never done any thing for navigation, and the Russians nothing important till lately ; so little, indeed, that on an irregular Hne of coast extending upwards of 2000 miles, there are not more than eighteen lighthouses. On some points the perils are increased by the barbarous character of the inhabitants, and besides all this, there is much that is still unexplained in the nature of the sea itself, and in the sudden changes of winds and currents, that render it disagreeable and perilous to navigators.
In winter the navigation of the Black Sea is usually interrupted for several months, as the storms rage there as violently as in the neighbouring northern steppe. The northern ports are mostly frozen, too, during the whole winter, and the sea is covered with ice, sometimes for a distance of eight miles from the land.