Four or five leagues below Nicolaief, on the right bank of the Bug, near its embouchure in the liman[1] of the Dniepr, are the ruins of Olvia or Olviopolis, a Milesian colony founded about 500 B.C. There have been found inscriptions and medals which put the origin of these remains beyond all doubt. Lower down on the liman of the Dniepr, not far from the sea, is the fortress of Otchakov, which formerly belonged to the Turks, and then formed a considerable town, known by the name of Ozou. It was twice taken by the Russian troops on the 13th of June, 1737, under the command of Marshal Munich, and on the 6th of December, 1788, under Potemkin. At present, not a trace of the Turkish sway remains in the village. All the Mussulman buildings have been pulled down to give place to a steppe, on which some Russian cabins and about fifty miserable shops have been set up. The environs of Otchakov also present traces of the abode of the ancient Greeks. In 1833 there were found here a fragment of a bas-relief in tolerable preservation, a male torso, and an offering with an inscription from certain Greek military chiefs to Achilles, ruler of the Pontus.
Otchakof was founded at the close of the fifteenth century, by Mengli Cherei, khan of the Crimea, on the ruins of Alektor, a little town belonging to a queen of the Sauromatians, and which was destroyed probably by the Getae at the same time as Olvia, 100 B.C. Alektor must have possessed specimens of Greek workmanship, but they disappeared under the hands of the Turks, who employed them in building Otchakov.
Kherson, where we arrived in the evening, retains no relics of its ancient opulence, or of the importance it derived scarcely fifty years ago from its commerce, its port, and its admiralty; at present, it exhibits the melancholy spectacle of a town entirely ruined; its population does not exceed 6000 or 8000 souls. Odessa and Nicolaief have dealt it mortal blows, and it now subsists only by its entrepot for the various productions of the empire, which are conveyed to it by the Dniepr, and forwarded by lighters to Odessa. It has even lost its custom-house for imports, retaining only the privilege of exporting; and beside this, the vessels which take in cargo at Kherson, must first perform quarantine in Odessa. Fevers and the Jews are likewise formidable foes to its prosperity. Expelled from Nicolaief and Sevastopol, the Israelites swarm like locusts in Kherson, and form almost its whole population. Nothing can be more hideous than the appearance of the Russian Jews. Dressed in a uniform garb, consisting of a long robe of black calico, fastened with a woollen girdle, canvass drawers, and a broad-brimmed black hat, they all present so degraded a type of humanity, that the eye turns from them with deep disgust. Their filthiness is indescribable; the entrance of a single Jew into an apartment is enough suddenly to vitiate the atmosphere.
We had already had occasion in Odessa to see into what an abject state this people is fallen in Russia; but it was not until we came to Kherson that we beheld them in all their vileness. What a contrast between their sallow faces, disgusting beards, and straggling locks, plastered flat on the skin, their brutified air, and crawling humility, and the easy, dignified bearing, the noble features, and the elegant costume of the Jews of Constantinople! It is impossible to bring oneself to believe there is any thing in common between them, that they belong to the same race, and have the same rules and usages, the same language and religion. But the cause which has produced such a difference between two branches of one people, is a question involving political and philosophical considerations of too high an order, to be discussed here; all we can say, is that, in seeing the Jews of Kherson, and comparing them with their brethren of the East, we had evidence before us of the depth to which governments and institutions can debase mankind.