Kherson was fully destroyed after 2000 years' existence by Olgerd, the Lithuanian conqueror of Kief and all southern Russia; and when the Turks in 1475 took possession of the Crimea they only found in Kherson empty houses and deserted churches. Still, when Bronovius, at the end of the sixteenth century, visited this "proud, delicate, and illustrious city," as he calls il, the ruins were even then wonderful. The wall and its towers, built of enormous blocks of hewn stone, were perfect, and a beautiful aqueduct
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still brought the purest water. The palace of the kings, itself as large as a city, with magnificent entrance-gates, continued to exist. The churches, however, had already been despoiled of their finest marbles by the Turks, and the largest Greek monastery alone remained entire. The work of destruction was completed by the Tartars and the Russians, who sought here their materials for building Sebastopol. Still the lapse of ages and the Vandalism of successive races of barbarians have not sufficed to entirely eradicate the last traces of ancient magnificence. Lieutenant Kruse excavated three churches; one of them was remarkable as being evidently a beautiful Greek temple, metamorphosed into a Christian church, into whose walls the bases and capitals of Ionic columns and other parts of Greek architecture had been built. The promontory on which the Lighthouse now stands is entirely covered with the ruins of the first Kherson, and the whole of the Heracleatic Chersonese is filled with the remains of the villas and gardens belonging to the inhabitants of the town.
Remains still exist of the ancient wall of defence, which was nearly two miles in length, and built of limestone five or six feet thick; of the roads and gardens which covered the territory of this little colony; of the plan of the town; of the marketplace; of a large palace which stood on one side of it; and of the conduit which was cut by Vladimir when he took the town.
The soil of the Heracleatic Chersonese is now thickly strown with other and still more perishable remains; but they are connected with memories as unfading and deeds as glorious as the heroism of Glycia or the magnificence of Vladimir.
The foregoing brief summary of the history and antiquities of Cherson is condensed from the tenth chapter of Mr. H. D. Seymoux^'s interesting and valuable work on " Russia on the Black Sea and Sea of Azoff"."